Needles & Nilbogs

bardic, they/ghaH

[needlesandnilbogs]

Hi? I'm Bardic, they/ghaH, and I finally gave in to temptation. If you recognize my avatar from Murderbot discord or ao3, hi, it's me, I'm new here, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm going to figure it out. (if I told you I was doing this, you also should know I don't know what I'm doing but you should at least not have a problem recognizing me?)

I am here because I am tired of yelling about Murderbot and City Spies on instagram where the void enjoys making your life harder, because I'm tired of login blocks that you have to seek and destroy, and because I'm tired of fighting blogspot every time I want to do something

[doodleoo]

what you learn from hobbies:

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

wow everything is so expensive

[doodleoo]

my hands hurt

[paintedstitches]

my back hurts

[knittingontheroad]

I thought I could count but apparently I can't.

[scribeherself]

if you're sitting on a fanfic idea because you think it's "too weird" or "too niche" I need you to understand something: the internet is VAST and FULL of people with your exact brand of weird. that crackship that makes sense only to you? there are at least 50 people who will read it and go "oh my god FINALLY." but even if there were ZERO? you still deserve to write the thing that makes your brain light up.

[secondlina]

She's doing her best.

[gatesofminrathous]

there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.

[catchaspark]

californians, consider calling your state assemblymembers in order to object to the current budget proposal stripping Medi-Cal (our Medicaid) from asylees and refugee applicants except in emergencies. also, they’re agreeing to reduce the asset limit for many Medi-Cal recipients back to $2000. That number means that the maximum amount a Medi-Cal recipient who is aged, blind, or disabled can have in the bank at any time is $2000. That figure is obscenely low, and it’s actually lower by about fifty bucks than the amount they’re allowed to get each month in income.* if enacted this policy change will vastly hurt thousands of seniors and disabled people and i’m not kidding. please speak up if you can.

[paperandpencilsandskips]

[sapphia]

hold on i need to google something

[sapphia]

okay this is funny and also support HIJOS, which raises awareness for the forcible disappearance of people in guatemala and argentina!

[ao3commentoftheday]

hi! You're response to my reblog with Ao3 coding resources doc and general promoting of cool html things makes me want to highlight some of the other cool things that the folks that use workskins do on ao3.

Interactive games: I have a whole post here about the various games on ao3, but pokemon, dating sims, minesweeper, cardgame mimics, character creators and an animated point and click adventure game are some real highlights!

The (currently non-canon) HTML Tryhard tag. Filled with many many cool fics that utilize workskins to tell stories or fics that have tutorials with them. (If you'd prefer to search with filters, a good chunk of fics are in the 2025 or 2026 HTML Tryhards Event collections)

Generators -- When I was starting out, workskins were intimidating, but some folks have made generators that allow you to input your text and get the HTML and CSS to just copy and paste. Including Twitter posts, Simple Texting, Minecraft Chats, iOS texting (instr.), Tool Tips & Footnotes (instr.) and Choose Your Own Adventure (instr.)

Anyway, I hope my ramblings can show off some of the REALLY cool things Ao3 allows us fans to do and maybe inspire more to try making things with workskins.

I am in awe! Truly! And I actually poke around and look for these things sometimes!

Thank you so much for sharing this wealth of resources! It's much appreciated 💗

[ezrablehh]

pattern ive noticed recently

> Artist only draws skinny people >> No one says anything > Artist draws all people with body fat >> They apparently have some sort of fat fetish > Artist draws everyone aggressively white / pale >> No one says anything > Artist has all POC ocs >> It's "blackwashing" (its literally their own ocs) > Artist draws all trans people as perfectly passing >> No one says anything > Artist draws trans people that dont pass as well and dont fit into the cisgender norms (women with facial hair, men with hips, etc) >> They're making caricatures with the intent of harming people

ppl only ever get upset by things that arent the super hetero cis skinny white capitalist shit / directly oppose it. like cmon.

[transcyberism]

there are four human activities and they are crafting, stories, math, and fucking around. whatever you're doing is at least one of those four.

