#challenge puzzle

[10bmnews]

Optical Illusion: Can you tell who is the daughter of this woman? - Times of India

Brainteasers are an excellent method to test your intelligence and improve your mental acuity. They assess not just your IQ but also your capacity for critical thought, logical reasoning, and observation. You may demonstrate your ability to analyze circumstances properly and swiftly by solving brainteasers like these under time pressure.The task for today is a challenging puzzle that requires you…

[cuttle-creatures]

Compilation of tonight's fun.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Excellent choice, Councilor Medarda. A supreme challenge.

This one.

@mandaloreyan this gave me a HEART ATTACK when I saw your tags my god it was RIGHT THERE she could've just as easily chosen Viktor and what then. WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

[rmovvla]

Idk, i love mr puzzles 🙄💥💥

[yangjeongin]

HYUNJIN | 『GIANT』 Music Video

[jovialoddity]

I have a headcanon of Professor Puzzles that every time you tell him your favorite movie he tells you a thousand and one reasons why it shouldn't be your favorite and explains why movie x is better

(and nobody can stand that)

Oh ABSOLUTELY. I think it’s canon that Puzzles can’t tell the difference between his own subjective opinion and objective fact, and he is NOT the type to sugarcoat what he says. So if somebody tells him they liked a movie he thinks was hot garbage he will straight up tell them their opinion is shit.

[meg-girumi]

Christmas/New Year’s week

Day 6: Cookie decorating

{Navigation post}

[princema-k]

THE LIVING MUSEUM: CHAPTER 1

(interactive puzzle at the bottom!)

As luck would have it, the detective had a case that had just been given to her by the Chief Constable Barton (talk about a high order!) I watched as she leafed through the folders on her desk before slipping out a small stack of papers and bringing them over to me. Clearing her throat, Detective Layton ran over the details…

“At approximately 2:00pm, a fire alarm in the Natural History Museum sounded. Around 5 minutes later, visitors in the museum reported that they witnessed several exhibits, and I quote, ‘come to life before their eyes.’ There were visitors who told officials that the suits of armour on display had started to move and raise their weapons, visitors who reported that paintings on the walls started to melt and blink, and visitors who said that the dinosaur skeleton exhibits had opened their mouths and moved their heads. But the most damning of all seemed to be the Tyrannosaurus rex exhibit, who not just moved but assumed a lunging stance with its full body, as well as somehow roared.”

“Right, that’s odd. And?”

“Well, since the officials were only able to question the visitors outside of the museum due to everyone having been evacuated because of the fire alarm, naturally they went inside to check the exhibits themselves.”

“And they found…?”

“Nothing. They did a whole sweep of the area, but they found nothing out of place. All exhibits were in their normal places, the paintings were just fine, and everything was untouched.”

“Wow…”

“I assume the reason that Barton held onto what information they had on it and handed it to me was due to the witnesses. Despite the fact that the Yard found no obvious signs of tampering, everyone swears up and down the walls that the museum had seemingly come to life at that moment.”

“...That is a proper mystery. And these files are all we have on the matter?”

“Well, in a sense, yes. These are all the files we have,” Detective Layton muses as she taps the bottom of the stack on the coffee table. Then, getting up, she drops the stack back in their folder. “...Which is why I was thinking of heading over to the museum myself to do a bit of personal investigation.”

“As expected of the great Professor Layton,” I say cheekily as I stand and follow her to the front door, grabbing my jacket off the hanger in the process. The detective sighs lightly as she places her hat on her head, pulling the brim over her eyes in mock disappointment. “Please, Ms. Altava. It's just Detective.”

Now lifting the brim, she smiles brightly as she grabs her umbrella.

“So, Ms. Altava… let’s go investigate this living museum with our own two eyes, shall we?”

And with that, our adventure into the peculiar museum begi-

“Ah, but before that, I have here the directions to the museum written for me by Barton, and it seems to be a puzzle of some sort. As you’re now my assistant, why don’t you give it a shot? Think of it as a warm-up of things to come.”

…Right. She’s Layton’s daughter, after all. How could I have forgotten? …And are we sure they're not really related by blood…?

