#sai's text tool doesn't function too well

[xavieryaa]

The Reddit Blackout, #196, And Being New to Tumblr

okay i've seen a lot of people in the past ~24 hours or so confused by everything going on with Reddit & Tumblr from both sides - people new to tumblr who don't know how to use it, and tumblr users who don't know what's going on with reddit and why many of its users have joined up here i know this isn't really related to my blog but fun fact about me: i was up until recently a very active reddit user and even mod a subreddit, but I've also been on tumblr for about 3 years now on different accounts, so I think I can see pretty well from both sides of this and explain what's going on this post will be split in 2 sections: what happened with reddit (and what #196 means), and a guide for new users

1. What The Hell Is Going On With Reddit?

The thing that's caused all this ruckus is a major change to Reddit's API, which is what Reddit provides to people so they can pull directly from Reddit to make third-party apps or tools.

The change is that Reddit is changing its previously free API to be paid. Which on its own kinda sucks for developers, but it's not unexpected. They need to make money somehow, right?

The problem is that the API pricing is WAY TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE. The developer of the most popular 3rd party Reddit app, Apollo, says it will cost him $20 million a year to continue running the app as normal.

Essentially, this pricing forces almost everything third-party to shut down, which causes 3 major problems:

Third-party apps cannot keep running, which sucks for normal users because Reddit's official app is awful. It's slow, its video player is a thing of nightmares, it doesn't have many useful features third-party developers have made.

It sucks even more for visually impaired users because they can't use the official Reddit app at all. Reddit's official app does not work with iOS's native text-to-speech function. Third party apps, on the other hand, often do. So Reddit is forcing blind users away.

Third-party moderator tools cannot keep running, which sucks for moderators because many rely on these tools to properly moderate their subreddits. And moderators are often necessary, because without them subreddits get banned and hate speech and even CSA can often run rampant.

So you see why this change is bad.

Reddit users were PISSED.

So over the past week and a half or so, they have been working on organizing a site-wide blackout. The majority of the most active subreddits have now gone private. Some are only doing it for 48 hours, others (such as r/196) are doing it indefinitely.

That's why you can't access most of Reddit right now, and that's why many users have come here.

You're probably still wondering, though - what is this #196?

Well, as you may guess, it's connected to that subreddit r/196 I just mentioned. r/196 is a subreddit which only has one rule: every time you visit, you must post before you leave.

That's it, that's the subreddit.

The thing about r/196 that set it apart from most other subreddits - and what lends the subreddit's users perfectly to Tumblr - is that it was dominated by queer and leftist users.

So now they've come here and set up shop in #196 and r/196 so they can continue their merry little shitposting.

There's a ton of lore related to r/196, actually, but this is already a long tumblr post and quite frankly I cannot be bothered to write about it at the moment.

2. I'm Here From Reddit, What Now?

Hello there, random new user. As a double-citizen of Reddit and Tumblr, let me show you around this place.

First off, there are some other people who are better at explaining that I am who have made some really helpful things. Watch this Strange Aeons video as a guide to Tumblr culture and functionality and read this post which directly compares Reddit and Tumblr.

Assuming you've done that, here's some additional advice of my own:

Do you miss sorting subreddits by top of all time/the year/the month? Well, you can do something very similar with tags! If you go to a tag at the top of the screen you can select top, and then at the dropdown that says "all time" you can select different time periods! Even 6 months, which Reddit hasn't ever had.

Tumblr has a lot of cool customization features! Even outside your icon/banner/bio, you can change you blog colors and on desktop you can have an html theme (which has its own thriving community here). That customization is part of what sets Tumblr apart from everywhere else - I think you'll enjoy playing with it.

Notes will probably confuse you at first. Unlike the different numbers for upvotes and comments, notes combines the total number of likes, reblogs, and replies into the same number.

Outside of organizing your own blog, when making your own posts tags are what help other people find your post. Use them! But don't abuse them, because then people will just block you.

There are three ways of people finding your post: if someone follows you, if someone follows the tag(s) assigned to your post, and if someone is just scrolling through the tag(s) assigned to your post (and also the secret 4th way no one uses, which is finding it on the trending page, but even if people did use it no one will find your post initially that way)

tumblr is no longer The Discourse Website. And unlike what Reddit wants you to believe for some reason, it is very much alive still. Most of the people seeking fights have moved to Twitter (though some have also moved back here again). You will not get any brownie points for being a dipshit like you do on some subreddits.

So there, welcome to the hellsite (affectionate), you'll pick up on all the in-jokes eventually, for now just try not to be a nuisance and soon enough this'll be your new internet home.

[moonlight-tmd]

So a random idea related to the fact part-insecticon!Bee is affected by the weather.

SO- we all know bugs don't like cold. They hide and bury themselves to hibernate. But bees are a bit different, they like warm weather- heck they themselves are very resistant to heat because their hive defence is literally swarming the intruder and boiling them with their body heat.

So that being said; Bee is having the best time of his life during heatwaves. Like, a very warm summer that would be quite dangerous for humans or even normal bots is the best time for him to go do shit.

I imagine when the heatwaves hit in summer, everyone keeps a fan near them to cool down cuz it's just that hot, even if the plant is already chilly on its own. Everyone is suffering but the moment they come out of their rooms- "GOOD MORNIN' EVERYONE!" Bee with the biggest happiest smile one could have. He's been going around base restless since the sunrise and making food for everyone. He's even done some chores.

If Bee's team couldn't keep up with his usual energetic personality the one he has now is even harder to follow. They are miserable and he's even more bursting with energy. Oh well, at least they have one functioning member of the team in case something happens.

A funny scene that would play out is when Bee puts his arm on Prowl's shoulder and leans on him while they're talking. "You're hot.."

Bee would just blink before replying. "Awwh thank you! I didn't know you felt that way.~"

And Prowl would just have more of a weary expression before weakly explaining. "No, literally. You're too hot. Please step away..."

And yeh, fair enough- Bee has been out basking in the sun and absorbed so much heat one could get burns if they touch him. (Sari might have gotten one on accident, Bee felt so bad) Ratchet is just confused because the temperature his frame is at is enough to straight up melt him, lol.

Bee may be feeling great during heatwaves but he feels awful cuz he can't spend time near his friends. One time someone compared him to a sun- Bee thought as in a bright and happy presence. No, as in a burning ball of fire and wanting him a good distance away from them. Ouch.

Oh and since it's a blitzbee au, Blitz is not having a good time either. First of all it's a heatwave and he's big and used to the cold atmosphere of the underground. He may be able to withstand it since fire is one of his elemental weaponry and he has a light paintjob in comparison to other 'cons (RIP Prowl and his matte black).

The cons generally stick inside when the weather is too harsh to do anything so Blitz is not much happy when he's forced via texts by Bee to come out and hang out with him. He finds a good enough excuse for heading out and off he goes. Despite the weather he thinks it's gonna be fine, Bee had him come to a chilly place near the docks after all...

Wrong. The moment he sees Bee all happy and he kneels down to let him kiss him it's like a welding tool has been placed on his face while turned on. It hurt, to say the least. So Bee is not allowed to touch both his friends and his beloved, fun.

I can just see him being all overly sad and trying his best to restrain himself from hugging everyone. It doesn't help that his emotions are amplified by the heatwave.

[canmom]

what's the book for? part 2

[here's an intro where I talk about the three hour video essay that inspired me to do this]

[here's the first part where I argue that there's a big difference between the actual thing you do in an RPG and the book that tells you how you're allegedly supposed to be doing it]

So if the actual TTRPG games are mostly learned by observation and practice, what is the something that RPG books claim to give you in order to enable that?

Here's three things I can think of.

This isn't intended as a Forge-like categorisation of games, most RPG books offer (or claim to offer) all of these to some degree, ideally in complementary ways...

A ruling reference - RPG book as legal system

In the intro to a typical mainstream RPG book, this is typically the explanation that is given.

Over the course of a telling a story together, all sorts of weird edge cases come up where you might not want to simply make a call on how it should resolve. Moreover, consistency is valued, for both challenge and narrative reasons.

In this case, the RPG book is a big collection of rulings for specific situations. 'What happens when a character falls off a cliff?' You can look it up. It's like legal precedents. This is how a lot of the stuff in the early D&D books started - stuff that someone had done, and a referee had made a ruling, and it got written down. Then it would get systematised, unified, and streamlined so that it's easier to remember and extend to new situations.

A lighter game avoids special cases and just suggests a general procedure for resolving situations of uncertainty, conflicts etc.

This angle doesn't tend to cover procedures for how the game is physically run - how to go about setting up the scenario, who should get priority when speaking, etc. etc. - beyond perhaps offering prebuilt modules to inspire you. In older games, most of that is stuff you pick up by watching. In newer games... well, hold on.

A grab bag of interesting prompts - RPG book as inspiration in the moment

Most RPG books have flavour text; many also have tables of weird shit you can roll on or select when building a character, character sheets full of interesting abilities, descriptions of NPCs and so on. A select few RPGs like Unknown Armies and Chuubo's Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine have really distinctive prose too.

The aim of all these tools is to give you something to latch onto when you're in the moment and you need to think of the next thing to say. It's also to get people onto some shared understanding of what this game is all about.

This is where the bulk of many RPG books lies. It's explicitly the aim of Apocalypse World's MC moves. Many one-page RPGs are nothing but lists of evocative names and description elements, and a short snatch of prose.

Prompt tables and lists of names are popular in just about every tradition of RPG design - trad, storygames, OSR, all use them. Sometimes they're the most memorable thing about an RPG, like Dark Heresy's crit tables.

Sometimes pages of tables is the RPG - in recent years, card-based games have become popular, using a regular deck of cards which indexes into a big table of events, each of which is like 'here's a short description. how do you respond?'. This type of game has a great deal in common with storylet-based interactive fiction like Fallen London.

