Hint: If you ever encounter this puzzle in a crossword app, just [term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality].
A Crossword Puzzle [Explained]
Transcript
[A square 15x15 crossword puzzle is shown. Only 21 of the 225 squares are black. The black squares are in a pattern that are 180 degree rotationally symmetrical. Three black squares down from the 11th column and similarly three black squares up from the 5th column. Three black squares out from the right in row 7 and then two more black squares diagonally up from the end. Similarly three black squares out from the left in row 9 with two more black squares diagonally down from the end. A single black square is three above the first black square on the diagonal going down to the right and similarly there is a black square three under the first of the diagonal squares going down to the left. (Row 6 column 12 and Row 10 column 4). Finally there are three black squares on a diagonal crossing over the central point by going up from the left through the central point (Row 8 column 8). There are numbers at the top of every column (except the one that is a black square) and similarly at the left edge of all rows (except the one that is a black square). There are also numbers at the bottom of every black segment (except the one that reaches the bottom) and all rows after black segments except the one that reaches the right edge. In total all numbers from 1 to 51 is written. They are written in reading order from 1 to 51.]
[Below the square there are two rows of clues for each number that belongs to across (rows) and to the right there are one row of clues for each number that belongs to down (columns). Both segments have an underlined and bold title above the clues. ]
'''Across'''
1. Famous Pvt. Wilhelm quote
11. IPv6 address record
15. "CIPHERTEXT" decrypted with Vigenère key "CIPHERTEXT"
16. 8mm diameter battery
17. "Warthog" attack aircraft
18. Every third letter in the word for "inability to visualize"
19. An acrostic hidden on the first page of the dictionary
21. Default paper size in Europe
22. First four unary strings
23. Lysine codon
24. 40 CFR Part 63 subpart concerning asphalt pollution
25. Top bond credit rating
26. Audi coupe
27. A pair of small remote batteries, when inserted
29. Unofficial Howard Dean slogan
32. A 4.0 report card
33. The "Harlem Globetrotters of baseball" (vowels only)
34. 2018 Kiefer song
35. Top Minor League tier
36. Reply elicited by a dentist
38. ANAA's airport
41. Macaulay Culkin's review of aftershave
43. Marketing agency trade grp.
44. Soaring climax of Linda Eder's ''Man of La Mancha''
46. Military flight community org.
47. Iconic line from ''Tarzan''
48. Every other letter of Jimmy Wales's birth state
49. Warthog's postscript after "They call me ''mister'' pig!"
50. Message to Elsa in ''Frozen 2''
51. Lola, when betting it all on Black 20 in ''Run Lola Run''
“Down
1. Game featuring "a reckless disregard for gravity"
2. 101010101010101010101010 [sub]2→16
3. Google phone released July '22
4. It's five times better than that ''other'' steak sauce
5. ToHex(43690)
6. Freddie Mercury lyric from ''Under Pressure''
7. Full-size Audi luxury sedan
8. Fast path through a multiple choice marketing survey
9. 12356631 in base 26
10. Viral Jimmy Barnes chorus
11. Ruby Rhod catchphrase
12. badbeef + 9efcebbb
13. In Wet Let's ''Ur Mum'', what the singer has been practicing
14. Refrain from Nora Reed bot
20. Mario button presses to ascend Minas Tirith's walls
Chapters 59 & 61: Puts together a blank puzzle with "L" in the corner
Chapter 61: Builds a tower of regular playing cards
Chapter 62: Builds a tower of matchsticks
Chapters 63 & 64: Tries (and fails) to throw darts at a dart board
Chapter 66: Builds what looks like an entire city of dice, and then proceeds to wreak havoc on the city when his team members die
Chapter 67: Surrounds himself with multiple "plastic models" (as described in HTR13) - includes robots and several planes/air vehicles, as well as crafting supplies which he uses to glue the robot back together after purposefully breaking it
Chapter 71: Handcrafts a dart that looks like an evil narwhal, fails to throw it at the board and breaks one of his robots with it instead
Chapter 75: Sits in the centre of a Lego structure, surrounded by many other toys including his robots. Breaks one of the Lego walls using a robot
Chapter 76: Sits in the centre of a circular train track. Later when Mello shows up, he is playing with a robot and a plastic gun
Chapter 77: Plays with a few plastic robots
Chapter 78: Surrounds himself with a ring of tarot cards
Chapter 79: Plays with a "secret base set" (once again, HTR13 wording) which looks like a large diorama with palm trees, a road and some nondescript building in the background. At the end of this chapter, he can be seen breaking a robot
