Okay so sorry in advance for the very long post, I just don’t have anyone else I can really bounce this off of.
I’m preparing a puzzle for a potential mini-campaign I want to run in the near future, but I’m new to designing puzzles and genuinely don’t know if I’ve made it too confusing or obtuse. One of my most prominent players is a very smart person, but there is no guarantee that he’ll be joining when I present the idea, so I wanna make sure anyone can solve it with enough determination, while still keeping the general idea of the puzzle intact. The puzzle, as I have it worked out so far, is as follows:
———- Room 1 - In the center of the room is a massive pressure plate just before an awning. The awning has a painted grid of four squares, which appear dull and unlit. Underneath the awning is a doorway leading to a long hallway, this hallway is blocked off by a field of magic. There are four large pillars, one in each corner of the room. Each pillar is broken in the center, where a pure white floating crystal is found. Written on each pillar is a circlet of runes, placing a hand within the circle causes it to glow white, removing it causes it to stop glowing.
If all four are glowing at the same time, a beam of light will emanate from the pressure plate. From here, one of two things happen depending on if the plate is occupied or not.
If Unoccupied - Each of the crystals and rune circles glow red and become unusable. A random creature from one of the planes is summoned onto the plate. It is hostile to the players. (Creatures TBD) The pillars cannot be activated again until this creature has been defeated.
If Occupied - The player that is standing on the plate receives a buff for ten rounds that grants them +1 to all Armor Class values and allows them to see two glowing squares on the grid glowing either white or black. At the pillars, a symbol associated with its matching plane will display that all players can see, with a portal opening to lead players to each other world. Once two portals have been entered, the remaining portals will close.
During this, the grid on the awning will also display runes on the glowing squares. To non-buffed players, the runes are generic and do not reveal any information on what portals to enter. To the buffer player, they will see a rune associated with one of the planes on either glowing space. The runes will remain for 10 rounds. If the correct runes are slammed into place, the doorway opens. If the incorrect runes are slammed into place, or if time runs out, the door glows red, the runes disappear, and shunts all players back into the Convergence of Reality, dealing 1d6 force damage to any creature that was still in another plane.
Room 2 -
Each of these rooms is identical, transporting players to a large circular room within one of four planes associated with the pillar. These realms are the First World, Hell, the Air Plane, and the Ethereal Plane.
Each room has a way to gain height advantage, stealth, and any other tool a player can use to their advantage. At the back of each chamber is a set of two runes with the symbol of their plane written on it. If the plane was outlined in the Convergence of Reality, one rune glows white, the other glows black. If the room was not outlined, neither of the runes will be glowing. In either case, these runes will be protected by a magical field.
Regardless of whether the room has glowing runes, a creature associated with the relevant plane will be summoned to chamber that is hostile to the players. (Creatures TBD). Once the creature is defeated, a portal returning to the Convergence of Reality will be summoned in the center of the room, and the force fields protecting the runes will disappear. Once one rune has been taken, the other will become locked off again.
If a rune matching the grid was taken, it may be slammed into the doorway to break field and begin the final step of the puzzle. If a rune that does not match the grid was taken, that rune may instead be placed upon the central plate in the Converge of Reality. This will both extend the buffed player’s buff duration and the timer on the door by 2 rounds, as well as reopening each of the portals. The portals will disappear once again once one of them has been utilized.
Room 3 -
This long hall has four braziers at the end of the room, each will have symbol associated with one of the two chosen planes embedded on it. Each will be lit with a white or black flame, one of each color for both planes.
To solve the puzzle, the buffed player must deposit their buff into two of the braziers. If it matches the color and associated plane, the brazier will be extinguished, and allows the buff to remain. If it does not, or the players run out of time, the braziers will roar, shunting the players back into the Convergence of Reality, and consuming the buff, forcing the players to start over again. Once both braziers have been extinguished, the puzzle is solved.
(Boss) If this encounter is layered with a boss fight, reduce the amount a braziers to two, each matching the associated plane and color that lead the players to the hall. If the buff is deposited into the black brazier, the boss is stunned 3 and takes 1/3 of its maximum health. If the buff is deposited into the white brazier, the players each heal for 10 +5d10 hitpoints, and the boss is stunned 3. If the boss is not defeated by the time the stunned round ends, the players are returned to the Convergence of Reality to start the puzzle anew. ———-
Again, sorry for the long post, I just wanna make sure this puzzle is actually fun and reasonable before I spring it on any players. Any advice?

I have a trip coming up, to Europe in August. Not sure where to start with the packing. I expect a lot of walking/sightseeing. Also want to wear pretty float dresses. Is that practical?
This is completely new territory for me, no idea where to begin. Could you please give me some ideas? In the US right now, so I would really appreciate some tips based on stuff you get in the US.

Daniel Keyes’ 1966 sci-fi novel tells the story of Charlie Gordon. Charlie is 32, has an IQ of 68, works a menial job in a bakery, gets teased by his co-workers. In a stroke of luck, Charlie is approached by two scientists, undergoes an experiment–already successfully performed on a mouse named Algernon–that slowly takes his IQ from 68 to a whopping 185.
During this period of enlightenment, Charlie experiences the highs of intellectual curiosity. But, just as everything is going well, Algernon gets ill and–spoiler alert–dies.
This foreshadows Charlie’s regression back to his original state. And, just before he loses his enlightenment for good, Charlie asks someone to put flowers on Algernon’s grave.
It’s a great novel, but a sad story. And it’s a story that has parallels with the goings-on at Celtic of late.
Seatbelts on? Then let’s cast our minds back to 2020…

The Botching of the Ten

2020/21 was going to be the year of years. That was when we’d secure ten league title wins on the trot, and gain bragging rights in perpetuity.
The only stumbling block, it seemed, was the raging worldwide pandemic. Coronavirus had cut short the previous season, and in order to keep the games going, clubs were forced into an eerie closed-doors environment - football a capella, without the cheers and jeers of crowds.
Some teams reacted well to the new normal. Some teams didn’t. In the year of years, Celtic looked sluggish on the pitch, and quickly fell behind Rangers in the most important of title races. Why so bad? Rumours of the board reneging on gentlemen’s agreements swirled; the virus created a growing injury list; the compounding effect of poor results drained confidence.
As the weeks went by– and the tenth title slipped further and further away– a defiant manager doubled down on his position. If the results kept going poorly, the manager would resign. He said so himself. The results kept going down. The manager didn’t resign.
Instead, he was ‘bitterly disappointed’ in post-match interview after post-match interview after dropping more points. His refrain echoed that of a doomed predecessor: Tony Mowbray–after a run of bad defeats of his own–said we would all just have to ‘take it on the chin’. But, as Tony found out, there are only so many punches you can take before your chin collapses. Things weren’t looking good.

Purses in fridges CSC

In the middle of all the chaos on the pitch, the board stayed mostly silent off it. When it did speak, it was only to back a beleaguered boss. Angry crowds gathered outside Celtic Park in ugly scenes. The gap between board and fans widened. The chasm hadn’t been this big since the ousting of the Kellys almost thirty years prior.
It got worse. While watching the ten melt away in real time, the manager was putting all our purses in the fridge and telling us we’d stuck them there ourselves. ‘The ten isn’t that important,’ he said. ‘You guys are too entitled.’ What?

Lennon resigns

Eventually, things reached a singularity. Lennon resigned, but it was way too late. We wouldn’t have eternal bragging rights after all. We’d have a summer to chew on the what-ifs, a couple of months to figure out how we were going to climb out of a right mess.
While we were still reeling from a triple-whammy of Dubaigate, Lennogate, Ten-was-never-that-important-anyway-gate, we’d convinced ourselves Eddie Howe was the right man for the job.
Fan speculation fed media conjecture which strengthened fan speculation, and the whole thing gathered a tail-eating momentum that sustained itself for an entire summer, without any confirmation from the club.
We’d also convinced ourselves we’d be getting a shiny new director of football, too, something we all nodded and agreed was a necessity; a safeguard against the sort of shitshow we’d just endured and were still slithering out of.
Fergal Harkin, a City Group guy, was floated as a potential candidate. Then it was somebody else. Actually, it could be this young Man City up-and-comer. At any rate, negotiations with Eddie were going pretty well behind the scenes. There was just the small quibble over his backroom staff, all of whom Eddie would be taking up the road. No bother Edward, you bring your mum if it helps; we need you now more than ever.

