Just a little update to let you know that I've added a second Firefox persona download to the Free Goodies page, this one based on the picture of a Jolteon in a thunderstorm you can see in the fanart gallery. Bigger and better stuff will be on its way soon, though!

See, see? Here I am, bearing stuff and tweaks and... stuff! (And with a brand new ISP and internet access on my laptop again!)

I made a minor modification to the layout so that the content and menu don't start so far down the page. This was suggested quite some time ago, actually, but you know my track record with speedy changes. Anyway, should be less of a stretch for your eyes now.

Speaking of the layout, if you Firefox users are fond of that sexy Sceptile and would like to take it with you wherever you go on the internet, well, now you can! I've changed the name (and link, so update it if you've got it saved or something) of the Free Renders page to Free Goodies, marking a change from providing only renders to providing renders and... other stuff! Like a Sceptile Firefox persona! I'll be making a few more personas from some of my other pictures as well. Oh, and I uploaded a Salamence render to go with it.

Last up for today is two new pictures in the "Other Fandoms" section of the fanart gallery. I'm not quite ready to start the rewrite of my 2009 NaNo fanfic, Incarnadine Harvest, just yet, but while I work through the big soupy mess standing between me and the actual writing I've been working on some concept art. If you've ever wondered what Zelos Wilder or Genis Sage would've looked like if they'd been around in 1935... okay, you've probably never wondered that, but now you can go see anyway!

Over the next few weeks/months I'll also be revamping some older pages as well as working to get new stuff up here, so keep an eye out for that, too.

Phoenix out.

what

what is this

i don't even–

...oh, wait. I do know what it is. After over a year of promises and difficulties, I have finally finished and posted the EV training guide in the Misc. Writings section! I'm currently having another of my ugly internet droughts (though we should be changing ISPs soon, so hopefully it will never happen again!), but last night I decided that I need to just get my crap together and muscle through the rest of the guide. Please give it a look, give it a try, and hopefully it will prove to you that EV training is not the terrifying ordeal or lesson in rocket science most people seem to think it is–if you can count to 42 then you can EV train a Pokémon, so why not give it a shot? And please, after you finish it, contact me and let me know if you have any comments or questions. It's rare that I actually have such a vested interest in being genuinely helpful to other people, so I want to make sure that I've been as clear as possible! Your input can only help me make it even better.

In particular, let me know if you want to see more quick examples of how to EV train specific Pokémon. I was planning to include some but cut them out in the interest of getting this done, but if, for example, you want me to briefly walk you through one way to train, say, a Gengar or a Bastiodon, then I can throw something together if it will really help.

As an extra bonus for waiting so patiently for the guide, I've also dug out more old lineart and added Floatzel and Rampardos pics to the free renders page. Floatzel looks especially cool, if I do say so myself.

Oh, and I've finally updated the HeartGold blog! Twice in under a week, even! It should move along a lot faster now, so keep checking in. You know, if you don't find it painfully boring.

More new stuff and some improvements to old stuff should be coming in the future, which should be easier now that I'm looking at more reliable internet and a break from school. I'll be spending a bit more time trying to get DexGenesis off the ground, for one thing–it seems to have stagnated a bit and my lack of internet has prevented me from really being able to do anything about it, but it isn't dead! Give it a look-see, fakemon fans!

I need to rush to class now, but the next update and some interesting stuff should hopefully come pretty soon! Hooray, better internet!

Happy 21st birthday to me, etc.. Yes, the comic thing is weird and crappy. It was hilarious when I started doodling it while half-asleep in class a few nights ago. Shut up.

Anyway, as for updates: neither the fakedex subsite nor the EV training page is quite ready to go live yet, but I swear to god they're coming along, and nicely at that.

However! For those of you who have also caught the fakemon bug and would like to try something interesting, I'd like to direct your attention right here. That link (which has also been up on the sidebar for a few days) leads to my new forum, DexGenesis. DG is an "experiment", if you will, that aims to see what the members of the Pokémon fanwork community can accomplish if they put their heads together in a series of group projects. We've already got what looks like a fun fanregion started, so join us and contribute!

