(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.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/obv2Tp1
Hello,
I'm currently downsizing and selling my Augur. It used to be a black WKL variant, but I got it reanoed to a custom purple. The PCB was millmaxed with 3305 sockets (3305-0-15-15-47-27-10-0 to be exact) and is fully functional. Not every switch placement was millmaxed though, just for the layout I use + both capslocks. More sockets for different layouts can easily be added yourself.
The Augur also comes with:
1x FR4 leaf spring full plate
1x FR4 leaf spring half plate
1x Alu no leaf spring full plate
1x CF leaf spring full plate
It also comes with an additional custom (mirror) stainless steel weight (it doesn't fit perfectly, would need shorter screws to screw it in tightly) and the original brass weight.
The keyboard is in good condition, but it does have a small nick at the bottom next to one of the feet (see picture attached).
Looking for 210€ + shipping. (Switches and keycaps not included!)
Also I'm selling a few cables I bought from Keebstuff.com. The cables are brilliant in quality, some of the best I've seen around here, smooth consistent coils, durable and great colours. The first one is a premade Grand Royal cable (Grand bleu colour, white shrink, silver LEMO connector, 20 cm coil, 180cm length), second one is a custom made Gulf blue, white shrink, silver LEMO connector, 20 cm coil, 180cm length). Both cables have been used for a little while, but have no noticable wear or anything.
Looking for 50€+shipping each or 80€ if bought together.
If you are interested in all 3 items I'll discount to 250€ for everything (excl. shipping).

Are you a gamer? Want to take out on normies, sexhavers, and foids that infest what used to be OUR hobby? Those of us born in the 80's will remember a time when being a gamer was scorned. We were bullied, chastised, and shunned from our peer groups for enjoying video games. This would last up until the mid to late 90's when the media finally started pushing games to "dudebros" and eventually women in the early to mid 2000's. Finally in the past 10 years we've seen an infestation of shitskins and third worlders completely flooding everything. I refuse to lay down and die. I will stand and fight till the bitter end.
It's time to turn the tables and make them suffer as they made us suffer, both in life and the virtual world. (Legally and within the confines of the game, this is NOT a guide to IRL ruinate or anything of the sort.) Some of this stuff isn't allowed if you're an EU gamer.
First off, you're going to have to let go of playing video games to "win" or acquire virtual greed. You're going to need a new mindset. The mindset of a sadistic psychopath hellbent on extracting keks from anyone and everyone deemed not one of us. No more giving a fuck about your KDA, w/l ratio, or "following the rules" or the "meta" of what other players expect you to do. You are a gamer going your own way, regardless of what the groupthink expects or wants. If the game is F2P or you're a richfag or jewtuber who can get free games from devs then being banned is part of the fun, and is expected of you. If you cannot afford to buy back into games or are too technologically retarded to change your IP and spoof your hardware to get around bans in F2P games then you'll have to tread carefully.
Here's the part where I instruct you on how to fuck over these sexhavers for your own sadistic pleasure. After all they've denied us a life worth living in the real world and treat us like lepers. It's time they feel uncomfortable in OUR space. Feel free to add to any of these methods or pitch in ideas.
Foid infested "cozy" games
Shit like "Animal Crossing" or "Palia." Anything that lets you decorate and grow shit is a "cozy" game and women infest these games more than any other. It's literally a containment game of sorts to keep them out of other shit. To fuck with women in these games all you have to do is steal resources, build ugly and annoying things within the game world, be rude via emotes and text chat, and use emotes to make it look like your character is grabbing their tits or eating them out. I once did /eat to some slag girl gamer in WoW Vanilla 20 years ago and when I reverse searched my name she was bitching about it on reddit and remembered my characters exact name 4-5 years ago. She's STILL SEETHING about it 15 years later. This is what you want. Virtual RAPE. Many foids stream these types of games, and it's incredibly easy to get under their skin. Make the ugliest characters you possibly can and always stand in their camera. Stalk them in-game. Uglify the world around them. Spam emotes. The world is your oyster.
MMORPG's
World of Warcraft, or anything else really. Gank them. Corpse camp them. Dispel their world buffs. Emote spam sexually assault them. Use a high level or highly geared character to camp low level quest zones and steal mobs, resources, and kill low level players. Stream snipe them till they hide their screen with nothingness. Join their guilds and steal their resources after faking being a Chad. Get the entire guild wiped, blame it on the women healers. Play a vital role and underperform / disconnect at pivotal moments and blame a thunderstorm. Make everyone wait on your actions, but not enough to get gkicked. Openly challenge sex havers lifestyles in discord voice calls and call them out on their privileged bullshit. (Genetics, riches, went to a nice school, raised by good parents, etc.) Use every underbelly evil shithead tactic that these fuckers used towards us during our childhoods and young adult lives. Roleplay it up and lie about your IRL self to make them feel inferior. Exploit early and often, and cash out via RMT before you get banned or when you quit for some NEET bucks. If the game has a "random queue" system you can wipe endless groups or refuse to participate and hold entire game lobbies hostage.
FPS
Overwatch, Counter Strike, etc. Simply play terribly in ranked matches. Don't assist the team. Mic spam. Play vital roles like tank or healer then simply don't heal and tell them openly on the mic to beg if they want heals. Refuse to play at all if a woman is in voice chat. Verbally accost every white knight that defends her. Remember, they're most likely wagies who have to go to work tomorrow and you're most likely a NEET who has infinite free time. Remind them of this. (Even if it's not true.) In FPS with one life, openly tell the enemy team where your team mates are camping. Use aimbots, wall hacks, and other cheats to make both sides pissed off. If you're doing well gloat. If you're playing shittily, then call them a loser or a nerd. Flashbang your own team. Drop objective items as far as possible. Die with expensive guns (Auto sniper in CS triggers normies.) and make sure the enemy acquires them. Acquire or goad team mates into team killing you to 2 week ban them.
MOBA / RTS
League, Dota 2, Age of Empires, and other slop. Never go to the "meta" lane. (AD carry / support normally go bottom lane, but you're gonna always go middle, and steal your own teams jungle.) Never build the right items. Feed the enemy team, kill steal your own. Never push lanes or objectives. Ping spam. Keep text chats very "safe" to avoid bans. When a team mate dies, some ping spam and a "?" goes a long way. Never agree to surrender, unless your team is winning. Always report everyone who rages on you. Play characters that have statistically low win rates or are extra annoying. Use a lag switch to delay and hold entire lobbies hostage (RTS). Wall in your own team. Use retarded high risk low reward build orders. Be completely useless all of the time and never join team fights except after everyone's dead then schizo gaslight them that they were the ones not helping.
Survival, Crafting / Building Games
Minecraft, and shit like it. Become insanely super godlike good at the game. Learn all the metas, muscle memory, speed run tech, and master PvP. Join reddit servers and ruinate months of "cozy crafting" with max enchanted equipment and masterful grief tactics. Construct server destroying redstone machines. Completely ruin spawn and active players bases while they're offline. Destroy their VIP / pay 2 win "donation" special items. Join their discords and spam anti-vax, anti-pitbull, and black people violence webms from rekt threads on 4chan to get their servers shut down. Literally use modded hacked clients to ESP radar hack and dupe your way to victory, kicking down reddit twerps virtual sand castles and record the seethe in their discord voice chats while pretending you don't know what's going on. Abuse and exploit anything you can to the detriment of other players (Shittily coded cash shops and stores. RPG elements that are 100% broken, like a "health swap" spell that you can use on any god-geared player to swap your 1/2 heart health with their full HP then 1 shot them naked kinda shit.)
Indie slop
None of these games have any cheat protection. Cheat Engine even the most basic shit. I once played some slop card game and was able to set my opponents HP at the start of the game to 0 and win immediately. You can pretty much speed hack on all of this shit and most hack sites will have a few dedicated cheat bros that can do the wildest shit like gain access to admin panels and other destructive things. Even without cheats most basic exploits can really break these games. If a dupe method worked on one shitty survival Unreal 5 sloppa game, chances are it works on the other 7,000.
VR / Roleplay shit
Fondle titties. When the white knights run up and shout "back off" loudly point and laugh at them. Force feed slags coconut drinks. Put your arm around everyone and get really up close in their face. Make fun of their furfag outfits. Call them trannies. Take a right wing stance on everything. Use cheats to spam gore and porn everywhere. Use mod menus (Cheats) to force other players to emote or spawn giant laggy objects and explosions. Always talk shit in VOIP and spam soundboards. Be as annoying and as insufferable as possible.
Single Player Games
Okay, so this one's hard to "troll" but there's still ways to do it. You gotta share stuff in normie spaces that will offend and upset them. There was a guy that played Red Dead 2 and brutually murdered and tortured the "women have a right to vote" NPC to the point where he got banned off jewtube for it cause it pissed off so many redditors. You're gonna have to be real creative with this one. If you're a jewtuber you can intentionally kill off all the gay NPC's in Baldurs Gate 3 or something during your streams or playthroughs and watch the seethe roll in. Or make misleading and untrue guides or push a narrative you'd prefer to see and post them to normie sites to really stick it to 'em.
Please, feel free to share your ways of griefing and trolling foids and sexhavers within the confines of the video game. Since we can't be happy in real life, the least we can do is make their virtual lives closer to ours. Give them a taste of their own medicine. The only joy I have left in life is making others seethe in video games, because what the fuck else is there to do?

