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Asgard Application
Character Name; Cloud Strife
Canon; Final Fantasy VII; character wiki entry
Canon Point; post-Temple of Ancients
Age; 21
House; Heimdall
Power; Damage Drain
Personality; On the surface, Cloud appears to be a cold, arrogant jerk. And, well, he can certainly be a jerk, but most of his act is just that--an act. Cloud is in fact an emotional and caring person with a self-confidence that has been battered down most of his life. He shifts between these points through the game—at the very beginning saying that he only cares about the money, only Tifa able to sway him with their childhood promise. (He still hassles Barret about his next mission's pay, though.) When he meets Aerith, his real personality starts to shine through as he sees a girl in trouble and accepts the job of protecting her with only a rather unconventional payment as reward. Likewise he rushes headlong into humiliation to ensure Tifa's safety when she's taken to a pimp's mansion, and when she asks him to help her as Shinra threatens to destroy an entire sector, he says simply: "Of course, Tifa." Barret snickers at Cloud as they later head to save Aerith, amused at the change in him and saying "I had you figured wrong I guess". At heart, Cloud is a protector, and after being made the leader comes to care about his teammates' well-being not just physically but emotionally.
In the early game though, Cloud really is hard for anyone to figure out because of his mental confusion and quick changes outwardly. Cid describes it as "Just when you thought he was cool, he'd go and do some damn fool thing. And when you thought he was smart, he'd show how stupid he was." Even as he's warming up to others, he can have a cold exterior. Shortly after the collapse of Sector 7 an NPC observes that he's continuing on "like nothing happened", despite having been there for the devastating loss of life and seeing three acquaintances dying up close.
A crucial aspect of his character is to remember that he lost five years of his life to experimentation, and even before that did not have a healthy childhood. He's able to act like an adult in the narrow sense of taking care of himself and has flashes of insight into how others act, but he also has a hard time understanding himself and connecting with people on an intimate level. Often a little quiet and awkward even at the best of times, he withdraws when things get too bad for him to cope, and this inner shutdown can come out as coldness. He also protects himself from rejection by affecting an air of superiority—he doesn't need to be friends with anyone who's not worth his time, right? Especially not as a SOLDIER First Class. Both these behaviors lead into the aloof ex-SOLDIER jerk we see in the beginning, a persona created after years of mental trauma and the death of a friend whose mannerisms he ends up copying subconsciously. Thrust into a new world without the friends he's made and still instable, it's most likely the cold exterior will reemerge in full force before he becomes attached to the people around him again. But when it does, he shows with AVALANCHE that he is willing to share what he's feeling, as he confides his insecurities both after Sephiroth forces him to hand over the Black Materia and after Aerith dies. And attach he will: at the core, Cloud wants to be accepted and can't stand to be without worth to anyone. This is evidenced multiple times, but most apparent in the Northern crater where, after Sephiroth convinces Cloud that he is only a puppet, he begs Hojo for a numbered tattoo so he will no longer be considered a "failure" and then hands the Black Materia to Sephiroth.
That said, those events come after a series of mental traumas and he's usually not so eager to please. While empathetic and willing to listen to others, he's still the guy who constantly got into fights as a kid and can quickly get stubborn and ornery once he thinks someone is in the wrong. He has no patience for Yuffie's sob story after she's stolen the party's materia and though he's angry at Hojo for what he did to Sephiroth, he still holds Sephiroth completely accountable for his actions. He's also willing to let things go: Yuffie is freely allowed back into the party once she returns what she stole, and even before that he puts his differences with the Turks (and are those many) aside to rescue her and one of theirs. He has his grudges and brattiness but he's not petty enough to let them keep what needs to be done from getting done. Of course, he defines for himself "what needs to be done" and as can be seen in his pursuit of Sephiroth, this doesn't always mean a rational course of action. Again, though he's quiet about it, he's a very emotional person.
Despite his personal insecurities and troubled history, Cloud has a quiet optimistic streak, seen in his actually going out to Midgar to fulfill his dream, believing he could get into SOLDIER and become a hero, and later persevering in the face of the world's impending destruction. He also has a lot of trust in his friends. (Sometimes naively so--dismissing the notion of a spy immediately when there is indeed one--and with idealization.) This is counterbalanced by the fact that he takes his perceived failures hard and personally.
