⸺  biography

your past is a picture of you and your mother, as your father abandoned you at a young age. your assumption is that he passed, but the truth has never been revealed to you, and to your knowledge, nor has it to your mother. claudia and cloud strife stand next to each other in the kitchen, relishing in each other's company, as the rest of the town has deemed the two of you unworthy of their more conservative country lifestyle. city folk weren't really the type to get along in the parts of nibelheim, but you didn't care. you and your mom got along fine in the town, but you were never really sure why she stayed after your father disappeared. regardless, it's where you grew up. your familiar kitchen walls paint the background of you two, picture frames hanging upon them, the table decorated with a quilted cloth and adorned with a delicious home cooked meal. your favorite of hers: pot roast. you aren't smiling, and she looks like she's forcing a smile for the both of you. neither of you experience daily happiness and it shows, but you can tell she works hard for you and loves you very sincerely. that's okay. you love her too, and if she faked happy, you'd feel like you didn't belong. but you do. both of you belong in this photo, staring at the camera, but you can't remember who took it. mr. lockhart, perhaps? no. he hated you, remember? maybe tifa. too bad you refused to associate with her after she made other friends... remember how awkward you were as a child? alone, most of the time, but you weren't always. you're not sure what changed or why it did, but one day, you just stopped. maybe you just felt like it was all fake. all some ruse that others put on, a game of pretend forced with one another just to get along. that was never your thing, anyway. you'd rather be alone than live a lie. too bad you craved friendship like nothing else. too bad you were the creation of your own misery. too bad your future is the very life that shut you into a hurtful nonexistence. she still mentions she used to miss you, by the way. she still spoke with your mother. and you still saved her pet, regardless of how many times she escaped, regardless of how little you revealed yourself or spoke to others.the picture is singed with fire, burnt at the edges, and the flames are overtaking it to the point your fingers are burning through your gloves. remember, cloud. remember the fire? the "Nibelheim Incident" as the news reported. remember how the hero you'd spend hours of childhood admiring on your father's old blurry television? he did this. sephiroth did this. the man you sculpted half your personality around, the man who was a hero, who you wanted to grow up to be. he killed your mother. he destroyed your town. he ruined your life. he took everything from you. and nothing was ever the same. you remember, don't you? the story you shared in kalm? you believed it, too. so genuinely, you believed it. so earnestly that you not only fooled yourself, but had the only other person who maybe remembered what happened questioning her own version of reality. questioning the truth. you forgot him. you forgot your friend. your first real friend since joining the infantry. you thought you were him . your memories, distorted the moment you watched his soul abandon you just as you approached the overlook of midgar: your destination.what do you remember?"i remember-" nevermind. let me tell you. you left nibelheim at twelve years old and your mother was forced to cope with her own loneliness. she was thankful you said goodbye to her, but both of you know she was the only one, and when you disappeared into the night, her heart broke into pieces, left for her to heal by her lonesome. tifa spent some with her, but you hurt her. then, as you rode in the truck to midgar, your motion sickness felt unbearable. but you were too proud to let anyone else know, so you and the other new recruits sat and discussed random topics. you, mostly quiet, hopeful and naive, and sick to your stomach. you didn't even have the emotional strength to allow yourself to vomit. you were afraid you'd be kicked to the curb before you even started. should be some kind of hint, or some kind of omen, i guess. you didn't think so. you were ignorant to the ways of the world, and when the first person who approached you and offered you a job at SOLDIER for 2,000 gil, you sacrificed your father's only gift left to you, and agreed. scammed, broke, foolish, and full of shame. you have to prove to yourself that you can do this regardless. you join the ranks. you do well with drills, you do well with marching, your feet still fall in line with whoever you walk beside, and you do well in the face of your commander. but your social skills are lacking. it's obvious you're ignorant, and it's obvious you're different. it's obvious you're a smalltown bumpkin who has no idea how the world works. things are harder than you'd ever thought, but your ungodly amount of sheer determination keeps you going. it's really the only thing that you got through any of this. through anything, ever, i'm sure. you