Photos & Magazine Scans Are Back!
These had been deleted at some point for some organizational reason and then I had forgotten to put them back up. But here they are now!
See all 385 scans on My Photo & Magazine Scans page.
Patrick Stewart Has Died + AO3 Is Down For a Long Time
Sir Patrick Stewart has died 😭 He was 86. For some reason this hits me harder than when any of the TOS actors died - almost as if Picard himself was real and died. Even though Picard was never a favorite of mine. I grew up watching both TOS and TNG in the 1980s at which point TOS was 20 years old but TNG was still airing and the movies came then. So maybe TOS and TOS characters and actors were already gone in my mind, but TNG and its actors were alive and well and were still seen in other things too? Maybe that's why it hits harder? I dunno.
AO3 has detected evidence of some sort of security incident and is expected to be down for minimum of 2 weeks, but could be up to 4 weeks. That's... awful! What is everybody supposed to do now?? But on the other hand, an excellent example how vulnerable fandom is when there is only one big, centralized fanfic archive. When there were lots of smaller ones, and personal sites by writers, things were a lot more secure in a way. I know there's fanfiction.net but that doesn't accept all stories. And the little otw-software backed archives that have been popping up in the last few years are great, but not a lot of people know about them. And I many (most?) of them are focused on particular types of fics (which is great!) but there's no other big, good fanfic archive that I know of besides AO3.
New AO3 Site Skin: Gilded Frost
It's been a while since I posted an AO3 site skin. That's because I had a lot of problems with this one - it started life as a House Stark (from Game of Thrones) skin, but no matter what I tried, I just wasn't happy with it. Finally I scrapped the whole House Stark idea, and this one emerged pretty quickly! I'm very happy with it now 🤩
Gilded Frost — AO3 Site Skin
A dark, wintry site skin for Archive of Our Own: near-black stone surfaces, icy blue accents and antique gold, with a signature ice-to-gold gradient running through the header, work titles, dashboards and fandom tags. It uses Cinzel for headings and EB Garamond for reading text, on a single consistent type scale. It includes a companion mobile add-on and recoloured ZerafinaCSS icons.
Author: intothisshadow
Version: 1.0.0
sAO3 instructions: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94504386 GitHub: https://github.com/intothisshadow/AO3-SiteSkin_GildedFrost/
Website: https://www.so-obsessed.comFonts
This theme uses Cinzel (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cinzel) for headings, the Archive of Our Own title in the header, buttons and navigation, and EB Garamond (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/EB+Garamond) for body text, links and tags. AO3 skins can't load web fonts, so to see them you need either to install both fonts on your system (download them from the URLs above), or to load them in your browser with the included
stylus_fonts.css(see Fonts via Stylus below). Without either, the skin falls back to Georgia/serif.File Structure
style_desktop.css Desktop stylesheet (required) style_mobile.css Mobile add-on (requires style_desktop.css as parent skin) stylus_fonts.css Optional: loads the custom fonts via the Stylus browser extension CHANGELOG.md Version history README.md This fileHow to Install
Find the files mentioned here:
GitHub: https://github.com/intothisshadow/AO3-SiteSkin_GildedFrost/
Fonts via Stylus (recommended)
AO3's skin system cannot load external fonts: its CSS sanitizer rejects
@importand@font-faceoutright. For the intended look, load the fonts separately with Stylus, a free browser extension.- Install Stylus for Firefox or Chrome
- Click the Stylus icon → Manage → Write new style
- Paste the contents of
stylus_fonts.cssinto the code editor - Under Applies to, select URLs on the domain and enter
archiveofourown.org - Name it (e.g.
AO3 Gilded Frost Fonts) and save
Without this step, headings and body text fall back to Georgia/serif, which still reads well. The custom fonts are a polish layer, not a requirement.
Desktop skin (required)
- Go to Hi, user! → My Dashboard → Skins → Create Site Skin
- Paste the contents of
style_desktop.cssinto the CSS field - Set Media to All Media Types
- Save. If you are also using the mobile add-on, don't activate this skin directly.
Mobile add-on (recommended)
- Go to Hi, user! → My Dashboard → Skins → Create Site Skin
- Paste the contents of
style_mobile.cssinto the CSS field - Under Media, check Handheld Devices and Narrow Screen Devices
- Under Parent Skin, select the desktop skin you created above
- Save and activate this skin. AO3 applies the parent skin alongside it automatically, so you only ever activate the child.
Desktop only (no mobile add-on)
If you don't want the mobile add-on, activate the desktop skin directly instead.
