Character Shrines

Rule change to site plugging

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:28:04 GMT

Hey everyone! Long time no see. Sorry for the delay, but as you can see from the title above, there's been a change to the rules for plugging your shrine. We're now allowing members to post their link for new layouts. We didn't permit this in the past, but the moderators thought it would be a good idea for site promotion as well as community activity. After all, advertising is part of the shrine making experience, right?

Also, I'd like to ask if everyone could post links to new shrines that opened up this year. I'm sure a few people, including myself, have missed out on new!shrine announcements. It doesn't have to be a shrine that you own yourself; you may post links up to shrines that you happened to stumble across and wanted to share. If you could reply with a link, perhaps a short description as well, that would be awesome.

Thanks everyone!

charactershrine tribulations

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:24:15 GMT

As of late, there have been more and more character shrines out there with a philosophy or a purpose aside from being a major source of information on the character. This conflicts with other people’s shrines (and philosophies!) that are major sources of fact on characters from various obscure sources. This conflict causes a lot of strain and a lot of nasty things to be said both in and outside of shrines… particularly on FAQ pages. What do you guys think about this new revolution of shrines with a philosophy rather than a source of information?

I would categorize myself as someone with the “my shrine has a purpose” mentality seeing as how I usually just write essays on things I interpret and slap it into a site. I’m not one for media sections and I really dislike writing up in-game statistics unless they are going to tie in with my content somehow. However, I am still one to enjoy these sites filled with nothing but factual information from things I either cannot read or refuse to purchase/play/watch.

I suppose I am not one to force this philosophy onto other shrine makers. I really love reading information that’s from sources that I have no access to, but at the same time I also like reading other people’s interpretations. There is a place for both. Noticing the hostility in people’s actual sites just made me wonder about it. Everyone is entitled to making a shrine or a site however they want, whatever makes them feel accomplished and happy with their work is all that really matters right?

Structural question.

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:06:21 GMT

Here's a question that's been bugging me for a while.

Let me start by saying that I run a fan site (and fanlisting) to Roll.EXE from the Battle Network/EXE series of Rockman (AKA the Blue Bomber). The Battle Network/EXE series consists of a game (which came first), and it later spawned into an anime and manga.

If you're familiar with all three medias, you know that although they use the same characters and similar plot lines, the stories are completely different... such as the concept of Saito and Barrel/Baryl.

Roll is not a developing character in personality despite being one of the main characters. She barely gets any screentime in the game and the manga, and the anime has only dedicated about 1-2 episodes for character development, yet her battle statistics in the games change in every sequel.

How would I incorporate all this into my site without making it look perplexing?

Size doesn't matter; it's what you do with it.

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:03:48 GMT

Firstly, mostly because I can and I'm shameless, I'm going to plug two of my shrines that have gotten a content makeover in the last few weeks. Libertine is probably my most popular site, but Renaissance is my favorite.

And now for a topic of discussion. As I was sorting through my old content on Renaissance I decided that a lot of my sub-pages weren't long enough. I didn't think I could really add all that much to them, so instead I started combining them. It got me thinking about how long sub-pages should be. I get kinda annoyed when I go to a shrine and it seems like there's a lot of content, but every sub-page is just two or three sentences I probably could have gotten from a strategy guide.

For example, if there was a subsection "Family" on a shrine, I'd be expecting a bit more than: "Cloud's mother is named Edea, and he has a sister Rydia too. But unbeknownst to him, the villain Kuja is actually his brother!"

That's obviously an extreme case, and factually inaccurate besides, but it's not too far off from what I've seen at some shrines.

At the same time, I think a page can be too long, rambling, and tangental, which can make it hard to read. Overlong chunks of text are just kinda unsightly in websites-- that's what pagination is for. But how much is too much? When does something become worthy of a separate section? Do you try to just stick with the standard, user-friendly subsections, like profile, personality, and relationships, or do you try to organize them based around what you feel strongly about? (For example, I really believe that a character's hairstyle is a v. v. important part of their character, and consequently have more than one "hair" subsection.) This is my discussion topic for today!

New shrine!

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:57:04 GMT

Thought I'd take an opportunity to ~*plug*~ my new site, Shinobi, a shrine to Yuffie Kisaragi of Final Fantasy VII that I've worked on and off on for years and put off putting up for too long! (what a sentence!) There are still some minor adjustments/additions I'll be making over the next couple of days, but it's pretty much how I want it to be for the time being.

New shrine and discussion!

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:20:24 GMT

I finally got my Tidus shrine up and running. =)

And dang, it's practically dead here. I'm going to try starting a discussion and see if it'll liven things up a bit: Does it bother you when a webmaster constantly repeats himself/herself on a shrine?