PUZZLE 1: Where's The Museum?

Take your time and think about the answer, or Flora (and the puzzle master) will be very disappointed in you...!

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J (Need a hint?: 1 | 2 | 3)

(thanks to @justkillingthyme for beta reading, and several mutuals for puzzle testing!)

[messydoodlesyt]

Valentines Day SMG4 Ship Challenge Thing #1

(Yeah I need a better name for this)

Anyways first ship that was requested is Marware! Hope I did y’all justice 🫡

I’m still taking requests here if anyone’s interested in requesting SMG4 ships!

[exhausted-archivist]

I Think Solas Was Never Supposed to Succeed in Tearing Down the Veil

This has been sitting in my drafts for like.... weeks. And I'm kinda just chucking it out there because I want to talk about it but I also don't think there will ever be a time where this can be discussed without strong reactions. So, I'm just gonna treat this with half seriousness and be kinda general? I'm down to discuss but I'm not here to deal with the pro/con Veilguard sentiments. I just wanna talk about the game in a mostly analytical way.

I think Solas poses a lot of cool narrative restrictions, contradictions, and irritations. He is a wonderful antagonist – easy to be against what he's doing but also you can, at points, see where he's coming from. Can still think he's smart/dumb/irrational/ect, but still see the logic. Whether its flawed or not.

That said. The endgame for Dragon Age was likely never going to maintain the Veil coming down. Now let me explain before you boo me for being right. For legal reasons this is a joke.

I've seen people talking about how it would be nice to see what Thedas would have looked like with the veil down and lamenting how a lot of things happened off-screen even though in any scenario the destruction of Thedas would have still largely been off screen.

But I always just think about how the narrative was pretty heavy handed in how it has always been characterized as a bad thing, a sort of fail state at best. Wiping out all life on the continent at worse.

Which leads me to the conclusion:

Solas was likely never supposed to succeed in tearing down the veil and it was never depicted as a good thing if he succeeded.

Now I'm going to stick some stuff under the cut, because spoilers for datv, but we get at least a sliver of what they were looking at in terms of scope prior to the switch to multiplayer, and even what they were thinking of on the heels of Trespasser before datv became Joplin.

To clarify the general timeline for datv you have: Prior to official project start (roughly 2014-2015) -> Joplin (2015-2017) -> Morrison (2017-2021) -> Morrison Single-player (Veilguard) (2021-2024)

I also, and I cannot stress this enough, concept art is not cut content. None of what is shown should be considered cut content. They were exploring possibilities and most of these came in very early in pre-production. They were not carried past pre-production for many reasons we don't know and might not ever fully understand.

Anyways, I'mma start with something I think is missed by a lot of people:

Most (if not all) of Thedas as we know it wouldn't be there. Solas stressed that the tearing down of the veil would kill a lot - if not all people - in Thedas. There is no guarantee for elves or dwarves, and certainly not humans and Qunari/Vashoth. This is stressed heavily in Tevinter Nights when Charter talks to him. (Emphasis by me)

She shook her head helplessly. “Because you told the Inquisitor that you were going to destroy this world,” she said. “Did you expect us not to try to stop you?” He sighed. “It was a moment of weakness. I told myself that it was because you all deserved to know, to live a few years in peace before my ritual was complete. Before this world ended.” “Then perhaps we are not the only ones you lied to,” Charter said. “You do not have to do this.” His look pinned her. “I have no choice. What I am doing will save this world, and those like you—the elves who still remain—may even find it better, when it is done.” Charter considered lying, but then she thought of Tessa, with her quick smile and strong hands. “There are those I care for who would not.”

For reference of those who haven't read the comics, Tessa is Charter's human partner.

He stresses this both when he mentions it in Trespasser. He knows his path to do so ends in death, he wanted the world to be at some degree of peace before most of it died - its why he helps reveal the Dragon's Breath plot.

Okay, so what about datv? They could have changed their mind, a lot of stuff changed between what we were given in Trespasser (2015) and Tevinter Nights (2020).

Glad you asked!