Chapter 80: Attempts to smuggle six robots into his new base; only manages to smuggle five (interestingly only five are mentioned on his toy list in HTR13, so I'm guessing this is actually just a continuity error)
Chapter 81: Plays with a robot, then builds a small structure using dice
Chapter 82: Reveals that the dice in the structure are actually boxes containing even more dice and empties them out onto the desk. Then moves on to his robots
Chapter 83: Plays with a toy plane
Chapter 85: Uses finger puppets to represent his thought process
Chapter 86: Plays with two remote-controlled rubber ducks in an inflatable pool
Chapter 88: Now has a total of 28 rubber ducks. Stacks several of them on top of each other, then fills the pool with them. 10 are left on the floor
Chapter 89: Builds a radio tower out of paper
Chapters 90-94: Once again uses models to represent his thought process; this time he has Lego figurines, a model of the NHN building, a plastic gun and a tiny notebook. He also decorates his Christmas tree with them in Chapter 92
Chapter 94: The finger puppets return in the second half of the chapter
Chapter 95: Plays with a marble roller coaster
Chapter 96: Works on Misa Amane's finger puppet
Chapter 97: Has kagami mochi on the floor with several plastic toys surrounding it; he can be seen playing with one of them
Chapter 98: Uses his puppets while explaining his rules for the warehouse confrontation, and also brings out the miniature notebook from chapter 90
Chapters 100-107: Uses his puppets again when necessary, and also wears a mask of L which he apparently made himself
Chapter 108: Plays with a robot and eats chocolate while surrounded by an array of plastic figurines
SO! First of all, I wanna say that we did get the answer to the flower enigma two days ago: the answer is "Tallulah" and we get that by the first letter in the flowers names. However, the "u" is filling a gap, because in the video, instead of a flower that starts with the letter "u", theres a question mark. We do know it's the right answer because when we get the right answer we also get the thank you message, which we did get that day.
NOW. Here's the resolve from the help me message enigma. Once again, I'm translating stuff from cellbit's discord so props to them!
First of all, if you haven't seen it yet, here's the "help me" animation from yesterday's stream.
At almost the same time, forever's channel's twitter accounts posts yet again, with the tweet saying "I need your help, one last time" and a "help me" in echantmant table symbols.
THEN, at the same time, this is where @disfrutalakia post about the arg enters. There's the message on the website that translates into "the sound that the clock does? @v@", with new sound on the background.
They analyzed the website audio's spectrogram, and realized that it's actually a code. "aW5ienlfa21jaHp2b3NfeHd5eG13d2k=". Using the Base64 on this code, it turns into "inbzy_kmchzvos_xwyxmwwi", which, at first look would mean nothing, but following the "the sound that the clock does" clue, they put the code in a TikTok URL, finding the profile @inbzy_kmchzvos_xwyxmwwi
In the description of each video, there's a different code.
Video 1 - 70 72 65 63 69 73 6f
Video 2 - 64 65
Video 3 - 61 6a 75 64 61
Video 4 - 65 6c 65 73
Video 5 - 6e e3 6f
Video 6 - 70 6f 64 65 6d
Video 7 - 6d 65
Video 8 - 70 61 72 61 72
Video 9 - 61 67 6f 72 61
Decodifying that in hexadecimal, we get the phrase "I need help they can't stop me now"
On the videos themselves, a picture would always blink. The pictures from a puzzle.
At the end, what they got from the binary code was "Dqpoamtbsav / Sajidp / Xcpq". After they sent this answer, a new link was made available: https://foreverstudios.com.br
This new link has a timer, at the time I'm making this post this is how it looks like:
(the timer is set to end at 17 PM brasília time (GMT-3), today. which is also usually the time forever generally starts his livestreams btw)
We also got a new post on twitter.
"almost there...
keep these informations for the right time."
The echantmant table translation goes "you just need to wait..."
So, yeah! This was yesterday's part of the arg. Let's all hold hands and pray for forever's stream today lmao
Once again HUGE props to cellbit's discord and also forever's team for coming up with this arg! Here's a link to the cellbit discord fan twitter account and also noozy's twitter account, since shes the main person behind the arg stuff <3
Haunting Heroes DPxDC Discord played a fun game during 2023 named "Guess That Fic?" (hosted by the amazing DisillusionedDanny). The premise: guess the name of a DPxDC story based on the following bad summaries, memes, or strings of emojis.
Here are the stories suggested by some of our members for rounds 61-70, anonymized so you can play and find new stories to read (thanks to Nixxie, T (Ectoentity), Chroma, Dizzly Puzzled, and Leith for these submissions!)
