☁ cloud strife (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spikyheaded) wrote2024-09-27 12:34 am
spikyheaded) wrote2024-09-27 12:34 am
Entry tags:
application | abraxas
OOC INFORMATION
Player Name: Mart
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact: riyuji on discord,![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
riyuji, journal PMs
Other Characters in Game: N/A
IC INFORMATION
Character Name: Cloud Strife
Canon: Final Fantasy VII (Remake Project)
Canon Point: Mid-chapter 12 of Rebirth, pre-Gold Saucer fight
Age: 21
Background:
☁ Remake story from the wiki
☁ Rebirth story until chapter 6 from the wiki
☁ Written summary for chapters 7-12 of Rebirth
Arrival Scenario: Solvunn Commune
Suitability:
Cloud hails from the sleepy, mountain village of Nibelheim. Considering how deep in the mountains it is situated, it is as backwater country as one can get. Though he left the village at the age of 14 intending to join Shinra and become SOLDIER, that was all he knew for most of his life. It would be interesting for him to be able to go back to his roots, even if he isn't necessarily accustomed to it anymore. He would need to find his footing once more and, in the process, be able to explore other sides of him outside of being an ex-SOLDIER.
Seeing how he deals with people in that type of setting would also be compelling as he would feel out of his element, awkward as he is. The hope is it wouldn't be a repeat to how he was treated when he was younger and that he would be able to find his place in the community in some shape or form.
With regards to the overall setting, Cloud isn't someone who will sit on his hands, especially when others ask him for help or when he simply sees others in need, especially when deep down, he still strives to be a hero despite his bouts of self-doubt. That alone will be enough to drive him into action, allowing him to participate in whatever plot may crop up in Abraxas.
Powers:
Although Cloud never made it to the ranks of SOLDIER, he has always had been good at handling a sword, even as an infantryman for Shinra. Due to the experimentation done on him, his abilities were enhanced even further, basically turning him into a supersoldier. He is now stronger than most—which would explain why he could carry a greatsword such as the Buster Sword with relative ease—while also gaining faster reflexes and agility, and better endurance.
While not a power, it's worth noting that Cloud has Jenova cells in his body from the experimentation inflicted upon him for Project S. This makes him susceptible to Sephiroth's control and he has to fight against it to maintain his free will. This works to varying degrees as there have been instances where Sephiroth has gained complete control, causing him to hurt others or to do his bidding. While Sephiroth isn't in the setting, this could make Cloud more open to mind control and similar abilities due to his weakened mental state.
With the help of materia, Cloud can also cast spells. These can be offensive, defensive, buffs, debuffs, healing, or summoning depending on the materia type on his person. Though he will not have access to these in Abraxas, he may be able to learn magic native to the world having been exposed to it in the past.
PERSONALITY QUESTIONS
Describe an important event in your character's life and how it impacted them.
It's hard to talk about Cloud without talking about the Nibelheim incident. Since he left from Nibelheim at 14, he has not made any effort to visit his hometown, embarrassed by his non-existent progress in becoming part of SOLDIER, Shinra's elite fighting force. He had made a big deal about this when he had left, especially to his childhood friend Tifa, promising to come to her aid whenever she needed him because that was what heroes do.
But Cloud was no hero. Not by any means. He was merely an infantryman and couldn't even bear to show his face back home. But he didn't have much choice in the matter when he, Zack, and Sephiroth were tasked to visit the reactor close to the village after reports of monsters and fiends in the area. During this time, he hid behind his helmet, hiding his identity from the villagers and Tifa. But all of that hiding seems to be for naught after Sephiroth is pushed off the deep end and burns the village down.
Cloud was at the center of it all, seeing the town being ravaged and hearing his mother's screams as his home burned to the ground. When he wakes, he sets off to find Sephiroth at the reactor, only stopping to help Tifa after she is injured by the SOLDIER general himself and to pick up Zack's blade. Confronting Sephiroth, Cloud overpowers him and throws him into the mako beneath the reactor before collapsing beside Zack.
Unfortunately for him, that wasn't the end of it. Not wanting news of the incident to spread, Shinra began covering up what had transpired in Nibelheim. A few survivors, including Cloud and Zack, were taken into custody and are experimented on by Hojo.
For four years, Hojo experimented on both him and Zack, injecting them with Jenova Cells and exposing them to mako which led to Cloud's enhanced abilities. But it was also because of this exposure to mako that Cloud's body succumbed to mako poisoning. This left him weak and unresponsive, needing Zack to carry and care for him for almost another year, leading up to Zack's death.
