An Actual Spine

Site✱Record

(or, a colophon.)

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✱ Background

I have always wanted to make my own site. Have wanted it for a very long time. Since junior high school, in fact. I learned about HTML for the first time in there, bashed my head onto the keyboard a few times out of frustration. Found out, when I was seventeen, there's an actual profession called web programmer and web designer. Found out, right then, that there were people more competent than me and my below-zero confidence couldn't take it, so I did not try coding again. I focused in making art instead.

A high school senior of mine went to university and became a web designer by trade. I, due to being involved in a huge argument with my dad about further study, ended up attending architecture engineering major instead (something about him not accepting art as a valid career prospect, but considering engineering as a good compromise. Asian parents, am I right?).

Not that I wanted to be a web programmer specifically, but it was around 2006-2010, world wide web was blooming, and I have, as my parents and old friends (ex-friends now hah!) liked to mention, always enjoyed learning things that did not contribute anything to my real life. My "real life" being the ever-present money-making grind. God forbid a girl/guy has non-capitalistic hobbies.

Anyway, fast forward to present time. In the last four years, I have just cut off many long-time relationships/friendships. So many, in fact, that I now have so much unspent energy and time. Now, finally, I have time for myself to have fun.

cracks fingers let's do this, folks.

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✱ Concept

● Premise

I have been fascinated with psychology since I started university, most likely because I was very much undiagnosed and unmedicated at the time, so I white-knuckled my way to surviving it through learning what I could about the topic. It was basically an armchair psychology, since I did not have a license, obviously, but it was the only form of control I had over my life. I do not and will not condone any usage of armchair psychology for diagnosing others and yourself though. I had only done so because there had not been another way.

When I got officially diagnosed with bipolar in 2019, from three different psychiatrists, I took it really hard. I couldn't fully accept my diagnosis back then as it had felt more like a verdict of a lifetime sentence. It took me another three years surviving off sheer force of will until I was financially ready for regular treatments. It was also around the time I started getting into reading murder mystery, thriller, and detective novels. Hypervigilance, pattern-matching, people-watching, fictional escapism, etc. you know how it goes.

Since investigator/psychological world fascinates me so much, even now, setting it up as the concept of my site just makes sense to me.

● Disclaimer

Just so we're clear; the use of psychology in here is only as an artistic concept, which is what I'm good at, and not a legit psychology practice, which I am not qualified for.

● Main Idea

My blog site's concept is a private forensic profiler's office that for narrative's sake we shall call The Investigator.

The lobby is the front-facing foyer with a small receptionist desk manned by The Essayist, a.k.a me, who works in the office because I am bored and I need the money. Visitors will be able to find the information on the newest publicized cases or records (recent essays and recent marginalias) in here.

After the lobby there's the waiting room that plays a faint elevator music with a long sofa and various magazines (latest status, currently learning, etc.) scattered all over the coffee table. The waiting room looks normal, but if you're observant enough you'll find a painting that's slightly tilted on the left side of the room and a book with torn spine on one of the bookshelves. Fix the painting and you'll find a staircase to the employee-only archive room. Pull the book and you'll find the shelf sliding open into a private reading room with hidden bookshelves.

Inside The Investigator's office there's a lot of case notes and files kept inside fireproof cabinets. The Essayist does most of administrative works around the office, as The Investigator is at times away for, you know, investigating god knows what. But The Essayist gets bored easily, so she scatters post-it notes (marginalia) around the office for The Investigator to find. Or the visitors, if they're unfortunate enough.

The Essayist is one of the first cases (Case Note 0.5) The Investigator had taken when he first opened the office.

Lastly, there is a visit log for every visitors coming should they want to leave message for when The Investigator is not available. Confidentiality guaranteed, except for The Essayist because she is nosy.

The office is ever-growing. Who knows what else you can find there?

● Design

This site is hosted and powered by Bearblog (thank you, Herman!) coded mostly using my Samsung A55 straight into Bearblog CSS box because I am insane. I write everything, including the essays and everything in this site, through my phone.

The initial CSS codes for this blog design are from Bearblog's default theme titled "Thoughts" that was going through a lot of customization:

1. The site's body font is Literata (which is also the font I use while writing short stories, fanfictions, and essays in Ellipsus)
2. The site's title, An Actual Spine, font is Silkscreen.
3. The site's title spinning asterisk symbol I drew using Procreate.
4. My site's color HEX codes are: #f4f3f1, #4D603D, #D5888E, and #BEC5A4.
5. Links being in pink with wavy underlines was inspired by okayseurat's site.
6. Marginalia base CSS codes were from Sylvia's very resourceful site. (Previous version of marginalia.)
7. Customized upvote button's base CSS codes were from Robert's beginner-friendly, ever-resourceful Bearblog library.
8. Boxes around essay tags' base CSS codes were also from Robert's Bearblog library.
9. Asterisk symbol and all the divider symbols I use inside this site are from copy-paste kaomoji sites that I mixed and matched.
10. Visit log uses guestbook.
11. Waiting room, a.k.a NOW page, was loosely inspired by Derek Sivers' NOW page.
12. Bookshelf page was inspired by Weston Ellerbrake's site.
13. Most of the codes used in my site are HTML and I am trying my best to keep it that way (because javascript is too hard for my poor brain), with the exception for the hidden bookshelf. That page is beautiful but I was about to kms fr.
14. Marginalia base CSS codes were from Peige's note design! (Current version of marginalia as of 04 August, 2026).
15. Codes for adding time beside post dates were Mighil's
16. Etc. (Will be added if I remember others.)

● AI use transparency

Claude's assistance was used during the coding process, mostly in suggesting base codes that I customized later. Claude was also used for checking technical issues (e.g. the codes didn't work and turned out there was a quotation mark inside the code somewhere). The rest I did on my own. I didn't know what I was doing though (lol) so it took me weeks and months to get the site in its current model. This site is not AI-generated.

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✱ Other Credits

● Buttons and Badges

I love buttons! They help me express myself and my identity without me having to explain much. Credits for all the buttons in my footer:

1. Aroace and bigender tiny buttons are from fluffmoth's id button neocities site
2. Mobile Friendly and Made with Cascading Style Sheets buttons are from debtdeath neocities site
3. Always Under Construction and Sign the Guestbook buttons are from sweetfish neocities site
4. Written by a Human, not by AI badge is from the official site
5. etc. (Will be added as the website progresses.)

● Music

I don't plan to use too much music in my site, but I have two of them set up as they fit the "room"'s concept.

1. The "elevator music" playing in the waiting room is The NASA Elevator by Dar Golan (royalty-free, no copyright music)
2. The "book-browsing music" playing in the hidden bookshelf is Bet on It by Silent Partner (royalty-free, no copyright)

(ALWAYS under construction)