Howe no?

As the summer dragged on, however, Eddie (nor his mum) were anywhere to be seen. He certainly wasn’t draped in a green-n-white scarf on the steps at Celtic Park, giving a motivational maiden speech à la Martin or Brendan.
On 28 May 2021, the club released this statement:
‘Following very positive and detailed discussions with Eddie Howe, with the belief that he would be an excellent candidate for the position of Celtic Manager, we allowed time for the process, given he’d previously made it clear he was not looking to return to management until this summer at the earliest.
We can now confirm that Eddie will not be joining the Club, for reasons outwith both his and Celtic’s control. We wish Eddie success for the future.’
Instead, we learned, the board would be appointing *checks notes* Ange Postecoglu as manager.
This appointment–coupled with the failed acquisition of Eddie Howe–seemed on-brand. Were the club custodians actually saboteurs? As fans, what other conclusion could we draw?

The Experiment begins

In the wake of the managerial announcement, fans fired up their internet machines and looked to Japan for the first time since Naka left. Just who was this Ange fellow? Apparently he had managed a number of Australian clubs, guided the national team to the 2014 World Cup, and won the Japanese league with Yokohama F. Marinos.
FollowFollow and Rangers Twitter rubbed its hands with glee. Get ready for 56, they gloated.
They had a point. We needed a marquee signing to help us get over a disastrous season, and the board have cheaped out with some random Aussie.
Soon after his arrival, Ange’s compatriots flooded fan forums to pour water on the flames of indignation. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, they said, but you’ve caught a winner in Ange. Honestly, they said. Give him a while to settle in, and you’ll see, you’ll all see.
They promised even more riches in season two. That’s when Ange really gets going, they said.
Year two? It’s only day fucking two, lads. We’ve got a bunch of players who want to leave, and nobody has any faith this board can tie their shoelaces, never mind appoint a good coach. Cheers for the words of encouragement, but let’s suspend judgement.

The Enlightenment

The Ange experiment didn’t start well. We lost the first three league games, still had those wantaway players at the club, and were looking at the prospect of another long season ahead.
Footage of Ange directing training sessions appeared online. He told the players ‘we never stop’. It sounded like faux-motivational twaddle.
But then. Wantaway players got their moves. A Japanese contingent arrived to take their place, and it turned out they were all class at football. Games destined for draws became last-gasp wins.
The Aussies were right. Things were changing for the better. We never stop wasn’t just empty rhetoric. It was a philosophy stamped into a team playing their hearts out for a man whose system had transformed our fortunes in a short space of time.
In a blink, we’d won the league cup and regained a title. We never stop appeared on hoardings, on Twitter, on t-shirts. If the Aussies were right about Ange, then his second season in charge would be even better. All this seemed scarcely believable, just one year out from the worst season in living memory.

Today

Not even a week on from recording a world-record 8 domestic trebles, Ange’s second season in charge was better than the first. However, instead of enjoying unalloyed celebrations, we're mourning the loss of our manager.

The Regression?

Now Ange has left, thoughts will immediately turn to his successor. Who will we get? The longer it takes to announce his replacement, the more time there’ll be for the type of speculation that fans and media generated around Eddie Howe in the vacuum of concrete knowledge.
For me, the most pressing question is whether or not the board got lucky with Ange. Did they know he was a success story just waiting to happen? Or was he a third-choice gamble that paid off without their involvement?
Who knows. But if the board hasn’t learned from the disastrous 2020/21 campaign, then we’ll be in the same situation now as we were back then. The only difference is we'll be starting from a position of strength heading into the unknown.
In a way that’s much scarier than the 2020/21 season. That’s because 2020/21 was an outlier, albeit a painful one. It was a sliver of doom bookended by great success.

More than a club

In any event, now Ange has left we’ll do what we always do when heroes leave the club: we’ll continue supporting it. When Larsson left, it seemed like we’d never recover. When the 1967 European Cup-winning team dissolved gradually over time, it was heartbreak for the fans who watched it happen.
And now, as another hero leaves, it’s a sore one. But remember, no matter how much a player or coach professes to love Celtic–with a couple of rare exceptions–they’ll never love Celtic as much as I do or you do.
When you keep that in mind, it’s easy not to get swept away in the idea of everlasting players or managers.
Let’s just hope, no matter what happens, we don’t regress.