Hey all,
Over the years I’ve spent a ton of time (maybe too much) researching pedals and planning out different pedalboard configurations. I’ve used various of tools to do this in the past but I’ve always wanted them to do so much more.
That’s why I’ve been working on pedalboard.app. If you’re familiar with existing pedal planning tools, then you already know the basics of how it works. Here are some special aspects of pedalboard.app:

• Explore pedalboards built by the community. Are you in need of some inspiration for your next pedalboard? Trying to build an ambient board or a board for metal but don’t know where to start? The homepage of pedalboard.app lets you browse pedalboards by the genre they’re used for.
  
• Save pedalboards. Have more than one layout idea for your pedalboard or see a pedalboard you want to reference later? You can click the save button on any pedalboard to keep it in your account (accounts are optional).
  
• Share your pedalboard with a link. Want to show your pedalboard to someone? No need to send a screenshot or share a diagram made in MS Paint (i’ve tried it, wouldn't recommend). Every pedalboard saved in pedalboard.app has a unique link that can be shared anywhere. Click the link and there’s your pedalboard.
  
• Check compatibility of your pedals & power supply. I’ve helped several friends & bandmates debug issues with their power supplies and have always felt that it should be way easier to spot incompatibilities between your pedals and power supply before you buy. In the pedalboard.app, if you add a power supply to your board, it will check the compatibility between your pedals and power supply for you automatically!
  
• Simulate the cable space on your pedalboard. Knowing the space your cables take up on the board is critical to making sure your pedals are actually going to fit. Pedalboard.app is aware of the cable and power input locations of every pedal in the database and you can even choose they type of patch cables you’re using, either standard or flat, to dial in a realistic fit.
  
• Browse through a huge collection of pedals, boards & power supplies. It’s a personal goal of mine to compile the largest collection of pedals on the web. I’ve got a long way to go before I hit that goal but there are already a few thousand pedals available so far with more being added daily. If I’m missing your favorite pedal, board or power supply please let me know! You can also always add custom pedals or boards to your pedalboard if something you need is missing.
  

Pedalboard.app is a tool I built for the community, is 100% free, and an account is not needed to use it. I have so many more features that I plan on adding that I’m really excited about, but I wanted to share it with you now since it’s finally in a usable state. I hope it’s useful for you!
Are there any other features you’d like to see in an app like this? Let me know!
You can check it out here: https://pedalboard.app

So even with it unpinned, it pops up during common activities. Think mousing over browser tabs, resizing and grabbing windows and so on and so forth.
Having a search, not many solutions (well, any solutions) for cloud PC. Yes possible solutions for Azure VDI where you have more control over RDC variables.
So, best way for now is via feedback on Microsoft. I added feedback, now it just needs upvotes! Get the team on it :-)
Connection Bar Hide · Community (microsoft.com)

I have a girls chat and my friend has added a guy to it, so I changed it so I changed the settings to that I had to approve any new members added. Is there a way you can hide/turn off notifications that say
"Your turned on admin approval for this group"
Thanks!

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-team-3-12-2-patch-released-checksum-54e1.1677187/
Dear Stellaris Fans,
Our first official patch is now ready following last weeks Machine Age release. 3.12.2 is available for download!
This version includes what was made available in the open beta previously, plus a few more fixes and tweaks. The team is now focusing on the next patch.
SPOILER: 3.12.2 PATCH NOTES
Bugfixes

• Added additional checks to prevent fully virtual pops from being created on the lathe
• Fix for Hive Mind background unaligned
• Fixed Sectors released by Individualist Machines having the wrong ethics
• Fixed virtual pops sometimes being created while planets are being colonised
• Fixed weapon and strike craft range calculations in ship behavior.
• If an active relic gets removed the relic cooldown is now reset.
• The paradox titan will now appear correctly in the ship view
• Updated Resort Workers, Clerks and Cyberdome Spectators to have trade preference for auto-modding
• Uplifted species will now always have their required traits
• Blocked Cosmogenesis empires from becoming custodian
• Fix for pause being completely blocked in MP forcing the player to rehost
• Fixed cybercreed pops not being able to grow if every pop on the planet was spiritualist
• Fixed non-spiritualist pops in cybercreed empires sometimes having their augmentation bazaars traits removed
• Fixed Determined Exterminators starting with too many planetary features on their homeworld
• Hired fleets are now able to properly enter Cetana's territory once the projects have been researched.
• Inwards Perfection now provides Pop Assembly Speed to Individual Machines
• Megastructures should now correctly hide resources unless they are making use of them.
• The Progressive Growth agenda now gives progress on Machine Template System for individualist machines
• Trait Integrated Weaponry for cyborgs requires The Machine Age DLC

Balance

• The Progressive Growth agenda now gives progress on Artificial Workforce without needing Powered Exoskeletons

Stability

• Civic tooltip CTD fix
• Fix CTD when resync has occured with a player in system view using certain graphical assets
• Fixed CTD after resync
• Fixed CTD in planetview timed modifier tooltip.
• Fixed potential crash in resettlement view tooltips
• Fixed rare crash in planet view
• Fixed crash when buying subscription from the additional content browser.
• Fixed CTD in traits effect tooltip
• Fixed CTD when aborting the construction of Synaptic Lathe

AI

• Fixed building type AI weight calculations

Modding

• Added range_components to ship behaviors, which specifies which components to use for range calculations.

I am an immigrant and I rent my apartment with my boyfriend, my partner. My visa is connected to him.
We have been living in his sister's apartment in Amsterdam since November. Even though she is his sister and is back there, asked for the apartment back from the previous tenant so she could rent it to us, she is hiding her lack of action as landlord and excusing all the current problems and she charges 1400 euros per month for a 50m2 apartment covered in mold.
My boyfriend and I signed the contract as co-tenants, and she asked for a deposit in the amount of one month. We moved in November, but only by the end of the month because the month was used to fix the apartment paying out of my pocket, and doing things like installing the floor and painting walls since no repair or inspection had been done after the last tenant left and before we became tenants. At that time it bothered me a lot, but since she was pregnant and I was sick, I tried to be patient.
One thing is that I have been extremely sick all this time, and ended up hospitalized multiple times. I have been diagnosed with a rare, chronic neurological disease, and the symptoms are so debilitating I have become disabled due to my senses, especially my vision, being compromised. I am on sick leave because I can't see or hear properly, with the risk of becoming permanently blind. More importantly: I live with debilitating pain because of my illness. To the point, it causes harsh consequences for me in every single aspect of my life.
It didn't take me more than 15 minutes in this house to start seeing problems like mold in the whole kitchen - impossible to store anything. I saw mold in the bathroom and the bedroom as well. I have been losing my mind over this, and I paid for repairs myself like I did.
My boyfriend and his sister, who is our landlord, have been communicating about all this between themselves and not by writing. I knew something was going on, and while my boyfriend and I are having huge problems between us because of all this, she has been constantly dismissed as well. I did not have the ability to check for more damage stuck in a bed dissociating with pain and unable to see anything, that’s why I understand I was disrespected by both.
Recently she decided to lower the rent to 1k euros (and I didn't hear a word from her about it) because of his complaints. After I checked that by the point system, she couldn't charge more than 850 euros for a place like this - and this is without mentioning mold, leak, and damage.
She is refusing to reimburse me for any damage or for the rent that was charged full price for an apartment that is rotting in mold.
I want to remember that NO inspection happened. She has charging 1400 euros since November 1st and we only could move on November 19th because of the repair we had to do ourselves and the refusal to reimburse us at the time. I have been spending hundreds of euros because of mold, things destroyed by mold and mold products, and I am very allergic to mold and to it. This also makes my headaches caused by the neurological disease unbearable for me. The thing is that I can't even have money to afford my medical bills or think about going back to my home country because of these costs. I never visited my home country since I left because of financial issues, and seeing to whom and how my money is being poorly handled is adding an amount of stress that freaks me out.
I ended up being immobilized by the police inside my own house this week after I reached a point of complete pain. The day I got my diagnosis was also a day the police were called by neighbors due to my constant screams and crying about paying. That day the doctors couldn't reject a test they had been rejecting for more than a year and I knew it was necessary in my case. The procedure is extremely invasive but involves a 15cm needle through my spine to measure my intracranial hypertension, which was and is extremely high.
I had to write to her this week, making a huge effort, to say that I am not accepting being left off the conversation anymore and that things should be communicated by writing.
Since they (she and her brother) don't respect me or my money while I'm extremely sick, I have to take action myself. I will not accept this woman having money while she not only has a place to live, but it's the owner of a place like this and she chooses to rent for this price. She clearly said that she won't pay for anything back because my boyfriend “didn't communicate clearly enough”.
This desperate me as this person is taking advantage of me, someone who once was healthy and stable, working as a passionate primary teacher, and who became disabled and insane of miscare of Dutch doctors and an abusive landlord who happens to be my sister-in-law. I don't have the money to afford to go back to my home country in an emergency anymore. I once had, but I had paid for thousands of euros to repair this place, besides the rent.
Of course, I am extremely disappointed with the attitude my partner has been taking and the relationship is also coming to an end because of this.
I don't want to keep having conversations to try to address these problems, and they insist on doing that - remember I was not part of ANY conversation, and even when she showed up unexpectedly one day in March, they talked in Dutch and don't let me know what's going on. Nothing had been written or said to me until I wrote to her this week.
So, for myself, what can I do? I will just not accept having this person with her pocket full of my money while I feel like I'm dying every day and I can't see or think straight due to my neurological condition.
I am looking for the best outcome for me, and not for me and my partner anymore. What can I do to protect myself in this situation? What are the possibilities of having all this money spent here and the past rents, charged full price, reimbursed? What is the best course of action I can take?
Sorry for the typos and confusion. I struggle to see and I have severe brain fog because of my condition.
Thanks in advance for your time.

