The Western Post - September 2023

5th TWP Chess Arena

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By Giovanniland

Welcome to the Western Post's coverage of another chess tournament in TWP, a type of event that has become a mainstay of the Cultural Trust's Gaming Community for the past year! After the innovative interregional arena with the West Pacific and the North Pacific two months ago in June, the 5th TWP Chess Arena was held on August 20th from 6:00 to 9:00 PM UTC, the same time of day and duration as the previous chess events. We had a participation of seven people, with three hours of fun playing blitz chess playing with 5 minutes for each side plus 3 incremented seconds per move.

Although some statistics decreased in comparison to the aforementioned TWP & TNP Interregional Chess Arena, such as the number of games (42 down from 122) and moves (2,997 down from 7,831) besides the attendance also diminishing, other stats increased. For example, average participant rating soared from 1448 last time to 1621 in this tournament, and the percentage of games with the Berserk feature continues on the rise, 29% this edition compared to 20% before. Berserk awards an extra point in case of victory, but the tradeoff is that the player has to play with half the established time, in this case two minutes and 30 seconds, and no increment.

In a similar way to the previous tournament, the player FrontierJustice (who opted to stay anonymous) built a large lead over the other participants, in the end gathering 42 points which was twice the amount of my points in the second place. The dispute for the second and third place was interesting, though, with three other players fairly close to my amount of points that switched positions multiple times during the event. New United Common-lands, joining for the first time, finished in third with 16 points after surpassing two other opponents with very similar scores, veteran of regional chess arenas The Perfection Isles with 15 points and second-time participant Vulxo with 14 points. The full ranking of players is written here, alongside some interesting statistics:

1. FrontierJustice – 42 points (12 wins, 1 draws, 6 losses) – 19 played, 63% win rate, 100% berserk, 1897 performance

2. Giovanniland – 21 points (8 wins, 1 draw, 8 losses) – 17 played, 47% win rate, 0% berserk, 1791 performance

3. New United Common-lands – 16 points (6 wins, 2 draws, 8 losses) – 14 played, 38% win rate, 19% berserk, 1749 performance

4. The Perfection Isles – 15 points (6 wins, 4 losses) – 10 played, 60% win rate, 10% berserk, 1832 performance

5. Vulxo – 14 points (6 wins, 3 losses) – 9 played, 67% win rate, 0% berserk, 1910 performance

6. The Demoractic Peoples Republic Of TNET – 2 points (1 win, 5 losses) – 6 played, 17% win rate, 1320 performance

7. Lawid – 2 points (1 win, 6 losses) – 7 played, 17% win rate, 1197 performance

The award presented to FrontierJustice as the tournament winner.

Last but not least, the tournament awards were revealed in a new TWP Chess Tournaments dispatch, that brings together results of all our chess events in one place! I've had the idea for a while and finally was able to bring it to reality, announcing a few hours after the event that it'll supersede our previous dispatches about individual editions because we'll now add sections to the dispatch as new events happen—as it has been done with this latest arena. The challenge coins are similar to the previous arena's ones with the characteristic TWP crimson as well as different colors for each podium placement, but also continuing the practice of switching to a different chess piece, in this case the rook.

Overall, the 5th Chess Arena was a fun time for everyone involved, both residents of TWP and friends from our allied regions. Once more, I thank everyone that participated, and also wish to state that there will certainly be many more tournaments in the future for people to join, especially those who unfortunately missed the tournament due to real life reasons.

September Puzzle

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By The Holy Principality of Saint Mark

Rodin's Rogue – Full version here

Solve the anagrams to reveal the letters for the final message, and then use the circled letters from the words in the top part to complete the final word or phrase at the bottom. Each circled letter is used just once.

Send your finished answers to The West Pacific Master Dispatch to be featured in next month's paper!

Congrats to the solver of last month's puzzle:

Con Nihawitan

The Western Post is the current newspaper of our region, composed by a staff of several members that are tasked with writing about topics as diverse as regional events, real life matters, and much more. Every month a new edition is published, a streak dating back to September 2019 when the newspaper was still called The West Pacifican, a name first used in 2015. One year after, when the Ministry of Cultural Affairs was reformed into the Cultural Trust and the newspaper staff became one of the Trust's communities, the News Group, a name change into The Western Post was enacted in order to celebrate the unbroken monthly publishing. We therefore celebrate multiple anniversaries this month—three years of The Western Post, four years of uninterrupted publication, and eight years since our first edition!

In order to celebrate this joyous occasion, a special article has been written as a retrospective of our newspaper's last twelve editions, complementing two previous features written in September 2021 and 2022. Join us in commemorating the Western Post's history, by reading more about our last year and taking a look at interesting statistics about our newspaper that we've put together! This is the time to reflect on the past four years, and the numerous contributors who have played a pivotal role in achieving this milestone, as well as to look ahead to the future.