Though practical, serious, and just plain awkward in both bluntness and uncertainty, he'll show a sense of humor in teasing remarks, best seen with Barret ("hm…so you were worried about me!"), Aerith ("funny…I thought you were cut out to be in SOLDIER?") and Yuffie. He's from the country and though it doesn't show all the time, his hick vocabulary and dorkiness stand out when they do pop up. Of course, part of the humor around him is just how dry or awkward he can be; he's definitely the straight man of the group. And he has the funniest way of letting himself be dragged into ridiculous situations by acquaintances.
While his Jenova cells have been rendered mundane and can no longer affect him, his mind is still unstable. Due to his state he occasionally suffers breakdowns which he often mentally glosses over; also notable is that he's lost many years of memories, yet doesn't show worry about this unless something else prompts him (his friends asking him to remember something, Sephiroth challenging his memory of Nibelheim).
Samples;
Network Sample;
[Cloud? Cloud likes his tutorials. He always likes the chance to show off what he knows. Fresh faces in Asgard mean people to teach, and there's people who want to know what he knows. ...Of course, even if he likes playing teacher there's only so many times he'll repeat himself. It's a number suspiciously close to zero, at least for times per month.
Filtered entries work wonders this way. ]
...So you're in Heimdall. Congrats, you're a real team player. Or a sucker for pain.
You should've figured out by now that if you had powers before, they're gone now. Far as anyone knows, Heimdall gives one of two abilities. If you're lucky, you can make others stronger in their own powers. Just others. It'll wear you out, so give your strength to someone who can use it right.
The other power gets you more than worn out. It's like carrying a mastered Cover materia... ... ...never mind. What it is...someone gets hurt, you take the pain for them, make it easier for them to keep going. Maybe the injury itself if you've got a good enough focus. Don't worry about doing that on accident, you're all too green for it anyway. I can't tell you how to use that or who to use it on. [Having that power himself, he's all too aware how emotionally-charged his uses of it are. ]
{ I also attached two meme threads to the application. Open meme and Cloud meeting...himself. }
Log Sample;
His heart was racing. The more he tried to step outside the circle the worse it got. It wouldn't let him leave; or was he even taking the step? His body felt impossibly heavy; his eyes told him he was moving, but he couldn't believe them.
They'd also told him, not too long ago, that he was hurting Aerith...
He might've lost himself in the panic if it wasn't for the woman stepping in. His head snapped up, bright blue eyes narrowing. "Where are the others? Where's Sephiroth?" This kind of game could only be his. Even now it seemed like she was swimming in and out of focus. He was looking right at her, or he was trying, but something seemed to keep slipping past, she kept changing. It wasn't helping his mental agitation, boiling to fever pitch, and he reached toward the Buster sword's handle. No matter that she looked perfectly harmless.
Aerith had been harmless too.
But the only reaction she showed to his threatening movement was to produce a piece of paper. Her blandness surprised him and he actually took a look at it and felt relieved to see something so mundanely real. It didn't shift or move past his eyes. It was ordinary parchment. After a pause, he took it in hand to read.
"...'This world'...? ...Nice joke."
She didn't laugh or smile, at least not that he could see. It made him nervous again; not only that she might think this insanity was real, but that Sephiroth wasn't the one responsible. Always with that mocking smirk... Though it felt like she was mocking him when she told him it was all true and there was no way he could get home; his duty was to live in Asgard now.
On another world. Away from his revenge. Away from his friends, with no chance to make up to Aerith what he'd done.
All the gray was suffocating him. "Stop lying," he breathed and this time drew his sword--
--And nearly fell over with it, the blade scraping noisily against the floor. He stared at his now-throbbing arms and aching wrists, realizing just what had made him feel so heavy this whole time. But it wasn't the Buster sword that had changed... it was him. His strength as a SOLDIER was gone.
These gods could do all this? Trap him, take away his strength? Make him powerless, like he was nothing to them. He was nothing now, he had nothing. Not friends or family or hatred or strength--
Stop it stop it stop it!
Don't be afraid!
...Right. Right. No matter what, he had to hold onto his pride as a SOLDIER. Even if he didn't have the physical strength.
He rose to his feet wondering when he'd gotten down on the ground and lifted the Buster sword with a better idea of his strength, carefully putting it back in its sheath. It didn't matter if it was too heavy for him, it was his and he wouldn't abandon it here.
The maid had never once reacted to him. Fine. He wasn't sparing any more emotion on her. "The gods need me? This place does look pretty dead." He shrugged. Careless. "So, what now?"
