Ode to Dark Reflections
Creation Date: 2003-10-16T22:04:13Z
That is the year that darkreflections.us is listed as created.
Dark Reflections is such a beautiful name, it fits Pashen’s and my writing perfectly. Were the internet different, that might have been our domain name. But, with the way that search engines work, MyRealms just fit better for marketing.
I still used Dark Reflections as the name of our personal web-space once we decided we needed our own chat. By 2003 we noticed something about Rosha; the whole idea of a place where the players could create the world, meant that the world was turning out different than we imagined. The solution was for us to take Rosha in our direction while allowing the players to continue to build upon Rosha as they wanted. Their rps would deal primarily in their kingdoms, and ours in ours. We were giving ourselves some space.
At this time our story truly took form.
Dark Reflections was never nearly as defined as MyRealms. Maybe I should say it was never really as refined as MyRealms. We would often post in a more rough draft form, because this was our space for us and a few choice friends. During this time Pashen and I were all about the next day, the next rp time. We didn’t spend much time looking back on editing anything. In the reference section, the posts that I pulled from there, you can see that.
I loved the look of the site. I’ll add some screen shots at the bottom of this post, just to keep the look of the site alive. Because, as of today, I’m turning off the auto renew feature on GoDaddy. That gives me about a month to get everything I want before the domain is put up for sale.
Registry Expiry Date: 2018-10-15T23:59:59Z
15 years.
I still love that name.
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Here we have the main design for Dark Reflections. That background is the same background I use for this website. I just really like the way it came out.
It was around 2006 that I started to rework the websites with more of an eye toward design. I didn’t have to worry so much about html or code, I had that figured out. We were settled in to our server, so there was no more juggling from host to host. All that was behind me and I had plenty of time to play. I pushed myself with my graphics in an effort to improve the vision of the sites. As always, Pashen was right there helping me pick out just the right shades of red and to let me know when something was working or not. The internet was improving itself, too. So I had the space to upload large graphics like this one, and I could make it so the background didn’t scroll, which was fun. All in all, I liked the way this looked.
It wasn’t just our hidden treasure that improved, I reworked MyRealms too. And we had some other smaller sites, dreams mostly, that I worked on to get them looking pretty. I’ll save those entries for other posts.
This was the original look for DR. You can see how it mirrors MyRealms, it has a same design and elements. Only here we have my favorite love triangle of Rook and Tempest and Temptress. Malachi on the right, always looking down at everyone. Rather than the pretty green malachite that MR has, DR has a reflective hematite which fit the theme of dark reflections perfectly. And we have lots of red. Lots and lots of red. I like the brown and blue colors of the redefined screen.
Most of what is going to seed MR-T is going to be from Dark Reflections.
There is a lot here. I better get started!
Pashen is asking that I renew Dark Reflections for two more years. I’ll think about it.