#gaiea

"Traverse Town, that harbor and haven for those who've lost it all."

@khoc-week

For real this time

Coming in late, but still on day one, the OC I want to try and focus on for @khoc-week ! This is my beloved child Diana! She's a little tragic, and a lot stronger than she looks, I can't wait to reveal more about her as the week goes on!

And, because I can't tell her story without her sister, have this older ref sheet I made for Gaiea.

Remember, she had to remember... If she forgot she'd lose everything...

With each passing year it got harder and harder for Gaiea to remember what she was working so hard for, why it was she continued to fight. Some days she woke up and she almost couldn't remember Her voice, Her eyes. (So similar, yet so much softer than her own) Some days she could barely remember what she carried that bear around for. (Can't lose that, she might hate the Brat who gave it, but She would be devastated) One horrifying day she found she had trouble remembering Her name. Why did it feel like something was trying to steal her reason for being away from her? It hurt, it hurt! Hadn't she suffered enough pain? This wasn't fair!

Please, please, if there's any kindness left in this universe just let her not forget.

For those of you who read yesterday's snippet entry for @khoc-week you might have figured out that when Radiant Gardens fell Diana's heart went to rest in Castle Oblivion. Specifically it rests with Ven's body in the Chamber of Waking for reasons I hope to explore tomorrow. This has a couple of consequences.

The first and most obvious one is that people start to have trouble remembering her, even those closest to her. In the minds of many of the survivors from Radiant Garden she becomes a blurred figure from the past, like someone you met once as a small child. As you can imagine this is incredibly distressing for Gaiea, especially prior to meeting Sora&Co. Finding Diana is her whole drive in life, so forgetting even one things feels like a devastating wound. Thankfully she does have a support network, even if she doesn't like to lean on it. Leon and Cid are good about listening when she needs an ear, even if they like to act gruff, and Aerith gives her the idea of recording everything she can remember with her art. It's not a fun situation, but she makes the best of it.

The second interesting consequence is that in this version of the story when Sora goes through a certain door in Castle Oblivion, instead of coming across a recreation of one of the worlds from his memories, he finds himself in a bedroom where he meets a... Shade, of sorts, of Diana. She warmly welcomes him in and encourages him to rest, after all he's worked very hard to make it this far and he must be tired. When he's ready to go she gives him a bit of advice: If he's going to take care of others, then he must first take care of himself. It won't do his friends any good if he loses himself in his efforts.

Okay, so I had planned to do something else today for @khoc-week on a different prompt, but I'm very tired so I'll put that off to another day and take the softer prompt after all. I might update this with art later, but we'll have to see. I have a love/hate relationship with my trinket line up pieces 😂 So here's a look at what the sisters keep in their inventories.

Note: Diana's set up is for prior to the fall of Radiant Gardens, Gaiea's is for after.

Diana

Hairclips

Sunscreen

Gardening gloves

Book for reading

Book for pressing flowers

Small sketchbook + pencil (Gaiea's not the only artist)

Snacks + Water

A silver bangle

Potions + ethers

Weapon (originally a rapier, later a keyblade)

Gaiea

Ribbon for binding her hair with

Music player + earbuds

Cigarettes

A lighter

Art supplies for sketching and painting

A tent and camping supplies

A stocked toolbelt

Potions + ethers

A teddy bear that's important to Diana

Weapon (originally a rapier, later swaps to a heavier blade)

Hello again! These two prompts unfortunately go hand in hand for these tragic sisters, so that's why we get a double theme today for @khoc-week

As we know, Gaiea desperately wants to see her sister again. For a long time it's the one thing that drives her forward. She's willing to sacrifice anything and everything to have her back. And when she sets her mind to it...

Well, she gets a little scary... (credit to the wonderful and lovely @elli-mk for the beautiful background she let me borrow for this piece.) She wields a mix of Dark and Gravity magics (not to be confused with Antigravity, she's essentially an expert at spells like Heavy that keep you bound to the ground, no jumping around in fights against her) and she will crush ger enemues without remorse, no matter what it costs her.

Later on she does end up finding more reasons to move forward in the form of friends and "adopted" younger siblings, but Diana is always her biggest motivator.

We're a little late, but we're here none the less! So, for today's @khoc-week entry I get to explain one of my favorite parts of Diana's lore! I just hope that I do it justice. I've seen curiosity about just how it is that Diana is connected to Vanitas. Well, it's all got to do with how her heart is nearly pure light. But to explain that, I need to explain how and why that is. Because, you see, once upon a time her heart was balanced, not truly Light, not truly Dark, just that purely human state of being somewhere in the middle, but an accident would change that.

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one.

No lore today, just a shot at designing wayfinders for Diana, Vanitas, and Gaiea in the style of the Wayfinder Trio's charms. Maybe Aqua makes them as a gift for them someday when everybody is finally home and okay, I think that would be nice, especially as a way to show that things with Vanitas are smoothed over. There's no strings, because, honestly, I forgot about them until I was part way through coloring 😂 so just pretend they're there.

Came across this quite inadvertently, but it’s one of the most soothing songs I’ve listened to in awhile. She’s got a lovely voice and the words & their meaning are just so deep! I can’t understand the Sanskrit language either, but the subtitles are self-explanatory.

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