I've recently been reflecting on my efforts at being more productive and started writing some longer form content to help structure my thoughts.
I wrote up the below in the past few days and wanted to share. Perhaps some of you have also found yourself hindered by an ongoing search for the ideal life path vs. just enjoy the journey.
Hope you find this helpful!
Despite your inflated sense of yourself, you are not, amongst all other humans, impervious to being brainwashed. This is a hardwired feature of your mind and a circuit that is operating at all times, if you allow it to do so. You aren’t being brainwashed in the cartoonish mode of being made to act like a chicken or empty your wallet. However, you are being brainwashed nonetheless.
Replace the word “brainwashed” with “influenced” and you may start to see my point. If you read me, you are not a fan of the influencers for stupid people (a la Andrew Tate) but perhaps you have more refined taste (Huberman, Attia, Ferriss, Jocko, Peterson, Newport). If there are any such personalities you are a fan of, I assure you that in your efforts to live a more productive, successful, disciplined life… you have been brainwashed.
I want to focus on how quickly the messages that you hear from these sources transition into “shoulds” that run in the background of your daily self-talk. These sources are an unending stream of great ideas for how you should wake up, how you should work, how you should eat, how you should exercise, how you should have sex, how you should meditate, how you should partake in leisure and so on. Notice that they don’t always come in the form of a statement that says “you should do x.” They may come in the form of “my typical daily routine looks like y”. Either way, your mind is primed and ready to sponge it all up.
If you were but a simple peasant farming in Ye Olde England six hundred years ago, your life was governed by a very rigid set of “shoulds”. There was the Bible, there were social norms, the rules of the king, and so. However, these were still a relatively manageable list of rules that one could live by, and it was not unreasonable to assume that you could mostly stay on the Righteous Path. Fast forward to the algo-influencer age and all bets are off. Open up any platform and within minutes, you’ll be bombarded with more “shoulds” than you can possibly keep in mind at once. This observation comes with no value judgment on the quality of what we are being told, I am only commenting on the volume.
You are wrong if you tell me that you are effective at curating the good stuff that will improve your life from the algo-influencer-Youtube-podcast-x regime. I know you think you are because, as we noted, you are a fan of the high class, refined content. The good stuff. The science backed stuff. Here’s the thing, once a source of information finds some sort of “resonance” with your subconscious, you are going to suck it all right up. All the great stuff you hear will immediately seep into your subconscious and become a constant quiet voice in the back of your mind berating you with a litany of “shoulds.”
Alas, you object - it’s all good stuff. Huberman has me locked onto managing my dopamine levels, Attia has me optimizing my diet, Dr. Zoidberg has me keeping limber, and Cal Newport is showing me how to live a deep life. I want to point out three problems with what is going on here.
Problem #1 - Your mind is not actually asking what end purpose is being served by adopting the idea that you “should” be doing a given thing.
Let’s cue Jocko Willink on this one. I am someone who, for many years, felt it was important to wake up at 4:30am because of… discipline. Why? Well, I must get up early to be up before the enemy and for freedom. I note that discipline is the ultimate meta-”should”. Discipline means getting yourself to do all the “shoulds” on your list. Can anyone tell me what outcome I’m missing out on by not partaking in a daily cold plunge, heat plunge, ice bath, or looking at the sun within 15 minutes of waking up?
Problem #2 - Even if you have a desired end goal, your mind is not doing a rigorous job of assessing whether or not a given “should” will get you there.
Most of us would like more control of our daily schedule in order to have more freedom and flexibility. The grindset types on Youtube, or on X have a common solution for us. I am not likely taking a huge leap in that one “should” you have picked up is something to do with entrepreneurship. Ok, have you really considered whether starting your own business will give you more freedom? Maybe it will… I just suspect you picked up this idea without really looking at the pros and cons.
Problem #3 - Even if you’ve been bequeathed a fantastic, grade A, “should” from someone… you’ve got more than you can handle already.
If a “should” that you heard on Youtube or read in a book resonates for some reason, your mind will take it up and start beaming you subconscious messages to do that thing. Your mind will also happily send you 10 of these at once. Are they contradictory? Who cares? I “should” wake up at 4:30, and I should sleep at least 8 hours with no alarm clock. I should also consider being a night owl creative type, and stay up late to grind if life demands it. Some “shoulds” probably aren’t even really defined to any precision. I should be more driven, more mindful, more dynamic. I genuinely feel all those impulses and can’t even begin to tell you what it would like to actually do them. Mr. Brain has no problem with cognitive dissonance, and will dutifully tell me to live up to all of these.
Let’s now talk about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (as an aside, yes I also feel a “should” to be more religious, spiritual, and penitent). Well, really I want to talk about The Promised Land. I know you… you are the hard driving, disciplined type. You like to punish yourself for not living up to your expectations. Alas, you are on the verge of getting there. If you could just get a few days in a row where you nail all your “shoulds,” it will all fall into place. One perfect day will lead to the next and the next. Then, I’ll have made it. I’ll be in the land of enlightenment (and oh so productive). Fellow pilgrim, I’m right there with you on the Righteous Path.
Wait a second, something feels off. Did I say above that our mind will happily adopt any set of “shoulds” no matter how contradictory or ill-defined they may be? And, did I also say that I’m striving to get to The Promised Land by doing “All the Shoulds”? If The Righteous Path is the road that leads to The Promised Land, I’ve got some bad news for you. You are permanently off The Righteous Path. This, my friend, is why you constantly feel like you are not living up to your expectations. They are impossible - you never had a chance. It’s ok though - Jesus died for your sins and there is still a path to salvation.
Oh, but, I’m not ready for salvation, I want to rock on. Here’s what we’d all prefer to do when faced with that sensation of being off the Path. It’s time to hunker down, and go to war, and GRIND. Don’t tell me I can’t do it all. When fate whispers, “You cannot Withstand The Storm,” the Warrior Whispers, “I am the Storm.” I’m feeling chills (no really, it’s a great quote). That’s how we roll. We man up and get that shit done. Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if that worked you wouldn’t still be in the market for motivational content. You are still lost… no Youtube video is going to get out of the bottomless deep of the “should.”
Back to Jesus (gasp - you didn’t warn me this would be a borderline sacrilegious article). It’s okay, Jesus is fair game in the algo-world. This is that obnoxious pause point in a self help book where there’s a worksheet page and you are asked to write stuff down. Take 10 minutes and make yourself a list of all the “shoulds” that you are feeling at this point about your life. I’ll help you get going with some prompts: businesses to start, podcasts to create, books to read, daily rituals to adopt, food to eat/not eat, workout routine to start, races to run, people to call, projects to do. You get the idea.
More work for you. Now imagine your perfect day. I mean a day that checks all the boxes. I despise rap, but seek inspiration in imagining the productivity version of the Ice Cube hit, “It was a Good Day.” How would you spend your time? Think about it hour by hour, minute by minute. When do you wake up? What do you do after waking up? How much time do you spend working? What sort of work? What else do you do? Map it all out. Imagine this as a day where you fully control your schedule.
Are you still with me? Probably not. This is too many words for the internet and I’m asking too much of your lazy ass. You should be less lazy. See what I did there? Ok, next step. Map your perfect day onto reality. Take any of the days from the past week where you had real life commitments such as work meetings, errands, childcare and ask yourself how you would map this perfect day onto that reality. Where would the three hours of Cal Newport Deep Work fit? How would you wake up at 4:30am after being up late because your kid was sick or your friend from out of town was visiting?
My point is, of course, obvious. However, don’t underestimate what I am saying. I am not saying that you can’t always have your perfect day. I am saying you can never have the perfect day. You are imposing unrealistic expectations upon reality. This conflict has always existed and you had two choices: 1) Dig deeper and muscle through because you are failing as a person to be sufficiently disciplined, or 2) Accept that your “shoulds” were always impossible to fully satisfy, and try something different.
Here’s the last thing I want you to do for now. Go back to your “should” list from the first step and take a critical eye. I give you permission to cross out as many as you’d like. If you are unsure before you cross it out, ask yourself: Where did this idea come from? Does it help me lead a happier life? Do I even agree with the premise? When in doubt, cross it out and feel the freedom.
I’ll leave you with one last message - you are probably doing just fine. Are there improvements you can make in your life? Sure, we all can. However, you aren’t failing, you aren’t straying from The Righteous Path, and there is no Promised Land. There’s just the lower case p path, and that is alright.

