Things are looking a little different around here! Over the past few months I've been working on rewriting Thousand Roads' backend from scratch using a different programming framework than I did before. I never really figured out what was going on with the system I had before, and that made adding features that required their own custom backend coding--of which I managed to come up with a frightening number--an incredible headache. The new design makes it much easier for me to bolt on new mini-apps, and you'll definitely be seeing more of them in the future.

The first one up and running is the guestbook, a simple chatbook script that also doubles as a comment system for the site news page. If you're familiar with The Cave of Dragonflies, you might find all some of its design familiar, but I'm sure I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Feel free to give it a try, if for no other reason than for the hilarity of discovering that it, inevitably, doesn't actually work. (This is just how these programming things go.)

You may also notice that the site navigation's been tweaked a bit. Gone is the ASB section, since I don't really ASB anymore; its pages are still accessible if you have the direct links, but they won't be updated and no longer have a place on the menu bar. The ever-popular metronome randomizer is the anchor member of a new section, "Miscellaneous," i.e. "Everything Not Fanfic-Related," and should acquire some friends soon. Also gone is the fanfic recommendation engine, which hadn't been updated in years anyway and will hopefully be replaced by a much-improved version sometime before the heat death of the universe.

Meanwhile, I'm looking to get some of the articles on fanfic writing I've always meant to do out of my drafts folder and actually up on the site. The first of these is Rewrites Considered Harmful, a rant inspired by the number of people I've seen considering starting new versions of their fanfics recently. I hope to be able to update on a somewhat more frequent basis with more opinion-based articles like this one, instructive essays on topics like "show don't tell" and writing action scenes, a rec list, and similar content. We'll see how it goes.

Hope you enjoy the new layout and features. Here's to new content more than once per year!