Crimes of Websites Past

[rheasilvia]

So, a while back galaxysoup and I were reminiscing about the horrors of classic fannish website design. Remember when Geocities was a thing and disclaimer pages made you hunt for the second comma in the thirteenth line? Remember purple text on black background, blinking gifs and flashing text, cheesy ornamental buttons, weird graphics and crazy fonts?

Well, as it turns out, I still have evidence of some of my transgressions. Here they are, for your amusement!

You Too Can Learn HTML

My first attempt at coding a website did not show great promise.



You Too Can Learn HTML, The Revenge: X-Files Versus Readability

Especially because I succumbed to the dark background craze, and evidently only had one image of these guys. Why is Krycek’s face so bumpy?



Quoth the Raven

I quickly decided this would not do and found a nice dramatic pre-fab website design featuring a woman, a scarf and a raven. And of course a dark background. Nothing could keep me from dark backgrounds, obviously.



The Red and the Black Archive

Believe it or not: This was an entirely unremarkable look for an author’s page in an XF fanfic archive to have, at the time.



Eroica Overload

I also made a website for a friend, which seems unkind in retrospect. While it did fit the fandom, the combination of rose imagery, font choice and gold was perhaps a tiny bit much.



Art Nouveau Green

When I kept writing stories, Raven Lady’s scarf grew too restrictive, and I had to switch to Pen Lady. I remember I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the green, but the design seemed nice and simple.



My Current (Abandoned) Website

My most recent website is more or less abandoned, but does still exist. I include it for research purposes. I still quite like it, but the AO3 has made individual author’s pages largely unnecessary, IMO.





Sooo… what do you think?

Poll #21797 Times were different, MacLeod. I was different.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

View Respondents

But why?

View Answers

You Too Can Learn HTML
4 (14.8%)

X-Files Versus Readability
5 (18.5%)

The Red and the Black Archive
5 (18.5%)

Quoth the Raven
1 (3.7%)

Eroica Overload
4 (14.8%)

Art Nouveau Green
6 (22.2%)

All of the above!
8 (29.6%)

OMG. WHY.
1 (3.7%)

None of the above!
0 (0.0%)

NO SHAME.
22 (81.5%)

Spar….kles?
3 (11.1%)

SPARKLES!!
16 (59.3%)

Do you have any early website crimes to share? Show us the evidence!!

Comments

[lynndyre]

I think I read things on those websites! Especially the Eroica one looks very familiar. These are great! XD

[mekare]

Oooh these designs take me back. I never had a site of my own but I clearly remember the designs in the style of the X-files example and Red and Black Archive.

I still love how many personal sites there were, how many people taught themselves coding and had web rings and rec pages. While I appreciate AO3 a lot, I still have that underlying aüpprehension of putting all the eggs into one basket.... so I am all for keeping the individual sites up!

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Hahaha I used to have an awful X-files website with black green color scheme and an animated lightning background. And of course, webrings, guestbook, and a permanent under construction gif. Those were the days! Your sites looked a lot better than mine.

[eva_rosen]

The raven lady should have been the host of a The Cure rpf site (if there was one. What am I saying, of course there was). But hey, neither of these were that terrible. Except the Red and Black archive, OMG.

[riventhorn]

Haha, yes I remember sites like this! And also all the fandom specific archives, like Fiction Alley for HP. What I find fascinating is how it is only once things have evolved that the older stuff suddenly seems so funny. At the time, all of this was like Really Cool.

[maggie33]

Oh, wow, I remember The Red and the Black Archive - that brings back memories. And I've just now realized that you're the author of Men At Some Time - my favorite Once A Thief fic ever. And I see it's on AO3, so I'm going to re-read it now. :)

[trobadora]

Wow, that takes me back!

[demitas]

Oh man the memories, lol.

I guess old-school web design is kind of making a comeback? (Article from Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell fame on the topic) I'm... not sure I'm ready to go back, personally, haha. But then again I'm on a weird early '90s aesthetic kick right now, so maybe it's only a matter of time before I succumb.