Quick Summary:

This post will contain spoilers for both Season 15, and Restoration.
With the release of Restoration, Red vs Blue has finally come to an end, and it was a pretty solid ending for the most part amid a few flaws here and there, but most I think would agree it was a Satisfying ending. However as I said before it has a few problems. One being is that we don't know if Restoration actually happend, or if it's also a simulation much like The Shisno Trilogy, and Zero.
Secondly even though some people didn't like The Shisno Trilogy retconing it removes all of the major delevompment certain characters went through. Such as Grif, Donut, and Washington. I think The Shisno Trilogy defenitntly handled their characters better then Restoration did. So I'm going to give my version of what happend after the battle on The Staff of Charon, and see if we can fix some of the mistakes of both The Shisno Trilogy, and Restoration.

Season 15 Prelude:

So in my rewrite I'm going to have both Season 15, and Restoration happen, but there will be some tweeks, and changes added to them. One such change will be Tucker's descent into becoming The New Meta, rather then it just happening offscreen. We see this through Tucker behaving much more differently then he normally would. He often gets angry for unknown reasons, or behaves more violently then he normally would. All of this is a result of him being influinced by both Sigma, and Omega. Personally I think Omega would help Sigma with his goals as long as Sigma gave Omega something in return.

Season 15:

Now let's get into the actual Season. So Season 15 Episode 1 Prolouge goes the same as it does in the original, with The Blues and Reds attacking a UNSC base, and killing everyone there. Dylan Andrews then does her report with Frank, she deciedes to track The Reds and Blues down, Frank is replace by Jax, and together they head to Blood Gulch, meet sister, and VIC, Dylan makes a deal with VIC that he will give her "Three wishes", and then she, and Jax go to Sidewinder, meet Specncer, and Encounter The Blues and Reds. So far Season 15 seems to be going exactaly the same as it did before right, well here's where the first difference comes. Dylan doesn't immendidlty put together put together that they aren't the real Reds, and Blues. This is because Surge actually has a shotgun, and they all have voice filters to sound like the Reds, and Blues.
Anyways after all that instead of going to Chorus, Dylan and Jax decied to go to other places The Reds and Blues have been starting with Zanzibar. There they wouldn't find much, but I think Dylan would at least try to see if she could find any information on the computer Gamma hacked, but probably wouldn't find anything.
There next stop would be Valhalla. There they would first check out The Blue Base, find nothing, and then they would check out The Red Base, where they would find the holgraph training thing Sarge had Lopez built. Once again they wouldn't find anything they would help with their investagation.
Oh by the way the call between Dylan and James would still happen in Episode 4 at Zanziabar and it would go the same as in the original Season.
Anyways then then go to the sandy place with The Temple, then where the Reds and Tucker got destroyed by Tex, and even where they confronted The Director, but they find nothing, and Dylan is about to Give Up when Jax suggest that why not go to the place The Reds and Blues were last known to be, Chorus. Dylan calls Jax a genius, and they head of to Chours. Again this goes exactaly the same as it did in the original version, but with one major difference, Doc would be on Chours working at Donald Doyle General Hosptial as Doctor Grey's assisatant, but once he here's about The Reds and Blues he too like Sister, Grey, and Kimball believes that The Reds and Blues wouldn't go evil, despite all they've put him through. So after getting the info from Kimball, Dylan, Jax, and Doc would all go to The Reds and Blues are on. Doc apologizes to Grey for leaving, but she assures him it's okay, and that he wasn't really that good at opperating, no offense of course. Anyways they go to the planet, the same Star Wars Parody scene happens, and Dylan finally meets The Real Reds and Blues. Cabooose still falls of the cliff, The Reds and Blues kind of have a small reaction to Doc like "Oh Doc what are you doing here". Doc then tries to explain only for The Reds and Blues to say that "No one cares", then they tell their story. It's exactaly the same, but Carolina does point out Tucker's weird behavior from being influnced by Sigma, and Omgea, but they all just blow it off as a phase, and then they get the SOS from Church.
And that's where Season 15 would end. Now I'm sure some of you are going to question why I shorten Season 15 to only about 10 episodes instead of the Original 20, well that was because of Dylan and Jax. See one of my main issues with Season 15 was the lack of development the two new characters got. I mean what did we learn about either of them throughout the Season? Um Dylan was a reporter, Jax wants to make movies, Dylan has a husband she's distant from, and that's about it, and as soon as The Reds and Blues come back into the picture, both Dylan and Jax basically get sidelinded. For me that was my biggest disappointment from Season 15, and is the main reason why I added episodes of Dylan and Jax going to these other places The Reds and Blues have been was so we could learn more about Dylan and Jax.
One thing I think we could learn about is why Dylan is so distant from her husband, here's my take on the reason why. Dylan can't have kids. When Dylan gets the call from James, Jax could ask her why she's so distant from him, to which Dylan would say that it's none of his buisness, then Jax can drop it, and tell Dylan his life story, then in Chorus Lessons Dylan can tell Jax about her being unable to reproduce, she explains to him that other then being a reporter one of her biggest dreams was to be a mom, she and James tried so many times, but nothing worked, so they went to the doctors where they got the news that Dylan was infertal. This revlation devestated Dylan, and she started to distants herself from James, and burry herself in her work. James did suggest things like Adoption, or a Surragate Mom, but Dylan didn't want to do either of does. I know it's not the best story for Dylan, but I just wanted more from her and Jax, instead of them just being sidelinded after The Reds and Blues came back into the picture. Anyways onto the New Season 16.

Season 16:

So yeah Season 16 is just the rest of Season 15 honestly, and for the most part everything goes exactaly The Same. Grif quits still, Carolina and Washington go to search for their old Freelancer friends, and The rest of The Reds and Blues along with Dylan and Jax try to trace Church's message. Everything from their goes the same, including the meeting with Spencer. It's when they meet The Blues and Reds where it's different. When they first meet it goes basically the same where The Blues and Reds claim that they're the good guys, and its The UNSC who are the bad guys, but Tucker does not trust them one bit because they are still going around pretending to be The Reds and Blues, with Tucker even questioning how Dylan couldn't tell they were fakes. Anyways the go into the underwater base, and here's where we get some differences. First of all The Blues and Reds and not the originals, they are just copycats. Doc also never knew them, and there's a little moment of him asking if they have their own Doc, and getting kind of dissapointed that their isn't.
Here's another major difference. It's Sigma who convinces Tucker to not trust Dylan, and to instead trust The Blues and Reds, and espesically Temple. After that everything from Wash and Carolina's relationship getting forming, to The Blues and Reds capturing them goes the same.
Now we get to The Blues and Reds story of why they are doing all of this. Now like I said before they are not the originals like in the canon version of Season 15, and honestly coming up with a different story for them was hard, and this was all I could think of. They were part of The UNSC Resistance, and took part in the battle of the Sargaughcas in Season 9. We still get that whole think of Biff and Temple being friends, and Biff wanting to go home to be with his wife, but this time instead of him asking Temple to shoot him, he was already given permission to leave, and this would have been his last mission. Unfourtnetly he is killed during the battle by Carolina and Tex. As for why The Blues and Reds are pretending to be The Reds and Blues? They saw the article Dylan wrote and that's what gave Temple the idea to pretend to be The Reds and Blues.
Anyways The Reds, and Blues discover The Blues and Reds are evil, Doc, and Sarge join The Blues, and Reds, The Reds, and Blues are captured, Lopez gets launched into Space, runs into Locus, and gets Grif. Grif, Lopez, and Felix go to save The Reds and Blues, free Wash and Carolina, with Wash all loopy, Sarge apologizes, and the fire fight happens. Here we would also see more of Sigma, and Omega influnicing Tucker, primarily Omega during this part since Tucker is angry, and of course Wash gets shot in the Neck.
So after that everything goes exactaly the same as it does in the original with The Reds and Blues, Dylan, and Jax all heading to Earth to stop The Blues and Reds.
Okay now for the Final Battle aganist The Blues and Reds, for the most part it's the same. Sarge and Surge's fight to Sarge accidendtly killing Surge, Grif, and Simmons figthing Gene and leaving him, and Loronzeo getting kicked into space, as well as Cronut blowing up in The Tank, but surving.
Now for the differnces. First off Loco's machine is not a time machine, but it will still causes mass destruction, and possibly destroy the planet so it needs to be stopped. Tucker beats Buckey even worse then he does in the original, breaking nearly all of his bones. This is again because of Omega. Anyways once we get to the final battle against Temple it all goes the same. Temple accidently kills Loco, VIC dies stopping the Machine, and Loco gives Caboose some batteires for Freckles. Now for the differnces. First there's no door that opens to Blood Gulch, and Alpha Church, The Machine just gets destroyed by VIC. Donut still gets shot by a bolt of electricty, but it does nothig except give him a little jolt. Oh and everything that happend with Doc went the same.
Now for Temple's fate. This time Tucker actually kills Temple, quite violently to, shocking everyone. Carolina then says "Tucker, what have you done"? to which Tucker, who's voice is mixed with Sigma's says. "Tucker is gone, I am The Meta"! Tucker now complety controlled by Sigma runs off, gets into Dylan's ship and flies off leaving everyone in shock. Then The Chours crew comes with Sister who reuintes with Grif, and the others are informed of Wash's recover, but then Caboose ask what they are going to do about Tucker, which Carolina says she doesn't know. Season 16 ends with Tucker returing to the base where The Reds and Blues were stationed after Chorus. He opens a door, to a room where The Meta's old armor was stored. Tucker then puts on the Armor and faces the screen in a scene similar to when Maine became The First Meta.
So yeah Season 16 aka The Rest of Season 15 didn't have a lot of changes other then changing the Origins of The Blues, and Reds, and showing more of Tucker's desent into becoming The New Meta. So let's move onto The Final Season.