Torvan Nikolsim, Shipmaster of Scientific Vessel SE-89.
We had managed to dodge the patrol that found our shuttle. It was evident that the sentients pursuing us here were hostile, given their toting of apparent firearms. However, Talvak and I had managed to find a recess in a nearby geological formation. The engineer was fiddling with the antenna, seeing if he could hotwire it to send at least some signal.
“Talvak, why are you still fiddling with that scrap metal?” I said, still irritated at the uncomfortable heat in the air around me.
“There’s no point in not trying, sir.” He said, some technical piece of metal trapped gently in between his jaws, giving his speech a puffy quality.
“We don’t have any kind of datapad. Even if the antenna was functioning properly, we don’t have a terminal to use it with.”
“We don’t need a terminal.”
My head tilted at this, swallowing a suspiciously thick glob of saliva. Perhaps some water for me?
“What do you mean?”
Talvak looked at whatever he was holding, another green piece of conduit or like, and then turned to me.
“Sir, since there is… well… Can I tell you this in confidence?”
“What?”
Talvak took a second, and opened his maw again.
“I’ve been running something of a data smuggling business back on Enceres.”
My ears twitched in alarm, myself suddenly sitting upright. Smuggling of any kind was a serious crime in the Enceric Union.
“What?!” I bellowed, somewhat outraged. “Do you know how long you could be rotting in a cell if you were caught? You’re idiotic.”
“Well, I… Uhh.” Talvak quieted down at this, sheepishly flicking his tail behind him.
“Look, I don’t care. I’m not a GSPA officer, I’m a scientist. I’m just concerned for my crew. What do you know?”
“I’ve figured out a way to manually run an antenna without using a terminal. The terminal is what reads the data transmissions, so by bypassing it, I can download and transmit data without it being logged. It’s rather a nifty little trick.”
That was, undoubtedly, a smart little hack.
“Talvak, out of curiosity, who were you smuggling data for?”
“Do you really want to know that?”
“We could very well die, might as well do it with a somewhat clean conscience.”
Talvak paused for a moment.
“I’ve been smuggling media and stuff for the Salroan Concord. Mostly cinematics and music and other stuff banned in the Union.”
“You committed treason?!” I shouted, shocked at Talvak’s bold move. “That warrants the death penalty!”
The Salroan Concord occupied a large swath of territory on Enceres, namely on the continent of Salro. They and the Enceric Union were sworn enemies, namely due to massive ideological differences. Accordingly, Spies and other collaborators were not afforded the luxury of a prison cell.
“Eh… Well, technically, still committing.”
“You’re really an idiot, you know that?”
Talvak again looked away sheepishly.
“Look,” I began, “I’m sorry for lashing out. We’re both under a lot of stress. And heat!”
Talvak chuffed.
“So, what exactly are you doing?”
“Well, as I said, I needed a way to bypass the terminal’s logging system, so I’ve figured out how to hotwire something directly to the antenna. It’s fairly simple if you know what you’re doing. All I need to do is loop this here circuit,”
He gestured at some part of the antenna that I couldn’t see,
“And get it so that it sends a looping distress signal. The antenna has a battery charge, so it’ll broadcast for a while. We won’t be able to transmit specifics, but it’ll convey distress, and our position.”
Talvak sat back from his little diatribe, looking somewhat proud of himself. He relaxed his ears and bared his teeth in a relaxed manner, gently drawing back his lip, just barely showing the tip of his canines. I’ll admit, that was a pretty smart thing, even if he did learn the skill by committing a crime.
So I left Talvak to finish his technological fiddling, and I moved to the edge of the cave, staring out. There wasn’t any particular thing I was looking at, I was just trying to pass the time. Nonetheless, I still took more time to stare at those spire-like plants. Annoyingly warm or not, this planet has beauty to it., I thought. In the back of my mind, there were still several concerns floating about.
Why had this operation gone so badly? Establishing outposts on worlds in the Ca’an system was relatively simple; Send a probe, await results of the atmosphere’s makeup, and then send the first colonizers. The weird thing is, not once were any of Cavara’s drones able to transmit atmospheric information, leaving us in a scientific dark. In addition, I was to blame for the deaths of about four crewmen in the shuttle crash. But these were overshadowed by the more immediate concern; intelligent life.
I saw distinctly non-San’tari life forms clambering out of that noisy air transport, weapons in hand, before I darted off into the foliage with Talvak. Sapient and intelligent life would give a very clear answer as to why the drones couldn’t last ten minutes in atmosphere without being destroyed. Sapience explained the lights of cities on the surface that some idiots thought were bioluminescence. But these were violent life forms. Like us. The reaction of blasting a drone out of the sky is completely rational. Enceric Union air defenses wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing in a similar situation. But there was a worrying aspect to the lack of hesitancy; If they didn’t hesitate to destroy a drone, would they not hesitate to kill me or Talvak? Or would horrifying scientific experimentation await us, things only reserved in the minds of a GSPA interrogation officer?
My musings were interrupted by a sudden cough, leaving me bent over, wheezing for breath. Maybe taking off the hazard mask wasn’t a good idea. When I got back into a sitting position, I realized I needed to relieve myself, so I wandered off a couple paces, and emptied the contents of my bladder against a rock.
However, I noticed a growling in my belly, disrupting my peaceful waiting, so I wandered back inside the cave.
“Talvak, did you happen to find any rations, anywhere?” I said, aware that I probably couldn’t eat any food here, given the biochemistry.
“No sir, you?”
I flicked my ears in the negative.
“Well, this might be an issue.” Talvak said, curling his tail. “But, I’m almost done wiring the loop. We should be out of here in a couple day-night cycles.” Suddenly, an Idea hit me.
“Talvak, this planet obviously has life, right?”
“Sir?”
“Well, on Enceres, glucose is needed for any sort of biological reaction capable of sustaining life to occur.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I’m a technician, not a biologist.”
“You’re also a data smuggler. What I’m saying, Talvak, is we should, in theory, be able to consume certain flora here, and the flora should use glucose. Temporary rations.”
“Is that really the best idea, Shipmaster?”
“Absolutely not, but I’m hungry, and I’m developing a strange cough.”
“Fair.”
With that, Talvak turned back to the antenna, and I turned to the mouth of the cave. It was time for some basic foraging.
—---------------
Colonel Samuel Greene, Douglas MacArthur Airbase
The telescope results brought back from NASA were definitely not what I had expected. I had assumed the high atmospheric transmissions were from some foreign power’s spy satellite, but this was definitely unique. I turned my gaze from my office window to my monitor, and stared at the image again. Two long, sleek objects were visible on the monitor, with a large mushroom-like formation protruding from the front of one of the objects. The images were stills, but I had to assume these were vessels of some kind. One one of them, I could barely make out a small protrusion, not too different from the barrel of a gun.
Sighing, I turned off my monitor, and rose from my chair. The command center had seen a sudden influx of personnel, from NASA scientists to even a few of the kooks from SETI. But with the recent developments, were they really kooks? China was fervently denying any spy activity (reinforced by our own intelligence), and Russia didn’t have enough resources to maintain a space program after the War. Mongolia, The Ukraine, Namibia, and Kazakhstan were too young as space-capable nations (not to mention their friendly terms with the US), and the ESA would have notified us if they were doing something this large.
“Colonel Greene, sir.” “Captain Myer. What’s the results with our ground recovery operation?”
The aging air captain shifted.
“We secured the wreck’s crash site, but we’ve found something concerning.”
“What might that be?”
“Corpses, sir.” Myer shifted again, patting his pockets as though searching for something. Finally, he stopped searching, and gazed around the room. His sight fell on something, and he walked over, procuring a tablet.
“Look at this, Colonel,” He said, signing into the tablet. “This isn’t a human cadaver.”
It took a second to process what I was looking at. The corpse of… whatever it was on the screen was charred to a very severe degree. Through the carbonized material, I could see the white glint of bone, or at least what I assumed to be bone. The corpse had been placed next to a measuring device, like something from a crime scene. A small caption under the image noted that this… thing was at least six feet and five inches tall. The corpse had legs that were similar to a human’s, with the addition of an extra joint above what I assumed to be an ankle. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out anything from the hands and feed, given that the corpse was charred beyond recognition. At the head, the only distinct feature was a large protrusion from the mouth area, possibly a snout.
“What are your thoughts, Myer?” I said, attempting to pass the tablet back to him.
“Wait, here.” The captain responded, gently pushing the tablet back to me. He swiped the screen, revealing three similar corpses next to the first, obviously moved from their original position. I said a small prayer that whatever these things were had suffered a quick and painless death before being carbonized.
Myer swiped again, pulling up an image of what I assumed to be the craft that air defenses had shot down. It was more interesting looking than the objects on the satellite image, with an aerodynamic shape. It was actually not too dissimilar from a small helicopter, minus a rotor system.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” A feminine voice said from behind me.
Startled, I wheeled in my spot, and came face to face with a dark-skinned woman wearing a modest blouse and a visitor badge. Thick black plastic glasses rested on her nose, and the lanyard around her neck informed me that she was with SETI.
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Naomi Charleson, SETI.”
Oh, one of the maybe-not-kooks.
Without prompting from me or Myer, she began, “It’s definitely extra-terrestrials. No earth animal has a body like that,” She said, stating the obvious. “This is huge! We aren’t alone in the universe! Think about the scientific implications. The cultural ones. Hell, even theological!”
“Well, thank you for your opinion, Miss Charleson-”
“Doctor Charleson.”
“Thank you, Doctor Charleson, but we’re a little far away from declaring aliens. There’s a lot of scientific work that needs to be done, as far as I’m aware.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said matter-of-factly.”
“Eheh, thank you, Doctor, but-”
“Colonel,” Myer interrupted, “This just came in from one of the combat recorders from the recovery team.”
He shoved the tablet back towards me. There was a video queued up on screen. I pressed the play button. The camera feed was shaky. It was only a ten second loop, and the video was edited, zoomed in on a tree line. I saw it; a gray figure just beyond the trees, stalking away into the darkness.
“I’ve already dispatched a second recovery team that specialized in tracking terrorists in the wilderness. We’ll have a result by nightfall.” Myer said.
Regardless of whatever this special team that Myer spoke of brought back, whatever was brought back would determine our response. What that would be, I couldn’t say.
—----
Torvan Nikolsim, Shipmaster of Science Vessel SE-89
My scavenging was relatively uneventful. I had gathered a series of green leaf-like plants from various foliages around the cave, and brought them back to our lair. Talvak had gotten the antenna up and running, and, according to him, either SE-89 or CX-13 would pick up the distress signal.
“So, here’s dinner.” I said, poking some leaves around the floor. The greens did have a visual appeal to them, and my stomach growled eagerly knowing that some form of sustenance was incoming. However, I couldn’t risk dying from toxins, so I broke open the plant, rubbed the inside of the plant against my lips, and waited. Nothing happened, aside from a vaguely distant scent drifting up to my nostrils, eliciting more saliva in my already desperate maw. Waiting a little more, to rule out the possibility of any ill reaction, I finally caved, and began to eat the improvised salad, Talvak following suit.
The leaves were nothing special, they were literally just common ground plants, better suited for some herbivorous animal. But, they were preferable to starvation. Finishing our meager meal, Talvak slinked off to a side of the cave, and curled up. I followed suit, except with the opposite rock wall making up my dormitory for the evening. There was no need to huddle for warmth, nor was there any equality in rank to warrant such physical closeness. I closed my eyes, and allowed oblivion to consume me.
—
I awoke with a start.
Footsteps
Was Talvak awake?
No, too many.
I sat up, and gazed around the dim cave. Something was wrong. I had sworn I had left a small beacon on, but it was turned off. My heart only dropped when I heard a pair of heavy steps stopped right in front of my face, and I felt a cold, hard cylinder press itself against my head.
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I Can Tell You What's Killing The Light.
Adam Daursche, He Is A Typical Type 8 Civilization Human, He Is Forced To Wear A Astronaut Suit And Assigned To Go To A Planet To Explore, He Would Walk Around And Notice It Isnt A Planet, It Was A Living Demon Acting As A Planet, It Soon Striked The Ship, Forcing Him To Adam Out And He Got Hit By The Ship, He Fell Uncounsious.
Adam Woke Up In Outside His Own Universe, He Was Stranded In Space Since He Didnt Bring Extra Precautions, For A Few Hours, He Was Something, Dark, And Big Called Called The True Darkness, Adam Squirmed, He Would Try Would Attack The Monster, He Used Beams And More But Failed, He was Absorbed And Woke Up In A Infinite Space, He Tried To Speak To His Friends But Failed, He Would See A Island With Zero Gravity, It Was Only One Big Tree Where Adam Would Enter Desperate For Any Help.
There Would Be Many Orbs With Visible Orbs Inside, Also The Smaller orbs Had Even Smaller Orbs Hand Smaller Orbs And So On, It Was A Structure Of Infinity Of Infinite Timelines, Containing Knowledge Of Absolutely Infinite, The Tree Was Unending And Truely Infinite, Adam Would Go To One And Touch It, He Would Accidentally Crack And Break It, And The Broken Pieces Merge With Adam, Giving Him The Power Of An Infinity Of Infinite Timelines And Transcending Infinite Infinities Of Timelines And All The Concepts Imaginable, The Entirety Of The History Would Flash Before Him He Floated Back In Confusion, He Felt Like He Knew Everything, Since He Did know Everything, He Would Float And See A Structure On Top Of the Tree, He Floated Up And Saw A Saurus Crane, And He Immediately Knew It Was The Gatekeepers Of The Orbs Due To His Omniscience He Obtained, He Would Approach Such God, The Crane Would Offer A Orb, Which He Gave To Adam And The Bird, Or Halfu The Ultimate Would Speak: "I Expected You, Mortal, This Is Your Destiny, I Declare You As The Heir To My Throne" Adam Was. Confused And Speechless, the Next Thing He New, He Flew Into A Place With Many Floating Islands, It All Contained The Same as The Tree He Went In, He Knew It, He Was Baffled On How He Knew, id Float Higher And See A Barrier, He Was In A Infinite Void Of Nothingness Concealed In Absolute Orb That Contains An Infinite Amount Of Trees Which Contained An Infinite Of Infinite Of Infinite And So On, He Would Quite Easily Exit The Orb, He Would Realize, He Is Above This, Above This All... He Would Float Outside The Monster, He Knew, He Was Above This All, He Knew He Was... TRUE... He Is Above All, Every Idea, Concept, Law, Or Theory, He Is Above It.
I'm To Lazy To Finish It, So I'll Probably Make An Update To This Story.