[firestar]

Oh my god, the flashbacks. XD While I was never in X-Files fandom, it still reminds me of something. Maybe a Stargate archive? Hmmm.

[asya_ana]

These were DELIGHTFUL. Although we can't always be trusted, I do love the way everyone had such ownership over their space. <3

[anotherslashfan]

Ah, this brings back so many memories of my first years browsing for fanfic online! I also definitely visited your websites to read your stories, both version You Too Can Learn HTML (for The Gift of an Enemy) and the most recent one (for Learning How To Lose).

[likealeafonthewind]

OMG, the memories. I had a really basic Geocities website but I didn't keep it up for long. I just remember setting up a guestbook for it and fiddling with a page counter.

Also, yes, I totally remember having to hunt through a disclaimer page to find the embedded hidden link to get into the archive. And some sites even set up a false link so if you clicked the wrong thing, it just took you to a page that said you were too young to be there.

I still think about setting up my own site (and now I actually have original content for it) but AO3 makes it so easy to format fic that I hadn't really looked into it. But I saw another commenter here say that you never know what might happen in the future which *sigh* is so true.

[abyss_valkyrie]

Believe it or not,I'd have been tempted to go read on Eroica overload and Red&Black archive!

[stranger]

I can't fault the Eroica website, since I okayed the design. In retrospect, it's a bit... pink... but it certainly suited the title character in that manga. Roses! Guns! Over-wrought declarations of love! Death threats! All at the same time! If anything, scrolled lettering and pink was overly restrained.

Also, thank you again, from my younger self, for the whole website. I loved the Raven Lady and the green Pen Lady, and all the X-Files stories.

[ranalore]

OMG, I remember the RatB archive! And you wrote "The Gift of an Enemy!" You are that Sylvia!!! I actually didn't read much XF fic, because I hated David Duchovny, and Mulder by extension, but that story was recced to me as a Krycek fan, and I adored it so much.

I've always had vision-linked migraines, so the dark backgrounds, the dark text on dark backgrounds, and the things like blinking text and gifs, were all challenges for me; which begs the question why, when I taught myself HTML and set up my own first website, I too succumbed to a dark background (and eyebleedingly neon graphic elements, but the text was white!). Sadly, I never thought to screencap any incarnation, but the one I switched over to and which is still in existence--if very out-of-date--is here. At the time, I thought it was super clean and readable, and it matched my custom LJ theme. Now I think the background of the sidebar's too busy, as are the headers, which are hard too read, and the font overall is too light. If I were updating it, I'd change the base font to black. Of course, if I were updating it, I'd probably bribe someone else to do it, because I think it would require CSS, and every time I try to parse that, my brain just gives up and wanders away to see what's in the hallway vending machines or something.

[lilacsigil]

I'm so nostalgic now!

[yantantether]

This gave me wonderful nostalgia, because I was a Mulder/Krycek fan and I'm 100% sure I would have been reading your fic! Maybe around 1999 or 2000? The archive page in particular looks *so* familiar.

Also, it's wonderful that you still have these because it's real internet history.

[galaxysoup]

Yessssss you posted them!! :D It was definitely worth the wait. Oh, the nostalgia!!

I'll have to start the hunt for my old sites now that you've posted yours. If only I'd written down somewhere what I titled them!

[tinny]

I had one (or two?) like that, too. They were terrible! They had floating images with badly made integrated shadows. /o\

But honestly, those were the times... *G*

Those all look perfectly fine to my old, old eyes. <3

[tinny]

OMG I found it, the wayback machine still has it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010826061247/http://www.geocities.com:80/Hollywood/Cinema/5432/index.html

[ariunderscore]

OMG, I'm afraid to even say anything about websites *hides from you*

(but sp.net is still up. I keep meaning to totally prune it, because OMG EMBARRASSMENT, but... *sigh* that would mean some kind of _effort_)

I loved your green background, btw. So soothing. And I did read on pretty much all of the sites shown.

[paintedmaypole]

I am fairly positive that I remember reading fic on some of those websites. :D

LOL. I forgot about hunting for the commas in disclaimers. Good times...