met zack finally, and he was just like you. or, just like who you wanted to be. you spent time together talking about girls, sharing stories of your pasts, discussing your hometowns and your histories, and for the first time since you abandoned your mother, you felt seen. how could you forget him, cloud? he was your only friend.your mission to nibelheim... that's when it all started. you, zack, a man you met just recently, and sephiroth. your dream came true: visiting home with zack and sephiroth. the only part you were missing is that you were a SOLDIER and you'd have the strength to face tifa again. you abandoned her too, y'know. she might hate you for it. and since you never made SOLDIER, you feel too embarrassed to show your face around here. despite it being home. you do visit your mother. for the last time, unbeknownst to you. you're thankful to this day that you made the decision to unmask and see her. she holds you close and admires and grieves over how much you've grown since you left. you feel proud, but you also feel guilty. she talks about how she wants you to find someone who will take care of you. you're not really sure what to say, but you don't disagree with her. you're glad she cares. she wants someone to carry on her legacy.speaking of legacies... after you visited her, you stayed at the inn, shared a room with zack before your day of traversing mt. nibel. what was your objective again? investigating the reactor. that's right. and tifa led you. you were so ashamed you hardly talked. you hid beneath your helmet, behind your silence, the whole time. she didn't even know it was you. kind of embarrassing, don't you think? i'm sure you'd look back and cringe if you remembered it correctly. you did have a bit of a child-like crush on her, you know. she was more grown now, and she was awesome. she was learning how to kick ass and lead the town. she led an exercise group every morning for the locals. i bet you had no idea. and you? you were just a liar, too ashamed to tell the truth, too weak to meet your goals in the allotted time you gave yourself. if ever. you never got the chance. there is a reason you're ex-SOLDIER now, even if you can't remember it. despite your false memories before the trek up the mountain, there's photo proof that documents the truth of the past. zack, tifa, sephiroth. cloud? no. there was no cloud. you weren't in it. you were there, though, even if tifa had no idea. you all were walking across a suspension bridge when it snapped, killing the infantry member you'd recently made your formal acquaintance with. your memories began to return, and you thought that was zack. zack lived. for now. he lived long enough to accompany you at the reactor. you listened as tifa begged to join, and sephiroth rejected her. she pleaded, to no avail, and you were tasked with protecting her. you had to stop her from following them, and you were so nervous you couldn't even use your words. your mind can make up whatever it wants, but you have no idea what happened in there. what you know is that you and tifa stood awkwardly in silence, your anxiety destroying you from the inside in bitter silence, and hers exploding through miniature tantrums and aggravated sighs. you said nothing. she still didn't know who you were. still, when enemies arrived on the scene, you took a bullet for her, and down you went. zack and tifa battling without you. too weak. too fragile. too human. after your memories return permanently, you still don't remember a lot of what happened next. you remember the feeling of tifa looking over you, scared to death that she might recognize you even in death. she's the one who carried you back to town. you were taken to the local infirmary, and retired to your inn room with zack later that night."SOLDIER is like a den of monsters. don't go inside." you were warned, before zack switches topics. you noticed he never tended to dwell on his more overwhelming emotions. not in front of you, at least. instead, he asks about tifa and your relationship to her. you curl into yourself, embarrassed to be found out, scared to be honest. you meet him with silence, the same silence you give tifa, and allow him to carry the conversation. he's better at it, anyway. until he escalates into a bit of a emotional outburst, that is. you don't really know what to do... so you copy his tactics. you want to be a good friend too, so, you switch the subject, ask about his sword. the way he holds, it feels like it gives your friend comfort. he tells you what it means to him, and while it leaves you a little lost, he seems more motivated now. more inspired. that concludes your last night of child-like naivety .sephiroth had snapped. and after engulfing your life in flames, you still follow him, confused, angry, tormented, and full of justifiable rage, into the reactor in which he had fled. you watched a scene in which your childhood friend stood over her murdered father and wept with fury. you watched as tifa grabbed the sword of your former hero and attempted to attack him with it. you watched as she fell down the stairs