Hello everyone,
I'm seeking four artists or creators to create one digital illustration each for commercial use. These artworks will be printed on aluminum plates, with sizes varying from 20x20 cm to 60x60 cm. As such, I will hold the ownership rights to the finished illustrations.
Compensation and Other Details:
• The payment for each illustration will be around €100-150 (or the equivalent of it of your currency).
• If desired, I will credit you on social media posts and other platforms where the illustration is displayed.
• On top of this, you will receive a 30x30 cm print of your illustration. I'll cover the cost and shipping charges. I only ask you to take 3-5 photos of it, showcasing how it looks on a wall or against a background. These pictures don't have to be professional-grade, but should give a good sense of how the print fits into a space. I would use these photos for my shop and/or social media posts.
Artwork Requirements:
• The illustration should have a 1:1 ratio.
• Minimum resolution of 300 dpi, and should be scalable for printing up to 60x60 cm.
• Art style should be surreal or lean towards surrealism.
Concepts for Illustrations:
I have outlined the four concepts below. Please note that these are just guiding ideas. I'm more than open to your personal interpretations and creative inputs.

1. Dancing Cone (Still open)

A very dark black cone with two silver human legs, seemingly dancing with a small silver sphere floating next to it. The cone has no face or arms. A golden hoop encircles the cone, set against a dark background.

1. Galactic Cat (Still open)

A large cat face, with a friendly grin, set against a dark-blue star-filled background. The left eye houses a galaxy, while the right eye depicts the Big Bang or some other cosmic-scale explosion. The focus should be on the eyes.

1. Golden Tree (Still open)

A large, healthy tree, composed of only golden lines, stands against a dark background beneath a starry night sky. Despite being in a dark wasteland, the tree looks vibrant, its friendly and wise face gazing upon the stars that its branches seem to reach for.

1. Hourglass Desert (Still open)

A gigantic hourglass floats above a desert at night. Sand flowing from a crack in the hourglass forms a procession of animals - a tiger, an elephant, and a giraffe.
If you're interested and have any questions, or if you wish to discuss ideas, payment details, or other project-related information, please feel free to contact me directly. I would also be happy to check out your porfolio first.
Cheers!

Dear GSG, we love WDM, that much is clear so if u/Kaewye's boy really gets taken to the farm upstate, we'd love to pay our respects to him on Hoxxes somehow. To gather a few ideas that popped up:

• In the memorial hall
• as a rarely, and distantly seen NPC that comes in to aid you in random fights, only to disappear afterwards
• as a random cave painting, by which your "rock and stone"-s are sometimes answered by a faint echo
• A lost Bosco that you have to reactivate. Maybe it drops a little Nitra/Gold. Maybe it gives a little snippet of lore. Maybe there's a magazine for your primary/secondary in there somewhere. Or maybe you just fix it, and he salutes, then continues mining some random crystals
• Or he just mines in from the edge of the map towards you. A true wandering dwarf miner (all our bots are honorary dwarves)
• Or maybe it just floats about the Memorial Hall cleaning the statues and memorials. It warbles and waves at you when it passes. Scratched into the side of its chassis is the name 'WANDERER'

Paging u/GSG_Jacob

I have played Diablo 2 a lot, Diablo 3 not so much and now Diablo 4 feels really fun.
However I've never ran into hardcore Diablo players until I opened this subreddit. It was kinda surprising that people really grind the hell out of Diablo games.
For me the game is pretty much this:
"Oh wow this scythe does 37 more damage, I don't know exactly which is better but I I think I'll switch my +4 all stats scythe to it!"
"Oh nice! Orange amulet with +2 to curse skills! Dopamine overload here I come!"
"Oh wow an altar of Lilith gave me something, no idea what it was because I didn't manage to read the floating text and I'm too lazy to delve into the specs so I'll just be happy about it!"
I have no idea what the endgame loop even is but it's really interesting to read about how people get into the grind.
I think a lot of people play like I do but would be nice to hear if there's more plebians like me.

