#i am not complaining at all btw

[asmo-cosmetics]

we're fully just codependent w him now huh

[fancygremlin]

Me: I love Red Valley!!! <3 I am enjoying listening to this podcast so much!!! <3

My average Red Valley listening experience:

[iloveu-imsrry]

justin baldoni and sc**ter br**n they could never make me like you

[dopameems]

I seriously need to be pinned down by a bunch of my guy friends and t*ckled whilst they all playfully tease me and make fun of me.

[beanghostprincess]

So I'm getting a very intense "the sun will sing a song for me I loved you like the sun" and "my baby here on earth showed me what my heart was worth" vibes from these two. But what do I know? I've only read 4 chapters of this thing

[torchickentacos]

I hate it when my chronic illnesses are chronic and my disabilities are disabling and my seasonal affective disorder is seasonally affecting me

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

I keep thinking about how young jecki was compared to both ahsoka when she left the order, and anakin in aotc and it keeps making want to sob

[throwaway-yandere]

Maybe I'll change my tumblr aesthetic to ayato to appease him. Maybe he's mad that I was eager to replace him as a DPS when Wriothesley came out that's why I got C4 Qiqi. Maybe Dainsleif isn't my husband all along. Maybe Ayato really is my true lord. I'll be back. I'm going back to Inazuma. I'm going to go back to being a retainer. I shall appease my master.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

whenever someone reads a prequel or a retelling and complains about knowing how it will end since the beginning I'm like. bro. dude. bitch. however you prefer to be referred to.

✨THATS THE FUCKING POINT✨

It's about the tragedy of reading all the ways the characters are unknowingly building towards the very same fate they are so desperately trying to avoid.

ITS ABOUT THE BITTERSWEET JOY OF KNOWING THEIR STORY IS STILL WORTH TELLING.

REGARDLESS OF HOW IT ENDS.

if your story is only good when reading through it the first time? if the reading experience is spoiled by knowing what happens?? (pun fully intended) it's not that well crafted a story imo.

Sometimes it's not about what is going to happen. Sometimes it's about reinterpreting the characters. Sometimes it's about exploring themes through a story we already know.

Sometimes the storytelling is enhanced by knowing how it is going to end.

[sharkdays]

yall aint gonna believe this. LOOK WHAT I JUST BOUGHT

[bredforloyalty]

i can'tttt write this anymore i need to write about chopping someone up and eating their organs and turning their skin into a lamp or something

[lesbin]

.

[deliriousblue]

the trainee episode seven part four world's biggest yeahhhhhh boiiiii!!! love when gay people make bad choices and love when gay people yell at each other. huge win for ME.

still genuinely do not know where they're going with the tae/judy/bah-mee storyline — which honestly i'm happy about — but i really appreciate how all of their choices make perfect sense on a character level and also are baaaad decisions.

bah-mee? baby's first gay crush plus feeling neglected in her current relationship. perfect storm. judy? really bad look for power dynamics reasons alone but also having a real connection with someone for maybe the first time given how focused she is on her work. tae? obviously most blameless in the current situation but also holding the largest idiot ball (again understandably!) for throwing himself into trying to finish work and totally missing the signs that bah-mee felt ignored and assumed he'd forgotten her.

and meanwhile love immediately contrasting that scene with janeryan and jane still referring to himself as phi while yelling at ryan and throwing "just don't even come in anymore if you don't want to" in his face and the two of them physically holding themselves back.......judybahmee is all tripping into something almost by accident and getting in way too deep before you've even realized you've begun while jane and especially ryan are much more aware of and direct about their relationship and the dynamic between them. compels me!

[squuote]

man not to be that guy but like. if I gotta see or hear someone say the fandom is bad one more time I might just kill someone. and then kill someone again. just make an analysis post or idk do something fun and fucking shut uuup ohmy god

[beanghostprincess]

Situation: Sanji disobeyed an order from his captain bc he heard a woman’s cry for help and rushed into a trap. Everyone has to go save him bc he’d been knocked out until all is over and they are back on the sunny.

Sanji wakes up and feels miserable for the mistake he did. He’s avoiding everyone and hiding in the kitchen ( the others don’t know yet he’s awake ).

The one to find him there first is Zoro.

And Sanji thinks he’ll get some sort of punishment. Zoro is the one on the ship upholding hierarchy, after all, like he did with Usopp in W7 but Zoro just sits down and waits.

Sanji: So, what will be my punishment?

Zoro:

Sanji: I disobeyed my captain, I know that.

