I want to document the layouts of my website here! walk with me for a little while...
February 2023
after I got tired of my previous site, I went ahead and locked in on another. yeah, it looks terrible, I'll turn my back towards you in shame. I knew it wasn't final product though, rome wasn't built in a day you know. much to my dismay, I don't have many more screenshots from this layout other than the homepage, but maybe it's for the best.
the "updates" section is the only thing completely unchanged from this period! I refuse to update it. unrelated, but I had finally jailbreak my 3DS after being so stubborn about it for so long, and really got into making custom themes! it was so frustrating to learn at first, but many people helped me with the process. you can do anything you set your mind to
March 2023 (apparently)
here's the layout OGs know already. this layout is actually just a static image with elemets overlayed on top! shocking! the code for this layout is very arbitrary and riddled with hints of frustration, and a little bit of goat's blood.
I still had no proper idea how CSS worked, so I got upset I couldn't create what I wanted, like the stuff I saw on the front page of Neocities. it was discouraging, I remember it so clearly. I was at my desk so long the sun had completely set, and I came up with a stupid idea; "what if I just DRAW what I want and work with that?" what else was I gonna do? I got to work on a few designs before one became the final product.
here's the layout OGs know already. this layout is actually just a static image with elemets overlayed on top! shocking! the code for this layout is very arbitrary and riddled with hints of frustration, and a little bit of goat's blood.
I still had no proper idea how CSS worked, so I got upset I couldn't create what I wanted, like the stuff I saw on the front page of Neocities. it was discouraging, I remember it so clearly. I was at my desk so long the sun had completely set, and I came up with a stupid idea; "what if I just DRAW what I want and work with that?" what else was I gonna do? I got to work on a few designs before one became the final product.
unsurprisingly, it was difficult to get everything just right, but after a couple hours everything was perfect. I had even made different layouts depending on the season!
a lot of the images in the archived seasonal home pages are expired because I used Discord as a filehost. it wasn't a problem since I was upkeeping my site and changing stuff almost daily so i'd notice pretty quick if something went missing, but it went downhill pretty fast once I started making things more dynamic. I was able to get the original images for my seasonal pages luckily since i'm an e-hoarder and my laptop I used to use just so happened to have all my images and accurate metadata on when I made them.
do not and i mean DO NOT USE DISCORD FOR PERMANENT FILEHOSTING, use Dropbox and Neocities!!!!
that was it for the longest time. over time I gradually updated every little corner of my site and made it look better and better while falling more and more in love with the Web Revival project
below is absolutely my favorite change I have ever made to this site, the "games" section was once a crusty screen with blown out gifs all over the place, but in October (2023) I had gotten inspired by someone else's site (not naming names for privacy), where there was a CSS for a CRT tv, which I thought was super cool and wanted to put my own spin on it. I watched a lot of youtube tutorials for this, it's my earliest instance of real deal CSS usage
I think this current design really reflects how someone can learn web design overtime, and how damn quickly you can learn with a bit of patience. a little bonus real quick, let me show you something...
I have no clue when this was. I spelt my own nickname wrong, there's a 404 on the sidebar somehow, and I have a million stupid tabs open... I must've been exhausted. if you were feeling discouraged about something hope you can point and laugh for a second :3
if you're trying out building your own Neocities site, especially if it's your first time or you're inexperienced, I hope I can encourage you to at least make something you're proud of in the moment. one big mistake I made is comparing myself to people who were already there for years and are immensely popular. you will improve eventually, so just have fun until the time is right!
(written on March 8th, 2024. as of March 26th, 2024 many things had already changed.) I want to talk a bit about the theming of my site. If I were to ask, "what is the main theme of my website?" you may get different responses. the color blue, outer space, waddle dee/kirby, general video game stuff, or no theme at all! from the start I struggled with this question, what's gonna make my site stand out? I adore Space and Astronomy. ever since I was a kid I've been facsinated with the question of what's outside our galaxy, or if there's something in our galaxy we've yet to discover. my favorite series Kirby also has reocurring themes of space and stars as well, so my two lifelong interests coming together was a no brainer.
when I get better at CSS, I want to lean more into the "Waddle Dee in space" theming. like I want it to be obnoxiously in your face instead of something i'd have to TELL you about. that'd be great I think.
March 2024
even if the blue version was more of a "blueprint" (ha!) of what i'd eventually make, I want both of these themes to coexist somehow. maybe i'll use the blue version for another part of my site...
I had finally reached the point of what I wanted back in February! it's crazy how it took a whole year to get to this point. I don't want to settle, though. I hope you'll keep watching me improve! :D i'm sure there will be another drastic change another year from now!
April 2025
somehow I knew i'd change the homepage eventually, looks a lot less busy doesn't it? I realized a little too late sometimes people don't wanna have their hands constantly on the scrollwheel, plus more things catch your eye quickly! my favorite example is the banner changing every time you refresh and 3 status windows at the bottom instead of having to scroll the main window to see what im up to. this redesign took only a few hours... or all day I guess, since I got distracted and started playing melee until I remembered I was supposed to be designing a webpage. my hands hurt!
I'm actually quite proud of that fact, something like this would've taken a whole (non distracted) day of trial and error a year or even several months ago. you can do whatever you need to do effeciently too! I believe in you!
June 2025