The Nibelheim incident, Hojo's Sephiroth Clone experiments, and the trauma of Zack's death all led to Cloud's unstable state of mind. The heavy exposure to mako disrupted his cognitive abilities, causing him to unknowingly fill in the blanks of his memories with a narrative that suited him and the new identity that he had created. In his mind, he had replaced Zack's existence completely with his own, believing that he had made it to SOLDIER First Class and was present at Nibelhiem with Sephiroth in Zack's place five years prior.
The dissonance between this persona in his mind and reality is so strong, that Cloud is racked by constant headaches when something goes against what he believes he remembers. This happens time and time again throughout the Remake, like when he recalls Tifa at the Nibelheim reactor during the Sector 5 reactor bombing, or when Aerith merely mentions Zack's name. Though he constantly brushes it off and pretends to be all right, he merely alludes to the past that he believes before deflecting to take the attention away from him turning him into quite the unreliable narrator.
The event also drives Cloud to seek revenge on Sephiroth, the man he once looked up to, both as a role model and as someone he aspired to become. Now his enemy, Cloud will stop at nothing, chasing him to the ends of the world to be rid of Sephiroth and finally enact his revenge.
Does your character have a moral code, or other set of standards they try to live by?
Some problems can be solved by violence. Cloud has thought that from a relatively young age when he took out his guilt and anger on the neighborhood kids. He even carried it into adulthood, as seen when he instinctively reaches for his blade even to simply use the prospect of a fight as an intimidation tactic.
But, despite his violent tendencies, Cloud will never just stand by when innocents are being hurt. On a grander scale, he took action to help AVALANCHE when Shinra threatened to bring down the plate in Sector 7 helping out where he could as he scaled the pillar. Meanwhile, on a somewhat smaller scale, he helped out the people of Costa Del Sol when Hojo brought in one of his experiments and attacked the beach, even if he didn't have an immediate weapon on hand. It comes inherently from him because of his desire to become a hero.
It is worth noting that a lot of his moral code comes from a mix of ideologies and, perhaps, the conflicting personalities within him. The more violent side may come from the perception of how SOLDIERs (and perhaps Sephiroth) should act. Meanwhile, there's also the need to act and do what he can which could be reflective of Zack's moral code. Regardless, Cloud tries to do his best with some guidance from his friends to make the correct decision in the end.
One can't end this without mentioning something truly important to Cloud though. To him, promises are important and he will do his damnedest not to break them. His promise with Tifa at the water tower before he left the village especially holds a lot of weight. The promise had been originally Tifa's idea and he was originally hesitant to agree but he took it to heart despite that. He feels guilty when he isn't able to live up to it and tries time and time again to make up for his failures, determined to not let anyone else down and not wanting to go back on his word.
What quality or qualities do they admire most?
Cloud is prickly, to say the least, and it takes some time for him to warm up to others and vice versa. As such he has such admiration for the people who can open up to others easily, even to those one might consider strangers. He has seen this in Tifa ever since they were kids as she was the popular girl everyone flocked around; in Aerith when the two first meet, immediately seen in her playfulness and teasing towards him; and even in Zack, the SOLDIER who made friends with a lowly Shinra grunt like himself. It's a trait in them that he doesn't see himself ever having, so at best, all he can do is watch from the sidelines and sometimes emulate what they do, even if it's to little or no success.
Though this may no longer apply, Cloud also admired SOLDIERs for a long time, thinking that they were the pinnacle of heroism growing up. He would read or hear about their exploits as Shinra's elite military force and aspired to join their ranks, wanting to become a hero himself. He never made it to SOLDIER but he still looked up to them. Sephiroth was his idol at the time and Zack was a friend he never really thought he would have, admiring how he presented himself to infantrymen and SOLDIER rookies alike. His opinion on SOLDIER may have soured now but there are still ideologies from it that he admires and puts into practice even on his own.
Do they have a part of themselves they dislike?
The biggest issue Cloud has with himself is his self-doubt. Throughout his journey in the game, there are parts of himself that don't... seem like him. Pulling from the script, he even confesses to Tifa that he sometimes doesn't even know who he is, forgetting things that everyone else remembers and knowing things he shouldn't. While he has suspicions that it's because of the degradation that might be in play due to the mako inside of him, he doesn't know if that truly is the case either.
