cherie


About the site

Title: cherie
Date created: March 30, 2024

This is my silly little virtual space where I put everything I love in it as an archive. When I made this site, I wanted it to be something like a digital bullet journal but without the planner part, like how every aspect of your life is contained in one notebook, but in this case, a website. I like trying new things or getting into new interests or hobbies and I do think I'm a sum of every new thing that I try and every interest or hobby that I get into. As a self-proclaimed archivist and a hoarder of knowledge (proof: my screenshots folder), I want to have a record of everything I come across, mostly because I struggle with memory issues but also as a way to explore self-expression.

Why the name cherie?

I named the site after my fiance's LINE nickname for me (translates to dear, darling (n.), love (adj.)) which is perfect considering this site is full of things I unbashedly love. It also works well with the theme/layout of cherry blossoms (it's a reach i know but let me have this ok!)

What I want to do here

How I ended up here

Here's a not-so-brief backstory on how I eventually made [gestures vaguely] this: I've been thinking about making my own website ever since I randomly came up with the idea of making a dedicated website or a wiki that's not 90% ads (looking at you, fandom) about UNDEAD (Ensemble Stars!!) one day. I wanted it to be like a long-term project, like literally translating everything UNDEAD-related by my own because I refuse to acknowledge the insulting official English translation. Pre-indieWeb-me forgot about the concept of a 'fansite' so I was scourging the web for any decent blogging platform or static site host.

After a few days of research, I settled for Notion albeit half-heartedly because it still didn't fully check my criteria. Even though the UI was intuitive, it lacked customization, like the design part due to it being very minimalistic. So I shelved the idea for a while because I needed to brush up on my japanese skills before starting this self-imposed gigantic task. Then fast forward to me finishing Persona 3 Reload on February 29, I opened a wordpress blog because the game moved me so much emotionally that I felt the need to write something about it, so I figured 'why not make a game review blog?' I read review blogs myself and I thought having one would be a nice personal project. But my wordpress blog never got past me making the About page lmaoo I hated the UI, I hated how every feature is locked behind subscription, the free themes suck ass; I never felt any connection with it so I lost interest quickly and I forgor about it eventually. But I am stubborn and I still wanted to open a blog so I tried Notion but it didn't stick with me coz again, no connection: it doesn't look or feel that it's mine and it would be ironic to call it a 'personal' blog lol So I accepted my defeat, like okay back to analog I go.

Around the end of March, I read a community post of a youtuber I follow that she made a blog.

"[...]like many, i've been growing a little disillusioned with social media (twitter and ig specifically, but also algorithms, ads, sponsored content, paywalls, etc) and thought it might be nice to have somewhere quieter and slower to post, somewhere a little more intentional."

And wow I felt that LOL I was trying to cut down social media intentionally that time because it's been rotting my brain for so long. So I read through her posts and she briefly mentioned a shrine about haunted houses and it like I jumped into a rabbit hole as soon as the page loaded. It was definitely a whiplash of nostalgia and I couldn't believe that side of the internet still exists. I found myself browsing neocities explore page and just in awe of how each site is oozing with personality. I was like Ego from Ratatouille being transported to his childhood memory for a moment. I got really excited upon seeing it's still possible to make my own website from scratch, even though my last application of css and html was still 2014 tumblr lol

But why is my site hosted on nekoweb and not neocities? Well, I was indecisive about my domain name and it turns out when you change domain names it fucks up something in neocities that I didn't clearly understand, all I know is it messes something up LOL so I was like welp, okay... bye I guess. Thankfully I found nekoweb as an alternative to neocities and it was launched only recently too. So yeah, that's how it went :-) And I've been enjoying my virtual alone time talking to myself and the void.

How I started

I didn't have any prior knowledge about making my own website, it was just me and my tumblr-certified knowledge in html and css but fortunately I discovered 32bit.cafe very early and I'm really thankful for their detailed resources and tutorials to get a babey like me started. Since I decided this site will be very, very self-indulgent, I slapped the color pink wherever I could because I can B) no shitty UI/UX to stop me \o/

I got my layout from FOOL LOVERS and I just love how their designs remind me of how official sites of early otome games like Starry Sky and Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side looked like. By then I'm slowly getting a solid idea of what the layout theme will be. Then I thought, this is a personal site so it should be able to capture 'me'. So I imagined a scenario where I would be asked to tell something about myself, what would be the first few things that will come to my mind immediately? 1) I like the color pink unapologetically, 2) I have developed this obssession for cherry blossoms ever since I finished Hijikata's route in Hakuoki that altered my brain chemical forever, despite growing up in a tropical country and never experience spring LMAO and 3) I like stationery a Normal amount. And so I eventually settled on the current layout like it's an official site of a spring-themed otome game LOL

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