The ground is moist with midnight dew, trees are bristling in whispering wind. The buzz of caged led lights is amplified by reflective metal. Trains rush mere metres above your head, illuminating the swamp streets for a couple of seconds at a time. The patter of rain can be heard upon corrugated roofs. Moonlight flails helplessly, drowning amongst brighter, artificial competition. You turn, back and forth, side to side. There are signs everywhere, each one with a tantilising invitation.
you arrive at the dark, rainy wetlands...the wetlands...
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Site Network
Cool Links
A Soft Murmur - An excellent site that lets you customise white noise/relaxing sounds to play in the background. I find this to be really good for concentration and when I'm feeling stressed and I love playing around with the combinations. Great for creating the tumblr atmosphere we all dream of (or maybe that's just me?)
Humans of New York - Documenting the lives of New York City's residents through photography and interviews. A personal favourite of mine that gives a lot of insight into a lot of interesting people.
Shan't we tell the vicar? - The blog/newsletter of Mara Wilson (as in Matilda, amongst other roles) - I've followed her for years on social media and I really enjoy her writing.
Introspection at SEP - The entry for 'introspection' at the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Contains an introduction to the philosophy of introspection.
Smithsonian Open Access - A gem I recently discovered, the Smithsonian Museum has an open access archive where you can view/freely use some of their images!
Unsplash: Brutalism - Unsplash is a great stock photo resource, and my particular favourite category is the brutalist architecture stuff. There are some beautiful, freely useable images of great (or hideous, if that's your view) buildings.
OneZoom Tree of Life Explorer - This site lets you zoom in and out of an interactive tree of all life on earth, showing how species and classifications relate! Warning: slightly addictive.
r/InternetIsBeautiful - A subreddit of cool single-page sites!
Stripe Generator - generates stripes init
Noclip - This site generates levels from different games for you to explore them in your browser! my favourite is the wii sports resort island lol what a meme
Soft Heart Clinic - a lovely lil site that contains information on self-care, mental health themed pixel art and links to lots of cool project videos on different topics.
Evolution of the scrollbar - Play with the scrollbars time forgot
Deep Sea - Visual online representation of the different life found at different sea levels! Very relaxing and easy to get lost in.
Make everything okay - A magic button for making everything okay
Start Here - A very retro web portal.
100,000 stars - Start at the sun and zoom out to see thousands of stars and planets, as well as distances and names!
Neon Flames - Make pretty flame designs on this interactive site!!
This is sand - Play with virtual sand
Never ending chart rendering - A useful tool for visually displaying your favourite albums in a saveable chart!
Whomst Zone - This one's better if you just see it for yourself
How far away is andromeda? - Answers the question on the tin. Hint: it's far away but moving preeetty quick
cmburns - random simpsons episode generator! (good seasons only)
Cachemonet - cool trippy visuals that look awesome on screen and even better through a projector. recommended for chill parties!
Bored Button - randomly generates cool sites for when you're bored
NSTMF Gravity - a lovely game that models the effect of gravity on space objects! WARNING!! - it's easy to lose hours to this relaxing site.
Edz' site - cool vapourwave artwork to check out
Marxists Internet Archive - super useful archive of historical and public domain leftist texts, great for studies and research on political topics and perspectives! this has come in really handy over the course of my degree
Humans of New York - Documenting the lives of New York City's residents through photography and interviews. A personal favourite of mine that gives a lot of insight into a lot of interesting people.
Shan't we tell the vicar? - The blog/newsletter of Mara Wilson (as in Matilda, amongst other roles) - I've followed her for years on social media and I really enjoy her writing.
Introspection at SEP - The entry for 'introspection' at the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Contains an introduction to the philosophy of introspection.
Smithsonian Open Access - A gem I recently discovered, the Smithsonian Museum has an open access archive where you can view/freely use some of their images!
Unsplash: Brutalism - Unsplash is a great stock photo resource, and my particular favourite category is the brutalist architecture stuff. There are some beautiful, freely useable images of great (or hideous, if that's your view) buildings.