In reality, due to the trauma of the last five years, Cloud's personality has become an amalgamation of his and Zack's. While at his core, people can still see glimpses of the real Cloud—shy, caring, awkward—he unknowingly uses Zack's personality to fill in the blanks for his SOLDIER persona together with his preconceived notion of how a SOLDIER should portray himself.
Adding to that, the Jenova cells in him fill in the gaps in his memory and allow Sephiroth to control him so Cloud can do his bidding. All these voices in his head would explain why he feels conflicted about who he is and why he is very close to a full mental breakdown, worrying all his friends in the process.
As much as he would like to address this further, getting to Sephiroth and the black materia are his priorities, and his own issues can be put on the backburner in the meantime.
What is their sign, and why?
The Hanged Man. For as long as Cloud can remember, he had trouble getting along with people. He was considered a bit of an outcast as a kid, unable to get along with Tifa's friend group. This eventually manifested in a superiority complex where he believed that he was different and thus more mature than them. Things got even worse after Tifa's fall off a hike up Mt. Nibel. Cloud blamed himself for not being able to save her, taking out his anger on the other kids by picking fights for seemingly no reason. That only pushed him further into the fringes of ostracization.
The same could be said during his time with Shinra as he struggled to make it into SOLDIER. His shy and quiet demeanor didn't do him any favors but he kept taking the examinations despite it, still aspiring to follow the footsteps of his hero, Sephiroth, and eventually Zack, a SOLDIER First Class who he befriended after a mission to Modeoheim.
This ties in with the earlier answer about how he admires people who can open up and befriend people easily. Cloud knows very well that he's not easy to get along with and sometimes he prefers the solitude that comes along with it. He keeps his thoughts and emotions to himself as he tries to figure things out on his own, only seldom reaching out for help from others. Despite this, he's never let that stop him from working toward his goals, always finding ways to keep moving forward, making The Hanged Man a fitting arcana for someone like him.
SAMPLES
Samples: TDM top-level
Player Name: Mart
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact: riyuji on discord,
Other Characters in Game: N/A
IC INFORMATION
Character Name: Cloud Strife
Canon: Final Fantasy VII (Remake Project)
Canon Point: Mid-chapter 12 of Rebirth, pre-Gold Saucer fight
Age: 21
Background:
☁ Rebirth story until chapter 6 from the wiki
☁ Written summary for chapters 7-12 of Rebirth
Arrival Scenario: Solvunn Commune
Suitability:
Seeing how he deals with people in that type of setting would also be compelling as he would feel out of his element, awkward as he is. The hope is it wouldn't be a repeat to how he was treated when he was younger and that he would be able to find his place in the community in some shape or form.
With regards to the overall setting, Cloud isn't someone who will sit on his hands, especially when others ask him for help or when he simply sees others in need, especially when deep down, he still strives to be a hero despite his bouts of self-doubt. That alone will be enough to drive him into action, allowing him to participate in whatever plot may crop up in Abraxas.
Powers:
While not a power, it's worth noting that Cloud has Jenova cells in his body from the experimentation inflicted upon him for Project S. This makes him susceptible to Sephiroth's control and he has to fight against it to maintain his free will. This works to varying degrees as there have been instances where Sephiroth has gained complete control, causing him to hurt others or to do his bidding. While Sephiroth isn't in the setting, this could make Cloud more open to mind control and similar abilities due to his weakened mental state.
With the help of materia, Cloud can also cast spells. These can be offensive, defensive, buffs, debuffs, healing, or summoning depending on the materia type on his person. Though he will not have access to these in Abraxas, he may be able to learn magic native to the world having been exposed to it in the past.
PERSONALITY QUESTIONS
Describe an important event in your character's life and how it impacted them.
But Cloud was no hero. Not by any means. He was merely an infantryman and couldn't even bear to show his face back home. But he didn't have much choice in the matter when he, Zack, and Sephiroth were tasked to visit the reactor close to the village after reports of monsters and fiends in the area. During this time, he hid behind his helmet, hiding his identity from the villagers and Tifa. But all of that hiding seems to be for naught after Sephiroth is pushed off the deep end and burns the village down.
Cloud was at the center of it all, seeing the town being ravaged and hearing his mother's screams as his home burned to the ground. When he wakes, he sets off to find Sephiroth at the reactor, only stopping to help Tifa after she is injured by the SOLDIER general himself and to pick up Zack's blade. Confronting Sephiroth, Cloud overpowers him and throws him into the mako beneath the reactor before collapsing beside Zack.
