Character information
4 June 2016 02:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
backwatertrooperName: Cloud Strife
Age: 15-16
Height: 168 cm (or thereabouts, adult height 173 cm)
Birthday: 11th (or 19th) August, 1986
Wiki link.
Personality: Cloud's a quiet boy, both in the sense that he doesn't talk a lot, and doesn't do it loudly; for all that he wants to be noticed and be strong, he doesn't really take up much space. He's shy in addition to being quiet (probably partly why he's quiet in the first place aside from that just being part of his personality), something which really didn't help him while growing up in Nibelheim. He was ignored (deliberately or unintentionally) by the other kids in favour of them gathering around each other and Tifa, and had he at least not been shy or not been as quiet, perhaps he would've had an easier time fitting in and making friends.
Said ignoring or not noticing, especially by Tifa (probably because she was the most popular in the small group of children in the village), left Cloud trying to cope with it by casting the other children as immature and childish compared to himself, no matter - or rather, particularly because - that he actually did want to play with them. He tried to be there for Tifa (even though she didn't notice him at all at the time), when the girl's mother died when Tifa was eight and he was nine. He knew what that felt like, after all, since his own father had died when he was younger.
Cloud's attitude didn't exactly get better after Tifa's mother died, as an incident that left Tifa in coma for several days but Cloud barely injured had Tifa's father accusing him of causing her injuries and forbidding him to come close to her. Cloud accused himself of the same, of not being strong enough, or quick enough, to help her, despite that it he was hardly responsible. His usual defensiveness developed into something of an anger problem, and he started getting into constant fights for a while after.
Even when Cloud stopped getting into fights sometime prior to leaving for Midgar, the anger from being blamed, not noticed and just wanting attention settling back into his more usual defensive sullenness, his self-esteem issues and how he viewed himself as not good enough, not strong enough, didn't get any better at all. All of that, plus wanting to be noticed and his discarded attitude of being better than the other kids in Nibelheim probably all contributed to Cloud latching onto SOLDIER and specifically Sephiroth when he found out about these and the SOLDIER's feats of strength and heroism. He started to think that if he could just be like Sephiroth, be a hero, he'd be able to help people (help Tifa) and be worthy of being noticed. At least, that's how Cloud thought of it, given his abysmal sense of self-worth and such thoughts probably didn't get any better when, upon telling Tifa he was leaving, she made him promise to be there should she ever need to be rescued.
Aside from Cloud's issues with his self-esteem and being blamed/blaming himself and thinking he's not strong enough, he's over all determined and works hard. He worked hard to try and get into SOLDIER, and when that didn't happen, works hard and takes his duties in the regular ShinRa army seriously in such a way that, even when faced with much stronger enemies during a mission escorting a ShinRa professor, doesn't give up or step aside, even when told to by the Turk agent there.
Cloud doesn't seem to have much of a temper or a short fuse, even with his anger issues and getting into fights when he was younger; pointing out failures merely makes him depressed. He can get rather short and snarky, though, and what rather seems to get Cloud angry is behaving as if lives aren't important (he is not impressed by the Turk's initial behaviour during his mission to escort the professor), for one thing. The fights were more probably a deliberate acting out rather than letting loose a temper in response to his treatment (real or imagined). Cloud simply cares about other people and keeping them safe (in the future extending this to the planet as a whole, when he gets his memories/personality back), and may minimise his own issues or injuries to not 'burden' others.
He also reacts quickly in combat situations, being able to shoot down a griffon that surprises Zack while they are on a mission to Modeoheim, showing that even without any sort of enhancements and with basic military training, Cloud can react to a tense situation and respond in a way that ensures other people's safety, something Cloud cares a lot about. His escort mission (during Before Crisis) was to escort and protect a ShinRa professor, but he does it in such a way that isn't quite reasonable for the situation or his own abilities or safety. He was also the only one of the kids who followed Tifa the whole way before she and then Cloud fell, having tried to help her when she misstep and fell.