Ready for more guessing? 👀
61. [Story Link] - (Hint: It's a summary)
62. [Story Link]
Jason and Danny meet up to fight randomly for months before they learn each others' names.
[More under the cut]
63. [Story Link]
Danny didn’t mean to kill the Joker. Or get adopted by Catwoman.
64. [Story Link]
Jason is charged with taking care of the baby ghost king and has to be roommates with the Fright Knight.
65. [Story Link]
66. [Story Link]
67. [Story Link]
👍➕🚫🪦➖👻📖🚼🦸♂️🚫🪦
68. [Story Link]
🦸♂️🤷😮💨🤡🦇👻👻😈
69. [Story Link]
70. [Story Link]
Danny's pissed, the Bats are panicking, Jason's dramatic, and Tim hates dreaming
Just made it to the finish line, with 100% of my goals complete! Like Bond, I left a few things till the very last minute, but I managed to pull off a win!
Here's a round-up of all my Fest stuff from this month!
Fics
An Exhaustive Review of the Quartermaster's Favorite Jumpers, Personally Rated and Reviewed By 007
black cat, nine lives (short days, long nights)
like a match in a forest fire
as gaps between the teeth
Headcanons
The MI6 crew's film and TV preferences
The MI6 crew's approach to workplace gossip
What the MI6 crew wanted to be when they grew up
Bond's quirks when filling out his AARs (PLEASE read everyone else's notes/reblogs for this post!!)
Post-retirement 00Q headcanon
Puzzles
Skyfall crossword puzzle
Cipher puzzle
Playlists
Are You Missing Me? - A Post-SPECTRE 00Q Playlist
More of a Man - A Bond/Vesper Playlist
Scavenger Hunt Items
#45 - Design a wedding invitation for the ship of your choice
#63 - Send a message of encouragement or positivity to someone from another station
#66 - Spot a Bond reference in the wild
Meta
About Craig Mitchell's betrayal and its impact on Bond
Update on a crime the news media refuses to call femicide
TINLEY PARK, Ill. (CBS) -- A father has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his three daughters and wife inside a home in Tinley Park on Sunday.
Maher Kassem, 63, was charged Tuesday with four counts of first-degree murder, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. At his initial court appearance, prosecutors an argument led to Kassem using two guns to first shoot his wife and then, after stepping over her body, his three daughters.
Maher KassemTINLEY PARK POLICE
The victims were identified as Majeda Kassem, 53; twins Halema Kassem, 25, and Hanan Kassem, 24; and Zahia Kassem, 25.
Officials said Kassem shot his wife, Majeda, seven times, and each daughter was shot twice. The Kassems' 19-year-old son was in the home but was not physically injured. The women's bodies were found in the basement.
Authorities also said Kassem was cooperative with police and admitted to the shooting. Kassem indicated the fight started over the family's finances.
Prosecutors said the shooting took place after an argument on Sunday morning between the father and one of his daughters. That prompted his wife and two other daughters to get involved and urge him to calm down.
CBS 2 first reported Monday that there was a witness to the crime. That witness was identified in court as Maher Kassem's 19-year-old son.
Amid all the yelling, the son – who was sleeping at the time – woke up and went to see what was going on. He would later hear gunshots and first found his mother and two of his sisters fatally shot. He walked in moments before his father shot the third daughter.
Police said the father never turned the gun toward his son.
Left: Halema Kassem, Right: Zahia and HalemaPHOTOS SUPPLIED TO CBS
Around 11:20 a.m. Sunday, police responded to a report of the shooting in the 7400 block of West 173rd Street.
Village Manager Pat Carr said a male - who police later said was Kassem - made a 911 call saying someone was shot in the residence, and and police found his wife and four daughters dead at the scene. Police recovered two guns at the scene.
When police asked Kassem where his family was, prosecutors said, "the defendant pointed in the direction of the basement. The officer asked the defendant who else was there, and the defendant stated, 'They're gone.'"
Prosecutors said Kassem appeared to be disgruntled over how he was treated at home.
"The defendant was recorded volunteering things about having just retired, and that 'She treats me like a [expletive] dog," said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Scott Clark. "'I worked 40 years.' and 'I worked all my life to give my family a better home and they treat me like [expletive].'"
Police said there had been no record of police interaction at the home.
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners gathered at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview for a prayer in honor of the four women who were killed in what police called a senseless act of domestic violence, something they hope is addressed more in the community.
"It's about not only mental illness, but control and abuse so it's something that it's important," said Fida Zoubeidi, who attended the prayer service. "We need to keep our eyes open."
