#the puzzle that is Antoine

[aheathen-conceivably]

Because I’ve been cooking on the backstory between Antoine and the woman he was having an affair with (who I’ve named Suzanne), let’s talk about….

What do we already know and what do we think happened?

Well the very first time we saw her (and the other women behind her in this scene) is here…

In particular, she’s the one looking down at Antoine, singling him out with her gaze while the others dance around him. As they do so Antoine hears their voices in his head, most likely coming from his own memories:

Such a pretty boy, Delphine. I mean really, must he hide behind that screen? Oh look at him. Even more beautiful than his sister, if you ask me. Come on, Antoine, just play us one more song. One song and then we’ll let you dance with us. We’ll even go upstairs with you Antoine, come on. Just play for us.

Only even their voices and sensory memories grow more specific as his hallucinations go on, signifying that there’s something else at play too.

Their jasmine perfume permeated the club, cutting through the cigarette smoke. The tinkling of the beadwork on their dresses mingled with their laughs, overtaking the sound of lace gloves as they brushed against skin or the heavy silk of a dress as it fell to the floor. Still they came closer and closer, pulling him in deeper, taunting him. One more drink, Antoine. One more song. Then you can come upstairs with us, come on, just play for us.

This tells us that at the very least, Antoine had a flirtatious relationship with these women who he shared a home and a life with, women who worked for his mother and who his mother disapproved of flirting with him:

Each of them the shadow of a woman who once roamed these halls, now nothing but phantoms around him. He brushed them away angrily, their disappointed sighs dissipating into the silence. Then he heard a nearly silent tsk, the one that his mother made when someone had offended her.

Well what we now know is that in addition to whatever teasing flirtation was going on between Antoine and the four women he saw, he was also certainly having an affair with one of them. A woman named Suzanne…

Now, judging from their body language this was certainly a mutual love affair, and not one that Antoine was dragged into. But bearing in mind how he’s described it (“it’s been the ruin of me a poor boy”) and his own ideas surrounding sex, marriage, and women, we can at the very least assume that he doesn’t view it fondly. Rather, he sees it quite guilty, as something he shouldn’t have done, and even goes so far as to compare himself to the man who bought his sister’s virginity (however misguided and guilt driven such a feeling may be).

There’s certainly a few factors at play here, and I think some of the biggest can be seen in extras we’ve been given in ask games:

1. Antoine never met or spoke to his father and was raised almost exclusively by woman. This was primarily his mother Delphine and his aunt Marguerite (who we have seen a few times in the story) but also various women in Storyville who knew his mother and his family. This led to a sort of warped, old-fashioned view of masculinity that primarily centers around projecting a hardened exterior and protecting women, often to a volatile extent.

Likewise...

2. Antoine definitely sees sex as something of great emotional weight. I think this is partially due to his loyal trait (one of his 4 in-game traits) and his upbringing. Sex incurs a certain type of loyalty and connection for Antoine...Antoine and Josephine spent much of their time growing up in New Orleans Storyville District, where sex would have constantly been on display and treated very casually. This influenced both Jo and Antoine’s approaches to the subject, but in opposite ways. For Antoine, this made him view casual sex as a lonely and empty experience, and thus he tends to seek it out only when he feels emotionally connected someone.

So let’s look at these in light of what we know. He was not only sleeping with a woman he feels like he shouldn’t have been (because of her profession, connection to his mother, and the casual nature of their relationship), he was most likely doing so with some kind of idea of emotional intimacy and “protection” toward her. Meaning, the sex itself would have made going about his daily life and job even harder. Every night he worked in the brothel with her, playing piano from behind a screen where he couldn’t see but could imagine what was happening.

This also in turn explains some of his intense reaction to when his sister went to work there and some of the ways in which he treated Zelda when she arrived. Like walking away from her, insisting on her full knowledge and loyalty before they slept together, his ongoing guilt over not being able to marry her, etc etc.

Which all begs the question….

How did Antoine’s affair with Suzanne end?

Well what we do know is that it ended badly enough to at least contribute to him enlisting in World War I and kickstart much of his anger/drinking issues that he struggles with in the 1920s.

In addition, we have two small lines of text from miscellaneous posts, which are:

“Word to the wise my dear, never fall in love with a woman who sells herself. It always ends…badly”

and

“Just so long as no one knows…we’ll be fine.”

Now who could these both be coming from? Or, potentially, who could they be talking about? Well I think we can see our answer in these two shots…

What this tells me is at that some point, Antoine’s mother became aware of what was going on between him and Suzanne. This explains the line be “just so long as no one knows…we’ll be fine” which could have been said by either Antoine or Suzanne about Delphine; and “Word to the wise my dear, never fall in love with a woman who sells herself. It always ends…badly” which would have been said by Delphine to Antoine when she finally confronted him about it, further entrenching those feelings of guilt and regret that he already had.

Now how do I think the end actually played out? Well, like Delphine promised…badly. Badly enough that when Antoine returns from the war he reacts to his mother like this…

Of course, on the surface, Antoine is angry because he finds out what she’s done to Josephine. But is there something else going on? Something more personal? A reason why Suzanne isn’t in the club in the scene when Jo turns 17?

