1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

One of the most interesting but also difficult aspects of TTPD is how much TS leans into the poetry of it all, using a huge amount of so-called “poetic devices” — this has made it difficult for some people to relate to or understand certain songs or lyrics but is part of the reason, I believe, that fans talk about how much replay value and depth it has.
A couple of my favorite examples:
Juxtaposition — the placing of two seemingly disjointed phrases or ideas next to each other (which creates a different effect than either part on its own)
“I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday everyday”
Zeugma — the use of one word in two different senses in one sentence
“You crashed my party and your rental car”
Honorable mention to the dramatic irony pervasive in the title track, wherein we the listeners can sense that the speaker is delusional but she is unable to see it (yet)
What are your favorite metaphors, similes, uses of hyperbole, personification, literary/musical allusion, unusual points of view, alliteration/consonance/assonance/slant rhyme, irony, meta-narrative or other poetic/literary device that stood out to you?

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

hello! i am a first year teacher currently teaching 6th ELA at a title I school. many of my students are reading at or below a 4th grade level. this quarter was poetry and figurative language, and i have done so many things to try and get these kids to even somewhat remember the definition of the vocab words, let alone actually apply their knowledge. i have done interactive notes (TWICE!!), poetry writing with figurative language, review blookets, figurative language worksheets (made for 5th), i have looked at figurative language in encanto song lyrics to try and make it more relevant to them, matching activities, and so on.
these kids are NOT getting it. i am lucky if they remember what a simile is. today we took a quiz they were allowed to use notes on and so many kids scored below a 15/20 (what my school considers to be mastery). this is my fourth week of teaching this and i am at my wits end. any suggestions on activities or alternative methods that i can use to try and get this in their heads? i don’t even need them to be experts, i just want them to remember the definition of like 4 of the words.
as a heads up, we are focusing on simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, personification, irony, and hyperbole.

There has been an influx of new fans and the sub has seen a lot of these people asking, “Where do I start?” So this is my attempt at answering that question somewhat objectively, as well as a chance to build in some career events for context (this will be light Lupe lore so you're not overwhelmed, sorry to my fellow stans that will see this as an injustice, haha).
First and foremost, the majority of Lupe fans recommend starting at the beginning and just going in order. They’re all important to understanding Lupe fully. I stand by that. However, I know people have preferences for the different styles of Lupe. So I’m providing a quick way to listen and as well as the (preferred) chronological order of the albums.
These are the 3 categories I can most easily define, with some of his biggest songs as representative entry points.

Category 1: Original Lupe

• This is the heart and soul of hip-hop, woven into stories and imagery that I just don’t think many artists can reach.
• If you like the songs Kick, Push, and Daydreamin’, you’ll appreciate the rest of Food & Liquor, The Cool, most of Food & Liquor Part II, and his mixtapes (Fahrenheit 1/15 Part I: The Truth is Among Us, Fahrenheit 1/15 Part II: Revenge of the Nerds, Part III: A Rhyming Ape, Enemy of the State, and Friend of the People)

Category 2: "Evolved" Lupe

• Abstract delivery with the most complex lyricism of his career. Everything is layered and nuanced. Often accompanied by jazzier beats
• If you like the song Mural, you’ll appreciate the rest of Tetsuo & Youth, Drogas Wave, Drill Music in Zion, the House EP, and the mixtapes Pharaoh Height 2/30, and the mini mixtape Lost in the Atlantic

Category 3: Radio Lupe

• This tends to be the least popular among Lupe’s core fanbase, and yet, these are what Lupe is known for to many. There’s some incredible commentary in these as well.
• If you like the song Battle Scars and Show Goes On, you’ll appreciate the sounds of Lasers, Drogas Light, and some of Food & Liquor Part II.

So that is the quick version. If you’re still curious, here is some context and commentary for each album that may help guide you and make your introduction to Lupe easier. This is as concise as I can get. After you’ve spent time here, explore the mixtapes, features, and countless loosies that Lupe loves to surprise us with!

Food & Liquor (2006)

This is soulful rap at its finest. The original version leaked, so Lupe and his team made changes, but as a debut album, this still stands out in hip-hop history. Lupe had built a buzz with his mixtapes (for more, see Lupe's early career), gotten the Jay-Z cosign, and he delivered with a culturally significant insight to the era. Every song tells its own story, but they’re also part of a larger story of overcoming. The optimism is what makes this album so timeless; it's something you hear in content and the beats and flow of the album. This is the epitome of backpack rap that bridged the gap between eras. The (notoriously awful) Pitchfork review of this album was positive in that they enjoyed the album, but the whole time the author likens Lupe to Kanye, the Neptunes, Nas, and Jay. And that was the misunderstanding. Lupe was finding his own lane here and this album solidified his status early in his career. In this era, hip-hop was changing and Lupe was at the core of that, regardless of relationships to his peers. Overwhelmingly a fan favorite, and certainly a classic of this era for the entire genre. I would be remiss if I did not also mention that this won Lupe a grammy (which he didn’t get until years later). Shoutout to Daydreamin.
https://preview.redd.it/pruvrr60vhxc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=1afb4c41c943c52df51859f521fbcb6bab64a611

The Cool (2007)

At the time of recording this album, Lupe’s manager, Chilly, was sentenced to 44 years in prison and his career was on a different trajectory. A much darker album both in content and sound, this album is an expansion of the early lyricism and storytelling of Lupe. Even the main radio hit from this album, Superstar, is actually an interwoven story in the Michael Young saga. Lupe tells the Michael Young (aka “My Cool Young”) History throughout the album, as a dark and gritty street tale that also lets each track stand alone as it is. In terms of breaking down the meaning, this is one you can get without much guidance, and I think that's a huge part of the appeal. The personification of the Streets, the Cool, and the Game are a perfect introduction to Lupe’s layered narratives. The sound of this album is dark and leans into Lupe’s rock side at times (see his band Japanese Cartoon for more), but it’s got an upbeat focus to it. Lupe had fun on this one and still managed to work in another narrative that’s dark and revealing. The Cool is part of the paramount Lupe experience.
https://preview.redd.it/yo83a44wuhxc1.png?width=610&format=png&auto=webp&s=b1a394ea5653d0c6d71cf6808c14d0718c9eaef8

Lasers (2011)

It’s hard to be objective here because this album is loved outside the fanbase and hated within. The most important piece of information about this album is that Lupe’s label at the time, Atlantic, forced him to change his vision for the album to make a trendy rap-pop album (more on that relationship). And while he does do a great job of that, this album stands out in his discography as the black sheep. While I think this album includes some of Lupe’s most personal and introspective songs (Letting Go and Beautiful Lasers), they are still heavily 2010’s pop influenced. Lupe’s vision for this album had features from Chester Bennington, Eminem, and even Kid Cudi. It’s a crazy what if, but I think what we got is important too. The disconnect between fans is just the different sound and the fact that fans had to protest just to get this album. It may not be what everyone expected, but it is Lupe’s most commercially successful album for a reason.
https://preview.redd.it/z0tfe0qruhxc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=47b30ada77d2359f5abaadb56132fff329d39430

Food & Liquor Part II: The Great American Rap Album (2012)

In a way this is an extension of the first F&L, but really it is closer to the original idea Lupe had for Lasers and it has its own distinct sound. The album is split between some of the most direct social critiques of Lupe’s career (Strange Fruition, Around My Way, Audubon Ballroom, and most of the first half), and lighter radio songs like Battle Scars and Brave Heart that feel much more upbeat. I didn’t know what category to put it in because it’s got such a diverse range of sounds. It’s never listed as quintessential Lupe, but it is good insight to his beliefs and his range. It’s a transitional album to his new era. It represents his most politically charged era, even leading him to be taken off stage at an inaugural party for Obama (although the song he was performing was from Lasers).
https://preview.redd.it/xk2lvd1ouhxc1.png?width=3000&format=png&auto=webp&s=b78b00d07823ff170d3c8e8b7770625aaa2f06e7

Tetsuo & Youth (2015)

This album is our real introduction to the evolved era of Lupe, who is on many jazzier and complementing beats throughout. Not only are the lyrics more complex, the stories are as well. Lupe tells several different stories throughout the album, with brevity in balance of religion and the streets. This includes a narrative that comes from playing the album in reverse track order. It’s hard to be objective here because this is my favorite album of all time, but if you like working for the hidden meanings and layers of your music, this is the best you will get. Almost a decade later, people are still finding new things to share on this album. No fan protests or drama on this album’s rollout, just threats to the label from Anonymous…
https://preview.redd.it/hwlfaf9luhxc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f375bcb8bc422266ab2c49ff8317d9f9eca66c7

Drogas Light (2017)

This is Lupe’s contract fulfillment album for Atlantic. It’s an assortment of random songs from the vault, trap Lupe, absolute gems that were instant fan favorites, more radio tracks, and some other things. This album is fun, not always a fan favorite. Drogas Light is not connected to Drogas Wave in any way, it just so happens to be in the “Evolved” Lupe era. Not much to say, there’s something for everyone but the project itself is not cohesive or in need of a breakdown. Listen to Tranquillo regardless.
​
https://preview.redd.it/v66j70jduhxc1.png?width=942&format=png&auto=webp&s=8c6c3e2587b16c1fcd3f8fe8e1cb6eeb6a81f0d4

Drogas Wave (2018)

Whew, Lupe left Atlantic and immediately began working on releasing the hour and a half classic he’d been working on for years. Prior to its release, Lupe called this “an open world video game” of an album. This continues the sound and lyrical delivery of Tetsuo & Youth, but with new narratives. The first half of the album is about mythological “Longchains”, or formerly enslaved spirits who live in the ocean and help navigate the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The later portion is about his career with Atlantic and the relationship he has with hip-hop. The stretch of songs from Imagine through Happy Timbuk2 Day feel like old school Lupe stories with his new school delivery. This is an immersive album in both narratives and I think it serves as Lupe’s most creatively ambitious project. He has spoken about wanting to create outside media (books and movies) regarding these stories. Lupe actually updated us on the album as he worked on it, found on The Wavelength. This was not a commercial hit, but the release night of this album was special; this became an instant classic.
https://preview.redd.it/ikw317tguhxc1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=acce148913f32f71f7d2e660e4eeb5c3f7bc0341

Drill Music in Zion (2022)

T&Y, Drogas Wave, and DMIZ share more in common than just the fact that their album cover art was painted by Lupe. In this album, Lupe continues with the smooth beats and abstract delivery, but this might be the most accessible to the general audience. In 2021, Lupe was very open about his wiring process, sharing his thoughts and practices on live videos. The fans were interrupted and so he eventually challenged himself to make an album in 24 hours. He extended that to 72 hours, and with that, this album is born. A 3 day album recorded on an iPad turned into some of the most polished work of Lupe’s career. I think this is a great hybrid of old and new Lupe, with Ms. Mural being the greatest example of a passionate story told with complex delivery. This is the practice project that you’d expect a professor at MIT or Yale who taught rap theory and practice to make…which is exactly who Lupe is.
https://preview.redd.it/i4k8lyr8uhxc1.png?width=1824&format=png&auto=webp&s=4283ca39b4988f89d93b4c6297bf4dfc379dd72e
And with that, happy listening and welcome to LupeFiasco. For a list of Lupe’s full discography, complete with features, singles, and stuff you’ve never heard of, see this list (that I just updated). There is also a contextual guide to Lupe for some individual songs that might pique your interest.
Now that this exists, the mod team will be removing posts asking where to start and directing people here.

