If you're interested, here's how I did it.
I played the first hour or two of the game with a 4-man team up until I acquired Karlach (so basically clearing Withers' temple/the first Grove fight). From that point on, I left one person in camp (usually Astarion) and only ever fought with the remaining three (Tav/Shadowheart/Karlach), making fights harder but crucially preventing a TPK.
My fighting trio were:

• Tav - Circle of the Moon Druid
• Karlach - Throwzerker Barbarian
• Shadowheart - Life Cleric

Every single fight after I picked up Karlach, I only fought using these three. The only exceptions were the parts that force you to have all four present (Mindflayer Colony/Orpheus fight/final quest/etc.), which I took extreme pains to research and prep for beforehand.
I cleared every enemy in Act 1 and 2 (bar the Fire Elemental near the Grymforge) so by the time I entered Act 3, I was already near max level. Once I hit level 12, I immediately veered into the end questline and used Gale's orb to blow up the Netherbrain (not taking any chances with that fight).
For anyone wanting to follow in my footsteps, some tips for you:

• Throwzerker Karlach is going to be your secret weapon for the majority of the game. It is imperative to snag the Returning Pike from the goblin camp vendor (and later Nyrulna as an upgrade in Act 3), giving you effectively infinite ammo.
• Pick up every scrap of food you find and send it to camp. HM eats through a lot of food for Long Rests, but I was comfortably sitting on 1000+ camp supplies by the end of the game.
• Research each boss beforehand - there are often ways to circumvent even the toughest ones quite easily.
• If you have a caster as your stay-in-camp person, you can use buff spells like Longstrider, Freedom of Movement and Hero's Feast before the rest of the party leaves, so you still get use from them.
• Also, the camp person can freely feed items to your party members remotely - for example, you can send Smokepowder Barrels from camp to a surrounded party member and they can freely drop them in battle before disengaging to a safe distance and detonating them.
• The backpack bomb strategy is a great get-out-of-jail-free card in a pinch - just constantly accumulate smokepowder bombs from vendors and stuff them in a backpack, you can potentially oneshot bosses with it (as I did with Apostle of Myrkul).

To preface, I absolutely love the car, which is why this issue is perplexing me so much. Recently picked up a '23 300S 5.7L V8 new. I Noticed a ticking noise that seemed to come from around the glovebox area the day I bought it, I didn't hear it on the test drive but we had the ac on and I was talking with the salesman, I first noticed it later that night. The noise sounds like metal on metal contact very similar to moving the pedals backwards on a bike in frequency, however the noise is less "ticky" than that and more "scrape" like. At that point I chalked it up to valvetrain noise as the motor breaks in it should go away. 1200 miles and an oil change to pennzoil ultra platinum later, tick is still there, maybe louder?
Everything I'm reading points me to a million different directions, lifter tap? Exhaust stud broken? Normal HEMI operation? Some characteristics I've found interesting, the tick is present on hot idle now noticeable outside the car in the passenger side wheel well, along with the cabin noise mentioned above. It doesn't matter whether I'm in MDS or not, the noise is still there (although I can certainly hear it more when in MDS, especially when throttling out of MDS, it's very loud then). The "scrape" is also very apparent when I let off the gas in a high rpm range during engine braking. The noise is rpm dependent, and seemingly load dependent because I can't replicate the noise very well in neutral/park while revving the motor. During full throttle operation I've also noticed what sounds like a high pitched rattle when above 3000 rpm to redline, unsure whether that's related or an entirely separate issue, or even normal operating noise.
At 1900 miles I switched oil to redline 0w20. I had read a whole slew of information on forums about redline oil quieting these things down significantly, I've also put on an oil catch can. The forums did state 5w30 works best for quieting them down but I felt iffy on using a different viscosity oil than what's called for, which is 0w20. I'm now at 2600 miles, have taken it to the dealer to have them listen and the tech said it sounds like a normal HEMI, however the noise was much quieter then, and the tick could not be heard outside of the car at that point. It actually seems to get louder as the car heats up, and when the oil breaks 220 degrees it's loudest, especially if I've just gotten on the gas fairly hard. For clarity I fill with 89 octane gas as recommended, ethanol free (purely personal preference as it's readily available where I live).
I'm stumped, I haven't noticed any power loss or rough running at all, the trans can be a bit rough at times but as I understand, the ZF's can be a bit jarring before they are up to operating temp, when at operating temp it occasionally has a rough downshift when coasting to a stop, that's it really. All my temps and pressures have been normal, oil psi 32-36 at hot idle, and ~52 when running. Trans temp usually hovers 100 degrees above ambient, water temp hovers in the low 200's, and oil temp usually is bang on 212 during normal operation, spirited driving takes it to 230. Anybody else experienced or currently experiencing something similar? Am I just tweaking? If anybody wants a video of the noises I can try and film them later.
(Sorry for the rant I just wanted to be thorough)

You might find the review easier to read on my website, Comboteur Fou. Especially since, given the long nature of my reviews, I must cut the presentation, pros and cons, rules and artwork, and how to play parts.
[...]

IV – The wall of text (a.k.a. the Comboteur Fou’s opinion)

