Six Feet Under

THIS TEXT IS JUST A PLACEHOLDER. PLEASE REPLACE IT WITH YOUR OWN PUZZLE CONTENT. DO REMEMBER TO LET AN EDITOR KNOW ONCE YOU ARE DONE AND READY[1] FOR REQUESTING TESTSOLVES.

1 In any[2] state! I think I learned my lesson about being overly demanding the third[3] time[4] around, what with all that last second[5] rushing[6]. I probably should have loosened up[7] a bit[8] in the first[9] place. Anyway, for now[10], if you could write some hunt[11] puzzle content to replace those placeholder[12] words[13], that would be very[14] much appreciated. Okay, that's the last[15] of it! Thanks for reading this quick[16] note. ↩
2 Well, not quite any state. I have some words[17] about what happened last year. ↩
3 Well, I guess depending on your definition of "time[18]", this could be inaccurate. But there's never a need to get pedantic over words[19]. ↩
4 Read[20] as "I'm slowly losing any[21] hope of bringing this writing phase to an end[22]". ↩
5 Literally! That timeline was wild, even by our hunt[23] standards. ↩
6 Sometimes it feels like all of life is a rush, really. Apart from the one third[24] of my day that's spent unconscious, the rest is just pure[25] rushing. ↩
7 I mean, it's just a hunt[26], right? ↩
8 I suppose it is only inevitable that mankind's quest for perfection must carry over into the realm of the hunt[27]. ↩
9 I guess I was pretty uptight about[28] wanting everything in the hunt[29] done a certain way at first, but I've definitely had to eat my words[30] since then. ↩
10 Okay so. The transitory nature of time is actually pretty cool. I know you have a puzzle[31] that needs solving, but first[32] isn't it cool how I'm writing of a "now" that has ceased to exist in the future? ↩
11 Read[33]: "anything with an extraction". As a last[34] resort we can just stick in a random crossword or something, I guess. ↩
12 That is just placeholder text, right? I didn't read[35] it wrong? ↩
13 Huh, that placeholder's a bit[36] oddly-phrased. ↩
14 I mean this genuinely! I'm really grateful to everyone who's chosen to spend their time working on this hunt[37] with me. ↩
15 Wow, looking back now[38] those footnotes got a bit out of hand. Sorry you had to hunt[39] through them! ↩
16 One last sting in the tail of this note! (Okay, this is just pure[40] mean.) ↩
17 For example, don't send in a "puzzle" which is just a completely blank[41] page other than the answer right in the middle. Right when we're rushing[42] to finish writing puzzles before the hunt deadline[43] (and running out of time[44], too). ↩
18 Here I'm defining "time" as an instance of the writing process leading up to a large hunt. I guess you could also define it as instances of the rushing of an individual puzzle[45]. (…in which case this would be far, far past the third time.) ↩
19 "Actually," I hear you say, "sometimes there is in fact a need to get pedantic over words." Please educate yourself on hyperbole first[46]. (I know! Maybe these helpful footnotes can help us out.) ↩
20 Present tense, mind you. (It's a bit[47] ambiguous in the end[48], I guess, but what can one do?) ↩
21 Ahh, reading back on the hopeful words[49] of my past self are enough to break a man. ↩
22 I've actually been cursed to live in a neverending cycle of writing more and more words. ↩
23 If anyone has any[50] good deadline-planning tips for writing a hunt[51], feel free to share them. ↩
24 Well, on a good day I get this much unconscious time[52]. Otherwise I'm lying in bed scrolling through words and words[53] of meaningless mutter on social media. ↩
25 Sometimes I take a pause in the middle of the rush and look out a window. It's really quite remarkable how beautiful life[54] can be sometimes. ↩
26 A hunt where every puzzle you write will be read[55] by hundreds of people!! ↩
27 Ah, that every piece of story I write could read[56] as a melody of words to the audience! But it is a fruitless quest without end[57]. ↩
28 As compared to now[58], when I have given up and am on the verge of reverting to my primitive Google Sheets Hunt Writing Management methods. (Do not recommend.) ↩
29 Yeah, probably put a bit too much emphasis on that end[59]. ↩
30 Ultimately, I learnt the lesson that any[60] puzzle[61] tools[62] are just that and shouldn't be suffocating to your processes. ↩
31 Whoa, calm down! Not like this hunt's gonna end any time soon. (Unless you're reading this soon before the hunt's end[63].) ↩