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

Firstly, Lead the Way is fascinating. I say the word fascinating because Mariah’s voice and ability in this song represents the pinnacle of a vocalists capabilities. The way she can take such lyrics, being simple in words but deeper in meeting, and stretch them to fit a melody is a testament to her musicality. This song is what stamps her in being the best vocalist of all time.
Disclaimer ⚠️: I’m not here to necessarily pin Mariah against others and denote the incredible vocal talent of other artists. As a lamb, I know that we all have that thought in the back of our minds. The thought being despite subjective music, Mariah is the personification of objective talent and vocal capability.
We can get into a separate conversation on WHY Mariah is the pinnacle of vocal perfection.
The truth is that although Mariah’s voice isn’t the same and there’s been many downs that unfortunately have more fame than her best moments, she is still the pinnacle of vocal perfection. Her vocal mindset never changed, only her vocal medium (her voice). She has recovered well from her vocal problems and still displays vocal mastery today. But Mariah is insecure about her voice. She has no good reason to be but because her bad moments and their large publicity she isn’t as confident and her performing choices don’t make it better. She wears tight clothes and expects consistent vocal delivery. Mariah is focused on doing the popular thing. If Mariah would wear comfortable clothes that matched her aesthetic and would do live performances in more of a meet and greet manner she would display even more of her vocal mastery IF THAT IS WHAT US LAMBS WANT. I add that last disclosure because some lambs are content with her legacy and others want more music and another prime Mariah. A great example of a performance like that is her Live private performance for her fans.
I’m only starting what I hope to be a long conversation. Ask questions if you’re unsure about things and let’s see what us Lambs think.

Chase Atlantic has GOT to take the cake amongst all of the music industry for their ability to speak about drugs in such a deeply poetic way. A lot of times, the lyrics can be on the nose, but the delivery is perfect. Other times, the slang and personification of drugs really scratches an itch in my brain.
Are there any other artists that have a similar level of lyricism about drugs? Genre doesn’t matter…

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

There is so much Christian / biblical imagery on TTPD and I am so intrigued by it. I want to unpack all the religious guilt on this album, but let’s start with a deep dive into The Prophecy!

Disclaimer: While I was raised in a very Catholic household, I haven’t opened a bible in 10 years. So there’s possibly lots I have missed – feel free to add and correct me! Also, I want to be transparent that I have a complicated relationship with Christianity, so if you’re religious and something I write seems mean/cynical I do apologize! And lastly, English is not my first language, sorry for all the weird grammar you’ll find here :)

The Original Sin
Just in case you’re not familiar with this:
In the Book of Genesis, we meet Adam and Eve who live their happily ever after in the Garden of Eden. There’s only one rule really: Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge/life.
Eve meets a serpent (!) who tells her to eat a forbidden fruit. Eating the fruit is supposed to give you knowledge of good and evil.
Eve shares with Adam and whoops, they learn shame. They become aware about being naked and begin to hide their nudity. God of course finds out and banishes them + curses the serpent, then Eve, then Adam.

The Catholic Church teaches about the personal and the original sin.
Personal sins can either be mortal (leading you to a separation from God) or venial (sins that can be reconciled).
The original sin is the believe that all humans inherited the first sin from Adam & Eve and need to reconcile with God / ask for forgiveness. Within Christian believes there are different views on how that reconciliation might look or if it’s even possible.

Lilith
Lilith doesn’t have that much significance to my points about sin, I just wanted to mention her because she’s interesting.
She is not in the Bible, we know about Lilith thanks through Jewish stories.
Lilith was the first wife of Adam. Yep, Eve was not the first woman. Lilith refused to “lie beneath Adam” – some interpret this as demanding gender equality, some read Lilith as queer. God was mad about that and banished her. She became the succubus (“temptress of innocent men”, interesting).

Serpents as symbol
In the Garden of Eden we meet the serpent as personification of evil powers, of self-destruction, death and chaos. In the New Testament the serpent also shows up as symbol of rebirth and healing. Mostly it’s Satan tough.
I don’t think I have to tell you about serpents in Taylor’s work :D

(lyrics to…?) Jesus
Just quickly wanted to mention that the first coming of Jesus was promised in a prophecy. He was to save humans from sin and heal us all through his sacrifice. We are still in a spiritual war between good & evil in our hearts though and Jesus is supposed to have a second coming.
As far as I remember the first coming was promised when Adam & Eve got cursed. Like: You’re doomed now, but don’t worry, I’ll send someone!


The Prophecy
I read this song as a new perspective on the failed Coming Out / her choice of power and fame and the regrets she has around that. Let’s look into some lyrics!


Hands on the throttle
Thought I caught lightning in a bottle
Oh, but it’s gone again
She’s slowing something down, later in the song we’ll find out she is a stand-still and is made to wait.
Lightning is often spoken about in the bible as a sign of (God’s) power. Taylor believes herself to have caught such a rare, powerful moment in a bottle. It doesn’t matter that she can’t come out yet / needs to slow down her coming out plans, she has the moment stored in a bottle for a later use.
But now, whoops, it’s gone.


And it was written
I think the “it” here refers to a prophecy as part of her curse.

I got cursed like Eve got bitten
Oh, was it punishment?
Eve made a choice: She wanted knowledge and the power that comes with it. Taylor is framing the consequences as a snake bite here, which I will come back to later.
She describes herself as cursed and possible punished which of course raises the question: What forbidden fruit did you eat from Taylor?

At some point during the Reputation era she made the choice to enter into another bearding situation. Joe was still around during the Failed Coming Out Era and I believe if she ever came out it would be as bisexual. Being with a man during a Coming Out could be a marketing strategy. She chose her “strategies to hold on to fame”-fruit here.
If we believe the Coming Out didn’t happen because of the Masterheist we also believe that her choice here was informed by things like streaming numbers. She chose the fruit of money.
Of course we’ll never know exactly what happened during that time! But for the sake of this song let’s roll with the perspective of the choices she made herself that could have gotten her cursed.

The forbidden fruit Taylor ate left her with the promise of fame and fortune, but with the curse of a live in the closet.


Pad around when I get home
I guess a lesser women would’ve lost hope
A greater woman wouldn’t beg
But I looked to the sky and said
Please
I’ve been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don’t want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo the prophecy?

Taylor is literally praying on her knees for the previously mentioned prophecy to be changed. She’s regretful of her choice of money/fame/power over love.


Cards on the table
Mine play out like fools in a fable
I had to think of Mastermind with these lines for some reason. How she’s portraying this image of a woman in charge, someone who’s pulling all the strings.
And she did have a plan – but it didn’t work out apparently. Her cards play out like fools. Possibly she had an idea about how the post Lover era / next Coming Out attempt should look like and now is realizing that those ideas were foolish.
The Fool in tarot decks symbolizes new opportunities and the leap of faith in taking them – but also naïve optimism.

Oh it was sinking in
Slow is the quicksand
Imagery of slowing down / slowly realizing something. But this time it’s not her hand on the throttle, it’s not her in charge. She’s beginning to understand there’s another power in play pulling her under.

Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand
Oh, still I dream of him
We’re back to the image in Verse 1: Eve got bitten, Taylor got bitten. The serpent wasn’t giving her power and knowledge, it was poisoning her, banishing her from the Garden of Eden.

(Chorus again)
And I sound like an infant
Possibly commenting how many have called Midnights “immature”?

Feeling like the very last drops on an ink pen
Fountain Pen lyrics are the personal ones with vivid imagery and full of references. She feels like she doesn’t have many to tell anymore.

A greater woman stays cool
But I howl like a wolf at the moon
And I look unstable
Gathered with a coven ‘round a sorceress’ table
I feel like this explains itself – she’s losing her grip, she’s not staying cool anymore. The prophecy (you’ll be powerful) turned into a curse (you’ll be alone). And she’s turned from praying to howling to witching in the hopes of changing it.
Someone in the Megathread also pointed out the coven imagery could tie this song to Willow – but someone smarter than me has to write about that connection! :D

A greater woman has faith
But even statues crumble if
They’re made to wait
Someone greater than her still believes in the prophecy – remember, the curse after the sin came with a promise of saving. But Taylor doesn’t only have her hand on the throttle anymore, she’s drowned in quicksand, she hasn’t moved in years. She’s a statue now and a crumbling one at that.

I’m so afraid I sealed my fate
No sign of soulmates
She is afraid she didn’t understand the scope of the consequences when choosing the fruit of knowledge & power. She’s afraid there is no turning back, no undoing, no changing the path she is on. No promise of saving (another Coming Out attempt), just the curse (power and money, but the loneliness of bearding and PR narratives and a media circus).

I’m just a paperweight, in shades of greige
Spending my last coin so
Someone will tell me it’ll be
okay
Greige is a mix between gray and beige, sometimes with undertones of blue. If you mixed the colours of Reputation, Folkmore, Midnights and TTPD you’d get a greige.
She herself doesn’t even exist anymore, she’s just the paperweight, the thing holding her stories and song in place.
The line about spending her last coin is hilarious (come on Taylor, you’re a billionaire), but I read it as: She’d be willing to give it all up. Or at least she’s convinced of that. And at this point not even to change the curse/prophecy anymore – just to have reassurance that things will be okay.


Tl;dr
The Prophecy references the original sin/eating the fruit of knowledge offered by a serpent – which banished Eve from the Garden of Eden but also promised saving/healing through a prophecy.
Taylor herself was cursed and the serpent bite poisoned her. She chose the fruit of knowledge/powemoney and is cursed with loneliness in the closet. There is a prophecy, but she can’t even see how it involves being okay – she want her story to be changed. In stark contrast to her Mastermind-narrative she is not the one in power, she is just a fool, a crumbling statue, made to wait, praying for things to change.