Christianity was the first to give us the idea of original sin, Buddhism the first to give us karma and avidyā [ignorance, unenlightenment]. What Daoism first gave us did not have to reach so far. What it first gave us was right before our eyes, and that was artifice. Pretense and artifice were most responsible for taking away men’s freedom and ease. Towards this, the Daoists had genuine susceptibility, so-called existential susceptibility. From this point of origin we could talk about original sin, and about karma too, for no matter how heinous the sin, this was the problem. The freedom and ease that was like floating clouds and flowing water that the Daoists spoke of required enormous discipline [gongfu, work/effort] and represented a very lofty vision. This vision was reached only with maturation and after being finely tempered. Clearly it required enormous discipline because from this perspective life was very vexing.
From: Lecture 5 The Metaphysics, Xuan Principles, of Daoism
Transcribed by Yi-hsien Hu 胡以嫻
Copyright©2004,2014 Julie Lee Wei

As title, I'm preparing to run CoS for a few friends, and they are being very good at not looking up whats in the module. One PC floated the idea of being from Barovia, or a native there in some form or another, and I thought it was great as it cements the characteparty there and I think it can be an interesting dynamic.
​
They want to play a hexblood as they are very interested in the "was created by hags" aspect of it, and originally their character background in rough was
"made by a coven of hags who lost one of their sister, as a replacement, but she hates it. She hates everyting they stand for, and why theyve made her the way she is, and she hates their links with Strahd. So she escapes them."
​
I know shes looked at the character information for hexblood and seen that they can be made by hags who have lost part of their coven and seek to replace them at some point.
Im still working through the module but from what i can see there is Baba and the Bonegrinder hags, neither of which seem like it would fit their backstory.
Any idea on how I can help work with my player to create their backstory? I have thought of possibly floating the idea of an extra circle of hags somewhere in Barovia, but i'm not 100% sure how to balance "players shouldnt know a lot going into the campaign" and "the player is from Barovia"

So from what I understand, Earth-1610 Miles (“our” Miles) became Spider-Man because because he was bitten by a radioactive spider from Earth-42.
At the end of Across the Spider-Verse, it is revealed that because of these events, Earth-42 does not have a Spider-Man, and Earth-42 Miles is The Prowler.
What I’m wondering is, was Earth-1606 Miles destined to become The Prowler if there had been no dimensional disruption?
This is an idea I’ve seen floating around on the Internet. I’ve seen it said that Earth-42 Miles became The Prowler because he wasn’t bitten by the spider. I don’t think that’s necessarily true though. Rather, I’d argue that Earth-42 Miles became The Prowler because his father died, presumably because there was no Spider-Man to save him directly or indirectly (villains running amok). And because his father died, he couldn’t afford to go to the affluent high school anymore, and his uncle became the guiding male figure in his life. Naturally, assuming Earth-42 Aaron had the same criminal aspirations as Earth-1610 Aaron, it stands to reason that Earth-42 Miles was a convenient acolyte to carry out his schemes while Aaron stood back as the brains of the pair.
The key difference when it comes to Earth-1610 Miles is that Earth-1610 would still have a Spider-Man since Earth-1610 Peter Parker would not have sacrificed himself. So by the rules of canon, Earth-1610 Spider-Man would have prevented the death of Earth-1610 Jefferson directly or indirectly (fewer villains running amok). Earth-1610 Miles would have persisted in a stable household with good role models and a bright future, and it’s quite likely that he would’ve grown up pretty well.
At the same time, Earth-1610 Miles idolized his uncle, and it’s still conceivable that he would’ve rebelled against his parents and chosen to go down a darker path of his own volition. I think this relies on more assumptions though than what we’ve been given from these two movies, and given how Miles Morales is generally a standup guy, unless Earth-42 Miles is somehow evil, I’m much more inclined to attribute Earth-42 Miles’ path to becoming The Prowler as a matter of unfortunate circumstances and environmental factors brought about by the dimensional disruption robbing Earth-42 of a Spider-Man.
I do still think that there’s a lot of thematic richness that can be explored in the next movie. Not that Earth-1610 Miles was destined to become The Prowler, but that Earth-42 Miles was destined to become Spider-Man - and yet, with one tiny difference in reality, Earth-42 Miles’ life changed for much worse.
Curious to hear what others have to say on this.

I'm looking for a speedometer app or widget that will float at the top of my interface regardless of whichever app I may have open. There's plenty of speedometer apps out there, but they occupy the entire phone screen space so that's not going to work for me.
I do vintage rallies so my stock speedometer is not really reliable or even visible. I always have my mapping apps up on my phone, so to be able to see my speed on there is helpful when I'm traveling to and from events on the interstate or highway. Waze does this, but the majority of the routes are delivered via google maps or other programs so I'm often left without a speedo.
I have to believe there's gotta be a nice tidy floating overlay, widget or app out there that does this as I found a few android ones in my searching, but I came up empty handed on iOS. Any ideas or help? Thanks!

I’ve just booked a trip for August. Staying at Sequoia lodge.
Any idea why it was cheaper than Santa Fe or Cheyenne?
I went last in November so pretty familiar, but then I only had my six year old son, this time we are also taking my husband and 2 year old daughter.
There’s no way she will do the queues to see the princesses. Do they appear in any of the parades?
Anything you can think of that will save my sanity or make it extra magical?

Some quick info first. My current play through I started on the Windhelm docks. I explored all around Windhelm, and the areas surrounding it. I had no mesh issues and everything worked as it should. When I came back through windhelm when I was doing the College of Winterhold quests (on my way to Mzulft) northern roads seems to have stopped working. I'm going to break my RP character and head to places I know it was work to see if it's just this area or if it's ALL the roads.
I have missing texture chunks on the main roads. Flora and other various things floating where the road should be, dramatic holes you can see under the map and other various things of that nature. I have no idea why it would stop working, but it is what it is lol.
I've narrowed it down to one or a combo of these mods: Better Dynamic Snow SE, JK's windhelm outskirts (one of the added features, the bridge, was no longer present) and Northern roads itself.
I went back to each of these mod pages to check posts on them, and I've ran loot to make sure that it's in it's right spot (I'm going back to the mod page for Northern Roads to see where people recommend to put it if loot didn't place it right). If anyone has had any issues with Norther roads and any of the other mods I use I'd love some help solving this issue. I'm going to check again and make a new save and just run around and check to see if it's also just my save that this happened to as well.
I'm not very good and knowing how to sort Load Order stuff and I don't want to start moving things around without some kind of idea of where things should go.
Update: I've somehow nuked this save completely. Skyrim isn't picking up ANY of my mods now. sweeeet.
Update 2: I've fixed my issue. turns out I redownloaded one of my mods patches and threw it all off. I've got northern roads back to working again. It wasn't low enough in my load order for it to work right. I also reinstalled a few other mods that were related and it's all about 90% fixed. There are still some road issues, but they're not glaring. I'm going to keep messing with it until i've got it right.

There was an American philosopher - John Searle: he was squinted in one eye and studied speech as a social phenomenon. In the 1980s there was a boom of discoveries in the field of artificial intelligence and, like me, John couldn't pass by and started studying it. It didn't take long for the results to come in - his "Chinese Room" mental experiment is still the subject of heated debate in scientific circles. Let's find out where the cat-wife is hiding, and does John deserve a bowl of rice?

Why did John explode?

John Searle was an exponent of analytic philosophy, which, in short, is when thinking is not just free-floating, but is backed up by rigorous chains of logic, analysis of semantics, and does not run counter to common sense.
Even before Chinese Room, he was known for his definition of the Indirect Speech Act.
You know, when instead of "Give me money," they say, "Can I borrow it from you?
That is, they use a questioning form instead of a request, while in fact, they don't wait for an answer to their question.
They are waiting for money. And it's better if You send it to the card, and without asking too many questions.
So, while John was digging into the language and the reasons for the human being's special love of all kinds of manipulation, a number of important inventions in the field of Artificial Intelligence happened in the 1980s:

• The first expert systems appeared - which could model expert knowledge in different fields and use that knowledge to make decisions;
• New neural network training algorithms were developed that formed the basis of the neural networks we have now, which threaten to take our jobs away;
• Developed the first industrial robots - which gave a boost to modern robotics;
• The emergence of the first computer vision systems - those that are now easily found by photo where to buy your favorite mug .

