#and actually learning css for once

[eyfey]

oops spent all day on html and css

[vvelegrin]

a little ambitious today. i have an arabic reading/conversation group that i'm going to try out, and i've been doing little bits of python on and off all morning (in between sleeping and icing my stupid head; i'm going to be soooo motivated and smart and beautiful if and when we ever figure out how to deal with the fact that autoimmunity is literally making my brain stupid). might meet with a few friends later, but we'll see how i feel after arabic group, i might gently pass away after that. god knows that trying to figure out the fucking syntax of functions is actually stealing the life force from my body.

i had a support group yesterday (and then crashed most of the day after it) and got a couple of good tips for dealing with insurance and doctors for ivig from someone who might have the same diagnosis as me? so that is heartening. gonna deal with that in the next two to four business days or whatever.

[johannestevans]

Do you have any tips or tutorial recommendations for making your own website?

I actually really do like the Wordpress client now I've gotten the hang of it!

I did tell 1000 of my subscribers to kill themselves in an email header by accident, and also battered those poor 1000 people with something like 100 emails in increasingly frantically apologised for errors over the course of the same three days, but that was before I really Got it.

With the above oopsies in mind, if you want to import previous newsletters or posts, for the love of God, do not import your existing newsletter subscribers until after all of your backposts have been imported across. That is the main lesson I have learned.

I had such a vision in mind of a triumphant surprise email going "Hey, look what I did! Surprise! Isn't it sexy?!" and instead everyone got 30 notifications about chapter updates from 2 years ago and an email that said "It's Your Responsibility to Kill Yourself" followed by multiple deranged apologies from me.

So. Don't do that.

Other than that, I'd actually wanted a proper website for quite a few years even before Patreon got so antsy with hiding my content - I tried to set one up a few years back with Wix, and I cannot recommend that less, it's a fucking awful site to use, and it's far less user intuitive than Wordpress.

Part of my issues with Wordpress were actually that a lot of website clients, unless you're building from scratch in HTML/CSS or another code, give you everything in Blocks, and because I remembered like 10 years ago where you didn't have to do that, and you mostly altered everything on the website with like, 10000 options tickboxes and sliders, I was like "wow this is awful". I will admit now, crotchety bastard that I am, that the Blocks system is better and more intuitive once you start to understand it. I just don't always do well thinking of things in three dimensions, so to speak, and I was shooting myself in the foot by going "WELL BACK IN MY DAY--"

Wix doesn't have a very good help section because they want you to talk to their people for help, but most sites for stuff like this do have really robust FAQ and help sections, and obviously, rely on those as much as possible.

At one point I was so upset with my inability to do something that Lorenzo literally came over and told me to leave the apartment (that was the day that I went to Pets at Home and spent a ridiculous amount of money on gifts for the cat), and while I was very grumpy about doing it at the time, taking breaks is crucial, especially if you get as frustrated as I do.

I realise that most of what I have said so far is niche tips for if you're stubborn and mentally ill, so in terms of actual website building, I would say it's important to have an idea of what you want the site to do.

Do you just want a landing page, so that if people search for your name or whatever, that this is the first result? That it links people to your books or your store, your socials? Do you want to have a gallery of work on display, or an archive of writing like I've made? Do you want people to be able to contact you, give tips?

I always wanted a robustly tagged archive with an in-depth tag page like the one I've set up now, and the goal for my Directory of Work on Medium and elsewhere was always that it would later be transferred to my website once it was built.

Then, I have an about page for people who are just curious about who I am and who I look like; commission info and information about booking me for events or inviting me to cons and such; the books I have for sale, publications I've been a part of, interviews and presentations on YouTube; my events calendar with conventions and such; the gallery where I'm showing off both art of my characters and where I'll later show art that I buy for my home and myself, such as the stuff framed in the stairwell or jewellery I buy from makers at markets and such; and then, of course, the subscriber benefits.

All of the above to go my goals which are, in order, to encourage people to read my work and make it easy for them to do so, to pay me money for my existing work or to offer me money for new work, and to show support for other events, artists, friends, and queer creators.

I would definitely advise thinking carefully about how visual or how word-based you want your site to be - I had to look for a recipe blog theme to find one that was stripped back in terms of images. Especially for adult websites, I'd be careful about payment providers and so forth.

Stripe is the default on the site, and I've been very careful about making sure none of my titles or descriptions that the Stripe client will see have words like erotica or adult in them - if someone from Stripe clicks through and sees the site, they might take issue with it, but that's another thing. I do get paid by Stripe through Medium, so I do already use them.

Most payment providers hate any kind of adult content, but are willing to give a tiny bit more wiggle room on erotica, or at least, they just don't notice it in the same way they do Real Porn, but there's nothing I can say other than "be careful and more importantly, be lucky" on that front.

Most of all, I'd say to try to have fun with it and try to enjoy the actual building process if you can - make something pretty and fun to navigate as much as you can, and if you can get some enjoyment out of it, your site users will as well.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

do you have any posts already or if not would you be willing to share any information about what the process of getting the website up and running was like? i'm really interested in getting a site going for some other photo/record keeping projects and i know a decent amount about website design and basic html, but not that much about the process of actually getting it online;^;

Happy to share!