I've recently completed my third year of computer engineering at UofT, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the courses I've taken. I hope this will be beneficial to incoming first, second, and third-year engineering students. My area of depth is 6 (Software) and my areas of breadth are 4 (Control) and 5 (Computer hardware/networks).
Difficulty: How hard it was to comprehend course material and/or complete practice problems accurately. Keep in mind that difficulty is subjective but I tried to eliminate personal bias and be as objective as possible.
Workload: The amount of work to complete outside of lectures (labs, assignments, homework, studying for tests/exams).
All engineers take the exact same courses in their first year first semester and similar ones in second semester. I took these courses in 2021 during covid so some information might be outdated.
First Year Semester 1:
APS100 Orientation to Engineering:
Difficulty: 1/10 Workload: 3/10 Course Average: N/A
There is no technical material in this course. All coursework consists of Ethics analysis, creating a schedule for time management, creating your resume, and discussion board participation. During tutorials, the TA typically asks behavioral questions to the class and covers slides pertaining to engineering principles, the learning environment, test readiness, and related topics.
APS110 Engineering Chemistry and Materials Science
Difficulty: 6/10 Workload: 5/10 Course Average: B
This course blends elements of chemistry, physics, and mathematics, requiring lots of formulas and memorization. The assignments and online quizzes were moderately difficult. Not sure if he’s still teaching but Scott Ramsay was a really good professor. Really enjoyed watching his video demonstrations.
APS111 Engineering Strategies and Practices I
Difficulty: 3/10 Workload: 6/10 (Variable) Course Average: B
Students are organized into groups of 5-6 and are assigned the task of developing a solution for a client, following the engineering design process. Success in this course heavily relies on your team. Throughout the semester, there are several milestones where you need to submit large reports with your team, making it crucial to have capable teammates. Many teams resorted to last-minute cramming the night before each milestone (not a good idea). Additionally, there are two peer reviews, so make sure you contribute to avoid being perceived as an unproductive member. In most cases, you don’t need to worry about this though. You’d likely all be good friends by that point (and give each other a perfect review).
CIV100 Mechanics
Difficulty: 9/10 Workload: 9/10 Course Average: C+
The consensus among most students in my year was that this was the toughest first year course. It's incredibly calculation heavy, with questions that may appear straightforward in theory but require multiple steps to solve. Even a minor error can screw up your entire calculation process. The assignments are extremely time-consuming, and the quizzes pose significant challenges. I suggest you work in a group for the assignments. Furthermore, both the final exam and midterm were exceptionally difficult.
MAT186 Calculus I
Difficulty: 4/10 Workload: 4/10 Course Average: B
If you’ve taken IB or AP this course will be a breeze. Even without that background, it's still relatively straightforward. Very little on integrals, mostly derivatives, rates of change, and graphs. PCEs and WebWorks were trivial, and the midterm and exam were easy.
MAT188 Linear Algebra
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 7/10 Course Average: B-
The majority of the course revolves around relatively straightforward operations on matrices and vectors. However, it does introduce abstract concepts like higher-order dimensions, which may require some deeper thinking to fully grasp. Webwork assignments were slightly more challenging compared to MAT186's, and completing assignments took a while. Once again, you should work with a partner or as a group. Pay attention in the MATLAB practicals because you’ll be using MATLAB pretty often in future courses.
First Year Semester 2:
APS105 Computer Fundamentals
Difficulty: 6/10 Workload: 5/10 Course Average: B-
If you’ve taken programming in high school, you will likely find this course very easy (2/10 difficulty). The course covers simple programming syntax, along with basic sorting algorithms, without delving into more advanced concepts beyond linked lists and binary trees. I think that this was one of the more enjoyable courses of first year.
APS112 Engineering Strategies and Practices II
Difficulty: 5/10 Workload: 7/10 (Variable) Course Average: B+
This course is essentially a continuation of APS111, but with the added component of being assigned an actual client with a real-world problem statement. Each group works with a unique client, and at the end of the term, you present your final report directly to them, along with your supervisors. As with APS111, the quality of your team plays a crucial role in your success. Another thing to note is that unlike APS111, there were multiple individual assignments to complete on top of your team reports.
ECE110 Electrical Fundamentals
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload: 6/10 Course Average: C+
Definitely one of the harder first year courses. This course marks your introduction to circuits. Topics covered include capacitors, Ampere's law, Ohm's law, Kirchhoff's laws, AC/DC circuits, magnetism, Thevenin and Norton equivalents, and more. The material is extensive and requires thorough understanding, as many future courses will build upon its concepts. Make sure that you understand the content well, given its foundational importance in subsequent courses.
ECE191 Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering
Difficulty: 0/10 Workload: 1/10 Course Average: N/A
Seminar course. You just need to show up to the lectures (one per week) and submit a 100-ish word report about what you learned.
MAT187 Calculus II
Difficulty: 6/10 Workload: 5/10 Course Average: C+
The workload in this course is comparable to Calc I, but the content is more challenging (obviously). It delves deeper into integrals and introduces concepts like ordinary differential equations and polar coordinates. But again, you’ll manage just fine if you did decently in Calc 1, and especially if you’ve taken AP math or IB HL math.
MIE100 Dynamics
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload 4/10 Course Average: C+
I personally found this to be the most challenging course in first year, but it seems that most people disagree with me. It shares similarities with CIV100, but you’re instead dealing with dynamic systems (moving) rather than static ones (not moving). Some concepts may prove difficult to grasp initially. However, if you focus on memorizing the relevant formulas and understanding when to apply them, you should be okay. Expect an emphasis on physics in this course.
Second year was the worst (for ECE) and a very big step up from first year. If you struggled in first year, you better lock in for second year.
Second Year Semester 1:
ECE201 ECE Seminar Course
Difficulty: 0/10 Workload: 0/10 Course Average: N/A
Another seminar course, except you just need to attend 7/10 lectures to pass. Most students just scan their Tcard at the entrance then leave right after. The lectures are pretty useless except the Magellan one where they show you how to choose courses for 3rd and 4th year.
ECE212 Circuit Analysis
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 8/10 Course Average: B+
This course provides a deeper exploration of circuits, extending beyond circuit solving to include frequency and sinusoidal analysis. Questions tend to be long so careless errors will cost you. Personally, I found the labs challenging, particularly because they required working with oscilloscopes at a higher level than I was used to, and I could not for the life of me figure out how to use that thing.
ECE241 Digital Systems
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 8/10 Course Average: B-
This hardware course focuses on the foundation of hardware. A lot of the content is at the fundamental level so it’s not too hard to comprehend. However, the main challenge lies in learning Verilog, a hardware description language. I hate Verilog. All the labs are done using Verilog, and frustratingly, the course provides no instruction on the language, nor are there many helpful resources available online. This lack of guidance made what should have been straightforward labs much more difficult. Thankfully if you are in CE, you’ll never need to take another course with Verilog again. The midterm was easy but the final was borderline impossible.
ECE244 Programming Fundamentals
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 7/10 Course Average: B-
This course is the sequel to APS105, delving into more advanced concepts like pointers, constructors, polymorphism, and inheritance. Many of these topics may feel familiar if you have prior programming experience, particularly from high school. Consequently, if you're already proficient in programming, as many computer engineering students are, you should be able to navigate through this course well. The labs were generally manageable, although a couple of them were time-consuming.
MAT290 Advanced Engineering Mathematics
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload 8/10 Course Average: B
In this course, you’ll learn a lot of miscellaneous mathematical concepts that will be relevant in future courses. The goal is to establish a strong foundation to facilitate understanding in third and fourth-year courses. There is also a quiz every week. They were terrible from a time management standpoint, but as long as you spent 3-4 hours per week completing the assigned textbook questions, you should be alright since one (out of two) of the questions on the quiz is guaranteed to be an assigned textbook question (at least, that was the case when I took the course).
MAT291 Calculus III
Difficulty: 9/10 Workload 9/10 Course Average: B-
The entire workload comes from studying for those damn weekly quizzes, much like MAT290. Personally, I found it to be one of the most difficult courses I've ever taken. Think of calculus 2, but now everything is in three dimensions, encompassing concepts like surface integrals, flux integrals, and more. Additionally, the course introduces abstract topics that I still struggle to grasp. Balancing the demands of this course alongside everything else was an incredibly stressful experience.
Second Year Semester 2:
ECE216 Signals and Systems
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload:7/10 Course Average: C+
I think everyone hated this course. It was so poorly taught and the midterms felt haphazard and unpredictable. I relied on the power of BS to pass (worked surprisingly). Other than working with many graphs and MATLAB, I don’t remember much about this course because it was so uninteresting.
ECE221 Electric and Magnetic Fields
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload: 5/10 Course Average: C+
This course serves as an introduction to fields, while also expanding on the principles covered in ECE110. Many concepts build upon intuitive ideas, such as the repulsion of identical charges and attraction of opposite charges, which can make seemingly complex topics less intimidating. There are also many procedures that you need to know to solve specific types of questions. The labs are generally straightforward. You just need to follow the steps on the lab worksheet and answer a few simple questions from the TA.
ECE231 Intro to Electronics
Difficulty: 9/10 Workload: 7/10 Course Average: C+
This course is basically circuit analysis but significantly harder. It combines everything you've learned about circuits thus far, introducing new topics on top of that foundation. There are so many new concepts to learn and the final pretty much tests you on all of them. I’ve encountered multiple scenarios where I saw two concepts that I thought were completely separate from each other being integrated into a single question on an exam. Also very calculation heavy. Despite my experience in this course, I must admit Khoman Fang was a great professor.
ECE243 Computer Organization
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 6/10 Course Average: B
This course is a direct continuation of ECE241, and surprisingly, I found it a lot more enjoyable than its prerequisite. The focus is on Assembly language programming, which I found to be way more understandable compared to Verilog. Assembly operates at a fundamental level, so you’re technically working with the most basic building blocks in programming. The labs often involved seemingly simple tasks like counting to 10 on a HEX display, but the nature of Assembly meant that achieving this could require hundreds of lines of code. I appreciated these labs as they provided a refreshing change from the usual programming tasks. Final and midterm exams were relatively easy.
ECE297 Software communication and design
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload: 9/10 (Variable) Course Average: B+
Despite the demanding workload, this course was one of my favorites. The main project involved collaborating in teams of three to develop a geographical information system (similar to Google Maps). Unlike other courses where teams are assigned, here you have the freedom to choose your own teammates. Starting off, your team is given only the OpenStreetMap database, and the APIs, granting you complete control over your project's design, functionality, and optimization. Performance enhancement and pathfinding algorithms were key components of the project. It's crucial for all team members to contribute effectively for success in this course; And trust me, this is not a one or two person project. To succeed in this course, all three members must be doing their share.
Third Year:
They say that third year is the easiest year for ECE, but that depends on what courses you choose. For me, it was only slightly easier than second year but still significantly harder than first year.
APS360 Fundamentals of Deep Learning
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload : 8/10 Course Average: B+
This course felt fundamentally very different compared to the other programming related courses. If you’re unfamiliar with deep learning, the content can be overwhelming but the inner workings behind AI are both fascinating and challenging to grasp. Fortunately, much of the coding in the course revolves around preparing data, setting up AI architectures, and training/testing models, rather than building an AI from scratch. While the labs are manageable, the final project can be very time consuming, particularly as training a single model can require hours or even days. Regarding this aspect, make sure you start early. Both the midterm and final exams were quite difficult.
ECE302 Probability and Applications
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 3/10 Course Average: B-
The first half of this course is very straightforward. Just an introduction to probability. The second half is where the difficulty quickly ramps up. Make sure you don’t underestimate the second half of the course. I made the mistake of assuming the material was easy after performing well on both midterms (midterms were very easy), leading me to neglect the final third of the course so I flunked the final. FYI, our marks were determined solely by the 2 midterms and the final.
ECE344 Operating Systems
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload: 10/10 Course Average: B
This course had the most difficult and demanding labs I’ve ever seen in my life. They are due every two weeks and some of them took most students more than 15 hours to complete. I’ve seen people staying up all night in the GB computer rooms to finish these labs. One positive aspect of the course if Jon Eyolfson is your professor, is that all lectures are both recorded and live-streamed, allowing attendance in person, online synchronously, or asynchronously. But if you have Ding Yuan, good luck. I heard he is not only bad at teaching, but also makes you program an operating system from scratch. The course content is quite interesting and the Midterm and final exams were fair.
ECE345 Algorithms and Data Structures
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload: 7/10 Course Average: B+
If you're one of those programming geniuses who have been doing Leetcode since like 3 years old, you’d have likely already learned all course content before you’ve even started the course. You could probably write midterm and final exams without attending any lectures. However, if you're not as experienced, attending every lecture, taking detailed notes, and staying focused is crucial. Personally speaking, some algorithms were incredibly difficult for me to grasp, while others were simple. Assignments typically include both coding and long-answer components, which can be time-consuming, but you can work with a partner.
TEP444 Positive Psychology for Engineers
Difficulty: 1/10 Workload: 3/10 Course Average: A-
This course overall was very enjoyable and a nice refreshing experience from the other technical courses. You go on excursions to various locations with your group and write reports. It's an excellent opportunity to expand your social circle and make new friends. If you aim for an A- grade (80-85), you can breeze through with minimal effort. However, achieving a higher grade (A or A+) would require significantly more work (like 5 times more, no joke), which is not worth the extra effort in my opinion.
CSC343 Introduction to Databases
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 10/10 Course Average: Unreleased
The content of this course is actually pretty interesting and is taught well. But the assignments were excessively time consuming. There are only three in total, but each one demanded such a significant investment of time to the point where I contemplated dropping the course altogether. You do work with a partner (going solo isn’t even an option if you want to complete the assignments) but even so, be prepared to invest 15-30 hours per person, per assignment (they also mark hard). Despite the workload, I do recommend taking this course because knowing SQL can substantially benefit you in the future. Just start the assignments early. On a positive note, the midterm and final were relatively straightforward.
ECE311 Introduction to Control Systems
Difficulty: 10/10 Workload: 5/10 Course Average: C+
This course didn't come with a heavy workload, consisting only of three labs and two midterms. However, I found the content to be very challenging. It felt like they condensed and combined every concept from every engineering math and physics course into one. Topics ranged from circuits and dynamics to Laplace transforms, matrices, Bode plots, and more. It didn’t help that Prof Scardovi didn’t record any lectures, has messy handwriting, and uses a damn chalkboard instead of modern technology like other profs do. The midterms and final were somewhat lenient compared to the lectures, but this course still ended up being my lowest mark.
ECE361 Computer networks I
Difficulty: 8/10 Workload: 9/10 Course Average: B
This course requires a lot of memorization compared to other courses. You’ll have to understand calculation processes but also memorize a lot of general knowledge about networks. A problem with this course is that some concepts that show up in tests are not adequately explained in lectures. By far the best way to study is to do past exams. Professor Valaee often recycles questions, sometimes even directly copying past midterms and finals (like he did in my cohort). Unlike other courses, there is no big assignment/lab for this course, but it makes up for it with quantity. There’s a quiz every week, a wireshark lab every 2 weeks, a programming lab every 2 weeks, and a midterm. The programming labs are already difficult by themselves, but this cumulative workload felt very overwhelming.
ECE472 Engineering Economics and Entrepreneurship
Difficulty: 7/10 Workload: 5/10 Course Average: B+
This is straight up an economics course, no engineering at all. You’ll learn about investments, equity, financing, and related areas. There are 4 quizzes throughout the semester, with quiz 3 (quiz 3 specifically) being by far the hardest (average in the 50s). Since you're able to bring your textbook to the quizzes and exam, my biggest tip is to write past quiz and exam solutions in your textbook, as there's a limited pool of questions, and new questions often resemble some kind of variation of past ones.
ECE421 Introduction to Machine Learning
Difficulty: 9/10 Workload: 7/10 Course Average: unreleased
While the course content itself may be challenging, surprisingly, the midterm and final exams were pretty easy. There's a slight discorrelation between the lecture material and what appears on the exams, but relying on past exams for preparation should be enough. The course leans heavily on mathematical concepts, much more so than APS360. The assignments were difficult and tedious but I recommend you work with others to complete it.
With that, I've covered my thoughts and tips for all the engineering courses I've completed. Transitioning into your next year in engineering, particularly if you’re transitioning from high school, can feel daunting. However, remember that you're not alone in this experience – many of your peers are facing similar challenges. If you need any more advice or have questions, feel free to reach out to me via DMs!

This is going to be a long post, so please bear with me. For starters, this is my second time applying to PA school--I was at a disadvantage last cycle, as I applied late July, almost early August. I was working towards my masters degree during that time, and had a bunch of in-progress courses that I need to retake. I wasn't the best student my sophomore year of college, and Organic Chemistry I was the death of me, had to retake it and passed on my third try. I have shadowed a surgical PA for a few months, but because of the pandemic, the hospital was not allowing any students to shadow anymore. I like the idea of PA's bridging the gaps in healthcare, as with everyone. Although lateral mobility and good work-life balance are enticing factors in being a PA, I don't see that as being true. It really is specialty-dependent, an ideally, I think is best to stick with one speciality and perfect your craft. I don't mind the level of autonomy that comes with being a PA, I feel that everybody can be a leader within their own scope of practice.
However, amidst this journey of applying to PA school, during college, and even high school, medical school and being a physician has been nagging in the back of my mind. I come from two loving parents who never pressured me to pursue a career in medicine, but something that will make me satisfied and have a good life. Being a physician means having the breadth of knowledge, thoroughly understanding the mechanism of actions in medication and diseases. Its better to know and comprehend the whole story and the why, instead of just knowing surface level information. I'd like to think being a research assistant is helping me in solidifying my decision to be a physician--I understand that its two completely different things, but I enjoy showing medical students and other graduate students how to dissect a mouse, I love teaching them the anatomy of the mouse, and what each part is special in, and how it pertains to the research that I do. I love being the leader, and I appreciate when my colleagues come to me for questions and ask for my perspective in different things. I enjoy being a leader, yet I enjoy working in a team. For reference, here are my stats, they are not the greatest, but I'd like to think my experiences showcases that:
-graduated college with a 2.943 gpa, had to retake most of my sophomore year's worth of classes, failed organic chemistry I and passed on my third try. with all retakes and masters, raised to 3.02. despite failing most of soph year, i made deans list numerous times.
-got my masters in biomedical sciences, got a 3.4 gpa
-last 60 credits, 3.66, last 45, 3.61
-1955 hours as a night shift float pct, certified in phlebotomy, ekg, and as a pct.
-1392 hours in biochem research, vitamin D regulation focused. abstract sent out, will be presenting in symposium in fall
-new job as mental health specialist on back up call center, about 60 hours since i just started position
-990 hours in social and affective neuroscience research, presented thesis to psych department
-volunteering: sunday school teacher for 2nd graders, habitat for humanity, health screener in grad school, volunteer in hospital in high risk pregnancy and geriatric wings, summer camp counselor in church, food bank.
-teaching experience: learning assistant for psych stats course, helped teach 37 juniors and seniors as a junior, about 42 hours bc during semester.
-hobbies: food festivals, legos, parrots, painting, cooking and baking.
I have not taken my MCAT, and I told myself that if I do not get far in PA school applications, I will start studying for the test come the fall. The masters program that I am apart of has a linkage with the medical school, so I will try to see what my options are when the time comes. All in all, both professions are excellent, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been. Some honest advice and feedback would be helpful.

I’m kind of alarmed that there are so many people on here that aren’t equipped with the basics so here are some that work for me.
Google De catastrophising worksheet
Google Bilateral stimulation techniques ( this is for fidgety panickers like me)
YouTube full body scan for non fidgety panic attackers
The 555 rule ( I find the term funny having lived in Thailand and I’m pretty certain nobody will understand the reference
You’re not having a heart attack. Your Neanderthal brain has decided you’re being chased by a Sabre tooth tiger when in fact you’re in Walgreens and there’s no danger.
If you’re in public pick any topic and work your way through every letter of the alphabet. I find animals works best
Google Stretching you can do in public without looking weird
Not caring about looking weird in public
Breath in for 4 seconds , hold it for 4 seconds, breath out for 4 seconds and I know it sounds odd but try and breath in through your stomach.
And most importantly , if anyone reads this, drop your shoulders unclench your jaw and take a deep breath .

So, the encampment has been here for two days now, and as a student at WWU who supports them but hasn't joined them, I have some issues with them as a student who is studying social movements and how they can succeed.
First of all, they have to take into account the people who were alive to witness 9/11, and how people covered head to toe in Keffiyehs don't send the right message. People covered in Keffiyehs to the average American who was alive during 9/11 look like terrorists. I will be the first to admit that this is Islamophobic, but you can't change the psychology of Americans just by pointing out that that sort of thinking is Islamophobic.
Successful movements have to be aware of these psychological triggers and they have to work within them. Social Media can be an extremely effective tool for their movement, but to use it effectively, they have to realize that the optics of their movement are just as important as their cause. Right now, the optics of their movement aren't good. People can stereotype them as a bunch of blue haired people, cosplaying as terrorists and screaming about dead babies.
Second of all, I have some thoughts on how to fix these issues. Get rid of the encampment entirely. It's disruptive, messy, loud, and it doesn't help. Get rid of the head-to-toe Keffiyeh look, but do keep them around their necks. Dye their hair more colors, like a rainbow, and get some cheap baby strollers from the local baby supplies store (or maybe Amazon if they're willing to break the BDS checklist). These strollers will be their key element. Also, change their chants from angry, antagonistic talking points to singing. This Land is your Land by Woody Guthrie as an example, would be extremely powerful. Next, march down the street with those empty strollers, with the Keffiyehs around their necks, with their rainbow hair, and stand in front of the police if they do come. It'll look like a color revolution. Don't antagonize the police, just stand proudly in front of them. The police in their black SWAT gear teargassing and beating up people with strollers and rainbow hair won't be a good look for them.
Last, and most importantly, for a movement that supposedly is against elitism, their movement is behaving like a members-only club. They must get more flags involved, the Israeli flag would be a good one, the Ukrainian and American flags maybe, hell maybe even the Iranian flag before the Islamic revolution.
If they get more flags involved, they're telling people that they don't care about your religion, they don't care about your ethnicity or your race, they don't care if you're a right-leaning person, a left-leaning person, or a centrist, they want ALL Americans to join them. If they get the Israeli flag in, they'll be able to neutralize the people who are saying that they're antisemitic, H-group sympathizers. If they get the American flag in, they'll be able to tell people that they aren't anti-American. If they get the Ukrainian flag in, they'll be able to tell people that they stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If they get the Iranian flag in, they'll be able to tell people that they stand with the Iranian women who are currently being killed by the Islamic Republic and that they stand against the Islamic Republic itself.
Thank you for reading, and I hope that the organizers of the encampment take these issues and solutions to heart.
Edit: Some corrections.

Yesterday I subbed in a 6th grade class and one of the students was extremely loud/disrespectful from the moment he stepped into the classroom. When the bell rang he pretended to fall on the floor and refused to get up for about 2 minutes. After he refused I just ignored it and went on to introduce myself and tell the class the plan for the day. Afterwards I walked over and helped him up. I told them to answer the quick write question I'd written on the board and that while they were doing that I would be taking roll using their seating chart, and that they should make sure to be in their assigned seats if they didn't want to be marked absent. After this the one student was still on the ground giggling and I walked over and offered him a hand and helped him up.
Of course the kid who "fell" went to a seat that wasn't his and proceeded to pretend to have a different name. I could tell he was lying right away because of the face he was making, and one of the other students said "_____, just go to your seat dude."
Then I put on some video from the history channel and this kid was just talking full volume across the class to his friend. I walked over to him and gave him a warning, saying if he continued to be disruptive I would have to send him to the office. He was quiet for the next 10 minutes during the video.
This next part is where I'm wondering if I crossed the line. After the video I handed out a worksheet and while I was giving them directions this kid started talking loudly again, this time to the person behind him. I walked over and asked him if he heard the directions. He didn't answer and just started telling me about some nonsense he was talking to the person behind him about. I cut him off after like 3 seconds and said "Hey _____, guess what? I don't care."
The class laughed and there were a bunch of "Oohhhh"s and kids saying he got skibidi sigma'd or something. He looked really embarrassed and I felt bad. Just wondering if what I did was over the line or appropriate based on how disrespectful the kid was being.
Thoughts?

