#esoteric programming languages

[lily-of-the-code]

What's your favorite esoteric programming language? I've never used one, but I've done rese on them and there are some funny ones. For example, there's one where code is written like Shakespeare.

[notnotamathblog]

This video was on my Watch Later for the longest time since I have a problem and hardly ever go trough those. But just gave it a watch and had a really good time, learning about all those languages that seem very productive (lying).

I do suggest it if you are remotely interested in programming, since they do go into some of the concepts and how the compiler works, but I especially recommend if you are into esoteric languages and obscure stuff.

[aeolids-zenith]

esolangs in Minecraft

I've been playing around with implementing esoteric programming languages as Minecraft data packs

for a bit I've had the idea of implementing BackFlip, a 2d language which is vaguely similar to the Langton's Ant cellular automaton and based on arrows and mirrors, the two of which conveniently resemble magenta and pink glazed terracotta

in figuring out how best to do output (I used tellraw with the "interpret" option for an NBT list, though I've since discovered this doesn't necessarily work for broader character sets than BackFlip's), I discovered that the new 1.19.4 "string" option for the /data command allows taking substrings; this (and the /data command in general) gave me the idea of implementing a more complex text-based language, which could be written in a book and quill

as a very basic proof-of-concept of text processing, I made an interpreter for the joke language Deadfish (which just has commands for incrementing, decrementing, squaring, and outputting a counter)

I was able to do it with a single function file, which made it convenient to add to the esolangs wiki page for Deadfish

finally, as a more complete example, I made an interpreter for the popular esolang brainfuck, with the program and input being read from books

unfortunately I used the same output method that I did for BackFlip, which it turns out doesn't work with the double-quote character, so I may have to make a fix sometime here..... (EDIT: it's now fixed -- somehow I had missed the very convenient option of selecting every item of the NBT list and setting the separator to empty string)

in any case though the data packs I've made so far can be found on GitHub

another esolang I've thought in the past about implementing in Minecraft is Piet, since it's pixel-based and that translates fairly well to Minecraft blocks; the main challenge is figuring out how to efficiently parse and represent the program, since NBT lists can't be indexed by variables and I might want to avoid creating an entity for every pixel? (though IDK maybe marker entities wouldn't be an issue for performance)

[foone]

This is sometimes called a "Turing Tarpit", and it's because my boy Alan figured out the question of computability with the "Turing machine", "Turing equivalence", and "Turing Completeness" (he has a lot of things named after him, including me).

Basically early on there was a question of what can computers... Compute? Like maybe they can do simple math like a calculator, but can they do more advanced math? Can they write a poem? Play doom? Send emails? Are some computers able to do things that others can't?

And Turing came up with this idea or a Turing machine. It's got an infinitely long piece of paper tape and it can do four things: move left, move right, write down some symbol, and read the symbol alresy there.

He proved that this computer can do everything a computer can do, despite being so simple, and also that this computer is exactly as powerful as every other computer. If you have a super computer with 10,000 processors and terabytes of ram? The Turing machine can calculate all the same things, just not as fast.

And this is where it leads to Malbolge and other "Turing Tarpit" languages: if every computer is exactly as powerful, this means you can compute the same things in any "Turing Complete" language. And it turns out to be Turing Complete is pretty simple to do. If your programing language can make decisions, it's almost certainly Turing Complete, meaning it can do everything any other programming language can.

It's just that different programming languages make it easier or harder to do certain things. They handle concepts in different ways, have different commands, and so on. So while python might be "better" to write a database in, there's no reason you couldn't write it in Visual Basic, except that Visual Basic would make that harder to do and more error-prone. And similarly Visual Basic would have an easy time building a simple text editor, but would have a lot of trouble building a web server.

So, given that all languages are equivalent in what they can do, what's to stop you from making a language that's intentionally hard to program in? Nothing except your own conscience!

There's Esolang, the Esoteric Programming Language Wiki, which has a HUGE LIST.

You've got languages where your instructions are encoded into games of chess, Shakespeare plays, and cake recipes.

Languages where there's only 1 command (ironically, there's lots of those). Languages where there's only ever one variable. Languages where the source code is 2D, rather than a 1D list of lines. Languages where the source is 3D! and probably languages where the source is 4D (I just checked: Yep: RGB4D). And of course there's a 5D language, because that's just showing off.

Languages where the source code is invisible, because it's only tabs and spaces and newlines. Languages where the source can be played, because it's based on sheet music. Languages where the source code is a video of a person moving around in certain ways (to subtract, you duck. to add, you jump). A single operator, single button language, where different instructions are represented by pressing the button for different lengths of time. Languages where the source code is a directory tree, a set of folders within folders. You don't need files, or if you do, the contents of them are meaningless.

A language where the source code is a minecraft level (fun fact: even without mods, Minecraft is Turing-complete on it's own, in at least two different ways). A programming language based on a puzzle from Undertale. Languages where the source code is a picture of items found in the average house (You add by including an upside down plastic cup). A zero-dimensional language where the source code is just a single big number. A text-based language where the characters of the text are ignored, and only the FORMATTING of the characters matter. (For example, to subtract, you use the color #D1FFE2).

Basically, esoteric programming languages are the point where at which two concepts meet:

the fact that programming is an art, not a science,

the fact that programmers started out as, and have significant overlap with, weird math nerds

And I love them. I'll leave you with the classic "hello world" program (which just displays that text). But it'll be in Piet, so it's an image:

Every now and then I remember that Malbolge exists and I get to spend the better part of an hour cry-laughing at the world’s worst programming language

already starting off strong, but it gets worse

Wow! Sounds easy and intuitive to use! What’s the “crazy operation” you ask? We’ll get to that later. For now let’s see what a program in this language looks like :)

Thanks! I hate it!

it’s so difficult to work with that the first program was written by another brute force search program

mmmmm delicious base-3 arithmetic, what could go wrong? (For reference, that means this program forgoes the usual “0/1″ values of binary code in favor of a much more fun “0/1/2″ set of values)

ah.

Here’s how the language actually figures out what to do. It’s got 8 “simple” commands that can be executed easily by *checks notes* running the code itself through the modulo operation and taking the result.

As a bonus, on top of all that every single character in your code will now alter what every single other character does. So I hope you’re alright with cracking a cipher every time you add a new letter to your program!

oh god oh fuck.

behold, Malbolge’s primary arithmetic operation and what you’ll be using for most of your math while programming with it :)

This looks specifically designed to be the least logical math operation you could make, and knowing what the rest of Malbolge is I’d wager that’s precisely what happened. I never want to ever use this and it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge

Anyways here’s the wiki page if you wanna read through it more deeply, I’m gonna sit here holding in my laughter staring at the hello world program again.

[quantummechanist]

My Esoteric Programming Language Synopsis

Been looking into esoteric programming languages, or programming languages whose purpose is NOT to make a programmer's life easier, but rather to be weird and often confusing. Here are my reviews:

<>< (Fish): This language revolves around the moving a pointer around the program itself, which is read as a 2 dimensional grid of characters. The pointer moves to the right by default, but you can change its direction with the arrow-looking characters (<,>,^,v). You can also reflect the instruction pointer with the mirror-looking characters (|,_,/,\\), which reflect the arrow the direction that makes sense based on what way it is going and the geometry of the characters. On top of this, the language is stack-based. For those who don't recall the first few pages of Homestuck, a stack is a data structure that stores a list of values like an array, except the only accessible datum in the stack is the most recently entered one. Programmers have no business using stacks in the year 2023. Other neat details include the trampoline instruction (!) which jumps over a spot in the grid, and because you need to use a stack, to print a value from code, you need to write it in the code backwards. Also when you get an error, the compiler says "Something smells fishy..." Difficulty 3/10

Brainfuck: Brainfuck was made by a man trying to make the smallest programming language compiler he could. The program instructions rely on an arbitrarily large 1 dimensional array of numbers. Brainfuck has 8 single-character commands, and all other characters are treated as comments. This is a brainfuck program to write "Hello World":

+[-->-[>>+>-----<<]<--<---]>-.>>>+.>>..+++[.>]<<<<.+++.------.<<-.>>>>+.[<->-]<-.>

Difficulty 9/10

Hexagony: Like <><, Hexagony works by sending a pointer along the program, treating it like a grid of characters. The difference is that Hexagony programs are on a hexagonal grid. This is Hello World in Hexagony:

Difficulty 8/10 (I cannot wrap my head around this one)

INTERCAL: Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym, or INTERCAL, was one of the first esoteric programming languages, created in 1972. The language was designed to make common operations needlessly difficult, while adding keywords for other operations to make the whole thing unpleasant to look at. There is a keyword “PLEASE” that doesn’t do anything, although if you don’t include enough “PLEASE” commands, the compiler will give an error stating your program is not polite enough. Unlike most of the programming languages on this list, INTERCAL is too slow when compiled to be used practically. In 1992 a journalist tested the speed of Intercal against C. In C, it took less than a second to compute all the prime numbers up to 65536. In INTERCAL, it took over 17 hours. Difficulty: 8/10 LOLCODE: The syntax of LOLCODE is inspired by “lolspeak,” the English dialect of lolcat captions. Every LOLCODE program begins with “HAI” and ends with “KTHXBYE”. To import library STDIO, use the command “CAN HAZ STDIO?” The underlying structure of LOLCODE is actually fairly standard, which makes this esolang pretty accessible.