To be clear, my level of coding skill began with teaching myself html for neopets and ended with cobbling together vaguely custom css for my OG personal tumblr in 2011. So in terms of the physical backend of the website… it’s just Squarespace.

Getting it online is pretty simple if you’re not writing the code yourself, but there’s some stuff you’ve got to figure out first: what the name of your site will be, what url (domain) you want it to have, where to buy it, and where you want to host the site (like squarespace or Wordpress).

Once you’ve got the details sorted, you get an account on the hosting platform you want to use, and then set up the site and connect a domain. Squarespace lets you buy domains directly through their interface, but it tends to be more expensive than buying it directly from a registrar company like Namecheap or GoDaddy. If you’re comfortable teaching yourself to navigate basic internet stuff via Google, it isn’t too hard to learn how to tell a domain you bought elsewhere to point at your site. (Everything I’ve done to run all my websites has been self-taught via Google and Reddit, with the assistance of some very patient techie friends).

Once you’ve got the crunchy stuff set up, you build the site! I use Squarespace preferentially over Wordpress because a) I like the aesthetic of the templates and b) it’s what I know how to use. Wordpress is cheaper but trying to navigate the visual layout of the site annoyed me to the point it wasn’t fun anymore, so I personally will pay for ease of access on layout and design stuff.

To build the site, I thought through what I wanted the user experience to be, and how I wanted people to navigate, and I built with that in mind. For the photo repository, my goal was very clean visuals that really showcased the photos, and I wanted people to be able to navigate the taxonomy both visually and from a list. Honestly, just play with it, and try different things until you find a layout you like.

Then you try to break the site you’ve built. Because there will be errors and bugs and as much as I do appreciate it when y’all send me problems you encounter, I’d rather fix it first. I always check a new site on a desktop computer, tablet, and phone, and then ask a couple friends running different operating systems to do the same. That’s a good time to get feedback on things like layout and font size and readability, too.

The biggest time sink for the project has actually just been the photo management. I had to figure out how I needed things organized to build the site, and then taking the time to upload them all is the major rate-limiting factor.

You can launch the site so it’s “online” at any point during this process after you’ve paid for hosting and the domain and set it up, but I tend to wait until I’ve built the site and beta tested it sufficiently.

I’m happy to answer other questions, I’m just not sure what else would be helpful!

[allthecastlesonclouds]

Liv laughs outright, selecting the prompt and copying it. “Sure, Ms. D,” she mutters, and Wendell laughs too as he slices through a piece of foam. “Well, that wouldn’t normally be my go-to prompt, I think, but– yeah, that works.” Wendell nods into his project. “Yeah, I completely forgot about that until just now, but– yeah. Funny coincidence, huh?” “Yeah, I guess I know what I’m writing, then.” She opens up a new document and pastes the prompt in, then command+enters onto the next page to start writing. “Maybe I’ll actually get it done by tomorrow.” She can pull the best student card for once. Ms. D doesn’t need to know about her weekend. - - - Liv Skyler, a final English assignment, and change

trans liv fic trans liv fic trans liv fic

i learned css for this one. so. :] written for @d20ficoff!!

[window-window]

STILL IN PROGRESS, STILL VERY BAREBONES AND STILL NOT NICE AND PRETTY AND NOT-TUTORIAL'D BUT

I am TIRED of waiting and going back and forth a bunch of times. SO!!

The Neocities site is UP. I'm SICK and I'm TIRED /silly. HERE is the Window Window page specifically, where I'll also be crossposting character information and the lore posts as they come by! I want to hopefully have a space carved out for the comic itself in the long long future once I begin actually publishing it. Never hurts to have backups!!

[IF YOU ARE ON MOBILE PLEASE CLICK THE LITTLE DESKTOP SITE CHECKMARK OPTION YOU CAN DO ON YOUR BROWSER. I'M STILL LEARNING CSS AND HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT HOW TO FIX IT YET </3]

but yeah this is the VERY first version of the site but it is technically there. disregard the ominous duplication of the skull

"jeremy what's birdwatch" don't worry

[seepweed]

Your site has convinced me to go make a neocities (tumblr glitching paranoia has gotten to me and by god I will be going back to the early 2000s if this place goes down) and oh my god coding is hard. I am in agony. Yes it's going to look very much like your site I am squinting so hard at your html trying to figure out how to do it. This is the worst looking thing I have ever made but there are three buttons that go nowhere now so I'm succeeding mildly at least

OMG PERCY!!! WELCOME TO THE NEOCITIES CRAZE!!! i'm literally so honoured to have inspired you to make a site. funnily enough, i *also* joined neocities after the tumblr-unfunctional-paranoia got to me, albeit in 2022. welcome to coding hell 😎

god, coding is hard. i hope you’re having fun, though. it's such a great hobby, once you're in The Zone. it’s a little like modeling a little clay image... digitally... anyways! i’m here to say: YOU’VE GOT THIS!!! feel free to reuse any code i’ve put down on octagon and PLEASE please please tell me your link!!! i want to look at it (regardless of “how much” is on there).