in failure, and emotions couldn't quite set in for you yet. you were still overcome by the shock of the scene. the shock of what just happened. the shock of losing everything you've ever known. you try to take care of her, you pull the broken and bleeding girl off the steps into an area "safer" or out of the way.or so you thought. really , you panicked . you rose and escaped to your mother's house , falling on the way, and traipsing through the flame-ridden town with a broken ankle, calling out to her, listening to the cries and deaths of everyone you've come to know. you limp in agony and watch as the water tower, your safe space through all of your life, tumbles down on top of you. you fall to the ground, but like i said, your determination is insurmountable. you keep going, crawling. you fall down just before the doorway, and it's like she knows you're there for her. "cloud, run away. you have to leave. you have to live." you couldn't save her. this is the beginning of your guilt. in fear, distress, and unbearable pain, you travel as fast you can to the reactor to escape the flames, burdened by your now nonexistence of everyone you love, and you yearn with rage for the truth. you have no idea what's happened, but it must have something to do with the reactor. it must. upon arrival, you witness tifa's father at the scene, all the life drained from his eyes, drained from his body, like the blood that surrounds him. you trail further inward, there lies tifa herself, stabbed, and unconscious on the ground. adrenaline and your own fire begins to burn in you and your pain becomes your fuel. your anger, sorrow, grief, feelings of betrayal, distress, justice, burn within you. you don't know what's happened here, but it's obvious who's at fault. you take zack's sword in your hands, unaware of where he is, unaware of anything, and you silently sneak to stab your former hero, like a silent assassin. your hands are shaking. your eyes are burning. and as soon as he collapses, you race to where you saw tifa laying in defeat. you remove your helmet for the first time since you've returned and hold her unconscious body in your arms. you recognize that she lives, and you cup her face in bitter relief. zack lays unmoving against the stairs, and has seemingly come to by the time sephiroth, injured and unwell, limps into their sights. he tells you to finish sephiroth off. and you nod. you agree. you set tifa down as carefully as physically possible, and equip the buster sword once more. it's heavy, but with your surging emotion and raw human strength, you wield it appropriately, even if it hurts.you scream his name as you race toward him. "SEPHIROOOOTTTHHH!!" your blades cross. he sheathes his sword through your chest and by some unrecognizable force and feeling you have never experienced in your life's entirety, you use what strength you left, and the entirety of your body, to force the sword, still within you, into him. he falls into the depths of the reactor. he falls, and so do you.you don't wake up until zack is bleeding out in front of you, overlooking midgar, as he pleads for you to be his living legacy.and you are. much more than he or you expected. you adopt his memories as your own, your subconscious dumping yours because it cannot bear the pain of them. you live a new life now. a mercenary ex-SOLDIER who lost a friend on their last mission.you're cloud strife, the merc who forgot who he was, and has yet to unravel who he is.
may the lifestream reveal one day the truth.

CANON
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  '97 PART I    : ☄ ˚ · v : p1 [ it's like this train ] .begins at the onset of the ffvii original game. this includes anywhere from the moment he lands on the train all the way to aerith's death. my portrayal differs just slightly compared to the remake counterpart. i try to keep true to the original's pacing and cloud's more aloof personality.  '97 PART II    : ☄ ˚ · v : p2 [ muddled memories ] .the same can be said as part I for this verse, only this spans the time of right after aerith's death and ends when the party reaches the northern crater. cloud starts to become more open in this verse, learning to trust others. it is also the verse where cloud undergoes his very drastic change after discovering who he really is, so my portrayal, depending on the thread, will depict this in his personality and ways of speech.  '97 PART III    : ☄ ˚ · v : p3 [ will you all come with me ? ] .then, we have the northern crater to sephiroth's takedown, and saving everyone from the end of the world. cloud is much more resolute in this verse and goes out of his way to be a caring and reliable person to everyone around him. he's more open and more honest. his personality becomes more like himself before the impact of his trauma: a bit awkward, always yearning to help, and learning to accept his emotions.  REMAKE    : ☄ ˚ · v : rm [ if it feels wrong ，don't do it ] .remake verse! in this verse, as those who know know, cloud becomes much closer with the members of avalanche. this verse is similar to his original part 1 verse, but it focuses more on the relationships he forms with others, his dry attitude, and involves the whispers, the arbiters of fate, and carries a different style of pacing and events than the original.  