#How to Use Variables

[presswoodterryryan]

Unlocking Algebra: The Magic of Variables

By Alice Hi everyone! It’s Alice, and today, Mr. Fluffernutter and I are on a math adventure! My big sister Ariel has written an amazing paper all about solving algebraic expressions using variables, and let me tell you—it’s like unlocking a treasure chest full of math secrets! At first, I thought variables were just sneaky letters making math more confusing, but Ariel showed me they’re actually…

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Another year has passed, and with it the opportunity to reflect back on all that has happened. While my growth was not as dramatic as last year, I can still see lots of positive change.

I'll never have enough ways to say thank you for all the love and support you have given me this year. On to 2025!

(2023 summary here!)

[claypigeonpottery]

Any advice on applying glaze?

I just got a bunch of my stuff back from bisque firing and I'm really nervous about the glazing. I have that kind of liquid glaze you can get in jars, I'll probably mostly do transparent glazes but also the colorful ones. I'm really scared of messing up my pieces.

I have a few pointers!

keep in mind, though lots of things can go wrong in the glaze firing, the bisque firing is where things explode! I personally find the glaze kiln slightly less terrifying (but there’s more anticipation)

since your glaze is going to be painted on and not dipped, be sure to follow the directions on the jar. it should tell you how many coats to apply (usually 3, but I think up to six if you’re layering different glazes). wait for them to dry before applying the next coat

it usually only happens on dipped pieces in my experience but sometimes when you dip a piece there’s little pinholes in the wet glaze. don’t touch it until it’s fully dry, but once it is, you can just gently rub your fingertips over the pinholes and they should smooth out

if any of your glazes are super thick, you can add a little water, and if they dry up completely, you can do the same thing to reconstitute them. just violently shake the jar between waiting for the underglaze to absorb the water lol

leave the bottom of your pieces unglazed, as well as an 1/8” up from the foot so it won’t drip or stick to the kiln shelf. I was taught not to apply glaze really thick on the lowest third of your piece, to help prevent drips

and this is the time to learn a good and also difficult pottery lesson:

don’t get attached

things are going to go wrong and some pieces will be disappointing or unusable. (conversely, some pieces you felt ‘meh’ about might end up being your favourites!)

but you can’t get too attached or it’s gonna hurt to open the kiln. it’s always exciting/scary to fire pottery, but if you put your heart in the kiln with your pieces… 🥲 just don’t do it. people tend to figure it out after a couple firings and most potters I’ve met agree that an unfired piece isn’t something to put your hopes in

good luck! may the kiln gods be kind 🤞🏼

EDIT: ALWAYS SHAKE OR STIR THE GLAZE BEFORE USING!!!!

[dimonds456]

Gonna say something controversial.

Ford Pines is a nuanced character who is neither good nor bad. Absolving him of his crimes is actively a detriment to his character and does a disservice to the storytelling of Gravity Falls, but defining him exclusively by his mistakes without taking the time to understand him is a purposefully bad faith take that actively makes your enjoyment of the show worse.

He is neither a good or bad person, because "good" people and "bad" people aren't real. There's just people. And people fuck up sometimes.

If no one fucked up and if no one held onto those fuckups sometimes out of sheer desperation, the world of fiction would be way more boring, unengaging, and dull.

Ford Pines is a mess and I don't want him to be sanitized or demonized. I just want him to be a mess.

