Hmm.. can I get some Lea and Aerith headcanons? Especially stuff around if they keep diaries, toys, do you think religion is a thing in KH, does Lea have to hide things from Aerith since he knows about things in other worlds she shouldn't know about? Stuff like that.
Sorry, I didn't mean for this to take so long! Yes, I love talking headcanons!
In my mind, Lea and Aerith have been friends since childhood, and nobody really knows exactly when it shifted to crushing on each other. Even they don't really know. It just kind of happened. The decision to start dating was pretty casual too. Aerith just came out and asked him if he wanted to go out with her, and that was that.
Now's a good time to add that when I write Learith, I always try to keep it in line with FFVII's characterization of Aerith. So, while she is a kindhearted, caring person, she's also a lot more daring and mischievous. They are partners in crime and agents of chaos to the end.
I also decided that they are excellent dance partners. Everyone else needs to get out of the way when they hit the floor because they will take over the entire room spinning, dipping, etc.
But they can't cook to save their lives. (You already know this one, but I figured I'd throw it in anyway because it's one of my favorite Learith headcanons.) I feel like the fandom has always been split 50/50 on whether or not Axel can cook, and the KH manga has this one-off comic where Aerith is constantly adding too much of one ingredient or another to Leon's dismay.
So I decide that Lea burns everything he touches and Aerith insists on adding weird, nonsensical ingredients to otherwise ordinary recipes. But the thing is...they LOVE each other's food. Aerith has a preference for slightly burnt, and Lea loves how he never knows what to expect with her cooking. They are perfect for each other in that regard.
To answer your questions, Aerith writes letters to people as a way of coping with loss, as I wrote in The Garden. And now that I think about it, Axel did canonically keep a diary in 358/2 Days. But I don't think he maintained the habit post-Days. It reminds him too much of the Organization: something he didn't really want to do, but was forced on him anyway.
Aerith will often tease Lea by stealing his Frisbees and playing keep-away with them. Isa is an active participant in this game. So are all of their other friends (Leon, Cloud, Tifa, Rinoa, and I'm not going to get into the rest of their FF crew because that's a whole other post).
I haven't really thought about how religion plays a part in their universe? I'm not sure why; I consider it an important part of my own life, but it's not something I include in my fanfics unless it's already an established part of that universe.
When Lea got his heart back, Aerith absolutely let him have it for not telling her that he and Isa were technically alive for all of those years that she was in Traverse Town. She knows more about his time as Axel than he would have liked, because she won't tolerate him deliberately hiding stuff from her.
Some day, I might go back and explore that period between BBS and KH2, because it's such an interesting time frame with so much angst potential. Both of them struggled during those years with the loss of their home world, but in vastly differently ways. Axel was trapped in Organization XIII and became a much worse version of himself before slowly working his way back up toward redemption. Aerith had it much better in comparison, but she still lost everything and ended up stranded on a strange world with only three other people from home. She had to deal with an unthinkable amount of grief while battling the Heartless that showed up in her new home.
One last thing: my favorite songs that remind me of Learith are "Hollow" from Final Fantasy VII Remake and "Sucker" by the Jonas Brothers. (Yes, really.)
Hello! I am a total stranger! Choose between Aerith and Rose from Alan Wake.
Goodness, hello, total stranger! ;)
That's tough because they're both great in different ways.
Probably Aerith just because she's a fully realized playable character and I like how she subverts expectations. You expect this "last of the Ancients," the white mage, and the love interest to be sweet, innocent, and pure of heart. A delicate little flower.
Nope. Aerith is kind, yes, and caring, yes, but she also brains a guy with a chair, lovingly bullies Cloud into disguising himself as a woman who wants to seduce Don Corneo in order to save Tifa, and gets mad when she's told to stay behind for her safety. I ship her with Axel/Lea precisely because they're a "match each other's freak" type of couple imo. Lea would definitely beat a Nort with a chair if he had no other options and Aerith would definitely tell Sephiroth that he can't kill her because she's way too popular to die.
But I don't want to undercut Rose either. She might be an NPC most of the time, but what a glorious NPC she is. Her Night Springs DLC is an absolute delight. I don't think I stopped laughing once. She also deserves credit for having an obvious crush on Alan but not being possessive about it and hating any woman that gets near him. And she has a second job as a nurse! That's really sweet. She's just a good-hearted person who's also a little silly. I was feeling creeped out during her initial meeting with Saga because I thought she was helping the Dark Presence or something. But now playing through it again, I can see that she was genuinely trying to catch up with someone that she thought was an old friend. And she backs off when Saga insists that they don't know each other.
I am simultaneously bummed that Axel/Aerith didn't get enough votes to advance to the next round of the KH Rarepairs Contest and impressed that it got as close as it did.