So, what we know from the artbook is that in this post-Tresspasser/pre-Joplin era concept art, they explored the veil coming down in a different way than what we got final game. Matt Rhodes also posted the piece with the artbook caption that this was a pitch that involved Solas summoning a titan beneath Minrathous to tear down the veil. [Source]

An artist's pitch for a potential end-game. Solas has raised the titan upon which the city of Minrathous had been built, in order to use its strength to tear open the veil.

So not only did they explore Solas continuing to use titans for his purposes. Repeating a sin he has regrets for – which would have been such an interesting thing to talk about with Harding or even to throw back on how Solas still throws away his morals and values because he's barreling down the "ends justify the means" highway.

But this also says a lot about how much he does not care to about the consequences on the modern people. I also think it negates what growth he could possibly has and would be in conflict with the established fact that he does try to mitigate the damage of his ritual.

Because Titans are massive. So much so that Valta talks about it in her notes after joining with the Titan. So massive that a Warden on her calling gets lost in one. Summoning one to the surface would be cataclysmic at best. These beings are larger than mountains, its even suggested some are as large as entire mountain ranges both prior to and in datv. Not to mention Titans prior to datv are at least 14 miles below sea level (deep as the Mariana's trench) according to the da ttrpg and the map of the Descent dlc.

Summoning something that large from so deep, on a coastal area would cause so much wide spread damage... It is irredeemable. Its unjustifiable. Which would make any positive ending for Solas feel undeserved and forced upon you. So I get why this wouldn't have pushed forward. Its too loaded and irredeemable that even if someone wanted to pursue saving him from himself – you can't do that after something like this.

I still think its a cool concept that also really throws Solas' whole "I'm not a god" and "the Evanuris aren't gods" thing into the spotlight. Because the series has repeatedly asked us to consider what we consider to be a god, and if we're being told this isn't an act of a god... what in Thedas is? But that's a whole other post.

Joplin Era Art

Concept art shows they were already exploring a world state where at the end of the game, Solas mends the veil. It is not labeled as a fail state. [Source: The Art of Dragon Age The Veilguard]

Tranquilizing himself. Solas recloses the veil around himself and the blight.

This next one is considered a fail state.

This sequence was an early fail state. Solas succeeds in his ritual, life as Thedas knows it has come to an end, and the ancient elves return.

This sequence of boards shows Solas meditating and triggering an explosion (the iconic one to Dragon Age that has appeared in every game, and we see in Trespasser. The beam and then shockwave.) You see people standing around an animal and then when the shock wave they are on the ground dead. Then it cuts to a colour row of frames where a halla is grazing and the spirit bodies of the ancient elves appear on the horizon.

Solas succeeding in tearing down the veil was always a bad end. People were to die in mass quantities. Everyone would be gone. South falling to the blight? Small potatoes, as no one from the previous games exists anymore.

Another exploration of a world state successfully stopping Solas shows him making Ghilan'nain and then himself tranquil as he seals the Veil around himself and the blight.

Solas tranquilizes Ghilan'nain (above) and, as his last act, performs the same procedure on himself.

We see him tranquilizing an early concept form of Ghil, and in the second image we see the same sealing imagery of the veil as the second piece of concept art that had him closing the veil.

Defeated, Solas enters the Black City alone.

Even early on in Joplin, Solas was going to return to the Black City. Solavellan or not, his defeat seemed to always remove him from the waking world. Which is interesting to consider.

After that, the artbook – and any other concept art that has been shared – doesn't show any indication that the broad strokes of what was laid out in Joplin changed with Morrison. Neither the multiplayer nor reverting back to single player.

Solas doesn't succeed to bring down the veil and end game Solas always ends up beyond the veil.

I do wonder if the how changed at some point, but I find it interesting that we have no public indication that they carried the idea of Solas succeeding in any shape or form through production. Or that he doesn't mend the veil in end game.

Which lines up with what was telegraphed from Inquisition forward.

To me, Solas never felt like he was supposed to succeed because the narrative made it very overt that what he was doing was devastating. It felt that there was no coming back from it. Thedas would be inherently so different – and you'd have to commit to either it coming down in all world states or none at all because it would be such a divergent thing.

