Wild how time flies!!!
So, the site has reached half a decade old as of writing. Technically my site is around 6 years old, but even though I created the site in 2020, I didn't start building it out until about a year in haha
Thinking back for a bit, it's wild how this site started out as a respite for my art when I was getting around to putting my art on dA in storage after I became so disappointed with the site's decisions. I wanted a place where my art could be seen without it being spread across different sites- a permanent home basically!! Also with me coming to terms with how much of a shaky ground social media is on (rip twitter you will not be missed), having a permanent home for myself online was very much needed.
I cannot remember how I came across Neocities... I feel like I came across it in passing early on in 2020 but I can't say for sure LOL. But it's mid November in 2020 and I chose to sign up on a whim! And the site proceeded to gather dust up until October 2021 asjfgasjkfa
To me, a visual artist, switching to something that was purely in text and code was DAUNTINGGG. I had a mild stint with HTML and CSS back on dA when I had the rare premium membership (does anyone remember when it was called that or am I showing my age.........) but even then looking up HTML guides at the time made my brain explode. The most I was able to do was change the background of a custom box. I was really proud of myself at the time though!!
This is what the site looked like on Neocities in November 2020. I knew about headings and links thanks to dA and Tumblr, but overall HTML was a mystery to me and I shyed away from fleshing out my site until about a year later. I read most of the HTML guide on w3schools and started building my site the next day!!!
After creating the early about and gallery pages, I realized what my site could become and the possibilities excited me so much that I just took the ideas and ran HAHA. A gallery here, Cinnaverse wiki here, a blog, a microblog, shrines, the sky is the limit!!!!!! I could do anything!!!!!! At the time I had loads of free time so I was editing my site and poking at it pretty much every day!
Several years later, this is what the site looks like now as of writing on version 3.1!
The current version is about 2 years old now and I'm still really happy with the design! I don't have any plans to change anything at the moment, BUT what I'd like to do with the current layout is design different themes for the homepage... 👀 Like character themes or maybe themes based off of my OC projects and webcomics... ok I might need to start designing huhu