And for all that Cloud's a shy, quiet boy with self-esteem issues, he's got a dry sense of humour (saying "maybe I'll come with you too" when Zack asked two other troopers if they thought Cloud would be up for food and they they took it as an invitation for them too and Zack turned it around into inviting them... if they would hang around Cloud later) and he can be drawn into smiling and being pretty relaxed. Especially if your name is Zack, because he manages to make Cloud relax from the start and laughing with him instead of feeling like he's being laughed at when they first meet during the mission to Modeoheim.
Cloud also happens to carry around a case of admiration for and hero worship of Sephiroth, but he's perfectly capable of keeping that locked down and on the down-low.
Abilities: Cloud learns quick and can pick up new skills without too much trouble (he can, apparently, already in his escort mission with the professor only a few months after joining ShinRa handle a sword well enough to fight with it). He's proficient with firearms and knows how to use a sword as well as the single tonfa that's strapped to his thigh while he's in uniform. Given he grew up in a mountain village, probably knowledgeable about cold weather survival, at the least. Has probably manifested the beginnings of a limit break once, maybe twice. Has at least theoretical knowledge of how to use materia and can apparently talk to chocobos.
Aside from that he's a noodly teenager and not a SOLDIER, so his strength, healing and endurance is nothing to write home about, even if he's certainly fit, what with being in a military institution. He also gets motion sickness.
Key traits:
*Determined
*Low sense of self-esteem
*Cares. A lot.
*Quiet
*Gets defensive pretty easily
*Shy
*Can totally be compared to a chocobo no matter what he says
History: Cloud grew up in the small mountain village of Nibelheim, on the Western Continent on Gaia. He lived with his mother, as his father died when he was young (younger than nine). He was neighbours with the girl he wished he would notice him, though she never much did, and after Tifa's mother died when she was eight and Cloud was nine, and she got injured and Cloud blamed for it, he was told to stay away from her.
He left Nibelheim at fourteen, having decided to try and join SOLDIER, but while he managed to get to Midgar and join ShinRa's regular army unit, he never did manage to get into SOLDIER. A few months after joining, he was escorting a professor to one of Midgar's Mako reactors when combatants from an anti-ShinRa group (AVALANCHE) ambushed them. The rest of the professor's escort was killed, but Cloud and the professor survived thanks to the help of a Turk operative (that was there to ensure that a disc of information the professor carried didn't fall into AVALANCHE's hands) helped them out and put them on a train.
Unfortunately the AVALANCHE operatives caught up with the train and while Cloud attempted to protect the professor, he wasn't successful. The Turk agent interfered again, though this time Cloud assisted after picking up a (large) sword one of the fallen terrorists had. They beat off AVALANCHE, but apparently one of the terrorists weren't as dead as they seemed, because they got the information the professor was carrying. Not much to do about it, and Cloud escorted the professor to finish the inspection of the Mako reactor.
Months later, in autumn and after Cloud had become fifteen, he was sent on a mission with a First Class SOLDIER to Modeoheim. After the helicopter it shot down and they're forced to walk the rest of the way, Cloud, used to the climate and the mountainous surroundings, was the only one to keep up with the SOLDIER, who asks him why. Cloud said it was because he's "also a country boy" (as the Turk operative with them had implied this was why the SOLDIER would do well after the crash). After introductions Zack and Cloud quickly connected, something which undoubtedly made the walk easier. Cloud also shot down a gryphon that Zack didn't notice in time for it not to surprise him.
After Zack infiltrated a Mako excavation facility in Modeoheim where the anti-ShinRa elements they were pursuing had holed up, Cloud (and the Turk agent, Tseng) followed. Cloud ended up helping to capture and trying to restrain, and then run after, a former ShinRa scientist. Hollander escaped Cloud and Tseng as he got backup from a rogue SOLDIER, which left Zack to catch up with them in Modeoheim's bathhouse and then deal with Hollander and Angeal himself.
Around a year later in September, when Cloud was sixteen, Zack and Cloud ended up on the same mission again, this time to Junon. The city was under attack by clones of another rogue SOLDIER, Genesis Rhapsodos as Junon was where Hollander was being held for interrogation. Cloud helped evacuate civilians, but he had a rough time to start off since the trip there had left him dealing with his motion sickness. When Zack found him, Cloud had two other ShinRa army troopers with him, and Zack asked them if they thought Cloud was up for food - something they took as if they were being invited for food after all was said and done too. Despite Zack's surprise, he offered to take them along too, as long as they looked out for Cloud. This prompted the young man to say that "maybe he'd come along too."