Thank you

[sieglinde-freud]

hiii @nyxlunaire !!!! sorry i did attempt to type this all in the replies but im a rambler and got smacked with the character limit because i had so much to say so im making it a post! but just know i never mind!! im so flattered ur interested 😭 also if you want me to untag you lmk, i just wanted to make sure you know that i am responding!! just somewhere else. theyre honestly among my favorite sibling pairings in fire emblem, maybe right behind eirika and ephraim which is kind of crazy bc lucina and inigo are definitely. not canon siblings in any way!! but in my head they are and they make a lot of sense to me! overall i think their relationship is a positive one and a close one. there’s a couple of strains, what with inigo’s relatively lackadaisical attitude being a bit annoying for lucina who was probably raised with more rigor (chrom was still ALIVE), and i can imagine lucina’s headstrong-ness could have bothered inigo. but you know. siblings piss eachother off. it happens. i dont think it happens as much with these two, especially in the bad timeline when they both REALLY needed to lock in to stay alive. to me, what really makes them interesting is everything post coming back in time

so they both come back in time and have wildly different experiences with obviously just landing, but more importantly with chrom and olivia. obviously just because of how gameplay works, inigo WOULD have a closer relationship with olivia, and lucina WOULD have a closer relationship with chrom. those have the intentional parent conversations as opposed to the generic ones with their variable parent but that doesnt change that they happen! and so for starters, with inigo specifically, we all know this one. we all know the infamous inigo pc support in which his dad, chrom in this case, compares inigo to lucina and reprimands him for not taking the fight seriously, falling for inigo’s teehee silly dumbass facade that he puts up and thus, despite the resolution in the A support, theres still a distance and there’s still a strain between them that is less than it was before but still present (this you can tell in how chrom treats future past inigo!!)

so we all know that one, very popular non-canon parent-child relationship blah blah blah. but i think what goes underlooked is lucina’s conversation with olivia (and her mother in general). this makes sense, because this support is truly nothing to write home about. its like, cute. but its generic and not all that interesting aside from the acknowledgment of baby lucina. but what im really interested in is the language lucina uses here and in her future past conversations with olivia and when she reunites with her parents after the henry chapter (12? 13?) and its very interesting if you’re someone who likes to read too much into the text where nothing was intended to be this way (me). i wont go into EVERY detail right now with olivia and lucina bc this is supposed to be about the siblings, but its important to note that lucina… does not know olivia. “her olivia died!” very true, but that came after chrom’s death, and lucina is able to adjust to having chrom back very easily! like its natural! but with olivia, she doesnt know how to talk to her. she doesnt understand her clothes, she doesnt know how to read olivia’s reactions, she doesnt know what to say or do when she meets olivia for the first time, and this isnt a problem that i see resolved in the A support all that well. its not the same kind of distance chrom and inigo have, but it is distance.

back to what you actually asked me, because i do have a point with this! i think that inigo and lucina, whether or not they realize it and whether or not they ever admit it to themselves, are jealous of eachother. what lucina has with chrom is what inigo has always needed growing up—a father figure who he can count on the support and love of. but when he found chrom, any stories and descriptions he knew from lucina break instantly once they talk. he says, “For being such a softie with everyone else, he doesn’t pull any punches with me.” how. interesting. and with lucina, i think it would be insane for her to see inigo, who knew their mother for even less time, immediately fall into step with her. they bond over dancing, shyness, and seem to get on well immediately. lucina didnt get that! when lucina saw her mom for the first time, olivia was crying and lashing out at her dad! resolved almost instantly, of course, but that’s a horrible thing to come back to! and she doesnt dance, she doesn’t understand her mom’s anxiety, she doesn’t get the same advice from olivia that inigo does. why? that question will never be answered. but it bothers her, and when siblings are jealous of eachother in this way, it leads to strain. obviously, it wont ruin their relationship. at the end of the day, theyre siblings who love eachother, and at this point, inigo is one of the only people in the world who can truly understand what lucina has been facing and is one of her strongest supporters. but they’re also young and are relishing in the comfort of having their parents back again as well as the discomfort of experiencing sibling rivalry for the first time. the worst part, though, is that they dont get to fix this.