I think the veil coming down is a fascinating concept and definitely one to end a series so you have to start somewhere else – either so far in the future or in the past.

[starry-bi-sky]

writing about Bruce's speculations in chapter 5 of WTNS was the best part of his POV hands down. It meant I got to force everyone to listen to me infodump about my in-world lore and in some cases character studies, and they couldn't do anything but listen because it was vital to the chapter.

Danny isn't gonna go on an in-depth internal monologue about blood blossoms because he already knows what they are and what they do. So unless prompted, he's not gonna explain them in detail. He's also not gonna go into detail about what Vlad does or what his motivations are because he already knows Vlad and has a pretty good grasp on why he does shit. (although the blood blossoms did absolutely throw him for a loop)

BRUCE meanwhile doesn't know any of this stuff. So he's got to research Vlad and Blood Blossoms and all this stuff and then form his own conclusions and theories from that. It also makes an extra challenge for myself because i have to remember not to meta and keep in mind that he doesn't have the same knowledge on ghost stuff as Danny, and thus everything he knows is from a limited lens.

It's great, it's fantastic, it's my enrichment. Coming up with conclusions for Bruce to come to with the info he's got on hand is delightful. It's like im playing logic puzzles.

[art4lm]

These were requested from my instagram

thought of drawing one of markiplier’s characters but I decided to redraw his pfp instead 🤷‍♀️

[thehazelmist]

My brother drew Mr. Puzzles In the Super Paper Mario Artstyle!

Check out my brother's other art, It's pretty cool!

[l-in-the-light]

Trafalgar Law and shreds of closeness part 3: Donquixote Family Edition

What can I say, I got struck with inspiration yet again, the thoughts just do not want to leave me. This time it will get dark. And it will hurt, so feel warned. I will take a closer look at Law's closeness to the Donquixote Family and also do a small case study of affection between Doffy and Cora and their dad as well, to get a fuller context. Main focus will be on physical affection, yet again.

So what do you think, did Law get support and affection from his "second family"? I would say, very little. But let's look at evidence:

We have verbal support from Doflamingo himself when Giolla and Buffalo start to fear to touch Law or to even stay in the same room after they learn he's sick. That's 1:0 for him, I'm sure Law appreciated and remembered it. In retrospection, it would have been better for him if he didn't.

Then we have Giolla and Machvise who handled him like he's an object. Giolla keeps touching Law on the head, probably not caring why he seems displeased with it. She's just reinforcing the trauma, but I think overall she means well, she just doesn't think much about it. Giolla also shows Law the most physical affection and I swear it feels like she's trying to make up for her initial reaction, she's just not going the right way about it, making it worse instead.

Meanwhile we have Doflamingo, who despite defending Law before, never touches him. And I mean, never ever. Doffy remains cold not only with Law though, which we will see in a moment.

And then we have Baby5. She feels sorry for Law and even cried for him when she heard the story of Flevance (not in Law's presence tho), but she herself is bad with affection and care, because she also never received much, it also doesn't help that she is genuinely scared of Law's angry glares. All she can do to show him she cares is to smack and scold him. And of course when she does smack him it's on the head, which only becomes a trauma trigger over and over again. Those two just completely miss each other by a mile.

That's it. No other Donquixote Family's member ever tried to show some care in front of Law. They train him of course, but would you count kicking and punching him as a positive experience? Yeah, I don't think so.

And let's not forget Corazon, who carried Law like a bag of potatoes (and threw him around) for a long time, even after he kidnapped him. The Trip to Hospitals All Around the World kinda made him become better, holding Law close, trying to make him smile, carrying him all the time and at one point he even begs Law: "please give me the chance to do things right, stay strong for 3 more weeks!". Doesn't change the fact the touches he did give Law at the beginning were brutalized forms of affection, and we can't really forget that fact: that's exactly how Law's trauma of being touched on the head even started in the first place.

He already trained for awhile, but he still failed in the confrontation, and I think it was because of the touch. Being pinned down made Law probably freeze and unable to move. But even after being saved by Doflamingo, Law doesn't even try to seek support in him, unlike Baby5. Here we can see Doflamingo is alright if someone seeks comfort in him, but he will not give it by himself. That makes Doflamingo-Law combo the worst possible match up, a person who will never give it first and a person who will never ask for it, no wonder things were always cold between them.