Before I dive in, know that I love my wife and I want to fix this. I’m posting in RelationshipAdvice for a reason. It will be a lot, but please don’t read it like an AITA post and pass judgment. I need some honest advice, and I’m miles away from my real-life support network.
The TL; DR is that my wife has (re)developed a bunch of conversational habits from hanging out with her brother. These habits leave me feeling excluded, stressed, and are messing with my work. Trying to address them has opened a whole can of worms, mainly that my wife hates my entire problem-solving style.
I’m keeping details vague in case she stumbles upon this post. Please, if you think my story doesn’t add up, or you think you know where I am and want to offer real estate advice or whatever, keep it to yourself.
We got hitched and moved in together right before before Covid hit. Started off great, but after six months of lockdowns and masks, we realized we could live anywhere in the country without paying through the nose for coastal housing. For context: I work in tech, and my wife is a performer. We met in a bar, and honestly, Covid was the wake-up call that my career hadn’t lived up to my potential, probably due to alcohol. So I accepted the reality that maybe my career isn’t going where I hoped, and isn’t likely to – and instead of chasing after it, we should downsize our expenses. I counted my blessings for having a wonderful wife instead.
I negotiated permanent remote work. We aimed to move to the low-cost state she grew up in. Her brother, who I like way more than my own family, hooked us up with a place to rent near his house. Bigger than we needed, but I was okay with it because it had space for a home office. We boxed up our lives into a truck and moved.
Here’s where it gets complicated. My wife has always been talkative, and she can be pretty dang loud. Not sure how much of this I didn’t fully realize before. When we were dating, we only saw each other a couple of days a week, and in our first place together, we never had visitors thanks to the pandemic. But when she's with her brother, she talks like she's trying to command a room full of first-graders. She also doesn’t adjust her volume when she’s close to me. I have tinnitus, and she has literally made my ears ring by talking while leaning on me
Next up. I feel like a jerk saying this, given what I know about the word ‘shrill’, but hear me out. If the two of us are in the same room, she’ll use a tone of voice that seems intended to be impossible to ignore.
Third, if I try to join the conversation, my wife will interrupt me and steamroll right over me. Part of this is because she has a strange conversational rhythm where she seems to be done talking but then BAM! She jumps back in at an even higher volume, after the pause. So if you think it’s your turn to speak, you get interrupted. She does this even when no one else is talking. She will interrupt me to finish my sentences, nearly always incorrectly. She will interrupt me to tell me I’m wrong about something, ruining my flow. She will interrupt me to take over telling a story, telling it worse by missing key facts and rambling at higher speed.
Fourth, she doesn't seem to organize her thoughts before speaking. At all. Couple with what I just mentioned, you've got her cutting off anyone who dares to chime in until she's “talked out” the subject with everything she can think of. By then, everyone else is bored and over being interrupted when they try to jump in. So, the topic just fizzles out, and she covers that up with nervous laughter.
Fifth, if I try to ask questions to follow along, she gets mad that I’m interrupting her or ruining her flow. So I’ve given up on questions. If I lose track, I either catch up or I don’t. I can’t zone out because of her volume and tone.
Sixth, after she’s been around her brother, she maintains this kind of conversational energy when it’s just us. Her brother can be just as loud, and raises his voice and talks over her right back in the moment. But when we’re in any group that does not include my wife, he’s back to an energy I can converse with. She does not switch back, not unless she hasn’t seen him for at least a week.
Seventh, their parents’ first language isn’t English, and they immediately switch to it as soon as I leave the room. If you know the language I mean, it makes every conversation sound like a fight. I figure, if they’re not including me anyway, why talk in English while I’m around? Why can’t I just leave you guys to talk? No, because then my wife gets mad that I’m a bad host, that I “hate” her brother, or calls me a “rude teenager”.
Eighth, 90% of their what they talk about are their opinions, mostly of family members, reality TV, or random AITA stuff. They just keep regurgitating the same views about people, social issues, capitalism, America, over and over. When I do get to throw in my two cents, they often react with anger. It feels like a low-effort bonding activity: like we’re constantly reaffirming the group values – and verbally punishing transgression – rather than discuss anything new. Her brother isn’t like this away from her.
However I slice this, it’s incongruent. If they want me involved by speaking English, why not let me chime in? If they think they're entertaining me, why not make sure I'm following? And if I'm supposed to zone out, why use a tone and volume that's impossible to ignore?
The impression I get is that my wife thinks my role is to be her passive audience, plain and simple.
There’s more about my job, but first, how I’ve failed to address this so far.
First, the loudness. According to both of them ‘that’s just the way we are,’ so it ain’t changing.
I haven’t addressed the tone, I can’t figure out how to without starting a fight.
Interruptions. My wife has had four levels of reactions when I have brought this up. First, she straight-up ignores it. Second, she acknowledges it, but with an eye roll like I'm just being petty. Third is to get mad, call me an asshole, or accuse me of silencing her. Fourth, she blows up and yells all kinds of crap (“you’re evil,” “you just hate my brother,” and incongruently, “you two are douche-bros together”), which after she’ll say she didn’t mean. She’ll then start crying about losing me, or even making her brother hate her. She’ll make me swear to keep reminding her. But in the moment, when she’s not upset, she’s back to eye rolling.
Rambling. My wife’s response is that I do the exact same thing, and that when I do it, it’s extremely boring. What she means is that if I’m excited by or trying to explain anything technical, she tunes out as soon as she hears a word she doesn’t understand, and stares right through my head until I stop talking. Apparently, this is ‘polite’. Asking questions, saying I'm not interested? Just rude.
How she changes her behavior around her brother. Raising it makes her mad. She has straight-up told me, “I will always pick my brother over you.” In her more honest moments, she’s admitted the thought of me developing a beef with her brother is one of her worst nightmares, so her anger is really for of that outcome, directed at me. She gets that this is counterproductive, sometimes. But this conversation is tough.
Switching in English. They forget this and slip back to ‘politeness’ rules. I have to be careful how I word ‘I have no interest in this conversation’ or ‘You don’t need to talk in English’ or they both say I’m rude and get mad.
My wife has also said she hates the way I solve relationship problems, calling it ‘patronizing hippy crap’. For instance, I ask people what their goal is in saying or doing certain thing (“What’s your intention in talking so loud?”). This immediately makes my wife mad, like she thinks I’m playing sociology professor and using brains to outsmart her. Thing is, she will say a LOT of things she doesn’t mean in an argument, and I tend to take things literally, so I need to check that she doesn’t actually mean “You’re evil”, otherwise the argument escalates for other reasons.
I feel like she retaliates for feeling like I’m trying to impose some kind of intellectual superiority over her by trying to impose some kind of “social intelligence” superiority over me. “Of course people don’t mean everything they say in fucking arguments, are you retarded?”. She’ll misinterpret what I’m saying in a way that implies I’m real dumb, then moves the conversation on before I can defend myself. All of which is exacerbated by how her habits push me out of the conversation.
Onto work problems. My job requires two things from me: hard problem-solving which needs long periods of uninterrupted focus, and rapid incident response. Being interrupted/talked to while I’m deep in work disrupts both of those. Neither my wife nor her brother (who’s a contractor) stick to regular office hours, and they both like to knock back a few during the day. Now, I have no issue with that, but I do have a problem when he comes over, starts drinking with my wife, they have loud conversations which I can hear from my office. Often from one room to another.
My wife doesn’t appreciate me complaining about this since she “should be free to enjoy her own home” and I “can easily get another job.” I’ve tried explaining to her that no, I can’t easily get a job that pays the same in this state. Either I’d have to hunt for increasingly scarce remote work, or we’d need to suck up downsizing and potentially moving away from her brother. She refuses to entertain any of this.
Things have improved slightly since I started composing this post, but only after a chaotic incident. She stormed into my office to look for something, mid-argument with her brother. In frustration, I took off for a drive to clear my head. Of course, there was an incident while I was out, I missed the notification, and got written up for it.
I’ve tried talking to her brother one-on-one. He’s a realist. Rent a private office, and get ourselves into couples therapy. My objection is straightforward: the cost of commuting, office rent, couples therapy (no cheaper here, lower quality by all accounts), on top of our current expenses, exceed what we were paying before we moved. All this because my wife won't adjust her behavior to accommodate my needs, or respect my job.
They often invite me to drink with them during lunch and sometimes suggest blowing off the rest of the day. Despite my repeated refusals, they persist, considering it polite. I find it rude and disrespectful to keep pushing. They've even labeled me as "boring”. But what really grinds my gears is when they invite me out and I decline, they think they've got a right to grill me about why. A few times, when I've had enough of their pestering, I’ll state my position more firmly, and then they’ll get real mad that I’m being “judgmental”, and think I’m better than them. So now if they invite me anywhere, I just shut it down with a simple "no" and zero explanation. Which bugs them, but at least it keeps the peace.
There are a ton of other emergent/secondary annoyances I could get into, but let's cap it at three.
One, since I’ve said they’re both being hypocritical about me being ‘judgmental’ (even though I wasn’t) in refusing to join their plans, when the majority of their conversations are judging other people: it has become a game to them to point out every time they think I’m a hypocrite. I answered my wife from another room once. She brings it up as my ‘hypocrisy’ whenever I mention she’s yelling to her brother in another room, and she’s right next to me.
I think it’s different: her yelling in the house upsets me, but my ‘hypocrisy’, she enjoys that. We aren’t trading vices. If I realize I’m upsetting my wife, I stop doing whatever it is that’s upsetting her. She seems to be telling me that she doesn’t care to adjust her behavior to stop upsetting me. And that the real problem is that I keep talking about it, rather than just quietly suffering through it.
Two I've likely developed obnoxious habits just to maintain some space in conversations with my wife, such as speaking louder to overcome interruptions.
Three, my wife will talk to me at any time, without paying any attention to what I’m doing or even whether I’m wearing noise-cancelling headphones. She’ll interrupt me whilst I’m holding a mop, vacuum, trash bag to remind me to mop, vacuum, or take out the trash. She’ll interrupt me while I’m tackling a chore to give me instructions. I don't understand them, she'll take over, do it the exact same way I was, then huff about it. She’ll interrupt me whilst I’m getting ready to remind me to take my wallet, throwing off my train of thought and making me forget what I was looking for. Which I’ll then forget. She’ll interrupt me while driving, for random observations (‘look, a cute dog!’) no matter how many times I tell her it’s dangerous.
It’s hard to explain how much more restrictive this makes my life feel. I avoid tasks that will take over 20 minutes unless my wife is out. My wife and brother both mock me for traits (lousy memory, lack of focus, disorganization) which they exacerbate with their behavior.
When my wife is away from her brother, she returns to her usual self, the woman I fell for.
My gut tells me her family has a toxic way of communicating (the rest of her family are borderline abusive), and she learnt to tone down of those tendencies while away from them. She is more at ease with that way of speaking with her brother, and she falls back to it with him – and is trying to force me to adapt to it. There’s probably a side order of some history of feeling sidelined in male-dominated groups, so she’s acting out on that trauma and making sure out-talks us both. She’s got zero patience for boredom, which is why she butts in and won’t take extra time to make sure I understand – and why she thinks my ‘long rants’ are way longer and more boring than hers.
Her view is that conversations are boring unless people are excited, and excited people interrupt and talk over each other constantly. I hate that, because a conversation just feels like a constant fight to participate. It’s draining and I’d rather not socialize at all.
She describes the way I’d rather talk – back and forth – as “pompous, like you think you’re a king who can’t be interrupted”.
I don’t have a support system here since everyone I know here is through them, and everyone back home still believes I successfully rode off into the sunset. So, Reddit, how do I better communicate my needs to my wife? Both to not lose my job, and to enjoy conversations with her?

(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

(continuation of part 3)
Since Fatal Calling is all about Cloud facing his past and his origins, Tifa’s musical theme is most appropriate for the ending cutscene. For all of these reasons, Tifa’s theme is absolutely appropriate for the conclusion of Fatal Calling. It makes a lot of sense then that once Cloud has finished revisiting the past and vanishes with the crystal to find his Promised Land, Tifa’s theme stops and Aerith’s theme begins.
There’s a lot to be said about Sephiroth in Fatal Calling. Sephiroth feeds off of despair, and deems Palamecia’s suffering inadequate: he seeks a much greater source of power than this realm. He states that Palamecia isn’t “the world that was promised to [him]”, referencing his desire to become the god of his core world of FFVII:

“Sephiroth: Melding with the planet, I will cease to exist as I am now only to be reborn as a ‘god’ to rule over every soul” (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 25).

Sephiroth’s line “Now, let us return [Cloud]. Back to the Promised Land” reveals he wants to return to their shared core world of FFVII, like we established in our review of the Remake timelines theory (see section “I. a) vii.”). Sephiroth wants to go back to FFVII and modify the OG timeline to achieve his evil goals. This is his ideal scenario, his place of complete happiness: his desired Promised Land. Fatal Calling is setting up Sephiroth’s plans for Remake. In fact, the after-credits scene wherein Sephiroth stands in Nibelheim as it burns confirms his return to the FFVII OG timeline.
However, he isn’t the only one returning. Now that Cloud has revisited his past in Fatal Calling, he’s ready to reach his Promised Land. After Sephiroth’s after-credits scene, the OG FFVII title and logo turn into the FFVII Remake title and logo, indicating a shift: we are now officially in the Remakeera or world. Cloud and Sephiroth disappeared at the end of Fatal Calling, and now the game is telling us where they’ve gone. Combined with Hamaguchi’s recommendation that players complete the collaboration event before playing Remake, I think this is a solid indication that the Cloud and Sephiroth we see in this collaboration event are those we encounter in the Remake world. Once the switch to Remake occurs, Aerith’s theme returns. This communicates that she is indeed —as we’ve proven countless times already— Cloud’s Promised Land. But it also conveys her importance to the story of Remake. Scenario writer Nojima confirmed this:

“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).

Aerith was already important to OG, so what could’ve motivated Nojima to state her importance to Remake? Could it be that she’s even more important in the latter than she was in the former? In what way?
That was the collaboration! Before we move on from MFF x FFVII Remake entirely though, let’s glean some more relevant information from some of the collaboration’s promotional material and special features.
III. e) iii. Promotional Material and Special Features
Two particular pieces of promotional material for this collaboration stick out to me as extremely relevant. The first is a promotion for a new summons batch in the Mobius FF game, created in honor of the collaboration.
MFF x FFVII Remake Summons Batch Cloud Promo
The summons batch contains three FFVII Remake-themed cards, including a Cloud card. As you can see, this promo reads “Who awaits in the Promised Land?” under Cloud’s picture.
The second is a promotion of an Aerith and summons and an Aerith Job Card (in MFF, Job Cards allow a character to embody an archetype or another character, giving them certain physical traits, clothing, weapons and abilities):
MFF x FFVII Remake Aerith Summons and Job Card Promo
I couldn’t find this picture in English, but the text relevant to us translates to:

“Midgar's Flower Vendor Summons
‘I'm searching for you. I want to meet… you.’
The witch protects the planet, imbues it with power, and leads to the Promised Land.”

A few things here. First, Aerith is referenced by name, and we see a picture of her in her famous praying pose. Secondly, both Cloud and Aerith’s images are attached to the notion of the Promised Land. Cloud’s card asks who awaits there, and Aerith’s evokes a guiding role, as though in response. Thirdly, both Cloud and Aerith are attached to the notion of searching: Cloud searches for the Promised Land and whomever awaits there, and Aerith searches for Cloud’s true self. Speaking of which, the promo also includes parts of Aerith’s famous gondola date quote from OG:

“Aeris: I'm searching for you.
Cloud: …?
Aeris: I want to meet you.
Cloud: But I'm right here.
Aeris: I know, I know... what I mean is... I want to meet... you” (disk 1 chapter 24).