Only a few days later Cloud was put on another mission with Zack... and Sephiroth. Finding out they were going to Nibelheim was a shock, but that would be nothing to what would end up going down in the little mountain village...
Notes: Cloud has probably manifested something like a proto-limit break at least once, possibly twice. The first (but less sure one) would've been on his mission to protect Professor Rayleigh, as he's able to wield the Raven's sword and do it well, despite that it's one, noted to be large and two, he's injured to an unknown degree at that point.
The second, more definitive manifestation would be his confrontation with Sephiroth - specifically after he's impaled on Masamune and doesn't just lift Sephiroth up by the sword, still impaling Cloud himself, but also tosses Sephiroth (and pulls Masamune out in the same motion) into the reactor wall and make him fall down into the mako at the bottom. He also doesn't get his fingers cut off by using Masamune as a lever at this point, so presumably the energy manifested through the limit break protects his fingers from that much.
Sample: Cloud was miserable. Completely, utterly, and irrevocably. Curled up in his seat, the helmet pressed against his forehead and the front of it digging into his knees, where he'd pulled those up towards him. He'd also closed his eyes, but the shadows behind his eyelids still pitched and rolled with the movement of the airship, and his stomach clenched.
He wouldn't throw up as that had been taken care of, but that was only a small part of his misery. Reluctantly, trying to think of anything to try and distract himself, Cloud remembered the last email he'd gotten from Zack.
Something about being bored, the sun being hot, and the sand being soft and grainy between his toes. Cloud wondered what Zack had to complain about, really. He was used to heat, wasn't he? And Cloud had never been to Costa del Sol, and definitely not on a vacation, even if he knew what sand felt like and he'd bathed in several mountain lakes while growing up that could be found around Nibelheim.
Turbulence made even the huge airship pitch, and Cloud swallowed a wave of nausea and pressed his forehead more firmly into the helmet to stave off the dizziness. It didn't really work. Taking anything - a necessary precaution to avoid throwing up - never helped as much as he hoped it would. He hoped they'd get to Junon soon, but also that he'd have a chance to collect himself before he had to get to work. Otherwise he wouldn't be much help at all, and that would be just perfect wouldn't it?
Not even being able to do even that much, to keep up with his work and duties on this mission when this was much less than he'd wanted to be capable of by now, when he'd wanted... Cloud sighed and didn't finish the thought. It wasn't a new one, after all; it was one he'd had an uncounted number of times since he'd failed to get into SOLDIER.
Age: 15-16
Height: 168 cm (or thereabouts, adult height 173 cm)
Birthday: 11th (or 19th) August, 1986
Wiki link.
Personality: Cloud's a quiet boy, both in the sense that he doesn't talk a lot, and doesn't do it loudly; for all that he wants to be noticed and be strong, he doesn't really take up much space. He's shy in addition to being quiet (probably partly why he's quiet in the first place aside from that just being part of his personality), something which really didn't help him while growing up in Nibelheim. He was ignored (deliberately or unintentionally) by the other kids in favour of them gathering around each other and Tifa, and had he at least not been shy or not been as quiet, perhaps he would've had an easier time fitting in and making friends.
Said ignoring or not noticing, especially by Tifa (probably because she was the most popular in the small group of children in the village), left Cloud trying to cope with it by casting the other children as immature and childish compared to himself, no matter - or rather, particularly because - that he actually did want to play with them. He tried to be there for Tifa (even though she didn't notice him at all at the time), when the girl's mother died when Tifa was eight and he was nine. He knew what that felt like, after all, since his own father had died when he was younger.
Cloud's attitude didn't exactly get better after Tifa's mother died, as an incident that left Tifa in coma for several days but Cloud barely injured had Tifa's father accusing him of causing her injuries and forbidding him to come close to her. Cloud accused himself of the same, of not being strong enough, or quick enough, to help her, despite that it he was hardly responsible. His usual defensiveness developed into something of an anger problem, and he started getting into constant fights for a while after.