OneZoom Tree of Life Explorer - This site lets you zoom in and out of an interactive tree of all life on earth, showing how species and classifications relate! Warning: slightly addictive.
r/InternetIsBeautiful - A subreddit of cool single-page sites!
Stripe Generator - generates stripes init
Noclip - This site generates levels from different games for you to explore them in your browser! my favourite is the wii sports resort island lol what a meme
Soft Heart Clinic - a lovely lil site that contains information on self-care, mental health themed pixel art and links to lots of cool project videos on different topics.
Evolution of the scrollbar - Play with the scrollbars time forgot
Deep Sea - Visual online representation of the different life found at different sea levels! Very relaxing and easy to get lost in.
Make everything okay - A magic button for making everything okay
Start Here - A very retro web portal.
100,000 stars - Start at the sun and zoom out to see thousands of stars and planets, as well as distances and names!
Neon Flames - Make pretty flame designs on this interactive site!!
This is sand - Play with virtual sand
Never ending chart rendering - A useful tool for visually displaying your favourite albums in a saveable chart!
Whomst Zone - This one's better if you just see it for yourself
How far away is andromeda? - Answers the question on the tin. Hint: it's far away but moving preeetty quick
cmburns - random simpsons episode generator! (good seasons only)
Cachemonet - cool trippy visuals that look awesome on screen and even better through a projector. recommended for chill parties!
Bored Button - randomly generates cool sites for when you're bored
NSTMF Gravity - a lovely game that models the effect of gravity on space objects! WARNING!! - it's easy to lose hours to this relaxing site.
Edz' site - cool vapourwave artwork to check out
Marxists Internet Archive - super useful archive of historical and public domain leftist texts, great for studies and research on political topics and perspectives! this has come in really handy over the course of my degree
Link Back
Useful Software
G.I.M.P - a neat free Adobe Photoshop alternative that is heavily featured and made by the open source community! i use this to make stuff for this site as photoshop is expensive and a bit of a hassle for what i'm actually doing.
LMMS - free DAW (digital audio workstation) for making beats if you don't have any of the major softwares! not as fully featured as the likes of logic & ableton but pretty close, and good if you're used to the FL interface. works with lots of plugins too.
Inkscape - the GIMP of vector graphics, Inkscape is a great piece of design software with features similar to Adobe Illustrator.
Brackets - A free, open source textcode editor with live preview feature (I use this sometimes for coding my site).
Lunacy - More free design software built for creating UX/UI type stuff. Similar to Sketch/Adobe XD.
LMMS - free DAW (digital audio workstation) for making beats if you don't have any of the major softwares! not as fully featured as the likes of logic & ableton but pretty close, and good if you're used to the FL interface. works with lots of plugins too.
Inkscape - the GIMP of vector graphics, Inkscape is a great piece of design software with features similar to Adobe Illustrator.
Brackets - A free, open source textcode editor with live preview feature (I use this sometimes for coding my site).
Lunacy - More free design software built for creating UX/UI type stuff. Similar to Sketch/Adobe XD.
Site Resources
Here are some links to free resources around the internet that might come in handy when making your own website!
SmartGB - Popular free guestbook host with customiseable features
123 Guestbook - Another free option, slightly less featured but a nicer aesthetic imo
Free GB - Yet another free guestbook option
Bravenet Guestbooks - Bravenet's guestbook tool - I haven't tried this but it looks like it has lots of features
HTML Comment Box - A comments system that can be added to any HTML page
cBox - Add a shoutbox to your website for free!
Shoutjax - Another shoutbox provider (I have not tried this one)
The Last Melon's Scraps - Lots of web materials, pixels & graphics for your site.
Pixel It - Generate pixel art from images
Dafont - Respository of thousands of downloadable fonts. See font terms before use.
Emoji in Blog - Pasteable emojis that will show up in your HTML blog
ACA Systems Button Maker - Make 80x15 web buttons in your browser!
Stripe Generator - Generate striped backgrounds for your site
Patterncooler - Generate cool seamless patterns of your choice
Canva - Excellent free browser-based publishing software. Premium version available.