[rabbitkinglune777]

cool. another black child died in a hate crime

[rabbitkinglune777]

South Carolina jury finds store owner not guilty of murder in killing of Black teen | CNN

A South Carolina jury on Monday found a store owner not guilty of murder in the 2023 shooting of a Black 14-year-old.

apparently the murder happened in 2023 after doing some research but the murderer has been found not guilty.

black children get murdered and become victims of hate crimes every fucking day. this is ridiculous

[rabbitkinglune777]

im posting this here despite the website being extremely white centered, I want people to understand how in this country it's basically ok to murder and victimize black people, especially women and children in the name of "self defense" and white America will reward you for your antiblackness.

[spitzonthefritz]

this is going around twitter rn but im also super curious: please tell me your top four comfort movies that you’re always down to watch bc my friend thinks mine are ridiculous and now we’ve realised everyone’s version of “comfort” is hilariously different

[ao3commentoftheday]

Hi, hello. I do hope you're doing well.

I have a tiny little question. Well, it might be a bit bigger but y'know. I'm currently helping a friend of mine with some coding for ao3 and while most of the things have been going smoothly, I did find one thing I cannot figure out for the life of me.

I've been trying to look into a workskin that would make a "flip page" effect? A part of my friend's fic is written through journals, so we've been looking into something that could make it possible.

I found this workskin through a reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1m9kt9b/htmlcss_coding_for_a_flip_book_effect/

However, trying to change the pages + the cover to look a bit more realistic is breaking my code and the amounts of tabs I currently have open in order to find any sort of answer is just about to break my poor laptop.

So, my question is if there's any possibility to perhaps make it a little bit more, ah, nicer? Maybe?

In case it's not possible, that's also totally fine, but I've decided to at least ask. Thank you in advance! I really do love your work and siteskins a lot!

Hi anon! I've spent the few weeks since you sent this in attempting a work skin myself. Unfortunately, I think I have to admit that this is beyond my current capacity with coding.

Perhaps someone who follows this blog would be interested in helping out? Raise your hand (by saying something in the notes) if you're open to anon reaching out. Or just do the think and at me when you post so I can reblog it?

[ravensilversea]

You can change the look of the pages by adding a background image. This section of code:

#workskin .book .pages > div summary { position: absolute; bottom: 0; right: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; cursor: pointer; text-align: center; color: black !important; background: linear-gradient(to left, #e1ddd8 0%, #fffbf6 100%); box-shadow: inset 0px -1px 2px rgba(50, 50, 50, 0.1), inset -1px 0px 1px rgba(150, 150, 150, 0.2); }

Swap out "background: " (the bolded line) for:

background-image: url(URL of your preferred image);

Essentially what you're doing is giving the summary section of your code a background image to display behind the content. I cannot for the life of me get it to target just one so you could also set a dedicated cover page. But maybe someone else can!

[amphibianauthor]

Hello! Sorry anon asker if you were also the one who asked me directly a similar question, but I've previously answered something similar

HOWEVER since then, more book emulating things have come out!

-HTML Experiments + F2U workskins by tonightshannon has an animated book

-A Prayer to the Mother of Yoba (Sarah’s Prayer) by jeeksy has an open layout of pages

-Old Book + Letter workskin by red_mallow has more of a book layout

-And while not technically a tutorial, I made a Minecraft book CYOA with hovering text arrows that I could give you the code for if you wish (dm me)

Also if you want to scroll through my ao3 coding references Mega tutorials doc, here is the link to that. I recently redid some sections to make it easier to read.

[needlesandnilbogs]

phi phi fo fum i smell the blood of a math major who can't pronounce phi

[badndngirl]

just write a shitty poem, what do you have to lose

[badndngirl]

To everyone reblogging this and saying something like “my dignity,” may I submit this very good and accurate tweet

[moonlightsapphic]

I learned a lot today from Obviously Queer’s video essay “FEMME: Lesbian History, Identity, Politics and Invisibility” and femmebis’ “The “Lesbian-Only Term” Myth: A Comprehensive Historical Essay on ‘Butch’ and ‘Femme’ ”.

[offbeatrinkydink]

Who is gonna tell people that interacting and showing interest are literally free? Does it need to be me? Cause I'll do it!

Kudos and comments on AO3? Literally free. Likes, comments, and reblogs on Tumblr? Literally free! Even asks and messages? LITERALLY FREE FOR EVERYONE!

You're hard pressed to find a better deal than that these days. And people are just passing it up. Wild stuff, man!