#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.

[tenojan-in-tevinter]

"Je t'aimerai toujours." IM NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING

[stranger15]

The film is great (the best hacker film I've seen so far). And I actually enjoyed deciphering hidden messages... (The clue is in the name.)

Who Am I (2014)  Kein System ist sicher

[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.

[this-is-a-name-dont-worry]

[Start ID: the two muscular arms clasped together in solidarity meme, the text on the dark skinned arm reads: antoine, while the text on the light skinned arm reads: tubbo, there is text on the part where the hands are clasped together with reads: trying to solve a puzzle without knowing it's gravity falls and in protugese /End ID.]

what im getting from the liveblogs

[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.

[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.

[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 😭😭

[utilitycaster]

Does Dock Town only have two bars and are they both named after animals? Discuss.

Companion quests! I mean this in complete seriousness: I know that failure to do companion quests doesn't just mean your party is less bonded and leveled up and happy but also literally the problems you didn't deal with come back to bite and kill you. Which is why it is kind of awesome that Taash's quests have thus been "how do I fit into my culture and my home and my gender and my mother's expectations" because like, not to get too deep but in real life you're way more likely to encounter that being a risk to someone's life and well-being than, say, a blood mage who tortured them for a year in an underwater prison and was also sleeping with their sketchy cousin.

It's been a hot minute since 10th Grade Honors English but I think that Lucanis and Emmrich's companion quests are like, each at one polar extreme of what is technically covered by Gothic Horror. Lucanis is the psychosexual blood-soaked betrayal kind in a setting that makes "Hellfire" from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame look Lutheran; Emmrich's is in a haunted house. This sounds like I'm dunking on Emmrich's quest and I'm not. Johanna is incredible. I'm obsessed.

Hossberg Wetlands update: solved two more creepy wet mysteries. In one, the person was dead (and the new doctor is nonbinary which was actually hilarious because you ALSO do Taash's realization of their gender in the Hossberg Wetlands. Literally that and Antoine and Evka only things going for it). In the other, two wardens were dead and the third so wracked by near suicidal survivor's guilt that Antoine and Evka sent him to the Free Marches. I get the Wardens are facing existential dread with the theft of the griffons and the fall of Weisshaupt and *gestures around at everything* and their whole deal is fighting the blight but I cannot imagine Lavendel: Come for the Seasonal Depression, Stay Because You Died is helping morale.

GOT HARDING HER TREE AT THE BLACK EMPORIUM. I've gifted everyone everything.

I still have a bunch of sidequests but I have learned from the fucking necropolis dragon; I'm going to progress along a bit further. I think I heard the reviews of YOU CAN GET LOCKED OUT OF SIDEQUESTS and swung too far in the other direction.

I accidentally stumbled on further music room puzzles and now the second door in the library is 2/3rds open. RIP Solas you would have loved Myst. Speaking of I still need to talk about the Crossroads.

There's certainly criticism to be had about some of the writing but I have actually been impressed at how...natural the companions feel? Like, the banter changes notably after Weisshaupt, and further after companion quests! The conversations back at the lighthouse that you can eavesdrop on do as well! Neve actively becomes more emotive and relaxed and sociable after the Cobbled Swan case if you prove to her that you didn't abandon Dock Town, just made an impossible call and couldn't be in two places at once; she is also a shipper on deck for Taash and Harding and she's NOT subtle. Davrin and Lucanis visit each others' rooms and don't kill each other!

Speaking of: Lucanis and Neve flirting is like tell me of your childhood and your deepest fears and your love for your home and rage for the people trying to destroy it and your hopes and dreams. Harding and Taash flirting is, and I'm only barely paraphrasing, "are you looking at my legs?" "yes, you are like 3 feet taller than I am, they're all I can see," "you know they go all the way up?" "*flustered giggling*" Lucanis and Davrin doing whatever the fuck they are doing is like "I would never kill you. No one would take a contract out on you and you're not the type of Warden to take a contract out on yourself." "I'd kill you over Spite but I have been convinced to get the approval of at least two other team members first."

