Somehow, while you were looking at the flowers in the mysterious woods, you find a secret underground passage in the hidden clearing. Curious, you carefully head down the long, dark corridor, unsure where it could lead. When you emerge... You find yourself in a massive palace, filled with ornate columns and all the luxuries anyone could ever wish for. There is a family crest above the vast main hall, emblazoned with an emblem of the brilliant sun. You recognize it as the Princess's.
Surely this must be where the royal family lives...? It’s awfully empty, however: no feasts or revelry. Something seems to echo through the place, and yet it is dead silent.
nudges you to look at a great portrait looming over the banquet hall, depicting an ethereal young girl by her winged steed. You quietly recognize the serene figure’s visage- Rhoan. It’s the very same Princess who reigns over Clovenglade, eagerly celebrated by the people of the town, but there’s a date of death underneath the great painting...
Rhoan Clovenglade had lived and died three hundred years ago. And yet, she still reigns in memory alone.
What does it mean, for a memory to rule you? In a way, this whole section of my website, this land, is a monument to memory. This is my own “palace” to house something long dead. I have conflicted feelings on nostalgia- I want to look forward, I don’t want to be caught in a loop of wishing and wishing for the past. It’s an easily exploitable feeling. But I think it’s beautiful to use that sort of thing for something constructive and creative (as if I haven’t been hammering in this point enough!). Create the things you love and enjoy, and carry that forward into the future. We can’t go back to the places we left behind, after all. Take inspiration, but don’t be chained to it.
For a long time, I thought Bella Sara had been forgotten. But as I poured over old footage, youtube playthroughs, retrospectives, and more, I realized that more remembered the old game than I realized.
I imagine if I were able to revisit Bella Sara now, it wouldn’t hold my attention as much as it did when I was younger. For example, around the same time I was obsessed with World of Jumpstart Online, and while I was glad it was still online when I went to revisit it earlier in 2023, I wandered around the areas I remembered for about half an hour, and promptly uninstalled it. Mere months later, its services ended permanently.
Bella Sara is gone, and I may never see it again, at least in the form I remember so fondly; maybe I should be grateful that there’s nothing to dethrone its position in my heart. But it does sadden me that, unlike with Jumpstart, I never got a proper goodbye. But at the same time, I’m glad it’s what motivated me to create Clovenglade. I had a lot of fun and learned a ton about the capabilities of code and web design. I created my own farewell, the one I never had.
This is a monument, but it’s also a call to action. And I’m happy with what I’ve made, and with my website as a whole. I decided to try out Neocities on a whim in mid-February of 2023, and that decision has really changed my life and how I think about the internet. The most heartening thing is when people tell me that my website has somehow inspired them to create their own- be it friends, strangers, or anyone, really. It makes me happier than anything. This is exactly what everything I do is striving for.
Our love and creativity will set us free, and carry us into a future all our own. The internet is ours.
You wander with some unknown deliberateness to the great hall at the center of the palace, at your side.
A grand balcony extends outward from where you stand, and you can see the town and the mountains and the sea... It all looks so tiny from here. With the festival in full swing like this, you wonder if the denizens of Rhoan's domain are looking up at the castle now. While you’re here, why not step onto the balcony and send off some magical fireworks?
