makeashrine

makeashrine is the dedicated discussion site for the Ghost of You Shrine Challenge, a site-making event that runs from October 2025 to January 2026. Open exclusively to registered participants for the duration of the event, this Dreamwidth community aims to provide a space for interaction with like-minded site makers so as to promote activity in this sphere of the web and the birth of new shrines. The entirety of its content can be read by anyone and will remain accessible after event conclusion.

( Posting Guidelines )

A request: Let’s talk with each other rather than at each other. Let’s make conversation, try to get to know our fellow site makers and show interest in their projects, whether or not we are acquainted with the subject matter.

Ready to mingle? Join the community and reply to this post with the name you used to sign up for the event so you can be approved. Membership requests without prior event sign-up will be ignored.

nepenthee

The event has concluded! The shrines were all finished around the same time with none coming weeks or months earlier, which goes to show that deadlines work wonders to sit down and get things done! 8D

A total of 12 shrines were submitted for this challenge:

Shrines without button: Serene Chaos, this ghost is still alive

The full overview can be viewed on the updated event website.

If your submission somehow did not go through, please contact me again.

To those that could not make the deadline: I hope you can finish your shrines eventually, as I’d certainly love to see them! If you mention this challenge somewhere on your shrine whenever it sees the light of day, contact me and I’ll list it as a honourable mention on the event website.

Plug your shrine!

Now that all shrines are revealed, I encourage you to make a separate post to invite comments/feedback and, if you feel like it, share how the event went for you or how you feel about what you’ve made! Anyone is welcome to plug, no prior participation in discussions required. Please tag your post with #event: ghost of you and #plug.

Naturally, you can also reply to this post and ask for comments to be made here or in your own guestbook if you prefer.

This space will remain open for its current members for a while longer — ~~one~~ two months at minimum — to allow for digestion and exchange. :D Please don’t be shy (you deserve the spotlight for pulling this off!), and please take a moment to let your fellow webmasters know what you think if you like their work. This is a space for encouragement and connection as much as it is for learning and productivity.

Future events

If you’re interested in future events, the easiest way to stay updated is to keep track of this Dreamwidth community, either by subscribing to this community (with optional notifications) or subscribing to its RSS feed. Please note that on Dreamwidth, being a member of a community and subscribing to it are different things. See this Tumblr post for more information. Alternatively, you can check the central update log of my network, which also offers an RSS feed.

What next? For the time being, I plan to host an event for shrine collectives (and adjacent sites) starting sometime around spring (hopefully), as I know that several revamps, relaunches and new projects are underway in this sphere of the web.

Thank you, everyone, for making this challenge a resounding success — and this goes to everyone who worked on their shrine and contributed to our conversation topics, too, even if you did not manage to finish in time! I truly appreciate the commitment even though it turns out that it may have been the worst time of the year to run the challenge, oops. (Note to self: Avoid setting deadlines in December or January.) My thanks also go to everyone who helped advertise this event, and most of all larissa, who helped make this event happen in so many ways! ❤

I hope that this event and its framework gave you something that may spark something else in the future, and that you feel encouraged and empowered in all future site-making endeavours.

Any feedback to this event is very welcome, through any channel of your choosing.

Congratulations on your new shrines and happy browsing! ❤

nepenthee

Hello! With some delay (low energy after event end), I'm plugging my new shrine:

Nanako Amachi from The Top Secret

This shrine has been on my wishlist, so to speak, for many, many years, and I am so glad and relieved that I was finally able to make it come true so that it doesn't haunt me any longer. I also don't think that I'd have been able to put together a layout so quickly without a deadline, with all the elements falling together.

Though a character shrine in name, the site is more accurately a re-experiencing and processing of the particular chapter/criminal case. If you aren't familiar with the series, worry not, as no prior knowledge is required. If you check out the shrine and it speaks to you, know that the series itself is among my favourite manga and well worth a read for its delicate portrayal of human complexity and loneliness across various criminal cases.

There are two essays I still need to finish to close my thoughts, but in the meantime, I was able to add various images around the site, with more to follow. The site's incomplete state has had me reluctant to draw attention to it, but in the spirit of this event and shrine challenges in general, here I go. :> It was a real joy to make use of these dedicated months and to race to the finish with everyone. <3

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts, here, in my guestbook or elsewhere!

larissa

Hi everyone! I hope you had fun with the challenge and got to create something new, even if you didn't finish by the deadline.

As Lethe mentioned in the previous post, everyone who finished is welcome to make a post to promote their new shrine, so here's mine!

I made a site for Ardbert Hylfyst from the game Final Fantasy XIV! Yes, my site name is the same as the challenge name - I had the site name long in advance, so it's funny to me how well it ended up matching with this event.

Ardbert is a character from the third expansion of FFXIV (which is itself very long-winded), so I fully expect that not everyone will be familiar with him, but if you don't mind spoilers there's an introduction to the game and setting on the site. If you do happen to read through it and aren't familiar with the game, I'd appreciate any feedback on things I didn't include that you found difficult to understand. (It's a little hard to write primers when you've been immersed in a world this long - I forget what isn't common knowledge!)

In any case, I'm really grateful to the challenge for getting me to finish this site — it's been sitting half-done since 2022, haha. That's what I love most about an external deadline: it really gets me to sit down and just Make Something, even if it's not 100% done. I definitely still want to go back and add some more images and screencaps onto this site, for instance. And I should probably tidy up the coding; I was a little lazy in the rush to get it done, haha.