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

Was going through my drive archives and I read this and couldn't believe I wrote something like that. Pretty crazy, anyways here it is if anyone wanted to read this. I personally think it's pretty good.
​
​
Hip Hop Essay Prompt 1 : To Pimp a Butterfly
When one thinks of Kendrick Lamar, rap artist born in Compton, California on June 17, 1987, many titles come to mind: perhaps a visionary, a voice for the voiceless, or simply another hip hop artist. From humble beginnings, he constantly attempts to bring change using his platform as an artist. This notion is ever so apparent in his, arguably, most notable album release, To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). By tactfully combining lyricism, instrumentals, and vivid thematic choices, he creates and evolves a metaphor that carries with it the story of his rise to fame, his home, and much larger than that, his people. Hip hop as a genre was birthed from an internal struggle and always faced this adversity since its conception. To that end, he uses his music to provide a beacon of awareness regarding the “systemic mass incarceration of black folk” by the music industry (Brooks 1). Through this metaphor of the butterfly, Lamar relies heavily on themes to achieve this goal. To Pimp a Butterfly masterfully chronicles the African American experience, navigating through the overwhelmingly exploitative system of capitalism, systematic racism and classism, and the personal impacts of living a new life through fame.
The first instance of the theme of capitalism being shown is within track one: Wesley’s Theory. Lamar introduces the metaphor of the caterpillar evolving representing the uncorrupted soul and sings “every n***a is a star,” signifying that everyone begins in the cocoon as equals. As the track progresses, Lamar uses a beat switch to begin his first verse which sees him as an ignorant artist on a come up, spending without care; the initial reaction to fame on a young mind is apparent here, as the artist doesn’t think about how to truly place their assets. Onto the second verse, the perspectives switch as the listener gets a glimpse of the bigger corporations speaking. Lamar embodies the persona of ‘Uncle Sam’, that demands high spending and cashing out as a “baller” with a “dollar” to keep the machine moving. The polarity that exists between these two perspectives shines a light on the inherent problem with an African American artists' growth through the industry: capitalistic demands.
The track, originally written about Wesley Snipes, an African American actor, who was caught for tax evasion speaks to the lack of education for those that come into wealth, especially young African Americans. This very concept elucidates Lamar’s point about the unrealistic demands of the free market. Spending on capital is an appreciated use of money as it only contributes to the consumption portion of the country’s GDP, hence why Uncle Sam constantly encourages Lamar throughout the second verse. This spending, as a consequence, often leads to the belief in a false future, a broken promise of the “American Dream.”
Additionally, in Christopher Holmes Smith’s article published in the Duke University Press titled, "I Don't Like to Dream about Getting Paid": Representations of Social Mobility and the Emergence of the Hip-Hop Mogul, he states that “Hip Hop Mogul” essentially serves as a connection between the public and immense wealth. This connection, he argues, is “symptomatic of a new paradigm in the nation’s long-standing consumptive ethos,” (Smith 71). Hip Hop in the current environment it is invested in, seemingly gives in to the stigma of this idealistic hip hop mogul to spend that immense wealth and show it off. In essence, this exploitation and desire often leads to young artists spending without realization or thought, the butterflies being pimped, and leads to complications later down the road as it did with Wesley Snipes.
To corroborate that notion of capitalistic exploitation, in For Free? (Interlude) Lamar raps about this relationship through the juxtaposition between him and Darlene Tibbs, who seeks a wealthier, more successful man to fit the mogul status. This only adds to the already existing stereotype around new up and coming artists, that, in some sense, they have to meet an image depicted by tradition. Lamar achieves this through the raw character conveyed in For Free? through the personification of “America” when he states: “Oh America, you bad b***h... I picked cotton that made you rich... now my d**k ain’t free.” Lamar compares the United States to the “b***h” he has made rich through years of slavery endured by African Americans. However, he still “ain’t free.” America is a society that acquires much of its riches through the exploitation of the working and lower classes. Predominantly, slavery was the structure that specifically oppressed black people permitting slave owners to profit and construct the substructure of the American capitalism we see today.
While Kendrick Lamar tackles political topics in terms of monetary spending, the album also battles systematic racism and classism that impact African Americans in the industry. From the earliest settlement of Hip Hop in Watts, California in 1920 when African Americans migrated and settled, they were faced with acts of segregation and neglect (Chang 307). Consequently, acts of hate crime became more frequent such as attacks from the Ku Klux Klan. During World War II African American migrated to Los Angeles and subsequently became more involved with the culture, setting a mark on the land. However, it was the August 11 incident in Watts that sparked outrage when Marquette Frye, a young African American was beaten with a baton by white police officers, an example of police brutality (Chang 309). While racism has calmed from earlier times, it still exists and Lamar argues and brings attention to the race for equality. In his track Hood Politics, he uses instrumentals ranging from police sirens to crackling noises to emulate the hostility that still exists in the hood, targeting modern day police brutality and violence. In Institutionalized, he points to the polarity between the impoverished disenfranchised and rich that dwell with differing issues. On one hand, the poor often combat racism and classism, whereas the rich deal with monetary concerns. The main verse, rapped from the perspective of Kendrick Lamar’s friend from the hood speaks on classicism as he compares the lavish lifestyle of the rich to his roots, “alluding to the industry being his form of imprisonment, where he is the harvest of the music industry,” (Salmons 36). Although it isn’t a black and white issue, it all stems from the idea of systematic class and the segregation of values brought upon as a result.
Furthermore, Lamar is a proponent for the more modern movement, #BlackLivesMatter, that took over the world’s social media in recent times. In her article featured in The Guardian, “How #BlackLivesMatter started a musical revolution,” Daphne A Brooks argues that protest music is as powerful as ever in today's hip hop world and Lamar is lighting the fuel that will push the next generation forward (Brooks 2). Although the album focuses on bringing awareness to the various issues that surround African American artists, Brooks’ inspiration is drawn upon from the track i, which works to deconstruct racism, especially in regards to the use of the “n word.” The line “N-E-G-U-S description: black emperor, king, ruler, now let me finish,” devalues the term as an insult and rather brings attention to its historical origin. Lamar further urges listeners to ignore the negative stigma attached to the term and change its meaning altogether. Similarly, the track King Kunta was named after a slave named Kunta. The title, “king” was given to juxtapose the two classes that exist combining both ends of the spectrum. In this sense, he desires to celebrate his race and class in society, hoping to inspire others to follow suit.
In addition to the broader discussion of class and race, another theme present in the album is Lamar’s personal experience with fame driving him away from his roots. From a poor boy living in Compton, he managed to prosper within the industry, yet still battled depression and loneliness throughout the experience. To Pimp a Butterfly utilizes the metaphor that he evolved from his caterpillar state and fell victim to the pimping that followed, leaving his less fortunate loved ones behind. Evan Goldstein, Boston College graduate and author of the academic journal, “Performing Redemption, Metzian Theology in the Art of Kendrick Lamar,” states that Lamar is simultaneously telling a story about himself through these broader topics and “thus, we cannot simply read this as a portrayal of gendered navigation of the ghetto, but must also ask where Lamar is situating himself in this narrative matrix,” (Goldstein 3). Goldstein brings attention to the idea of this dual story being told. This can be seen in the track Momma that utilizes the theme of home to signify Lamar returning to his roots, as well as Institutionalized, where he speaks from the perspective of his friends back in Compton showing the clear disconnect between the industry life and his origins. The personal demons that haunt him throughout require him to confront them at their core, and by visiting his home, whether it be his “momma” or Africa, he was able to achieve this.
In conclusion, the album skillfully manages to tackle various sensitive topics regarding capitalist society, racism and classism, as well as personal demons, yet utilizes the butterfly metaphor to signify these tribulations as an evolution. By bringing attention to these inherent issues in society today, Lamar uses this platform to inspire others to appreciate their origins and fight for what is right. Beginning from a humble cocoon trying to find its way unaffected by the industry, to morphing into a butterfly with the subsequent ‘pimping’ involved, artists go through a phase of change where they experience riches and downfalls, from racism, loneliness, depression, and braggadocio, oftentimes from an entity they cannot control. Perhaps Lamar may be alluding to the mysticism surrounding the “American Dream,” where an artist is promised a better life that they may not receive, or he may just be the visionary and voice of the voiceless for his fellow people, hoping to pimp the industry instead.
​
Word Count: 1656
Works Cited
Brooks, Daphne A. “How #BlackLivesMatter Started a Musical Revolution,” The Guardian,
Guardian News and Media Limited, 13 March. 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/ma13/black-lives-matter-beyonce-kendrick-lamar-protest. Accessed April 13, 2020.
Chang, Jeff. “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop…A History of the Hip Hop Generation,” St. Martins Press,
Jeff Chang, 2005, Accessed April 13, 2020.
Goldstein, Evan. “Performing Redemption. Metzian Theology in the Art of Kendrick Lamar,”
Boston College, Boston College, 2015, Accessed April 13, 2020.
Salmons, Patrick. “Hip hop voices in the era of Mass Incarceration: An examination of Kendrick
Lamar and The Black Lives Matter Movement,” Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute, 28 April, 2018, Accessed April 13, 2020.
Smith, Christopher Holmes, “"I Don't Like to Dream about Getting Paid": Representations of
Social Mobility and the Emergence of the Hip-Hop Mogul” Duke University Press, Duke University Press, 2003, Accessed April 13, 2020.

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

so i know the popular consensus about cheerleader is that it's about parasocial relationships & all that -
but hear me out...
what if actually, it's just about being a musician. the whole "its not fair, because i know you like the back of my hand" sounds an awful lot to me like hes frustrated because he understands something but is having difficulties with it.
and when you reframe the whole song like that, as if the cheerleader in question is more of a personification of music itself & porters relationship to it, you get to the line "her loves the type to dedicate your life" moment. bam. its another nurture-core lyric moment.
the reason i think this is the case is because truthfully i think porters not the type to talk about something like a parasocial relationship in a totally negative way, & that album teaser video seemed more like he was shitposting & poking fun at himself for his angsty moments rather than him pondering the nature of his relationship with being popular. not that that topic would be totally out of his wheelhouse, but i feel like the way you guys are interpreting it is a little negative for porter, who doesnt really have any music that isnt reframed as some kind of joy.
what are your thoughts ?

