#x. hc

[familiarflower]

HC Drop:

marlene initially had little to no interest in developing a fighting skill as her father insisted that the 'fighting' was over with and his daughter never needed to fight the way their family had. but it didn't take long of watching denzel learn a few exercises from cloud with a staff that her interest was piqued, if not for the sake of joining in. she quickly joined in on the lessons till curiosity had her asking, after a few years, for a practice sword just to see if she could handle one. in between that summers were often spent at costa del sol or cosmo canyon to visit nanaki and its there that curiosity pricked again at seeing someone shooting a bow and she asked for a lesson. all it took was one summer for her to get the hang of it and to continue excelling over the years. its cloud who surprises her for her seventeenth birthday with the custom bowsword after having spent years monitoring her progress and maturity to handle such a weapon. she named it Lightkore after the flower maiden of mythology. marlene's limit breaks are: Heart Pulse (Lvl 1), Venus Shot (Lvl 2), Ribbon Fire (Lvl 3), Aura Slash (Lvl 4). after receiving Lightkore she doubles down on training with cloud for a period in order to get a hang of the versatility since he had plenty of experience with his own fusion sword, First Tsurugi.

most of the 7th heaven family thought that marlene would take the artistic route for a career with her love of drawing, but after many trips all over the planet with her father and family she sees the various states of rebuilding in progress. between that and the innate 'sense' always lingering she decides she wants to do her part to help the planet and its people rebuild and rebuild better with more eco-friendly means. she graduates early with specialized classes in agriculture, planetary studies, biodiversity and conservation before joining up with the W.R.O. her passion is revitalizing small towns that had been railroaded by shinra development and helping them focus on a more natural means of life through solar powered means, community & personal gardens, and reusing resources as much as possible. later on over the years she also helps establish new towns and becomes one of the favorites to become a head of development in the W.R.O. not to mention a favorite amongst her teams that she works with as she always gets her hands dirty to be involved in every aspect down to digging ditches and lugging construction material.

despite only having a brief meeting with aerith it was a long lasting impact. in homage to the heart of the group marlene continues to always wear her pink bow in a braid like aerith's and eventually grows out her childhood bangs for more subtle face framing ones. the white turtleneck tank shirt remains a staple along with an offwhite midi length skirt (sometimes traded for a beige baggy cargo pant with work) and a soft-light pink jacket falling to slightly below the hip. it sometimes gives her family a double take when they glimpse her from the corner of their eye due to the similarity. however, its driven home to marlene's knowledge when elmyra begins to pass away and mistakes her for her daughter aerith. tifa and barret almost correct the mistake but marlene simply jumps in, takes elmyra's hand and plays along with the role till her passing.

[thxrunawaybeta]

Trio Cute/Feels HC

Because of @wolfin-time sending relationship meme, here are some hc’s for BoydxEricaxIsaac

Erica hugs Boyd from behind more than Isaac since she’d be more affection with him and most likely kiss his back and be soft with him. If she does it with Isaac, she’s more likely to pinch a nipple or tickle him and be playful. 

Erica does more PDA with Isaac mostly cause she likes being able to show off that its not just Boyd she’s with, since most assume they are the two that are together, but its Isaac as well. 

Erica and Boyd both whisper affections and praises to Isaac because of his past, especially if he’s having a bad day. This can be in any setting, and its usually to remind him that they love him and he’s safe. A lot of times you can find the three of them cuddled up with legs all tangled up with Isaac in the middle as they whisper affections to him during these times. 

Erica though usually likes to sleep in the middle so she doesn’t have nightmares and if she does she’s able to find one of them in her sleep. 

Erica will lie to the boys if need be, even finding ways to get around the heartbeat situation. Because she’s afraid of losing them (if its her coming back from the dead or having to keep her and Boyd alive to get back to the pack, ect) she’ll do what she can to keep them safe. 

Erica was actually worried that their relationship was just a pack thing and that's the only reason why the boys liked her, which is something she confessed and actually broke down about and there are some moments when they are more focused in on the two of them, that Erica feels like its true, but then usually one of them senses it and pulls her out of the thoughts. 

Also because of this she can get over affectionate (brings back the PDA thing as well)

I also believe they are more entuned with the three of them than the rest of the pack and usually knows what the other two are feeling. 

Sex wise, Erica trust them so much to do whatever they want when it comes to being in public or trying new things. She more worries about their triggers than her own which usually ends up having one of them getting her to a point where she stops worrying (which you can take how ever you like lmao). 

She believes Boyd is better with aftercare (cuddling, making sure they are clean and safe, ect) than Isaac is. 

[familiarflower]

hc. cetran descent

while it has been speculated for ages about whether marlene is cetra or not. my portrayal says yes. she's about a quarter cetra (through her mother and I'd like to think some small very distant way through Dyne due to his deep passion for the planet ) and her abilities are different from aerith.

a large portion of my inspiration on this aspect of marlene stems from this fic here in that marlene senses people more than the planet. she senses their energy and sometimes their intention and emotions. i highly recommend that you read the entire fic as its fantastically well written and characterized and is a great way to get a grasp on my take on marlene.

does she have a connection to the planet? yes and no. for marlene its more of a shift of emotion rather than a verbal or mental communication with the planet.

any other abilities? marlene does have a knack for plants, but nothing particularly noticable though her plants/flowers do tend to grow just a hair or two faster when she's particularly doting on a plant. she doesn't have any sort of mental abilities, EXCEPT with aerith and its more of a 'mental tap' of acknowledgement. a slight brush of the hand thats vague and soft, but barely there to notice unless its familiar OR if you're particularly sensitive to that sort of abilities like anyone who is connected to the planet. she's also very good at sensing when someone is hurt (ie. cloud and where his geostigma was) or in danger as we see her repeatedly in the franchise sense barret and aerith.