Funeral services for the women were held Tuesday night. Mourners gathered one by one for a vigil – hours after the mother and three adult sisters were buried.
Hanan Kassem had recently graduated from St. Xavier University with a master's degree in speech therapy.
"I would say that she lit up a room - you know, like you could talk to her about anything," said classmate Corinna Olsen.
Olsen wishes she could talk to her friend one more time. Instead, she and so many are puzzled with the circumstances of the quadruple murder.
"Very, very shocking," said Olsen. "You know, expect this to happen to someone that you know."
Off camera, the nephew of Maher Kassem said the family is torn – shocked at the crime his uncle is accused of committing against a family for which he seemed to care so deeply.
The nephew added that the family does not know the man who prosecutors are portraying as having committed such a crime. He said prior to Sunday, his uncle really would have done anything for his family members.
Kassem will be due back in court on Feb. 16.
I'm going to take a guess that once he retired he expected to be waited upon like the "man of the house". Instead he was asked to pick up after himself. And instead of accepting that he's s grown man he complained about being treated like a dog. Just based on how a lot of couples divorce after one of them, usually the man, retires and becomes a pest around the house.
Rare Bronze Mirror Found in 2,300-Year-Old Grave of Greek Courtesan in Jerusalem
Archaeologists in Israel have discovered what they believe to be the remains of an Ancient Greek courtesan.
The cremated remains of a young woman were found in a burial cave alongside a perfectly preserved bronze box mirror on a rocky slope close to Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, not far from Jerusalem.
The tomb is believed to date back to some time between the late 4th century and early 3rd century BCE, according to a joint study carried out by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
Guy Stiebel, from the department of archeology and the Ancient Near East at Tel Aviv University, saiid in a phone interview that the find is “very significant.”
“It’s almost like bringing back to life a woman who passed away 2,300 years ago,” he said of the research, which he compared to a “jigsaw puzzle or riddle.”
He and his team believe this could be the first discovery of the remains of a hetaira, as courtesans were known in Ancient Greece.
“If we are correct with our interpretation, it appears that this burial points to the very unique circumstances of what we call a hetaira, a Greek lady who accompanied one of the Hellenistic government officials, or more likely a high general,” he said.
In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, the Hellenistic age refers to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the conquest of Egypt by Rome in 30 BCE. Stiebel said that he and his team believe the woman would have been among the first Greeks to arrive in the region.
Liat Oz, the director of the excavation on behalf of the IAA, described the mirror found in the tomb alongside the remains.
“This is only the second mirror of this type that has been discovered to date in Israel, and in total, only 63 mirrors of this type are known around the Hellenistic world,” she said in a news release about the discovery.
“The quality of the production of the mirror is so high that it was preserved in excellent condition, and it looked as if it was made yesterday.”
Folding box mirrors such as this were documented in tombs and temples in the Greco-Hellenistic world, the researchers noted. They were usually decorated with engravings or reliefs of idealized female figures or goddesses.
Stiebel said a woman of high status might have received such a mirror as part of a dowry, but this was unlikely to have been the case in this instance as married women rarely left their homes in Greece.
Alternatively, he said, she might have been a courtesan, as they often received gifts from men. Likening the hetairai to Japanese geishas, Stiebel explained that the women were regarded as “muses.”
He said: “Women in society were breaking glass ceilings in very strict and male-oriented Greek society and we do know that they served not only as sexual escorts, but were similar to geishas and provided an element of culture. For that they were given gifts and part of the economy of gifts in Ancient Greece had to do with mirrors.”
The fact the remains were cremated also hinted at the woman’s origins, Stiebel said.
“Cremation is alien to this country and the religion,” he said, explaining that cremation is not only forbidden in Judaism but would not have been practiced by the Persian empire either, which occupied the region at that time.
“The tomb was found in the middle of nowhere, not near any village or farm or settlement, which suggests that she would have been connected with one of the military campaigns and dated to the time of Alexandra the Great or slightly later.
“We are suggesting that maybe she was with one of the generals.”
Stiebel went on to explain the significance of four iron nails found with the mirror and remains.
“Nails were used to protect the deceased and also to protect the living people from the dead. The bodies were literally nailed down to ensure they will not come back to the world of the living,” he said.
Stiebel said that the team are continuing with further research in order to “zoom in” on the finer details of the mirror.
He said: “We hope to shed more light on the origin of the production of the art and maybe shed more light on the history of the owner of the mirror, the general who bought it or where she came from.”
The research will be presented for the first time at an Israeli archaeology conference next month.
