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[asphodels]

OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: Rachel
Contact: aziraphale @ plurk
Reference: Ingame already
Other characters: Hermione Granger, Zaveid

IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Aerith Gainsborough
Character journal: asphodels
Series name: Final Fantasy VII
Canon notes: Post-series (after Advent Children)

Species: Cetra/Ancient

History: Wiki, which is hugely long.

Summary:

• Aerith was a test subject for a man named Professor Hojo until she was around seven years old, when her mother escaped with her. Unfortunately, her mother died in the process and a woman named Elmyra adopted her and raised Aerith as her own.
• When she was fifteen years old she met Zack Fair, who fell into the church where Aerith tended flowers. They have a sort of relationship and it is Zack who encouraged Aerith to sell the flowers she grew in the church to make money, even helping her build a cart for her to carry them around in. Soon after, however, Zack is sent on the mission to Nibelheim with Sephiroth and never comes back.
• Throughout her life the Turks, a part of the ShinRa company, have been tracking and hurting Aerith in order to bring her back to the company and use her Cetra powers, but she evades them more often than not.
• Later, Cloud Strife falls through the ceiling just as Zack had done years before and Aerith's own adventure really begins. She runs off with Cloud and goes with him to help Tifa infiltrate Don Corneo's mansion in order to get information about the ShinRa company. Aerith is captured by Tseng in the process of keeping Marlene, Barret's daughter, safe.
• In the main ShinRa building Aerith is being used as a test subject to try and 'breed' her with Red XIII, but Cloud and the group save her and she is imprisoned with them. After Sephiroth comes and murders most of the corporation, including the President, Aerith and the Gang escape and start to follow after Sephiroth.
• The group track Sephiroth to the Temple of the Ancients where, along the way, Aerith begins to question what it means that she is the last of the Cetra. At the temple she uses her powers to figure out the way to the inner chamber; there Sephiroth takes control of Cloud to force him to hand over the devastating Black Materia that will destroy the world. Aerith tries to stop Cloud, but he ends up getting knocked out - and in his dreams Aerith tells him that she is the last Cetra and only she can stop Sephiroth.
• Using the dreams Aerith gave Cloud the party follow her to the Forgotten Capital, where they find her praying at an alter. When Cloud finds her, Sephiroth once again tries to take control of him to force him to kill Aerith, but he resists - but as Aerith finishes praying a vessel of Sephiroth comes down and murders her.
• Aerith was praying for Holy and the party learn that she had been successful in calling it, but Sephiroth has been blocking it's power. The party go to the center of the planet to defear him, and Cloud ends up in the Lifestream as a result and learns that he can meet Aerith again in the Promised Land. Aerith's spirit then commands the Lifestream to push Meteor (the Black Materia) back, saving the planet.
• During the Geostigma crisis (Advent Children) it's revealed that Aerith has been helping and guiding Cloud from her place within the Lifestream, giving him visions and letting him hear his voice. She helps Cloud overcome the Sephiroth clones and, eventually, the Sephiroth image that's reborn before she calls down a healing rain that cures most people of the Geostigma. It's also revealed that she and Zack are together and the pair of them tell Cloud that his place isn't with them yet. 

Personality:

Aerith initially comes across as a mischievous, teasing young woman, happy to flirt and nudge Cloud when they first meet. She seems to have a very upbeat, happy-go-lucky attitude and seems almost a little naive despite all that she’s seen of the world; she trusts Cloud almost as soon as they meet and is happy to go off with him and join in his adventure despite knowing just how dangerous it might be.

While this might seem to stem from her own naive and slightly oblivious attitude it could also come from the fact that Aerith was raised in the slums where she had to learn to take care of herself. Furthermore, from a young age she was watched and pursued by the Turks, a branch of ShinRa that wanted to take her back to the company to urge her to work for them, knowing that she was the last of the Ancients. Aerith might not appear like it but she is incredibly savvy about the world and has learned to take care of herself and outrun people she would rather avoid.

One of the foremost points of her character and how it develops is her loneliness and how she comes to terms with the nature of her heritage as the last of the Cetra. Having lost her mother at a young age and being raised by someone who didn’t have the same ancestry as her may have fostered that isolation, and Aerith shows some confusion and concern about accepting who she is. When she reaches the point of understanding what it means to be a Cetra, however, and what it means to be the last one alive on the Planet she allows it to become a part of her - and she becomes stronger for it, too, with a determination that very little could shake.

This also shows another side of her, which is her stubbornness. Once she’s set her mind to something there’s very little that can be done to change it - be it chasing after Cloud to help him or dragging him to crossdress so he can help out Tifa. One she’s decided on her path nothing can shake her and she won’t listen to anyone who tells her otherwise, sometimes to her own peril. This also highlights the very gentle edge to her that’s borne of her own jealousy - while she’s not cruel she can show envy with an edge of frustration, likely because she feels so deeply that she doesn’t want to give people up.

One of the clearest aspects of her personality, however, is her compassion and the depth of her ability to love and forgive. She is constantly forgiving of some of the Turks, knowing that they’re doing they’re job and forming a bond with them, and she is able to forgive Cloud when he is possessed by Sephiroth and attempts to hurt and kill her. Her compassion is shown in the way that she cares for the rest of the party, the way that she listens to them and how she goes out of her way to help people - such as helping Barnet’s daughter, Marlene, when the plate above the slums falls, even to the point where she gets kidnapped herself.

It’s clear that she is a dedicated and loving person through her relationships, too. Aerith wrote Zack 89 letters during the time he was captured by ShinRa over the course of four years, only ending when she was sure that she was not going to get a response. When she’s a part of the Lifestream she is an ever-present figure for Cloud, at his side even though she has died. Her spirit lives on and shows a mirror of who she was when she was alive - stubborn, yes, but also determined and supportive beyond anything that many of her friends possibly imagined from her.

She does have her own fears, however, as shown through the early representation of her in Crisis Core. She shows a fear of ShinRa, SOLDIER and the nature of them, declaring them as normal and scary - likely because of their involvement in her childhood, the death of her mother and her life of trying to escape their control. It might also be a result of how in tune with nature she is due to her Cetra heritage and her connection with the Planet - she is capable of ‘hearing the wind’ calling her and other voices, even the whispers of people dying (her mother’s husband and Zack, for example).

Overall, Aerith is a determined, compassionate young woman. What strength she lacks physically she makes up for in the depths of her consideration for others, and comes across as outgoing, gentle and kind, even if she can be stubborn and a little ignorant and sometimes rude, especially with her own jealousy of others. While she appears naive and careless, she is incredibly thoughtful and is capable of understanding people and nature on a level that people don’t always see when they first meet her.

Abilities: Aerith is a fighter skilled with the use of a stave, but her primary powers are in healing magic. Her Limit breaks are all related to healing and buffs, and her magic stats are the strongest (while her physical are the weakest). She also has a connection with the Planet in her world - she hears it 'whisper' to her and, as part of the Lifestream, can command and encourage it to do things. This also lets her hear things that the Planet tells her, such as the death of loved ones or how to help people.
Augment Skillset: Civilian (Cook)
Sample: TDM