Restoration:

So I think the best place to start The Final Season is to have The Reds and Blues first go to Chorus to check on Wash. As for Dylan and Jax, they stay behind since they can't fight The Meta. Anyways The Reds and Blues arrive on Chorus, and Carolina goes to see Wash in the Hospital, she wants to tell him about what happend to Tucker, but Wash doesn't let her at first, and instead tells the story about his cat. He tells the story about five times, so Carolina ask Doctor Grey about what's going on, and she tells Carolina about Wash's Cerebal Hypoxia. Now here's where we get our first difference. Carolina tells Wash about his condition, and does not hide it from him. Wash of course is devestated after learning this, but isn't as angry as he was in the original Season since Carolina was honest with him, but then she tells Wash about Tucker, and this causes an argument between the two of them, Carolina wants Wash to stay behind on Chorus while she and the others take care of Tucker, but Washington is insitant that he comes along saying how Tucker is his friend, and he's not going to sit back while Tucker suffers. Try as she might Carolina cannot convince Wash to stay behind.
While that was going on The Reds and Blues come back with the Message from Church. Of coruse Carolina, is skeptical at first considering what happend with the last message from Church, but Epsilon, who somehow new about all of this is able to prove he is real.
Okay so that's basically it for differnces, as everything else goes the same as it does in the original film with the acception that Sister, Wash, Carolina, Donut, Lopez, and Doc are all there the whole time. There would also be more scences of Tucker trying to fight off Sigma's influnce
Now for The Battle on The Staff of Charon with The Meta, here is where we would see Wash's injury effecting him, and it gets to a point where The Meta is about to kill him, only for Doc to sacrfice himself to save him. So yeah Doc still dies, but this time it's onscreen. As for Sarge, he dies too, same way he does in the original film, but the difference is that Sarge doesn't choose to abandon Caboose at first, he dies saving Caboose.
Final battle in Blood Gulch is The Same, with Tex coming back, but also Junior too. They fight and defeat Sigma, and Free Tucker. Caboose then destroys the Memory Unit.
Now for the ending. Grif doesn't leave like he does in the original film, Simmons does still offer it to him, but Grif chooses to stay. One thing The Shisno Trilogy did good was Grif's character arc. He realized that he needs the others in his life, no matter how much he doesn't want to admit it, he went crazy when he was all alone. Washington's character was something else done well in The Shisno Trilogy, his struggle with Brain Damage, and having to come over it, which is one of the biggest reasons why I hate Zero when they just said that he somehow got cured from that offscreen.
Finally with everything fixed, The Reds and Blues all decied to remain on Blood Gulch. Red Base has Simmons, Grif, Donut, and Lopez, while Blue Base has Caboose, Tucker, Washington, Carolina, Sister, and Junior.
Oh one more thing, they also had a memorial for Doc too. Donut is the first one mouring Doc, with Simmons, and the others eventually joining as well, and it's here where they finally acknowledge all the terrible things they did to Doc over the years, and genuinally apologize to him, even if Doc can't here them

Conclusion:

And there we go, my rewrite of Season 15, and Restoration. I know it's not perfect, and believe me a billon other people could do a trillon times better then I ever could, but I just wanted to talk about my take on how I would try to handle The End of Red vs Blue.

I’m in a very very competitive niche, and people continually steal my ads/landing page content. Sometimes it’s a direct clone of my ads too.
It’s happening weekly at this point and is annoying because their ads and landing pages are terrible, and mine are running with a super high ROAS. So they’ve started to just clone it all.
I run mobile only ads, because of the product I am advertising.
I thought about making my desktop site look ugly and terrible (hiding the headline, hiding all the useful stuff etc), whilst keeping the mobile site looking great. They wouldn’t realise I’ve done this when they view my landing pages from the ad library, and would look at my desktop site and think it’s not worth copying.
Would this impact my ad performance at all? I wondered if the FB algo occasionally looks at the landing page content, and if it saw the desktop site basically empty it might think it’s a spam site and penalise me for it.

The fact is, that even in the summer it is incredibly hot the only thing tough to do may be the decision to some clothes, because of this it reminds you of everybody and a lot of things but don't worry! Don't worry at all that a warm day would make you an odd man in the choir. The smart method to go about this is to strive to be the unique individual who is amongst a crowd of many.
1. Opt for Breathable Fabrics: The springtime attire requires a light, non-fridge fabric the cotton, linen or chambray will be the main fabrics for the upcoming summer collection. Indeed, they don't only let the air pass through and make easy movement with no sweat.
2. Go Sleeveless: Visualize savouring the moments life brings from time to time that never lasts, and lock in on the trendy sleeveless clothes. this will make life present. The sleeveless fashion is for you, give it a chance. These clothes are desirable not just for their convenience but more so for the fact that they are ideal outfits because you can also gracefully highlight your beautiful skin-tan tone with them.
3. Loose and Flowy Silhouettes: Nevertheless, I do not recommend those tight clothes that are useless to hide your body shape, and instead try to look like a natural beauty by wearing loose and comfy clothes, that are not designed to expose your curves. Consequently, cover dresses, soft-knitted tops, and wide-flared pants are the most convenient outfits to wear during the hot summer season because they coincide with the heat and the brightness of the hot season perfectly.
4. Light Colors and Prints: The types of colours used, such as white, pastels and a slightly lighter shade of beige, will act as the mirrors that are the sun and they will, therefore, reflect heat so that you feel even cooler than the dark shades. And in addition, it should be one of the things to be under consideration. Let's have a look at wild and refreshing summer prints for an added punch to your summer apparel – dots, flowers, stripes or colourful graphics inspired by the sea and beach, to add some extra zest to your wardrobe.
5. Accessorize Wisely: Be on tier with the latest trends by collecting multirole designer accessories too. Give a mysterious look and powerful sun protection a go and you will realize that, yes, my woven or floppy hat is the accessory you can't miss! Wear the scarves flawlessly that add a sense of decorum to your style. Write a wonderful essay on the above concept: How social media shapes teens' psychological health.
Along with the remaining stage our goal is to shop for the right summer outfit that is sure to make you fashionable with a touch of stylish flavour on top. In this regard, just don't be afraid to bring in your floppy-brim hat fashionably, and boldly dress wearing your street clothes so that you will be able to become the summer fashionista.