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

Alriiiiight let’s get this sucker rolling my friends! I’m going to try to make it super entertained the way I feel it is!
The thesis of the following analysis is that Clerith is the one true pairing of FFVII, because it is essential to FFVII’s plot and to the narrative established by the FFVII compilation. To demonstrate this, Clerith and Cloti’s narrative impacts and implications will be compared: Cloti was selected for comparison as it is the most popular ship in the FFVII fanbase excluding Clerith. I hope to make this post fun, interesting, illuminating and touching for you to read, and to spark discussion amongst the Clerith community! Please do not share this post on the main subreddit, because I do not want to attract any negativity from Clotis. This content is intended to reach only those who will appreciate it! Sources will be commented and pinned below, and if you want to know what makes me qualified to assert all of this, please consult my post on my literary and fiction analysis studies: https://www.reddit.com/cloudxaerith/s/71s928Zi7y
I. Housekeeping
Before we truly begin, we have some housekeeping to do: there are a few basic truths we need to establish for the purposes of this analysis.
I. a) Why Cloud’s personal development is essential to FFVII’s plot
First, in order to understand just how important Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is to FFVII, we have to establish how fundamental Cloud’s personal journey is to the narrative. The beauty of FFVII (or one beautiful aspect in a sea of others) is that it is Cloud’s story: the plot moves, crashes, wanes and crests alongside him. As he discussed the structure of the OG’s plot, director Kitase remarked the following:
“[…] there are three phases to the story that correlate to the protagonist's inner struggle, each with its own core theme.” (V Jump Special February 15 1997, Special FFVII Talk, Kitase interview)
The main moral of FFVII is that you mustn’t let darkness consume you in the wake of trauma, but that you should instead power through the grief with love and appreciation for the good things in life. Cloud is the one who must accomplish this, meaning FFVII’s narrative orbits around him and his journey. This journey is symbolized by Cloud’s struggle against Sephiroth, who represents everything that Cloud needs to avoid becoming. Jenova also plays a symbolic role, as it represents both the psychological darkness that Cloud must resist succumbing to, and the darkness that exists outside of Cloud’s mind, seeking to cause harm and pain: in order to stop Jenova from destroying the planet, Cloud must first defeat the pieces of Jenova residing inside of him by facing Sephiroth.
II. b) How Jenova turns people into its puppets
It’s important that we establish the mechanisms of how Jenova is able to turn Sephiroth into its puppet, and how it attempts to do the same to Cloud. In chapter 2.8 of OG, Cloud describes his vulnerability to Jenova as such:
“[Making Sephiroth clones requires] the same procedure they use when creating members of SOLDIER. You see, someone in SOLDIER isn't simply exposed to Mako energy. Their bodies are actually injected with Jenova cells. [Only] the strong can [become] SOLDIER. [SOLDIER] has nothing to do with the Jenova Reunion. But weak people... like me, get lost in the whole thing.”
According to Cloud, when strong people undergo the SOLDIER procedure, they enter SOLDIER. Contrastingly, when “weak” people undergo the same procedures, they become Sephiroth clones and “get lost” in the Jenova Reunion. By “weak people”, Cloud no doubt means those who are mentally “weak”, as Chapter 5 of Before Crisis implies that Cloud’s mental fragility was the basis for his inability to join SOLDIER. Being mentally “weak” at the time of the procedure is what renders Cloud vulnerable to Jenova’s influence once the procedure is done, making him a Sephiroth clone rather than a regular SOLDIER. We can therefore surmise that it is the mental “weakness” of Sephiroth’s clones that allow Jenova to control them.
Jenova, who symbolizes darkness and evil, is able to use people by ravaging their psyche via manipulation of their “mental weaknesses”. This is why people with “weak mentalities” become Sephiroth clones if they undergo SOLDIER procedures, including Cloud. More specifically, Jenova uses one’s mind against them, weaponizing psychic wounds like grief, trauma, insecurity and ego illusions. For future reference, I use the term “ego” to refer to one’s perception of themself. “Ego illusions” therefore refers to delusional, unreliable, unstable or unrealistic self-perceptions— for instance, Cloud’s false SOLDIER persona results from an ego illusion. Thanks to its mind reading abilities, Jenova is able to wield psychic wounds like the strings of a puppet. This is why Jenova was able to wipe out the Cetra by appearing to them as dead loved ones: grief as a mental vulnerability is easy for Jenova to exploit in its favor.
Let’s take the case of Sephiroth. According to Crisis Core and OG, Sephiroth has always felt different from others. He is a superhuman being lauded as a war hero, defined by his identity as such. Naturally, as someone who feels different from others, it is reassuring for him to be considered benevolent and superior to regular people (superhuman hero) rather than malevolent and inferior to regular people (subhuman villain): he willingly accepts the heroic role he is offered by all that venerate him after his grand defeat of Wutai. Therefore, his ego creates a protective illusion in the form of his delusions of grandeur: now, Sephiroth’s ego revolves around being born into heroism and carrying superiority in his very blood. This is why Sephiroth’s whole world and identity collapse when he discovers that he one of Hojo’s experiments. From his falsely dichotomous perspective, his past makes him a monster. This is depicted in Rebirth’s chapter 1, during Cloud’s recounting of the Nibelheim incident, wherein Sephiroth says the following:
“Could it be... that I... was created the same way? Am I the same as these monsters? Ever since I was a child, I knew... I knew that I was different. That I... was special. But not like this. Not like this. Am I even... human?”
In the wake of this discovery, Sephiroth scrambles for a new identity in Shinra Manor’s archives, hoping to find something that will preserve his ego as someone special and divine rather than despicable and monstrous. He’s in luck, because he finds Professor Gast’s initial and mistaken classification of Jenova as a Cetra. Now, Sephiroth is given a new opportunity to be a hero: as a Cetra, he must cleanse the world of wicked humans and take his rightful place as a god.
Because he is so desperate to find a new identity that will suit his ego illusion, Sephiroth accepts the identity Jenova offers him, surrendering to it and falling into its grasp: from now on, Jenova baits Sephiroth with the promise of godhood and heroic retribution against humans. The former war hero accepts Jenova’s deceptive guidance and becomes a vessel through which it accomplishes its destructive will, all the while remaining under the impression that he is following his Cetra “mother” Jenova’s instructions for the greater good. His madness has now consumed him.
Importantly, Sephiroth was not truly a villain until he acted upon his grief: just because his origins seem monstrous doesn’t mean he had to become a monster. Ironically, it was his desperate pursuit to soothe his illusory ego as a superhero that led him down the lath of villainy. What Sephiroth truly needed was to acknowledge the truth: he has inherent value, just like any other person, no matter how different he feels or where he comes from. Perhaps he could have become a true hero, had he realized this instead of chasing his delusions of grandeur. Remember: the ego is deceptive, as it instinctively seeks remedy in its noxious illusions rather than in the truth.
In section II. a), we will examine Cloud’s circumstances to similarly identify the psychic wounds that Jenova attempts to use against him. For now, realize that what differentiates Cloud and Sephiroth is that Cloud succeeds in resisting Jenova’s manipulation by remembering and accepting the truth about his self-worth, healing his toxic relationship with his own identity instead of indulging it. When it comes to FFVII, identity is key, personal development is essential and overcoming psychic wounds is fundamental.
I. c) Why Clerith is a necessarily romantic pairing
Now that we’ve established the importance of the concepts of personal growth, ego illusions and identity, we need to establish one more thing: the question of romantic love and soulmates. Much like Ancient Greek culture and modern South Korean culture, romantic love is highly idealized in Japanese culture. In the culture that underlies most of Japanese fiction, monogamous romance is a topic of deep study and reflection, most often from a decidedly spiritual lens. The ultimate romance is considered to be based first and foremost on a fated spiritual connection between two people, hence the term “soulmate”. In fact, the idea that two people are connected by a string of Fate is a Japanese concept (originating from Chinese culture) named “運命の糸” or “thread of fate”— think of the lyrics to No Promises to Keep. Thus, because the soulmate pairing is inherently romantic and monogamous in Japanese culture, whoever Cloud’s soulmate is is necessarily his one true romantic mate, and nothing less, as intended by the developers of the game.
If you’re still in doubt as to how important the concept of soulmates is to Japanese culture, then anthropology can help you out. If you know anything about cultural or linguistic anthropology, you know that a language’s idioms reflect the values of the culture of origin. Here are two such idioms, describing an explicitly romantic soulmate connection:
“糸を引く”: Being connected together by invisible strings
“心が通う”: A soul-level connection wherein two hearts understand each other deeply
There is also the expression “運命の人”, which means one’s “destined partner”, the one you are meant to be with as dictated by fate. This is an explicitly romantic phrase, which goes to show how fate and romance go together in Japanese culture. Therefore, whoever is portrayed as having bonds of fate with Cloud should be considered his true romantic partner.
Hopefully that gives you a better idea of the high valuation of the soulmate bond in Japanese culture.
I will go on to prove, in the following paragraphs, that Aerith is Cloud’s soulmate, but the point for now is that this soulmate connection is inherently romantic and monogamous. This is especially true considering Sakaguchi’s main influence when conceptualizing FFVII was Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, whose eponymous couple is the most famous romantic pair in all of fiction.
II. Evidence: Why Cloti cannot be the true love paring of FFVII
Alright, housekeeping done! Let’s get to the evidence. First, I will prove with textual evidence and narrative analysis that Tifa cannot be Cloud’s true romantic partner because a) Tifa as a love interest is at the root of Cloud’s identity problems, because b) she does not share a soulmate bond with Cloud, and because c) Cloti makes Cloud and Tifa, worse off, and endangers the planet.
II. a) Tifa as a love interest is at the root of Cloud’s identity problems
Before we truly begin on this point, we have to debunk a certain Cloti myth. Oftentimes, the Remake Ultimania interview of Nojima, Nomura and Kitase on how Cloud interacts with Jessie, Aerith and Tifa is misconstrued. Clotis present the translated quote in question thusly:
“Nomura: When Cloud talks with Aerith, he tries to put up a facade to make himself look cool. When he talks to Tifa, his true self briefly emerges (“素が出る”). And when he talks with Jessie, he has that perplexed look on his face. Especially with Aerith, since he's very conscious around her, he is shown to have a strange response when he's with her.”
This makes it seem as if Cloud is fake and uncomfortable with Aerith, and his true self only emerges with Tifa. However, this quote translation is misleading as well as taken out of context: there are key phrases conveniently left out of this wonky translation that, when taken into account, dismantle the Cloti argument it is proclaimed to be making. The true and complete quote, with the parts Clotis exclude now included, is the following:
“Nomura: On that same note, when recording Cloud’s voice, we had his voice actor perform his lines slightly differently depending on who he was talking to. Cloud tries to make himself seem cooler when talking with Aerith, he acts a little more authentic to his nature/loosened up when talking with Tifa, and he is more hesitant when talking with Jessie. ‘Especially when speaking to Aerith, he is overly conscious of himself/his feelings and of the fact that he's talking to her, so he ends up giving her odd replies.
Nojima: Cloud isn’t able to maintain a distance between himself and Aerith, right? (laughs).”
