#this is long and also uses a lot of modding jargon

[prismatoxic]

rereading the story of that time in skyrim's development where the opening couldn't play bc the cart was being sent into the stratosphere by a single bee and remembering i experienced something marginally similar while modding the game

it's been a few years... but for some ungodly reason, i was going through the cart intro again instead of just loading into unbound (an alternate start mod). i guess i wanted to do the real intro again but didn't have an autosave after the ride ends? don't remember.

so, anyway, i was doing the cart ride, and about halfway into it, the game crashed to desktop. now this isn't terribly unusual for skyrim, and i was willing to move past it if it didn't happen again, but it did. and again, and again, and again...

so obviously i started futzing with my mods. i mean, clearly, that was the issue. i don't remember if i had 200 at the time but if i didn't, i still had a number well above 100. that's a lot to go through, and neither vortex nor LOOT indicated any issues, and SKSE wasn't showing me anything of use either. so what the fuck?

(fwiw, modding skyrim does involve multiple programs, but as the game was made with modding in mind, it's way easier than the majority of games that came out around the same time, let alone earlier.)

i think around this time i tried to load into unbound again, but the game crashed immediately when trying to do so. i had to find this issue if i wanted to play skyrim with my current mod loadout.

so i had a few options:

split my mods into batches and test each one until the crash occurred, then narrow it down until i knew the culprit

learn how to actually understand SKSE a little better and find the problem through it

load the game with NO mods and try to pinpoint what the issue could be to narrow it down immediately

believe it or not, i did all 3.

i started with the first, but iirc i only split my mods in half, and the way vortex works and the way things are divided made it a bit hard to do even that in a non-time consuming way. you can split up your mods but you also have to make sure each half has all relevant dependencies, you see, or the game's going to crash anyway. so i narrowed it down to half of my mods (the other half ran fine), and went from there.

this is where the last option comes in. frustrated, i loaded into the vanilla game, taking note of the setting right about where the crash always happened. i noticed that just when it tended to occur, a rabbit ran across the road. was that it? was that my culprit? i combed through the borked half of my mods, and sure enough, rabbit mod. except it was just a mesh restructuring that a different mod i actually cared about was dependent on. but hey, mods are weird, so i disabled it and ran the game.

nope. still crashed. not the rabbit.

now, i'd been hunting through reddit and the skyrim modding discord and nexus threads the entire time i was going through this ordeal. NO ONE was having the same issue i was. but there are a lot of troubleshooting tips out there for skyrim fuckery, and when several other steps had already failed, i turned to one i'd never tried before: coc riverwood.

"coc" means center on cell, and it's a console command to teleport you instantly to any cell in the game. notably, you can activate it without loading into a save. (i'm sure plenty of other commands can also do this, but i don't mess with the console much).

so riverwood is usually the location people use to check and see if the game is running well otherwise when the intro is bugging out. now, i'd been messing with this CTD issue for hours. i was convinced my game was just irreparably borked, somehow; maybe my computer simply couldn't handle the mod load. but i did try coc riverwood anyway, inputting it at the start menu, which either loads you into a default character or a character from one of your saves, i don't remember which.

and... the game ran fine. VERY fine. better than i was expecting. i wandered around riverwood, interacted with things, and saw no issues at all. so what the fuck? clearly, the crash wasn't a skyrim-wide issue, it was an issue with the cart ride.

and where is the cart ride going? helgen, of course.

so, on a hunch, i backtracked along the path i'd walked a dozen times with other characters, out of riverwood and towards the caves you use to escape helgen. i think i was just barely in view of the start of the reverse of that path when the game crashed.

so, problem (sort of) located: the helgen cell. (which would explain why unbound also didn't work: it loads you in on top of a tower in helgen when you're selecting your file options.)

so here's where that middle option came in. removing mods i knew for sure affected helgen didn't fix the issue, and i didn't even have that many of those, because why would i? helgen is destroyed and there's not a ton of reasons to go back to it outside of morbid curiosity, which i'd done enough times in other saves. that meant whatever file was the problem did not openly or obviously affect helgen, which in turn meant i would need to comb through the half of my mods that crashed the game in SKSE to figure out what was doing it.

this was at least easier than going into SKSE blind; i knew what i needed to look for. so i started looking. by loading all of those mods into the program and then looking specifically for effects or changes to the helgen cell, i could figure out what the issue was.

SKSE is color coded; i don't have it on my current desktop so i can't open it to look right now, but i know for sure that scripts causing no issues at all are green, and scripts causing issues are red. (there are also yellow/orange and grey ones, i think, but i don't remember what those mean.) usually red scripts mean conflicts, which can range from "negligible gameplay impairment" to "crash to desktop when the scripts meet for any reason", because modding is cool and fun.

so i think what i did was keyword search "helgen", and the results i got were largely just confusing for me, because i cannot wrap my mind around how SKSE works. but there was a very clear conflict in there. i just wasn't sure what it meant, or if it was actually my issue.

the script in question was from a mod that i cannot actually recall, but what i DO remember is that it was a mesh/texture optimization mod of some kind. like, the sort you install to make your game run better. it wasn't one of the big ones, i was just overcompensating for my poor old windows 7 desktop that had long since become obsolete for modern gaming, so i had a lot of them.

the specific script i was getting a conflict error on was some texture or mesh in helgen, likely an insignificant one based on what i remember... so i was unsure if it was the issue, but aware that it 100% could be.

and it was.

disabling the associated mod allowed me to enter and exit helgen as normal, with no crashes. i'm reasonably sure i did post about this issue in that mod's comments, or on r/skyrimmods, or... something. can't remember. i was also liveblogging it on twitter but no part of me wants to try and find that again (if it was even on my currently existing twitter and not the old suspended one)

i'm not sure if the mod itself was the issue or if my download of it had gotten corrupted in some way, but i never did try to use it again, so who knows.

skyrim modding is super fun when it works! and when it doesn't work, maybe take breaks while going through the arduous process of troubleshooting your obscure issue

[startedwellthatsentence]

By the way, although the GameScout video has the “True” Killscreen caption, kill screen and game crash are two different things in NES Tetris jargon.

