Mentor is a ~50 year old man with 30 years of experience in VFX. At some point next year I will ask, to his face:

"Am I a cracked VFX artist? Yes or no."

"Yes" will only resolve positively if he responds yes, otherwise not. If he doesn't grok the question at first, and I have to rephrase it, this also resolves "...What?" positively (independent of final answer). He does use gen Z slang to annoy people and finds it funny.

I am an aspiring FX artist in college studying simulations, hoping to finish my demoreel next summer. Explosions, fire, water, destruction, technical 3D things, you get the idea. I could make a market about that but it's not as clear-cut how that would resolve. The More Important Thing: I want to be absolutely cracked to have the best chance to beat this AI stuff, and an affirmation from him would be Hard Data. You can't argue with that. He could just say yes for the meme. I think he's more likely to give an honest assessment. I will not be revealing much more details and don't be weird and go looking. Let the games begin!!

Strategies for becoming cracked are welcome. Suggestions to become a plumber are not. I'll share some WIPs if you ask, but I don't really want to center the discussion on that because it puts me in a weird position yk? Judge me more generally: if I'm likely to follow through on a lifelong passion, if I'm motivated to get to a higher level, how I listen to criticism, how I could burn out, etc. I would rather there be more conversations about strategies for staying motivated at improving, and enjoying the learning, which can be broadly applied and not specific to me! Prove me wrong so others don't make the same mistakes. If you want to get better at a skill, why not make your own 'cracked' question and then we can have a community of support and gambling! Isn't that adorable??? <3

-Was inspired by @raj 's "cracked programmer" question
- I will only bet YES on the main question, I would like people to bet against me for motivation! With the nature of the question it's really up in the air tbh.
- Resolution date is when I expect to have graduated. Should have a demoreel by then. Might extend to end of 2025.
- Will post updates when I get strong feedback one way or the other, though I will not ask The Question until it is time.
- Will add additional options if yall think of creative ones