Suncrest Campaign Wrap-Up: The Duality Of Session Titles
Our player-notes document is a communal Google Doc, where everyone (including the beleaguered DM) can hop back to check details from earlier sessions--highly recommend this system, honestly. And, for ease of reference, every week after the session wraps up I go in and give the session a title, so that we can use the gdocs Table of Contents feature to easily jump between entries.
In general, I try to make these at least somewhat informative--I try to match the tone of the title to the overall tone of the session, and reference something that'll make it clear in six months what the hell I'm talking about.
So, in honor of the party reaching the campaign endgame: A final write-up of all our session titles over the course of the campaign.
A Long Time Ago In A Campaign Setting Far, Far Away (Level-1 Adventures & The Doppelganger Arc):
1: You Meet In A Tavern Fire
2: Patience Is A Virtue (in which the party got what was meant to be mid-campaign reveal information in session 2 due to excellent restraint and investigation, and also met long-term NPC Virtue Chirelli)
3: Secrets Of Shroudpost
4: Nightfall
5: Jumping At Shadows
6: Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
Both Parts Of The Name (Abandoned Temple Quest Arc)
7: Stories & Stoves (the party meets Arlette, who runs a magic-and-general-store called Staves & Stoves, and is given a quest)
8: Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Realistic Consequences
9: D&D A-Bridged
10: This Temple Is Weird (the party fights a water weird)
11: Big Fucking Dragon
12: Max and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Campaign, or: The Gang Gets Obscenely Rich
Night Hag Arc
13: Once More Into The Breach
14: #WWFD? (What Would Farrah Do--her player was absent that week)
15: The Power Of Friendship And These Tits I Found
16: GAH, Or: Wake Up There's Hags
17: Now With 33% Less Hag!
18: Hag-gling Over Loot
19: Good Thing We Didn't Leave Those NPC Guards Unsupervised
Werewolf Arc
20: Trouble In Thistledale
21: Family & Forestry
22: First Blood
23: There Wolves
24: Protectors
25: Assassin's Creed This Shit
26: The Silverlight Hounds
27: Overwhelming Force
28: New Moon
29: Firelight Festival
Election Fraud Arc
30: Political Theater
31: Landlords & Other Bloodthirsty Monstrosities
32: Hashtag Escapism
33: Of Mortgages & Murder
34: A Dish-tressing Discovery (a friendly NPC was almost murdered via sleep deprivation using a cursed goblet)
35: Jackoff And The Giant Beanstalk
36: The Key To Success
Requiem Arc
37: Directionality
38: Brought To You By The Letter 'N'
39: Long Rest
40: Please Do Not Bother The Violet Guard
41: Crimes
42: MASQUERAAAAAAAAADE
43: Everything Goes Completely Tits-Up
44: Breadcrumbs
45: A Suspiciously Well-Maintained Passageway
46: Foul Water
47: Several Discussions Of Traps
48: In Memoriam (the TREATY puzzle; the party learns everything about the day the world ended 50 years ago)
49: This Is Fine
50: Sax And Violince
51: You Have [36] New Messages
The Siege of Suncrest
52: Storm of Vengeance
53: Andromeda Gets Drugs From The Cops
54: Mindboggling (the party fights boggles)
55: The Siege Of Suncrest
56: What, Like It's Hard? (the party defeats what was meant to be a session-long boss fight in two rounds)
57: Breach
58: Your Stunned Silence Is Very Reassuring (death of a beloved NPC; the party was so stressed that nobody took a single note in the doc)
59: Tallyho
60: Release The Hounds
Faewild Arc
61: Crossover
62: The Tortoise And The Almost Perfect Aesop Reference (the party rides a dragon turtle and meets rabbitfolk)
63: Warren Of The Shining Wires
64: The Next Step
65: Perfect Time To Get Stoned (party fights a gorgon)
66: The Feathered Serpent
67: Plan C: Jo [the DM] Kills Us In Real Life
68: Frostfire
69: Wolves of Winter
70: Do It For The Vine
Endgame
71: [Preposition] The Hedge (the party begins infiltrating the Palace of Summer, which sits at the center of a giant hedge maze)
72: The Dread Gazebo
73: A Wolf A Goose A Cabbage And The Concept Of Summer Walk Into A Bar
74: Domination
75: In Which Nobody Touches Anything (the wizard, after spending the entire session of sneaking through several different trophy rooms frantically trying to keep the party from touching anything, pockets a legendary item off a display case without telling anyone)
76: The Hand Of Fate
77: Hold Fast
78: The Fall Of Summer
79: The Distant Light