I know it bothers me a little to read the same things over and over in different phrasing on shrines. Some shrines I've been to have even copied entire paragraphs from other pages on their shrines and put them on a new page. With characters like Tidus (because he's fresh on my mind), I know it's difficult to not talk about the same things (like it was hard to keep my Fate, Fayths, and Zenarkand sections separated), but I find it beneficial to link to other pages on the shrine if you need to refer back to something. Either that, or state it really quickly without much depth and move on.

Mission Accomplished!

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:40:49 GMT

My new shrine is reasonably complete, for now, and I'm using it to test-drive my new hosting. Please check it out!

Facing Destiny; a shrine to Roland of Digital Devil Saga 2

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:51:36 GMT

Hello everyone, I've decided to rebuild an old character shrine that I had back in 2001. I had to close it originally because of a loss of content due to a dead hard drive. I'm curious as to what programs you all use to capture (or extract?) images for your media galleries. I had one previously that worked on most Playstation games, but I no longer recall what it was named and was hoping that maybe someone here could help or provide an alternative. Thanks for your time!

Fannish opinions vs canon facts

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:50:44 GMT

What is your opinion of fannish ideas vs canon facts in a shrine? For example, in a relationships page, should one stick to canon facts and keep their own shipping preferences/hates for another section, or is it okay to lump everything together? What do you prefer?

Characters who live on past their games

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 02:44:23 GMT

This is my first post here, but I've been commenting on entries and watching the community for a while. My name's Todd, and I own dogged.org. I run four shrines: Solitaire (Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog), Wanderer (Sabin Figaro from FF6), Pawn (Adelbert Steiner from FF9), and Fragments (Cervantes de Leon from Soul Calibur).

Anyway, my question is... If a character spans across more than one game, or even into books, comics, and movies, would a shrine be incomplete if the webmaster decided to just cover that character from his or her original game? An example of this would be someone making a shrine to Yuna of FFX and deciding not to cover FFX-2. A more personal example would be my Knuckles shrine. I covered Knuckles' character from the games only because I didn't watch the cartoon as a kid, and I haven't read the comics.

Obviously, since I have a shrine like this, I think doing it is acceptable. I've gotten lots of positive feedback on Solitaire; not one visitor has complained about me not covering the comic books or cartoons. I want to know what you guys think, though.

Oops, one more thing.

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:54:12 GMT

Sorry, I forgot to mention this last time. The rules for posting sites have been slightly changed: If your shrine goes through a revamp (as in, content re-written, not different link organization), you may announce the news in a post. I realized that shrines aren't really the same once they go through a revamp...

charactershrine has a...

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:57:17 GMT

... REALLY CRAPPY MOD! And the name of the beast is xue. And this community also has a NEW LAYOUT. I'd like to thank two charactershrine members for providing the images: fadedaway and lalaloveppears. It was ridiculously easy for a r-tard like me to find the images so thanks, guys. :) And thank you condensation, for reluctantly giving me the go-ahead. She sympathizes with me and my need to be proactive in the community!

I drew the dude in the icon, because I'm vain and singling out one game for the icon is mean. :( Even though I've been (unknowingly) only using FF and FF-related games in the headers. I just realized it and I fail. :(

On a game-related yet not shrine-related note, but it still makes me pretty happy: I finished Kingdom Hearts II (a few weeks ago)!!! Yeah, everyone finished it eight centuries ago. It wasn't because it was so hard it made my brain give me the finger. :| I'm actually a pretty hardcore gamer, but not hardcore enough to get through the introduction of Prince of Persia. :(

That's all you really need to know about the layout, I think. (And my life.)

I hope you guys are having a great summer!

50+ members!

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:30:36 GMT

Okay, so first off, happy 50+ members! We hit the mark a while back, actually, but I thought it would seem silly to make a single post just for that.

In any case, first question! How do each of you go about organizing different sections? I still tend to use the conventional "character, media, site", but do any of you stray away, or even come up with your own? Or how about things that don't seem to fit anywhere? Do you come up with an extra section, or try and squeeze it into one of the available categories?

Secondly, how long does it take for you to complete a shrine? This might have been asked before, but I have yet to locate it. It takes me at least a month or two, depending on school, to get a good portion of it up. Sometimes, it might take me half a year to pick up the rest of it.

The difference between shrine/small shrine/etc.

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:19:30 GMT

So I've supposedly been working on a domain revamp, which includes reworking existing shrines, etc. I've been thinking lately about what exactly is a shrine - meaning, of course, what (to you) constitutes a full blown shrine? I'm sure the definition of one varies between different webmasters and such, and we probably all have different reactions when we come across one.

For instance, if you see a site with just an expanded profile/bio type thing and oh say three pictures, what is your impression of the site, especially if Webmaster X calls it a shrine in the introduction? If you see a fanlisting trying to pull itself off as a shrine, what do you think?

