The main reason people pick support weapon stratagems is because they pack a whole lot more "total" firepower that is accessible in an instant compared to other stratagems. Flamethrower can clear a huge wave of bugs no problem and another one instantly after that, no need to call in several cluster strikes and handle CDs. RR can insta-kill a charger with a headshot and several more in each backpack, no need to wait for 500kgs to land. Restocking ammo is much quicker than waiting for stratagems to come off CD. The risk of losing the weapon with its very high cooldown is offset by how more powerful it is in total compared to the stratagems of similar use case, and you can only use one blue stratagem per person. While an offensive/defensive stratagem gives you a huge power spike for a moment, support weapons give you a steady high power.
The mentioned weapons aren't powerful enough to justify picking them over something like an aicluster-strike. They run out of ammo way too quickly to be useful for clearing out more large groups of enemies than other stratagems. A single eagle stratagem contains a lot more total firepower than either of these. Cluster strike is like an entire grenade launcher mag (arguably more) and you have 5 of those compared to 3 grenade launcher mags. Airstrike deals with more chaff + mediums than MG does, specially if you don't have SPM upgrade and only get a pathetic 1 mag from resupplies. HMGs niche is that it can deal with heavy enemies too but the very restrictive ammo count again makes alternatives much better choices.
The solution is surprisingly simple. Buff their ammo count no matter if that is buffing the mag sizes and/or amount of mags. Even just a single extra mag for each of these weapons would make me a lot more inclined to pick them, and would help a lot with breaking the repetitiveness of always bringing AT support weapons with chaff clear stratagems instead of vice versa.
Also who doesn't love the fantasy of raining down a bunch of dakka, or raining down grenades all over the place? Please let us do this without us feeling like we aren't pulling our weight in the team.

A while ago I had created a post about martial arts where I classified Aikido as an awful martial art due to it's very lackluster damage. Many in the community corrected my misconception. So I did another run as a bionic monster start (you get bionic claws at the getgo) and got aikido as a martial art (luckily) on day 3. It's now the beginning of autumn. I have survived long enough to install a bunch of cbms, mutate, and wear (what i think) is late game gear: faraday chainmail with tempered steel brigandine / splint on top. Here's my thoughts on Aikido after using it exclusively to kill a couple thousand monsters.
If you're talking about sheer power, I'd probably classify it as S tier with the addition of bionic claws. With my late game gear, i ran face first into a zombie master, 2 necromancers, a handful of shockers, zombie brutes, shocker brutes, grabbers, pupating, smokers, and everything you can imagine. It was at night so i didn't aggro everything. after a desperate fight i came out on top (adrenal cbm is way too overpowered). As long as i wasn't completely surrounded, taking on 3-4 guys at the same time wasn't an issue. Nothing ever landed, mostly because of my great armor. I kept on throwing dangerous enemies away and breaking out of their grabs. My claws did piercing damage and bleed so in a prolonged fight, everything dies.
There are still a few problems with this build, mainly its still the low consistent damage. Compared with my default longsword build, it takes much longer to kill critical / heavily armored targets like bestial stalkers and hulks. While they can't hit you with normal attacks, their smashes send you flying, causing crazy amounts of pain. I struggled with these without pain management mutations / drugs. It's also hard to kill regenerators because of your low consistent damage. For example - i can't kill unseen hunters whereas with a longsword it's not an issue. Pupating zombies was another one i struggled with. takes forever to whittle them down, especially because i keep throwing them a tile away, giving them a chance to heal.
The other problem is electricity. unless you get an activity suit / faraday suit / dielectric cbm, all your melee attacks will shock you. i carried a hatchet until my faraday suit to take on electric zombies. you have the same issue as longsword, but i usually play early game with a fire axe, which does not conduct
The final problem actually is boredom. Aikido is honestly too amazing at defense. late game, you walk into a town, aggro everything and hold down tab (watch out for acid zombies because tabbing in a puddle of acid will kill you). 0 interaction required, 0 position needed. just hold down tab until nothing is moving and move to the next block. with my ninjutsu longsword build, even late game i still had to keep up the hit, move, move, move rhythm so fights felt interactive.
Ok a bit more about armor pen. How good is the armor pen with claws? Bionic claws do piercing damage, which while low damage, is decent vs armor. that said, armored targets like soldiers still take a long time to kill, but fortunately, you can just hold tab and snooze. the most armored monster i fought were bilious soldier zombies and kevlar brutes (no kevlar hulks for me at 1st day of autumn). the fight was unpleasant, especially the bilious soldier because every time aikido throws him out of melee range, he'd shoot me full of acid darts, which my faraday suit didn't do amazing against. his 25 cut / 20 pierce armor was a pain to deal with and i probably did as much damage with my claws as with bleeding. fighting one would shave off 1/3 of my leg / torso health due to acid and i had to activate adrenaline pump to have a chance. kevlar brutes were also a pain. at 30 cut armor, 25 pierce, i had a hard time landing meaningful chunks on him. every time he threw me, it was a boatload of pain. again - had to activate adrenaline pump to beat him, but fortunately his throws did much less damage than acid / acid bullets.
The verdict? i think i still enjoy playing with ninjutsu / fire axe / longsword more, but aikido claws is definitely a strong contender if you want to do a martial artist that can still carry its weight into late game. you'll definitely want to start bionic monster or get the adrenaline pump cbm to survive some of the hard encounters. i don't think it was as essential with my longsword build, but then again, i didn't take on as many crazy risks nor had as much issue with bilious / kevlar hulks

Summary

This game is firmly in the collectathon platformer genre of games and seeks to outright revive the soul of Banjo-Kazooie and extract it into a new body. The fresh coat of paint with all new characters and modern graphical styling is an attempt to distance itself from retro aesthetics while keeping some charming aspects. Gone are the convoluted controls and returning are the random chirping noises for dialog. But is the upgrade from collecting the jiggies to ordering the pagies enough to make this title distinct? The soul of the collectathon is here, lets find out if it was worth the cost of digging it up.

Controls

I want to get this out of the way really quick and head off my review here by saying that the controls are good. They aren't amazing but since I'm going to largely be comparing this to games that just had their 25th anniversaries, I think its fair to say that controls are a real highlight for innovation here. With a similar number of buttons to the old N64 titles, we've packed in a lot of moves here and the flow is miles better. They aren't perfect however.
My main gripe is just that they seem to have mapped controls in a retro way for nostalgia reasons and it holds the game back. Rather than triggering the moves organically through context, the left trigger is again used as a face button modifier. Jump with A, high jump with LT+A. Sonar ping with Y, Sonar explosion with LT+Y. They didn't need to do that but at least the animations are short to trigger so it isn't too painful.

Characters: What did the evil Bee ever do to you?

Lets talk about characters. This is par for the course if you're talking Banjo-Kazooie parody that the game **NEEDS** strong characters. So does this game have them? I'd argue it does not. It isn't even that I don't find the evil capitalist bee and his duck in a jar henchman to be unlikable, its just that they lack the personality and novelty that BK had. The evil witch in those games wasn't complicated, but the rhyming of their lines and personality really got sold in the dialog. Here you just have throwaway lines galore about money puns. I don't want to say that none of the characters have personality, but its a 7/10 effort for sure.
That carriers over throughout the various worlds and main characters themselves. Banjo-Kazooie had a way with its humor of being dumb but delightful fun and really didn't stop you to embellish stupid puns. I won't harp on how I didn't find this game funny, but man when games miss the mark on charm, they really miss it by a mile. Unfortunately that's kind of the case here so don't show up for the characters.

Gameplay: It blends right in

I'll also keep this brief like the controls section. The game is good and the levels are pretty well laid out. They struggle to feel as integrated as BK though in the sense that each pagie is in its own area with its own objects. I remember how BK would use the same large centerpiece snowman for 3 or 4 jiggies, that just isn't here though. So like I said, it ends up feeling like each level is just a bunch of puzzles adjacent to each other, not cohesive at all. The themes really don't help that either as the themes only play into the gameplay of the level half of the time.

Graphical Style: It looks like it plays, alright?

The graphics in this game are actually pretty good and the game ran really well during my time with it at 1440p. That makes it a very good game to run on a steam deck and that is how I played about 50% of this game. The colors are bright and vibrant and its just a shame that it isn't more stylized. Believe it or not, I don't think the extreme crispness of the graphics help the game here. If you're especially brave though, there is an N64 graphics mode in the game which is a nice touch and brings in some of that charm.

Wrapping this up

Normally I keep my thoughts organized here but I think this game really deserves discussion so here goes. I went into this game expecting for the developers to have really done something with the formula. Lets be honest, this genre died because of a lack of innovation and intrigue. I was very surprised to play this and find that not only had the formula not really grown since the BK days of 1997, but this game had regressed it by quite a bit and I just really had to push through to finish it.
The music isn't instantly classic like Banjo-Kazooie, instead it sounds mostly generic. The characters are much the same. BK always had a splash of absurdity but it also always had grounding in its world. Lacking that grounding here is absolutely killer and so each element of this game feels separate. The enemies in BK were always interesting. The obstacles also had personality. Banjo Kazooie had me fighting two dragons on the tops of volcanoes who both thought I was there to deliver them pizza. We never get anywhere close to those heights here sadly. You'll play through this game and without exaggerating I can say that you will wonder why there are even basic level enemies in this game at all.
So what we're left with in Yooka-Laylee is a shell of what these games used to be. That isn't to say this is a bad game. It belongs in the genre 100% and its what the genre is all about. If you love collectathons and you don't want to replay BK games or want a modern version of this, I'll recommend this to you. Most people would have an alright time with this game and especially kids I think would love this if their attention can be kept by it. Those are my thoughts though, the game is decidedly average for me and I wish I could say otherwise. I respect the developers immensely for their work here. It takes a lot of work to even put most of the soul of BK into a game like this and so even if it didn't entirely land for me, I applaud them. Hopefully I feel very differently as I move onto Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.
Thanks for taking the time to read my review and let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Background: I'm a quant social scientist who is fairly skeptical of IQ. So I'm putting my bias out there. But I'm certainly open to changing my mind.
I keep hearing that IQ is highly predictive of life outcomes, and more predictive than any other trait. But whenever I ask for evidence of this claim, I get either:

1. standardized effect sizes: misleading for comparison, since the variable with larger variance will have bigger standardized effect.
2. incremental r^2: irrelevant to individual-level prediction.

When we talk about "predictive power," most of us have a similar thing in mind: For person A, how much does knowing A's IQ increase the precision of predicting A's income (or job performance, health, whatever). This means we need predictive intervals. But I have rarely (ever?) seen predictive intervals for IQ.
So I have a very simple question: If out-of-sample person A has IQ = 120, what is the predicted income (job performance, health, etc) level E(income IQ = 120), what is the 95% predictive interval of E(income IQ = 120), and how does this compare to the baseline E(income)?
Bonus: You can ask a similar question of IQ's relationship to genetics. Whenever people say "IQ is mostly genetics," or "genetics predict IQ," they're really talking about heritability estimates. But that's not what most people intuitively mean by "predictive." What we really want to know is: What is the out-of-sample E(IQ PGS = X) and the predictive interval of that?
Thanks in advance.
ETA: Please stop sharing correlations. I specifically said I don’t care about correlations. I’m asking if anyone has anything to say about uncertainty estimates, preferably predictive intervals.

(continuation of part 5)
Post-OG Cloud ruminates on what he could have done to save Aerith. Had he not been so lost in his own mind —distracted by Sephiroth and Jenova, consumed by his need to fulfill the emptiness at the core of his identity—, would he have paid more attention to Aerith’s sadness and anticipated her plan to go to the Forgotten Capital alone? Could she have survived if not for his obsession with what tormented him at the time? Could he have figured it out and kept her by his side? He’s angry with himself in retrospect, drowning in guilt, just like in Advent Children.
Here are the choruses, which usually contain the thesis main message of a song:

“Shine bright once more
Guide me to you
Smile bright once more
This time I will never let you go”

&

“Hear me once more
Show me your smile
This time for sure
I'll see the truth hidden inside your tears
But I, I know
That you're long gone
But I, I will
Go on, howling and hollow”

In these choruses, Cloud asserts that he will get it right this time (“this time” referring to the second chance that is the Remake trilogy). He will make sure he saves Aerith and never lets her go. He knows she’s gone, but he will fight against time to get her back. He longs for her smile and her light again, and he cannot bear the guilt: so he doesn’t. Post-OG Cloud embarks on a new adventure: ”I want to go to a place where everything is new,” said Cloud to Wol and Echo in Eclipse Contact before facing his past and being launched into Remake. “Hollow” makes far more sense now, doesn’t it? It’s a song not only about Cloud’s loss, but also about his determination to save Aerith this time. Given that it’s the theme song of Remake, the fact that “Hollow” fits with our theory perfectly is a very good sign: a theme song is meant to reflect the main plot of a story, indicating as our theory states that Remake is principally, albeit secretly, about Cloud saving Aerith. Because of this hope being set up, I’m confident that they will be together in the end, reunited for good. My dear Clerith friends, this is the hidden purpose of the Remake trilogy. Cloud and Aerith will be reunited.
VI. e) ii. “No Promises to Keep” Lyrics
This is quite obvious. Aerith is resigned to her fate, but still harbors hope that she will meet Cloud again in a permanent reunion:

“Till the day that we meet again
Where or when?
I wish I could say
But believe, know that you'll find me
[…]
Till the day that we meet again
On our street, I want to believe
[…]
Till the day that we meet again
At our place, just let me believe
In the chance that you'll come
Take my hand and never let me go
Take my hand
And believe
We can be
Together evermore
[…]
Still I hope someday you'll come and find me
Still I know someday you'll come and find me”.

VI. f) The Theme of Reunion Explained?
The last point I want to hit on is the concept of reunion. In OG, this theme was pretty much dominated by the Jenova Reunion. To an OG fan back in 1997, “reunion” meant “Sephiroth and Jenova’s evil plan”. However, in the Remake trilogy, the theme is expanded into something more. The first time Cloud meets Aerith in Remake, she gives him a flower and tells him something she didn’t in OG:

“Lovers used to give these when they were reunited...”

In addition, we’ve already talked about how part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” from the Remake OST tells the story of Cloud and Aerith’s reunion (see section “V. b) ii. 2)”).
Many moments exclusive to the Remake trilogy serve the same purpose: linking the theme of reunion to Aerith. This expansion of the theme is highly significant. Our theory is that the Remake trilogy exists to reunite Cloud and Aerith, so the fact that the trilogy would implement so many Clerith-centric references to reunion is great support for our theory.
VI. g) i. The Leslie-Cloud Parallel
Let’s consider another instance involving the reunion flower in Remake, more precisely, the chapter 14 subplot surrounding Leslie’s lost lover. In case you need a refresher, Leslie is one of Corneo’s lackeys, although he secretly plans to betray him. He once had a fiancée and things were looking up until she was selected as one of Corneo’s brides. The day before she disappeared (presumably taken by Corneo), his fiancée broke up with him with no explanation. It was confusing and left Leslie perplex. As she broke up with him, she returned a necklace to him, one with a flower pendant. Of course, that flower is the very same reunion flower Aerith gives Cloud in chapter 2.
Evidently, Leslie and Cloud are going through parallel situations. At this point in time, Aerith was just kidnapped by Shinra, and Cloud is on his way to get her back. Both their loved ones have been taken by tyrant rulers, one being slumlord Corneo and the other being the Shinra government. In fact, even Leslie and Cloud’s attitudes share similar disillusioned, cold and stoic qualities. Leslie’s fiancée would evidently be paralleled by Aerith.
The most obvious proof of the Leslie-Cloud parallel is written plainly on the list of Remake’s chapter 14 main scenario objectives. Objective 7, called “For the Reunion”, consists of receiving the grappling guns needed to reach topside and save Aerith. The description of the objective reads as follows:

“Leslie gives them grappling guns, and they wish each other luck in reuniting with their respective loved ones. Leslie walks off, and the three prepare to climb the wall.”

The grappling guns are “For the Reunion”, because evidently, the loved one Cloud wants to reunite with is Aerith.
All this is simple and apparent enough. Just the fact that the theme of reunion is linked to Clerith in this way is proof enough, but there’s another layer to the Leslie-Cloud parallel. Not only does Leslie’s situation reinforce the concept of a Clerith reunion, it also mirrors the specifics of our theory: namely that Cloud will save Aerith from specifically Sephiroth (represented in Leslie’s scenario by Corneo) and that Cloud will take the initiative to accomplish this reunion. These two specific aspects of our theory are reflected by Leslie’s circumstances, meaning the Leslie-Cloud parallel not only pushes the theme of reunion, but also supports our specific theory.
VI. g) i. 1) The Separators: Corneo and Sephiroth
I’ll first prove that Leslie’s scenario is not meant to echo Cloud’s separation from Aerith at the hands of Shinra —or at least not exclusively—, but rather Cloud’s separation from Aerith at the hands of Sephiroth. Corneo would therefore be paralleled by Sephiroth rather than the tyrannical Shinra government.
The first piece of proof for the Corneo-Seohiroth parallel lies within the way in which Leslie’s fiancée broke things off: by lying. Aerith also lies to Cloud to create distance between them, but not pertaining to her kidnapping— rather, pertaining to her fated death. Since Sephiroth is Aerith’s killer and not Shinra, Corneo’s role in the Leslie-Cloud parallel is analogous to Sephiroth’s rather than Shinra’s.
There are two pieces of evidence that the Corneo-Sephiroth comparison makes more sense than the Corneo-Shinra one. The first lies in the fact that Leslie’s breakup resembles Cloud’s resolution scene: the topic of Cloud’s resolution scene is Aerith’s fate at the hands of Sephiroth rather than her kidnapping by Shinra, meaning Corneo and Sephiroth are the antagonists of both heartbreaks.
Let’s examine Leslie’s breakup. Here is how his fiancée broke things off, taken from the English script of Remake’s chapter 14, with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Fiancée: It was all just a dream, wasn't it[?]
Fiancée: (Hopefully) But one day…
(She trails off, then shakes her head and stops herself.)
Fiancée: (Sadly, hopelessly) — no. Time to wake up. And forget.
(She walks away.)”

Now, here is a more literal translation of this quote from the original Japanese (verified by me via DeepL), with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Fiancée: It was only just a dream we had / We were only dreaming...
Fiancée: (Hopefully, as though as a hail Mary) In the language of the flowers...
(She trails off, then shakes her head and stops herself.)
Fiancée: (Sadly, hopelessly) — no. You should forget about me.
(She walks away.)”

Leslie’s fiancée is clearly breaking up with him to spare him the pain of blaming himself for not being able to protect her from Corneo, as she knows it’s too late for her to escape from the slumlord’s clutches. We know this because we understand that the pendant she gave back to him symbolizes a reunion (especially between lovers, as Aerith told Cloud in chapter 2). In fact, the Japanese version of the script reveals that the fiancée was about to reveal the meaning of the flower, perhaps in the hopes that they would find each other once more, but she lost her nerve at the last second. Notice that she tells Leslie two specific things. One: their love or their future together was only a dream, meaning that it wasn’t real. Two: he should forget about her, because the dream is over now and it’s time to wake up from it.
If you’re finding this familiar, then you might be ahead of me. Let’s take a look at what Aerith says to Cloud in his resolution scene, also in the English script of Remake’s chapter 14, with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Aerith: […] you can’t fall in love with me. [It]’s not real […]. (With a sigh, as though from sadness or difficulty, but resolutely) It’s almost morning. Time to go.”

Now, here is a more literal translation of this quote from the original Japanese (verified by me via DeepL), with tone indicators added by me in bold:

“Aerith: You can’t let yourself fall in love with me. [It]’s only your imagination […]. (With a sigh, as though from sadness or difficulty, but resolutely) Looks like it’s already morning. Time for me to go.”

Just like Leslie’s fiancée, Aerith is rejecting or denying Cloud’s love for her in order to spare him from the pain of not having been able to be with her before her death, as she believes it is inevitable. Just like the fiancée, Aerith also tells Cloud two things. One: their love is imaginary or isn’t real. Two: it’s morning, and she has to go (she says this right before Cloud wakes from the pseudo-dream).
In both cases, the women know something about their fate that the men don’t and are hiding this impending tragedy from them. Just like Leslie’s fiancée, Aerith uses well-intentioned deception to protect her loved one from the pain that will come from her fate— the lie, of course, is that their love isn’t real. Both women are hopeless, and both men are initially clueless. Aerith’s resolution can’t be about her kidnapping, because Aerith thinks her rescue is anything but hopeless— she’s sure Cloud will come save her from Shinra. She says so herself in OG’s disk 1, chapter 8:

“Cloud: Aeris!? You safe?
Aeris: Yeah, I'm all right. I knew that [you] would come for me.”

What Aerith is so resigned about in Cloud’s resolution scene isn’t her kidnapping, but instead her fated death at the hands of Sephiroth. Nojima hints at this in FFVII Remake Ultimania:

“If you know Aerith’s fate, then this line would really pull at your heart strings […]” (section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).

Here is what codirector Toriyama had to say on Aerith’s words:

“[While] these words are intended for Cloud, I think Aerith is partly speaking them to herself. The contents of her request may be at odds with how she truly feels inside” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA Script Notes, “A Dream Shown by Aerith”, “Scenario Staff Q&A - Answered by Motomu Toriyama”).

These two quotes by the devs show that Aerith is trying to protect Cloud from her death. Therefore, the Corneo-Sephiroth parallel is far more apt than the Corneo-Shinra parallel.
The second piece of evidence supporting my belief that Corneo mirrors Sephiroth and not Shinra in the Leslie-Cloud parallel is the inclusion of the theme of revenge that crops up in the following piece of dialogue:

“Tifa: Why did you wanna come down here?
Leslie: Revenge. I know I need to let go, but I can't. I need closure, 'cause without it... I'll never be able to move on” (Remake, chapter 14).

Leslie’s sentiment toward Corneo resembles Cloud’s feelings toward Sephiroth after Aerith’s death. Revenge links Cloud to Sephiroth, not to Shinra. Corneo and Sephiroth reflect each other in that, as a consequence of their actions toward a woman, the man who loves her desires revenge.
Additionally, it looks like Leslie’s obsession with revenge as a means to closure is the reason he didn’t bother trying to understand the message his fiancée left him with: he’s focused on his hate rather than his love, and it’s hindering him. He doesn’t succeed in killing Corneo either: his focus and energy are misplaced. Cloud’s desire for vengeance against Sephiroth is also depicted as an obstacle to accomplishing his goals (see how in section “III. c)” of my previous literary analysis). Once more, the Corneo-Sephiroth parallel fits far better than a Corneo-Shinra perspective.
VI. g) i. 2) The Reunion Seekers: Leslie and Cloud
The other aspect of the Leslie-Cloud parallel that supports our theory is that in both scenarios, they both take charge of the situation and decide to actively seek reunion with their respective lovers. The following dialogue excerpt, supplemented by the VA script notes, shows Leslie’s initiative:

“Tifa: [Your fiancée] could still be out there.
Barret: Can never be sure how much someone means to ya till they're gone. Don't give up on her yet.
Leslie: (Looks at the flower pendant, [recalling his lover’s words) A message in the language of flowers… I wonder what she meant by it.
[…]
Tifa: Reunion.
Leslie: Huh?
Tifa: In the language of flowers, it means ‘reunion.’
(Leslie shifts his gaze from Tifa to the pendant and stares at it for some time. At last he understands the words his lover left him. With that, as if his mind has been made up, he clutches the pendant and hangs it around his neck.)
Leslie: Then I guess I’ll just have to find her first” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA Script Notes, “Other Notable Stage Directions - Chapters 14-16”).