32 I guess this depends on your interpretation of existence, which is definitely not something I could reasonably fit into this particular section of footnotes before they end[64]. ↩
33 Some tough logic puzzles would also be appreciated, I don't think we have many of those and they would be nice to bump the difficulty up[65]. ↩
34 NOTE TO SELF: Remember to delete that bit, so people won't read[66] it and get the wrong impression about the hunt. ↩
35 Nah, of course. No hunt[67] puzzle could look like that, right? ↩
36 Actually, now[68] that I think about it, I don't recall those placeholder words existing for the other templates. ↩
37 You might doubt how pure[69] my intentions are, but I really do mean it. ↩
38 At first[70] it was like "oh, putting this in parentheses would be a bit confusing, let's just put it at the bottom". ↩
39 So, find any[71] fun footnotes while you were looking through them? ↩
40 Alright, that's all I wanted to say. Have fun working on this puzzle[72] now! ↩
41 And, uh, in this hypothetical situation, don't pretend that's just part of the puzzle and that it's just "a puzzle of few words[73]". ↩
42 Oh, man, that was so awful. We were like a third[74] done with the hunt with like three weeks to go before it started. Man. ↩
43 Again, any resemblance to existing hunts is pure[75] coincidence. ↩
44 Actually, come to think of it, this is the exact state we are in right now. That's a bit[76] unfortunate. ↩
45 There's obviously some discussion of what constitutes an individual puzzle, and this certainly isn't the first[77] place it's been brought up, but this is mostly orthogonal to our point. ↩
46 Hyperbole is the use of exaggerations in speech. It is often used to emphasize a point or to some other end[78]. ↩
47 More than a bit, really. I could really go on a rant about how silly the English language is! (Don't worry, I won't start. It wouldn't end[79].) ↩
48 Not like I'd have time to deal with language ambiguities with all this rushing! ↩
49 But all innocence must come to an end[80]. ↩
50 Or at least for getting to the end[81] of the hunt-writing process. ↩
51 At first[82] it's like "oh it's all fine we have 5 months!" and then suddenly we don't quite have 5 months anymore. ↩
52 And I actually feel good the next morning when I get up[83]! ↩
53 It's amazing how time[84] seems to contract when you're on Discord. ↩
54 Not just nature! Even the busy crosswalks are an intricate tapestry of human life[85] that can be beautiful to observe. ↩
55 As they say, first[86] impressions count!! ↩
56 I'm starting to suspect no one actually reads the story, or really much of puzzle flavor, since there's too many words[87] in there and it'd be too slow. ↩
57 *unsheaths pen of bad fanfic-style writing* This ends now. ↩
58 Puzzles are for fun! No need to turn puzzle[88] writing into work. ↩
59 Administrative efforts can get in the way of the fun of the puzzle! ↩
60 It's like the freedom of a blank[89] check that you can fit to your needs, rather than stress out over having to fill it in correctly! ↩
61 Ah, you know, the usual lineup of tools. Real first[90] rate stuff here. ↩
62 I really do wonder what our first[91] hunt would have looked like if we'd known about these tools at the time! ↩
63 In which case: woops, my bad. Good luck with this puzzle! ↩
64 Nor, for that matter, is it something that I actually know anything about. ↩
65 Speaking of difficulty, I guess the main difficulty in writing logic puzzles is that they don't naturally come with any words[92] from which to extract letters. ↩
66 …I forgot to delete it in the end[93], didn't I. ↩
67 Yeah, no, of course not. What kind of last[94] resort puzzle would that be? ↩
68 First[95] of all, those are in fact placeholders, right? ↩
69 In the end[96], I'm really happy that there's any[97] people working towards this same goal. ↩
70 Not quite sure about[98] how it got so out of hand though. ↩
71 Honestly, I went a bit[99] off the rails when I was writing them. I can't remember half of what I wrote. ↩
72 Well, depending on how you're reading these footnotes, you may have some others to read first[100], I guess. ↩
73 Or "it's actually themed around the song Blank[101] Space". ↩
74 I'm still surprised we managed to finish writing everything in time[102]. ↩
75 Well, almost. I had to write a ton of words[103] for this puzzle and had nothing else to base them on. ↩
76 Very[104]. ↩
77 Oh, man, like every time a hunt has an endgame at the end[105] with steps on separate titled pages no one knows how many puzzles the hunt had anymore. ↩