Gameplay

Invaders Must Die
Following DVG‘s trend of releasing several slightly tweaked versions of the same game system with close to no information as to the actual components and variance implemented, The War of the Worlds comes in four versions, with the tripods landing respectively in France (technically, Italy and Spain), England, Japan, and the East Coast of the United States of America. True to the source material, each game sees the player fighting the tripods and trying to fend them off until, ultimately, they succumb to germs their defensive system was not prepared for, wiping out the threat with the most menacing and effective killers the world has ever known: microbes. Offering a tight package, light on rules, phases, unit types, and playable in under two hours, setup and teardown included, can The War of the Worlds: France still pack as much punch and depth as heavier solo wargames, while staying true to its theme?
Incised before I’ve ceased
War games remain a genre of their own, where things that wouldn’t get a pass in a boardgame, such as lower component quality and severely dated artwork, are more easily tolerated. Long sessions, full of tactical and strategic decisions with myriads of moving pieces, vast and totally open information, deeply ramified outcomes, are often the norm, and many a boardgamer will feel lost upon entering that world.With a simplified ruleset and a small set of unit types—9 to be exact, 3 of which really matter in combat—WoWF attempts to tie in the two worlds and make for an easy-to-get-into wargame, full of moving pieces and decision but low maintenance.
The absence of a clearly defined player turn/AI turn structure initially renders the flow of a round counterintuitive, and fully interiorising the rules proves longer than such a light game should warrant.Yet one of WoWF‘s most interesting points has to be its round structure. Chaotic randomness lurks at each step’s corner, taking the form of events which contribute to make each play completely unique.Both sides’ contribution to the war effort is brilliantly emulated through a back-and-forth between factions, as Tripods never act during phases granting control to the players, only being permitted to act during the Devastation, Martian and Assembly phases, and occasionally, the Battle phase instead.
The player is encouraged to think ahead, in order to maximize their efficiency each round, by small subsets of rules for each of the phases comprising said round. Especially when they aim for a Battle. Battles are automatically triggered when at least one tripod shares a zone with a gun at the start of the Battle phase. Considering gun movement naturally occurs during the Human Action phase, which takes places after the Battle phase during a round, and before potential tripod movement, the player must either pay resource points during the production phase to move their units and ensure a Battle takes place, should they desire it, or plan movement and balance the odds in advance to save on their precious resources and let the Battle trigger by itself. Additionally, Cavalry units are able to lure tripods toward a desired zone, facilitating the process, at a cost.Units accessible to the player are divided between two categories: metal-based weapons of mass destruction, and organic bi or quadrupeds weak fleshlings, in the form of refugees, infantry and cavalry. The latter two, if they can enter battles, are not able to inflict damage upon tripods, but make up for it with their capacity to act directly on the country map. Infantry can perform one of two actions during the Human Action phase, both of which can preemptively weaken tripods. The odds largely play against the human unit in both cases, and an Infantry cannot perform an action if they move during the Human Action phase, forcing the player to, once more, think ahead and spend resource points during the Production phase to move them to best benefit from the unit.The first Infantry action is to plant a Powder Kegs in their current zone. Said keg can damage a tripod entering a zone in which they are planted. Planting a keg requires a die roll, detonating it another one. Failure to plant and detonate can result in a lost Infantry or production point. With a requirement of three random conditions to succeed, Powder Kegs reward the player with one damage on a single tripod, which can quickly be negated by a Repair roll, and are thus best ignored.Their second ability proves more interesting, as they are able to destroy tripods still in their landing pods, before it is turned into an active wave by the handling machine. The ordeal is no less challenging, as the Infantry needs first reach the landing zone across the map, before taking the action and rolling the proper colour. Here, too, the odds largely play against the human unit, as the handling machine needs merely roll the right colour during their own roll, taking place at the end of each round. Destroying more than a single tripod this way requires heavy dedication and luck with little to no payoff. In which it still proves a superior action to Powder Kegs.The last flesh and blood unit, but not the least important, is Refugees. They can be considered both a liability and a resource, as their sole use is to sway points in favour of either the Martians, should they be captured, or the humans, should they successfully escape by sea. They only act during the Human Action phase and Escape phase. Their goal is to reach a seaport from which to elope before being captured by a tripod. Anticipating tripod movement is rewarded by denying the Martians points for capturing refugees. They are yet not able to move anywhere without limit: a zone can only shelter as many Refugees as cogs are depicted on their production token. Aside from Paris, which can have at most three Refugees, each zone can have either one or two Refugees at the end of a phase. Excess Refugees are then captured by the Martians. Devastated zones, seaports and regular zones become progressively weaker as the game progresses and tripods lay down ruin, and managing Refugees efficiently itself becomes more and more challengingBut their role does not end there. Should they successfully hop on a ship, they still have to make it off the coast to the high seas without alerting or being captured by a tripod roaming the shores. And these prove amphibious.Each Refugee at a seaport must perform a die roll to attempt to board a ship. Once each Refugee has made an attempt, should one succeed, the player then must roll a die again to determine whether the ships, of freighter class, leave the coast without raising the tripods’ attention, or if they must face one or two of the mechanical hunters in naval battle.
The Cry of Mankind
The initial wave’s and landing pod placement are both determined randomly out of three possible locations, by a die roll which also influences probability, Rennes being the most likely, but also the most difficult to overcome because of its proximity to Paris, while Italy and Spain are more likely and easier to survive initially. On the other hand, Rennes is also where the landing pod is the least likely to be assembled into a wave during the assembly phase, the likelihood of which being one chance in six. Which is not to say it will not sometimes be immediately assembled into a wave ready to spread fire and death.
The first enterprise the player is most likely to invariably undertake is the construction of four factories. A small undertaking by itself, as they cost a mere 2 resource points (RP) apiece, and start paying off in two rounds by their +1 RP contribution to the Production phase. In fact, they’re such a mandatory step that it’s a wonder why they are not already built in with smaller turn 1 income, as said turn 1 becomes rather repetitive as is.WoWF, on the player’s side at least, is a game of attrition where the humans are regularly confronted to resource losses with no compensation. The best way to mitigate those losses is to minimize them preemptively, while the Martian threat constantly increases and grows ever more pressing.As such, establishing a strong presence and defending key zones in the first rounds is crucial to the establishment of as efficient an offensive army as possible..
Considering how the first round is likely to most often result in the same actions and that initial setup can only result in six slightly different configurations, not accounting for the scenarios, which have their own section in this review, replayability has to rely on highly prevalent randomness, to which the aforementioned events and the quasi systematic dice rolls contribute.
Human frailty is evident throughout a game. The France version units, at least, are highly unreliable, both in and out of battle, and tend to fall like flies in front of the tripods. It has already been proven how ineffectual Infantry units are earlier.Guns go down with a single hit, while proving as resilient as goombas under a tripod’s foot. Once placed at the start of battle, they can no longer be moved. Unless the battle takes place on a hill, Martian units are placed after Human units, and the tripods move according to random card draws, thus being completely unpredictable, so the odds of being squished underfoot are extremely high.Firing isn’t their strong suit either. Unless directly adjacent to a tripod, an extremely perilous situation, they have a one-in-two chance of hitting. At range 2 or 3, the likelihood drops steeply to one-in-six. Tripods require 2 hits to take down, and can and often do repair themselves or call for reinforcements. The closer to a gun they are, the higher the chances they have to land a hit.Even a single tripod can prove deadly for a small squad, able to wipe them before they land a single hit if the dice don’t comply, as experimented with variants.
Losing guns without leaving a single dent in the invaders, and gaining any footing from a battle, is in fact so easy that interacting with waves early should not even be considered, whereas building a sizeable army in a single chosen location before luring in the enemy and disposing of them as the mob would in back alley, allowing the enemy to perform unavoidable devastation in the meantime while ushering out as many escapees as possible to generate victory points, often is the best way to operate for the first half of the game, there again severely impacting the game’s replayability by limiting the player’s ways of approaching the game.An alternate victory condition is to destroy each wave currently on the map, as well as each landing pod. But doing so is so unlikely, the game naturally coming to a conclusion by itself a round or two after the final wave appears, that achieving said condition should be considered a achievement in itself more than anything, and, in France at least, this condition is anecdotal.The main condition, reaching ten victory points, is only impacted by land battles throughout the reduction of tripods, thus either lowering the damage output of a wave, or its complete disappearance, more likely in the second half of the game, ensuring more longevity to the different production zones and thus less points lost during the devastation phase and more points during the escape phase. Battles matter but are not the main focus of the game, and by themselves do not give the player any benefit from being won.A game can be concluded, in a win, with three mere battles taking place. In France, at least.Destroying a wave will effectively negate a whole round of destruction for the Martians, who can control five waves at most. An unlikely occurrence.
Grind
For a game labelled by its publisher as a wargame, the low amount of actual battles is surprising. Even more so when putting a focus on actual battles is a sure way to waste time achieving very little. Managing chits on a board is at the game’s heart, but most of said chits are not battle-related: refugees, waves, handling machines, production tokens form the majority of the board clutter, while tripods only enter the board on battle tactical maps, and guns are only used in battles as well, though they do move on the map.
Battles themselves are simple affairs, driven by card draws and dice rolls.The absolute stillness of human units, unable to move at all during battles once guns are placed, with severe limitations—a single horizontal line being allowed, while cavalry and infantry units are relegated to the bottom line— during the first step, make battles themselves extremely simple to manage, but also frustratingly random, and severely limit decision space for the player, who is reduced to firing a gun or not while they are covered, and in which order to fire them and against which target once they no longer are.A player might consider not firing a gun if they have an Earthwork counter. Firing the gun would discard one such counter. Earthwork counters are added during battle setup if it takes place on a zone with hills, or by infantry units if they succeed at a dice roll—failing the roll resulting in the Infantry’s destruction. Those counters prevent tripods from firing at a gun until they are all discarded, either when the gun fires, or when the tripods successfully use the Detect action, which is resolved the same way they would fire. Considering how inefficient the French guns are at anything but point blank, the player may want to make them invisible as long as possible, until a tripod gets close enough to grant a 50% chance to hit per die. The risk of destruction remains high, as Earthworks do not protect the gun from being stepped on by a tripod and immediately destroyed, and their movement remains unpredictable. Abstaining from firing is therefore even more perilous than actually firing and play the odds, actually making use of the gun before it meets its inevitable doom. Squished guns are probably more common than guns melted by death rays.
In itself, the battle system is ingenious.Initial tripod placement is determined by flipping a battle card and placing the tripod colour group in the corresponding lettered Hex. Each turn, Tripod actions are determined by a new card and their colour. AI is low maintenance, battles require little upkeep or management, the player simply has to go down the card and resolve tripod actions, then decide whether or not to fire guns and on which target, and repeat until the battle is over, either because all units on side are destroyed or because all the tripods left the battlefield by simply going away.Unfortunately, the absence of movement on the human side, again, rarely let battles become satisfying and more than simply random. The ease with which tripods dispose of guns, often before they get a chance to fire, the extremely low odds of actually hitting a tripod, also contribute to the feeling of unease. Which is not to say that battles are entirely desperate. Winning a battle simply requires a lot of preparation. Units are expensive, and, a common theme in this game, resources spent on them are too easily lost without having any kind of impact on the game, because no roll succeeded or because they are destroyed before acting.Any battle initiated with less than six guns and/or a couple of battle plans against a 4-tripods wave, the standard amount in a base game play, is akin to suicide. Damage successfully inflicted on tripods is highly likely to be immediately negated by a Repair or Arrival battle result, fully replenishing their forces straight away while the human resources are depleted with no impact. This is one of the game’s main issues as far as randomness and pacing are concerned: on paper, lost battles still seem to gain the player ground as they slowly deplete the enemy’s forces and thus hinder their ability to spread devastation across the country. In reality, though, reinforcements and repairs occur so frequently that the benefits from a lost battle are negligible, and thus, resources spent are lost with no benefit. Which is also true for Infantries lost while trying to operate or battle plans which result in failure. The player should reasonably expect any spent resource to somehow advance their plan against the Martians, when in fact, any resource spent is a simple double-or-nothing style gamble which will more often than not result in empty-handed losses.Unit types across the various theatres of the DVG War of the Worlds series remain the same, but their costs and efficacy vary. Due to the publisher’s persistent refusal of releasing complete information about their product, accessibility to said various costs and roll result is restricted. In a nutshell, the French units are terrible and rather expensive for what they do. Enjoying battles and gaining positive results require large armies, as alluded to above, but decisions remain limited. The player is at best able to better decide which gun Martians fire at first (usually the least expensive ones) and which ones to preserve (usually those rolling two dice and thus able to hit twice per turn). They also get the opportunity to prioritise which tripod they want to disable or take down, with the added benefit that damaged tripod cannot perform a second action in the action of A+B, or special actions such as summoning reinforcements.The only way the player can turn the tides of battle directly once it has begun is through battle plans. Battle plans are expensive, at 5 resources a random one and 10 resources a chosen one, but can be made more affordable by sacrificing a Cavalry unit, although once again, the result depends on a dice roll. Battle plans give the player welcome luck mitigation, allowing them to reroll, double up on results, or even to discard a catastrophic battle card and draw another instead. They remain subject to randomness, and it is perfectly possible that a battle plan is spent without benefiting the player, because their roll resulted in a failure for instance.
Waves in the base game systematically start with four tripods, unless Infantry successfully destroyed some before the handling machines finished their jobs. They therefore require large armies to be faced, as stated above. The scenarii let the player face smaller waves or even individual tripods. For the purpose of this review, early battles were waged against waves comprising only a few tripods, manoeuvering but a couple of guns. The results were invariably catastrophic. Guns were destroyed without inflicting any damage to the Martians, putting the player in a much worse position than they were initially by stripping them of time and resources without gaining any ground on the enemy.Scenarii to be expanded further down this review.
The Grand Experiment
Battles and setup are no great providers of replayability, as established above. What is, though, are events. Counterintuitively, and despite having different card backs, every event is shuffled in one big event deck, to be drawn from when the card back matches the current phase at the start of said phase. The rules fail to indicate whether multiple events can be drawn per phase, which tends to happen relatively often, as the deck contains nine cards each for the seven different phases.Absence of events for nearly two complete rounds are also bound to happen with such a system, and so the rhythm at which events do trigger is never exactly the same twice. Ideally, events trigger every other phase, or twice per round, but in reality the odds are unlikely.Events can benefit either side. Effects range from putting a special unit in play which allows the player to perform extra actions during their phases, to one-time effects changing the initial disposition of the battlefield, should one occur that round. Some event cards can be saved until their conditions are met, for instance allowing the player to temporarily negate an effect; others will give a resource points outlet, usually requiring a high amount, in exchange for an effect. Although rarely will the player be able to meet the requirements when those one-time effects cards are drawn, as spending resources immediately to build up forces is preferable to saving them for potential events.Whether the player is allowed to spend the resources only at the start of the phase, when the event card is drawn and resolved, or throughout the whole duration of the phase, is not explicitly stated. Although it only matters in the Production Phase, the one during which production points are generated, three of the nine cards give production points outlets. The Production phase is the one the player is the least likely to have leftover production points at the start of, making these cards feel like wasted opportunities more than anything. Should the player save on production points instead of recruiting army, they will have missed a whole movement round (forced movement during the Production phase and natural movement during the Human Action phase), therefore never being worth the trouble, especially when the pickings are incredibly slim.
Permanent effects, in the form of France-specific characters such as Monet, the Eiffel Tower, not named the Iron Lady although it would have made more sense if it is to be cast (see what I did here?) as a character, are the most likely to shape the player’s strategy on the long term. Yet only five of these are present in the game and only Monet and Dreyfus are really worth investing to, Monet because he is the only effect able to effectively repair zones by restoring workforce, Dreyfus because he makes Infantry actually worth it, turning each roll they make into a sure success for two production points per roll. If he shares a zone with them. A lot of work but well worth it. The Eiffel Tower makes each Industrialisation token produce +2 production points instead of +1. For ten production points itself, the effect needs three rounds to start being worth it by itself (not accounting for the initial cost of such tokens), and will only be worth it if drawn in the early game. The card does not specify if the player is allowed to keep it until they can afford the ten production points cost, or if they must spend it immediately upon drawing the card, which, considering it’s a Human Action Phase event, is unlikely to happen.Many of the effects that favour the Martians are absolutely devastating for the player, while those in favour of the player are mildly positive. The Battle Events are the worst offenders in that regard and can and will utterly gut the player’s forces with little window for reaction: getting the tripods and the guns closer to one another at the start of battle is a sure way to have guns be switched, while red having additional Fire each turn and blue additional Move each turn are sure to create massive havoc. On the other hand, giving initiative to one or the other side is a really minor change. In either case, once the event is drawn, the player can no longer opt out of battle.As a general rule, events during a Human-oriented phase are mostly positive, with a couple of really strong events such as Terran Germs being able to give or take a full ten victory points, and some really terrible events such as Governmental Action; while events during a Martian-oriented phase, or a shared phase, tend to globally be tiered toward the Martians. Cards do not feel balanced, with the power level difference alluded to above not being an outlier but more of the norm. Too many player-centric events turn out to be anything but worth investing into, while a few of them are so defining that one can but hope they will be drawn each game, and a well-timed Terran Germs can flat out end the game.An interesting idea in theory, then, though better playtesting could have yielded more interesting results.
Sea of Sorrow
A few Devastation phases into the game and refugee tokens abound on the tactical map. Refugees, while merely defenceless units, are able to quickly sway point values for each side, and the player needs to quickly control and manage them if they want to rack up some victory points while denying them to the Martians.Mere escapists, refugees tend to die easily as they are removed from the board if they share a zone with a tripod after a wave’s movement, but also when they exceed their zone’s gears, which for regular zones are between one and two, and for Paris can go up to three. Many a refugee will thus bite the dust over the course of attempted colonisation, and the more the game progresses, the more of them will be captured, as zones they can shelter in shrink and seaports get inaccessible or destroyed. Devastated zones are off limits for these units, as humans are not yet able to sustain themselves on red weed and human corpses.The only way to save refugees is by seeing them off the coast on freighters taking off seaports, of which France contains four. French harbours are expensive in France, but are handpicked instead of randomised as they are in other versions, giving the player the opportunity to set some refugees up before they dedicate to a harbour.The way a round is structured only allows refugees to attempt escape after checking for captures in excess of the zone’s capacity. Which means that, at most, under the base game rules, two refugees can attempt escape per harbour per round.Said escapes are symbolised by two successive dice rolls, the first one for each attempting refugee, who has 4 in 6 chances of getting aboard a freighter, followed by a collective roll for each freighters of a given harbour, with a 50% chance of escaping unnoticed by a tripod. In effect, said attempts frequently result in one or more refugees being left on the shore and the other one being shot at by a tripod. Odds and stuff…
Should freighters escape unnoticed, they simply are removed from the game after giving the player a single victory points. Should they fail, though, the main game pauses and the player has to set up and play through a naval battle. For each refugee that is part of the attempted escape, the player must put a freighter on a naval battle board, and up to two tripods. Warships and battle plans are then available, at four production points apiece for the ships and full price for the plans.Naval battles can potentially take place four times per round, every round, but are even shallower than the already fairly shallow land battles (and much shallower than the sea they take place on). Their stakes are lower, as they will at best yield two victory points and at worst give the martians said two victory points, while not reducing either side’s forces, unless the player spends resources on warships and battle plans. And why would they, for two mere points? The tripods are of a special type, and not part of any wave, so destroying them will have no lasting consequences on the tactical map, and four resource points spent on a warfighter are four resource points lost to no avail. Still an unlikely scenario, granted the ship is as ineffective as a regular gun, and the tripods still require two hits to bring down.As such, naval battles quickly become an annoying waste of time where the player ends up merely moving one or two freighters down and flipping a card to see whether the tripods catch or shoot them successfully. To drastically cut playtime down and ease up on the tedium, simply rolling another die to determine whether a freighter reaches the bottom of the map unhindered is sufficient.While on paper the prospect of fighting at sea as well as land is alluring, in effect it represents no more than a mere, repetitive distraction never worth the time or resources.Absence of depth and impact on the overall game is unfortunate in light of the allocated components: 5 additional tripods; a whole naval battle deck complete with unique keywords, but only about as half as many cards as land battle, although sea battles occur much more frequently; freighter unit tokens which each stand for a single refugee token and thus only serves for aesthetic purposes; warship tokens; paragraphs in the rules and cheat sheet.Naval battles feel like they should have taken a bigger place in the game but were never pushed to their full potential, for lack of time, resources or playtesting perhaps. They do become more interesting in a given scenario, which will be expanded upon later in this review.
Wrath Monolith
Considering all the challenges listed aboves, winning the game should be extremely challenging.And yet, it manages to play itself into a corner and to defeat itself with little help from the player, making each play of WoWF feel frustratingly inconsequential.Even after the player ploughed through a one-sided war of attrition, setting up and minimising losses as much as possible to only start rising to reliable power by the endgame, finally gaining some sort of control over the course of events, a mere couple of rounds are enough to result in a conclusion, awarding a win out of nowhere… to the player.Games where none of the Human side actions left a mark or a dent, in which every action failed, no wave was wiped, no battle was won, still resulted in the germs taking over and destroying the invaders. To the point where letting the game pit itself against itself and watch the events unfold into a win with zero player input has been given thought.Thematic? As far as the source material is concerned, adequately so.Rewarding? Absolutely not. More like a slap in the face and a total waste of time.True for other theatres? Inspiration to acquire other versions was hardly stirred, so this reviewer will never know.
As the base game fails to deliver any sort of challenge or let the player have an impact on events, do the scenarii/variants deliver?Without a doubt they do. Too much, perhaps.
Each war theatre comes with its own unique optional challenges in the form of variant rules. France has three, and they drastically modify the game, mostly during setup, but with impactful ramifications all throughout the play.And do they up the challenge!
The Ironclad Martians puts a heavier emphasis on land battles, pitching the player against five waves containing three tripods each from turn one. Devastation takes a much more prominent role from the early game on. On paper, since waves are smaller, focusing on dispatching them as early as possible and before they swell in numbers sounds sound, but not only do the ineffectual French units turn early failed attempts futile, as they do with the base rule, they also render them harmful, any gun lost still translating into a pure resource loss with no gain to make up for it. Then it all goes downhill from there into a quick loss as waves destroy zones and thus cut resource income down.Should the player not focus on dispatching waves early, which can prove challenging as they retain their tendency to move out of rage, the inevitable victory points gathered by Humans bring them reinforcements earlier than the player can build a sufficient number of guns to stand a chance against a wave, making things spiral out of range quickly.The scenario is interesting, if only because the game proves challenging at last. Unfortunately, the lack of initial randomness—setup is fixed—also drastically lowers replayability, making this scenario feel like a puzzle to be solved rather than a highly rule variation. Bets are still on early wave annihilation, with a heavy dose of luck. Should RNG not comply, then the game might as well be reset, opening the way to a whole new level of frustration.An interesting alternative, which would have benefited from more randomization to be played anything but sparingly.
The Handling Machines is an interesting twist in that, instead of being restricted to five waves at most, the Martians tripods can now venture on the map as single units or as part of smaller waves, spreading havoc more wildly and rapidly but with lower consequences, and making battles more frequent and easier to prepare for; but also forcing the player to spread their forces further. Infantry’s support role is made more immediately useful as there are more handling machines they are able to tackle and destroy. Provided they manage to reach them first. Because a new downside is the tendency tripods have to destroy zones they are assembled in extremely quick. Units remain unable to enter devastated zones, translating into Infantry quickly becoming incapable of reaching handling machines at all since they now reside in a devastated zone, and thus becoming useless, in that regard at least, by default, since they are now unable to prevent the machines from adding Tripods to the map. Which in turn means the player is now no longer able to fulfil the alternative victory condition of destroying them all. A surprising oversight.With many more rolls to make per round to check for potential new tripod spawns during the production phase and the assembly phase, this scenario is more fiddly than the base one and asks the player to better track which machine they have rolled for or not. Not a dealbreaker, but noticeable.The additional early and mid-game randomness occasioned by the high amount of rolls and tripods give this scenario increased replayability over the previous one, though it does suffer from the same snowballing issue in case of early lost battles. French guns do not receive any improvement, so the issue of dealing with tripods while they are weak remains.
Refugees is the best variant to ease a player into a low amount of changes, and if the variant were listed by additional rules complexity, it would have been placed first. Merely modifying the initial setup, this scenario sees each zone start with three refugees (and interestingly, the game does not come with enough tokens to actually perform this step). Throughout the game, a couple of other changes occur: in the devastation phase, each workforce loss results in an additional refugee per point lost; in the human action phase, the player is allowed to spend a resource point for each refugee they wish to keep in excess of a zone’s workforce value.Small changes, but very impactful on the strategy. While in the base game, production points are merely used for units and barely relevant in any other phase, managing them now becomes more tense and requires more thought, as not only can they allow massive sea escapes, they also make sea battles interesting, and warships relevant, as there can now be more than two mere freighters escaping at once.Land battles drop down the priority scale, not that they were very high to begin with but they remained the main resource points outlet; while points will heavily swing for both parties during phases in which refugees are saved or captured.While the challenge is not necessarily higher than in the base game, the game feels more varied, more tense, and options more interesting and satisfying. Protecting zones, especially ones with harbours, has a whole different impact on the game. Rather than simply ensuring regular production income, the player now shelters refugees and tries to prevent pouring all their resources into their survival.Saving resources from one phase to another becomes more of a priority, spending them to create large groups of refugees cluttering at harbours for large evasion attempts that finally makes it worth investing into freighters and battle plans, and making naval battles transform into what they were probably meant to be all along is very satisfying.Aside from a free harbour each turn, a minor addition, the rest of the game, remains unaltered. Having the initial wave land in Rennes proves devastating, though not enough to cost the game, because of the harbour in that zone. Similarly to the regular game, the player can have every battle and outcome turn wrong, and still win the game.
The League of Terran Nations, being played over multiple theatres, hasn’t been tested for this review.