In case you’re wondering about the lady in Aerith’s clothes on the left-hand side, that’s Meia, a character in MFF. She is the “witch” being referred to in the promotional material. She’s often called the Azure Witch. Meia is wearing Aerith’s clothes because a Meia-type Job Card called “Flower Girl of Midgar” was created in honor of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration:
MFF x FFVII Remake \"Flower Girl of Midgar\" Job Card
There’s even an Aerith outfit you can have Echo wear, and it appears with Wol’s Cloud outfit in the promotional picture:
MFF x FFVII Remake Echo's Aerith Outfit and Wol's Cloud Outfit
To be fair, Tifa also appears in one of these summons promos. However, unlike Aerith’s, her appearance doesn’t reference the Promised Land or her version of the gondola date. She is not presented in connection to Cloud at all. On top of that, while the Aerith and Cloud outfits are promoted together, Tifa is paired with Vincent in the promotional image:
MFF x FFVII Remake Summons Promo Tifa and Vincent
This is hardly indicative of Cloti content in the event collaboration or in Remake.
III. e) iv. Cloud’s Promised Land
All in all, the collaboration tells the story of Cloud searching for his Promised Land, just as post-OG Cloud has been shown doing for years and years of canon SE content. Cloud is searching for Aerith in the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration, just like he was in FFT and DFF, and just like he was shown doing in the 30th FF Anniversary Exposition. This is nothing new. However, the collaboration informs us that this mission to be reunited with Aerith is what leads Cloud to enter the world of Remake.
Echo noted that people obtain the Promised Land they deserve rather than the one they want. What does Cloud deserve? I believe the answer is: another chance at saving Aerith.
Cloud needs to start over, from the top. He needs to go back to the very moment he and Avalanche arrived at mako reactor 1 to bomb it. He needs to return to the beginning of the OG game. He needs a redo, a fix-it, another shot at happiness; a remake.

IV. The Hidden Plot Point: Mission Theory

a) Thesis
Here lies the heart of my theory. My dear Cleriths, Sephiroth isn’t the only one who travelled back in time to undo destiny and create a reality where things go his way: Remake is also —I would even say primarily— Cloud’s chance to free Aerith from her fate, save her life and secure his shot at happiness with her. That’s why he experiences MOTFs in Remake: he’s done FFVII before and now he’s back, although with only fragments of his memories from OG, to save Aerith. That’s why his triggers all involve Aerith: he doesn’t consciously remember anything from OG, but his grief over Aerith is so strong that it rises from his subconsciousness at the slightest trigger.
In Remake, Cloud remembers some but not all elements of the OG timeline (MOTFs), and it appears he only remembers the most important things: all his MOTFs revolve around Aerith and her fate. Our theory explains why Aerith triggers Cloud’s MOTFs in Remake quite perfectly: he traveled back in time to prevent Aerith’s death from happening. Remake Cloud remembers Aerith because, well, he knows her from OG. Post-OG Cloud has returned to the past to save Aerith, resulting in Remake. This is why seeing her in Remake triggers visions and memories of things that haven’t happened yet in Remake, but have already happened to post-OG Cloud. He recognizes her face on Loveless in Remake because seeing her face again is the whole reason he entered Remake in the first place. His visions of her death when they meet once more at the church, the spike of anxiety and grief as he watches her walk away from him, the constriction in his chest when she talks about doing everything in her power to help the planet… all of it, it’s all his memories of OG being jogged by things related to her death. What he’s forgotten from the OG timeline emerges in flashes of pain, images, memory and emotion. Remember that the language the devs used to describe these instances where Cloud reacts to Aerith in this way is always about “remembering” or “recognizing”; Cloud has to have seen Aerith, known Aerith, loved Aerith, lost Aerith and felt the pain of living without Aerith before in order to recognize and remember these feelings. Think about it: this is the only thing that can explain Cloud’s extremely selective MOTFs and the fact that he has MOTFs at all.
The Remake trilogy is all about Cloud and Sephiroth stepping into the ring one more time, both ready to risk it all to get what they lost in the OG timeline. Sephiroth is hungry for destruction and godhood, while Cloud stands determined to save the love of his life. Fighting for their respective goals, the fated enemies enter a new battle in Remake, one to end the war, both needing to win this time after losing so horribly in OG. Now, it’s all or nothing. Sephiroth vying for the planet, and Cloud reaching out for Aerith.
Cloud’s back with a quest, one he can’t fail— it’s the most secret and important plot point of all. I call this the “Mission Theory”.
IV. b) Mission Theory Logistics
There are a few things that remain vague, so I’m going to use this section of the analysis to speculate on the logistics of my theory. We know very little about the hows of the timeline and multiverse shenanigans, so I’m going to hypothesize. However, this analysis is about the whys: so if you’re not interested in mechanical speculation on the logistics of time travel and multiverses, you can totally disregard this section and skip to section “V.”.
IV. b) i. Cloud the Time-Traveler?
It’s unclear whether Remake is the result of post-OG Cloud going back in time to try his hand at the OG timeline again, or the result of post-OG Cloud somehow informing OG Cloud that he must save Aerith this time around. It’s vague in the same way that we aren’t sure if Remake Aerith is post-OG Aerith or if she’s been informed by post-OG Aerith via her connection to the Lifestream as a Cetra. Though it doesn’t much matter how Cloud has memories of Aerith’s death in Remake, I personally think that Remake Cloud is a time-traveling post-OG Cloud. My explanation as to why might be a little confusing, so again, feel free to skip to section “V.”.
One must be able to communicate with the Lifestream in order to obtain knowledge of the future. This access can only be granted to the Cetra or to the souls of the deceased that compose the Lifestream itself. Since Cloud is not a Cetra, he cannot commune with the Lifestream while he is alive, meaning a deceased post-OG Cloud would not have been able to communicate his memories of the OG plot-line with a living OG Cloud. Therefore, the only way Remake Cloud could have knowledge of the future (manifested as MOTFs) would be that Remake Cloud is inhabited by his post-OG consciousness. Effectively, this is time-traveling.
Then comes the question of how Cloud was able to time-travel at all. I have what I consider a pretty solid hypothesis. The most interesting thing about the realm of Palamecia is that every FF character that’s ever appeared in the realm for a cameo died in their core world beforehand (spoilers for FFI, FFV, FFVI, FFX, FFXII, FFXIII, FFXV incoming). These characters include Tidus (FFX), Lightning (FFXIII), Garland (FFI), Sephiroth (FFVII), Gilgamesh (FFV), Vargas (FFVI), Gabranth (FFXII) and Ultros (FFXV). My interpretation of Palamecia serves at least partly as a directory for deceased souls that can’t simply fade. For instance, FFX’s Tidus actually came back to life to be with his love>! Yuna !! FFX!<. Of course, MFF x>! FFX !!FFX!< and FFX-2, just like MFF x FFVII Remake came out between FFVII OG and FFVII. And similarly to Fatal Calling, the ending cutscene of MFF x>! FFX !!Next thing you know, FFX-2 comes out and shows Tidus returning to Yuna and their core world in an optional cutscene.!< The MFF x>! FFX !! Tidus !Remake.
IV. b) ii. Post-OG Cloud’s Amnesia
If we consider that Remake Cloud is a time-travelling post-OG Cloud who’s returned to the start of the OG timeline, we encounter another logistical problem: why doesn’t Cloud remember everything or most things from the OG plot-line in Remake, like Sephiroth and Remake Aerith do? After all, aren’t the three of them in the same time-travelling boat? Why isn’t Cloud as lucid on the matter as the two others? Didn’t the post-OG Cloud in Fatal Calling face his past and origins? Shouldn’t that mean Cloud would remember all that stuff in Remake from the start?
In OG, the true Cloud’s memories are repressed by both his false persona and Jenova. The latter’s memetic abilities are able to block Cloud’s memories of the past from emerging and conflicting with his SOLDIER persona. For instance, in both OG and Remake, Cloud is unable to hear Aerith tell him Zack’s name in Evergreen Park: Jenova blocks it out. I think this is a similar situation: post-OG Cloud’s consciousness carries memories things that Jenova doesn’t want Cloud to know, so she pushes down on them. On top of that, after travelling through different worlds and back through the Lifestream for who knows how long, post-OG Cloud’s consciousness must be quite weak. We know how good Cloud is at repressing, so it makes total sense to me that post-OG Cloud’s consciousness would be trapped or suppressed somewhere deep in Remake Cloud’s subconsciousness. After all, it’s not like this whole time-travelling-consciousness thing is normal for a mind to experience. It’s no wonder Remake Cloud doesn’t consciously remember how things go in OG. However, post-OG Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith are so strong that memories related to her can occasionally pierce through to his Remake consciousness and Jenova’s barriers, resulting in his MOTFs. His pain and love for her are definitely permanent and strong enough:

“A young woman descended from the Ancients who will forever be engraved in [Cloud’s] heart” (Dirge of Cerberus, Japanese manual, Aerith’s character description).
“I believe for those who formerly traveled with her as comrades and for the viewers, each carries their own feelings and love for Aerith. In this story, Cloud also carries his own undying feelings for Aerith, even to this very day… Its relation with the church scene is… Yup. I’ll leave this part to your imagination. (laughs)” (Nomura interview on Advent Children “Designer’s Note” in *Famitsu PS2!*magazine, October 24th issue).

So you see, Remake Cloud’s mind is a little more complicated than OG Cloud’s mind. Everything is still the same in Remake as in OG, but with the added complication that his future self is hidden in his subconscious mind, probably trying to get out.
There is actually pretty good evidence of this. I’m sure you’re aware that whenever Jenova is trying to hide something from Cloud or altering his memory and/or perception, the screen glitches green with an audio cue (34:15-34:29, 1:15:30-1:15:41 and 1:17:14-1:17:29). Guess what? These Jenova audiovisual cues also occur during the MOTFs (ie: MOTF 3 2:58-3:07 and MOTF 4 0:29-0:42). Whenever post-OG Cloud’s consciousness encounters anything that reminds it of losing Aerith, the strength of its pain helps it push memories of Aerith to the surface so that RemakeCloud can consciously see them. Remake Cloud then experiences sensations and/or visions, all from his future self’s memories as they rise to the surface, propelled by grief. Jenova can’t allow Remake Cloud to fully recover his post-OG memory, so in order to shut down the process, its cells jump in to repress the MOTFs: this results in the classic Jenova audiovisual cues. The only time Jenova doesn’t bother to fight against a MOTF is the sixth, as it is quite weak: no visions occur, only a tight sensation in his chest.
IV. b) iii. Eclipse Contact and Cloud’s Memories of Reactor 1
There is one problem I have trouble decoding. In Eclipse Contact, Cloud tells Wol and Echo that the last thing he remembers is the run-up to his arrival at mako reactor 1 (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 1). Recall that usually, people summoned to Palamecia have no memories of their world of origin and lives before that point at all. So then why is it that upon being summoned to Palamecia, Cloud recalls the events that took place right before the start of the OG game? This strikes me as highly relevant since this is the exact point in time where post-OG Cloud’s consciousness needs to be transported to in order for Remake to begin, but I haven’t been able to figure out a solid hypothesis on what it could mean. My best guess is that this is the devs’ way of signalling to us that the events of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration occur before the very beginning of post-OG Cloud’s second try at the OG timeline (Remake).
Now that I’ve shown you how I’ve come to form my Mission Theory and we’ve done some pesky housekeeping, let’s connect some dots, shall we? It’s time to really get into it and see if any of my wild speculation tracks with content from the Remake trilogy so far.

V. Musical Evidence

What about the music of the game? Any hints there? Let’s try to see if we can find support for the Mission Theory in the music made for the Remake trilogy thus far!
As a preface to my musical evidence analysis, I want to insist on something: the story guys tell the soundtrack guys everything. In a high-quality production such as Remake, people who make music for audiovisual media are told everything in advance. They need to know the secrets of every little scene, because their job is to depict whatever is happening through music.
Therefore, if the Mission Theory is true, then there has to be musical evidence for it.
V. a) Preface: The Basics of the FFVII OST
There’s a lot of evidence in the music of the Remake trilogy that we have to address, but before we get into it, I do have to give you the basics of the FFVII soundscape! For the easiest experience, I suggest you keep a tab open for every link I provide for you until the music analysis is over, because we will be hopping from one musical theme to another and then back again.
V. a) i. The World Theme: Cloud’s Troubled Identity
The world theme of FFVII is a perfect example of how musicians working on an OST have to know the secrets of a story as they compose for it. On top of representing the FFVII world as a whole, it doubles as Cloud’s character theme… except that isn’t exactly right. You see, this piece does indeed contain Cloud’s true theme, but Sephiroth and Jenova’s musical motifs also contaminate it. This, of course, symbolizes how Cloud experiences identity sabotage because of these two antagonists. The result is that globally, the world theme does indeed represent Cloud’s character, but it isn’t exclusively Cloud’s in the same way that Cloud’s mind isn’t exclusively his. It’s brilliant storytelling through musical motifs, and evidently requires Uematsu to know in advance that Sephiroth manipulates Cloud’s identity in the story.
For future reference, let’s isolate Cloud’s true theme from Jenova and Sephiroth’s influence.
V. a) i. 1) Sephiroth: Dissonance and Semi-Tone Motif
I’m sure you know Sephiroth’s infamous theme: “One-Winged Angel”. The first motif we need to know is Sephiroth’s threatening, repetitive dissonance motif, which plays all throughout the piece (plays solo at 0:00 to 0:04). The second motif is what I call the semi-tone motif. “One-Winged Angel” has a ton of minor 2nd intervals, which is what we call the relationship between two notes that are only a semi-tone apart. You might recognize the minor 2nd interval in the foreboding Jaws theme. Just like in Jaws, the minor 2nd interval or semi-tone is commonly used to indicate an impending, life-threatening danger, a monster, predator, evil, or insanity; suits Sephiroth quite nicely!
V. a) i. 2) Jenova: Parasite Motif
The track “J-E-N-O-V-A” contains many competing melodies and has generated many variations of those melodies —almost like clones— that all represent aspects of the alien’s character. The main Jenova motif is simply a descending, two-octaves-long, arpeggiated mb6 chord (eight notes total). I’ve played it for you here. Sometimes, this motif is altered to form variations. For instance, in “Listen to the Cries of the Planet”, a variation of Jenova’s main motif is created by changing the order of the notes and reducing the number of notes to only six (0:00-0:03), however, it remains an arpeggiated mb6 chord. Regardless of the alteration, if you hear an arpeggiated mb6 chord, it means Jenova is creeping close by or that its influence is at work.
The variation of the mb6 arpeggiated chord that concerns us alters Jenova’s main theme so it ascends from the tonic to the b6 note and descends back to the tonic, then ending on the lower dominant for a total of eight notes. I’ve played it for you here. I call this variation the “parasite motif”, because it is often heard when Cloud is being controlled by Jenova. For instance, it plays when Cloud loses himself and becomes unusually violent in Rebirth’s chapter 13 (17:25-18:34), signalling to us that Jenova is in control. It is also the main motif of the track “Who… Am I?”, which evidently symbolizes Jenova’s fuelling of Cloud’s identity crisis— though here, the parasite motif is shortened to its six first notes.
V. a) i. 3) Cloud’s True Self
Now that we can recognize Sephiroth and Jenova’s motifs, let’s return to the world theme to isolate Cloud’s true self. Cloud’s true theme can be heard from 0:51 to 3:48. It consists of a section A (0:51-1:54), followed by a section B (1:54-2:41), and then returns to section A (2:41-3:48).
After Cloud’s true theme concludes however, it seems he experiences a psychic interference: doubt and confusion weave through the world theme (3:48-4:09), representing an instability in his identity. I call this interruption of Cloud’s true theme the “interference section”. It symbolizes a moment of psychic interference or weakness within Cloud that Sephiroth and Jenova take advantage of to take control of Cloud.
The end of the interference section introduces Jenova’s parasite motif. It slithers in (4:09), later joined by Sephiroth’s dissonance motif (4:16): Cloud’s mind and identity are being hijacked by the two antagonists in service of their evil plans.
They torment Cloud, dominating his mind until he manages to free himself: section A of Cloud’s true theme begins playing again (6:06), closing the loop of the theme.
Based on this musical storytelling, if you already knew the character motifs going into OG, you might’ve suspected something odd was going on with Cloud’s identity, and that Jenova and Sephiroth were involved. All this to say that whatever music is playing at any given time can give us hints as to what is going on. That’s the power and significance of a good soundtrack. Trust me when I say that with Uematsu and his team, we’re in excellent hands. And remember: the story guys tell the soundtrack guys everything.
V. a) ii. Aerith’s Theme
Another base we have to cover before checking out the Remake soundtrack is Aerith’s theme. I’m sure everyone here is familiar with it, but I insist that you refresh your memory. It consists of a section A (0:00-0:34), a section B (0:34-1:13) and a section C (1:13-2:00), concluding with a repeat of section A.
V. a) iii. Motifs and Timing in FFVII OSTs
I’m going to analyze pieces in great detail, which people who haven’t studied or paid attention to soundtracks may find strange. To prevent anyone from making the mistake of thinking that I’m reading too much into things, I want to emphasize that the music that plays during the Remaketrilogy’s cutscenes is carefully timed, composed and arranged to match the events in the cutscenes, as they are provided in advance to the musicians. Composers pay lots of attention to whatever is going on onscreen so they can include the corresponding musical motifs as accompaniment at the exact right moments, always striving to get the timing perfect. I’m not exaggerating the effort and minutia involved in soundtrack composition and arrangement. Here are just a few sound staff comments from the “Material 4: Soundtrack” section of the FFVII Remake Material Ultimania to prove it:

“[To] make sure players really feel the weight of the moment, we worked hard on getting the tempo and the entry timing of each instrument exactly right. In particular, that big ‘boom’ that sounds almost like a meteor crashing down was fine-tuned to match the timing of the logo's appearance. I remember this was a real sticking point for us, because if the boom's timing was even slightly off, the effect would be completely different. We […] had to sequence [each and every sound] to play at exactly the right moment” (Shotaro Shima on track “Midgar, City of Mako”, page 229).