This number of discoveries, as is often the case, generates a huge amount of talk, professional and not so professional, in kitchens and conferences, but all about the same thing:

Are we on the verge of creating that very, scary, yet delightful, artificial intelligence? And will it have consciousness?

Conversations in kitchens did not bother Searle too much, but the scientist could not go quietly past his colleagues' concerns:
In 1977, Roger Schenk and Co. (we'll skip the details) developed a program designed to mimic the human ability to understand stories.
It was based on the assumption that if people understood stories, they could answer questions about those stories.
"So, for example, imagine being given the following story: "A man went into a restaurant and ordered a hamburger. When the hamburger was served, it turned out to be burnt, and the man left the restaurant in a rage without paying for the hamburger or leaving a tip." And so if you're asked: "Did the man eat the hamburger?" you will probably answer, "No, he didn't." Likewise, if you are presented with the following story: "A man went into a restaurant and ordered a hamburger; when the hamburger was served, he really liked it; and when he left the restaurant, he gave the waitress a big tip before paying the bill," and will be asked: "Did the man eat his hamburger?" you will apparently answer, "Yes, he did."
John Searle (Minds, Brains, and Programs, 1980)
So Schenk's program was quite successful in answering such questions, from which a number of fans of strong AI (I mean AGI) drew the following conclusions:

• You could say that the program understands the story and answers the questions;
• What the program does is explain the human ability to understand the story and answer the questions.

This is where Johnny blew up:
"It seems to me, however, that Schenk's work in no way supports either of these two assertions, and I will now attempt to show it"
John Searle.

Chinese Room Argument

So, the experiment:

1. I am locked in a room and given a huge text in Chinese. I don't know Chinese - from the word "at all", to me it's just a bunch of meaningless squiggles.
2. Then I'm given a second batch of Chinese texts, but now with a set of rules (in a language I understand) - how to compare this batch of text with the previous one.
3. Then I'm given a third batch of Chinese text - again with instructions, allowing me to compare elements of the third text with the first two. And also instructions on how to compose a new text in Chinese from these texts, arranging the characters in a certain order.

The first text in Chinese is called a "manuscript," the second a "story," and the third a "question". And what I compose in Chinese is "answers". But I don't know all this, because I still don't know or understand Chinese.

So, starting with the 3rd iteration, I start to bring back perfectly readable Chinese texts. And the further - the better, because I learn to match these scribbles faster, as well as redraw them, to give them back.
For the purity of the experiment, let's add a parallel story - that I also receive the same 3 types of texts in my native language - and I also return answers to them.
From the outside it will seem that my "answers" to the Chinese "questions" are indistinguishable in quality from those I give out in my native language.
However, in the case of Chinese "answers" - I only give out answers by manipulating the order of the unknown squiggles. According to the instructions.
That is, I behave like an ordinary computer program: processing the algorithm, making calculations.
The conclusions from this experiment I will quote John - our syllables are very similar:
"And so AGI's claim is that the computer understands stories and, in a sense, explains human understanding. But we can now examine these claims in light of our mental experiment:
1. Regarding the first claim - it seems quite obvious to me that in this example I do not understand a single word in the Chinese stories.
My input/output is indistinguishable from a native Chinese speaker, and I can possess any program I want, and yet - I understand nothing*. On the same grounds, Shenk's computer understands nothing about any story: Chinese stories, English stories, whatever. Because in the case of the Chinese stories: the computer is me, and in the cases where the computer is not me, it does not possess anything more than I possessed in the case in which I understood nothing.*
2. As to the second claim, that the program explains human understanding, we see that the computer and its program do not provide sufficient conditions for understanding, because the computer and the program work, but in the meantime, there is no understanding*."*
Johnny-bro
For the most observant and ruthless, you correctly noted that this proof, while logical, is far from exhaustive. In fact, it is dangerous to call it a proof.
However, this example is only meant to show the implausibility of claims about the presence of Understanding in Artificial Intelligence.

Criticisms and commentators

Let me say in advance - this experiment is relevant even now. Especially, now. I mean that it has been discussed for 43 years, and I believe it will continue to be discussed.
I will name only the main claims and brief comments to them:

1. If we load a machine with all information at once - in all languages - and it can behave indistinguishably from a human - will this mean understanding?

• No, because the ability to reproduce is not understanding. So if a machine didn't have understanding before, it doesn't have it now.

1. If we load such a program into the robot, add computer vision and control - would that be true understanding?

• No, because the Robot in this case is no different than claim #1.

1. If we create a program that not only follows a script, but also excites neurons in the right sequence, mimicking the excitation in the brain of a native Chinese speaker - what then?

• One has to wonder, then, who is making such claims - since the idea behind creating AGI is, after all, that we don't have to know how the mind works in order to know how the brain works.

(Otherwise - we're still a long way from the risk of creating AGI)

1. If you take and combine the 3 claims into one - a robot, with a computer brain, with all the synapses, with perfectly duplicative behavior - then it claims to Understanding?!

• Yes. Okay. But how to implement it is unknown.

So far there is only one working example - Man.

What, then, is the difference between us and AI?

Here we need a definition of the word intentionality.

Intentionality is the ability of consciousness to relate to, represent, or express things, properties, and situations in some way.

So the difference is that no manipulation of symbol sequences is intentional in itself. It makes no sense.
In fact, it is not even a manipulation - because these symbols do not symbolize anything for the machine/program.
All conversations around Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence are based on the same intentionality - only those who actually possess it:
The people who makes requests/prompts - get and interpret the answers. And that is what Consciousness and the capacity for Understanding is all about.

Extra level

If you've made it all the way here, congratulations! We went from the simple to the complex, and for you I will separately describe the purpose of the experiment:
With it, we were able to see that if we put anything truly intentional into a system, when a program of such a system is running - it creates no additional intentionality at all!
That is, everything that was Conscious and Human in this machine - that remains. It does not multiply.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussions about this experiment are still going on. But I agree with Searle that the very emergence of such a discussion is rather an indication that its initiators are not too well versed in the concepts of "information processing". Believing that the human brain does the same thing as the computer in terms of "information processing" - is deliberately false.
After all, a computer answering "2x2" = "4" has no idea what "four" is and whether it means anything at all.
And the reason for this is not the lack of information, but the absence of any interpretation in the sense in which Man does it.
Otherwise we would start attributing Consciousness to any telephone receiver, fire alarm, or, God bless, a dried-up cookie.
But that is a topic for a new article.

So the Arborec is easily my favorite faction. I know they're not exactly... good, but I've been brainstorming some ideas on how to make some sort of build path for them. I tried it out last game I played, and it did alright, but the game wasn't the most competitive and I wanted to share the idea and get some feedback.
List of initial thoughts