Take note of Leslie’s final response and the determination with which he speaks: “Then I guess I’ll just have to find her first”. Remember that we’re searching for evidence that Cloud is going to be the one reaching out to Aerith in the Remake trilogy, and that it’s his turn to take his future into his hands. He must be more attentive, more active this time. And Leslie’s words of determination reflect this perfectly. Leslie must find his fiancée first, just like Cloud has to be the one to offer his hand to Aerith in the Remake trilogy and fight for her. This is exactly what our theory is all about.
VI. g) i. 3) Delayed Realizations
Interestingly, not only does Leslie’s determination mirror Cloud’s, but both men are depicted as realizing the truth too late. Just like Leslie only began searching for his fiancée six months after her disappearance, Cloud only realizes he loves Aerith in OG once she’s died. It took him this long to actually get somewhere in his mission to reunite with her— “somewhere” being the Remake trilogy.
Even Barret’s words highlight the lovers’ delay: “Can never be sure how much someone means to ya till they're gone”. Barret would know: he lost his wife Myrna, whom he loved dearly. The devs have Barret comment on the situation as a man whose lover died, mirroring Cloud’s situation in OG. Just as Barret says, Cloud only truly realized the strength of how he felt for Aerith in OG once she was gone. The gunman’s words apply to both Leslie and Cloud’s tardy initiatives. Regardless of this delay, both men are now determined to see their respective reunions through.
The degree to which the Leslie-Cloud parallel fits our theory is a great sign of its validity: even the details are lining up!
VI. g) ii. Reunion in the Theme Songs
Too easy: in our analysis of the lyrics of the theme songs, we covered how both texts include the theme of reunion. “No Promises to Keep” is especially relevant (see section “VI. e) ii.”), as the entire song is Aerith hoping against fate for a reunion with Cloud (even if you believe the song is about all her companions, that still includes Cloud).
On top of these reunion-themed lyrics, during Aerith’s in-game performance of “No Promises to Keep” at the Gold Saucer production of Loveless, her yellow blossoms signifying reunion bloom all around her as Cloud watches her, captivated.
Another great sign for our theory: the highly significant theme songs are on our side!
VI. g) iii. Waking Up Reunited
The thing I want to juxtapose to our theory is a small yet special moment in chapter 2 of Rebirth that stuck out to me like a sore thumb and got me really excited about sharing it with you. This moment occurs after the battle against the Midgardsormr. We’ll be comparing it to two other clips, describing all three in chronological order, and making deductions based on their similarities.
The first clip I want to address occurs in chapter 8 of Remake (1:32-2:12). There are a couple of things I want to point out in this scene. First, Aerith wakes Cloud from unconsciousness with a cute call of “Hello~?”. Second, despite pretending that he doesn’t, he immediately recognizes her. The VA script notes prove it:

“Aerith: Nice to meet you again.
Cloud actually remembers Aerith, but he pretends not to, perhaps wishing to make himself look cool.
Cloud: Again, huh?
Aerith: What? You don’t remember? How about…the flowers?
Cloud looks at the flowers at his feet and pretends as if he’s only just remembered.
Cloud: Oh, the flower seller” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Reuniting with Aerith”).

So: she wakes him with a cute call, and he recognizes her. Also note that these two elements also apply to the OG church reunion scene.
Now onto the Rebirth chapter 2 scene that stuck out to me. After Cloud is saved from the Midgardsormr by Sephiroth, Cloud wakes from an unconsciousness spell with Aerith calling for him (7:20-7:34).
Once more, Aerith wakes him with a cute call (this time, it’s “Wakey, wakey!”), and Cloud recognizes her. In this Midgardsormr clip, unlike their reunion in the church, Cloud verbalizes that he remembers her. This time, there’s more: next, Aerith tells Cloud “おかえり, クラウド”, or “okaeri, Cloud”, which translates to “welcome back, Cloud”. “Okaeri” is what you say in Japanese when someone has returned home. In the third clip we will analyze, Aerith says “okaeri” to Cloud once more. But first, let’s break down this second clip.
I don’t know about you, but this cutscene felt extremely weird to me when I first encountered it. That is, it would have been, if not for the theory I’d begun formulating at that time.
You see, the devs could have chosen for Aerith to ask Cloud if he remembers his own name or where they are, if he’s okay, or check if he responds to his own name. In fact, asking someone who’s been hit on the head to say their own name is a much more common reaction to them finally waking up than asking them if they remember you. Even stranger is Cloud’s reaction: he could have answered “Yeah, you’re Aerith,” or “I remember everything, I’m fine”. Instead, he says her name with this airy and wonderstruck tone. He sounds like he’s opening his eyes to something mystic rather than his comrade leaning over him, like he’s seeing someone unexpectedly for the first time in a while… or rather like he’s waking from a trance of some kind— a trance in which he did not remember Aerith, and now he does. You may see where I’m going with this.
Let’s examine the third clip, wherein Aerith tells Cloud “okaeri” again. More specifically, in chapter 14, Aerith welcomes Cloud back when he snaps out of his zombified, Sephiroth-controlled state and runs toward her. Of course, it’s the sight of her and his memories of meeting her in chapter 2 of Remake that shake him awake (2:17:43-2:18:02).
For a third time, Aerith wakes Cloud. This time, she’s pulling him out of a trance and back to himself. And for a third time, Cloud remembers her. In fact, it’s remembering her that wakes him up. Cloud calls her name and Aerith says “okaeri” in both the post-Midgardsormr cutscene and this third clip. And in both scenes, not only does Cloud return to himself the way someone returns home (recall that “okaeri” is used to welcome someone back home), but he’s also returning to her, recognizing her as his home.
Now we’ve got three scenes lined up: the church reunion scene (both in OG and Remake), the Midgardsormr scene and the hand-reach scene. All three of these recognition scenes feature Cloud being woken up by Aerith and remembering who she is. The main difference is that, in the scenes among these three that are exclusive to Rebirth, Cloud’s return to Aerith is far more meaningful, as he already knows her name, and knows more about who she is to him. Evidently, in the OG church reunion scene, Cloud only remembers being sold a flower by this girl. In the Remake version, he remembers the same thing, plus the attack of the whispers. So there’s something much more weighty about the Rebirth recognition scenes: he remembers more, and he remembers deeper. These aren’t just recognition scenes, they’re also mini-reunions. Of course, as we’ve already analyzed pertaining to the hand-reaching scene, Cloud remembering Aerith is followed by him being the one to take action and run toward her, eager to save her, because she means the world to him. When you place the Midgardsormr scene between the church reunion scene and the hand-reach scene, an evolution of Cloud waking up and remembering Aerith is formed. Each mini-reunion scene adds a piece to the story: the church scene informs us that Cloud and Aerith are meeting again, the Midgardsormr scene tips us off that something mystic is going on from Cloud’s tone when he says Aerith’s name, and the hand reach scene tells us that as a consequence of remembering who Aerith is, Cloud saves her from falling to her death and saving her. “Meeting again”, “mystic”, and “saving Aerith”: these are the keywords of the mini-reunion scenes. They are also the keywords of our theory on Cloud’s mission to save Aerith. This time around Cloud knows more and is more conscious about how he feels for Aerith, just like he feels more when in the hand-reach scene in Rebirth compared to the church reunion scene in Remake. From the latter scene to the former, Cloud gradually wakes up and remembers his love for and loss of Aerith in the OG more and more. Each mini-reunion brings him closer to saving her when he blocks the masamune. This is why I am certain that in part 3, whether Cloud comes to his full senses or not, whether he remembers the events of OG or not, he will save Aerith this time. The Remake trilogy is centered around Aerith, after all. In fact, don’t take it from me, take it from Nojima:

“Aerith's the most important character in the remake so we paid special attention to her lines” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).

I have full confidence in this fact: one way or another, these two will have a happy ending. This is Cloud’s second chance, and as he swore in “Hollow”, he is not losing her again. That is why I don’t think you should fret, and that our Clerith hearts will be very happy to see these two together again for good in part 3.
VI. h) Zooming In
In fact, this zooming-in method of directing players’ attention to important narrative beats is far from new.
VI. h) i. Changing Fate
Let’s divert our attention to Nanaki’s Skywheel date (2:28-3:30). The dialogue goes like this: Nanaki brings us the Whispers and suggests the party might eventually forget about their existence, and Cloud says that frankly, if it’s impossible for them to change fate either way, then it would be better for them to forget to Whispers altogether.
This is a very clear message from the devs: “There would be no point in including the Whispers in the Remaketrilogy if we did not make use of their defeat”. They’re telling us through Cloud’s dialogue that they know it would be foul play and bad writing to introduce the theme of defying fate if it didn’t eventually pay off.
As if it weren’t clear enough what the devs are referring to, Nanaki brings up Aerith’s death directly after Cloud delivers the devs’ message to us. He actually makes Cloud promise to save her. This is pretty on the nose. By promising Nanaki he will protect Aerith, the devs are promising us the same. I’m certain that part 3 will deliver on this promise.
If you still aren’t sold, I’d like to direct your attention to the framing of the shot where Cloud says “If we can’t change [fate]” (2:49-2:51). There’s a zoom-in on his mouth, which is a visual cue that translates to “what this character is saying right now is important to the plot”. It’s very indiscreet in theory: the camera literally hones in on the invisible words as though the script has them highlighted, italicized triple-underlined and in bold.
VI. h) ii. Aerith’s Knowledge
We’ve seen the Remake trilogy use this camera framing at least twice so far. The first time occurs in Remake’s chapter 8, before it becomes clear that Aerith knows things from the OG game that she wouldn’t normally know if this were just a remastered version of the same 1997 plot. I’ll let Remake Ultimania‘s description of this moment speak for itself:

“When Cloud and Aerith return the rescued children to Oates, the man in the tattered black cloak shows up again at the hideout. The moment the man grasps Cloud’s arm, he’s overcome by another violent headache and sees a vision of Sephiroth. Cloud wonders if this man who supposedly died five years ago could possibly still be alive. When he says as much to Aerith, she gives him a vague reply” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 04: “Scenario”, “Chapter 8 Main Story Digest”, page 256).

Aerith’s “vague reply” is accentuated by a very deliberate zoom-in on her mouth (1:18:05-1:18:09), and therefore her words.
The framing of this shot indicates to us that what Aerith says provides an important hint as to the plot’s direction. Sure enough, with hindsight, it’s easy to see that’s true.
VI. h) iii. Tifa’s Question
Another time this framing is used is in chapter 1 of Rebirth, after Cloud recounts the Nibelheim incident. Tifa asks the group why Sephiroth is choosing to come back now, after five years (37:55-37:58).
Once more, we are being signaled that the reason Sephiroth chose to return at the moment he did is significant to the plot, but cannot be revealed explicitly yet. The reason why Sephiroth took five years to return is because that’s how long it took for Cloud to get back on his feet after the Nibelheim incident: Sephiroth wants and/or needs to manipulate Cloud in particular rather than all the other people with Jenova cells in them. It took five years for Cloud to not only go through Hojo’s experiments but also escape Shinra and make his way to Seventh Heaven, where Tifa nursed him back to health— therefore, it took five years until Sephiroth’s favorite pawn was available to be used. There are a few reasons why Cloud is the one Sephiroth wants to use, and all of them would be spoilers at this point in Rebirth to players who don’t know the OG plot. The devs can’t reveal any of them yet, but they do indicate via a close-up shot of Tifa’s mouth that her question is important.
VI. h) iv. The Takeaway
As you can see, this framing of characters’ mouths when they speak signals a plot-significant piece of dialogue. This means Cloud’s words on his gondola date with Nanaki can’t be brushed off as a red herring or an unimportant or throwaway line: it has narrative weight.

VII. The Devs

I think it’s important to remember the devs and their commitment to the world of FFVII. They know best for this story, and they’ve proven it to be true many times over. There are many things about the devs’ intentions that the fandom don’t seem to know that I think would give you confidence to find out.
VII. a) Shifting Themes
Good storytellers don’t introduce themes as a way to pull the rug from under audiences’ feet by later rendering them completely irrelevant to the plot.
In other words, the devs would not have introduced the notion of fate as an antagonistic force in Remake, nor allowed the players to defeat it in chapter 18, had they planned for these themes not to pay off at all. Think of how good FFVII OG and FF stories in general are, how strong the writing is from a narrative point of view. Nothing is included for no reason or for a cheap reaction— especially not a central theme of a story. Fate and defeating it is a huge point of Remake, and not for no reason.
I mean, think about a storyline all about defying fate ending with a shrug and a “Oh well, we tried.” It would be ridiculous! The devs are better than that.
VII. b) What the Devs Want
The devs are well aware that fans of FFVII have been begging for Aerith’s resurrection since 1997. All those petitions, all those myths of a revival hack… SE knows about them all too well. They were even referenced by FF’s 30th anniversary expo, which partly promoted Remake:

“No one expected [Aerith’s death] in the middle of the story. Rumors of a secret way to revive Aerith spread, and it was clear players were having a hard time saying goodbye to her too. Even now, twenty years later, it still feels like a shocking turn of events” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition Pamphlet, page 36).

Hamaguchi, codirector of the Remake project, commented on these rumors:

“Interviewer: Do you have a favorite fake rumor about the original FFVII?

Hamaguchi: I hear a lot about Aerith coming back to life and that's something that's very interesting to hear” (Hamaguchi interview: “129 Rapid-Fire Questions Answered About Final Fantasy VII Rebirth”, by Game Informer).

The devs are also aware of how beloved Clerith is to the FFVII fandom, especially in Japan— in fact, the only FFVII ship name that is an official iOS search term on the Japanese Apple Store is Clerith’s (“クラエア” or “kuraea” in Japanese). Aerith herself is a widely beloved character, particularly, once more, in Japan. For instance, Famitsu and NHK’s recent polls on the best FF heroine and on the best FF character in general both resulted in Aerith ranking number 3, beaten only in the latter poll by Cloud at number 1 and FFX’s Yuna at number 2.
The devs know how well-loved both Clerith and Aerith are. And in fact, they love Aerith at least as much as we do:

“Cloud's feelings [of guilt] cannot be resolved by anyone other than Aerith. I tried to convey [that Aerith is saying to Cloud] ‘I'm still here for you’” (FFVII Reunion Files, Nojima’s note on Aerith’s character file, page 58).

&

“When I saw the finished product of [Aerith’s face in] CG, I thought, "Oh, isn’t she so cute?” (FFVII Reunion Files, Nomura’s note on Aerith’s character file, page 58).

&

"The idea of having Aeris die during the story had a great impact on all the dev staff," Toriyama explained, "and personally I decided to dedicate my efforts to depicting Aeris in as appealing a way as possible, so that she would become an irreplaceable character to the player in preparation for that moment" (Toriyama interview “Final Fantasy anniversary interview: Toriyama speaks” by VG247).

The devs care about Aerith, and they’re fully aware we do too.
I think a lot of people have it in their heads that the devs don’t want anything to change from the OG story, but there’s a lot of evidence that says otherwise. Codirector Toriyama spoke on this, stating the following about the production process of Remake:

“[…] there were times the original version became a hindrance. Specifically, staff members with a strong attachment to Final Fantasy VII would often hold themselves back for fear of deviating too much from the original. When we created the original game, we obviously didn’t feel bound in that way. We were passionate about creating a brand new Final Fantasy title, and so we dove in and embraced whatever seemed most interesting to us. We wanted to take that approach this time as well, so we made a special effort to liberate ourselves whenever we held back, remembering that it was okay to do the things we wanted to do” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 1: Motomu Toriyama, Naoki Hamaguchi, Teruki Endo”, page 737).

Codirector Nomura said the following:

“When I asked Nojima if he’d write the scenario, I was clear about my demands up front. I said, ‘If we're going to remake Final Fantasy VII, I want it to be done like this.’ At that point, I was intent on making something more than just a remake. [Similarly to how] the battle system this time incorporates elements of the original game’s ATB mechanics [while] also been reborn using a real-time approach […], I wanted to make a story that players would feel is fundamentally Final Fantasy VII but also something new” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 745).

Clearly, the devs don’t want to be bogged down by the OG, and are making efforts to do things the way they want to rather than the way they were previously done. The newer generation of developers such as codirector Hamaguchi is also involved in these story changes:

“Interviewer: There are also drastically more scenes with Sephiroth than there were in the original game.
Nojima: We weren't planning on having him appear so much at first— the idea was only to hint at his presence. But we changed our approach partway through and became more proactive with having him appear, after which the number of scenes he features in rapidly increased.
Nomura: Hamaguchi [codirector Naoki Hamaguchi] came up to me one day and said in a mysterious tone, ‘I'd like to talk to you about something.’ He asked me about having there be a battle with Sephiroth in Midgar. In the original game, Sephiroth’s true body is located elsewhere, so he didn’t think I'd give in to the idea so easily. I think he even prepared materials to persuade me. But in the end I agreed readily [laughs]” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 746).

Kitase, the producer of the Remake trilogy, even says that after working on this project for so long, and after spending almost 30 years on the FFVII project and getting to know the characters, he has realized that:

“The more [he works] on it, the more [he wants] to make all these characters happy. [He wants] to give them a happy ending. The rest of the team’s opinions [obviously] also have to be taken into consideration, so it won't be all happiness and rainbows. But [he] just [wants] to make [the characters of FFVII] happy” (Kitase and Hamaguchi’s interview “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s Producer Just Wants 'the Characters to End Up Happy'”, by Vandal, translated by me).

Kitase is indeed only one developer, but he’s the producer of this project: that’s the very top position. He oversees everything and nothing goes without his approval. That counts for something. Of course, Kitase is fair and values the input of all the devs, so of course it won’t be “all happiness and rainbows”— but I sincerely believe there’s a big chance that Cloud and Aerith are heading toward their happy ending. Even if this theory is completely bogus, I want to have faith that the devs would not sacrifice good storytelling for nostalgia and a conservative attitude toward preserving the OG story, as that would be cheap of them, and we have not known them to be cheap. This game truly matters to them, so I think they deserve our faith.
(conclusion in

Sorry for the very long delay. Life has been hectic and I haven't always been in the mood to write and when I do, I want to make sure the analysis is op to snuff. So here's our continuation on card discussions -

Card of the Week: Cyclops

Card stats and text
Name: Cyclops

• Energy: 3
• Power: 4
• No ability

When powered up by High Evolutionary –
Name: (HE) Cyclops

• Energy: 3
• Power: 4
• Passive: Whenever you end a turn with at least 1 unspent Energy, apply -1 Power to a maximum of two of your opponent’s cards in this lane.

Card of the Week has analyzed 3 of the ’97 X-Men up to this point. So following the same trajectory, a long awaited update and analysis this time on the beloved field commander of the team – Cyclops. Cyclops is a bit different than the other cards we’ve previously looked at because he actually has two forms – an abilitless form and a powered up form that he only receives when High Evolutionary is added to your deck. This is a trait he shares with 6 other cards in the game, but Cyke is the first one we are taking a look at. How does Scott fare compare to his other colleagues?

Mechanically speaking, what are the card's distinctive strengths and weaknesses?

It probably isn’t even worth much of a discussion as you would think to talk about basic Cyclops. He’s a vanilla 3-4 and sets the base line of what you’d expect for a 3 cost card to perform. It is worth pointing out that of all the cost to expected power ratios, 3 costs have the worst at just x1.33 times versus every other cost. So on an energy efficiency basis, 3 cost par value cards are pretty terrible to begin with. Nowadays, it’s probably even more underpowered as there is a growing trend of “3-5 is the new 3-4”. There is definitely some element of truth to that given most of the new 3-5s, even if they are specific to one particular archetype (such as Black Swan), often times don’t have an ability that actively hurts you. So base Cyclops still being 3-4 makes him more or less unplayable as there is always a better option. Surprisingly, this wasn’t always the case. I definitely remember roughly a year ago when people were still using basic Cyclops in decks such as Patriot where he represented an ability to go tall. You definitely don’t see that in modern SNAP; partially due to power creep and partially due to new cards introducing new abilities that change the base line.
HE Cyke though is where we can actually have some discussion regarding strengths and weaknesses. Because instead of it being all bad, HE Cyke is actually largely good. In fact, of the 7 HE modified cards, Cyke is probably amongst the strongest, in the running for probably THE best HE card. Some basics first to get out of the way. To use this version of Cyclops, you must dedicate one of your card slots to adding High Evolutionary to your deck. Hence why this version is often denoted with HE in the front. Once you do so, Cyclops will change to this modified version (or “evolved”), where he gains a new, power passive ability.
HE Cyke’s strength is two-fold. The first is his theoretical stat line. Yes, his base is still the crummy 3-4. But assuming you can proc his ability every turn and you play him as soon as possible, HE Cyke is a 3-10. That’s obviously very good. Remember how Bishop last week required a ton of cards to be played AND needing to be played early to get there? Cyke does that relatively effortlessly. You just need to play him, then float at least 1 Energy a turn to benefit. His second strength is how he is able to synergize with a lot of cards that share similar archetypes. There is the HE toxic line of course, where you play a lot of negative debuffs to cheat out a cheap Abomination while nerfing the power of your opponent’s field, but likewise, Scott is excellent with cards that want to float since you can then make 1 point of energy do a ton of work. If you play Sunspot, HE Misty Knight and have HE Hulk, that 1 point of unspent energy adds an additional 4 power on top of Cyclops’ own -2 debuff. So in contrast to his abilitless form, HE Cyke actually feels like a team leader in that he is able to slot into and work with a lot of cards. Due to his continuing threat of slapping -1s once he is played, he’s also ends up working great in lane control decks as he actively discourages your opponent from competing with his theoretical power.
As far as weaknesses go, HE Cyclops has a few. The first being one that he shares with all HE cards, which is the need to slot HE into the deck. HE is what veteran card players refer to as “a garnet”. In simple terms, this means he is a card you include due to a combo or enabling some sort of play but feels terrible when you actually draw him. You never want to draw HE because HE himself is an ability-less 4-4. Yes, he doesn’t even hit par. His “ability” is powering up the other cards, so as such when draw, he does nothing. Losing one of your deck slots to put in a card that does zilch when you pick it up is obviously terrible. To mitigate, you might consider playing multiple HE powered cards so that he feels less egregious. And to his credit as noted, Cyclops works with a good number them, so it doesn’t always feel as oppressive as you’re making HE enhance multiple cards usually alongside Scott himself.
HE Cyke’s second weakness is that he is limited by his window and loses effectiveness if he is the only card that takes advantage of float. If you play Cyke late (like Turn 5), that diminishes the amount damage he is able to do. So in that regard, he wants to come on to the field ASAP. But worse yet, like other cards that operate with float, the later you draw and play him, the worse it feels to actively have float. Imagine a scenario, where the only card that can take advantage of float you end up playing is Scott. In this scenario, Cyke may “feel” like a 3-10. But if you are actively sacrificing 1 energy for him, is he really? It would probably be more accurate to say in this case, he is a 6-10. That doesn’t seem so impressive anymore now, does it? The reason why we usually discount this is because you often have many of the other play makers already on field (or in HE Hulk’s case, in hand). When your 1 point of float is adding to 4-5 different cards, the float doesn’t feel bad. But when your float is only powering up 1 card, then it feels grossly inefficient and Scott is unfortunately a victim of this. In short, Scott’s effectiveness also depends on your other float absorbers. You should not expect him to perform any last minute miracle turnarounds.

Where does the card fit in the metagame (past or present)? What archetypes should it work with?

Cyclops has had a pretty interesting run within the game’s meta. Before HE came around, his ability-less form was still used in certain decks (Patriot / Surfer) as a means to build tall in one lane. He was, at the time, pretty much the only 3 cost that could put out decent power with little set up. Even though there were other options within that field, power creep was lower a year ago so base Cyke still saw some use in selective cases.
HE’s release was great for Scott in general. Sure, it basically killed off his base form, but his evolved form is very strong and possibly the strongest HE card in the game. It turned him from a card that was going to die eventually to power creeping to a very often picked inclusion in certain achetypes – sometimes Best-in-Slot (BiS) for your deck if you’re playing something like She-naut or Toxic HE. You still see him today hanging out with other folks that make up those decks – Sunspot, Magik, HE Hulk – and he’s gained some new friends as he remains a staple on those lists. And while these decks are not currently being on top of the meta-lists, it’s always something to keep in mind as you play.

Which cards have noteworthy interactions with it?

Cyclops has a decent number of cards that he can combo off of, which has helped Scott stay relevant even in today’s landscape:

• High-Evolutionary: He’s useless in game but his inclusion is what gives Scott his evolved form. So if you plan on using that, you literally have no choice but to add him.
• HE Abomination / She-Hulk: Both cards are often cost-discounted with Cyclops. Float reduces She-Hulk’s cost, then Cyke’s -1 Power x 2 helps reduce HE Abom’s Cost by 2 if he hits 2 cards.
• Sunspot / HE Misty Knight: As with above, Cyke synergies with other cards that like float and Sunspot / HE Misty Knight do exactly that. Extra float gets converted straight to power for Sunspot while HE MK provides +1 power to a random card as long as you have float.
• Nebula: Often times when you place HE Cyke down in a lane, opponent’s will focus on the other lanes unless they have a good counter play since Cyke can be a big threat on his own. Adding Nebula to the same lane asks your opponent to pick their poison. Either give Nebula free boosts, or force them into the lane to be blasted.
• Storm: Not only does Storm lock the lane down, meaning any future cards played into her lane become Scott’s targets, but the added urgency she creates means an opponent will feel pressured to put something there or be forced to give up the lane for cheap.
• Jean Grey: Jean is an awkward card, but she combos well with HE Cyke. She holds an opponent’s play into the lane and he shoots them. I like how 2 of Cyke’s better partners are other classic ‘97ers.
• Silver Surfer: The OG but not really relevant anymore. Back then Surfer + Cyke was a way to build a lane tall in Surfer decks. But things have changed quite a bit so this combination has lost a lot of luster. Still if you are early in SNAP, it’s something that you can play around with.

