Little changes, Small surprise

I had a bit of an impulse moment earlier, deciding to trade my Kasumi for a Yo-sd Lin. I had brought Kasumi out for a doll-meet (as, if you don't know yet, I am preparing to move house, and everyone else is pretty much packed up nicely in their boxes...only Kasumi doesn't have a box), and my friend took a liking to him/her and requested a trade. Somehow it worked out...because I've always wanted a Lin, but just never had an opportunity to welcome one into the clan. I had been planning to re-shell my Kasumi's character, so the timing was great. Honestly, I loved Kasumi's face-up. It was a real masterpiece by the lovely and talented AngelToast. But I never bonded much with Kasumi, and the face-up was a last-ditch effort to save our relationship (this makes it sound so serious!) The thing that really clinched the deal for me was that Lin had an equally beautiful face-up (done by a well-known korean artist, Rabiruna - something I only found out a few minutes ago, after I had already brought her home.)

I've never done a trade on impulse, and I really hope I don't regret it. But right now, things are feeling pretty good. As for the character...Lin's (I really need to give her a name) personality is very different from the gentle but boyish Kasumi, and she is taking to the role in a completely different way. That being said, I don't think it's a bad thing. She's very stunning in her own way.

Volks Yo-tenshi Kasumi as Yukina

Volks Yo-sd Lin portraying the same character differently

Edit: I found that the bottom of her chin has a chip on the face-up. Wonder if I can get that fixed without changing the face-up?

The Various Races of The Continent

The Vani (or Navia Vani) - They are the highest form of being (the ruling class) in the Continent, akin to heavenly beings. All races are descended from the Vani. Many of them hold positions within the the Council of Nav (the Navi), the spiritual governing body within the continent. These include Elune with her control over the oceans and seas, Morning with her dominance over the skies and Morianna with her hold over the forests.

The Aori (or Aori Vani) - The lower caste branch of the Vani, they often intermarry with the ruling Navia branch. They have weather-related abilities, although the less powerful may only be able to do something basic like causing rain to fall on the spot where they are standing. Most of the Aori only have affinity with a single element, eg. Wind, rain or snow (a notable exception being Cloud, who is able to control all forms of weather). They generally like to live in places of high altitude, like at the top of the highest mountain peaks.

The Dryr - Forest-dwelling spirits with a deep affinity to the plants they live with. They have extremely long life-spans. The three most powerful of the present Dryr are the trio of Morianna (trees), Kaibara (flowers) and Yukina (farmlands and crops), each with their own dominion.

The Meru - Water-dwelling spirits, they can be found in varying sizes in different bodies of water.

The Ilfi - Cave-dwelling spirits, they love rocky areas and generally live up in the highest cliffs. They are relatively small sizes, thus able to fit into little crevasses in the rock walls. Their hearing is not very good, but they can sense movement by the vibrations coming through the rock.

The Fler - Minuscule spirits with weak magical power. Some even have wings and are able to fly short distances. They are generally kept as magical companions by the Vani.

The Hume (known as Humans on the 'Other side') - Non-spirit creatures, they have no magical ability whatsoever. (Except in a few notable cases, like Morning).

The Qree - A very tiny sky-dwelling species. They are so light that they make their homes on the tops of clouds.

The Lych - They are almost indistinguishable from the Hume, except for their paler skin tone. They have some latent magical ability, but it is almost non-existent. The Lych are different from the rest in that they feed off the bodily fluids of the other species to survive, and their own bodily fluids are toxic to all other races (except in a few notable cases).

The Vyen - A mysterious underground-living species. Little is known about them, except that they have great magical ability. They seldom associated with the other races before, but recently, many of them have been coming to the surface in search of something.

Upgrading In Progress!

The Chateau got a new upgrade today. It's a little widget I made myself. I spent the better part of today coding that in HTML. Messed up a couple of times and had to start over.

As you can see, I removed the slideshow on the left sidebar and instead we now have a scrolling set of images of the Chateau residents (those away for face-up and those that are in the process of being sold have been excluded). Each of the images links to a Picasa Web Album for each individual resident.

Hope you guys have fun playing with it, and that it's not too annoying.

Teehee.

Do note that widgets are not visible on mobile.

Images (L-R): Morianna, Morning, Cloud, Elune, Kaibara, Mio, Rinka, Asako, Tsukika, Yukina, Eden, Meron, Yume & Neru, Rini

Edit: And oh! We also have music now. Hope you guys like it. It's a song by Lindsey Stirling called "Song of the Caged Bird". I figured out how to make the player from playlist.com invisible...but the downside to that is  that now you can't turn off the music if you don't want it.

Another edit: Now the images enlarge on mouseover :D

About Mio

Name: Mio Murasaki (美桜 紫)

Age: 15
Gender: Female
Race: Human


Title: None
Faction: None

Family: Rinka (Younger Sister)

Before her younger sister was born, Mio's family lived on the edge of a forest, where, unbeknownst to many, lived a group of dryads. One day Mio wandered into the forest and met Kai, and the two of them quickly became playmates and best friends. However, a few years later Mio's parents suddenly divorced, and her mother remarried and moved to live in another city with her new husband, taking Mio with her. After the death of her mother and step-father in an unfortunate accident, learning that her father had disappeared after her mother had moved, and having no one left to turn to, Mio took her little sister and returned to the forest again to look for Kai. When Kai left the forest to follow her half-sister Mori to the Chateau Miyana, she left without telling Mio, not wanting the human girl to follow her, and get caught up in the struggles of the non-human world. But Mio, steadfast in her resolution never to separate from Kai again, took her sister and left to follow Kai. After searching stubbornly for nearly a year, she finally finds her way to the Chateau's doorstep.

Mio is actually a very independent girl because of her past, and she provides for both herself and her sister by secretly working as a model and actress. Mio has two distinct personalities, an normal schoolgirl personality and an idol personality that comes out when she is working. Because of this, she has successfully managed to hide her real identity from her many fans, who would never imagine her to be such a different person when she is not performing.

Love & Family

Well, it was recently Easter...Okay, so that was a while ago. But I still feel like sharing these.

The first photo is of Yuki (Cloud) and his family. His lawful wife Elune and their children, and his lover Morning and their children. Officially Elune knows nothing about Yuki being the father of Morning's children, but I just thought it would be nice to take a full photo of them all together.

And then I just had to have one racy photo of my lovely blue-haired couple. Just because.

And here they are again. I got them somewhat matching outfits from the Volks store in Japan. Well..I got the one for Yuki, and my mum insisted on getting the outfit for Morning. Don't they look gorgeous together?