1. Arborec Tech is useless. You have to go green, and the upgrades are mediocre at best.
   
2. Arborec Flagship is bad. It's far too expensive for being a mediocre ship with a very niche ability.
   
3. Magen Defense Grid is very hard to use on Arborec. But it is Red, so here comes the strategy.
   

Technology: We're going to rush Tech a little bit. We don't need a lot, but ideally we get 4 techs very quickly (no later than round 3.) Ideally, we want Tech and we want someone else to take Diplo and 3 resources on planets we can take. If we can't get Tech, we definitely want Trade, with Diplo as a backup. The important thing is to research as much as possible. Sarween as early as we can (but don't miss out on a double tech R1 if we can), then AI Development Algorithm. Afterwards, you know it baby, we're going War Suns, and we follow up with Destroyer Upgrade. Anything after this is a bonus (you need your money for War Sun production)
So the fleet composition is pretty simple, one War Sun backed up by Destroyers and fighters/infantry as the situation demands. The upgraded Destroyers should protect the War Sun from a large fighter fleet, and the War Sun should provide enough fire power to defeat most fleets. The War Sun is the only expensive unit you need, as you can print destroyers using Sarween tools and being the Arborec.
And then we follow with a bold play. We're probably struggling, but there is one thing the Arborec is good at: Holding a Planet. And we're going to hold Mecatol Rex. The important thing is that we don't need to hold the airpspace, only the ground. So the plan is simple: Attack Mecatol Rex, take the planet, produce a ton of infantry (and one Mech for Defense Shield), then try to nab Imperial as much as possible.
Obviously this won't win you the game, the other players should deny imperial as much as they can. However, the hope is that you'll create enough discord at the table that you slow the game down and can focus better on other objectives. Focus on getting Imperial when you can, show that you will win the game this way, but hopefully other players will be stuck debating on who's taking the punishment of stopping you.
There are some obvious shortcomings. Drawing the Ire of the table is always risky, and frankly a table that is very heavily float boaty might just not care about Mecatol. My table is not float boaty at all, and we generally refuse to trade supports, so I have nothing to base my idea on this. Hell, the entire idea is that you take Mecatol and then the other players stop working together because no one wants to slow themselves down to stop you. A double tech round 1 also leaves you with very little plastic on the board, since most (if not all) of your resources will go into it. Anyone with ideas might have an early attack in mind.
But, in my totally unbiased opinion, it's an interesting idea that tries to circumnavigate some of their issues. It utilizes the starting tech and ignores the bad flagship and faction tech. The fleet is also relatively inexpensive for it's power, with the only hurdle being the expensive war sun (though AI Development Algorithm can help make those cheaper)
Also, as a closing statement: Commander - Surprise War Sun - VERY fun.

​
Most importantly: the casting of Ariel obviously is the biggest problem with the production. And everybody can plainly see that, but not anybody is allowed to just say it, because of absurd and oppressive accusations and arguments, for example -
"Mermaids are mythological, they don't have a race, who cares if she is black now, you racists."
Spongebob Squarepants is not even half-human, yet if they suddenly painted him blue, everybody would obviously dissociate. Not because folks are prejudiced against blue, but because Spongebob would look like a freaking alien to us.
We're very, very obviously not talking about "mermaid representation" and "being historically accurate," you morons, we're talking specifically about Ariel, a specifically established character in a specifically established story stamped in time as a classic. It's not race, it's basic association: red hair, floppy bangs, blue eyes, fair skin, green tail, period.
The only person talking about race is you, the person calling folks racist.
"Representation for blacks matters, stop being salty."
But you just yelled about how 'mermaids were mythological and that the element of race was not only irrelevant but an entirely stupid thing to associate with the character'...? So what is this angle supposed to be if not hypocritical? If her race does in fact matter, mythological or not, because representation does in fact matter, then that would mean it absolutely does in fact matter that you changed her race to begin with.
"Halle IS Ariel, she was born to play this role."
The number one and only prerequisite to meet while emulating a freaking cartoon character is the appearance. And everybody knows it, stop trying to triggegaslight innocent, unsuspecting audiences everywhere. Everything else is performance, wardrobe, direction, script, etc. Like what if I told you "Denzel Washington was born to play Johnny Bravo because he can do the voice well-ish enough"...? Would you be able to take me seriously? No? How about if I accused you of a hate crime?
"Nobody complained about Jasmine or Belle looking different!"
Are you stupid...? For one, they didn't look all that different.
a. Jasmine matched more or less the same as her cartoon counterpart, in appearance and in energy, only she was prettier and like barely one shade lighter; what's more, that was a fantastic singer and actress: and even so, YESSS, everybody complained, there was a collective Wilhelm fucking scream/race war until all of the idiots simmered the fuck down upon the revelation that the cartoon wasn't specifically Indian or Arabic or anything but a fictitious hodgepodge of both-ish loll and that the actress looked the part enough-ish, which didn't actually matter, because she wasn't even the star, Aladdin was, and they fucking NAILED him in recreation, NAILED him, and wasn't that so satisfying to witness as a viewer...? hm...?
b. Belle matched more or less the same as her cartoon counterpart- ONLY in skin and hair color and general cuteness or softness of face; she was a hideous dumpster fire compared to the cartoon, in appearance and in energy, and she was a horrific actress and singer; and yes, people complained like crazy... and no matter how hard they did and always will, it will actually still never be enough. She sucked for that role as much as this new girl does for Ariel.
But yeah: none of these bitches looked much different from their cartoon versions. What they did to Ariel is like... if you made the cookie monster pink and instead of cookies, he was into cupcakes.
"The bad reviews are coming from one source: racists."
No, you're the racist for saying so though. And a manipulative fucking asshole.
"You all . . ."
"You all" nothing, because I am not white, I am not a blue-eyed Danish redhead, many of us having this fit are not and have zero cultural or physical identification to Ariel. I am not defending myself and/or my people through Ariel, you're the only one doing that here, that is exactly why it is so impossible to get through to you with objective ass points lol. I am not racist against you and/or your people using Ariel as the tool to unleash my hidden racism demons, get it the fuck together you asshole, wtf. This is "personal" to me, only insofar as it toys with my childhood memories and it reminds me of my disdain for disney, the media, politics, and the way the idiot masses are so easily pit against each other through their transparent, haphazard, lazy brands of manipulation and insulting pseudo-representation. "You all" nothing when I'm trying to say "We all," wtf is the problem. These remakes mortify all of humanity, just let me say it. It's "BLM' all over again, when one time I accidentally said "ALM" because I wasn't up to speed yet and didn't know it was a patented hate crime, and I was nearly trampled to death for it. yet my neighbor who posted a black box on instagram was being paraded on society's shoulders as the second coming of MLK jr. like What the fuck kind of role am I supposed to play, can I just be myself and have people just figure I'm not a freaking psychopath or not? Can I just make honest observations without people assuming my stance has shit to do with my own race, gender, or anything personal? This shit is sick people. If you think it is wrong to change the race of established characters in reanimation, then that should apply to all races, all ways, otherwise, you are kinda racist, and/or if you think media representation is insanely important, then you should be fixated on creating original representation, at the very least, not using another culture's or thanking and defending the company that is actually using you for their representation. And if you think I am racist for fucking saying this, you have mental problems. That's it.
​
~.~.~
​
And then of course this girl is an abusive fucking bitch.
For example-
Halle and Disney:
"black mermaaaid! extry, extry! come get your black mermaid!! that's right, look at my skin color, you racists, look at all of these freaking racists and their backlash! all they see is color-> i'm BLACK! so let's talk about how important ariel's dreadlocks are to MY story in 15 interviews, and let's also talk about black girls who can now look up to me because i'm black! but it's not about race you guys! but like remember to go back to seeing in color again in time for when The Color Purple hits theaters too because i actually am being black in that one so don't mix them up okay? anyway: BLACK!"
Innocuous Interviewer Along the Way:
"so, black mermaid, you say?! how beautiful! cool! gorgeous voice! ariel incarnate! shining star, world peace, god bless you!"
Halle and Disney:
"WhaT?! how dare you see my skin color and say my skin color? cancel all racists! who told you i'm black!? who told you to notice and care?! i'm so oppressed you guys, look what i ~\endure*~ see this is exactly what i've been talking about during marketing since 2020 :( i'm black :( stop saying it though :( only me say it +* you see it, but no reminding me :( so racist :( okay anyway, as i was saying, mermaid dreadlocks are really important for my people, this is our roots, and i wish white people would stop complaining that my hair looks and acts different from that white girl's in their own culture's dumb culture-less original. mermaids are not real and neither is white culture, okay, everybody knows that, there's no such thing. they're being racist."
​
It's like, bitch:
- The Little Mermaid is fucking Nordic- Denmark, you asshole. Hence her physical features in the cartoon. The greatest deviation from that in the cartoon is that Eric's seaside looks more Mediterranean, which is fine because we were still being generally whitey-European- and we had a Jamaican crab for fucking flair. We weren't running off to the Caribbeans (?) of some Victorian 18th century (?) where a black female ruler somehow existed (?) in some insanely prosperous, productive Utopian royal-yet-peasanty bubble island (?) and adopted some *actually* danish-esque shipwrecked bastard who floated there on a raft (?) for the first of many times in his life now apparently made purely of milestones marked by what ship wrecked him at what age (?) and is now to be white king of this highly exclusively black village-empire-colony-dynasty (?) only if he can get past this millennial helicopter parent of a matriarch-monarch because that's her only order of business in all the land (?).
Like, you do understand how much this is not even *your* or anybody's representation, right...? You stole from a realer narrative to pedal your flimsy fake one while shouting at "white people" that "mermaids are mythological so nothing about anything matters except getting blacks on TV"...?
- And also hence her fucking name, Ariel a spirit of the air, or of the North/Nord; and hence the fucking meaning of the name a light or a lion of god, as in her light skin and/or her fiery red hair. NO, "lion king" and/or an untamed orange mane is not the fucking association, and even if it were, you already played in The Lion King! Remember?! You and Beyonce fucked that one up like five minutes ago! Give it a fucking rest get the fuck out of here you parasitic supremacist.
Fucking nobody even cared about your race in the first place,
the masses mostly cared about the basic associative image of the basic ass drawing done thirty years ago and has thus obviously just naturally cemented itself as an intensely nostalgic icon.
You brought race into this, so then FINE:
EVEN on the level of your racially charged and biased freaking playing field:
you're still the only one in this equation who is a flagrant fucking racist, because YES actually, this icon most definitely is already rooted in a specific culture's set of creations and unique representation,
and we didn't even see it that way or think of it like that,
until you fucking forced us down here to witness your ridiculous claims!
You forced a whole category of demographics to go up in arms to have to defend themselves as well as a whole established culture there when you literally:
a. claimed racial ownership of their classic,
b. insisted "white people have no culture,"
c. insisted the "color of the mermaid didn't matter,"
d. insisted the "color of the mermaid being black though did matter,"
e. labeled folks who saw this paradox "racist" without a second thought,
d. and then psychologically/verbally attacked/alienated everyone based on your:
i. inflamed entitlement,
ii. shameless ignorance,
iii. false empowerment,
iv. capacity to be so easily manipulated by disney,
v. and blind racism. like against everybody.
Literally, from start to end of this weird conquest of yours.
​
Leave fucking classics alone!
If you switch them up just to float your own culture's propaganda,
I am going to make fun of you and your culture, lol,
And I am going to enjoy it, and I am not even a racist,
And doing so wouldn't make me a racist.
As I said, it would make you the racist.
Because wtf are you doing repainting narratives and characters.
​
Don't dangle irrelevant shit in people's faces,
Otherwise people are going to mock your irrelevance.
That's it.
Your culture's not stupid,
But you look stupid right now here in this doing this shit.
And yes, it's funny and it's fun to laugh.
What else is there to even do?
You replaced all the actual entertainment value with this shit lol.
THIS is the entertainment I've extracted from it thus,
This, writing this, hating you, is fucking fun,
More fun than digesting your product, whose fault is that?
Be grateful I'm still this engaged and part of it.
This is still a great contribution to your stupid agenda thing.
You're welcome, as usual.
But it's not more fun than just enjoying things labeled as
"Your personal favorite childhood memories,"
in this case to me, "The Little Mermaid,"
so fucking quit it.
This was me coping, and good on me for making a tragedy fun,
But let's not exploit this valve that is my soul lol.
​
Now please go ahead and collect your freaking ethnicities, all of you, every last fucking culture out here, and leave the plot of all of our already established films alone.
(yeah Aladdin Remake, i'm also talking to you, and you hang back after class, because i have another lecture for you specifically)
​
Create new films for representation if that's what you want!
Don't infiltrate the homes of unsuspecting families just trying to eat popcorn and fart and laugh at their old favorite hits together.
​
THIS was the first era in my life where I was unable to post a FILM review onto Google Reviews, Rotten Tomatoes, and Reddit for a film. That's all I've been doing for like a decade lol, all of a sudden: CENSORED. And this was the first era in my life where I MADE DAMN SURE not to use curse words or ANY kind of term or even fucking tone that might be anything darker than neutral. I mean... all of this pent up frustration now, and guess who I am going to take it out on? The face of this entire debacle: that black girl and that white film director.
THIS was a serious moment where multiple credited sites like imdb and rotten tomatoes "updated" their "rating formats" and openly filtered/cherry-picked top reviews repeatedly like fighting against currents despite how aware the people have been of it. That is so fucking unsettling.
And they are doing this claiming it's because "all these black-hating racists keep review-bombing"
WHILE the number one movie on our planet right now is about a black spider-man lmao, yes, a literally equally black-washed white fictitious character-- during the same era where the WHITE spiderman has a black MJ, to boot.
See? Nobody cares. If anything, everybody's in love.
And this black mermaid movie is actually number two, at least in america, so great, wonderful, people sincerely gave fucks enough like all this to go watch it! Plus, this singer, along with actress Zendaya for example, are like reigning supreme over their entire generation as we all applaud genuinely and throw roses, so like just mother fucking shut the fuck up already. what white movies are even out!? Fast and Furious part 600 is all people of color and that was number one for like a month before all this, what racism? where racism? how, when, who, what the fuck. Nobody is review-bombing a fucking thing, this remake just happens to suck really hard, the girl happens to be a horrible actress and a very evidently, observably miscast dullard, especially because that one singular image of that one cartoon character was not to be tampered with, plus too many people are insulted by the whole pandering thing.
The End.
​
So my review of this freaking sham is therefore:
I believe this moment in history will be taught in history classes to display an era where an entire culture was racist without even knowing it, whilst accusing itself of being racist in a whole other way for a whole other reason allegedly concerning the miscasting of a mermaid cartoon, almost as if consciously to distract itself from understanding how inherently racist it itself just fucking was; during this chaos of utter confusion, obviously puppeteered by the media, the media took further advantage by pitting these idiots all against each other to make money for their new cartoon film and/or continue laundering blood money as they do through the clogged vessel that is Hollywood, as well as you know, harvest the globe of their hateful, confused, stressed-for-no-fucking-reason energy, vampires that they are, ensuring humanity at large is just replaying the same thirty-odd years on loop on loop over and over unto infinity in a downward spiral toward hell for these demons to continue leeching off us until, I don't know, God decides to do shit about it and set us all free.