“Killscreen” is the speed at level 29+, the top speed of the game without mods. With the previous piece movement strategies (DAS and Hypertapping), it was nearly impossible to get enough lateral movement to play at these speeds, so players who got to 29 had hit a pseudo-killscreen (an end to gameplay). Getting to level 30 using old movement tech meant getting 10(?) lines at this speed, which is why that achievement was so impressive. With rolling, players can play at this speed for as long as the game will let them. It’s now common to get dozens of levels at this speed in normal play. Tournaments in 2023 implemented a “Super Killscreen” mod that increases the speed again at level 39+, and now the top players (like Blue Scuti and Fractal) are practicing to once again get a few line clears at the new Super Killscreen speeds.

“Game Crash” is playing the game until it gets so overloaded it crashes. Scuti is one of three people (as of January 4, 2024) to have gotten it, and the one who got it the furthest into the game because he missed the first, guaranteed spot to crash. The game has to change a lot of things when you clear ten lines and move onto a new level (change colors, text, etc.). If you force certain score calculations right at the level change, it may not have enough time/space to calculate the score AND make all of the necessary changes. The earliest place to do this is a single line at level 155, which is where Fractal and Andy both crashed the game. Scuti missed this one and had to get it at 157.

“Kill Screen” is a relic of the past, where that speed used to be an instant death. Many players start practicing on that speed now. It’s like the “impossible jump” in Super Mario Odyssey (going from the Odyssey to New Donk City without the wire), which was nearly impossible when the game first came out but is now used as a tutorial for new players to practice a piece of standard movement tech in the game (“vectoring” a jump for more distance). Neither is easy, but they also aren’t impossible or an insta-kill.

Scuti is impressive not because he got to “kill screen”, but because he played at a speed that was impossible five years ago for one hundred and forty-four levels, missed his chance to get a game crash, and then instead of panicking continued to play for twenty more lines until he got the crash.

So apparently the pro-Tetris scene is exploding right now because a 13 year old nerd just reached the game's true killscreen for the first time ever

[toolusingmammalgirl]

Meta-Magic Design, or, "'Restart The Game' Is A Complete Sentence"

@patricia-taxxon's new video essay on Celeste modding has a great bit about mods as fanfiction of a game's mechanics, and it's interesting to use that lens on thirty years of variably-canonical Magic: The Gathering design. (As with her video, this will necessarily have a lot of game jargon but the broad strokes should hopefully be clear.)

Level One: Standard-legal expansions, the most accessible and promoted sets, which generally follow an ongoing storyline and introduce/reuse named mechanics. (Standard is one of the game's most-played competitive formats, made up of the last ~two years of main sets.) They have their set of characters who may show up in new incarnations, turned evil, turned good, etc. but are mostly constrained by who's currently alive and relevant.

In addition to the named mechanics, there are plenty of established design tropes at both the card and set levels: Cancel With Upside. a 2/1 for B that can't block, or ETBs tapped, and has some way to recur itself. Common tapped dual lands with marginal upside. An instant for 1B that kills most creatures in the game but with enough relevant exceptions for interesting counterplay. A cycle of two-color uncommons that clearly signpost draft archetypes. At the set level, R&D has frameworks for the quantity and efficiency of removal, the range of creature sizes, the mix of payoffs and enablers and counterplay for the set's mechanics.

These frameworks can be nudged depending on the feel the set's going for: Innistrad's creatures were a bit squishier to better set up Morbid, multicolor-themed sets will (usually) have better mana-fixing, etc. Sometimes R&D just fucks up, like making a set way too aggressive or way too grindy, but usually these deviations have some cleverness behind them.

Level Two: Supplemental sets, like Modern Horizons and Commander products. They have greater leeway to make weirder, wordier cards, bringing back and remixing old mechanics, and featuring long-dead or obscure characters, all in service of targeting a more enfranchised audience. Standard-legal sets will have their fair share of cards that look alright but truly shine if you're aware of the game's high-level strategy and rules implications, but these sets can have cards that only make sense if you do, or push those rules to the limit. Standard-legal sets have flirted with this zone, like the polarizing meta-jokes of Time Spiral block - hell, Modern Horizons was internally pitched as Time Spiral 2. This is the zone of cards with no mana cost - not zero, but nonexistent - and design puns like combining the Splice mechanic with the established motif of Splicers-who-make-golems. These sets will also bring back both underused and notoriously-broken mechanics and themes, aiming to readjust the power level up or down as needed. These sets have admittedly produced some spectacularly broken cards, but it is pretty neat to see a banned card that literally says "You can't spend mana to cast this spell."

---THE THRESHOLD OF TOURNAMENT LEGALITY---

Level Three: Non-tournament-legal cards printed by Wizards of the Coast. Most of these are in the Un- sets, with a wacky tone poking fun at the game's self-serious lore, and designs ranging from "intuitive to say plainly, but do not work in the game's rules grammar" to "Slaying Mantis enters the battlefield by being thrown from a distance of at least three feet." There are also the more deadpan Playtest Cards, which are closer to the casual way card text is written out before editors hammer it into the game's rules language. They reference past design experiments and ideas from the Great Designer Search competitions alongside things that would make the rules manager stab you if you proposed them seriously. (Though, much as Un- sets have often been a testing ground for Level Two designs, one playtest card has already been reprinted under a new name in a standard-legal set.) These are free to be fully disregard the fourth wall and play in bizarre territory, and all levels of the game are richer for it.