Even when Cloud stopped getting into fights sometime prior to leaving for Midgar, the anger from being blamed, not noticed and just wanting attention settling back into his more usual defensive sullenness, his self-esteem issues and how he viewed himself as not good enough, not strong enough, didn't get any better at all. All of that, plus wanting to be noticed and his discarded attitude of being better than the other kids in Nibelheim probably all contributed to Cloud latching onto SOLDIER and specifically Sephiroth when he found out about these and the SOLDIER's feats of strength and heroism. He started to think that if he could just be like Sephiroth, be a hero, he'd be able to help people (help Tifa) and be worthy of being noticed. At least, that's how Cloud thought of it, given his abysmal sense of self-worth and such thoughts probably didn't get any better when, upon telling Tifa he was leaving, she made him promise to be there should she ever need to be rescued.
Aside from Cloud's issues with his self-esteem and being blamed/blaming himself and thinking he's not strong enough, he's over all determined and works hard. He worked hard to try and get into SOLDIER, and when that didn't happen, works hard and takes his duties in the regular ShinRa army seriously in such a way that, even when faced with much stronger enemies during a mission escorting a ShinRa professor, doesn't give up or step aside, even when told to by the Turk agent there.
Cloud doesn't seem to have much of a temper or a short fuse, even with his anger issues and getting into fights when he was younger; pointing out failures merely makes him depressed. He can get rather short and snarky, though, and what rather seems to get Cloud angry is behaving as if lives aren't important (he is not impressed by the Turk's initial behaviour during his mission to escort the professor), for one thing. The fights were more probably a deliberate acting out rather than letting loose a temper in response to his treatment (real or imagined). Cloud simply cares about other people and keeping them safe (in the future extending this to the planet as a whole, when he gets his memories/personality back), and may minimise his own issues or injuries to not 'burden' others.
He also reacts quickly in combat situations, being able to shoot down a griffon that surprises Zack while they are on a mission to Modeoheim, showing that even without any sort of enhancements and with basic military training, Cloud can react to a tense situation and respond in a way that ensures other people's safety, something Cloud cares a lot about. His escort mission (during Before Crisis) was to escort and protect a ShinRa professor, but he does it in such a way that isn't quite reasonable for the situation or his own abilities or safety. He was also the only one of the kids who followed Tifa the whole way before she and then Cloud fell, having tried to help her when she misstep and fell.
And for all that Cloud's a shy, quiet boy with self-esteem issues, he's got a dry sense of humour (saying "maybe I'll come with you too" when Zack asked two other troopers if they thought Cloud would be up for food and they they took it as an invitation for them too and Zack turned it around into inviting them... if they would hang around Cloud later) and he can be drawn into smiling and being pretty relaxed. Especially if your name is Zack, because he manages to make Cloud relax from the start and laughing with him instead of feeling like he's being laughed at when they first meet during the mission to Modeoheim.
Cloud also happens to carry around a case of admiration for and hero worship of Sephiroth, but he's perfectly capable of keeping that locked down and on the down-low.
Abilities: Cloud learns quick and can pick up new skills without too much trouble (he can, apparently, already in his escort mission with the professor only a few months after joining ShinRa handle a sword well enough to fight with it). He's proficient with firearms and knows how to use a sword as well as the single tonfa that's strapped to his thigh while he's in uniform. Given he grew up in a mountain village, probably knowledgeable about cold weather survival, at the least. Has probably manifested the beginnings of a limit break once, maybe twice. Has at least theoretical knowledge of how to use materia and can apparently talk to chocobos.
Aside from that he's a noodly teenager and not a SOLDIER, so his strength, healing and endurance is nothing to write home about, even if he's certainly fit, what with being in a military institution. He also gets motion sickness.
Key traits:
*Determined
*Low sense of self-esteem
*Cares. A lot.