Unfortunately for him, that wasn't the end of it. Not wanting news of the incident to spread, Shinra began covering up what had transpired in Nibelheim. A few survivors, including Cloud and Zack, were taken into custody and are experimented on by Hojo.
For four years, Hojo experimented on both him and Zack, injecting them with Jenova Cells and exposing them to mako which led to Cloud's enhanced abilities. But it was also because of this exposure to mako that Cloud's body succumbed to mako poisoning. This left him weak and unresponsive, needing Zack to carry and care for him for almost another year, leading up to Zack's death.
The Nibelheim incident, Hojo's Sephiroth Clone experiments, and the trauma of Zack's death all led to Cloud's unstable state of mind. The heavy exposure to mako disrupted his cognitive abilities, causing him to unknowingly fill in the blanks of his memories with a narrative that suited him and the new identity that he had created. In his mind, he had replaced Zack's existence completely with his own, believing that he had made it to SOLDIER First Class and was present at Nibelhiem with Sephiroth in Zack's place five years prior.
The dissonance between this persona in his mind and reality is so strong, that Cloud is racked by constant headaches when something goes against what he believes he remembers. This happens time and time again throughout the Remake, like when he recalls Tifa at the Nibelheim reactor during the Sector 5 reactor bombing, or when Aerith merely mentions Zack's name. Though he constantly brushes it off and pretends to be all right, he merely alludes to the past that he believes before deflecting to take the attention away from him turning him into quite the unreliable narrator.
The event also drives Cloud to seek revenge on Sephiroth, the man he once looked up to, both as a role model and as someone he aspired to become. Now his enemy, Cloud will stop at nothing, chasing him to the ends of the world to be rid of Sephiroth and finally enact his revenge.
Does your character have a moral code, or other set of standards they try to live by?
But, despite his violent tendencies, Cloud will never just stand by when innocents are being hurt. On a grander scale, he took action to help AVALANCHE when Shinra threatened to bring down the plate in Sector 7 helping out where he could as he scaled the pillar. Meanwhile, on a somewhat smaller scale, he helped out the people of Costa Del Sol when Hojo brought in one of his experiments and attacked the beach, even if he didn't have an immediate weapon on hand. It comes inherently from him because of his desire to become a hero.
It is worth noting that a lot of his moral code comes from a mix of ideologies and, perhaps, the conflicting personalities within him. The more violent side may come from the perception of how SOLDIERs (and perhaps Sephiroth) should act. Meanwhile, there's also the need to act and do what he can which could be reflective of Zack's moral code. Regardless, Cloud tries to do his best with some guidance from his friends to make the correct decision in the end.
One can't end this without mentioning something truly important to Cloud though. To him, promises are important and he will do his damnedest not to break them. His promise with Tifa at the water tower before he left the village especially holds a lot of weight. The promise had been originally Tifa's idea and he was originally hesitant to agree but he took it to heart despite that. He feels guilty when he isn't able to live up to it and tries time and time again to make up for his failures, determined to not let anyone else down and not wanting to go back on his word.
What quality or qualities do they admire most?
Though this may no longer apply, Cloud also admired SOLDIERs for a long time, thinking that they were the pinnacle of heroism growing up. He would read or hear about their exploits as Shinra's elite military force and aspired to join their ranks, wanting to become a hero himself. He never made it to SOLDIER but he still looked up to them. Sephiroth was his idol at the time and Zack was a friend he never really thought he would have, admiring how he presented himself to infantrymen and SOLDIER rookies alike. His opinion on SOLDIER may have soured now but there are still ideologies from it that he admires and puts into practice even on his own.
Do they have a part of themselves they dislike?
In reality, due to the trauma of the last five years, Cloud's personality has become an amalgamation of his and Zack's. While at his core, people can still see glimpses of the real Cloud—shy, caring, awkward—he unknowingly uses Zack's personality to fill in the blanks for his SOLDIER persona together with his preconceived notion of how a SOLDIER should portray himself.
Adding to that, the Jenova cells in him fill in the gaps in his memory and allow Sephiroth to control him so Cloud can do his bidding. All these voices in his head would explain why he feels conflicted about who he is and why he is very close to a full mental breakdown, worrying all his friends in the process.
As much as he would like to address this further, getting to Sephiroth and the black materia are his priorities, and his own issues can be put on the backburner in the meantime.
What is their sign, and why?
