APPLICATION - JIGOKU
May. 1st, 2022 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
identitycrisiscoreNOTE: As mentioned, this app will naturally discuss spoilers, particularly those regarding both the original Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Until proven otherwise, I am assuming major background knowledge we know about Cloud from the original FF7 franchise is true in Remake, in some form.
It's very complicated and I am very sorry.
PLAYER INFORMATION
CHARACTER INFORMATION
It's very complicated and I am very sorry.
PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Sven
ARE YOU AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD?: Yes!
CONTACT:svensational // Discord DM: svensational #5444
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Cloud Strife
CANON: Final Fantasy VII: Remake
CANON REFERENCE: I'm very sorry.
CANON POINT: Chapter 18: Destiny's Crossroads. Specifically - post the party's escape on the Midgar Expressway, but just before crossing the threshold to fight the Whispers and Sephiroth.
CRAU HISTORY: N/A
AGE: 21
APPEARANCE:
Okay, no, seriously. He's Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. I promise you've seen him before.
CONTRACT PAYMENT: The way to permanently stop Sephiroth - and the guaranteed safety of his friends.
QUESTIONNAIRE:"What is your favorite diversion? Hobbies, indulgences, vices? Would you put off important things for that diversion, or would you be more strict about how you spend your time and/or money?"
Cloud wouldn't tell you this, but he's a natural busybody. While we never really see exactly what it is Cloud does in his free time, he gets dragged rather easily into other people's problems. Put most bluntly, Cloud is a man who prefers action to anything resembling sitting around, and that extends to his free time - he'd much rather have that time filled with someone keeping him busy than try to think about what to do with it himself. Cloud's ideal day is one in which he's spending time helping others, only to crash on a cot exhausted and ready to dose off the second he hits the hay.
In terms of spending his time frivolously, he's a master of saying one thing and subconsciously doing another, which is to say - if he says he has something important to do, and someone makes a case for needing his time, he's more likely than not to silently rearrange his schedule so that he can help someone else, only admitting if directly called out on it. On recalling a childhood promise made to his dear friend Tifa, he completely upended his current life of a drifter to help her with the work - both dangerous and not - that she'd gotten embroiled in. This shows how much Cloud cares for others, despite some of his insistence in being a lone wolf.
"How do you define "failure"? How do you deal with the consequences of failure, from light to severe?
Cloud takes failure very personally, though, again, he would not say as much. He treated it as a personal disgrace that he did not actually make it into the SOLDIER program, never being more than a guard for the 'real' heroes. Given he gave his word to become a SOLDIER to his childhood friend, he felt so embarassed with this perceived failure that he asked the SOLDIER he was working with in his home town of Nibelheim to not mention him by name, as he felt he wasn't fit to show his face there.
For minor failures, he's much more willing to own up - even if it's sarcastic or begrudging, Cloud is willing to quickly back down and admit he's the one at fault. He may challenge the point before he does - he's stubborn in that way - but ultimately if it can be proved it was his fault, he'll back down and apologize.
By contrast, he dwells on his greatest failures constantly and rigorously - getting flashes of them when triggered by key phrases, and becoming visibly subsumed in them. Cloud has something akin to, but not quite, Post-Traumatic Stress: Certain events he blames himself for - like the destruction of his hometown at Sephiroth's hands, for instance - will stick in his mind and bubble to the surface when he least expects them. Needling Cloud on these failures is easy - an observation that his nemesis Sephiroth relishes.
The boy takes big failures hard, extremely hard. Hard enough to carry them with him for a long-ass time.
"An enemy of your faction has asked for a meeting, proposing a truce of sorts to deal with a greater threat. On one hand, there is indeed a threat at hand, but on the other, this person double-crossing you is just as likely an outcome. Do you agree to the meeting? Do you trust them?"
The short answer: Yes, with caveats.
Cloud may seem like your average sellsword, but there is a certain level of mercenary instinct cultivated that might be surprising if you'd just assume he's another guy with a big sword not doing a lot of thinking. He's quick to ask questions that cut to the heart of a matter. If there truly was a greater threat, he'd be willing to meet an enemy on equal ground... but he's also not unaware that a lasting truce requires both sides to be willing to make a deal the other wants. He'd be unwilling to trust unless he felt sure the deal made sense to both sides. If anything smelled even a little fishy - well, Cloud's no stranger to being in the center of a bad time.
Realistically, getting Cloud to trust organizations - not people, but organizations - is hard. Having worked for one of the most dominant forces in his world - the Shinra Electric Power Company - means that Cloud has seen the absolute worst of how company's conduct themselves for their betterment. Which, even before the personal baggage they inflicted on him through experimentation, was unconscionable. Cloud might not be as vocal about his hatred of Shinra as some of the people he fell in with, but there's no denying the time he served with them doesn't make him very fond of them - and as that's his central experience with large-scale organizations, well.
It'd be an uphill battle to earn his trust either way, but he knows how to at least play nice if the moment calls for it.
You've worked with your Faction awhile now and you feel like the reward of your contract is within reach. But at the last moment, you are told you have even more service to pay beforehand, an obscure clause in the contract being exploited to keep you under your boss's thumb even longer. Your Faction Leader hasn't spoken on this, and might be able to dispute it. Do you go to your leader? Do you argue the dispute yourself? Do you begrudgingly accept the additional work? Something else?
This, once again, reaches into Cloud's past - both real and self-deluded - of his work for Shinra. He would almost certainly argue the dispute himself, unless someone was there to tell him it wasn't worth it - at which point he would begrudgingly accept the additional work. It'd leave him with a pretty serious chip on his shoulder, however - Cloud's no stranger to getting stiffed by the company, and that's why he introduces himself as an Ex-SOLDIER(no matter how true that may really, truly be).