[...]

Conclusion

The War of the Worlds: France is a tragic miss. Ripe with interesting and novel ideas, the game is an accessible, relatively easy to learn introduction to wargames, flows smoothly with a lot of back and forth between Martians and Human phases, has potential for replayability… And ultimately falls miles away from the mark, because of poor marketing decisions (breaking the game into four different theatres), development mistakes (using an inhouse designer rather than the original designer for the non-England versions, lack of playtesting). None of the player’s actions really impact the game’s outcome in the long run, due to the extreme randomness, lack of reactive mitigation, and more importantly, the game playing itself into a corner. Research on other theatres’ forums lead to the belief that the other versions are more challenging. Too much, perhaps. England seems to be the most popular war theatre.

Strong potential and novel ideas marred by a questionable balance

The War of the Worlds: France belongs to DVG. A huge thank you to DVG for providing Le Comboteur Fou with a review copy.

‼️‼️‼️MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD‼️‼️‼️ SEASON 2 AND BEYOND
So recently I’ve been rewatching NBC’s Hannibal, and it’s a masterpiece as always. I never really looked at Will much, not deeply anyway, because as lovely as his arc was, the only thing I wanted was to dissect his looks lol. My feed has also been presenting me with a lot of analyses on Will and who he is, which has grown further fascinating with each I see. One user, starlessseasailor (i think?) gave me enough inspiration to input my own take on Will and his character, because it truly is super fascinating. Highly recommend checking out their ideas and post(s?) in this community. I’m not a professional in anything particular, I’m a high schooler, but if it gives any sort of credentials I’m somewhere on the autism spectrum and have had an immense special interest in psychology for a little over four years, as well as this two-month persisting obsession with Hannibal NBC. The more I’ve looked at his character and the bits and pieces of other analyses I’ve seen of him, the more clear it’s become to me that he’s an apex predator, and my closest comparison is a female praying mantis. Now, I know many people tend to ‘over-feminize’ Will, but it also tends to be infantilizing rather than just feminizing. If we look at characters portrayed in the media, such as F.B.I. profilers in other shows, they tend to be the ones who can emotionally adapt to others. They clean up nicely, they’re smarter than the antagonist(s) and killer(s). They’re intelligent and capable. Take Chloe Decker from the 2016 show Lucifer. Throughout the show we see that she is highly capable no matter the situation. She dresses neatly, she’s composed, she’s independent, and she seems to keep to herself. We can see this trope in characters such as Olivia Benson in the 1999 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Peggy Carter in 2015 Agent Carter, and I’d even go as far as to say Inej Ghafa from the Six of Crows duology (Leigh Bardugo). Delving deeper into Will Graham’s character, he is most certainly an apex predator. He hunts like a bloodhound, his goal for killers is never to save, but to ‘return the favor.’ We never truly see his motivations behind his actions. We see logic, calculation, but beyond the short plotline of revenge, we really don’t know why he does things, and neither does anyone else, because he just does things. He doesn’t need a reason, just a way. His urge to kill is less of a desire and more of a part of who he is, an instinct. He wants to do it with his hands, his teeth, his arms. He has the capacity for morals, he doesn’t seem to have to actively fight off impulses, he just makes quick and sharp decisions. We see more animalistic nature in the way he’s treated; “The mongoose under the house when the snake slithers by,” put on a leash by Jack Crawford, the way Bedelia talks about Hannibal’s love for Will in contrast to how she and Hannibal discussed it. She used words such as ‘hungry’ and ‘ache,’ rather than the bluntness of actual emotion Hannibal contains. Terms Will, or an animal, would innately have and understand. A final example of this is the end scene of season 3 entirely. We don’t get a kiss between Will and Hannibal, but rather an animalistic nuzzle, something that would mean so much more to any sort of pack animals. Not to mention, once again, Will’s strays, whom he takes in and mirrors, in a way. The pack animal trope also parallels the way Hannibal and Will kill Dolarhyde, they circle him, they take turns, and most importantly, they tear him apart. Will is exactly like the strays he loves so dearly; kind with the engraved instinct to stay alive no matter the cost. And he can’t live with or without Hannibal. Circling back to the aspects of feminine energy, Will Graham has empathy. He completely parallels Hannibal in this way. His empathy reflects others and who others see him as, he can adapt, evolve, and become. Hannibal is Hannibal. No matter how well he conceals, at the end of the day he stays himself, and he thinks only of himself or things involving him, representing a masculine aspect. He does not plan for the future, he does not take things more than day-by-day. Will has this extreme empathy that, as the show goes on, dissipates from a disorder and evolves into a lure. A tactic. He sees and feels what others feel and he uses it to manipulate them deeply. He is the hand of God and everyone else bends whichever way he pleases. He thinks ahead, he pulls and tugs strings in every direction, especially in season 3 where it concerns Hannibal. He seduces Hannibal, frees him, kills with him, and then kills him and himself. Seduction, no matter how long the process, and killing as an end result. Much like that of a female praying mantis. All this being said, I don’t like the idea that he was always just some concealed killer. Yes, he has always been like that of a wild animal. Yes, there was always something deep down inside of him. But that is an aspect every single human has the capacity of. If we take even a brief glance through history, religion, and politics, we can see that every single person has the capacity for empathy, and we can see that every single person has the capacity to completely drop it. As much as people would love to believe psychopaths and sociopaths are born, not made, it isn’t true. A large amount of killers endured copious amounts of psychological or physical abuse throughout their childhood. It affected their brain development and they became. Will endured copious amounts of psychological abuse. From Hannibal, from his job, from himself and the articles Freddie Lounds posted. Time and time again he experienced extended duress of extreme stress. He saw bodies, grew incredibly sleep deprived, became isolated from his surroundings, not to mention the strobing and drugs Hannibal put him under. We watched Will struggle with loss of self, we watched the tether loosen on his clear-cut identity that was really only clear to himself, and we watched it melt into something else. It is also important to take into account Will’s autistic traits. If he is truly on the spectrum, that is another factor that can contribute heavily to identity loss. Empathy like his paired with ASD would create a monster of identity issues, with both masking and having to reflect others like a mirror for Jack. Terrible. This is also not to say there wasn’t a door built into Will’s mind, because there most definitely was. I just firmly believe that Hannibal furiously picked the lock with little regard to what was actually behind it. Anyway, thank you for listening to my rant. This show drives me feral, small detailing and symbolism tears me to shreds. Fun fact, almost every single scene in the show has red somewhere in the frame. Seeing other people’s theories helps me to alter my own, so if you have any other observations PLEASE comment, Hannigram’s differences also fuel my psychology interest. Hope y’all have a lovely day and I hope this post lingers with you forever :)

The Tujunga Canyon Abduction Incidents - 1953
Sara would describe stepping into a “solid beam of light” that would lift her “about the same angle as an escalator” but with no steps. The humanoids would examine Sara, using what she believed to be an “X-ray-type device”.
****************
AUGUST 7, 1965, SAN PEDRO DE LOS ALTOS, MIRANDA, VENEZUELA
The object emitted a buzz which was compared with that of a swarm of bees. While making a slow movement of comings and goings, it came down to a distance of more or less 30 meters from the observers, while staying one meter and half above ground-level, without touching the ground. Its diameter was also calculated as being 30 meters. Below the spaceship, a kind of tube of light was projected. At once, when this pipe of light, projected by the lower part of the ship, reached the ground, two humanoids used it to come down, who were dressed in space suits which were a kind of brilliant silver plated blouse. They walked in the direction of the three men.
****************
JANUARY 21, MATIAS-BARBOSA, MINAS GERAIS, BRESIL, ERMINIO AND BIANCA REIS:
It re-ignited suddenly and directed a beam of light towards the car; which died out in its turn while the so-called balloon became motionless. Other version indicate that as the light neared, she screamed, believing it to be a plane about to crash. Her husband, now awake, had no time to say a word, as they felt a strange feeling of weightlessness, a sort of vacuum, and were "absorbed", still inside their car, into a bright beam of light, as if through a chimney, and into a kind of brightly lit circular garage.
***************
SEPTEMBER 23, 1978, VIEDMA, RIO NEGRO, ARGENTINA, CARLOS ACEVEDO AND MIGUEL ANGEL MOYA:
The light was now occupying the entire rear-view mirror and continued approaching at high speed, until the interior of the Citroën was filled with light. Acevedo reported what happened then:
"The light flooded the interior completely, and I couldn't see any farther than the hood of the car. It was very dense and bright, and its color was yellowish with a violet tint. At that moment the car seemed to be out of control. I looked through the window and saw that we were about two meters off the ground. I immediately thought that we had hit something, flying into the air, and started getting ready for the moment when the car would hit the road again."
But the car, instead of descending, seemed to continue its ascent out of control. Acevedo told:
"After a few seconds, perhaps 5 or 10, I realized that all that was completely abnormal. I tried to look out the window again but the only thing that I could see was that dense light. I remember that I started to shout 'What's the matter?,' but Moya didn't respond. When I looked to my right he wasn't there, or at least I couldn't see him. I couldn't even see the dashboard. I could only see the light, dense, it seemed like liquid, I don't know, kind of sticky."
(snip)
A few seconds later, the light retracted bottom to top, and the only thing that was left in view was a white / yellowish light, oval in shape, that continued its west heading until it disappeared in the distance."
****************
JULY 11, 1978, ALTO DA MOOCA, SAO PAOLO, BRAZIL, A WOMAN:
The humanoid closest to her caressed her head, while the other floated towards the UFO. The humanoid that had been standing next to her floated to the door of the UFO and removed an aluminum container from his belt. The container illuminated the yard in a bizarre yellow "coherent" light that appeared solid. The beam of light would enlarge, then decrease in size intermittently. The beam of light was directed towards the kitchen area, the yard and into the landed UFO.
(snip)
During the encounter, the woman perceived a total silence in the area, like a vacuum. Also during the encounter, she perceived a strong smell resembling ammonia and felt extremely cold.
*******************
October 1969 Enrique Castillo, Bogotá, Colombia:
The ships hovered about 100 meters from where I was. One of them silently moved behind the other. Now there was no more light, just a small halo surrounding the closest one [which] approached . . . Moving slowly and swaying slightly from side to side . . . it shot downwards two beams of light, strong orange in color [which] do not radiate like regular light does. [Later] I saw how the beams of light retracted until reaching the bottom of the craft, apparently ‘absorbed’, or reeled in. Two silhouettes slid down the beams until they disappeared behind the trees . . . A crackling of branches [and] dry leaves announced the arrival of the two beings.
(snip)
From the ship above, the orange light-beam was projected, which surrounded me about one meter around. I noticed how small leaves and dirt particles on the ground jumped at the contact with the light. A prickly sensation was felt through my whole body and my brain, like pins being stuck into my skin. I left the ground and slowly ascended. When the tips of the trees were passed, I could see the lake. I went up about 50 meters, feeling a terrible ‘vacuum’ sensation in my stomach. I moved my right hand, nervously, and felt that the light was ‘solid’, like glass . . . I kept on moving upwards. A gate opened above me, I entered, and the light ray softly dropped me onto the floor of the ship . .
(snip)
Castillo was astonished to discover that the craft had been in flight all the time he had been on board. He had felt nothing at all. ‘They took me to a special panel, where a visor opened like the lids of an eye, revealing a concave screen. I sat in front of the visor, on a fixed chair. One of my companions, who was operating the controls, adjusted them and invited me to look through them . . . I moved them somewhat, until I could see with perfect clarity . . .’ What he saw was his own house. I was dumbfounded; it was a sort of telescope, incorporating a beam of light, capable of penetrating the roofs and walls of buildings. I could see my family sleeping, and the dog seemed to notice something, barking and moving about nervously . . . When I moved the levers the wrong way, a neighbor’s house became visible . . . We kept on going at a steady speed. I could identify 68th Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Bogotá .
***********
1969, Oscar Bowles, a wealthy Bolivian businessman:
The disc stopped, hovered momentarily, and flashes of white light emitted from its underside like electricity jumping a gap, striking the sheep. This happened about 30 times in quick succession, and the sheep fell to the ground. As Stevens relates: As it became apparent that the flock was the target of interest, the shepherd picked up a stick and, raising it, started to run toward the slowing, shiny metallic disc. With his first threatening motion of raising the club, there was a flash of violet light and he suddenly was unable to continue the motion. It was like he was immersed in molasses. He could barely move, and then very slowly. He could roll his eyes and look around. He saw his helpers apparently in the same kind of paralysis . . . The stricken sheep did not move. As he watched, the silver disc-shaped craft, with a shiny dome on top, descended still more,
***********
1977 Columbia, South America
THE CURTAIN OF SILENCE
The craft reported at this time appeared to witnesses in different shapes and sizes; often shaped like helicopters or ray fish. Beams of light which emitted from them were capable of penetrating solid matter, such as the roofs of houses, and of targeting and paralysing people. By October 1977, the populace was thoroughly alarmed, particularly in Vigia, as this news report confirms:
*************
Pauline Delcour-Min, England, 1964 & 1996
Once at home, with Paulinne under regression, details of the journey to Scotland emerged. Paulinne recalled that as they drove along the road a “beam of light that slants diagonally from behind us” appeared. Within moments, they had driven directly into it causing the vehicle to be “drawn into it” and into the air. She further described it as being like a “tractor beam” and that upon entering it they were “frozen” and that “time had stopped” for the couple.
****************
The Buff Ledge Abduction 7th August 1968
The craft now moved directly overhead, and shot a beam at Michael and Janet. Grabbing Janet's shoulder, Michael pulled both of them on their backs on the dock. Suddenly, Michael was overcome with the fear of being kidnapped. He remembers screaming, "We don't want to go!" The light from the beam was so bright that Michael recalls being able to see the bones in his hand, like an X-ray. The two teenagers both later related that the beam had a "liquid" feeling to it, and gave them the sense of free floating.
************
1973, The Doraty Abduction, Houston, Texas
Some of Sprinkle's hypnosis session is included below:
Sprinkle asks, "Is there anyone around you?" There was this long, almost forty-five-second pause, and then she said: "two little men."
"[The two beings) were about three and a half to four feet tall; grey creatures with large egg-shaped heads."
"It's like a spotlight shining down on the back of my car. And it's like it has substance to it. I can see an animal being taken up in this. I can see it squirming and trying to get free. And it's like it's being sucked up."
***************
Brazilian Island of Colares - UFO Encounters of 1977
In describing their experiences with these light beams, most victims claimed that "They were immediately immobilized, as if a heavy weight pushed against their chest. The beam was about [seven or eight centimetres] in diameter and white in color. It never hunted for them but hit them suddenly.
"When they tried to scream, no sound would come out, but their eyes remained open. The beam felt hot, 'almost as hot as a cigarette burn,' barely tolerable. "After a few minutes the column of light would slowly retract and disappear." Most symptoms usually disappeared after seven days. "
(snip)
One night several months later, on May 24 1978, a journalist and photographer, who had been sent to cover the local UFO encounters, were in their car when despite the heavy rain they were woken up "by a powerful beam of light which however unbelievable, it may seem passed through the metallic structure of the roof of the vehicle."
Not surprisingly they leapt out of the car to see that "a tube-shaped light beam, about [twenty-five centimetres] in diameter, was coming down from above onto the roof of the car and passing through the metal panelling."
On this and other occasions, they managed to take numerous photographs which they claim that their newspaper later sold to "a North-American group."
On another night while trying to use flash equipment to photograph one of these craft "the UFO emitted such a vivid beam of light that it smashed the windscreen" of their car. (Giese, 1996)
*************
Denise Stoner , West Virginia - 1982
As she lay in bed in her room, a bizarre entity suddenly appeared as it walked right through the wall (we should note this is a detail of entities appearing through walls is found in many other similar encounters). She would claim to The Boston Globe that the entity “looked like a monk, he had a robe and was carrying a light”. The entity held its hand out toward her for her to take it. As she felt no fear, she did so, and they proceeded to walk out into the hallway. The figure lifted the light it was carrying and pointed it directly at the wall and then walked into it and disappeared. The next thing she knew she was inside a “large, dome-shaped room” and there were lots of other children around her.
**************
Gösta Karlsson UFO encounter - Sweden 1946
Years later, Gösta Karlsson described the object he saw to the Swedish ufologist Klas Svan:
“It was shaped like a disk and stood on two telescopic supports.
(snip)
On top of the cockpit, there was something thick, like a periscope four meters high. It had that bright purple light source that caught my attention. Light along a strange curved trajectory softly enveloped the entire object and pulsed slightly like water in a fountain.
The air smelled strongly of ozone.
************
April 4th, 1966 - Location: Burkes Flat, Victoria, Australia
Then gradually the top seemed to come to meet the bottom, They seemed to close in, making a transition of one light oval, similar to first view, everything then just disappeared. The last thing Sullivan saw of the light display was just a spot on the ground, a light spot, become smaller and smaller, to nothing.
Meanwhile, as he was driving, he observed that his car headlight beams suddenly appeared to be pointing in a direction off to the right in the direction of the strange light display and also seemed to be, bending back on an axis with the object in the pasture. As he got closer, the angle of bending of his cars headlight beams became more acute.
************
1949, Norwood, Ohio Searchlight UFO Incident
An additional photo was found in the possession of RAY STANFORD, who states: "This is several generations down from the original16 mm movie film, but it seems to rather clearly show that while the beam was projecting several degrees away from the object, when it got within a certain event horizon of the object, it was simply bent or 'pulled' the beam directly into the object, seemingly bending it about 26.5 degrees, as measured in the photo plane! This frame has always amazed me since I first saw it in the mid-'50s. Several persons, back then, who had seen the actual movie said that at one time the object seems, indeed, to 'suck' the beam squarely into it!
************
‘Piedro Viera 12 January 1997 Puerto Rico:
...an extraordinary mutilation case that occurred in Puerto Rico, the initial stages of which were witnessed by a security guard and former police officer, ‘Piedro Viera’, who recounted to Jorge Martín and me that while driving in the small hours of 12 January 1997 he had seen a large circular object coming from the direction of the El Yunque Rain Forest, then hovering above some cows in a pasture. A blue-green conical beam of light came down from the craft and engulfed two of the cows, one of which was ‘levitated’ towards the craft. ‘The cow vanished suddenly when it was about five feet from the underside,
*************
Nov. 08, 1954 dusk. La Tessoualle (France):
Andre Chaillou felt pricklings in his hands, "in spite of his gloves," when a blue disk came close to his motorcycle and his electrical system failed. He was unable to move or articulate a word for several minutes. As soon as the blue light was turned off, he started again and went near the light when it reappeared 200 m away. He saw the object, a cone 5.5 m in size, rise vertically with a soft whistling, then fly horizontally to the north. (98)
***************
Sep. 10, 1954 Quarouble (France):
A metal worker, Marius De-wilde, 34, came out of his house as a dog was barking and saw a dark object on the railroad tracks, then observed two dwarfs walking toward it. When he tried to stop them, he found himself paralyzed as a strong orange light was projected at him. The creatures were under 1 m tall, bulky, and wore dark diving suits. No face or arms were visible. Traces made by an object of estimated weight 30 tons were noted by French Air Force and police on the ballast.
*************
1965 — A couple is driving on a country road in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, when their car engine begins to fail, so they pull over in front of a tree. They notice an object behind the tree that emits a luminous ray toward them that bends at three places, vertically and horizontally, to avoid the tree. The woman’s cheek feels as if something is probing her. (Jean Bastide, La Mémoire des OVNI, Mercure de France, 1978; “Beam of Light with Three Corners,” CUFOS Associate Newsletter 4, no. 6 (Dec, 1983/Jan. 1984)