Difficulty: 1/10

Malbolge: How do you print “Hello, World” in Malbolge?

(=<`#9]~6ZY327Uv4-QsqpMn&+Ij"'E%e{Ab~w=_:]Kw%o44Uqp0/Q?xNvL:`H%c#DD2^WV>gY;dts76qKJImZkj

Malbolge was designed to be the most difficult programming language in existence. The language determines which of the eight available instructions to execute by adding the current instruction to the current instruction’s index in memory, modulo 94. There are no arithmetic operators except for the *crazy operator*, a Malbolge original that takes two numbers in their ternary form and determines the result digit by digit using an unintuitive table. The crazy operator is not commutative, and is your only arithmetic operation. Whenever an instruction is executed, it is encrypted so that it will not do the same thing next time. Due to the complexity of Malbolge, a turing complete version does not currently exist, limited by the size of programs allowable.

Difficulty: 20/10

[healerinchief]

Media can enslave or free you depending on the intention of the program. Their intentions are very blatant if you pay attention to language usage.

Tune into the entire Conversation and more at www.ConversationsWithSorinne.com

[prettyboykatsuki]

I LIKE IT BETTER WHEN YOU CAN'T KEEP WARM | ODXNY

✮ tags ; heavy themes, gender neutral reader, mentions of past suicidal ideation, getting together, romantic tension, angst to fluff, extremely lovey-dovey ending, some implicit and suggestive content (lit one paragraph n non descript), themes of touch starvation, small height difference (reader is shorter)

✮ wc ; 6.3k (this is so shameful bye forever)

✮ a/n ; every time a semester ends i lose my mind and me writing this in several hours straight is evidence. if i had a nickel for every time i wrote a character study with the central theme of loneliness, i'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

i will spare you the insane rambling for the authors note at the bottom of this fic.

✮ synopsis ; he wants something. to live maybe. and if he could be a little selfish, to be with you. he wants that, too.

Bright.

Could just be the dark room he keeps himself in talking. His computer system and encrypted Internet browsers are all in dark mode - and his desktop set-up doesn’t have any L.E.D. strip lights to keep him company. He prefers it that way, the ambiance a better environment to work in  when he’s doing his usual rounds. Down to the programs U.I. - Odxny spends most of his time in perpetual darkness. Cozy and familiar - totally safe and secure. Nothing but the low whirrs of a computers fan and the faint blinking of routers to keep him company.

You’re the brightest thing he’s had on his screen in a long time. You’ve got white walls and no precaution, really. You’re sitting at your own desktop - and he can see everything of your life in the background of where you sit. There are photos of you graduating high school, being around unnamed friends, vacations and trips, and head shots like the kind you take for a resume. It’s all so personal. Bookshelves, trinkets, poorly made clay sculptures. Posters of musicians you like and Studio Ghibli movies. Evidence of life surrounds you like a halo.

Awful. Angel comparisons to someone he’s only known for a day make him wonder if he’s more pathetic than he thought. He probably shouldn’t think so hard about a stranger, a real stranger. Thrim generated randomly, though he thinks it sounds like a name. Finds it fun to say, for better or worse.

Natural light pours in from a window nearby, casting shadows in your room. He already knows you, in a way. He did the background search. Where you were born, raised, grew up.  The schools you went too, the career you seek. Bits and pieces of you are all scattered in his memory and are not at all thorough. He wasn’t really trying for that at the time, just needed to know if you were dangerous. There’s a cognitive dissonance. To know a life so thoroughly and to witness it is completely, and utterly different.

There’s miles between you. Must be thousands. He can’t remember the last time he’s really met someone, though. It’s hard not to notice that this feels akin to that. Like the embers of a campfire, glowing but not burning. A comfortable warmth.

Bright. His screen is very bright talking to you. Even obscured behind the mask, it’s a little difficult to look at it and leaves him on edge - restless and mildly painful.

When his vision adjusts though, there’s clarity. A person, a stranger - with an exceptionally nice laugh and who is exceptionally trusting. Odxny tries not to think too hard about the feeling of warmth that flutters at your overflowing sincerity.

The conversation is easy.

“Does that mean you trust me now?”

Odxny pretends to think on it. “Enough to keep you around.”

“See you later.”

“See you.”

You accompany your last words with a wave - short and sweet. Darkness pulls him in, back where he started. He has a mild headache from all the light.

__

You pick up on the language better than he thought you would.

He underestimated you. Can you blame him? Your choice is language is ArnoldC, for fucksake. Sure, he has limited knowledge on esoteric languages but can it really be in-depth enough to show you the basics.

(It can. Or at least, Od presumes this to be the case because you’re rather helpful in Incri’s hacks and Incri is hardly helpful to anyone in the world, no less the server.)

You pick up on things quickly with little guidance - always to the point and not usually making many errors. He has to commend your abilities and give you credit where it’s due. It’s not a hard language to learn, but for anyone with no familiarity with coding at all he’d expect there to be a learning curve. Even if you had coding language, it’s not like you knew SQL coming in.

You fit strangely well into the server somehow. You’re happy to learn and nonplussed about helping with small things, though you don’t know these people at all and have no reason to participate in their nonsense. You talk to Incri fine, and manage to get Pep to accidentally reveal telling information. Odxny finds all of this rather… entertaining maybe. More than impressive, really.

He has a hard time making sense of the feeling. He would hope you don’t think you’re under duress - given the fact your relationship in two days has been pleasant. Then again - maybe he’s missed some social cue and you do think that. It’s possible. After all, he doesn’t actually remember the last time he’s spoken verbally to anyone with very, very few exceptions.

He manages to call you again after the fact - opens the call with sincere and heartfelt congrats and feels pleasant seeing you take the compliment in stride.

You land on the subject of programming again, inevitably. He interrogates you a little more over your choice in language - almost like he can’t help himself. It’s basic curiosity. You had said you were the best in ArnoldC. A little research proved that to be true, presence of you in the forums of various esolang pages. He landed on many things. You’re the best at ArnoldC, but you also know Brainfuck for some ridiculous reason.

He thinks you’re a little ridiculous in general.

“It’s really for the love of the game, huh?”

You nod when he asks this. Smiling, bright and unbothered with a soft edge of smug pride that makes the muscles of his face twitch up. “Mhm. I like my little collection.

Odxny doesn’t doubt it for even a minute. He’s seen the proof, but perhaps he doesn’t need to mention that. “Your trophy case of ridiculous language?”

Your eyes come to life all of a sudden. “Wait. A real trophy case would actually be so cool.”

He pauses, blinking as the words sink before a smile breaks onto his face helplessly. “That was not to enable you.”

“Too late. I’m already looking up the ugliest wood trim display cases I can find.”

The laugh comes naturally. “You really are just like this?”

You look proud again. “What? Fun?”

Yes, Odxny thinks but doesn’t say. “Baffling.”

You ask Odxny to elaborate and he does. The conversation flows with frustrating ease. So easily that he mouths off about his plans to you without a second thought. He doesn’t know why he does it. Not really. He’s thought it through over and over - so it’s not like he needs to disclose it. He made his choice.

He thinks about moving it along. About ending the call or simply brushing past without going into any detail.