While one slight may be given some benefit of the doubt, it would quickly put Cloud at odds with the Faction. He's not one to completely fly off the handle. But, it would make him more open to playing for the other side, such as it was. He won't trust that any of the Factions are better than Shinra unless they can explicitly prove it to him, and using a loophole in his contract to keep the goalposts moving would only serve to make him more bitter about this fact, and possibly to do something about it.
POWERS & ABILITIES:MAKO INFUSION: One way or another, Cloud is infused with Mako - a dangerous, processed form of the planet's life-blood, which enhances his abilities far beyond the limits of human physicality. Those infused by Mako are stronger, quicker, and overall more athletic than even the best trained soldiers, and would qualify as superhuman in just about any setting. Upon arrival to Jigoku-cho, the vast majority of this is stripped away, leaving Cloud as a very fit and athletic human, but still within the bounds of the human norm. The process also leaves those infused with Mako with a distinctive greenish pigmentation in their eyes, the only thing that will remain of Cloud's superhuman athleticism until he regains it.
SWORDSMANSHIP: Cloud is an experienced swordsman. Although he is not, in truth, a 1st-Class Soldier, due to internalizing the experiences of his idol Zack, as well as his own experiences since then, his swordsmanship has been good enough to fool most people into believing he's the real deal - himself included. Cloud's typical weapon of choice is a heavy broadsword known as the Buster Sword, a massive slab of sharpened metal nearly as big as Cloud himself, with slots for exactly two Materia. Cloud will not have this sword when first arriving in Jigoku-cho, obviously.
MATERIA USER: Cloud is not inherently able to cast magic, but instead understands and can make use of Materia - condensed, solid crystalline orbs of Mako that allow the user to perform magic when slotted into an appropriate weapon or piece of armor. Through these, Cloud can cast spells of the four primary elements (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Aero), as well as other effects, like healing magic or infusing his weapons with special properties. Naturally, he won't start with any of these, but with mod permission he may gain some back through play.
TWO SOLDIERS, ONE CLOUD: Cloud's trauma caused him to internalize the experiences of his idol, Zack. In doing so he believed himself to accomplish feats Zack instead accomplished. While he was not ever a true SOLDIER, Cloud has internalized Zack's own skills to such an extent he can easily be mistaken for a military elite, with the training to match.
Conversely, the true Cloud was little more than a trained soldier for Shinra, who never accomplished anything beyond that. Even still, he received the same amount of training any Shinra troops would have had, and in doing so can subconsciously draw on either that or Zack's memories, without really differentiating between the two.
???: During certain moments, Cloud has been getting flashbacks - or flash-forwards, in some cases - to events that occur within FF7, many of which are events Cloud in the Remake would have no understanding of (in particular, he has multiple flashes of both the Reunion Event at North Crater and Aerith's death from the original game). It's unclear if these are memories carried over or something more. With permission I'd like to keep these as Cloud doesn't understand them, they offer no real 'benefit', and should only really effect other FF7 characters in-game, but I'm noting it for completeness' sake.
SUITABILITY:
Cloud comes from a world where the haves, quite literally, live above the have-nots. The city of Midgar is one steeped in corruption, crime, surveillance, police violence, and the gluttony of capitalistic excess. Cloud himself could (uncharitably, but accurately) be called an eco-terrorist. In the slums below the city, violence is everyday, either by gangs or by monsters, and that doesn't even get into the ruthless, immoral experiments Shinra's top researchers perpetuate, of which Cloud is a byproduct of. Midgar's undercity also features "Wall Market", a walled city of pleasures - be they sex, drugs, or violence - in which Cloud and company had to infiltrate in order to accomplish their objectives.
Needless to say, Cloud is going to feel right at home, in all the worst ways.
FACTION SUITABILITY:
Fitting in with the Shuten would be trying but doable. Cloud doesn't believe entirely in a Might-Makes-Right philosophy, but he's a grumpy and honorable sort - two personality factors which the Shuten could definitely work around. As one of the clans with the most (physical) muscle behind it, it would also make sense for Cloud as a do-everything-but-especially-violence mercenary type to end up working for them.
The Tamamo is trickier. Cloud isn't necessarily what one would picture of a member of the Tamamo - he's not stupid, but he doesn't exactly move the needle to 'cunning and insightful', either. However, there is something to be said for a man who has a killer instinct and an ability to ask questions that cut through all the extraneous factors. His mercenary attitude about such things may be of use to the Tamamo - a soldier who can, at least on occasion, think for himself its worth the price. Additionally, the Tamamo Clan's claims of freedom would ring somewhat true to Cloud - as his desire to cut away from Shinra and live life on his own merits is not that dissimilar.
The Sutoku are interesting. Cloud has some experience both in covert operations (per his tenure with Avalanche at the start of the game), as well as quite a bit of experience working for 'the little guy' in town through his multiple jobs between then and the end of the game. The fact that the Sutoku pride themselves on egalitarian conduct, as well as their information network, would sit well with Cloud (who knows very little, and desperately wishes he knew more). Additionally, their 'cleaner' business, as well as their general underdog standing, would definitely suit Cloud's more honest merc lifestyle - though he may chafe under some of the more pious types.
The Enma are, well, the Powers That Be, if you are working for Enma, you are working for the state. Cloud would almost certainly fit in here in many ways, but working for the Enma would likely make him feel he is selling out to the Shinra-equivalent of Jigoku-cho, and friction may spark once he inevitably clashes with the more corrupt factors within the Enma's Shinigami who are much more about order and less about keeping people safe. If you want a guy who would be willing to be more honest (or be the corrupt cop in the case of bending things for the people and not against them), Cloud could certainly be your man. But otherwise... well. It'd be a hard, but not impossible sell.
SAMPLESAll threads linked were accurate in comment count as of submission of this app:
