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One of the things that I didn't think too much about in regards to originally writing Jeweled Artifacts is the ramifications behind Cranky being the only person in the current century (really, according to the timeline, about 143 years) to have any major sort of magical capabilities. It's to the point that even The Emerald Earth only implies all but one of the consequences that have resulted from it, and I'll admit it was only within the last year or two that a lot of stuff came to the surface.

What I've got currently is that due to Decius's words when the Crystal Coconut was created, it's believed that when the island was due to be in major peril he'd be reincarnated as the island leader whose deeds were responsible for keeping the island safe as well as having powerful magical capabilities. Since the last time before the current era that this happened was in Asvyian's reign almost 200 years ago, and that almost all leaders after him lacked magic for the most part, everyone was unsure of how they'd be able to definitively pick his reincarnation out.

Now, enter Aiko, the older woman seen in this picture. Aiko is one of the village elders in both the JA timeline and the general timeline. Like Grouchy, she's his great aunt through his grandfather Rowan, and is the polar opposite of Grouchy when it comes to him. I actually use Aiko in a lot of the background material I write more to help with my world-building in regards to both the "government" of Kongo Bongo in JA and also trying to expand more on the older family members, but I'm sure one of these days she'll make an actual appearance, and since this is the first time I actually tried drawing her she may change slightly down the line.

Back to Grouchy and Aiko being polar opposites: while both do genuinely care about Cranky, Grouchy upon learning of the magic tended to do more to help cultivate his own interests and magical ability rather than force him to hide it in order to help him become his own person as opposed to what the island would be expecting should they learn about it. Aiko, meanwhile, was far more concerned about making sure he knew the heavy weight he would potentially need to bear when he was older to the point most everyone else who knew the situation felt she was just trying to make him a shell for Decius's soul. While Aiko did have the best intentions, literally anyone who knew what was going on believed she was going about it the wrong way.

Aiko's intentions went so far as regularly arguing with Romani about letting her raise him to become what the island will need, which is actually what they're actually arguing about in the picture. It took him a few years, but he was eventually able to get her to drop that particular subject. (His plan was to pretend to give in, and relied so heavily on Cranky, still a very young child at the time, weirding her out with the disturbing things little kids say that he only packed a bag with a day's worth of amenities. She managed three hours out of the night before promptly returning her great-nephew to his unconcerned father.)

The really fun thing in all this? Cranky's abilities are the result of latent magic passed down over the years finally rising to the surface (and are actually something DK also inherits, but to a lesser extent), and he is in fact not Decius's current incarnation. I don't want to say too much about it here, since that's a story line reserved for its own deviation or even whenever I manage to write The Emerald Earth, but when he finds out who it is, he actually grows so enraged about Aiko not learning anything from his childhood that she takes the brunt of his reaction.

Yes. Yes, I do think way too much about this stuff.

DKC (c) Nintendo

Description

One of the things that I didn't think too much about in regards to originally writing Jeweled Artifacts is the ramifications behind Cranky being the only person in the current century (really, according to the timeline, about 143 years) to have any major sort of magical capabilities. It's to the point that even The Emerald Earth only implies all but one of the consequences that have resulted from it, and I'll admit it was only within the last year or two that a lot of stuff came to the surface.

What I've got currently is that due to Decius's words when the Crystal Coconut was created, it's believed that when the island was due to be in major peril he'd be reincarnated as the island leader whose deeds were responsible for keeping the island safe as well as having powerful magical capabilities. Since the last time before the current era that this happened was in Asvyian's reign almost 200 years ago, and that almost all leaders after him lacked magic for the most part, everyone was unsure of how they'd be able to definitively pick his reincarnation out.

Now, enter Aiko, the older woman seen in this picture. Aiko is one of the village elders in both the JA timeline and the general timeline. Like Grouchy, she's his great aunt through his grandfather Rowan, and is the polar opposite of Grouchy when it comes to him. I actually use Aiko in a lot of the background material I write more to help with my world-building in regards to both the "government" of Kongo Bongo in JA and also trying to expand more on the older family members, but I'm sure one of these days she'll make an actual appearance, and since this is the first time I actually tried drawing her she may change slightly down the line.

Back to Grouchy and Aiko being polar opposites: while both do genuinely care about Cranky, Grouchy upon learning of the magic tended to do more to help cultivate his own interests and magical ability rather than force him to hide it in order to help him become his own person as opposed to what the island would be expecting should they learn about it. Aiko, meanwhile, was far more concerned about making sure he knew the heavy weight he would potentially need to bear when he was older to the point most everyone else who knew the situation felt she was just trying to make him a shell for Decius's soul. While Aiko did have the best intentions, literally anyone who knew what was going on believed she was going about it the wrong way.

Aiko's intentions went so far as regularly arguing with Romani about letting her raise him to become what the island will need, which is actually what they're actually arguing about in the picture. It took him a few years, but he was eventually able to get her to drop that particular subject. (His plan was to pretend to give in, and relied so heavily on Cranky, still a very young child at the time, weirding her out with the disturbing things little kids say that he only packed a bag with a day's worth of amenities. She managed three hours out of the night before promptly returning her great-nephew to his unconcerned father.)

The really fun thing in all this? Cranky's abilities are the result of latent magic passed down over the years finally rising to the surface (and are actually something DK also inherits, but to a lesser extent), and he is in fact not Decius's current incarnation. I don't want to say too much about it here, since that's a story line reserved for its own deviation or even whenever I manage to write The Emerald Earth, but when he finds out who it is, he actually grows so enraged about Aiko not learning anything from his childhood that she takes the brunt of his reaction.

Yes. Yes, I do think way too much about this stuff.

DKC (c) Nintendo