#gaiea

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK 2025 - DAY 1: Traverse Town

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

@khoc-week

I have had a really busy summer at work that took up a LOT of energy, and some of the WORST art and writer's block I've had in my life for all but a very small handful of things. As such I didn't get my posts pre-prepped this year 🥲 I may not get every day finished, but I'll see what I can do! I just so happened to have recently done this art of Gaiea in Traverse Town, so at least I have something to post today for sure!

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK 2022 Day 1: Appearance

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.

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK 2022 DAY 5: REMEMBER

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.

Now, as that room wasn't connected to Organization XIII's use of the Castle Namine doesn't know to remove this encounter from Sora's memories, but just like with anyone else's memories of Diana it does become fuzzy after he awakens at the beginning of KH2, especially removed from the context of his journey in Castle Oblivion. So he's left wondering, just who was that girl with the kind smile and sad eyes?

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC Week 2022 Day 2: Inventory

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)

Some of these items have a story, some are exactly what they appear to be, but I'll leave that up to the imagination for now ;)

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK 2022 DAY 4: DETERMINATION/SACRIFICE PT. 1

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.

As for Diana... Well, there's a snippet of her story I want to share, but I don't want this post to get super long, so I'll see you in Pt. 2

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK 2022 DAY 6: LIGHT

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.

It all started when Diana was small. Gaiea is a good five or six years older than Diana, and wasn't always very enthused with having her baby sister follow her around, what older sibling ever is? But, as is often the way, she was usually put in charge of watching her anyway.

So, in order to make it a little more bearable to her own sensibilities, she began to introduce Diana to her own interests. Luckily it turned out a couple stuck, they both had a love for art and fencing! Everything seemed great! Unfortunately, those particular happy times wouldn't last.

When Diana was ten there came a time when Gaiea started getting even moodier than usual, she would sometimes lash out unpredictably over the most inconsequential things. It strained their relationship a bit, but still, the sisters stuck to their routine of training together. Most days this was enough to settle Gaiea and put her in a better mood. Most days.

One day, however, even this little ritual didn't lighten her mood. In fact, she only seemed to get more frustrated throughout the session. Finally, when Diana landed a particularly painful blow, Gaiea reached her breaking point and blindly lashed out to push her away with an angry yell. As she did so a bolt of Darkness accidentally manifested and stuck Diana in the face, knocking her back several feet. When Gaiea came down and turned to apologize she was horrified to see her baby sister collapsed on the ground, clutcing her eye as Dark magic started to engulf her.

Terror seized her heart and she rushed to her baby sister's side, panicking and trying desperately to figure out what to do. Her innate magic reacted to her desperation and she essentially absorbed the Darkness into her own heart. But she didn't really have control over this, and thus she accidentally took too much, taking most of Diana's natural Darkness as well, causing her Light to flare and increase, forever altering their internal balances and slightly damaging Diana's heart. That's why she's sickly at times, her heart is trying desperately to balance itself out, but is unable to because there's just not enough Darkness. Gaiea also struggles with the excess of Darkness in her heart, leading her to some bad habits to cope as she gets older. And to top it all off, she wasn't able to stop the Darkness fast enough, Diana's eye was permanently damaged after that, leaving her half blinded. They never tell anyone specifically what happened though, just that it was a training accident.

However, that imbalance in her heart is where her connection to Vanitas comes in. I won't go into full details, because this is already getting really long, but when they meet their hearts are instantly drawn to each other, hers with too much Light, and his filled with Darkness, both damaged... When they were together they felt better. So whenever he had a moment to himself Vanitas would seek Diana out, take shelter in her soothing radiance, and somewhere along the way their hearts became connected. This is why Diana is able to call on Void Gear, and also why her heart is drawn to Ven's sleeping, empty body. They are also connected through her bond with Vanitas. Three broken teens, victims of circumstances beyond their control, irrevocably tied together by fate.

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK 2022 DAY 7: WAYFINDER

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.

And so another @khoc-week comes to an end. Thank you to the mods for running another lovely event, and thank you to all the participants for sharing all your beautiful characters. I hope to see more next year!

[justsimplykunal]

Mother and Child

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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