I would say yes. My guess? Delphine fired Suzanne. On the surface, she did it to protect her “baby boy” but more ostentatiously, because both of them had betrayed her, and as her employee, Delphine viewed the entire affair as a breach of the professional trust/protection established between them.

You already know that Antoine wouldn’t have taken this lying down, only he wouldn’t have stood up to his mother just yet either (which is what makes his eventual confrontation over Josephine so much more charged) and the guilt that his lust caused a woman to lose not only her job but also her home would have been enough to break him. So what do I think Antoine did? I think he offered to marry her, not out of love or even practicality, but out of some sense of guilt and duty that we ALSO see dominate his early attitudes surrounding marriage with Zelda.

Of course, we know that didn’t happen. So I think Suzanne turned him down, whether because she sensed that he was only doing it out of guilt or because she knew that marrying the disowned son of a brother owner in segregated New Orleans was not a viable option. Or maybe she cared for him. Maybe Delphine even threatened her to stay away from Antoine, so she spurned him in the harshest way possible to ensure that their affair ended for good, and she would have no trouble with one of the most powerful madams in the city. But one thing is for sure, it ended the way Delphine promised…badly, and Antoine enlisted in war shortly after only to come home to mother ill, his home on the verge of bankruptcy, and his sister fresh from trauma inflicted on her by that very mother.

This is the Antoine we walk in on in 1920. Guarded, guilt ridden, reclusive, and protective of his home, his sister, and his heart. Recently returned home from war, only for all of his mother’s pain and corruption to surface. Then in a torrent of emotions, to realize she had been sick all along, and therefore to lose her before he could process whether, knowing that she was dying, she had indeed done it all for them and their home after all.

Thus leaving this enormous burden that it was now up to him to look after his sister and make sure the house she had fought so hard for stayed standing. Because to make his guilt even worse, when he came home from war, he had no idea where Suzanne had gone. He could only hope he didn’t make her life worse, and try to make sure he never made the same mistakes again. But somewhere, deep down when he found someone he loved, was grateful that he avoided a marriage based on guilt and duty and rather, eventually, found one built on love.

[mllenugget]

Hello I mcyt fandom-ified la Team du Lundi members and wrote a shit ton of text about it

After exhausting myself on trying to catch up on the current QSMP lore I got a sudden craving for a more familiar and fast paced kind of minecraft content and ended up rewatching all the Team du Lundi's SMP best of's I could find

And while doing so with my brain still hazed in fandom brainrot, I started picking up on minor details or info the players casually dropped, and drew parallels to the French speakers' QSMP counterparts This is going to be a long wordy post I don't even know what I am rambling about and for. Three things you need to be aware of about la Team du Lundi before reading :

Baghera, Antoine and Etoiles are the only QSMP players that are part of la Team du Lundi

As far as I remember the only two elements that suggest that la Team du Lundi's SMP could be canon to QSMP are Antoine being pressured into building another Tower of Shit, and Baghera's infamous fountain being mentioned when she was asked if her character remembers anything from her past before the island

La Team du Lundi's SMP was NOT a roleplaying server, it was just a private survival server for a small circle of friends casually playing together. So whenever I quote someone in this specific post, it is the streamer : there is no character other than the persona the streamer is usually showing on stream, but I just thought it would be fun to interpret certain situations while keeping in mind the QSMP lore. And here goes :

Baghera claims that when she was a kid she strongly believed that she could breathe underwater. The others joke about her having fins

Antoine jokingly tells Baghera he doesn’t need oxygen at all

Antoine claims he will still be alive thousands of years forwards

Antoine’s voice shifts when he wants to appear creepy

Baghera built an aquarium at her place, then helped Antoine build one at his tower, then built a giant swimming pool, then a fountain, then a waterslide- do you see a theme ?

Baghera knows that her skin is actually that of a chick and not a duckling, and calls it so here

Chat said that Baghera has a middle child syndrome, justifying that she bullies Angle Droit because Etoiles bullies her in the first place (Etoiles has also called her « little sister » in a derogatory way)

Etoiles has repeatedly asked people to play Valorant with him at least once

Here's a clip of Etoiles getting languaged in french and owing "a gifted sub in the swear jar"

Unrelated random clip of Etoiles because it creates happy hormones in me brain

Etoiles is regularly refered to as "the warrior"

Etoiles guided the whole group during an expedition to the End and he was literally glowing doing so (enchanted arrows effect) Everyone called him "the guide"

Baghera was the one who gave the final blow to the Enderdragon (and died from magic right after)

Etoiles spent most of his time adventuring in order to bring stuff and gear back to everyone for their builds

Etoiles asked Aypierre for help in order to design a redstone door for his cave which could only open upon solving a puzzle (which was egg & arrow related) (Aypierre was not a member of the server)

Etoiles built a nightclub with the walls and ceiling covered in wardenblocks making it look like a starry sky. He also rehomed Allays holding golden apples inside claiming them to be the souls working for him and that they lived there peacefuly