These omissions are damming. Nojima’s comment makes it obvious that Nomura and he are referring to the early stages of Cloud and Aerith’s interactions, because he says that Cloud is unable to keep a cool-guy distance away from Aerith. But why is he unable to do so? There are a few moments from Remake’s chapter 8, when Cloud and Aerith first really interact, that might provide some answers. I’ve added my own tone indication notes in parentheses, the accuracy of which you could verify by watching these clips on YouTube:
“Cloud: (Cooly, macho) Stay close.
Aerith: (Playfully, mocking) So cool.
Cloud: (Satisfactorily and smugly, not realizing Aerith is making fun of him) Heh.”
Later:
“Aerith: So Cloud... you don't know the slums that well, do you?
Cloud: Compared to you? No. (Boasting, coolly, trying to impress) Training grounds, barracks, battlefields— that's the world I know.
Aerith: (Playfully mocking, showing lack of interest in his proclaimed military expertise) Heh, you sound proud of that.
Cloud: (Makes a distraught sound, thrown off his stride) Uh—”
Later, upon approaching the fence near the sector five station:
“Aerith: Station's there.
Cloud: (Dryly, cooly) I can see that.
Aerith: (Teasing, referring to his earlier boasting) Oh? Thought the world you knew didn't include stations.”
Just like Nojima said, Cloud tries to impress Aerith, unwittingly or purposely attempting to create a distance of pretense and coolness between them. However, he is unable to maintain that distance because Aerith sees right through it. This makes Cloud nervous and throws him off his normal cool guy act, because no one else teases him and calls him out like this— including Tifa. In fact, I will give you proof in section II. c) straight from Remake’s producer Kitase and scenario writer-editor Toriyama that Cloud isn’t his vulnerable, unassuming self with Tifa.
I’d like to point out that the incomplete interview quote that Clotis love to misconstrue was taken from the devs’ comments on how they wanted the Cloud VA’s performances to come off. With Aerith, Nomura states they wanted Cloud to sound like he was trying to be cool at first. However, with the full quote, we have the context to understand that Cloud’s VA performances change over time due to Cloud’s inability to keep Aerith at a distance with his inauthentic behavior. In contrast, with Tifa, the devs wanted him to seem more relaxed, authentic, unpretentious and natural (the Japanese expression “素が出る” means to show your true colors, or for the true nature of something to come forth). When considering this added, essential context as well as character interactions in Remake —not to mention the VA script notes’ damning evidence that Cloud acts egotistically with Tifa—, it’s evident that what the devs meant by this quote is simply the following: Cloud tries to impress Aerith at first by sounding cool but is unable to maintain this distance between them, and generally, Cloud acts naturally and regularly with Tifa.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin my argument: in Cloud’s personal journey, Tifa as a love interest represents his past and the trauma that Jenova uses against him in an attempt to shatter his identity and make him its puppet. I will prove that Tifa is at the root of both Cloud’s ego illusion that he made it into SOLDIER and Cloud’s false persona, and that therefore, Cloti goes against the narrative of FFVII.
We must understand Cloud’s psychic wounds to understand his ego illusion, as the latter only exists to help him cope with the former. It is my analysis that Cloud harbors a fear that he is fundamentally undeserving of community acceptance and love: his psychic wound is one of inadequacy and longing for connection. The false premise that Cloud is unworthy is imposed upon him during childhood by the judgmental villagers of Nibelheim, as well as reinforced by the circumstances surrounding his childhood crush on Tifa. To justify these assertions, I must take you back in time to Cloud and Tifa’s hometown.
The conservative townsfolk of backwater Nibelheim used to say that it was simply in Cloud’s DNA to be a dangerous, reckless and bad kid. Their judgment and rejection of Cloud is rooted in the disdain they held for both his wild, adventurous father and his young, single mother. In Traces of Two Pasts episode 1, Tifa explains the conservative views of her hometown’s adults:
“Men worked outside while women maintained the household. There was a tendency for the people to think that a woman’s happiness depended on the man she would spend her life with”.
Later in the novel, an older woman named Mon Amie speaks to Tifa about Cloud’s mom:
“To the traditional Nibelheim women, [Claudia] seemed pretty unconventional. We all refused to accept her ways, but secretly felt the same.”
Shortly thereafter, Mon Amie blames Cloud for Tifa’s Mount Nibel accident, insinuating that he gets his supposed recklessness from his father:
“Just like the wind, [Cloud’s father] just couldn’t keep still. Not sure if Cloud learned how to walk yet, but around that time [his father] told [Claudia] he would go to the mountains, but never came back. They found his belongings though. His body probably got eaten by monsters. You were lucky you didn’t meet the same fate […]. Cloud egging you on to climb Mount Nibel… Maybe that was in his blood.”
Tifa mentions that the other kids also had very negative feelings toward Cloud. She says the following:
“[…] most of the time [Cloud would] ignore [the other kids], which led to so many fights. They thought he was really a strange kid, that he was dangerous.”
While Cloud is the village outcast, Tifa is Nibelheim’s sweetheart: everyone adores her. She is so valuable to the community that after her mother’s death, the women of Nibelheim step up to teach her everything a woman ‘should’ be and know:
“The things [Tifa’s father] wasn’t comfortable teaching her, the women of the village gladly stepped in to help with. They taught her everything from sewing to cooking, or any other skill they felt a daughter should learn from her mother.”
Naturally, all this creates a psychic wound of insecurity and lack of self-worth within young Cloud: he is left wanting for acceptance by his community and his crush. Cloud’s sense of isolation is worsened by his and Tifa’s opposite social standings in Nibelheim: Cloud’s whole world is constantly signaling to him that he could never be good enough for the girl he favors. She is a personification of everything Cloud can never have: popularity and belonging.
Tifa’s accident on Mount Nibel after her mom’s death ends whatever camaraderie she and Cloud might’ve had beforehand: the villagers blame Cloud, and their judgement cleaves the two apart. Young Tifa doesn’t question the rumors, and the two are effectively separated, leaving Cloud to believe that Tifa hates him.
When the war on Wutai breaks out, the conflict propels idealized images of first class SOLDIERS such as Sephiroth on every screen. Young Cloud sees an opportunity: he will become a hero and prove to everyone in Nibelheim —especially Tifa—and to himself that he is someone worth accepting. Cloud explains this in OG’s chapter 2.8 once more:
“That was the first time I heard about Sephiroth. If I got strong like Sephiroth, then everyone might... If I could just get stronger... Then even Tifa would have to notice me.”
Tifa secretly noticed Cloud all along, but the first time Cloud ever perceives Tifa taking an interest to him is when she asks him to make her the water tower promise. As chapter 4 of Remake displays, this promise is contingent upon Cloud making it into SOLDIER:
“Tifa: Just... promise me one thing. When we're older, and you're a famous SOLDIER... if I'm ever trapped or in trouble... promise you'll come and save me. […] That's what heroes do. They save people. Please?”
From here on out, in Cloud’s mind, becoming Tifa’s hero becomes inextricably linked to a SOLDIER first class status. SOLDIER is Cloud’s key to proving that he is worthy of community acceptance Tifa’s attention, and to making up for not being able to save Tifa on Mount Nibel. Cloud’s main motivation for becoming SOLDIER is to get everyone from Nibelheim, especially Tifa, to notice him. Consequently, Cloud’s ego illusion that he truly became SOLDIER is motivated by the same things. Evidently, this ego illusion is a crutch: the true resolution to Cloud’s psychic wounds would be to realize he was always worthy of acceptance and love, regardless of his status. But Cloud’s childhood crush on Tifa feeds his ego illusion surrounding his status, which the narrative of FFVII dictates Cloud needs to move on from. The fact that Cloti serves as the strings with which Jenova puppeteers Cloud should be a sufficient argument.
However, if you are unconvinced that Jenova’s manipulation of Cloud is based on Tifa and Cloud’s relationship, there is more proof. Now that we’ve seen that Cloud’s childhood crush on Tifa is the reason for his ego illusion, let’s see how Tifa’s misconception of Cloud is the root of his false persona: yet another obstacle to his personal development, and therefore to the plot.
To cope with the constant judgment of Nibelheim’s townspeople, young Cloud develops a veil of misanthropy: he begins rejecting everyone before they can reject him and ignoring invitations to play so he can convince himself that his isolation is his own choice. He also hopes to make the other kids interested in him by acting superior to them, a behavior that the lifestream sequence in chapter 2.8 of OG clearly explains:
“Cloud: I used to think [the other kids] were all stupid. […] You were all childish, laughing at every little stupid thing.
Tifa: But we were children, back then.
Cloud: ...I know. I'm the one that was stupid. I really wanted to play with everyone, but I was never allowed into the group. Then later... I began to think I was different... That I was different from those immature kids. That then... maybe... Just maybe, they would invite me in. I thought that might happen, so I hung around...”
Unbeknownst to Tifa, young Cloud’s guilt and self-hatred for not having been able to protect her on Mount Nibel is what turns him into an angry child. He explains this in OG’s chapter 2.8 lifestream sequence:
“I was so angry... Angry at myself for my weakness. Ever since [Tifa’s accident on Mount Nibel], I felt Tifa blamed me... I got out of control... I'd get into fights not even caring who it was.”
Unaware of his inner-turmoil, young Tifa believes Cloud’s coldness, arrogance, and carelessness to be genuine, taking his guarded self at face value. Little does she know, this perception is false; Cloud is deeply insecure and fearful of rejection, yearning for Tifa’s acceptance and attention more than any other boy in Nibelheim does. While young Cloud’s behavior is a total mystery to Tifa, it is actually due to the pain he feels because of their separation, his ostracism and his loneliness. Perhaps she only learns who Cloud truly is in the lifestream sequence, because it is only when they’re adults that she even begins to realize her view of him was wrong. Tifa admits this herself in Remake’s chapter 14:
“Tifa (to Cloud): Deep down, you're a pretty nice guy. Didn't see it when we were kids, but...”
Enter Jenova. When Cloud is injected with its cells, Jenova gains access to his mind and all his psychic wounds. When Tifa finds Cloud collapsed and in a daze at the sector seven train station, Jenova is able to access Tifa’s memories of Cloud as well. Its cells read into the deeply flawed perception of Cloud that Tifa’s been cultivating ever since childhood. Jenova can see what Tifa mistakenly believes Cloud is: a genuinely cold, unreachable jerk who doesn’t care about being liked, doesn’t want or need friends, and was bound to become a SOLDIER first class. It is unclear how much of Cloud’s mental fabrications originate from Jenova and how much are his own. Either way, the power of Jenova’s cells is used to read into both Zack’s memories and Tifa’s misunderstandings of Cloud in order to create his false persona. It is the moment that Cloud reunites with Tifa that his false persona —his ego illusion— is formed. This is confirmed by Cloud’s character profile in the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania:
“While being tended to by a station worker in the Sector 7 Slum train station, [Cloud] was reunited with Tifa, and using the abilities of Jenova’s cells, formed a new personality.”
This is confirmed once more by the FFVII Story Playback:
“(Image caption:) A new personality takes shape the moment he sees Tifa.” (FFVII Story Playback, Story Check: Tifa’s Flashback)
To be clear, it is absolutely true that the Jenova cells in Cloud used Zack’s memories to construct Cloud’s SOLDIER past, giving him the information to support his ego illusion:
“Although the real Cloud is not a complete fabrication as Sephiroth claims, it is true that he built the ex-SOLDIER version of himself around Zack’s memories using the power of Jenova’s cells.” (FFVII Story Playback, Story Check: Is Cloud a Puppet?)
