Stuff that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else.

At last, an overlap between "old internet" and "hobbyist pixel art"! Okay, so it's not a specific type of pixel art I do very often, but it's still worth bringing up.
"Dollz" were apparently a HUGE thing when I was a bab... y'know, when I vehemently rejected anything "girly". (AHEM) So, I think I caught the tail end of all that when I was a newly-depressed young teen.

And then The Doll Palace went down. (panic)

And then the Doll Maker Script that most of the dollz websites used went down. (PANIC)

But it's fine! We still have some old-school websites around, along with some sweet pixelling skills, right?
...r-right?...

• Dollz Revival is hosted on Neocities, and has some spiffy new dollmakers to look at + a seemingly growing collection of links to other Dollz websites that are either still online or made by other nostalgic People On The Web!
• As I was writing this little segment, I found dollz.neocities.org which also has a spiffy new dollmaker - though it seems to be inactive
• Gurlpowerrr is still online, and for the most part the dollmakers still sort of function! Woah seems to be offline as of September (2021?), time to panic
• Blossom.nu's dollmakers still work, and seem to be the only part of the site not displaced with another personal site.
• Style Dollz is online, though their dollmakers ran on the now-MIA Doll Maker Script (+ seems like multiple pages of props are randomly missing). If manually copy-pasting props into a graphics program doesn't sound like your cup of tea, try an archived version of the site (where the aforementioned script works).
• Archived versions of The Doll Palace's dollmakers sort of half-work. The ones marked as "Easy" makers on the front page don't load - the others that do load may have images missing, and the "Save" button doesn't work properly. It's worth linking anyway though, just for nostalgia's sake

Since finding Catz 5 at a T.K. Maxx, tiny child me (like, 7-8 years old, no joke) was super ultra into the pre-Ubisoft Petz games - where cats and dogs were rendered in balls and lines, able to run on even low end PCs in 1998. I didn't know how to make anything impressive and my "website" was never actually uploaded, but I sure did love those digital kitties - even after the disaster early on where a massive chunk of 50+ cats ran away, and even my favorite cat was left shaken up (or, you know, I just legitimately didn't know how to play a game for children). I'm not sure when I eventually got Catz 4 (and Dogz 4), but it's been lingering on my computers since.
But... I was never really an active member of the community, and my scattered attempts to get back into the game (and the community) eventually deflated and crashed every. single. time. I eventually learned to hex edit pet files to a fairly decent degree, but is it really... you know... enough?

Despite these consistent difficulties and my current inactivity with the games, they're just too important to little me to ignore forever; I'll have to make a page on Petz at some point, whatever purpose it may serve. Until then, I'll leave some important (to me) links related to the game and its community - and maybe you can try it yourself, who knows!

• Litterz Factory has been around for ages and still does (reliably up-to-date) Petz adoptions to this day! It also has a very comprehensive link section to other Petz websites, old and new, if you want more Petzy stuff
• Yabiko contains useful utilities for the Petz games (including the game itself? 🤔), and a lot of super technical info

Much like Petz, this is another very old game/series that I've been on and off with. I don't have quite the same emotional sort of attachment to Creatures as I do to Petz, and I might not have actually understood Creatures 3 when I first had it physically (I think the disc was thrown away), but it's still pretty nostalgic despite all the ways the titular Creatures can DIE HORRIBLY

I'll probably rewrite this to explain it better when I'm less tired, but I do remember making a handful of lame "genetic breeds" that I don't 100% have the courage to revisit yet. Most of the Creatures series' longetivity comes from Almost Infinite modding possibilities - a huge plus ever since the publishers of Dance:UK bought the rights to the series and sabotaged any sort of proper new game/reboot

• The freeware release, Docking Station, is available on Steam (not a sponsored link), as well as a lot of official addons that were once only paid DLC
• Speaking of modding, Eem Foo's Archive has mirrored uploads of SO many fanmade addons to tantalize and terrorize(?)
• I should probably add something that actually explains how to approach and Play The Game as well

UTAU is the very old freeware* Vocaloid-alike users make their own voicebanks for. It... does the job, especially if you don't have access to anything fancier. I have yet to successfully complete a song using a UTAU voice, but maybe this'll change since OpenUTAU is actually usable compared to the original software. I don't like dealing with people though, so I've tried to find voicebanks that (to the best of my understanding) specifically don't require prior permission for use in songs sold online, distributed through services that would make them available on music streaming platforms, miraculously appearing on CD compilations, etc (I don't know the where line between "doujin use" and "commercial use" is, and I'd rather not find out the hard way). This list probably isn't useful in the context of making character merchandise, corporate or otherwise.

Names in【surname•first name】order. Many of these websites are in Japanese only - it's assumed that you can either read Japanese or have a reliable translator on hand. Usage descriptions provided are just for quick reference; please don't ignore per-website/per-voicebank usage rules. Let's try and make life as easy as possible for everyone, yeah?