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Schools: UIUC (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) vs. Rutgers New Brunswick
Intended major: Information Sciences + Data Science @ UIUC & CS @ Rutgers
Similarities: Weather is about the same. Weather is rly bad for a few months/unpredictable (Being from cali I will be seeing a major difference); Overall rankings are pretty close to each other; Both have very good research opportunities
UIUC
UIUC pros:

• Visited a few weeks ago and really liked the campus
• Really good stem education very study focused school
• Really liked the campus culture (upperclassman were very helpful and they were willing to go out of their way to show me around)
• Data science is an emerging field, and they are making a new data science building (Siebel School of Computing and Data Science), but not sure if my major will be added to that new school
• Data science building opening up might lead to more research opportunities and more resources
• Close to Chicago (very major job hub)

UIUC Cons:

• When I selected my major, I was drawn to the title, but later discovered it didn’t live up to my expectations.
  • If you look at the major in reddit it is basically everyone saying it lacks technicality
• Can make up the technicality with a CS minor but not as strong as a CS major
• Hard to switch to CS + X but would be very rewarding if it happened
• Not many friends going from my hs
• Not a very social guy so it’s going to be hard to make friends (but this is maybe for every college)
• Very big party school, not my type of thing to do. Won’t attend parties, but will be surrounded by people who do and that might be a big influence idrk

Rutgers
Rutgers Pros:

• Direct admit to CS
• Campus is pretty nice
• Prestige is alright to the point where you don’t feel lowly about yourself and what you are doing
• Close to NYC (very major job hub esp for a cs degree)

Rutgers Cons:

• Off campus housing limited
• Not really a great college town like UIUC
• Larger class sizes of 100+
• Not many people I know going - Campus layout is a bit fucked (5 campuses and you need a bus to go to each of them so basically not walkable)

Tiebreaking considerations:

• Ease of transferring into CS and statistics program at UIUC to pursue real data science opportunities, given its top 5 ranking in CS and not bad for DS as well.
• Knowing if direct admission to Rutgers might be preferable over pursuing Information Sciences and Data Science (IS + DS) at UIUC with plans of switching.
• Quality of education offered by both institutions
• Put yourselves in my shoes and think if I look back in 10 years would I have been happy with my decision?

Addendum:
I’m sort of a pit stop right now, as I am not really sure what to do. I never really wanted to go to Rutgers in the first place, but it suddenly became an option after I realized that an IS + DS major was not it at UIUC. When I visited both campuses, I got better vibes at UIUC. Rutgers’s campus seemed a bit depressing and reminded me of HS, but I am not against it as I think it would be a great experience and first impressions could be deceiving.
I just wanted to say that I am leaning towards UIUC because of the prestige it holds compared to Rutgers. I think this is what a lot of other people will do, and UIUC is the clearer option compared to Rutgers. At this point, it is more of a major thing than a school thing.
Even though data science at UIUC is not a bad major when paired with a CS minor, a lot of people are shitting on it for being really bad, so I don't know what to do. I talked to the Hella people, though, and they told me that it is fine if I put in a CS minor.
What do yall think I should do?

If you are like me, and have Komplete Ultimate but have found there is a big hole where usable Kontakt woodwinds should be, this library may be of interest. Its on "sale" for USD70 at the moment, down from the "normal" price of 250, there is a discount for your first purchase of 15%, so it came out to 58 USD for me.
It has Dynamic and Expression controls that respond to mappable CC (expression and sustain by default), so its reasonably playable from wind controller, though i only just got it (and use Sylphyo and a KK S49 that are literally made for this).
Its set up with a bunch of presets that can be added to the library tab https://8dioproductions.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9407227773723-Adding-8dio-libraries-to-Kontakt-s-Library-Browser-Kontakt-7
Its 5 woods that can be used individually or together and mixed, with common articulations, close and far mic blend etc. A lot like NI Session Strings or Session Horns in layout (though without the FX)

So my ex and I had a shark robot I told him to keep it and I now have recently got my own. So I just tried to map my apartment and funny enough it added the layout of my apartment in the middle of his houses layout. It kinda bothers me so I tried a different email and now I have factory reset as well and yet it still will map my home inside the layout of his house. What do I do to fix this?

TLDR: Narcissistic mother-in-law is going no-contact until she can apologize for ruining mother's day and learn some fucking empathy to her first-time-mom daughter.
Ok daddit, thought I'd share my ongoing story with you all because we all love a good drama bomb.
Context: me & wife = late 30s, married 2 years (together 6) with a 10 month old baby (first child to both families). MIL (mother in law) = late 60s, divorced twice
~a month before Mother's Day~ My wife and I had been renovating the house. Nothing major, but we hired some contractors to extend the length of the living room by removing some walls and making the space bigger. The wife's and Is intentions are to get new furniture for the space and we already have a layout in mind.
Here comes the MIL, who IMMEDAITELY makes opinions on how the space should be decorated AND that we should hire an interior decorator to redesign the space (note, it's just a living room and not THAT big). Would also like to note, she didn't pay for our house and she certainly didn't pay for our renovations.
~the day before mother's day~ Wife and I purchased a couch and have picked out the decor of the living room via our own research, requirements, and the in-store interior designer consultant.
~Mother's Day~ Baby has a 101 fever, but is acting pretty normal all things considered. MIL and extended family are invited over for dinner and exchanging gifts. I shared our couch purchase with one of the family members and MIL IMMEDIATELY makes snide comments such as "the couch is ugly" and "I can't believe you bought that couch". Mind you, she's the one who suggested we get an interior designer, and per the store's consultant the style and color perfectly match what we're looking to do in the room. Wife begins crying and hides herself away from the family because of how her mother made her feel.
At this point, the kiddo is stable so I sit at the table and eat some dinner without the wife (she's in the other room crying). Some small talk among the family. Eventually the baby gets hungry so I move to the living room to feed her (more comfortable than sitting at the dining room table).
No sooner than ~10 minutes later the family begins coming over to tell me goodbye and that they're leaving after being over no more than an hour. Hyper confused, I learned that the MIL was upset that her daughter (my wife) RUINED HER mother's day by being upset at her disrespect and told the family to go home, which they did (probably to avoid drama). Now, I don't know what this "disrespect" was, but I can guarantee it was probably some misplaced motion in her head that we didn't behave the way she was expecting us to and got mad (imagine being rude to your daughter and pretending to be upset she got sad). That night, the MIL ends up texting my wife a storm about how ugly the couch is, how she can't believe we spent renovating the room, and every vitriol under the sun about our decisions over the last month. Surely some form of gaslight targeting my wife's uncertainty with making big decisions.
I also learned later that the MIL was upset that the gift I got my wife for mother's day wasn't sufficient enough and she was CONVINCED I would have forgotten (without any prior history of me forgetting gifts). Not to toot my own horn, but I like to think I've been an amazing dad taking care of my child, AND I asked the wife ahead of time what type of Mother's Day gift she'd want and got her something based on her suggestions. The MIL has this mindset that the more money you spend the more sincere the gift is and that's just not something the wife and I adhere to. We talk to each other, listen to what the other person wants/ needs, and go off of that.
Now, my MIL has a history of narcotism and belittling others by talking down to them, especially to her daughter. I won't bore you all with examples over the years, but lets just say I was absolutely livid. This was my wife's first official mother's day and it was ruined by her mom because she didn't like the couch we bought and somehow our behavior offended her despite her knowing we were going to purchase furniture on our own.
At this point we've told the MIL we aren't talking to her anymore until we're ready to have a sit-down chat (work, sick baby has been keeping us busy). Upon which, I plan on laying it out to her that her behavior about what the wife and I do is none of her business (especially since we're financing everything) and that her unsolicited opinions are grossly inappropriate and not needed. Unfortunately, given the MIL age I don't expect this to have any effect and given how long I've known her, I don't think it's going to make any meaningful progress to her being a better person. I've heard phrases from her saying "well opinions can be given freely" and I have some absolute bombs I am ready to drop on her if I feel the conversation warrants it, but I don't want to go down that road unless no other options are available.
We plan on having a sit down with her soon to talk about her behavior. Though I am convinced she's going to be pretending to be angry to justify her actions. But honestly, I might just tell her to sit on the floor since I know she doesn't like the new couch.
For all the years I've known my wife, I have seen this woman make her cry several times and I've kept my mouth shut. But watching my wife cry on my shoulder in front of our baby on Mother's Day was the final straw. I am absolutely willing to go no-contact and am willing to pay any sitter's cost to avoid relying on the help of my narcissistic MIL. But we need to have that talk and see how things go from there.

(continuation of part 1)

III. Searching for Aerith Beyond FFVII

There were absolutely no answers in Remake or OG (at this point in my research, Rebirth wasn’t released yet), no matter how much I looked; nothing at all hinted at how Cloud could’ve obtained the memories of OG that emerge in Remake as MOTFs. I knew I had to look elsewhere to search for more clues, so I decided to check every piece of media ever released by SE with a mention of Cloud or Aerith in it, digging for hints in the compilation and beyond.
And boy, did I find them.
III. a) Core Worlds and Suspension Worlds
There are a couple of general FF rules that we need to establish before going forward.
It’s important to note that there are multiple realms in which the FF stories take place, each with a different name, history and society. This ensures that all FF stories occur separately, never intercepting or interacting— though they do have creatures like moogles and chocobos in common, as well as concepts like airships, gil, magic and some form of crystal. For simplicity, I will refer to these separate worlds in which the numbered FF games (FFI, FFII, FFIII, etc) occur as “core worlds”.
Characters from different core worlds may appear together in non-numbered FF games, the events of which have no impact on the core world at all: it seems that sometime after a FF character has reached the end of their core world’s plot-line, they may somehow be summoned to far-removed realms where they will face new adventures. I call these far-removed realms “suspension worlds”. One example of a FF game that takes place in a suspension world is Dissidia Final Fantasy, wherein characters from multiple core worlds unite to accomplish a mission as a team.
III. b) Final Fantasy Tactics
First on our list of non-compilation SE games to explore is 1997’s Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT), a game whose plot takes place in the suspension world of Ivalice. Let’s plot out the relevant events, and then analyze!
III. b) i. Fact-Finding
The main character of FFT, Ramza, encounters a brunette flower peddler with Aerith’s iconic, gravity-defying bangs:
\"Aeris\" in FFT's Ivalice
If you choose to buy a flower from her, she express her relief: apparently, business isn’t going well because no one is interested in flowers. The girl wistfully dreams aloud:

“When is my knight in shining armor going to take me away from here...?”