And what exactly is the difference to you between a full shrine and a mini shrine? Or any variant for that matter.

When I see a site with a good amount of analysis and the like, but calls itself a mini shrine, I feel as if it's humbling itself.

I suppose I'm rambling. I don't think I make any sense :p

Pagination on Sites

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:05:20 GMT

( my name is Neu, previous owner of kurai.nu, current owner of ivalice.nu)

This is more of a question of aesthetics and viewing preference.

Does Pagination (spanning information across more than one page) on content bother you when browsing websites/shrines, specifically on chunks of content? Would it be better just to divide the info, in your opinion, across multiple stand-alone pages?

Right now i am working on a new design, one for my domain and one for a shrine, and both of them function more seamlessly on the size that i originally created them at. So, my solution to content on the pages was going to be paginating anything where the text went passed a certain point with a small "Next" button/link or an arrow. Its fairly long, causing the screen to scroll if its at 1024x768, so making scrollbars really is not an option. I just wanted to know if this seemed more clunky and would make navigating the website difficult for visitors.

Stealing?

Wed, 30 May 2007 12:37:52 GMT

Has anyone ever stole something from a shrine of yours? Like a layout or even content? If yes what did you do about it? And what do you do now to protect your stuff from being redistributed?

I've heard lots of "spooky" stories about stealing stuff from your site, and I hate those kind of idiots that do that so I hope nobody will ever steal anything from my sites! (As if I had anything good to steal but whatever).

Edit: I know there has been a similar discussion before but let's say this is not just for galleries, kay :)?

Fanart in layouts?

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 20:26:31 GMT

Hello! I haven't noticed much here lately; I remember (AGES ago, whoops XD) Chloe suggested I post about this... but first!

To preface, I'm Eliza, I own lunar-seal.net and have had many shrines over the ages come and go, but the current three that have stuck (and are open) are Heaven Unsolved (chaos, Xensoaga), Summertime (Sakura, Xenosaga), and Tiny Wings of Light (Eiko, FFIX), the last of which is the oldest. I'm working on making a shrine to Mog from FFVI, and revamping my old shrine to Lucca from Chrono Trigger. I've been around for a long while, but don't "get out much" on forums or whatnot as far as the internet is concerned.

Anyway, the question is...how do you feel about using fanart in your layouts/designing around fanart? This isn't something I see a lot, but it's something I've liked to do for a long time. To clarify, I almost always use my own fanart, and when I don't, I always ask permission; so this isn't about the ethics of it, but about designing around fanart that you have clear permission to use. I have come to prefer it, because I can tool a fanart to work with a specific layout idea, or a color scheme. Other times, it seems all the official art and clear screenshots have been done to death and I want to try something different. When you see a layout that's using fanart, does it particularly draw your attention, or would you feel turned off by a layout like that?

Chrono Trigger Collective

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 17:22:36 GMT

Hey guys, I've read through the rules and I think this is appropriate for me to post here (since, well, I'm trying to get people to make character shrines!) but feel free to delete it if it's not.

Anyway! Lately I have been disappointed by how few shrines are left for Chrono Trigger characters, and I was wondering if I was the only one who felt this way. In order to build up some interest in a classic that is becoming more and more forgotten, I was thinking of creating a collective. I did this in the past, and it really increased interest in the game, so I'd like to do it again.

For those of you who are not familiar with Chrono Trigger, it is a game developed by Squaresoft, originally for Super Nintendo. It has since been re-relased for Playstation under the title "Final Fantasy Chronicles" (along with Final Fantasy IV). It is a really fun and loveable little game with a completely unique plot -- afterall, how many RPGs do you get to time-travel in? For anyone who hasn't played it, I encourage you to give it a try, even if it means downloading a ROM and a SNES emulator (which are easy to find), although you should try to at least find the PSX copy if you decide you like the game.

So, colletive business. I have already posted on my own livejournal to see if anyone from my friend list is interested, and I have already received a few responses. Here are a list of characters that are taken (although if you want to make a shrine to a taken character, let me know and we can try to work something out! this doesn't have to be a totally exclusive thing)

Crono: available
Lucca: moon_fox
Marle: 509am (?)
Frog: anagramata
Robo: available
Ayla: lufiamanaelf
Magus: anagramata & glace
Schala: e_dimension & terra
Queen Zeal: anagramata
Minor characters: available

If enough people show interest, I will create a collective on my domain, and once the majority of the sites are open, I will then consider buying a domain name for it. But I don't want to buy a domain if this is going to fall flat (which I hope it doesn't!) Anyone is welcome to join in, and don't hesitate to ask questions or tell your friends!

Lament Story

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 06:49:34 GMT

(The userinfo says I can plug a shrine if it's new, so here goes!)

