Rolled Out My New Site
I built a new site from scratch using Astro, and it's finally live!
Welcome to my new site!
If you’re new around here, I’m Angel, also known on much of the internet as Spears Dracona.
If you’re not new around here, welcome back! (and sorry I broke the old RSS link.)
I just spent pretty much all of my free time in the last few weeks building this site from the ground up. If you’ve played Dwarf Fortress, I was basically having a fey mood. This site is my artifact, and I guess now I am legendary.
This site is pretty fresh, and as far as content goes, it’s just a few blog posts and some art right now. But I’m planning on making it the most comprehensive vault of my thoughts and creations that has ever been made public. Because I’m awesome and the world deserves to know it.
Let’s go down a little bit of a history road trip.
This was my previous site:
I was inspired by a Youtube video to make a personal website. I bought a domain on NameCheap, and ended up settling on EasyWP for hosting. WordPress sounded nice. I liked having blogs back in the day. I figured I mostly wanted to upload writing and art, so it would work fine for that.
I quickly ended up frustrated. All of the default themes were corporate and bland. So… I picked one I liked the general layout of, and started taking a hammer to it, changing background images, adding custom css, just going nuts with it.
I never quite got it to a state I liked. Trying to hammer my soul into pre-written templates just wasn’t fun.
I updated periodically. I didn’t love the layout. WordPress felt too heavy. I felt like I didn’t have enough control.
Then I started learning JavaScript, and I started craving a site that I could upload javascript toys and games on, once I get to the point that I start making them.
Well, I got a LOT of practice with JavaScript these past few weeks. And some TypeScript. And writing Markdown. Oh, and I even created my first batch file! I even pushed my HTML and CSS skills further than I have before.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. So let’s go down another tangent. It’ll all come together in the end. Probably. It’s past midnight and I’m twired (tired + wired).
So, I’m basically Brainy Smurf in real life. My husband showed me a video the other night: 10 Cartoon Characters That 90s Kids Hated! Brainy Smurf was the first one on the list. I always related to him, for reasons the video called me out on. I was the kid who asked the teacher about homework. And I did grow up to write lengthy corrections in YouTube comment sections. Which is where we tie this story back in to me deciding to make a new website.
I have this tendency to go down research rabbit holes and then post the results in somewhat inappropriate places. I have a habit of fact checking almost any claim I see posted on social media, which isn’t bad in itself, but I think when I post an 8 page comment in a response no one actually reads it. I’m up in comment sections explaining the flawed logic in claiming that a study that surveyed a selection of registered sex offenders is representative of the demographics of all sex offenders, or going into detail about bills that are being considered by the Senate. I am posting in the comments of reels explaining that singular they has existed since Shakespeare and is accepted by most current style guides. I’m writing massive comments on YouTube correcting facts, trying to give people the gift of knowledge only to find them ignored, or sometimes quietly deleted.
I’m not confrontational or anything. I just like sharing knowledge. And maybe I don’t like seeing other people be wrong. The way I see it, if I were wrong about something, I’d want someone to tell me. And if they went out of their way to provide a detailed explanation and reliable sources, I’d be thrilled.
But alas, that’s not the prevailing viewpoint on social media.
But anyway, I decided, instead of writing comments that get lost in a comment section, I could be letting my thoughts get lost on my own website, instead! At least maybe then they might reach an audience that actually cares.
So anyway, I decided I wanted to make a new website that would serve who I am in the present, as well as the person I am hoping to become.
I decided to use a web framework called Astro to generate my site. Basically, I created a layout, created collections for content like blog posts and art, and created layouts for all the index pages, post pages, tag pages, etc. And Astro slaps it all together exactly how I told it to.
While searching for a new host, I stumbled across Nekoweb. I thought it looked like a cozy place, and I liked the way they feature the sites they host to make it easy to discover other people’s sites. Plus I just like cats. So building my new site over here on Nekoweb was a no-brainer.
I spent a significant amount of time smashing all the pieces into place. I’ve still got pieces I want to smash into place (hence the fact that my current homepage is basically a to-do list). But it’s mine, and I LOVE it. It is my squishy little baby and I adore it with all of my squishy heartbits.
Oh, and that background, I made that myself. The jellyfish are my squishy little babies, too.
Anyway, I probably should get to sleep. I just wanted to make a blog post to ring in the new site.
Here it is. Happy New Site!