So the guys I share a body with are doing a panel for OtherCon about creating a website. It's more focused on it for nonhumans and systems, but I figured I'd ask if anyone has anything that might be a good idea to include. We could also use any web development or HTML guides and maybe website templates if anyone has any.
I haven't seen too many of us on here, but if you are alterhuman and you'd like to give us permission to use your website as an example for the panel, that would also be great.
I know so much about the internet history of otherkin, therians, and systems.
For otherkin it heavily intersected with spiritual sites online in the early internet, and there was a lot more of an emphasis of your inner soul. Otherkin started with elves and fae in the 60s and those groups were big in the early internet too (fun fact, the word otherkin comes from "other" for non-elves and kind, as in humankind. The word was originally elfinkind and no one knows when the d was dropped or why), but dragons also were pretty big as a group although not always dragonkin and more of a separate dragconic subculture. The same goes for vampires.
Fictionkin started to be more of a thing in 2006 with otaku-kin, but existed prior to that point (the original elfinkind in the 60s were more speciifcally tolken elves, and there were a lot of pernese or other fictional dragonkin), but otaku-kin focused more on fictional character-based identities. They also overlapped more with soulbonding, which also involved an abnormal link to a fictional character, and so most early fictionkin groups were both fictionkin and soulbonding.
Therians started in a horror mailing list for werewolves where it became talking about real werewolves, people who identified as animals and the original word for it was were, but eventually became "therianthrope" based on "lycanthrope" to prevent confusion of physical shifting. Actually most terms came from trying to prevent confusion of physical shifting, theriotype as the word for what one identified as was originally phenotype and shifting where one gets into a mindset or experiences phantom limbs of their theriotype was originally shapeshifting. These terms would later join the kin community with kintype and general shifting.
The system community was kind of always a mess tbh. Like there was in-fighting and drama even back then, and some of that still exists today (system gatekeeping can be sourced to livejournal drama, the more popular systems in the community are also some of the worst people you'll ever meet, groups can be insanely toxic or abusive). But that aside making your own website for your system was a lot more popular, and systems would have sort of like walkthroughs or guides through their headspace which was extremely cool. Systems really used the internet for creativity in a way that was very unique, which is starting to come back I think.
Well, depression, anxiety, PTSD, was probably the worst in middle and high school and needing to wake up early every morning and the added stress of failing our classes certainly didn't help and just made things a loop until we graduated. Feels like my system's life didn't actually start until we were 20.
Being a mostly independent adult is great though. I can cook what I want, buy what I want, use whatever coping mechanisms work for me in my own house, and I no longer have a hormonal hell brain that makes me want to fight with people on the internet and get involved in drama. Screw whatever people say to kids about being an adult being horrible, they probably aren't doing it right.
i certainly don't miss online games with paid memberships!! playing club penguin in 2013 was so sad if you weren't paying anything. later they added some non-member clothing items, but i wasn't playing anymore at that point. my parents once got the 15-day membership and i spent all my money in like a day and i had no idea about any cpps yet!
also, i don't miss overthinking excessively and obsessing over grades or just school in general.
Unfortunately this is still a thing with online games, Webkinz, the game where you already buy a plush to unlock full membership, of all things added a deluxe membership.
Waking up in the middle of the night to one of those tornado warnings on television. Do those still exist? Did they change that god awful sound? I still remember the feeling of being a 5 year old all alone in my room and about to cry because I was too scared to go up to the television and turn it off. The sound was scary!
Thank god I never lived anywhere with tornado warnings. Though, I always dreaded september every year because that's where all the hurricanes start hitting the east cost.
At least that taught me to keep my DS charged.
It's not a childhood fear since I still live where we get hurricanes, if anything its gotten slightly worse since I moved into an RV and still live next to a creek but hey at least I can just grab everything and pop over to my dad's house to wait it out.
That's also actually why I have a portable charger that I try to keep charged as much as I can. My hacked 2DS can't hold a charge for shit but that portable charger can last days. I've also gotten better at downloading videos for general preservation but it also serves good to keep me entertained :v
I kind of just open each category that has a new post notification and see if there's anything interesting, I like to mark messages as read and it just kind of works out :v
When was the last time you made a post / started a topic? I try to do it every time I come in, which I think was a few days to a week ago. I haven't made a topic mostly since I don't know what to bring up, so I just vibe.
Did people reply to you and were you happy with those replies? I don't always get replies and I don't think I did, but I don't usually feel negative when I get a reply here and the environment feels chill enough that I don't feel worried.
What inspired you to post or what stopped you from making a post recently? This is making me want to make a thread pfft, but sometimes I do get intimidated since I feel like most people here really know technology and the internet and I'm still really a baby to the whole thing, but we all start somewhere so I try not to feel embarrassed if I need to ask questions or want to encourage my curiosity.
Have you learned anything on the forum and/or do you find useful/good info here? I can't think of anything off the top of my head but I know there are usually a lot of interesting posts here, I don't think I've learned anything but it's always cool to see more of the old net revival/internet reclamation.
What's the main thing you visit the forum to see/d:ha:say? I really just come in to see what's new
I started with using base codes that were free to use and on my first website when I modified it enough I just removed the original credit since aside from the grid layout it had nothing in common anymore. On my site I credited the gallery code I used but mostly since it was from a Codepen and I wanted to link back to it for people who might want to use it, I recommend people just use a website for their art all the time anyway lol
But I'll second Melooon on this, that was one of the reasons why I made an archive for old soulbonding sites on my own since while I wasn't really taking the code I was using them for inspiration
I actually like user-run or curated ads most of the time, thinking like what Subeta has where I don't think they have traditional ads (I use adblock so i wouldn't know lmao) but users can buy ad space on the site. It can be a fun way to find new stuff and get your own stuff out there and that's how my system found some webcomics back in the day
I got into web design with Neocities and I'll probably stick with it while it's still around. I think I had to make a Weebly once though for a class in middle school but I didn't really like using it
If I had to guess people hated it because it's the go-to childish font, but I like it. It's easy for me to read and I do a lot of writing with comic sans actually.
I'm playing the original AA trilogy but I can't wait to get to Apollo Justice, my friend seemed confident that I'll love it lol
I've had Hollow Knight for awhile now but I haven't gotten around to playing it even though I want to, maybe next. I also still have FFVII and Yakuza, and like 15 ROM hacks downloaded onto my 3DS to play.
For me it's a little bit more the later if anything at least as far as communities and social spaces go. I don't really like Discord or post-based social It's also a lot easier to have a more thorough discussion on a forum because you can actually type longer responses without a time limit and you can easily source stuff if you need
Although I will say from what I gather online spaces weren't great back then either. I'm very critical of the system community because I'm in it, but that's also something I look into with the old web and looking into the it it looks like this community's had issues with abusers or general jerks since before this body was even in kindergarten. to. The system community's labeling of origins is an extension of LJ divisions and gatekeepers, and ignoring victims or criticism of "community leaders" seems to have been happening since systems came to the internet. It was impossible to avoid extensions of it then, and it's impossible to avoid extensions of it now.
But I don't really blame technological advancements and I'm excited to see where things go and what people are capable of. I feel a bit overwhelmed here because I didn't start to experiment with technology until very recently and teenage depression shot most of my skills, but it's really great to see people use the internet as a creative tool. It's not exactly nostalgia in my case since I'm 20, I wasn't really around for what most people consider the old web, but I admire a lot of old web revival because of the medium for creativity and how refreshing it is from how corporate the internet is now. As people have pointed out they intersect but they aren't the same thing.
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and i had no idea about any cpps yet!