i’m sure you’re getting the hang on things fast, but since you activated my yapper mode, you now have to sit through unsolicited advice <3

if you’re looking for coding help, https://www.w3schools.com/ is a goldmine, as is https://htmlcheatsheet.com/. also, with CRTL+U you learn something new! ALWAYS investigate nice code to understand how they did that. and https://32bit.cafe/interactingontheweb/ has a lot of good tips for being social off of social media.

general rule of thumb is always: coding is digital arts + crafts. break your website. it’s more pronuctive than always coding in a breeze. never apologise for dropping off the earth and not updating in 6 weeks, 8 months or 15 years. some websites have been unmanned since 2001 and are still running, so don’t worry about it.

furthermore, i need to state that i'm a really bad example of a neocities coder LMAO. i code in the editor, i have 0 offline copies of my files and my form is chaotic at best. my website runs on pure html+css, i don't use javascript (yet) or iframes. most people code their sites in notepad, then run them in a compiler like https://playcode.io/html and THEN they post them to neocities. i am lazy. i do this directly IN neocities. don't be like me. save your page.

also. I’ve been doing this for 3 years. like, on the day for three years actually. here’s how my very first webpage looked in 2022:

anyways. HAVE FUN. MAKE FRIENDS. DON’T FORGET TO BE YOURSELF. SPARKLE ON!!! NEVER HOTLINK! you’ve got this, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. i’m not sure i will be able to answer, but we can try haha. and PLEASE TELL ME YOUR WEBSITE!!! i would love to look at it and in classic neocities fashion, i’d obviously LINK YOU.

and here’s some sites that are awesome :3

The Maximalists. mobile inaccessible, IMAGE HEAVY!

https://ninacti0n.art/ EYESTRAIN

https://olliveen.neocities.org/ EYESTRAIN

https://phrogee.neocities.org/ EYESTRAIN

The Webcartoonists. also image-heavy. also probably not mobile accessible.

The Minimalists.

[aetherthetypo]

5 and 24 for the ask game!

thank you for the ask!

5: What’s something you learned while researching a fic?

oh you know me so well.... theres a lot of things, often little throwaway details, that i look up (since a lot of the bigger thing tends to be original worldbuilding or things i already know) and theres been so many rabbit holes ive sent myself down while researching. a recent thing that just started with trying to find out when exactly IVs became widely used led to me reading up (a bit) on wwi-era military medicine and adding a few things to my reading list that ill get to.... someday. but for a more specific example, i found out about mushroom-based textiles while researching for a different piece. from what i can tell its mostly a mycelium-based leather, though it seems like theres also a thinner fabric being developed. theres actually quite a few things being used to try and make leather alternatives, such as pineapple leaves and winemaking byproducts. sustainable textiles are the things that google likes to turn up when you look up "unusual fabric materials," it seems

24. Which scene/theme was the inspiration for [insert fic]?

since you didn't specify which fic ill just pick my main ongoing fic/series/thing. (which i will resume work on once i have time! soon!) its hard to say what exactly inspired me to do it beyond my deep love for crossovers and also my oc universe. but as for the specific plot threads ive put in, a lot of my ocs deal with bigger picture or higher level stuff. political schemes and grand plots. so i wanted to take a look at what the more "normal" people were doing, as it has also been somewhat of a blindspot in my own worldbuilding/development for the oc universe. and its definitely worked, since in the process of setting up the necessary infrastructure for the plots i wanted to work with in this au, ive done a lot of work fleshing out (or straight up creating) some pretty significant components of the "modern day" universe. for the ongoing fic, i've always wanted to try my hand at a sort of multimedia fic ever since i read subject: a comprehensive report (fantastic, albeit unfinished fic), and this was further fueled by q.a.b. (and its sequel. read it btw. well-executed crack treated seriously and fantastic css). and the plot sort of evolved from there. a lot of the stuff about this particular subplot actually came about after i got the initial idea for this fic and it also led to me completely overhauling a character (who has yet to show up) and accidentally getting obsessed with them so. you never know where ur stuff will take you. its always been conceived of as a sort of mystery/spy thriller type story, though the idea that "you are always being watched" only really solidified after i got working on planning this out more

[hauntinginprogress]

neocities heracles trials: from a chaotic newbie

okay so i want to actually start posting here and i finally got it through my thick skull that this is LITERALLY A BLOG. i'm supposed to blog. so here's a blog post.

anyways, for context, i've been working on my neocities for a while now, recently started over to make things more original and more me. another thing to note is that i'm using VScode.

the issue here is that i have zero well not exactly zero but i lack any professional/academic background experience with making websites. the html isn't the issue (thankfully) but holy shit dude...css+javascript implementation . basic styling with css is no biggie, right? absolutely, however...may i introduce: smooth transitions + the absolutely tragic fact that the <marquee> tag is deprecated an accessibility issue.

