Digital Advents 2025 to Keep Up With~!

Hey everyone, I just realized that I forgot to make a post on my blog about other very cool digital advents happening this season. I have a post with a list on 32bit but if you'd like to see those links on the blog, here it is!

Indie Web Advents: 

• PetraPixel
• Ironymachine
• Lapin
• Hat
• Hors 
• Mima
• Sweetfish
• Freckleskies
• PhailSnail 

General Web Advents:

• The Public Domain Review
• Ashmolean Museum
• PICO-8 

Which digital advents are you keeping up with? Leave me a comment if you know of a calendar not listed here!

☆ Finny ★       

2025 Digital Advent #10: Toribytez

Greetings! Today's entry is a lot of fun, but more importantly it's a lot of blue! Though I am a green-loyalist forever, I have a deep love for icy blue. Tori of toribytez.neocities.org has mastered the icy blue shade on their site. They are web dev enthusiast, an artist, a gamer, and a Saturday cartoon villain? More on this later.

How did I find this website?

We followed each other on Neocities quite recently, probably this summer. We had a really nice exchange on there and I've been checking in with Tori's site on occassion, their site is so pleasing to the eye and as it grew more, there was more and more fun stuff to check out.

Check this website out if you like...

Tori is an artist so have a look at their gallery, they draw incredibly fun characters that remind me of mid to late 2000s cartoons that featured angled shapes, thick line art, and gorgeous colours. The composition is exceptional and probably my fave part, there's so much detail in the design and graphic elements of the pieces. I love it! If you like games, Tori also has you covered.

My favourite page on the website is...

I love the main layout of Tori's site, all the smaller boxes are my kind of busy. Another highlight is their FC2 blog that is quite different from the site layout but is very cohesive with it's style. Tori also has a shrine dedicated to a character they love which is very funky.

☆ Finny ★      

2025 Digital Advent #9: SCLPTURES

Agh, late again and I'm really sorry about that. Today I have a site that perfectly melds the sleekness of late 2000s digital UI (with satisfying glossy squares) and 70s-inspired class. It's SCLPTURES of sclptures.neocities.org! SCLPTURES is an artist based in Scotland with a very cool taste in music, so if you're a fan of the UK rock scene of the 2000s, definitely check their site out!

How did I find this website?

The classic. We followed each other! But we also follow each other on Artfight. Sadly I was not able to attack them this year but I will for sure aim to do that in July of 2026!

Check this website out if you like...

Rock music! And art! There's a lot going on on their site but to me these two themes are total stand-outs. SCLPTURES' art has such beautiful matte texture that I am obssessed with and they feature a bunch of their original character which are interesting to read about. Whatever project they will be in in the future, I am tuned in! There's also cool graphics and 4 unique shrines, my fave are the ones for Arctic Monkeys and SOAD.

My favourite page on the website is...

I really love the CD collection page! Not only to they have great taste but this page is very well designed, satisfying like old school UI layouts of music players or ebook libraries. It's just so sleek and rad. 

☆ Finny ★     

2025 Digital Advent #8: Herotrap

Come with me to the future! The sort of retro future that I imagined as a child in the late 00s. Today's site is Herotrap of herotrap.neocities.org. Their work is incredible not only in style but also in function: from satisfying animations to entire projects that emulate cool websites of the past!

How did I find this website?

Herotrap followed me very recently on Neocities and I followed them back. My favourite websites are what I call '2000s sci-fi'. Microchip-shaped boxes, metalheart graphics, arrows everywhere, a limited colour palette, grids, gradients, and bulky fonts. So obviously I thought Herotrap's site was the shit. 

Check this website out if you like...

 

If you like sleek assets and animations. Also, Herotrap has some very cool 're-imaginings' of modern sites or software if they existed in the early 2000s. There's also a recently started blog, I like reading Herotrap's dev log about their project BitView (which sadly seems to not be accepting new users as of now) so I have high hopes for the blog as well. There's also some very sexy wallpapers!

My favourite page on the website is...

I really like the projects page right now and I'm excited to see more stuff on there in the future. 