Later, Ramza and his companions encounter a mysterious machine that can summon people from across universes. The machine is activated, and a rather rude young man with spiky blonde hair appears. Cloud claims he used to be in SOLDIER, and says the last thing he remembers is “getting stuck in the current”. He looks to be disoriented and lost, and suffers from piercing headaches. Mere moments after being summoned to Ivalice, Cloud rambles:

“What’s this? My fingers are tingling… My eyes… they’re burning… Stop… stop it [Se]phiroth…”

He dashes out of the room, but not without announcing:

“I must go… must go to that place…”

Outside, Cloud encounters the brunette flower girl Ramza met earlier. She offers Cloud a flower, but he only stares at her wordlessly:

“Flower girl: Buy a flower? Only 1 gil.
Cloud: …
Flower girl: Something wrong? Do I resemble someone?”
Cloud: No… it’s nothing.”

As soon as Cloud leaves, a gang of ruffians surround the flower girl and start harassing her, demanding payment that’s apparently overdue. One of them finally calls her by her name: “Aeris”. He grabs her, insinuating that he might sexually assault her in lieu of payment. Aeris is not strong enough to push him away. That’s when Cloud returns:

“Cloud: Get your hand off her!
Thug: What did you say!?
Cloud: Didn't you hear me? Get your dirty hand off her!
[…]
Cloud, to Aeris: Go… now.”

Aeris heeds Cloud’s advice, fleeing the scene before a fight between Cloud and the thug can break out. After Cloud scares the ruffians off with the help of Ramza and his companions, he speaks once more:

“I lost… something very important… Ever since, I’ve been lost […]. What should I do? What about this pain [?] Must go… to the Promised Land.”

III. b) ii. Fact Analysis
There’s a lot to unpack here, all of which you probably clocked in your head upon reading, but let’s put it down in writing.
While FFT Cloud’s memory is far from perfect, the Aeris he encounters in Ivalice doesn’t recognize him at all. FFVII Ultimania Omega addresses this question without answering it:

“[The flower seller’s] name is Aeris, and she has the same appearance and tone of voice as the Aeris of FFVII. However, when she comes across Cloud, she does not recognize him. Could she really be the same Aerith who appears in FFVII but with memory loss, or is she a completely different character?” (“#4 Proof of Omega”, “FFVII in Other Games”, “Final Fantasy Tactics”, page 560).

Regardless of her unknown identity and inability to recognize Cloud, FFT Aeris’ fantasy of a “knight in shining armor” is quite reminiscent of the flower girl/bodyguard dynamic we’ve come to know and love. Cloud’s armor doesn’t shine, but in my opinion, if you’re looking for the dystopian, corporatocratic equivalent of a knight, you can’t get much closer than a supposed-former-SOLDIER-turned-bodyguard. Additionally, despite his rude and cold attitude toward Ramza’s gang, the urgency with which Cloud swoops in to save the flower girl from the ruffians betrays a softer, warmer side to him: the flower girl/bodyguard dynamic strikes again!
FFT Cloud’s dialogue borrows two lines from the speech OG Cloud makes as Aerith lies dead in his arms (disk 1, chapter 28): “My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!” and “What are we supposed to do? What about my pain?” You might’ve noticed that this glimpse of grief Cloud experiences in FFT bears a resemblance to the fourth MOTF 4 experienced by Remake Cloud (see section “II. a)”). Could it be that FFT Cloud and Remake Cloud have something in common?
Shortly after being summoned to Ivalice, FFT Cloud declares that he must go to “that place”, a mysterious line that is later elucidated when he tells Ramza that he must go to the Promised Land and find the “very important” thing he’s lost. The Promised Land is the Cetra culture’s afterlife, meaning FFT Cloud is looking for someone who’s died, someone “very important” to him. OG suggests this is none other than Aerith:

“Cait Sith, reading Cloud’s fortune: You will find [what] you pursue. However, you will lose the most precious thing” (disk 1, chapter 16, English translation by Kotaku’s “Let’s Mosey: A Slow Translation of Final Fantasy Seven: Part Eight” by Tim Rogers, 9:42-9:52).

&

“Cloud, after seeing Aerith’s hand reach for him through the Lifestream: … I think I'm beginning to understand.
Tifa: What?
Cloud: An answer from the Planet… the Promised Land... I think I can meet her... there” (disk 3, chapter 3).

Finally, let’s try to understand where on the OG timeline Cloud was summoned to this suspension world from and what he remembers. His comment about getting stuck in a current has to be about the Lifestream; apparently, on top of its atemporal nature, it can act as a conduit to other worlds. One only enters the Lifestream if they’ve somehow fallen into the core of the planet or once they’ve passed away and returned to the planet. Both scenarios merit consideration.
On the one hand, it’s possible that Cloud was summoned to Ivalice after he and Tifa fall into the core of the planet: this point in the FFVII OG timeline occurs after Aerith’s death and shortly before Cloud finds out he was never SOLDIER, which matches the gaps in FFT Cloud’s memory quite well. However, this scenario does not account for the vagueness with which FFT Cloud remembers Aerith and her death. Most importantly, Cloud’s realization that he can find Aerith in the Promised Land occurs much later in the game (FFVII OG, disk 3, chapter 3) than when he falls into the Lifestream with Tifa (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 8).
On the other hand, FFT Cloud’s vague yet persistent memories of Aerith suggest that he’s been summoned to Ivalice after his eventual death post-OG, but also that he’s lost quite a large portion of his memories. His incomplete memory loss is likely the result of Cloud’s individuality’s erosion by the Lifestream after death, which we discussed in section “II. a) ii.”. We can therefore surmise that by the time he is summoned to Ivalice from the Lifestream, Cloud has been dead for long enough that the Lifestream eroded a large portion of the memories of his lifetime. This post-death scenario is likelier than the first. The memory of Cloud’s realization that he was never SOLDIER must be gone, which explains why he claims otherwise upon being summoned to Ivalice. Contrastingly, vestiges of Cloud’s OG memories of Aerith cling to his soul, even after others have been wiped clean. Could this be a consequence of their soulmate bond? Could the strength of Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith have made his memories of her stronger and more difficult for the Lifestream to erode? Could it be both?
One thing is clear: Aerith is of fundamental importance to Cloud, even when he can’t quite remember her. In fact, the only other character he remembers and/or mentions in FFT is Sephiroth. It does make sense that the memories of those who have marked one’s soul forevermore would be the most difficult for the Lifestream to erode.
III. c) Dissidia Final Fantasy
The next stop on our travels through suspension worlds is 2008’s Dissidia Final Fantasy! Now strap in, because here’s where things get really serious.
III. c) i. Fact Finding
In the suspension world of Dissidia Final Fantasy (DFF), the goddess of harmony Cosmos and the god of discord Chaos are engaged in a never-ending cycle of conflict. Both deities need warriors to fight on their behalf, so they recruit core world characters into their respective teams by summoning them to DFF. Some of these summoned characters are FFIV’s Cecil, FFVI’s Terra, FFVII’s Sephiroth, FFX’s Tidus, and of course, FFVII’s Cloud. The warriors find themselves in the suspension world of DFF with no memories of their core worlds’ plotlines. However, as the DFF adventure progresses, they are able to recover pieces of their memories here and there. It isn’t clear how much they come to remember. Ultimately, the warriors hope to return home to their core worlds by fighting in this war and seeing to its end.
Cloud is summoned to DFF as a warrior on the side of Chaos, who seeks to destroy all existence. Sephiroth is also on Chaos’ side, meaning the two are teammates despite being enemies in their core world of FFVII. It just so happens that Tifa is a summoned warrior in DFF too, though she’s fighting on Cosmos’ side. Intrigued by her vague familiarity, Sephiroth hypothesizes that killing Tifa will bring back his memories of OG’s plot line: before long, the masamune wielder finds Tifa alone and corners her into a one-on-one fight. Thankfully, Cloud swoops in and saves her before Sephiroth can do any harm. Tifa is thankful for Cloud’s help, though confused that Cloud would elect to assist her and turn against a fellow warrior of Chaos; she doesn’t remember what Sephiroth and Cloud mean to each other in OG. In fact, Tifa doesn’t even remember Cloud’s name or that they share a core world, though Cloud feels somewhat familiar to her. For his part, Cloud at least remembers that Tifa is someone he cares about from his core world. As Tifa thanks Cloud for saving her from Sephiroth, something she says elicits an odd reaction from the warrior of Chaos:

“Tifa: The way you showed up and fought that guy off. It was a pretty cool thing to watch. You were like a hero, charging in to save the girl.
Cloud gasps at her words. She doesn’t notice” (Dissidia 012: Treachery of the Gods, report 5: “Unexpected Fulfillment 2”).