Etoiles jokingly talks about Antoine acting jealous and violent towards him because Etoiles told him he wanted to go and visit Kameto (who also was not a member of the server)

Baghera (along with Horty) had a rivalry with Joueur du Grenier (host of the server with admin powers) after he decided to build a massive parking lot right next to their house. They countered by covering the whole thing with dirt, followed by JDG building a factory and the two parties went back and forth. Baghera argued that it was stupid because they didnt even have cars to begin with (which is a sentence she reused when talking about Forever's roads) Also she tells JDG that he could've built a seaport instead, which makes JDG contemplate the thought of building an airport (and though he ended up never building it, I am side eyeing the French's plane crash)

At some point JDG wonders about what a roleplaying minecraft server would look like (RPZ 2), to which Baghera replies that she has a hard time picturing the thing "We'd all just build things you see ? I don't think we'd create stories, we would all just be like "I'm a builder, ah you too ? Well awesome, builders, cool"" and I find this to be hilariously ironic (fun fact : Baghera had no idea that QSMP was a roleplaying server when she first joined and often claims she would've taken a different approach with her character had she known right off the gate)

As I was finishing to write this down, these fuckers (/lh) decided to host a closure night for the server as they've never really officially did it, everyone just sort of deserted the server after a while. Baghera, Etoiles and Antoine kept referring to QSMP throughout the night, mostly talking about how weird it felt without mods. Among other meta commentary things

They mentionned Cellbit and Bad multiple times as the group was trying to solve enigmas. Antoine talked about "the cultural sharing" between communities as he taught insults to each others with Mike, Roier and Maximus in their respective languages Multiple more players were namedropped (including eggs) while Antoine was talking about how the server functions

Yes, Baghera and Etoiles kept their QSMP skins. Etoiles with his code corrupted purgatory one, and Baghera with her fading pink disheveled hair (with the addition of her cubito wearing Horty's merch)

Baghera admits that going back to this small familiar vanilla server feels like coming back home to your family during the holidays

Team du Lundi's cameos in QSMP :

Though Pomme has never canonically met JDG (even though most of her parents have talked about him to her at least once), she occasionaly breaks the 4th wall to refer to him. She once compared one of BBH's "vacation" flower shirts with his, and when Foolish and Bad asked her to elaborate (obviously not getting the reference) she proceeded to play JDG's music theme with the flute instead (Also I really feel the need to once more point out how mindblowing it is for your average french speaking viewer to have JDG's intro theme being added to the mod they use in the QSMP because of how anchored it is within french internet pop culture. Like this shit has been existing for 14 fucking years, it's part of the childhood of a lot of us, so to find a clip of British hardcore player Philza peacefuly listening to Mexican egg admin Tallulah play this theme on her flute feels like a multiverse fever dream)

Horty has been on Quesadilla Island through cc!Baghera's account, but neither of them really wanted to justify it RP wise. Baghera just wanted to give her best friend a tour of the island. Horty only got to meet Richarlyson who gave her a tour of Cellbit's castle and made her pick a room (she chose Chaos). She also chatted with Etoiles who tagged along for a bit and (this is obviously justified by it being a one-shot out of roleplay filler episode kind of night) they both already knew each other and were on friendly enough terms to bicker with one another Also she was part of the French speakers Quackity reached out to to invite on the server, but she had to decline because she was very busy at that time (and also not interested) Also also she was Baghera's teammate for that Formula 4 event, and Baghera has discussed it and showed pictures to a couple of islanders, including Richas who was very hyped about it

Another player the viewers were hoping to see on Quackity's server is Mynthos. He exists within the server with the picture of him that hangs in Pomme's art gallery, the cursed animation video that used to play in La France, as well as with Aypierre's health potion factory that bears his name

Angle Droit and Zerator are sometimes namedropped when the French speakers talk with their chat. Angle Droit frequently raids Baghera's and Antoine's streams, and though it has never been confirmed, a lot of viewers theorized that she was the +1 player Baghera and Etoiles wanted to invite on the server had they won the elections.

As for Zera, Etoiles went AFK on QSMP a couple of times in order to test some of Zerator's TrackMania maps (which he later discussed with Pac). I also remember a very trivial conversation Etoiles had with Mouse and Aypierre where he laughed about hurting his back very badly after carrying a fellow streamer during a caritative event, said event was hosted by Zerator (he's also the one judging them with concern from his desk)

I'm done.

Bonus alternative design for Angle Droit because at first I thought she was a fox then it turned out she was a corgi but then she changed it again to a fox and woop

[sweet-potato-42]

I want the admins to do more lores treams where they drag some group of people into it. Like the first maze one where we had the random but very fun xyz trio. So i have a list of dynamics id like to see (Do mind I watch tubbo and other morning time people so):

i need aypierre and tubbo to be forced to do a lore stream. Even better if its like create puzzles. It would be so funny with the amount of bickering we would see. Maybe add bbh as well for some extra spice

Morning crew obviously, anything with them would be fun

Foolish, Ironmouse and bbh would be such a fun trio to observe and they could cook up some cool lore

Antoine, Ironmouse and tubbo would also be fun. A very silly trio. Also an intersting one since we dont see these interact as much

Roier and tina seem like they could be a fun duo but i dont think theyve ever interacted much

Bagi, cellbit and tubbo would be SUCH a cool trio for a lore stream. It would be so fun to see them decypher shit and also have rp and drama.