The same could be said during his time with Shinra as he struggled to make it into SOLDIER. His shy and quiet demeanor didn't do him any favors but he kept taking the examinations despite it, still aspiring to follow the footsteps of his hero, Sephiroth, and eventually Zack, a SOLDIER First Class who he befriended after a mission to Modeoheim.
This ties in with the earlier answer about how he admires people who can open up and befriend people easily. Cloud knows very well that he's not easy to get along with and sometimes he prefers the solitude that comes along with it. He keeps his thoughts and emotions to himself as he tries to figure things out on his own, only seldom reaching out for help from others. Despite this, he's never let that stop him from working toward his goals, always finding ways to keep moving forward, making The Hanged Man a fitting arcana for someone like him.
SAMPLES
Samples: TDM top-level
rebirth: chapter 7 - 12 summary
Continuing their pursuit, they travel to Gold Saucer only to be caught in a shooting at the Battle Square. With the main suspect being a man with a gun grafted onto his arm, the party heads to the Dustbowl to prove Barret's innocence. They later find Barret and Dyne, the man behind the shooting. After a confrontation about their past, the Turks and Palmer show up, and the party narrowly escapes after Dyne is gunned down.
With no other leads, they head to Gongaga to investigate another run-down reactor. Whispers show up as soon as they arrive and Cloud sees Sephiroth beckoning him deeper inside. There they find a Weapon and encounter Scarlet as she attempts to retrieve the Weapon and its materia. After a battle, Cloud collapses seemingly from the excess mako in the air and sees Sephiroth in the Whispers.
Tifa and the others arrive at the reactor to battle Scarlet, only for her to be separated from the group. Seeing Tifa in danger, Cloud runs to her aid, but is stopped by a Whisper that projects itself as Sephiroth. His demeanor shifts and, fueled by his anger within, mercilessly cuts through many Shinra infantrymen. Tifa finds her way to Cloud and tries to stop him. Similar to how he acted at Kalm, he once again believes that Tifa is a fake and pushes her into the mako. She is devoured by the Weapon residing in the mako and Cloud realizes what he has done, thinking he had pushed her to her death.
When the Weapon resurfaces from the mako and returns Tifa to the party, Cloud is relieved to see her alive. The two have a heart-to-heart after Tifa wakes. She recounts her trek to Mt. Nibel as a child, hoping to find her mother after she had died. She only learned within the Weapon that Cloud had stayed behind and tried to save her despite what she had been told. Cloud confesses that he doesn't think himself a hero despite what she says and battles with knowing who he truly is. He suspects the degradation from the mako is at play, causing him to fall apart. Tifa reassures him that it won't happen and that she will save him this time.
At Cosmo Canyon, they learn more about the planet, Nanaki's family, and their past. In turn, they learn of the Gi, an extraterrestrial race that cannot pass on as their spirits are not of the planet. They created the black materia to destroy the planet and, hopefully, themselves so they may pass. However, the Cetra stole it from them to prevent the end of the world. They try to strike a deal with Cloud and the party to retrieve the black materia for them. Red XIII vows that he will find a way for the Gi to rest, though not through the return of the materia. Their priorities shift, needing them to find the black materia to ensure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
To find more information about the materia, they head to Nibelheim, Cloud and Tifa's hometown. Instead of finding a husk of its former self, a rebuilt town stands in its place, nearly an exact copy of how it was before Sephiroth's massacre. While there, Cloud visits the Nidhogg Hotel, triggering a memory of Zack upon entering a room, recalling they had known each other and had come to Nibelheim together, though both as SOLDIERs. He also believes Zack died after being swept away by the rapids on their trek to the reactor five years ago.
Inside the Shinra Manor, they meet Vincent Valentine and access the terminal. Cloud is assaulted by another severe headache, hearing Hojo's voice mentioning components of S hair, S tissue, and S blood. Cloud collapses and is ushered out with Tifa's help.
Learning that they need the keystone for the Temple, they head back to the Saucer to retrieve it from Dio. Before they can leave, Roche arrives, demanding a fight with Cloud who sees Sephiroth in Roche and is told to deliver the black materia to him. Once defeated, Roche is turned into a black robe and mutters something about the black materia and how the degradation is inescapable. Though his friends try to calm his worries, Cloud still seems disheartened as they leave for the Gold Saucer.
Once there, Cloud and the party meet with Dio and agree to fight in his stead in the upcoming fight against Don Corneo in exchange for the black materia. The night before the fight, Cloud spends time with Tifa, seeing the attractions the Saucer has to offer. They end their date on the Skywheel where they share a kiss before awkwardly returning to their rooms.