REBIRTH    : ☄ ˚ · v : rb [ just an illusion ] .rebirth takes place after the party leaves midgar and the world opens up. this verse involves a lot of exploration and more moments for side content and random interaction. it also focuses heavily on sephiroth's influence over cloud, his foggy memories, and the struggle he deals with internally (and at times externally) due to his trauma and sephiroth's influence. it ends after aerith's death.  ADVENT CHILDREN    : ☄ ˚ · v : ac [ i wanna be forgiven ] .two years have passed since the ending of final fantasy vii, when the world is saved and sephiroth and jenova are defeated. in this verse, cloud is infected with geostigma and battling with his guilt, grief, and now chronic depression. his confidently shy people-helper personality of the past fades into something subdued, aching and suppressed as he no longer finds himself worthy of healing. sephiroth attempts a return, and cloud is reminded of his strength due to the influence of the people who care about him. take that depression, and take that sephiroth, you know how it is.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
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  MODERN    : ☄ ˚ · v : modern [ ... ] .a man who failed boot camp due to mental health crisis and allowed his shame to take him from his hometown. he moved to the city so he didn't have to face his past and rents his own apartment working as a delivery driver for a corporate shipment/mail company. he's rediscovering himself after recovering from a psychiatric break and learning to navigate life again. he was born in 1997 and grew up with his mother in the early 2000s; his father was absent. claudia (his mother) is alive in this AU, living alone in nibelheim. zack is as well. they went to bootcamp together, but where cloud failed, zack went on to join the military. right now he's stationed nearby, so they hang out time to time. he also discovers tifa has moved to the city, and meets aerith at the local flower shop, and eventually makes friends/acquaintaces with the rest of the cast. he's just an average guy trying to make ends meet and figure out what life means for himself.  FARMING SIMULATOR    : ☄ ˚ · v : farmin' [ a simple life ] .cloud is a man who grew up rather solitary , relying almost solely on his mother , claudia , for . . . anything he truly needed . he likes to work for himself , cook for himself , and build a life for himself , and began enacting independence with the disappearance of his father at a young age . he wanted to look after strife farms , and he wanted to take care of his mother , who is growing older and dealing with more health problems and in turn has less stamina . he took over the more strenuous tasks at age twelve and has been doing so ever since . more info can be found here.  FINAL FANTASY XV    : ☄ ˚ · v : ffxv [ escape yourself ] .a boy aspiring to be kingsglaive, to work the crownsguard, like his late father, comes face to face with denial due to the challenge of his physical and mental health. when offered a job by a man who deemed himself crownguard, he took it. he was knocked unconscious, later to find out he had been scammed by a niflheim spy and taken to their research center for magitek troopers. he gets injected with the plasmodium as they prepare him for daemonification, but he is saved by zack. he takes him back to lucis where the war has broken out in insomnia and together they search for a cure. starting with lunafreya and ending up around the continent. i have more details for this verse that expand when working with certain muses.  KINGDOM HEARTS    : ☄ ° . v : kh [ gotta keep going ] .unable to tame the living darkness within him, he searches for sephiroth, hoping that his death might purify him. he deems sephiroth his inner darkness and he deems tifa his inner light. he grew up in radiant garden around the rest of the final fantasy cast members, but tends to keep to himself. eventually, after kingdom hearts 2 and learning to accept himself, light and dark, and going through a period of transformative self-discovery, he wishes to aid the guardians of light with training. while he's not researching with the technology or in the labs, he is teaching and sparring and learning how to better aid them in the search for sora.  