What cards or strategies counter it? Are there other downsides to keep in mind?

Ability-less Cyclops doesn’t need much of a counter because he’s typically out-stated and power crept in today’s landscape. If your opponent plays ability-less Cyclops, you know he/she is probably early in their SNAP career and are probably running some old Patriot or Surfer variant. In which case, counters to those decks typically work.
HE Cyke is another story and the main meat of this section for obvious reasons. Unlike his base version, here, there’s an actual ability with actual threat behind it. So if you don’t check it, it typically means giving up the lane since Scott can just stack a bunch of -1 Power effects onto your board. The key to dealing with HE Cyke if you don’t carry the typical tech cards is to keep in mind his float efficiency. Decks with HE will typically want float and play other float synergistic cards such as Sunspot. If you can eliminate those cards from play or use, then that will weaken HE Cyke as well. Having 1 float power up HE Cyke, HE MK and Sunspot means your opponent gets a lot of mileage by being energy efficient. It is a completely different story if he’s giving up 1 energy just to add 2x -1 Power. For this reason, some more unusual counters include stuff like Elektra and Killmonger who can snipe out HE Cyke’s early supports.
Another tactic you can try is to forcing your opponent into not having any float at all. This is typically harder to do because there aren’t many ways to mess with your opponent’s costs. You might be tempted to play Mobius but most HE Cyclops’ decks won’t run stuff like Sera. And now that Zabu has basically been neutered, there’s even less reason for them to carry cost discounters. Iceman can work but is typically too random and you have no way of knowing what it hit. The Bounce variants that can replay him are going to be best for this since you can then slap a bunch of +1 cost modifiers, forcing the HE Cyke player into position where he is less likely to have float.
You can also choose to avoid playing in HE Cyke’s lane entirely. Indeed, HE Cyke’s ability only works if there are other cards in the lane. Specifically – he only gets full value if you have TWO cards on YOUR side of the lane. If you don’t have other cards there, then he’s fundamentally no different than his vanilla form. For this reason, the Goblins, White Widow and Viper can be good soft counters. Viper especially can be mean since you end up throwing back a debuffed card back to your opponent’s board. This isn’t always an option though due to the location effects but something to keep in mind.
If you do have his checks, then you’re in a good position. HE Cyke gets dumpstered pretty hard by certain tech cards – most notably Luke Cage. Now that Cage is back in his old form (albeit +1 cost, +2 power), he’s the premier choice for countering toxic debuff strategies. HE Cyke is of course no exception to this rule. Simply play him on a late turn and undo a bunch of your opponent’s work. If they are floating on 5 in preparation of playing a big boi like HE Hulk or Infinaut and She-Hulk, slapping Luke down undoes the previous 2 turns of work and puts you into position of nailing their big boi too. Otherwise, both Shadow King and Valkyrie deserve honorable mentions but are not as good as Luke. SK resets all the previous’ turns power debuffs, which can be big but you’ll still be at the mercy of the current round’s effect. Valkyrie is similar except she will set everything to 3 power. If you have a way to break parity with at least +3 power, then you’re in a good position to take the lane.
Being 3 cost means Cyke is also vulnerable to Magneto. But Magneto doesn’t really counter Scott because by the time old Magnetman hits the field, Cyke’s effect would have already proc’d twice. Sure, you can then move him to another location but by then the damage is done. There are times when Magneto can be the game winner (such as an opponent having a weak lane and another lane that has been Flooded and they are using Cyke + Storm to hold it), but like the locations, he’s definitely more situational.

What other cards may serve a similar role, for either replacement or redundancy?

From the HE family, HE Cyke’s closest comparison is his 4 cost companion HE Thing. Both cards slam -1 power effects to different cards in the lane. However, in Ben’s case, he’s an On Reveal and thus only triggers once and doesn’t scale with float. Otherwise, HE Misty Knight is also similar AND synergistic. In this case, you add +1 power for every additional point of float, just like how HE Cyke adds 2x -1 Power debuffs. This +1 is random though so care must be placed into deciding what you’re playing since the more cards there are, the extra float can hit cards you don’t really want.
Apart from the HE family of cards, HE Cyke shares similar abilities as Man-Thing. Both cards represent an establisher that aims to hold the lane by applying debuffs to other cards in the lane. Both cards aim to hit your opponent’s cards with a max of -8 power. The main difference here is that Man-Thing only hits cards that cost 1-3, whereas Scott can hit any card as long as you give him float. Man-Thing is also Ongoing so certain soft counters that work against Scott don’t work on Man-Thing.

Conclusion

Cyclops has come a long way. He went from being an ability-less, identity-less generic 3 cost to now a staple consideration in one of the game’s more competitive archetypes. Not bad for the field commander.
What are your best Cyclops plays?
What has been Cyclops’ best deck?
Did I miss anything in my assessment?
Let's discuss in the comments.

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(continuation of part 4)
I already considered this piece the second greatest musical evidence for Clerith after the London Symphony Orchestra’s Final Fantasy VII Symphony’s second movement “Words Drowned by Fireworks” and its guide, but now that I know about the Clerith reunion that was baked into the ending, the gap between the two is narrower. Each time I hear Cloud begin to call out for Aerith in part 3 (3:04), I immediately start crying. It sounds so much to me like Cloud’s voice in the dark saying “Aerith…?”, meek and scared. If you’ve read everything so far, you know how long Cloud has been looking for Aerith, lost without her, searching relentlessly for decades in real-life time. Through FFT, DFF, Advent Children, MFF x FFVII… all of it spent looking for his Promised Land. In OG, Cloud was so tormented by Jenova’s manipulation and so consumed by the chase for Sephiroth that he could not realize what or how much he felt for her until she was taken away forever. The piece we’ve just analyzed tells the story of Cloud and Aerith intertwining and separating against their will, and you can truly feel Cloud’s anxiety as he struggles to wrench Aerith out of fate’s cruel grasp. Perhaps it is because of Aerith’s ultimately fatal responsibility, inherited from her mother, that this iteration of her theme is called “The Cetra”.
Though in part 5, Cloud and Aerith reunite… could this reunion symbolize their meeting again in Remake, or something more permanent? I think it’s meant to leave us wondering.
I’m very sensitive to music, and as I’m typing this, I’m crying a bit. I wanted to share my interpretation of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” with you very badly, because it makes me feel so much and really enhances Clerith’s story. I’m overjoyed to have found out about the reunion at the very end. And it’s all because you guys showed love for my last analysis! You guys are giving me gifts every day.
V. b) i. 3) Combined Analysis
Please listen to and watch the scene of Cloud’s MOTF 6 (4:21-8:46) again, and consider section “V. b) i. 2)”. What is Uematsu telling us? Similarly to how main world theme of FFVII informs us that Jenova is sabotaging Cloud’s identity far before it becomes a plot point in OG, “Aerith’s theme - The Cetra” is telling us what not even Remake Cloud consciously knows at this point: he’s been searching desperately for her, and fears losing her once more.
As if that wasn’t proof enough, the timing of the shots and musical phrases is absolutely damning. Recall that part 3 of “Aerith’s theme - The Cetra” specifically symbolizes Cloud’s anxiety surrounding Aerith’s safety. It is this particular part of the piece that plays for the entirety of Aerith’s allusions to her murderers and her death (7:25-7:54), including the very moment where “Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (7:51-7:54). What’s more, part 5 the piece, which specifically Cloud freeing Aerith from the restraints of fate, coincides with the moment Tifa grabs Aerith’s hand and pulls her out from the circle of Whispers closing in on her (8:42-8:45). This moment leads me to believe that the reunion in part 5 of the piece indeed symbolizes Cloud succeeding (perhaps with Tifa’s help) in saving Aerith from her tragic fate and reuniting with her for good.
It’s heart-wrenching and brilliant. Our theory stands strong.
V. b) ii. Credits: Piece Inclusion
I find it very telling that the character themes included in the credits of Remake are Cloud’s “Hollow” (0:00-5:24), an orchestral arrangement of Aerith’s theme (5:24-9:24), and an orchestral arrangement of the main world theme, (9:24-14:27) which of course includes Cloud’s true theme. No other character themes appear during the rest of the credits (14:27-18:09). This is telling: the credits are communicating to us that Remake is about Cloud and Aerith. Our Mission Theory only gets stronger.
V. b) iii. Showing Relationships Through Music: Intermingling Character Themes
This doesn’t have to do with the Mission, but here’s a pretty good anti-Cloti argument while we’re here.
As shown in section “V. a) i.” where we explored the roles of Cloud, Jenova and Sephiroth’s themes within the FFVII world theme, the way character themes interact in a piece can tell you a lot about those characters’ relationships. This is certainly the case in “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” as well (see section “V. b. ii. 2)”).
I’d like to mention that in all of my listening to the Remake OST and rewatching playthroughs of Remake, I’ve never encountered a single piece that united Cloud and Tifa’s themes. Not once. Let alone a piece that depicts them as intimately or emotionally as “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” depicts Cloud and Aerith. Even the most Cloti cutscenes in Remake aren’t supported by pieces mixing or even juxtaposing Cloud and Tifa’s themes. I can’t find any of Cloud’s motifs anywhere during the orchestral arrangement of Tifa’s theme that plays during her resolution scene in chapter 14. I can’t find either of their motifs in the track the plays when Cloud calls Tifa beautiful at Seventh Heaven in chapter 3. A motif from Tifa’s theme does appear in the track that plays during the childhood promise scene in chapter 4, (0:00-0:25), but it never plays at the same time as or even near Cloud’s motifs (1:23-1:47 and 2:03-2:29). They’re distant or otherwise unaffiliated.
The only exception is that an altered version of Cloud’s theme’s section A phrase 1 appears in the background of Tifa’s theme (1:17-1:23). This symbolizes her connection to Cloud and how much of her attention and worry revolve around him— a reference to how she cares so much that it borders on dependency. Of course, it doesn’t go both ways: Tifa isn’t in Cloud’s theme at all. To me, this lack of reciprocity concerning the inclusion of Cloud’s motif in Tifa’s theme signifies that the only time Cloud and Tifa are together is in her head. She does think about him a lot, which we witness in her chapter of Trace of Two Pasts. Tifa loses sleep over him even two years after he left Nibelheim, despite the fact that she barely knew him at all:

“The moment she heard the word “Soldier”, the few memories she had with Cloud Strife came flooding back. He never contacted her after they parted ways two years ago […]. She tossed and turned all night. When she counted them again, her memories with Cloud were so surprisingly few that others might find it hard to believe that they grew up as next-door neighbors” (Trace of Two Pasts, translated by pekotranslates on Tumblr).

FFVII Remake Ultimania also comments on the superficial nature of Cloud and Tifa’s water tower promise, and how regardless of its naïveté, it became fundamental to Tifa:

“Though rooted in a jejune heroine fantasy of being rescued in a pinch by her hero, this promise is clearly etched in Tifa’s memory” (Tifa’s profile in section 01 of “Character & World”, “An Enduring Childhood Promise” in “Topics of Tifa” page 20).

You could argue that “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is only one song wherein Cloud and Aerith’s themes interweave, but you’d be proven wrong by the Rebirth OST…
V. c) The Rebirth OST
Unfortunately, the full Rebirth OST isn’t out and available where I can listen to it right now. However, based solely on the incomplete OST that’s available to me right now, I can tell you with certainty that the composers were told to incorporate Clerith into the musical storytelling: Cloud and Aerith’s themes intermingle in multiple pieces. I can’t imagine what else I’ll discover once I listen to the full OST. For now, I checked out what was available on YouTube and listened to cutscene audios. This section would be eternal if I included every time Cloud and Aerith’s motifs interact, especially in chapter 14. Trust me, I’d love to talk about every single one, but this thing is long enough already, so let’s just address what pertains to our Mission Theory specifically rather than stopping at every single Clerith reference in the OST.
V. c) i. Ending Cutscene Music
Ending cutscenes are often used to address the next step the characters will be taking as well as their emotional and mental state. They also open up new questions to make the player curious. Indeed, Rebirth’s ending cutscene (18:56-25:00) gives us an impression of how the party members feel by the end of the game: everyone misses Aerith. Barret looks upset and confused at the mention of her (19:35-19:45), the girls are crying and Nanaki is mourning (19:58-20:35). Additionally, we are shown the empty White Materia and Black Materia in Cloud’s possession (20:40-21:24), foreshadowing that they will come to be important in part 3. Cloud and Aerith share a warm goodbye, and exchange promises: Aerith will send smoke signals if something happens to her so a worried Cloud can remain updated on her well-being and she will stop Meteor, and Cloud will stop Sephiroth (23:00-25:00). The fact that this scene is animated in CGI is enough to tell us that the devs consider it narratively important, just like they do Bugenhagen’s observatory and the party’s advance into the Forgotten Capital CGI cutscenes. What did the composers decide to communicate with us about the end of Rebirth and the plot going forward?
Big surprise: Clerith.
During the entire cutscene, only two themes play: Cloud’s and Aerith’s. The cutscene’s music begins only when Cloud notices Aerith among the party members and begins watching her (19:21). She interacts with the rest of the party without their knowledge, different segments of her theme playing one after another. Her theme only stops when Cloud finally looks away from her and to the empty White Materia in his hand (20:45). The music focuses on the mystery and ominousness of these materia, only returning to Aerith once Cloud hears her voice and repeats her message to the party (21:30).
Cloud’s theme appears when he asserts that Barret needn’t worry about him (section A of Cloud’s true theme, 22:41), though soft and tentative, only swelling when Barret and Tifa climb aboard the Tiny Bronco and Cloud finds himself alone with Aerith again (22:57). As he asks Aerith if “[she’ll] be okay getting back” (23:08), the final phrase of section A of his theme plays, but without its concluding note, the tonic. He waits for her to answer him as his theme waits for hers to complete and answer it, that final note dragging long over the seconds (23:09-23:13). She answers with a teasing remark that references their unwillingness to part from each other back in Remake’s Evergreen Park:

“[Cloud has] a chat with Aerith, from whom he’s reluctant to part” (chapter 9 in section 04 “Scenario”, “Main Story Digest”, “4. Saying Goodbye”, page 275)”.

As soon as Aerith answers Cloud’s question with this romantic callback, her theme answers his too: section C of Aerith’s theme begins with the key’s tonic, resolving Cloud’s incomplete phrase (23:13): she gives him resolution. He chuckles, getting her reference, and the music swells (23:16). The music ebbs and flows thusly, following the rhythms and underlying emotions of their conversation. Finally, the piece ends with phrase 2 of of section A of Cloud’s true theme, following a strong repetition of the first half of Aerith’s theme’s section A. The two make their promises to each other, and “No Promises to Keep” begins, leading us to the credits. This is most definitely a Clerith song, but more on that later.
What this shows us is that Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is fundamental to the plot of Rebirth and will also be fundamental to the plot of part 3: they are isolated one one-on-one in this cutscene, and the music depicts their warm, sweet interaction as well as the strength of Aerith’s character to contrast with Cloud’s somewhat meek personality. The composers are telling us that these two, specifically, together alone, are hugely important to the plot here. This was already true in OG, but no such emphasis was ever placed on their interactions and relationship in its music. Something is different, deeper, more intense now. The Mission Theory explains why. It also suits our theory that the composers are emphasizing the centrality of Clerith in the plot of the Remake trilogy. Cloud’s love for Aerith is the reason for the trilogy’s existence, and it will be the greatest motivator for Cloud in part 3. It’s a grand announcement.
Just like in Remake, I could not find a single instance of Cloud and Tifa’s themes interacting in Rebirth, apart from at the end of the intimate Skywheel date— but every girl receives this treatment in their intimate dates, so each of these instances can be crossed out. Additionally, the Tifa date is not the canon one, but I digress…
V. c) iii. Credits

1. Piece Inclusion

Once more, I find it very telling that of all the pieces included in the credits of Rebirth, the only character themes are Cloud’s and Aerith’s. We start with a song about Aerith’s point of view to mirror *Remake’*s “Hollow”, “No Promises to Keep” (5:18-11:10), followed by the FFVII world theme (11:10-16:12) which of course contains Cloud’s true theme, then we move into a piece whose unofficially translated title is “Parade Battle Ceremony - The Dawn of a New World” as an arrangement of the parade ceremony theme from chapter 4 (16:12-19:03), followed by a theme for the Lifestream springs whose name I don’t have (19:03-21:38), “Junon - Fortified Metropolis” (21:38-24:28), and finally, a gorgeous arrangement of Aerith’s theme (24:28-28:47). No other character is referenced in the credits music: the credits are telling us Rebirth is about Clerith. Our Mission Theory explains why.
V. c) iii. 2) “No Promises to Keep”
At the very end of this song written and performed by Aerith, we’re treated with a sweet little piano conclusion (10:46-11:10): it begins with a variation on Aerith’s theme’s section A (10:46-11:01), and concludes with two ascending arpeggios, each four notes long (11:01-11:10). Each of these ascending arpeggios is a variation of the phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A. The differences are minimal. The phrase is usually five notes long rather than four, the first arpeggio ends on the tonic rather than Cloud’s iconic subtonic, and the second arpeggio starts on the subtonic rather than the tonic. The song Aerith wrote concludes with Cloud’s most famous motif. This is also the case in her Gold Saucer performance (3:31-3:41).
V. c) iii. 3) Arrangement of Aerith’s Theme
The final piece in the credits is an arrangement of Aerith’s theme (24:28-28:47) which has noticeably similar elements to the version of her theme that plays during the Jenova Lifeclinger battle in chapter 14 (0:12-3:36), such as the female choirs. Since these female choirs are only heard in the Forgotten City version of Aerith’s theme, and since the credits arrangement of her theme plays at the same time as clips from her chapter 14 pseudo-death roll across the screen, I estimate that this credits arrangement specifically reflects the event of Aerith’s pseudo-death. Recall that composers had access to the credits video as they composed, meaning this piece is specifically written for Aerith’s pseudo-death in Rebirth.
What I find fascinating is that, just like the arrangements of her theme that play during Aerith’s pseudo-death and the Jenova Lifeclinger battle, this credits arrangement contains the sound of Cloud’s pain, rage and protest. Phrase 1 and the first three notes of phrase 2 of Cloud’s true theme section A play on the strings and brass quite loudly and insistently, just as Cloud blocking masamune appears on the credits screen (25:11-25:21). Sephiroth’s dissonant, high and screechy violins appear just as his face comes onto the screen (26:33), and almost as a protective response, phrases 1 and 2 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A return (26:47-27:00). Finally, similarly to what we hear in part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”, a slightly modified section A phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme play along with section C phrase 3 of Aerith’s theme (oh wow section A and C section Aerith for Cloud’s theme and section Cloud for Aerith’s theme I just realized that’s such a cute coincidence), though unfortunately they do not meet in the middle like last time since they start two octaves apart (28:20-28:25). I’ve recreated it for you once more here so you can really appreciate it. The fact that their motifs don’t truly reunite like in “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is sad, but the very last thing you see onscreen is Aerith’s goodbye to the Tiny Bronco (27:10-27:42), so it makes sense that this piano conclusion implies that Cloud and Aerith aligned, but not yet reunited for good. That’s exactly what you get from the ending cutscene. It does seem to imply that they will be reunited in part 3, as both the ending cutscene and this piano conclusion read as a “till we see each other again” rather than a “farewell”.

VI. Textual Evidence

Now that the musical evidence is done, let’s compile some textual story evidence that supports our theory!
VI. a) Remake Trilogy (Thus Far) Handholding Explained?
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, handholding is a motif in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship— and an extremely symbolic one at that! When researching for info to validate my theory, I found that this Clerith motif was extremely helpful! Its inclusion in the Remake trilogy, and especially in Rebirth, is hugely significant in my eyes.
VI. a) i. Pre-Remake Trilogy: Aerith’s Initiative
Before examining the significance of Clerith handholding in Remake and Rebirth, we should establish the meaning of this motif in OG and Advent Children.
Cloud and Aerith have reached out to take each other’s hands many times since 1997. Aerith used to literally drag him by the hand a lot, shocking the cold and distant merc, before she left. After her death in OG, Cloud surely longed to be able to feel her hand take his again, cursing himself for not enjoying it while she was alive, and for never being the one to grasp her hand first: he never got to tell her how he feels about her, or to save her. It was always her reaching out for him, saving him.
This is why the scene in OG when Aerith reaches for him from the Lifestream after Cloud defeats Sephiroth in chapter 3 of disk 3 is so touching: Cloud sees her hand and reaches out to take it, so close to finally establishing that mutual connection, but she soon fades, and replaced by Tifa’s hand in the tangible world. He doesn’t get to hold Aerith’s hand again.
That is, not until Advent Children, where near the end of his battle with Bahamut Sin, he sees Aerith reach out to him once again (1:08-1:30). Cloud finally gets to hold her hand for the first time in two years when he lost her. This moment was given extra importance by the devs. In fact, Nojima told us the following:

“The ending scene of the battle with Bahamut, the scene where Aerith reaches out her hand, is an homage to the last scene from a previous production. It was [Nomura]'s idea” (FFVII Reunion Files, “Story Digest”, “Summoned Beast”, page 113).

VI. a) ii. The Remake Trilogy (Thus Far): Cloud’s Initiative
As I’ve said before, if I’m right that Remake is all about Cloud stepping up to be more attentive and active in his relationship with Aerith in order to save her, there should be concrete evidence of this in the Remaketrilogy thus far. If OG Cloud’s memories of and love for Aerith exist somewhere within Remake Cloud’s subconsciousness, then Remake Cloud should be far more active in the Clerith dynamic than OG Cloud was— after all, he’s supposed to know better this time around. Thankfully, the motif of handholding can help us evaluate this. Since we know pre-Remake Cloud was quite passive when it comes to handholding, Cloud initiating handholding in the Remake trilogy would be a strong indication that our theory has validity. Keeping this in mind, let’s see what we can find thus far in the Remake trilogy in relation to handholding, and if Cloud is indeed more active than he was in OG.
VI. a) ii. 1) Hollow Hands
Remake’s theme song “Hollow” makes allusions to the handholding motif: “This time, I will never let you go” is pretty clear. And so is “No Promises to Keep”, wherein Aerith speaks of Cloud “[taking her] hand and never [letting her] go” multiple times. Interestingly, these theme song lyrics seem to suggest that Cloud will be much more active in the Remake trilogy than in OG. “Hollow” even promises that Cloud will come to his senses and take charge of the situation: “this time, [he] will” be the one to offer his hand to Aerith, unlike in OG and Advent Children. This makes a lot of sense with our theory: now that Cloud has lost Aerith once, “this time for sure, [he]’ll” be the one to reach for Aerith’s hand, take initiative and save her the way she saved him.
Even though theme songs are extremely telling of a game’s main themes and intentions, lyrics are still all talk and no proof. What about the game itself? Do Remake and Rebirth deliver on this promise? Let’s see!
VI. a) ii. 2) Resolution Hands
The only significant time Cloud initiates handholding in Remake is during Cloud’s resolution scene in chapter 14 (5:18-5:40), wherein he tries to grab Aerith’s hand but is unable to keep her with him. He fills with determination and tells her in no uncertain terms that he’s coming for her. Just as we predicted, Cloud is the active participant in this iteration of the Clerith handholding motif: he’s even explicitly insisting against Aerith’s wishes that he should “get a say in all this” and that he’s “coming for [her]”. Let’s not forget that Cloud’s resolution is meant to reflect not only Aerith’s kidnapping by Shinra, but also her fated death. Nojima implied this by commenting the following on Aerith’s “Even if you think you have, it’s not real” line:

“Those who know what befalls Aerith later on will find the line really heart-wrenching” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).