Pac, Mike, Tubbo, Aypierre and Fit for the ultimate CRIME team. These five do not know what barriers are, they don't comprehend the concept of private property and belongings and they have the power to simple get into any place they want to.

BBH, Forever and Philza so maybe the gays get their shit together for once. Or they devolve into more gay chaos. both are fun

Etoiles could be put with anyone and it would be fun

Maybe some more that are just with people that speak one language. I feel like the french would be a fun gang to watch. They would get through everything with ease.

idk who else but tis fun to think abut

[royalarchivist]

Aypierre: Ok ok– we need someone to crack the code.

Pac: Ok, who is smart enough to crack the code? I ain't! [Nervous laugh]

Fit: Yeah, same here, I'm not. Let's get Twitter to do it! Let's get Twitter to do it.

Antoine: I am- I am really good–

Aypierre: Ok ok. "We are dumb, please help us."

Pac: Maybe it's Felps, you know? Maybe Felps is joining QSMP.

Fit: Maybe.

Antoine: I am really good at solving puzzles, but– [Leans into his mic] this is way out of my league.

[mikenlos]

puzzle time with antoine and pomme !!

[backfromtwitterforw]

Antoine and Tubbo playing TrickyTowers

Pomme and Antoine being equally excited and happy to see each other

Q!Antoine calling Pomme cute names

Q!aypierre and q!bbh bug testing and chilling at spawn

Q!Antoine being so curious ans happy about q!bbh puzzles and button rooms

Q!bbh enjoying the recognition of his work

Q!bbh always being soooo proud of his son whenever someone does his part of the button room, and bragging about him finding the button in only 2 min

Yep, another great day on the qsmp 🥰🥰

[beelzebubsis]

the last three streams have honestly been so good recently

im always a sucker for bbh and eggs cause the interactions are always so sweet but bbh has also had like really positive interactions with the other streamers too. like forever, aypierre and antoine were all so nice and excited about his puzzle rooms. the whole night he spent with dapper and richas was just so cozy and good and tonight's stream with pomme and pepito was just so cute. im really enjoy pomme and pepito's dynamic cause i think pomme likes being a protector and is enjoying being an older sister.

im just saying let bbh hang out with more eggs he deserves it

[born-in-hell]

This ending felt kind of frustrating. Dont get me wrong, really liked watching it. But it just felt... too much? And too little at the same time. There were just so many plot points that went unexplained and brushed over, while new mysteries were introduced. It felt like a cliffhanger for a cliffhanger's sake. There was no satisfying ending to Purgatory bc there was no ending. Literally, it didnt end. They announced pt.2 with other people.

And Purgatory was a plot that interrupted MANY other ones. Just so u guys get the picture im listing some of them:

rebellion (etoiles and fit),

soul vultures & grim reaper (bbh),

presidency & nether comeback (forever),

cell's comeback (cellbit, bagi, pac and mike),

fed infiltration (foolish),

past lives (cellbit & bagi/bagh/pierre/fit)

Here's also a list of all the unanswered questions and lost plot points i could think of, regarding all of the qsmp:

Who was the cursed team? The eye didn't mention it once during the ending.

Who is the Eye?

What the organization behind Purgatory is? Was it only 1 entity?

Still no answers abt what is the federation besides the worker hierarchy and that there is something stronger than it.

Still no answers abt Arin or the computers

What did qforever achieve by going to the nether? Was it all for nothing?

What was the Judas book? Was it related to Purgatory?

How did qPac get out of the Nether to go to Purgatory??

What were and what was the purpose of the Mini-mes?

Elquackity. Just Elquackity.

Antoine????????????

What does comic bbh recieved mean?

What does the egg story the islanders got on the maze mean??

What are the eggs?

Why were the islanders and eggs kidnapped by the Eye?

Why are they cracking? What are those cracks?

Why was the fed conducting hybrid child experiments?

What was the eye's intention? Why did they want to prove the islanders were bad people so much?

What does that radio convo they listened to on the maze mean? Who were the ppl talking?

Black cucurucho/evil cucurucho/baribal. How does he fit in the purgatory arc? What is it?

Why did the fed send qWilbur away to do shows?

What is the black substance?

What did they do to quackity? Why quackity?

Why was qmax told to build a nuke, how did he carry it into purgatory and why did he set it off on egg island?

What was the island b4 the current events? Where did the people that lived there go?

Why did qbagi's and qcell's parents live on quesadilla island? What were they doing there?

What did qCellbit discover that made the feds send him away?

What happened to Sofia?

Why did that guy tell qMax to build Sofia?

How did dan and spreen die?

What is Project AB?

Why was Dappers hat on the puzzle b4 the dice game?