Prompts don't have to be short, though. Arguably an adventure module can be pretty much this - something you consult when players arrive in a new place to get an idea of who they should meet for example.

In D&D, the Monster Manual is straight up a book of real freaky guys you can put in your game. It also has stat blocks for them, of course, but the descriptions and pictures do a lot of work here to make them concrete.

This is why I describe the pictures in Lancer as load-bearing. The pictures help - or are supposed to help - grease the wheels of imagination when you're trying to imagine mechs.

This function of RPGs is a large part of the angle you're playing if you tie the game to a particular genre, setting or IP.

A machine to guide you to a specific experience - RPG book as auteur blueprint

So here's the newer flavour.

RPGs can be one of the most feelings-dense forms of art that humans create - it's your story, with your characters. This is something that tends to arise organically after you spend a long time with a character and 'get into their head'.

However, there is often a desire on the designer's side to structure the game to bring about a particular kind of emotional experience more directly. From horror games to games self-consciously 'about' colonialism, abuse, romance, etc., these games try to give you a particular experience, similar to what a film or book gives you - or indeed, a computer game.

Here are some examples:

My Life With Master is an older Forge game. It's about the 'Igor' servant characters in a classic horror movie, billing itself as 'a roleplaying game of villainy, self-loathing, and unrequited love'. It presents you with an emotionally charged scenario and mechanics that try to push you towards specific drama - if you want to be critical, a firm instance of the incentives and buttons oriented design that Huntsman was talking about, sometimes quite explicitly saying 'this mechanic was designed to...'

Dog Eat Dog is a game 'a game of imperialism and assimilation on the Pacific islands', with the DM reimagined as a colonial power adding more and more restrictions and the players as native people who will inevitably break its rules, until they are eventually pushed to 'run amok' (fatally), or assimilate. It's a game whose entire argument is more or less spelled out in the book itself.

But games don't have to be this narrowly scoped to have this kind of aspiration. Something like Apocalypse World still wants to bring about certain kinds of interaction, laid out quite explicitly as 'agendas' for the MC and players. It is strongly 'opinionated', in programmer terms.

Even a very flexible game can take on this model. Fiasco is a very abstract structure, designed to set up a chaotic situation like in a Coen Brothers movie. Microscope is designed to give you a fractal zoom in and out of a fictional history. These games are almost all procedure; Fiasco has some fantastic prompt tables, and a clear way to cook up your own, but the bulk of it is the stuff it tells you to do with scenes and dice.

These could be seen as games on an auteur model, with many of the emotional beats of the scenario already rigged up in advance. You get this type of book to experience a good/meaningful story - with a certain amount of flexibility in the details that gets you more attached. If there is a GM/MC/etc. they have instructions to facilitate the expression of that story.

...well, I refer to it as an auteur model. Thankfully not everyone is Ron Edwards! Apocalypse World has a whole chapter about how to modify the game to your taste, or build new games on its framework, and that - plus its conceptual simplicity - probably played a role in its hundreds of derivatives. 'Hacking' games was well established as a practice in the storygames milieu right from the early days. Probably the vast majority of games put out on itch.io are simply hacks of an established framework, very few offer real innovation.

Despite this, the offer of these products is still that they'll tell you how create a kind of verbal machine to realise some very specific thing.

Secret fourth thing...?

I can't think of others right now, but I hate presenting a list as exhaustive unless I can prove it's exhaustive. It's very likely there's some other function a book can claim to perform.

However, to summarise, you look at an RPG book to get:

a consistent set of rulings to handle situations of uncertainty

a set of prompts to help inspire your imagination when you need inspiration

a carefully designed procedure to lead you to a specific experience

The third thing is kind of a different beast to the other two, huh? You might be thinking that the first two are trad games and the third one is post-Forge 'story games', but it's really much older than that. Paranoia is a great early example; there are shades of it in many games published in the 80s and 90s. Not all these games are affiliated with the Forge and its diaspora either - take for example Jenna Moran's games and Bliss Stage.

Story games are not books either

The Forge and its diaspora led to a lot of games being printed, and launched the careers of many an 'indie TTRPG designer', which was not really a thing you could be in the same way before. It would be easy therefore to think this was the main contribution: we should assess it on the basis of the printed games that resulted.

However, nothing says you have to use a book to pilfer from their idea pool.

The really interesting contribution of the whole movement, to my eye, is that it calls our attention to a facet of TTRPGs that had often been left implicit. Who speaks, when? Who gets the 'narrative authority' to make the final call on what becomes 'true'? How do you organise time - do you frame scenes, use flashbacks, cut between different characters? What makes a dice roll exciting? How do you work out what would engage the other players, and communicate your own interests? Are you trying to help your character win, or are you more like a writer who might choose to make them suffer? How do you make a compelling character arc? What can be changed around behind the scenes to make a better story?

These are all aspects of 'play', the thing that you do at the table. Any given TTRPG group will settle on its own implicit or explicit approach to this kind of thing.

Different RPG books will tell you to do this or that. Some games will tell you to set stakes, or make failure interesting, or make choices that act as 'flags' to show what you're looking for.

But these tools are not tied to any specific game. You don't need the 'permission' of a book, nor can a book stop you doing it. A book may lay out a procedure that makes it easier, may introduce you to an idea that you haven't heard before, but once you have the idea, you can play with it however you like.

The way I approach a trad game like D&D, from either side of the DM screen, has become very different after my sojourn into the world of story games. A lot of what I liked there, I kept doing. Other inspiration comes from outside of the 'hobby' entirely, in related milieu like improv comedy.

This is something the OSR milieu seems to understand quite well. Everything is expected to be mixed, matched, and interpreted by the needs of your group. Posts will be framed as mere advice, which can be picked up and applied regardless of context.

But that all depends on a certain amount of common ground as to 'what the game is'. There is an authoritative DM who runs the scenario. The emphasis of the game is probably on exploring some kind of ruin and surviving in a dark, decaying fantasy world populated by various factions at odds with each other. Players control flimsy characters whose survival is not guaranteed, but if they live long enough, they can become major powers. There is a heavy strategic aspect: you are trying to use your resources to survive and get something. This is the general shape of a 'prototypical OSR game'.

the shared context of storygames

Story games form their own subsubculture, but they do not have this level of shared context. Instead, a different kind of shared context is kind of implicit in the milieu.

Here's how things go at the London Indie RPG Meetup Group, which I've attended a couple of times: a group of nerds gather in a pub. People will pitch games with a couple of sentences; then people will form groups and play that game as a one-shot session. Someone will have a book, or printouts. Most players will not have heard of the game before.

In this kind of context, a lot of the quirks of story games make sense. 'Read this out' paragraphs, rapid character creation based on selecting prompts, simple mechanics designed to push you into drama as quickly as possible: all of this stuff is perfect for a one-shot game you play once or a few times. This type of game is not really trying to 'take on' trad games.

But then there's the 'middle ground' kind of game, which are closer to a 'trad' game - a game master, persistent characters each controlled by one player, multiple sessions, progression - but also instruct you to do something more experimental by trad-game standards. This includes Apocalypse World and its derivatives, Blades in the Dark and its derivatives, the Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard lineage, Jenna Moran's games... and so on.

It's this point of overlap where things get sticky and it all becomes a bit tense. Since, well, story game fans can be quite evangelistic - and part of that evangelism depends on a dismissively book-determinist view of trad TTRPGs. But conversely, trad players can be quite reluctant to imagine there is any other way of approaching this whole activity, and dismissive of any other approach. I do not like it, Sam-I-am.

So you end up with a situation of camps, with both groups bristling at the sense that they should be compelled to give up the thing they like to do it the way they consider inferior.

And if you want to criticise the other camp, what do you do? Pick up their book and criticise it as a product, according to your sense of what a TTRPG book is for. Which seems hopelessly besides the point when a book is such a small part of the story.

I've played trad games, story games, OSR games, 'freeform' forum games, LARP, MMO roleplaying, improv comedy... Not as much as I'd like of anything, but enough to get a sense of the many ways we can do this 'roleplaying' thing, whether by explicit rule or implicit convention.

So the puzzle I now have is, if there is to be a book involved, what is that book there to do? What really makes for a good RPG book? Are there other ways to get that thing? How do you game design honestly?

We'll try to address that in part 3 of this series, coming... sometime soon, hopefully!

[dduane]

i'm a big fan of the Young Wizards series, thanks so much for writing them

i was just thinking about something recently

the line in the Wizard's Oath "I will change no object or creature unless its growth or life, or that of the system of which it is part, is threatened" - does that imply that it was unethical for humans to domesticate animals? i know that's a contentious ethical issue and even if a lot of people consider it morally wrong there's nothing we can do about it now, and it was probably done mostly by non wizards and humans lie all the time whereas wizards are not supposed to at least without a good reason

i just was thinking about that for some reason though

Very briefly: two things.

(a) The strictures that working wizards recognize as part of their practice and agree to obey are not binding on nonwizards—and in some cases not even straightforwardly applicable (as, for example, the average person in the street doesn't have the ability to turn you into a frog, so there'd be no point in enjoining them against it). Wizardly rules therefore cannot be used as a tool for judging the ethics of the species as a whole, either broadly or narrowly.

(b) That line in the Oath is a shorthand rendering of the Troptic Stipulation, q.v. As usual, there's a lot more nuance involved than can be crammed completely into so brief a phrase. But what it does mandate is carefully examining a system before making changes in its operation... and being certain about one's own agenda when doing so.

HTH.

