The Bay of Doors

You make your way to the distant ocean, traipsing through forgotten hamlets, overgrown forests, and finally to the great rocky cliffs that overlook the digital sea.

In the far distance, there is only blackness — a true darkness unlike any you’ve so far encountered. Only void lay at the farthest edge of the web site.

Closer, however, the seas are alight with bioluminescence. Shimmering blue waves awash with dinoflagellates crash against the rocky shore while a milky expanse of bacteria provides dim light in the distant sea. Standing above the water, perched impossibly and unfettered by waves beneath are a great assortment of doors. They are decorated in hundreds of styles and made from innumerable materials.

Audiovisual

  • Nautilus Live: A seasonal stream of a deep sea research vessel! I was watching live when they found a whalefall in 2019! Hearing commentary from the scientists is great and you can see a lot of really cool stuff if you’re patient!
  • The Librarian on Youtube I find the channel charming. I like his Source Engine map exploration videos. It’s nice seeing weird custom maps get some positive attention.
  • Barber Westchester Full-length animated movie by Jonni Peppers. I find the style really charming and some of what it is thematically playing with resonated with me.

Music

  • Jason Webley One of my favorite musicians for a long time. Mostly original folk songs. Lots of fun instrumentation.
  • Led to Sea/Alex Guy Another favorite of mine, loosely folk-adjacent with a baroque/chamber pop type thing going on.
  • Michael Bell Another musician that does a variety of stuff musically, this time in the realm of electronic stuff. I did lyrics for a few of his songs.

Places

  • Céide Fields Massive Neolithic site in County Mayo. Really beautiful bog and ruins. The visitor center takes the form of a giant glass and stone pyramid, which is just about the ideal architectural form for anything to be. Also, the café had really good soup when I went.

Resources

  • The Anarchist Library Free online texts pertaining to anarchy and anti-authoritarianism. Really nice resource.
  • Project Gutenberg Free online repository of public domain books in a variety of formats. My phone has dozens of their books downloaded!
  • LibriVox Free online repository of public domain audiobooks. Keeps me going through tough shifts.

Neocities Sites

  • Starlocked A website I stumbled upon with a great format for the dreams section. I really liked the emphasis on place and time. It inspired part of how I approached the Orrery.
  • Horror GIF Necronomicon A wellspring of delightful .gif files of all kinds loosely united under a horror umbrella.
  • Sadgrl Online A popular but no less helpful resource which I found invaluable in actually applying the basic HTML/CSS I had learned and seeing what it looks like in action.

Tabletop RPG

  • Nothing RPG Zone TTRPG blog run by my good friend Stella. There’s a lot of good, fun, varied stuff in here. Also check out her published work; I recommend Prison of the Forsaken Bear God for a really cool dungeon and hexcrawl experience!
  • 1st Party DCC Spells Compilation
  • Red SolsticeBiannual Tabletop RPG variety magazine featuring stuff directly usable at the table. There’s a lot of fun stuff in here! I’ve contributed to all editions so far as of Summer 2024.

Games

  • Tenderfoot Tactics Really cute and genuinely nicely designed tactics game. Control a group of goblins with interesting classes, designs, and customization. Lovely implied story.
  • Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor Explore a strange, vivid spaceport while laboring under the crushing weight of capital, alien gender dysphoria, and the screaming skull.
  • Tamriel Rebuilt An amazing mod for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind that adds the mainland! It’s bigger than the vanilla game yet maintains the vanilla style while doing novel things with it. Really sparks the sense of wonder vanilla Morrowind does.
  • Daggerfall Unity The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a weird game I wouldn’t necessarily recommend but I think it’s really interesting and full of weird ideas, some of the worst of which have been incorporated into Bethesda’s most recent titles. Daggerfall Unity also has a vibrant modding community which helps patch up some of the game’s weaknesses. I love the variety of clothes in Daggerfall and the paperdoll format. I find playing Agent dress-up really fun.

This is a perpetual work in progress. I am always hoping to add a few more links to this little corner of the web.