*Quiet
*Gets defensive pretty easily
*Shy
*Can totally be compared to a chocobo no matter what he says
History: Cloud grew up in the small mountain village of Nibelheim, on the Western Continent on Gaia. He lived with his mother, as his father died when he was young (younger than nine). He was neighbours with the girl he wished he would notice him, though she never much did, and after Tifa's mother died when she was eight and Cloud was nine, and she got injured and Cloud blamed for it, he was told to stay away from her.
He left Nibelheim at fourteen, having decided to try and join SOLDIER, but while he managed to get to Midgar and join ShinRa's regular army unit, he never did manage to get into SOLDIER. A few months after joining, he was escorting a professor to one of Midgar's Mako reactors when combatants from an anti-ShinRa group (AVALANCHE) ambushed them. The rest of the professor's escort was killed, but Cloud and the professor survived thanks to the help of a Turk operative (that was there to ensure that a disc of information the professor carried didn't fall into AVALANCHE's hands) helped them out and put them on a train.
Unfortunately the AVALANCHE operatives caught up with the train and while Cloud attempted to protect the professor, he wasn't successful. The Turk agent interfered again, though this time Cloud assisted after picking up a (large) sword one of the fallen terrorists had. They beat off AVALANCHE, but apparently one of the terrorists weren't as dead as they seemed, because they got the information the professor was carrying. Not much to do about it, and Cloud escorted the professor to finish the inspection of the Mako reactor.
Months later, in autumn and after Cloud had become fifteen, he was sent on a mission with a First Class SOLDIER to Modeoheim. After the helicopter it shot down and they're forced to walk the rest of the way, Cloud, used to the climate and the mountainous surroundings, was the only one to keep up with the SOLDIER, who asks him why. Cloud said it was because he's "also a country boy" (as the Turk operative with them had implied this was why the SOLDIER would do well after the crash). After introductions Zack and Cloud quickly connected, something which undoubtedly made the walk easier. Cloud also shot down a gryphon that Zack didn't notice in time for it not to surprise him.
After Zack infiltrated a Mako excavation facility in Modeoheim where the anti-ShinRa elements they were pursuing had holed up, Cloud (and the Turk agent, Tseng) followed. Cloud ended up helping to capture and trying to restrain, and then run after, a former ShinRa scientist. Hollander escaped Cloud and Tseng as he got backup from a rogue SOLDIER, which left Zack to catch up with them in Modeoheim's bathhouse and then deal with Hollander and Angeal himself.
Around a year later in September, when Cloud was sixteen, Zack and Cloud ended up on the same mission again, this time to Junon. The city was under attack by clones of another rogue SOLDIER, Genesis Rhapsodos as Junon was where Hollander was being held for interrogation. Cloud helped evacuate civilians, but he had a rough time to start off since the trip there had left him dealing with his motion sickness. When Zack found him, Cloud had two other ShinRa army troopers with him, and Zack asked them if they thought Cloud was up for food - something they took as if they were being invited for food after all was said and done too. Despite Zack's surprise, he offered to take them along too, as long as they looked out for Cloud. This prompted the young man to say that "maybe he'd come along too."
Only a few days later Cloud was put on another mission with Zack... and Sephiroth. Finding out they were going to Nibelheim was a shock, but that would be nothing to what would end up going down in the little mountain village...
Notes: Cloud has probably manifested something like a proto-limit break at least once, possibly twice. The first (but less sure one) would've been on his mission to protect Professor Rayleigh, as he's able to wield the Raven's sword and do it well, despite that it's one, noted to be large and two, he's injured to an unknown degree at that point.
The second, more definitive manifestation would be his confrontation with Sephiroth - specifically after he's impaled on Masamune and doesn't just lift Sephiroth up by the sword, still impaling Cloud himself, but also tosses Sephiroth (and pulls Masamune out in the same motion) into the reactor wall and make him fall down into the mako at the bottom. He also doesn't get his fingers cut off by using Masamune as a lever at this point, so presumably the energy manifested through the limit break protects his fingers from that much.
Sample: Cloud was miserable. Completely, utterly, and irrevocably. Curled up in his seat, the helmet pressed against his forehead and the front of it digging into his knees, where he'd pulled those up towards him. He'd also closed his eyes, but the shadows behind his eyelids still pitched and rolled with the movement of the airship, and his stomach clenched.