Level Four: Fanmade cards that Wizards employees legally cannot look at or acknowledge, except for very specific circumstances like Great Designer Searches or the You Make The Card events. These are free to seriously imitate any of the above levels, reference media Wizards never could or would, be straight-up jokes rather than game pieces, or just riff on the Custommagic subreddit's abiding love of Colossal Dreadmaw. A few brave souls make whole custom sets meant to be drafted, which demands a rigorous level of design and playtesting but also frees them from the cards having to be playable (or non-broken) in broader formats. Maybe the perfect payoff card the set needs would break Modern in half; that's not their problem. Although this level is almost completely walled off from the conversation among the first three, plenty of Great Designer Search finalists (and winners!) came up in this realm and bring its sensibilities with them.

On one hand there are the game's textual rules, named mechanics, design tropes, and established tone; on the other, the set of brain-melting rules interactions, the mechanics that flopped, play patterns considered brutally unfun, and Noggin Whack. The game would calcify if R&D stayed safely within the first realm, and although they have been rightfully criticized for some of their ventures outside it, there's a lot to learn from the wilderness.

[twstgameplay]

In Defense of Defense Tests

For those of you that are wondering “Why is it that my score seems to vary wildly whenever I try a defense test? What exactly do I need to score high?” I present a not-so-light analysis based on the Water Defense test that ran from 16 Jan 2021 - 31 Jan 2021.

This will get end up bit long winded, so I will keep most of it under the cut. I don’t say for certain if this is 100% correct, as this is only based on one sample size of tests. To summarize what I will detail below, what seems to be the key to getting an SSS from our repeated trials is: 

Last until Turn 5 (ending on first attack is recommended), 

Take ~30k in damage (unless ending on second attack, ~32k),

Have ~60% of health remaining (unless ending on second attack, ~55%).

Minimize taking Neutral/Weak damage as much as possible

Over the course of the two weeks that Water Defense was accessible in game, we attempted the test 125 times (of which 10 were SSS, 98 were SS, and 17 were S) and screen recorded each one. I watched each battle and collected the data points I believed would be a significant factor in determining the Score:

Remaining HP

Total HP(Initial HP + Heals)

Enemy Total HP

Total Damage Dealt

Total Enemy Damage Dealt

Number of [Neutral] Attacks

Number of Enemy [Neutral] Attacks

Second Turn 5 Attack (Y/N)

Most of these factors are obvious, as this is a Defense Test, and as the other mods and I have stated before, it’s imperative to last until Turn 5 with enough health leftover. What I am looking for in this analysis is something more specific.

Let’s look at four examples that I’ve sorted in Remaining HP order:

This was the highest score captured that did a total damage of 82220 against the enemy, and took 25097 points of damage. The Remaining HP was approximately 65% of the Total HP

This attempt had the second highest Remaining HP value, but because it ended on Turn 4, the score dropped as expected. It did 74872 damage against the enemy, and took 24194 points of damage. The Remaining HP was approximately 66% of the Total HP

Out of the three SSS scores here, this was the lowest SSS score, with approximately 62% of the Total HP leftover. This test caused 86117 in damage and took 26820 points of damage.

Finally, this attempt was the only one of these four that ended on the final attack of turn 5. That explains the dip in the Remaining HP, only retaining approximately 58% of the Total HP. It did more damage than the first example above, but less damage than the third example (85612). It also received the highest enemy damage (29802)

These help show the variability of the results.

Why point these out? Doesn’t it make sense that the more you last, the higher your remaining HP, the better your score?

Yes, but lets delve deeper－

In the Basic Tests, in general all you need is:

Overkill on Turn 3 or Turn 4

At least three duos

At least 80% in the battle gauge

I plan to find what the thresholds we need for a score of SSS on Defense Tests. Before I start throwing this into my statistical software, this is what I believed was needed by simply eyeballing the dataset:

Last until Turn 5

At most 30k in damage from enemy

At least 60% of health remaining

First things first, I imported the data into my statistical program and looked at distributions.

Sexy~

The distributions themselves don’t really give me the information I want, however. It just lets me take a look at what kind of distribution I might be working with. The Total Score and the Percent Health Left do tend to barely look like normal distributions, so that is a start.

Next, I created a model based on the factors that I’ve collected, with the Total Score as my response variable, the thing we’re looking for. I won’t go too far into statistical jargon, but using a stepwise model, I was able to remove a few of the factors that weren’t significant. Namely the Enemy Total HP and Number of [Neutral] Attacks. I had already discounted these two before I even ran the model, so I was pleased to see that my software thought the same.

The model of significant factors I ended up with were:

Total Damage Dealt

Total Enemy Damage Dealt

Number of Enemy [Neutral] Attacks

Second Turn 5 Attack (Y/N)

And a calculated column of the % of Health Remaining

I’m a visual person, so I made another chart based on these factors:

(Total Damage Dealt was the least significant of all the other factors, so I opted to look at it with the Total Enemy Damage. Number of Enemy [Neutral] Attacks will also be covered below.)

Just by the pretty colors and shapes alone, you can see that scores that reached 20k or above tended to be on the first attack of Turn 5, take less than 30k damage, and over 60% health remaining.

Hey, I’d say my eyeballing was good!!