Volumes 25 to 36 at a Glance

We'll start the retrospective with the September 2022 issue, also called Volume 25 per the numbering of editions since the renaming to The Western Post happened. Aside from the previous anniversary article mentioned above, this edition also featured a retrospective of the Star & Cutlass Travelling Carnival of Curiosities, a fun festival with our treaty allies Anteria, as well as Gio's fifth Delegate Speech and History in Focus feature about Brazil. After that, the October 2022 edition starred a review by Santos-dominius of our performance in the seventh N-Day as part of the Coalition Against Radioactive Destruction (CARD), tales from the Wild West Pacific regional themed week, and Varanius's article "The Zygote's Gambit" about his favorite game Tetris.

The November 2022 edition of our newspaper, however, has been one of the most iconic to date! During October, Fujai and Zoran presented a show called In The Mines: The C Issue in our regional radio, The West on The Waves, arguing that the inconsistence of sounds C represents in English words led to its uselessness. This became very famous in the region, so the November issue was edited to be entirely devoid of the letter, changing it to other sequences like K, S, and SH according to the sound in each word. A sidebar article explained this change in the newspaper, which also has many other articles, such as retrospectives of Z-Day in the region and our Halloween-themed event OcTWPerfest (including a visualization of the associated Dark Advent Calendar), the Lorekeeper's Log spotlight by Fujai about interesting creations in the TWP Roleplay community, and many more.

Moving on, the December 2022 edition included a report on the NS 20th Anniversary Festival held by various regions including TWP to commemorate the longevity of the game, alongside other topics such as our roleplay's 2nd World Cup of Football (covered by Santos-Dominius), and the revival of our regional chess arenas. It was followed by the January 2023 edition, notable for its coverage of the Midwinter Shenanigans end of year winter-themed event, and also an interesting graph about our delegates' endorsements over time dating back to the region's earliest years, with data gathered by Giovanniland. And for the February edition, a successful call for new writers happened, resulting in articles such as Fauthur's retrospective of the TWPLAZA event with Lazarus, and the return of the Culture in Focus column after Albiceleste volunteering to participate.

In March, as the delegate transition approached, the month's edition featured Gio's eighth and last Delegate Speech, together with articles on the regional Valentine's Day celebration and the performance in the now biannual N-Day, in which TWP founded its own Cosmic Corsairs faction. The transition theme continued in April, as evidenced by Overthinkers' new Delegate's Diaries column, a retrospective of the 2023 Festival of the Perfections that straddled the two delegacies, and an article on the transition itself by Occidius (Nox). The May edition was also very eventful—great articles were written about the region's Twentyish Anniversary, an amazing celebration full of interesting posts by veteran TWPers on our regional history; and the extremely fun 4th Rugby World Cup event in roleplay that had wonderful participation.

Finally, talking about more recent times, we have the three newest editions! Similar to previous years, the June edition features a Pride-themed banner and article, this year also containing the fourth edition of the TWP Card Collection Spotlight and a monthly puzzle by Sekiya, the first after a long time. After that, two great highlights in the July edition were two new columns, Photos of the World (by Gio) and Nox's Fireside Histories, besides other topics like the region's successful month in the Security Council, having passed two condemnations of TWPers. Last but not least, the August issue features great follow-ups for the two aforementioned columns, participation by new writers Zhiznovsk and Ageros on the topics of the joy of language and the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology respectively, and Hertfordshire and Jammbo's awesome Culture on Focus edition about Essex.

The Western Post in Numbers

The Western Post statistics for 2015-2023 collected by Fujai – View larger version

For this part of the article, information about the upvotes, views and total characters (including spaces and code, so the number you actually read is a bit lower) of each edition since late 2015 was collected. This base data was then used to generate other interesting numbers, such as the more meaningful six-month average of the three, and the increase in upvotes and views by comparing this year's statistics to last year's. The stats were then added to one graph, with adjustments on their numbers so that all three could be compared, which can be seen above or in the link for a better visualization. Furthermore, editions are listed by their number, so use the list of volumes if you are unsure of which edition certain information refers to—issues of The West Pacifican are simply referred to by their volume number, while those of The Western Post also have a P besides the number.

As with previous years, the format of the Post has continued approximately the same as it has since the beginning of monthly publication. The character count average has also stayed at around 50,000 since the start of 2022, rebounding past this threshold in recent issues of 2023, confirming the comment made last year that this length isn't too short that has little substance, but also not too long that takes away the interest of our readers and our staff becomes overworked. Interestingly, a trend that can be inferred from the graph is that, despite reads per issue sadly decreasing from an average of over 600 to around 500, upvotes continue to increase! Their upwards trend recently has put the average over 50 for the second time after it also happened in the middle of 2022, and for the first time, they are more than a tenth of our readers, meaning that more people appreciate our quality than ever.