78 In casual communication, it is often used in a fairly careless manner, especially when the speaker assumes that the person they are communicating with does not take things at face value. (Like I did at first.) ↩
79 Plus, there's many other things I'd rant about first. ↩
80 All hope has been swallowed as I continue to pad out this puzzle with more words. ↩
81 Puzzle excellence need not be guaranteed; sanity preservation is prioritized first. ↩
82 I feel like you've probably read[106] enough of this in this puzzle, so maybe I should stop before I start repeating myself. ↩
83 I rarely actually get this much sleep, of course, with how actions are separate from words[107]. ↩
84 Relativity jokes aside, perhaps this is one puzzle[108] science may never solve. ↩
85 Playing the third[109] person to this dizzying maelstrom of life can be a rather fantastic distraction from one's own. ↩
86 I'm sure most people are really not judgmental at all about puzzles, but it's hard not to judge oneself sometimes when one is working on fill or choosing words[110]. ↩
87 But you're reading this now, huh? Or maybe this is after the end[111] of the hunt and you're revisiting puzzles to check out their flavor. ↩
88 Ahh, puzzle writing is so much more fun when you're less concerned about the tail end[112] of the marginal gain curve. ↩
89 Now[113] everything works great! ↩
90 Well, there's Puzzlord to manage puzzle writing, and this site runs on the excellent gph-site, and then there's this tool called "GoodSafeHuntTool" that I got from the shady puzzle[114] dealer who hangs out in the alley two blocks down. ↩
91 Almost certainly not that much better, since they're just for facilitating the process and don't really affect the end[115] result in terms of puzzle content. ↩
92 Unless you stick a grid with letters in it at the end[116], but that's kinda boring. ↩
93 Well, this is a first. A rather... unique first, but still a first. ↩
94 Anyway, remember to get rid of that definitely-a-placeholder text at the end[117]! ↩
95 Wait, am I trapped inside a puzzle in a hunt[118]? ↩
96 It's been great seeing everyone pitching in in the metaphorical final third! ↩
97 I hope in the end[119] we'll all be able to look back on our work with pride! ↩
98 Honestly, with how unreadable this is, I might end[120] up having to reformat everything. ↩
99 Like a lot off the rails, really. Some of them are still a bit of a puzzle[121] to me. ↩
100 But this is the end[122] of this one! ↩
101 All characters and events in this particular footnote are purely fictional[123]. ↩
102 Well, technically, if you include the one we put up[124] after the hunt started, we didn't actually finish in time. But I'm happy to ignore that one. ↩
103 There are, like, over 3000 words in this puzzle[125]. ↩
104 Yeah, not sure how this one's going to end[126]. ↩
105 To be fair, with puzzles coming in all forms, it really is quite difficult to know which to include and which to exclude. ↩
106 So, how's this hunt[127] going? You doing okay? Drinking water? ↩
107 Experts recommend about[128] 7-9 hours of sleep a night! Listen to the experts!! ↩
108 Perhaps "enigma" is a better choice here. It's one of those words[129] I really like using. ↩
109 The quiet remarkableness of life… I'm sure someday I will find words[130] which can express it in terms I find satisfactory. ↩
110 It's like when a writer tries to read[131] their own piece! The writing sounds all weird to them. ↩
111 That's quite nice! Feels good to be appreciated. Let us know which one was your favorite puzzle! ↩
112 And also when you have time! ↩
113 Yep! Just great! You don't have to read[132] any further down this footnote chain! ↩
114 Yes, of course it's safe and legitimate. He also sells real good solid hunt[133] content, like namystics and all that. ↩
115 NOTE TO SELF: Okay, that was pretty silly. Delete this before it gets read. ↩
116 I guess not everything can be super elegant, and I guess that's just life. ↩
117 Oh, hm. Looks like that placeholder text is still here. Wonder why it wasn't deleted. Ah well, that's life. ↩
118 Someone help! I'm stuck in a puzzle! Any[134] readers there?? ↩
119 NOTE TO SELF: Hmm, fellow writers might think I'm sappy if they see this. Do not let them read. ↩
120 Looks like my attempt to leave the main paragraph pure and clear of sub-clauses may have left it a bit too pure. ↩
121 I'm not sure where most of them start or end[135]. ↩
122 At last! ↩
123 The words[136] in this puzzle are not intended to reflect real life occurrences and should not be taken as such. ↩