The Tujunga Canyon Abduction Incidents - 1953
Sara would describe stepping into a “solid beam of light” that would lift her “about the same angle as an escalator” but with no steps. The humanoids would examine Sara, using what she believed to be an “X-ray-type device”.
****************
AUGUST 7, 1965, SAN PEDRO DE LOS ALTOS, MIRANDA, VENEZUELA
The object emitted a buzz which was compared with that of a swarm of bees. While making a slow movement of comings and goings, it came down to a distance of more or less 30 meters from the observers, while staying one meter and half above ground-level, without touching the ground. Its diameter was also calculated as being 30 meters. Below the spaceship, a kind of tube of light was projected. At once, when this pipe of light, projected by the lower part of the ship, reached the ground, two humanoids used it to come down, who were dressed in space suits which were a kind of brilliant silver plated blouse. They walked in the direction of the three men.
****************
JANUARY 21, MATIAS-BARBOSA, MINAS GERAIS, BRESIL, ERMINIO AND BIANCA REIS:
It re-ignited suddenly and directed a beam of light towards the car; which died out in its turn while the so-called balloon became motionless. Other version indicate that as the light neared, she screamed, believing it to be a plane about to crash. Her husband, now awake, had no time to say a word, as they felt a strange feeling of weightlessness, a sort of vacuum, and were "absorbed", still inside their car, into a bright beam of light, as if through a chimney, and into a kind of brightly lit circular garage.
***************
SEPTEMBER 23, 1978, VIEDMA, RIO NEGRO, ARGENTINA, CARLOS ACEVEDO AND MIGUEL ANGEL MOYA:
The light was now occupying the entire rear-view mirror and continued approaching at high speed, until the interior of the Citroën was filled with light. Acevedo reported what happened then:
"The light flooded the interior completely, and I couldn't see any farther than the hood of the car. It was very dense and bright, and its color was yellowish with a violet tint. At that moment the car seemed to be out of control. I looked through the window and saw that we were about two meters off the ground. I immediately thought that we had hit something, flying into the air, and started getting ready for the moment when the car would hit the road again."
But the car, instead of descending, seemed to continue its ascent out of control. Acevedo told:
"After a few seconds, perhaps 5 or 10, I realized that all that was completely abnormal. I tried to look out the window again but the only thing that I could see was that dense light. I remember that I started to shout 'What's the matter?,' but Moya didn't respond. When I looked to my right he wasn't there, or at least I couldn't see him. I couldn't even see the dashboard. I could only see the light, dense, it seemed like liquid, I don't know, kind of sticky."
(snip)
A few seconds later, the light retracted bottom to top, and the only thing that was left in view was a white / yellowish light, oval in shape, that continued its west heading until it disappeared in the distance."
****************
JULY 11, 1978, ALTO DA MOOCA, SAO PAOLO, BRAZIL, A WOMAN:
The humanoid closest to her caressed her head, while the other floated towards the UFO. The humanoid that had been standing next to her floated to the door of the UFO and removed an aluminum container from his belt. The container illuminated the yard in a bizarre yellow "coherent" light that appeared solid. The beam of light would enlarge, then decrease in size intermittently. The beam of light was directed towards the kitchen area, the yard and into the landed UFO.
(snip)
During the encounter, the woman perceived a total silence in the area, like a vacuum. Also during the encounter, she perceived a strong smell resembling ammonia and felt extremely cold.
*******************
October 1969 Enrique Castillo, Bogotá, Colombia:
The ships hovered about 100 meters from where I was. One of them silently moved behind the other. Now there was no more light, just a small halo surrounding the closest one [which] approached . . . Moving slowly and swaying slightly from side to side . . . it shot downwards two beams of light, strong orange in color [which] do not radiate like regular light does. [Later] I saw how the beams of light retracted until reaching the bottom of the craft, apparently ‘absorbed’, or reeled in. Two silhouettes slid down the beams until they disappeared behind the trees . . . A crackling of branches [and] dry leaves announced the arrival of the two beings.
(snip)
From the ship above, the orange light-beam was projected, which surrounded me about one meter around. I noticed how small leaves and dirt particles on the ground jumped at the contact with the light. A prickly sensation was felt through my whole body and my brain, like pins being stuck into my skin. I left the ground and slowly ascended. When the tips of the trees were passed, I could see the lake. I went up about 50 meters, feeling a terrible ‘vacuum’ sensation in my stomach. I moved my right hand, nervously, and felt that the light was ‘solid’, like glass . . . I kept on moving upwards. A gate opened above me, I entered, and the light ray softly dropped me onto the floor of the ship . .
(snip)
Castillo was astonished to discover that the craft had been in flight all the time he had been on board. He had felt nothing at all. ‘They took me to a special panel, where a visor opened like the lids of an eye, revealing a concave screen. I sat in front of the visor, on a fixed chair. One of my companions, who was operating the controls, adjusted them and invited me to look through them . . . I moved them somewhat, until I could see with perfect clarity . . .’ What he saw was his own house. I was dumbfounded; it was a sort of telescope, incorporating a beam of light, capable of penetrating the roofs and walls of buildings. I could see my family sleeping, and the dog seemed to notice something, barking and moving about nervously . . . When I moved the levers the wrong way, a neighbor’s house became visible . . . We kept on going at a steady speed. I could identify 68th Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Bogotá .
***********
1969, Oscar Bowles, a wealthy Bolivian businessman:
The disc stopped, hovered momentarily, and flashes of white light emitted from its underside like electricity jumping a gap, striking the sheep. This happened about 30 times in quick succession, and the sheep fell to the ground. As Stevens relates: As it became apparent that the flock was the target of interest, the shepherd picked up a stick and, raising it, started to run toward the slowing, shiny metallic disc. With his first threatening motion of raising the club, there was a flash of violet light and he suddenly was unable to continue the motion. It was like he was immersed in molasses. He could barely move, and then very slowly. He could roll his eyes and look around. He saw his helpers apparently in the same kind of paralysis . . . The stricken sheep did not move. As he watched, the silver disc-shaped craft, with a shiny dome on top, descended still more,
***********
1977 Columbia, South America
THE CURTAIN OF SILENCE
The craft reported at this time appeared to witnesses in different shapes and sizes; often shaped like helicopters or ray fish. Beams of light which emitted from them were capable of penetrating solid matter, such as the roofs of houses, and of targeting and paralysing people. By October 1977, the populace was thoroughly alarmed, particularly in Vigia, as this news report confirms:
*************
Pauline Delcour-Min, England, 1964 & 1996
Once at home, with Paulinne under regression, details of the journey to Scotland emerged. Paulinne recalled that as they drove along the road a “beam of light that slants diagonally from behind us” appeared. Within moments, they had driven directly into it causing the vehicle to be “drawn into it” and into the air. She further described it as being like a “tractor beam” and that upon entering it they were “frozen” and that “time had stopped” for the couple.
****************
The Buff Ledge Abduction 7th August 1968
The craft now moved directly overhead, and shot a beam at Michael and Janet. Grabbing Janet's shoulder, Michael pulled both of them on their backs on the dock. Suddenly, Michael was overcome with the fear of being kidnapped. He remembers screaming, "We don't want to go!" The light from the beam was so bright that Michael recalls being able to see the bones in his hand, like an X-ray. The two teenagers both later related that the beam had a "liquid" feeling to it, and gave them the sense of free floating.
************
1973, The Doraty Abduction, Houston, Texas
Some of Sprinkle's hypnosis session is included below:
Sprinkle asks, "Is there anyone around you?" There was this long, almost forty-five-second pause, and then she said: "two little men."
"[The two beings) were about three and a half to four feet tall; grey creatures with large egg-shaped heads."
"It's like a spotlight shining down on the back of my car. And it's like it has substance to it. I can see an animal being taken up in this. I can see it squirming and trying to get free. And it's like it's being sucked up."
***************
Brazilian Island of Colares - UFO Encounters of 1977
In describing their experiences with these light beams, most victims claimed that "They were immediately immobilized, as if a heavy weight pushed against their chest. The beam was about [seven or eight centimetres] in diameter and white in color. It never hunted for them but hit them suddenly.
"When they tried to scream, no sound would come out, but their eyes remained open. The beam felt hot, 'almost as hot as a cigarette burn,' barely tolerable. "After a few minutes the column of light would slowly retract and disappear." Most symptoms usually disappeared after seven days. "
(snip)
One night several months later, on May 24 1978, a journalist and photographer, who had been sent to cover the local UFO encounters, were in their car when despite the heavy rain they were woken up "by a powerful beam of light which however unbelievable, it may seem passed through the metallic structure of the roof of the vehicle."
Not surprisingly they leapt out of the car to see that "a tube-shaped light beam, about [twenty-five centimetres] in diameter, was coming down from above onto the roof of the car and passing through the metal panelling."
On this and other occasions, they managed to take numerous photographs which they claim that their newspaper later sold to "a North-American group."
On another night while trying to use flash equipment to photograph one of these craft "the UFO emitted such a vivid beam of light that it smashed the windscreen" of their car. (Giese, 1996)
*************
Denise Stoner , West Virginia - 1982
As she lay in bed in her room, a bizarre entity suddenly appeared as it walked right through the wall (we should note this is a detail of entities appearing through walls is found in many other similar encounters). She would claim to The Boston Globe that the entity “looked like a monk, he had a robe and was carrying a light”. The entity held its hand out toward her for her to take it. As she felt no fear, she did so, and they proceeded to walk out into the hallway. The figure lifted the light it was carrying and pointed it directly at the wall and then walked into it and disappeared. The next thing she knew she was inside a “large, dome-shaped room” and there were lots of other children around her.
**************
Gösta Karlsson UFO encounter - Sweden 1946
Years later, Gösta Karlsson described the object he saw to the Swedish ufologist Klas Svan:
“It was shaped like a disk and stood on two telescopic supports.
(snip)
On top of the cockpit, there was something thick, like a periscope four meters high. It had that bright purple light source that caught my attention. Light along a strange curved trajectory softly enveloped the entire object and pulsed slightly like water in a fountain.
The air smelled strongly of ozone.
************
April 4th, 1966 - Location: Burkes Flat, Victoria, Australia
Then gradually the top seemed to come to meet the bottom, They seemed to close in, making a transition of one light oval, similar to first view, everything then just disappeared. The last thing Sullivan saw of the light display was just a spot on the ground, a light spot, become smaller and smaller, to nothing.
Meanwhile, as he was driving, he observed that his car headlight beams suddenly appeared to be pointing in a direction off to the right in the direction of the strange light display and also seemed to be, bending back on an axis with the object in the pasture. As he got closer, the angle of bending of his cars headlight beams became more acute.
************
1949, Norwood, Ohio Searchlight UFO Incident
An additional photo was found in the possession of RAY STANFORD, who states: "This is several generations down from the original16 mm movie film, but it seems to rather clearly show that while the beam was projecting several degrees away from the object, when it got within a certain event horizon of the object, it was simply bent or 'pulled' the beam directly into the object, seemingly bending it about 26.5 degrees, as measured in the photo plane! This frame has always amazed me since I first saw it in the mid-'50s. Several persons, back then, who had seen the actual movie said that at one time the object seems, indeed, to 'suck' the beam squarely into it!
************
‘Piedro Viera 12 January 1997 Puerto Rico:
...an extraordinary mutilation case that occurred in Puerto Rico, the initial stages of which were witnessed by a security guard and former police officer, ‘Piedro Viera’, who recounted to Jorge Martín and me that while driving in the small hours of 12 January 1997 he had seen a large circular object coming from the direction of the El Yunque Rain Forest, then hovering above some cows in a pasture. A blue-green conical beam of light came down from the craft and engulfed two of the cows, one of which was ‘levitated’ towards the craft. ‘The cow vanished suddenly when it was about five feet from the underside,
*************
Nov. 08, 1954 dusk. La Tessoualle (France):
Andre Chaillou felt pricklings in his hands, "in spite of his gloves," when a blue disk came close to his motorcycle and his electrical system failed. He was unable to move or articulate a word for several minutes. As soon as the blue light was turned off, he started again and went near the light when it reappeared 200 m away. He saw the object, a cone 5.5 m in size, rise vertically with a soft whistling, then fly horizontally to the north. (98)
***************
Sep. 10, 1954 Quarouble (France):
A metal worker, Marius De-wilde, 34, came out of his house as a dog was barking and saw a dark object on the railroad tracks, then observed two dwarfs walking toward it. When he tried to stop them, he found himself paralyzed as a strong orange light was projected at him. The creatures were under 1 m tall, bulky, and wore dark diving suits. No face or arms were visible. Traces made by an object of estimated weight 30 tons were noted by French Air Force and police on the ballast.
*************
1965 — A couple is driving on a country road in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, when their car engine begins to fail, so they pull over in front of a tree. They notice an object behind the tree that emits a luminous ray toward them that bends at three places, vertically and horizontally, to avoid the tree. The woman’s cheek feels as if something is probing her. (Jean Bastide, La Mémoire des OVNI, Mercure de France, 1978; “Beam of Light with Three Corners,” CUFOS Associate Newsletter 4, no. 6 (Dec, 1983/Jan. 1984)

