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The Northern Lights Have Seen Queer Sights

@seaglassandeelgrass / seaglassandeelgrass.tumblr.com

K. Peruser of the printed word & history nerd. 20something, hailing from New England. Outdoor educator, among other things, the likelihood of whom running off to sea [and/or the Northwoods grows likelier by the day] has occurred. Incorrigible dork. Quite queer. [Find my oddly-specific folk playlists here] [My old-school personal webpage]
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How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive, In Just Ten Easy Steps

As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.

But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!

  1. Go to https://neocities.org/ and sign up for an account. It only needs a username (which will also be your website address), password, and email. Pick a username that will be related to your archive's title!
  2. Choose the free account option (if you ever need more than what the free account offers for a text-only archive, you should probably look into graduating from neocities.) This should take you to a menu of "how to make a website" tutorials. You should do them! They're useful skills. But let's get your archive running first.
  3. Hit the big red Edit Site button, or open the menu under your username and select "Edit Site".
  4. Select the "Index.html" file to edit. You're now in an HTML Editor. Congrats, you're a web developer c. 1999!
  5. Find where it has text between the < title> tags. Delete the filler text, and put in the title of your new archive. This text will be what shows on the tab when people go to your archive.
  6. Find where it has text between the < h1 > tags. This will be big header text at the top of your page. Put the title of your archive here again. If you have no experience with HTML, you should read over the other sample text. It covers the basic basics very well! Once you've done that, you can delete everything else between the < /h1> tag and the < /body> tag. Save your index.html file.
  7. Get an HTML file for a fanfic you would like to add to your archive. If it's on AO3, you can use the html download option built into AO3. If you have it as a word processor/google docs file, you should have the option to save as an html file. Save that html file to your computer.
  8. Go back to Edit Site on Neocities and go to "upload". Find the html file you saved and upload it. (You can also drag and drop files to upload.)
  9. The file you uploaded should now be showing with your other neocities files. Right-click on the title and select "copy link".
  10. Go in to edit index.html again. Under where you put your header text, type < br> < a href=" . Then paste in the link you copied. Then type "> Then put in the title of the fic. Then type < /a> . Then save the index page again when you're done. You can do this for every fanfic you have.

Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)

Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:

(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)

If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!

It truly is this easy! I now have my own archive at Soph's Website, though it's very much a work in progress, especially because I don't want to just use the ao3-created html for fic pages but make some of my own decisions about how information is presented on them.

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe) gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers momg | gif gallery 99 gif shop | 3d gifs 123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages cbox | add a live chat box moon phases | track the phases of the moon gifypet | a little clickable page pet adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet tamaNOTchi | virtual pet crossword puzzle | daily crossword imood | track your mood neko | cute cat that chases your mouse pollcode | custom poll maker website hit counter | track how many visitors you have

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

The Royal Collections has a selection of photographs and stuff from the 2012 Heart of the Great Alone exhibition. And you can download them! High res! Don't say the Royals have never done anything for us.

Quite a few of these have been available in high res elsewhere, and they aren't as beautifully detailed as they were in person, when the prints were feet in diameter; be still my heart. But the special thing about these images in particular is that Ponting made these prints for King George V his very own self, so they are exactly as he intended them to be seen. This includes the tints and coloured paper that look strange to us now, but do actually bring out subtleties in the values that don't show up so well in plain black and white.

Oh, there's also Endurance stuff etc. if you're interested in that, just select it from the "Contents" drop-down menu at the top.

June's Whaling Webcomic Wednesday update is here! Content warning for animal injury/cruelty in this batch of pages.

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This update commences with a hard pull after a sperm whale. Middle part, the differing styles of Captain and 2nd Mate are made plain in the management of their boats, and a shanty is sung. Latter part, the waist boat fastens, but the hunt's not done. So ends.

I also wrote an accompanying historical context essay for this one about the design of whaleboats, harpoons, and the function of whale line. It's a bit verbose, as always. Call me Ishmael I guess.

Hoping to round out this chapter by July's update. If you'd like to see the closure before then, please consider joining my patreon. Subscribers get early access to pages throughout the month as I finish them, in advance of the public publishing. Otherwise, we'll be bent on our oars til the dead of summer, see you then!

For songs —

Fisherman’s Blues by The Waterboys and Coladito by Maná?

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(likewise condensing both your asks into one)

couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

strangely wasn't already in my library but tue waterboys are great

couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

a percussionist is having a very good time

couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

...why does this sound so familia- ah, wtnv

'ole slow william' by the lobbyists and 'miner's dream' by the east pointers, perhaps?

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couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

ohhh right sj's sea wife white whale of a recording artists. you always have such good song recs; whenever you mention a song i immediately go track it down to listen and nine times in ten it ends up in my library

couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

the east pointers are great!! i discovered them live at a folk festival back in 2019 and have loved everything they've put out. another group i've seen you might like with a similar 'modern take on deeply-rooted traditional session music' is Talisk

Anonymous asked:

The Reckoning by Dom Fera

couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

...my brain is also insisting that is sounds like the result of sticking don mclean's 'american pie' and the intro to elton john's 'crocodile rock' in a blender, not that that's a bad thing

For the song rec: Should've Been Me by Mitski (Hope you feel better!)

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couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

i have listened to maybe two other mitski songs and this is telling i should perhaps listen to a few more? not exactly my usual fare, but this particular one sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a scene in movie set in the '60s with mobilettes and cigar speedboats on a sun-drenched riviera and over-saturated technicolour colours

song rec: strangers by tia gostelow

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couldn’t listen all the way through | not my thing | it’s okay | kinda catchy | ok i really like this | downloading immediately | already in my library

not what i'd usually listen to on my own but it's got a very 'summer, windows down' feel to it and if i heard it a few times in association with 'driving to the filling station/grocery/ice-cream window with friends in the long summer dusk after work' it'd probably end up on my end-of-season nostalgia playlist