Given this note by Nojima, it looks like we’re supposed to watch Cloud’s resolution scene with Aerith’s fated death in mind. Considering this, Cloud’s “I’m coming for you” line sure seems like an subconscious promise that he will save Aerith from her tragic fate. This subconscious promise could be the result of post-OG Cloud’s feelings and intentions rising to the surface. Nevertheless, he’s absolutely determined and he’s staying true to the promise he made in “Hollow”. I think it’s fair to say that this instance of the handholding Clerith motif does indeed fit perfectly with our theory. This is only one strong example though, and we need a pattern in order to pat ourselves on the back on this. So, let’s keep looking! There isn’t any handholding initiated by Cloud beyond that point in Remake. At this point in my research, I moved on to Rebirth to go digging for handholding there.
Hoo boy. I was not disappointed.
VI. a) ii. 3) Golden Hands
Let’s begin with the obvious. In their high-affinity gondola date in chapter 12, Cloud bravely interlaces his fingers with Aerith’s: Cloud’s taken charge not only of handholding, but the most intimate kind of handholding. I’m sure you’ve encountered the phrase “こいびとつなぎ” or “koibito tsunagi by now (literally translates to “lovers’ tie” or “lovers’ connection”); this is the term used in Japanese to refer to the type of handholding Cloud initiates with Aerith on the Skywheel. It’s considered the most intimate form of handholding. In Japan, skinship is normally considered quite significant and indicative of the closeness between two people— you could say it’s a big deal. Cloud also offers Aerith his hand when they step off the Shywheel, once more making the first move. Though some might say that the Skywheel dates shouldn’t be counted as canon, I believe Aerith’s date is indeed canon (I have my reasons but this post is long enough). Even if we discount the Skywheel date however, Clerith's use of the koibito tsunagi returns in a non-optional scene we will touch on later.
For what it’s worth, Alfreid offers Rosa his hand in the Loveless play too. I can prove that Aerith is the canon Rosa too, but I’m going to save that for my next analysis! You can take my word for it now, or just wait for that analysis to drop. Take it or leave it!
VI. a) ii. 4) Meta Hands
However, the narrative weight of these Clerith handholding instances doesn’t even come close to my very favorite iteration of the handholding motif in Rebirth. I’m referring to what I consider a severely underrated Clerith moment in chapter 13. First, some context: Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into giving over the Black Materia. Cloud seems to be firmly under Sephiroth’s control. However, the sight of Aerith being swarmed by Black Whispers snaps Cloud back into the driver’s seat: he breaks out of Sephiroth’s grasp to run to her and save her. Aerith gets knocked off into a fatal free-fall by a Black Whisper before Cloud can reach her, but he won’t have it: he lunges forward, hand extended. What results is a beautiful shot of their outstretched hands (56:25-56:27).
Let’s analyze this great shot. Notice how the seconds where Cloud is reaching downwards to grasp Aerith’s hand are treated. This key moment is stretched longer by a slow-mo effect, building up the tension and drawing the audience’s focus to the distance between their hands before Cloud actually catches Aerith’s in his, fulfilling the promise he made in “Hollow”. Their hands take up the whole screen in a deliberate close-up shot. All the ambient noises of the scene go quiet: Aerith’s theme is all we hear as Cloud reaches desperately for her. These are blatant audiovisual cues, signalling to the audience that whatever is happening on screen is especially significant. We should therefore examine this specific instance of the Clerith handholding motif to see what the devs are trying to tell us, and maybe it will fit with our theory!
We should begin by comparing this Clerith hand-reach shot to previous ones. If you compare it to the Advent Children’s hand-reach that occurs during Cloud’s battle against Bahamut Sin, it’s evident that Cloud and Aerith’s roles are reversed: just as our theory states, Cloud gets out from inside his head and reaches for Aerith this time. She saved him and the world in OG, and now it’s his turn to save her. This change becomes especially evident when you juxtapose the two scenes and notice how their hands have switched places, reaching from above and below, from left and right. I think the Rebirth hand-reach was deliberately made to look like the Advent Children one —and even the OG one in disk 3, chapter 3—, just to highlight this role reversal.
This Rebirth hand-reach is my favorite out of all because it shows that Cloud is much more conscious and attentive toward Aerith in Rebirth than he was in OG. At this point in OG (disk 1, chapter 25), Cloud is meant to be beating Aerith up at Sephiroth’s command, to the horror of the rest of the party. In fact, a few minutes before Cloud rushes to save Aerith in Rebirth, he has absolutely no problem violently shoving Tifa to the ground when she gets in Sephiroth’s way (53:27-53:33). This shove and Cloud’s earlier attack on Tifa in Gongaga (Rebirth, chapter 9) proves that Sephiroth is just as capable of making Cloud hurt his party members as he was in OG… though Sephiroth can’t seem to make Cloud hurt Aerith. Why is this? Why is it that Cloud beats Aerith in OG, but doesn’t even lay a finger on her —and snaps out of Sephiroth’s control at the mere sight of her in trouble— in Rebirth?
Our theory provides the answer. In disk 1, chapter 25 of OG, Cloud had not yet realized he loved Aerith. Sephiroth was therefore able to make him hurt her. But things are different in Rebirth. The Cloud we see in the Remake trilogy has gone through the OG timeline and traveled back in time, kicking off Remake as his second try at the OG timeline— and he did this precisely because he loves Aerith. His love for her is clearer and stronger in the Remake trilogy than in OG because Remake Cloud is an amnesiac, post-OG, time-traveler Cloud. He’s been through the OG before, has fallen in love with Aerith and realized it before, so this time around, he can’t even lay a finger on her. This is made evident by how closely the moments where Cloud pushes Tifa and saves Aerith are juxtaposed, separated by mere seconds of gameplay. Merely seeing Aerith in trouble wrenched control from Sephiroth and put it in Cloud’s hands again— Sephiroth probably couldn’t have gotten Cloud to attack Aerith if he tried.
This isn’t the only time we get evidence of this though! As Cloud approaches Aerith’s praying form in the Forgotten City, Sephiroth’s Black Whispers swirl around the buster sword: Sephiroth is trying to kill Aerith with it, while Cloud’s struggle to wrench it away plays out visibly on his face. Interestingly, Cloud is not being controlled by Sephiroth here. We know this because we can quite literally see the Black Whispers trying to move his sword, but also because every time Cloud is being controlled by Sephiroth in Rebirth, he has an empty-eyed, zombie-Cloud look on his face. Either that or he laughs or smiles somewhat maniacally. There is never any resistance on his part. To see an example, simply pay attention to Cloud’s blank face as he attacks Tifa in Gongaga in chapter 9 (19:20-20:30). You’ll see the very same expression on his face if you watch this video of Cloud following Sephiroth’s orders in chapter 13 (53:36-54:15). Additionally, look at how strangely Cloud smiles (41:01) as he grasps the Black Materia. Cloud makes none of these faces as the Black Whispers try to take control of his sword: quite the opposite. Cloud looks like he’s trying his hardest to pull his weapon back down and away from Aerith, a horrified look on his face as he grunts from the effort. Once more, Sephiroth is unable to make Cloud hurt Aerith.
Back to my favorite handholding moment. Think about this devs intention for this shot for a minute. The devs have been teasing us as to whether or not Cloud will succeed in saving Aerith in the Remake trilogy since it was first announced, and this slow-mo shot of Cloud catching Aerith’s hand as she falls to her death is a reflection of this tension. The audience holds their breath during those slow-moed seconds, all that hope and fear hanging in the balance. This instance of the handholding motif is a meta way for the devs to reassure us that Cloud will indeed save Aerith. I firmly believe this.
VI. a) ii. 5) Self-Sacrificing Hands
Alright, alright, enough about my favorite! Let’s move to chapter 14 of Rebirth! There’s evidently a lot going on with Clerith in this chapter. Let’s address the Sector 5 date. The handholding is first initiated by Aerith as she tugs him toward the candy vendor and Cloud reacts with a quiet gasp (4:07-4:17). Soon, it becomes a reciprocal embrace: Cloud holds his hand out for Aerith’s and tightens his fingers around hers, smiling at her before they head to the photographer (7:07-7:17).
Then of course, when Aerith pushes Cloud into a portal in her church, you can see Cloud reach his hand up toward her desperately as he falls (17:38-17:58). What I find particularly emotional about this moment is that Aerith pushing Cloud away from her is kind of the opposite of reaching for his hand: it symbolizes Aerith accepting her fate and giving up on a life where she can be with him. This Aerith seems to be a post-OG Aerith who exists separately from the main world we experience in Rebirth, meaning she knows all too well that her fate is to die. In fact, it looks like she is the very same or a similar Aerith to the one who appeared to Cloud in his resolution scene in Remake. By literally pushing Cloud away, just like she figuratively did in Cloud’s resolution scene, she is sacrificing both herself and the happiness she could share with Cloud. She’s going against her heart’s wishes, just like she did in Cloud’s resolution scene when she would not let Cloud take her hand. Indeed, post-OG Aerith seems to be resigned to her fated death and completely devoid of hope: she only wants to ensure the planet’s survival, because she thinks she knows there is no way she can or should be with Cloud. In contrast, Cloud reaches his hand out toward Aerith as he falls into the portal, and even though he does not know that her push symbolizes her self-sacrifice, his outstretched hand represents his protest. So far, our theory is fitting beautifully.
VI. a) ii. 6) Grieving Hands
Later in chapter 14 of Rebirth, after Aerith’s death/non-death, there is more handholding. As Cloud cradles Aerith’s body close to him at the Forgotten Capital, Aerith places her hand on his cheek. Cloud covers it with his, curling his fingers around it (1:03:33-1:03:53). Before he leaves her lying down on her back to go fight Sephiroth, he squeezes her hand as he tells her “I got this”— or, per the Japanese version, “Wait for me”, meaning he’ll reunite with her once he’s done (1:04:56-1:05:10).
VI. a) ii. 7) Hero-Heroine Hands
Next, the koibito tsunagi returns as Cloud and Aerith interlace fingers back to back in a classic hero-heroine pose, right after their two-versus-one fight against Sephiroth. This time, they both reach for each other simultaneously (7:42-8:18), without even having to look down at their hands or talk to each other, as though perfectly in sync. As you can see, Aerith and Cloud are now on the same page. This is different from post-OG Aerith’s attitude in the Sector 5 church earlier in chapter 14, as well as in Cloud’s resolution scene in Remake— my interpretation of this mutual koibito tsunagi is that both of them are agreeing to hold onto each other now, with neither of them pulling back or being inattentive of the other: their priorities are now the same. It seems now they are aligned, and hopefully this means that Aerith will be working together with Cloud so they can reunite again in part 3. Even if she doesn’t prioritize her life and happiness though, we know for sure Cloud will.
VI. b) Blocking Masamune Explained?
Another piece of evidence that Cloud has been through the events of OG before is the fact that he is able to block masamune. Cloud looks up and sees Sephiroth descending with his blade poised to kill Aerith. Screaming, Cloud instantly rips the buster sword from the Black Whispers’ hold and successfully blocks masamune. Hatred and determination fill his eyes as he rallies his strength and successfully pushes Sephiroth away, saving Aerith’s life (6:00-7:26)— at least, in one reality.
Obviously, something about Cloud is different in Rebirth from in OG, otherwise, the events of Rebirth’s chapter 14 would be the same as the events of OG’s disk 1 chapter 28. In my opinion, what happened here is that upon seeing Sephiroth swoop down with masamune, Cloud remembered Aerith’s death in OG, and the post-OG Cloud’s determination to stop it came surging up from within him. This is frankly the very best proof there is that Cloud is far more ready, stable, determined, and clear-headed about Aerith in the Remake trilogy than in OG. Our theory explains why! In fact, this very moment is what our entire theory banks on: Cloud saves Aerith in one reality, as is shown by the rainbow effect produced by the event, and just like that, the promise made in “Hollow” has been fulfilled! However, now we face the question of how to make sure that Aerith is alive and by Cloud’s side when the multiverse converges again into one protected timeline. I’m sure it will be done; we will see how in part 3.
VI. c) Theme Song Lyrics
What the theme songs’ texts have to say about the trilogy so far is quite important, as they summarize the feelings of the characters they represent: Cloud and Aerith. We can glean a lot from their perspectives that could help support the Mission Theory.
VI. d) i. “Hollow” Lyrics
“Hollow”, Remake’s theme song, was written about Cloud’s feelings and rumination. Nojima confirmed that, when he was given directives for the lyric-writing, “Nomura just gave [Nojima] the keywords: ‘told from Cloud's point of view’ and ‘standing in the rain’. [Nojima] interpreted that as ‘a ballad for a man who lost something/someone important’” (Nojima and Uematsu interview “‘I wanted to put the word ‘empty’ in the theme song of Remake. That was how it started’ - Music-Related Interview Part 6: Kazunari Nojima”, by Famitsu). Our theory is about Cloud’s motivations and mission to save Aerith, so “Hollow” is especially relevant.
Let’s run through the lyrics and analyze, starting with the song’s first verse:

“I would be lost, drifting along
Floating up high, time after time
And there you'd be, shining brightly
Your smiling face to guide my way
Bloody and bruised, brought to my knees
When beaten down, when broken up
You would appear, reach out to me
Heal every wound and make me whole”

Makes sense with our theory in mind, doesn’t it? This is post-OG Cloud remembering Aerith and what she means to him. “Hollow” seems to be told from the perspective of the post-OG Cloud hidden somewhere in Remake Cloud: a suppressed or eroded part of him that remembers Aerith clearly. Or maybe it’s told by Cloud after the events of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration and before the start of Remake, asserting his mission to save Aerith.
Next, here are the pre-choruses:

“Was it all, a dream? Will I never know?
Foolish and blind to everything
Had I realized, had I thought it through
Would you be here in my embrace?”

&

“With your every smile, hiding something more
Dark mysteries lurking beneath
But I was consumed with this emptiness
This selfishness, this void to fill”

(continued in

This is a follow-up post to my Two Year Update and One Year Update. For those who haven’t read it here’s a short summary of my first 2 Years

• First Month: Learning Kana with Apps like Duolingo and some basic vocab/grammar and figuring out if I actually like learning Japanese
• Month 2-3: Doing RRTK and watching Cure Dolly for Grammar on the Side
• Month 3-4: Core Anki Decks for Basic Vocab (Tango N5, Core Anime Deck)
• Month 4-6: Reading and Sentence Mining Satori Reader with extra cards from Anime via Morphman
• Month 6-9: Finished Satori Reader and moved on to Anime with Japanese Subtitles + Sentence Mining
• Month 9-12: Added Reading Novels to my Routine for about 1h a day. Continued with Anime for the rest of the time
• Month 13-24: Continued my Routine of reading books + watching Anime and doing Sentence Mining with Anki. I increased my reading to about 2-3h a day for a while and cut back on Anime

Stats

• 2646 Anime Episodes Watched (Year 1: 715, Year 2: 1428, Year 3: 503)
• 68 Movies Watched (Year 1: 19, Year 2: 28, Year 3: 21)
• 115 Novels Read (Year 1: 6, Year 2: 64, Year 3: 45)
• 20000 Anki Vocab Cards (Year 1: 6517 , Year 2: 8664, Year 3: 4819)
• 27520 Morphs (Year 1: 8204 , Year 2: 13650, Year 3: 5666)

I am not as diligent with tracking anymore, so some of it might be missing. My Anime watched and Books read has gone down quite a bit from last year, but I also played some Games in Japanese this year and watched a lot more Youtube/Variety Content. Although I didn’t track it, generally my daily time spent has gone down from 3-4h daily to around 2-3h nowadays.

Current Daily Routine

My Routine has not changed much from my second year, but I tried exploring more genres and media. With better comprehension and less reliance on lookups (thanks to Anki), I am able to enjoy media without subtitles or games where lookups are a bit more annoying, much more than before. I still aim for 2-3 hours of immersion daily, with books remaining the backbone of my immersion since I enjoy them the most. Recently, I’ve replaced my before-bed anime watching with reading books accompanied by audiobooks, thanks to tools like Jidoujisho and Kanjieaters’s SubsPlease tool for syncing audiobooks with books. I’ve also played more games in Japanese, a big highlight being the Metal Gear Solid Series. I’ve also watched more Youtube and Variety Shows as filler content.
In terms of Anki usage, my daily time has tapered off to around 10-15 minutes, primarily because I don’t find many new words anymore. Nowadays, around 90% of my new cards come from reading. When I’m reading challenging books, this number can jump up to around ~20 new cards, but on average, it hovers around 6.
Very recently I’ve also added about 5-10 mins of Minimal Pairs Pitch Training on the コツ Site to my Routine. I’ve only been doing this for about 2 Weeks, and I’m already noticing a big improvement in my Pitch perception. I still don’t have any ambitions regarding Output, but feel like being able to recognize Pitch unlocks a new way of perceiving the language, which I find fascinating.

What my Comprehension feels like

Reading Books

While my reading speed hasn't changed drastically, improving from about 12k chars/hour to around 13-14k chars/hour, the range of variation has decreased significantly. A year ago, my speed could drop to 9k chars/hour with difficult books; now, 12k chars/hour is more of a baseline for me. But my comprehension is where I feel the most improvement, I don’t need to check DeepL at all anymore, if I don’t understand a sentence, I can most of the time understand it when I read it again. And there are a lot more nuances, I now notice which I didn’t before. I noticed this the most in my reread of また同じ夢を見ていた which was my first book I read in Japanese, after rereading it, ~100 books later, I noticed a lot of new nuances, subtext and word play.
I also started using more Audiobooks, in combination with SubsPlease and Jidoujisho to get a synced Subtitle file with the Audiobook. I read along while listening, and my comprehension got fast enough that I generally can just let it play, only occasionally needing to relisten to a line. Even for more difficult books, like 鹿の王 which I recently read. I also read a physical Book this year. If the book is not too hard, I’m now comfortable reading it without a dictionary. The one I read had about 20 words I didn't know, but I only felt the need to look up 2-3. I was able to get the meaning from the others based on context and kanji.

Watching Content with Japanese Subtitles

I felt pretty strong in this area a year ago already, but it has definitely improved a lot also. I noticed this the most when I played the Metal Gear Solid Series. All dialogue does have subtitles, but the content is quite difficult both on a vocabulary level and also on a meaning level, since they are dealing with deep themes a lot of the time. But I was able to play it mostly free flow, only needing to look up a word here or there, getting most of the meaning from the kanji if I didn’t know a word.

Watching Content without Japanese Subtitles

Ironically even though I never intentionally did pure listening practice, always using Japanese subtitles if they were available, I’m noticing the most progress in this area. A year ago, I was not comfortable with most non-subtitled content. Nowadays I would say, easier content like most youtube videos or variety shows, I’m quite comfortable with, although I definitely still miss much more compared to using subtitles. But with Anime or Movies in general, where I’m also much more picky in my comprehension, since I don’t want to miss anything, I’m still not comfortable watching without subtitles I feel like in scripted content people are more likely to use rare words, and even if I technically “know” them, it's still often hard for me to recall them without seeing the characters. But as with all things, that will work itself out with more input. I’m glad my theory from my 1 Year Update, that doing pure listening practice is not needed and using subtitles does not impede progress in listening, turned out true for me.

Closing Thoughts

Although I was able to do all the things I can do now a year ago, I feel like I can do them much more effortlessly. Consuming Japanese is now much closer to English or my native language German, although it’s still not quite there. Both in terms of listening, I usually listen to Youtube videos in English at 2.5x speed, that's not possible for me in Japanese at the moment. Similarly, despite doing a lot of reading, there’s still a lot of room to improve to reach native-level speed.
But it doesn’t feel like learning anymore; it’s more about enjoying the exploration of a new culture through its media. I still love learning new things, which is why I started focusing more on pitch, even though I still have no plans for output.
Adding to my Closing Thoughts from my 2 Year Update, I still feel like this hobby has been the most enriching thing I’ve ever done. Being able to get better at something, feeling the progress gradually, while exploring new ways of thinking, not just through the language itself, but also the vastly different media compared to western media, really broadened my horizon. I feel like learning to appreciate and understand what the media is trying to say is also in a way like learning a language. It got me to read books or try out new genres I probably would have never considered otherwise. For example the Metal Gear Series got me interested in history, which I didn't think I liked before. I also learned a lot about learning new things. I think I can apply all the techniques I discovered learning Japanese to any other skill I want to learn in the future. Being consistent on a daily basis and always practising the same way you would in a real scenario would be the biggest factors for me. (For example, no JLPT grammar questions, rather seeing, looking up and understanding the grammar in native content)
I very much look forward to how my Journey will continue in my 4th year. Thank you for reading!

ok so i have lots to detail and ill try to organize it. i was just in a relationship w a girl diagnosed w bpd. she left her ex and started dating me really soon after. i thought everything was fine and i wanted a life together but cracks slowly started to show in the pretty picture's frame. these cracks are not caused by bpd i just added her diagnosis to add context, situations like this require nuance and there's other factors involved.
around a month in she started getting drunk often at least a couple times a month and would yell at me. the first time it happened she was yelling at me that I'm gonna hate her and blame my trauma from my physically abusive ex on her. i hadn't had any criticisms of her yet so this felt very out of left field and i just stayed quiet and let her get angry at me.
during that time she told me about her friend "A" getting cheated on. "A" lives with another friend "S" and A's boyfriend. S fucked A's boyfriend for months until getting a boyfriend herself and she only told my ex about it, but she knew from the start and would only tell her to stop but didn't tell anyone or expose her doing it no matter how long it kept going. my ex told me and her ex. now she is lying pretending that she never told me it and that it didn't happen at all and i know this is just gaslighting because its such a clear and memorable story that we talked about a ton of times. i dont understand how she can so easily lie to protect herself from criticism or responsibility for hiding it from her friend for so long.
recently she was on call with me while triggered and she started yelling at me about how im a liar and would wanna date our mutual friend which is not true and obviously affected me pretty badly to hear, i was begging her to stop and saying idk how to reassure her and she just kept calling me a liar etc and fighting for the fact that she felt right about it.
another recent incident is that she asked me if i would kiss and worship the ground she stepped on if she was god. this one is a pretty insane one. i said no because i felt uncomfortable being asked such a weirdly narcissistic question (even for her). this made her upset and triggered and she told me she didn't wanna tell me why in fear of judgement despite me saying I wouldn't as even for something so insane i still didn't really judge her at the time i just saw it as a red flag a little but something that will be ok regardless.
the relationship ended with me criticizing some behaviours. i told her how her yelling at me while drunk and other behaviours she hadn't apologized for were weighing down on me. these behaviours include telling me im sensitive for saying her making fun of me was hurting my feelings and the incident of her accusing me of wanting to date a friend. after this the relationship slowly fell apart for the next month before the eventual breakup. she said she couldn't trust me anymore and that she couldn't handle being with someone who doesn't actually view her as who she is. this felt insulting because all i had ever done was point out actual behaviors without being mean whilst she accused me of things and literally told me im a gaslighting egoist for saying that her fighting w me over me being hurt by her making fun of me wasn't really fair since she was essentially arguing that it wasn't meant to hurt my feelings but i was saying like just because you didn't wanna harm someone while mocking them doesn't mean it cant still be harmful and that it still affected me. she also fought me over me saying its not fair for her to say i dont care about her because she was upset saying i dont care and arent trying when shes the one whos been busy and unable to call and i tried to explain that with my autism and stuff my social battery gets very overwhelmed texting a lot and she expected almost constant answers and focus on our conversation essentially not letting me distract in any of my interests and i was trying to explain that I'm trying to find a healthy balance. she called me an egoist for that and just said everytime she gets mad i just argue that its not fair which is simply just not true I've apologized for many things and it feels like quite the opposite and that she does exactly that about large situations.
there was also a situation where we were talking about the future of the world and she essentially just told me my reasoning isnt realistic and i was like damn thats a bit subjective in my head but decided i would try rephrasing the same thing and told her i dont feel like her reasoning is realistic to see if she'd understand how her saying it was just pointlessly invalidating and disengaging with the discussion. this made her extremely pissed and she got mad and yelled a bit until i explained that I just said exactly what she said and that it was meant to be a point about how saying that didn't actually mean anything and obviously i dont just view her ideas as invalid or not worth hearing. she calmed down and said sorry but it was a really scary situation and i just stopped saying my opinions when i could feel that she was charged in the same way as that time. and to add context i dont have like weird opinions or views like im not racist or an incel or anything it was literally only ever about times where we're speculating on the future not about anything controversial really as for the most part we held pretty similar beliefs across the board.
im having a hard time coping i dont know how she could lie and gaslight me about the cheating thing when we've talked about it so much and everything just feels so insulting she essentially just left as soon as she faced any sort of critism instead of me just quietly letting her yell at me like i used to always do out of fear and its hard its just sad and disappointing i thought she was an ok person.
another red flag at the beginning of the relationship was her making a love playlist for me on Spotify except all of the songs literally described the girl just getting abused in a toxic relationship and it felt so icky that she was saying that all of those songs make her think of me since it felt very weird compared to like the actual love songs that made me think of her.
she told me she wanted to get married etc and i recognize now that this was narcissistic love bombing rather than reality. my physically abusive ex had bpd and npd and across the relationship with this ex i recognized a lot of npd traits showing up. like before we dated and even after she would talk obsessively about ideal love and project the image of that onto me saying how perfect and similar we are etc. she wanted "princess" treatment which is an obsession with special treatment which is also an npd diagnostic trait. she got upset i wouldn't kiss the ground she stepped on and exploited her friend by lying that she wasn't cheated on to save face and i can see how these all show traits of npd but its still hard not to reel with self doubt since i wanted things to be so much better and its so disappointing. how do you guys cope with things like this im having a hard time mourning the person that was never really there.
has anyone else here experienced similar stuff an such blatant lying, do you think she'll ever actually care to admit her behavior

Hello everyone. I find myself in a challenging situation and would greatly appreciate your help, as it is affecting me mentally.
I am currently pursuing a PhD in theoretical physics in a European country, with the program expected to last 3-4 years. I am already 1.5 years into the program and am very happy and motivated with my research topic. I work consistently and productively, and enjoy what I do. My supervisor, a knowledgeable man in his mid-40s, is not a good mentor. The lab is small, consisting of 5 PhD students and 1 postdoc, with only the postdoc and myself being international students.
The issue I am facing is the lack of guidance from my supervisor and the strained relationship we have. He shows no interest in my progress, results, or research, and provides zero feedback. Communication is difficult, and it is clear that we both find each other annoying. Despite my attempts to establish regular meetings and get feedback, he has expressed no interest as he said he does not have time for this. I completed a project he provided me with, but it seems he is unsure of what I should do next.
If he was like that to everyone I would feel that the issue is not me. But this is not the case. He follows more or less similar treatment to everyone apart from one PhD student, who is 4 months senior to me. To him, he behaves in a completely different and more supportive manner, like a mentor. It is obvious that he likes him the most. They keep talking about research to each other's offices almost on a daily base sometimes they even talk about small things. Yet, establishing weekly meeting with me is too busy for him. I feel isolated and disadvantaged in this situation, which has impacted me negatively. I consider myself motivated and knowledgeable but my powers have a limit.
I have tried to address this by conceiving and starting 2 projects and seeking collaboration with another professor from a different country. This goes well even though my supervisor continues to show little interest in these projects. I have even discussed this with my therapist, as it makes me feel incapable and insecure, thinking that I do something wrong and sometimes have thoughts that he is racist against me.
My questions for you are:

1. What should I do in this situation? I am reluctant to change supervisors, as I am passionate about my research topic and enjoy the work conditions overall.
2. How can I deal with the insecurities and lack of motivation? These are triggered by overhearing conversations between my supervisor and the other PhD student.
3. I am concerned that the lack of mentorship will harm my career progression. Do you share this concern? While I have grown in independence and can network and initiate projects, I understand this may not be ideal compared to having a mentor like a lot of my peers have.