Within this batch of attempts, only three of our SSS scores didn’t follow this pattern. Two of them ended on the second attack of Turn 5. The third one is a battle that mimicked the results of many of the other SSS tests before it, but took in about 3k more damage than the rest.

Doesn’t that mess with your prediction?

N-no! Don’t call me out like that! (>3<)/

The two that ended on the second attack still was within the margin of error for my prediction, taking no more than 32k in damage, and having approximately 57% of health left.

One other aspect to keep in mind, although it sounds obvious is minimize taking weak/neutral damage. This was not something I was looking at originally, but I found that there was a difference in score when we took 1 Neutral attack vs 2 or 3 Neutral attacks. (We took no Weak damage)

That third attempt that skewed my prediction finished the battle with approximately 59% of its Health remaining. Oo, so close. But based on the other attempts with similar Health, Damage Taken, etc, it should not have gotten a score of SSS. Yet it did. Why?

Because unlike the other battles that ended in a similar position, that battle only took one neutral attack from the enemy, instead of two or three. Out of the 10 SSS scores, 7 of them completed taking only one neutral attack, while 3 took two.

Based on this quick analysis, both visual inspection and effect screening, I have the hypothesis I presented at the beginning. Statisticians don’t like to deal in absolutes, so this will always be just a theory.

I hope this was at least interesting, I know it was a lot of numbers. I tried to avoid jargon and simplify most things, but there’s just so many interesting points to find when you’re going through so many of these battles!

As with all games, there is a bit of RNG that plays into it that I may have missed. Does it matter that Malleus buffed twice in one battle, but only once in another? Maybe. Do I want to go back through 125 battles to determine that? Absolutely not.

I’d close with saying that although I laid out what is most likely required, this does not mean that it’s not possible to get the SSS score in other ways. Finishing on the 4th turn with more HP remaining is quite possible. But in order to spread out and hone in on a more accurate threshold, there would need to be more occurrences of 4th turn SSS, and we were unable to do that during the Water Defense Test.

Perhaps next time! I look forward to updating my assumptions when I collect data from the All Defense Test~

-🐬

[burtlederp]

BTHB About Page

Guidelines + Rules

(home ask)

What is this? — Getting Started — How It Works — The Rules — FAQ —

What is this?

This is your motivation to write that fic. Always fun to take prompts when they’re in the form of games you remember from elementary school birthday parties.

You may have seen some bingo cards floating around in the fanfic community. People make a card featuring 24 prompts, and other people will submit a request for one of these prompts to be filled, as well as choosing which character(s) will prominently feature, and occasionally other details as well, depending on the cardholder’s preference. The cardholder then writes the fic and marks it off on the card.

Sounds fun, right? Right.

We all know that some of us are here to get DARK. So, why not make a bingo game focusing on Bad Things?

At this page you will find a list of tropes and scenarios. Currently, there are over four hundred listed. Most are whump-focused, some are more angst, and a few are centered around the ‘comfort’ part of hurt/comfort. Some are fairly general, some are very specific. Some are fairly lighthearted, and some take you right into the heart of Sadism Land.

These are the fics we’ll be writing.

Getting Started

Once you’ve finished reading the rules and FAQ, click on the ‘request a card’ link on the home page or here. This will take you to an application. Let us know the tumblr url you want us to send the card to, and if you want, what fandoms you intend to write for.

Next, you pick your tropes. We’ve got a lot of them, and of course, not everyone would be interested in writing for all of them. Some tropes may not work in the setting you want to write for, some may be difficult to get inspiration for, some may be too dark for you or not dark enough. Go ahead and check off the box next to every trope that you ARE okay with having on your card. You must choose at least 25, so every space on the card has a prompt. (There is no free space; freedom is an illusion.)

There will be a couple of additional questions at the end of the application, then, just submit! Make sure you have your submission box open on your tumblr, with the option to submit a photo, so that we can send you your bingo card. If your submission box is not open, you will not receive a card.

How It Works

When you receive your bingo card, you can start writing! You can write at your own pace and in your own time frame. Go ahead and post your bingo card if you’re making the fics available to your followers, and don’t forget to keep track of which spaces you’ve completed! Doesn’t have to be anything fancy; you can use anything from Photoshop to MS Paint to a text post with strikethroughs to track your progress.

For fic bingos, many people like to take prompts from their followers. Someone will send an ask requesting one of the tropes from your card and a character(s) for the fic to focus on. If you’d like, you can also let your followers prompt other details such as which character you want to have hurt and which one should be the comforter, whether it should be romantic or platonic, an AU to set it in, anything at all. Sky’s the limit. However, prompts are not required; you can select which combinations of tropes and characters you want to write and in what order you want to write them on your own.

Once you’ve written a fic, post it! If in your application you gave us permission to reblog your work, we’ll put it right here on this blog to share with other players and readers. Be sure to tag it with #badthingshappenbingo, or @ us in the post, to ensure we see it. Additionally, please tag the trope featured in the fic, and the fandom you wrote it for.

If you cross-post the fic on AO3, we have a badthingshappenbingo collection, which you can find here! Feel free to add your fic to the collection!

Once you’ve completed five squares in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, you will be added to the Hall of Fame! But don’t feel like you have to stop once you’ve gotten a Bingo; the Hall of Fame will also give special prominence to those of you who get a Blackout - that is, completing every space on your card!

Rules

~ You must have your submissions open in order to receive a card.

~ Although you may request a new Bingo card, you can only have one card in play at a time. We urge you to try to complete your current card before getting a new one if you can.

~ Fics can be NSFW, but they MUST be tagged as such, and all NSFW content MUST be placed under a Read More.

~ There is no word minimum. There is no word maximum.