Zoro:

Sanji: But I can’t hold back when I hear a woman in need.

Zoro: We know.

Sanji:

Zoro: Unlike you, I listen to my captain. He said you already feel bad enough about the situation.

Sanji: I do.

Zoro: No punishment, because you already beat up yourself enough about this already.

Sanji: And you can hold yourself back on that, Mosshead?

But Zoro doesn’t respond with an insult. His punishment for Sanji is to not bicker with him. He’s not worth bickering with right now.

And that hits Sanji hard on top of everything else.

This actually fucks me up so bad every time. Because Sanji's need to protect women and refuse to hurt them isn't something he can control. If it was a selfish act because he looks for approval in them or conscious behavior, I'd be complaining too, but he can't help it. It hurts me so bad. And I think it hurts him even more because he genuinely can't do anything about it. He's aware that some girls are evil and some of his decisions regarding women will affect him negatively, but somehow ignoring them ends up haunting him even more than the consequences of his actions after falling into one of their traps. It's so fucked up. We know it's because he follows Zeff's words because that's how his father raised him, but if you add a layer of "his mom and sister were the only ones to help him at a very early age and men have always been the core problem in his life and toxic masculinity torments him while the presence of a woman is extremely comforting" then it hurts even more.

The fact that Zoro doesn't fight him as a punishment is great, and that makes things worse because Sanji could use fighting as self-sabotage too and to punish himself and Zoro isn't letting him do that either. So he can't do anything, quite literally, and he is just left alone to think about what happened. And I!!!!!!! Can't do this!!!!!!! Somebody hug him!!!!!!!! Robin should be the one comforting him. Because I know he acts recklessly when a woman is around and, even if it's not technically his fault and he can't help it, it affects the crew too. But c'mon. A little bit of empathy for the boy at least. I think Robin would be perfect for comforting him (she's mother she be mothering).

[capitalismwasamistake]

can tou give us fun facfs about sudoku plz i am interested

Anon, I am kissing you on the mouth

Here are five random sudoku fun facts!

(With detailed explanations for absolute beginners under the cut)

1.One of the most famous sudoku variants is called Killer Sudoku

2.Some sudokus have chess moves in them

3.The secret – the sum of the digits one to nine is 45

4.The sixteen digits in the 4x4 corners of a 9x9 sudoku are the same sixteen digits as the ring around the central box

5.One of the simple sudoku techniques is called the X-Wing (Sudoku Star Wars crossover? Not Clickbait??? 😱)

Explanations

First, a bit of notation. In sudoku, the grid is divided into rows, columns, boxes, and cells. Rows are named from top to bottom, and columns from left to right. Boxes are the 3x3 squares – they’re numbered left to right and top to bottom. The small individual squares are called cells. Cells are numbered by their row and column – roll one column three, roll four column seven, etc. You write R2C6 for short. Below you see a standard sudoku 9x9 grid with the rolls, columns and boxes labelled. The red cell is R1C3, the blue cell is R4C7, and the black cell is R2C6.

(Some people use lowercase letters in labelling cells, it’s a matter of personal preference.)

There are small digits in three cells in box 8. The centre digits in R7C6 indicate that this cell can only contain the digits one or two, but we don’t yet know which one – this gives us information about the individual cell only. The corner digits in R9C4 and R9C6 indicate that the digit three can only be in those two cells within the box – this gives us information about the box only, as each of those two individual cells may have other possible digits.

(This is a somewhat “standard” but by no means universal usage of centre and corner small digits)

With the jargon out of the way, let’s get into the neat sudoku details!

1.Killer sudoku

Funny name, right? Sounds dangerous!

Killer sudoku follows normal sudoku rules (the digits one to nine must be placed once each in every roll, column, and box of the grid), but adds “killer cages” – groups of cells outlined in a striped line. At the corner of the killer cage you can see a number, which represents the sum of the cells within the cage. Digits cannot repeat in a killer cage.

This doesn’t seem like a lot, but it actually gives you plenty of information – like in the example below, where you see R5C5 and R5C6 in a cage whose total is 17 – there is only one way to make two cells add up to 17 in sudoku, and that is 8+9=17. Therefore you now know that those two cells contain the digits eight and nine in some order.

With killer cages it’s easy to make a grid that doesn’t have a single given digit yet still has a unique solution!

2.Chess constraints

Another popular subsection of sudoku variants is the so-called chess move constraints. The most popular is the knight’s move constraint – a sudoku having a knight’s move constraint means that, if you imagine the grid as a chess board, no digit can be placed within a knight’s move from itself. In the below example, the digit in the red cell (R5C5) cannot be placed in any of the blue cells under a knight’s move constraint.