MEDIEVAL FANTASY    : #☄ ˚ · v : royal [ kingdom of ash ] .version 1: prince cloud strife of a city within the nibel region is wrought with grief when the leader, sephiroth, of enemy troops storm his capital and burn it to the ground. he is the sole royal escapee and he is led by his retainer, vincent valentine, in a hasty departure. cloud leaves everything behind; his name, his identity, his princehood, and lives in midgar with his father-like (more like gothic uncle-type) aide. vincent helps care for him and train him as he gets older, aspiring to become a knight of midgar and serve under rule of the royal lockhart family.version 2: plotted, discussed, and orchestrated with abi. cloud grew up as prince of the village nibelheim, where kept hidden the ancient and sacred blade, rumored to be capable of destroying any curse. the prince who lost his home to the flames of war now wields this sword as a knight, cold and aloof, strong and tired, not sure how or why to keep going on until he runs into his dear old friend, arthur. he'd thought everyone died, but arthur lives. they begin to rekindle their relationship, as they are the last people left in this world that remind them of who they are.  CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33    : ☄ ˚ · v : e33 [ get up ] .his father was an expeditioner, his mother, gommaged. he knew that one day he would be an expeditioner like his father and wanted to learn how to fight. he began to work on training, as well as other various hobbies, always haunted by the daunting numbered future that stares over them always. him and his friend zack grow up and train together, but zack goes on the expedition two years prior to his: expedition 35. cloud decides he isn't ready to let zack die and consciously decides to adopt his personality as his own, making the decision to turn himself into a different person. he was always kinder, gentler, stronger. if one of them had to die, he thought it should be himself... so he killed him, and "let zack live through him." he goes on expedition 33 with a false personality and carries it on until act 3. more details can be found here.  FINAL FANTASY XIV    : ☄ ˚ · v : ffxiv [ fragmented reflections ] .he's from nhalmasque, which was the first nation conquered by garlemald. it's a small nation in the mountains of central ilsabard, and while under garlemald's direct control, cloud considered it home. His father was a garlean soldier and passed when cloud was very young, and he lived most of his childhood with his mother, knowing that it would be his time to enter the military soon. when the time came, cloud joined the military, but did not show any remarkable skill or prowess and was quickly considered to be a test subject in the science department, as to make him experiment fodder, or to increase his worth to them, depending on his survival. he ended up being turned into a "resonant" (a person who has been artificially implanted with the ability to manipulate aether, causing them to exhibit abilities that are similar to The Echo) alongside a friend he'd made during his military training. . . . more details can be found here.  DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS    : ☄ ˚ · v : dnd [ polished blade ] .this is a verse i like to keep open and campaign / muse dependent. he is a champion fighter class, 25 years old, and human. basic details of his canon past still apply, as in: his home was burned, his mother has passed, and he grew up without a father figure. he has goals but they vary depending on the setting, as dnd is so expansive and variant. he has a fear of losing control (mentally, physically, certain status effects, etc.) and doesn't love fire magic, but he says nothing in regards to it. his dexterity is his highest skill, followed by strength, with his lowest being charisma.  FIRE EMBLEM: AWAKENING    : ☄ ° . v : fe:a [ double edged sword ] .a verse plotted with aria but open to exploration with other parties! cloud plays a part of forgetfulness, unable to recall the past in which he was a prince who worked to destroy the fell dragon grima. he becomes part of the shepherds, dutifully lending his blade and working to protect his fellow party members. he's comparable to lon'qu in terms of ability, and levels into a swordmaster and potentially a lord once he recovers his memories. he hails from the continent of archanea in an icy region known as nibel.  FINAL FANTASY XIII    : ☄ ˚ · v : ffxiii [ crystal shadows ] .From PSICOM to Cavalry to Cie'th to Academy intel gatherer to Nova Chrysalia vigilante, I seem to have a lot going for Cloud in the XIII trilogy... but I think the XIII trilogy just kind of has a lot going on in general. In XIII, he's around 20 years old, rejects PSICOM and begins to work against Orphan in Cavalry, but gets turned into a Cie'th with a troop of Cavalry soldiers, later turned human again once Etro turns the main party back post-Orphan fight. In XIII-2, he is 32 and working beside Hope, gathering intel on land, monsters, and changes between each time period using the time capsule alongside him and Alyssa. In LR, I'm thinking of having him aid the "Shadow Hunter" in some manner of the word, assisting Noel in his endeavor to guard the new Oracle Drive and save the new world. More information here. (Sorry that it makes no fuckin sense).  AVAILABLE VERSES (TO BE DESCRIBED)    : Final Fantasy: Versus XIII, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Superhero (Marvel/DC-adjacent), Medieval Knight (slightly related to Medieval Fantasy verse), Final Fantasy XVI, BG3, and more I'm sure. I love making verses, I will absolutely craft something to make it work with any mutuals!