Dear blog, it's been, as the title says, 366 days or so since I landed on this little slice of the web. I never thought so many things could happen in the days between there and now, but a lot did happen. So let's get a little retrospective, shall we?

I think of myself as a pretty sentimental person but I really don't know what to write here honestly, except that this site has changed my life. Back then I was kinda just floating through life, trying to make the most of what little artistic tendencies I had to make some vague vision of mine a reality. Writing stupid poems, making a few pieces of art when I needed to for school but not really trying, all that jazz. I didn't know I could have a space for expressing myself, social media didn't really speak to me back then. I wanted a place where I could make everything mine, but I was so lost in trying to do that, in how I could do that.

Then, one day, my ICT teacher told me that for the next two quarters of my Grade 10 existence, we'd be working on forming companies with our fellow classmates and making websites for each of our groups. I had always placed first in programming Javascript code during the previous quarters (our teacher graded based on speed and I always coded the correct program the fastest_, so my group picked me to be the lead programmer. I was nervous, though, I had never dabbled in HTML before, so I went online to look for tutorials and inspiration.

That's how I discovered the indie web, more specifically Nekoweb. You know that feeling you get when you discover a game, and you look through guides and random videos, and it just feels like there's so much stuff to learn? That's what I felt when I first started Destiny 2, seeing all those tutorials about how to get this exotic ship or weapon, and that's what I felt when I encountered those user-made websites on Neocities. They were nothing like I'd ever seen, so personal, so human, so visually distinct from all the corporate websites I'd encountered before that it brought me back to my childhood when I spent my days playing Flash games through my dad's computer.

I wanted to make something like that, so I did. To practice making my school website, I decided to make a personal website, first on Neocities, then on Nekoweb. And oh boy, the designs for it were... interesting.

It was a mess of 80s-90s old web nostalgiamining and Geocities aesthetics. I don't hate it, but I feel like a lot of people would, after all, it's just another case of someone obsessing over the old rather than making something personal. But I loved this. For the first time, even if I was swept away by the 'good ol days', I was making someone that was mine. Don't worry, it only went up from here.

And slowly, it evolved. It got different themes, it became more accessible to navigate, I took more inspirations, I tried new things... until slowly, it became what it is today. The Spark-Web, where any and all of your dreams can come true with the help of a few rockets and gizmos and your trusty pals SPARKO and darko at your side. It became something I could use to show off the ideas I had in my brain, and to share and collaborate on them with others

I've talked a fair bit of how it helped me personally, but this entire journey has also helped me socially. There's so many wonderful people in the indie web community that I've come to love ever since I joined it. Shoutouts to a few of my first followers, like frequency-modulator and digital-goddess, as well as my dearest Nekoweb friends in the whole wide interwebs, like Toasty, astracelestine, eve, sav, jb, and more. This might seem weird considering I've been pretty inactive recently but I just wanted to thank everyone who's ever supported me here, it's really meant a lot.

The Spark-Web has become something more than a random plaything for me. It has become the world that my mind inhabits, the way I make friends, the reason why I continue to draw, the center of my digital universe. It's a mosaic of everything I've ever liked and everyone I've ever loved. And I'm so, so glad I've worked on it for a year and a day.

I'm not sure what else to say other than more words of thanks and appreciation, but I guess it's only natural that I end this blog with a message to you. Yeah, you, the reader. If you've already made a website, that's amazing! I'd love to visit it one day, and I hope mine has served as inspiration for your little corner. And if you haven't, then use this as inspiration to make your own! A website can be more than what you think of it. Even if you make it something you think it's useless, it is valued. Appreciated. If it makes you feel happy, optimistic, hopeful, which is very much needed considering the state of the world today, then that's great. Don't let your inner fears barricade you from the things you want to do, the things you want to create. Some things might be broken or lead to weird links, but that's okay. Everything's good if you try.

I feel like I've rambled so much I lost my train of thought. Thanks for reading, I'll see you next month. Keep dreaming, the Spark-Web will be here for you. It'll be here for me.

Happy birthday, Spark-Web.