The other two chess move constraints are the king’s move – a digit may not be placed in any of the surrounding eight cells; and the queen’s move constraint.

Bonus mini fun fact! Queen’s move constraints are used sparingly in sudoku, and for good reason – when you see them, they’re usually applied only to a single cell in the grid. That is because you cannot build a sudoku grid where every cell and digit is subjected to the constraint – try it yourself! Open Sudoku Setter and you’ll see that you can’t even make a single digit satisfy this constraint. Knight and king’s move’s constraints are much more forgiving, and you could build a sudoku that satisfies them relatively easily.

3.The Secret

That one’s easy: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9=45

But why do you need to know it? Well, the Secret can help you in a lot of sum-based sudoku variants, such as killer, sandwich, or skyscraper. It can also help with geometry-based sudokus that use sudoku set theory, but that’s a topic for another day.

In the bellow example, which uses killer cages, you can see that one of the cages in box 4 extends by one cell into box 1. You know the total of the box (45), and you know the total of all four cages – 50. You know, therefore, that the single extra cell in box 1 must account for the difference between the box total and the cages total. So now you know that R3C3 is exactly 5!

Bonus mini fun fact! We call it “the secret” after two prominent figures in the sudoku community – the hosts of the YouTube channel Cracking the Cryptic, Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe. The two of them started calling it that a while back and it caught on. I greatly recommend their channel if you want to learn more about sudoku – they post two sudoku solving videos every single day and allow you to use their very comfortable solving software Sudoku Pad to try to solve the puzzles along with them! They got me into variant sudoku in the first place and I cannot sing them enough praises!

4.The Phistomefel ring

Another geometry-based sudoku technique, the Phistomefel ring is named after the sudoku setter Phistomefel, who first used it. It says that the four digits in each of the grid corners (highlighted in yellow bellow) correspond to the sixteen digits around the central box (highlighted in blue). This is true for all 9x9 grids that abide by normal classical sudoku rules! Isn’t that neat?

Here's Simon from Cracking the Cryptic giving a simple geometry explanation for why that is!

This technique comes up in sudokus with medium to high difficulty and it’s a bit situational, but can really crack open a puzzle. I included it mostly because it’s a cool property of sudoku grids!

5.The X-Wing

Let’s end it all by highlighting that we’re actually massive nerds. The X-Wing is one of the easiest to learn sudoku techniques. It’s easiest to illustrate with an example, so look at the image below:

The situation is this: the two cells in box 4 are a one-two pair – meaning that those two cells contain the digits one and two in some order. In box 6, the two digits are a one-eight pair – they contain the digits one and eight in some order. You’ll notice that those two pairs share rolls – both are in rows four and five. And both of them contain the digit 1. Classic sudoku rules tell us that the digit 1 must appear once in row 4, and once in row 5. The pairs each have a one, therefore they account for two instances of the digit 1.

So two situations are possible now. Option one: R4C3 is a one – in which case R4C8 can no longer be a one and will be an eight – and therefore R5C8 is also a one. This is the “yellow” state of affairs, as per out highlighting. Option two: R5C3 is a one – in which case R5C8 can no longer be a one and will be an eight – and therefore R4C8 is also a one. This is the “green” state of affairs.” In either state of affairs, the instances of the digit 1 in rolls 4 and 5 are accounted for by the two pairs.

You may notice that the “yellow” and “green” options cross – forming something like an X shape, which some nerd decided reminded them of the X-Wing ship from Star Wars. So we now say that those two pairs form an X-Wing of the digit 1.

Why is an X-wing useful? Look at the central cell, R5C5 – at some point we’ve deduced that it can only either be a one or a four. Now look back at the X-Wing: it only gives us two sets of affairs: “yellow” and “green”. What happens if we have the “yellow” state of affairs? R5C8 is a one, meaning that R5C5 cannot be a one and must be a four. Switch to the “green” state of affairs: R5C3 is a 1, meaning that R5C5 cannot be a 1 and must be a 4. Conclusion: the X-Wing tells us that R5C5 is always a 4! It gives us a digit for free!

This is true for all cells within the X-Wing – once you have it, you can remove 1 as an option from all the cells between R4C4 and R4C7, as well as between R5C4 and R5C7!

Anon, I’m sorry, or maybe you’re welcome.

All example images created with F-Puzzles Sudoku Setter.