I have at least two more pictures to add to the fanart page, but I'll worry about that later. I'm tired. Maybe maybe maybe also on tap for "later" is something special, but it depends on whether or not I can actually get it done by the deadline I set myself. (I'd better; it's my present to myself, dammit, and I don't want to not get my presents!)

As a heads-up to those of you using my ASB damage/energy calculators: the energy calculator is bothering me, and I'm finding that I have to make up my own logical numbers for some attacks that it should really be able to handle on its own. I'm probably going to tweak the formula at some point. When that is I couldn't tell you, but hopefully as soon as I get some of the stuff I've been procrastinating on out of the way. >>;

Le gasp! But it is true!

Few things. First and foremost, I won NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row:

50254 words of silly, parodyesque Tales of Symphonia "hardboiled detective" fanfic (think The Maltese Falcon on crack and starring Zelos), the vast majority of which are rambly fillercrap but were still a lot of fun and will provide a good foundation for the next draft, which will of course be posted here when it is presentable. I know I said that about last year's NaNovel, too, and I do still like that story and would like to get it spiffied up, but I just haven't had the motivation to so much as touch the thing since I finished it. Incarnadine Harvest, on the other hand, I am really excited about. Since I imagine the majority of you readers are Pokémon fans, not ToS fans, this is probably not wonderful news to you, but hey, maybe when I finish the IH rewrite I'll finally feel like working on At Liberty again–and rest assured that At Liberty is 100% USDA Choice Pokémon fanfic. It has a stoner hobo Armaldo and a Staraptor who makes siren noises in it. It will be fun. Dark and violent, but fun. :)

Second, the stuff I've been promising since forever ago. Ahahaha. Well, of the three main things I've been mentioning–the reffing guide, the Gen 4 Battle Factory page and the EV training page–the EV training page is pretty close to completion. Just needs a few more paragraphs and some more proofreading and cleaning up (with a little beta-reading help from one of my friends; thanks, Negrek) and then it should be good to go. The other two will have to wait a little longer, I'm afraid; without being able to look at game data my progress with the Battle Factory page is entirely dependant on my ability to actually make it to certain streaks with some degree of consistency, and that consistency tends to go out the window somewhere around the midpoint of streak 4. And the ref page... that's more a motivation issue than anything else, I guess. They will get done eventually, I promise, but at this rate I'm guessing only the EV training page will go live before the end of 2009. Sorry.

Third, if any of you have been following my HeartGold blog and it has not yet caused you to rip your eyeballs out, yes, I will be continuing it in an attempt (probably a futile one, given my track record) to finish well before the games' American release in April 2010. I have some final projects to take care of this week, which is also why I won't be able to finish the EV training page right away, but hopefully Chapter Four should arrive sometime around the 15th.

Fourth, I am once again annoyed with the way I have decided to structure my menu and sections. Expect another overhaul sometime between now and January. The links won't change, but where you find those links might.

Fifth, at some point I will probably be copying the updates from the older incarnations of the site over here, just for the purposes of having a more complete archive. On the off chance you want to see those again, well, they'll... be there. Yeah.

Sixth, as you may or may not know I enjoy creating fake Pokémon. For several years I've wanted to get a separate "Fakemon Pokédex" subsite set up so I can display them all pretty-like and with all relevant information in one place. I do actually have the site online on a subdomain and have been slowly filling it with content for the past few months; it isn't currently accessible if you aren't me, however. I was originally waiting to have at least one complete Pokédex finished before opening it to the public, but I've since changed my mind about that and am willing to let you all see it while it's still in progress. It isn't quite ready for unveiling yet, unfortunately. I'll see if I can't have it organized and presentable sometime around my birthday at the end of January. My 21st birthday present to all of you, or... something, I don't know.

Seventh, I am hosting a fakemon-creating contest on deviantART. Enter it! There are prizes and everything, including art by yours truly and some free shiny Pokémon from the sparklies page. Mmm, free shiny battle-ready Togekiss, you know you waaaant one... so go make up a fakemon and earn it!

Eighth, this has gone on long enough and it's high time I got back to those final projects. Adieu, and Happy Vague Innumerable December Holidays if I don't pop in again before the end of the month.