We've known each other for about 7 years and have been best friends throughout all of it. We did almost everything together. School dances, pride parades (we're both ace), birthdays, and any other occasion to hang out with someone imaginable. Also for anyone wondering NB stands for non-binary. Which is non conforming to any gender.
Back in December on the 18th, which we call "our birthday" as they were born a week before me, we were trying out this amazing sushi place. We had just finished eating and were discussing what we were going to do next, which ended up being this play that they wanted to see. So we set the date, cleared our schedules and everything was going perfectly. I thought that it was finally time to tell them how I feel. They had always wanted to get matching tattoos with someone, so I put together a ton of ideas that we definitely wouldn't regret later in our lives. So I was going to show them the tattoo ideas, and tell them how I felt after the play ended.
A day before the big moment we were talking on the phone and they told me that a mutual friend of ours asked them out on a romantic date. They said yes. My brain exploded. I died a little inside. So I did what any idiodic teenager would do, I blurted out how I felt there and then. They hung up and we didn't talk for a week. Then it was 2 weeks, and now it's been a month.
I've been trying to text, call, and even email. Any way possible to contact them. They didn't block me on anything, but I'm not even sure they've seen or heard the many messages I left. I know I should just give them time, but I'm losing my mind. I can't lose them. They are all I have.
I guess my one question is, do I keep trying to contact them? Do I leave them alone? Do I purge my mind of any romantic feelings I might have? That's more than one question. I just want to explain myself. Tell them that I'm sorry and I'll leave them alone if they want that.
TLDR I confessed my feelings to my best friend after they had said yes to a date with a mutual friend. We haven't spoken since. Should I abandon all hope of any kind of relationship with them, be it platonic or romantic? Or do I keep trying to contact them?