Hei, hi and hello!
I’m Onsie, Onsfjord or Fjord feel free to call me whichever is not mind to me.
I’m a 26-year-old English Norwegian who’s mainly lived his whole life in the United Kingdom and graduated from university with a degree in Computer Networks and is now working as a DIE for the NHS (Digital Infrastructure Engineer).
Caught you off guard with that job title acronym huh? Yeah, trust me when I first started it had me in fits of laughter, but you get used to it after a while.
So a bit about me;

• I’m an introvert and tend to avoid public crowds, events and such and just try to vibe with friends on a nice game of anything (which you’ll see below)
• I’m an avid IT nerd and will most likely remain this way for my whole career as IT is my education and career at this point
• On top of IT you guessed it I’m also a very big avid “gamer” I mainly play PC and PS5 games with my current interests being in Helldivers 2, Star Wars: The Fallen Order, and Jedi: Survivor amongst a few other things like WoW, CoD, SWTOR and so on.
• I love learning, whether it be history, game lore, languages, cultures, etc. You name it, and I’ll probably be interested in it (Trust me, you give me a flag of any country, and I’ll be able to tell you the country’s name and political structure.
• I’m also an avid book reader and you’ll most likely see my shelf full of different manga from all types of genres, I don’t particularly watch anime, I mainly read instead because I find it more “interesting” for better or not. (Not that I'm opposed to watching it)
• - I’m trying to learn to cook myself but not very good at it as my most recent attempt I ended up giving myself food poisoning so it’s sufficient to say you will have a big gamble if you’d like me to cook ha-ha.
• I do watch football from time to time and do support a few clubs from around the world (mainly northern Europe, the UK, and the US) feel free to guess if you’d like!
• I’m currently on a VLCD and have lost about 2 stone within 1 month which I’m super super happy about.

In terms of looks and such I’m what an average 26-year-old would look like who is 6’1/6’2 with a picture on request.
Please don’t judge too much as I’m still working on improving myself.
What am I about? I’ve always made it a goal to help, care for, and support those close to me, whether it be friends, old friends, or the equivalent of my family. They’ve been there for me, and I’ll go hell and back for them as they’ve stood by me through thick and thin, even through the loss of other close friends; they’ve picked me up and brushed me down and set me straight to which I will always forever be in their debt and have helped them being.
Whilst I’ve been shot and backstabbed by many of those who I thought were close to me I just try and see the positive and avoid the unnecessary drama and arguments as life is just way too generally short for that kind of stuff and we should all get along with each other in my mind.
What am I looking for? I apologize if this comes off as really picky

• Someone in the realm of the US, Canada or Europe
• Someone between the age of 20 to 28 years old
• Someone who has an interest in IT, manga, gaming, and such (It’s easier to talk to people with the same interest I’ve found though you don’t need to work in IT at all)
• Just be a kind honest individual who I can back and vice versa. Be there for each other.

I am looking for a monogamous and serious relationship and not a friendship, however, I’m fine with starting out as friends whilst getting to know each other etc.
The end? Well, I’d like to say that this was the short and sweet version of myself without giving much more away about me but hey hopefully you’ve stayed this far and if you have, I have a very small simple request for you!
If you do decide I’m someone you’d like to get to know and all of that stuff then when messaging me, please make a somewhat attempt of an introduction (I’m not asking for the mass of paragraphs or anything) just a hi, your name (doesn’t have to be your real name), where you’re from, how old are you, what you do, hobbies, etc and we’ll go from there!
Low-effort chats & messages will be removed also, so I know that you’ve made it this far please put your answers to this question (wrong answers don’t matter, it’s what is attempted counts)
“I was born in the winter on a remembrance day, which day was this?”
Take care and hope to see your message 😊

I got hired for a job from San Diego to San Jose. Hired for moving with truck. This would include loading a bed and side table and driving to San Jose. About 470 Miles and 7.75 hours. With only being able to charge by the hour on the app i told them i would charge 16 hrs. with my rate before taxes and fees the quote was $1040.
They wanted it to be closer to $700 and I Said i couldn't. My expenses for gas would of been $330. Then essentially 2 days blocked to do the drive.
They ended up canceling. I don't mind that they cancelled. but i am curious ho you would charge for this.

The Tujunga Canyon Abduction Incidents - 1953
Sara would describe stepping into a “solid beam of light” that would lift her “about the same angle as an escalator” but with no steps. The humanoids would examine Sara, using what she believed to be an “X-ray-type device”.
****************
AUGUST 7, 1965, SAN PEDRO DE LOS ALTOS, MIRANDA, VENEZUELA
The object emitted a buzz which was compared with that of a swarm of bees. While making a slow movement of comings and goings, it came down to a distance of more or less 30 meters from the observers, while staying one meter and half above ground-level, without touching the ground. Its diameter was also calculated as being 30 meters. Below the spaceship, a kind of tube of light was projected. At once, when this pipe of light, projected by the lower part of the ship, reached the ground, two humanoids used it to come down, who were dressed in space suits which were a kind of brilliant silver plated blouse. They walked in the direction of the three men.
****************
JANUARY 21, MATIAS-BARBOSA, MINAS GERAIS, BRESIL, ERMINIO AND BIANCA REIS:
It re-ignited suddenly and directed a beam of light towards the car; which died out in its turn while the so-called balloon became motionless. Other version indicate that as the light neared, she screamed, believing it to be a plane about to crash. Her husband, now awake, had no time to say a word, as they felt a strange feeling of weightlessness, a sort of vacuum, and were "absorbed", still inside their car, into a bright beam of light, as if through a chimney, and into a kind of brightly lit circular garage.
***************
SEPTEMBER 23, 1978, VIEDMA, RIO NEGRO, ARGENTINA, CARLOS ACEVEDO AND MIGUEL ANGEL MOYA:
The light was now occupying the entire rear-view mirror and continued approaching at high speed, until the interior of the Citroën was filled with light. Acevedo reported what happened then:
"The light flooded the interior completely, and I couldn't see any farther than the hood of the car. It was very dense and bright, and its color was yellowish with a violet tint. At that moment the car seemed to be out of control. I looked through the window and saw that we were about two meters off the ground. I immediately thought that we had hit something, flying into the air, and started getting ready for the moment when the car would hit the road again."
But the car, instead of descending, seemed to continue its ascent out of control. Acevedo told:
"After a few seconds, perhaps 5 or 10, I realized that all that was completely abnormal. I tried to look out the window again but the only thing that I could see was that dense light. I remember that I started to shout 'What's the matter?,' but Moya didn't respond. When I looked to my right he wasn't there, or at least I couldn't see him. I couldn't even see the dashboard. I could only see the light, dense, it seemed like liquid, I don't know, kind of sticky."
(snip)
A few seconds later, the light retracted bottom to top, and the only thing that was left in view was a white / yellowish light, oval in shape, that continued its west heading until it disappeared in the distance."
****************
JULY 11, 1978, ALTO DA MOOCA, SAO PAOLO, BRAZIL, A WOMAN:
The humanoid closest to her caressed her head, while the other floated towards the UFO. The humanoid that had been standing next to her floated to the door of the UFO and removed an aluminum container from his belt. The container illuminated the yard in a bizarre yellow "coherent" light that appeared solid. The beam of light would enlarge, then decrease in size intermittently. The beam of light was directed towards the kitchen area, the yard and into the landed UFO.
(snip)
During the encounter, the woman perceived a total silence in the area, like a vacuum. Also during the encounter, she perceived a strong smell resembling ammonia and felt extremely cold.
*******************
October 1969 Enrique Castillo, Bogotá, Colombia:
The ships hovered about 100 meters from where I was. One of them silently moved behind the other. Now there was no more light, just a small halo surrounding the closest one [which] approached . . . Moving slowly and swaying slightly from side to side . . . it shot downwards two beams of light, strong orange in color [which] do not radiate like regular light does. [Later] I saw how the beams of light retracted until reaching the bottom of the craft, apparently ‘absorbed’, or reeled in. Two silhouettes slid down the beams until they disappeared behind the trees . . . A crackling of branches [and] dry leaves announced the arrival of the two beings.
(snip)
From the ship above, the orange light-beam was projected, which surrounded me about one meter around. I noticed how small leaves and dirt particles on the ground jumped at the contact with the light. A prickly sensation was felt through my whole body and my brain, like pins being stuck into my skin. I left the ground and slowly ascended. When the tips of the trees were passed, I could see the lake. I went up about 50 meters, feeling a terrible ‘vacuum’ sensation in my stomach. I moved my right hand, nervously, and felt that the light was ‘solid’, like glass . . . I kept on moving upwards. A gate opened above me, I entered, and the light ray softly dropped me onto the floor of the ship . .
(snip)
Castillo was astonished to discover that the craft had been in flight all the time he had been on board. He had felt nothing at all. ‘They took me to a special panel, where a visor opened like the lids of an eye, revealing a concave screen. I sat in front of the visor, on a fixed chair. One of my companions, who was operating the controls, adjusted them and invited me to look through them . . . I moved them somewhat, until I could see with perfect clarity . . .’ What he saw was his own house. I was dumbfounded; it was a sort of telescope, incorporating a beam of light, capable of penetrating the roofs and walls of buildings. I could see my family sleeping, and the dog seemed to notice something, barking and moving about nervously . . . When I moved the levers the wrong way, a neighbor’s house became visible . . . We kept on going at a steady speed. I could identify 68th Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Bogotá .
***********
1969, Oscar Bowles, a wealthy Bolivian businessman:
The disc stopped, hovered momentarily, and flashes of white light emitted from its underside like electricity jumping a gap, striking the sheep. This happened about 30 times in quick succession, and the sheep fell to the ground. As Stevens relates: As it became apparent that the flock was the target of interest, the shepherd picked up a stick and, raising it, started to run toward the slowing, shiny metallic disc. With his first threatening motion of raising the club, there was a flash of violet light and he suddenly was unable to continue the motion. It was like he was immersed in molasses. He could barely move, and then very slowly. He could roll his eyes and look around. He saw his helpers apparently in the same kind of paralysis . . . The stricken sheep did not move. As he watched, the silver disc-shaped craft, with a shiny dome on top, descended still more,
***********
1977 Columbia, South America
THE CURTAIN OF SILENCE
The craft reported at this time appeared to witnesses in different shapes and sizes; often shaped like helicopters or ray fish. Beams of light which emitted from them were capable of penetrating solid matter, such as the roofs of houses, and of targeting and paralysing people. By October 1977, the populace was thoroughly alarmed, particularly in Vigia, as this news report confirms:
*************
Pauline Delcour-Min, England, 1964 & 1996
Once at home, with Paulinne under regression, details of the journey to Scotland emerged. Paulinne recalled that as they drove along the road a “beam of light that slants diagonally from behind us” appeared. Within moments, they had driven directly into it causing the vehicle to be “drawn into it” and into the air. She further described it as being like a “tractor beam” and that upon entering it they were “frozen” and that “time had stopped” for the couple.
****************
The Buff Ledge Abduction 7th August 1968
The craft now moved directly overhead, and shot a beam at Michael and Janet. Grabbing Janet's shoulder, Michael pulled both of them on their backs on the dock. Suddenly, Michael was overcome with the fear of being kidnapped. He remembers screaming, "We don't want to go!" The light from the beam was so bright that Michael recalls being able to see the bones in his hand, like an X-ray. The two teenagers both later related that the beam had a "liquid" feeling to it, and gave them the sense of free floating.
************
1973, The Doraty Abduction, Houston, Texas
Some of Sprinkle's hypnosis session is included below:
Sprinkle asks, "Is there anyone around you?" There was this long, almost forty-five-second pause, and then she said: "two little men."
"[The two beings) were about three and a half to four feet tall; grey creatures with large egg-shaped heads."
"It's like a spotlight shining down on the back of my car. And it's like it has substance to it. I can see an animal being taken up in this. I can see it squirming and trying to get free. And it's like it's being sucked up."
***************
Brazilian Island of Colares - UFO Encounters of 1977
In describing their experiences with these light beams, most victims claimed that "They were immediately immobilized, as if a heavy weight pushed against their chest. The beam was about [seven or eight centimetres] in diameter and white in color. It never hunted for them but hit them suddenly.
"When they tried to scream, no sound would come out, but their eyes remained open. The beam felt hot, 'almost as hot as a cigarette burn,' barely tolerable. "After a few minutes the column of light would slowly retract and disappear." Most symptoms usually disappeared after seven days. "
(snip)
One night several months later, on May 24 1978, a journalist and photographer, who had been sent to cover the local UFO encounters, were in their car when despite the heavy rain they were woken up "by a powerful beam of light which however unbelievable, it may seem passed through the metallic structure of the roof of the vehicle."
Not surprisingly they leapt out of the car to see that "a tube-shaped light beam, about [twenty-five centimetres] in diameter, was coming down from above onto the roof of the car and passing through the metal panelling."
On this and other occasions, they managed to take numerous photographs which they claim that their newspaper later sold to "a North-American group."
On another night while trying to use flash equipment to photograph one of these craft "the UFO emitted such a vivid beam of light that it smashed the windscreen" of their car. (Giese, 1996)
*************
Denise Stoner , West Virginia - 1982
As she lay in bed in her room, a bizarre entity suddenly appeared as it walked right through the wall (we should note this is a detail of entities appearing through walls is found in many other similar encounters). She would claim to The Boston Globe that the entity “looked like a monk, he had a robe and was carrying a light”. The entity held its hand out toward her for her to take it. As she felt no fear, she did so, and they proceeded to walk out into the hallway. The figure lifted the light it was carrying and pointed it directly at the wall and then walked into it and disappeared. The next thing she knew she was inside a “large, dome-shaped room” and there were lots of other children around her.
**************
Gösta Karlsson UFO encounter - Sweden 1946
Years later, Gösta Karlsson described the object he saw to the Swedish ufologist Klas Svan:
“It was shaped like a disk and stood on two telescopic supports.
(snip)
On top of the cockpit, there was something thick, like a periscope four meters high. It had that bright purple light source that caught my attention. Light along a strange curved trajectory softly enveloped the entire object and pulsed slightly like water in a fountain.
The air smelled strongly of ozone.
************
April 4th, 1966 - Location: Burkes Flat, Victoria, Australia
Then gradually the top seemed to come to meet the bottom, They seemed to close in, making a transition of one light oval, similar to first view, everything then just disappeared. The last thing Sullivan saw of the light display was just a spot on the ground, a light spot, become smaller and smaller, to nothing.
Meanwhile, as he was driving, he observed that his car headlight beams suddenly appeared to be pointing in a direction off to the right in the direction of the strange light display and also seemed to be, bending back on an axis with the object in the pasture. As he got closer, the angle of bending of his cars headlight beams became more acute.
************
1949, Norwood, Ohio Searchlight UFO Incident
An additional photo was found in the possession of RAY STANFORD, who states: "This is several generations down from the original16 mm movie film, but it seems to rather clearly show that while the beam was projecting several degrees away from the object, when it got within a certain event horizon of the object, it was simply bent or 'pulled' the beam directly into the object, seemingly bending it about 26.5 degrees, as measured in the photo plane! This frame has always amazed me since I first saw it in the mid-'50s. Several persons, back then, who had seen the actual movie said that at one time the object seems, indeed, to 'suck' the beam squarely into it!
************
‘Piedro Viera 12 January 1997 Puerto Rico:
...an extraordinary mutilation case that occurred in Puerto Rico, the initial stages of which were witnessed by a security guard and former police officer, ‘Piedro Viera’, who recounted to Jorge Martín and me that while driving in the small hours of 12 January 1997 he had seen a large circular object coming from the direction of the El Yunque Rain Forest, then hovering above some cows in a pasture. A blue-green conical beam of light came down from the craft and engulfed two of the cows, one of which was ‘levitated’ towards the craft. ‘The cow vanished suddenly when it was about five feet from the underside,
*************
Nov. 08, 1954 dusk. La Tessoualle (France):
Andre Chaillou felt pricklings in his hands, "in spite of his gloves," when a blue disk came close to his motorcycle and his electrical system failed. He was unable to move or articulate a word for several minutes. As soon as the blue light was turned off, he started again and went near the light when it reappeared 200 m away. He saw the object, a cone 5.5 m in size, rise vertically with a soft whistling, then fly horizontally to the north. (98)
***************
Sep. 10, 1954 Quarouble (France):
A metal worker, Marius De-wilde, 34, came out of his house as a dog was barking and saw a dark object on the railroad tracks, then observed two dwarfs walking toward it. When he tried to stop them, he found himself paralyzed as a strong orange light was projected at him. The creatures were under 1 m tall, bulky, and wore dark diving suits. No face or arms were visible. Traces made by an object of estimated weight 30 tons were noted by French Air Force and police on the ballast.
*************
1965 — A couple is driving on a country road in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, when their car engine begins to fail, so they pull over in front of a tree. They notice an object behind the tree that emits a luminous ray toward them that bends at three places, vertically and horizontally, to avoid the tree. The woman’s cheek feels as if something is probing her. (Jean Bastide, La Mémoire des OVNI, Mercure de France, 1978; “Beam of Light with Three Corners,” CUFOS Associate Newsletter 4, no. 6 (Dec, 1983/Jan. 1984)