&

“I was originally told to keep this piece to under two minutes, but it ended up being over six minutes long, in order to match the flow of the cutscene. I arranged the track while watching the latest CG visuals that had been rendered for the scene” (Naoyuki Honzawa on track “Smash ‘Em, Rip ‘Em”, page 309).

&

“This is the track that plays during the tour of Shinra’s different divisions. The movie shown in the Visual Entertainment Hall describes the history of the Ancients (0:25 onward in the soundtrack version), and I wanted to create a musical link to them as well, so I made use of the chord progression from ‘Aerith’s Theme’ [D(I)-Am(Vm)-D(I).] [This simple sequence of moving from major to minor and back again creates a really mysterious air. Then, during the section where the movie recounts the history of the construction of the Shinra Building (1:47 onward in the soundtrack version), I quoted a section of the Shinra theme” (Yasunori Nishiki on track “Stewards of the Planet”, page 313).

V. b) The Remake OST
Now that you’re ready, it’s time to verify the Mission Theory’s validity with Remake’s music.
V. b) i. MOTF 6 Music
We were able to explain Remake Cloud’s MOTFs with the Mission Theory, and it just so happens that the music that plays during the scene of MOTF 6 is unique to Remake. This gives us the perfect opportunity: we should analyze the piece that plays as it occurs to evaluate the legitimacy of our theory on the Remake trilogy, using all the motifs we uncovered in section “V. a)”.
First, a refresher on the scene and on our theory’s interpretation of it. The party is gathered in Aerith and Ifalna’s old room at Shinra HQ. Here is how the scene is described by the VA script notes:

“The Whispers once again close in [on Aerith], but Aerith refuses to stop speaking this time.
Aerith: Listen to me. […] Shinra isn’t the enemy. They were the ones who set things in motion, but our true foe is someone else.
At that moment, the spectacle of Meteor they saw in the Visual Entertainment Hall comes into Cloud and the others’ heads.
Aerith: Somehow, some way, I want to help— all of you… the planet…
For some reason, Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”).

Indeed, right after Aerith says she wants to help the planet any way she can, Cloud looks down at his chest with a frown and a quiet grunt (7:46-7:54). According to the Mission Theory, this tightness in Cloud’s chest can be explained as an emergence of post-OG Cloud’s grief, triggered by the slightest allusion to Aerith’s sacrifice.
The piece that plays during this scene is called “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”. It is one of many variations of Aerith’s iconic theme arranged for Remake. However, Cloud’s theme is just as prominent in the piece— if not, more.
V. b) i. 1) The Fate Motif
Before we interpret “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”, I need to introduce you to one more motif that crops up in the piece. There is a windy motif that appears (from 1:45 onwards) and it is unaccounted for, despite how it’s clearly meant to represent something. I’ve become certain that this wind noise symbolizes fate, and I’ll tell you why.
In the MOTF 6 scene, just after Nanaki explains how he gained knowledge of the Whispers via contact with Aerith (7:23), they emerge and begin swirling aggressively around Aerith (7:26). Her hair and dress blow and ripple in the resulting wind. From this very moment onward “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” (3:00), a string section (bowed instruments in the violin family) that deliberately emphasizes the airy sound of the bow crossing the strings enters, creating a windy effect that adds to the already present wind noise (that started at 1:45). As the Whispers progressively become even more aggressive onscreen, both the wind SFX of the cutscene and the wind noise in the piece get louder and louder. Because of the timing of its appearance and crescendo in the cutscene, I’m certain the wind noise is meant to represent the restrictive flow of fate; it only makes sense, given that destiny is a current —or a wind— that cannot be broken, and Aerith is like a helpless petal in fate’s carefully planned storm. Of course, it’s also quite significant that the Whispers make a windy noise as they fly. You can hear it every time they’re onscreen, like when they first appear to Cloud in chapter 2 of Remake (17:45-18:20), or when the White Whispers hold Cloud back from chasing after Aerith during Rebirth’s Sleeping Forest scene in chapter 14 (28:43-29:45). You can also hear the wind sounds in other Whisper-related tracks, such as “Whorl of Whispers” (clearly audible at 2:50-3:05), as well as “A Death Not Ordained by Fate” (clearly audible at 2:56-3:18). Therefore, I’ll call these wind noises the “fate motif”.
V. b) ii. 2) Interpreting “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”
In part 1 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” (0:00-1:45), Aerith’s theme and Cloud’s true theme play simultaneously, their respective phrases fitting perfectly together, interweaving peacefully and softly. It sounds like the two of them are chatting, dancing bashfully yet contently and in perfect sync, glad to be exactly where they’re meant to be as their themes sing together in harmony (soft piano). Part 1 of this piece is about Cloud and Aerith becoming important to one another as they discover their soulmate bond.
Unfortunately that contentment doesn’t last. In part 2 (1:45-3:00), Cloud experiences a moment of psychic vulnerability (world theme’s interference section). Fate lurks (fate motif enters quietly). His instability forces our couple’s sweet dance to a halt, and Aerith’s theme must retreat as Cloud’s confusion takes center stage. Sephiroth torments and taunts him (semi-tone played by strings, 2:03-2:10), taking advantage of Cloud’s psychic interference to plunge him into darkness (world theme’s interference section ends, low cello enters, 2:18): Cloud temporarily becomes a darker version of himself as evil corrupts him (piano plays section A phrases 1 and 2 of Cloud’s true theme in minor, 2:18-2:53). Jenova finally reveals itself and promptly exits, releasing Cloud’s mind from its grasp (seven first notes of parasite motif played twice on piano 2:53-3:00). Cloud is free, but the damage has been done: his dance with Aerith has long been interrupted, and she is gone. Part 2 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud being manipulated in service of Sephiroth and Jenova’s evil plan, interrupting his interaction with Aerith.
Part 3 (3:00-3:33) kicks off the mechanisms of a tragic fate (strings section joins fate motif, 3:00). Both anxious that she’s disappeared from his side and terrified of the darkness he just discovered inside him (in part 2), Cloud fearfully calls out for Aerith (phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A, timid and hesitant piano, 3:04-3:15). Before his psychic interference began (start of part 2), Cloud’s voice was accompanied by Aerith’s as they grew closer and closer (their character themes mingling in part 1)… but now, Aerith isn’t answering his call, and he cannot find her (Aerith’s theme doesn’t to join Cloud’s anymore).
Anxious, Cloud tries calling out for Aerith a second time (section A phrase 2 of Cloud’s true theme’s, 3:19-3:31), searching for her in the hopes that they can continue their dance, but even now, Aerith does not respond. She’s gone (Aerith’s theme remains absent). Destiny keeps Aerith away from Cloud (fate motif gently crescendos). Part 3 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud’s separation from Aerith, his search for her, and the fear and anxiousness he feels when he realizes he cannot find her.
And then, part 4 begins with a sweet, gentle voice, calling out from the blackened horizon: it’s Aerith (section B phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, soft piano, 3:33-3:45). Cloud finally hears her respond to his pleas: he’s found her. Fate begins howling in protest, doubling its efforts to keep Cloud and Aerith apart (fate motif crescendos noticeably in reaction to Aerith’s theme, 3:45). You can just picture Cloud running toward Aerith, struggling against the current of destiny to try and close the distance between them. Aerith tries calling out for Cloud a second time, (section B phrase 2 of Aerith’s theme, 3:40-3:43), but the Whispers only swirl around her more ferociously, taking her away in the uncompromising current of fate (fate motif continues to crescendo). Aerith tries again (section B phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, 3:47-3:49). It sounds like she’s saying “Cloud, I’m over here, come find me!”
Fate doesn’t take too kindly to her defying it. Cloud and Aerith are not supposed to be together; it can’t be, it won’t. She’s destined to die to save the planet, and he’s destined to remain hollow forevermore. I can picture Cloud breaking into a sprint at the sound of her voice, running countercurrent to the flow of destiny— but the winds are so loud, fate’s demands are so strong, and the Whispers are shrieking in defense of destiny now. Aerith’s voice emerges for the fourth time (first three notes of section B phrase 3 of Aerith’s theme, 3:54 to 3:56). Fate screams louder, louder (steep crescendo of fate motif, 3:59-4:02). In a desperate hail Mary, Aerith shouts out one more time, as though throwing her hand out toward Cloud’s extended fingers (section C phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, louder and more insistent, cutting through the fate motif as it crescendos sharply, 4:00-4:06). Part 4 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud and Aerith desperately trying to defy fate in order to be together. And then, it all stops: fate has seemingly quieted Aerith (4:04-4:08)…
Part 5 (4:08-4:27) begins with Cloud jumping, launching himself off the ground with all his strength (Cloud’s true theme section A phrase 2, first 5 notes, melody starting on the note E5 and ascending) as Aerith plummets toward the ground in a fatal fall (Aerith’s theme section C phrase 1, melody starting on the note E6 and descending, the last note altered)— he successfully catches her in mid-air (both Cloud’s ascending melody and Aerith’s descending melody meet in the middle of the octave, first uniting on B5, and then ending on A5). I’ve recreated the melodies for you here so you can hear this reunion more clearly. If you consider that the airy strings in this piece represent fate, which I do, the fact that they follow Cloud and Aerith’s themes in part 5 signifies that they are now in control of their own destinies, and successfully making it their fate to reunite.
To be completely frank, I did not realize until right now writing this that Cloud unites with Aerith in part 5, even though his theme is right there. I’m so excited to share this part with you.
We hear Aerith once more, her voice quietly trailing off into the silence (phrase 4 of section C of Aerith’s theme) with no conclusion (phrase 5 normally follows phrase 4 to conclude Aerith’s theme, but is absent here). Part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” suggests that Cloud will save Aerith and that the couple will change their fate, but also conveys an uncertain and open-ended quality.
(continued in part 5)

Warning : this is probably the longest post I've ever written. It's awful. If you're expecting something short, run for your safety. Otherwise, take your time and have fun.
So Kaiser and Ness have always been pretty interesting characters since their introduction, but with the most recent chapters and especially ever since the Ness flashback, things have been intensifying and there's a lot going on around these two, especially with potential developments that might happen during the PxG match. Definitely some of my favorite characters in the story thematically.
This will be a huge post analyzing, dissecting and aiming to understand the psyches of both Ness and Kaiser, by following their stories individually, as well as how they intertwine together, how their pattern of relationship is very important to the story as a whole, as well as trying to review a lot of information in hindsight that might make a lot more sense now that we virtually have their entire stories.

Part I : Ness, the Wizard

So it all starts with Alexis Ness, a German kid born into a very stereotypical scientist family of reddit atheists, as well as the following sentence : "(my parents) taught me that it's possible to explain everything that happens on earth".
https://preview.redd.it/467quusc7s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8c94fce3eb7d93edfad74f154bcb62b3f0cc072d
This first sentence already sets a very important tone with Ness' character. He is dreamy, he's a child full of wonder with a bit of an obsession for finding magic in things, born into a family that dismisses the existence of unexplainable concepts as a whole and lambasts him for believing in them at all, even as a child. Ness is an irrational being, born into an extremely rational environment, and that fact alone alienates him from his passion, and drives him to keep going until he finds something or someone that will understand him.
Ness has a passion for the unexplainable, not the scientific unexplainable, but more the "incredible" unexplainable, things that seem too fantastic to be believed at first, and yet are still true. He also assimilates his sadness with the lack of understanding from his family among the things that he deems to be unexplainable, whether by his family or himself. Ness has a passion for magic, cannot explain why, and that's part of why he believes in magic so much. His passion is self defined.
And that passion for seeking magic in things, is also what drives him to soccer. The joy that people feel, the roaring fans, the celebrations that come from goals, Ness feels as though soccer is what will allow him to truly bring magic into this world. Which is why I theorize, that with Ness' drive for playing soccer being to bring magic on the field, he might be a self-type ego that seeks to bring magic, the same way Barou seeks the feeling of being the king of the field, or Bachira to become one with the ball (this is a very common theme with self type egos, I might make a post about this one of these days). This is a very important point if we want to understand where Ness' current development in the PxG match could be going.
https://preview.redd.it/2pwr3hio7s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=467615cdabc6a0ae6cebea3896dd0d4a29f74989
Ness then takes matters into his own hands and trains relentlessly to pass the Bastard Munchen tryouts, the best club in Germany, so he can have a shot at turning his dream into reality. Ness plays quite well and even shows skills that should allow him to be better than the current BM selection, but he runs into a massive problem ; his individual skills do allow him to keep up, but his plays are ineffective. His magic doesn't work on the world, and the biggest reason why is that no one on the field can keep up with his thinking. Ness lacks the partner that will help make his vision come true.
https://preview.redd.it/h3t5pj628s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=20fa753b3d1e362981725295f453e7df8c592712
And that's when a certain someone makes their appearance.

Part II : Kaiser, the Blue Rose

It all starts with Michael Kaiser, a different German child with a very different upbringing, but whose destiny would end up crossing paths with that of Ness.
Kaiser grew up in the ashes of a destroyed family. His dad was a theatre director, his mom was an actress, who ended up leaving his dad soon after his birth. His father, unable to bear the weight of both an unwanted child and a failed love life, ended up sinking into alcoholism, gambling addiction and domestic violence.
His father having wasted his fortune completely and being unwilling to work, Kaiser was forced to learn how to steal very early in his life, but his disgusting father's self loathing, resentment and regret towards Michael's mother still ended up reaching him through his father's constant abuse. The treatment he got from his father was the only definition of love Kaiser has ever had, and he ended up internalizing this notion, as well as the feeling that he was not wanted in this world.
https://preview.redd.it/pbjmwago8s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8e88e9839891a7c7ac9e26abd27403fde3c1331
Kaiser grew up, and started saving up money from selling the more valuable items that he would steal. For his twelfth birthday, he decided to buy something for himself that would actually allow him to feel alive and closer to his far away objective of leaving his father one day. And that is how he stumbled upon football.
Unlike Ness however, who developed a passion for football simply because he saw magic in it, Kaiser developed an unhealthy attachment to football that would mimic his relationship to his father. It didn't matter how much he abused the ball, the ball wouldn't respond or protest, it'd just stay by his side silently. Kaiser saw in the ball the same form of attachment that his father showed him, he saw himself in the ball, an unwanted piece of trash that would silently take the abuse that was dished out to him. Because that was the only behavior that his father ever showed to him, Kaiser ended up assimilating abuse and violence to love. That is how Kaiser became an abuser himself, which is a very important facet of his character : cycles repeat themselves, and abusers create potential future abusers.
https://preview.redd.it/1nw0aoxs8s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0fb7ff24ec0a70cd1c141a6084d231931d1c1b0
Where Kaiser's story really begins though is when he is framed for a crime he didn't commit and the police enter their home for a search. Kaiser gets hit by his dad, the police find the money he was keeping from his father, and he's about to lose everything that would allow him to leave this life. Kaiser, at that moment, accepts the abuse again, and decides against his own heart that he'd simply take whatever sentence he gets and start saving up money again once he's out. He instinctively changes his mind when his dad decides to poke a few holes into his soccer ball though.
https://preview.redd.it/419kda1z8s0d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd23734280fee0a5e45b3b2f432dd3a4bc1a4437
Though Kaiser has an awful definition of what love or attachment really is, the love that he developed for football was still as pure as he could muster. And instinctively, as he sees his father about to destroy the only thing he's ever managed to feel attachment towards, Kaiser rises against the odds and fights as hard as he can. As the narrator says it himself, this is when Kaiser's identity was truly born. This is another very important element that we'll have to keep for later.
https://preview.redd.it/bwc3c8i09s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=db6e687a46405976f724c2a652d139f9e8618dd1
Kaiser then goes on to get scouted by a certain PIFA executive named Ray Dark, who heard of the fact that he managed to take out multiple police officers with just a soccer ball. Kaiser is encouraged by Ray Dark to pass the BM tryouts, and is already determined to get as far away as possible from his former life, and this is where Kaiser's ego starts to badly mutate from its purest form, all because of the consequences of his father's abusive behavior : Kaiser is incapable of accepting any form of kindness and is very incline to violence.
Kaiser, from the second he enters the facility and starts training with the rest of the potential recruits, manages to make enemies through his extremely antagonistic behavior. He consistently picks fights, which obviously leads to situations where he's systematically in the wrong, and to people refusing to play with him in the moments that matter the most. This is where the Kaiser Impact is born ; Kaiser decides to create a weapon that won't just help him, but make sure he asserts full and total dominance over others. But he doesn't stop there.
https://preview.redd.it/vru5ubo89s0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=47b1282e4c7c8a7e9f351e1624d440b5759a12c7
Kaiser starts studying elements of psychology, and his goal is strictly to find out how to manipulate someone and make sure that they would serve him during matches. He needed a lackey, that would serve him under all circumstances, and the best way to find that lackey was to find someone that was close to breaking under pressure and despair.
And this is where the BM tryouts start.