Apologies for the long post, I want to make it as clear as possible!

For context I've used H pattern shifters in sims since the very first commercially available Act-Labs shifter in the early 2000s, the different Logitech G series offerings, the Thrustmaster TH8A, and for the last 5 years I've been using the Frex GP.
I have not owned but have used the Pro-Sim shifter at a local sim shop so I can draw comparisons to this unit as well.
Of the above mentioned if I had my choice budget not being in question I would certainly go for the Pro-Sim, it simply had the most satisfying two stage feel to the gear engagement (getting into neutral and then getting into gear) however, at over 3x the price of the Frex I just felt like it didn’t offer enough to justify the move. Frex also simulates the two stage feel through detents on the shaft that gets acted on by a spring ball plunger, however with the Pro-Sim this feeling is much more pronounced. I kept going back to the shop over the last few years picking up the odd piece of equipment and giving the Pro-Sim a row each time but at the end of the day I figured I'd hold out for something "active".
On the subject of "Well does it feel like getting into gear in a real car", having driven dozens of cars I don't recall any two that feel the same. The feeling has been anything from G25 like spongy and sloppy in a 2007 Accord, to a very mechanical sharp and direct feel of a Mk4 Golf, to everything else in between. I have never driven anything race prepped that is H pattern equipped but I've rowed through some gears at an auto show in a stock car and a touring car and these felt closer to what the Pro-Sim feels like vs road cars.
Naturally the next thing in the evolution of the shifter was some kind of feedback, something to take the simulation further and prevent getting into gear if you aren't doing the correct things. Frex did this a long time ago but ultimately it wasn’t realistic as it was a mechanical solution, you have to press the clutch to shift gear and in real life both synchromesh and dog boxes allow for shifting clutches with correct technique.
On to the Bash Pro.
Construction is solid and the unit is heavy. The only nonmetal bits are what I'd call the dust guard, buttons and electronics housing frame components that are not stressed in any way. I wish the dust guard bit was polished in some way so you do not see the obvious 3d printer markings, same can be said for the other 3d printed bits, but hey if this shaved off some decent dollars from construction cost than why not. I've read a lot of "at this cost and 3d printed bits" and quite frankly I don't get the comments, the cost is actually "fair" considering the price of the competition.
Aesthetically its nothing to look at and if it were up to me I'd do away with the carbon fiber box for electronics and just make it all metal. I swapped the original 6+R knob for the black/carbon Frex knob and I think it looks miles better. It’s just a box that is pure function and I will take the footprint of this unit over the very cool looking competition any day. It does come with a mounting plate and easily screws into a piece of 40xXX profile. In my case it screwed into the Advanced Sim Racing shifter plate. The software controlling the unit is a plugin for SimHub.
How does it feel?
It has the gear engagement feel of the Pro-Sim at a 3rd of the size. There is a two stage feel to shifting gears but even more so due to the programable delay and the blocking gate mechanism. For delay we are talking about milliseconds, but it really makes for a great, into neutral and then into gear feel. There is a very strong and pronounced feel in taking it out of gear, into neutral, and then into gear again. The throw is heavy, but I don’t think its adjustable, this might be an issue for some, I’ll gladly leave it as is as I prefer heavy controls all around. In H sync mode you can control the delays between each gears, for example 1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6 can all have different delay timing set, or just remove delay all together. The unit is loud just like its pears.
The parts of the shaft which slide into the gates/gears have spinning bearings attached, the gates themselves are very thick as is the lockout gate which are all rounded off. The bearings fit perfectly into the slots which results in absolutely no play/slop when in gear and in a very smooth action when sliding in and out of the gates. In neutral position the lever just returns to middle position without bouncing around like the Frex would. The staged feel is achieved by the gate returning to the lockout position as soon as you pop into neutral and then muscle your way through the now "allowed to move away" lockout gate and into gear.
Price wise, this shifter comes in cheaper than the BDH and way cheaper than the Pro-Sim, making it a no brainer for me. There is nothing those shifters offer over the Bash Pro at this stage, hopefully the unit proves to be reliable. I do not like to talk about price/value as it’s really about what you want/need and willing to spend on something and from watches to cars, it starts at next to nothing to won’t afford it in a lifetime. But in this case, I must say it is good value if you compare it to the high-end competition. This is an innovative product, first of its kind, and its clocking in at a significant discount over the competition. This stands in stark contrast to the Simucube Active pedal, which is a first of its kind, and is an end-game product, however, the cost of this offering reflects it. With the Bash Pro you got something similar, something moving the hobby to the next level and its cheaper than its “passive” neighbours.
As I type this up, Pro-Sim is working on an addon for their H and sequential boxes that will also block out gears when not doing this correctly, and this is great news for existing Pro-Sim owners. This unit will also work off of SimHub, will be curious to see what kind of options it will have.

Leonardo da Vinci

Class: Ruler
True Name: Leonardo da Vinci
Gender: Young-Girl Type
Source: History, Fate/Grand Order
Region: 2017 Antarctica
Alignment: Lawful Summer
Height: 144cm
Weight: 36.5kg
Strength: D
Endurance: C
Agility: B
Mana: A
Luck: A+
Noble Phantasm: B
Scenario Writer: Yuuichirou Higashide Character Design: Simosi CV: Sakamoto Maaya
Main Appearance: Fate/Grand Order
Class Skills
Riding: EX The talent for riding. She controls the dinosaur-shaped mecha she invented this time.
Item Construction: A The inventor aspect of hers is more pronounced this time compared to her artistic side. The dinosaur-shaped mecha exemplifies this the most.
Magic Resistance: B The Magic Resistance skill acquired as a Ruler. Her durability has slightly improved.
Personal Skills
Dreaming Machine: A A series of support-type dinosaur mecha Da Vinci gave up sleep to develop. Each one has its own unique (though admittedly simple) AI that gives them a degree of autonomy, and they all move just as you'd expect dinosaurs to move.
Triceratops: Fiamma (Italian for "flame") Futabasaurus: Mare (Italian for "ocean") Archaeopteryx: Vento (Italian for "wind")
Treasure Checker: B A treasure-tracking skill Da Vinci gained for her very first treasure hunt. While it's normally meant to detect gold, silver, and other similar ores, in battle, it also serves as a form of active sonar.
Shining at Twilight: EX Every adventure has to end sometime. Once the Singularity disappears, it will be as though the treasure hunt never happened. But, no matter how strong the twilight may have been, there was always something bright shining. Although this skill may resemble Dream Upon the Star, it has very different effects.
Noble Phantasm
Unforgettable Summer Vacation, Dream Of White
Rank: A NP Type: Anti-Personnel Range: 1 - 10 Maximum Targets: 1
Dinosaur Summer Goodbye. Da Vinci transforms her mecha dinosaurs into bullets and fires them with her trusty magical pistol. Each mecha dinosaur "round" has different effects. Although older Mystics are usually stronger, Da Vinci's mecha dinosaurs fall into the cutting-edge category, so unfortunately, their Mystic power is somewhat lacking. Fortunately, Da Vinci's ingenuity is more than enough to compensate for this particular shortcoming.
Character
First person pronoun: watashi Second person pronoun: kimi/aitsu/○○(calling them by name with no honorifics) Third person pronoun: kare (for males)/kanojo (for females)/○○(calling them by name with no honorifics)
○ Personality
Although her class has changed from Rider to Ruler, her personality seems to be unchanged. That said, she does seem more curious than usual, and she has to hold herself back from running around excitedly wherever she goes, though that may just be because she's in a Singularity. And who can blame her, since she finally has the chance to experience something she's so far only been able to observe from the sidelines.
Da Vinci had almost started to ask Master to tell her all about the latest adventure, as she always does, but then, she remembered that she would get to experience it herself this time, and flashed an embarrassed, but happy smile.
○ Motives and attitude towards Master
"I wonder what exciting adventure you'll take me on next?" she asks with excited eyes.
Her excitement is about 30% higher than usual, resembling a girl her age, and her responsible side is slightly subdued as she eagerly awaits the thrilling and earth-shattering events she'll experience.
○ Example lines
"Oh, that's interesting! Now, what kind of adventure will you take me on next?" "What should I do, Master? This stegosaurus has imprinted on me." "Goredolf, you're so tyrannical!!!"
○ Character Portrayal in Fate/GO
This summer has a sense of adventure in the air...
That's how the young-girl type da Vinci adjusted her Spiritron Dress with her gaze.
She investigated the various events that have occurred so far, and intends to enjoy them to the fullest.
Although not interested at first, pirate treasure accidentally fell into her hands.
As a result, an unforgettable summer mayhem unfolds.
At the center of this mayhem are Leonardo da Vinci and Christopher Columbus.
Though these two lived during the same period, there is no historical evidence of them ever having met.
The child a young Da Vinci spoke to about her dreams probably went by a different name, and the same is most likely true for the child to whom a young Columbus confided his dreams.
Regardless, the two children set off on different paths, each determined to make their respective dream come true.
It was a promise made just as the sun was setting. Two children talking about their dreams, though whether it actually happened is anyone's guess.
Of course, it has nothing to do with her.
○ Summer Position
Looking at the records of minute Singularities is one of the few ways Da Vinci is able to entertain herself.
"What in the world happened here?" "How did such a crazy Singularity even exist?" She would think about how the Servants who were trapped there must have felt, or laugh at seeing her predecessor's complaining in the accompanying records, even though she knew she shouldn't.
Though Da Vinci had always admired Singularities, she never thought she would get to experience one herself. That she finally has a chance to do so feels like nothing short of a precious gemstone, and she plans to make the most of it in every way she can.
○Connection to other Characters
Steggy She happened to be imprinted when it hatched from its egg. Though she says "Oh no," she doesn't seem bothered at all. Sensing the impending parting, she takes care of the Stegosaurus.
Columbus (as a boy) When they were children, they apparently talked about their dreams. Unfortunately, neither of them have a clear memory of it. He wonders if he (she) has forgotten about it as an adult. Columbus, however, doesn't remember anything in particular as an adult.
Goredolf "Let's enjoy the summer with each other", she thinks. Meanwhile, Goredolf thought, "Well, it can't be helped", and worked hard at cooking.
Protagonist, Mash "Come on, let's enjoy the summer together!" she says enthusiastically. Since the two of them are very easygoing, they go along with it.
Sherlock Holmes I wondered why he wasn't enjoying the summer, but I soon realized it was because his coat was too hot! It can't be helped...
There's no way it can't be helped.
Comment from Illustrator "Adventure to Treasure Island?" That was the plan, so I dressed her up in an adventurer-style outfit with a bikini underneath. I had prepared a character illustration of her wearing a white swimsuit for her Spiritron Dress, but due to various circumstances it was shelved. Since I had the chance, I had it published in this magazine. While the design of da Vinci herself was simple, the amount of work involved in designing the dinosaur-mecha and Steggy was quite a lot. (Simosi)
Notes: • Her True Name is what it says, which is surprising since it's not Gran Cavallo like every other time they write it. Even her in-game profile puts in Gran Cavallo. • Her personal skills, NP, personality, part of her character profile and summer position are all taken from her in-game profile since I found them identical there. • The white swimsuit Simosi was talking about is the one da Vinci wears in her FA.

Introduction

Christian religious education is defined as the process where by Christian learning takes place. It often involves “teaching which enables practicing Christians to adopt and deepen their Christian belief, values and dispositions to experience and act in a Christian way. It depends to a greater extent on how this process is adopted and practiced in different churches.

Different practices in Christian education in local churches

At some degree of certainty that all Christian churches have a similar aim’s and practices. The liturgical aspect is of paramount importance in the Trinitarian belief and practices in that it serves as introduction to what Christianity is all about. This is where the process of Cognitive learning takes places it involves the worship service where hymns are sang, lessons extracted from the books of the bible are read, sermon often punctuated with exhortation, admonishment and instruction in righteous living is delivered and prayers are said. It also involves the celebration of the holy Eucharist which Jesus Christ himself, recognized as the head of the church, initiated based on experience acquired in the worship service, it can be seen as Christian religious education is a confessional churchly activity of evangelism, instruction and nurture.
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I assure that “Youth are the most critical of all critics when it comes to religion”. Today, common inhabitants do pray and accept the holiness in church for Christ which they are aware that Christ constitutes the sacred bread and wine, but do not entirely act upon worshipping and fail to confront the thoughts and feelings to masses which would spread dignity of godliness among selves. The moral lies in the fact that this creates lackness to reach spiritual beliefs through worship and liturgy resulting in declination the faith which affects the divine nature approaching positivity.
Christian education is a vital important part in youth development. For Christian education to be explored, generation of today should be brought into contact through various practices. In the early centuries, reformers emphasized and trusted true faith and doctrines, to change and reform behaviour as the only solution for salvation in Christian education. Christian school movements prove a challenge as a messenger to convey god’s given mission and honour god.

Traditional approach

This approach was practiced since many decades and is still continued to be practiced which helps in binding and governing the ethics and morality within the religion and belief. Since beginning described, in leaving our homeland to teach the gospels throughout the world through scriptures, god conveyed his message – by sending his son Jesus for us, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church, and Baptism for building unity.
Christianity consists of three things – Religious faith, way of life and community of mankind towards salvation are most important. The most vital of all belief preached is that there is only one god. The term Christian does not imply on the fact that a Christian should grow up in a Christian community, but precisely accepts Christian faith and belief, follows and leads the path of life on which Jesus walked on and made mankind accept Christian community through involvement and participation physically and mentally, as a result, traditional approach is how the local churches and preachers go about conducting their services. The apostle’s creed was apparently developed to summarize the Christian doctrine for man who baptised himself.

Theological and Biblical approach

This approach is regarded as an abstract discipline which teaches what bible is written. It is the study of god expressing god’s thought. The movement of bible indicates the doctrines to the kerygma to didache, to theological ethics, to revealed truth, to the way of living in Christian community.
God’s salvation to the world, worshipping the holy spirit, baptizing people in the name of god, preaching gospels as the word of god, share Christ’s own body and blood as bread and wine in holy communion, repenting and confessing god’s forgiveness etc are the concepts of theological and biblical foundation to Christian education. Even though mankind is aware but fail to involve due to the increasing evil and greed.
The service is organized to accept the call of god and to love him and others and which aims to gather people to worship him in return allowing him to take control over the world and through his presence spread peace, righteousness, justice, joy and helps in the growth of the life in an individual through increased faith.

Activities organized and performed in different local churches through to these practices

Some churches develop the initiative of the worshippers by confessing their faith in the words of the apostle creed. Each activity is correlated and composes a range of varied elements. Their current activities reflect the lives of an individual and drive them for a purpose through various numbers of activities to attain a better quality of life.
Due to activities, all age group gain variety of skills through many spiritual centred activities. Church acts as an interpreter between god and the worshippers to support in training the composition of these activities which are far more complex to solve a disturbed youth. They have to thereby standardize their curriculum and activities in regards to implement it. Different denominations organize activities to resolve the aim therefore to meet the need of the youth. Curriculum should be more focused than just on providing knowledge.
Activities are necessarily planned to build youth commitment. I believe it is necessary to reach them, i.e. train them to be strong future leaders. They should be kept one step ahead, for their life is very challenging. I believe that the best way to outreach youths mind is to be a youth like them to understand their psychology as it differs from every individual. The same activities do get affected as the youth is choosy and subtle.

Changing activities for tomorrow

Here the question is voiced that, what substantial change can be brought apart from the current activities to eradicate the above upcoming and dynamic problems in nature with respect to behavioural management or of what medication of healing would work out.
I would comment, the activities in the practices should be expanded and conduct likewise programmes workshops on educating purity before marriage, sex, child abuse, exploitation, rape, adultery, adolescence sex, teenage mothers, drugs addiction, aids, and divorce. Workshops, seminars for sex, abuse, peer mentoring, identifying preventive measures instead of curative measures targeting the social, political and the economical factors would be effective for incorporating the overall issues to bring the insight of the good and evil sides of every consequence, discussion on essential real life skills. Our goal is to create “world changers”, inviting the sacrifiers of evil and giving and sharing healthy priorities to save ourselves and the world, before it becomes a terrible fate and a debt for our own selves.
As the world is in unsafe fists of crime, terrorism, corruption, violence, youth have been diverted to a fast-paced and expects instant opportunities. Perhaps, the approaches of these local activities tend to be helpful and may bring positive results but I still feel that there is something missing, to monitor the youth from within. In an article – Practical: The Role of the Full-Time Youth Pastor in the Local Church, by Graeme Codrington, Denomination: Baptist (All), submitted on, May 18, 1997, states that, “In a world that is so busy, and demands so much of all of its inhabitants, young people need a secure environment, where they can experiment and decide who they want to be. They need significant people to be there to help them through this process. They need role models to follow”.
Above statement eventually satisfies the fact that these folks are craving for friendly support socially and for stimulation. Overall factors which conglomerate are peers, parents, teachers, church members and Christian community. All factors rely on one common feature which constitutes leadership. Ironically, most youth do understand the surrounding factors but the factors themselves become tough unknowingly that they can’t quite control the situation which then becomes too late to recover. The task is questioned commonly as what kind of leader a person should be to prove creditability and capability to influence the youth to pursue the direction towards god? In an article again stated by, Graeme Codrington, Denomination: Baptist (All), – Practical: The Role of the Full-Time Youth Pastor in the Local Church, submitted on, May 18, 1997, “Young people are not just “little adults” (cf. Elkind 1984:18). They are complex individuals who are battling to deal with the awesome transformation of their bodies, minds, and emotions. They are in a time of transition and growth, developing from the birthed bundle of potential to a fully integrated, functional member of society. The church is in a unique position to assist in this process”. Church as a role model fosters spiritual growth in every youth making them responsible to participate in Christian faith; she is a sign for an entrance of the god’s kingdom to the world of salvation, repentance, justice and peace to bring equality. She struggles hard and performs her duties wholly and solemnly reminds parents to structure their offspring’s life in Christian formation.
Church members acting as supporters, preach to establish and to promote a platform and share to encourage several types of civic, cultural, religious educational associations. In an article by Arthur Paul Boer – What must a Pastor know? Reflection on Congregational studies defines on writer James Hopewell’s statement saying beyond the embarrassment. “He has also observed that churches are sometimes chagrined by the change of hypocrisy and lament that they cannot measure upto ideals of Christian community”. Writer James Hopewell referred by Arthur Paul Boer notes that Christian leaders are incharge and build a church thereby rise in hypocrites. I observe practically that, though the world is changing, church strategy is also changing in complementing the growth. It still targets the set mission. Even though, somewhere in the corner hypocrites do exist but church leaders aim to find out what is the outcome in the people from the traditional, theological and biblical practices.
Perhaps according my research, I suggest they experiment bringing out good approaches to youth’s growth. Instead of the current activities followed in churches I would want to suggest the approach can be focused to bring in the outcome irrespective to exploration and innovation of ideas and thoughts for internal and external behaviour of an individual related to the surroundings around him, deepening of commitments to the teaching, provide opportunities to analyse socially and theologically and viewing his life in a theological manner. To build a framework of an activity consist of – to have an experience “like us”, to sense new boundaries by exploring new links to every Christian among themselves and to god across social and cultural boundaries.
In addition, exploration and inventive programmes can be executed to judge youth’s spirituality. Daily opportunities resulting in disorientation gets support through mission of god. Integration conceptual activities also can help in building and to capture ‘a born leader’. Church leader serves them as task leaders in the corrosion and freeing the task of a disconnected mind by planning tactics and dividing the burden of other’s through consultation. As the purpose is commitment, to serve the lost, skill based leadership formation training programmes can be organized to develop an effective leader so as to sustain the capability and capacity of the leader to solve the complaints lies in the dimensions of the ability. Workshops on intersections to shape boundaries of an individual and communities through theological and biblical language, symbols, and rituals to attain certain centered objectives.
As growth of globalization is tremendous, these leaders come across and face new opportunities and challenges. I believe they help in building an integral performance in conducting entrepreneurial business-based activities, describing the activities because youth’s mind is business-oriented, therefore the activities are to be structured keeping business in mind involving biblical and theological approaches with the existing resources for a business oriented youth. They tend to produce facilitate management sources to sustain and develop faith and love. When the youth develops a church from within, he will be able to observe and analyse the holistic environment.
The activities require presence of not only church members but also worshippers for youth development in successful implementation of these practices. Some worshippers form in small groups, some large varied to race culture. Arthur Paul Boer also examines simultaneously that when a group of pastors were having service of congregation, one among them exclaimed in deep breath “It showed me I’m not alone”. So often in our churches we berate ourselves for problems we face: not enough men, too few youth, preponderance of a certain race or culture. He is clear with the fact that a single person fails, unity increases strength. We ourselves give birth to a problem and then strive hard to face it because as there are few leaders left to catch a grip to support a large community. Due to less number of youth, less support is achieved to sustain the laws and policies of the church and unable to accomplish god’s mission. It is not only one who contributes but many. Above mentioned statement “It showed me I’m not alone” expresses that each race and culture form their own group; build small churches for their own community within their own boundaries, where god expects togetherness, wholeness. It requires lot of efforts to help small churches grow whereas large church with mass contribution grows as their already exist efforts in large numbers which take over the chained actions for development. Whether single church group or many, big or small, the development is important.
On this contradiction, I would suggest that this also includes that in small group the development is paid more attention and given a close eye, problems are spotted quickly and easily to meet the challenges. No matter how large or small challenges occur, the way we approach it is unique and comprehensive as this brings out effects of development in the youth. Whereas in large it becomes difficult to assist as there are more than one individuals. Due to small groups according to races and culture, differentiation exists. But the important criterion is group commitment and work effort in all sets of practice for congregations in any race or culture for a healthy youth so that to accomplish god’s mission. As a result both objectives are co-related to each other.
To understand the nature of Christian youth it is a very distinguished and a unique phenomenon. Due to the increasing issues of ‘peer pressure’, this has led to the obstruction in the development of youth. There are negative as well as positive aspects of it. Negative aspects influence a weaker mind. It is the most consistent findings revealed in observation. Due to the inquisitive innocence, an innocent becomes a prey of the negative aspect, thereby exploited and develops an evil companionship where he adopts negative qualities and habits. But there is positive aspects as in there are some groups who work towards peer relationship. Here innocent gets an opportunity to identify his fear, weakness and have control over his own power. The peer mentors play the part in organizing programmes to understand the behaviour. They interact with the teens and open lines of communication, build up action plans to change the behaviour by using the discipline skills wherever necessary. As church members play an integrate role, it is a challenge for them to develop the youth and make Christian education reachable to them.
Teachers are responsible preachers. Youth growth depends on a teacher infact they are the true facilitators of our learning, are Baptist figures and true authors of an individual’s life book. They also act as the resource developer and planner setting the curriculum for the healthy growth of an individual, depending how the curriculum is designed with the kind and level of leadership skills to recognize the youth psychology. Parents play a significant role in Christian education. They are the promising leaders which shape up Christianity, infact are the real teachers of Christian education. Parents act as a moral standard and support, therefore can synchronize to their growing youth to be aware from their early hood to gain knowledge in Christian faith and this is done when they themselves too experience a fullness of church.
Misunderstandings and miscommunication between parents and their children are one of the issues which follow breakings in the development of the youth. Due to parent’s own principles, for respect and love of family values often creates harmness to the children’s growth which tempts them to behave against them. Thus youth becomes a totalitarian of his own life by going against the values and ethics and unknowingly gets stucked in the torturous situations. Most Christian youth, fail to act upon the 10 commandments of bible.
I must say, I myself as a youth in my real life experience have observed that the originality of the commandments has changed excessively and replaced with the following:
Thou must worship money
Thou must “lyrically” murder
Thou must have evil possession
Thou must have sex
Thou must enjoy drug addiction
Thou must prosper, worship own self
Thou must not feel guilty
Thou must have no respect for ancestral values
Thou must not serve, sacrifice
Thou must differentiate
Due to the above, youth fails to feel guilty in which guiltness is a part of our conscience creating a false belief system as an obstacle in his maturity and creating structure of his own. Under such circumstances he avoids promoting prayer, sacrifice, grace, redemption, worship and meditation, atonement. Considering money and sex are the only two things reliable to satisfy the needs, creating a limitation and a boundary for establishing personal spiritual growth and development.
In general terms, when the efforts of religious and educational institutions, society lack to perform the planned task for Christian education, a positive approach is expected and constructed to gain knowledge and teaching through parents and teachers. Youth must be aware of guiltiness which is a gift from god to help us in being and doing well.
Still the question is raised in a Journal: Volume 5 Number 4, October 2003 by Author Charlene Tan, “Can Christian teachers and parents teach Christian beliefs without indoctrinating their students and children?”
Yes, they can teach Christian beliefs without indoctrinating their students and children they need to be careful when a child is to be handled as their minds are immature. At times it is difficult to understand them because their way of thinking is varied. Firstly before going to the next process, the first process has to be resolved. As teachers and parents are the role models for the development. In order to develop and understand these three role models should be systematically developed first. Only by abiding this rule, they can achieve the development in child. But the point lies beneath that how teachers and parents can prove themselves as an effective source of development by keeping in mind the relative factor of Child’s mind compatibility and psychology? As there are variations in psychological behavior teachers and parents should be mentally prepared, be changeable and adjustment oriented accordingly.
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The political and current affair of the nation is affected by corruption and evilness rationally which gave birth to vivid factors like jealousy, modesty and so on, making human’s built a tendency to mislead the positive factors. The situations have made the teachers adapt those inequalities within them, affecting the surrounding factors. Parents have too due to their increasing self priority created barriers of understanding among their families.
Many people are often drawn towards the attention of the church because of their felt needs and not for spiritual needs.
For instance, it does occur that why the youth is tuned out of his own way? Even in their interaction with their own members it tends to happen with them that they fail to hear a word said to them – stating “I didn’t hear a word you said?”, even though it is obvious that they have said something relating to us. This proves a kind of negligence in contacting the positive mechanism which grows in the back of our minds. Such system blocks all the wanted and useful messages allowing us to hear and see only what our mind tells us to hear and believe. As this tendency is increased in the youth generation, it is creating gaps between a believer and faith of god.
The question is – How? How can we overcome this problem? Youth have themselves developed a capacity in mind to hear only what pleasures them without taking a decision that whether it is false or truth. My query is – How we can bring these groups of youth closer to god? Unconsciously resulting in unexpected calamities and unknowingly they are unable to repent it wisely. Due to this increasing factor, youth can’t get a grip of effective communication and develop themselves internally. Here the parents then enter the scene to play their role.