When he glances at the screen, you’ve got a pillow in your lap and your eyes completely focused on him. There’s that feeling again, alarming clarity in your gaze and brightness that causes him immense unease in the world he’s made of nihilistic, apathetic darkness. There’s a plan, always has been. He’ll do this and disappear and the world will soon forget him. If it happens that way, than at least this loneliness is a choice he’s made for himself and not something the world has cruelly decided for him.

His lips move faster than his head, than even his heart. Compelled by a nameless and brilliant force. “I don’t have any reason to stay. I’m just — tired. Of everything.”

“No reasons? Nothing makes you happy here?”

His response is measured. Quiet. It’s not secret. He finds his voice crumbles around the words anyway as if they’re a confession. “Not for a long time. I don’t feel much of anything, really. It is what it is.”

You frown. He’s seen it all before. Heard it all before. “That’s…”

He cuts you off quickly.

“We just met. And we’ll be strangers again soon enough.” He says with as much conviction and resolve as he can possible manage. Who he’s convincing remains unclear. “So, not to be cold but..you know.”

The disappointment in your face leaves an impression, but you relent. He tries to make amends for the depressing conversation of talking again and you perk up so genuinely it makes want to cry, in a distant and foreign way.

“Catch you later, then.” He says, and closes at out the call. The room falls dark for the second time. He blinks a few times to get rid of the light clouding his vision.

__

Wnpep is eager to teach you on the third day.

You’re eager in reply - matching energy with sharp wit and enthusiasm. Wnepep is a better teacher than Incri by several miles. Evident in how much faster everything falls into place for you. Not that you really need too much help in the first place. You break down the crumbling walls of an insurance scam with ease and come out of the other side more accomplished.

It’s a noble last hack, Odxny thinks.  Not unsurprising from Pep - unofficially the most sane and likeable member. He figured it’d be something like this less than a matter of personal vengeance.

You go back and forth for a bit in admin chat. Od types an apology about winding you up and tries not to read too much into the innuendo of it as you reply back with your own faux offended replies. He insists he’s somewhat sorry, and you’re far from believing him.

He finds himself grinning at his screen while he texts you mid conversation. When the realization hits, he almost curls into himself from embarrassment - a hand covering his mouth like it’ll do away with the grave sin.

The inneundo happens twice in one conversation, before you get to call under the premise of a victory toast.

A brief conversation about the last hacks barely leaves room for much else except Odxny plans of total isolation.

“Mm. I should’ve known it would come back to this. Why do you care what I choose to do with myself?”

That baffles you in a terribly genuine way. “Am I not allowed to care about another person?”

Odxny speaks honestly. “You are but I mean…” He trails off. He knows how he feels. “I’m not really a person anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m no one. I’m going to be no one. You have other things to fill your life with.”

There’s a vulnerable edge to his voice that he winces at when he hears it. It’s true isn’t it? All of it is true to Odxny, but especially where he says you have other things to fill your life with. You might share the same hobbies, but he’s seen it. He’s seen how different you are - your livelihoods, your existence. You’d be missed if you suddenly disappeared. Odxny knows the same isn’t true for himself. It’s been like that for a long while now.

(It’s crushing. That’s what makes your very ephemeral existence feel like a burden. Why it casts the shadows of doubt on choices he made, about how he would live so long ago. You care, don’t you? At least, more than anyone else in his life in the present. You care so undeniably, and so obviously and it is all so simple to you.

He almost envies it. Almost resents it, too. It’s such a small shred of humanity, the barest forms of sincerity but it is painfully raw. A split nerve. An open wound It’s not like the server, all of whom have accepted this distant fondness. It’s a delicate thread - spider silk accuracy and just as much strength. There’s conviction in your missing him and it haunts him.)

You think of what to say for a long time before landing on it. “I do. But I can care about multiple things at once,”

It sounds like I care about you too closely. He finds himself shivering. He’s truthful with you, unsure of how else to be when it comes to these conversations.

“That sounds burdensome.” He says. “Isn’t that exhausting?”

You don’t lie to him either. “Sometimes. But it’s worth the trouble.”

“Why?”

“Because I like your company,” You reply. Soft sincerity in your words. More clarity. More painstaking light.

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Why not?”

“If it was that simple then -“ Then it makes it seem like things could be different. He doesn’t say that. Stops himself before it can happen. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to argue. Why do I feel like I need to prove this to you?”

He’s almost afraid to look at your face, wincing when he sees how knowing you look. Not in a condescending way - but genuine, full blown understanding. Like you see through him.

He wonders if he knows you as well as he thought he did.

Your face is so sympathetic. “Are you sure it’s me?”

He cuts the conversation short on his own - making an awkward transition from the topic at hand into whatever he can manage. It’s an awkward fumble - a poor attempt at distracting both of you from this line of thinking. You’re kind enough to let him have it. He asks about your hobbies. You tell him about how you like to try the weirdest things and combinations you can find in a restaurant.

He finds it suits you.

A lot of things suit you. Even your piss poor attempt at the Terminator that he quickly mimics - possessed by god knows what.

You laugh when he does. Brilliant and bubbly and characteristically warm. You say the words through giggles.

“That was so bad!”

“It was a lapse in judgment,” He replies back defensively, smiling against his will. He finds himself laughing too.

“I like your laugh, by the way.”

He pauses caught off-guard. “Oh? My laugh. Oh, uhm. Thank you.”

You make a face that he can’t read. Knowing. In a different way than the last. He feels nervous.

“I have been laughing quite a bit, haven’t I?”

You grin. Smug and deliriously happy. “Sure have.”

He looks away from you. “Ha...Odd.”

You giggle again. Your eyes crinkle at the corners, nose scrunched in genuine delight. It’s a pleasant sound but not because it’s particularly wispy or floaty or delicate. But it’s real. Pleasant in the way the white noise of park during summer. Pleasant like the varied playlist overhead in a record shop. Pleasant like a moment of humanity tucked between everyday. He clears his throat.

“I like your laugh, I think.”

You laugh again, gasping with faux offense. “You think???”

He tries not to feel so grounded by that sound and fails. “Yeah. I think. Laugh again.”

He tries not to add please. You shake your head like you’re reprimanding him.

“No, no, you have to earn that. Make me laugh.”

“Nevermind. Shut up.”

You do laugh again that time. He joins you soon after. “And now you laugh? At me?”

The conversation moves again, comfortable like a tide. You ask about his favorite language and he tells you as much. You’re quiet and growing cheeky, listening to him talk.

“So you do like coding.”

“Maybe a little.” He replies, not giving in. “You remember far too much of what I say.”

The conversation comes to a close again. He thanks you for how nice its been and you make an off-handed attempt to get him to change his mind. You could always talk more. The implication delicate beneath it.

We don’t have to forget each other. Odxny brushes past it - but says he’ll see you tomorrow anyway.

__

Extorting Elimfs childhood friend (?) is an easy enough endeavor. Odxny texts you through out - to ask advice on what things to take when he leaves.

He calls you again when its over too. He can’t find a reason for it - nothing that makes sense. He just wanted to call you. He hasn’t wanted something like that in a while,  but he tells himself its fine. This is the last time you’ll ever know each other.

So its fine. He won’t waver.

He’ll just.. call you.

He asks you on your weed habits, mildly surprised when you tell him you smoke and take edibles sometimes too. The conversation loops back to the fund at one point. You don’t hide your displeasure about the whole thing today.

You’ve talked about it already. No need to keep bringing up. But you seem to feel so strongly and Odxny can’t figure out why. Can’t shake the feeling of wanting to know why every single time.

“Is it really so hard to believe I’ve come to like you in a few days?”  You ask, after probing.

“In a way that matters, yes.”

You frown at him when he says that. It’s the most upset he’s seen you look, if he can call it that. You’ve never been upset when he’s been rude or insulting - but this is bothering you. It doesn’t help him pull away from you.

He says it again. Reinforces how temporary this all is. He’s trying to convince one of you. Both of you, maybe, of his unimportance.

“I don’t think that little of you.”

He finds it hard to reply to that. It’s that feeling against. It makes him uncomfortable. It’s not empty platitudes or some vague sense of responsibility for his life. All of it is real, and all of it is meaningful in how plain it is. You make it seem easy.