Canon; Final Fantasy VII; character wiki entry
Canon Point; post-Temple of Ancients
Age; 21
House; Heimdall
Power; Damage Drain
Personality; On the surface, Cloud appears to be a cold, arrogant jerk. And, well, he can certainly be a jerk, but most of his act is just that--an act. Cloud is in fact an emotional and caring person with a self-confidence that has been battered down most of his life. He shifts between these points through the game—at the very beginning saying that he only cares about the money, only Tifa able to sway him with their childhood promise. (He still hassles Barret about his next mission's pay, though.) When he meets Aerith, his real personality starts to shine through as he sees a girl in trouble and accepts the job of protecting her with only a rather unconventional payment as reward. Likewise he rushes headlong into humiliation to ensure Tifa's safety when she's taken to a pimp's mansion, and when she asks him to help her as Shinra threatens to destroy an entire sector, he says simply: "Of course, Tifa." Barret snickers at Cloud as they later head to save Aerith, amused at the change in him and saying "I had you figured wrong I guess". At heart, Cloud is a protector, and after being made the leader comes to care about his teammates' well-being not just physically but emotionally.
In the early game though, Cloud really is hard for anyone to figure out because of his mental confusion and quick changes outwardly. Cid describes it as "Just when you thought he was cool, he'd go and do some damn fool thing. And when you thought he was smart, he'd show how stupid he was." Even as he's warming up to others, he can have a cold exterior. Shortly after the collapse of Sector 7 an NPC observes that he's continuing on "like nothing happened", despite having been there for the devastating loss of life and seeing three acquaintances dying up close.
A crucial aspect of his character is to remember that he lost five years of his life to experimentation, and even before that did not have a healthy childhood. He's able to act like an adult in the narrow sense of taking care of himself and has flashes of insight into how others act, but he also has a hard time understanding himself and connecting with people on an intimate level. Often a little quiet and awkward even at the best of times, he withdraws when things get too bad for him to cope, and this inner shutdown can come out as coldness. He also protects himself from rejection by affecting an air of superiority—he doesn't need to be friends with anyone who's not worth his time, right? Especially not as a SOLDIER First Class. Both these behaviors lead into the aloof ex-SOLDIER jerk we see in the beginning, a persona created after years of mental trauma and the death of a friend whose mannerisms he ends up copying subconsciously. Thrust into a new world without the friends he's made and still instable, it's most likely the cold exterior will reemerge in full force before he becomes attached to the people around him again. But when it does, he shows with AVALANCHE that he is willing to share what he's feeling, as he confides his insecurities both after Sephiroth forces him to hand over the Black Materia and after Aerith dies. And attach he will: at the core, Cloud wants to be accepted and can't stand to be without worth to anyone. This is evidenced multiple times, but most apparent in the Northern crater where, after Sephiroth convinces Cloud that he is only a puppet, he begs Hojo for a numbered tattoo so he will no longer be considered a "failure" and then hands the Black Materia to Sephiroth.
That said, those events come after a series of mental traumas and he's usually not so eager to please. While empathetic and willing to listen to others, he's still the guy who constantly got into fights as a kid and can quickly get stubborn and ornery once he thinks someone is in the wrong. He has no patience for Yuffie's sob story after she's stolen the party's materia and though he's angry at Hojo for what he did to Sephiroth, he still holds Sephiroth completely accountable for his actions. He's also willing to let things go: Yuffie is freely allowed back into the party once she returns what she stole, and even before that he puts his differences with the Turks (and are those many) aside to rescue her and one of theirs. He has his grudges and brattiness but he's not petty enough to let them keep what needs to be done from getting done. Of course, he defines for himself "what needs to be done" and as can be seen in his pursuit of Sephiroth, this doesn't always mean a rational course of action. Again, though he's quiet about it, he's a very emotional person.
Despite his personal insecurities and troubled history, Cloud has a quiet optimistic streak, seen in his actually going out to Midgar to fulfill his dream, believing he could get into SOLDIER and become a hero, and later persevering in the face of the world's impending destruction. He also has a lot of trust in his friends. (Sometimes naively so--dismissing the notion of a spy immediately when there is indeed one--and with idealization.) This is counterbalanced by the fact that he takes his perceived failures hard and personally.
