And in imperative languages one can get away with no recursion. For example setTimeout(f, 0) in js or go routine in go. Of course one needs an accumulator in that case.

Ah! That’s actually recursion again.

explain to me, exactly, how it knows what line to go to, and how to get there.

"go back to 0x00, then jump GOTO return register bits ahead"

you still have a variable, the goto return register.

it is your nested depth, the nesting limit til that register overflows.

please explain to me cuz im confused fr

Memoization is the word here. Can be done in different ways—- of which storing the stack frame is one.