i-Mockery – One of my biggest inspirations on the web. I’m glad that despite all he is going through Rog continues to host the site and keep it up as an archive. This has classic games, articles on crazy camp and exploitation films, an article where he gives every single MUSCLE toy a unique name and backstory (one of my favorites), ROM hack reviews, yearly reviews of Halloween candies (another favorite), and some really sweet travel diaries. So much joy packed in every curious page on this site. I’m still discovering new stuff 20 years later so dive deep.
Platypus Comix – Peter Paltridge’s personal site full of dives into TV pilots, his webcomics, articles on old newspaper comics, and my personal highlights, the deep dives into the Final Fantasy 7 Debug Room. I have so many great memories browsing this place on my 16th birthday and I’m so happy he’s still here to talk about tape digitization (which made me start doing the same) and all the remarkable curiosities that strike his fancy. Fun comics, too.
Dannarchy – When I found this site through Marginalia’s linklist I knew I had to start making a bookmarks page of my own. i-Mockery-esque articles, pleasingly loud web design, plenty of rabbit holes to dive into, a real celebration of the mundane all contained on a site that is tongue-in-cheek but full of love. Seeing a site like this being updated in modern day healed my soul.
Small Brew of Pieces – A personal blog run by DoorCurtain, a good friend with great taste in video games. It’s small as of right now, but each piece is just so engaging and heartfelt, coming from a place of passion, and they all sweep me right up. He’s the one who told me about Omori and Hypnospace Outlaw, two games I hadn’t really heard of before, and his article on Hypnospace Outlaw especially is just excellent. I’m sure the Omori one is, too, but I know he’d be mad if I read it without finishing the game first, so that’ll be a nice treat when I have done so. Watch this space.
PROPHETESQUE – My wonderful friend Silas’s personal page! It’s a bit of an online scrapbook where they collect articles they find interesting, templates, links to programs, and art of their OCs. It’s great! I like to think we challenge each other when it comes to adding features and pages and we help each other with coding conundrums along the way. I’ve totally stolen some buttons from them.
PSX Enjoyer: Lair of the Trash King – A really cool personal site I stumbled upon run by someone named PSX Enjoyer. He seems to be really into old tech, horror movies, tapes, and blogging about The X-Files…so basically, he seems cool. This site has such a great vibe to it and there’s a lot of fun and interesting things to check out on it. If nothing else, he made me really want to watch Hackers.
Ray’s Miscellany – One of the coolest recent finds, and it’s all thanks to Silas finding the Cornring, a Web Ring for people in the Midwest that I plan to join. This is the personal site for a man named Ray, an immigrant from Bristol who came to Indiana and has a great, thoughtful website chock full of brilliant little things he loves. This website fills my heart with joy. I love that there are pages of optical illusions, as I used to LOVE finding Optical Illusion pages as a kid, and his writing and database of web rings was so illuminating as I was never someone who understood what a Web Ring was growing up. You’re going to lose hours on this website and come out of it a much richer person.