The main question lies whether the local churches fulfill and meet to mature disciples in Christian education?

As stated above, ‘youth’ are the most critical of all critics when it comes to religion. In this modern era, youth is distracted to church because they are building castles in air due to the unmaterialistic desire. Youth today have focused their vision to crave success and prosperity for their rising life graph; they exploit their own ones due to greed and selfishness. During the primary phase of struggle and hard work, youth craves to achieve prosperity, at the same time, do thank god and accept his involvement for success, but hand in hand, lack to follow the bibles ethics which says to respect others in and with unity. Due to the competition and growth politically, more often youth seem to push the fellow mates and strive to takeover their place. They themselves are unaware that they give birth to exploitation and inequality. And due to inequality, unity is declined, wherein bible does not specify inequality. In a book source, Pastor – “Rick Warren’ – illustrates in his book – The Purpose-Driven Church -“The issue is church health, not church growth!” declares warren. “if your church is healthy, growth will occur naturally. Healthy consistent growth is the result of balancing the five biblical purposes of the church.”
In addition to this he also declares that “If u concentrate on building people, God will build the church”.
I agree at a certain point with the above statement. I herewith would want to magnify on “How would one build a healthy youth for a healthy church”? In this sense I believe that both are co-related with each other. Again the issue arises in my mind ‘How will the church be healthy if the youth is unhealthy?’ The issue can’t be only concentrated on church. For a church to survive, the basic foundation is the youth and for the youth to be saved and attracted the church has to be healthy. In my knowledge it is a ‘Vicious Circle’.
Local churches upto some extent do specifically fulfill the discipleship through the practices and play a great emphasis in fulfilling and conveying the message of god to us, but still lack to read the minds and bring the youth closer to her, for which she has to upgrade her atmospheric appearance with new packages to reach the youth in a new taste due to the competitive modernism which is hovering on the youth.
The latter part can play the best part coz when first falls in place, everything else falls in place, from the beginning to the end, from all angles in all walks of life. Towards a healthy faith, healthy church can turn and seed a growth of spirituality through which mankind will grow spiritually from within thereby causing church growth.
Author Perry G. Down states in his book – “Teaching for spiritual growth” that ‘how can we best enable Christians to grow towards maturity?’ For this question he suggests three key concepts- ministry, believer, and purpose. But my understanding says that these concepts are incomplete somewhere to create a bond in reaching the results because today’s youth is attracted towards the unrealistic worldly matters, but has resulted in declination towards the god’s spiritual growth. The major role connecting these three concepts is commitment and effort. As the church ministry is the foundation pillar, the main aim is how much measure of commitment is valued and given to achieve the target successfully. Mankind is able to commit only when he chooses the right direction in fear and is able but this is unfortunate as the alien world tend to let us unidentify the type of strategies of growth for maturity. By identifying the type of strategies of growth, we can understand the level of growth required towards maturity at which we can be spiritual. Another reason for in growth is fear. As the youth fears to face unexpected problems, the efforts are less and require the hierarchy’s support.
Author Gary C. Newton stated in his book – “Going towards spiritual maturity” quotes the principle that “God is ultimately responsible for all spiritual growth”. The question arises at this point that if god is responsible for everything, what will be the purpose and role of human? I comment that while god supplies the resources like bible, church, Holy Spirit, baptism, it is also our responsibility to supply effort and commitment to utilize those resources and give results to god. In bible, Paul highlights this principle of his personal lifestyle and in his teachings comparing with the example of a soldier or athlete to illustrate the amount of sincerity and efforts. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27), Paul states that “In a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize”. I herewith conclude in a Christian race all runners (ministry, believers, purpose) will fail to get a prize if there is no effort that is commitment from everyone.
Along with the concept of ministry, believer, purpose; effort is also the key concept and it has to be achieved from the youth as well. A healthy youth will gain efforts only when the growth will favour them from within, when the forces of the ministry believers and youth will collide with each other to form a healthy growth.
This will create a mutual relationship between god’s provisional resources and our active involvement in process which is more clearly in Philippians 2:12-13: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is god who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”. This principle is intricate but the application is clear.
If one is to grow towards maturity in Christ then one must cultivate and demonstrate the efforts with passion, Philippians 2:17-18: ” But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you be glad and rejoice with me”.
Therefore the conclusion lies in the above concept, both; effort of the youth along with the work of ministry, believers proves in the healthiness of the church. In the book “Youth At Risk” by Peter Christian Olsen, 2003, he highlights four basic needs which he has clearly created an awareness of the effects that affects the development of youth:
Acceptance – belonging
New beginnings and second chances – forgiveness
Significance – generosity
Freedom – independence
I agree with his confirmation that he examines in deriving the above developmental needs from the provision of the Almighty’s resources as the absence of these needs do intentionally contribute in how they shape the personality, maturity, responsibility and stability of emotions. He emphasizes Christian community in respond to the needs determining that, the resources will be polishing youth through support during the fear and avoid them from destruction. At times the concepts will be foreign, indigestive for youth because unable to realize its importance. Rather the community need not re-interpret or change the language but simplify their thoughts and improve their visionary and understanding by change in structure through a friendly communication by becoming an effective leader to bridge the gap between the church and the youth. Therefore forces and efforts are needed for decision making which is an effective key in respond to ministry believer and purpose for a possibility of a healthy youth to build a healthy church, which will make the church flourish.

Supporting surveys

According to a survey, some findings proved that church fails to answer every question of the youth.

Q.1 In what way and sense is Christian religion, faith and church viewed by today’s modern youth?

Youth of today’s modern era is firm on the point stating that inspiration is lacked in religion; they feel that the world is divided through religion and is the major factor which is affecting the growth. A 17-year-old Jude from Kent says confidently that “He does not agree with the church who talks on subject morality” and is “Overfilled with traditionality”.
Youth pick their ideas which suit their taste through various religious beliefs. There are few in bunch who strongly believe, there exist only single religion which has controlled the truth. Young generation refer to perform all activities as per their own desire which in return less importance to the religious belief are being given, which gives birth to the side effects of the conduct.

Q.2 Why do young crowd feel that Christianity is not a ‘happening’ cultural activity?

An 18-year-old Marcus said that he left church when he was 15 because the teachings did not amuse him and it did not interest him of anything as a youth.
The major quest, a struggle for a religion is to impose an exertion of force of involvement in terms of attraction. I usually attend church service wherein I find young ones missing the services. I kept questioning myself that, where the young crowd has disappeared? Surprisingly the young ones have taken charge for the attendance of the church. In this consequence the church should give priority to change its curriculum and its way of presenting the services with new attractive packages for enhancement.

Q.3 Are the young preachers practicing different approaches in Christianity declining. What are your suggestions?

As the attendance of the youth in church has declined, but on the other hand people practicing approaches are increasing in numbers. The following is revealed through one of the youths that more the deepening are the studies of the bible, more a person becomes a hypocrite of the Christian leadership and unintentionally accepts and performs the lifestyle of the clergy right or wrong at times unknowingly. In such case, the practices are affected and become different from those which are to be precise. Seen are still some true Christian youngsters who are different in their attitude and conduct, but in spite of such difference, they are not involved into the immorality and violence activities with other youths. They present themselves as they are from a different unknown religion, but practice the religion and it

I have been playing CoC on and off for a long time and i think i am safe to say i have never been more discontent with the leagues-system than i am now.
First of all, Legendleague sucks for anyone who isnt participating in it. Why? Similar to how in Chess a 2500 ELO GM can not compete with a 2800 ELO GM, a Player that is more likely to play at a strength of 6000 trophies will, if a 1v1 is repeated enough times, destroy ANYONE who can just about reach 5000.
This means especially in the beginning of each season, a MASSIVE influx of players getting destroyed by the Sweats restarting their Legendsgrind will flod Titanleague for a few days, and while also fighting to catch back up, will inevitably push down the ratings of other players out of Titan 1 in the process. This in itself to the individual player is not really a problem, Titan 1 has a large enough bufferspace of Trophies till you drop a league for you as a player to likely not feel a measurable difference.
What is however is the fact that by capping Trophies, Supercell also effectively created a Bungeerope that noone can run away from. This means the more players escape past the 5000 the harder they tend to crash down on anyone thats 5k. And everyone they crash into will push others similar to how you can push a bunch of blocks by pushing just one.
Higher Townhalls tend to 3-Star lower Townhalls more often than Viceversa so lower Townhalls tend to get pushed down the ranks. And with each new Townhall, all others tend to get pushed downwards even further, each time starting a vicious cycle of cascading pushes.
A few years back, high Mastersleague used to be where TH 9 and 10 would be vibing, now its EXCEEDINGLY RARE to even find a TH11 there any more, instead one would usually find Th12 Mids to Th13 Low there. But the Attackersbonus you get for destroying an enemy base does not reflect that fact. And from what i can tell it doesnt do so for ANY LEAGUE there is currently: When i was Th8 (that was long before Corona - i essentially stopped playing for a few years), the Attackerbonus i would get from playing in Gold 1 or Crystal 3 would regularly be about 30 to 40 percent of my overall loot per attack. Thats a not insignificant portion. These days, most TH8s have a hard time escaping even Silver league and iirc bonusses havent really been increased all that much since back then. So they get a much smaller percentage of Lootbonus compared to a few years ago.
And everyone that is not in high Masters or above has that problem where the Lootbonus is often borderline negligible. So we either need a rework of how Leagues work as in once you have breached a certain treshold you can no longer fall below it (Clash-Royale Style) or we need an adjustment of Leaguebonusses that reflect the current situation. With the former probably being the better solution longterm.
But this is not the only problem i see with the current trophysystem. For that, a little explanation of my current situation in the game: I am currently Townhall 12 fully Maxed and i am trying to push for Titanleague to get the better Ore-Bonuses of my Daily Starbonus (i want to do finish all my equipment before going to TH13 - dont ask me why, its a quirk of mine to always wanting to max EVERYTHING before going up). Í noticed that the maximum amount of Trophies you can get from any given base in this Area seem fundamentally disproportional to its strength. What do i mean by this: In Champ 2 and now Champ 1 I regularly get Th13 Mid to Th14 Low to attack together with the occasional Th12 Max. But how come that i get about 25 or more trophies maximum for the Th12 but often less than 10 MAX for the much stronger Th13s and 14s? If anything i would expect it to be the other way round since beating an Uptier is usually more effort and requires more planning?! This is fundamentally broken and needs adjustment IMMIDEATLY. And btw: many others of my friends in similar league- and trophyranges have mentioned experiencing the same.
What are your thoughts on this?
EDIT:
i should have clarified that most times when i get such a low-cup-attack those are actually not that far off from my trophyrange. And if I am just misreading the issue i was just facing, then matchmaking needs a rework to show you Enemies in your ELO-Range more often. Still i think Trophygain shouldnt be based on ELO alone but actually also on the overall strength of the base. That way facing off against much stronger opposition would finally feel rewarding again.

Obesity affects about 42% of the adult population in the United States and contributes to the onset of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and other conditions. Understanding the mechanisms behind this is crucial to combating the obesity epidemic. "We wanted to explore the mechanisms that might explain why late eating increases the risk of obesity," said Dr. Frank A. J. L. Scheer, the senior author of the study. Previous research indicated that late eating is associated with increased body fat and less successful weight loss.
The Study: Timing Matters The researchers asked, "Does the timing of our meals matter when all other factors are consistent?" The answer was a clear yes. Eating just four hours later than usual significantly affected hunger levels, how calories are burned after eating, and how the body stores fat.
In their controlled lab study, the team worked with 16 participants with a Body Mass Index (BMI) in the overweight or obese range. Each participant followed two eating schedules in the lab:
Normal Schedule: Eating at typical meal times. Late Schedule: Similar meals but eaten 4 hours later than usual. Before the lab sessions, participants maintained a fixed sleep-wake schedule for two to three weeks, and for the final three days, they followed a strict diet to standardize intake.
Measurements and Observations In the lab, participants reported their feelings of hunger and cravings, provided frequent small blood samples throughout the day, and had their body temperature and energy expenditure measured. To understand how meal timing affects fat storage pathways, the researchers also took fat tissue biopsies from a subset of participants under both early and late eating conditions for genetic expression analysis.
Study Findings: Hormones, Calories, and Fat Storage The study revealed profound effects of late eating on hunger and the appetite hormones leptin and ghrelin:
Leptin Levels: This satiety hormone was lower over 24 hours during the late eating condition compared to early eating. Calorie Burning: Participants burned calories at a slower rate when following the late eating schedule. Fat Storage Genes: Gene expression in fat tissue showed increased fat creation and decreased breakdown (lipolysis) under late eating conditions. These findings highlight the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the correlation between late eating and increased obesity risk.
Implications and Insights These findings align with a substantial body of research indicating that late-night eating can increase a person's likelihood of developing obesity. They elucidate how this might happen by revealing changes in different control systems related to energy balance. By conducting a randomized crossover study and tightly controlling behavioral and environmental factors like physical activity, posture, sleep, and light exposure, the investigators could pinpoint changes in different systems that control energy balance, providing a clearer picture of how our bodies use the food we consume.
This research suggests that modifying our eating times could be a straightforward approach to reduce obesity risk, improve metabolic health, and better manage appetite and fat storage.
Conclusion The study emphasizes that not just what we eat, but when we eat, plays a significant role in health outcomes related to obesity. Shifting meal times earlier could be a viable strategy for reducing hunger, improving metabolic rate, and ultimately aiding in weight management and obesity prevention.
https://youtube.com/shorts/qqFD1mZViis?feature=share
#NutritionScience #ObesityResearch #MetabolicHealth #HealthyEating #LateNightEating #WeightManagement #AppetiteControl #EnergyBalance #HealthAndWellness #DietAndHealth

