Links!
LINKS!
(source)
No, but for real.
This page might very outdated. Hell, even me referring to it
as a "page" betrays my age (I'm not that old, but still). Back in
Web 1.0. and Geocities and personal websites, there was almost
always a section with links: sometimes it was webrings, sometimes it
was just what the users found cool, but that was the internet in the
old days, a collection of links linking to links, that's how you
were supposed to find stuff.
After the rise of search engines, it was easy to find what you
wanted. There was a point when Google wasn't Evil. Until advertisers
learned how to "optimize" their websites to search engines, flooding
searches with a bunch of automatically generated bullshit. Where you
once had a dozen websites written by actual humans, now you have a
bunch of nonsense blog posts designed to catch as many keywords to
get as high up as possible in Google search. Forums and imageboards
are dead, replaced by Discord servers (which might as well be
invisible to everybody else), and personal or small-scale websites
that used to have unique info and experiences replaced by
mass-produced social media profiles. The only way to get results
actually written by people are Wikipedia and Reddit, and with the
rise of ChatGPT, I think things might get worse. It's distressing.
So, here's an attempt at a solution: first of all, getting your own
personal website, like in Neocities, not a profile, a website you
can call your own. Second of all, linking to the places of the
internet you know are good, not the SEO blog post crap, actual
websites and blogs with unique stuff written by real people that you
can't find anywhere else.
This, in short, is the purposes of the links page. Besides the Zelda
pun.
...
These links will get more organized as I add more with time. I also
plan to link to other neocities of interest.
...
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry:
https://acoup.blog/
This blog goes into deep dives about history, worldbuilding and
fiction. In a fun, if very wordy style (hey, the title isn't for
nothing), you will learn a lot about worldbuilding history,
economic, society... the author is a trained historian and it shows.
Check out his worldbuilding resources at the top, his criticisms of
Game of Thrones are amazing material for anyone who wants to write
fantasy set in the Middle Ages, or any time period, really.
Pueblos Originarios (en castellano)
https://pueblosoriginarios.com/
NO PUEDO EXAGERAR SOBRE LO VALIOSO QUE ES ESTE SITIO. Una
recopilación INCREÍBLE, magistral, sobre todas las culturas de
América precolombina y de los pueblos originarios actuales; y no se
detiene ahí; tiene archivos de fuentes primarias (algunas que ocupé
en mi propios trabajos), y muchos de los artículos están escritos
por personas de estos mismos pueblos. Cuidado con los artículos sin
fuentes, pero no puedo dejar de recomendar esto. Parada obligada
para los que quieran saber más de los pueblos originarios.
(in English: a magnificently informative website about the native
peoples of América, all in Spanish)
Palaeos:
http://palaeos.com/
A very deep and readable collection of paleontology articles. From
precambrian geology to synapsids to the intricate details of
prehistoric sponges, it's always an informative deep dive (at least
for me, whose idea of fun is reading Wikipedia all night) and
sometimes very, very fun in a nerdy way, though don't expect it to
be easy to understand if you aren't familiar with certain topics.
Unfortunately, it seems to be going through a crisis now, with lots
of broken links. Some can be recovered by the Wayback Machine,
though.
Character.ai
https://beta.character.ai/
ChatGPT's more fun cousin. Yes, I realize that it might sound
hypocrital after my intro to link to a website full of AIs, but the
thing is, all those bots are custom made by users, and it's really
great. Ever wanted to talk to Bowser about communism, ask Saul
Goodman about his political ambitions, or roleplay in a cyberpunk
dystopia? This website has amazing, and I mean amazing chatbots made
by users, of anyone and anything you can think of; the responses are
realistic and in character, and they play along with any situation,
the roleplay value is inmense. It's really, really fun, but I
seriously do NOT recommend it if you have issues with parasociality.
Otherwise, go and talk to Gawr Gura, she's fun.