Thanks to the fight against Smoker in Punk Hazard we learn that Law managed to overcome his trauma of being pinned down to a significant degree, because he manages to escape on his own. This scene gets an extra focus in the manga (it takes like 5 different frames!) which further convinces me it's that siginifcant. Law probably trained himself not to get overwhelmed like that ever again. Still, I can't help but notice soon after this happened Law starts to have troubles breathing, which means it still didn't leave him unaffected. He pushes to finish the fight faster afterwards as well.

One of his trauma triggers is feeling helpless and being pinned down definitely counts for that. I don't think this started with Vergo, I would say it was already a thing after Flevance, when he had to discover more and more dead bodies of people dearest to him, unable to do anything about it.

Let's look at his symptoms thanks to which we can recognize he's going through a triggering situation. Visible shivering, heavy panting (to the point of weezing which makes me think it can even go as far as bordering on hyperventilation or the opposite - apnea). And then in the last image he just goes stiff which I interpret as him completely freezing up. Damn, that's actually a lot. It's very similar to Robin's trauma responses in Water 7.

You can also notice that Law clenches his fists and it seems to be a sign that he's struggling or forcing himself to be strong. He still does it *a lot* when he's an adult. I think it might have honestly became a habit. He does that just before a battle, in most stressful situations when he knows he can't show his emotions (or just doesn't want to), and well, if we go by the anime version, also when he leaves Wano with his own crew. Basically any time he makes a firm resolve or a hard decision, he also does that. I swear sometimes it feels like he struggles for half of the Dressrosa and Punk Hazard, which you know what, might be way too accurate.

Also bonus wholesome points for Luffy caring more to support Law and Muucy than caring for falling into water himself. I'm not sure how much that helped Law when he was dealing with a triggering situation, especially that unfortunate contact with the top of his head. I guess it's still better than similar situation but with Law completely alone.

This puts this scene into a completely new perspective, right? He's shivering here and definitely froze up, even his speech bubble looks distressed. He's not getting angry here, his trauma trigger kicked in. I did check if he ever shivers or freezes up when he tries to, for example, stop himself from feeling angry, but no, we never see that happen. I'm sorry for ruining the comedy :( tho to make it better, he's also shocked, because just moments before Strawhats feared him, and now they already don't and even laugh at him. Damn, I'm now so torn about this scene, I mean, Strawhats couldn't have known!

Now a promised closer look at Donquixote family's approach to closeness and touch. When they were still Celestial Dragons, they barely touched each other. No small touches on the back, hand holding or anything else you usually share with kids. The closeness starts only after they're all starting to be persecuted. First time we see Doffy holding his mom's hand is when they run away from their burning house. First time we are shown Homing hugging his kids is when village people are beating them up and he is just trying to cover them with his own body, so he takes the beating instead of his kids.

The last memory Rosinante has of his father is the hug. And the first memory he has of Sengoku is also a sort of half-hug. Might be why he got so attached to him.

Little Doflamingo and Rosinante are always together, but they never touch in any way. It's clearly Doffy who takes care of his younger brother, probably also telling him to toughen up.

Weird mocking touch on the head from Trebol. And like always, no one ever touches Doflamingo, not even his own officers, and that's true ever since Doffy was a child.

He even tells Trebol he's too close. Doffy doesn't want touches anymore, because it seems in his mind he understands them as someone protecting him, and he doesn't need protection. Ever since he killed Homing, Doffy took the role of being a head of the family and protecting Rosinante, so no more hugs or hand holding for him. In other words, Doflamingo associates physical affection with protection and incoming abuse. And whenever he touches someone it's exactly for that reason: to hurt them.

An interesting parallel because this happens in exactly same chapter: Law is trying to move away because Luffy's "too close". He even lets him take the transponder away and just stands there and waits. And you might wonder: what for? Is he hoping Luffy will give it back by himself?

