Ideas & Resources
Not everyone in fandom has experience with creating or managing a website of their own. These days it feels more common to participate in fandom through the use of existing platforms: Tumblr, Twitter/Bluesky, LiveJournal/Dreamwidth, AO3 — through making accounts so that we can attribute a name to our works. But a website is beyond that. Instead of just creating an identity, we also create a space that is intrinsic on our identity.
But even if the idea of having a website sounds appealing, you might ask yourself, what would I even put on it?
So I've gathered here a non-exhaustive list of ideas in case you would like inspiration. No credit is required; these are merely examples of things that would be fun for me to find on a personal fannish website. Feel free to "steal" as many as you'd like or merely get inspired by them and do something different. All I'd ask is for you to do what brings you joy for what you want your website to be.
Ideas
- List (in text or images) your fandoms, both past and present. Or maybe just present.
- List (in text or images) your ships. Perhaps divided by fandom.
- List (in text or images) your favorite characters, celebrities, content creators, biases. And maybe your more controversial opinions for spice.
- Recs for fic, art, meta, essays, and other types of fanwork.
- Rec other fan creators.
- Show off your toolkit for writing, reading, browsing the internet, music, PC, desktop setup
- Make a Now page
- Write about your history in fandom
- Archive or list the fandom events you've participated in. Perhaps the works you've created or received from these events as well.
- Archive your fic. Though AO3 will certainly be stable for quite some time, there's also no harm in archiving your fic elsewhere as well.
- And then join the ficring, a fanfiction site webring.
- Here's a script to help you download your own fics from AO3.
- Alternatively, create a masterlist of your fic. The masterlist can organize your fic or fandoms differently from AO3, perhaps in a way that is more suitable for your fic or fandoms.
- A gallery for fanart. I've compiled a list of resources specifically for artists who are looking to make a personal site for their art. Check out omoulo's "artists vs. social media" as well.
- Other types of fanwork you may consider creating and/or sharing:
- Drabbles, ficlets, and notfic
- Poetry
- Fan translations
- Podfic
- Music, filk
- Cookbooks/recipes
- Fanbindings
- Reviews, podcasts, audio/video essays, and commentary
- Glossaries, encyclopedias, and other meta resources
- Vids, edits, and fanvids
- Fan calendars
- Tarot cards
- Paper crafts
- Fancovers (like book sleeves/covers)
- Comics/doujinshi
- Graphics/icons
- Manips, banners, picspams
- Favorite gifs and memes
- Knitting, crochet, embroidery, quilting, stitching
- Cosplay photos
- Buttons/pins
- Games and interactive fiction
- Music covers
- Photography
- Start a blog
- Make a fan shrine
- Make a randomizer
- List your bookmarks, links, or resources, for yourself or as recommendations for others.
- Share chatlogs you'd like to keep
- Share random ideas you have for fanworks, AUs, etc.
- Share your personality quiz results, picrews, pixels of your favorite Pokémon, Animal Crossing villager, or other cute pixely character.
- Share your OCs, original fiction/art, and other types of creative works beyond fanworks.
Resources
If you're new to this, here's a list of links to help you get started.
- A fanfiction masterlist webpage template and a rec page template, made by yours truly :)
- The Quick ‘n’ Dirty Guide to Making a Website
- Interneting Is Hard (but it doesn’t have to be) - Friendly web development tutorials for complete beginners
- Marksheet: A free HTML & CSS tutorial
- Own Your Corner of the Internet: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Crafting Your First Small Web Website (and a resources archive)
- Webmastery tutorials at sadgrl.online
- Layout builder at sadgrl.online
- 32bit Cafe, and their extensive list of resources
- Webmastery Resources compiled at Scumsuck
- Webdev Resources compiled at Sanguine Royal
- Resources compiled at Cyber Rot
- HTML Dog, with tutorials, techniques, examples, and references in all things related to HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- HTML, CSS, and JS Code Generators
- Fancoders - they also have a Discord server!
- I've previously compiled lists of art websites and fanfiction websites I've found, for inspiration.
- Neocities.org or Nekoweb for free hosting, particularly for beginners
- Templaterr at Neocities for specific simple resources
- Lists of webhosts compiled by KaleChips or tempural, if you decide to go a more involved webdev route
Checklist
- Decide where you would like your website to exist: Neocities, Nekoweb, another host, or somewhere else.
- Create a username/website to be the URL of your website. You usually cannot change this without moving your website entirely, so keep that in mind when making your account.
- Create the front page of your website: the first thing people will see when they visit your site.
- Create subpages: "about" you, contact/social media, your fandoms, ships, favorite characters, likes, squicks.
- Share your fanworks, creations, what you've participated in, and anything else that you'd like to put on your corner of the internet.
- Make your website look pretty with CSS, themes, pictures, colors, and codes.
- Find or make graphics for your site. Maybe an 88x31 button?
- Give the URL to all your friends and make them look at your cool website.
- Join webrings, directories, and fanlistings of the things you like.
- Collect stamps, blinkies, buttons; create an aesthetic wall; take personality tests and share your results; create a type of fanwork you've never created before to share; write your thoughts about being one of millions on the internet, in fandom, and in the world.
- Continue making updates, changes, and new decisions for your website as you experience the passage of time.
- Profit (self-fulfillment).
