Aeris Gainsborough
“This guy are sick!”
“You see, there's all dead and there's mostly dead, but mostly dead also means partially alive so that you can still revive them by throwing a Phoenix Down at them. There's only one thing to do with somebody that's all dead: dump them in a lake and hope that nobody finds the body.”
Aeris Gainsborough (IPA: [ˈɛəɹɪθ]) is a fictional woman from the Final Fantasy series, who has touched the hearts of millions, and overcharged them for flowers. She also dies. She is also one of the few Final Fantasy characters to have her own religion. She is immune to Phoenix Downs.
While her sister has speaking roles, Aeris herself was never given a voice actress. Pity, probably because she dies. (Well, until Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts)
Early years[edit]
Aeris Gainsborough was one of the notorious Gainsborough twins. She was born in an igloo to a mad scientist and an alien hippie. No, seriously. Shortly after her birth, her father was shot and killed (by another mad scientist) and her mother, sister, and herself were all kidnapped and taken to a lab where they were experimented on.
For the next five years, various make-up and hair dye formulas were tested on them by Shinra Cosmetics. In their off hours, they were made to run around a large maze and look for cheese, and occasionally run around in a large wheel.
Eventually, they escaped into the safety of the worst slums on the planet, where their mother was promptly gunned down in a drive-by shooting in which Eminem denied any involvement.
The slum years[edit]
Having been adopted by an old widow that just happened to be there, Aeris and her twin sister Aerith worked for the next several hours trying to make ends meet. Aeris became a devout religious person of no official denomination, so as not to offend anybody. Within hours, she had the monopoly on selling flowers in the street and could name her own price. She practically gave them away to people she thought was cute, and charged an arm and a leg to people she didn't much care for.
Under the guise of two cute little girls, Aerith and Aeris held the city of Midgar in an iron grip with their flower-shop cartel. In 1996, the Gainsborough flower shop was indicted for price gouging, gender discrimination against employees, insurance fraud, arson (the list goes on). The date of trial was set at January 4th, 1997 but was hushed under the release of the Final Fantasy VII video game.
It was at this time the Shinra Horticulture Division started to notice dwindling profits and sent a Turkish Black Ops organization to disrupt her business. Aeris was almost always able to flirt with their leader and get them to leave with out bothering her. On the few occasions that flirting didn't work, Aerith turned her talents to them.
Unusual abilities[edit]
As a half alien hippie called a Cetra, Aeris possessed certain superhuman powers. But despite having more than the bare minimum of powers required, Aeris turned down the offer to join the X-Men, as she thought a belt buckle with an X on it would clash with her outfit.
Love life and legal problems[edit]
Due to her twin's constant criminal activities, Aeris often found herself on the wrong end of the law. It was this that led her to prefer men in uniform, as they typically were better armed and had some rank that they could use to protect her. This is how she met the love of her life, Zack Fair, after exchanging a short bit of mercenary work for a date.
Death[edit]
Aeris's terrorist career was cut short when she was murdered by Sephiroth. Sephiroth had become jealous of the fact that not only did she have better hair than he did, she orbits around Cloud, making an annoying noise. She was the biggest cockblock of the century.
Cloud threw her corpse into the near lake, later a place that three Otakus with silver hair tricked some kids to drink the water.
Aerism[edit]
Aerism is the theory that Aeris will rise from the grave at the end of the world and cast the spell Holy again, cleansing all those that are not cosplayers. The Anti-Aeris, Alyx Vance, will fight her for the fate of the free world, and if there's time left over after that, the fate of the rest of the world as well.
Sainthood[edit]
Aeris was sainted on December 5th 2006. She was very religious and spent her days in a church growing flowers under the house of God. She was also mentioned in the Bible a few times.
Aerith Gainsborough[edit]
Aerith was Aeris's twin sister and the second to last Cetra (prior to Aeris's death.) While Aeris was described as cute and not-so-innocent by just about everybody that ever met her, Aerith was very far from innocent, having a porn career second only to Jenna Jameson (although she surpasses Jenna in the animals, tentacles, and robots categories).
Aerith received a bit of fame in certain circles as the model for the famous Japanese artist Hen Tai. In these pictures she's often seen pictured in various states of undress.
Aerith was considered a bit of a mischief maker and her sister frequently collaborated with her in good fun, often pretending to be each other to fool people. To this day, Cloud Strife never knew there were two of them.
The death of her sister had a rather traumatic effect of Aerith. She stopped following Cloud's team around, and went into hiding for a while. When she was next seen again, she had adopted most of her sister's character traits and denied that she ever had a sister to begin with.