so, my first goal day one was to recreate a marquee animation through css. so i tried to simply implement this incredibly useful bit of code into my site (in which if you're interested i totally think my failure to get it working was user error so please check it out it works great if you're not me) but, lo and behold, despite me getting it to work in my V1 project, i could not, for the life of me, get it to work. so i, not too familiar with css animation and completely lost when it comes to javascript, started grasping at straws. i ended up finding this tutorial and, with some improvisation since the tutorial is for webflow and i'm manually writing everything, managed to make my own css recreation of a marquee effect essentially from scratch, and even learned about the animation-play-state css attribute so i could pause the effect when the marquee is hovered over! victory, basically.

then, i looked around the many cool and absolutely awesome sites on neocities to get inspiration, and then i was like "hey what if i made a custom button background image" and with some trial and error, made myself a pretty decent base (for now) with aseprite, and learned more about the program in the meantime which is always a plus.

then i decided that i wanted to do more with the buttons. i wanted to make it animate on hover. not too hard right? you'll...you'll see why i struggled...in a moment...

anyways, i settled on a simple shrink animation. which THIS i could do with ease, messed around a bit, got the keyframes, assigned that to the button:hover and all of that and all was good!...until i realized that once i stopped hovering over it, it snapped back to its original scale instead of transitioning smoothly again. THIS is where the "fun" began.

see, although i can wrap my head around things easily when it comes to css, i have to constantly look up what the proper syntax for everything is because otherwise i'll mess everything up. and through my research i had conducted (aka surfing through multiple blogs and reddit posts alongside other things on random forum websites) i had discovered the very neat transition attribute.

but we'll have to return to this because i have adhd, and i ended up getting distracted during this process. see, originally i had decided that the button would change it's visual to appear like it was pressed when the user's mouse hovered over it. then i was like "i don't think this makes sense" so i changed it so that the button wouldn't change its background image unless the user actually clicked on it. so i did that. then i had to make sure that the button wouldn't magically scale up again so i had to transform the styling and blah blah blah those details aren't really that important ANYWAYS the actual important bit about this is that if you use the transition attribute and there's a change in background images that change will also be transitioned unless you set the transition to only apply to a specific change. and i didn't know that originally. so every time i tried to fix things up with a transition so the button wouldn't snap back to it's original size out of nowhere the background would slooowly change as well and i actually got so frustrated with this that i wanted to burn something down because that's a totally normal reaction i guess. anyways, then i started frantically searching for answers on the topic and EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THAT I FOUND. INCLUDED JAVASCRIPT.

i do not know javascript. i have not learned anything about it unlike css and html. it SCARES me and it is FRUSTRATING. but i thought i'd try it anyways. news flash that shit didn't work at all and i almost thought about scrapping the animation entirely especially when it randomly stopped working when i made certain changes, but i ended up eventually figuring out what i mentioned earlier (CSS transitions and the fact that you can assign them to only affect a specific change instead of everything) so with some dabbling here and there i eventually managed to finally figure out how to make everything smooth through pure css and although it still snaps if the element hasn't finished animating i'm happy with it.

moving on to another thing, i wanted to then make a sound effect play when you click the button. yes, we are still talking about buttons. THIS i could not do with css, like, at all. javascript admittedly is for interactivity and i had already been bending the rules quite a bit with the animations since those teechnically should've been done with javascript as well but this? this was impossible without javascript. so i found a free mp3, and searched up a nice little tutorial on the very basics of javascript.

little did I know that apparently, this would be my own personal little hell.

see, no matter how many times i tried a different script, the sound just would not work like at all. i'd do everything in what i assumed to be the correct way, and no matter what, it would not play. knowing that i'd just have to revisit this, i decided it was best to just sort of put it on the back burner.

and this is where i wish i could say this is the end of my absolutely gobstopping rant. however, i cannot.

see, one thing that i really like that i've seen in a lot of other people's sites is draggable windows. i think they're sick. but this ALSO requires javascript, but i didn't think this could POSSIBLY be that bad since so many people did it.

...right?.......right? guys. right?

MOTHERFUCKER I WAS SO WRONG.

see, it turns out that a lot of people do this sort of thing with jQuery, specifically for user interfaces. but vscode doesn't have a "user friendly" way to get jquery to work with it. and because i don't want to mess with program files, i decided that logically speaking jquery just makes writing things in js scripts less complicated and doesn't introduce things that are impossible in vanilla javascript so i decided i could suffer a little bit and try and do things without jquery.

this led me to looking at many sites with draggable windows to look at their own scripts, in which every single time i tried replicating things i FAILED.

i eventually stumbled upon a nice code that worked. but the issue with it - in which unfortunately i can't find it, else i'd link it - is that it works with not only element classes but also a specific ID. see, this would be fine if i only wanted ONE draggable element. but i want multiple. and i thought that maybe if i just duplicated the script and dedicated it to a different ID and changed function names it would work but nooo life cannot be this easy apparently. so after setting up my webmaster status window, getting that to work, i tried doing the aforementioned method for what will eventually be a guestbook of sorts. it failed.

