NAME: Lisa
PERSONAL JOURNAL: amanechan.livejournal.com
ARE YOU 18 AND OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: lijobe59@gmail.com

CHARACTER NAME: Aerith Gainsborough
FANDOM: Final Fantasy VII
BACKGROUND: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Aerith_Gainsborough
AGE: 22
APPEARANCE: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Aerith_Gainsborough
PERSONALITY: Aerith is hardly the meek sacrifical lamb that many gamers would make her out to be. Yes, overall she has a sweet temperament, but let's not forget that this is also the woman that managed to manipulate big tough Cloud Strife into a dress and a sparkly tiara. Just hours later she was threatening to castrate the city's most notorious pimp with her bare hands. Yes, Aerith is a kindhearted person with a penchant for flowers and the color pink, but she also grew up in an extremely harsh environment, and she is a survivor above all else. It takes a lot to get her truly angry, but once you get her there, she’ll make sure you know it. Sometimes the best way to survive is to keep to yourself, and sometimes it's to reach out to others, and Aerith is very good at designating which is which. She is the last of a race known as the Ancients, or Cetra, and her earliest memories are of being on the run with her birth mother, a constant struggle to get away from the scientists who pursued them. She was eight when those very scientists had her mother killed before her eyes, and she harbored a deep wariness of strangers for most of her life.

It was Zack Fair, an exuberant member of SOLDIER, who began to draw her out of her shell when she was 16. Part of the reason she fights so hard is to honor the memory of the person who first taught her to be brave.

As the last of the Ancients, she also has a deeply spiritual connection to the planet she calls home, and the mystical Lifestream that surrounds it. The Lifestream is an afterlife of sorts, and Aerith has always been able to hear the voices of those in the Lifestream. Now, on Gran Pulse, the lack of those voices is deeply disconcerting to her, but it would take a lot to get her to reveal that. She might suddenly pause and stare off into space, as if struggling to make out a distant sound, but before you could ask what was wrong she'd give you a bright smile and teasing remark.

Aerith is a cheerful, friendly young woman who likes to help people and, at the same time, keep her distance. She is independent, a survivor - her burdens are hers and hers alone. For example, it is my personal canon that Aerith was well aware that she would die summoning Holy in order to stop Sephiroth and his scheme to destroy the world. Rather than consult with Cloud and her other companions and friends, she chose to leave on her own to face Sephiroth and her own death. This wasn’t out of some kind of selfish desire to be a martyr, but because she cared too much about her friends to burden them with this knowledge. It was something she wanted to face on her own. She may have had a hunch that she would die from very early on in the game – she sneaks out of Midgar to accompany Cloud and the others without telling her adoptive mother that she is leaving. Perhaps Aerith realized that she would never return.

In another example of this, she seems to have an idea that Cloud’s memories are not fully intact and accurate when she meets him. Again, rather than burden him with this information, she carries the knowledge of Cloud and Zack on her own. The evidence of this is primarily the gondola scene of her date with Cloud, which is actually my third person sample listed below.

ABILITIES: Like all characters in FF7, Aerith can do magic with the use of Materia. As the last Cetra, she has a special link to the planet itself and the Lifestream. But on Gran Pulse, away from Materia and the Lifestream, she's pretty ordinary. She’s not much of a physical fighter, but she’s not bad with a staff and will not hesitate to use it to defend herself or someone else.

FIRST PERSON SAMPLE:

First person sample.

THIRD PERSON SAMPLE: (This is an interpretation of this scene.)

She gazed out the window, smudged and streaked with the fingerprints of countless children, at the neon lights below. Cloud was picking at a paint chip on the seat, Aerith noted, and was probably wondering what he was doing there, if she was honest with herself.

She cleared her throat. “Look, Cloud.” He obeyed, as fireworks shot up around the gondola, turning their faces odd shades of purple and green and red.

She fiddled with her bracelets, turning them round and round her thin wrist, and finally made up her mind to tell the truth. “First off, it bothered me how you looked exactly alike.”

Well, sort of the truth.

“Two completely different people, but…not really. I mean, the way you walk, talk, gesture…I think I must have seen him again, in you.” She finally dared to look up at him and he was watching her, his legs crossed and arms folded, brow furrowed in confusion but apparently waiting for her to finish. She was glad. If he started asking questions now she’d lose her nerve and clam up.

“I…um, I think I’m searching for you.”

“Huh?”

She stared out the window, avoiding his gaze. “Cloud, I…I think I want to meet you.” Out the corner of her eye, she saw him lean forward.

“But I’m right here,” he said.

“I know. I mean…”

'I mean the real you, the one whose memories aren’t mixed up with someone else’s, the you that you really are, not the you that you hide in. Not the you that you’re pretending to be. But you don’t know that, because you can’t bring yourself to face the truth and now none of us can bring ourselves to tell you the truth.'

But all she could say was, “I want to meet…you.”

'And the worst part is knowing that I never will.'

He opened his mouth to say something but whatever response Cloud had was lost in the booming fireworks display exploding all around him. By the time it was over, he had apparently decided not to say anything.

The walk back to the hotel was quiet. “I had a good time tonight. I hope we can do this again.” He only grunted in reply, and Aerith plastered a wide smile on her face. “What, you don’t like spending time with me?”

The corner of his mouth turned up in the slightest of smiles. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“Hey! Don’t tease me like that!” she laughs, bracing her hands against his shoulder and giving a gentle shove.