On another note, Cloud knows he will have to fight Tifa once the Cosmos-Chaos conflict comes to a head, as they are on opposing teams. He thinks to himself:

“Once [her] memories return, [she]’ll lose the will to fight just like I have. So... Before that can happen, I have to act...” (Dissidia 012: Treachery of the Gods, report 5: “Unexpected Fulfillment 2”).

In order to end the cycle of the conflict and to avoid fighting Tifa, Cloud decides to try and defeat Chaos himself. Predictably, Cloud is no match for the deity. As he dies, Cloud pleads the following to the goddess Cosmos:

“Cosmos, goddess of harmony. If you can hear me, listen to my plea. I beg you. Save her. Save my friend… Tifa.”

Cosmos hears him and responds immediately:

“Cosmos: An end to this conflict, and a life spared? This is your heart's desire? If your will remains unchanged, I shall bring you here when the battle draws to a close. Cloud. My chosen" (Dissidia 0.13: Treachery of the Gods, report 7: “Unexpected Fulfillment 3”).

Cloud’s wish is granted by Cosmos: the first phase of the conflict ends without Tifa getting hurt, and she is sent away from the suspension world of DFF before the second phase begins. Cloud is saved from death, and Cosmos enlists him into her team of warriors for phase two: this time, Cloud is fighting on the good side.
Now we enter phase two of the war. Cosmos tells her team of ten core world warriors that in order to save the world from Chaos’ destruction, they must collect what she describes as crystals containing the power to persist through darkness. I call these the “DFF crystals”. There are ten DFF crystals in total: one for every warrior in Cosmos’ group to find. To obtain their crystal, each hero must overcome a trial that will confront them with whatever personal struggle they faced in their core world; if they prove themselves worthy, their DFF crystal will appear to them. On one hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals simply take the form of the crystals found in their core world. For example, Onion Knight’s DFF crystal looks to be nothing more than one of FFIII’s elemental crystals, which hold little to no personal significance to him. On the other hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals symbolize something more personal to their respective warriors. For instance, Cecil’s DFF crystal looks to be one of FFIV’s dark crystals, which specifically represent the dichotomy of light and darkness he struggles with in his core world’s plot line. Cosmos describes the quest for the DFF crystals as follows:

“Cosmos: The crystals embody the strength to face despair. With ten gathered, there is hope yet to save the world. The path to your crystal will be perilous... and different for each and every one of you. But you must believe in and follow your own path. Even if you know not where that path leads" (Dissidia 013: Light to All, prologue: “A Final Hope”).

From this exposition, simply keep in mind that: Cloud must find his crystal by overcoming a personal trial, and his crystal may have the appearance of an object in OG that’s important to him.
Once the team is debriefed on their mission, Cloud remains reticent to fight; he doesn’t much like the mysterious nature of this conflict. Not knowing exactly what they’re all fighting for is clearly bothersome to the swordsman, and the idea of thoughtlessly engaging in battles leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Fellow warrior Firion understands that without a reason to fight, Cloud’s heart just isn’t in it. He imparts upon Cloud that he must have a dream he’s fighting to protect, something he wants to see come true, to motivate him to stop Chaos from destroying all existence. Unfortunately, Cloud doesn’t have a dream to preserve, or can’t find one for himself:

“Cloud: I've looked, but I'm still empty-handed. And without a dream, what do you suppose I should do? […] Maybe what I'm looking for... isn't here” (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Gateway of Good and Evil”).

Another fellow warrior, Cecil, expresses worry for Cloud, whose response evokes the main theme of FFVII OG:

“Cecil: Everyone's worried, Cloud. But... Do you shoulder a larger concern?
Cloud: Concern... Maybe a sense of loss" (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Beyond the Continent”).

Whatever Cloud is looking for “isn’t [there]”, and he feels “a sense of loss”: Cloud’s motivating dream has been lost to him. This is later reasserted in a conversation with Terra, another warrior of Cosmos:

“Terra: And you, Cloud... What's your dream?
Cloud: I've lost mine" (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 3: “The Chosen Battle”, “Gateway of True Intent”).

Later, Cloud encounters and fights Sephiroth, who is still a part of Chaos’ team. Sephiroth is defeated, but not before he’s taunted Cloud with his habitual puppet talk. However, Cloud remains strong and refutes Sephiroth’s manipulation, asserting that only he can determine his own path. This must’ve been Cloud’s personal trial, because his crystal appears at that very moment: it is a small, light green orb that looks like materia from his core world. Having pocketed his crystal, Cloud decides he must find his own reason to fight. Interestingly, his search is depicted as intertwined with Fate:

“Cloud: Even if I have my doubts... I have to find my own answer […] Until then, I'll keep fighting.
Narration: The warrior has vowed to keep fighting— and keep fighting he will […]. Etched in destiny, his quest for answers continues on” (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Gulg Gateway”).

Later, the nemeses meet again in a segment called “Recurring Tragedy”. Their interactions here are particularly interesting. Sephiroth speaks of making Cloud suffer through despair and pain as though referencing their history together:

"Sephiroth: This disease called hope is eating you alive. The world of suffering was born out of such half-baked ideals.
Cloud: If that's the case, I have to endure the suffering. There's no moving on if I run from it.
Sephiroth: If that is what you wish for, you shall drown in the pain. I'll lead you to true despair. [My] shadow is burned into your heart. We'll meet again, Cloud. I'll keep coming back— as long as you are who you are."
Sephiroth disappears. Cloud looks out into the distance before the scene ends.
“Cloud: No thanks. The one I really want to meet is…” (Dissidia 013: Light to All, epilogue: “Conclusion of a Cycle”, “Recurring Tragedy”).

This final line suggests Cloud has finally found a reason to fight: he wants to meet someone unspecified.
Finally, after the war has ended, we arrive at the final cutscene of DFF. I will let you read the full script, with notes added by me in bold behind the spoiler censors. Please do not read my notes if you do not wish to encounter spoilers for FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI, FFVIII, FFIX or FFX:

“[The] heroes are all standing together in a grassy field with a forest behind them. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining brightly, and the wind is blowing gently. The heroes look around them in awe. They're all holding their crystals.
WoL: The battle has come to an end...
Tidus notices that his crystal has begun to emanate a blue glow.>! His crystal is a movie sphere from his core world of FFX: a capsule containing sounds and images that people record for later viewing. Tidus’ crystal likely represents the specific movie sphere recorded by his love interest Yuna, which revealed that she’d loved him from the beginning.!<
Tidus: Gotta go, huh...
The blue glow transfers to him as well. He turns to look at the others
[…] Tidus grins at the others, then turns and runs toward a nearby lake. He leaps into it in a manner reminiscent of [the events] of FFX. He vanishes as he descends toward the lake.
Zidane: We're not vanishing. We're returning—
Zidane is sitting on a tree limb as he says this. His crystal begins to glow gold, as does he. His crystal is shaped like a highly important ‘progenitor of all life’ crystal from his core world of FFIX.
Zidane: — to where we're supposed to be.
Zidane spins around the tree limb with the use of his tail and launches toward the sun. He's lost to view.
A white feather then drifts down from that direction and Squall catches it. The feather is reminiscent of his love Rinoa Heartilly, whose character symbol is a white feather. In fact, Squall’s crystal looks like a mix of his revolver gunblade from FFVIII and Rinoa’s feather motif. [Squall glows blue.]
Squall: Perhaps we can go on a mission together again.
Squall vanishes.
Cloud is then visible, standing in [a] flower field. The flowers are white and yellow. Cloud has his crystal, a light green materia from his core world of FFVII, in hand.
Cloud: [(Chuckles shortly, like a scoff)] Not interested.
Cloud walks off into the flower field, gaining a green glow. He vanishes.
A snowflake then falls into Terra's right hand as her crystal begins to glow pink. The flames drawn on her crystal represent her power, which is connected to the element of fire: her character arc in FFVI.
Terra: I think I've learned how to keep going. Thank you— and take care.
Terra glows pink and then vanishes. Bartz throws a stick. He's glowing pink as well.
Bartz: When you're having the most fun, that's when time always flies. His crystal is the Adamantite from his core world of FFV.
Bartz vanishes.
Cecil: It's mine to pass on—
A moon appears behind Cecil and goes through its phases as he begins to glow blue. His crystal has shadowed and illuminated parts, representing the duality of his character, which is central to his personal arc in his core world of FFIV. It also represents his brother Golbez, who has chosen the darkness. Cecil considers his familial bond with Golbez his guiding light and hopes to be with him someday.
Cecil: — this strength I've gained from everyone.
Cecil vanishes.
Onion Knight hugs his crystal and looks up toward the sky. His crystal is shaped like those found in his core world of FFIII**.**
Onion Knight: Everyone... thank you!
OK briefly glows blue and then vanishes.
There are wild roses at Firion's feet. He and WoL are looking toward the sky. WoL suddenly begins walking away while Firion looks down and sees the roses.
Firion: This isn't the end. Another dream is waiting to begin.
His crystal is the color of the wild roses that were at the center of his dream and of his motivation to fight Chaos. The roses are also the emblem of the Rebel Army he was a part of in his core world of FFII. His crystal is shaped like Pandaemonium, the final dungeon of his core world story. Firion gains a violet glow and then vanishes.
WoL is walking through the field and then comes to a stop. He's looking at something.
WoL: May the light forever shine upon us.”