so i decided, "hey i'll revisit this later!!" and i went on to finding a way to implement a status widget into my site. this honestly was really easy as i ended up stumbling upon status.cafe . so i registered, eventually got my account activated, and i got it working in my live port of vscode just fine!! all is good in the world.

well that's what i thought until i found out that since i had created my neocities account in march of 2024, and i'm unemployed since i'm still in high school hence i have a free account, that i could not. use the widget. in neocities. so i tried finding a work around, found this handy guide (which is genuinely useful by the way) and set up things through a RSS feed instead which is essentially just a work around that complies with the security restrictions of neocities that i'm bound by. anyways, this works great but i literally just can't customize it to how i want so this is another fail. then i find imood.com which, although is NICE, doesn't suit what i want on its own. so i'm at a loss here too.

so, again, another thing to put to the side i suppose.

so i started working on getting my guestbook, browsed through people's homepages again, and found chattable . and you probably think i have another paragraph complaining about this but honestly i can't write about something when i can't figure out how to even create a chat to implement onto my site in the first place so...y'know.

plus, i honestly have no clue if it'll work on my site either due to security restrictions so this is fun!!

anyways, after dealing with all of this, i finally decided it was about time i ported what i had so far over onto my neocities account. which isn't actually that hard i just had to wipe all of my files, overwrite the content in my index.html file there and paste in what i have now, and then upload my new files. but for some god awful reason after i went through all of this chrome just. kept depending on my old stylesheet??? so i had to clear some of my browsing data and eventually everything was loading properly for me.

and THIS is finally the end of my ridiculous documentation concering my neocities adventure so far.

i have no doubts i'll end up ranting here AGAIN about all of this but for now this is all i have on my plate...besides finally caving and learning javascript for real and continuing to learn more about html and css. hopefully one day i'll stop having such frequent issues but now is not the time and i doubt that'll be anytime soon either.

moral of the story, if you want to start something new and pick up a new hobby, please for the love of all that is of substance in this world don't go in completely blind like i've done if you're going to be making a project of some sorts. it will only lead to many misfortunes.

anyways you can see what i currently have done in my neocities here, make suggestions or give advice in the notes and whatnot i don't know.

[burning-academia-if]

Hey, this isn’t related to the story but I was curious how you got started with twine? Your story inspired me and I want to learn the program so I can make my own. I wanted to see if you had any advice or reference points. Perfectly fine if not, much love regardless!

I've messed with Twine on and off for a while now, so I'm not sure when I actually got into it? It was probably when I originally got into IFs back in like 2015 lol

I use Twine Sugarcube specifically, and I pretty much just watched/read through these:

Twine or Treat: a youtube playlist where a guy shows you how to make a game. Focuses more on making an exploration/puzzle game in Twine, but still has some useful/relevant info

Introduction to Twine: another video playlist, although again, I really only watched what I needed

The Twine Grimoire: there's 3, with each one going through more complicated concepts each volume, includes Harlowe as well as Sugarcube

Sugarcube (and Harlowe) also have their own documentation, but it's so Long and Daunting that I honestly just ignored it when I first started LOL. It's obviously useful to have and reference, but I always need to watch people doing the thing first. I really struggle with just reading through things personally. I'm comfortable enough with Twine now that it isn't overwhelming though lol

Also I'd argue you really only need to learn how to set variables to get started with IFs. Once you know how passages work and how variables work, you're almost set to make an IF.

I'd also recommend learning the very basics HTML and CSS just in case. There's plenty of Twine templates available for free on itch.io, but if you want to adjust them in any way, it's helpful to know CSS/HTML. Also just have fun and mess around! From visual novels to this IF, my learning process has honestly just been 'fuck around and find out' and it's been useful so far! I also think it helps with the inherent anxiety of trying something new too

But yeah, hopefully some of this is helpful/useful to you!

[adsproject]

Final Reflection

Alohaaaa! 🤙 Welcome back to my blog! Alas, this will be my last post on this blog, unfortunately. I have overcome many hurdles, and I am proud of where I am today, my project, and what has led me to this point. This journey was not easy, but it was definitely worthwhile and memorable, thanks to all the support I received. I want to personally thank everyone who has participated in my Instagram polls and my usability testing survey. Shout out to y’all!

1. What were your thoughts about your research topic going into the first week of the semester?

My thoughts during the first week of the semester about my research topic, job displacement in web design, were that AI will not replace human designers or artists as a whole because they lack empathy and the ability to form meaningful connections with humans, both interpersonally and in person. However, I didn't think I could win this battle against AI due to my inexperience. I have the skills, sure, but they are elementary at best. Prior to this project, I had some experience working with Figma and creating my first website prototype through my CM 316 (User Experience) course. I also practiced more coding in HTML and CSS in my ART 320 (Web Design & Development) class. In the end, I created a website prototype, so no coding experience was actually needed.