I hope it looks alright; feedback would be awesome. _{(I'm secretly proud of it ahahaha)}. With this shrine, I think I tried more new things because I really wanted it to be creative :)

I'm looking for affiliates and the like, FF12 shrines preferred, so if anybody is interested, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.

(I have no idea what to tag this, mods help? And sorry if you're on my f-list and see this x-posted)

Routines?

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:52:18 GMT

I'm currently in the midst of building a new shrine (my first FFXII one! Oh noes!) and I broke out of my usual routine of building a shrine by beginning with information section. That was when I realized I even had a routine, because something felt "awkward".

So out of pure curiosity (and an attempt to stir up some activity in the community :D), what is your shrine-building routine, if you have one? For me, I make the layout first, then I would make the "sitely" information section because it's the easiest and the one that involves the least amount of thinking (hah). Then I would jot down and organize my sections on paper, do my research, and write up the information section. I do the media section last, which could explain why it's usually lacking fanworks because by that point, I'm just tired.

So, how about you?

What is a shrine for you?

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:35:57 GMT

Hello there! My name is Nancy and perhaps some of you know me from a collective I used to own wish.leave-it.be. Now I (finally) have my domain sophitia.org which hosts all my sites, but most of them are fanlistings.

I am new to shrining and only have 2 or 3 of mini-shrines/tributes (I could never tell the difference XD) that I need to work on a lot, but I never get around to it >_>

Well anyway, I should bring up a subject here XD.
What is a shrine?

For me, a shrine is a place that you express your opinions about the character, show your adoration to him/her, give visitors some interesting stuff to read and save them from searching all around the web to finding images and stuff! People that are fan of a character should feel nice that they found a place that provides useful info, media etc and someone else's opinions.

Do you think how long your pages or how many reads you have (even though some may turn out to be redundant) counts? Or a site with not so many pages or media is a tribute/mini-shrine and not an actual shrine?

Don't let me talk anymore! Welcome me (^.^) and tell me your views!

Inspiration

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:47:46 GMT

Hello, all! I'm Aya from Passion. ~~*doesn't have a domain*~~ I'm still pretty new at shrining because I can't find the time to work on content. I'm waiting rather impatiently for summer to arrive...

Anyway, the main discussion topic here is inspiration. As a lazy bum, I'd love to know how everyone gets inspired to write content. I frequently find myself writing a random paragraph here or there without ever finishing one of those pages. Do you play the game again, listen to the soundtrack, or do something else?

I've also been wondering if anyone knows of some easy-to-follow tutorials on how to make winamp skins. I've always wanted to make them. :)

Character trends

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:53:17 GMT

Because I've been meaning to start a discussion post, I have two questons! First, is there a specific trend in the characters you make shrines to? Almost all of my shrines are about male characters, and few of them are the main hero or protagonist of whatever they're from. The former sometimes bugs me a lot; I can never really find a female character I find worthy enough to make a shrine for. If I do, I usually can't come up with enough insight. There aren't too many female characters I love to begin with, so I suppose that's mainly the problem with me :P

Also, would you make (or have made) a shrine to a character that you don't necessarily love, but you feel you have something interesting to say about them? This especially comes to antagonists and villains because it's pretty hard to make the character look good with so many obvious flaws (let alone admire?).

fanlisting culture - the demise of shrines?

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:10:03 GMT

Do you believe that the fanlisting culture (as Stacey said it and I think is a great way to express what it is) has brought a fall on creating good, quality shrines and the whole shrine saga?

Do you think the age of shrines is over?

I would really be sad if people stopped making shrines because fanlistings are more 'popular'. I've always enjoyed looking at shrines more than fanlistings, although looking at FL codes are quite fun :D

The Suikoden tag gets a workout.

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:03:08 GMT

So, I have a new shrine at my network: Sterling for Chris Lightfellow, one of Suikoden III's main characters. There aren't many pages of content, but I spent a fair bit of time on each page. Hopefully it's understandable even if you haven't played the game. (Which is awesome, by the way.)

You might notice that Sterling is more a fanlisting/mini-shrine combo than a character shrine proper. I was wondering what people feel about "fanlisting culture" bleeding into "shrine culture"? A lot of people do both and I for one am a fan of the fanlisting/shrine. But then, I like the flexibility of content a shrine can offer. You don't have to talk about boring statistics and astrological signs and bloodtype if you don't want to. A fanlisting is a much more rigid format, and I sort of see how applying that to shrines is a bad thing. As lalaloveppears was saying, a lot of shrines nowadays are more like Not!fanlistings, and it seems as though this is because they follow a format like a fanlisting would, and expect impressive results.

My comment doesn't really have a point, because I'm unsure about my thoughts on the issue. But I would love to hear yours!