Checkpoint 1: Kick-off

[nepenthee]

With slight delay, this DW community is now open!

As mentioned on the event site, the challenge will be accompanied by regular checkpoints where you can share your plans and progress, ask for help and discuss anything regarding site-making. These checkpoints will be posted in approximately biweekly intervals by me, your host, and sometimes by larissa. :)

Some questions to start with: What are you making and why, how long has the shrine been on your wishlist, and where are you starting from?

Feel free to chat about anything, no need to answer any of these questions!

Comments

[larissa]

Hello!! I'm really excited to be here, in no small part because this event is going to get me off my butt to finally make a site I've had half-finished for a few years now, haha.

I'll be making a site to Ardbert from Final Fantasy XIV! I decided to make this site back in 2022, wrote about half the content, got to a section I didn't really want to write, and promptly stalled, as one does. So I'm hoping that this event kicks me into finally finishing it 😤

On an unrelated note, if anyone has any questions about how to use Dreamwidth, feel free to message me (or reply here)! I've been here a long time and am happy to assist, since I know it's very different from modern social media.

[nepenthee]

I like how we walk in here with our ghost projects in tow like the most natural thing. omg that's the actual event theme isn't it. "Here's my abandoned, unborn dream from years before (what is time). Here's my love I have been trying to revive. Here are all the projects that haunt me. Let's set them on fire exorcise them together."

(Nice icon. 8D)

[larissa]

To be fair, with how slow-moving I can be, I think all of my WIP sites would qualify that way...! But I'm excited to see this one to completion.

[velvetdusk]

I haven’t played a Final Fantasy game since X-2, so I’m going in with only the faintest sense of who Ardbert is — but I’m so intrigued to see what you create. There’s something deeply satisfying about finally returning to an unfinished work and breathing life into it again. I’ll be looking forward to seeing this one take shape.

[larissa]

have you heard about final fantasy xiv's extensive free trial—

no I'm kidding. It's really funny that Lethe picked this for the theme, because Ardbert is (quite literally) a ghost, and "Ghost of You" was already my planned site title...! Fate works in mysterious ways.

I have no good excuse for setting the site down last time, really, which means it shouldn't be that hard to get it going again. Of course, I say this and I've made no progress on it since the month started, haha. But it's been perlocating in the back of my mind, waiting to come together while I work on other things.

Here's hoping we can bring all our ideas to fruition!

[nepenthee]

Yeah, the effect of having a specific subject/project on our mind is already part of the process and can't be underestimated!

I haven't touched the existing text of my shrine or any graphic material yet either (so many life obligations this week), but I've started rereading the manga to immerse myself in its mood, and have sunk into the two poems that I want to embed, and dug up some essays on the poets. From all that pondering sprang a brilliant idea for a structural element of the site... and now I'm excited!! That progress alone makes participating in this challenge worth it, and I hope others will feel similarly by the end of the event hehe.

[requiems]

Us right now

(to everyone else: this links to somewhat vague yet major XIV spoilers on my god please don't click on this)

[larissa]

LMAO this is in fact us, too real