2. What are your thoughts now about your research topic and your project/practicum?

My current thoughts on my research topic are that AI can be used as a tool to brainstorm during the ideation step of the design process, generating ideas or inspiration for wireframes and similar tasks. However, it should not do the work entirely for you. It's the same with templates; you don't just submit it as is. You have to add your own personal touch and style, and replace the content with your own words. Regarding my project, I never thought I would beat the AI, so it was a pleasant surprise to win against it. I had many ups and downs, and at one point, I thought this project was impossible to complete and that I wouldn't graduate on time. Nevertheless, I'm so glad I reduced its scope, making it less overwhelming and daunting. Best decision I ever made. I somewhat regret not being able to complete my original deliverable of a website, but maybe I can create one in the future. Some things are just not meant for you at the moment, but they can come to you later.

3. What did you learn about yourself as a creative through this journey?

It was challenging for me to meet my own deadlines, so I kept giving myself extensions, as the project was self-directed and mostly independent. I always thought I was behind, and it really made me doubt my abilities and timeliness. However, I learned not to be as harsh on myself, even though we are our own worst critics. I once saw a quote that said, “Make it exist first, then you can make it good,” or something along those lines. That really resonated with the perfectionist in me because I am always so focused on the little details, like spacing and alignment, when I should really be focusing on the broader picture.

4. What did you learn about the creative and production process?

If you don’t already know, the creative process has three phases: pre-production, production, and post-production, also known as the three P’s. What I learned is that you just need to trust the process. There will be some bumps and hiccups along the way, but that is to be expected, as no one is perfect and is bound to make mistakes. You also have to remember that you are still a student, so you're still learning; it’s okay to make mistakes. From planning to execution, every phase of the process is vital, but the bulk of your project will be the production phase. During the production phase, it took me approximately one to three days to work on the lo-fi wireframes and five days to complete the hi-fi wireframes and prototype together. I learned to be patient with myself and the process. Locking in wasn’t easy, but once I was in the zone, nothing could stop me, not even hunger.

5. What advice would you give new senior capstone students?

My advice is to get started as soon as possible and really plan ahead. The pre-capstone is essentially your blueprint for your project, which is necessary for any project. You really need to thoroughly and thoughtfully consider what your project entails, including the specifics for each phase, or at least a general outline. Also, make sure to have backup plans in case your original plan doesn’t work out, like me. My backup plan was to create a website prototype, since I saw other classmates doing the same. Ergo, at least have a plan A and a plan B. The more plans you have, the better prepared you are, and you have more options to choose from. Also, be truly interested and passionate about your research topic. Additionally, I suggest delivering something you’re familiar with, so that you’re not just learning an entirely new skill from the beginning. It’s good to challenge yourself, but the final product may not turn out as you wanted.

6. Where to now?

After graduation, I was referred to work for the local Hawaiian government as a web designer. I still need to follow up with them if the offer still stands. Regardless, I plan to work in-house at a local or remote company, at a local or remote agency, or as a freelance web designer. I dream of working at top companies like Google, Microsoft, or Adobe. If all else fails, I could start up my own web design studio called "Webko," meaning "my web(site)" in Ilokano. I am trying to apply to as many jobs as possible, but I want to focus on graduating first.

Here’s a TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) version:

Initial Beliefs: AI won't fully replace human designers due to a lack of empathy, but I felt that I was inexperienced and wouldn’t win. In the end, I triumphed.

Current View: AI can be a brainstorming tool, but it shouldn't replace the designer's personal touch and creative vision.

Project Experience: Faced challenges but ultimately reduced project scope, which made it more manageable.

Personal Growth: Learned to be less harsh on myself and focus on completing work rather than perfecting details.

Creative Process Insights: Trust the three phases—pre-production, production, and post-production—and be patient with the process.

Advice for New Capstone Students: Start early, create detailed plans, have backup options, and focus on topics that genuinely interest you.

Future Plans: Seeking work as a web designer with hopes of joining major companies or starting a freelance studio called "Webko."

"Don't be sad it's over, be happy it happened." - Dr. Seuss

Again, thank you for following me on this creative journey! I appreciate all of you. Good luck to everyone on their future endeavors! Peace ✌️

[intervex]

Pinned post

Hello tumblr! This is @ipso-faculty and I'm creating a dedicated tumblr for the flags and coinings I'm creating. This is a side-tumblr of mine and hence I'll follow back as @ipso-faculty.

I am also on Wikimedia Commons and the Fediverse.

I am intergender, demigender, intersex, disabled (POTS, long covid, AuDHD), bi/pan, ambiamorous, as well as a white settler. I mostly make intersex and disability oriented flags.

General notes - All flags I make are public domain unless noted otherwise. This means you can share and remix as you desire. No credit is needed, no permission needs to be asked. Have fun!

Design philosophy - My primary goal is to make flags that are comprehensible. I see flags as a form of communication and I like it when flags have patterns in their meanings and designs.

