History of Kasuto.net

Read about my humble beginnings as a Zelda fan, to fanfic writer, to webmaster

     The story of the origins of my website actually begins long before I ever considered creating my own site. The idea to start a site only came to me long after I began writing fan fiction. So to understand how my site came about, you need to know about how I started writing.
    I'll say right now that I have always been a Zelda fan. Zelda really has been the only video game I played often. When Ocarina of Time first debuted, my family happened to be in the throes of financial trouble. Because of this, we couldn't afford to buy a Nintendo 64, let alone OOT. While I have always been an Internet junkie, I tried to avoid Zelda sites after the release of OOT because I wanted to be surprised. I never rented an N64 or OOT because I wanted one of my own. When my family finally got back on track money-wise, I asked for an N64 with Ocarina of Time for my birthday. On December 11, 1999, I finally received what I had waited more than a year to get. I'm sure you all can relate to the fact that I was instantly addicted to the game. When I say addicted, I mean it literally. It was all I did for weeks on end. I would play the game from the moment I got home from school till the moment I went to bed. Ocarina of Time was the game that turned my love of the Zelda series from a simple pleasure to an obsession. Ocarina of Time had the best story line of any Zelda game. After I played it, I became enthralled with the world of Hyrule. This obsession is what inspired me to first attempt to write a fanfic. I had always been an avid reader of fanfics, but not Zelda. I mostly read ones based on my favorite television shows, such as Sliders and Time Trax. In the past I had attempted to write my own fanfics for those shows, but my resolve soon faded. But the Zelda universe started something in me that really has had a dramatic effect on my life. On day, while sitting in bed, an idea came to me for a Zelda fanfic. The idea was actually inspired by one of my favorite episodes of the X-files. It was the episode when Mulder discovers that the aliens, the abduction of his sister, and everthing he had cared about had only been an elaborate hoax. This idea somehow seemed perfect for the Zelda series. I read a few Zelda fanfics then, and I wasn't satisfied. Most of them were "Link fights Ganon again" stories, which I didn't find interesting. So I thought of what it would be like if I wrote a story that turned the entire Zelda story line upside-down. What if the Triforce, the holy artifact that generations have sought and many have lived and died for, was one giant hoax? As I explored this idea, an entire story formed in my mind. After a while, it became so annoying that I finally decided to put it into words. One day, I literally sat at my computer and started typing a story. I had never written any kind of creative work before, and I had no idea how it would turn out. But I guess all the reading I've done really helped me. I took about six months to write my first story, but in the middle of June, 2000, my first story was finished. To say I was elated would be an understatement. I had finally given my interpretation of the Zelda story line. The next step was getting the word out. I submitted the story to ever Zelda site I could find. Then, I waited. To my surprise, I started receiving emails about my stories. People actually liked what I had written. The responses I received started the next step in my Zelda obsession.
    I never intended to turn "The Biggest of Lies" into a series of stories. However, Fate had different plans. People kept asking if I was going to write a sequel. Eventually I thought, "Why not?" So I started working on "The Darkness Within". I have never written a story that fast, it took only about 6 weeks. So I submitted that story to all the Zelda sites. More compliments came, and I became more confident. I had always sworn to myself that I didn't need to start my own page, that the other Zelda sites had everything anyone would ever need, and no one would want to visit my page. But one day, I dismissed that notion and began to create my own page. When I first made my site public on August 16th, 2000, it wasn't much to look at. I knew very little about HTML, and the whole site was plain text. But it was a start. I gradually changed the layout, using an image map as a navigation bar. When I first hosted the site, I used free web hosting at www.50megs.com. As my site grew, I felt the need to inlude more multimedia content. Most Zelda sites I found had few MP3s and most were broken links. My problem was that I only had 50MB of space, and all the MP3s would never fit. So I looked around the Internet for a cheap host that would give me the space I needed. I came up empty-handed, all the hosts I found charged outrageous prices for very little space. I was really depressed about that. Then one day, I was reading the ads in the back of a PC magazine and I saw an ad for Web SOLO hosting. They advertised the too-good-to-be-true offer of 500MB of web space for $6.95 a month. I decided to try it, and signed up for their hosting service. I have been with the company ever since. I thought 500MB was to good to be true, but it wasn't. I have had nothing but excellent experiences with this company. They actually have human beings to talk to at their phone number. During that time, I also acquired a free domain name with Name Zero. I couldn't afford to pay $39.95 to register, so I used them.
    Finally, I had a real website and my own domain. That is when my site really began to grow. I placed special emphasis on fan works, because I write fanfics myself. All the sites I've seen never had many fanfics, and I wanted to change that. I wanted to be the Zelda site made by a Zelda fan for Zelda fans. Over the months, the content kept building. I created the Hylian Language Institute, Kasuto's Ramblings, and many other things. But like I said, fan works were always the top priority.
    Update after update, the site kept growing. After nearly a year online, I finally requested affiliation with my favorite Zelda sites. To my surprise, nearly all of them accepted me. When my site first came out, I was happy to get 10 hits a day. It took a year for me to get a total of 10,000 hits. Since then, my traffic has increased everyday. I have finally become what I always wanted. It took a lot of hard work, but Kasuto.net has turned from a crappy little page in the middle of nowhere to a big site with a loyal following. And of course, none of it would've happened without the support of my fans. Those of you out there who first emailed me complimenting my fanfics, those of you who stumbled across my page and kept coming back, those of you who submitted stories and ideas; you're the ones who created this site. I don't take the credit for making this site popular, it was you who did it. I couldn't have done it without all of you.
    My only hope is that my fans will continue to visit and support this site. I plan on keeping this site alive for a very long time, hopefully forever. Unlike other webmasters who have lost interest, I will not. I may become erratic with updates, but I will never give up. My promise to you visitors is that this site will continue as long as Zelda exists.

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