ETA re the query from @pretentiouslimericks: “But that part of the Oath wouldn't prevent wizards from magically helping someone transition, right? Surely lack of access to gender-affirming treatment could count as a threat to one's life…”

Absolutely! This has come up for discussion before, and transition very clearly falls into the “permitted” category. See this post (which contains links to posts that get into other aspects of the discussion) and this one.

Repeating what I’ve said before: “…to everybody who reads my stuff and for whom transition (or the prospect of it) is an ongoing issue: …I see you.”

…Also, per the comment from @vitruvian23: nope, that reading’s too literal. (a) Because (cf. Carmela’s “conversation” with that wilted lettuce in Wizard’s Holiday, and Nita’s expressed concerns about food waste, ditto) it’s suggested in the text that there are levels on which at least the simpler organisms bred and raised to be food have come to an inherent accommodation with / acceptance of it that’s perceptible by wizards. And (b) if you’ve been paying any attention to my feed and you think I’d willingly create universes where cooking was wrong, then—with Tweety—all I can say is, “Dey don’t know me vewy well, do dey?” 😄

(…Interesting to note in passing that something related to the YW/Errantryverse approach seems also to turn up in Tales of the Five: The Levin-Gad:

Here in the darkness the wine remembered the sun, the harsh Darthene coast wind, the blinding light off the sea in the summer months. It burned like a brazier, like a whole hearthful of coals, a riot of mute and obstinate certainty that what had looked like death wasn’t, not really, once you’d been through it with your heart in the right place.

[shrug] Well, two universes with functional worldgating systems: no surprise, I guess, if things leak across the boundaries…) 😏

[verdemoun]

can I get some timewarp Charles or Dutch? I love your au 😭

cracks every bone in my hands lets fucking gooo

charles blessed and beloved. he died of illness in 1908 but it was so peaceful he died in his sleep in a warm bed and as got sick he accepted it with a very similar flare to hosea talking about bessie where he was quietly hopeful he would get to see arthur again and instead of being jolted to the present like the more violent deaths he just woke up peacefully to an arthur that got to age and looks healthy and is smiling at him so affectionately because he missed him so much

they're in love, your honor

arthur already has his own place (very close to hosea's, of course) so charles immediately moves in with arthur and they fall into domestic bliss without actually having the conversation of 'i know we were close friends and confidants with unaddressed feelings in the past and it's been almost a decade and you had to mourn me but do you want to be my partner for the rest of our natural lives btw i have an adult son'

charles is still awkward though he didn't understand life and people in 1899 sometimes modern era is just too much they'll be grocery shopping and someone will say a new sentence so stupid he has to go sit in the truck and just disengage with society for a while.

he has zero social media presence and cannot handle the constant depression of tv news media. what do you mean people are still fighting over civil rights and racism back in my day you could throw a stick of dynamite at a kkk meeting or shoot a eugenicist in front of the law and no one cared. if he's home alone he's listening to cds on through an actual cd player

charles smith would absolutely fuck with a home depot helping john build beecher's hope awakened something in him. the garage is almost as big as their house on one side you have arthur's eclectic collection of passing interests including the car he's working on and on the other side you have precision organised charles's expanse of every kind of tool you can imagine. hand tools power tools different kinds of wood organized by tree and then grain

he might be a little in love with the customer service guy at the tool shop who is similarly awkward and accidentally blunt with a flat sense of humor. no small talk. just 'this is my project' 'you will need this. this is the brand we're meant to promote but this is just as effective with more attachments and it's cheaper' 'thank you' 'it's literally my job'. sometimes they go to each others workshops to show off their projects he is charles 'doesn't drain my social battery' friend

charles' job title is just 'decent guy with a truck' every construction company in the local area has his number and will send him a text asking him to help out on a job or if they can borrow some obscure power tool only charles smith would have. it suits charles really well because it means he can just turn off his phone and go on a spontaneous three week hunting trip with arthur and isaac without needing to communicate with anyone. people know if you don't hear back within 15 minutes he's turned off his phone and you will hear from him when he gets back from whatever adventure he's gone on with his family find someone else to do the job

for a lot of the gang they almost have to get to know charles again like he became a lot more comfortable with himself as a person between 1899 and 1907 the first time he cracks jokes or acts downright silly they almost don't recognize him. like yass charles be happy.

admittedly he is the guy they call to help build furniture charles doesn't follow ikea instructions he just rocks up with a drill and assembles it the way that makes sense

eliza and charles are besties and arthur lives in constant fear. they go out for coffee and gossip about whatever the latest antic is. she talks to charles honestly more than arthur and takes charles to functions when she needs a plus one because they are both just wallflowers who talk shit about everyone else quietly. isaac sitting patiently in the principal's office having gotten in trouble for something stupid with the most passive aggressive slight smile on his face as he hears charles and eliza pull up (arthur got banned for threatening the principal)

i may need to part 2 this for dutch

[halfagone]

Oooo different anon but

Please do share you spreadsheets tricks! I only use spreadsheets if I have to make a table (because somehow it's easier to copy paste it from there instead of making one in documents...) but it seems like a such an useful tool that I don't have motivation to learn how to use :/

Hello! And I'll try my best! Some of these may seem more basic, but they can do absolute wonders for organization. Now this is a long post, with screenshots!, so buckle up your seatbelts.

All screenshots will be from Google Sheets. I do have and use Excel on occasion, and some of these items can be found on that program as well, although it may be placed elsewhere. Please note, too, that all examples are done on a PC device. For mobile phones or tablets, some of these keyboard shortcuts might not work the same and may require a little more finagling to get right.

I'll start with making something called a "Header Row". Basically it's how you name your columns so you know what should be in each.

This is just an example spreadsheet, but it'll work lol. (If you don't know how to highlight those four cells, select A1, hold Shift key and use the Right Arrow key [->] until you have highlighted all the results you want for your Header Row.)

From here, you go to View on the panel and select/hover over Freeze, where you can then select "1 row". This should freeze your selected row. So no matter how far down you scroll, or how much information you have recorded, you'll always know what's supposed to be listed there.

Next we have something called "Conditional Formatting". This can be really useful if for filtering data. In this example, I changed the spreadsheet to have various cells with "Yes" or "No", to show what it can do.

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Once you've selected the cells/rows/columns you want, choose Format, then Conditional Formatting.

From there, it should give you a panel on the right side of your screen that looks a little something like this:

You can do a lot with this! You can even adjust the range here if you realize you picked the wrong ones or changed your mind for any other reason. But to format it, you need to choose the rule. Here is some examples that they offer you:

In this case, I am going to choose the Text Contains rule. From there, I pick what the text should say. I even get to pick and choose my colors. So at the end it'll look like this:

My spreadsheet will reflect this rule as well.

You can also add as many rules as you want! Just use that "+ Add another rule" at the bottom there and repeat the process.

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Now this next one is among my personal favorites: Dropdown menus!

This can also cover something called "Data validation", but I won't bore you with that explanation just yet.

Go back to that Insert tab and you'll see Dropdown further down the list. (Smart Chip functions in a very similar way, but it's works better for collaborative projects or scheduling needs.) We'll get to Checkbox in the next round.

When you click on Dropdown, you'll get this window:

Much like with Conditional Formatting, Dropdown allows you to customize what your options are and how they're colored. I'll use some basic examples for you to get an idea.

And of course you can add or delete as many options as you need.

So when we go back to our spreadsheet, it'll look a little something like this:

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Checkbox is fairly simple, and doesn't allow much for customization. But if you go back to the Insert tab and click on that option, you can get a little something like this:

A nice little checklist if you need it!

---

A simple trick to filling more cells is actually fairly easy. You see that little blue dot on the bottom right corner?

If you're using a formula, you can just double click that dot and it'll usually just fill in all the cells for you! And if you're not using a formula, dragging works just fine. You can also use the Insert Row/Column/Cell option by right clicking with your mouse, or referring to the Insert tab on the top panel.

---

If you want to make your cells/rows/columns stand out a little more, might I recommend Borders?

They give you a lot of options for what it'll look like. For this example, I'll use the fourth option of the first row. That'll make it look a little something like this:

And hmm... I don't like how they're leaning to the left. Let's fix that too.

And maybe a few more cosmetic changes...

And BOOM! It already looks a lot different! At just a glance now you can tell what goes where based on colors alone! You can also customize colors if you don't like the basic ones, but I think I'll leave that mystery to you. ;)

I hope this gave you a good head's start! And don't worry if it feels overwhelming at first. I know I forgot a lot of tricks and tips (and a good number of keyboard shortcuts) when I went a long time between using spreadsheets. You're free to refer to this guide any time you want or need to, and if you have questions, I'll try my best to help!

Classes have always taught me this: never feel embarrassed to look something up. There are websites like Github or Stack Overflow for paid professionals to get help and advice. We should be allowed to do the same.

Now that I have sufficiently buried you in information, I hope you have a wonderful new year!

[char-lie-spirals]

Assigning my screwdrivers to each of my Graham Folger fics

Keep in mind, most of them are tiny screwdrivers that are a part of a multi-tool, but! If it works as a screwdriver, it's a screwdriver! I will also be providing explanations, of course! But, since it's 5 screwdrivers + a bonus, this will be long, so! Under the cut it goes!

