Hello there!
As an introduction I'm just going to share my journey to webcrafting lol
I'm a 28 year old Irish-Australian woman with a great love for Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon fan characters. Yes that is relevant.
I actually grew up with computers, always having one in the house for as long as I can remember, but I never really explored the old web unfortunately, mostly only experiencing kids sites (like the ABC Kids website, and later the classics with Neopets, Club Penguin, and Runescape).
I currently run a small Discord server dedicated to Sailor Moon fan characters, and we have a few older members there that have reminisced of the old days of "otaku senshi" sites and even shared ones that are still around (though inactive) or can be found on the Wayback Machine. One of those members is also a huge lover of fan senshi sites and encourages everyone to make one, and she got me lol
I started out on a Wix template she had set up for a friend (
Edionan Blossoms) and went crazy, and eventually I decided to make another Wix site "from scratch", without one of her templates to get me started (
Fortune's Favour). And while I have enjoyed both of those projects (and there's still work to do on them), I found myself coming back to those older sites she'd shared and wishing I'd been a part of that culture.
And then I saw a post on Tumblr about Neocities. I was fascinated, but scared. I looked through the different tips and things but felt a bit overwhelmed and decided to stick to Wix for the moment. But after coming across a live fan senshi site that's been going since 2001 (
Sailor Tiger's Grotto), I felt the motivation again, so I hunted down that post and got started. I used Sadgrl's layout maker to set up a site (
Curious-Insanity), and have slowly been working on it. I've had fun clicking through different sites and finding things to put on my page. I discovered fanlistings and joined a whole bunch and now dream of making one myself. I've joined a Clique (Sailor Moon related of course), added widgets, and most recently, started making blinkies.
Unfortunately, I still barely know how to code though. I can roughly figure out a template (and have used a lot on Toyhouse and been able to modify them a bit), but mostly rely on googling very specific things. I'm honestly not really sure where to start, but I want to learn how to code properly, instead of just cobbling bits and pieces together. I'll get around to learning eventually I think, but I'm always so easily distracted by other hobbies.
Anyway yeah that's where I'm at on the webmaster stuff, I love seeing everyone's creation and would love to maybe join a webring some day. I'm thinking of trying out the leaky ring code because bilging that water has actually genuinely been a bit of fun, and I love those small delights that seem to be all over the web revival.
Forums are another thing I never really got into before, but recently have been trying for them, having gained a newfound appreciation for them in recent years. I'm not always the best at checking in on them though, because I don't use my laptop all that often anymore (the battery runs out really quickly these days, and also I dropped it once and now it occasionally freaks out on the right side of the screen, making it kinda unusable until it calms down), and so I surf the web on my phone and tablet most of the time, which aren't really the easiest for forum usage. However I hope to at least do plenty of lurking here!
Sorry for the long ramble of nonsense lol
- Fab