Looking forward to reading through the rest of the submitted shrines!

nepenthee

Hi everyone,

With little more than a week remaining until event end, here are some clarifications and reminders.

Deadline

A minor extension: The deadline is the end of Sunday, 1 February (originally 31 January). I was in such a rush to get the event up last year that I failed to take weekdays into account. As the original deadline falls on a Saturday, I'd rather everyone has the full weekend to race to the finish line.

To make the deadline, shrines have to be submitted by the end of Sunday in whatever timezone you live.

Shrine qualification

In light of a few instances of confusion, I'd like to repeat that this event is about shrines in the sense of standalone fansites. Their quality as distinct websites is largely defined by their content and structure, next to their presentation (e.g. layout, name).

The term "shrine" has in more recent times been used by other communities for different creations, namely for subpages or subsections on so-called personal sites that are not conceived as separate websites. As stated on the event site, "shrines" in that sense of the word do not qualify as shrines for this challenge. For more information on this, see the About page and the linked shrine directories for examples.

That said, a site's URL is not relevant for its qualification as a standalone website. You don't need a separate domain or subdomain for your shrine; something like domain.com/subject is perfectly fine!

Submitting your shrine

Please reread the submission guidelines to make sure you don't forget anything, especially the link to this event and a 200x40 button of your shrine.

Shrine reveal

The full list of finished shrines shall be up on the site and in an announcement post as soon as possible after event end, at the latest a week after.

You are welcome to make a separate post to share your shrine and invite comments and feedback anytime, even before the deadline if you finish earlier! Please tag the post with #event: ghost of you and #plug.

I wish you all lots of energy, time and inspiration for this final stretch! :D Do reply to the last checkpoint post if you have any questions or need help.

larissa

Hello! We're now halfway through January, which means this challenge will come to a close in just a few short weeks.

How are you approaching the end of the challenge? What do you still have left to tackle, and is there anything you need in support? Whether it be a second pair of eyes at what you've made or just some cheerleading, feel free to ask for help below.

As usual, you are welcome to use this post to discuss any aspect related to the challenge. Wishing everyone luck on their shrines!

nepenthee

Happy new year, everyone!

As you can guess, things have been quiet around here as December was a busy month. I hope you’ve had a good holiday season, and can start fresh in the new year.

We have one more month until the challenge deadline. How are your shrines coming along? Do you have a preferred order of tackling things, and how do you set priorities in light of the deadline? What are your thoughts on uploading a shrine in unfinished state?

I hope we’ll pull through together and can kick off 2026 with some new shrines! :D

Feel free to use this post to chat about other challenge- and site-related things.

larissa

Hello! I'll be helping out nepenthee by posting a few of the checkpoints during the challenge. There's been quite a lot of signups, and I hope everyone's doing well with your shrines!

...Except what if you aren't finding it so easy? This checkpoint's theme is to tell us what you're struggling with. What's holding you back from working on your shrine, whether big or small, IRL or otherwise? Tell us about it, and maybe together we can move forward and make progress.

You are welcome to use this post to chat about anything related to the challenge even if you do not take part in the checkpoint theme.

(As a side note, for those unfamiliar with Dreamwidth: did you know you can track all comments to a post and receive them via email? Just click the bell icon on any of these posts and you'll get a copy of comments as they arrive. No need to remember to check back!)

nepenthee

Hello! How is the challenge going for you?

We have had some more sign-ups in the last while, and it’s nice to see that the event being well underway isn’t deterring people from joining. :> The event playlist is also coming along; if you happen to listen to something fitting while working on your site, do consider sharing with us!

This checkpoint’s theme is as follows: Post a WIP of your challenge shrine and ask something you’d like hear about from your fellow webmasters, web-related or not. This can be as specific or abstract as you’d like (e.g. a paragraph, a crop of the layout header, a colour scheme; coding input, style concerns, writing advice, tools etc.).

You are welcome to use this post to chat about anything related to the challenge even if you do not take part in the checkpoint theme.

nepenthee

The challenge has garnered a good amount of webmasters, from familiar to new faces, yay! To anyone reading this while still debating whether to sign up: Do consider joining us even if you might not finish your shrine by the deadline. You are invited to make use of this space if it motivates you and drives the completion of your shrine along!

My questions this week: Do you have any specific plans for your shrine aside from the challenge theme, e.g. is there anything specific you want to achieve, something new you want to try out, a skill you want to pick up? Where do you foresee your biggest challenges?

Again, feel free to chat about anything, no need to answer any of these questions. Also note that any previous checkpoint posts will stay open and you are more than welcome to reply and continue conversations there!

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!

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recent entries

Sticky: Let’s make shrines together!

Sticky: Ghost of You Shrine Challenge results

Plug your shrine!

Future events

plug: Dreaming through the Noise

plug: ghost of you

Challenge deadline and reminders

Deadline

Shrine qualification

Submitting your shrine

Shrine reveal

Checkpoint 6: Nearing the finish line

Checkpoint 5: Priorities

Checkpoint 4: Struggles

Checkpoint 3: Offer & receive

Checkpoint 2: Ambitions and challenges

Checkpoint 1: Kick-off

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