Taash called Emmrich a skullfucker which was funny as hell honestly. I'm playing a Mourn Watcher and the dialogue gets a little wonky due to my not being a mage sometimes (Taash: your necromancy is fine it's spirits not corpses. Reaper Warrior Watcher Rook Ingellvar: bestie I just do necrotic damage when I throw my shield. why is THAT not a dialogue option) but like. honestly an extremely funny conversation. Emmrich has NEVER fucked a skull, he's too professional and not attracted to the dead sexually, but also, Taash you think this man is a top? where is THAT dialogue option. I mean I wouldn't say it because my Rook is like BE NICE NECROMANCY IS NORMAL AND CHILL but like, for other people.

[cilant-lis]

so, i finished dragon age veilguard last night and here's my thoughts spoilers ahead (and a very long read)

this is in no way subjective, as i am very emotional about dragon age, especially with veilguard being the first game in the series i played as it came out, and one i was waiting for for a long, long time

the good

first of all, the game is gorgeous. the art direction in this game is absolutely perfect, and i would sell both of my kidneys and half of my liver to see origins and da2 remastered in this style. all the detail, the colours, the shapes... the designs of the companions were also great, each having a very distinct silhouette and outfits which said so much about every character. (plus, i'm going awooga over all the women and taash)

the environments were wonderful, with each area feeling very distinct, yet still like a part of the same world. i also love how they were not huge, open areas with nothing to do, like in inquisition, but thought was put into every corner and crevice. and thanks to the photo mode i have almost 300 environment screenshots from the game lmao

i loved all the companions and major npcs. the companion quests were so good, and honestly my favourite part of the game. during like half of the quests i teared up (especially bellara's and emmrch's i think this is what was missing in inquisition. the characters felt like real people, and like rook had a real connection to them, and they had real connections with each other. they were all very endearing and i liked all of them, something that has not happened in any of the dragon age games prior. (confession: i was very cagey about lucanis because he seems like the fandom's boy of the game, but i actually ended up liking him) the standouts among the npcs were definitely the duos of evka and antoine, and viago and teia. i'd go on a murder spree if anything happened to them.

i'm also of the unpopular opinion that i liked how the companions were nice to each other. no more co-worker you can barely stand each other vibes, they were all genuine friends (plus something more) and their banter was a joy to listen to (and it pasued during combat!) i also loved how they were all present for the main missions, no matter who you took with you

satisfying exploration, with the puzzles leading to actually good loot. no more dozens of greatswords i will never use littering my inventory. i'm also a collection fiend, so i liked unlocking the outfits and lighthouse decor

the candid and visible inclusion of queerness. i don't play many modern aaa games, so i'm sure dragon age is not the only one, but it was the first time i've actually played a game that allowed you to be non-binary and openly say it. taash's character arc, while i hated the 'culture' part of it, was also appreciated and relatable, especially as they were written by a non-binary writer. and they're the first nb romance option i've ever seen! it was also nice to see queer people just existing in the world

fun combat. very fun combat. i never had so much fun in a dragon age combat. it looked cool, it felt cool, i loved detonations and arcane bombs, i was not overwhelmed by a toolbar full of spells i had half a second to choose and the fights didn't take ages. i was a bit scared i'd suck at combat because my hand-eye coordination sucks ass and i prefer turn-based combat à la bg3, but i didn't find it hard at all while playing on normal. challenging, yes, but fun-challenging. orb and dagger spellblade forever

streamlined inventory management. i hate inventory management with a passion and because i'm always possessed by kleptomania when gaming, i always end up with inventories full of useless junk. but in veilguard i could sell it all with one click, the gear i found was either companion specific, or tailored to rook's class and it saved me so much time not having to compare and change everyone's gear while sifting through piles of low-level chainmail no one is going to wear.

the final stretch of the game (act 3 i think?) was hands down the most tense i've been while playing a game. even though some asshole spoiled the choice between harding and davrin, i was still unsure what would happen, who would survive the battle etc. i almost cried when harding died, not ashamed to admit. when bellara was taken by elgar'nan i had to take a little walk, because i was sure she'd not survive (another part of me was already plotting an angsty fic for my rook and her). the ending choice of out-tricking the trickster god of lies with a fake dagger fit so well with my rook, i still get shivers when i think about it. and the self-indulgent detail of them wearing the same armour solas did during the rebellion flashback...

related to above point, the theme of rook being a foil to solas, themes of regret and how it's holding you back, finding hope in a broken world, how things will never be the same, but change is not a bad thing. this is some good shit, that would require separate posts. i just love stories about hope so much

the choice between treviso and minrathous had real, visible impact. in my playthrough, treviso was destroyed and it still affected lucanis many gameplay hours later. none of these choices were presented as right and even though my shadow dragon rook chose to go to minrathous, i still question the decision, and so does rook.

