Honestly, I have absolutely no idea about how to tackle this project. The exercises did very little in the way of helping me to grasp the basics of HTML and CSS. It feels quite daunting since I feel so ignorant about how to even start. What is the first step here? How do I make a tribute page? What the heck do the User Stories mean? PLEASE HELP ME!!!
I already feel like giving up. HELP!
Hey! First of all, welcome! 
Okay, if you feel passionate to learn web development, even if it means going through rocky moments (because I am sure almost all of us have those moments), honestly don’t give up!
The key is to have patience. It sounds cliche, but seriously even I am happy to consider myself a turtle than a hare because as slowly I am taking it, I am learning so much more than I did before.
Before I give you further advice, it would help to know a little about yourself, your experiences and what is your approach to learning. Also, questions such as:
Excuse me for asking these questions, but this is to give me the right idea of what kind of advice I could give you depending on your background 
Calm down, bro
Everyone starts the very first project will feel exact the same thing, but don’t worry, you will find out how to do that,
First, you can start with the Codepen as they said: you can build your project by forking this CodePen pen
Try to copy all the text from the Demo, paste into the html box,
Now, take a deep breath, try to wrap the plain text with tags that you studied before in FCC,
If you remember nothing, take a look again on all the HTML/CSS challenges
User stories mean nothing but just small requirements that you have to follow in your project,
Sorry for my bad English!
Happy Coding!
FCC is the only platform that I am using to learn Web Development. Presently I do not want to pay for anything as I would only want to spend money on a “one stop shop” type of resource/platform. As far as I can tell that doesn’t really exist due to the plethora of nuances in this field, so as I mentioned already I am not interested in paying for anything. My time limit is 1.5 hours Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week at a minimum.
EDIT: Also I learn by seeing someone do it, having them explain the ins and outs of what they did, then guiding me as I do it myself. The exercises seemed to do none of that for me.
Sorry for the late response, it has been a really busy day for me!
Bingo! 
I agree that even though FCC is great when it has given a guide of what topic/elements needed to be learned, I feel their exercises don’t go into the depth of what they are teaching. However, other platforms are the same (especially if they are free)
The thing is to find someone to teach you thoroughly and guide you as you do it is going to be a tricky one to get especially at free cost. However, if you feel this is the right way of learning, I could suggest to google “coding mentor for free” and see what comes up? 
However, personally myself, I learn much better through video courses where not only they teach you what certain codes do but they provide doing a project (like creating a web page for food recipes for example) where the instructor will create it and explain what and why they have done that way. You also meant to copy and follow as it goes along so it feels like you are in the real-world environment. Normally, they tell you what code editor is recommended and how to set up a project folder, etc. (Btw, I don’t care what code editor is recommended, so far Atom is my favorite) 
My favorite platform for learning is Udemy. Now, before you say it is not free, they do actually free courses too (just filter it in the search), and I would normally search for courses that do projects as well. For example, like this course. Now, I cannot guarantee you that all courses on it are helpful, so try to find a course where it has good ratings and reviews and checks the syllabus of learning as well.
I know you said you are not interested to pay, but in case you ever changed your mind, they do have amazing courses but my tip is ONLY to buy them when they do sale periods (like they are doing now where most courses are £9.99 reduced from normally £199.99).
One more thing, even the greatest course or platform you might struggle to understand a certain code at one point, when you do, look at further online resources such as w3school or blog posts about it. They tend to be very helpful.
Okay, sorry this is long but I do hope this will be helpful to you and also if you have any questions, forums are there to answer them, oh and you are welcome to ask me as well
EDIT: Oh I also forgotten to mention, even if you do learn on other platforms, this is not to say to give up FCC! Like myself, when I am on the topic (i.e responsive design) I would learn it elsewhere then come back to apply my knowledge
Hey, so whenever I begin a project I feel like being able to visualize the end goal helps a lot in the beginning. I recommend you view the example provided in the FCC challenge and perhaps other FCC coder’s projects to get a feel for what you want to accomplish.
Then. I suggest laying out all the details. For instance, where does the navigation bar go, what background color should this <div> be. I use Figma which is free software that allows you to create templates for web design, but it may time to learn and master. Even taking a piece of paper, and roughly sketching out your design WILL help a lot.
And once you start coding, it is suggested that you search up solutions if you get stuck on the problem. By reading someone’s code and understanding what’s happening, it’ll be like adding a new tool to your toolbox. Thus, in the future, you may need to reuse that piece of code. Hopefully, you may be able to code a decent portion of it yourself.
Anyways, it is important to take steps and not to overhaul yourself. If you have a problem that you are struggling on, taking a small break can help you refresh your mind and often leads you to find the solution. Have fun and good luck! If you have any problems, feel free to post another message anytime! 