However, Cloud’s constructed persona could not have been formed without Tifa’s mistaken memories of Cloud. In addition, there is absolutely no evidence anywhere in the compilation that Cloud’s feelings are Zack’s. Not a single time is this even implied. In fact, Cloud’s SOLDIER persona could hardly have been influenced by Zack’s personality, since the two are nothing alike:
“[…] the coolness that keeps him distant and his assertions of “No interest” all have nothing to do with the influence of Jenova cells. They belong to the real Cloud’s personality. (Image caption:) After developing his personality by using Zack's memory as a base, Cloud still retains his coolness, even though Zack had cheerful characteristics.” (FFVII Ultimania Omega, page 180)
Rather, it is the false perception of Cloud in Tifa’s memories, the one who genuinely thinks he’s superior to others, that most resembles the SOLDIER attitude he wears in the beginning of OG and Remake. The true Cloud is far more sensitive, afraid, insecure, self-hating and soft-hearted than Tifa realizes. As the quote above explains, the true Cloud expresses disinterest to create a distance between him and others: Tifa’s misperception of Cloud lies within the fact that she actually believes him when he says he’s not interested in connection, and she finds him cool for it. This is why Tifa doesn’t think of Cloud’s feelings when he’s stuck as the odd man out at the bar in chapter 3 of Remake, as you can see in this clip, from 47:00 to 48:41:
https://youtu.be/m0MacUNhSKc?si=zZ0x9MHe4R_1m_Qz
This clip really highlights how lonely Cloud feels amongst Tifa’s group, just like when they were kids. It’s extremely telling that Tifa can’t really tell that being alone and excluded in this way brings back sad memories for him. She even tells Cloud she can’t talk with him if the player tries to interact with her, because she had to catch up with the gang. I’ll refer to this scene, which I call the exclusion scene, later on in Aerith’s section of the analysis for comparison!
The genuinely misanthropic, frigid, careless and unflappable SOLDIER persona is thus born not just out of Zack’s memories but also out of Tifa’s. This is the persona we see Cloud emulate in the beginning of OG and Remake, vastly different from the soft-hearted, insecure, friendly, pre-Jenova Cloud in Crisis Core and the darkened, sharpened, yet caring and gentle post-Jenova Cloud in Advent Children.
Thanks to his ego illusion and false persona, both rooted in Tifa and his troubled relationship to her, Cloud is rendered extremely vulnerable to Jenova’s manipulation. When Sephiroth reveals to Cloud that he was not the first class SOLDIER sent to Nibelheim five years before, and Tifa confirms this, Cloud’s psychic wounds are opened and exposed. He becomes receptive to Sephiroth’s false claim that he was created from scratch in Hojo’s lab as an empty puppet. As Cloud’s ego shatters and he doubts that he was ever anyone at all, Jenova is able to take advantage of Cloud’s ravaged identity to control him, steering him down the same path as Sephiroth— and it all stems from Tifa’s inability to see Cloud for who he truly is, as well as from Cloud’s childhood desperation for Tifa’s affection. After all, Tifa’s mistaken perception of Cloud was the source material for his false persona, and his painful crush on the popular Nibelheim girl exacerbated his fear of inadequacy.
This is why Cloud and Tifa’s work together in the lifestream is crucial to Cloud’s personal development: setting the record straight with Tifa is equivalent to making peace with the past, accepting its truth and moving forward, just like Sephiroth ought to have done. You may be wondering what truth Cloud learned from his examination of his memories, apart from the fact that he was never SOLDIER and that he is a real person rather than a lab creation. The A True Wish Revealed section in Final Fantasy 25th Memorial Ultimania has an answer:
“Someone important to [Cloud in his childhood] was Tifa– his fleeting, childish love is revealed in the spiritual world.”
It is clear: Cloud comes to terms with the truth about why getting into SOLDIER felt so important to him as a child. After confronting these psychic wounds with Tifa, Cloud casts aside the persona that Jenova created based on Tifa’s mistaken view of him, dismissing the crutch that is his ego illusion, embracing the truth, and reconciling with his true self.
There is additional evidence in Remake’s VA script notes, as provided by Square Enix, that Cloud’s seemingly unfulfilled fantasies of being someone important to Tifa helps to distort his view of the truth and of himself. Take chapter 1 of Remake, where Jessie asks Cloud how she knows Tifa in Reactor 1. Cloud has a flashback of Nibelheim that the script notes describe as follows:
“Tifa (eight years old): Cloud! Tifa rushes toward Cloud as the other boys look on dumbfounded. Tifa (eight years old): (Pretending to be angry) Ignoring me again! (The above is a memory that Cloud’s ‘unconscious’ is modifying in the moment. In reality, Tifa didn’t actually take notice of him.)”
Scenario writer and editor Toriyama answers questions regarding this chapter’s script notes, including the following:
“Interviewer: During the scene in Mako Reactor 1 where Cloud recalls what he saw in Nibelheim, you chose to use the song ‘Anxiety [lit. ‘Anxious Heart’] - False Memories.’ As the track’s title suggests, is this recollection a memory that’s been fabricated for some reason or another? Toriyama: Cloud suffers from lingering experimental aftereffects that not even he is aware of. These crop up at various points throughout the story in the form of psychic interference or hallucinations. The memory of his hometown that he recalls in Mako Reactor 1 has also been given shape by his own suffering and anxious heart. It’s presented in such a way that one can’t tell to what extent this is a real memory, a fabricated recollection, or a fantasy Cloud himself wishes had happened.”
There is lots more evidence to support my II a) argument in sections II b) and II c), so continue to read to learn more!
Both the SOLDIER persona and Cloud’s pursuit of Tifa’s heart serve to indulge Cloud’s psychic wounds and distract him from addressing and healing them. Cloti would numb the pain but not heal the damage, scratch the itch but not cure the rash. Cloti is thusly antithetical to Cloud’s personal development, making this pairing advantageous to Jenova and therefore fundamentally opposed to Cloud’s personal development. This means Cloti cannot be the true romantic pairing of FFVII, because it goes against the essential narrative of self-development that is at the didactic heart of the compilation.
II. b) Tifa does not share a soulmate bond with Cloud
Next, I will prove that Tifa does not share a soulmate bond with Cloud. This is easy to do, based on II. a): Tifa is unable to see who Cloud truly is and fails to recognize his soul, which are essential components of a soulmate bond. She easily misunderstands who he is in childhood, and without the events of the FFVII adventure, Tifa never would have thought to herself that Cloud’s persona is hiding the true Cloud that we see in Crisis Core: a gentle, good-natured boy with dreams and insecurities who craves connection. Soulmates see each other as they truly are and recognize themselves in each other: Tifa does not connect with Cloud in such a way, as proven by the fact that during childhood, they both consider each other “unreachable”. Tifa actually says in episode one of Nojima’s novel Traces of Two Pasts that this is why she has feelings for him as a kid for this reason:
“Did she even like him? She held a hand up to her heart and thought it over. Yes, there was no mistaking it. She liked him. However, this ‘fondness’ she had for him was different from just wanting to spend time alone with him. Cloud has such a beautiful face. She recalled her mother’s words […]. Her mother compared Cloud to a Soldier from Shinra Company – who the youth in those days touted as the great hero, Sephiroth – as a way of complimenting Cloud […]. Yes, the reason why her heart was racing now was because Cloud was unreachable, a thing of beauty. Like the stars.”
To be fair, after Tifa’s meetup with Cloud, she does correct her view:
“And it was that night that also made her see Cloud, whom she adored, as an ordinary boy. Tifa fell in love with Cloud. It was the kind of ‘love’ where she wanted to be with him.“
However, even with this second quote in mind, Tifa is unable to understand who Cloud truly is, and continues to see him as a cool, naturally antagonistic kid with no concern for acceptance. On top of what we discussed in II. a), Tifa’s attempts to empathize with Cloud in Traces of Two Pasts are unsuccessful:
“Maybe [Cloud] liked being by himself and being alone didn’t make him feel lonely.”
Additionally, on page 19 of the FFVII Advent Children Reunion Files, Nojima asserts that despite having known Cloud for a long time, she is still unfamiliar with the more complex aspects of his heart, which a soulmate should understand:
“Tifa's been with Cloud for a large part of her life at this point, but she still doesn't understand some of the complexities of his heart, and this makes her uneasy.”
Not only does Tifa not understand the depths and details of Cloud, but she also has trouble accepting who he is. This information comes to us in the form of her reaction to his SOLDIER eyes in Remake. Us humans tend to place a lot of symbolic weight on the eyes, often tying them to the soul, communication and the truth: in English, they are said to be the windows of the soul, and the old Japanese proverb “目は口ほどに物を言う” suggests that “the eyes speak as much as the mouth”. In chapter 3 of Remake, Tifa tells Cloud “You’re scaring me”, her remark coinciding with a close up of his eyes. Shortly thereafter, she expresses that she misses Cloud’s natural blue eyes, wistfully commenting on what he used to be: “It’s just… you’ve really changed […] I suppose it's… yeah. Your eyes, They used to be less…” This symbolizes Tifa’s desire for Cloud to be either the boy she used to know in Nibelheim, or the hero that that boy promised he would become for her. She has no real grasp on who Cloud is, and seems attached to an idea or memory of him rather than who he is at the present moment. This is huge. At the risk of jumping the gun, let’s contrast Tifa’s treatment of Cloud’s eyes with Aerith’s. We will discuss this further at a later section, but in short, Aerith accepts and loves Cloud where he’s at, no matter how badly his circumstances have scarred him, commenting on how beautiful she finds his eyes in their current state during their Evergreen park date in Remake’s chapter 9. The girls’ differing reactions to Cloud’s eyes are extremely meaningful for this reason, and you can bet this wasn’t an accidental parallel by the developers: these two scenes are meant to be compared and contrasted.
On Cloud’s side of things, we see multiple times in Remake how he is similarly unable to discern Tifa’s emotions. One example is when he forgets the promise he made her, disappointing her greatly in chapter 3 until he remembers later and makes it up to her. Another occurs after the sector seven plate has dropped in chapter 13, and Barret thinks he’s consoled Tifa successfully without realizing she’s thinking dark thoughts. The VA script notes say the following:
“Cloud is impressed how Barret is able to pull off what he could not. (Both men are too thick-headed to perceive the darkness Tifa is harboring.)”
Not to mention this damming description of Cloud’s childhood crush on Tifa from the A True Wish Revealed section Final Fantasy 25th Memorial Ultimania, which we addressed earlier:
“Someone important to [Cloud in his childhood] was Tifa– his fleeting, childish love is revealed in the spiritual world.”
This is not a soul connection, but rather a romantic interest fueled by distance, immaturity, fantasy, loneliness, insecurity and physical attraction. I find it important to contrast this with Nomura’s description of Cloud’s feelings of love for Aerith here rather than later in the analysis, just to take advantage of the juxtaposition:
“I believe, for those who formerly traveled with her as comrades and for the viewers, each carries their own love for Aerith. In this story, Cloud also carries his own undying feeling for Aerith even to this very day.”
In this quote from the October 2003 Famitsu Magazine, Cloud’s feelings for Aerith are confirmed to be undying, meaning they last forever regardless of her departure. If there were ever an antonym to Cloud’s “fleeting” feelings for Tifa, it would have to be his “undying” feelings for Aerith.
II. c) Cloti makes Cloud and Tifa worse off and endangers the planet
The final point to discuss concerning Cloti is that Cloti actually makes both Cloud and Tifa worse off as characters, as well as endangers the planet. First, must return to Nibelheim again, but this time, we’ll be discussing Tifa’s past.
( continued in https://www.reddit.com/cloudxaerith/s/N5yjrDfeRA )