Why was the first game directed to qBBH? Why was everyone else just tp'd?

What did the "Humans believe in god because they dont have answers. You are inteligent" line Cucurucho said to qBBH mean?

What did they do to qFelps when he was kidnapped??

What did the Fed do to qCellbit while he was infiltrated?

Is the rollback implied by qForever's insanity cutscenes canon? Or were they dreams/hallucinations?

Who is the rebellion and what are their goals and motives??

Why were they targeting the eggs?

What are the codes?

What is Codeflippa, who is she affiliated to?

Who is the Special Guest and why did the Fed buy muffins by their request?

Who is the Duck?

Who is the Host?

What did the egg's Purgatory messages mean?

Why were they first kidnapped?

Why did Elq kidnap Dapper?

The Angelic Cucurucho??

There's certainly more, but these were the ones i remembered. Also, yes, there are theories, implications and semi-confirmations for a lot of these. But no clear direct answer. Just fan work.

There's so much going on. While the regret arc was happening, the mysteries were simpler and the stakes were a lot smaller. We had the fed, the eggs, the island and the codes. That was it. The main goal was to get off the island but now. It ended in a satisfing way bc it was a linear tale that followed naturally and wasnt too long.

Happy pills was also a satisfying arc bc it ended clearly. We got the payoff we needed from it.

With the eggs disappearence arc, we've been suffering for too long. Theres always a new clue. We are always so close but too far. When we think we'll get an answer and a conclusion, we just don't. For the story to have felt complete we needed answers. What we didn't need was a cliffhanger. Another one.

[mindblowingscience]

Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered why fulminating gold—the world's first known high explosive—produces a purple smoke when it detonates, solving a 400-year-old alchemy puzzle. Fulminating gold was first discovered by alchemists in the 16th century. It is a mixture of a number of different compounds, with ammonia providing the majority of the material's explosive power. German alchemist Sebald Schwaertzer noted the unusual purple smoke given off when fulminating gold was detonated in 1585, and the material was later studied by leading figures of chemistry in the 17th and 18th centuries, including Robert Hooke and Antoine Lavoisier. But while the chemistry of the fulminating gold recipe has been understood for centuries, one question remained unanswered—why does its detonation produce purple smoke?

Continue Reading.

[giiyus]

tubbo: so who didn't drop out of college??

philza and antoine go absolutely silent

tubbo: oh we're so fucked

they ain't making it out of this puzzle without cheating 😭😭

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hello nalyra, a book/lore question that I don’t think I need to go anon for … but still decided to do it since who knows nowadays🤪

I remember reading TVL Marius advise Lestat about making fledglings—that don’t make them close by, only one in a century. That the second one will not be half as strong as the first one—basically saying that’s part of the reason why Nicki went to the deeper end. And while Lestat making Nicki without knowing, he definitely knew this when he made Claudia. That he is go against all Marius’s advices in making Claudia. Then Antoine/Antoinette was weaker still.

I went back and found that part in the book and am genuinely puzzled why this never comes up in discussion before.

Well, because it is kind of void right after? And also invalidated within the same paragraph?

I think you refer to this:

"You've learned a great deal from Armand, " he said, his voice steady as if to help me with this little silent struggle. "And you learned much more on your own. But there are still some things I might teach you. " "Yes, please, " I said. "Well, for one thing, " he said, "your powers are extraordinary, but you can't expect those you make in the next fifty years to equal you or Gabrielle. Your second child didn't have half Gabrielle's strength and later children will have even less. The blood I gave you will make some difference. If you drink . . . if you drink from Akasha and Enkil, which you may choose not to do . . . that will make some difference too. But no matter, only so many children can be made by one in a century. And new offspring will be weak. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The rule of the old covens had wisdom in it that strength should come with time. And then again, there is the old truth: you might make titans or imbeciles, no one knows why or how. "Whatever will happen will happen, but choose your companions with care. Choose them because you like to look at them and you like the sound of their voices, and they have profound secrets in them that you wish to know. In other words, choose them because you love them. Otherwise you will not be able to bear their company for very long. " "I understand, " I said. "Make them in love. "

The next night after this Lestat goes and wakes Akasha. And exchanges blood with her, getting a huge boost of power.

Which then would have been passed to Louis... however within the paragraph itself Marius notes how the Dark Gift is not the same for them when passed on - you don't actually know how strong the fledgling will be.

Louis, by all intents and purposes, should have been extremely strong.

Yet he remained the most human of them all, for the longest time.

Claudia, child that she was, was tough as nails.

So there is no guarantee, not really.

And also - the lesson was "Make them in love."

And Lestat did that.

He made them in love, from love, through love.

Against the rule not to make someone that young by the way - which was the crime he and Claudia ultimately paid for.

I really think there is no mystery there at all. Sorry.

[aheathen-conceivably]

Antoine now found his days consumed by music coming from the depths of his mind. Nearly every minute he could see piano compositions in front of his eyes, assemblages of notes that he had been suppressing without anywhere to play them. He could feel his fingers move to their arrangements even as he tried to work, knowing as if by muscle memory the keys he would need to bring them to life.