the tension and devastation of the weisshaupt mission. the blight is so gross, as it should be, and the mission was probably my favourite in the game.

rook, especially purple rook, is so endearing. they're a little rascal, and a perfect successor to purple hawke. i loved the amount of faction specific dialogue and how utterly grounded rook was in the story and the world around them.

confirmed lore theories, which had hints since the days of dao

while different to the other games of the series, i really liked veilguard's soundtrack. the main theme is still stuck in my head, and i found myself humming along to many of the recurring tracks. i don't know shit about music tbh, but it helped elevate the mood and atmosphere of the environments. the sound design was also good, and i am happy to report there was no ear-grating noises for my hyper-sensitive ears (looking at you spells from dao)

a satisfying conclusion to dorian's character arc. it was refreshing to see him be so radical and anti-slavery (after inquisition dropped the ball on developing his changing worldview on screen) him becoming the archon was also a very pleasant surprise, and a well deserved ending for a character like him. sorry i just love dorian pavus so much

assan and manfred being absolutely adorable. it was predictable i'd get attached to assan, but a skeleton was a surprise. he talks! my rook is going to be the best uncle (gender neutral) to both of them. my two favourite little guys.

a lot of little details

the bad

imo the biggest issue with the game was the lack of references to previous game decisions. like with the inquisitor cameo, i wonder how different it would have been if the well of sorrows decision was taken into account? a little more communication between northern and southern thedas? not dropping the kieran plot point completely?? a little more information about what's going on in southern thedas? also i feel like harding's character really suffered because of this, because her and my inquisitor were really good friends and i'm disappointed that there was no mention of it at all :( also while most of what the inquisitor said was in character for my inquisitor, i can see how for others it's ooc

related to the previous point, the amount of loose threads that were just left hanging. is the blight cured? what will happen next with the titans? how do the elves recover from all of this? what happened to hawke and the warden? how does southern thedas fare after the gigantic blight? so many unanswered questions which will never be answered

the way the elves were treated, while not surprising at all given the previous games, was sooo uncomfortable. the past three games established that the elves are treated horribly, yet there is very little discussion of it in veilguard. this one conversation with bellara still makes me cringe, and i hate the lack of distinction between the ancient elves who were also oppressed by the evanuris and the evanuris themselves. i also feel the whole plot of 'this marginalised group's gods are actually evil' could have been done much much better, but the set up for it was there since origins, so it's not a uniquely veilguard problem. there are other people more qualified to speak on this than me, so i'll leave this here

the handling of crows made me raise an eyebrow (or two) because of how how sanitised the crows feel. no mention of child slaves? nothing about enduring torture as a part of training? or being treated as disposable? even if this differed from house to house, or it changed over the past decades/ special circumstances because antiva has been under the attack of the antaam, at least a codex mentioning it would have been nice. my dream would have been to have zevran be the one to spur this change, but it seems that the writers are allergic to have him have any sort of impact on thedas

not enough of content for the lords of fortune. when tevinter nights came out, i was so excited to meet them, but what we got in the game was a horribly "clothed" isabela, a bunch of her friends and like 3 quests and an arena. and not to mention how awful the lords of fortune gear is, with the orientalism.

i wasn't a fan of some of the writing, in the sense that some wording and stuff felt very modern. but i'm a hardcore fantasy fan so maybe it's just a me problem

the game tried to do a LOT and some of it would have benefitted if it was delved into more (example: morrigan and mythal, harding's quest with the titan, what taash discovered about the qunari, anything about southern thedas)

i really would have liked to see more of varric and rook's relationship. a dream would have been to have an origin quest/cutscene (maybe shorter than in dao) to help establish their relationship. you could literally replace varric with any character at this point

a longer romance, please... i know these are not dating sims, but i literally didn't get a kiss with bellara until the epilogue :') i'll have to see the other romances to truly have a strong opinion about this, though

and a note: i would have had just as many praises and just as many criticisms for every single dragon age game. overall i really enjoyed veilguard and i am happy that it even came out as an offline single-player rpg, and not a live service game like it was supposed to, or not at all. no game is perfect, and i'd rather have an imperfect game than no game at all. (but yes, i'm still mourning project joplin and i'd do anything to play it... )