How to request a flag - How it works: you send me a request, I send you some prototypes, you let me know what you like or what to change, and once you're satisfied I'll post it. I'll only mention your username if I have your explicit permission to do so. - In order for me to send you prototypes, I need to be able to DM you. For my own cognitive needs, I need to be able to see a *threaded conversation*. The problem with Tumblr's ask system is if I answer your ask privately, I cannot see what I wrote. So if you reply back with "I liked flag #2" I actually don't know which flag you liked!!! - I am no longer accepting requests from users who will not let me DM them. The lack of threaded conversation via Asks is cognitively inaccessible to me. - Please only ask for flags of identities that you have (or have a legit connection to the relevant community). I want to be able to consult with you on prototypes and know that the designs I'm making are appropriate for the relevant identity group. - When asking for a flag it's helpful if you let me know if there are existing designs, symbols, or the like you'd like me aware of or to get incorporated <3 ***

Flag resources (I'll be adding links to this that I find useful, so if reblogging check the original url for the latest version) Colours - OKLCH colour picker & converter - why it's worth learning oklch - introduction to perceptual colour spaces like LCH - introduciton to what a colour space / gamut is - Wikipedia's list of flags by colour combination

Flag layouts - Wikipedia's glossary of vexillology - Wikipedia's list of flags by aspect ratio

SVG drawing - introduction to SVG - Scaling SVG with CSS - MDN documentation on SVG transform - Bézier curve tutorial - Python drawsvg documentation - Python drawsvg library

Tumblr - How to back up your tumblr

Resources/guides I've written - Different ways to style infinity symbols (and why it matters)

[studywithsare]

Update: 3/27/25

Hey guys been awhile...

I am still trying to get my BLS certification T_T I don't know why it's been so hard for me! Well, I do. I'm just anxious I guess about getting it because then that means I can start applying to jobs that require it. It scares me because people's lives will be in my hands, and that's nerve wrecking. I want to try and learn it perfectly. Know it back and front, and that's a lot of pressure so I get a lot of anxiety when I think about having to sit down to study and do the lessons...

I've been doing well with it though lately. This is my 3rd time trying to get this certification. I am the farthest in I have gotten. I'm 24% complete. Based on when my class is I am to get 5% done each day so I can finish on time, but have a reasonable amount to get done each day. Today is my 3rd day doing this and I'm happy to say I'm on track :D I'm surprised at how easy the information is and how well I'm retaining it. Obviously in the real world that may be a different story due to adrenaline, but at least for now I feel confident in my knowledge. I wish I could practice on a dummy for more than a day though!!!

I have three programs in mind for RadTech. On of which isn't accepting applications until 2027. I'm gonna try other schools in the meantime when I'm ready to apply, but that would be my dream school!! I'm looking at their requirements. I had seen one program that said it looked at degree applicable grades, but others say they still look at your cumulative GPA, so I still gotta retake these classes :( I'm doing well though. Right now I'm retaking HTML and CSS. This was back when I had an interest in computers and web design. I realized that part of what makes someone a good fit for RT is an interest in technology which I will use once time for interviews. I have changes my major several times which looks bad, but I have to try to find ways to spin it to actually look good for me T_T Next semester I will retake another computer class. It'll be object oriented design? T_T I really did not get this class, but I have to retake it. I want an A!!! It's unfortunately another night class, and it runs longer than my current night class...but it's only once a week and I need to get rid of the F, so I have to do it...but after that all the other classes I want to retake are more common classes people take and will likely have online options or options at least during the day!! So these should be my only night classes!!! But yeah. not much to update on :(

[mountmortar]

do you happen to know any site building tutorials to follow and learn from? been having a hard time finding a place to start with my own neocity but the free reign and customization of them interests me a lot :0c

ABSOLUTELY! I do want to stress one thing if HTML/CSS is something you're not familiar with: It's okay if your website doesn't look like the most creative, eye-popping thing in the world! I've seen sooooooo many people get so discouraged because their beginner websites don't look like the flashier websites you see on Neocities' front page (by people who've been coding for a Long Time, mind you!) and like!!! That's fine!!! The code of my own site was quite possibly the worst thing you've ever seen thrown together into one big CSS soup before I Literally Just Rewrote It Today, After A Year Of Having A Neocities. And so, with that being said:

As anyone on the internet might do, w3schools is the absolute first place I'd recommend to beginners! There are videos, it's mostly a text-based learning site with lots of exercises to test your knowledge. If you'd prefer videos:

My personal favorite guy on Youtube to learn coding things from is Giraffe Academy: Here's his full course on HTML! The video itself is about two hours—I skimmed through it and everything seems to be perfectly oriented towards beginners (I haven't watched it in its entirety, but I have seen his videos on C# and Python [programming languages, don't worry about it] and they did a lot to help explain certain things to me that I didn't know previously!).

BroCode's HTML in 1 hour and CSS in 1 hour are pretty good! His videos do include a little bit on how to implement some JavaScript here and there, but nothing major or terrifying.

Here's a playlist of HTML/CSS tutorials in bite-sized videos, too! Think about 10-25 minutes per video.