Preface: This is for Vedic, Sidereal Astrology.
This took a super long time to finish, but I've finally reached a point where I think I'm done trying to improve it. This part will focus more on how Purva Bhadrapada manifests for individuals.
Nature
Purva Bhadrapada reminds me a lot of Kali Yuga. In Hindu cosmology, Kali is the final of the four ages that the world goes through as part of a continuous cycle of creation, maintenance, and dissolution. It is the final stage before the onset of a new cycle, promising the destruction of the old order and the eventual merging of all into a unified whole. It signifies a time of dual balance before dissolution of individual identities and the reunification of all existence with the divine source. This can be viewed as being similar to the process of individual death, but it is on a universal scale. Kali Yuga is considered the age of darkness and moral decline, where spiritual values deteriorate and materialism prevails. According to Hindu scriptures, Kali Yuga is characterized by widespread social, political, and moral corruption, as well as a decline in virtue and Dharma (righteousness). It is believed that, during this age, human beings face numerous challenges and spiritual tests, and the pursuit of higher consciousness becomes increasingly more difficult compared to the previous Yugas. Just as Kali Yuga tests individuals with challenges to their spiritual resolve amidst the prevailing degeneration of values, Purva Bhadrapada is a cosmic stage where one's truest nature is tested through the weakening separation of the spiritual and the material. Here, individuals are made to confront their deepest fears and desires, burdened with the challenge of facing their true nature and purifying their souls. The emphasis of this nakshatra lies in releasing attachments amidst the seduction of outer freedom and power, mirroring the spiritual trials inherent to Kali Yuga. Yet, despite challenges of degeneration, there exists a unique opportunity during the stages of both Kali and Purva Bhadrapada. Kali is believed to be the best time for spiritual progress and true liberation because individuals can attain spiritual growth more rapidly due to the intensity of the challenges they face during this period, and the same is true of Purva Bhadrapada nakshatra. Both Kali and Purva Bhadrapada emphasize the importance of transcending mundane concerns and dedicatedly seeking spiritual truth amidst the backdrop of pervading ignorance.
The primary nature of Purva Bhadrapada is that of penance and disequilibrium. Purva Bhadrapada is the stage of evolution where individuals are made to undergo intense internal transformation and dissolution, shedding layers of their being in preparation for spiritual renewal and divine return. This process of metamorphosis can be seen as a type of penance, whether embraced willingly or thrust upon them. It offers eventual rewards as they journey towards enlightenment. As the primary nature of Purva Bhadrapada revolves around penance and transformation, individuals heavily influenced by this Nakshatra are oriented towards personal introspection and societal purification, viewing their lives as both a personal quest for growth and an opportunity to contribute to something greater. Individually, they seek to cleanse themselves of past transgressions and strive for spiritual redemption, and they feel personally responsible for their impact on others. At a broader societal level, they are driven by a strong sense of justice and a duty to rectify societal wrongs of the past and present in order to contribute to the collective upliftment and purification of their community. As such, they often subject themselves and others to extreme physical, mental, and spiritual challenges. They are presented with a kind of spiritual trial of sacrifice: either they can willingly embrace self-denial and endure while remaining detached, or they can create so much desire and fear that it causes them to lose the direction of their souls in the process. While the primary manifestation of Purva Bhadrapada energy is inwardly focused on cultivating self-discipline and perfection, oftentimes to an unhealthy degree, sometimes the focus can instead shift outward. This is where Purva Bhadrapada gains a lot of its infamy; Purva Bhadrapada is revered as one of the most "difficult" and "intense" nakshatras among Vedic astrologers. It is an asterism that gets approached with trepidation due to its somber imagery and associations with themes of violence, debauchery, and malevolence. The negative traits linked to Purva Bhadrapada, such as paranoia, pessimism, and hedonism, contribute to its daunting reputation. And for the most part, the fear of this nakshatra is justified. Not only are these individuals capable of doling out punishment themselves through various means like violence, manipulation, curses, etc., but they can also inadvertently bring out the self-destructive or uncontrolled nature of others. They are the types to cause deep introspection and confrontation with one's own shortcomings and fears, often acting as catalysts for irreversible transformation of character.
In terms of Purva Bhadrapada's inherently unbalanced nature, the trajectory is quite clear. These natives are not the type to do anything in moderation and often have an unstable demeanor and sense of self. They will always be pulled towards the polar extremes of anything, but they can flip on their values rapidly following any transformative event. They may occupy the deepest levels of material saturation, completely lost in chasing fame, drugs, sex, and uncontained immoral activities. Yet, paradoxically, they can also find themselves drawn to the heights of spiritual austerity, sometimes even at the same time they are trying to maximize their material standing. This innate propensity for extremes and contradiction manifests in every aspect of their lives, from their relationships, to their goals, to their beliefs, and to their actions. They are esteemed for their amiable disposition, characterized by warmth, thoughtfulness, and a selfless inclination to assist others without seeking acknowledgment. Yet, concurrently, they are often perceived as self-serving, prone to bouts of ill temper, and housing a proclivity towards ego-centricity. Despite appearing outwardly normal a lot of the time, they can be very eccentric. They are the types to lead clandestine lives, harboring secrets and maintaining hidden facets of their personalities and activities, even to those closest to them. This can make them seem nefarious and untrustworthy. Sometimes this is the case, but despite having a reputation for deceit, many of them are known to be sincere and honorable. Yet, underlying however they are being perceived is a deeper struggle to fully identify with anything. This challenge leads to inner conflicts and uncertainties, as they grapple with their sense of self and their place in the world. They are up and down, left and right, constantly in a state of internal conflict that leaves them questioning who they really are. They can feel like they don't know themselves while still being hyper-individualistic and defensive over whatever their current sense of identity is, even though it is likely to change. These contradictions reveal the complexity of their psyche, where outer appearances often mask inner conflicts and contradictory emotions and experiences. Purva Bhadrapada natives navigate the space where boundaries are starting to blur, reflecting the burgeoning singularity of existence in their minds. Due to this, sometimes they can seem like walking contradictions, embodying multiple clashing characteristics at once. For example, while they may harbor a sense of superiority over others, they can also experience deep-seated insecurity and jealousy. They can like to be critical, but cannot handle criticism. Additionally, they might demonstrate a strong desire for independence and self-reliance, yet simultaneously crave validation and approval from those around them. These conflicting traits contribute to their complex and enigmatic nature, making them intriguing yet challenging individuals to understand to others and themselves.
Purva Bhadrapada's inclination towards extremes extends to their pursuit of goals, as they approach certain tasks with unwavering ambition and dedication. They set high standards and are willing to push themselves to extreme limits to get what they want. This relentless drive for perfection and attainment can sometimes lead them to engage in behaviors that are harmful to the well-being of themselves or others, as they struggle to find balance and moderation. At this point, you may be asking, "how is that penance if they are only striving to selfishly get what they want?" Well, the painful truth about this is that they do not really want these things. They are told by others ignorant to their situation that they will be happy when they achieve some kind of abstruse goal set forth for them by society, and they are sent on a goose-chase of material ambition to achieve happiness, but this inevitably only leads to further dissatisfaction. They are met with pain, humiliation, and harsh transformation, but they keep pushing towards their aspiration of material fulfillment. It is only when they get that job, marry that partner, become famous, etc. that they realize it does not bring them happiness or fill them with the sense of purpose they crave. In fact, this realization often leads to intense anger as they confront the worthlessness of what they spent all their time chasing. The journey through Purva Bhadrapada is undeniably arduous, but that is to be expected with such a potent force. They are called to transcend their attachments, lest they be forcefully ripped away. They begin to grapple with an inescapable emptiness they feel when interacting with the world, and this can often lead them to deep feelings of nihilism. Purva Bhadrapada natives are predisposed to being unhappy, and this is not a shallow kind of unhappiness that fades based on external circumstances. Rather, it is a deeply existential depression– a feeling of confused worthlessness and dissatisfaction they often battle with for the duration of their lives. Their experiences and attachments become increasingly burdensome as they grow more aware of the fleeting nature of life. These natives will openly acknowledge the impermanence of worldly intentions, and while this can be both good or bad, it ultimately makes their minds unpredictable and unstable. With the recognition that nothing lasts forever, a new philosophy can be used to justify any action according to moral relativism. If nothing matters in the grand scheme – where whatever you do will eventually fade into obscurity, wiped away with the start of a new cycle – then anything you do doesn’t really matter in the end. This gives these natives a sense of untouchability, a feeling to do whatever they please at their most uninhibited. And it is in this stage of recognizing one’s freedom to do whatever they want is that the test to discern their one’s nature begins. When there is total freedom, the only real concern becomes about what one chooses to do with their freedom. After all, the only harm that can come from doing what you want is ultimately the result of wanting to do something harmful. Sadly, the reality is that most people are not strong enough to fully resist the temptation of evil and would fail this test. It is for this reason that this trial is exclusively administered to individuals who possess a high level of spiritual advancement found under Purva Bhadrapda. Regardless of the difficulties they face, those governed by Purva Bhadrapada have tremendous inner strength and personal resilience, which often manifests in worldly and spiritual achievement and prosperity in various facets of their lives.
Individuals born under the influence of the Purva Bhadrapada Nakshatra are inherently inclined towards detachment from external influences. This detachment often leads them down two distinct paths. Some choose to embrace a life unbound by societal norms, driven solely by their inner convictions. These individuals seek to experience life to the fullest, embracing both its joys and challenges. However, if they feel unfulfilled, they may turn to darker pursuits in search of excitement. Conversely, others utilize their detachment for spiritual advancement, renouncing materialism in favor of a disciplined quest for higher truths. In both cases, detachment becomes a defining trait, shaping their lives in divergent yet meaningful ways. Whether they become revolutionary leaders or appear lazy due to their selective motivation, their actions are stirred only by what truly invigorates their souls. Their inner character often changes with time. They can start out seeming quite innocent and fragile, and a lot of the time they will have something about them that invites torment, be it their big and eccentric personalities, their height, their weight, their looks, etc. This often leads people to perceive them as different and vulnerable. Unfortunately, this vulnerability often attracts individuals who seek to exploit, victimize, or corrupt them. There's a noticeable pattern of others attempting to take advantage of their perceived weakness, whether it be through just trying to make them feel bad, manipulating them, coercing them to do things they do not want to, or forcing them to be alone by treating them as outcasts. This predatory behavior can leave these individuals feeling isolated, betrayed, and miserable, further fueling their inner turmoil and sense of disillusionment with the world around them. However, this also serves to strengthen them. During the course of their lives, they will experience a series of external transformations that will change who they are. While their soft and innocent demeanor may still be present in some ways, there will be a new darker side to their nature. The inner transformations that Purva Bhadrapada natives undergo change them into stronger, more hardened versions of themselves. This alteration can manifest in tendencies towards violence, aggression, deceit, manipulation, etc., yet at the same time, it also equips them with the strength and capability to protect others when needed. As they navigate the complexities of life, they become formidable forces, possessing the resilience and detachment to confront challenges head-on along with the capacity to wield their strength for both good and evil.
Purva Bhadrapada natives exhibit a curious mix of flippancy and seriousness, often displaying a casual attitude towards many topics yet simultaneously exuding an air of solemnity in regards to topics concerning things like philosophical and existential inquiries. They possess a keen intellect characterized by innovation and depth of gnosis, which lends to their excellence in fields like science and research. Additionally, they are known to have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and information gathering brought about by a powerful yearning for deeper truth. While they may have a religious inclination, their focus lies more on unraveling the essence of spirituality rather than adhering rigidly to dogma. As a result of their approach to religion, they can sometimes be critical of conventional religious practices, which rely heavily on dogmatic rules and rituals. These natives are generally liberal and disdain hypocrisy as well as superficiality, valuing authenticity and depth in both thought and action, regardless of how much it clashes with anything else. Despite their show of outward confidence, they often wrestle with inner self-doubt and a crippling fear of failure, which leaves little room for optimism when they are faced with setbacks. While they typically prefer to be alone, they may inadvertently rely on others when seeking to escape the monotony of their everyday lives. This can make them seem unreliable or inconsistent when it comes to their relationships. They are driven by an innate desire to transcend mediocrity and to be perceived as exceptional. This drive for superior distinction stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and a fear of judgment, compelling them to constantly push the boundaries and strive for success through originality in all aspects of their lives. In their personal relationships, Purva Bhadrapada natives may struggle to balance their need for independence with their desire for connection. Generally, in their interactions with others, Purva Bhadrapada natives are intense yet detached. Despite their desire for authenticity and closeness in relationships, they may struggle to express their openly, fearing rejection or misunderstanding. This internal conflict between their need for connection and their fear of vulnerability can create barriers to intimacy, causing them to retreat through self-imposed isolation. Additionally, their critical nature and high standards can sometimes alienate others, as they can come across as overly judgmental or demanding of their fitness, partners, colleagues, etc. They value depth and sincerity in relationships, but sometimes it can be too much to where they end up pushing others away with their intensity. Despite these challenges, they are still often very empathetic and understanding, and they can offer support to people when needed.
Before I get into the padas, I want to give some examples. I do not want to go into much detail or take up too much time with this, but given the very complicated nature of this nakshatra, I feel that it is necessary to provide media representations for people to look into if they are interested in knowing more about how it manifests: Martin Scorsese PB Moon and Andrew Garfield PB ASC (Silence Official Trailer (2016) - Paramount Pictures), Billie Eilish PB ASC (Billie Eilish - bury a friend (Official Music Video)), Jack Black PB Moon (School of Rock (2003) Trailer #1 Movieclips Classic Trailers), Dylan O'brien PB Moon (AMERICAN ASSASSIN - Official Trailer - HD (Dylan O'Brien, Michael Keaton), Logan-Marshall Green (Upgrade Trailer #1 (2018) Movieclips Trailers), Paul Walker PB Moon (Hours TRAILER (2013) - Paul Walker Movie HD), Bill Skarsgard PB Moon (The Crow - Official Trailer (2024) Bill Skarsgård, FKA twigs, Danny Huston), Olivia Wilde PB Sun (A VIGILANTE Official HD International Trailer Starring Olivia Wilde) & (The Lazarus Effect Official Trailer #1 (2015) - Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass Movie HD), John Stamos PB ASC (John Stamos Stars in "Secrets of Eden" Lifetime), Hozier PB Sun (the lyrics and imagery of this video are extremely Purva Bhadrapada) Hozier - Take Me To Church), Kaya Scoledario PB Sun (Spinning Out Official Trailer Netflix), Ryan Gosling PB ASC (THE FALL GUY Official Trailer 2 (Universal Studios) - HD), Camila Mendes PB Moon (Do Revenge Official Trailer Netflix), Bryan Cranston PB Sun (Breaking Bad Trailer), Sabrina Carpenter PB Moon and Milo Manheim PB Sun (Sabrina Carpenter - Feather (Official Video) Alexandra Daddario PB Sun (Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches Trailer: Starring Alexandra Daddario AMC+), Jacob Elordi PB Moon (2 HEARTS Official Trailer (2020) Jacob Elordi, Tiera Skovbye), Tom Blyth PB Moon (Billy The Kid (EPIX 2022 Series) Official Trailer), Daniel Gillies PB Sun (COMING HOME IN THE DARK Trailer (2021) Daniel Gillies Suspense Thriller Movie), Matthew Gray Gubler PB Sun (KING KNIGHT Trailer (2022) Angela Sarafyan, Matthew Gray Gubler), Jon Hamm (Corner Office (2023) Official Trailer - Jon Hamm, Danny Pudi, Sarah Gadon), Rachel Weisz PB Sun + Moon and Sam Claflin PB Moon (MY COUSIN RACHEL Official Trailer FOX Searchlight), Chris Pine PB Moon (Jack Reacher Movie Trailer), Madison Beer PB Sun (Madison Beer - Make You Mine (Official Music Video), Sharon Stone PB Sun (Basic Instinct - Trailer (1080p)), and Michael Jackson PB Moon (Michael Jackson - Thriller (Official 4K Video).
Padas
(mostly for Moon) They all tend to be skinny to middle weight until they get older, where they either become more muscular or plump/curvy.
1st – The first pada of Purva Bhadrapada, falling in the Aries Navamsa, signifies a stage of primal energy and raw ambition. With Mars as their guiding force, they exhibit a relentless drive to achieve their goals, refusing to be deterred by obstacles or setbacks. However, being the initial pada of the nakshatra just leaving the stage of Shatabhisha, this quarter is the least spiritually developed. While they may possess great worldly ambition and the capacity for success, they may also be prone to ego-driven actions and an overly narrow focus on material pursuits. They can get into occultism or spirituality, but it is usually an attempt to further themselves in the material realm. Natives born under this pada possess a combative nature, always ready to engage in confrontations to defend their beliefs or assert their dominance. They tend to be more mentally aggressive than physically, but nonetheless their volatile temperament can lead to physical disputes as well when they are provoked enough. They know they can be very damaging when they lose control, so they will do everything in their power to prevent escalation. Ironically, this can make them seem passive. They typically exhibit anxious tendencies while attempting to conceal or downplay their feelings of worry. Natives of this pada are extremely passionate, but they have a tendency to constantly compare themselves to others, which ultimately can lead them to disregard their efforts to focus on surpassing someone else's. This propensity of theirs for aggression, envy, and competitiveness can strain relationships and hinder their personal growth, as they become consumed by their own desires for dominance and validation. They are usually medium tall with a wide forehead and low eyebrows.
2nd – The second pada of Purva Bhadrapada, ruled by Venus in the Taurus Navamsa, embodies a stage of sensual indulgence and creative expression. Individuals born under this pada are drawn to the occult and mysteries of the unseen, often delving into practices such as astrology and black magic. There is a bit of detachment from the mysticism of it at this stage though. They may prefer to look at it through a scientific or philosophical perspective as opposed to one that embraces faith in the divine. While their interest in these esoteric realms may lead to proficiency in such arts, it also heightens their propensity to lose track of their life's direction, becoming absorbed in the pursuit of hidden knowledge and power. Natives of this pada are characterized by their attractive physique, with beautiful broad teeth and strikingly captivating eyes that draw others to them. They possess an innate charm that makes them highly appealing to the opposite sex, and they are not hesitant to indulge in their darker desires and fantasies. Their creativity knows no bounds, as they constantly innovate and explore new avenues of expression. However, despite their magnetic allure and creative flair, individuals of this pada are prone to indulgence and excess, particularly when it comes to satisfying their sensual appetites. Their pursuit of pleasure and gratification can sometimes lead them astray, causing them to lose sight of their responsibilities and priorities. This stage of Purva Bhadrapada is more spiritually evolved than the prior, but it is still in the accumulation phase of Aquarius and the 11th house. Despite their outward charm, they may struggle to find stability and balance in their lives. They are prone to accidents.
3rd – The third pada of Purva Bhadrapada falls in the Gemini Navamsa and is ruled by Mercury. Natives born under this pada embody the mental side of Purva Bhadrapada, which is very focused on cultivating critical reasoning and gathering information, emphasizing communication, learning, and adaptability. Individuals born under this pada are intellectually inclined, constantly seeking to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world around them. They are playful and curious by nature, approaching life with a sense of wonder and exploration. Their energy is expressed through communication and expression, as they excel in articulating their thoughts and ideas. They have a natural gift for language and may find success in fields such as writing, teaching, or public speaking. Despite their playful demeanor, they are still very serious about their pursuits, driven by a deep-seated desire for personal growth and self-improvement. Natives of this pada tend to be peaceful and honorable, seeking harmony and balance in their interactions with others. However, their mercurial nature can sometimes manifest as manipulation or deceit, particularly when they perceive it necessary to achieve their goals. Nonetheless, they are skilled at navigating social situations and may possess a knack for making money through their cleverness and resourcefulness. In terms of appearance, individuals of this pada may have gaunt lower cheeks, high cheekbones, a narrow and defined jawline, and a medium stature. These physical characteristics complement their sharp wit and agile minds, making them engaging in social settings.
4th – The fourth pada of Purva Bhadrapada is ruled by the Moon in Cancer Navamsa. This is the most spiritually advanced of all the padas and tends to be among the most intense. At this stage, individuals born under this pada have either undergone profound inner transformation, shedding their attachment to worldly desires and material gains for the sake of aligning with the cosmic order, or they have fallen for the empty temptations of material life, leading them to a deeper state of moral decay. This pada in the sequence of this nakshatra symbolizes the finalization of death, and just like when we die, the impact of our lives can no longer be altered. You are called to surrender all you have acquired to the purifying flames of the spiritual fire, relinquishing personal benefit for the greater good, and if you fail, your soul will be lost to another cycle of rebirth. This represents the height of the nakshatra's power to manifest, it can come to be either an uplifting force for individuals and humanity as a whole, or as a potentially dangerous influence. Those born under this pada are deeply engaged in their own spiritual pursuits, usually guided by a sense of purpose and higher calling. They possess an innate magnetism and power that exerts influence over others and the world around them. Despite the intensity of their spiritual journey, individuals of this pada tend to enjoy good longevity and robust health, thanks to their deep connection with the cosmic energies. They are often perceived charismatic individuals, drawing others to them with their presence. However, their innate power comes with a responsibility to wield it wisely, as they hold the potential to bring about significant positive change or destruction, depending on how they choose to channel it.
Caste
Purva Bhadrapada belongs to the Brahmin or priestly/scholarly caste. This classification is based on the inherent qualities and tendencies of individuals born under this nakshatra, rather than their family lineage, as seen in contemporary caste systems. In Vedic astrology and Hindu tradition, each nakshatra is associated with as caste, thereby linking them to specific attributes, occupations, and societal roles. Brahmin is positioned as the highest caste and is given the most power and responsibility, both socially and spiritually. In classical texts, the Brahmin caste is exalted for its dedication to scholarship, spirituality, and moral rectitude. Brahmins are depicted as the keepers of sacred knowledge, entrusted with the preservation and dissemination of ancient scriptures and teachings. They are revered for their intellectual prowess, philosophical insights, and commitment to upholding the highest ethical standards. Brahmins are expected to lead lives of austerity, simplicity, and self-discipline, setting examples of virtue and righteousness for society. Additionally, they play important roles in leading religious rituals, ceremonies, and spiritual practices, acting as intermediaries between individuals and the divine. Their contributions also extend beyond religious and intellectual realms though, as they also provide guidance, counseling, and healing to individuals and communities. Overall, Brahmins are portrayed as paragons of virtue, wisdom, and enlightenment, embodying the highest ideals of human excellence and divine knowledge as described in classical texts, acting as oases of wisdom by guiding society not only in matters of spirituality but also in areas such as literature, philosophy, and science. Their primary occupations are mostly associated with administration of all sectors of society, teaching, healing, and providing spiritual guidance. Its intersection with Aquarius Rashi on the ecliptic plane may also relate it to Kshatriya and Shudra.
Gunas
The nakshatras each represent the different gunas at different levels of functioning. For this asterism, it might be confusing to find out that, despite all of its negative connotations, it is associated primarily with Sattva or purity/balance. This mainly stems from this Nakshatra's capacity for penance, spiritualism, and generosity. Overall, Purva Bhadrapada is associated with two levels of Sattva and one of Rajas. Sattva prevails at the physical and mental levels, while Rajas predominates at the spiritual level. At the physical level, individuals born under Purva Bhadrapada exhibit qualities of purity, harmony, and balance. They are often composed, grounded, and possess a sense of stability in their physical endeavors. Mentally, they tend to exhibit clarity, wisdom, and a penchant for introspection when they are only focused on engaging their rational mind. This can get muddy when they try to incorporate less tangible aspects into their thinking though. At the spiritual level, the influence of Rajas emerges, driving them towards spiritual growth and evolution but also threatening them with the struggle of inner turmoil. With Rajas at the most personal level of the spirit, this can cause a onstant seeking pf external validation and gratification, which leads to things such as constantly chasing after fleeting desires and pleasures from their lack of contentment. Additionally, the intense drive associated with Rajas may result in overexertion, burnout, and a disregard for self-care. It can lead to an inflated ego, arrogance, and a tendency towards manipulative or self-serving behavior. Therefore, while Rajas can propel individuals towards spiritual evolution, it also poses challenges that need to be navigated with mindfulness and self-awareness. Together with the heavy influence of Sattva, Rajas in this nakshatra creates a spiritual restlessness that works to propel these natives to actively engage in spiritual practices, seeking to transcend worldly limitations and attain spiritual liberation. It comes with risk, but this is a necessary trial.
Gana
Purva Bhadrapada Nakshatra falls under the category of Manushya Gana, or "human/mixed species." This designation speaks to the inherent qualities and tendencies of individuals born under this nakshatra, aligning them with human characteristics and behaviors. People belonging to the Manushya Gana Nakshatras, including Purva Bhadrapada, place value on their self-worth and esteem. They often enjoy good physical attributes and are blessed with fortune, leading comfortable lives. With warm and friendly personalities, they exhibit care and affection towards their family, friends, and loved ones, readily offering assistance to those in need. However, they also prioritize their own interests and benefits. They are known for their warm and caring nature, and while they may appear busy if approached, they are capable of balancing their personal and professional lives effectively. The path of those born under Manushya Gana nakshatras is undefined. They possess the potential to exhibit both positive and negative qualities, akin to the diverse nature of humanity itself. They have the potential to be even more evil than the Rakshas and even more good than the Devas. While some may lean towards acts of kindness and generosity, others may display tendencies that are less altruistic. This blend of qualities makes them a complex combination qualities you might see for the Deva and Rakshasa Ganas. Keep in mind that you should look at the dominant Gana in your chart to gain a better understanding of how this may apply to you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this if you did. I will have to continue this in a third part because I'm out of room on this post. Afterwards, I will be starting on Shravana Nakshatra soon, and then later on Anuradha.

My both friends are very active, eating healthy, no sugar. One is skinny, the second one is curvy a bit but I would say normal body. Not skinny but not fat. I am none of these and I feel bad when I am with them. It makes me feel as if I was worse / less valuable. I don't know how to define it but it does make me feel shitty in compare with them. Should I just be looking for some fat friends? Because when I watched YouTube about how to be confident as fat person, the creator recommended to also have fat friend. And I think there is something about it. It really makes me feel more inadequate when I am with skinny friend. :/ Is is good to be friends with someone who is like opposite of you? I am not that active and I don't wanna stop eating sugar. But it kind of irritates me how "too healthy" they are. Like I think it is too much, they exaggerating just to be skinny and healthy. Idk but I always feel like these people do that to be superior to others. No one would stop eating sugar just like that only for health related reason. They just want to be thin and I find it irritating because it is not what they want but mostly it is because of the society pressure. (How only thin / skinny women are pretty). Or can you at least say if you experienced this? I once had another healthy friend but I feel like my unhealthiness annoyed her. Or in past I had another friend who were a bit thick but then got skinny and idk. It doesn't feel good. She got drastically skinny after one day her mom complimented me about my weight loss. And now even that normal body friend (curvy) will be getting more skinny. It only makes me feel awful. I would really like to have some overweight friend, someone who just eat what they want and so on. I can't help myself but feel like these friends aren't doing it primary for themselves, but to get admiration from other people. And to be superior to others. Were you even in friendship like this? Or saw something similar? Can it work long term between skinny and fat friend?

Do You Want to Sell Your House But Don't Know How?
Selling a house can seem like a daunting task, especially if you have never navigated the real estate market before. With numerous steps, potential pitfalls, and a significant financial stake, it’s crucial to approach this venture with a well-informed strategy. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you sell your house efficiently and profitably.

1. Understand the Market

Before listing your home, research the local real estate market. Understanding market trends can help you set a realistic price and determine the best time to sell. Key factors to consider include:
Comparable Sales: Look at recent sales of similar homes in your neighborhood.
Market Conditions: Identify whether it’s a buyer’s or seller’s market.
Seasonality: Recognize that certain times of the year may attract more buyers.

1. Set the Right Price

Pricing your home correctly is critical. Overpricing can lead to your home languishing on the market, while underpricing can result in a financial loss. Consider hiring a professional appraiser or using online valuation tools for a rough estimate. A real estate agent can also provide a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to help set a competitive price.

1. Prepare Your Home

First impressions matter. Ensure your home is in its best possible condition before showing it to potential buyers. Key preparation steps include:
Declutter and Depersonalize: Remove personal items and excess furniture to make the space feel larger and allow buyers to envision themselves living there.
Repairs and Upgrades: Fix any obvious issues such as leaky faucets, cracked tiles, or peeling paint. Consider minor upgrades like new light fixtures or updated hardware to modernize the space.
Curb Appeal: Enhance your home’s exterior with landscaping, a fresh coat of paint on the front door, and clean windows.

1. Market Your Home

Effective marketing is essential to attract potential buyers. Here are several strategies:
Professional Photography: High-quality photos can make your home stand out online.
Online Listings: List your home on popular real estate websites like Zillow, Realtor.com, and local MLS (Multiple Listing Service).
Social Media: Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to share your listing.
Open Houses and Showings: Schedule open houses and private showings to give potential buyers a firsthand look at your property.

1. Work with a Real Estate Agent

While it’s possible to sell your home independently, a real estate agent can provide invaluable assistance. An experienced agent can handle pricing, marketing, negotiations, and paperwork. They also have access to a broader network of potential buyers.

1. Negotiate Offers

When you receive offers, evaluate them carefully. Consider not just the price but also the terms, such as contingencies and the buyer’s financing. Your agent can help you negotiate to get the best possible deal.

1. Navigate the Closing Process

Once you’ve accepted an offer, the closing process begins. This involves:
Home Inspection and Appraisal: The buyer will typically arrange for a home inspection and appraisal. Be prepared to negotiate repairs or price adjustments based on the inspection results.
Paperwork: Work with your agent, attorney, and title company to ensure all necessary documents are completed and filed.
Closing Costs: Be aware of the costs associated with closing, which may include agent commissions, transfer taxes, and title insurance.

1. Move Out

Finally, once the sale is complete, it’s time to move out. Plan your move carefully to ensure a smooth transition. Remember to:
Change Your Address: Update your address with the post office, banks, and other important institutions.
Transfer Utilities: Arrange for the transfer or cancellation of utilities and services.
Clean the Home: Leave the home clean and remove all personal belongings.
Conclusion
Selling your house doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By understanding the market, preparing your home, and utilizing professional resources, you can streamline the process and maximize your returns. Whether you’re moving to a new city, upsizing, or downsizing, following these steps will help you achieve a successful sale.