~ You are allowed to cross-post works you wrote for this event on other platforms, such as AO3, FFN, etc., but we’d like you to also either post the fic on tumblr, or post a link to it, so we can find it.

~ Your entry must be completed before you can mark off its space on your bingo card. The exception is if you are writing a multi-chapter fic, but the chapter featuring the prompt must still be completed.

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~ Although the official Bingo game is a writing-only challenge, you can also participate in this event as an artist. Find the details in this post here!

FAQ

Q: How long does this event last?

A: Forever and ever, I guess. There is no time limit for completing your fics.

Q: How long does it take to receive a card after applying for one?

A: Anywhere from several hours to one week. It depends entirely on how busy the mods are, how frequently applications are coming in, and how long the waiting list is. All of these factors fluctuate wildly from day to day.

Q: Which fandoms can we write for?

A: You can write for any fandom you’d like. This even includes original work, which we like to view as one-person fandoms. The only exception is that we do not allow RPF (real person fic) content. Let’s stick to hurting FICTIONAL people.

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A: We aim to reblog all filled prompts. However, due to tumblr being tumblr, occasionally we will miss a filled prompt due to the post not showing up in the tag and/or an @ not making it onto our activity feed. So if you have posted a filled prompt and it has been 48 hours or more without us reblogging, that means we didn’t see it, so you can go ahead and submit or direct message the link to us and we’ll get to it as soon as possible.

Q: Can you add [trope] to the trope list?

A: Probably. As long as it is succinct enough to fit in a space on the bingo card. We would love for the masterlist to be continually expanding. We also want to ensure that all aspects of this event are inclusive to gen writers and to aromantic-asexual characters, due to the fact that they’re so often overlooked or left out of fandom events and activities, so no prompts that inherently require the protagonist/whumpee to be alloromantic and/or allosexual (Unrequited Pining, Cheated On, Left at the Altar, etc.) will ever be included in the masterlist.

Q: Why are some of the tropes on the masterlist hotlinked and some not?

A: Some of the tropes are unusual, complex, or use fandom jargon. Those tropes are hotlinked on the masterlist to take you to a page or post that expands on or explains the trope. Those that are not hotlinked are self-explanatory. However, if you do not understand what one of the non-hotlinked tropes means, send us an ask, and we’ll answer and link the trope to that answer.

Q: Can we make our own cards, or do we have to get them from you?

A: In order to keep track of who’s participating, we ask that you specifically request a card from us. The mods are active, and should be prompt in getting you your card. If you’d like to make your own, feel free - we don’t own these tropes. However, if you make your own, don’t tag the completed fic as #badthingshappenbingo. Only cards made and distributed by us are included in the event proper.

Q: Do we have to post the fics we write for this event?

A: It’s not required. You can request a card for personal/private use if you’d like.

Q: Are there any prizes?

A: Bragging rights, a spot in the Hall of Fame, a sense of accomplishment, and a boost to your grand total fanfic word count. That’s all the reward you need, right?

[badthingshappenbingo]

are there, like, rules? If I request a card do I have a time limit to write the prompts?? Do I chose the one I want to write or what?? How does it work? I'm sorry, is just that I don't get it :(

From our About Page:

WHAT IS THIS?

This is your motivation to write that fic. Always fun to take prompts when they're in the form of games you remember from elementary school birthday parties.

You may have seen some bingo cards floating around in the fanfic community. People make a card featuring 24 prompts, and other people will submit a request for one of these prompts to be filled, as well as choosing which character(s) will prominently feature, and occasionally other details as well, depending on the cardholder's preference. The cardholder then writes the fic and marks it off on the card.

Sounds fun, right? Right.

We all know that some of us are here to get DARK. So, why not make a bingo game focusing on Bad Things? At this page you will find a list of tropes and scenarios. Currently, there are over two hundred listed. Most are whump-focused, some are more angst, and a few are centered around the 'comfort' part of hurt/comfort. Some are fairly general, some are very specific. Some are fairly lighthearted, and some take you right into the heart of Sadism Land.

These are the fics we'll be writing.

GETTING STARTED

Once you've finished reading the rules, click on the 'request a card' link on the home page or here. This will take you to an application. Let us know the tumblr url you want us to send the card to, and if you want, what fandoms you intend to write for.

Next, you pick your tropes. We've got a lot of them, and of course, not everyone would be interested in writing for all of them. Some tropes may not work in the setting you want to write for, some may be difficult to get inspiration for, some may be too dark for you or not dark enough. Go ahead and check off the box next to every trope that you ARE okay with having on your card. You must choose at least 25, so every space on the card has a prompt. (There is no free space; freedom is an illusion.)

There will be a couple of additional questions at the end of the application, then, just submit! Make sure you have your submission box open on your tumblr, with the option to submit a photo, so that we can send you your bingo card.

HOW IT WORKS

When you receive your bingo card, you can start writing! You can write at your own pace and in your own time frame. Go ahead and post your bingo card if you're making the fics available to your followers, and don't forget to keep track of which spaces you've completed! Doesn't have to be anything fancy; you can use anything from Photoshop to MS Paint to a text post with strikethroughs to track your progress.

For fic bingos, many people like to take prompts from their followers. Someone will send an ask requesting one of the tropes from your card and a character(s) for the fic to focus on. If you'd like, you can also let your followers prompt other details such as which character you want to have hurt and which one should be the comforter, whether it should be romantic or platonic, an AU to set it in, anything at all. Sky's the limit. However, prompts are not required; you can select which combinations of tropes and characters you want to write and in what order you want to write them on your own.