He wouldn't throw up as that had been taken care of, but that was only a small part of his misery. Reluctantly, trying to think of anything to try and distract himself, Cloud remembered the last email he'd gotten from Zack.
Something about being bored, the sun being hot, and the sand being soft and grainy between his toes. Cloud wondered what Zack had to complain about, really. He was used to heat, wasn't he? And Cloud had never been to Costa del Sol, and definitely not on a vacation, even if he knew what sand felt like and he'd bathed in several mountain lakes while growing up that could be found around Nibelheim.
Turbulence made even the huge airship pitch, and Cloud swallowed a wave of nausea and pressed his forehead more firmly into the helmet to stave off the dizziness. It didn't really work. Taking anything - a necessary precaution to avoid throwing up - never helped as much as he hoped it would. He hoped they'd get to Junon soon, but also that he'd have a chance to collect himself before he had to get to work. Otherwise he wouldn't be much help at all, and that would be just perfect wouldn't it?
Not even being able to do even that much, to keep up with his work and duties on this mission when this was much less than he'd wanted to be capable of by now, when he'd wanted... Cloud sighed and didn't finish the thought. It wasn't a new one, after all; it was one he'd had an uncounted number of times since he'd failed to get into SOLDIER.
The Nibelheim mission
2016-11-01 23:16 (UTC)*Cloud takes Zack with him at least once to visit his mom - which means Zack is probably "edited out" in the retelling/flashback. (The conversation we see in FFVII might be from a single one, or at least two different visits.)
*Zack and Cloud keep watch at least a few hours each morning and evening in the mansion/in front of the door in the basement - if only to bring food. There's probably a few quick checks by Zack in the middle of the day and later in the evening/night.
*Cloud was the one keeping watch on the morning of the 1st October, when Sephiroth finally leaves the basement for his recreational pyromania (which means that when we see Cloud running out from the mansion, that is not him replacing Zack). Cloud's non-lethally pushed out of the way, but probably roughly enough he loses consciousness for a bit, so he comes to when the village is on fire.
*Here there's two possibilities; one, closer to Last Order/the game, he meets up with Zack in the village and is temporarily put to help while Zack runs off.
Two, Crisis Core, where Cloud runs into the village before Zack comes out of the inn and runs into Sephiroth again, but once again is non-lethally incapacitated. Zack moves him out of the way and runs after Sephiroth; Cloud follows as soon as he can and the reactor events happen.
The chocobo thing
2016-11-01 23:19 (UTC)Regardless whether this is something anyone can learn with a bit of luck, opportunity and effort or if Cloud is just ~special~ I imagine it happened while he grew up; probably meeting some wild chocobos during the summers in the wilderness around Nibelheim.
So he spent time with a particular group who kept coming back
mistaken for a wayward, half-grown chick, and he picked up the ability to talk to them while spending time around them.Actual first meeting with Zack
2016-11-01 23:30 (UTC)This is possibly from the VR room, and thus Cloud probably met Zack the first time with Zack unawares, during a squatting competition. As this is something (somewhat optional) that you can do in-game but actually miss, something similar to this apparently happened in actual canon and Cloud probably fell down on his ass when unable to keep up with Zack's squats.
Known missions
2016-11-01 23:42 (UTC)-Escorting Professor Rayleigh, fighting with Ravens. (Before Crisis - Age: 14)
This is most probably his very first mission, being only a few months after he first joined ShinRa, and before AVALANCHE and the Ravens appear, it's a very safe sort of mission you would absolutely send a rookie soldier who's probably fresh out of basic on, as it's an escort mission to a reactor inside Midgar. Cloud and the other Infantry there are probably merely as security/deterrent for opportunistic attacks by thugs on a ShinRa employee. Of course, it quickly turns into a mess when the Ravens appear. Late June, 0001.
-The Modeoheim mission. (Crisis Core - Age: 15)
Whether it's his second mission or he's been on others before this, Cloud getting sent on this mission is probably partly because he did as well (and survived at all) on the botched mission with the professor, as there's Genesis clones on this mission. Also, possibly, because of the climate and Cloud coming from a similar climate (mountainous and cold/snowy). Autumn, after Cloud's birthday.
