HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY TO RH0MBUS0FRUIN.NEOCITIES.ORG
Damn has it really been an entire year since I've had this website huh? It's a bit surreal seeing how my website first began and slowly changed over time which I think correlates in a way just how much I've changed as well in the span of a year in 2022. A lot was already changing for me before 2022 started, having moved to an entirely new country and continent at the tail end of it. A lot of stuff happened last year, good and bad obviously but I would say it's been to say the least a very interesting experience. But that's not the focus of this, this is just me talking about how rh0mbus0fruin came to be and my journey through being on neocities and the like!
Now first, if you've seen my neocities profile, you must be a bit confused (feel free to just skip this paragraph if you just don't care lol), "but it says you've joined neocities on march 25, shouldn't your site be one years old in march?" which I reply back with, I actually legitmately started my neocities back in the beginning of janaury under a different username/one I used primarily on social media. HOWEVER... due to an honestly really stupid thing I thought was unfixable (aka just not clearing my browser cache/pressing ctrl + F5) I got really frustrated and overwhelmed and impulse deleted lol. I then came back again in march 25 to restart fresh under the name rh0mbus0fruin which is from the psychonauts game Rhombus Of Ruin LOL (typical Martin psychonautisms). There wasn't really that much difference between the two sites I actually started working on since it was literally just the splash screen index and a barebones homepage which were pretty much identitcal so no difference there but yea there's my explanation to that and why I consider this sites or more so me legitametly working on my neocities and not leaving it to rot on janaury.
Now to actually start with the beginning of my neocities journey and I mean way way beginnings. I've mentioned it previously before but I actaully had a previous more older neocities site which is also now deleted back in I would say 2019 to 2020! It was atleast when I had gotten my very own computer for myself and was super interested in making a customisable website of my very own, it somehow led me to neocities.org which I was really mesmerized by and knew that I wanted to have a page on. So I signed up anddd... proceeded to not do anything with it after finishing the beginning tutorial and then later deleting it lol. It didn't even have a proper name to it it was literally called something like "waitingtillithinkoffaname" or something, I remember searching up on youtube for anything to get started with on neocities but everything just made it seem very intimidating to a then 13 year old Martin so yeaaa. Somewhere later in 2020 I found carrd (oh the horror!) and just used it from then on since that was the starting trendy thing at the time and I thought it'd be easier for me to link my social media there as well (only good thing carrd has ever done for me is getting me to quit Amino so thank god for that). So from the span of 2020 to 2021 the idea of making a neocities was off the charts/somewhat forgotten off or atleast a "ehhh someday I'll do that" idea.
I won't get into the hell discussion which is current social media, especially social media fandom culture which I was especially drawn to at the time, however I could never really get into it 100% atleast actively posting/talking or interacting much outside of my smallish group circle on sns sites such as twitter or tumblr. The most I ever got to such was entering multiple fandom/media related servers which I have slowly started to not do as much anymore due to personal reasons. I just never really liked being "social" I guess to such an extent once again due to personal reasons and so and so. Albeit I didn't really have anything that drastic happen throughout 2020 to 2021 so I'll be glad for that atleast. I guess it was an eventual slowly growing disdain for being online/how modern social spaces and online fandom spaces have become which only increased through the mid to latter half of 2022 for me. I guess this was all just a really long paragraph to say that making a neocities alongside having some relevations/realizations helped me quite a lot in being able to truely freely express myself in an art form besides drawing especially without feeling shame or the need to ig censor/make myself "presentable/easy to swallow", especially without much judgemental eyes on me which is amazing and the most freeing I've felt in quite a while in an online space.
Starting off/before my 2022 neocities
Apart from my various carrds which I used minimal coding on (mostly just custom cursors, RV javascript codes and music), I got into making a spacehey to prepare myself for coding! It's still up btw but I haven't (and won't be using it) much. I sadly don't have any previous screenshots of how it first started but apart from the profile pic and some other stuff it's relatively the same (it used to be really ena themed as was the last carrd design I had)
You can see some aspects that would appear/stay on my neocities such as the bg pattern image or the footer and header image! (also idk what the fuck is up with the white space that randomely appeared).
Honestly there actually isn't much to say and I have more to say during when I actually started my neocities and all the changes that happened so going onto that!
The start and evolution of my site
When I started my neocities, I relied heavily on W3schools on my site code, it was very messy as it was mostly copied pasted code from there on top of one another. I was also very inspired by the neocities of a popular artist I followed, specifically with my splash screen. I mostly wanted my content to be centered which made me joyous when I figured it out.
Eventually what lead from that innitial splash screen would turn into this! Along side when I figured out how to make a new/second page.
Here's some other variations of the splash screen/index I managed to find on archive.org as I discovered someone to my knowlegde archived both my index and my homepage.
I unfortunately don't have any archives of my previous homepage layout before I redesigned it last year in june or so. This is the most I could find, I also remember my updates used to be in a draggable box in the homepage.
As you've also noticed from the previous and this screenshot of my homepage, I was still in my carrd mentality and quite limited myself to have the usual things in a carrd even when I saw such things like a DNI as redundent. I'm glad to have managed to grow out of this mentality and do much more with this site as it's proven itself better for me in the long run.
And soon I had a major redesign for the homepage layout which is what lead to my current look of my homepage! Obviously a lot more has changed with this overtime, but overall I think I'm very proud of how it came out and such!
There's also my about me which has also changed a lot! Some more images I found on archive.org
With this layout of my about me I really wanted to replicate that one template for spacehey.
Here are some other misc pages such as my shrines page.
And that's as much "old" screenshots I could show for such pages that have been in the works for the entirety/majority of my sites existence.
FUTURE AND UNCOMING PLANS, ETC
I cannot say how grateful I am to have finally made my site, it alongside other stuff has given me much peace in mind and confidence in displaying more and more of my work. It has definitely helped my mental health along the way. I thank everyone who've encouraged me, any new friends made or even just read any one of my pages or left a comment in my guestbook. Thank everyone so much.
As for upcoming plans/updates, much is uncertain just cause yknow, motivation or so but I hope to complete all articles that are works in progress right now soon! Same with my pages about music, a small project I'm working on rn (the bud website stuff) and most importantly, my original content. I have thought of revamping older pages I haven't done so for quite a bit but I think I'll wait those out till I actually finish most of these!
Thank you once again for one year of rh0mbus0fruin.neocities.org, 65 pages and more incoming!
