Hi. I’m back.
If you read the summary above, congrats—you’re already up to speed. But as always, there’s more to the story.
Between financial constraints and an ongoing battle with international banking glitches, I eventually couldn’t pay for the hosting service I’d relied on for years. Despite repeated conversations with my branch, the issue compounded until switching to a local host became the obvious solution: cheaper, easier, and far less of a headache.
Then there was WordPress.
A decade ago, I actively championed it—especially for folks like me who didn’t know much about web development. It was quick to deploy, intuitive to write on, flush with free themes and plugins, and generally beginner-friendly. But over time, the cracks started showing.
Customization hit a paywall. Premium themes didn’t always play nice with plugins. CSS tweaks broke more than beautify, and JavaScript gave me nightmares. And even after wrangling everything into place, the result often looked… meh. Unless you built your own theme or accepted the limitations of someone else’s.
Then came the bloat. Pages loaded slow. Formatting multiple posts online became a chore. There were just too many clicks to insert an image, too many workarounds to make things look “right,” and too much friction to write regularly. As someone who also writes a web novel, I found platforms like Royal Road and Tapas more convenient—and that felt ironic, frustrating, and eventually disheartening.
At one point, I stopped updating my site altogether. I started wondering why I even had it. Why go through the trouble of hosting my own gallery when ArtStation clearly did a better job? If it was a pain for me to use… it probably wasn’t delightful for anyone else either.
And it showed.
So, when my hosting expired, I deleted everything and decided to start from scratch.
These days, there are plenty of alternatives to WordPress—Gatsby, Ghost, and more. But Hugo stood out to me—not as a traditional CMS, but as a static site generator. And the appeal was simple: I could write in Markdown locally and manage my posts without wrestling with clunky interfaces. Just folders, files, and me.
Trying out free themes felt promising, even comforting… but also intimidating. I didn’t understand the layout systems or the underlying code well enough to customize anything without breaking it. If I wanted something personal, I knew I’d have to dive back into HTML and CSS. No shortcuts. No premade miracle.
So I did.
Hugo’s templating language (Go-based) tripped me up more times than I care to admit. I’d break things more often than I built them. But when it worked, it flew. And that’s when I realized: my ideal website wouldn’t come from someone else’s template. It had to be forged, like art. From scratch.
This was my first full build, and I’ve helped design a WordPress site for a corporate campus before—but this was different. TailwindCSS and DaisyUI made the layout painless. A sprinkle of AlpineJS and gLightbox, and suddenly…
I’d done the impossible.
This baby has light and dark mode toggling, a sortable gallery with tags and series, custom art posts, a color palette I actually love, and layouts flexible enough to host both comics and webnovels with chapter navigation that makes sense.
I didn’t want perfection. I wanted adaptability—a space for art, poetry, stories, ramblings like this post… and anything else I imagine. Even writing this entry feels easier, lighter, more intuitive. Smooth. (I’m writing on Zettlr, btw.)
Neat, huh?
On the surface, the site looks simple. Under the hood, it’s deceptively intricate. But it’s mine. Not just a website, but a work of art in its own right. If I could, I’d frame this pride and joy on my wall. And I’m endlessly grateful to the tools that helped me build it.
I can’t wait to see what more I can possibly do with this. Who knows, maybe this will open up avenues for me in web-based storytelling.