blah blah blah awakening happens grima dies blah blah blah and then BAM. inigo? gone. hes outtie. disappears without a trace and supposedly without any real heads up, and if there is a heads up, its probably wildly inaccurate about the time hes gonna be gone!! and we all know how laslow feels about leaving (immense guilt and despair and sadness and grief) but what if he left a sister behind? a sister that, despite reassurances, feels out of place with her “parents” and who’s watching the rest of her friends move on and start the rest of her lives? a sister who had always planned to go back to their shithole of a home, but never thought she’d have to do it without her little brother by her side, or at least without a proper goodbye. will he come back? should she wait? will she wait? i dont know. i dont think either of them do know and i think thats the scary the part. when laslow comes home and reunites with the family he’s mourning for years, who he’s shared tales and stories and tidbits of with his daughter, will her auntie lucina be there to meet her too?

in my head, yes she is and they all live happily ever after forever BUT. thats a loose end worth exploring i feel. the grief and loss that follows these two is truly never ending and i feel like once you eternally interconnect them this way, through making them siblings, they get a lot more fun. i definitely have more thinking to do on post-fates them but… if they were strained before. weeell. imagine what being apart for that long without resolving your conflict will do to you. haha.

[redo-rewind-if]

Hi, I wonder how are you creating your wip? Do you write it in google docs and then code it in Twine? I'm starting making my own and I'm looking for some technical tips

Hi! Thanks so much for the ask! It's always good to see new authors starting their own IFs. This might be a bit long so I'll put everything under a read more for those of you who aren't interested.

For me personally, I write in LibreOffice, which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office/Word. But, you can definitely use Google Docs or whatever other writing program you prefer!

As for coding, you can just code in Twine, but I like to code some as I write so I don't forget when to set certain variables. If you don't want to code anything in your draft, then I'd recommend at least leaving yourself reminders at places you'd like to add variables or when you want to have skill checks or anything else of the sort.

I should mention that a lot of people dislike coding in Twine, the code isn't set apart from the text visually and can be confusing for some, so if that's the case for you, I'd recommend checking out something like Notepad++ for coding and then copy and pasting everything into Twine once you're done.

If you do use Notepad++, and you're also using SugarCube, I'd highly recommend downloading and using this to add SugarCube as a custom language to the program so your code is easier to read. (You'll be able to select it as the coding language in Notepad++ after downloading and following the directions, though you may need to exit and restart the program before it shows up in the language list).

Some other great resources I use: The Twine Cookbook (of course), SugarCube Documentation or Harlowe (if you prefer), some templates (including the one I use!) [1] [2] [3], and w3schools tutorials for basics in CSS and JavaScript (assuming you don't know how to code in them already, if you do, that's great!)

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I'm no coding expert but I have taken a few classes on Web Dev stuff in college so I know a thing or two.

Best of luck to you on your project anon!😊

[biblically-accurate-dca]

KILL!!!!!!!!!

[xx-k1tsun3-k1d-xx]

if i had a nickel for every time in the past week id been recommended graphic sh or pro ED content with this (or similar) tag being the reason id have two nickels which isn’t a lot but its both worrying and infuriating that it’s happened twice

[nyehilismwriting]

Keep getting flagged as being in Leanna romance; unless she’s just really touchy/sweet and calls everyone baby and holds their hand all romantical

Happened on both a built save and a brand new one

yeah, I've fixed this for real in my files this time, just got a couple more bugs to fix before i update it again<3

[cerealmonster15]

staring at the build im running for the like 15th time today hoping the code edit i made doesn’t break… plz it took so long to figure out such a simple thing lol 😭🙏

[fortune-maiden]

Random TGCF AU of the Day

This started as PX ramblings in the original vs the revision but between my want for some kind of SWD & PX relationship and a certain realization about PX’s revised backstory…

Pei Xiu vs the Black Water Arc

Pei Xiu’s revised backstory is pretty tragic. A bright shining star and kind happy person, Pei Xiu’s life is ruined when he joins a martial arts tournament and shows up a general’s son that was favored to win the thing. His family is convicted on false charges, his parents and younger siblings are exiled somewhere and PX himself is pressed into the army, the only one of them the right age for it.