“It’s life. It’s normal. People come, people go.”

You shake your head. “Not for me. I can’t forget you that easily.”

He wishes you would. He’s painfully, painfully relieved that you wouldn’t it. He voices neither thought.

“Then- try! You’re putting so much on yourself, and for what? You don’t stand to gain anything.”

You shrug. “Peace of mind. Knowing you’re still out there.”

It’s heavy. The implication is heavy. He’s not going to kill himself. He doesn’t want that anymore, though he thought about it. At the beginning. Loneliness is more painful when you have memories of what not being that way was like - he thinks. At the start of all that loss, the hollowness bared an almost painful gravity inside of him.

It’s like being told to breathe or blink - becoming conscious of what was once a natural function, how full life was once when it’s escaped. He doesn’t want to kill himself, but living is meaningless.

 These things aren’t paradoxical to him. They haven’t been for all this time.

(They weren’t until he met you at least. A mirror of wanting. Odxny looks at you and sees life reflected back. Despite it not being his, its moving. It’s beautiful in a human way, reachable. Tangible. Earned.

Wherever you are. Whenever you’re together, the black hole inside of himself seems to fade back into average planetary darkness. He becomes cruelly human again, feeling warmth and laughter.

He’s tells himself he’s not afraid of dying and that’s mostly true. He’s most afraid of living. Afraid he won’t be able to learn it again.)

 He manages to tell you some of what he’s thinking. He has no clue how to start over. He doesn’t know if it’s possible. You don’t feed him any false hope, but he tells you how he sees it. You’re feeling pity for him right? And you should figure that out sooner rather than later.

“Is it really that easy for you?”

You shake your head. You’re smiling but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “It isn’t. But I have to try.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?”

“What?”

“Is this…?”

He cuts the call off when he hears himself, unsure of what answer he’s hoping for. The realization dawns on him too much, too quickly. The feeling of hope is loud in his chest but there is another feeling, embarrassing in it’s swiftness that follows shortly after.

Oh.

Oh.

__

The servers shuts down after a mildly sappy adventure to close up shop. The closest Odxny has gotten to flirting with you in his own way. He’s sad to see everyone go, despite there being no other choice.

It’s easier than he thought it’d be. To give you his number he means, even after shutting the entire server down. After leaving everything behind. He gives you the choice to make. Call me if you still want it - a silent promise.

 Maybe because deep down - some part of him always wanted to make this choice. Just maybe.

Your voice is different over the phone line. A little clearer, spoken softer. Just as lovely as it was the first time he heard it. Maybe more. Maybe.

The city beneath him is bright. So bright. It doesn’t hurt to look at, he thinks.

__

You call him every day.

You’ve been doing it for months.

He thought, at some point, you’d let up or start to forget. He’s been waiting on it to happen as horrible as it sounds. Like some self-fulfilling prophecy, he’d slip back into the background as is natural. A proof of his nonexistence, if you will.

You don’t forget though. He almost wonders if he’s dreaming when it happens. There’s a routine between you two, these days. You have your own life that you’ve been living the same as normal. When it’s night time for you, though - you hop onto your desktop and call Od like you’re two very average people.

There’s nothing solid to define your relationship aside from friendship as is. This is less frustrating than he expected it to be. Getting to know you better has only made him like you more. Your relationship is solid in a strange way. It’s been about six months total, and as corny as it sounds - Odxny feels like he’s known you for his entire life. You understand him in an intimate way, with vulnerable tenderness and radical acceptance.

He kind of misses the privacy of his old stomping grounds, but he doesn’t mind speaking though discord. It feels… normal. In a not displeasing way. You mostly talk to talk about whatever comes to mind. Sometimes it’s your job search, other times it’s  your part-time or friend drama. You’re vibrant as always. Without the wall of anonymity, Odxny gets to know of you like he’s just your average person. He finds he really, really likes that.

You play games together frequently. He’s never been interested in cozy gaming, but you play Minecraft and Stardew Valley together per your request. Odxny streams himself playing Ocarina of Time for you on Discord in the background sometimes too, and you keep it on when you’ve got work to do or you’re cooking or something else. There’s something very mundane to it.

You’re not doing anything with him today though. You’re calling him on facetime, rather than at your desktop. You’ve made the executive decision to laze around and Odxny has no problem joining you though you speak less than usual as a result of being sleepy. You had a long shift yesterday so perhaps Odxny can’t blame you.

“Need to get better shoes. For walking and stuff.” You say thoughtlessly. The corners of his lips twitch up.

“Yeah?”

You nod. Your face is smushed against your pillow at an unflattering angle. He smiles a little.

“Yeah. I’m on my feet for like nine hours when I serve and it hurts wearing flats. Need something sturdier even it diminishes my drip.”

He laughs at that. “Please never say that again.”

You continue onwards. “Decreases my aura, even. But alas, utility comes first.”

He snickers as he glances at you through the phone. You’re propped against one of his monitors as he does work on his computer. He’s getting back into programming for the love of the game, just seeing what he can do.

“Want help looking?”

“Feels a little ridiculous asking a super pro-hacker to shop Sketchers with me.”

“You seriously thinking of buying Sketchers?”

You laugh lightly. “Maybe I’ll get tipped more if I get the light-up ones.”

“Please don’t.”

“Hater.”

You break out into genuine laughter as Odxny shakes his head in despair. It’s something you’d do, no doubt. You sigh.

“I really do want a break from work.” You roll around on your mattress. Odxny can hear your rustling but can’t see you much. “The chains of capitalism shackle me in place. Woe is me.”

Odxny thinks on what you’ve said for a long while in silence. The question comes up every now and again though he’s never brave enough to ask it. His ludicrous amount of disposable income however is still sitting in his bank, collecting dust. It’s been six months and he’s hardly made a dent in it.

“Do you want to come visit?” He asks, cringing at the sound of his own voice. The words are strained and a little too eager. “I can pay the difference for expenses for wages and stuff. And, uh. Uhm,”

He loses his train of thought trying to speak, worsened by the way you pop onto his screen when he says that. Your expression is unreadable to him, comfortable and even. You smile a little as you lift the phone so he can see what you look like laying in your bed. Your face is in full view.

“It’d be a little weird to visit you before we start dating officially, no?”

His eyes go wide at the implication. You grin, mischief and mirth making your eyes practically beam. He can feel a blush crawl up his neck as soon as he registers it.

“Excuse me? Why are you saying that like it’s already been decided?” He bites back, not sure what else he could say.

“So you don’t want to date me?”

“I didn’t- you - damn it,” He groans at his own bluster as he giggles on the other side of the line. So cheeky. Damn him for liking it and damn you for being cute. “…You are saying you like me right?”

Your face softens. He can feel his heartbeat quicken. “Uh-huh. Just wanted to take it slow. But I’ve liked you for a long time.”

“How long is that, exactly?”

You shrug playfully and the fact he can’t be within reach to kiss you feels especially harrowing. “A secret.” You smile again, all trouble. “So. Wanna date?”

“Terrible confession. Zero stars,” He says petulantly. He leans back in his chair and finds himself smiling uncontrollably. “Fine. I guess.”

Your laugh fills his room. He doesn’t get tired of hearing it. His face hurts from smiling.

__

He manages to stave off on the anxiety of you coming to see him for a lot longer than he thought possible.

Making arrangements proves to be a little difficult. You have to tell your roommates that you’ll be gone for a while but promise to still pay rent and explain to your boss where you’re going. You have a good enough relationship and have been working long enough for them to agree to keep a spot open so you can start working when you come back.

After that, there’s the matter of Visas. Odxny goes out of his way to make that process go much faster than normal, though he doesn’t actually tell you. Once all of that’s sorted, there’s living arrangements. Try as you might to insist to live somewhere else, his place is too spacious for him to let you stay anywhere else. You can take the guest room.

He pretends that all of this is just happening in his imagination. He doesn’t even know the last time anyone came over, let alone lived with him. He does his best to make things presentable, and makes a guest room for you to live in should you desire. He even buys more decor (plants and things) to make it look… less like a cave and more like a home.

Nothing really feels real until the day arrives though. It’s a long flight and difficult trip. You refused to let him pay for the tickets so he moved it around to get you into first class both ways through other methods.