Part III : Perspectives

This is where the duo meets for the first time, and their perspectives on the situation are very different from one another, but very similar in one aspect : they provide each other with what they need.
https://preview.redd.it/vyrcjzv8as0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d0c94fb7754c4ad6ea8c6cd5eeb352149c4e994
Ness starts out the BM tryout match very hopeful, but realizes that his individual abilities are his only functional tool and that he can't manage to spark magic with the teammates that he currently has. Ness is in a situation of despair, where he is realizing that he might not make it, and that his family was right to treat him the way they did.
Kaiser in the meantime, is in the exact opposite situation. He is alone, certainly, but also not worried : all he is doing is looking for someone with good enough skills, and in a precarious situation whose heart he can safely erode and tame. Ness needs someone to show him that magic does exist ; Kaiser needs a lackey that he can use to reach his goals. Ness needs a friend, Kaiser needs a test subject. Their relationship, is by definition profoundly unequal, and for that reason, Kaiser is also the only one of the two to be aware of that fact.
https://preview.redd.it/v9ezbkfjas0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b0613b95305a64ebc6041d1c2b8a73052a6473a
The rest of the match is pretty obvious : Ness finds a good partner to make his imagination come to fruition, Kaiser finds a dog to feed him passes, they get a hat trick together and are selected for the BM team. The important point though, is that Ness didn't actually find despair in that match : he was on the brink of realizing that he couldn't bring magic alone, but the second he was about to either give up or awaken, Kaiser came to him and became his provider for the magic he was seeking. That is the best way to make Ness' ego, his very being, dependent on Kaiser's existence.
This panel shows this best : Ness' play would've been suboptimal for anyone else, his magic would not have been sufficient for a different player. Kaiser's individual ability however, is so overwhelming that he effortlessly brings Ness the magic he seeks. Ness' magic wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for Kaiser.
Ness has never known what it feels like to create magic alone, and therefore he associates magic to Kaiser's presence. If Kaiser himself fails, that implies a personal failure on Ness' part since it means his magic didn't function. That's an extremely important element to understand for the codependency element of these two characters, and that's part of the reason why Ness has constantly been extremely defensive of every single one of Kaiser's failures so far in the story : the same way Kaiser's dream slowly became his own, his failures feel just as much his as they are Kaiser's.
https://preview.redd.it/0pl31b2abs0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1137ca6530c1ec0ae89b1a7f0a3be49cf24f1ba3
Kaiser then goes on to become a very vicious player that specifically tries to scar his opponents as much as possible. The impossibility that Kaiser strives for, has become something he wants to incarnate for his opponents, an impossible behemoth to slay, the same way his dad was to him. Kaiser acknowledges this, however he associates the feeling of losing to such impossibility to weakness. To Kaiser, the fact that he let his father mistreat him for that long seems to be proof that he used to be a weak person, and that the true way to fight is to become just as evil and incarnate that feeling of impossibility to other people, as he says it to Ness : "Believing in the impossible is a curse, the instant people believe in the impossible is when they decide to give up. It's a survival instinct to guard against heartbreak, that's the way of weaklings, they kill themselves through this curse. Weaklings who dilute the purity of their egos to live longer are what I hate most in this world".
Kaiser has rationalized the abuse that he has gone through by assimilating his behavior to weakness, instead of recognizing this was the behavior of a child trying desperately to survive against impossible odds. The fact that he sees his past behavior as such and that he decided that he should become an abuser himself to get power back over his life, is already proof that his father's abuse won over his ego, and he doesn't know it himself. This is why his ego is fragile and diluted, and that's how he lost his way.
https://preview.redd.it/gnr2pmijbs0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e9c07a3f25650ab84e6cd8b3bc90d301a7d313b

Part IV : The reality of impossibility

This is where the NEL comes in. From what we know of Kaiser's objectives with the NEL, he has come to crush the local japanese ace, to give himself a publicity boost that would either prove to the world that he isn't inferior to Noel Noa, or to get himself a contract that would allow him to get out of his current club, both so he could compete with Noa in a less direct way, and therefore not have to face the impossible task that is destroying the system that has been built around him.
Both his intention of trying to destroy Isagi by showing him how impossible it is to beat him, and his intention to avoid beating Noa directly by instead trying to publicize himself as being a striker of equal mettle, show how his ego has been twisted from what it originally was : Kaiser has become addicted to the feeling of incarnating impossibility to other players and crushing them, and he has become very avoidant of any challenges that could seem impossible to him, the same way his father's abuse seemed impossible to overcome. He has created himself a predatory mentality unfit for a competitor, and he did it all as a survival mechanism to fight against impossible odds.
The problem really starts however, when his plan backfires, and it turns out the japanese ace specifically thrives on impossible challenges and does not stop improving. Isagi Yoichi, by the time of the PxG match, has become the incarnation of the impossible odds that Kaiser usually wants to avoid, but this time he is conflicted since Isagi is also the exact type of player that Kaiser wants to crush : he is forced to face his own fear, and the more the odds are against him, the more impossibility will catch up to Kaiser. Which is exactly what might lead to Ness' awakening.
https://preview.redd.it/cl0fcuo5cs0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2eb5a41479308384a1dc7cdb9f4be2a40891ea55
Since Ness attributes his magic to Kaiser's success, seeing Kaiser fail (and maybe even resent him for it), is most likely what will bring Ness to the pit of despair that he got to escape from back in the BM tryouts. Ness will have to face his fear of not being able to bring magic to the world alone. And with what's been foreshadowed, I believe Ness' awakening will come with some sort of cooperation with Isagi, which in turn will make Kaiser realize that he is back to facing the impossible behemoth that he faced not so long ago. This is what will make him revert to his purest ego. But what is his purest ego exactly ?

Final part : Conclusions, and Kaiser's true ego

We finally get to the part where I stop holding everything back and I tell what's on my mind.

1. I'll start with something very important : duos in Blue Lock are always doomed unless they become more than the sum of their parts.

Kaiser and Ness' duo made me realize it, especially with their very obvious parallels to Reo and Nagi, but duos often start out with one of the players (and sometimes both players) attributing a part of their ego to their partner. That right there, is exactly how egos are stifled.
In the case of Kaiser, though his intention was to manipulate Ness, he ended up creating an association in Ness' mind where though Ness sees his purpose in life to bring magic through football, he attributes his ability to bring magic to Kaiser, which means that in Ness' mind, he is incapable of doing it alone. I don't believe that's the case, but for Ness to prove it to himself, he has to try doing it first. The PxG match is the perfect opportunity for this, but that's not all.
https://preview.redd.it/p2zv1za0es0d1.jpg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dad6ddd89aca9f05adb18cc06825f6337f7b3702
Sae and Rin are also a very important example of this, since Sae knew from the start that having Rin associate him to his ego and use him as a reason to play football was a death sentence for both of them. I believe that Sae truly does want to win the Champion's league with his brother, but has let go of that dream and has tried to force Rin to do it as well to make sure both of them would reach their potential before hitting the wall that is the world level.
Reo has always attributed his dream of winning the world cup to the fact that he has Nagi by his side, and cannot really imagine achieving this dream without him. However, if Reo truly wants to evolve, I'm sure a lot of you are already anticipating this, but he has to let go of Nagi and evolve alone, which he most likely will do during the Manshine-Barcha match. Nagi himself doesn't have an objective, and has always improved as a player with the intention of helping Reo achieve his dream, which means that part of his ego is simply helping another player achieve his. Unless the both of them seperate at least temporarily, then Reo will never gain the confidence to achieve his dream alone, Nagi will never gain the ego to have his own dream and play football for the sake of his own passion, and neither of them will be able to cooperate on their common vision of winning together. And the way I know all of this ?
Is because Isagi and Bachira have already showed us the path of how a good duo functions. Bachira almost never awakened his true ego all because his loneliness made him see Isagi as essential to his well being, it forced him to look for players that would be able to keep up with his best football, and when he found them, he already thought he had won. Bachira realized that the only way he could keep playing with the players he admires and wants to rival, is by believing in his way of playing football instead of putting his belief in someone else. This is how duos survive : by having both players becoming better and fulfilled individually, and constantly pushing each other to individually become better before they rely on each other for victory.
https://preview.redd.it/bcjasudces0d1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6339a69e35ab6868f134742dbd1b56cd1db4d27

1. To get back to Kaiser and Ness, what that means is that Ness' evolution has to come at the cost of his dependence on Kaiser, and Kaiser's evolution has to come at the cost of the introspection he has to do to understand where his true nature comes from : this specific moment.

https://preview.redd.it/19jdamedcs0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14f345c0c401e1be17aae850a33fc3faf259303b
My belief is that Kaiser's ego to incarnate the impossible isn't actually wrong, it's just taken from the wrong perspective. What Kaiser was since the very start, isn't a mindless perpatrator of violence that does it out of pleasure for crushing others : What Kaiser is, is a survivor.
\"I'll leave here someday.\"
No matter how tough the situation, no matter how much his father beat him, Kaiser never stopped believing or dreaming that he would one day free himself from his situation and rise against adversity. It might've been a small flame at first, but when his ego truly awakened was when he actually fought back for the first time. Kaiser isn't an impossible being because he is an unbeatable, violent monster, he is an impossible being because he rises against impossible odds no matter what.
\"The boy dreamed about going on a journey someday.\"
He is unfathomably resilient, and that is something that was very specifically cultivated from his experience of victimhood : Kaiser couldn't have become this kind of person if he was simply an abuser the same way his father was (which is currently what is stifling his ego), the only way he can be this impossible being is by going through what he did and surviving.
And in fact, that's also something that been shown in the manga already. After all, the only moment so far where Kaiser has showed us what could be his greatest performance, was when he had to rely on a play Isagi made to get a goal opportunity, and managed to beat 4 defenders (one of them being the best U20), culminating in a goal that's impossible to replicate even for the greatest players. Kaiser might be a self type ego that seeks impossible situations to reach flow.
https://preview.redd.it/rcpi8xb3ds0d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b64e5c2db2df699852631c44c4f308fb3efc417
A player's personality is often reflected through their playstyle : that's the case with Kaiser, with his KI symbolizing his impossible dominance, and his MV symbolizing his manipulative way of playing with people ; which is why I don't believe it's a coincidence that the one time Kaiser has truly made a play no one else could replicate was when all odds were against him. And yet ironically, this is also the goal that Kaiser hates the most, because he still hates his younger self for not having fought back until the last moment. What he sees as weakness, is what is actually his greatest strength.
Anyways if you've read this far, thank you very much and congratulations, and if you have any, please tell me your thoughts in the comments.

So I've been thinking about this, and I think a Fallout episode could be cool. I have few ideas for a posible Fallout DLC. I hope you find them at least entertaining to read! And do share your own ideas of what could be done or what you'd like to see in a hypothetical Fallout episode (I'm not very knowledgeable on Fallout and I'm quite new to DbD, so feedback is appreciated)
Killers:
I have 2 possible killers, both which I consider good options.
1. The Monster of the East (Legate Lanius): I think he has some potential. He's one of the main antagonists of Fallout: New Vegas, he is a melee fighter and I think its believable he'd submit to the Entity. Also since season 2 of the Fallout series will be in New Vegas, It'd be a nice publicity move. His ability could be a powerful swing of his sword that not only insta-downs survs, but also can hit multiple at once. Of course, it'd need to be charged like Bubba's chainsaw, and if he misses, he has a longer animation, even longer than hitting a surv with a basic attack.
I'm not good with perks, but I can think of one for him. Mighty Blow: When the killer hits a survivor with a basic attack, there is a 100% chance of the survivor getting dizzy (A status effect I made up), a 50%/60%/70% chance of them getting hemorrhage and a 30%/40%/50% chance of them getting mangled. If you hit a survivor while they unhook someone, the survivor who was unhooked will suffer from hemorrhage and deep wound.
Dizzy: The survivor leaves 100% more claw marks when running. This effect only lasts 5 seconds
Its probably too OP, but whatever, you can always change it a little (Maybe no mangled chance to not entirely destroy sloppy butcher)
2. The weapon (Deathclaw): Maybe the name isnt the best, but I like it. This one makes a bit more seance. Way more well known, it can be found in every mainline Fallout game and its fully believable to integrate to the game. The problem is its ability… honestly, I cant really think of one. A lunge forward would be too basic, so the only thing I can think of is maybe jumping? Link, over pallets and windows and onto 2nd floors. A nice mobility power. And indoors it could work because the Entity wanted it, idk.
Survivor:
The survivor I have a really cool idea but Im not sure if everyone would agree... a custom surv. You could pick their hair, eyes and skin color, give them the clothes of other survs you already have (As to not make buying DLC's for survs pointless) and give them custom faces and voices. I think its the better option as only Fallout 4 (To my knowledge) has canon pre-made protagonists, and using the Fallout series might be a bit controversial... Also, other skins could be things like the elite riot gear or other clothes from Fallout games (Except power armor, for obvious reasons) Or they could just add a random guy, I guess...