Once you've written a fic, post it! If in your application you gave us permission to reblog your work, we'll put it right here on this blog to share with other players and readers. Be sure to tag it with #badthingshappenbingo, or @ us in the post, to ensure we see it. Additionally, please tag the trope featured in the fic, and the fandom you wrote it for.

Once you've completed five squares in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, you will be added to the Hall of Fame! But don't feel like you have to stop once you've gotten a Bingo; the Hall of Fame will also give special prominence to those of you who get a Blackout - that is, completing every space on your card!

RULES

~ Although you may request a new Bingo card, you can only have one card in play at a time. We urge you to try to complete your current card before getting a new one if you can.

~ Fics can be NSFW, but they MUST be tagged as such, and all NSFW content MUST be placed under a Read More.

~ There is no word minimum. There is no word maximum.

~ You are allowed to cross-post works you wrote for this event on other platforms, such as AO3, FFN, etc., but we'd like you to also either post the fic on tumblr, or post a link to it, so we can find it.

~ Your fic must be completed before you can mark off its space on your bingo card.

~ Feel free to message the blog if we missed reblogging a post you created for this event.

~ Only one prompt per story counts. You can include multiple tropes in a story, but you can only officially tag/mark off the square for one of them.

~ We love drama in our fics, not on our dash. If a fic is written for a work or a ship that you don't like, don't read it. That's all there is to it.

FAQ

Q: How long does this event last?

A: Forever and ever, I guess. There is no time limit for completing your fics.

Q: Which fandoms can we write for?

A: You can write for any fandom you'd like. This even includes originally work, which we like to view as one-person fandoms. The only exception is that we do not allow RPF (real person fic) content. Let's stick to hurting FICTIONAL people.

Q: Can you add [trope] to the trope list?

A: Probably. As long as it is succinct enough to fit in a space on the bingo card. We would love for the masterlist to be continually expanding.

Q: Why are some of the tropes on the masterlist hotlinked and some not?

A: Some of the tropes are unusual, complex, or use fandom jargon. Those tropes are hotlinked on the masterlist to take you to a page or post that expands on or explains the trope. Those that are not hotlinked are self-explanatory. However, if you do not understand what one of the non-hotlinked tropes means, send us an ask, and we'll answer and link the trope to that answer.

Q: Can we make our own cards, or do we have to get them from you?

A: In order to keep track of who's participating, we ask that you specifically request a card from us. The mods are active, and should be prompt in getting you your card. If you'd like to make your own, feel free - we don't own these tropes. However, if you make your own, don't tag the completed fic as #badthingshappenbingo.

Q: Are there any prizes?

A: Bragging rights, a spot in the Hall of Fame, a sense of accomplishment, and a boost to your grand total fanfic word count. That's all the reward you need, right?

[pocket-anon]

10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked

After answering these questions for A Fairytale Beginning, @kmomof4 rewarded me by prompting me to answer these same questions for The Long Way Home.  She’s too nice to me, you guys.  Here we go!  As with the other post, spoilers abound.

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

See my previous answer.

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in The Long Way Home?

Definitely the scene where Killian realizes he’s in love with Emma while staring up at the stars.  I just love the visual and all the delicious angst of that moment.  Killian being flummoxed by Emma’s first climb up the mast comes in a close second.

3. Which part of The Long Way Home was hardest to write?

The hurricane scene was probably the hardest to write simply because it involved so much research into how a square-rigged vessel could try to survive a storm and I had to try to describe it using enough jargon to be realistic and yet not so much that readers would be overwhelmed. That’s a difficult line to walk. You can get away with a TON of jargon in the movies/TV (pay attention the next time you watch Pirates of the Caribbean; I checked a transcript of one of the battle scenes for inspiration, and I barely understood anything), but it’s harder to get away with the same level of jargon in fic because readers are less likely to just shrug it off.

4. If you could change anything in The Long Way Home, what would it be?

Mmph.  This is a hard question to answer about a fic I just finished.  I probably would have made the story longer - thrown in another incident/adventure or just thrown in more fluff.  One of the most common comments I got from readers was that they didn’t want the story to end (goodness, you people are so sweet).  If I hadn’t been limited by the CSBB deadline and if I’d known how much people would enjoy this story, that’s probably what would have happened.

ADDENDUM: In retrospect, I should also have made what was supposed to be emotional context for Killian’s vigil for Emma a little less subtle.  I had him mention how his mother died in order to give people some insight into how much more torturous it must have been for him to wait for Emma to wake up.  I’m pretty sure zero people picked up on this.  LOL.  I really should have included a line of dialogue about it.  :p

5. Did you make an outline for The Long Way Home? Did you stick to it?

Yes, and yes (mostly), though the outline it was very general and many scenes that ultimately ended up in the fic were not plotted out ahead of time (eg, Emma’s scene in the tavern attic, Emma and Killian’s entire day in the Southern Isles, the whale watching, Emma pulling away from Killian after realizing she’s in love with him, etc.).   A lot of those scenes got thrown in later after writing the pre-planned scenes; this fic was unique for me in that it was not written linearly - I had holes to patch all over the place for a while!  It was a mess.

The order of the events also changed.  Originally I had the hurricane happening immediately before the encounter with the slavers; ie, they meet the slave ship after Emma saves the Jolly and Killian declares his feelings for her but before their TLK.  Reordering those events was probably the biggest deviation from the original outline (and SUPER frustrating, because I had to ditch several days’ worth of words making that transition).

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in The Long Way Home?

The only scene that got cut was related to the reordering of events mentioned above.  It was a scene where Emma waits for Killian to come back from the slave ship and worries she won’t be able to be the princess Misthaven needs without her memories or her control of her magic.  She tries to do more magic and gets frustrated when she can’t, and when Killian returns, he encourages her and that conversation ultimately results in the TLK.

