Here it is- your very own cottage for you to call home while you visit Clovenglade. There’s some furniture, knicknacks and toys for you to arrange as you see fit. And don’t forget to take a screenshot- your layout will not be saved.

It’s probably easy to tell based on the rest of my writings here, but Bella Sara really was a digital home to me. That may, in part, be because there was literally a digital home as a gameplay feature! There was a cottage that you could decorate with items purchased at the Bazaar, though I only remember this mechanic very hazily. I remember a little nook by a window; I remember playing the Marvelous Magic Match game just to get more decorations and plushies; I remember feeling at ease. The whole site was my home though, more than the cottage itself. Even still, it was nice, being able to come home to a place I designed myself, adjust my decorations and take in the atmosphere. That home is now gone. All of them are. Is a home ever really "permanent"?

Maybe it was just childish naivete, but at the time, I always assumed these online games would always be there for me, forever. The internet was new, and I hadn’t really ever experienced a site shutdown. Bella Sara hung on longer than most (though I wasn't playing for most of that time period, having moved on to other things), only going down in 2020 when Flash was discontinued, but most games I played only shut down mere years (in the single digits) after I stopped playing- for example, Pixie Hollow, which only was online for 5 years. (Coincidentally it also had a house customization feature, and also felt like a home I knew like the back of my paw). We tend to think of homes as permanent, and these sorts of games are meant to draw you in with the idea of long term, continuous play, which in retrospect feels at odds with just how ephemeral these games are. I suppose like most online platforms, they cost more to run than they can make up in profits. This "link rot" applies to social medias in addition to online games (for example, MySpace is a zombie of its former self). While this is inevitable, it has synthesized with the homogenization of the net to leave the internet without a lot of spaces for children to inhabit. The Barbie website used to have a page full of browser games and content aimed at younger visitors; now it's a soulless product page.

And there's my site as well, another ephemeral home out of many. I don't expect my website to be online forever, though I hope to keep it online as long as possible. I think my favorite compliment I've ever gotten for my site was that it felt "homey", which is exactly what I was hoping for. It's my online home, but knowing it's been that welcoming for others makes me very happy. My goal for my website has always been to create a site that a younger me would have loved scrolling through.

In an era where “online homes” are becoming harder and harder to find, now is a better time than ever to encourage people to create their own, no matter how simple.