AUGHH Tumblr posted the wip instead of the finished post. Horrible. THIS is the final version

1) Impossible Tastes and Endless Hallways

My emotional support flathead! I've had it for ages, I've used it to fix countless things, and it also functions as a stim toy if you're stubborn enough about it! AND it genuinely used to make me feel safe :] I'm assigning it to the 1st ever Spiral Graham fic I wrote because I LOVE that AU and I've also had it for ages and I have like. 10+ AUs OF the AU in my head, but they all follow the events of the 1st fic, so! It's also usable for many things! And also I love it so much I want to bite it :]

2) The World Isn't Ours (but we'll manage)

This one is a part of a multi-tool that I got surprisingly cheap, but it's very reliable! It doesn't wiggle, it's very sturdy, and I've taken it with me on countless trips and such when I need something small but good. It wasn't my first multi-tool, but it was much better than the previous ones, too! With like 10 more tools in it! So, I think it fits this fic because it's also not the 1st one in the AU, but in this one Graham overcomes some of the things he struggled with in the previous ones and overall grew as a person (/avatar (?)), too! AND he finally sees other places than Zemlya Sannikova in this fic, just like the screwdriver has seen many places :]

3) The One You Could Never Forget (you did)

This is a flathead from a multi-tool! Which is unusual because I usually only see them with Philips endings? Regardless, this whole multi-tool was gifted to me and it is Incredibly good quality. I mean like, it's super sturdy and will survive many many years... but then again, I'm honestly a bit scared to use it just because of how good it is. I think that matches the fic - Graham is given back kind of like a gift, and everything that follows is a bit,, unusual, I'd say, but also I have so many plans for this fic, so many more chapters planned... I'm kinda scared to work on it?? Oops?? BUT that just makes it fit that way, too!

4) (Un)familiar Faces

This one is also a part of a multi-tool, what a surprise! The multi-tool itself has my name on the left and a text in Polish on the right, which translates to "The king of the forest". But It Has My Name On It. Considering how the first chapter and a half of this fic deals with Graham and Sasha not remembering their names/who they are, and then try to remind other people of that as well, and how much comfort stems from just... knowing themselves? I feel like this one is very fitting :]

5) If We Get Through One More Night

This one is a very small multi-tool that I was given by my grandpa :] The screwdriver part is very unstable, it wiggles around, but it still works and in spite of everything, it prevails! And this fic was much shorter compared to my other ones, and written based on a prompt a friend gave me, which,, kind of makes it a gift as well? And I feel like the plot of the fic itself (Graham survives Just Barely, but finds himself in an environment in which he can be okay again) fits how the handle threatens to break but never does

And now a bonus!

This isn't exactly a screwdriver, it's a bottle opener, BUT its end "can be used as a screwdriver in extreme situations" and the bumpy surface on top (xx side in the image) is nice to rub when I'm nervous. So, comforting AND has a skull!

So, this is a bonus "screwdriver" to any of my fics that feature DeathNote :]

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Useful free tools for writing.

More of the incidental tools that I find useful, regardless of how one usually writes that are often known in the writing community, but you might not know?

One Look dictionary

Reverse word look up. You know when you're getting stumped on a word you kinda know, but only can get the definition of, or you want to make sure your 3-word phrase can't be said more succinctly? Yeah, this resource should help. (The underline is a link)

Google Docs

I should note that after about 100K words, it starts to struggle. But it's good for editing, collab work, spreadsheets, and also keeping track of your previous drafts so if someone says, "But, but you plagiarized from me," you have a log saying you didn't, so you can say, "you likely took from me."

And so on.

Libre Office–because not everyone wants to deal with Google Docs or can afford Microsoft office. It also has a recovery function, so if it crashes, you can get your words back. (Microsoft Office often doesn't?)

Use it for formatting your manuscripts. For the editors out there, accept ODT format. This is absolutely free and sometimes it doesn't port well.

Rhyming dictionaries–yes, they exist. The slant rhyming is also useful. There are slant rhyming dictionaries too.

The almighty square bracket. []

To all of you discovery writers out there that can't afford Scrivener. This is the tool for you. You've written and dumped all this information into the text that shouldn't belong there, but you want to keep it. What do you do? You square bracket it.

If not that, there is also the curly bracket if you need a sub category. {

It's great for:

Editing notes.

Please expand this note to yourself.

Examine this phrase later because you moved on, but it doesn't sound right.

Cataloging important information you might need at a later date.

Info dumping that you want to break up.

Storing long descriptions you want to use elsewhere.

You're too lazy to catalog in your world building notes great information.

You have ADHD and some other idea has occurred to you, but it's totally off topic. Square bracket.

To avoid plagiarism 'cause you forgot you pulled a source.

If you're one of those super detailed people, you can also color code it. The reason is that both curly and square brackets almost never show up in manuscripts. <> sometimes does, but also often doesn't.

The best part is no matter your program, format, or keyboard, you have it.

Note that this doesn't work for Japanese as well, but Japanese also have access to {} which is why I noted it here.

Spreadsheets

You need to make a calendar for your planet and need the quick calculations.

You need to make a morpheme list for your mythical language.

You want to delineate gender quickly.

This usually comes with Google Spreadsheets, Microsoft Office and Libre Office. But writers often (me included) forget they exist.

But they are useful for more than number crunching. And some writers use them for plotting too.

For Fantasy/SF writers: Donjon:

The whole website, but particularly the Fantasy Calendar maker is useful.

Google Search: Quotes.

You want to fact check a quote. Or you got distracted and forgot to put in the citation information.

To be or not to be

is horrible search for. So what you do is this: "To be or not to be."

And you might get Will Shakespeare.

BTW, Goodreads is a horrible horrible source for finding out where quotes came from. Make sure you have the actual page number/place it was said with the surrounding quotes.

Equally, the -[item] is also often useful when you're searching.

You're looking up say... Kimchi, and you want search results that don't have napa in it You would type "kimchi -napa"

You are researching... I hope, I hope.

Public domain books: Project Gutenberg

You need a back issues of Gustav Freytag's Dies Techniks des dramas.

You need the quote from Anne of Green Gables.

You want to check if this Winnie the Pooh quote is in the earlier or later works because of public domain issues.

You need to read The Art of War for the tenth time.

You need to read Machiavelli's The Prince, because you are writing politics and war.

This is the place to find it. Sometimes, sometimes it is public domain, but it's not in there.

Library

Libby (app), for example. Sign up for it. Get a library card and you'll save yourself money. Some countries don't have one, but for the ones that do, you can read print books and consume audiobooks at home.

Often self-pubbed books are on there too. If you have an amazon account then you can use the kindle app with it.

Sometimes you can also go to university libraries and though you can't check anything out, you can use their catalogs to look up things. You sometimes have to be there, but often they give links to free resources in their catalogs and might be easier to use than JSTOR. You don't have to be a student. Just be respectful of the people there, and try to put the books back where you found them. (usual library stuff).

This will save you going to Hawaii for the University of Hawaii, for example, because you know they have some awesome East Asian resources.

[weregreatatcrime]

Not really a tropes guy, why those? The last one I get, but the others I think need a bit more explanation.

SO the thing is some of these aren't outright displayed in the fic yet so i know putting them in the tropes page would be irrelevant(?) BUT I'm happy to explain bcz rambling is my joy in life

Blue-and-orange morality

Changelings don't have a sense of morality like humans or trolls do, both due to their methods of creation and the unfortunate conditioning of being made as tools to be used and then killed when they're no longer useful. Karai doesn’t see the world in the same context as humans (i.e. Good -> Evil, Moral -> Immoral, etc.) instead it's entirely based on the scale of Keeps me Alive -> Will Kill Me, with the arguably MUCH more important scale of This Will Get Me What I Want -> This Will Be Unpleasant. Add in that she doesn't actually consider harm to herself to actually Count in this equation and it's a recipe for Confusing and Horrifying the CRAP out of the Hamatos. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to understand her thought processes until they realize this. A key point to Blue-and-orange morality being that it's incomprehensible to outside species.

Values dissonance

As a part of what's above, what Karai values and cares about is VERY different from what the Hamatos (and most normal, modern folks) value. A small example, assuming they would never actually want her around until she provides them the REAL Miwa, as she isn't Yoshi's actual daughter, when chances are they likely would’ve accepted her on the spot given the chance. A better example: Karai considers death and critical injuries to be fine or acceptable given a half-decent reason, or if you're powerful enough that you don't need to justify yourself.

Have you tried not being a monster?

I'll admit I'm not too sure what my original thought for this one was. I believe it was just relating to how in human form, changelings can be completely 'normal' and will go to EXTREME lengths to hide their inhuman status. Cause if they get revealed it will absolutely lead to mortal peril and a lot of shock and horror from everyone around them? Idk like I said idr my initial logic

Then let me be evil

Changelings don't even care about being good, because the first ones were conditioned to either do awful things or they and their familiars die. Those changelings taught future changelings to just be evil because there’s absolutely no point in trying otherwise, so might as well be Good at it and have fun with it. Trolls treat changelings as abominations and never like people. Humans never even get the chance to see changelings, but human mythos says everything about THEIR opinions. Changelings are evil because right out of the gate they're never given a chance to be anything else. Ties real closely into Internalized Categorism, Fantastic Racism, Fantastic Slurs, "It" is Dehumanizing, and honestly I could go on for a while about tropes relating to this and how we've seen most trolls canonically texting reacting to changelings

Conditioned to accept horror

This is the obvious one. Karai’s a changeling and has gone through a LOT of awful stuff. Some of it bothers her, but there's a lot of it that's just straight up numbed. She doesn’t care about her injuries beyond how they impact her functioning; she's fully fine with and enjoys murder, torture, and eating humans; the turtles are constantly Horrified by the things she casually reveals about her existence as a tool made to infiltrate humanity and then die. She's only bothered by the Shredder’s treatment of her (attacking her for no reason, blaming her for her injury, giving a severe enough wound that wasn't given chance to heal properly) because she sees it as stupid and illogical, NOT because of the awful unfairness and cruelty involved.