You text him the terminal, the arrival time, any and all delays. Still. None of it feels real until he’s already waiting for you near the bags. He can feel his heart race, his lungs short of air. He’s never experienced something so ridiculously contradictory in his entire life. He wants to run away while feeling stuck in place.

The anticipation nearly kills him.

He would recognize your voice anywhere though. Like he did for so many days alone in the dark. A hand waves high, shouting as loud as it can.

“It’s you!”

The sound of sneakers skidding across tile floors make his breath hitch. His eyes go wide as you stand still in front of him, luggage in hand and a million-watt smile on your face. He feels his heart beat so loud, he wonders if he’s going to throw up.

“Hey.” He says, dumbly.

“Hi!”

__

The adjustment period to living together isn’t what he expects.

It’s been a long time since he’s been so close to another human being. It becomes clear that you’re really living together though when your things end up in the bathroom completely incidentally. There’s something about finding your sleep shirt on a towel rack that makes reality settle in. You’re living together.

He’d be stupid not to notice the purposeful distance between you. An attempt to be thoughtful and not overwhelm him. It’s never awkward when you’re together. You eat together, watch movies and play games while sitting too close on the couch. You’ve been on a date in the two weeks you’ve spent, and it barely took any convincing on your end to make him go along with you.

Isolation aside though, Odxny is not clueless to the conventions of modern dating. You avoid touching him too casually. He doesn’t blame you, but he can’t help but crave your presence with a little more bittersweet longing as the days pass. He has to get past it or bring it up eventually, but it feels like something he’s never going to get over somehow.

The opportunity to do so gets thrown at him all at once. You’ve been living together for sixteen days. A conversation about love languages is what undoes it.

“Whats your love language, Od?”

He gives you a quizzical look. “Dunno actually. Never bothered to look.”

“I’d guess… hm. Quality time maybe? Or words of affirmation.”

He shrugs as he sits next to you on the couch, glancing at your phone as you read through the different ones. “What’s yours?”

“Physical touch. I’m super touchy. With anyone who will let me, honestly. Bad habits.”

Odxny gives you a long look as you say it. He debates if he should bring it up.

“You don’t have to be so careful around me, you know?”

You look up at him, startled by the comment. Several things pass over your face before you settle on an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s not like I don’t want to. I just don’t want to be too much for you.”

“That wouldn’t happen.” He says automatically. You laugh good-naturedly.

“Your confidence is assuring, but you underestimate how touchy I am. I’m afraid of I get my hands on you, I’ll never let go again,”

He thinks he wants that more than is normal. He shakes his head. “I don’t mind.”

You give him a long look, seeming struck by an idea, before humming and standing up. You turn around with your hand out towards him. His brows furrow in bewilderment.

“Have some faith.”

He takes your hand and stands up with you. He likes that he’s taller than you. Staring at you, he feels your fingers clasp around his hand and his heart thuds - loud and messy.

“Your room or mine?”

“What?”

You laugh. “Get your mind out of the gutter. Or don’t actually, but I don’t bear lewd intentions.”

He crinkles his nose at the word usage and laughs. “Shut up.”

“Just trust me, okay?”

He concedes with embarassing swiftness.

“Okay.”

__

You lead Odxny to the guest room you’ve been living in for the last two weeks. The bed is well-made and all the new furniture he bought is occupying so many of your belongings. It makes him dizzy. You shut the door behind him as you lead him in. It just feels especially surreal.

Wordless, you let go of his hand and hop up onto your bed. Once you’re laying down, you prop up on your side with your elbow and pat the empty space next to you, smiling at him as you do. Once it clicks what your asking, he can feel his face grow hot. He can’t refuse it though, and he doesn’t want too.

The sheets you bought together smell like you. Between there’s practically no distance between you at this angle. He’s gotten to look at you plenty through these few days but it’s different. You scoot impossibly close to him until there’s nothing separating you.

Your breath is warm - a soft exhale leaving your lips as you inch closer.

“What’re we doing?” He asks in a murmur, stone stiff. You smile, coyly.

“Touching each other.”

He frowns at the joke. Your expression goes a touch serious right after. The sincerity is debilitating. “Can I touch you?”

He nods. Can’t do much more than that.

He stares at you with impending, long-suffering longing as you bring a single hand to his face and cradle his neck. He flinches unintentionally, but pulls your hand back when you try to move it. He wants this. You relax a little when he does that.

Your hands are softer. Softer than a heartbeat. He can feel the various cuts and scars from years of working against his skin but they’re still so soft. He can feel how warm you in such a brief touch his chest aches. Your hands cradle his face tenderly, thumb brushing across his lip with a smile brighter than thousands of lights. Something in your expression wreaks havoc on his heart. Something so raw and so gentle and so full within it - all directed towards him.

It’s been so long. So long. He’s never wanted something so bad  he couldn’t remember needing. He’s never wanted to be closer to someone than he does to you in the moment.

“You’re handsome,” You say, so sweetly. Not a confession, but gentle appraisal. It’s rare he cries but he wants too. “I like looking at you. Can I kiss you?”

“Please.” He rasps, gravel in his voice unfamiliar.

You hum a little. Closing the space between you with a press of lips. It’s not chaste. Odxny is grateful for how long and how deep you linger. He wants it so badly. He wants you in some damning and unforgiving way. How could a human being feel so warm? Feel so pleasant with so little?

You press your foreheads together. His hand trembles when they grip onto your waist but you encourage him just a little. It’s just a kiss. His heart might beat out of him. It’s just a kiss. He thinks he loves you.

Your hand moves away from his face. You let it go underneath his loose shirt to touch his shoulder, running your palm down the plane of his chest. You squeeze his waist, and wrap your arms around his back and pull him to you until your bodies touch somewhere in the middle.

You guide his face to your neck and chest as you hold him. He grips onto you tight in response, a gasp in the back of his lungs at the sudden sensation. You coo above him, soft and light - your fingers threading through his hair and nails massaging his scalp.

Your voice sounds above him, despite how deep in a haze he is. He can’t do anything but cling to you with impossible longing. You speak softly as you pet him. Your heartbeat soothes his.

“I’m glad you’re here.” You tell him. There’s that familiar clarity that makes him want to cry. “I’m glad you let me come with you.”

He can’t think of anything to say back. It’s a soul-shattering emotion. “I love you.”

You laugh wetly above him. “I love you, too. So much.” And then much softer. “Let’s be together for a long time.”

__

You lay in each others arms until sunset. In small talk and silent murmurs. It takes him hours to work up the courage to kiss you again - but only minutes to take it further.

It’s desperate. Terribly. Inevitable. You’re beautiful in a way that is undescribable, best expressed through his teeth on your neck and his hands all over where he can reach - each grip and thrust and bite a reminder. You’re pretty when you’re pleased, warmth reaching up inside of him whenever you make the right face.

He buries himself in you. You’re soft and warm and beautiful and he wants to stay with you. Time is a thief. He damns the sun when it tears you from him come morning.

__

He decides to make breakfast when you wake up. Nothing complicated. You go to shower after him and he plates up toast and eggs and other various things. It’s half done when you come downstairs.

Your skin is still damp, and you smell of vanilla and soap. Your coffee sits in a cup on the table as you pad over to him. He turns to look at you as you reach your hand up and cup his face. You pepper a kisses along his cheeks stopping at his lips for the last one before you’re satisfied.

He fails in his attempt not to blush.

“Morning.” You grin. He tries not to be sick at the domesticity of it all and fails.

“Yeah. Morning.”

You sit at the counter and drink your coffee, glancing outside the window. “It’s bright outside.”

Odxny can’t tear his eyes off of you. “Yeah...” He agrees. He’s not torn his gaze away. “Very bright.”

✮ a/n ; i want all real life compsci men to kick rocks but odxny sweeped me off my feet in a way i can only describe as humiliating. he is a bit like astarion for me in that i see a lot of myself in him at least in the past. he is also incredibly babygirl and uhm . other things (fine. he's very gorjus.) but i truthfully was most compelled by his idealized idea of isolation. as the fic will show it resonated with me as a fellow compsci dork who also tends to isolate like crazy LOL

this fic was like a demon that possessed me. literally no meds, no caffiene - just balls to the wall demonic possesion of needing something out of my system LMAOO. and adhd of course. im working on all the other stuff too i promise. consider this a short interlude 👍🏾

[spacemooshroom]

Dare to Hope

• odxny/reader

• 1.8k words

• Summary: Stepping into the light after living in the darkness for so long is not easy.

