...Is it 4.0? I'm pretty sure I've platform-hopped about three times since good ol' dcNET first hit the web, so yeah, 4.0. 3.0? But if I'm counting from dcNET and two of the platform-hops were under the old name, wouldn't that mean this is Altered Origin 2.0? Uh. Whatever!

Welcome to the new site! As I've mentioned before, this latest reincarnation was generally just to make things easier to manage and a little leaner and meaner. Out with the WordPress backend, in with a nice little static site generator. I'm sure that means nothing to most of you, so instead of continuing to talk about how nerds run their websites, let's have a quick tour of what's changed around here!

  • The "sparklies" page (the list of all my shinies), the "free goodies" section, the older Western and Chinese zodiac images, the "crossover" and "requests/gifts" art galleries and the affiliation page are all gone.
    • Those old "renders" and things were... not as nice as I used to think they were, haha, and frankly I'd be kind of ashamed if people were actually using them for something. (If you are using them, you're welcome to continue, of course, but... why?) Good riddance, I say. I still need to sort out a few things, but generally speaking you're free to use the artwork you see in the actual fanart galleries for stuff as long as credit is given. Most of that looks waaaay better than those janky old "renders" anyway.
    • Likewise, the old zodiac images were ugly enough that I'd rather not advertise their continued existence. Note that the images themselves are still online, just in case anyone is still using them in their signature or whatever (again, why?).
    • All current active affiliate and sibling sites will remain linked at the bottom of the page, as always, but given the Pokémon fansite scene ain't what it used to be I figure there's no point in asking around for affiliates any longer. (If for some reason you would like to affiliate or somesuch, you're welcome to contact me to discuss it anyway.)
  • The styleswitcher is also gone, at least for the time being. Like I said, maybe I will bring it back to provide an option with a light background, but honestly one is enough to be getting on with for now.
  • The menu and the remaining pages have been rearranged. There's been a bit of recategorizing and shuffling of URLs, but everything else should be up there somewhere and is hopefully easy enough to find. Most of the old site links should redirect to their new locations as well.
  • The LP "blog posts" have been moved into their own Let's Play section! This is something I'd like to do a little more often; I'm hoping the Uranium LP will be ready to start up and join the others after I'm done with a few other projects!
  • Comments are tentatively back, using Disqus. They should be working, but as I've never used them before it's possible that something's wonky. They're at the bottom of the update posts, as usual, and on most other pages around the site on the off chance you have something to say about them. You don't have to create an account with Disqus to use the comments—it is perfectly possible to comment anonymously, although it does take a few extra clicks. Hopefully I won't constantly be cleaning up behind spammers with this.

Speaking of "a few other projects", it's NaNoWriMo time again! Yes, yes, I know it's not November, but it is almost April, and that's when they do Camp NaNoWriMo! I'll be participating in camp for the first time this year, and tackling a chapterfic idea that I've been fiddling with under the mistaken impression that it would be a simple one-shot. Depending on how it goes, I may post little snippets and bits about my progress here on the blog! Ah, yes, you forgot that I used to have a blog here, too, didn't you? I do still use Tumblr to blather about my projects, but it's downright terrible for longer-format stuff, so I'd like to start doing more writing about writing over here again. Hopefully there'll be a few things to share throughout April, and then maybe a bit about some other projects in June... hopefully in addition to one of those super-fancy secret projects on the to-do list!

Ah, and I also tossed a few additional 721 mini drabbles up: Magneton, Bastiodon, Probopass and Froslass.

As always, please do contact me and let me know if anything is messed up or if something is missing that shouldn't be. I'll probably be tweaking a few things here and there over the next few weeks, and eventually I'd like to do some more serious rewriting and editing of certain pages (there are a few things that could do with acknowledging the existence of Gen VI, oops), but for now I must obey the siren song of NaNoWriMo.

Hope you dig the new digs, and here's to things moving a little faster around here!