As you can see, everyone’s crystal is very important to the story of their core world, and in the cases of at least Tidus, Squall, Terra and Cecil, the crystals represent something very personal. What about Cloud and his crystal, then? What about the dream he lost and the person he wants to meet? Let’s begin analyzing to answer these questions.
III. c) ii. Fact Analysis
Firstly, it’s clear to me that the Cloud that appears in DFF is a post-OG Cloud, given how many plot points from OG he interacts with. I’m reticent to say whether or not this post-OG Cloud is dead like in FFT, as he recovers many of his memories of OG during DFF and there is no evidence of him having passed away and joined the Lifestream.
The second thing I’d like to point out is Cloud’s strange reaction when Tifa compares him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. Cloud gasps, indicating that her words mean something to him; the trope Tifa references must therefore be included somewhere in the FFVII OG plot-line. Some of you are surely ahead of me by now, having realized that only the tragic antithesis of this trope appears in OG: Cloud is unable to save Aerith from Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). Whether or not DFF Cloud remembers Aerith herself at this point, it’s clear he recalls the pain and guilt of losing Aerith to Sephiroth.
Next, let’s address Cloud’s lost dream: to meet an unspecified person. It seems Cloud is aware at this point that in OG, he was eternally separated from the person he dreams of meeting. So, who was he separated from in his core world? Who can he never meet again, even if his team of warriors defeats Chaos and Cloud returns to the realm of FFVII? There are a few options —his mother, his father, Zack, Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and any other person he knew who died—, but the sheer narrative weight that Aerith’s untimely death carries makes it clear who he truly wants to meet. This is corroborated by Cloud’s “I think I can meet her… there” line in OG (disk 3 chapter 3), by FFT Cloud’s search for Aerith during his appearance in Ivalice, and by Cloud’s strange reaction to Tifa’s comparing him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. All the available evidence suggests that Cloud’s dream is indeed to reunite with Aerith, and that this dream is “lost” to him because she was killed by Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). This would also explain the title of the DFF segment “Recurring Tragedy”, since as we all know, the ultimate tragedy of FFVII OG is Aerith’s death. Considering Sephiroth was the one to take Aerith away from Cloud, Sephiroth’s threats of drowning him in despair in “Recurring Tragedy” only solidify this interpretation of Cloud’s lost dream.
Finally, we arrive at the ending cutscene. Cosmos’ warriors return to where they belong to try and accomplish whatever dream they held as motivation during the Cosmos-Chaos conflict, each carrying their DFF crystal. Cloud is shown standing in a field of white and yellow flowers and walking deeper into it with a light green materia in hand. Why was a white and yellow flower field chosen to represent DFF Cloud’s dream? The answer is obvious. White and yellow flowers symbolize Aerith: she sold Cloud a yellow blossom upon first meeting him in OG (disk 1, chapter 1), and her yellow and white flowerbed cushioned Cloud’s fall when the two reunited in the Sector 5 church (disk 1, chapter 4). What’s more, we have the iconic credits video of the original cut of Advent Children to refer to, wherein Cloud is seen driving near flower fields. Aerith stands there (3:20), seemingly waiting for him. Here’s what Nomura had to say about this credits scene:

"[...] we filmed the video for the ending credits in Hawaii. There are fields of flowers on both sides of the road, and the colors —yellow and white— are the same as the flowers in Aerith's church […]. With Aerith, 'flowers' have been her image throughout the series” (FFVII Reunion Files, “Countdown to Reunion”, “Stories from CG Production”, page 87).

Even in the Advent Children Complete cut of the film, where Aerith is not shown standing in the field, the flowers and their symbolism of Aerith remain. That being so, it’s more than fair to say that the white and yellow flowers in DFF’s ending cutscene serve as yet another confirmation that Cloud’s dream is to be with Aerith.
With all of this established, we can address the nature of Cloud’s DFF crystal. As we established, every core world has its own version of a crystal, each possessing a distinct appearance, function and meaning. Materia are the crystals of FFVII, so one could be satisfied by the proposition that Cloud’s DFF crystal is simply meant to represent a random materia. However, I think Cloud’s crystal is specifically the White Materia, as it represents Aerith’s sacrifice, her importance to the plot and what she died fighting for. If any one object symbolizes her death, it’s the White Materia; it’s even given closeups during the event (2:33-3:02). Besides, unlike any other materia in FFVII, the White Materia is known to glow a light green when Holy has been activated:

“Bugenhagen: If [the prayer] reaches the planet, the White Materia will begin to glow a pale green” (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 15).

Here are pictures of the White Materia in OG and Advent Children, and two pictures of Cloud's DFF crystal (in order) so you can compare for yourself:
https://preview.redd.it/0qtumfeyfq0d1.jpg?width=386&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3995f010738c83fca0c5842a0564d0a9ad206dfd
https://preview.redd.it/0kj525tzfq0d1.jpg?width=1144&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=575573ef1d2c937635cf569d4a376886a24b384c
Cloud's DFF Crystal
Cloud’s DFF crystal
So far, in both suspension world games we’ve examined (FFT and DFF), Cloud is searching for Aerith. As a final note on DFF, it may interest you to know that codirector of the Remake trilogy Toriyama was actually a writer for DFF: he may have carried some themes from DFF to Remake…
III. d) Detour: The Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition
Before we hop onto the next suspension world, let’s return to ours for a quick detour: the 2018 Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Expo. Themed with farewells and tragedy, this expo showcased the heartbreaking goodbyes featured in different FF games. Artwork, clips, quotes and images aplenty here! As the highly anticipated Remake was going to be coming out approximately a year and a half later, the FFVII section of the expo featured a few sneak peek Remake designs. This means the expo was at least partly curated with the Remake trilogy in mind; there could be interesting material in the FFVII section of the expo related to Remake. Let’s dive in!
Unsurprisingly, the focus of the FFVII section is Cloud and Aerith, since she is the loved one he lost in OG. Zack is also given a mention, however Aerith was the glaringly central star of the show. To showcase how important Aerith’s farewell in particular was to the expo, the FFVII portion was introduced by a photo of Cloud lowering Aerith into her watery grave and a video of her tragic death:
Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition, FFVII Introduction
The description under the video screen reads:

“She was gone in the blink of an eye. But the pain never went away.
Aerith awoke the ultimate magic to protect the planet and the people she loved. Yet her life came to a sudden end at the hands of Sephiroth, a man bent on seeing the world destroyed. Even the usually stoic Cloud couldn’t hide his grief at the unexpected death of an irreplaceable companion. ‘My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning.’ True words, revealing Cloud’s deep sorrow” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition).

Conveniently enough for us, the expo’s tagline is “Who is the person you want to meet again?” Given that Aerith holds the spotlight in the FFVII section of the expo, it’s clear who SE is telling us Cloud wants to reunite with. Recall Cloud’s unfinished line in DFF: “The one I really want to meet is..." (Dissidia 013: Light to All, epilogue: “Conclusion of a Cycle”, “Recurring Tragedy”). We theorized that he must be referring to Aerith, and now, we are certain.
The expo also had pamphlet descriptions of the farewells depicted. Here is the general summary of FFVII‘s farewell story according to that pamphlet:

“The story follows the lead character Cloud, but it is the heroine, Aerith, who opens Cloud’s eyes and helps bring him closer to understanding the mystery that is his past. Through her, we draw closer to the truth of the story.
This scene, in which the heroine Aerith is lost, is easily the most shocking and tragic in the story. No one expected to say goodbye to such a major character 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).

It’s interesting that SE would mention the rumors of Aerith’s revival circulated by players back in 1997, especially as fans were awaiting Remake’s release…
In light of everything we’ve analyzed so far, it can be said that between FFT (1997) and this farewell expo (2018), SE has consistently demonstrated that reuniting with Aerith is post-OG Cloud’s goal. That’s a period of over two decades— two decades of wishing, seeking, longing in real-world time for this character. This is a huge long-term commitment for SE to make, and you can bet the devs don’t take it lightly. Again and again, once the events of the OG game have ended, Cloud is shown to desire a reunion with Aerith. This ever-present and ever-insistent theme will become very important to us later in this analysis.
(continued in part 3)