The statistics also show the extreme importance of both our writers and our readers into making the Western Post the successful newspaper it is today—our dedicated team behind the printing press deserves our gratitude for their countless contributions to the regular publication and success over the years, and our loyal readers play a significant role in sustaining this effort by serving as a strong motivator and inspiration to consistently craft high-quality issues. Therefore, we invite all of you to celebrate on the regional message board and share your favorite aspects of our newspaper! You can remind yourself of the articles you liked the most by taking a look at our back catalog, and even volunteer to join our staff if you wish.

We hope you have liked this anniversary article commemorating the Western Post—many interesting tales have been told so far here by many authors, and we look forward to many more to come. Furthermore, if you'd like to contribute as an author, check our Ministries dispatch for the instructions on how to join. As the footer of every edition says, the Western Post is brought to you by The West Pacific Cultural Trust, The West Pacific News Group, and readers like you—and it certainly wouldn't be possible without everyone's contribution, so all we have to say is thank you.

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Editor's Note: Inspired by past articles in the newspaper highlighting haiku, we will be reviving an article of this type where a few haiku are chosen from all that have been posted in the RMB during the previous month. Haikuesday is one of the many well-loved cultural activities in The West Pacific, so I hope that you enjoy the creativity brought to the region by all TWPers who take their time to craft these short, seventeen-syllable poems!

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The Casserole of Humanity is a famous part of West Pacifican culture, with the event's inspiration dating back to the dispatch published in 2016 by Big Bad Badger, describing the blend of players, old and new, that together form our regional community. For the fifth edition of this festival, which happened from 14th to 20th August, Bran Astor passed on the planning torch to Zoran and Fujai, who organized a great event!

The core of this regional celebration is the Really Weird House Cup, featuring the four traditional teams—Decepticons, Team Rocket, 1962 Green Bay Packers, and Westwind's Flying Circus—and this year, a newcomer team called the Milwaukee Public Library, honoring the location from where this year's casserole recipes came. The team was also known as The Wisconsin Pacific or The Fujai Pacific, referencing the ongoing trend in the region's Discord server of several members adapting their names and avatars to be similar to Fujai's. Like in previous years, the competition revolved around members of these houses completing tasks to decide which one would win this year—joining the Decepticons in 2019, the Westwind's Flying Circus in 2020 and 2022, and the Penguin Air TravelPlus Rewards Program in 2021.

The event was opened by Zoran on a Monday, meaning that participants could already start by sharing shark-themed puns, in honor of Punday Monday and the Shark Week, tagging the posts with #ForTheWest to count the points. Bringing the custom fields of one's own nation into Casserole mode was also advised, both by joining the Mermaid Parade with a flag featuring a mermaid, and by flipping the text fields upside down. The following days saw further exciting activities, including but not limited to shark-themed haiku and daily trivia, mermaid and shark rock for the Friday Karaoke, and the addition of a propeller hat to one's mermaid flag to perform as well as possible in the Parade! Furthermore, towards the end of the event the yearly Endorsement Fire Sale kicked off, with all participants endorsing Overthinkers gaining two points each for their house and first-time endorsements gaining 5 points each.

Last but not least, the event wouldn't be complete with the daily casserole recipes for all to appreciate and even try baking! Fujai posted them each night, after gathering them from the Historic Recipe File at the Milwaukee Public Library, made up of recipes clipped by librarians from local newspapers from the 60s to the 80s. The following recipes were shared and are linked here to have an easy record—Monday's Overnight Six-Layer Casserole; Tuesday's Pear-Yam Casserole; Wednesday's Macaroni, Cheese, and Tuna Casserole; Thursday's Sweet Potato Casserole; Friday's Sauerkraut Casserole; and last but not least the Hot Fruit Casserole for the weekend!

By the end of the week, the scores were tallied by Zoran and posted during Sunday. The winners were the Westwind's Flying Circus, successfully defending the Really Weird House Cup title to achieve the third of its history. Furthermore, similar to two years ago, the MVP (person with the most points) of the tournament was a tie this year between Bhang Bhang Duc and Nas Crustium, the former notably also having achieved this feat in the 2020 edition.

Casserole V Final Rankings

1st place: Westwind's Flying Circus

2rd place: Team Rocket

3rd place: Decepticons

4th place: The Milwaukee Public Library

5th place: The 1962 Green Bay Packers

Overall, the Casserole of Humanity was a very fun event that indeed celebrates the best that West Pacifican culture has to offer. A majority of it took place in our Regional Message Board, of course, so if you wish to see all the puns, haikus, songs and more that each nation contributed to the event, feel free to browse between page 11,925 and page 11,932. Stay tuned for more TWP events in the future, and until the next Casserole of Humanity, see you!