[troglobite]

asldkjfs

haha guess today isn't a day where i can talk to or hang out with my mom!!!!

my stupid fucking laptop fell off my bed and broke its own charger--AGAIN.

this time it BENT THE FUCKING PRONGS ON THE ACTUAL CHARGER.

and i'm tired, on my period, and uncomfortable and crabby.

so i go out to complain to my mom and ask for help

she immediately says do you want to look for a new charger

the thing is I'VE ALREADY DONE THAT BEFORE

i spent DAYS looking for a charger for my stupid piece of shit macbook pro that is 1. compatible 2. lasts forever 3. doesn't randomly start fires

and i decided

this is too much money and not worth the pain in the ass

i'll just get another fucking apple charger. this one lasted fine, it's whatever.

except it gets here and it REEKS OF GASOLINE as MANY apple products have since fucking 2016!

i clean and clean and clean it to get rid of the smell and it NEVER GOES AWAY so we have to fucking return it

so she asks me

do i wanna look for another charger

no, i don't

i spent all that time and money on it before only to keep using the charger that was already "broken" anyway all this time

it's slightly more broken now but will still be functional

so no, i DON'T want to look for a charger when i am TIRED, CRABBY, ON MY PERIOD, AND DEEPLY PHYSICALLY UNCOMFORTABLE

but me expressing that? as best i can when i am TIRED AND HAVING DIFFICULTY WITH WORDS?

well apparently that's me "discounting everything she says"

so i try to fucking talk to her as she uses tools to straighten out the prong on the charger

and she just ignores me

she won't say ANYTHING

SHE FUCKING IGNORES ME THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME NO MATTER WHAT I SAY

so i go to the bathroom and avoid HER

and it's fine, it's mostly straight now, it works

so i have to fucking text her to ask if she's mad at me for breaking the fucking charger

no, she says, "you just discount everything i say so i just have to keep my mouth shut"

WHICH IS WHAT SHE DOES WHENEVER SHE'S MAD AT SOMETHING FUCKING ELSE AND NOT ME BUT DECIDES TO TAKE IT OUT ON ME FOR EXISTING AND BEING UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING

so i explain to her, IN DETAIL, why me being IRRITATED AND DISAGREEING WITH HER ONE FUCKING QUESTION ABOUT LOOKING FOR A NEW CHARGER IS NOT THE SAME AS DISCOUNTING EVERYTHING SHE FUCKING SAYS

and she doesn't respond. at all. nothing. she won't talk to me.

so it's just going to be one of those days and i'm fucking sick of her refusing to acknowledge when she's in a bad fucking mood and taking it out on me

i recognize it's not fun to have our first interaction of the day be me walking out and pissed off abt my stupid piece of shit laptop and its stupid fucking piece of shit twice broken charger

but FUCKING CHRIST

ME GETTING VAGUELY FRUSTRATED AND HAVING DIFFICULTY USING WORDS TO EXPLAIN WHY HER ONE QUESTION/SUGGESTION ISN'T SUPER HELPFUL RIGHT NOW IS NOT THE SAME AS DISCOUNTING EVERYTHING SHE FUCKING SAYS

i'm so fucking tired and exhausted of this shit

it's unpredictable and annoying and she NEVER TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY OF IT!!!! NEVER!!!!!

SHE NEVER FUCKING ACCEPTS THAT SHE'S JUST IN A BAD MOOD OR DOESN'T WANT TO DEAL WITH ME

AND INSTEAD OF SAYING THAT AND JUST BEING LIKE "SORRY I'M NOT IN THE MOOD SO I DON'T FEEL LIKE TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING, I'M ALSO MAD BUT ABOUT OTHER STUFF"

SHE JUST FUCKING TAKES IT OUT ON ME AND ACTS LIKE IT'S ENTIRELY MY FUCKING FAULT AND THAT I AM SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR HER SHITTY MOODS AND MEAN BEHAVIOR

literally the SECOND she's in a bad mood, i become An Evil Dictator Who Doesn't Let Her Do Anything or Listen To Her At All

and i'm so fucking tired of this shit

like it HURTS to be accused of that garbage WHEN IT'S NOT FUCKING TRUE

when my DAD is the one who would do that shit NOT ME

and HE ALSO DID IT TO ME

it's just always there lurking under the fucking surface, that she thinks i am my dad bc i'm disabled and need help, and bc of her own fucked up shit and trauma that she refuses to even LOOK at, she thinks that makes me an evil person bc SHE automatically does shit in response to someone being upset abt ANYTHING.

that's not my fucking responsibility and i'm FUCKING TIRED of having to be the one to DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCEDBFHJG,CNFMN,XHLJ,BXHKMRES

but noooooooo fuck looking at counselors for us to talk to

we're not going to do that until possibly may

if it ever even fucking happens!!!! HAHAHDLK JFACHDLIUAHIUWJZ

[autelscanner]

Autel km100 Price - What You Should Know Before Buying

The Autel km100 is a great tool that is used to perform diagnostics and repair on all types of car. It is very easy to use and provides excellent service. However, there are some common issues that you should know before you purchase this product.

Activating the device

When it comes to choosing an auto diagnostic tool for your automobile, the Autel MaxiIM KM100 is a great choice. It's able to read many types of transponders, including ID46 47 48 49 4A 8A, and supports more than just Xhorse products. Among the features it offers are the sexiest looking LCD screen and a well crafted Bluetooth headset for handsfree use. To activate it, all you need is a KM100 device and an AUTEL account online. And you can get your money's worth with an extended warranty.

The KM100 boasts several features that make it stand out from the rest, from the top-of-the-line Intel processor to the premium battery and nifty USB hub that keeps your phone charged and ready for action. But the real meat of the device is the ability to program and configure it to fit your needs.

Key programming

The Autel MaxiIM KM100 is a 5.5" Android tablet that enables you to do everything from read your transponder to change the e-code of a smart key. It's also got a clever touch screen and a well thought out operation guide. This makes it a great option for auto enthusiasts, and an affordable entry into the automotive diagnostics game.

While it's hard to say which is the best of the lot, the autel KM100 price certainly doesn't disappoint. Features include a full-color screen, a built-in battery, and an easy to use operation guide. Despite its small size, it supports up to 37 vehicle brands and supports eight key series.

It's a great device to have on hand, especially for those who own a plethora of vehicles. The autel KM100 is compact and requires a few simple steps to get your keys working. Plus, it has a full suite of functions, including the ability to program, read, and write keys, a smart key replacement, and even a telematics system.

Transponder simulation function

If you are looking for a universal key generator kit, Autel's MaxiIM KM100 is an ideal choice. This is a powerful, intelligent tool that can help you unlock and generate universal keys, transponders, and more. It comes with two blank keys and a high frequency transponder, which can support dual-band frequencies.

With a 5.5-inch Android touchscreen, the autel MaxiIM KM100 can do everything from reading and detecting transponders to editing EEPROM data. Additionally, the device supports more than Xhorse products. In addition to ID46, the device can work with 47, 48, 49, 4A, and 8A keys.

The device also allows for key simulation. When you insert a key, the autel KM100 will display the transponder's frequency in text and in a graph. You can then tap on the Read button to read the information.

Brand-specific transponders

If you're looking for a compact, one-touch key programming device, you should check out Autel's KM100. This Android-powered tool can handle a variety of transponders and other vehicle-specific functions. Its price is reasonable, too. The KM100 boasts a 5.5-inch touchscreen display, 2G RAM and 64G onboard memory. Moreover, its features include a clone function that enables you to create duplicate keys.

MaxiIM KM100's main feature is its aforementioned clone function, but you can also find a range of other functions in its repertoire. For instance, it supports a number of transponder types, including BMW, Ford, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. It also has a couple of specialized functions, like ignition coil detection and the ability to read and unlock the corresponding buttons on a key.

Of course, the KM100 also comes with a bunch of other features, including an impressive 5.5-inch touch-screen, 2G RAM and a built-in vehicle communication interface. In addition, it can also support some of the most sophisticated IMMO programs in the industry.

Creating keys for new functionalities

If you are looking for a compact and easy to use key programming device, then you may want to consider the Autel KM100. This smart key replacement tool can be used to program Autel IKEY smart keys for more than 700 vehicle brands and models. It also supports transponder editing and key learning for up to 20 supported protocols.

The autel KM100 tablet has a 5.5 inch touchscreen display and an android-based operating system. It is capable of detecting transponders, reading transponder information and even cloning transponders. In addition, it comes with a range of special functions, including ignition coil detection. Moreover, it is able to simulate a working key.

The autel scan tool KM100 comes with an operation guide to provide step-by-step instructions for the device. The user can read out the transponder information through the Read Out Loud function. Another feature of the tablet is the Auto VIN Detection. When the ignition is turned on, the tablet will detect the VIN number.

[asc27]

5 ways to use Native Language Processing in your business

What is Natural Language Processing?

Natural Language Processing or NLP enables computers to understand human languages in spoken or written format. Voice assistants like Siri or Alexa are the most knows examples of this technology, but there are many more ways of usage. How can you use it in your business? We provide you five examples of its application.

5 ways to use it in your business:

Social listening (Sentiment, text analysis)

Spam filters

Writing assistant (Autocomplete, spell check)

Chatbot

Text extraction

Social listening

Nowadays, understanding customer needs is essential for every business and with the help of social listening, it is possible to listen to the opinion of the customers. Imagine a tool that can analyze every piece of information connected to your brand in the online space. Social listening software is not only able to collect all these bits of information, but also it can understand the tone of the words and texts. Your customers may not express their opinion on your social media channels or website, but on sites like Quora, or in random Facebook groups. It is almost impossible to follow every mention like these. Imagine that one of your Customer - let's say Bob - purchase your product, but he doesn't understand its manual. He attempts to search the phone number of the call center on your site but can't find it, so Bob remains unsatisfied and angry. Easing up on his frustration, he writes a very negative post about your brand and product, saying he will never buy from you again, and advises his friends to do the same. Software, like Asimov, can report such posts, and it helps you recognize if there is a need to change something in your business to satisfy better customer needs. 