Though practical, serious, and just plain awkward in both bluntness and uncertainty, he'll show a sense of humor in teasing remarks, best seen with Barret ("hm…so you were worried about me!"), Aerith ("funny…I thought you were cut out to be in SOLDIER?") and Yuffie. He's from the country and though it doesn't show all the time, his hick vocabulary and dorkiness stand out when they do pop up. Of course, part of the humor around him is just how dry or awkward he can be; he's definitely the straight man of the group. And he has the funniest way of letting himself be dragged into ridiculous situations by acquaintances.
While his Jenova cells have been rendered mundane and can no longer affect him, his mind is still unstable. Due to his state he occasionally suffers breakdowns which he often mentally glosses over; also notable is that he's lost many years of memories, yet doesn't show worry about this unless something else prompts him (his friends asking him to remember something, Sephiroth challenging his memory of Nibelheim).
Samples;
Network Sample;
[Cloud? Cloud likes his tutorials. He always likes the chance to show off what he knows. Fresh faces in Asgard mean people to teach, and there's people who want to know what he knows. ...Of course, even if he likes playing teacher there's only so many times he'll repeat himself. It's a number suspiciously close to zero, at least for times per month.
Filtered entries work wonders this way. ]
...So you're in Heimdall. Congrats, you're a real team player. Or a sucker for pain.
You should've figured out by now that if you had powers before, they're gone now. Far as anyone knows, Heimdall gives one of two abilities. If you're lucky, you can make others stronger in their own powers. Just others. It'll wear you out, so give your strength to someone who can use it right.
The other power gets you more than worn out. It's like carrying a mastered Cover materia... ... ...never mind. What it is...someone gets hurt, you take the pain for them, make it easier for them to keep going. Maybe the injury itself if you've got a good enough focus. Don't worry about doing that on accident, you're all too green for it anyway. I can't tell you how to use that or who to use it on. [Having that power himself, he's all too aware how emotionally-charged his uses of it are. ]
{ I also attached two meme threads to the application. Open meme and Cloud meeting...himself. }
Log Sample;
His heart was racing. The more he tried to step outside the circle the worse it got. It wouldn't let him leave; or was he even taking the step? His body felt impossibly heavy; his eyes told him he was moving, but he couldn't believe them.
They'd also told him, not too long ago, that he was hurting Aerith...
He might've lost himself in the panic if it wasn't for the woman stepping in. His head snapped up, bright blue eyes narrowing. "Where are the others? Where's Sephiroth?" This kind of game could only be his. Even now it seemed like she was swimming in and out of focus. He was looking right at her, or he was trying, but something seemed to keep slipping past, she kept changing. It wasn't helping his mental agitation, boiling to fever pitch, and he reached toward the Buster sword's handle. No matter that she looked perfectly harmless.
Aerith had been harmless too.
But the only reaction she showed to his threatening movement was to produce a piece of paper. Her blandness surprised him and he actually took a look at it and felt relieved to see something so mundanely real. It didn't shift or move past his eyes. It was ordinary parchment. After a pause, he took it in hand to read.
"...'This world'...? ...Nice joke."
She didn't laugh or smile, at least not that he could see. It made him nervous again; not only that she might think this insanity was real, but that Sephiroth wasn't the one responsible. Always with that mocking smirk... Though it felt like she was mocking him when she told him it was all true and there was no way he could get home; his duty was to live in Asgard now.
On another world. Away from his revenge. Away from his friends, with no chance to make up to Aerith what he'd done.
All the gray was suffocating him. "Stop lying," he breathed and this time drew his sword--
--And nearly fell over with it, the blade scraping noisily against the floor. He stared at his now-throbbing arms and aching wrists, realizing just what had made him feel so heavy this whole time. But it wasn't the Buster sword that had changed... it was him. His strength as a SOLDIER was gone.
These gods could do all this? Trap him, take away his strength? Make him powerless, like he was nothing to them. He was nothing now, he had nothing. Not friends or family or hatred or strength--
Stop it stop it stop it!
Don't be afraid!
...Right. Right. No matter what, he had to hold onto his pride as a SOLDIER. Even if he didn't have the physical strength.
He rose to his feet wondering when he'd gotten down on the ground and lifted the Buster sword with a better idea of his strength, carefully putting it back in its sheath. It didn't matter if it was too heavy for him, it was his and he wouldn't abandon it here.
The maid had never once reacted to him. Fine. He wasn't sparing any more emotion on her. "The gods need me? This place does look pretty dead." He shrugged. Careless. "So, what now?"