CSS Abuse and HTML Tryhard
My HTML and CSS works are growing, and they're not all in the tutorial series (though honestly, a lot of my regular fics [not in this collection] have snippets of CSS in their notes, outlining and explaining quick little bits of computer magic used for an offhand effect [not being the focus of the work] in some chapter), but I figured that collecting the particularly CSS-heavy or *-related works (tutorials, demos, games, etc.) into one spot might be useful for readers and researchers, so... here they are, all in One Big Happy — ENJOY! 😁
Tutorials, QRLs (Quick Reference Lists), demos, [playable] games.
(Closed, Moderated)
Random works
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Hunt the Wumpus by Charles_Rockafellor
Fandoms: Interactive Fiction | IF, Hunt the Wumpus (Interactive Fiction | IF)
20 Oct 2025
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Summary
Playable game with RNG (Random Number Generator) driven random events!
If you don't remember this game, think back to things like Zork (or, as a poor simile, something remotely like Sir-Tech's Wizardry series in atmosphere [this version of Wumpus being far less graphics-intensive]).
Armed with vorpal arrows and bearing lid-bags of wumpusnip and wumpuspurge of dubious effectiveness in hope of alternately luring and warding away the evil monster, will you take up the gantlet?
Who says that CSS is 𝖍ard?
(NB for TTS screen readers: that last word was “hard”, not “ard”, but I cheated with an “h” from an unusual Unicode range instead of CSS, so that it would remain visually odd in the Summary... and found that my testing-purpose [and sometimes laziness] freebie TTS browser extension can't read it... because of course.)NB 1: HTML-structural redundancy bloated the word and chapter counts; ~15K actual words (~4K vis. by RNG) and 20 caves!
NB 2: More PG than G, about as graphic as Oregon Trail, but I'm not sure if that's enough to rate as Teen.
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Chess puzzle extravaganza by Charles_Rockafellor, 𝖀𝓷ᶦ𝕔ⓞðə E Ⓜ️🅾️j̵͍̟̝̝̖̮̓ͭͨ̂̐̚ℹ️ (Charles_Rockafellor) for Mewsmodeus (Mewzebub)
Fandoms: CSS abuse - Fandom, Chess - Fandom
13 Jul 2025
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Summary
But does it play chess? While chess is hardly DOOM, there still are some constraints on actually moving things around without JavaScript (though gifbot has some ideas that might render such possible).
Don't panic! 😉
Time for some in situ RNG aikido.
I can't [yet] offer any definite way to actively play chess on AO3, and so, in lieu of such, I offer you 256 preconfigured static-display chess puzzles, one selected randomly per refresh, with random black or white to move, using only HTML and CSS, no offsite JS.
There are also some secret messages from the BBEG upon
:hoveron desktop Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, and TOR [in a WIN 11 environment], or upon:touchon iPhone Safari (Android Chrome... is iffy, because Android : it has both worked and failed for me, so no guarantees). Lemme know how it is on Mac / 'nix!Part CSS extravaganza demo, and part How To for leveraging RNG for stunning results.
Series
- Part 6 of How to
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How to AO3 by Charles_Rockafellor, 𝖀𝓷ᶦ𝕔ⓞðə E Ⓜ️🅾️j̵͍̟̝̝̖̮̓ͭͨ̂̐̚ℹ️ (Charles_Rockafellor)
Fandoms: AO3
24 Sep 2023
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Summary
New to AO3 (or even not so new)? Have questions? Dazed and confused?
...do your notes in chapter one stay stuck to the most recent last chapter? 😉
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?
Start here.🙂 DON'T PANIC ! 🙂
This is a beginner's guide / primer / introduction for readers and writers (possibly better titled “Guide to the Archives”, as someone suggested on Facebook — though that makes me feel like Virgil to some Dantean cerchio or bolgia, prompting me to think instead “Guìdo della archivio” [my 13-14c Genoan is a bit rusty, seriously, so I hope that I got that right]). My later tutorials in this series cover somewhat more advanced stuff, but I've seen so many people (sometimes long-timers) in need of the basic stuff that I finally decided to write this.
One Stop Shop-'n'-Drop? Not quite, but it explains a lot of things that you might not find easily (in some cases, not for years), or might assume work like some other site (which is a hit or miss assumption), and will point you to a number of resources.
Series
- Part 1 of How to
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Bubble-pop! game by Charles_Rockafellor, 𝖀𝓷ᶦ𝕔ⓞðə E Ⓜ️🅾️j̵͍̟̝̝̖̮̓ͭͨ̂̐̚ℹ️ (Charles_Rockafellor)
Fandoms: css - Fandom
27 Jul 2025
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Summary
Ever want to pop some bubbles? Ever want to use RNG to generate them? Well then, here's your handy, dandy bubble-popping game with Random Number Generator, all rolled into one! (Full code included.)
But wait, there's more! Yes sirree, Bob, this li'l baby comes with colors and patterns on its bubbles, and a little tense background music for ambience (might need a pop first, depending upon browser)... and no, it's not a Rick Roll (TL;DR from testing: audio in desktop Chrome, not desktop Opera, iPhone Safari, or Android Chrome; desktop results vary with settings for Firefox, TOR, and MS Edge — details in head-note). G'head: kick the tires and take her out for a spin! ❤️
And YES, it's PLAYABLE ! Tap / chase to click the bubble, find the next; OCD Heaven/Hell!
Don't panic! 😁
Series
- Part 7 of How to
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Analyzing AO3 reader traffic flow by Charles_Rockafellor, 𝖀𝓷ᶦ𝕔ⓞðə E Ⓜ️🅾️j̵͍̟̝̝̖̮̓ͭͨ̂̐̚ℹ️ (Charles_Rockafellor)
Fandoms: AO3
19 Feb 2023
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Summary
It's easy to find the graphs of AO3's overall annual reader traffic per month (as shown in the next work in this series), and work out the weekly ebb and flow of each day in general (again: next work). This tutorial looks at the daily peaks and troughs per half hour of the day and how to work those out for your own fics' reader traffic flow rates, using the author's own results as the test example.
Bonus content: seeing YouTube CTR click through rate data w.r.t. crosslinking fics.
I read, appreciate, and reply to all of your comments — they're always welcome!
𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Series
- Part 3 of How to