[forgedasset-a]

To ensure that they wouldn't damage some of the more vital motor functions in his brain, HYDRA took a portion of their time to open his head (as he mentioned himself, about HYDRA putting things inside his head), and quite literally embedded specifically made prongs into specific areas of the brain. First target had been the Hippocampus, and then the different areas that affect his short term. The idea behind this, was to have better control of the surge of electricity that they’d shoot through his brain to wipe him. In fear that, they would somehow damage his motor controls, his language, sight - everything that was necessary to have a fully functional Asset. So, depending on how far in they wanted to wipe, they’d adjust the settings. 

The stronger the surges, the more prone he was to experiencing a seizure. Sometimes, the intensity of them differ - and he’d take a longer time to recover from it. 

There’s a slim chance that by now, the prongs can be removed. However, there might be a great deal of damage if that chance is taken, because he’s healed around them by now. They do block out a lot of his memories, and even block out certain emotions - which is why he might seem to have troubles processing sometimes. Not because he doesn’t want to feel or understand something, but because he physically can’t. They had every intention on removing his humanity, and if it can’t be removed - they figured they can block it. 

[thxrunawaybeta]

Erica’s sorting

this is of course from pottermore, and yes I made a separate one just for Erica.

Hogwarts House

Slytherin

Ilvermorny House

Horned Serpent

Erica’s Wand

Yew wood with a Dragon heartstring core 12 ½" and Reasonably Supple flexibility

Patronus

Black Swan

[familiarflower]

yeah but dont get me started on next gen avalanche....

i just do not believe sephiroth is ever fully stopped. ever. or at the least- jenova. and that versions of sephiroth haunt the planet like the 'Remnants' or other split versions. or hojo & his assistants/proteges continue to work on recreating another one which just gets possessed by sephiroth bc of his cells/jenova cells being used.

the next gen gang consisting of marlene, denzel, cid & shera's kid, cloud & tifa's kid, nanaki and of course, vincent. i'd say yuffie or her kid is involved, but she might be usper busy with wutai by this late in the future to do so and her kid would be too young likely.

that's not to say that the OG AVALANCHE isn't involved, but they're also up to their ears in their own chaos. but the adultier adults nominated Vincent to keep tabs on all their children. who are also trying to save the world at the same time.

also bc i feel like it plays differently- a NEW face who is unknowingly the science project who becomes the new sephiroth inhabitant/puppet (the cloud role if you will), who maybe is around denzel's age, maybe works for the WRO as a highly trained soldier, who has a suspiciously normal childhood like genesis & angeal did, but also has memory blanks like cloud did. he's definitely brought into the group by denzel since they're both in the WRO, no one suspects anything bc he and denz are good friends and vincent likely has heard of this kid, who likely also got cleared by reeve. no one suspects a THING.

i feel like marlene fills the 'aerith' role in things, connecting to the planet, trying to keep up the mood and fill a leader role as one of the older kids in the group. denzel absolutely fills more of the leader role and heavy fighter like cloud did, but minus the trauma. of course cid & shera's kid are the flygirl/flyboy role and lbh i wanna say they have twins it'd be GREAT. so we have a pilot. vincent is as always the turk gunslinger. nanaki is also one of the 'wisdom' roles to help the kids keep their sights in line with the planet. now the cloud and tifa kid is definitely the martial artist.

i'd also like to think rufus shinra has some hidden bastard kid who also gets involved somehow.

honestly though i'm open to switching things up in the 'roles' thing, but i do feel like marlene always had that 'connection' with aerith and the planet and it just *fits* for her to slide into that role. and likely probs be one of the ones who goes head to head with this newcomer face that betrays them and brings about the full on return of sephiroth.

[familiarflower]

yeah but i mean don't think about how marlene sometimes inadvertently does tiny aer things or vaguely resembles her and how it triggers the entire gang as she gets older.

i'm just saying. marlene already looks like a mini aer as a little girl okay. imagine her getting older? marlene tending to flowers to honor aerith, but accidentally picks up little things. barrett encouraging her to keep her spunk (very aer coded) but also the thoughtfulness that tifa instills. how very pink coded marlene is throughout the series only grows/stays as she gets older and her keeping the ribbon eventually wearing it like aerith.

worse if one day as she gets older elmyra lets marls have aerith's old clothes.

and then one day, if another disaster/world ending issue occurs, marlene finds herself benched. hard. especially by cloud. everyone trying to tiptoe around it when she doesn't understand. she's trained with cloud. sparred with tifa. fired guns with vincent. learned martial arts from yuffie. why can't she come along this time? pushing and questioning until someone slips and says her name. aerith.

and marlene freezes. stares. steps back, head shaking, eyes narrowing into a glare at all of them as she insists that she's not aerith. and it won't happen again. it won't. and she refuses to be benched. she refuses to be left behind AGAIN. not now that she's older. she refuses.