Spam/Bot filters

With the help of Natural Language Processing, you can say goodbye to the nonsense comments under your blog post. They will no longer ruin your webpage because there are plug-ins that automatically delete them, as well as the spam which arrives in your mailbox.

Writing assistant

When you have your own business, you have to control and do everything, especially in the beginning. Everyone knows now how important to create content when you build your brand, and social media platforms' algorithms favor the profiles which every day share a post. Writing assistants are helpful for content creators because they can write faster and better quality articles and copies. They usually have the function to autocomplete words, like in Gmail when you compose a mail, and the most genius is the grammar check. 

Chatbot

Have you ever had a conversation with a chatbot? They can give an extra hand to the customer service who can deal with the more complex issues. According to statistics, customers ask mostly easy questions, which can answer by a chatbot too. 

Text extraction

When you want to search for information quickly and have a long text in front of you, text extraction can be a big help. It can extract keywords or technical information like serial numbers, highlight the most important phrases, and saves you time. Busy managers or business owners often don’t have time to read every news in their industry, but it would be important for them. Such software, like Skywalker, can monitor many texts or, in this case, news, and then creates a summary, so the manager needs to read one article, but it covers the information of many.    

There are vast applications for Natural Language Processing, and this list will be even longer as technology develops. If you haven't used such software or plug-in yet, our product, Asimov, could help your business with its Natural Language Processing and artificial intelligence solutions. Read more about it here.   

[thekillingjoke-haha]

Prime Time,Bitch!

Tagged: @spnquotebingo the keep reading function is messing up for me

Sam said he was locked up tight in the dungeon. He was never locked in with her. She was locked in with him. The hunter becomes the hunted with no where to run.

Warning: Mature Language,Blood,Gore,Character Death?

-"Thoughts"- (they are red for those who can see)"Quotes" 'Reading'

"I'll be right back. This demon side is fighting to stay in control. I just need a few more pints of blood." Sam said as he slung a bag on his shoulder. "Yeah I got it get some food to!" Y/n said with a smile as she walked him to the impala. The roar of the engine rumbled as she waved him off going back inside what she didn't know was Dean knew that Sam just left and a chilling smile grew on his face.

Y/n popped popcorn as she sat in her room a horror movies playing as she got comfortable. A scream came from the movie drowning out the sound of the dungeon door opening up. The youngest Winchester laughed as a girl tripped over nothing her and Dean always make fun of them they had no real reason to hit the ground so they should get right up. This made her slightly sad. Was Sam going to fix Dean or was it already to late for him? Shaking off the thought the killer was about to crush the women's skull when the power cut out,but the red emergency lights didn't cut on yet which was weird. "God damnit." She grumbled getting up and grabbed a flashlight and went to the breaker to fix it walking right past the open door. Flipping the switch the normal lights don't turn on only the red ones and she turned around to get her phone to call Sam when she dropped her flashlight. Y/n gazed at the empty chair in the center of a devils trap she took off running to her room,but paused he knew she would run there for her phone and Dean or the demon he's become won't let her get help. She changed course to Sam's panic room to hide.

"Oh N/n where are you? I miss my little sister don't you miss me?" A metal sound of something dragging on the floor made her tense. Thinking of all possible things it could be of how she's going to die.–'It could be a bat,but we don't have any metal ones in the bunker. Maybe a sledgehammer,but that would have ment he when into the garage and the power going out would have locked everything.''– Her eyes widen as she released what it was he must have been carrying around she was sharpening it with the rest of the blades earlier that day."Have you figured it out yet? I know how you think when a horror movie is playing you see ever scenario before the movie can catch up. No wonder Sammy says you cheat at Clue!" Dean laughed as he seemed to wander to each room. The sound of wood splitting as he yelled "Here's Johnny!!!" It seemed so much worse that Dean was the evil this time a normal demon would know her so personally this seemed almost cruel him quoting films they watched together. "What to clichés? I admit the axe is old school."

The panic room the size of a cubbie it was so small,but just big enough I could calm down and think properly. Looking up another version of myself sat in front of me...my conscience. I could speak,but she could she's in my head after all. –"You can't run. There's nowhere to go doors locked down the moment the lights went."– I saw a illusion of myself running through the halls just to hit a corner and get a axe to the chest before it faded away. –"Can't go for your phone or your laptop he probably broke it the moment he noticed you weren't in your room."– I saw myself creep into my room just to see a shattered phone and my laptop with a cracked screen buffering to open instant messenger to text Sam. The laptop was slammed shut on my fingers causing some to break and get sliced by the glass looking up the sick grin of the Demon caught my eye before the axe ended that path. –"The burner. The one in your dresser Dean doesn't know about it so neither would the demon.Get it and get back here as quickly as possible. "– It was settled call for help. Listening for any foot steps I creep out of the hiding space a faint whistle going off down one of the many halls way from my room. Sneaking down the hallway staying low I get to my room where the door is torn to shreds as I open my drawer and fish out the phone. Going back down the hallway I get back to Sam's room and immediately call him.

"This call has been forwarded to a automatic voice message at the tone ples–" Hanging up I call again and again with no answer. At this point help was no longer a option. The whistling seemed to get closer and I rushed to the panic room until I paused. –"A enclosed space in a closet. There's not much space to move around if he finds you there your done for."– I back away slightly. –"Behind the door offers a easy place to hide and get out,but if he does the same to Sammy's door he did to yours it's not much of a hiding spot then."– A axe goes through the door creating a massive hole and Dean peaks inside and sees the white of you tank top in your (f/n) flannel. The door was whole again as I looked around the sound of metal getting louder running out of time. –"Under the bed allows you to see him without him seeing you,but like the panic cubbie not a lot of wiggle room if he hears you your done."– It was too late running to the metal door of the panic room she slams it shut not to loud to sound like she's trying to hide it,but just loud enough for the demon to register it. Sealing it shut I slip under the bed and wait for the time to get out and hopefully find a weapon.

Boots walked into the room turning to the closed closet. "Oh N/n!~ There's only so many places to hide in such a small room. Did you really think I wouldn't hear that heavy ass door close?" He chuckled darkly as he opened the closet and went to the small door. Dean tried turning the wheel to unsealed it,but it seemed to dawn on him that it could only be opened from the inside. With a huff anger he began pulling the brick of the wall started to bend outwards and crack. I was glad I wasn't in there. Going to slip out from under the bed while he's distracted the burner phone rang its annoying ringtone. Not even bothering to stop it I rush to get out faster,but a firm grip caught my ankle and dragged me out. Turning onto my back Dean stood their his apple green eyes staring at me. "Found you." He lifted up the axe having let go of my ankle lifting up my feet I put as much strength as possible into kicking his stomach. The demon was knocked back into the closest hitting the ground. Unfortunately axe still in hand. Stanfing up I ran leaving the phone behind. -"Sam took Baby so the trunk armory is out of the question. The garage has so pretty handy tools too bad that it was sealed along with the front and only entrance. Kitchen has knifes none that can hurt him,but just enough to slow him down. Library demon blade was in there last you checked,but Sam could have grabbed and put it on a high shelf."– Too many options and the kitchen was closer so that was the first stop grabbing a knife I held it tightly as a stalked slowly to the Library to see if there were any supernatural weapons.

The library was dark and the red lighting barely lit up the large room. "Would you like to play a game?" Dean mocked in a deep voice as he went around the bunker his voice echoing no real pinpointing where he is. I can't call Sam and prying to Cas hasn't worked meaning Dean made angel banishing symbols in most of the rooms. Y/n was getting desprit the bunkers massive size most of it was unexplored by them so being lost in a underground maze b wasn't the best option. "Are you scared yet Y/n? Well be afraid. Be very afraid. I'm what goes bump in the night sweetheart! Never thought the Winchester’s downfall will be by the hands of the oldest. What a twist!!! Right?" Dean yelled turning to the table I saw the supplies I cleaned with,but the weapons were gone and a note was left on in their place. 'Hey Y/n I put the weapons back into the trunk for tomorrow's hunt so you wouldn't have to...you're welcome and your blade was just sitting on the table so I put it up. ~Love Sam' I wanted to cry oh chuck nothing can save me in this buncker Bobby was sending us gallons of holy water next week because we were low...all rooms were demon proof,but he seemed to be a exception now,so no calling Crowley either.

Turning around the library doors open and I duck behind one of the many shelves. "Welcome to my nightmare!~" He said with a chuckle that bounced from every wall. Dean knocked down books and destroyed anything in his way while he looked around. Crawling on the ground I go to leave when the sound of something whooshing in the arm made me drop like a bag of rocks. The axe meet the shelf and I gazed at the red illuminated face of my brother eyes now black and demented. Laughter bubbled out of his chest as he mumbled. "Carful dear wouldn't want to lose you head." Yanking the axe free many books tumbled down. Taking the kitchen knife in hand I slash his calf and go for his thigh when the knife is flung out of my hands. "You little bitch!!!" He hissed now holding the knife and showing it into my stomach. A silent cry came from my lips bot to give him the satisfaction of my screams just yet. I look up at him and just past his head where I couldn't normally reach was the handle of my blade peeking over the shelf.

I begin to giggle and it turns into fits of laughter. Black eyes flicker back to confused green ones. "What's so funny?" I catch my breath as I lean up slightly. "You picked the wrong place to corner me. Wanna play?" Grabbing his knee and pulling it buckled under him causing Dean to hit the shelf letting the blade fall freely. Reaching out I catch it "Let’s play." Stabbing upward into his stomach the same place the knife was lodged in my own stomach. He howled in pain as I removed the blade and ran keeping pressure on the knife wound as I turned corners just to get away. -'He played with your head play with his. The intercomes...a good distraction can lead him away and let you get the jump.'- I hurry to the intercoms not before making a pit stop.