☆ Finny ★    

2025 Digital Advent #7: KuroiOS

We had artists, we had fashionistas, musicians, music-lovers, designers, and then some... but today we have a bona fide front end wizard! No, really, I am in total amazement of any new features Kuroi of adds to their site. As a total dummy who barely understands basic JS it all looks like magic. And so...

How did I find this website?

Kuroi left me a very nice message on my Neo profile once but we got to know each other (and some more folk!) better in chat app on their site. That thing totally rocks and we all had a lot of fun talking about life, movies, the web. Kuroi creates some amazing work so it's always a good time to check out whatever new stuff they have on the site but they are also a very friendly and active neighbour that engages with other peoples' work in a meaningful way. Thank you, Kuroi, you're a real one!

Check this website out if you like...

Do you like cool website stuff like... changing themes? A faux browser within a website? A web dev portfolio like no other? Then this site is for you! Kuroi's site has a very bubbly and cute look that's fresh and respectful to the past too, specifically to past versions of Windows. Something is always happening on Kuroi's site so if you're looking to see website magic, stop by often.

My favourite page on the website is...

First of, I was rocking the Windows XP theme for a while but since I saw that a Frutiger Aero theme was added I switched to that one. Love theme changing on sites but I've yet to figure out how to do it myself. Kuroi also has one of the cutest displays for their neighbour button's, a small button town! I think my fave has to be everything to do with the 'fake' browser, it was especially fun when Kuroi hosted an egg hunt for something to do with a disco rave. If you know, you know!

 ☆ Finny ★   

2025 Digital Advent #6: Magenta Star

Hey! Welcome back to the advent. Day six is upon us and the first week of December is about to end! Today I offer you a really retro-cool site with splashes of amazing colours and graphics... it's Magenta of magentastar.neocities.org!

 

How did I find this website?

 

This spring Magenta left me a message in my guestbook so I checked out her site. It was awesome! What I liked most was that while the layout was a pretty simple three-column, Magenta curated such cool and vibrant graphics with boxes of colour and a dark background. It just looks very cool!

Check this website out if you like...

To me Magenta is someone with an incredibly cool personal style. In her blog you can see pictures that she took which include her outfits, accessorizing, and hairstyles. She also has a page about her extensive comic collection for all comic lovers. And I was also super happy to find a sort of media highlight page that I hope will be updated more in the future. She really picks the best (I knew she would once I saw 2003's Clone Wars there, not that it's underrated or anything but it is just awesome). I found out about Station X because she linked it, it was one of those things I saw years and years ago and would never find on my own again. She also has a great blog that deals with the cultural and the personal.

My favourite page on the website is...

My favourite page is definitely the about page, it's just perfectly built with the incredibly bright blocks framing the whole thing. Magenta makes seemingly 'wrong' colours work together, a very unique skill that I appreciate.

☆ Finny ★      

2025 Digital Advent #5: Vanity Ruins

Hey, looking for more sites? I've got a bunch. Today we have something different and I will warn you right away that there is some NSFW +18 content on it, I won't feature any on the blog but if you do visit the site just steer away from anything labeled NSFW if you do not wish to see it. Something grungier and darker... Vanity Ruins of vanityruins.neocities.org!

How did I find this website?

I think me and Rei followed each other when she was using a different name for her domain which I'm unfortunately blanking on right now. I already really dug her style then but it evolved even more with her current site, Vanity Ruins. You guys know I love a compact look (can ya tell?!) and Rei's site is detailed to the dot and super intricate. 

Check this website out if you like...

If you like anime, Gundam (to which Rei dedicated a whole page), TV shows, movies, and lots of music recommendations. I found a lot of tracks I liked on her home page. There is also some very fun art that is quite 2000s-emo to me (there is NSFW in the gallery so skip that if you're not into it).

My favourite page on the website is...

I love the home page, every little tab and header, the small font, and the marquee! All of it works so good, total eye candy. I'm excited to see more written content in the future when she hopefully starts the blog section of her site.  

 ☆ Finny ★