I want to first thank mama for her support and presence in my life. It is strong amd painless, comforting yet enduring. Hecate is the only presence I have ever had full support from before SantisiMama, and they seem to do well together, too. I have felt no quarrel at all. They do, however, seem to come to me at different times, and lately SantisiMama has been the main one I feel. When I first reached out a couple months ago, the pull was strong but I was hesitant. I looked up a few things, and while there was so much information available, it was all the same. The information didn't help me make a decision, so I asked her if she didn't mind, allow me to feel her presence. It came hours later, though. Hecate has been Luke a mother to me. But when I felt santa muerte, it was also the feeling of a mother. However, they differ and so it's easy to tell them apart. In fact, hecate now feels close to a big sister to me. I later got on reddit and saw that everyone refers to her as mama, which verified me feeling her. My original reason for coming to her was to help my husband and I. He is in prison. I hadn't worked with her yet. Until something happened with my husband amd he was struggling at a specific prison, then got sent to another one under medical due to them thinking he was trying to kill himself. Basically, he overdosed 2 times within a month. Drugs was kind of new for him. And being an addict myself and having been raised by them and was in a relationship with a narcissistic addict for a decade, this scared the shit out of me. Not to mention he died once and almost died again. I was desperate for him not to go back to the other prison. He had told me they might keep him there since the other prison (his old one) was shutting down and everyone was being transferred anyway. I was happy. Then he calls and says good news they might take me back... WHAT? No! Not good news! (His celly was the problem!). So I grabbed the one santa muerte candle I had, lit it up, and hit my knees crying and said please PLEASE. He doesn't know what is good for him right now and neither do I. ALL I know is I need him to stay alive. Please, if him staying where he is is what's best for him to stay away from that stuff, please help us. Please h3lp him stay there! I swear I felt her. I had confidence. And layer he called and said they are keeping him. I couldn't believe it because ever since we got together, so many things have gone wrong. He said this is how his life has always been. Nothing ever works out. And thus man is strong in mind and spirit. So it was hard to believe at first. But he wasn't lying. And mama helped and I'm so grateful. Later, my addiction came back to life and I've been struggling for the last 3 months. I am clean now. But I thought at one point she had left me. I begged her to help me gain the strength to say no, to not bleach out when I'm coming down. I couldn't feel her. I thought maybe she was mad, but I know it is because of the drugs because I got clean more easily than usual, and then recieved messages from her through other people's posts on here letting me know not to worry. She is my guide, she is with me, and she is working with me. I relapsed, and again thought she was gone. I then asked for specific signs. I said show me a luve butterfly if you are around. Show me a live lizard if we are connected and you are fully with me. And show me a dead lizard if I am being punished or your leaving me. A few days pass, I noticed every day there was a black carpenter bee bugging me. Just one. I got the vibe that they was her butterfly, and I heard something along the lines of "butterflies are not among the dead". I still don't know if the black bee was her. But I think so. I still wasn't sure.. Well, I was high and not thinking straight. I took my bearded dragon outside in the evening, I set him down with the greens and got on the porch to switch my laundry. I fucking forgot he was out. It was all so quick, I didn't realize till 6am when got up for coffee what I had done. I freaked out and my kids and my father all came to look for him. My son looks under the porch and sees something but it's blending in, I grab a long stick to gently move things out of the way, my son takes the stick and he says ITS HIM AND HES ALIVE. I put my head down to see, and another lizard, crocodile lizard which lost its tail, comes running out and practically into my face, then stood there so I could pick him up. I did and it spead out of NY head and took off. My son climbed under the porch, he was alive... my sign that we are connected came through the trauma I had created for myself and our family. Fuck. Luckily Lucky (our beadie) was just fine, and I got clean right away. I don't have long, 4 days, now. But my desire to go back is gone! And when I say it's been a tug of war between wanting to do right and the desire to use, it's been bad! But I feel FREE today! And I know she is part of this!! Last story, so simple yet cute. I didn't ask for anything on purpose, yet she gave to me. I have been collecting coins lately. I found a 1990 quarter (nothing special) which is my birth year. I said we'll I'll keep thus since it's my birth year. My son said but it's all tore up. I said it's ok, I'll just keep it till I find a nicer one. In the same day maybe only 30 minutes later, I was looking for something a dumped thus little tub thing the size of my hand, and boom - a perfectly beautiful 1990 quarter.
Mama, I feel like I don't deserve you. But I am so grateful for you and your presence. I grew up without a mother, so SantisiMama is now dear to my heart. I love her so much.
Sorry the stories are long. But I wanted to share and I know mama appreciates it.
Love you guys!

Bear with me this is long but just wanted to describe the situation and get opinions on if this is a normal sibling relationship. This BIL/SIL are 7 and 4 years older than us. They lived out of state and in one year, stayed at our place 4 times. Once for a family wedding, one just BIL in town for business, and twice as they were moving into our city.
They had twin 1 yr olds at the time. We did airport pick up and drop off, they borrowed our car and drove it everywhere, did laundry, I provided all meals, SIL even sent me lists of groceries (expensive organic) for their kids. They packed food from our house when they went out and about with our car. She did sort of offer once to give me money for the groceries but I said not to worry about it. Then she took all the leftover stuff from her list back with them which I was not expecting. When we normally host friends we don’t take money for anything although often they’ll pay for a dinner out as a thank you.
We did stay at their place for a few days during the holidays the year prior. We offered to chip in for groceries then and they declined. But I think the situation was different because they invited us and we had to pay for flights for the purpose of visiting them and meeting the babies whereas they stayed with us each time because they were coming into town for other purposes and we were giving them a free B&B lol. When we stayed with them, I brought holiday gifts for their whole family and on top of that my husband asked “what they needed for the babies” and my BIL said high chairs and gave a link to the ones they wanted ($50 each) that my husband bought.
When they stayed with us, my SIL was changing a diaper on our guest bed and the lo rolled and peed all over the bed. I wasn’t upset (though this is the kind of thing she would freak out over if the roles were reversed and after we had kids she did make comments about how I changed a poop diaper in her house though I’ve never caused a mess. Her kids also broke something at my parents’ house, again she would have been so mad if that happened to her with someone else’s child) and later when we were helping them move into their new place with unpacking and watching the kids so they could settle in, my BIL ordered Thai takeout and my SIL said we should just pay them back for one entree because I had to buy a new pillow. Which is nice but if it were me I would have treated for the takeout for both of us 🤷🏻‍♀️. After everything we did for them? Also, the first time we went to their new place we brought pizza and my BIL chipped in but only for exactly their fraction which wasn’t even enough lol.
My husband also did a lot to help them move like check out condos and apartments with his brother and even on his own when they were back at home. He dropped security deposits and made payments for them (BIL didn’t leave him with enough checks). I think BIL paid him back but it was a lot of running around.
Finally, when we had our first child, they all came to our baby shower (I hadn’t attended theirs bc out of state) and gave a onesie and hat with BIL and my husband’s college on it. Nowhere close to $100 high chairs (yes petty of me) but they did give us their hand me down boppy pillow, play mat, bathtub and a baby gate and SIL made us a couple meals. She did also offer to pick up groceries for us after we had our child but I only needed a loaf of bread and an avocado. I offered to pay back but she said not to because I had bought them groceries in the past. So the thought was there which I appreciate.
Then they moved again and when we visited them they did cover all food and we borrowed their car once (to see other relatives). And I gave a gift of something they wanted and flowers. But we haven’t stayed with them as often and SIL doesn’t like to have people over lol. The more recent times they’ve stayed with us they’ve taken us out to dinner, or bought some groceries or left a gift. Maybe bc I’ve expressed better boundaries. So it’s gotten better but what do you think of the one year of 4 visits…normal family helping family and my expectations are off or did they take advantage?

Ok, on one hand this is a question. On the other this is a challenge.
In an upcoming campagn we will play in a very nordic themed setting. A lot of the time will be on ship, hunting monsters, fight Jotun etc.
Because of this, i wanted to make a Skald, a concept i never played in DnD.
Now skalds are a lot of things. Storytellers, warriorpoets, Performers that inspire through their deeds etc.
Overall its clear they must fullfill these criteria to a certain degree at least.

1. Be charismatic
2. Be good in weapon based combat
3. Inspire Others in some way

Valor Bard checks all of these boxes. But still, at the end, you are still mostly a spell caster not a warrior.
Because of this I wanted to go a different route.
My take on the ultimate Battle Inspiring Skald with no Valor Bard.

1. Race: Largely irrelevant. Vuman (inspiring leader) is good, Hobgob is good. Leonin is good. Pick something that gives your allies buffs or demoralizes your enemies. I took Mountain Dwarve for the +2/+2.
   
2. Background: Squire of Solamnia. Needed for your feat at level 4.
   
3. Class:
   

Paladin: Yes we start paladin. Not only gives it healing powers, damage powers and high amror. Later we also gain auras which bolster allies just with our presence. Plus we need pally levels to gain access to the back ground.
Bard: After we have all the goods needed from pally, we will go bard for more inspiration, more -smite- spellslots and most importantly more utility and control.
So far so straightforward.

1. Subclasses:

Oath of Glory: Yes we are going glory. On one hand it gives a great ranged option with Guiding bolt, but it also gives us inspiring smite as a channel divinity option which helps our allies. Plus we can excell in whatever physical deed with peerless athlete.
College of Glamour: Now most of you would think I am drunk. (Which I am, but thats besides the point.) Why Glamour? Simple. Battlefield positioning. With the BI use , we can reposition 5 creatures in one swing.

1. Feats/ASIs: Level 4: Knight of the Rose/Crown (Bump Cha). Allows to pseudo heal an ally or distribute attacks. Remaining ASIs bump Cha and Str.
   
2. Progression: Level 1-6: Pally Level 7-9: Bard Level 10-11: Pally Level 12-13: Bard
   

Up to level 6 you are straight pally with good support options. Then the bard allows you to give you more skills and spells to broaden your arsenal. Following this you go back to pally for the aura of alacrity (this boosts the movement of your allies if they are affected by mantle of inspiration) and the ASI at level 8. then go up to bard 5 for font of inspiration and the ASi at bard 4. After that the build is basically fully functional.
note: It is very bonus action heavy, but it allows you to either support a single ally, Support many at once, and move the pieces on the battlefield while also being a beacon of hope.
What are your takes for Valor Bard free skalds?

6-12 towers, several LCD Monitors misc keyboards with missing dongles. Basically i've been hoarding older PC's thinking someday, I'll make a spare torrent rig, or media sever for the house, or NAS box, or well, ya know how the story goes. I hate the idea of just taking them to the dump, as some of the ATX towers were high end back in the day. The internals are mostly C2D era (Core 2 Duo). So any use would be like a NAS or Torrent server. I'd happly donate them to someone that I know would do something with them, or I could just pile them all up, take a few pics and put them on something like Abby bidding wars with a starting bid of Free.