Demon!Dean POV

I growl at the wound on my body the little shit stabbed me. This makes killing her so much easier then she can be just like me. Grabbing the axe I stomp through the bunker. "What a excellent day for an exorcism." Her voice sounded through the speakers now I know were she is. "Would you like that?" I said aloud with a grin. "Intensely." Y/n said trying to make her voice horse before the clipping sound of the intercom stopping rang out before being replaced with a creepy melody that always scared her. "There was a crooked man. He walked a crooked mile he had a crooked six pence upon a crooked stile." It went on with childish like tones until it got further in the song it was so god damn loud though. "The crooked man stepped forth and... rang the crooked bell and thus his crooked soul... spiraled into a crooked hell.Murdered his crooked family... and laughed a crooked laugh." My ear drums almost burst at the loud deep voiced scream ears still ringing I didn't register the blade being driving into my sholder flinging her back I turn around as she's running down the narrow hallway taking the axe with both hands throw it straight and the axe hit her almost dead center in the spine. The audio cut off after the song and I stood over her. Y/n had her face turned coughing up blood I definitely hit her lung. "Thanks for catching it for me." I smile as I heavily put my foot on the small of her back pulling the axe out. She screamed out it was mildly gurgle from the blood. Turning her over my little sisters eyes shined with unshed tears. "Oh,no tears,please. It's a waste of good suffering." I said with a small whipping the few that slipped by she whimpered Sam's name and I grew frustrated. Lifting the axe again. "Looks like you couldn't make the cut,N/n. Just another extra that stuck around for too long." Dropping the axe down it went into her chest the creaking of her collar bone and sternum were whispers compared to the blood curdling cry. They soon died out as her skin paled and her breathing stopped she'llmake a strong demon. "See you soon." Taking the axe out I begin to drag her body.

The lights in the bunker cut back on meaning Sammy was home. Having placed her perfectly in the chair I was tied to I wait until he finds her standing next to the door. "Y/n?! Y/n!?" He yelled most likely having gone to her room rushing the the dungeon his heavy foot steps abruptly stopped. "Oh God! Y/n come on!" The moose of a man rushed in the room cradling her face in his hand. "You were too late, Sammy. She called your name before she went,but I guess five missed calls wasn't enough for you to rush home. N/n fought for so long waiting it out just for you to never show." I said closing the door as he turned to me standing infront of her corpse. "You didn't make things easy on her. I mean you took all the weapons and put the only thing to defend herself on the top shelf...like keeping the cookie jar way from a child. In some way you killed her before I could." Lifting the demon blade that had his own blood on it. I stalked towards him cornering him in the room. "Sure you won't give me a good chase,but woah she wore me out." Holding the blade to his throat when a gun shot fired and a sting hit my arm causing me to drop the knife.

Y/n stood colt in her left hand the axe keeping her up in her left. "Demons always so sure that what's dead is dead and can't be undead. Ever heard of a pulse jackass. " so distracted that she was alive Sam was able to restrain and she held a handful of bags of blood. "Let's get this over with." She bagan to inject me and I felt myself become mire human and I started thrashing hard. With the last vile in hand she looked into my eyes. "You should be dead." I hissed as she pushed the needle in. "Sorry. I'm into survival."

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

A/n This is the last one in round one of the Spnquotebingo and I ended with a dozen quotes.

Title: "Prime Time,Bitch!" Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

"Here's Johnny!" -The shinning

"Would you like to play a game?" - Saw

"...be afraid. Be very afraid"- The fly

"Welcome to my nightmare."- Nightmare on Elm Street

"..lose your head." Alice in Wonderland

"Wanna play?"- Child's Play

"What a excellent day for an exorcism...Would you like that?....Intensely." - The Exorcist

"There was a crooked man. He walked a crooked mile he had a crooked six pence upon a crooked stile." It went on with childish like tones until it got further in the song it was so god damn loud though. "The crooked man stepped forth and... rang the crooked bell and thus his crooked soul... spiraled into a crooked hell.Murdered his crooked family... and laughed a crooked laugh." - The Conjuring 2

"Oh,no tears,please. It's a waste of good suffering." - Hellraiser

"See you soon." - Coraline

"She called your name before she went,but I guess..." -Hadestown

"...what's dead is dead and can not me undead." -Jacksepticeye (DBD playthrough)

"I'm into survival." ‐Nightmare on Elm Street

[mallowstep]

Yup, Jay doesn't strike me as the doctor type at all. I have a really hard time thinking up a profession for Jay, but it's always like ???? I have idly thought about how he'd do with archaeology and/or something in the field of cultural resource management (I SWEAR IT'S NOT SELF PROJECTION OKAY? IT'S THE STICK! THE FUCKING STICK IS LIKE THE ONE PIECE OF MATERIAL CULTURE THE CLANS HAVE IN CANON AND SINCE IT'S INTERTWINED WITH HIS STORY IN PARTICULAR HE'S THE NATURAL CHOICE IF WE'RE ASSIGNING ARCHAEOLOGIST TO ANY OF THEM!), but with how important the graphical record is, he just wouldn't have a good time, honestly.

Like, how's he going to be able to draw or photograph test pits? What about ceramic classifications that rely on like paste or surface color? And how about registering visual differences in stratigraphy? I find personally that a lot of archaeological texts don't make much sense at all without the illustrations and figures but that may be just that I'm shit at visualizing. He might not be half bad with stuff he can distinguish by texture and shape, but without sight he might have to be extra careful to always have gloves on as to not contaminate carbon samples.

If not actually working on the field it may be like a fun hobby or thing he likes to learn about. He's got a grandma with a BA in Anthropology anyway, maybe it could be a nice thing for him to bond over with Feathertail? And if archaeology doesn't work out, I think history is adjacent enough that he might take an interest and do better at that.

so. i did some Research, which i know you saw the fruits of (re ur tags, which i'll prob end up writing more in response to at some point, i agree it was a good introduction but i have more questions now), but i haven't been able to find a lot of info. doesn't help that like. blind can reference different things here.

anyway. starting from the top. it's okay it's okay i understand. i wish i could put someone in math but no one has math vibes yet. the stick is a good argument. i accept.

there are blind people working in archaeology, although admittedly, not many of them, at least from what i can find. his ability to do fieldwork would be limited. i found a reddit thread that was fairly short, but one person said

In some ways, being blind is advantageous. When I did fieldwork, I was put in the finds tent to sort and clean finds rather than digging strata whose colours I couldn’t discern. It was my favourite part of the whole thing. Having more reliance on what I felt in my hands rather than what I was seeing made sorting everything and cleaning it a lot easier.

so that's. a bit of an input.

i found another article about a blind archaeologist and fieldwork, and from that we gain

"I used dental tools and a sharpened trowel to slide along the ground. I'd run my hands along the soil, feeling and uncovering different layers. If I started to notice a soil change, I'd check with another excavator. I was really very fortunate to work with a great group of people."

all in all, i'm going to leave these quotes as what i can say about excavation because frankly, i don't know enough about this to say any more.

that said, i suspect he'd function alright with images. i'm not sure how this works and i'm a little too tired to figure out what the Right Keywords are, but i suspect that there is already a way around that. after all, graphs, charts, and diagrams are fairly common. admittedly, i'm also terrible at visualization by which i mean, "i've been staring at the diagram in my number theory textbook for like ten minutes and i still don't know what it says and what it is is is like. a very simple picture of some rings."

anyway. i Suspect that he'd be able to overcome that just as well as he would in any science.

i'll. if i ever write about this i might pester you with some questions. but. in the US, as I understand it and as the Archaeological Institute of America informs me, if he wanted to pursue archaeology as a career (as opposed to getting a degree in it and then doing something else, something which confuses me about the world), he'd be in the same phd/post-doc hellscape as the rest of us.

given his limitations, i think it'd be extra hellscape for him. sorry bud. i say that not because i don't love you, but because there are like. ten positions a year. again it's a post-doc hellscape for all of us. i try not to think about it.

maybe he works in like. a museum? oh man i'm double out of my league here i'd be better off talking about library sciences, but. maybe that's an option? i feel like he would vibe with that maybe? i'm not sure. if anyone has experience with this stuff and feels like weighing in, i'm open to opinions. i'm so far out of my league i'm not even sure where to start researching and i'm very tired so. if i do that it's a tomorrow thing. lmao.

yeah, i agree that he'd go to history. hm. options.

and he 100% bonds with feathertail over it. i'm not sure. i don't have a super strong idea of feathertail's Later Life, but. i think she likes to stay. i don't know how this works actually? like? i was going to say stay up-to-date but i don't know enough like. words. like. i can say even if i didn't go into math-academia, i'd want to stay up to date on graph theory stuff. i could probably get more specific but. tired. anyway. i don't know how to fill in the blank.

my point is, i think if jay wants to talk, she's very open to talking.

[n5md]

Cloudwalker

In our newly relaunched "Learn more about..." interviews, we switch up the continuity slightly and focus on just one release: Gimmik's Cloudwalker. Martin kindly agreed to answer a few questions to kick off what we'll refer to as v2 of the "Learn More About..." blog.

While Entre Les Chambres was the actual return of Gimmik to the public eye, Cloudwalker is more of a return to form. It is undeniably Gimmik; however, Cloudwalker treads some new ground for you. Can you shed some light on how the creative process changed from Entre Les Chambres / Deux Nouvelles and how those two albums might have influenced Cloudwalker?