Only he didn't have his beloved piano, the one he could have sat before and effortlessly opened his mind so that the notes flowed through his arms down into soundwaves to fill a room. He only had a guitar, which had set his mind ablaze but still seemed like a familiar puzzle he didn't quite have a map for. So without any teachers or instructional books, he spent every second he could with what was now his guitar, wordlessly transforming the notes he knew as piano compositions onto a new instrument by ear.

Zelda’s moments of rest were even fewer than Antoine’s. There was no differentiation between work and home as she tried to balance the endless array of chores with Josephine and poured her hours into the soil with Giorgio. Even still, in between her moments of work she would stop to watch him play.

She knew that he would stop if she only asked, but her presence was never enough to take his attention away from the instrument that was now his constant companion. The only thing that truly seemed to draw him from its orbit was the approaching sound of Violette’s footsteps as she returned from the schoolhouse and recklessly hopped the fence to get to her father faster.

There was nothing she loved more than returning home to find her father already there after a day at Hines ranch. She would draw him to his feet with the promise of teaching her new dance steps or playing the latest notes he had learned. Only Zelda’s reminder that there was homework to be done or chores to be completed would bring either of them back to reality and draw a half-hearted admonishment from Antoine that Violette must always listen to her mother.

Still her olive eyes flickered back and forth between them, trying to find the weakest link to focus her attention on so that she wouldn’t have to do as she was told. Only the promise that if she completed her chores fast enough she could come back outside seemed to work, and then she would scurry off inside the house with the sound of the guitar still echoing in her ears.

Usually the sun was still up when she emerged back outside to find her father; but it had begun to sink lower, coloring the sky with atmosphere that seemed painted just for them. Then he would play as she danced, the notes more whimsical and upbeat than they had been all day, until Zelda’s never ending list of tasks had been completed.

By then, the sinking sun had begun to shine directly on their faces as Violette seemed to finally grow tired, fighting lidded eyes so that she could watch her father’s hands on the strings of the guitar as she committed them to memory. Little by little she learned to play as he did, matching notes to hand position and listening to the subsequent pitch changes in her mother’s voice as she often sang along; until finally, the afternoon would overwhelm her and she couldn’t fight her sleep any longer.

Then, Antoine would carry her up the stairs to the little room at the corner of the farmhouse that captured the last vestiges of desert light. She would always remember it filtering through the lace curtains of the windows as she weightlessly moved through the house, trusting his every step and wondering if her mother was still singing downstairs, or if she could merely hear her voice echoing in the halls of her dreams before her head even hit the pillow.

So day after day they got ever so slightly older, ending each night much the same as the one before and knowing that in the morning, the sun would invariably rise in the clear desert sky just as it had that day. It wasn’t as though life was perfect, far from it. Age and hardship had made their proclivities toward ignoring the struggles around them all the more difficult to maintain, but at least when there was music and one another, none of it seemed quite so important.

[miscellaneoussmp]

Questions about the qsmp I think about a lot:

1. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED THAT NIGHT IN CHUME LABS?

2. What the fuck was up with ice prison? And more specifically what the fuck happened to Mike while he was there?

3. What the fuck was up with the Portal ass puzzle rooms Hugo had to do?

4. Why did Elena have bottles of the happy pills?

5. Was Hope marked dead by the Federation because they didn't know what happened with her like Richas, Chay, and Lullah? Aka, did Hope "hatch"?

6. What did Antoine do for Federation exactly?

7. Was Badboyhalo the special guest?

8. Why was Bagi and Cellbit's grandfather arrested by the Federation? Also, what did Abueloier do to end up in the prison?

9. THE MAZE??? EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MAZE??

10. Why was the Watcher like that? Why was ElQ like that?

11. Everything about the rebellion, I think? Specifically, why did they flood Bagi and Cellbit with their memories if they knew Cellbit was a reformed serial killer at best and unstable at worst?

[pixiecaps]

Pix im so sorry ur like my go to person for asking what happens cause ur always watching 😭 but if u can can u please tell whats been happening in lore these past couple of streams 😭 /nf btw!

i’ll go as fast and short as i can

DISCLAIMER i have bad memory my chronological order of these past few days is not the best some things may be incorrectly placed so just keep that in mind. some events may be not 100% perfect chronological order 👍

eggs wake up completely dirty one day. all of them. nobody knows why. the eggs don’t remember why or how. but for some reason they were covered in dirt and their cracks looked worse.

around this same time. theres a voting poll going on for a new rule. and basically someone went around stealing all the furniture from everyones bases. leaving only a tiled magma block. they also left black and white couches arranged in numbers and codes. when they deciphered it it resulted in to phrases “I see you” & “Tomorrow”

next day. they all disappear. they are not in their beds when the first person (fit) goes to check for their egg. all thats left on their bed is their little accessories so for instance chayannes bed only had his floatie, pomme only had her berret, and so forth. everyone begins panicking because they were most likely kidnapped and taken again. and some of them from their highly protected bunkers. theres only no note or anything so there is no hints as to where they went. when people ask cucurucho all he would say he classified.