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Welcome to Photos of the World, a column of the Western Post dedicated to showcasing photos from different real life countries! In the inaugural article two months ago, I chose a few local photos and provided commentary about them, while also making an invite for other people to share their own snapshots as well by sending them to me. This call was already heard within the month, with Apexiala sending photos from many different locations to be spread over several issues—therefore the second edition featured pictures both from Apex in Cyprus, and me in Greece.

For the third edition, I'm happy to announce that we have even more interest! Aftokratoria has also sent several photos, which will be displayed here alongside some more from Apex, and a few from me as well. It's great to see interest from our readers in participating in the column, which I hope continues. Furthermore, feel free to let me know if there are any suggestions of what I could feature next.

Apex's Photos

Full quality photos here

Apex visited Monaco and the south of France on holiday in 2015—they remarked it was a very incredible place, with amazing weather every day and lots of nice views, some of them pictured by the first three images here. The first photo depicts the Cathédrale de Monaco, a Romanesque-Byzantine Catholic church that contains the remains of many members of Monaco's ruling family. It is located on the part of the city-state known as Monaco-ville, the very first part of the city and still featuring many historical buildings. Regarding the church, Apex comments that seeing it up-close was very reminiscent of the architecture from the Assassin's Creed games. Meanwhile, the second photo has a view over the Port de Fontvieille, the second largest port in Monaco, as well as hidden in the background the Stade Louis-II, home to the AS Monaco and the Monaco national football team. This one is my favorite from the set, because of the interesting combination between the ships in the port, the nearby buildings, and the mountain in the background.

The third photo is the last of their set relating to their holiday in 2015, and features a scenic beachside view of the French town of Menton! A commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, it is close both to Monaco and to the Italian border. The photo taken by Apex is indeed great, with several contrasting layers such as the beautifully-colored sea, the waterfront buildings, and the nearer and farther hills. Last but not least, moving to a different location, the fourth photo depicts the town of Lossiemouth, in Moray, Scotland. Apex tells they used to live there, and the picture they took was of the local golf course with some impressive clouds in the background.

Full quality photos here

Afto's Photos

Next, we have three great photos taken by Afto that they decided to share! The first was described by them as a splendid view of the sun on the water from a ferry along the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, near Texada Island. I find it very beautiful, not only because of the rays of sunshine, but also because of the right angle in which it was taken, picturing the passage through these two mountains. Also taken from a ferry is the second photo, which depicts the town of Powell River in British Columbia, settled between the astonishing ocean and eccentric horizon of many hills. Last but not least, the last photo shows the sun setting over a lone sailboat on the ocean, with Ahgykson Island in the distance—this one is my favorite out of the three, because I love the sun's reflection on the water and the twilight sky, as well as the ocean's beautiful waters on which the boat sails.

Full quality photos here

Gio's Photos

Last but not least, I've also added to this edition two photos that I've taken, bringing the article to a perfect end. We return home to Brazil in comparison to last edition's photos abroad, but neither to my current home state, which I shared photos about in the inaugural article, nor my former home state, which I'll pick a few photos from in the future. Instead, these two pictures below are from the state of Santa Catarina (Saint Catherine), the second southernmost state whose beaches are known as a vacation spot for many, not only Brazilians but also Argentinians and Uruguayans who travel north to visit there—although my opinion is that the Northeast of Brazil is a better place, and also has a more pleasant weather.

The first photo was taken from a roadside restaurant that not only had good meals but also a great view! As one can see in the photo, there's a balcony with tables where people can eat and appreciate the nature around them—a lot of coastal vegetation, which is protected, as well as a lagoon to the left which is separated from the sea by some sand dunes, and some hills to the right. The second picture shows a closer look at the sea, taken at a location called Praia do Rosa located within the city of Imbituba. It's a very beautiful and also popular for many different people, as seen by the many people enjoying the sea, the sun umbrellas in the sand, the nearby seaside restaurants and bars, and the fishing boats in the bottom left. Although the weather wasn't the best during my visit, as evidenced by the cloudy sky in the photos, that doesn't take away the beauty of either photo. The second one is my favorite, because it shows the many aspects of the beach, alongside the hills on the horizon that enclose the bay in which it is located.

Full quality photos here

That is all for this edition, I hope everyone continues to appreciate this edition and future ones of this new column that seeks to share interesting photos of various places in the world. Furthermore, if anyone is interested in participating by sharing some photos, I am accepting submissions—just let me know through a Discord message (username: @.giovanni_) or telegram to Giovanniland!

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All your chocolate belongs to Darkesia
The Western Post Staff - Delegate: Overthinkers - Editors: Fujai and Giovanniland - Staff: Ageros, Fauthur, Hertfordshire and Jammbo, Laudesia, Occidius, Podium, Sekiya, Tam dao, The Holy Principality of Saint Mark, Varanius, Zhiznovsk, and YOU
All your chocolate belongs to Darkesia

spooky!