But he finds it may be worth it if you're there for him.

Your voice rang in his ears even hours after hanging up.

He sat on his chair, staring at his monitor, hesitant on what to do next.

He replayed your last call in his mind, stuck like a broken record.

A million thoughts ran in his mind. And there you stood, amid them all, in the eye of the hurricane.

You.

How could someone he had met such a short time ago change everything so fast?

His hope had been long gone. He was certain the pit of darkness he had fallen into would be his reality for the rest of his life.

But then. A weirdo with a strange passion for esoteric languages came into his life.

Did you even come into his life? Was your effect on him grand enough to declare you had, in fact, impacted his life?

He groaned, burying his face in his hands.

Were you a divine beacon? A sign that he shouldn't go along with what he had been planning for so long?

A sign that he could still dare to hope?

He groaned even more.

He knew it when he met you, and he told you as much. That your time spent together would be short.

When you met, it was settled that in just a short while, you would become strangers again.

And yet.

You were so hell-bent on that not happening.

Just why?

Why did you care so much about someone you had just met?

Someone you knew nothing about? For fuck's sake, you didn't even know what his face looked like.

And yet you liked him.

Warmth bloomed in his chest, settling in his stomach as rocks at the realization.

You liked him.

He couldn't wrap his head around the fact, but he so desperately wanted to cling onto it.

Were you really the sign he didn't know he had been waiting for? A sign he never dared to hope would come?

He deemed himself helpless. The fate he had decided for himself was the only fate he seemed fit for him.

The fleeting image of a new fate with you made him lurch back on his chair and begin pacing around the room.

You haunted him, and he found he liked the feeling.

He dreaded liking the feeling.

Even if- okay, even if the attraction was mutual, how could you two even make this work?

What if when you saw his face you found him ugly?

What if you held him in your arms and were immediately repulsed by him?

What if he was too much for you? What if he wasn't what you wanted?

What if the spell broke? What if you hated the real him?

Was there even a real him?

...........

He sat on the floor, knees against his chest.

The scene was straight out of a teenage rom-com, he realized.

He groaned yet again.

What if you looked inside and did like what you found?

What then?

What if you decided to stay?

What if he dared to hope?

You had landed on his life by pure chance, and now he found he wanted to take the reins of his destiny.

He stood up from the floor and sat back down on his chair, intent on turning his life around.

And he was, to say the least, afraid. But he wanted this. Wanted to believe in this feeling.

He sighed, logging into the program, a plan already formed in his mind.

The final hack. The end of something.

And the start of something new.

Was it corny? Maybe. Possibly. Definitely.

It didn't matter to him. He realized he preferred corny to meaningless.

His hands trembled as he typed his phone number in.

His mind was plagued by thoughts of you.

You, and your stupid laugh he liked so much.

You, and your innate way to make him smile and laugh.

You, and your words to him, which he still couldn't believe were making him do a 180 on everything he had been planning for so long.

He spared a glance at his mask. It sat on his desk, seemingly staring at him.

You, and the possibility of a future with you in it.

It took you less time than what he'd anticipated to call him.

He felt light. Chill in his balcony, but warm in his heart.

He realized you were just as hopeful as he was.

He couldn't stop smiling.

He walked across the airport, his nerves alight.

He was fighting the urge to turn on his heel and sprint away, yet he had gotten so far already, now hadn't he?

Besides, he found this feeling sort of addictive. And he realized it was worth it to feel like he was about to throw up in the middle of the airport when he spotted you amongst the crowd, scanning the area to find him.

And when your eyes met his and he saw your lips stretch in an impossibly wide smile, all thoughts of running away dissipated.

And goddamn, he already loved hearing you laugh through a screen, but hearing you laugh while sitting on your couch with you and eating take-out was so much better than he could've ever imagined.

"So, like, where did you get the mask?"

"That," he began, grabbing a fry from the coffee table and popping it into his mouth, "is a secret."

You scoffed, shoving a handful of fries into your mouth.

"Oh, come on! Did you get it custom made?" Your voice was muffled by the fries in your mouth, and he had to concentrate to make out what you were saying.

"Not telling."

"And what about the emojis? Did you draw those or did you commission them?"

"Not telling."

You groaned, plopping back onto the arm of the couch, staring daggers at him while he simply smiled.

"Come on! Why the secrecy?"

"Why the rush to find all that out?"

"What, so will you tell me as time passes?"

"Perhaps."

You groaned yet again, changing into a kneeling position on the couch, your face closer to his.

His smile in real life was no match to the smile almost covered by the mask he sported in videocalls.

And his eyes... You were glad the mask was no longer concealing the glimmer in them.

"Did you throw the mask out?"

He shook his head, popping another fry into his mouth.

"No, it's way too cool to throw it out."

"Oh, good. It does give you all of your charisma points."

He laughed and you laughed with him, and you looked into each others eyes and everything felt so simple now when just a short time ago it had all felt so complicated.

He was no longer a vision on your monitor, and he would never be "a fond acquaintance you would never see again" like he had put it.

When your laughter died down, you gingerly brought a hand towards the side of his head. You heard him suck in a breath, his chest stilling.

You asked for permission with your eyes, and he softly nodded, allowing you to touch him.

You tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and let your hand linger on his jaw, your touch making goosebumps rise on his skin.

"I really like the mask, but..." You ever so softly stroked his jaw with the back of your fingers, and he felt he could just melt right there and then. "I prefer to look at the person behind the mask."

He gulped. Intimacy. He could do this.

"I..."

He took a deep breath, an attempt to slow down the beat of his rampant heart.

The desire to run away suddenly returned.

It was easier to let something go that cling tightly to it, but he found he wanted to cling to you as hard as he could.

He didn't want- he couldn't let you go.

He dared to hope you would feel the same.

"I'm scared."

His voice sounded small to his ears.

You tilted your head in question, urging him to continue.

He sighed, sinking deeper into your touch.

"I'm scared this won't last," Once he managed to get that out, his next words came out rushed, eager to get out of his chest. "I'm scared you'll one day wake up and realize you don't want me around, or worse, that we'll grow distant with time and- I just- I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose you as well."

Word vomit out, rocks settled in his stomach once again.

You continued to stare into his eyes, and for a few seconds, the fear you would mock him gnawed at him, but then, you cradled his face in your hands and caressed his cheeks with your thumbs, and he felt the drumming in his chest slow down ever so slightly.

You said his name oh so softly, and he fought against the tears that welled up in his eyes.

"For what it's worth, I don't ever want to lose you," you paused and took in his softening expression, easing from a nerve-tightened one. "I don't ever want this to end, either, and I'll be clinging to it, to you as hard as I can."

That. He needed to hear that so badly.

Neither of you could predict the future. Neither of you could set a due date for your relationship. This wasn't a server made specifically to extort people that would be shut down once everyone involved had achieved their goals.

This was more than that. More real, more volatile by nature.

You both wanted this to last, and you were both going to do everything in your power to make sure it lasted for a long, long time.

Both of you dared to hope.

And he found that was enough for him for now.

He fully melted into your touch, his chest brimming with emotion and affection.

"You're not alone anymore." you said in an almost whisper.

He cradled one of your hands with his and pressed it deeper into his skin.

"Thank you for coming into my life."

You smiled softly at his words, and he fought back the urge to press his smile against your own right then.

"Thank you for letting me stay."

Warmth bloomed in his chest and threatened to spill through the tears welled up in his eyes.

He didn't want to hold the urge back anymore.

And apparently neither did you.

You met in the middle. You hummed and he let air out from his nose, tilting your heads to press deeper into the other.

His other hand pressed against your own. He then slid his hands down your forearms, and you shivered and he felt like dying. In a good way.

You pulled his face even closer to yours, and his hands caressed your arms in slow motions, tentative yet full of affection.

He almost didn't believe the moment was real, along with everything that had led up to it.

You had changed everything, and had given him the courage to hope.

This was only the first step in his new journey.

And he was certain you would be there for him every step of the way.

