Heyo!! I bring you a lot of introductory words!!

[tarraxahum]

Hello there!

So, a funny thing. It's been so long since I've last been active on any forum (or maybe I was never a part of a forum like this one at all) that I was unaware it would log me out after an hour. And apparently that's how long it took me to write a post. Which I now lost. Huh.

Well, y'know what? I'm inclined to be positive about such things. I've put down the "always logged it" tick this time, let's try this again!

So, my name is Alex. Or Tarrax, or Hum or whatever nickname you'd be inclined to give me. I'm also fine with absolutely any and all pronouns, since, as far as my gender goes, I live to be completely incomprehensible.

I'm in my late twenties. Which means, I remember some of the good old web. I remember using website builders and a bunch of stolen code and html tutorials to make bright web pages with pure high contrast RGB backgrounds. About everything. About me, about my favorite anime, about my friends. It was fun. Then I moved on to social media. Then social media became all shiny and polished and utterly uncustomisable except maybe for Tumblr which in my mind is the last bastion of the old web spirit among the popular websites. Then suddenly I was weill in my twenties and I completely lost the ability to spend my free time doing anything but scrolling three same apps over and over again. That terrified me to realize.

Last year, thanks to a very enthusiastic Tumblr post, I've learned of Neocities and the Yesterweb community. I was floored to see so many people doing the very thing I mourned and buried as a gone part of my childhood. But I was also intimidated. Having your own website seemed…like too many opportunities at once. It could be anything, and I couldn't choose a thing. I've also found that without sufficient motivation my ability to stack pieces of code together greatly degraded compared to my teenage years. So I just lurked. Around the Yesterweb webring, around this forum, all over.

This year, however, or rather at the end of last month even, there was a shift. For the first time in the last fifteen years I've just sat. And started making something that I wanted to make. Not for a friend, not for a fandom, for myself. I took a story that has been in my mind for more than a year now and I drew 40 full-colored pages of the first chapter start to finish in less than three weeks.

Fifteen years ago, it was a book scribbled in two fat notebooks by hand. It was really a self-insert fanfic with changed names, but who cares.

This time, I'm making a comic. I'm giving life to this character who means the absolute world to me as a creator the more I work on her. I'm giving life to her world and her queer found family. I've been an emotional mess about this for weeks. Can you tell?



So when the question of "Where do I post this?" came up, my first instinct was to make a website. I had a theme laying around. I had the motivation. I made it.

And now I'm building the rest of my website around that comic like it's my foundation. Suddenly it makes sense. Suddenly I'm hyped to make the things other people are doing. So far the front page isn't nearly as obnoxious as I'd like it to be, but I'm in no hurry. I'm doing the thing.

I've yet to build the shrines, but I'm thinking about a page dedicaded to a CD collection, maybe. I'm about to start burning CDs again. Maybe when my birthday comes I'll ask my friends to make me an old-fashioned mixtape. Kinda lacked out on that part of fun when it was hot.

What I'm trying to say is, this comic, this website, suddenly they don't feel like "reclaiming the web", they feel like reclaiming myself.

So, here's my website: https://tarraxahum.neocities.org/index.html

And, for the sake of yelling "I MADE A THING!" , here's my webcomic: https://tarraxahum.neocities.org/pof.html

It's just a little bit bloody, there's lots of fighting, there's some slight creepiness to showcase a metaphorical POV, and it's just at the beginning of the story. Oh, and the logo is a placeholder for now. Work in progress, work in progress. But it's mine.



My latest pride is successfully coding a comment page following Sadness's tutorial. One small step for Tarraxahum, one big leap for Tarraxhumankind.

Oh, and here's my SpaceHey! https://spacehey.com/tarraxahum

I suck at keeping the activity up, but I'm trying to live my best edgy cringe years on there, since I've never had a MySpace. I didn't know English back then.

It's been a while since I've been actually encouraged to make a big detailed post, you know. I don't do "short" very well, never did.

So, if you're still reading, here's a bonus picture of me painted in my favorite things:

Music: Nu-metal, alternative rock and all the neighbooring micro-genres. I need my music to pound in my chest and vibrate in the soles of my feet. You won't find me in the moshpit 'cause I'm small and I want to see the singers, but you will find me by the stage. I've also developed a sudden interest in the cyberpunk flavor of synthware. Anyone got artist recommendations?

Anime: For being "the anime kid" of the class I sure haven't watched a lot of it, but I do have some favs. Gurren Lagann, Black Lagoon, Canaan, FLCL, Kill la Kill (which I genuinely watched and still watch for the plot). And Speed Racer of the 60s was my OG hyperfixation that started it all.

TV shows: As far as live action goes, I've only ever fully watched one, and that's Wynonna Earp. As far as animation goes, I adore Arcane. Also She-Ra (the new one) and the Owl House are cute.

Movies: Gunpowder Milkshake, Captain Marvel, Speed Racer. Back to the Future was the ultimate family movie at our house. As for animation - Mulan and Balto are my general go-tos.