No, it just took some extra time for Law to brace himself to touch Luffy and shove him to the side. Even though both Doffy's and Law's first instinct here is to move away, Law is struggling but actually tries to overcome it, contrary to Doffy, who seems content in his "no touching" comfort zone.

Let's take a look at Dressrosa now. Doffy is carrying Law by his clothes, Law is unconscious, but he will not touch him directly anyway. Cora-san used to do it as well at first to Law.

But then, you might ask, they fought so much in Dressrosa, surely some kind of touch had to happen as a result? I mean, most of them were indirect touches with Doffy's strings, kicking Law or stopping him by grabbing his sword. But you are right, exactly two touches do happen. You're not gonna like it.

This is literally the first time Doflamingo ever touched Law. To stop his attack he forcefully grabbed his hand. Law is shivering, this actually triggers him, and there's just no way Doflamingo doesn't know that, he can feel it.

And then he makes the full use of the situation. Doflamingo holds Law up in the air, but we can see by the onomatopeia that he's literally holding him up by his hand alone and Law is just freely dangling there, Doffy's not using any strings to immobilize him, not even armament haki. He doesn't even need to. Finally he gave Law the touch he must have been craving when he was a child from him, but it's not a caring one, and what's the next thing Doflamingo does to that hand he just touched? He cuts it off, ripping open the psychological wounds, making them deeper, perhaps hoping Law will never recover from them. Because that's the easiest way to control him later if he wishes to do so, to make him pliant, defenseless and unable to fight back and terrified. But also to punish him for the "rebellion" against him... but also to punish Law for his need and fear of touch. This is a lesson: never want affection, closeness or touch, you're never getting any. Unless it's this: abuse. And if you don't think this is terrible enough, let me remind you: this is their first touch *ever*, Law probably waited for it when he was a kid.

And Law is just hanging there, not even trying to move, and it lasts for like three or four pages long, and I remember when I reread this a couple of times, I was a bit puzzled. Why isn't Law struggling to release himself? Why is he just letting this happen? Especially when it's becoming very clear what Doflamingo is gonna do next. So I have my answer: Law froze up, it's his body shutting off on it's own and all he can do is to just be there and wait for it to be over. It's painful, because we know Law always struggles, always fights back, and he tries here, with words, but he can't do anything else and he just watches it happen.

And this is the second time Doflamingo touches him. It's after the Gamma Knife attack, Doffy knows what he's doing here, he chooses to make contact with Law's head/face (he must have noticed Law's discomfort to it before when Giolla often did it to Law as a kid, and now he utilized this knowledge). He tries to make Law freeze up so he can't finish his move and who knows, maybe that was the final factor of why Law failed to kill off Doflamingo.

To wrap things up, I will share the interesting parallel that I think can be drawn between two rather unexpected characters: Law and Boa.

Both Law and Boa are most comfortable around Bepo (and the snake in Boa's case). Both are victims of brutalized touch and lack of loving and caring one. But while Law fearfully accepts what's given to him, Boa rejects it (even symbolically by kicking fluffy animals away or refusing any show of affection like gifts). Both are touch starved, but Boa will never even try to touch Luffy, and the only time Luffy touched her was in that stealth mission in Impel Down (they didn't have the choice) and hugging her after she gave him the key to Ace's cuffs. Boa doesn't return the gesture, she is very flustered and falls to the ground afterwards, which reminds me a little of her later scene with Rayleigh. Not even Boa's own sisters are shown to share any sort of physical affection with her, Boa shows cold and manipulative attitude to almost everyone besides them. The only other person Boa ever touched was Rayleigh (she's on the ground here again) after he helped them fight off Blackbeard's assault on Amazon Lily and it might be a traumatic response: Blackbeard tried to strangle her after all. Boa's love is passionate and platonic, she shows her affection and caring with indirect gestures (food preparation, offering support and help etc.), probably because that's what she remembers others tried doing for her before. She can't even deal with intimacy face to face and Law also tends to act cold to very open displays of affection and emotions.

Big thanks to @tae-rambles for mentioning the scene with Boa that completely slipped my mind <3 added it in the edit!

[rmovvla]

He was fairy 🧚‍♀️✨