also on this same day all the popular waystones get stolen like ones that’d go to spawn etc etc. they get placed on a platform above the presidents base with a warning not to break them or hell would break loose and also a bunch of binary that translated to viva la revolución. to clarify the eggs disappearing and all these puzzles seem to be separate occurrences.

at some point cucurucho tells qcellbit to investigate some shit and he begins solving enigmas again.

people at this point were pretty fucking fed up including the president who was ready to blow everything up from his anger. until he woke up the next day wearing a white suit and had a wide smile on his face. he keep saying how happy he was and how he couldn’t wait to see richas. there was also a clock that would tick louder and louder when the drugs began to fade. he would become hostile and violent. and then he’d take another dose and become happy again. people began logging in and talking to him particularly antoine was the first to speak with him and later spoke with bbh cellbit. they all agreed something was very wrong and began investigating. they found a secret room in forevers base and that led to a small house in that room with blue walls to represent the sky and fake png flowers and when they went inside they found what appeared at first to be richarlyson. until they walked closer and saw in the place where richas would be was instead a big gray boulder and stones. so they clocked quickly that the “richas” qforever kept talking about was likely given to him by cucurucho and him hallucinating his son on that bed due to the effects of the drugs. they began scheming a plan to get him off the drugs and save their friend. qpac also witnessed qforevers behavior and had an idea himself. he was going to willingly let them inject him and feed him those drugs so that he could find a way to create an antidote before the effects became too strong. while investigating qcellbit overheard a conversation qforever was having with the fake version of richas and he interrupted and tried to snap qforever out of it. however he this only caused a big argument as qforever would not budge so qcellbit did the one thing he thought would work and he broke the fake richas bed. instead of a lucid moment qforever only sat in the corner of the room facing a wall and said that he’d get cucurucho to fix cellbit too.

phil also arrives this day ^ and earlier after learning about all the eggs disappearance and all the shitshow thats been going on he decides with the help of two others masked individuals (tubbo & fit) to lava cast the entire federation building. the one that was creates during the election. and they did they completely covered it in lava then placed water over it and it was lava cast. phil then left a note at the top that read “we want answers. we want our children back. we know you know what happened to them. stop the games. you have until the end of this week.”

also that same day foolish found the missing capybara mr mustard and became king of the capybaras officially.

meanwhile all that was happening (honestly i may be mixing up what events happen on the same day so please excuse my chronology here) tubbo noticed two fed workers appeared at spawn who he swiftly dubbed fred and jed after speaking to them a bit. he became relatively closer to fred and taught him what a friend was however fred said he was new to the federation and didn’t know anything he was talking about when he asked about the eggs.

so the next day comes around and qpac is under the effects of the drugs. same thing white clothes big smile. fit and tubbo are the first ones to log on and see their friend in this state to they help and talk to him as much as they can. and sorta realize that when qpac is slowly losing the effects of the drugs he becomes depressed rather than angry like qforever did. he also has more lucid moments than qforever and sometimes broke out of the effects shortly before going back under. later cellbit logs on finds his friend in this state and decides he will not be leaving today until they are better. cellbit speaks with bbh and phil and they begin setting up a trap to secure a way to take the drugs off qforever. cellbit meanwhile starts investigating for some answers. in his base he finds a note left from qpac detailing his plan to take the drugs to find a cure and that it was in qcellbits hands now. so he goes to chume labs and reads a bunch of books and diaries that eventually led him to chume labs island. on this island he found another diary from qpac that wrote about the antidote and needing to use fermented spider eye on the drugs. and coincidentally two of the pill bottles in that same chest with the book. so cellbit immediately rushes back to phil and bad telling them about the cure and they begin brewing. and to their success it worked the cure was called reality dose which description was “A mixture capable of bringing back those lost in dreams to what is real.” so then they devised a way to get them to use the cure. and i won’t go into it in detail cause i was like half watching and i’m not the most informed in what happened next but i think qpac after some talk with the others and being reminded of his purpose in taking the drugs willingly took the cure. then qforever was harder i know him and qcellbit were screaming at each other and i think after they made qforever take the cure he began hallucinating that qcellbit was cucurucho

small edit here: ive been informed both qpac qforever took the antidote willingly and that qforever took it first.

and said that cucurucho told him that the eggs RAN AWAY because there is something on the island that is far worse than the codes or the federation. so the eggs were so scared they fled without saying anything. qforever then fell unconscious and is resting in the orders hospital.

outside of his enigma solving for cucurucho. qcellbit goes back into the abandoned adoption center room in hopes for some clues as to where the eggs went and he finds a map for what appears to be a maze. with code at the bottom translating to A1 and also he found more code somewhere else i cannot remember that said “the answer is not in the center.”

so then this same day tubbo gets visited by FRED the federation worker which gives him a book with a code and leaves. the code translated to “tomorrow 1pm pst” and so we wait for tomorrow to arrive