• a/n: The main thing i wanted to portray here is odxny's shift of mentality and how he reacted to it. How adverse he was to any chance of betterment coming his way and then the fear of it not being real or not lasting once it eventually arrived. I really didn't want to fall into the whole "he's found love and now he's happy" thing, I wanted to portray the exact opposite; how he now has something (someone) that brings him so much happiness and is his first step into his life having meaning again and how he's so afraid of losing it.

I really hope he wasn't out of character here I luv him with my entire heart and wanted to portray him being in distress but in a believable way.

This may be too long of an author's note but idc i love to yap.

[daily-kobold-facts]

KOBOLD is an esoteric programming language comprised of only 'yip' and whitespace, which executes code based on how many times yip can be read in the row and column of every point in the document.

[aeolids-zenith]

computation in DEFLATE

hey, did you know that the compression format DEFLATE can be used to simulate a cellular automaton, or do multiplication, or, theoretically, anything else you want?

a couple years ago, I had an idea for an esolang: a PNG-style image format that would "happen" to involve enough self-reference to be turing-complete. eventually, struggling to come up with a reason for the program to be split between pixel data and compression, I simplified my goal to just a turing-complete compression format, modeled after DEFLATE, the compression used in PNG (as well as in other common formats)

in thinking about this, though, it occurred to me to wonder: what could be done with DEFLATE itself? the main obvious limitation would be that an individual DEFLATE stream gets decoded in one pass, element-by-element, and then is done; it always halts, and there's limited potential for self-reference

so, in order to make computation more viable, I decided to consider an iterative process of decompression, where one DEFLATE stream is decompressed to produce another, which is decompressed again, etc; this process requires some extra behavior outside the compression format itself, but it's a minimal amount (just a basic loop)

in order for this to work, I needed a DEFLATE stream that would endlessly decompress to DEFLATE streams, so my first step was to create a DEFLATE quine -- a stream that specifically decompresses to itself. (the way I accomplished this was more complicated than necessary -- involving carefully-selected code definitions to create specific bit patterns in an otherwise-empty compressed block -- but it worked)

once I had a quine, I just needed to attach some data to it that was allowed to change. to do this, I created Kwert, a language that compiles to DEFLATE and corresponds closely to how the format works -- it has a self-modifying program consisting of "commands" that can copy sequences of previous commands (corresponding to compressed DEFLATE blocks, which work in part by copying previously-output sections of data), and then skip evaluation of some number of following commands (corresponding to uncompressed DEFLATE blocks, which output some amount of following data as-is)

I was able to create a couple interesting things with Kwert (such as a fibonacci program of sorts), but for a while I struggled to come up with a way to do anything more complex; I had a sense that it might be possible to implement a tag system of some kind -- a computational model that can simulate a turing machine using a queue of symbols, something that's well-suited for a language like Kwert that involves start-to-end modification of the program -- but I couldn't think of a way to use commands as data without them being evaluated and producing an unwanted effect

then, a couple weeks ago, I followed up on an idea I had written down previously: that commands could potentially be transferred as data without side-effects by having it so when they're being used as data, they're positioned such that all they do is copy a no-op command

using this strategy, I was able to design a system in which sections of a Kwert program simulate a string of symbols, which change over time based on preceding symbols. I created a new language, Kmid, based on this concept

Kmid, although more like a cellular automaton than a conventional programming language, is definitely easier to do things with than Kwert, and I was finally able to implement Bitwise Cyclic Tag (a simplified but equally powerful version of tag systems) and confirm that it does successfully compile to DEFLATE, which means, to the best of my knowledge, that iterated inflation is indeed turing-complete!

but DEFLATE's computational ability isn't entirely limited to that theoretical result; there are some at least somewhat interesting things that you can actually see it do (as opposed to everything being theoretically possible but not viable to execute in practice) -- you can see some programs I've written, such as the aforementioned multiplication and rule 110 cellular automaton, on github, some accompanied by instructions and/or links to the CyberChef tool to more conveniently run the DEFLATE versions

[systemrestart]

From Alison Bechdel's "Dykes to Watch Out For". Strip name "Au Courant", from 1994

I'd never seen this strip get posted, so I want others to see it. Mo, the character expressing 'concern' over the inclusion of trans women (as well as bisexuals) in lesbian culture, is often portrayed as being overly self-righteous, jumping to conclusions about others, and not critically examining her own biases and worldview. She was also the character in the comic commissioned for Transgender Warriors, where she learns she was wrong for being anxious about sharing a bathroom with a trans woman.

Mo is often either the butt of the joke, or receives a stark lesson in these interactions (whether by confrontation or just becoming socially isolated, because she's difficult to be around). And I found this framing important, especially as I've heard discussion of TERFs trying to claim Bechdel as one of them.

This comic was not made to validate Mo's opinions or feelings. The characters in Bechdel's comics are often messy, short-sighted, even bigoted. They're human. This comic does not valorize or 'condone' these flaws, merely shows them for what they are, as well as the consequences that come with them, and the effects they can have on your communities.

[Update Note: Recently learned some new things about Bechdel's feelings/choices regarding trans issues (particularly transmisogyny), link here if you're interested in reading. It seems that beyond DTWOF, Bechdel 'supports' trans people in an esoteric sort of way, but is seemingly unwilling to unpack deeper transphobic feelings/views, or her ties with TERF-aligned people. Deeply disappointing.

I don't think that impacts DTWOF itself much (except the framing of the character Janis, may make a post about that someday), as again all of the characters in DTWOF have wildly varying views, and that's The Point, but, it's something I think people ought to know if we're going to have a discussion about Bechdel in connection to TERFs and transmisogyny]

Transcript of the comic below the cut:

[ID: A "Dykes to Watch Out For" comic strip by Alison Bechdel, featuring the characters Mo and Lois. The conversation is as follows:

MO: Oh, jeez. Here's a submission for "Madwimmin Read" from someone named Jillian who identifies as a transsexual lesbian.

LOIS: Cool.

MO: The cover letter says, "I hope you'll consider changing the name of your reading series for local lesbian writers to be inclusive of transgender and bisexual women writers too." Oh, man!

LOIS: Guess it's time to get with the program, huh?

MO: What am I supposed to do? Have bi women and drag queens come in here and read about schtupping their boyfriends?

LOIS: Why not? I'm sure they'd have a unique perspective on the topic.

MO: Lois, I'm still trying to adjust to lesbians using dildos! What am I supposed to make of a man who became a woman who's attracted to women?!

LOIS: Love is a many gendered thing, pal. Get used to it.

MO: Well fine. Let people do what they want. But I'm not gonna add this unwieldy "bisexual and transgender" business to the name of my reading series. I don't even know what transgender means!

LOIS: It's sort of an evolving concept. I mean, we haven't had any language for people you can't neatly peg as either boy or girl.

LOIS: Like cross-dressers, transsexuals, people who live as the opposite sex but don't have surgery, drag queens and kings, and all kinds of other transgressive folks. "Transgender" is a way to unite everyone into a group, even though all these people might not self-identify as transgender.

LOIS: In fact, the point is that we're all just ourselves, and not categories. Instead of two rigid genders, there's an infinite sexual continuum! Cool, huh?

MO: How do you know all this stuff?

END ID]

[robobarbie]

literally in love with seekl and odxny and the depressing but hopeful tone of it all

but most importantly. thank you for introducing me into esoteric programming languages. I have been trawling the wiki for two hours. this is my new summer project. GOD SPEED

theyre so fucking funny fr!!! glad u are having fun

[chrysanthemumgames]

I have a perhaps personal ask, and at the same time struggling with how to phrase it. I've been looking into making an interactive story myself, however, I... cannot code. For the life of me. I can tell one hell of a story, but coding it beyond my grasp, and the system I currently use, while it ought to be simple enough even someone like me could do so, isn't exactly working for how I want it to. Do you perhaps know anything anywhere that I might start looking for someone who would be willing to work with me? I am so sorry if this is a bothersome ask.

Hi anon!

I'm probably not the best person for advice on this, because I've never been in that situation before. I've put some thoughts under the cut, with the caveat that only a small portion of them actually address the question you've asked, with the majority being related but perhaps not helpful for you, depending.

So, I think where you'd go to find a coding person depends on what language you're using. If it's ChoiceScript, probably the forums. If it's Twine... I honestly don't know. Maybe the subreddit, though you'll want to double-check that such requests are not against the rules there.