Last time I shove this theory down on people's throat, I swear! I've been meaning to make this it's own standalone post since day one, but at the time I didn't had enough Karma to be able to. But now that I do, I feel is time to finally broadly propose this idea for the rest of the sub to see and consider;
Today I propose my take in the PuzzleVision Movie, and how I feel that Mr. Puzzles actually won, and got what he wanted off the SMG4 gang, which was for them to get the +5 starS he so desperately sought, by tricking them with the sense of free will under simulation;
And is because I feel he did exactly that! In my opinion he currently has the entire SMG4 universe at his disposal, and already has used them to recast and finalize the episodes Mario corrupted after his escape, thus why Bowser and Shroomy are present in episodes when they were never personally kidnapped first hand by Puzzles.
Something that feels like an outlandish claim but actually, is a lot more possible than you think, since from the trailer Puzzles states 'PuzzleVision' IS an in-universe movie meant to satisfy his programming's audience. But who that programming audience could be? Is it the SMG4 universe? Not at all!
It's US. We, the IRL SMG4 Community, ARE THE AUDIENCE Puzzles wants to please by taking over the channel, to deliver us with his entertainment. Throughout the course of the series post "It's Gotta Be Perfect" Puzzles has been slowly rising in power as director of the channel, hijacking it and inspecting us and what we enjoy if the show and characters;
For instance, The Showgrounds are that, A SHOW. GROUNDS. A glorified acting stage for a live reality show about SMG4 and friends. This is spoiled by Puzzles on his song: "I'll be in control your real life". An ironic turn of the tables to what he does to Mario, and karma if you will.
From the beginning his goal has been to slowly draw and trap the characters in a place where they're constantly available to his command without them even realizing it. He has set them up for danger because it is entertainment, entertainment he knows WE consume.
Puzzles used Wren and Marty as free content makers. Western Spaghetti and WOTFI 2023 are quite literally THAT, specials made for OUR entertainment at the expense of the crews' mental health. He used these to investigate why these characters resonate with US and if we would love the specials; We did and he took full control to deliver more, missing as to why we liked them.
On that note, he LIED about his reasoning to use the SMG4 cast. Veterans would know that canonically 4 and 3, although divisive, have a strong following and are quite well known. Is not that he just used them for the sake of it, he used them because he knows they're ADVERTISABLE AND WILL DRAW VIEWS.
Also on that note, he failed replicating their formula so he purposely gaslighted them with free will. By allowing them do the thing WE love (in canon) about them, he achieved what he wanted.
The whole movie is one HUGE set up, cover up and gaslighting towards US the audience. Puzzles knows our needs. Puzzles hears our demands through reviews, he knew he was seen as the villain so by the time he snapped he took acting role by self-inserted in the story, purposely setting himself up to failure for the sake of the script, didn't stop the crew from advancing until defeat because he knew US, THE AUDIENCE wanted that confrontation. He's an actor, a showman, he was flowing with the script. The movie is an in-universe MOVIE, it gaslights the crew into thinking they are free by "defeating" Puzzles, but in reality he only took himself off the picture having finally won. It makes us believe that they're free, and it makes them believe they're out, but they're EXACTLY stuck in the last channel; That set up Bob called it out to be a possible trap. After all the live action show was possibly Puzzles' DUMBEST idea as it indirectly freed them from his mind's prison; It is so dumb it has to be deliberate
Mario's escape is the only real escape as he's consumed by the static, not teleported like 3 and 4 when they did the same. The crew only hops on channels, but Mario actually exists his prison as revealed by PuzzleVision.tv;
With this in mind, is easy to see why Mario never opposed an actual threat to Puzzles throughout the movie. That Mario we saw is animal Mario, a recreated version of the character with his flaws amplified making clear the sheer hatred Puzzles has for his character. He gets sidelined on purpose because Puzzles' intention with him is to throw US off by thinking that is Mario; He shows up OUTSIDE the castle for no reason, Puzzles quickly gives up in trying to capture him although he CAN CLEARLY IMMOBILIZE HIM, he then quickly gets him off his shoulders and DOESN'T TRIES TO KILL HIM.
This IS NOT the real Mario, is merely another facade. He's only introduces him randomly without explanation so we AS THE AUDIENCE don't question his absence after Puzzles found out he escaped. How am I sure? Because as the gang tries to get some grass time, Mario STILL insists in US not taking our eyes away off the TV, saying "This is what life is all about" when surrounded in an ominously dark shading scenery, at SMG4's castle.
That, my friends, is an allusion.
It leads me to believe this version of Mario is the one used in the finalized versions of the PuzzleVision episodes after Mario's escapade corrupts them, hence why these are so hostile towards him in nature and narrative.
But how can there be two Marios? Well, I for one think Animal Mario is a mesh of memories, the embodiment of what the crew sees of Mario, and scripted through Puzzles' hatred of him. He's like Axol and Desti in Western Spaghetti, that is being not the real deal but close enough to what the crew thinks he truly is based on what they remember, and enough to recast his character and fill his missing role in the finished versions of those episodes.
The REAL Mario escaped during the early stage of production, popping out finally during the trailer for the PuzzleVision movie, back at his theater; By that point Mr. Puzzles already succeeded as inside him characters not present in any other episodes, such as Melony, are being tortured.
Mario seemingly seems to be cautiously approaching Puzzles, watching over him by the distance yet fighting back in his own way by trying to change programming. The story isn't over because Mario is STILL out there fighting back after having punched through PuzzleVision.tv's facade, prompting the website to trick everyone he was done for when in reality, he may just be preparing a counter attack.
But you know what else solidifies this theory? Meat-Mallet Luigi.
In the stream, this version of Luigi became suspiciously prominent outside the "Mario's Mysteries" programming, creeping into "Once Upon a SMG4"; it's almost felt as if the show was trying to deliberately tell us something with this one detail, through visual narrative that didn't quite add up until you remember that Puzzles shot Luigi with the intention of OF KILLING, or so he claims.
It doesn't make sense for him to turn into a Meat Mallet unless Puzzles WAS LYING ABOUT IT, saying it just for drama because he knows he cannot afford that loss; As a good director he understands the importance of character dynamics, and how getting rid of a character changes the nature of a show even if for a bit. He didn't kill Luigi NOR Mario because HE NEEDS THEM in order for him to get those 5 stars through their character dynamic, as he understands that is the appeal to US. The characters' natural personalities and friendships.
This is why I stand saying that they never escaped his mind prison, so much. Details like that are hard to brush off since the overall on-going narrative seems to want to go against what the plot of the movie presents. When we last saw Mr. Puzzles in a regular episode he had snapped and lost it, but in the movie? Although angry, he's suspiciously composed, almost as if he had never lost control to begin with.
Here's an advice for the SMG4 community: Keep your eyes open, and your senses alerted if anything DOES NOT add up in the narrative of the show, or a character in specific!
Beyond being just an arc, the PuzzleVision saga acts as an analog series/ARG, as it clearly had drawn influence from these genres for it's narrative; This will require people to start thinking outside the box in picking up clues to put the pieces together in what the story is trying to tell us is going on. That is the PUZZLE side of PuzzleVision.
It is unorthodox to the show, especially when in this universe gags and clues can get super blurry being the show a parody at heart, but Luke has been vocal that the story isn't over, trying to lead our attention into the much grander narrative; To not just take things for granted and accept is over.
He wants us to know in advance Puzzles is still not over, AND that narrative has JUST BEGUN.
The series WON'T tell us this outright because the characters are just as in the dark as we are as to whether if Puzzles won or not. SMG4 and his team can only do so much with official statements to point into the right direction without spoiling the fun and surprise factor;
IT IS US, MR. PUZZLES IN-CANON AND IRL AUDIENCE WHOM HAVE TO PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER BY THINKING OUTSIDE ANYTHING WE'VE LEARNED FROM PREVIOUS ARCS, AND RETROACTIVELY DIGESTING THE THE INFORMATION WE'VE LEARNED FROM WESTERN SPAGHETTI AND IGBP.
Those movies were high-key about what they were, in retrospection. They were literal movies for our entertainment, OURS, and spawn because Puzzles gaslit the cast into putting themselves in danger by doing what otherwise would've been every day tasks; And I feel that's EXACTLY what happened at the end of PuzzleVision AGAIN.
They may have gone back to basis, but their freedom is fictional. They aren't free, they're allowed freedom for so WE are content and pleased with the ending.
This is why WE, THE AUDIENCE, have to keep our guards up in case something in the narrative stops adding up and is suddenly different. Maybe it'll be a visual gag, character inconsistency, a story detail, OR A WHOLE CHARACTER.
I'll throw a wild example of what I mean: MARIO.
Keep your eyes open for the behavior of this character.
Yeah, I know. Hard task being the most random character in the show. But here's the thing;
Mr. Puzzles DESPISED HIM and wrote him to be right down insufferable, useless to the cast, and a throw away joke. Exactly how he was depicted on PuzzleVision the Movie, even thought the teasers surrounding this character over-hyped his presence. From a narrative point of view, it makes NO SENSE to have him be so prevalent in both the website and movie teaser just for it to not live up to the expectation, unless is one big 'Among Us' ploy;
If my theory is correct, and the narrative is following this course then the one and only event I can see this narrative leading to is, you guessed it, WOTFI 2024!
A true to form "War of the Fight Italians" since Mario and Animal Mario would have to to bump heads at some point. Perhaps thematically it'll play with the idea if how much the crew trusts Mario, and if they know him well enough to know who's the fake one and who's the real one.
Am I right? Am I wrong? Only time until WOTFI will tell; But until then, remember:
DONT TRUST IN WHAT YOU SEE JUST YET, AND KEEP EYES OPEN. THINK OUTSIDE THE TV-BOX BECAUSE THE CLUES MAY HIDE IN OUR NOSES.
I learned my lesson from IGBP, Puzzles has been catfishing the cast all the way since offering the new castle to SMG4 and it would only make sense that subtle storytelling and subversion of expectations to continue going forward, based in these official statements.
Just remember, if Mario starts behaving too out of character, or all the sudden characters question his nature, it means we're on the right track ;)

A friend of ours passed away and we are looking to put his ticket money into the go fund me. Might have a GA+ for sale too but for now just the GA. Located in San Diego so meet ups & pick ups preferred for both parties. ❤️

I married my husband last September. Up until that point, our relationship was amazing. I would wake up most mornings and look at him asleep next to me in shock, wondering how I was so lucky that I get to wake up next to such a wonderful human being. He was kind, thoughtful, interested in my thoughts, communicative, sensitive and our partnership made both of us stronger. We would constantly be planning things for one another, i never had a doubt that he lovee me. Our motto was "we are greater than the sum of our parts" as a friend once told us in reference to our relationship.
In September, he started a new job that would require long hours (~14 hours a day) and a night a week spent at work. We had discussed this and agreed that we can make it work for the time being until he gets it in order and within 3 months, he would pull back to having regular hours. I supported him completely, as this was the opportunity of a lifetime for him. Even offered to move my job to an objectively worse location so it would be easier for him.
Within that time, I made sure that he was distraction free. I took care of all the household chores, making appointments, helping with his work over the weekends and when he comes back from work, waking up at 5am with him every morning to make breakfast and spend some time with him, as we has so little of it, having dinner ready when he was home, giving him back rubs after work and hearing him talk about his day. (INFO: I also work full time and have a stressful job in tech).
During this time, he did nothing for me, and i wasn't upset and expected it as i knew how stressed and tired he had to be. I was upset a few of times during this period when he would come home and engage with his phone too long (1.5+ hours) without saving time to connect with me, but those were resolved quite quickly with him putting down his phone and spending quality time before bed.
Three months come and go, and I start a conversation with him about the long work hours and if the plan is still to pull back to normal hours. His response was completely unlike him. It boiled down to he doesn't have a clue as to when work hours would return to normal and that life is uncertain. The way he responded made me feel like a wall was put up between us and he wasn't relaying all the information. I then asked him if we can at least make future plans (I'm talking even a few months from that point, nothing immediate) so we have something to look forward to together. He said no, that he doesn't have the ability to set time aside as he doesn't know what the future holds/when he'll be free.
After this, we discussed in marriage counseling (didn't have issues to get a counselor, was a preemptive measure since a year into our relationship, recommended by a friend) that we should make a plan for one day every weekend to have something to look forward to. We did this the first weekend and it worked like a charm! I wasn't as sad throughout the week bc I knew we'd get to spend time together on Saturday.
Come Friday night, he comes home 4 hours later than expected (11pm) and tells me plans have changed and he has to work, but I can come with him if I want to. No rescheduling our date, no apology for not letting me know earlier despite having found out at lunch time on that day. I was upset but understanding, and asked him to let me know earlier next time and to please reschedule the date so that i know it means something to him. He said he would and I went to work with him the following day so we could at least have lunch together when he had breaks.
Fast forward a week and he does the same thing. Not only this but he stops messaging me to let me know when he'll be home hours late, or whether or not he is working weekends. I pleaded for him to let me know when he's going to be late as it feels disrespectful of my time. I'm excited to see him even if it's for a short while and feel hurt when it doesn't seem like he thinks about me throughout the day or misses me even.
As it keeps happening, I get increasingly more upset because it's a recurring behavior and I am constantly feeling unloved and unimportant to the man who once treated me like I treat him. I continue doing exactly what I had before - treat him well, do all the household tasks, have dinner ready, wake up with him.
Now when I tell him "hey you didn't message me again today that you'd be late" it starts turning into defensiveness, "oh well i forgot, I was busy, cut me a break". I was crying one night when he got home because it was 10pm and he was supposed to tell me so I could make alternate plans. I was upset and told him i didn't want to talk and he turned off my TV. I told him to turn it back on and he laughed at me saying what im doing is ridiculous and left to his room. He would then tell me every rime I was upset about the same thing, that he "just didn't have time and doesn't think he ever will remember to let me know or just to remember to reschedule plans)
I got really sick one week and was having trouble breathing. He went to work and asked me to message him if it got worse. It did get worse and I messaged him. He didn't respond to me for 4 hours and went to a work team building event that involved being at a bar and drinking. I called him crying and yelling after that much time had passed and he came home yelling at me telling me I'm being dramatic.
One night he came home at the time he said he would, and we were having a connecting moment - he was laying on me and we were looking into each other's eyes. I thought to myself "finally, a connection". And he jumped up to go write some stuff down that he just realized for work that wouldnt even be necessary for a few months. I was sad and asked him to be more considerate of the little time we have together. He said he would, but the next morning after I made him pancakes, and cuddled with him, he brought up that my skin picking is gross (something he's known I've done and has told me was ok since the beginning of our relationship, and he does it as well.). I was overcome with emotions and started crying and yelling at him about how could he say this to me. He argued about it for hours (this was Saturday morning) and the next day said he didn't know where that came from. 2 weeks later he almost said it again but I stopped him saying "please don't, you're going to do irreversible damage". He later thanked me and said that it truly doesn't bother him/he doesn't know what he would say that, none the less argue his point for hours.
Now it's been months that have passed. Hes since applogized for how he treated me and has pulled back on his work hours (3 months since the arguments started).We planned to got on vacation as it would help us reconnect. During this vacation, he keeps getting snippy with me when I make mistakes with directions on maps (gps wasn't working well in that area) and telling me I'm not paying attention in rude ways, while he is also making mistakes himself, and I am being kind about it. I tried setting a good example by saying every time "it's OK honey, well get the next train" or "it happens don't worry" while touching his arm. He usually likes when I take pictures of him, and now all of a sudden isn't stoked on it and says no often. On the last day, I had enough and stopped trying to up my mood to make it a nice trip. By this point he realizes I'm unhappy and sets up a plan for us to go do something I would like. When we come back to the hotel he asked if I was ok and I asked if he had the bandwidth to talk about it (otherwise can wait until we're back at home). He says yes and I break down and cry, telling him how unloved I feel with examples of why/what triggered it. He seems to genuinely understand and says he'll work on it.
The next day, as we're headed for the airport, there is no affection, no kind works, nothing. He doesn't talk to me at all. I started having a panic attack as something felt off and I thought for sure something bad was coming. I started hyperventilating on the train and we had to get off. He doesn't touch me whatsoever, just asks "ready to go?" .
We get to the airport 2 hours later and I asked him if we could hug or have some affection/reassurance that everything is OK. He says no. I literally begged him. It was a 10 hour flight and I'm still going in and out of panic.
I reached a boiling point and told him I wanted a divorce. At the time I thought it may have been an in the moment thing, but realize that this isn't the marriage I want. I want the person I married back. I told him sorry immediately after saying it and he said sorry, what's done is done, you said it and we're going to do it.
After getting off the plane, he asked if that's what I wanted and that he'd give me another chance to make up for something else he said that alluded to divorce before. I told him that this isn't a game and that if he wants to divorce, there are no chances, the marriage is over.
He asked me "please don't divorce me, I don't know what I'd do without you". We talked in the car and he said he'd listen to me more when I tell him about my needs/concerns without becoming defensive and saying mean things.
This still continues for a few days after but he's gotten better since with some "hiccups" he calls them, every few days or so. But "it's better than before!" He says. When I bring up that things are still different in the way that he interacts with me/love and connection he says that these are habits that have built up in him over time due to the state of our relationship and it'll take time to get back to normal. But I still feel upset as I'm giving it my all despite feeling wronged, and it feels like the effort on his end has been lacking.
I feel cheated. Like the loving beautiful relationship we had before and the foundation of trust and love we were built on had come crashing down for the last 5 months and I'm still in shock as to how this can happen.
He's been nicer to me lately. He listens when I talk to him and is more reassuring. But so many of the loving gestures, no matter how small, are all gone and meant so much to me. I have to keep reminding him to not speak with me in a demanding tone, to not check the time and angrily remind me how long we've been talking every time we discuss things.
I threw him a party for our anniversary, which I told him meant a lot to me even last year. Spent days preparing to make it special for him. He didn't didn't anything for me and said sorry for not doing anything. I told him it's important to me, and to please do something even if it's not on the date. I asked this three times since then (two weeks ago) and still nothing.
I feel crushed. The resentment is seething at this point. The last two days I've stopped doing nice things for him. I don't know what else to do. It hurts and it feels like my body has been on fire for the past 5 months. I've been doing poorly at work since it's hard to focus now, all I can think about is how wronged I feel and how the life that we have planned may have no future. I feel so unappreciated and unloved, and I didn't see any of this coming.
I've asked him several times if he feels any resentment towards me or if I could do anything better for him/if there's something I'm not doing that he'd like, the answer has been a genuine no. That he loves me and I treat him better than he's ever been treated and that I'm the sweetest person he's ever met. (Last week was the last time he said this)
Anyone have any ideas? I'm at the point of desperation to solve the growing resentment in me and to get our marriage back on track.

