I call myself a bard because I like sharing stories. I searched a long time for a place to do that before giving up and saying "Fuck it, I'll make my own." This is that place.
If you're wondering who I am, you may call me Mortaki (or Mordecai). I am the webmaster and the sole owner of this site (despite what my wizard counterpart might imply). I am not picky about pronouns so long as I know I'm being referred to and you don't call me an it. Long story short, pick some pronouns and stick to them and I won't be offended. I personally favor she/her for the bard and he/him for the wizard, but this is because they're characters I've co-opted for online use.
The only thing you really need to know about me is that I'm a weirdo obsessed with whimsy, I believe greatly in the power of prose, and I think that silly is a superpower.
WELCOME to the unrestrained chaos of my mind. I could have been normal about this site, but I decided that such a thing would be terribly boring and immediately discarded the idea. This was meant to be mostly for my writing, but it has since devolved into being for my Everything.
I made this site myself and tested it on firefox. I don't test on any other browsers. I try to make most of the pages responsive so you can read on your phone. I'm not sure how well I've succeeded because I rarely check and I'm not super skilled with html or css. If you want to know how I learned and what resources I use: go visit the wizard, Mordecai.
If you'd like to talk to me, then please direct yourself to my tumblr or my neocities profile. I am, however, more likely to check my tumblr. You can also find me in the Neocities Club Discord, of which I am a fairly active member. I promise we're all cool; come say hi. I don't currently have a guestbook or comments on my site (mostly because I don't really want them) so these are the best ways to contact me.
Most of my projects have their own page, if I deem them significant enough. If I don't, then they can probably be found on the All Works page regardless. I upload chapters for my significant works individually and, once I deem enough chapters present, bind them into larger files for binge reading. I do not have an upload schedule and probably never will.
I change things almost obsessively and most things I post are some sort of rough draft to begin with. I am more concerned with getting my stories done and out there than I am with getting them perfect. As such, expect things to be rearranged and edited with very little notice. I may decide to take down stories entirely. This is simply the nature of things.
Said briefly? I write what I want. I do not care for rules or convention. I have a vision and I will make it work. I'm not going to concern myself with a viewership or an audience or a market or whatever else. If the only person that likes my writing is me, so be it. Even if I am to be destitute, I shall write.
To get into specifics, I like things that are intricate. I like things that are well-thought out. I like things that are fun. Most things I write will be these things, though not always all of them.
I don't like simple, typically. Or rather, simple means something different to me. I tend to favor non-traditonal storytelling structures, if I use a structure at all. The one I use the most is the Four Part Structure common in many Asian countries.
A warning that, while I typically do not write excessively graphic content, I am an adult and my writing will contain mature themes. I try to provide warnings as relevant on a work's page, but I will not catch everything.
One of my larger works in progress is called Red Handed. It is an action-suspense novel with politcal intrigue elements. I have been working on it for over a decade at this point, but that's mostly because I started it at thirteen and it's taken this long to finally get the plot to sound like something that didn't come from a child's brain.
Another one of my WIPS is the Shora Mythology. It is a short story collection that builds up the lore and background of an ancient religion lost to time. This project is also fairly long-standing and much of it is in the world building rather than the writing itself.
Recently, I've been working on the "mordecai" experiment. The details of which can be found in the wizard's lair on the experiment tab. I might publish something related soon.
The rest of my work is mostly poems, essays, and noodles still wriggling around and being used as potion ingredients by the wizard.
I keep a library of recommendations on my site. I read just as much as I write (read: a lot) and I think human recs are a wonderful thing and want to do my part to keep them alive.
I'm not at all picky about medium or genre, though I certainly have my favorites. As such, there are a fairly wide variety in the library to choose from. There are novels, manga, and even fanfiction available right now. I'm thinking of adding movies, shows, and games as well, though those would be much smaller selections.
I don't put everything I read into the library (we'd be here all fucking day if that was the case), just the things I liked the most. Even then, I'm not the best about updating it (I read A LOT, okay?). If something looks sparse and you'd like to see more of what I'd rec, then please shoot me a message or ask on tumblr and that way I can get them directly to you (and prioritize updating that shelf lol).
I do not regularly provide trigger warnings for my recs; please do your research.
I was inspired to write this by this video by struthless. In it, he talks about Dead Internet Theory, which is a theory that most of the internet is populated by bots, full of content made by bots, and curated by algorithims (also bots). And I mean, it's not exactly untrue. It certainly feels that way.
But in the video, he counters it with Alive Internet theory (which he borrowed from somewhere else), which essentially can be summed up as humans centering other humans in their internet experience. And when I saw this, I thought immediately of the web revival movement. Because what centers humans more aptly than seeing each site as an individual, entirely unique when compared with its neighbors?
Struthless, in his video, mentions how hard it is to remember that other people on the mainstream web are human (because, well, often they are not), but it's a much easier endeavour on the small/indie web. You wouldn't think this would matter much, but it does. Every site that links to me is a whole person who thought my site was cool. It's an honor every time someone does it. Now compare that to some faceless follower count on twitter, instagram, or tumblr. Are those people to you? Do you feel honored every time the digit goes up? Or do you only care in large quantities? Like they're drops in a bucket and not living, breathing people who are interested in what you have to say?
This difference in mentality is one of the best things about web revivalists to me. In general, they are kinder and friendlier people than in the wider internet (in fact, being kind is a common tenet in web revivalist manifestos!). And it's easy to see why. It's harder to be rude or apathetic towards someone when you know they spent hours of their time documenting their entire CD collection just to share or hand coding a Miku shrine with all her songs from the year 2014 specifiically or yelling at javascript when their theme switcher stops working for the fifth time. It's easy to relate to the people around you when you know and can see that they put just as much time and energy and personality in their site as you do.
All this to say, I think the small web is the living side of the internet, not populated by bots or zombies with bot dysmorphia. There are people here, and we would love to have you join us. Certainly, there are lots of ways to center humans on the internet, but this is, by far, my favorite so far.
THE WIZARD, Mordecai, has set up a mysterious wizard lair in the basement, and he's hoarding all sorts of arcane artifacts. I don't know what he's doing down there, but he is the one making all the magic of the Bard possible. If you'd like to know more about my creative process or the worlds my works take place in, go visit the wizard!
Things like buttons, resources and references, cliques/webrings, and more can also be found there. Make sure to check the wizard's annotations if you are looking for something specific.
This site is hosted on Neocities and made mostly by me. I say "mostly" because I am a huge coding noob and thus use and modify templates pretty regularly. I am also not much of an artist so many of the graphics are also not made by me. If I'm honest, I'm not very good at keeping track of these things (I'm learning!), but I will attempt to credit what I can anyway.
- homepage css by tessisamess
- shora mythology css by numbedpill
- red handed css made by cyber rot
- the ruse css made by teppy
- library fanfic shelf css made by aglovale @ nekoweb
- library manga and book shelf javascript made by only-wonder
- wizard's lair css made by numbedpill
- lorebook and guidebook pages css by tessisamess
- experiment images by Pablo Stanley
- writer webring index css made by ribo.zone
- vintange movie posters by Peter Stults
- transparent vintage ads by max crunch
- spellbook css by leviathren
Why are all my links at the bottom? I don't know, really. That's how I wanted to set it up, so that's what I did. I'm not a corporation; I don't have to cater to anyone but myself.
- Spellbook (Link Collection)
- Grimoire (Learning in Public)
- Bardic Lore (Worldbuilding)
- Mystic Tongues (Conlangs)
- TTRPG Creations (wip)
- Cubic Lore Logs (wip)
- Webrings/Cliques/Buttons(right sidebar)