I sincerely doubt you'll have an easy time finding someone, though. Most folks who code in the systems used for IF are IF authors who taught themselves the coding techniques in order to tell their own stories, not someone else's.

That said, and this is the part you can ignore, because you know yourself better than I do, but... I'm pretty sure you can learn to code. It's not easy, necessarily, and it doesn't come intuitively to everyone, but there are resources out there to help you. Again, this will depend on what system you're using, but the CS forums are very useful for figuring out CS (as is the wiki, once you know enough to parse it). For Twine, there are loads of archived posts on their forums and on the subreddit for specific questions, but for general ones, the documentation for your preferred program (e.g. SugarCube), the Twine Cookbook, and similar resources will break things down into smaller, more digestible chunks. I personally recommend the Twine Grimoire (volumes 1 and 2), for basic interface aesthetics, once you get to that point.

Here on tumblr, @/nyhelism, @/cerberus-writes, @/manonamora-if, @/idrellegames, and others have all answered questions about Twine coding or even in some cases made templates that take a lot of the work out of it. Most have a masterpost regarding things they've answered about Twine or made for others' use, but be sure to check that they're currently accepting coding questions before sending them any, of course.

Learning to code may be slow and incremental, and lots of people manage better if they start with a small project just to learn how to do the basic things in their language of choice. I'd really recommend figuring out what you need your game to be able to do, and learning those functions one by one—it's less overwhelming than trying to tackle everything at once while also writing a huge project.

If all else fails, my most esoteric suggestion is to familiarize yourself with the basic principles of symbolic logic. I took a class in it as part of my degree, and have since also taught that class, and I think understanding things like the logic of conditionals (if statements) as they're used in coding (rather than natural language) really gave me a leg up in learning to code. Not that I'm an expert, but I know enough to make a basic game, at least.

Most (all?) of these things should be findable with a google search; I know there are at least some Twine tutorials on youtube as well, though I'm unsure of CS or any of the languages I'm less familiar with, like Ink, etc.

I do apologize that the section where I encourage you to do the thing you don't think you can do is longer than the one where I answered your actual question, but that's the part I might actually have something useful to say about. If you're absolutely certain you can't do it, I'm sorry for banging on about it, but if you're not sure or on the fence, maybe give it another go before trying to find another person. I've seen a lot of writers looking for coders in the past, but maybe only once was a coder offering their services to writers (and that was a long time ago).

[radiantbastard]

Don't know about articles, but there is a programming language called Chef that's written like cooking recipes.

Here's an example of a "Hello World" program written in Chef.

Hello World Cake with Chocolate sauce.

This prints hello world, while being tastier than Hello World Souffle. The main chef makes a " world!" cake, which he puts in the baking dish. When he gets the sous chef to make the "Hello" chocolate sauce, it gets put into the baking dish and then the whole thing is printed when he refrigerates the sauce. When actually cooking, I'm interpreting the chocolate sauce baking dish to be separate from the cake one and Liquify to mean either melt or blend depending on context.

Ingredients.

33 g chocolate chips

100 g butter

54 ml double cream

2 pinches baking powder

114 g sugar

111 ml beaten eggs

119 g flour

32 g cocoa powder

0 g cake mixture

Cooking time: 25 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Method.

Put chocolate chips into the mixing bowl.

Put butter into the mixing bowl.

Put sugar into the mixing bowl.

Put beaten eggs into the mixing bowl.

Put flour into the mixing bowl.

Put baking powder into the mixing bowl.

Put cocoa powder into the mixing bowl.

Stir the mixing bowl for 1 minute.

Combine double cream into the mixing bowl.

Stir the mixing bowl for 4 minutes.

Liquefy the contents of the mixing bowl.

Pour contents of the mixing bowl into the baking dish.

bake the cake mixture.

Wait until baked.

Serve with chocolate sauce.

chocolate sauce.

Ingredients.

111 g sugar

108 ml hot water

108 ml heated double cream

101 g dark chocolate

72 g milk chocolate

Method.

Clean the mixing bowl.

Put sugar into the mixing bowl.

Put hot water into the mixing bowl.

Put heated double cream into the mixing bowl.

dissolve the sugar.

agitate the sugar until dissolved.

Liquefy the dark chocolate.

Put dark chocolate into the mixing bowl.

Liquefy the milk chocolate.

Put milk chocolate into the mixing bowl.

Liquefy contents of the mixing bowl.

Pour contents of the mixing bowl into the baking dish.

Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Don't ask me what the hell the compiler makes sense of all this.

Tech how-to article written like a recipe. Is that anything? Fuck it.

Old-Fashioned Setting Up a Password Manager

For this project you will need:

One computer

One full-featured browser

One pre-made email account, not shared and logged-in

2-5 possible passwords

5-10 accounts to get started with storing passwords.

Before you begin pre-load your computer, logging in to your email account. You can save later prep time by having your primary social media accounts, banking information, email account, and online bills ready to hand.

Go to bitwarden.com and select "create account"; be sure to select "free account" - you can jazz it up later but we're learning the basics now.

Create the account using your primary email address as the login name and one long (but not complicated!) password that you are certain you can remember but is not widely shared online. This is a great way to use information about your favorite movies or songs, not a great place for your kid's or pet's names.

Set up your password hint with a good reminder; be sure to note any punctuation you added, for instance a comma to separate lines of a song or an exclamation point between words of a movie title.

Verify your email account with the password manager, then set up a new password for your email. You may need a phone or access to your extant 2FA tools for this step. Create a login in the password manager, add your email address, and generate a new password, then save the entry. Go to your email account, select "security" and "change password" - enter your old password to confirm then paste your new password manager generated password into the provided text boxes, and save. Log out of your email account, then log back in with your new password. You will need to do this on all of your devices, so make sure you're using a password manager that is accessible across platforms - Bitwarden is recommended for a reason, this is a place where you don't want to skimp when making substitutions!

Repeat the process of resetting passwords to taste; you don't need to do everything all at once, but it's best to start with a serving of 5-8 to get used to the process.

Time: 30min to 2hr DOE Expense: Literally Free Value: Priceless i never have to remember a fucking password again and now neither do you.

[a-regular-amount-of-spiders]

Headcannon:

So this is specifically based on shows/games/comics where Dick is shown to be technically unsavvy, which is not compatible with the frequent depictions of him being a tech wiz

As such, I propose this:

Dick is really really good with obscure technology and coding languages, almost exclusively.

The reason could be that he wanted to round out Batman (who knows all the more prevelamt stuff), or that he originates from the 80s, but personally I find this absolutely hilarious.

Like,

Tim: There’s nothing we can do, I’ve never even seen this kind of code before?

Dick: oh that’s Prolog, just gimme a second *shuts down the program with ease”

Tim: its fucking *what*

Babs: you know that and not python?

Dick: learning coding languages is time consuming :(

Other languages he could be good at include: Fortran, forth, MUMPS/Cache, Rebol, Perl, Brainfuck (or any esoteric coding language), Malbolge, APL etc etc.

Especially niche use case languages like MUMPS or purposefully difficult to use like Malbolge or Brainfuck have the potential for divine comedy

Additionally he should be good with older technology

Not just like, stuff used more in the 80s but shit like, can use a manual mass spectrometer. Stuff that’s been automated for awhile that no one can do manually cause it’s super hands on and complicated

[preservationofnormalcy]

Hey! One of my favorite hobbies is trying to find niche retro games when I go to garage sales and estate auctions, and a couple days ago I found a relatively normal if not bland SNES cartridge with a homemade label at a sale. It was a pretty simple horror puzzle game, but now I find I'm... in it when I dream? Is there any way to fix this? I thought it was just my brain doing it but now I can barely nap without it happening, I haven't slept in a couple days. It's mainly really long and disorienting empty mazes with a shadowy figure slowly chasing you, if that helps.

We can get the Oneirology Office on it, but first off you're going to want to put the cartridge in a homemade faraday cage, if possible.

Extranormal games like this are pretty rare. A lot of times they happen when someone dabbles in esoteric programming languages like Wand+ without the proper code sanitation or optimization, tiny errors compact on each other, it gets worse and worse until instead of just crashing the program or corrupting the data, sometimes it'll "stabilize" into something like what you're seeing.

In these cases a faraday cage does help most of the time.