about

A twelve year old girl called Espo was just a plain, normal, healthy, girl. She started her first website in May 2004, and July time of the same year, she learnt a little html by herself, and she took a big step, by creating an unapproved fanlisting. This was when she first came across thefanlistings.org and animefanlistings.org, two websites that would have a major impact on her during the few years. She wanted her 'fanlist' to be approved, but learnt of all the rules and regulations and found it was unapprovable. It was near the beginning of November when she was browsing through and joining some when she noticed one for one of her favourite characters wasn't there; Ringo Seto of Angelic Layer (now closed). She applied and was approved. Her knowledge of html has expanded since then; and in November 2004, she took a real step; she made her very first html layout. As from January 2005, she has made several more sites, and a couple more fanlistings; and decided, the time had come to make a site to house all her sites. And this is the result.

In March, Espo's pact with her dad was completed; if she got 12000 hits in a year of EGS being opened, he would buy her a domain. She completed it in 9 months! Domain was registered as of March 2005. Yet in the summer of 2005, Espo wanted another domain. Mainly, for her fanlistings, since the other was tied to freewebs and refused to part from it. After sticking with my hostess for a few more months (till around er, the beginning of 2006 was the time it took her to shove everything across) whilst I moved everything over, I ended up with a collective of 81 or so fanlistings. All she wants to say is Buruma, thanks for putting up with me so long. You saved me from leaving this world behind when I lost my original host way back when. I still thank you to this day.

As 2007 came and fell into 2008, Espo had a large quanity of fanlistings but then started to slowly cut back and cut down on what she was less interested in, and her improved graphic making due to making icons and graphics on livejournal led to her to redesign a lot of her fanlistings as 2008 came to a close and 2009 came to open up. Espo has gradually started to lose interest in fanlistings on a whole, but she is definately still interested to still have quite a fair few to the subjects she adores. Round mid 2009 she became active again at the tafl boards and has gained a lot bit more interest in her fanlistings, as she has started to revamp a lot of them on a layout kick that has spurred her to keep web designing; this is also helped by a shiny new laptop screen she is currently sitting at. And she also wants to stop talking in third person now, I'll have you know.

Anyway, Holding On is five years old, believe it or not. And this is the twenty-third version it has had. Shocking! It's like one of my own children, and is my oldest site still active. May it stay for years to come.

     ♥ the name

I thought about it for a while, but couldn't find anything Japanese that I really really liked. I decided to go for a phrase I liked, and ended up with 'Holding On.' Why? Because it can have several things at the end, like 'to my memories' and 'you' and 'life.' Good for different versions. And it's kind of like Sakura, my fave. manga/anime character; she is 'holding on' to her beliefs, her family, her friends, etc. Not to mention at that time in Dance class there was this song where it said 'I'm Holding On to you..' in it. It's also a very popular phrase in songs, I bet every artist or something has used it once. And I'll 'hold on' to my favourites forever, right? I debated changing it for a while, but ruled it out, after I started hearing this phrase crop up in the genre of music I love. Especially when Goo Goo Dolls sang something with it in. That's all I can really say! I just... like it!

     ♥ layout   

Version 23 of Holding On features Mitsuki (left) and Takuto (right) as they appear from the manga Full Moon wo Sagashite, by Arina Tanemura. This layout was made by me in Paint Shop Pro 8. The fonts used on the layout are Lucida Bright, Dead Secretary, and SF Movie Poster. The lyrics on the layout are from The End Is Where I Begin by The Script. Brushes from a source no longer online. Image was found at Aethereality.