AND IT DOES tubbo is freaking the fuck out cause he thinks hes getting kidnapped. he tells pac and fit something is gonna happen to him at that time. fit has an encounter with the code entity and it drops a clock in front of him and leaves.

and so 1pm pst arrives and tubbo noticed at his base theres weird black concrete placed around and a black chest in the middle with a book saying not to tell anyone, go to spawn, and an x coordinate. around this time roier and slimecicle log on and also show up at spawn with their own books. after some time they figure out they need to put their coords together and go to that place so they do! its near the wall and they find fred standing there with a gun. he signals to them to go into the cave behind him and they follow. he tells them to keep quiet and once they reached the end of the cave he tells them he cannot go on further with. they see and it seems to be the entrance to a labyrinth. they go through making their way occasionally spotting fred who then they’d chase. until they reached a room which appeared to have two observations decks in the walls above. one with a black couch and the other with a white. there was also a room with a locked door. also what appeared to be a hidden underground section with iron bars and through the iron bars tubbo and slime spot. a cucurucho. however instead of white it was fully black and instead of the usual black pixel face the face was red. when they spot it it immediately runs away deeper into the underground section it was in. the three decide to go in and they reveal a round room with a roulette wheel in the center with all the accessories of the eggs around the wheel.

there was barrier blocks around the roulette wheel. tubbo saw that and glitched himself through with an enderpearl. realizing after he only had one and had successfully trapped himself in there. he also realized he put himself in the predicament where he had to spin the wheel without knowing what it’d do. tubbo began panicking because he didn’t want to be the reason any of the eggs died. all roier and slime could do is watch. after more panicking tubbo spins the wheel and it landed on 5! the room immediately begins flooding with lava with him in it trapped. the. egg accessories begin to cover with lava. tubbo begins pleading to the others to find a way to get him out of there but there is none. the room outside the barrier blocks also begins to flood with lava and mobs begin spawning so roier and slime begin panicking. at one point slime goes down and roier does a sick clutch save‼️ tubbo realizing once he uses a totem he gets fire res and is able to warp out. slime is able to warp out and roier stays a little behind to see if he could open the locked door. he isnt able to. he leaves but once theyre all safely out they decide to go back in to figure out how to open that door. more lava begins flooding the maze more mobs begin to spawn and mines begin to blow up and coincidentally one of the mines blows up the entrance to that locked door. and they go inside and reveal it is a simple federation office with a desk and computer. with nothing else really. they once again leave successfully and around this time cellbit logs on. they tell him everything and they decide to go back and show him the maze because turns out he had that map for it from the puzzles however they once they reach where the room was inside it is completely blocked off. but what they do find is a bunch of federation posters placed inside talking about order and happiness? and also a timer that had 24 hours on it ticking.

later this day we see a streamer tweet out an image of the roulette wheel from today and a went live twitch link. we see streamer bagi in minecraft. her character in an unknown rather empty building with a tree in the center. she walks further into the building and finds a chest with a book inside and a roulette wheel. the book says “let the wheel decide. you will have to follow the light.” she spins the wheel and it lands on two. the floor disappears and she is immediately is dropped below into the overworld. shes in the ocean its raining when she reaches land its snowing. she follows the light which appears to have chests with books that detail how cold it is and if shes getting closer. she follows the trail and we notice more and more black concrete surrounding the biome shes in. interestingly enough first watching i thought they were spruce trees until i realized it was all black concrete. similarly scattered to where tubbo roier and slime found their books. so then she reaches the end of the trail with the final book stating “they should be here any time soon :)” and next to the chest a quartz table with a ticket laying on top of it with her name on it.

and so shes kicked and thats her introduction for that day. quackity tweets out this

and so WELCOME TO THE QSMP BAGI🫶

there you have it you are now fully caught up to speed! that is almost a full week of daily lore recapped:) i hope i did good. sorry for any typos i literally woke up at 10:30 am saw this ask and did not stop typing until i finished. it is now 11:51 am LOL

oh and two upcoming events. today mexican independence and whatever that timer leads to and whatever “huge event” means.

[royalarchivist]

Aypierre: We need someone to crack the code.

Pac: Ok, who is smart enough to crack the code? I ain't.

Fit: Yeah, same here, I'm not. LET'S GET TWITTER TO DO IT!

Aypierre: We are dumb, please help us...

Antoine: I am really good at solving puzzles, but- [leans in close to the mic] this is way out of my league.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

400-year-old mystery of why early explosive produces purple smoke solved by academics

Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered why fulminating gold—the world's first known high explosive—produces a purple smoke when it detonates, solving a 400-year-old alchemy puzzle. Fulminating gold was first discovered by alchemists in the 16th century. It is a mixture of a number of different compounds, with ammonia providing the majority of the material's explosive power. German alchemist Sebald Schwaertzer noted the unusual purple smoke given off when fulminating gold was detonated in 1585, and the material was later studied by leading figures of chemistry in the 17th and 18th centuries, including Robert Hooke and Antoine Lavoisier. But while the chemistry of the fulminating gold recipe has been understood for centuries, one question remained unanswered—why does its detonation produce purple smoke?

Read more.