GANGLION

Ground

Motion

One faint, out-of-focus network under every page.

On a reading veil

This paragraph sits on the reading veil, so the ground shows behind it only as a faint shadow and never runs through the lines.

Reading veils

The ground is under this page, as under every page, and scrolls at 0.4× the page. Lift the veils to see the sheet whole; wait a few seconds for a cell to fire.

Theme

Anatomy

Cells scattered band by band down a sheet with no end: one per 90,000px², at least 170px apart, each wired to its two nearest neighbours
Print blue noise in --ground-tissue (oklch(45% 0.01 80 / 0.26); dark oklch(66% 0.008 80 / 0.22)), in 1024px bands; only those within a screen of the view are kept
Out of focus each point of a fibre spreads its 2px dots over the cells round it, a blur in 1-bit
Depth the sheet moves at 0.4× the scroll, on a CSS scroll timeline where there is one; scrolling never repaints it
Firing every 1.6–4s a cell in view fires: a pulse of ink dots runs down one or two axons at 0.6px/ms, and a cell it reaches prints a ring that swells with its speed up front and fades on the firing’s envelope (Nov 2026)
Seed the page’s path, so a page keeps its tissue between visits
Reading veil the ground dims by --ground-veil (75%) behind anything read, fading out over two modules at the sides and one above and below; a mask on the ground's own layer, not paper over it
Reduced motion the sheet scrolls with the page and nothing fires

From src/lib/exposure/ground.ts, global.css and the guide’s Motion §14.

Decisions

  • Random, not ruled

    Replaced the 48px hairline lattice, which boxed the whole page once the components had lost their frames and read as graph paper. Registration crosses, column guides and a module ledger were rejected as the same grid with lines missing.

  • Out of focus

    The first version printed 1px dots at the hairlines’ weight, and fibres read as part of the rows and text they crossed. Plain 2px dots read as dashed stitching.

  • No CSS blur

    Soft grey is outside the 1-bit language, and a filter over a full-screen layer is redrawn by the CPU on every scroll and transition.

  • The one parallax

    Allowed because it is a single flat 1-bit sheet at a fixed rate; the hero’s rule against depth layers still stands for the culture.

  • A veil, not a halo

    Replaced a paper text-shadow round every glyph, which cleared the letters but left fibres running between the lines.

  • Dimmed, not papered

    The veil was paper at 75% over the ground. Over the page’s own paper it rounded a level off it, and every reading area sat in a faint box.