The Lore
A very long time ago this was a website owned by a teenager and she lived on the old internet. Back in those days she made dozens of websites about things she liked and linked them to other (frequently better) websites made by other people that were related to the things she liked. She lived in a constellation of forums where using your real name was unthinkable. Making websites was fun and everyone around her was just creating things without really caring who saw (though hit counters and tagboards were essential).
These websites were not pristine or responsive. Their layouts a wild hodgepodge of things that looked right on your computer and to hell with everyone else (don't worry, there was always a splash screen to let you know the exact configuration needed to render the website functional). Javascript was generally seen as a pain in the ass that looked bad and slowed everything down and we all liked PHP because you didn't have to install anything. Coding (such that it was) lived only as a means to an end. While it was possible some of the people making these websites might have been those creeps your parents warned you about for the most part it was a community of young people being creative and cringe and not caring one bit.
Eventually the teenager who owned the site grew up. Empty Cage briefly lived as a very serious blog about very serious topics before that 20-something gal decided she needed to hack her new internet life free from her old internet life. The serious blog still lives, of course. But no matter how embarrassing her old life felt she just couldn't bring herself to let empty-cage.net go.
Fast-forward to today. That very serious 20-something is a much less serious 30-something. She looks back fondly on her childhood on the old internet before everything was just five websites all linking back to each other. She believed the old internet was gone.
Until an afternoon with an old website friend convinced her that we could still have the old internet in our own corners. Just like we did when we were kids. Thus, after over ten years the return of Empty Cage and making fun little websites about things she likes again.
A Vague Timeline
Assembled wrongly from memories and the Wayback Machine.
Prehistory:
Early 2003: I decide I want to make a Yu-Gi-Oh website after looking at the cool websites other people are making about it. I quickly outgrow the Geocites Page Builder and get into HTML.
November 2004: I register shattered-star.net. It expires because I am literally a child without a credit card. Someone snipes it in less than 24 hours. If that was you just know that I still hate your guts 20+ years later.
January 2025: Haha remember when we were making these and someone would put [COMING SOON] in one of the sections and then 'soon' would happen some time between three years and never? Haha. Good times.
Where Are We Now?
If you want to find the person behind this site it's honestly not too hard. But why would you want that when I'm clearly so happy here.
This is Artisinally Handcrafted HTML/CSS like we used to in the old days before your Angulars and your Sass. I have used <i> tags and honestly I'm not sorry.
Links
Well, Amber has been first since 2003 and I see no reason for that to change now.
Also, I convinced myself I needed to have a fanlisting for this to be a real Old Internet Experience -- I hope you like Akihiko from Persona 3.
Contact
I'm planning on making an email address for this domain but for now try ThereExistsX[AT]gmail.com