Very well observed - they did influence Cloudwalker! Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were both produced under technically limited circumstances. On top of that, I thought that no one will ever hear this material. Luckily it was not the case, and I got the chance to become a member of the n5MD family. When you produce with the idea that the material will never get released, it gives you a lot of room and space. You are not concerned about expectations. The music can flow and evolve freely. The calm nature of those albums helped that process. It was research where I experienced myself more as a witness than a composer. For me, that is a new approach. This approach was still the same when I produced Cloudwalker. That is the reason why the tracks are so diverse. Short Wave Memories and In My Family do not have anything in common, but that is the way they evolved, without me constructing anything. The most significant difference is that Cloudwalker was produced in a proper studio environment. Plus, I took a step into eurorack, which brings a very unpredictable element. And yes, that is Mutable Elements "Rings'' what you hear on In My Family. I was working on a self-generative patch with "Marbles'' when all of a sudden, the melody appeared...

I think you sent me In My Family shortly after you finished it, and it was one of the darkest days of the early pandemic; where our local government-issued curfews and such. It was the track that I needed at that moment; it brightened my day. It's very cool that the melody was a generative experiment gone right. I seem to remember you have quite a bit of the Mutable Instruments modules. Modular, to me, seems like a bit of a wormhole of experimentation. So, how do you stay focused when experimenting with new sounds and textures to bring, say, one of your Modular Nature tracks, which you have on your Youtube channel, to life.

Working with a modular system is entirely different. My approach is always a question. What will happen if I connect this with that and modulate with this? Then you start patching, and the results are entirely different from what I expected - a lot more exciting and better! In the beginning, I thought modular was about rebuilding synth voices. So I started emulating the signal-flow path of a 101 for a start. I missed the whole point of modular... A system has a life of its own and takes you to completely different places, and sometimes I do not even understand the results. (-: But that is not important. The decision to work with modular is to avoid walking down paths I have taken too many times when composing. What keeps you focused is your ear. The trick is to learn when to stop. In the beginning, I lost a lot of great patches when the result was already at 90%. When trying to reach 100%, my tweaks destroyed that patch's beauty, and I never found a way back to 90%. That happened a lot of times in the beginning. A modular system really helps to learn when to let go… (laughing). I chose Mutable Instruments because those modules are very focused on musical and harmonic results.

So, going back to Cloudwalker, how did it feel getting back to basics as far as Gimmik goes. People may not know that Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were made for very personal listening. Care to shed a little light on those two, and more importantly, what made you want to go past those themes and bring Gimmik full circle for Cloudwalker?

Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were NOT a conscious decision. Those were a necessity! The title Entre Les Chambres means "between two rooms", the space that is between two rooms. That is nowhere! It mirrors how I felt at that moment. There were many significant changes in my life, luckily nothing concerning my family, but still major changes. In order to cope with it all, I started making ambient tracks. It was the only thing that helped me to cope and focus again. The tracks happened by themselves. Listening to them and working on those albums was a calming experience. When they were finished, I played them to Chris, and he convinced me that he liked them. That led to the decision to make those first tapes. Later I sent them to you. Your reaction was very motivating because the music got released. With that motivation and getting back into a studio environment, the Cloudwalker tracks just poured out of me very quickly - it felt terrific to go back to the studio. My family gave me the time to work in my studio, and you and Chris gave very motivating feedback! From my perspective, this makes Cloudwalker my most important album so far, and I am very thankful for this chance! Another key element is that you gave me total freedom regarding artwork, choosing tracks, and their order. Just great!

Well, I knew going in that you know what you are doing. So I shouldn't have needed to step in and manage such details. For release prep, I'm available to take care of the details that an artist doesn't have access to or the working knowledge. You and Chris ran Toytronics, and you are a graphic artist as well, so I knew that you know the drill. If something was glaring or didn't work under the n5 stylistic umbrella, it is my job to say something, but I was pretty confident that wouldn't happen. I also know that after you completed the tracks, you took a great deal of time to get them to flow perfectly and also fit on four LP sides—your care in craft shows, and it's been great to work with you.

You brought up Chris, and there is an Abfahrt Hinwl remix on Cloudwalker, so; I'm going to ask. Are we going to hear some new Abfahrt Hinwl soon?

Thank you, as I said, that means a lot to me. And I still think that it is a fortunate situation. The AH RMX of Sailing Everest on Cloudwalker was just me, to be honest. That is why I used an abbreviation - AH. It is more a hint. It has a lot of the Abfahrt Hinwil ingredients. We tried to revive the project and realized that working over a distance via the internet does not work for either of us. The key of Abfahrt Hinwil was that we worked in the same room, at the same time, with the same equipment - listening to what the other one does - giving an immediate reaction. The most important point is communication, which has to happen immediately - you need to respond straight away, not with a delay. Today we find ourselves in two different life situations. We both would like to continue. After an online experiment, we realized it would be only possible when we visit each other and then work in the same studio. That is not possible at the moment, and Covid plays a significant role in that.

Ah, I see; Abfahrt Hinwil was you and Chris basically feeding off one another; also, there are cheques and balances, which is great to have. I completely understand why it would not be feasible to do it from a distance effectively. So, I'd like to pivot to these little builds I see on your Instagram. You recently sent me a pic of a peculiar little box that looks to be a synth. Assuming this is something you built (loving the stickering, by the way). What is this, and does it appear on Cloudwalker?

(laughing) That is a drone box handmade by a guy in Russia. Six oscillators, each one with a kill switch. Three standard range oscillators and 3 Sub. A very rough-sounding machine, great for drones. The filter sounds very nasty, just great. There is a little bit in the track Cloudwalker itself but washed out by Big Sky. The downside is that there is no midi, trigger gate, or voltage control. It is more of an experiment tool. The important parts of the track Cloudwalker have Mutable Instruments: Plaits and Tides 1, using the Sheep mode. Both outputs went into Warps, modulated by Stages. The little melody was played live on the Yamaha DX Reface, going into the Big Sky. It was all recorded live onto tape to 4 tracks to a Tascam 234. Then it was mixed the classic way, patchbay, fx, analog mixer main out to digital. 75% of the album was recorded to a Sound Devices MixPre-3 II.

It sounds like your Big Sky gets some action! Strymon makes some exceptional pedals. It seems like you can almost entirely make music out of the box if you needed to, which is excellent. So one last question: When we collaborated on the Cloudwalker one sheet text, you added something about the production tools "representing technology from 1958 to 2019," and I asked if 1958 was a type-o that needed to be corrected to 1985 when it was not. When people read that, I think they will be very curious as to what technology you utilized from that far back…

Yes, it is a great pedal, I love the sound and the fact that you get nice results very quickly.

1958- (laughing) There is an on oscilloscope from Russia, which can be seen in some of the videos on HIDDEN REALITY, and 2 vintage function generators. I got those old function generators from a close friend, he is an electronic engineer and professor for physics at a university. They got rid of all their old equipment, and he asked if I wanted to have something. He could not throw those old machines away, so he rescued them to his cellar. He changed the connections for me, so I can use them with the modular environment, using my standard patch cables. I used them a lot as modulation sources, as they can modulate extremely slow (like MI tides). But I have to admit that I got them for their looks in the first place…(laughing) - Those machines look like the machinery you see in Qs research center in old James Bond movies...

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Learn even more about Gimmik

[infodump-daily]

Infodump #3

Yo! Swift here. Today I’m gonna be talking about one of my favorite topics: recursive functions! (My special interest is computer programming in general, which is wayyyyy too broad in scope unless I cut out a ton of details.) So, I’m gonna go over the basics really quick. A function is a named block of code that doesn’t run until it’s called. A basic JavaScript function: function hello(){ // This is a comment; it does absolutely nothing, which makes it a useful tool for explaining what's going on in a piece of code. alert(“hello world!”); // This is a call to the built-in function alert, which creates a pop-up with the specified text } hello(); // Actually runs the function A recursive function is simply calls itself within itself! But that’s getting a bit ahead of myself, as in order to understand what a recursive function is, you need to know what a return statement is. Check out the following code: function returnTest(let a){ // a is a variable! Its value is specified when returnTest is called. // Specifically, it's a local variable; that means it can only be accessed from within the block of code it was created in or blocks contained by that block-- in this case returnTest. return a; // Passes the value of a to outside the function! alert(“this piece of code is inaccessible!”); // Functions stop after executing a return statement. } let b = returnTest(“test”); // b now equals “test”. Since it's​ defined outside of any block of code, it has a global scope and can be called from anywhere in this program!

Now I can properly explain recursive functions! Recursive functions, as I stated earlier, call themselves.

function fail(){ fail(); // This is technically a recursive function, but it doesn't do anything but loop forever (well, not forever, as JavaScript only allows a finite amount of recursion) }; fail();

Now that’s not very useful, right? Here’s a more useful recursive function, one that finds the value of the factorial of a number (a factorial is an integer multiplied by all previous positive integers, usually written as n! in mathematics). To be honest, this isn’t that useful to me (I don’t need to know the factorial of a number too frequently), but it shows the power of recursion.

function factorial(let n){ if(n == 0){ // if n is equal to zero return 1; // There's mathematical reasons why 0! == 1, but that's outside of the scope of this. }else{ return n * factorial(n-1); //returns n * the factorial of n-1; this continues until it reaches n == 0, where it returns zero and all preceding statements can be fully evaluated. } }

A call of factorial(4) would return 24. While you could do this with a loop, I’d say this is much prettier (though probably a bit less efficient), especially if you condense it like this:

function factorial(let n){ return (n == 0)? 1 : n * factorial(n-1); }

I would have included a loop-based implementation for comparison, but apparently Tumblr had other plans.

Pretty much anything can be implemented recursively, but it really benefits highly repetitive tasks like this.

And that’s all I have to say on the topic for now! Note: I wrote this code from memory in Google Docs, so it may not be 100% correct and the indenting is bad.