Renaissance Neoplatonism and Archetypal Psychology
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This revolution in experience took place on a grand scale during the Renaissance, and was embodied in the philosophy of Neoplatonism; it was a “panpsychism,” psyche everywhere. There are striking likenesses between the main theme of Neoplatonism and archetypal psychology. Most important, the style of fantasying of the two is similar. In part this similarity is, of course, due to the fact that traditional Neoplatonism has influenced archetypal psychology, and in part because we interpret Neoplatonism in the light of our needs for a traditional background. But mainly the coincidences between Renaissance Neoplatonism and archetypal psychology, and in part because we interpret Neoplatonism in the light of our needs for a traditional background. But mainly the coincidences between Renaissance Neoplatonism and archetypal psychology rest upon a common starting point: soul. Neoplatonism treats “of the nature of man by means of the concept of Soul, conceived as something substantial. . . .”
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Neoplatonism abhorred outwardness, the literalistic and naturalistic fallacies. It sought to see through literal meanings into occult ones, searching for depth in the lost, the hidden, and the buried (texts, words, leftovers from antiquity). It delighted in surprising juxtapositions and reversals of ideas, for it regarded the soul as ever in movement, without definite positions, a borderline concept between spirit and matter. All the while this philosophy remained close to alienation, sadness, and awareness of death, never denying depression or separating melancholy from love and love from intellection. It was often contemptuously negligent of contemporary science and theology, regarding both empirical evidence and scholastic syllogisms as only indirectly bearing on soul. Instead, it recognized the signal place of imagination in human consciousness, considering this to be the primary activity of the soul. Therefore any psychology that would have soul as its aim must speak imaginatively. It referred frequently to Greek and Roman mythical figures - not as allegories, but as modes of reflection.
Renaissance Neoplatonists also evoked ancient thinkers in their personified images. The great men of the past were living realities to them because they personified the soul’s needs for spiritual ancestors, ideal types, internal guides and mentors who can share our lives with us and inspire them beyond our personal narrowness. It was a practice then to engage in imaginative discourse with persons of antiquity. Petrarch wrote long letters to his inner familiars, Livy, Vergil, Seneca, Cicero, Horace, and sent regards to Homer and Hesiod. Erasmus prayed to divine Socrates. Ficino set up an academy similar to the one in Athens and reenacted the Symposium in honor of Plato’s birthday, supposedly November 7. Machiavelli sought solace in the company of ancient heroes, poets, and legendary figures such as Moses, Romulus, and Theseus. He wrote:

• On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day’s clothing covered with mud and dust. . . . and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter ancient courts of ancient men where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and ask them the reasons for their actions; and in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not fear poverty, I am not so frightened by death; I give myself entirely over to them.

Today, Machiavelli’s habits on homecoming might be said to require the services of a psychiatrist; then, Neoplatonic psychology supported him. Not only did Neoplatonism give place to the imagination within man and his psychology, but the Renaissance in general recognized that the imagination must have a place, a realm for envisioning, like Machiavelli’s “ancient courts of ancient men.”
Imagination’s place might be the night sky of Renaissance astronomers or astrologers, or the geographical continents of its explorers. It might also be the gigantic mythological construction of Dante’s worlds, the complex stoves and vessels of alchemists’ laboratories, the memory theater of Guillio Camillo, or the imaginal past of Greek and Roman antiquity. Imagination must have space for differentiated unfolding. This immeasurable depth of soul or endless cavern of images, as Augustine called it, or “black pit” in Hegel’s words, must have a container. If we today would restore imagination to its full significance, we too need some sort of enormous room that can act as its “realistic” vessel.
For us, the Renaissance itself provides one such magnificent theater for their imaginal soul. As we approach it, both as a period of history then and there and as a story about the psyche here and now, we are embracing it in much the same manner as Renaissance men did ancient history. In their study they too were living a metaphor: the myth of classical antiquity. They too were in a then. . . and now, there. . . and here. This myth of classical antiquity in which the imaginal world of the archetypes was placed allowed a “present” life to be built upon archetypal models located in the “past.” It was not history as such that supported their present lives, since their awareness of history and their interest in archeology - in the classical world of Roman civilization among whose actual ruins they lived - were at first negligible. It was a fantasy of history in which were true models of persons, images, and styles. History gave the Renaissance imagination a place to put archetypal structures - gave it a structure within which to fantasize.
The philosophical container of their metaphor, as we have noted, was Neoplatonism, including the belief that their texts were teachings of a God or sage, Hermes, “older” - and therefore prior to and purer - than Plato and perhaps the Bible. By giving a culturally deep and intellectually immense psychology to the psyche’s fantasies, Renaissance Neoplatonism enabled the soul to welcome all its figures and forms, encouraging the individual to participate in the soul’s teeming nature and to express soul in an unsurpassed outburst of cultural activity.
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Marsilio Ficino: Renaissance Patron of Archetypal Psychology
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Historically, this extraordinarily influential method of Ficinian thought and the Ficinian Platonic Academy in Florence are best conceived as a flourishing underground movement. It was developed in a short period of time by a small group of talkers and writers who lived in close geographical proximity, maintaining a tenuous connection with the vicissitudes of political life going on around them. The doctrines of the Church, except for an occasional capitulation, and the indoctrination of education, except for some new texts and translations, were little affected by Ficino’s activities. The official Aristotelian orthodoxies of psychological education continued as before, as do the psychological orthodoxies today, unable to incorporate into academic structures the viewpoint that puts psyche first.
Nonetheless, as Eugenio Garin has written: “After Ficino there is no writing, no thought, in which a direct or indirect trace of his activity may not be found.” His ideas spread throughout Renaissance Europe like a movement. This fifteenth-century movement, nourished by a clique surrounding one man and maintained through talk and letter-writing and fierce hard work in the face of depression and thoughts of death - its revolutionary content and its impact upon the soul of subsequent generations - all compare with twentieth-century psychoanalysis.
Precisely here lies Ficino’s importance: he was a Doctor of Soul, the very term he himself used for Plato and the very vocation announced to him by his patron Cosimo de’ Medici, who supposedly said at their first meeting, when Marsilio was a youth, that as Ficino’s father was a physician of the body, Marsilio would heal the soul. And it is as Doctor of Soul that Ficino is neglected, for his thought in its deepest sense is a depth psychology, both in its construction of a systematic viewpoint for understanding the soul and it its treatment of that soul through relations with archetypal principles personified by the planets of the pagan pantheon. Ficino was writing, not philosophy as has always been supposed, but an archetypal psychology. His basic premise and concern was anima, and so he must be read from within his own perspective, psychologically.
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Renaissance Pathologizing
Perhaps the Renaissance’s most popular figure from myth was Proteus. His ceaselessly changing image that could take on any shape or nature represented the multiple and ambiguous form of the soul. “We have seen,” said Pomponazzi, “the human nature is multiple and ambiguous,” and this nature “comes from the form of the soul itself.” (Pomponazzi himself delighted in ambiguity, having inscribed on his personal medallion a gloria duplex, the double image of eagle and lamb.) “The soul may be shaped into all varieties of forms . . . and the soul profits from everything without distinction. Error and dreams serve it usefully…,” wrote Montaigne. Man’s Protean nature derives from inherent polyvalence of the psyche, which includes the grotesque, the vicious, and the pathological. Inasmuch as a mythical image is a containing presence, a means of giving form and sense to fantasy and behavior, the Protean idea could keep the soul’s many daimones in inherent relation. It was like another favorite image, Fortuna, on whose great wheel were innumerably different directions, which multiplicity was given cohesion by the Goddess. Proteus and Fortuna were exaltations of the principle of the Many.
For the soul’s multiplicities need adequate archetypal containers, or - like fallen angels in a maze- they wander in anarchy. Anarchy begins when we lose the archetype, when we become an-archetypal, having no imaginative figures to contain the absurd, monstrous, and intolerable aspects of our Protean natures and our fortunes. In Proteus and in Fortuna everything has place: no shape or position is inherently inferior or superior, moral or immoral, for the wheel turns and the soul’s ambiguity means that vice and virtue can no more be separate from each other than the eagle and lamb.
Again and again we find historians speaking of Renaissance immorality. In a pathologized image worthy of the art of memory, Voltaire writes: “This courtesy glittered in the midst of crime; it was a robe of gold and silk covered in blood.” A fantasy of decay and degeneracy belongs with the archetype of renovatio: rebirth appears together with rot. The imagination of rebirth, the fantasy that a Renaissance is taking place, begins in the rebirth of imagination for which pathologized images are the strongest agents. Thus it is no surprise to hear from Northrop Frye that “Renaissance writers, when they speak of the imagination, are interested chiefly in its pathology, in hysteria and hallucination…” Statistically favored themes in art were seduction, rape, and drunkenness.
Pathologizing was a root metaphor of the condition of life, providing a passionate existential base for psychology without which, as Nietzsche said, it becomes mere introspection or observation. Nietzsche also noted that we cannot speak of the Renaissance unless we can reimagine the closeness of each individual to the feelings of survival and death. History books always put this pathologized awareness into literal terms: the black plague; perennial malaria; syphilis that suddenly appeared in Naples in 1485; pirates, brigands, and mercenaries; the threat of the Turks in the East. But pathologizing was an essential part of the Renaissance fantasy appearing in all sorts of imaginary forms such as the paranoid concerns with new defense systems which occupied some of the best minds of the age (Albrecht Durer, Leonardo da Vinci) with city walls and artillery. There were the political intrigues, complicated suspicions and actual persecutions, especially the fear of witches and the beginning of the Inquisition (Malleus maleficarum, 1486). Depression, which cannot be blamed upon “hard times” which every age suffers or upon a melancholic character trait which every person carries, seems to have shadowed the lives of such successful and creative Renaissance individuals as Durer, Savonarola, Machiavelli, Ficino, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. Petrarch confesses in his Secretum that depressive acedia could rack him for days and nights, plunging him into infernal darkness and a “hatred and contempt for the human state.” Montaigne writes: “Since my earliest days, there is nothing with which I have occupied my mind more than with images of death.”
To imagine the Renaissance psyche we must enter a fantasy of street-knifings and poisonings, murder at High Mass, selling daughters, incest, torture, revenge, assassination, extortion, usury amid magnificence. Hostility was studied and enemies cultivated as necessary to the complete psychic phenomenology of being human. We find no more evidence of humaneness and humanitarianism than of enmity. Shakespeare set much of his villainy in Italy, perhaps because he was also a social realist, merely a reporter of what was going on: Petrarch’s father was sentenced to have a hand chopped off; Cesare da Castel Durante was knifed to death in St. Peter’s; Antonio Cincinello, whose father and grandfather were imprisoned, was himself hacked to pieces in his house by a mob; Cola di Rienzo was killed by another mob; Peruzzi, the architect, was poisoned by a jealous confrere; Dante was threatened with mutilation and fled into exile and Michelangelo fled Florence in panic for his life; Campanella wa simprisoned for heresy and Torrigiano sentenced to death for blasphemy. Bruno and Savonarola were burned, Cellini twice imprisoned, Galileo menacingly interrogated, and Tasso - mad - incarcerated in a cell. Pope Alexander VI had three cardinals poisoned.
To go beyond Italy: Cervantes lost a hand in war and was sold as a slave by pirates; Camoes lost an eye; Valdes died of the plague. John Hus was burned, as were Servetus, and Vives’ father; Thomas More was executed. Columbus was shipped home in chains, Zwingli cut down in battle, Marlowe stabbed in a brawl. Psychologizing was not a “mere fantasy,” not a method, not a research project, but a matter of survival. One had to see through into the depths of everything and everybody, keeping one’s death and one’s soul before one’s eye. It was a way of living life.
Hades, Persephone, and a Psychology of Death
Within a world of such dark depths, it is not surprising to find Hades playing a significant role in Neoplatonic fantasy. In this fantasy the hidden God (deus absconditus) who rules the underworld of death and shadows all living existence with the question of final consequence, comes also to mean the God of the hidden, the underworld meaning in things, their deeper obscurities. Underworld, secrecy, hiddenness, and death, whether in the chambers of plotters or the psychic interiority of scholars, reflect the invisible God Hades.
It is against this background that we must place also s uch major Renaissance concerns as reputation (fama), nobility, and dignity. They take on further significance when envisioned within a psychology that bears death in mind. To consider fama merely as fame in our romantic sense puts Renaissance psychology into the inflated ego of the very important person or pop star. But when death gives the basic perspective, then magnificence, reputation, and nobility of style are tributes to the soul, part of what can be done for it during the ego’s short hour on the stage. Then fame refers to the lasting worth of soul and psychology can afford to treat of the grand themes: perfection of grace, dignity of man, nobility of princes. With death in the background - and Hades is equally called Pluto, Riches, or Wealth-Giver - Renaissance magnificence celebrates the richness and marvellousness and exotic otherness of the soul and its far-flung imagination. How difficult for us in our northern tradition to consider soul together with fame and splendor! How maidenly pure, how wood-washed and bare has become our notion of soul!
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The Renaissance humanists themselves evidently needed a fantasy of misery and catastrophe in order to contain the renascent energy they were riding. Ficino never ceased complaining of pain and melancholy, yet this “bitter desperation” was the source of his psychology philosophy. Petrarch kept before his mind the “great overarching reality of man’s life: his death.” Yet the more occupied with death, the more these humanists thought, built, wrote, painted, and sang.
This preoccupation with death gives us a clue for understanding why Renaissance humanism had to summon up the figures of Socrates and Plato and to disparage Aristotle. Aristotle’s definition of soul, as the life of the natural body inseparably bound with individual lives, does not allow enough place for life’s other side, death, or for the relationship of psyche with death. Greek poetic tradition from Homer through Plato conceived of psyche primarily in terms of death, that is, in relation with the underworld or the afterlife. When soul is described only in terms of life and that life identified with individuals, there is no way to “dehumanize” soul, no way to approach psyche other than in biological and analytical ways Aristotle preferred. The Aristotelian fantasy rules Western psychology as it did Melanchthon’s outlook; it does so today whenever it insists on empiricism.
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A renaissance comes out of the corner, out of the black plague and its rats, and the shades of death within the shadow. Then even Amor becomes a God of death, as he was in Renaissance imagery. His legs crossed, his touch pointing downward, funerary love was favorite figure, as was Pluto-Hades holding the keys of the kingdom. This indeed is a far cry from the optimistic humanism of our northern psychology, its uplifting love, its peaks and resurrections.
Here Renaissance humanism truly shares the Homeric view of human: brotos, thnetos. What is human is frail, subject to death. To be human is to be reminded of death and have a perspective informed by death. To be human is to be soul-focused, which in turn is death-focused. Or, to put it the other way: to be death-focused is to be soul-focused. This is because Hades’ realm refers to the archetypal perspective that is wholly psychological, where the considerations of human life - the emotions, organic needs, social connections of humanistic psychology - no longer apply. In Hades’ realm, psyche alone exists; all other standpoints are dissolved.
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Each of us enacts Persephone in soul, a maiden in a field of narcissi or poppies, lulled drowsy with innocence and pretty comforts until we are dragged off and pulled down by Hades, our intact natural consciousness violated and opened to the perspective of death. Once this has happened - through a suicidal despair, through a sudden fall from a smooth-rising career, through an invisible depression in whose grip we struggle vainly - then Persephone reigns in the soul and we see life through her darker eye.
It is as if we must go through a death experience in order to let go of our clutch on life and on the viewpoints of the human world and its Aristotelian psychology. It is as if we do not recognize the full reality of anima until attacked by Hades, until invisible forces of the unconscious underworld overpower and make captive our normalcy. Only then, it seems, are we able to discriminate psyche from human, experiencing in the belly of our intimate being that the psyche has connections far removed from human concerns. Then we see human concerns differently, psychologically.
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By refusing the fantastic nature of our lives, ourselves as metaphors and images made by soul, we have each become fastened into a constant forced literalism, ourselves as real, the Gods dead. By refusing the as-if-frailty of our lives and denying that at our essence is an invisibility, like Hades, who is both the only predictable surety and per se indefinable, we locate the Gods within us or we believe we make them up as projections of human needs. We presume human needs to be the literalism of biology, economics, and society, rather than the psyche’s perpetual insistence on imagining.
The refusal to recognize ourselves as “unreal” prevents us from psychologizing ourselves. For should we see through, we would shatter the prime literalism, the humanistic illusion in regard to every sense of reality other than psychic. Instead we cling to the naturalistic and humanistic fallacies - facts, materialism and developmental historicism, empiricism and positivism and personalism - anything to shore up and solidify our frailty.
Humanism’s psychology partly perceives this unreality at the core of our existence. When humanistic psychology speaks so intently of self-realization and self-actualization, it is stating that we are not altogether real or actual, that we are still unmade. But then humanism’s psychology cannot hold onto this shadowed vision of man and rather exhorts him to make himself, to build a reality out of ego or self, countering his frailty. It turns away from the myths that give our unreality a significant context. Ignoring the mythical nature of soul and its eternal urge out of life and toward images, humanism’s psychology builds a strong man of frail soul trembling in the valley of existential dread.
When we fail to recognize our human frailty, Persephone, image of soul, must carry it for us. Then it is she who is frail and unsubstantial. Then soul is a phantom we can never catch, an ever-fleeting daughter desperately distracted, symptomatic, at the fringe of the field of consciousness, never able to descend to her proper enthronement within and below. Then we go into the dark afraid o the dark, without soul of bulk or substance.
Anima in the Renaissance
Renaissance psychology does not end in death - it only begins there. From this position comes the leap into life and the embrace of shadow and soul. The preoccupation with the shadow, the profound sense of evil, misery, and life's short wick was joined in Florentine philosophy with its ruling idea: welfare of soul. What a curious marriage, what extraordinary double truth - inhumanity and soul together! What sharper contrast between human and psyche could there be? Renaissance morality did not divide soul-making from the deep inhumanity and pathologizing processes in the soul itself.
This deeper psychology, in which the pathologized and inhuman shadow were prime movers, worshiped the images of soul with a productive passion we have since come to consider unique in history. Anima reigned in Renaissance Italy. She appears in a superb variety of personifications which both evoke the emotions of soul and present soul embodied to the imaginal eye. The images range from those familiar to us in Renaissance paintings of Mary, especially as the young Virgin, to the Goddess Flora and her counterpart, the Plague Virgin, who spread poison. Boccaccio wrote an instructive compendium of feminism using the biographies of all the legendary women of myth and history as his models. For Petrarch anima appears in Laura, for Dante in Beatrice, and there were those marvelous figures of (pagan) Armida in Tasso and Angelica (who goes off with the pagans) in Ariosto, and the delicious (pagan) divinities whom Botticelli painted "because," as he said, "they were not real"; and the soul passion in Michelangelo's lyrics.
Anima even inspired a mass movement: down the roads of Italy toward Rome came the pilgrim-tourists to see "Julia, daughter of Claudius," the fifteen-year-old wonder uncovered in the spring of 1485 during excavations, who though dead at least a millennium was rumored to be as fresh and fair in lips and hair and eyes as the living, and -because a tangible embodiment of antiquity - far more beautiful than any creature alive.
The reforming pyramidal funeral pyre: the burning of Joan of Arc repeated, but now in the shape of anima emblems. The foundation of this spiritual furnace was masks and carnival disguises. Then he heaped on the manuscripts of poets, and next cosmetics, mirrors, ornaments, and ladies’ false hair, and -rising higher - lutes and harps and playing cards. Crowning the flaming tower were paintings of both mythic and actual female beauties and ancient sculptures of female heads.
The obsessive preoccupation with love and beauty, including the banalities and obscenities in the obsession, the innumerable dialogues on love, and the wide influence of Ficino’s commentary on the Symposium, can be better understood if we regard these events from the perspective of the soul-making that takes place through the intercourse between anima and eros. Then we may not regard these obsessions merely as a rash of frivolous poetizing and dilettante philosophy, or as Renaissance pornography. They are something we each do. They are inherent in the movement of soul, the activity of the anima, which seeks eros. For the corollary reason, for an eros with soul, for a psychological eroticism which has been correctly called platonic, we may turn to these writings and paintings. This style of love-dialogue and obsession with beauty is no longer our fashion. Instead we suffer from the division between eros and psych, a soulless eroticism, and an unloved desexualized soul.
<…>
From Seduction by Jean Baudrillard,
“Ours is a culture of premature ejaculation. Increasingly all seduction, all manner of enticement - which is always a highly ritualized process - is effaced behind a naturalized sexual imperative, behind the immediate and imperative; realization of desire. Our center of gravity has been displaced towards a libidinal economy concerned with only the naturalization of desire, a desire dedicated to drives, or to a machine-like functioning, but above all, to the imaginary of repression and liberation.”
…
“Here is your desire, your unconscious: a psychic metaphor of capital in the rubbish heap of political economy. And the sexual jurisdiction is but a fantastic extension of the commonplace ideal of private-property, where everyone is assigned a certain amount of capital to manage: a psychic capital, a libidinal, sexual or unconscious capital, for which each person will have to answer individually, under the sign of his or her own liberation."
…
“It is not just that a pure discourse of sexual demand is absurd given the complexity of affective relations; it quite simply does not exist. To believe in sex's reality and in the possibility of speaking sex without mediation is a delusion - the delusion of every discourse that believes in transparency; it is also that of functional, scientific, and all other discourses with claims to the truth. Fortunately, the latter is continually undermined, dissipated, destroyed, or rather, circumvented, diverted, and seduced. Surreptitiously they are turned against themselves; surreptitiously they dissolve into a different game, a different set of stakes.”
…
<…>
Because “the one fundamental human science of the Renaissance was the knowledge of soul,” it is understandable that Renaissance thought has been long ignored as philosophy, actually held in contempt for being scattered, unsystematic, rhetorical. Its thought is not philosophy but psychology, rooted not in intellect but in imagination. It is anima-thinking - thought that reflects the anima. Its aim was soul-making; hence its concentration upon the realm of anima: treatise on love, on beauty, on myth, on political machinations, on life-style and manners and aesthetic expression, and later on music, as well as works such as Ficino’s philosophy specifically concerning soul. Its concern with visual perspective, and perhaps with polyphony in music, can also be related to its psychology of ambiguity, which arose from gloria duplex - having more than one standpoint, seeing behind, seeing through, and hearing the many voices of the soul.

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.