First and foremost I want to say that I actually like Rachel as a character. The worst thing a character can be is boring and Rachel Berry is anything but boring. This is more of a critique of the show written around her. I saw an old post about how past season 1, Rachel (and Finn but to a lesser extent) don’t work as pov protagonists. With the show as written, I agree. But while that post came at the subject from a psychological perspective, I'm coming at it from a writing perspective. And to do so, I'm going to be comparing Rachel to another Fox show’s main character who I feel is the same archetype as Rachel but written much better, Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. They are both gifted, driven and have an ego the size of canada. But the reason why I root for Malcolm while I get annoyed by Rachel is because of what the respective shows ask us to do: Glee asks us to root for Rachel while Malcolm in the Middle asks us to watch Malcom try to survive his crazy family.
Season 1 Rachel is the best for her character. We see and are constantly reminded how she is treated by the popular kids, how she is barely tolerated by her fellow glee clubbers and most importantly she is allowed to just be unlikeable. Which she is. Past season 1 they take that all away from her. She’s still unlikeable but it’s framed to be endearing. Besides Santana and sometimes Brittany, she isn’t treated badly by the club. And from what I remember, the bullying from outside of the club stops for her. The show still asks us to root for her but she has no real obstacles for the remaining 5 seasons, no obstacles that last more than a handful of episodes. Scare off a new recruit, completely forgotten by next episode. She chokes at a college audition, she gets another shot and gets in. She throws away her dream job that she dropped out of college for to pursue a tv career that fails, six episodes later she is offered another broadway role and accepted back into college. There is nothing to root for because we know Rachel will get her way in the end. Now I will give them some credit for the pezberry feud. How that started in “frenemies”, they framed Rachel as in the wrong but once again a few episodes later, we’re supposed to side with her?
Now I don’t know how many of you have watched Malcolm in the Middle so I’m going to give you the overall premise: the everyday adventures of Malcolm, who is a genius, navigating life with his very dysfunctional working class family. Now from the very beginning we are never really asked to feel sorry or root for him, we’re just asked to be along for the ride. And the ride is him or his family getting in his way. Why I feel like this works for this show is that the writers know that Malcolm is the protagonist, not the hero. Malcolm is petty, egotistical, shallow, selfish and despite being a genius, never listens. The vast majority of episodes end with him losing or at best coming out neutral. Either a kid from school will get the best of him, he’ll just fuck it up for himself or a family member will out smart him (more on one particular member latter).
So why does one show get it right and the other wrong? There could be a few reasons. First and foremost, glee was originally a movie that was stretched into half a season of tv. They kept it interesting for the second half of season 1 when it came to Rachels character but past that, there isn’t much for her to do besides succeed. And I don't care even if your character is the most likable person on the planet, which she most definitely is not, your character has to take real L’s (which you can do since glee is largely episodic within any given season). But i think the main reason is the writers didn’t know what character they were writing. When the character Quinn comes up, I routinely hear how the writers wanted her to be an unlikeable, evil person but Dianna brought humanity to her and ruined her. I don’t think that's the case, no shade to Dianna as she killed it as Quinn but any actress worth their salt would have done the same thing. Quinn is a very human character as written. I think the writers had an idea in their head for their characters but refused to let those ideas grow along with the show so we got clashes between what the story was trying to tell us vs what the characters were doing and no character suffered the most from this than Rachel. I feel they were going for an Annie from Community or Lesley Knope from Parks and Rec type character. There is a lot of overlap between those three characters but what Rachel doesn’t have that the other two do is an underlying understanding that people matter more than your talent.
Now I didn't write this just to bitch about Rachel, I also want to offer solutions. But seeing as glee has ended a while ago, these solutions won’t do much to help the show but it might help another writer not fall into these pitfalls. The easiest would be to just make the show about the glee club instead of Rachel and Finn featuring the glee club. A lot of the problems with these characters come from overexposure. But if you insist on Rachel being the lead, you could have her actually lose and it sticks. At the end of season 3 it would have been so much more interesting if they switched Finns and Rachel's stories. Rachel sacrificed everything for her dreams, what would she do if she didn’t get into NAYDA and had no path to stardom? The solution I fall on the most is giving her an antagonist, maybe multiple. I always thought it would be fun to have her feud with a different member of the unholy trinity for the first 3 seasons. She needs actual obstacles to overcome and they would provide unique challenges to her. One of the reasons Malcolm works is because he has an antagonist that gets the best of him 90% of the time, his mom Louis. Louis may not be as book smart as Malcolm but she routinely out smarts not just him but also his brothers. She comes out on top so often that you can’t help but root for Malcolm to win at least every once in a while against her. But it also works because she loves him and is trying to do what's best for him. Slight spoiler for the series finale of Malcolm in the middle, a show that ended over a decade ago. After making him turn down a job that would have had him living a life of luxury, he is pissed at her. After a ton of bs (literally) he asked her why she did it. She goes into a speech about her goals for his life and how he needs to finally realize that being the smartest person in the room isn’t the most important thing in life. It was perfect. At some point during the show, someone should have given a similar speech to Rachel. Imagen how impactful it would have been during episode 100 if Finn (had tragedy not struck) sided with Santana during the feud and told Rachel she needed to grow up and realize that being the most talented person doesn’t mean anything if no one likes you or something to that effect. But anyway these are my thoughts on the writing for Rachel. Feedback and discussion is welcome.

Hello internet
This is a semi-rant I just had to get out of my system, so just bare with me here
TL;DR: I believe Sega could do a lot of side games expanding the Sonic universe without making it a Sonic game
So, we all know Sonic. He's fast, he's cool, he has a chili dog addiction. His friends are... sorta just there most of the time
I've had these thoughts lately, specifically of how they could bring the Freedom Fighters to the canon, and I started to think, maybe a batch of side games starring different side characters (and with time in the oven, Jesus, no pressure), with separate stories from the blue blur himself
He could still make an appearance on these games, and even be playable, just not the main focus. Here's some things I've been thinking of:

Diamond Cutters

Starring the trio of Tangle, Whisper and Lanolin, the story revolves around a new mission they are given either by Jewel or sn anonymous contractor that would be revealed later on in the game, the levels would be divided in 5 types:
Tangle: Tangle gets fast movement, SA1 Tails' levels of acceleration, and platforming using her tail, this would be her main method of combat as well, being able to use the Homing Attack (instead of a ball, she'd kick). Her levels would be fast-paced, with the design philosophy Frontiers has.
Whisper: Slower levels, using the Wisps to solve puzzles around, and her gun as her main combat tool. The type of ammo she uses is dependant on the wisp you decide to equip in the mission, being able to change them on the fly with the D-Pad (ala DMC). She could do her levels pretty fast, although, not intended to be as fast as Tangle
Lanolin: She gets beat-em' up, with fluid combos and modifiers by changing the timing on your button presses, or press diwn a button, for example, O, O, O would be a basic combo of two punches and a kick, but O (wait), O, O moves the kick to the second input and the third one is her smacking her cowbell and creating a shockwave. The slower paced levels
Trio: Some levels have all three gathered together because story ressons, they all finished their parts of the mission and now there's only the final stretch left (of the Zone/Segment). The three would be controlled the exact same as in their solo levels, but you are able to swap between them mid-game by pressing R3. There would be some obstacles you need specific members to get by, like a cracked wall that Lanolin can break, a rail Tangle can grind, or a button that only Whisper's gun can hit.
Boss fights: A mix of all 4. If the boss is at the end of a Trio stage, it works like Solaris, where each DC has to find a way to attack it, and of course, there would be bosses for each one indivudually

Miles Prower

Starring Tails, just after Frontiers. He thinks of his promise at the end of that game, how he would be stronger and that Sonic would hardly recognize him the next time they meet again. So he gets on his own quest to be the better version of himself
A new antagonist is threatening the world, and Tails is the one that decides to go after them, with two main types of levels
Tails: Take what Frontiers did for him and flesh it out more, it was almost perfect. Give him his Sonic Battle Gun back
Chase/Sky: Stages were you fly the Tornado to either catch up to something or to go from Point A to Point B, it has an auto scroll since you are moving in a plane, but it isn't fixed. If you want to go fast, the scroll would follow you right along

Freedom Fighters

The Restoration is almost done fixing up te damage after Forces, however, there's something that concerns them: some of Eggman's old bases have been reactivated, but that's extrange, since he, alongside with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy are off the radar. Jewel sends this team to check out what's going on. And yes, this idea happens in parallel with Frontiers
The gameplay gives you liberty to adjust your playstyle however you want. Its stages are built for stealth, but also give you the option to go ham and gets noticed. If you do a great job of passing by without triggering alarms nor robots quickly, S Rank, if you trigger them, the S rank is instead rewarded for how many guards were destroyed, how varied your combos were, and the total score. Each Freedom Fighter has a vastly different moveset
Unlike the Diamond Cutters idea, this time you choose what character to play as for each level, with some stuff only certain ones can access, just to make it have more replayability
In short, being sneaky = Metal Gear, getting noticed = Devil May Cry
Sally: Her gameplay would be the second fastest, being able to grind rails, and using energy blades from her bracelets, sorta like post-reboot Archie. She would carry along a small console, Nichole, which you could connect to some terminals to get information about the level, or shape the stage up. Sally is great at stealth as well, being a stat that decides how hard is for a guard to spot you
Antoine: The fastest character, Antoine is insecure of himself, so unlike Sally, he can't grind on rails. He carries a wispon that you can customize before each level, being able to destroy his way through enemies, he is good at platforming, which wouldn't be very prominent on this game. He is decent at stealth
Bunny: The strongest one, she is slower than Sally, and able to break down some obstacles, she can wall jump and use a sneak attack, which will one shot the objective without being detected if executed correctly. Her brute force is her biggest focus, she is bad st stealth
Rotor: He is a bit weaker than Bunny, being able to break some obstacles, but there's some he can't break but Bunny can. His main gimmick is being able to plant bombs around, and entering the same hacking sections as Sally without Nichole. He can shape up entire levels with good planting of his explosives, and his combat proficiency at just using his hands is remarkable. However, he is the worst at stealth
And yes, the same way the combos apply to Lanolin work the same with all four of these
Okay, semi-rant over. Just jad to take this thought out of my brain to be able to sleep. Bring Sally back Sega, pretty please

So I’ve narrowed it down to these two pop-ups- the Forest River Rockwood premiere or the Rockwood Highwall.
I like the features and the design and Both can hold my family so I’m hoping you all might be able to offer some considerations I hadn’t thought of. I briefly considered hybrids (KZ sportsman) because of the increase sleeping capacity, but decided they weren’t for me. I don’t care for the build quality sacrifices made to keep the weight under my towing limits.
We are a blended family of seven when we’re all together - 4yr old twins, 1x second grader and 2x teenage daughters. Most of the time we’ll only be five or six and my oldest daughter willl hopefully go to college in three years so a pop-up suits us for a while. Towing with a Honda pilot with the 5K tow package.
The models and considering are used and in excellent condition with full working AC, both owners barely used them.
Premier pros:
Sleeps “8” Lighter Shorter (easier to see out the back) Two refrigerators $1-$2k less than the Highwall Crescent seating around a larger table, and is a a extra wide Twin XL (50 x80)
Owner is throwing in lots of extras, including a microwave Keurig television leveling jacks, various camping wares
Cons: Curtain wall shower toilet Indoor stove right next to the bed, small. Outdoor grill is very basic propane bbq grill. The bench seat that folds out isn’t a true twin- the back cushions sit higher than the bench, so likely won’t get slept on.
High Wall pros:
Man is it nice! Hard wall shower Dual sink Oven Integrated microwave Outdoor kitchen (basically the premier’s kitchen) Less items to fold down when closing it up 1 larger 3-way fridge (I’m not sure if the premier is a 3-way. Owner installed trailer brakes.
Owner is likely, throwing in a few extra dishes, but nothing else is really needed.
HW cons:
Much heavier Much taller 7 feet with the AC Sleeps 6 (but we can squeeze everyone in based on current ages) $1-$2k more expensive Loss of seating in lieu of the appliances above Smaller crescent dinette - extra wide twin (50x72)
CON for both is a they are bit over my original intended max of 10k. But it’s likely I can talk the premier owner down closer to my original budget.
Appreciate y’all‘s opinions and insight for a 40 something dad rediscovering Glamping

The following is my ideal start to the sequel. I apologize in advance for the parentheses.
The MC is awakened by a knock at the door.
Either Amit, Poppy, or Gareth (depending on the MC's house) enter the room, saying something along the lines of
"Sorry, I didn't wake you did I?"
We discover that the MC has been staying at one of the above characters' houses for Summer Break, due to the MC being an orphan (set up MC backstory).
The MC and other character go downstairs for breakfast with the other character's family. (A lot of this takes inspiration from Harry's time at the Burrow) An owl arrives with a letter for school supplies.
It is decided that they will all go to Diagon Alley the next day. However, first things first- house chores!
Depending on the house of the MC, the chores will vary. I even imagine de-gnoming could be a possibility if with the Weasleys.
After completion of the chores, the player is given the option to explore the house and yard before ending the day. The next morning the player and family go to Diagon Alley via Flu Powder. The player is free to explore Diagon Alley, including Gringotts, where they may set up an account. There will also be an option to buy a broom and/or a wand, each with varying potentials (speed, power, etc.) However, the funds will be limited, so choices will have to be made. There will be some unique products available for purchase in Diagon Alley, which the player may have a second chance to buy during the Winter break, when they will have the option to stay at the Leaky Cauldron or at an empty Hogwarts, each with their own possible benefit.
Upon returning to the house from Diagon Alley, a bit of fun begins.
Depending on which house the MC is staying at, this bit will differ.
If staying with the Weasleys, MC will play a 2-on-2 quidditch game (with just a quaffle, I believe)
If staying with Amit, perhaps a flight to a nearby hill for some star gazing.
If staying with Poppy...maybe like following unicorn tracks, ending in a unicorn ride through the woods??
Alas, thus the fun ends and it is time to prepare for the next day's journey to Hogwarts.
(It would be cool if each family had a different way to get to Kings Cross- broom flight, portkey, floo powder? This could also be a quest in itself)
The MC walks through platform 9 3/4 and gets the opportunity to wander around briefly, before the train whistle and a voice warns of its nearing departure.
The MC, along with the other character, boards the Hogwarts Express. After checking around various compartments and perhaps getting refused by some antagonizing students, the MC finds an open compartment to sit in. After a brief conversation and perhaps some new character introductions, the MC gets the chance to buy some things from the trolley and can wonder around the train. There could be some sort of quest (finding a student's lost belonging? Stopping some older students from bullying anxious first years?) before the train begins its approach to Hogsmeade Station (Ideally the player could control how long or short the train ride lasts).
The students exit the train and the camera might show a mysterious hooded figure watching from a bench on the other platform. We might get a cut scene of the carriages trek to the school (and in said process, we might see/hear a glimpse of something worrisome through the trees.) We enter the great hall for the sorting ceremony. We watch the ceremony and notice something unusual with one of the students (perhaps something sinister even--random thought, what if the student were actually a powerful dark wizard who had used the polyjuice potion to take on the appearance of a student in order to infiltrate Hogwarts), like the hat announcing the student's house before the student even sits down (eg. Draco). This student may or may not be a potential antagonist.
We get the chance to converse with just about all of our housemates, with more lengthy conversations with students in our own year. (Along with the train ride, this is an opportunity for relationship building) We also get to eat the variety of foods that have appeared on the table. We then get some school announcements from the headmaster, including but not limited to the try out dates for Quidditch. After the announcements, the feast is brought to a close, and house prefects guide the first years to their respective houses (and in this process, the MC might catch the unusual first year looking at them as they exit the Hall).
The MC then heads to their common room along with the other students. The player gets to explore the common room and interact with it magically (lighting fireplace, accio-ing books etc.), maybe eventually getting scolded by some older students, a ghost or a prefect. Also, the bulletin board lists some possible quests to be done on a later date. There are also NPCs with whom the MC can play exploding snap and wizards chess with in the common room. (Gobstones would be available to play outside)
The player is free to stay in the common room, but with all of the other students eventually heading up to their rooms, the player will naturally wish to do so as well. Upon going up to the bedroom, they will join in on a brief conversation with their roommates about the next day's classes etc. Then, the player will get to sleep in their bed, to get some rest before the start of a new school year.

