Gaia Shrine

GAIAN OF THE EARLY 2010s

When I joined Gaia in 2011, I had no idea it was already past its peak. To me, it was perfect, my new go-to, kinda-but-not social media. My days were spent grinding zOMG for Gold, bumping forum threads, flipping items in the marketplace, and obsessively refreshing my inventory to see my latest haul.

Gaia quickly became my internet home. I logged in daily, leaving little traces of myself in forum conversations, avatar dress-ups, and marketplace deals. Even though I was only really active for a couple of years, I made so many friends. The community felt warm, full of inside jokes, random threads, and new friends in every hangout.

Inari By 2013, my activity started fading. My last forum post was just bumping my quest thread. Nothing dramatic, just life pulling me away. It never felt like Gaia was dying to me. It was just that time moves forward whether you’re ready or not.

Every so often, I still find myself clicking around, peeking at what’s left. I don’t know if I’ll fully dive back in, but the memories are worth keeping.

So this shrine is my way of celebrating that era. The avatars, the wishlist, the profile layout I constantly updated. It’s my old Gaia profile, fossilized with a Neocities twist.

DREAM AVIS

INARI'S BEADS

I remember questing Inari's Beads like it was a matter of life or death. The aesthetic had me in a complete chokehold. I think this was the same time I was obsessed with the anime Wolf's Rain. Anyway, the original generation was around 300k (at the time), which felt completely out of reach for me. I even set up a mini-shop on the forums to do avatar art for tips just to make what I could, and had a lot of fun doing it. I made some good gold back then, yet Inari's Beads always slipped through my fingers.

Inari

I put in a lot of effort, though I got sidetracked collecting other cool avatar items along the way. I managed to piece together an avi that made me feel pretty cool when I roamed the Towns and Rally.

Fast forward to 2025. After three days of arguing with Gaia support to get my apparently long since locked account back, I finally succeeded. With a batch of Platinum converted from my old gold and a few items missing from an alleged mysterious slew of events (hackers idk atp), my mind immediately went to the Beads.

After a few clicks and a brief platinum-farming session I had found tips for in the still surprisingly active forums, I had enough to grab the original generation for only 3k . It was a full-circle moment that filled me with pure nostalgia.

I had no idea Gaia came out with recolors and theme items branching from the Beads: Hime's Clan, Inari's Angel, Evening, Outcast, Wings and 13 Revivals. Ugh, should I quest to hoard them all just for the point of healing my inner Gaian?

ACHIEVEMENTS? MUST BE A NEW THING