As for scenes that were added, there were a ton.  See my answer to #5 for examples.   

7. Who was your favorite character to write in The Long Way Home?

Killian - he’s usually my favorite to write, and this fic is largely (in my mind) about his transformation from Captain Hook back to Killian Jones; it’s more about him finding his home than about Emma finding hers.  Writing a lot of the ensemble cast (Maggie, Roberts, Smee, and Charming) was also a blast, though!

8. Which came first, the title or the fic?

The fic always comes first for me.  I had a short list of candidate titles but didn’t settle on one until I was getting ready to email the fic in for the final CSBB check-in, LOL.

9. Which idea came to you first in The Long Way Home?

I actually started this fic two years ago, back before I’d joined the fandom (before I was even aware of the fandom), when I was just writing for personal pleasure.  I came up with this Captain Duckling AU (I didn’t even know the fic terminology back then) involving Princess Emma under a memory curse and Killian kind of Sherlock Holmes’ing his way to discovering her identity.  That concept and Emma’s encounter with Blackbeard were basically all I started with; I had no idea where it was going at the time, and I certainly never intended for it to become a complete story that other people would read!

10. What are some facts readers may not know about The Long Way Home?

- I didn’t actually intend for this fic to be an Anastasia AU, but one of the CSBB mods labeled it as such after reading the plot, and it just stuck.

- This was by far the most frustrating fic I’ve written to-date in the sense that the nature of the CSBB made me as obsessed with word count as anything else.  It was also difficult for me to only have the feedback of a handful of people to go on during the process - I had so much anxiety about whether this story was any good and whether I could pull it off the way I wanted.  Still, this fic would probably not have happened at all without the CSBB, and I’m very glad to have participated!

- My CSBB artists @giraffes-ride-swordfishes and @waiting-for-autumn helped me design all of Emma’s non-canon wardrobe for this fic.

- Topics I researched for this fic include historical pirating and aspects of that lifestyle, 18th century ships/sailing/navigation, 18th century clothing, 18th century soap recipes, the average size/speed of hurricanes, and swords (types, parts, sword fighting techniques, care, etc.).  My Pinterest boards for my fics always include research references as well as visual inspiration; the board for this fic has 175 pins.

- The number of pictures of the Jolly Roger/Lady Washington I saved for reference - OMG.  

- Killian’s line about the Dread Pirate Roberts is an obvious homage to The Princess Bride, which, in addition to being part of the inspiration for Hook’s character on the show, is one of my favorite movies.  The Jolly’s quartermaster is always named Roberts in my fics (see also A Fairytale Beginning) in honor of the movie.

- Killian and Emma’s dancing was largely inspired by Rose and Jack’s dancing in Titanic and Rapunzel and Flynn/Eugene’s dancing in Tangled.

- The cut on Killian’s cheek is a reference to Colin O’Donoghue’s scar.

- For any medical-types out there, Alec suffered from a wound infection which progressed to sepsis and was complicated by disseminated intravascular coagulation, pulmonary embolism, and delirium.

- Emma’s thoughts on Liam’s ring came from a mini-crisis I had trying to figure out what color the stone was on OUAT.  I posted about it at the time to try to find group consensus.  Ultimately, we did find proof that the stone is actually red, and this sappy little metaphor about it being like Killian’s heart popped into my head, and there you go.

- I thought about putting Emma in the silver princess dress from canon for the wedding, but I’d already used this dress in A Fairytale Beginning, so I nixed the idea.  I tried coming up with a custom design, but ultimately I went with an existing dress I found while looking for inspiration.  It’s the dress I used to Photoshop this picture.  I wanted feathers on the dress both because Emma was nicknamed “Swan” and because Snow also had feathers on her wedding dress.

There you are.  Much more than any of you ever wanted to know, I’m sure.  Thanks to those of you who made it to the end (of the fic and this post), haha!  You guys are the best.

[0huitzil]

S1: Exiled

(I am writing this is English because half the Path of Exile jargon is in english and it will be a mess if i try to write in Spanish. Also because it is my blog and I can do what I want) 

How long have I been playing Path of Exile now? Its definitely more than 2 years, I remember I first played in Legacy league, but my first real league was Harbinger, and that was at the beginning of 2017. What in the world was I playing back then? I remember I did a Reddit post about a Molten Strike Inquisitor using a staff for no other reason than the fact that an old man hitting with a staff made sense. God, my trees were such a mess back then. But it was fun in its own regard, because for me PoE was never about playing the game, it was about understanding it.

If that description of a videogame does not make much sense its because PoE has more in common with some university courses than with a videogame like Mario. PoE has a skill tree with more than 200 posible nodes and a really absurd number of ways in which to allocate your path of 121 nodes, 123 if you  killed all the bandits in Act 2, There are hundreds of unique items with unique (duh) modifiers, dozens of different skills and dozens of different supports that interact with those skills and change their behaviour.