Icon replacements
The ZerafinaCSS icon replacement set is built into
style_desktop.cssas Section 34, recoloured to the Gilded Frost palette, so no separate skin is needed. It's based on ZerafinaCSS's Replace the AO3 Icons 2.0. To remove the icon replacements, delete Section 34.Customising the Palette
All colours are CSS variables in the
:rootblock in Section 2 (Color Palette) ofstyle_desktop.css. To change the colour scheme, edit that block only.Variable Value Role --gf-void#0d0f12Page background --gf-stone#1a1d23Main surface --gf-granite#252830Cards and panels --gf-slate#3a3f4bBorders and dividers --gf-ash#8a92a0Muted text --gf-silver#9ca3afBody text --gf-frost#c9d3e0Primary text --gf-white#e8edf4Headings --gf-ice#9ed4e3Icy blue accent, links --gf-ice-mid/-dim#6fa8c4/#3f89a8Secondary accents, borders --gf-gold#b8965aGold accent, authors --gf-gold-pale/-dim#e8d4a8/#7a6038Text on gold pills, muted gold --gf-danger#d67878Warnings Muted colours were lightened where needed so text meets WCAG AA contrast on every surface.
Type Scale
Every font size in the skin comes from one set of tokens in the same
:rootblock:Token Desktop Phone Used for --fs-xs14px 12.3px Buttons, nav, footer links, pagination, meta labels --fs-sm16px 14px Tags, blurb stats, dates, footnotes --fs-md18px 15.8px Blurb titles and authors, legends, small headings --fs-base20px 18px Body and reading text --fs-h3/h2/h120 / 24 / 32px 17.5 / 21 / 28px Page headings The mobile add-on shrinks the root font size, which scales the whole set together, and pins
--fs-baseto 18px so fic text stays comfortable to read. Author-written headings inside fic text keep their own scale.Stylesheet Structure
The desktop stylesheet has 34 numbered sections, listed in the table of contents at the top of the file.
The mobile stylesheet has no
@mediablocks, on purpose. AO3 already applies the whole skin only to the screen types ticked under Media, and when you save, it silently removes any@mediacondition you write inside the CSS, so the rules inside apply at every screen size instead. If you edit the mobile file, add plain rules rather than media queries.Credits
- Icon replacements based on ZerafinaCSS Replace the AO3 Icons 2.0, recoloured and included as Section 34 of the desktop stylesheet
- Fonts: Cinzel and EB Garamond
Version
Current: V1.0.0. See CHANGELOG.md for history. The changelog documents significant changes only: new features, architectural decisions and notable bug fixes.
Welcome to the Updated Site!
Welcome to the fresh new site! After years of relying on third-party software, I’ve now officially swapped standard WordPress and Coppermine for my own custom-built platforms. I built these entirely from scratch out of personal need, but kept fellow fansite creators and hobbyists in mind every step of the way.
First up is Lumora Press - what you are reading this on right now! It's a lightweight, self-hosted PHP blogging platform inspired by the elegance and simplicity of classic WordPress (think 2012–2015 era!). It’s all about writing, publishing, and customizing with classic themes, widgets, and plugins. No block editors, no page builders, no AI bloat - just simple, fast blogging. Since it’s an independent codebase built from scratch (not a fork), it runs fast and stably on modern PHP and basic shared hosting.
On top of that classic WordPress goodness, I also added a few features to Lumora Press core that I've been wishing WordPress had without needing a million plugins: virtual folders in the Media Manager (so you can finally organize hundreds of icons, wallpapers, and photos by subject with ease!), direct file importing from FTP and Downloads just to name a few.
Then there’s Lumora Gallery, a modern dedicated gallery inspired by Coppermine Photo Gallery. It’s built to handle big visual collections, fan archives, and tons of photos without breaking a sweat. It's been running my Xena screencaps gallery since June, and Game of Thrones galleries since last month so you've maybe been using it already.
Building both of these from the ground up gives me total freedom from modern web bloat and brings back the classic workflow that makes site-making fun again ❤️
I’ve also put together a few other handy scripts—feel free to check all my scripts out at https://coding.unloved-heart.net!
- All the Dowloads are again online! Sorry it took me so long to re-add them!
- I've switched this site to PHP 8.4
As always, if you spot any problems, let me know!
NSYNC - Bye Bye Bye
Liked this song a lot back when it was released, and now re-discovered it. Only they insist on singing "bye, bye, bye" and "I want to see you out that door" ....instead of the much cooler and totally correct "five by five" and "I wanna see you walk that dog" 👀 🌟
Getting Back Into Fanlistings
So I've been getting back into fanlistings the past few months! ✨ Once I saw that Martina of inspirationally.net had released a brand new fanlisting management script (the old ones are really old and out of date now which was part of the reason I got out of fanlisting making). I was so rusty when it came coding html + css layouts! But at the same I've had lots of fun doing layouts for my fanlisting collective and fanlistings! 🤩
Feel free to have a look around my fanlistings and join if you're fan! ✨ URLs below.
Recent Server Problems
The server problems the other day was identified this as a DDoS attack, and my host seems to have resolved it some time yesterday night.
Picture Tutorial On How To Install AO3 Site Skins
Got a request for help with this, so I made a tutorial with images:
All sites have now moved and are online!
The move to new host is now complete! All sites are on the new host, online and everything should be working normally. If you spot any errors or things missing, do let me know!
https://www.seven-kingdoms.net is the last to finish just a few moments ago. The DNS update can take anywhere from several minutes up to 48-72 hours. Once you can see the page at https://www.seven-kingdoms.net/moved.html you know you’re viewing the site on the new server!
All the other sites are already resolving to the new host since days ago.