Final Fantasy 7 masterpiece mod turns Aerith Gainsborough into Aerith Gains Bro

A positively swole Aerith harangues Cloud in a screenshot of a modded version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
(Image credit: FudgeX02 / Square Enix)

The best modders are people of singular vision, absolute purpose, and indefatigable ambition. Promethean thought leaders who—unbound by the petty mores of polite society and the dictates of the market—use every tool they have at hand to forge new frontiers in technology and culture.

Anyway, here's Aerith Gainsbro and Beefa.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice that these modded-up iterations of the classic Final Fantasy 7 characters are a little more muscular than usual. In fact, they're positively jacked. A pair of protein-swilling, dumbbell-curling muscle queens whose Seventh Heaven is a seven-foot barbell. 

Is this technically someone's fetish content I'm writing up on this massively popular gaming website? Almost certainly, but I'm so impressed by both the models and the puns that I frankly think it's worth it to drag you all down to this level for 350 words or so.

The mods come from an author named FudgeX02, a person of particular skills and, ah, inclinations, and are actually part of an alarmingly large suite of mods that turn various videogame women into basically John Cena. Alongside Miss Gainsbro and Beefa, we've got swole Ada Wong, various even more outlandishly muscular Street Fighter ladies, and—saving the best for last—Buffie, which prosaically describes itself as a mod which "Turns Yuffie into a bodybuilder." It sure does, gang. It sure does.

(Image credit: FudgeX02 / Square Enix)

Anyway, now that I've tricked you into hosting those images in your brain until the day you die, I have to say it's the names, rather than the models themselves, that truly push me into thinking these are some of the greatest artworks of the modern era. Beefa and Buffie are, frankly, hilarious. But Aerith Gains Bro? You can't teach patter like that. Flawless work, FudgeX02, it's my privilege to live at the same time as you and your immortal art.

If you can't bear to live a second longer without shredded Aerith in your life, you can find FudgeX02's entire oeuvre on Nexus Mods. I've gone through them and, while none of the pictures are necessarily risqué, they probably would be difficult to explain to your boss unless you work in the coolest office on Earth. Some people just can't handle strong women.

Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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