Videogames: Mass Effect, Dragon Age (especially Inquisition, sue me) and Cyberpunk 2077. Greedfall is also good. I'm aware I should give more attention to indie games, but I suck at finding the ones I might like. Anyone knows a more obscure game with nice character customization - pls let me know, at this point I think I've seen all the bigger ones.

Plush toys: Let's spice it up, why not. I have a looong cat hugging pillow that my friend gave me as a gift. I have the IKEA shark. I have lots of plush cats 'cause I'm allergic to real ones despite loving them to bits. And I also have a doll of my favorite comic book character that I've sawn myself. I adore it still.

As you can probably guess from that media list, btw, I'm very weak for women kicking butts.

Will definitely make a website shrine out of that.

Phew, so…that looks about right for an introduction, huh?

I hope I'll stick around. And I hope you'll have me and my inspired walls of text.

Have a good day or evening or whatever your timezone brings

[Melooon]

Hi Trax! Welcome to the forum

Ooph you really lost a long post like that, Im really impressed you wrote another, I prob would have rage quit after that :omg:k: With old forums its always a good idea to select-all copy every few minutes just in case (but I guess you've learned that the hard way!).

Also wow this is an ANTHOLOGY! Im always happy to see long form posts, people are so used to short chat messages; I feel like they might have forgotten how to wrote longer texts, its always a pleasure to have something to read for a few minutes.

As I was reading this I started to think about the idea that no one really creates anything; we listen to what the universe or our inner voice says and then we just happen to move our limbs in the right way to make that message appear in the world. It sounds like over the last year you started to find the space to listen to that voice! It makes me realise how frequently the modern world tries to drown out that voice of creation we all have

Iv never been a fan of the "I made a thing" phrase, its demeaning; you didn't make a thing, you made a website and a comic, own it! and more importantly you became a comic artist (well I assume you've been one for a while, but you know what I mean, you embodied it!)

I really enjoyed your comic! Its dark, but humorous and optimistic? I look forward to seeing what happens next A bit of web design feedback - I recommend converting the pages to jpeg and web optimising them, you'll get a smoother load-in than with big pngs - also why does it say Im on page 31 when Im on page 3??.

Lonnnnnnnnnng cats

I hope you enjoy the forum! Regulars are great, but even if you only find yourself visiting once a year, you're always welcome

Ooo-- You've Received Melon's Welcome Pack --ooO
* If you haven't already check out the forum welcome post, and forum usage guide!
* New to website making? Here is a complete(ish) guide!
* Visit your look/layout to pick a theme and set a default colour/font for your messages!
* Feeling shy and unsure what to do? Maybe post a song you like here!
* Finally don't forget to share the forum and invite friends! We have some way cool graphics over here!

[tarraxahum]

Hi Melon, thanks for the warm welcome!

You know, I think you're right about me finding the space to listen to that inner voice - the characters and the whole idea started forming after I quit my very demanding (well, for me it was) office job last year, and I finally started drawing it when my freelance work took a lull as well - so I had the mental capacity to just channel it without constantly thinking about other tasks I should be doing.

Now I'm swarmed with work again, so I won't be able to continue conjuring dozens of pages in weeks, but I don't think I necesserily have to as long as I move in the general direction I can't wait to get to rest of the cast of the characters.

Thanks a lot for the advice by the way, I've been wondering how to smooth out loading (and also keep the limited memory space of the website in check since I can't buy a membership yet), but somehow the thought of jpg format completely evaded me. I'll definitely need to go re-render my pages again when I have time.

Also thanks for reading the comic by the way! ":grin:ark, but humorous and optimistic" is definitely something I'm going for The funny thing is, I've never been much of a comic artist - a digital self-taught fandom artist, sure, but I rarely took on the comic format in particular. That being said, I've worked with professional comic industry folks very closely for a time, so I'll take pride in hearing that I fit the part

- also why does it say Im on page 31 when Im on page 3??

Ooooh that'd be the symbol I've chosen to break off the number and the title of the page (where applicable). It's coded into the theme to show up regardless of whether the title is or isn't present, and it used to be a dash, but a "-" just hanging in the air for untitled pages bothered me, so I changed it to |. Never realized that it could come off as 1 in places. That's the power of feedback for ya, maybe I should change it to a dot!

[Melooon]

Thanks a lot for the advice by the way, I've been wondering how to smooth out loading (and also keep the limited memory space of the website in check since I can't buy a membership yet), but somehow the thought of jpg format completely evaded me. I'll definitely need to go re-render my pages again when I have time.

This is using comic.js! Hmm, Im not sure how able you are to edit JS - but 100% this would be improved if it pre-loaded the next image - e.g. if you're on page 3 it should load the image from page 4 with the CSS display set to none (making it invisible). So, when you click next it would load instantly, no matter how big your images are!

Might be worth asking the comic.js maker to add that feature, it would be really helpful for everyone!