I had a few dreams today, after struggling to stay asleep. Yet again. I've been having adrenaline every time I wake up, for several days now. Waking up from muscle spasms/aches. It feels as if I'm having an allergic reaction to something I ate.
I was in a mall, with a transporting device. I had dreamt about cake for hours, seeing a lemon crust and cream filling. The top probably had something on it, that I'm forgetting. Now, I was stepping into this machine/portal. The escapism, was exhilarating. I wished I could stay here forever.
It sent me to a section in the mall, where I saw another person. I ran away from my family, then met this interesting personality. I can't remember what she said to me. She could've been an antagonist. In the next dream, I was at my sister's boyfriend's house. He talked to me, looking at old photos of me as a toddler on the wall. 'Those look like shark eyes.' I remarked, picking one up where my eyes were dilated. He mentioned a photo where I was standing beside the/a christmas tree. Another one, where my eyes were also noticeable. That might've been the one he was talking about. I saw the christmas tree photo, and didn't like myself in any of them. On the tv, an ad for IMAX came on. I wondered what event horizon would be like on the screen there. The commercial was advertising for a new boring oscar-type film. A girl then approached me, asking me about who my favorite euphoria characters were, by just mentioning their fist names, out of context. 'I don't watch euphoria.' I said, amusing her. 'You're funny..' She replied, genuinely. Her voice was real, distinguishable. It felt so real. 'Everytime you talk/respond, your eyes sparkle/twinkle..' She said. I mentioned that I'm a pisces; that pisces and aquarius are known for having mystical eyes. Eyes that look subhuman. She agreed, mentioning friends of hers with those signs. I loved her energy. It was so high vibrational and blissful. Earlier, I had telepathically saw someone park their car in a parking lot. My teachers walked past me, annoyed by my presence.
'They dilate when I talk, probably.' I mentioned. 'Jupiter.' Doing a hand signal, to show expansion; which she immediately understood. 'Jupiter also rules pisces..' She nodded. My mercury placement could cause my eyes distinction too, I thought mentally to myself. There was a stack of something white next to me, maybe opal. I turned away from my side, to look at the glass case full of sega games behind me. 'I was too young for sega genesis.' I said to myself, seeing a guy in the corner of my eye. The IMAX ad came on a second time. This time I recognized it. I turned to shove fruity pebbles straight into my mouth. Mandy moore started playing, singing about god. It was top of the world, but with a religious theme.

on the digital exam i left all my plans in the dbq submission because I was trying to delete it last second but it auto submitted before I could delete it... i have the planning (like a summary of each doc and source considerations) then the essay below... will i get penalized for this? i don't remember what i wrote but what if i switched up my interpretation of a document between my planning and the actual essay? will the ap graders ignore it? am i cooked

Plot

When the Traveling Baboon Show led by Uroho arrives in the Pride Lands to perform their show, they end up stealing the other animals' food. After chasing the baboons to the Outlands, the Lion Guard has to come to their rescue when they are cornered by Janja, Cheezi, and Chungu.

Song: "The Traveling Baboon Show"
Pros
-There aren't that many pluses to this episode, for me. However, I did like Kion and Ma Tembo's interactions in this. This episode feels like a precursor of their "child/adult friendship" for the rest of Season 2. I like their interaction at the start and when they discover there's a food thief. Unfortunately, they are not enough to save this episode.
-"No, but, we will hear you chewing," Fuli, Misophonic icon.
-"Me too! I was in a panic, let me tell you!" Thurston. It's funny because he's always in a panic.
-"I like 'em better on my inside than my outside," Bunga, best line in the entire episode.
-I will admit, I do like the addition of Yellow Baboons in The Lion Guard because they are a different species of baboon than the rest of them in the Pride Lands. So, I like that the animators added a new species for the kids. It's just really unfortunate that they made them really unlikable and annoying.
-"Or, if you're a zebra, panicking and running!" Alright fine, that was the funniest Uroho line in the whole episode, but, I still hate him.
-"It's funny because it's true," Thurston, at least he's aware of it. What an icon.
-I've always loved Ono in this episode because I empathise with him and I feel his frustration. "Yes, they're hysterical. Ha ha," I love his sarcasm. He hates them as much as I do.
-Beshte, "Like my dad says, it's not fair to take more than your share." Wise words from Basi. Also, I always loved when Beshte recites his father's sage advice.
-Ono, speaking nothing, but facts, "Plus, some zebras are afraid of.... bugs!"
-Bunga's "Baboons" was a funny line in the episode. He understands where Fuli and Ono are coming from by then.
-Cheezi and Chungu were funny at first, but it got old really quickly as soon as the baboon trio arrived into the Outlands. "You know what would taste really good right now?" Anything?" I can't deny how much I love these two, even if they can't save this episode.
Cons
-Okay, while the idea of there being a food thief in the Pride Lands sounds cool, the series has already explored that in episodes like "The Kupatana Celebration" and "The Call of the Drongo" and we saw two different outcomes. In the former, Reirei and the jackals got punished for stealing food and for scamming the animals of the Pride Lands, and in the latter, Tamaa was stealing food at first, but did learn from and correct his mistake. I find the two of them much more watchable than this lackluster episode. Plus, nothing thrilling happens in this episode, it's just the Lion Guard investigating on area of the Pride Lands and very slowly trying to piece together who the food thieves are. Plus, they don't even ask around and no animal is in any real danger, here. We don't get a change of scenery, apart from the baboons' performance and the one area of the Pride Lands.
-Okay, as I already said, this episode is a complete rehash of "The Kupatana Celebration", "The Call of the Drongo" and "Ono's Idol", which are much better episodes than this and have more going on. We already had the whole "food thief" plotline in the first two and it was way better. It's very predictable with any twists and turns, and it's not very interesting. I thought the dialogue was quite weak. We can all guess exactly what will happen even if we've never it before (I have watched it when it premiered). Also, I thought the baboons were weak antagonists, personally with no redeeming or interesting qualities, whatsoever. But seriously, switch out the baboon trio for Reirei's pack or Tamaa, and it's the same story, except that the jackals actually got their comeuppance and Tamaa learned his lesson.
-The baboons are very unlikable and I don't feel like they earned their redemption arc at all. At least, with Tamaa, he wasn't entirely antagonistic in his episode, he was more morally-grey and he was unable to gather food for himself. So, we can kind of feel bad for him. Also, Tamaa was, deep down, aware that he was in the wrong for stealing and he actually took the initiative to correct his mistake in the end, no prompting from the Lion Guard. With Hadithi, in his episode, he did have a conscience deep down all along and felt guilty for always lying to Ono. He also feels guilty during the ceremony and makes a proper effort to apologise and help Ono, and even commends the young egret at the end for his act of heroism. Those were both examples of "Selfish character learns to put the needs of others before their own" done right.
-Another reason I think that the baboon troop had no qualms about stealing food and going against the circle of life, is that they kept juggling and throwing Ono around against his will because they knew he would figure it out and expose them as the thieves. I don't think they actually wanted him as part of the act, I think they intimidated by his presence. Also, the circus soon becomes clear that it's just a cover up to throw the Pride Landers off, so, they can't be exposed. When eventually Ono figures out that they are the thieves, Uroho tries to talk himself out of trouble, but to no avail, just like Reirei had tried when her pack were discovered. So, overall, I think the baboons were very aware that they were in the wrong, but, didn't care, they only cared about being popular from performing.
-"Bunga and the Baboons" would've been genuinely funny, to me, except for the fact that we'd already seen the baboons mistreating Ono against his will by forcing him to be part of the act. I have to wonder, I know Bunga is being Bunga, but, why would he want to do the act when Ono, one of his best friends, is being thrown around by said baboons.
-That's another thing, I really don't like Ono being treated as the Butt-Monkey. I don't like his mistreatment from Mwevi and Mwizi, and the fact that no one on the Lion Guard does anything to prevent it. I thought Kion and his friends were a little bit mean here, the way they laughed at Ono even though he was clearly being roped into a performance he didn't want to be in. "What the hell, guys! This is your friend, Ono, and a valuable member of the Lion Guard. Why would you guys just stand there and not intervene when he's clearly being juggled around, screaming?" That doesn't sound like any of them. Kion has pounced on several of the bad guys for trying mistreat his friends and allies, as well as trouble-making and he's also pounced on Hafifu and Majinuni for messing with some pangolins." Why wouldn't he just pounce on Mwevi and Mwizi right then and there, for his friend Ono?
-"It was pretty funny when they juggled you like a sausage fruit." and "Funny! That was hilarious..." No, it was not. I think was the one time I didn't like Beshte's character and Bunga's, for that matter. I don't like that they do not defend Ono even once and that they're laughing at his annoyance.
-"Come on, Bunga. Who are gonna believe, your friend, Ono or a couple of baboons?" Thank you, Fuli. I really don't like these stupid or mindless Bunga tropes that the writers like to throw in. The Bunga I know would believe Ono, in a heartbeat! Plus, Bunga has already proven before that he is, in fact, intelligent when he needs to be. So, I hate this trope of stupid, idiotic, "doesn't-know-where-he's-been Bunga". Also, the whole "Hi" joke was pointless. He already knows that Ono was referring to him and the rest of the Lion Guard. So, what was the point?
-Thurston is really rude in this episode. I don't like obnoxious and rude Thurston. "Excuse me, I believe I had something very important to say." Thurston, you'll get your turn to speak eventually.
-I really loathe Ono being made the butt of every joke with the baboon trio. He deserved so much better and he shouldn't have been made for cheap laughs, in this episode. "Ono, why would you keep letting them treat you like this, my friend? You should've seen it coming the second and third time." I dare you guys to name a single Ono fan who enjoyed this!
-Mwevi and Mwizi were obnoxious with the way were stealing and hoarding food from other animals in the Pride Landers. As Pride Landers, they should know that, as a general rule, you're not allowed to steal and that it goes against the circle of life. There's also the fact that they continued to hide the evidence, even after Ono caught them red-handed, further proving my point that they must feel no guilt about it.
-It's doubly a crime against nature because they did it so close to the Dry Season and didn't even apologise or own up to what they did. This makes them absolute scumbags since food scarcity is extremely high during the Dry Season. Another reason why I don't think they have earned their redemption and why it could've been much better. They also ran away from Kion and the Lion Guard instead of, I don't know.... turning themselves in.
-I don't like how the baboons are invading everyone's space as part of their act. Audience participation has to be a personal choice and shouldn't be forced upon someone. Not only did they force Ono to perform by just throwing him around, but, they also went around invading everyone's personal boundaries and using them in their act. First, with Fuli, when Mwevi and Mwizi jumped on her back without permission, despite the fact that she didn't like it, and also the fact that Uroho purposely used Ma Tembo's trunk for the act without her permission. I don't like the fact that they just make all the animals be in the show against their will and without a slight care for personal space.
-Uroho, "Sorry, but, I'm not sorry!" Uroho, you're such a jerk. See, the writers are literally handing me proof, on a silver platter, that Uroho and his troupe did not feel any guilt for their actions and, therefore, didn't earn their redemption arc in the end. Also, I don't like the fact that he didn't show any sign of redemption until after the Lion Guard saved them. So, did he actually genuinely want to reformed or did he just do it to repay the Lion Guard, because they saved him even when he did not deserve it and to get back into the Pride Lands. I mean, for God's sake his name means "Gluttony" for a reason and Mwizi means "Thief/Burglary" for a reason.
-Now, I do feel bad for Janja in this episode. I feel so bad that he's considered the villain of this episode. Damn it, I never wanted to side with Janja, but, in fairness, he was not doing anything wrong, like he is in most other episodes. 99% of the time, I can see why the Lion Guard need to chase away the hyenas because Janja has an ulterior motive most times, but, in this situation, I just wanted to see him eat for a change. I'm not saying the Lion Guard shouldn't have felt bad that the baboons had ended up in the Outlands, but, I think they should've cut Janja some slack this time around. Plus, Kion was initially saying how the baboons are not in the Pride Lands and therefore, not their problem, anymore. But, suddenly, for no real reason other than "Well it's our job to defend the Pride Lands", they decided they must save the baboons. In this situation, and this situation only, I think they were unfair to Janja. When does get to eat in his OWN TERRITORY!!!!
-Kion, "Stop right there, Janja! Step away from the baboons!" Really Kion! Could you not give him a break this time around? He didn't do anything wrong and wasn't taking down whole herds of animals to spite you. Those are the situations where he deserved to get his butt kicked, but, not here. I refuse to acknowledge him as the villain of this episode! He did not have an ulterior motive this time around, he was just hungry. Plus, you didn't even want to go into the Outlands, in the first place. I also don't get what the Lion Guard were intending to do to them as punishment for stealing food. If they didn't intend for them to be in the Outlands, why did Kion say, "At least we got 'em outta the Pride Lands," and what were they going to do with? This is the bit I can't get my head around because isn't that what they do with animals that don't follow the rules.
-To further prove my point, Kion says earlier on, "It's more than not fair, Beshte, it goes against the circle of life." And the line before where he tells Ma Tembo that the Lion Guard will make sure the food thief doesn't do anything again. So, if you guys what their plan was, please tell me because I don't get it. Were they just intending to attack them as punishment, but then, let them remain in the Pride Lands? Were they going to be watched or under slave labour for Simba and Nala? I don't know, because when Janja and Reirei are breaking rules they are chased out of the Pride Lands, justifiably so. I mean, even though the baboons are Pride Landers, they've been nothing, but trouble, and we have no proof that they would've changed if the Lion Guard hadn't come to their aid. Uroho didn't seem to care about the circle of life and had been antagonistic for nearly the whole episode.
-"They wouldn't be in the Outlands if it weren't for us. We're the ones who chased them there." No, Ono, you guys didn't chase them into the Outlands, you guys broke off to deal with some sable antelopes that fell in the river. The baboons, meanwhile, just ran away so they wouldn't have to own up to what they did and then chased themselves into the Outlands. So, no, it wasn't you guys' doing and you guys' wouldn't have had to take action if they hadn't been stealing food in the first place. The baboons brought this on themselves by putting themselves into a situation where the Pride Landers would be mad at them and then running away instead of actually apologising for their actions.
-I also don't know why Ono would be forgiving of them. "Ono, my friend, they humiliated you like an hour ago and literally tossed you around and stole food. Why would you so eager to forgive them? Don't you think you should be firm? You're the smart after all." I mean, I admire his level-headedness, but, the baboons didn't earn their rescue and needed to be punished for their wrongdoing. And if poor Ono hadn't suffered enough, to end the episode, the baboons just bribed him by throwing him an insect, before selfishly tossing him around again. And yet again, the Lion Guard do nothing. Uroho is still a massive jerk. Ono had just saved his life like 5 minutes ago and this is how he repays him!
-"And for that they deserved to get eaten?" Okay, I do get where Beshte is coming from. I didn't want to see the baboons get killed just because they were mean to everyone in the Pride Lands. I don't anyone should deserve to die, but, at the same time, they did have it coming to them by wandering into Janja's territory in the first place and stealing from them. If it was a situation like "Too Many Termites", it would be a different story, but, here the baboons went into the Outlands on their own and had been nothing except a nuisance within the Pride Lands! I mean, the Lion Guard should've definitely felt bad for them, but, I think they should've let Janja have this, on this occasion.
-"I can't believe you came all this way to save us. Now we feel bad..." Yeah right, Uroho, you knew stealing was wrong all along and you kept doing it. I have my doubts about whether he actually felt bad or if he was sucking up to the Lion Guard to be welcomed back into the Pride Lands. Also, the Lion Guard are very naïve for letting them scott-free with no real punishment except to give free food to the Pride Landers. I get that they're children and that the writers probably didn't want the younger viewers to dislike Kion and his friends in this episode by making them leave the baboons for dead, but, it feels unfair to how the Outlanders get punished for disrespecting the circle of life.
-Finally, I don't the song of this episode "Travelling Baboon Show" was just annoying. It's one of the few TLG songs I can't stand, especially since having watched this episode when it first aired, I found out at the end that the baboons were the main villains of the episodes and kept stealing and making everyone look foolish. Also, they humiliate Ono in front of everyone, during the song. I do think that the lyrics are just plain weak as well, and Uroho is just kind of making the performance a much bigger than it is. It really isn't as hyped up as he makes it out be, in my opinion. I don't listen to this song and I don't really want to revisit it any time soon. I'll give a 2.75/10 because it's the worst TLG song ever.
Overall
I never liked this episode. I think it's got storytelling that wasn't very interesting and it didn't have much happening in it. Also, as I said, we already this storyline twice and doesn't work here, on this occasion. I hate Uroho's troupe so much and I find them extremely unbearable. They're worse than Tiifu and Zuri and Hafifu and Majinuni, for me. I think they're more obnoxious with no redeeming qualities and I don't think they properly earned their redemption arc, unlike Tamaa and Hadithi. They were just annoying and they didn't feel worthy of forgiveness and I hate the way the Lion Guard just decided to treat them like they did nothing wrong and just let them off scott-free when they were clearly breaking the circle of life. I feel bad for Janja on this occasion because he hadn't done anything wrong and the baboons didn't deserve to live in the Pride Lands. I'm very confused about what the Lion Guard were planning to do to them before Janja got to them. The baboons had learned nothing about not stealing basically and continued to annoy Ono in the end. The song was very bad for a TLG song. I found the dialogue weak. The only saving grace was a few funny moments in the first act, but only in the first act and they cannot compensate for how bad this episode was, in my opinion. Overall, I think it had potential and could've been written better. I'll give a 2.5/10 and I don't want to watch it again. But it isn't my most hated episode.