I sort of threw this list together for myself on a whim and don't really have any flourish (or visual aids) to present it with, whoops. It's growing big enough that I'm going to have to do something about it at some point

• Namine Ritsu【波音リツ】, practically zero usage restrictions* for both character and voice (can't speak for non-UTAU banks)
• Karine Nanami【雁音七海】 - ditto??? need to confirm
• Shiki Haru【四季春】/Shiki Natsu【四季夏】/Shiki Aki【四季秋】/more!, also seemingly very few usage restrictions
• Number Bronze, character namedrop required but otherwise OK for free or monetized use
• Nerika/Marianne/Leo, ditto
• Hanataba Sasagu【花束ササグ】/Hanataba Sasage【花束ササゲ】/Ikarine Oko【碇音オコ】/more!, ditto×2
• Akane Inari【朱音イナリ】/Otogiri Ryu【音霧リュウ】, ditto×3
• Trei Ables/Po Lovits/Kuota Akita/more!, ditto×4
• Nerimo Nono【練桃ノノ】/Akima Shun【空間シュン】/Adam Eve【徒夢イブ】/more!, ditto×5
• NEEDLE【ニードル】/Okada-kun【岡田くん】, ditto×6?
• wakana【ワカナ】, ditto×7
• Fujimitsu Gafu【藤光ガフ】, ditto×8
• Eliemia【エリーミア】/NyatesN【にゃてすん】, ditto×9
• Kikoto Mahiro【黄琴まひろ】/Kikoto Kurage【黄琴海月】/Kikoto Ei【黄琴影】/more!, ditto×10 (doesn't include voices on the「代理配布音源」/"Proxy distribution sound source" page)
• Tsukuyomi-chan【つくよみちゃん】, ditto×11
• ROSA/LOSA【ろさちゃん】/SENO【セノくん】, ditto×12
• Sider Sumi【災堕スミ】, ditto×13
• Aitori Jayus【愛鳥ジェイアス】/SYLVER【シルバー】, ditto×14
• Iaroid【いあロイド】/Kaimei Maabo【海鳴マーボ】/Momozono Tone【桃園兎猫】/more!, ditto×15
• Musubine Hikaru【掬音ヒカル】/ Musubine Mio【掬音ミオ】/ Spade【スペード】 - to the best of my understanding, messaging the creator before distributing paid songs with these three is not required but greatly appreciated
• Amene Wamea【飴音わめあ】/Hayane Kiru【速音キル】, ditto(?)
• Hibiki Amane【枇々木アマネ】/ Narukami Kyou【鳴上キョウ】/ Oka Rina【尾加リナ】/ Muneni Kanade【夢音似カナデ】 - ditto + character namedrops required
• Oshiro Tabi【嗚代タビ】/Nagakura Miji【詠冥ミジ】 - paid distribution of songs using their voices is specifically listed as OK on the rules page (and separately from other instances of "commercial use" www)
• Ameuta Nito【飴唄ニト】/Ameuta Nipo【飴唄にぽ】/Ameuta Nimu【飴唄ニム】/more!, ditto + character namedrops required
• Hitsune Kumi【筆音クミ】, OK for free or monetized use; IDK if a character namedrop is required or not
• Sonata/Allegra/Nocturne, ditto
• Isada Yuuna【伊佐田優奈】/Isada Yuushi【伊佐田優志】(+ others?), ditto×2
• Alchemist ZETHIEL【錬金師ゼシエル】, ditto×3
• Tsukurine Mika【創音みか】/Harukana Marina【春奏マリナ】/Mafuyukana Liz【真冬奏リズ】/more!!!, ditto×4
• 012*, ditto×5
• WITHER/Mako【真子】/Sei Amaou【星アマオウ】/.bin,, ditto×6?
• Dekirou UB【溺瓏(￢､￢)♪UB】/Uzai KY【謳罪(≧◇≦)♪KY】, ditto×7
• Tsuchine Zumo【槌音ずも】*, ditto×8
• Natsuki Mellon【なつきめろん】/Hanta Gushijou【ハンタグシジョ】/more!, ditto×9?
• Yuutsukoe Karasu【湯鬱声からす】 - based on readme txts in the "rebellion-again-" bank, commercial use seems to be OK
• Shifuku Otori【至福オトリ】 - the only thing expressly prohibited in the rules is commercial usage of specifically the original logo, so I'm going to assume monetized music with this voice is OK
• JYOZE? Character (and author?) namedrop required, the rules are a bit long to read but within the scope of making music should be OK, monetized or otherwise (doesn't include the "Cafe Series" hosted on the same site)

This list made possible after many days of digging through UTAU Visual Archive (Japanese) (has since become region-locked), UTAU Wiki (English), and BOOTH search results - although I still need to list all my BOOTH findings here

Actually, I've been working hard at trying to get a basic CV voicebank into a presentable state. If I do - or when I give and upload it as-is - I'll put it on its own page.

The following touches on commercial (non-freeware) software outside of UTAU, so it's probably not useful for 90% of visitors - but I felt the need to add a section like this anyway.

Most commercial voice synthesis software and voicebanks allow for commercial or otherwise monetized usage of the voices in music, with permission only usually being needed for using the likeness of the voicebanks' characters on the album art or in a music video or something. There are a very, very small amount of commercial voicebanks who do not need prior permission to use their respective characters in monetized works.

This does not include voicebanks that do not have an official character design attached to them, for... obvious reasons. I can't help you if you want to use someone's fanmade design for VY1/VY2, one of the default "Silhouette Series" VOCALOID 6 voicebanks, one of the countless Synthesizer V voicebanks with just a letter on the illustration to identify it... etc etc

• GekiyakuV【ゲキヤクV】/KazehikiV【カゼヒキV】 (VOCALOID 6) - please note that there are different, stricter usage guidelines for their UTAU counterparts
• Takamura Hibiki【篁響季】/Kazamatsuri Asahi【風祭朝陽】/Komurasaki Momoka【小紫桃果】/Yamada Kanon【山田花音】 (VoiSona) [Japanese only] - apparently the character names can only be written in hiragana when crediting them?
• ZOLA Project (VOCALOID 3, VOCALOID 6) aka KYO, YUU, WIL