Kyantol.com - About this site

Welcome to Kyantol.com - a fanshrine for the anthropomorphic characters (i.e. furries) from the Shining series of video games (most popularly known via the Shining Force games in the series).

Anyone that's visited this page before now will probably be aware that it's been under construction for a while (read "a while" as "over 2 years"), and may have guessed that the whole thing was never going to happen. Anyone thinking that can now scrub that idea from their head, as I've finally got off my lazy backside and started putting the site together! I had been trying to use this site as a way to get my head round PHP and train to be a full and proper web developer, but my inability to find a decent guide led to twiddling fingers over how to build the site and eventually led me to thinking "sod it, I know my way round HTML and CSS*, so I'll get on with it with what I know". So now I'm here, with a not-overly-stylish-but-nice-and-practical page design and style (which may be tweaked and modified during construction), and a plan for the site's content.

* I also know my way round XML, but it's unlikely that I'll be using that here. At least not without a cheap copy of Adobe Flash and a decent reason for using it with XML driven content.

I'm guessing that anyone visiting is wondering (or may have already guessed but want confirming) is "what's gonna be on the site?", so here's what I've got in mind...

Character shrines - Pages devoted to the various anthropomorphic characters from the Shining series, including character information, pictures, and so forth;
Galleries - Fanart pictures of these characters; these will probably be from me at first, though I'm up for including contributions from other fans;
Other furries - Pages and highlights on other furries from TV and video games that I'm a fan off;
Fanworks - Pieces of fanwork (aside from fanart, which would go in the Galleries) on or involving these characters (or Shining Force in general);
Personal space - Some bits and pieces from and about me that aren't related to the site's main content, but of the "stuff for my website" variety, such as personal and professional profiles on myself, ramblings, rants and muses on various topics and goings on in the world, and articles and media from some of my exploits over the years (I've been meaning to upload my photos and notes from my trips to Japan and the Shining Only conventions they held there for over three years now...);
Some form of submissions system - A way for fans to post their appreciation for the characters and the site, including sending their own fanwork for inclusion on the site; this may well be just an email address to send messages and attachments to at first, but may develop into a decent submission form system in future.

What you won't find (or are extremely unlikely to find) on this site are...

Forums - From my experience these need a lot of time and effort to run well if they are to become successful, and ideally that's not for me; I've tried being a forum moderator before and it didn't work out, even though a few years later I'm that much wiser on how to do the job. I may put something up for the sake of technical training on how to set up and maintain them, but there are other forums out there that offer pretty much the same thing as I would. I'd generally direct people to the forums at Shining Force Central, probably the biggest and most popular forums on the Shining series;
Blog - Although there will be other personal topics and events listed in the Personal space, I've already got a journal going on my deviantART page (despite infrequent updates at present), so would continue using that (though may well post a notification here when I update it);
Content focussing on non-furry characters - ...Okay, not much content on them - I don't want to appear biased against them as I hold a good number of non-furry Shining characters amongst my favourites. However, this site is geared towards the series' anthropomorphic characters, so expect content to be heaily weighted in their favour.

Hopefully there are fans of either the Shining series or furries (or both) that like what I've got in mind and will become satisfied visitors once the site is ready and opened (with luck before the middle of 2010). I'm not aware of there being any active sites specifically aimed at this subject, so I'm hoping to fill a niche that is at least of my particular interest, and interests other fans too!

Regards,
Ashley Culley/Cullsoft
Site owner & administrator