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Long story short:
* Like everyone else, I had doubts before purchasing any of his courses, so I’ll mention the main points that were important to me before buying it (more on this when I talk about the four main problems I faced in my journey of self-development and attraction):
* Is the course worth it? Considering the impact it has had on my life, my answer is a resounding YES.
* Is there a cost-benefit balance? Absolutely yes.
* Will it help me in all areas of my life? Yes, especially with power dynamics. This course will offer you valuable insights that you can apply in any area of your life.
* Do the techniques and strategies really work? Yes, they do. However, like any course, the key is to you apply what you've learned and it also depends on the time and effort you're willing to invest to achieve lasting changes
Important note: I don't have any kind of relationship with Lucio or anyone on his team, and no one paid me to do this review, much less to share such intimate details. I am doing this of my own free will because I want to thank him for all the knowledge he has provided me, and I believe this could be useful for him and for anyone looking to determine whether what he teaches is useful or not. This review is not going to be directly about his courses; it is going to be about all the resources on TPM (The Power Moves), and specifically about the impact they have had on my life. Consider it more of a testimonial and also a personal opinion.
The following review is quite detailed, and really long. I really believe that writing less would strip away a lot of depth and context. I don’t expect everyone to read it entirely, but maybe it can offer some perspective to someone interested in buying the course. I’m not a special person (I mean like someone famous, or with a lot of academic titles, or any of that); I’m just a regular guy looking to improve the quality of my life and achieve enough economic prosperity to help the people I love most live the life they want, help those in need, people, animals…and if possible, gain valuable knowledge that helps me in my work as a psychologist. Nothing satisfies me more than seeing the faces of people when, with some time and effort, they realize they can do things they never thought possible and feel proud of themselves for achieving it. I also haven’t had it easy in my romantic life, and I’d like to find a healthy person who is also motivated to be a better human being and have a peaceful love. Learning about power will just be a means to contribute my little bit to this world. I’m not a writer, but I’ll try to outline what I consider to be the most important points to give you another perspective to consider, if you want to buy this course. My native language is Spanish, so due to the length of the text and my lack of skill in “speaking” another language, I decided to use ChatGPT as a translator (since I feel it does a better job than Google Translator), and I’ll make the necessary adjustments to make myself better understood.
For most of my life, I lived in deep loneliness and experienced a lot of abuse from people. I never understood why, no matter how many good things I did for others, I received mistreatment in return. My social programming whispered to me, “Do good things for others, and they will be good to you”, “Give to others what you would like to receive,” among many other things. But as time went by, I slowly fell into despair. Since I was 8 years old, I’ve had suicidal thoughts, strongly influenced by my social/romantic life. Eventually, I began to harbor unhealthy beliefs that took root in my way of thinking. For example, I thought I had to make enormous efforts to maintain the “affection” and “acceptance” people “had” for me. I also believed that if no one, not a single person, treated me with respect, it was because that was what I deserved. If no one was interested in who I was, it was because I was worth so little that I couldn’t ask for more from life and should be grateful for the crumbs of “love” I received. Regarding my love life, during my first 19 years, not a single person showed interest in me. I’m not extremely attractive, but based on social feedback, I’d say I’m slightly above average. Perhaps my short height would be the one physical trait that works against me, as I’m 1.63 meters or, as you might better understand, I’m 5’4”. As for internal traits related to girls, I treated them well, was respectful, showed interest in them, helped them, dedicated a lot of my time, and was unconditionally there for them through good and bad times. I was many things that, according to movies and the opinions of many girls (based solely on what they said they wanted), I thought would bring me plenty of women, and yet, not a single soul wanted to be with me. What I did achieve with the girls I liked was becoming their best friend. And so, I spent my days and nights listening to the girls I liked cry over aggressive men who mistreated them physically and emotionally and/or cheated on them with other girls. I didn’t understand it; I had a good set of values and not just with them but with everyone. I considered myself a good guy, competent in some areas, and was unconditionally there for them, and yet they preferred to be with clearly violent men. In one of the moments when I felt most miserable, the following happened: I liked a girl and expressed it to her, and although she initially reciprocated, a month later, she left me for someone else and started dating that person. In something very similar to therapy, I ended up helping her for almost three years to improve her relationship with her aggressive partner.
Here, I’d like to say something (nothing to do with the situation, but anyway, I wanted to share those thoughts with you): two of the worst things I was made to believe were: “You don’t have to change; someone will come and love you just as you are,” and “Romantic love is something that just happens naturally, stop looking for it. It will come to you.” Neither of these things ever happened, and both are awful, unempathetic and limiting mindsets.
Eight years ago, after spending some time in a psychiatric hospital due to suicidal ideation, I decided to completely change my life and committed to my personal growth. Every day without exception, I studied and applied the concepts I was learning in my spare time, while studying to one day become a psychologist. I bought books, courses (even from very prominent figures in the world of seduction and self-development that you would easily recognize). When I didn’t even have money to eat, I downloaded them from pirate sources, but I always found a way to keep progressing. I had many virtual teachers who helped me grow in different aspects, and I’m very grateful for the knowledge they provided me that helped me climb out of that black hole. Like many who embark on this journey, I reached a point where, no matter how much I read and took courses, there was nothing new to pull me out of my stagnation. Everything was the same. I had to constantly review new resources and listen to endless hours of videos to find a needle in a haystack. For me, it was no longer worth paying for a full course if what I was going to found was something I had likely already learned (a lot of times for free). Although I sought to develop on all levels, here I will emphasize the romantic part more. Generally, these learning resources had a couple of problems: the first is that I’ve never been the kind of person who wants to date multiple girls; I’m more the type of guy who seeks a stable partner. The second problem was that many people who teach dating skills ask you to have a very high energy level and I’m a very calm and rather introverted person (not shy, introverted). I don’t want to pretend to be excited or become friends with everyone around me to increase my social value (it’s very exhausting and not worth it as a long-term strategy). The third problem is that the advice of many people who want to promote healthy relationships (some of them psychologists), although well-intentioned, makes any spark that generated attraction nonexistent, generating very predictable behavior (in the bad way) among other things. – certainly, those tools are important for a healthy relationship, but they won’t necessarily make someone feel attracted to you (I find it unlikely). They are more of a positive complement that can help increase value when there is already attraction. After a while and thanks to Lucio’s reflections, I realized the problems and limitations that these gurus or psychologists, basically they are very “politically correct”. Finally, the last problem I found is that none of them addressed the true root of my problem. No matter how much I improved in all aspects, I still didn’t see results with girls. Yes, the number of girls approaching me increased slightly, but none wanted to be with me for a long-term relationship. That missing ingredient is called “power,” and although briefly mentioned in those courses, videos, books, etc., it was never sufficiently well explained to understand why I wasn’t achieving results. My problem was that my balance between warmth and power was enormously unbalanced. I was completely warm with people, but I didn’t have a clue about power dynamics (what Lucio would call “The King’s Servant). I ended up in the “good guy” category, a good guy who wanted to be bad and wanted to treat women poorly to see if he got results, but whose moral values never allowed him to do anything that would hurt or could hurt another person, even if it meant remaining alone (which, far from making me feel good or proud at the moment, it only increased my self-hate). I wanted to remain good, but being good got me nowhere. Adding to that, due to my upbringing, I developed an anxious attachment style (something I also hated for a long time because, objectively speaking, it’s certainly easier for an avoidant man to have more power in a relationship thanks to his natural tendency to fear emotional closeness and natural behavior to protect his independence; quick note: I think that behavior is far from perfect but from what I’ve seen at least they get more results with girls). I have been always considered too clingy and dependent.
Many girls who felt initial attraction to me after a while wanted me to stay in their lives, but never as their partner, only as a good friend. When I turned 20, I found my first partner. This girl was incredibly attracted to me at first, but as soon as I started prioritizing her and seeking closeness, when I set aside my power to be “truly myself,” she began to lose attraction and started to disrespect me. At some point along that path, I came across TPM, and I must say it was a pleasant surprise after years of stagnation.
Human beings are very complex, and because of this, it’s unlikely that a single teacher will “save” you from your social and/or romantic situation. But for me, the person who has influenced my life for the better the most is Lucio. Since I started this journey, I’ve been gathering bits of knowledge from each person that has contributed to who I am, but there have been two things that have totally changed my social life, and for me, both are equally important. The first would take a long time to explain and is more about inner work and pure reflection, but in terms of knowledge, if I had to erase those eight years and start over, I’d like it to be with the knowledge Lucio provides. Seduction University was the last course I bought a long time ago, and Power University will probably be the last course I’ll buy (for several years). I bought Seduction University quite some time ago (about two or three years) and am still learning; I’m just over 73% through the course. This amount of time might surprise many, but those who seek lasting changes in themselves and who are truly committed to deeply learning and integrating everything there until it becomes second nature, know it will likely take several months and probably years.
Having knowledge is not a magic cure; knowing something doesn't make you good at it. Changing deep aspects of one's identity is not as easy as many people seem to forget; it's slow, very slow, and also requires conscious and constant effort. The path of personal growth is not easy, but personally I don't expect it to be. It may take me several years of practice to consolidate all that knowledge, but I know with absolute certainty that it will be a great investment for my future. Going back to the main point, in my opinion, Seduction University and very likely Power University will give you much more value than what you'd get from a more well-known person's course, and at an incredibly affordable price. I know this, because I've been consuming content from many authors for 8 years (every day, each day of the past 8 years without fail). Honestly, I'm fortunate that it is priced so affordably. To be completely honest with you I don't earn much money, and, in my country, there is not much economic prosperity, there is significant inequality, and for me, paying for a course in dollars is comparatively much more expensive than for people who earn in dollars or other stronger currencies. And still, I believe it's totally worth investing in these courses.
One important thing I've learned over the years is that there are things your mind will not be ready to understand, and the good thing about that is as long as you commit to your learning, you will keep growing and progressing, and at some point when you revisit the material, you might understand those things you didn't “grasp” initially, or you might achieve more advanced things that your novice self couldn't properly do the first time you went through the material. You'll pay a price for one of these courses the day you decide to buy it (if you decide to do so), but the truth is that by the time you truly learn everything, so much time will have passed that, if you look at it from a very distant perspective (all the required time for you to really learn), you'll find that the benefits you will get will be arguably greater than those that Lucio and his team will have gotten. Another thing to keep in mind is that either Seduction University or Power University, if used well, will likely help you achieve more economic prosperity; on the other hand, Lucio makes sure to improve the course content, which guarantees even more growth over time. For me this justifies the annual payment to access the material again, which brings me to the next point: Lucio gives you a full year to access the learning material, and if you want to keep having access, he significantly reduces the price (probably in gratitude to those who trusted him and decided to buy the course). Also, keep in mind what I said about how it's very likely that the second or third time you take the course, you'll probably learn new things you were not prepared for before. Finally, it's a price that, in my opinion, supports all his work. He has spent a lot of time and effort reading books, articles, reviewing courses, making videos, writing in his blog, and much more, all for free. Even if you decided not to buy any of his courses, believe me, just by reading his articles, watching his videos, and reading the book reviews he recommends for specific issues, you'd already be avoiding wasting time on reading useless or unnecessarily complex things. For my part, I'm glad he was able to provide me with a way out of the stagnation I had; I really like that he also considers people who are looking for a stable relationship and not just those seeking to have more sexual partners (which is also very valid and respectable); I like that he teaches the "general rules and mindsets," allowing for personality flexibility since that way I don't feel compelled to be (or rather pretend to be) a very energetic and super sociable person to achieve good results with girls; I like that he is a person who does not seek or promote the use of the knowledge he has to harm people but focuses on teaching how to generate relationships that promote a win-win dynamic. Since I started to consume his content, my life has changed quite a bit. I definitely feel more respected, and all my relationships have improved on all levels, romantically, although I have not yet found a person with whom there has been enough compatibility to want to have that person as a stable partner, and I still have much to improve, I definitely feel that I have become more attractive to people. In my last job, considering there weren't many staff members (about 30-35 workers including supervisors and the manager), I ended up being (romantically/sexually) liked by 14 people (8 women, 6 men), and in that job, I dated my second partner. I still make many mistakes, and there are deeper issues that require professional help, but the truth is that my life has undoubtedly improved a lot. I am a person who really takes the time to learn and truly integrate into myself what I have learned, and it has taken me years to consolidate the knowledge in Seduction University. As I said before, I haven't finished it, and it will probably take me many more months (maybe years) to consolidate the information there and what I still have not read yet in the course (not to mention the hyperlinks he provides to dig really deep in some topics). I want to improve even more in my life, and that’s why I decided to buy Power University. From lesson one, I already started finding very valuable knowledge; I haven't gone far into the course, and it would be dishonest to give my opinion, but I feel that, like Seduction University, Power University will also be very worthwhile. The book "Ultimate Power" also has hidden gems (at the moment, I am reflecting a lot on what it explains about cultivating an antifragile ego). I decided not to buy more courses or books because it will probably take me more than a year to consume all the content and much longer to make it my second nature. Although I like to diversify my knowledge and will continue learning about synergistic topics about personal growth, I would like to prioritize finishing both courses (at least "the reading part" the "superficial effort part"), besides dedicating the rest of my efforts to deep-reflective inner work, developing a physique that I feel happy with, and creating my own business that will allow me to help more people and animals in the future.
I hope the knowledge you find in any of TPM’s resources changes your life as much as it changed mine. Of course, it’s important to learn from different people and not become obsessed with a single philosophy. There are things you won’t find in Lucio’s material that could be very useful in your life and your specific problems/challenges, and you shouldn’t overlook them. Additionally, learning from different people with different perspectives will help you be more flexible and have a better chance of achieving the things you want in life. Find someone who shares their knowledge with you and who makes you reflect, and when you notice that that person starts repeating ideas, it's time to move on and look for new people who can help you out of your stagnation. Remember, every piece is important along the way, and it's important to be grateful to every person you meet because everyone has a valuable lesson to teach you (especially when that person has a different perspective than yours).
I'll probably spend many more years learning from Lucio until I finish integrating the knowledge he offers (although as he will most likely keep adding more content and learning things on his own, I will surely visit his blog or YouTube channel from time to time like visiting an old and dear friend and teacher whom I admire and respect).
I would like to make a final mention to John from customer service. He is a charming person and attended to me very well every time I contacted customer service. It feels like talking to a good friend; the service is fast, he is respectful, he has manners, and from start to finish he was very attentive in keeping his word every time he told me he would respond within a certain time frame. You can't really get to know a person in customer service, but from all the times I talked to him, he seemed competent, warm, and generous. John deserves a raise; he’s a really great guy :)

SEO Meta Description: Discover 15 effective remarketing strategies to boost conversions for your digital marketing course in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Learn how to optimize your campaigns and drive more enrollments.

Introduction

In the competitive landscape of digital marketing, attracting and retaining potential students for a digital marketing course in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, requires innovative strategies. Remarketing, a powerful tool that allows you to re-engage users who have previously interacted with your brand, can significantly enhance your conversion rates. This comprehensive guide explores 15 remarketing strategies tailored to boost enrollments for digital marketing courses in Raipur. By leveraging these tactics, you can create targeted, personalized campaigns that effectively convert interest into action.

What is Remarketing?

Definition and Importance

Remarketing is a digital marketing technique that targets users who have previously visited your website or interacted with your content but did not complete a desired action, such as enrolling in a course. It involves displaying tailored ads to these users as they browse other websites, use mobile apps, or search on Google, reminding them of your offerings and encouraging them to return and convert.

Types of Remarketing

There are several types of remarketing, including:

• Standard Remarketing: Displaying ads to past visitors as they browse websites and use apps in the Google Display Network.
• Dynamic Remarketing: Showing personalized ads that include products or services that users viewed on your site.
• Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA): Customizing search ads for users who have previously visited your site during their Google searches.
• Video Remarketing: Displaying ads to users who have interacted with your videos or YouTube channel.

How Remarketing Works

Remarketing works by placing a small piece of code, called a pixel or tag, on your website. This code collects data about visitors and their interactions. When these users leave your site without converting, the collected data allows you to serve them targeted ads across various platforms, nudging them to return and complete the conversion process.

Benefits of Remarketing

Increased Conversions

Remarketing targets users who have already shown interest in your digital marketing course in Raipur, making them more likely to convert compared to new visitors. By reminding them of your course offerings, you can significantly boost your conversion rates.

Enhanced Brand Recall

Repeated exposure to your brand through remarketing ads helps keep your digital marketing course top of mind. This increased brand recall can lead to higher conversion rates as users are more likely to choose a familiar brand.

Cost-Effective Advertising

Remarketing is cost-effective because it targets a specific audience that has already expressed interest in your offerings. This focused approach reduces wasted ad spend and increases your return on investment (ROI).

Why Remarketing is Crucial for Digital Marketing Courses?

Targeted Advertising for Course Enrollment

Remarketing allows you to create highly targeted ads for potential students who have visited your course pages but haven’t enrolled. By addressing their specific interests and concerns, you can increase the likelihood of conversion.

Building Trust with Potential Students

Repeated interactions through remarketing ads build trust and familiarity with your brand. This trust is crucial for potential students deciding to invest in a digital marketing course in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

Personalized Marketing Messages

Remarketing enables you to deliver personalized messages based on user behavior. For instance, you can show ads highlighting course benefits or testimonials to users who have viewed specific course details but haven’t enrolled yet.

Strategy 1: Google Ads Remarketing

Creating Remarketing Lists

Google Ads allows you to create remarketing lists based on various criteria, such as users who visited specific pages or took specific actions on your site. These lists help you target ads to the right audience.

Setting Up Remarketing Campaigns

To set up a Google Ads remarketing campaign, install the Google Ads tag on your website, create your remarketing lists, and design compelling ads. Ensure your ads align with the interests and behaviors of your target audience to maximize engagement.

Strategy 2: Facebook Remarketing

Custom Audiences

Facebook Custom Audiences enable you to target ads to users who have previously interacted with your Facebook page, website, or app. This allows for highly personalized and effective remarketing campaigns.

Using Facebook Pixel

Installing the Facebook Pixel on your website helps track user behavior and build Custom Audiences. This data allows you to serve targeted ads to users who are most likely to convert, enhancing the efficiency of your campaigns.

Strategy 3: Email Remarketing

Segmentation of Email Lists

Segment your email lists based on user behavior and interactions with your website. This allows you to send targeted remarketing emails that address specific interests and concerns, increasing the chances of conversion.

Crafting Effective Remarketing Emails

Create compelling remarketing emails that highlight the benefits of your digital marketing course in Raipur. Include testimonials, course highlights, and special offers to entice users to enroll.

Strategy 4: Dynamic Remarketing

Personalized Ads Based on User Behavior

Dynamic remarketing displays personalized ads that feature the exact courses users viewed on your website. This tailored approach significantly increases the likelihood of conversion by addressing users’ specific interests.

Benefits of Dynamic Remarketing

Dynamic remarketing enhances user experience by showing relevant ads, which improves engagement and conversion rates. This strategy is particularly effective for promoting specific courses and modules.

Strategy 5: Social Media Remarketing

Using Instagram and LinkedIn

Leverage Instagram and LinkedIn for remarketing by creating engaging ads that target users who have interacted with your content on these platforms. Use visually appealing images and compelling copy to capture attention.

Crafting Engaging Social Media Ads

Design social media ads that highlight the unique selling points of your digital marketing course in Raipur. Use testimonials, success stories, and course benefits to persuade users to enroll.

Strategy 6: Video Remarketing

Using YouTube for Remarketing

YouTube is an excellent platform for video remarketing. Create engaging video ads that target users who have watched your videos or visited your YouTube channel.

Creating Compelling Video Ads

Develop video ads that showcase the value of your digital marketing course. Include student testimonials, course highlights, and a strong call to action to drive conversions.

Strategy 7: Content Remarketing

Utilizing Blogs and Articles

Retarget users who have read your blog posts or articles by displaying ads that encourage them to enroll in your digital marketing course. This strategy keeps your course top of mind for potential students.

Retargeting Blog Visitors

Use remarketing ads to reach users who have visited your blog but haven’t enrolled in a course. Highlight relevant course content and benefits to persuade them to take the next step.

Strategy 8: Search Remarketing

RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads)

RLSA allows you to customize search ads for users who have previously visited your website. This ensures your ads are shown to users who are already familiar with your offerings, increasing the chances of conversion.

Optimizing Search Campaigns for Retargeting

Optimize your search campaigns by targeting specific keywords related to your digital marketing course in Raipur. Use RLSA to reach users who have shown interest in similar topics.

Strategy 9: Display Network Remarketing

Crafting Display Ads for Remarketing

Create visually appealing display ads that capture the attention of users who have previously visited your site. Use engaging images and strong calls to action to drive conversions.

Benefits of Display Network Ads

Display network ads reach users across a wide range of websites and apps, increasing your brand’s visibility and the chances of re-engaging potential students.

Strategy 10: Cross-Device Remarketing

Importance of Multi-Device Targeting

Targeting users across multiple devices ensures a seamless and consistent remarketing experience. This approach increases the chances of conversion as users interact with your ads on different devices.

Synchronizing Campaigns Across Devices

Synchronize your remarketing campaigns across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices. Ensure your ads are optimized for each platform to maximize engagement and conversions.

Strategy 11: Remarketing for App Users

Creating App User Segments

Segment your app users based on their interactions with your app. Target these segments with personalized remarketing ads that encourage them to enroll in your digital marketing course.

In-App Remarketing Strategies

Use in-app ads to re-engage users who have interacted with your app but haven’t enrolled in a course. Highlight the benefits and features of your digital marketing course to drive conversions.

Strategy 12: Remarketing with Push Notifications

Crafting Effective Push Notifications

Create compelling push notifications that remind users about your digital marketing course. Use personalized messages and timely offers to encourage users to take action.

Best Practices for Push Notification Remarketing

Follow best practices such as keeping messages concise, using clear calls to action, and timing notifications appropriately to maximize engagement and conversions.

Strategy 13: Remarketing with SMS

Using SMS for Retargeting

SMS is a direct and personal way to reach potential students. Use SMS remarketing to send targeted messages that highlight the benefits of your digital marketing course in Raipur.

Crafting Effective SMS Campaigns

Craft concise and engaging SMS messages that include a clear call to action. Offer exclusive discounts or limited-time offers to entice users to enroll.

Strategy 14: Remarketing with Affiliate Marketing

Utilizing Affiliate Networks

Partner with affiliate networks to extend the reach of your remarketing efforts. Affiliates can help promote your digital marketing course to a broader audience, increasing your chances of conversions.

Integrating Remarketing in Affiliate Campaigns

Incorporate remarketing strategies into your affiliate campaigns by providing affiliates with retargeting pixels and personalized ad creatives. This ensures a consistent and effective remarketing approach.

Strategy 15: Geotargeting in Remarketing

Using Location Data for Remarketing

Geotargeting allows you to tailor your remarketing ads based on users’ geographic locations. This is particularly useful for promoting a digital marketing course in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

Creating Localized Remarketing Campaigns

Develop localized remarketing campaigns that highlight the benefits of enrolling in a digital marketing course in Raipur. Use location-specific messaging to appeal to potential students in the area.

Measuring the Success of Remarketing Campaigns

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Track key performance indicators such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on ad spend to measure the success of your remarketing campaigns.

Tools for Tracking and Analysis

Use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and third-party tracking software to analyze the performance of your remarketing campaigns. These insights will help you optimize your strategies for better results.

Challenges in Remarketing

Overcoming Ad Fatigue

Ad fatigue occurs when users see the same ads repeatedly and start to ignore them. To overcome this, regularly refresh your ad creatives and vary your messaging to keep users engaged.

Dealing with Privacy Concerns

Privacy concerns can affect the effectiveness of your remarketing campaigns. Ensure you comply with all relevant regulations and be transparent with users about how their data is used.

Best Practices for Remarketing

Ad Frequency and Timing

Monitor the frequency of your ads to avoid overwhelming users. Aim for an optimal frequency that keeps your brand top of mind without causing ad fatigue.

Crafting Compelling Ad Copy

Create compelling ad copy that resonates with your target audience. Highlight the unique benefits of your digital marketing course and include strong calls to action to drive conversions.

Conclusion

Remarketing is a powerful strategy for driving conversions for digital marketing courses in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. By implementing these 15 strategies, you can create targeted, personalized campaigns that effectively re-engage potential students and boost enrollments. Focus on creating engaging ads, tracking performance, and continuously optimizing your campaigns to achieve the best results.

FAQs

What is the most effective remarketing strategy for digital marketing courses?
The most effective strategy depends on your specific audience and goals, but dynamic remarketing often yields high conversion rates by displaying personalized ads based on user behavior.
How can I measure the success of my remarketing campaigns?
Use key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on ad spend. Tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights can help track and analyze these metrics.
What are some common challenges in remarketing?
Common challenges include ad fatigue, where users become desensitized to your ads, and privacy concerns related to data usage. Regularly updating ad creatives and ensuring compliance with privacy regulations can help address these issues.
How does geotargeting enhance remarketing campaigns?
Geotargeting allows you to tailor your ads based on users’ locations, making your campaigns more relevant and appealing to local audiences. This is particularly useful for promoting local courses like a digital marketing course in Raipur.
What are the benefits of using dynamic remarketing?
Dynamic remarketing shows personalized ads based on user behavior, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. It enhances user experience by displaying relevant content, which increases the likelihood of conversions.
How can I avoid ad fatigue in my remarketing campaigns?
To avoid ad fatigue, regularly refresh your ad creatives and vary your messaging. Monitor ad frequency to ensure users are not overwhelmed, and experiment with different ad formats and placements to keep your campaigns engaging.