I will say that searching for YouTube videos on HTML/CSS will always sort of gear more towards what people in the professional sphere are looking for rather than what you'd see on Neocities.

As for Neocities-specific things (which may be the actual point of your ask! Might've misinterpreted the hell out of it oops):

sadgrl.online is perhaps the most known website on Neocities, largely because the website itself not only has a layout maker you're free to use if you want to make a website now but the thought of writing HTML/CSS from scratch terrifies you, but also HTML/CSS guides themselves! There's also a bunch of links you can use to help fluff up your site a bit, generate HTML code for you, or just fluff up your site in general.

The Melonland Project is also dedicated to providing website development tools and tutorials for beginners: here is its guide to making a website on Neocities! It also provides a link to learnlayout.com, which I'll link here as well—a website for helping you learn CSS layouts!

And, once you've got the hang of how CSS works but are still feeling unable to code it yourself (no ideas? just not feeling up to it? FUCK MAN DO I UNDERSTAND THAT) Eggramen has free CSS pages you can use, and all you have to do is write the HTML for it!

But I would always focus more on learning HTML first before any CSS—and then learning how to integrate CSS into HTML via inline styling (which those video tutorials do!) before worrying about any external stylesheets or whatever. HTML is the actual building block—CSS just makes it look pretty.

[theneighborhoodwatch]

Hi! Gonna start off and say that I love the work you're doing with the Welcome Home neocities website! It's perfectly stylized for the project/puppet show and I can see the work you're putting into it.

I'd love to learn how to make my own neocities website (for fun? For a personal project??), so I was wondering if you could provide some tips and/or pointers for a first-timer.

Thank you!

HAHA well first of all i'm flattered that someone would think i'm skilled enough to be giving pointers in the first place. i still consider myself a novice when it comes to web design (for example, if you're wondering why every page on welcome to welcome home has its own CSS, it's because CSS is Way harder for me to wrap my head around than HTML) so i can't give any Super advanced tips, but i can at least write about what's helped me so far:

GUIDES. neocities has its own tutorial and list of HTML/CSS resources, but user-made guides are your best friend when it comes to figuring out where to go from there. a.n. lucas and pauli kohberger both have really good guides for beginners, but for the more advanced stuff, i found myself referencing the resources on solaria's webspace and sadgrl.online the most. w3schools is also very helpful when it comes to answering more specific questions like "how do i use two different fonts on the same page?" (and probably more.) if all else fails, then usually just googling "how to (x) in HTML" or "how to (x) in CSS" will yield at least one useful result. for making your website more accessible, there's the accessible net directory and this masterpost by foxpunk on tumblr.

it sounds obvious, but it helps to have a solid idea of what kind of site you want to build before you actually dive in, and then snoop around on neocities to get an idea of how other users approach the same topic. for example, i got the idea to start a welcome home wiki on neocities after being reminded of the 8:11 wiki on the same site, and then i spent a couple days just looking up stuff like "wiki" or "fansite" on neocities and then clicking on any page that caught my attention to study it.

layouts! there's no shame in using a premade one, and you can even learn more about HTML/CSS in real time just by messing around with the base code before implementing any intentional changes. sadgrl.online's layout builder is a VERY popular choice, since you can already do a lot with the basic options it offers and it's easy to further customize once you have it set up on your page; it's what i used to make welcome to welcome home. sadgrl.online's webmaster links also feature a bunch of other options under the "layouts" tag, and if none of those work for you, then you can even find something just by looking up template/templates/layout/layouts/HTML/CSS on neocities itself.

side note: if you're reading this and you want to make a wiki then you can also use this wikitable code. it came out after i had already established the Look of welcome to welcome home, so i probably won't implement it any time soon, but i TOTALLY WOULD HAVE if it was around when i first set the site up.

you can scale images up or down using percentage, with 100% being the image's default size. i don't know how helpful or acceptable that is, but i use it a lot.

don't feel pressured to get everything done at once, even if you expect people to be visiting your site frequently. usually if you just slap on an "under construction" gif or even just write "hey this site is still under construction" then people will understand. i don't think i've ever seen anyone get super huffy about slow updates on neocities, anyway.

EDIT: OH. GRAPHICS. i mention all of these on welcome to welcome home's front page but i Also wanted to note them here: betty's graphics and websets by lynn both have HUGE collections of background tiles and other graphics that work especially well if you're going for that old web charm. i also like to use this mirror of patterncooler for backgrounds bc of the customization options. you can also make your own background tile and then use a seamless tile maker like this if all else fails.

EDIT 2: ALSO. obviously. do not be like me and use discord or any other chat client as a filehost, no matter how promising it looks, because one day you WILL get a very nasty surprise when the request signature on those urls expire and the images are no longer accessible on other sites. there are a myriad of other filehosts out there, but personally i recommend file garden (and also donating to file garden if you can, even if only for a couple months. i know i said that just yesterday, but if it gets more folks to subscribe then i'm gonna keep saying it.)

[lacedvelvet]

why the fuck did profile customization go out of style? learning basic css & html is actually so fun and rewarding once you can create something you really love.