-An unknown mission where Zack holds a speech for the infantry before their sortie. (CC - Age: 15)
This one is only alluded to, and the rows of troopers could only have been some sort of ceremony or something, but Cloud refers to this event as a sortie in one of the emails he sends Zack during the Nibelheim mission, so it's an actual mission of some sort. Seems to be a big one too. (Very maybe the one in BC where Essai and Sebastian dies, but the trouble with this is that most, if not all, of the regular army troopers on this mission die, so it's... problematic at best).
-The Junon mission. (CC - Age: 16)
Cloud is there, along with other army, to evacuate civilians. Spends some time of it still feeling motion sick from the trip to Junon, and Zack ends up offering a meal when they meet during this. Whether they get to go on that... date... is questionable. Early/middle September, 0002. (Or May/June according to another timeline, and if so he'd still be 15.)
-The Nibelheim mission. (CC/FFVII - Age: 16)
Otherwise known as the one where everything goes to shit! Late September to the 1st of October. Cloud goes to see his mom at some point during this, after Sephiroth has locked himself in the mansion, most probably with Zack, and comes clean to her about not being in SOLDIER.
Bits of headcanon
2017-04-19 22:47 (UTC)-Cloud's father died when he was 5/6 (big possibility being the first wave of the Wutai war) and possibly he and Claudia never married. Could also have been one of the workers on the reactor and ended up succumbing to exposure.
-The long hair, which he only reluctantly cut off the day before leaving for Midgar, was because he wanted look like his mom.
-Cloud can't cook (as per his mom's comment in the game). He knows how to, but he's terrible at it. He can, however, bake.
-Cloud doesn't really like fish, and any seafood other than fish is Highly Suspect and he's hard-pressed to even try it (what with coming from a village in the mountains far away from the sea).
-He's got a high pain tolerance, which is only partly pure stubbornness not to react to pain; mostly it's a genuine high threshold. His stubbornness just make him ignore, minimise and suppress any reaction to pain even further.
-In contrast, his tolerance for mako is terrible; that is, even a little affects him a lot, which is why he actually fails getting into SOLDIER. ShinRa might be far too lax about the tolerance levels they've set for it to be safe or reasonable, but at some point the cost outweighs the losses and there is a cut-off point; one which Cloud doesn't make. (He's... resilient, though, as shown by the fact that he comes back and survives being dumped into mako/the lifestream several times.)
-Talking of SOLDIER the actual, full exam he probably doesn't try for until after Modeoheim, though if you account for how he talks in his episode in Before Crisis, I'd assume there might have been an initial screening in basic (which only very, very few people would logically make, but tell Cloud Strife that...), which he didn't make because he wasn't fit enough. The actual, proper test/exam for SOLDIER that he tries to make comes later, with a mako tolerance test, going into the above point.
(Obviously, this one might not be used as more than a point here since people have different ideas for how the SOLDIER entrance tests might work.)
-Cloud's mom is/was a glassblower, though she lost that work at some point while Cloud was pretty young, when the local gaffer business moved and she couldn't move with it. All the bottles around the house are leftover stock Claudia got to keep and she sells off every now and then for extra income.
-Cloud's very good at geography/the atlas, thanks to the huge globe in their house (probably something Claudia kept from her grandparents). He spent a lot of time looking over it as a kid, spinning it and stopping it randomly to see where he'd landed.
-In terms of beliefs, the importance of/weight on the Promised Land will only happen in a few years, after certain events and how the 'Promised Land' is tied to Aerith. Currently, the weight of Cloud's beliefs instead lie on the summon Odin (locally very important, at least in the past), possibly Fenrir, and an awareness of all the myths about and the importance of Mount Nibel (and the mako/mako fountains found around there, since there's probably more than one and materia use has probably been pretty easy in the Nibel area).
Most specifically, there's a belief of where the dead go/how they get to the afterlife (whatever it might be) - they cross/go into Mount Nibel, which is where Tifa's grief-stricken idea of if she physically crosses it she could meet her mother again probably came from.