My friend Alex posted recently on mastodon that they wanted to update their comics sites to add a “news” post underneath each page, and asked if anyone wanted to take a stab at the PHP for it.

So, I, having Copious Free Time[1], immediately volunteered to do this very trivial task. Which quickly turned into “redo the entire thing virtually from scratch so that it sucks less”. Anyway, so that happened, and I now have this big piece of PHP code for a very particular kind of lightweight comics website, and I am going to share it with the universe for anyone to use! Huzzah?

This post has been back-dated from July 6th

Day 2: The first book you remember reading.

You know, I knew, going into the first question, that this question was coming. I knew it. But I could not in good conscience tell a lie, so the answer to this question is… well, it’s the same one. Whoops. (How many people who are doing this list have the same problem, do you think?)

This post has been back-dated from July 6th

Day 1: Your first favorite book

Why oh why do these lists always have to pull out the favorites card? Aaargh!! Okay, fine, my first favorite… my first favorite book?! How do you even do that? The first time I read a book and went “this is my favorite book”, I guess…?

This post has been back-dated from July 6th

Someone over on mastodon posted this July Book Thing that they’re doing where each day of July you answer a book-related question, and it looks like a fun set of questions so I figured, hey! I should do this!

So here I have typed up all the questions in text format, because a) the image list format is annoying to reference, and b) what if that other person’s post gets deleted?? I’d lose ‘em all! The horror.

I saw the World-Building June prompt list thing floating around last month and was extremely dissatisfied with the list of questions, so I decided I would write my own. It’s a little late getting up, but… well, here we are!

Rather than trying to have a haphazard but encompassing list of questions about Basically Everything, I took advantage of the month of June being 30 days and divided it into three general categories, with ten questions/days per category. The questions themselves, I tried to make both specific and broad - the kind of questions you can answer with just a brief sentence, or that you can expound upon in detail.

Now, before you start actually answering the questions, consider the purpose of the world-building. Is it just for fun, or is it for developing the setting of a story? The scope of your purpose will help limit and direct your answers to the questions.

In the back of the two-room office, a telephone rang. The telephone was bright red - standing out in the dark, under-furnished office - with a rotary dial. It sat in the middle of the room on a simple, somewhat cluttered, wooden desk.

At the sound, the slim figure standing at the window turned towards the telephone, watching it quietly as it rang again, then a third time. On the fourth ring, he - or she, it was difficult to tell - finally stepped over to the desk and picked up the phone.

“Peregrine Falcon, detective for hire, what can I solve for you today?“

The code for my waiter bot script! Written to run in TinyMUX, using the Places system. It’s designed to work with the Money System from NarniaMUSH, but that can be easily tweaked to work with any money system where you can give an object an arbitrary amount of money. It also works as-is to use as a parent object.

Players need to be sitting at a place to call over a waiter. Once the waiter comes over to a table, anyone at that table can order. Bills are on an individual basis and there is currently no way to combine or pay for another person’s bill directly.

“Are you all right?”

Alan let out a long breath, something between a sigh and a hiss, and looked at his assistant’s concerned expression through the darkness. Trevor was new, and young; he could be forgiven a few stupid questions at stressful moments, at least. He might even have missed the bullet hitting Alan’s leg.

Prompt: add insult to injury

“Why are you always so pissed off?”

“Ha ha funny.”

“No. Dammit, Dez.” Jake frowned. “I’m serious.”

Desdemona stared at Jake like he’d grown a second head or something. ”You’re… You seriously have no idea?”

Written for Lyn Thorne-Alder in a fic exchange.

Vidrou, sa’Tree-Hugger – more commonly known as Vid or Viddie – hummed quietly as he inspected his orchard. It was summer, which meant the seasons for peaches, plums and nectarines. Never mind that their home in ex-Michigan was nowhere near the right climate. He might not be able to change the weather, but he could change the trees. Combined with his diligent and affectionate caretaking, this meant come midsummer, there were fresh peaches.

Aside from tending to the trees, gathering fruit for the next few days was Vid’s main purpose in being out at the orchard this sunny afternoon. The basket slung over his shoulder was already half full, bearing a mix of red plums and yellow peaches.

“Papa, papa, look!” Seven-year-old Tilden raced across the grass, ignorant of the scrapes and dirt on his shins and elbows. He bounced to a stop in front of his father, proudly displaying a nectarine. “I picked it myself, just like you showed me.”