What got you started making shrines?

[Mikari]

I'm curious did anyone else start with a combo site? Those big sites with sections for various anime and games, that was my first kind of fansite that had a little of everything. They're not common anymore and they weren't too organized back then, but I guess anime was less accessible at the time and the majority made sites to the same series that aired in Cartoon Network, WB and Fox.

[dubiousdisc]

Yes, I did that too! I guess my site back then was mostly one topic, but I threw in pages for other stuff I liked, terrible tutorials and so on :P

[Todd]

I remember combo sites! That's kind of what I have attempted to do with Breathe Drew... one site with several sections. I tied mine together with a theme though (actress).

[Crystal]

My very first website was something like that, which was hosted on Geocities. It was so lame that I didn't even keep it for a month lol.

[Mikari]

I started with Angelfire then added Geocities and somehow linked it all together. The site didn't even used to have a common layout, each page had its own background and colors. It lasted for over a year like that, then I eventually started making actual layouts rather than putting up a background, choosing some colors and calling it a "layout".

[Eden]

Ooooookay so I just lost an entire post because I accidently refreshed. Ugh. Anyhow I'll try to remember what I wrote.

It was a long time ago (I don't remember the year--maybe 2001? 2003?) when I stumbled upon a girl named Bell(e?) who had a pretty set of domains (silver-bell.nu is the only one I can remember) and I was active in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom. She inspired me to do web design. I wanted to design just as good as her so I learned HTML and my graphics were all done in Paint Shop Pro 6. I made friends with her, and a few other people, and I opened my first website dedicated to a non-canon pairing in Yu-Gi-Oh (these were on Geocities). I made 2 more after that (I don't remember what they were) and then I stumbled upon fanlistings. I opened a few up and sadly lost them (REALLY great subjects too!) because I lost contact with her and her domain went down. I remember being really happy to be accepted by her to have subdomain hosting, lol.

Eventually I lost contact with all of my web friends and haven't heard from them since. One of the girls still has her domains, but I don't talk to her because I doubt she'd remember me and it'd be awkward. xD I don't even remember what nicknames I had back then!

As it stands right now, I'm still more into fanlistings and TCGs that my shrine interest is still minimal, but I do want to do one or more. I have a huge project I really want to see myself complete and I feel like it'd be a huge accomplishment were I to get it online. I never really understood the concept of shrines, but once I joined Amassment and read people's different opinions, I think I understand more and want to try putting something I create out there. :)

[Saya]

Uh I never answered here, didn't notice this one.

Ok it actually happened back in 2008 I think, Masao already talked to me about it, and about amassment. But the final push was actually the fact that I got rejected for Yuuko at TAFL and I said: ok... still i can make a shrine and tell why I love her so much and I could, so I joined amassment and started working on my first shrine.

On the other side I think my first attempt at something was back in 2000 when on geocities I made a tribute to Please Save My Earth (oh my, yes I did). It was really bad, but I was really proud of it.

[Destinie]

Wow! Somehow I managed to miss this thread entirely. o_o

So, my first website was a Beanie Baby website. I remember going to my first webpage and going "I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS" but not knowing what I would make a site about. So I had this Beanie Baby Magazine that highlighted fansites (wish they'd do this more nowadays! But this was back in the day.) and I remember going to a couple of them and being really inspired by them. If I think about them now, they were probably terrible. xD They had frames and midis playing in the background, comic sans everywhere, everything was centered text, but I remember the girls and ladies who ran them were very nice and answered a lot of my stupid questions. I remember emailing one of the webmistresses asking how to make a banner. LOL!

So that inspired me to make my first website called "Beanie Baby Kingdom". From there, I made Pokemon and Digimon general fansites. From my Digimon site, I made my first shrine which was a mini-shrine tacked onto the site for Joe and Gomamon. It had like 3 pages and very little content. Then I created my first actual shrine to Gomamon. After that, I had several others and even helped my younger sister and step-sister to make shrines. My younger sister had a Gabumon site called "Blue Moon" for quite a while! But yeah, my shrining all began with Beanie babies. The 90s were a magical time. =A=;

[Varen]

Back before Wikipedia and social networking was popular, fansites were pretty much my main way to read more about characters and collect goodies. My favorite part was reading the informative sections on fansites. Back then I was in a Guilty Gear mood, so the two that stood out were a couple fansite (which sadly closed after a while), and there was a fansite planned for Ky, but it was never made.

After a while I noticed that a lot of my favorite subjects did not have fansites. A few friends were also invested with fansites, so I thought to follow their example and make my own. So, here I am. :P

[Masao]

I used to think about making shrines all the time, but I had convinced myself that I sucked, so I never dared to seriously try. And then I got rejected for the fanlisting of a character I really liked, and with the encouragement of a few friends (lol namely Todd and Shiori), I finally attempted to make a shrine, and after that initial attempt, the rest came easier once I had more confidence.

My first shrine, Dissonance, still sucks lol, but it was my first. One of these days I need to revamp it.