Not really sure where to start, but here we go.
Context: We met in highschool, I was a grade higher than her but we had one class together that was a mixed grade. At first we were friends then became best friends and then started dating during COVID. Knew each other for around 2 years before we started dating. We made 3 years not to long ago but like i said weknew each other for an extra 2 years before we dated. Now both of us are in college and go to the same school which is pretty close to both of our houses so it works out. We don't live far from each other so seeing each other is never an issue. I always make time for her and for myself as well. Our relationship was worked on..it had a great foundation..We never really argued, we did bicker but it would be over stupid little things. Things that would get resolved within a couple of days if even. For example, we would play the game together and she used to get mad that I wouldn't protect her while we got into a fight on the game as she used to heal me. Stupid I know, but thats the type of bickering we would have. We were bestfriends and lovers in a relationship If i had to put it into words. We have a great family relationship, I was never a family person but I became one after meeting her family which I basically considered mine also. They Accepted me like a son and I loved them like a mom, dad and brother. I even met and played the game with all of aunts. Met her uncles. She never really met my family like that, which is sad. She only knew my mom, dad and brother. I was fine with that but always wanted her to meet more but never really pushed it.
My girlfriend has been sheltered her entire life just about, yes she had friends and stuff along those lines but never really experienced life outside of home. I never really took trips and ventured out either but It never really peaked my interest that much as I wanted to do all those fun things with her by my side, so we could experience them together. She recently got her first real world job as a cop (yes i know.) While she isn't old enough to be a cop she basically in training and goes in monday-friday to put in hours and get paid which optional, she could choose to go in once a month if she wanted but she wanted to get into it since it was fun for her to be a working women now i assume.
At first she hated the job and was on the verge of quitting it during the early months of training and trying to figure out what to do with her life. She spoke to my parents who were also cops at one point but retired for some advice on what to do. They gave her some good advice and so did her parents of course. Her dad who is also a cop pushed her into this job since it pays well. Her mother didn't really want her to take on the job since it "changes" people, and they always fought because of the job. I was worried about that also but after some thinking I felt like it was going to be okay and i didn't want to worry her since I knew shes been through a lot to get to this point and after a while I never really cared much since to me I knew she was different. She is religious (Christian) and a firm believer and our relationship was awesome, so I was fine,. She ended up staying in the job after much back a fourth and completed the training and got through it all. I was her shoulder to cry on, her ear to listen, gave her advice and helped her anyway that I could. I was there through everything that she went through. Being a cop wasn't her first choice, but the first choice didn't work out since the college classes were hard and securing a job in that field didnt pay enough. So she dropped it. For the first few months when she would get off work, she would call me and tell me all about her day. My work schedule was different than hers, only going in 3 Days a week but working later while she worked early hours. It was rough at the start as we didn't have much time together like we used to but we made it work. She stressed the importance of spending time together since our time was now more limited and I was Okay with that, in fact I was happy that she wanted to spend more time together. We started doing Once a month date nights and we would rotate it. She pick a spot one month, then I do the same etc etc. It was fun. This went on for maybe 3 -4 months (alongside her working as a training cop inside the prescient) since she brought it up. We started to text at work since our time was essentially free. But we understood that we can't have full on conversations during this time. It was short, simple and sweet but meaningful. There were times her job became busy and she would let me know once she got home and then tell me all about it. It was fun. My job was pretty simple, I'm a supervisor within the college we go to. So nothing really went on at my job besides dumb gossip and stupid stuff. I spoke about it but it wasn't often since nothing went on.
Around a 2-3 weeks ago, I noticed a slight shift in her behavior towards me. When we texted at work it was very dry. For example when I would ask, "How is work?" She would reply "Work is Fine. Busy" or "What you up to at work?" "Nothing, Paper work." While I get how for some people it wouldn't be a big deal, maybe she just doesn't want to talk right? At first I left it alone, thinking it was genuinely busy for her and she was overwhelmed with her job. So I left it. Then it started to show while she was at home. Dry texting me then, while I'm working a late shift at work. It didn't make sense to me. I started to bring it up, "Hey is everything alright between us? I've noticed the texting is sort of dry." Her response that she was busy with work and school and studying. Looking back now I guess maybe I messed up here since, I am able to balance out Work, School, studying, Internship and doing homework for both my classes and internship. So i expected the same out of her since her free time was a lot more than mine. And she was going for a basic Libral arts degree for the credits to be a cop, but switched to Account and financing, while I went for CyberSecurity. She always told me how much I inspired her and while she used CHAT-GPT to help her with assignments and didnt really put her all into it. I did the opposite and spent hours on an assignment. I just at the least expected some sort of engaging texting since I knew her time would be free. Looking back I messed up thinking she should operate the same as me. My mistake entirely.
The texting never got better but instead it felt like i was pulling teeth to get her to talk to me. Like she couldn't be bothered. The responses at work became less and less and sometimes 30 minutes to an hour would pass by before I heard from her. I brought it up again and asked if things were okay and she kept telling me shes "busy" at work and its over the "Puppy love" part of out relationship. Which didnt make sense to me. She stressed the importance of spending time together and wanting to be together more and more. She wanted to do date nights once a month. Since now she has a job and can contribute to paying for dates. Dates have always been on me for the three years we've been together before she got the job she has now. I paid on my birthday, valentines day, obviously her birthday. Everything. But i didnt care. I loved her. I knew she hated the fact I always paid so for some reason it made it okay. Knowing she wanted to pay but couldn't since she didnt have a job back then made it fine for me. So when she said she was over the "puppy love" stage of our relationship It didn't make much sense to me as to why or what happened. After the texting at work didnt work out tension grew between us. She stated one night that we try and just not text at all during work hours and when we come home we catch up since most couples do that. At first i said no but after thinking on it for a day, I said we can try it. I tried it and it didnt really work out. Since we never got the chance to text while at home either. She didnt really seem engaged with our conversations anymore. When we would get on the phone, it felt like I wasn't there. The tension was so thick that you could of cut it with a knife.
This week Monday I decided to have a chat with her about how things have been going:
"Hey look, the dynamic has changed between us. It seems like we don't talk as much as we used to anymore and I'm not really sure what to do. The texting at work is rough since before it was never like that, it was like a flip switched and now we don't text or talk at work or even at home. I love talking to you and I also value giving you your space. But lately it just seems you've grown distant towards me and I'm not really sure as to why. Are you losing interest in me? Do you still want to be together? Because we barely talk anymore and I try to establish contact but it feels like pulling teeth. If you need space to clear your head, maybe I'm doing to much and you need to step back for a second thats okay, let me know what you're thinking and we can continue after I finish work"
i got home from work and she tells me she wants to stay together but needs some space because something is wrong with her and she needs to figure it out. I wasn't sure what that meant so I said okay and we made some rules of still letting each other know that we are at work and then getting home safely but then didnt want to talk at home, so she could use that time to clear her head for a bit but still wanted to call at the end of the night to say goodnight. The break was supposed to last One week. Monday- Monday and thenon Monday we talk about how we are feeling.
I self reflected on my actions and saw where I messed up. I was toxic and manipulative and Stubborn and being smoothering. I spoke about it with my parents who also helped me understand where my faults were and how I could of pushed her away. It was a hard night for me since I did all this during the night of the break. Tuesday came and as we said we made sure we got to work safely and then left it at that. She started to text me more and more throughout the day and i felt like things were slowly back on track. Night time came and like we said we called to say goodnight. But before that I asked if we could speak before we said goodnight and she said yes. I said sorry for all the turmoil I caused and that I'm working on myself during this break. I stopped smoking weed and working on cleaning up my act ( was a fun thing i picked up to help me workout, nothing more than that) and told her how sorry I was about all the stubbornness and issues i brought onto this relationship. She got irraited at the fact I choose to talk about this now rather than wait until Monday to speak about this since that was the agreement. She said she thankful and glad and appaerciates me telling her all of this but that wasn't the initial agreement. I said sorry and it was awkward. I tried to make small talk but it didnt work out. We hung up earlier than expected.
Wednesday (yesterday) comes around and I woke up with my stomach in knots and feeling like I was having a bad anxiety attack which I never got before. The good morning texts went from "Good moring ____ Im a work I love you" to Goodmorning ___ I'm a work" those for some reason ate me up inside. I couldn't stomach it. I woke up at 8:30, which i usually don't unless I have an early work shift. I decided to just go to my work and take my mind off of it. Before I left for work I spoke to my parents about how I was feeling, and I decided I couldn't wait until Monday to speak about what was going on, and put it onto the weekend. I texted her and said if she could think about it, and i said sure. I went to work and went into my office and saw my co-supervisor who has relationship experience and spoke to him about it since me and him are pretty close. He said it sounds like she met someone at work and he has her interest. I personally didnt want to believe it since I knew she wasn't that type of women. She wasn't like that. But the thought of it was killing me since I couldn't understand the sudden switch of behavior towards me. Mayb she was right. Maybe I was still on the puppy-love stage of our relationship and couldn't accept change. More of my co-supervisors friends came in and I never met them but one was going through something similar and she gave me advice as well as the rest of her friends. After some thinking I decided I wanted answers today cause the unknown was eating me up inside.
We agreed to meet at her house in person at 1. That time came and my legs felt like jell-o. We went upstairs to her house and I essentially said something like this:
"You know I don't know whats going on, I acknowledged my faults and flaws and how I'm actively changing them. How i can be better for myself so that I can be better for the both of us to keep this relationship going. I'm sorry for not respecting the space that you requested. I am. But I'm left in the dark here. I don't know why were on break, i don't know whats going on. People tell me that you could of met someone at work and thats why your distant towards me, but I don't believe that. I know your different and you have morals, you believe in god and you have great parents who leas by example, so i know you're not that type of person. But even so I'm left with no answers as to whats going on. Did you lose interest in me? Did someone at you're job peak your interest? And you weighing the options out? Whats going on? I understand we argued a lot these past couple of weeks and I'm sorry but I want to fix it, and I cant just pretnd everything is okay when we talk, its like I'm suffering in silence. Whats going on with us? I get that your growing up into a different world not since this is your first ever job but i just don't know whats going on.."
Her response: "I love you very much and I want you to know that. You are a great person. But I think I just lost interest. You never did anything wrong, and the aguring we had was nothing, it was just bickering like we usually do. It was never serious enough to result to something like this. You should know that. Theres no one else I've been talking to. I care about your family so much, Its not anything you ever did I want that to be clear or didn't do. And I don't care about you're flaws. I guess it just me growing..Like you said its just me growing into a different world,its just, there's something going on with me. Youve beena major part of my life for three years and i can never repay you or thank you enough. I don't want to loose you out of my life. itsnot you looks or personal appearance, your a handsome guy and strong. You workout, and your very attractive to me. And i never wanted to hurt you in any way, i never did and I'm sorry that I'm crying. I just hate the person that i cant be for you because you deserve so much more. and I hate that I'm not being the person that I know i can be for you."
Me: "What changed?"
Her: "I dont know, there was no person on the outside that made me change, there was nothing about you or us that made me change. It was naturally i guess, you know..just growing as a person."
Me: "How long have you been feeling like this?"
Her: "A couple of months (I ended up asking how long and she said a month and a half). I tried to fight it and grow past those feelings but i guess they ended up showing more and more as time went by. Its never been you, its always been me. You stayed the same from the day we met which is a good thing I promise you. It was never you. Its not you now and I need you to believe me on that. You were the best person I ever met. You are the one person I care about most. You are the one person that I've always wanted to save."
Me: "But we just grew apart. Changed. yes?"
Her: "yes.."
Me: "You know i never imagined this....i always saw you in my future."
Her: "I never wanted this either, i don't want you to think I always wanted this. I didn't "
there's more. Alot more. But I cant keep writing, I'm tearing up. Is there any hope for us? I don't know whats going on. I get that she was sheltered, but I dont get it. wouldn't you want to grow with your partner? Espically if in her eyes I was a great person????????
I talked about it with a couple of people and some said someone else was talking to her and some said no one was and that shes young and going through a phase of life.
TL;DR: They met in high school, became best friends, and started dating during COVID. They've been together for 3 years, with a strong foundation and minimal arguments. She recently got a job as a cop, which initially caused some stress but she stuck with it. Lately, she's been distant and they decided to take a week-long break, during which he realized his faults and apologized. However, she expressed that she's lost interest in the relationship, citing personal growth rather than external factors. He's confused and hurt, wondering if there's hope for them. Some speculate about someone else, while others think it's just a phase of personal growth.
Breif summary: They've been together for 3 years, starting as best friends. She got a job as a cop, which initially caused stress but she persevered. Lately, she's been distant, and after a break, she confessed she's lost interest due to personal growth. He's hurt and confused, wondering if there's hope. Some speculate about another person, while others think it's just personal growth.