Pixlr - Photoshop-esque image editor based in your browser
Zonelets - Very simple free javascript-based blog script for your html sites
Photopea - Another photoshop clone with advanced features!
Photomosh - Generate glitchy photos and gifs
CSS Gradient - Create CSS gradients
Mesher - CSS Mesh Gradients Generator
CSS Scrollbar Maker - A codepen that allows you to generate a customised scrollbar code
Image Color Picker - Pick out colours & their codes from images
StickPNG - Free transparent PNG images/cliparts
Glitter Graphics - lots of awful 90s goodies from the old (fun) internet!!
Web Badges World - Lots of badges to use on your site
Animasta - CSS animation effects (e.g. background gradients) to make your website pop!
Doodlenerd CSS Text effects - Different text effects for your site
Heongae Favicons - Some cute favicons for your site's title bar.
Hotglue - Very fun looking actual 'drag-and-drop' site-builder. Also a downloadable script if you want to upload the framework to your own server.
Ichi - A very small and simple html site host.
Status Cafe - Display your latest 'status' (microblog style) on your website. You can also customise your profile with HTML & CSS.
Textanim - Animated .gif text generator in your browser!
Webneko - Add a cute character to your page that can follow your visitors' cursor.
Wobble Town - Adopt a pixel character.
Texture Town - Thousands of seamless background textures for you to use, with a handy live preview feature.
Fat Strawberry - More free backgrounds & graphic resources.
Salvaged - Archive of recovered photoshop/paint shop pro resources from the sites of olde.
Cursor Effects - Cool cursor effects that you can add to your website.
Smol Pub - A very small & minimal blog platform.
Dither Me This - Dither images in your browser
Slideshow Generator - Create javascript image slideshows for your website!
Pilssken's Artist's Toolbox - Useful list of various resources for art/design/web design work (incl. software, font repositories, free-to-use images)
Simplilearn SEO tutorial - A very long (but free!) introduction to SEO.
Neocities - a great place to make free html sites with tutorials abound, founded in the ashes of 90s favourite yahoo geocities! also my lovely host
Gifcities - search engine for archives of yahoo geocities, lots of vapourwave-ish gifs and 90s pixels to be found! i get some of the pixels in my content section from here
Simplilearn Project Management Tutorial - Another long (but also free) introduction to Project Management, could definitely come in handy for comms/design project experience.
Foollovers - HTML/CSS Layouts (Japanese Web Style)
Almost Sweet - Free layouts right here on neocities!
Sadgrl - More free layouts
Cepheus - (well, I couldn't not plug my own, right?) HTML/CSS layouts you're welcome to use/edit for free!
Createblog - Mostly created in the late-2000s, this site is filled with themes!
Loveblush - Cute, customisable stylesheets!
Dorkistic - Neat free blog themes
Jubilee Themes - Excellent tumblr themes that can be made to work on websites if you know what you're doing
Celestial Star - Even more 2000s-style layouts!
HTML5 UP! - Free, professional and responsive web templates
Codes By Laighlin - More awesome tumblr themes that can be adapted!
Nycto Themes - Even MORE great tumblr themes
Egg Ramen - Nice simple CSS templates, great for learning how to position things and make certain layouts. Hugely recommend if you're getting started with neocities!
Websets by Lynn - Awesome, cute early 2000s style web layouts! Great for a dose of nostalgia x
Templaterr - HTML themes & guides for neocities!
UserStyles World - CSS styles for various sites/apps.
Guestbooks/Comment Systems:
SmartGB - Popular free guestbook host with customiseable features
123 Guestbook - Another free option, slightly less featured but a nicer aesthetic imo
Free GB - Yet another free guestbook option
Bravenet Guestbooks - Bravenet's guestbook tool - I haven't tried this but it looks like it has lots of features
HTML Comment Box - A comments system that can be added to any HTML page
cBox - Add a shoutbox to your website for free!