He then spends the rest of his life doing whatever it takes to move up the ranks so he can get save his family culminating in his massacre of the Banyue kingdom… and his reward is finding out they’d all died years ago :D

(and also Banyue’s death)

I imagine canonically he gets some semblance of healing in the form of a good mentor and CO in Pei Ming (not enough to maybe not murder innocents in an incredibly convoluted plot to save his girlfriend but well…) but with a backstory like that I feel like there’s a certain scholar from Fugu he might also feel some kinship with

So he does his homework. Pei Xiu is smart-ish and puts together some pieces about the scholar from Fugu and a certain low key ghost king and hatches a plan.

Rather than the convoluted murder plot, he’ll get the ghost king to save Banyue. And in exchange he’ll be the ghost king’s eyes and ears in heaven and help him with whatever evil plots he’s plotting

he_xuan.exe promptly stops working.

On the one hand this is the most absurd thing he’s had to deal with in centuries and he has half a mind to kill Pei Ming’s idiot descendant on the spot. PX only figured out that he’s the scholar from Fugu, nothing about the fate swap or the earth master, and he’d prefer to keep it that way.

On the other hand, He Xuan does, in fact, feel bad for Banyue, and PX has three things going for him:

1. As Pei Ming’s protege, he has an easier in with Shi Wudu

2. He’s a better (read: less of a dick about it) source of funds than Hua Cheng

3. He’s good with the bone fish

[anonymusbosch]

.

[milkyway-galaxary]

Mmm science mmm animals mmm nature mmm how humans work and the role we play in it- and really theres a good discussion to be had on if some of the conservation policies put in place is Too hands off, take humans out of the equation. It’s certainly better than doing as we currently are and its not too much but natural parks where people aren’t supposed to go off the trail or you shouldnt even throw rocks or something, cause yes that is effecting the ecosystem but id say in the amount that we are fellow animals in the ecosystem and there is indirect facilitation that means we are helping them by spreading the seeds around, or theres a thing where the best amount of disruption for a high species count is actually intermediate amounts not low. Should those things treat us more like animals and do these stuff at our own risk. But also we can think about it specifically in the lens of invasive species, there is a good argument for humans are invasive species we have Stupid amounts of spread and taken way too much and degraded the habitat and that is the definition of invasive species, so those parks may be treating it like that, invasive species are usually treated by extirpations, so keeping humans out of that area is the best. And I definitely agree with that in lots of areas such as, in water bodies especially theres areas marked off for nature to regrow and that helps even the places around it. But in parks where we still allow humans is it best to act like we are hands off?

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Hitting Dina with the dyslexia beam just to make the differences between her and Muro that more painful and pronounced. They are both excellent at maths and physics and electronics, they both have logical minds that excel at whatever they put their mind to, they think outside the box and love learning, but one of them only somewhat struggles with spelling and handwriting and the other can barely read more than a sentence at a time without a killer headache. One of them excels at more easily measured academic skills and the other is better at less quantifiable applied skills. One of them gets scholarship offers and is a top student and the other falls out of school at 16. One of them is an exception, a genius, despite despite despite everything about her, and the other is exactly whats expected of them. One of them is expected to work on the cutting edge of computer science, the other expected to work as a local mechanic at best.

And yet, despite the distance that grows, they both end up in the same hell hole with the same people trying to use them as tools. Despite everything that set them apart, they both suffer the same damn fate.

[purplecelestial-buddy]

Have you ever refused to add a character to your kinnie list (because you are very particular about not projecting onto stories) while your best friend insists that they absolutely belong in there or are you normal?

[4amarcanethoughts]

I'm working on a Mage Viktor headcanon where the markings we see on him in his first appearance in episode 2 are drawn on (like hex-henna or something) and the runes and patterns correspond with specific coordinates for timelines and possibilities.

The appearances he has without the markings are some of his earlier attempts, where he hasn't fine tuned the magic and rune patterns. Simply following the calls for help across the timelines, making note of the lines he has already touched with an instinctual knowing.