124 I don't think this is going to happen this year, at least. (Famous last words[137].) ↩
125 And most of them are useless! Which is not something you'd be able to tell at first[138]. ↩
126 Well, since you're presumably reading this while doing the hunt, perhaps you're finding out now? ↩
127 Assuming this actually gets published first[139], ha. ↩
128 Health comes before hunt[140], both in the dictionary and in real life!!! ↩
129 I dunno, it just has a ring to it. Pretty rare for a common word to have an A at the end[141], maybe? Also it looks like it should anagram but doesn't, which is quite neat. ↩
130 Ah, it seems I have spoken for too long. Come, let us end[142] this footnote and send you to your next. ↩
131 Like when I'm desperately trying to produce a draft of an essay that I know I'll get back to, but my brain wants everything to sound right on the first[143] go. ↩
132 Really? Save yourself some time[144] and go check out some other footnote! ↩
133 In fact, I used it to generate about a third[145] of the puzzles in this hunt! ↩
134 Oh no… this might be the end[146] for me… I'll never see my family again… ↩
135 I should probably read them over again to figure out what I wrote? Nah, hard pass. ↩
136 Any[147] resemblance to existing people or events is purely coincidental. ↩
137 Hope everything works out okay in the end[148]! ↩
138 Which is probably why you're reading through these now[149]! ↩
139 Don't stay up too late though! When the words[150] on the screen start blurring, it's probably time to sleep. ↩
140 About a third[151] of the dictionary comes before hunt, actually. ↩
141 I have just been informed it anagrams to INGAME. I think I like it less now. ↩
142 Perhaps seeking meaning in life is itself the greatest puzzle. ↩
143 Even if they weren't great on the first go, those essays always turn out alright in the end[152]! There's definitely a moral to be had here. ↩
144 Hey, this is the third[153] sign telling you to go read something else… take a hint? ↩
145 It made some nice solid word puzzles, but unfortunately there was some weird corruption[154] in the file we couldn't get rid of. ↩
146 Please… I have one dying wish… please don't let me die in a shell meta. This meta better be pure… ↩
147 Turns out embedding legal clauses in footnotes makes people less willing to read all the way to the end[155]. ↩
148 If you're reading this, then it at least worked out okay for this puzzle. ↩
149 Say, the longer I drag these out, the more you'll have to read[156]. ↩
150 No puzzle[157] is worth sacrificing your health! ↩
151 Yea okay maybe this dictionary prioritization thing is a bit[158] off. ↩
152 Or even the second! ↩
153 Well, this footnote is almost at its end[159], and there'll be nothing there. Bet you feel silly! ↩
154 Also, a bunch of the words[160] seemed to be in some foreign language, but when I looked them up, they didn't match anything I found. ↩
155 Like, I could put "by solving this puzzle you agree to say nice things about this hunt" and no one would have any idea! In fact, I could probably embed a whole bunch of clauses and no one would read any. ↩
156 I guess that's a pretty mean thing to do, huh[161]? ↩
157 Good luck getting to the end[162] of the hunt! ↩
158 I probably should have suspected something when it told me violence came before words[163]. ↩
159 HELP EVERYTHING IS BROKEN SEND HELP WE NEED MORE STAFF NO DON'T ABANDON— ↩
160 Also, the text editor I had it open in wouldn't let me delete the words, and then crashed when I tried overwriting the puzzle[164] file. ↩
161 Don't worry! We're almost at the end[165] of this one particular footnote chain! ↩
162 Wow, what a friendly footnote chain. I hope it doesn't get ignored! ↩
163 Ooh, nerd snipe time! Find a set of English words such that for any[166] two words in the set, the alphabetically earlier one is also more essential in a taxonomy of human needs. ↩
164 Yeah, so we deleted all the files in the end[167] and burned the tool in the backyard. Still a fun tool to try out, though! ↩
165 So how much of this puzzle do you have left to get through, maybe like a third? ↩
166 Hm, maybe save that one for after the end[168] of the hunt, though. ↩
167 Plus he said he hadn't heard any bad reviews of it, so I guess we were just unlucky with our words! ↩
168 Like, that task isn't part of this puzzle, to be clear. Wow, I really have to be careful about what puzzle-like stuff I say in these footnotes! Otherwise you might read some meaning where there isn't any. ↩