From the time I was a preteen, my parents used the computer as a babysitter to keep me entertained. That was back in the early 2000s, when social media was barely in its infancy and when tiny forums and personal sites on places like Geocities accounted for what seemed like almost the entire Web. I was fascinated by the world inside the computer screen, which then seemed completely separate from the world outside, but also boundless with so much to discover. You never knew what wonders you would find on each website you visited, and browsing involved active exploration and reading instead of passive scrolling and viewing. Sure, I read and saw some things that I probably shouldn't have at such a young age—shock sites and websites run by various extremist groups, for example—but for every dodgy site, I found at least three others that brought me joy and taught me all sorts of things that I probably wouldn't have learned otherwise in my drab offline life (at least not until much later).
At the time of writing this, I'm thirty-two years old and I miss the way the Web used to be. I had forgotten a lot about those Wild-West days of the Internet until mid-2023, when, on a whim, I looked up a fanfic I remembered from my youth and decided to re-read it and explore the site that it was now hosted on. Before I knew it, I had fallen down a vintage FF7 site rabbit hole, and from there moved on to exploring dozens of other sites, including a couple that were familiar. It was, as Karen Carpenter sang, "yesterday once more." (Yes, I like the Carpenters. No, I don't care what you think of my taste in music.) Reading through all those sites made me want to start my own about my own interests, but not a modern blog on a major social media site. I wanted an old-fashioned website like those in the era when people built their websites as they pleased from scratch and it was still cool to fly your freak flag online. I guess you could say I wanted an escape to a simpler time when the Web was less homogenized and less commercial. (I wrote a little bit more about my values here on this early draft/alternate About page, if you're curious.)
So, you want to know more about me? My real name isn't Chicot; that's just a pseudonym and not part of my real name at all. My real name's Michelle. I have three degrees (two bachelor's, one master's) and I was into the dark academia aesthetic and lifestyle before anyone called either "dark academia." I refuse to label myself (save for jokingly calling myself a "fool" and "childless cat lady") or use anyone else's labels for me, because I believe that everyone's an individual and that it's a shame when people try to put themselves or others into boxes. I don't identify as any gender in particular—partly because of my distaste for labels and partly because I think that gender roles are outdated BS—so any pronouns but "it" are fine with me! (Even so, please don't call me a "girlie." Maybe it's because I'm old, but I find the whole "girlie" thing on mainstream social media stupid and infantilizing.) I don't like willfully stupid people, bigots, or xenophobes, I hate nationalism and authoritarianism, and I refuse to let AI do my thinking for me. (I deeply resent that it, too, is fond of em dashes.) I have a muse, and my muse looks like this:
If I could, I would freeze time whenever I pleased, so that I could add extra hours to the day to read, sew, explore, or just do whatever I want (although it couldn't be anything that required electric appliances or an Internet connection, because those wouldn't work properly if time were frozen). I would also shapeshift into whatever form I pleased, which would make cosplay much easier.
As for my interests, take a look around this site. I doubt that I'll ever make sites devoted to all my myriad interests, but I have covered some of them. Pretty much all of this site is still under construction and probably will be for a while given that I work full-time, but so far I've added fan content based on the Final Fantasy games and the manga The Promised Neverland. I also have an old, long-neglected, and kind of halfassed history blog and a slightly newer blog all about a spooky old Canadian daytime drama called Strange Paradise, which can be found here and here, respectively. I rarely update either anymore and I now think that a lot of the older posts are kind of cringey, but both blogs have a decent amount of fans, so I leave them up.
Chicot was the nickname of a certain Jean-Antoine d'Anglerais, who served the French kings Henri III and Henri IV as both a court jester and (at least according to legend) a soldier. He became a famous historical figure when Alexandre Dumas père made him the deuteragonist of his novel La dame de Monsoreau, depicting him as Henri III's loyal if cynical companion (and perhaps more, if you know what I mean) who spies on his behalf to protect him from the conspiracies going on all around him, while offering witty commentary on the various figures of the royal court. The novel was one of my favorites when I was in college, and Chicot was (and still is) my favorite character. I recommend reading it if you're into historical novels set during the Renaissance and/or with a lot of snark and political intrigue.
This page was last updated September 17, 2025