Shoutjax - Another shoutbox provider (I have not tried this one)
Art/Design/Web Resources:
The Last Melon's Scraps - Lots of web materials, pixels & graphics for your site.
Pixel It - Generate pixel art from images
Dafont - Respository of thousands of downloadable fonts. See font terms before use.
Emoji in Blog - Pasteable emojis that will show up in your HTML blog
ACA Systems Button Maker - Make 80x15 web buttons in your browser!
Stripe Generator - Generate striped backgrounds for your site
Patterncooler - Generate cool seamless patterns of your choice
Canva - Excellent free browser-based publishing software. Premium version available.
Pixlr - Photoshop-esque image editor based in your browser
Zonelets - Very simple free javascript-based blog script for your html sites
Photopea - Another photoshop clone with advanced features!
Photomosh - Generate glitchy photos and gifs
CSS Gradient - Create CSS gradients
Mesher - CSS Mesh Gradients Generator
CSS Scrollbar Maker - A codepen that allows you to generate a customised scrollbar code
Image Color Picker - Pick out colours & their codes from images
StickPNG - Free transparent PNG images/cliparts
Glitter Graphics - lots of awful 90s goodies from the old (
Web Badges World - Lots of badges to use on your site
Animasta - CSS animation effects (e.g. background gradients) to make your website pop!
Doodlenerd CSS Text effects - Different text effects for your site
Heongae Favicons - Some cute favicons for your site's title bar.
Hotglue - Very fun looking actual 'drag-and-drop' site-builder. Also a downloadable script if you want to upload the framework to your own server.
Ichi - A very small and simple html site host.
Status Cafe - Display your latest 'status' (microblog style) on your website. You can also customise your profile with HTML & CSS.
Textanim - Animated .gif text generator in your browser!
Webneko - Add a cute character to your page that can follow your visitors' cursor.
Wobble Town - Adopt a pixel character.
Texture Town - Thousands of seamless background textures for you to use, with a handy live preview feature.
Fat Strawberry - More free backgrounds & graphic resources.
Salvaged - Archive of recovered photoshop/paint shop pro resources from the sites of olde.
Cursor Effects - Cool cursor effects that you can add to your website.
Smol Pub - A very small & minimal blog platform.
Dither Me This - Dither images in your browser
Slideshow Generator - Create javascript image slideshows for your website!
Pilssken's Artist's Toolbox - Useful list of various resources for art/design/web design work (incl. software, font repositories, free-to-use images)
Simplilearn SEO tutorial - A very long (but free!) introduction to SEO.
Neocities - a great place to make free html sites with tutorials abound, founded in the ashes of 90s favourite yahoo geocities! also my lovely host
Gifcities - search engine for archives of yahoo geocities, lots of vapourwave-ish gifs and 90s pixels to be found! i get some of the pixels in my content section from here
Simplilearn Project Management Tutorial - Another long (but also free) introduction to Project Management, could definitely come in handy for comms/design project experience.
Site Layouts:
Foollovers - HTML/CSS Layouts (Japanese Web Style)
Almost Sweet - Free layouts right here on neocities!
Sadgrl - More free layouts
Cepheus - (well, I couldn't not plug my own, right?) HTML/CSS layouts you're welcome to use/edit for free!
Createblog - Mostly created in the late-2000s, this site is filled with themes!
Loveblush - Cute, customisable stylesheets!
Dorkistic - Neat free blog themes
Jubilee Themes - Excellent tumblr themes that can be made to work on websites if you know what you're doing
Celestial Star - Even more 2000s-style layouts!
HTML5 UP! - Free, professional and responsive web templates
Codes By Laighlin - More awesome tumblr themes that can be adapted!
Nycto Themes - Even MORE great tumblr themes
Egg Ramen - Nice simple CSS templates, great for learning how to position things and make certain layouts. Hugely recommend if you're getting started with neocities!
Websets by Lynn - Awesome, cute early 2000s style web layouts! Great for a dose of nostalgia x
Templaterr - HTML themes & guides for neocities!
UserStyles World - CSS styles for various sites/apps.