Back in 2004, I first began my venture into the online world with a fansite. In those days, social media wasn't yet a thing; if you wanted your own corner of the internet, you had to make it for yourself, and I filled mine with my interests and hobbies. At the backend of the year, I moved away from pagebuilders and took the plunge into teaching myself how to code in HTML and CSS for a blog. This choice was partly inspired by what my friends were making and how incredibly cool it was to design something yourself for your own use... honestly though, the deciding factor was because I really wanted to use certain images in layouts. Thank you stubbornness. Once I had that first layout down, webdesign was something I kept doing until the layouts for my fansite were self-made; it was several months after that when I entered the world of fanlistings, now equipped with the tools in order to create them. Spoilers: there's no exit, I'm still there.
My first domain, lost-legends.com, was for my defunct fansite. It was my second that became the centre of my online presence for the next decade - fractured-memories.net. Fractured was purchased on the 24th August 2005 and was online within a few days. It had its own hosting package which meant I could use FTP, make databases, and so on. Over the years as I branched out with fandom domains (keyofdestiny.org, florete.org, taguel.org, to name a few!), Fractured became my network hub. nevarra.org was next in line, opening almost ten years later on 17th August 2015. As interests are wont to do, they shifted, and I truly thought I would never move domains again. And then I played Shadowbringers.
As you might have guessed if you've played the (ahem) critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV with a free trial up to level 80 and no restrictions on playtime, Norvrandt is named for the fictional continent in which its third expansion, Shadowbringers, takes place. Norvrandt is worlds away from the residing Eorzea, and the moment I set foot there with my miqo'te I was in awe. All the zones are beautiful, the music makes my soul soar, and there is something about Shadowbringers that has left a mark on me that, many years on, has not faded. It's quite possibly one of my favourite pieces of media ever. Honouring it as a place for my primary domain to migrate to from another fictional place just makes sense. A friend recommended FFXIV and Shadowbringers itself to me back in 2020 like hey, you'll love this. She was not wrong. It also still fits my unintended naming theme with my other domains (death and the undead)... me name things good.
At the moment, I currently own five domains (norvrandt.org, cieth.org, deadlockrebel.org, palaven.org, and farron.net) because I have a problem. Norvrandt was opened on 10th October 2023. Stand tall, my friend. May our journey never end.
So, what about the current layout? The third version of Norvrandt is not as lazily lifted from the prior two versions, and the final that was on Nevarra (and the one before that...); I actually added a header that is always visible once you scroll past a certain point meaning I had to reorder some of my coding (shocking, I know). It's not as seamless as I would like it to be, but it feels more grounding. Still, once you get a certain level of presentation down for your main domain, you don't really want to keep changing it up other than giving it a visual refresh every now and again. I absolutely refuse to let go of this hobby entirely.
During the 2026 Fanfest of the announcement of Evercold, the free trial of Final Fantasy XIV was expanded to include Shadowbringers - yes, you can play my favourite narrative in the world for free and I am no longer asking - and with it came some unexpected but welcomed promotional artwork. "Neat," I thought. "I'd like to use that in a layout," which was the same thing I had thought with a few other promotional pieces for Dawntrail and/or Fanfest and had failed to do anything with. As anyone who has been into website making a long time will tell you, this is a hobby that comes and goes. During a twenty-four hour maintainence period to introduce some quality of life changes to FFXIV where I didn't have anything better to do, I gave making a layout with this artwork another shot, and this is the result.
It does not include Ashe. But it is purple, and that's what matters.