And the game just keeps growing, since I started back in Harbinger league I have had to learn about Harbingers and Harbinger currency; Abyssal jewels and abyssal depths Shaper and Elder influenced items (and the new mods that can roll in those items), not to mentions the new Atlas, the new Elder guardians, the new way in which sextants work and the fact that somehow I have to get to tier 16 maps;  Bestiary monsters, nets, aspects and the four beast sets; Incursion rooms and Incursion mods (that are really powerful but somehow bricked at the same time because it is hard as fuck to isolate them and craft something god tier); Delve, sulphite, azurite, flares and dynamite, hidden walls and fossil crafting which has since then become so standard as a crafting tool Essences have become pretty much irrelevant after league start; Betrayal, Veiled items and Veiled mods and the freaking Syndicate chart which is somehow a cluster fuck with around 18 different characters and 4 possible choices for every member not counting ranks, alliances and rivalries and also boils down to make every one betray each other; Synthesis, Synthesised items and I can’t even remember how many new implicits which depended on the mods you threw in on the three Fractured items you had to give to the Snythesiser and if you every wanted to craft any of the worthwhile implicits you pretty much emptied your own market and raised prices for the stupid Dragoon sword with the bleed fractured mod I was trying to buy, and aside from all of that I had to learn to play Carcassone for some reason and deal with so much complicated shit I gave up on the league halfway through; Legion monotliths, the Domain of Timeless conflict and timeless jewels which changed the skill tree with over 9000 posible combinations that it was impossible to replicate the result from one specific jewel and on top of that 15 new Keystones that possibly opened up new builds and that I spent entire days trying to come up with something using the Tempered by War keystone and got absolutely nowhere; Blight in which we are playing tower defense for some reason, Towers, Blighted maps and Oils which you can annoint on your rings to power up your towers or on your amulet to allocate one Notable of the tree of you choice, except eveything that is worthwhile requires at least one of the three expensive oils and I have yet to see a single character that annointed Soul of Steel; finally Metamorph, Metamorph bosses and monster parts alongside the new Atlas of Worlds, Watchstones, Conquerors, Atlas regions, Hunter, Redeemer, Crusader and Warlord influences with new mod pools for each one of them and new Exalted orbs and the Awakener orb which allows you to mix and match two different influence types and that complicates the process even more. Not to mention every three months every league comes with new skills, new support gems, new archetypes, new unique items that I crack my head around to try and create a meta changing build around, and new nodes on the skill tree to obsess about and try to change the pathing around that one Cold Ignite build I have been trying to make work since one year ago. ¿What else have I obsessed about for one entire year even when I knew since the beginning that it wasn´t going to work? I didn’t even obsess that much time with my last crush goddammit.

That... came a lot harsher than I thought it would. It’s just, I have learned a lot and I have sunk way to much fucking time in this game. The worst part is, I haven’t even gotten that far. I have never done anything past a tier 10 map, nor have I ever faced the Shaper or the Guardians, I don’t think I will ever face the Awakener of Worlds either. Simply, I have never finished a build, never completed a character yet I have this drive inside of me that keeps wanting to make new builds and discover new interactions and finally cracking the code of PoE. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have spent more time theorycrafting shit offline than I have spent playing, and I have over 500 hours online.

I feel like I am losing my mind, but I don’t have much time since the next league is coming in two months and the cycle will restart itself yet again. Back to the Explosive Arrow Raider I go.

[floridaindependentblog]

Buying the Right E-Liquid: 9 Tips to Help You Find the Best Vape Juice for You

Nearly 20 percent of young Americans vape regularly. If you're starting out, the sheer number of different e-liquids can be baffling. There's organic vape juice, juice that tastes like candy, juice that claims to do everything but make your morning coffee. But what's the best e-liquid for you? We're here to cut through the jargon and give you those clear recommendations you've been waiting for. No matter whether you're a long-time smoker who's made the switch or a first-time vaper, we've got the top vape juice for you. Want to find out which the best vape juice for you? Would you like to know which ones are going to set your tastebuds alight? Then read on, vape on, and live long.

Understanding What Vape Juice is Made From

Vape juice is primarily a mix of two different compounds: vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. These are known as VG and PG for short.  A juice that's higher in VG will be thicker and sweeter than one that's high in PG. These juices tend to produce thicker clouds of vape but are also harder on your vape's coils (the part that produces the clouds). If a juice is being marketed as a gourmet e-liquid, it's likely to be high in VG. If you see organic vape juice, this is free from artificial compounds. That means it's also 100 percent VG. PG is thinner than VG and is odorless and tasteless. It's ideal for those who have switched from smoking, as it gives more of a throat hit. This means it feels more like smoking. These two compounds form the base of e-liquids.  Most vape juice brands will sell liquids that are 50/50 or 80/20 VG to PG. We recommend starting with a 50/50 liquid and adjusting the ratios as necessary. Vape juice brands will then add flavorings to this mixture, which produces the tastes and smells you're familiar with. Some will also add nicotine. If you're not an ex-smoker, you should stick to non-nicotine vape juice. What to Look For in a Top Vape Juice You can often tell top vape juice from budget stuff by looks. Good quality vape juice will be clear, with no particles floating around inside. It should be clear, too: if it's turned yellow or brown, it's been exposed to oxygen and sunlight. If you're buying from a store, there should be testers. Rip the cap off and give it a smell. If it's nicotine-free, do a knuckle test: put a drop on your knuckle and taste it. The best vape juice should have a strong smell and taste. Cheaper liquid tends to either taste bad or not really taste of anything.  You should only ever buy vape juice from companies that you trust. This is going inside your body, remember, and the last thing you want is tainted liquid. Do your research and look into the company's safety procedures. Which Nicotine Level Should You Use? The amount of nicotine in your vape juice comes down to a couple of factors. How big are the clouds you're going to produce, and how much did you use to smoke?  The concentrations of nicotine in vape juice are shown as milligrams per milliliter or mg/ml. As a rule of thumb, for every five cigarettes you used to smoke, add 3mg to the concentration. Consider these rough guidelines: If you smoked 10 cigarettes a day, use 6 mg vape juice.If you smoked 20, use 12 mg vape juice.If you smoked 40, use 24 mg vape juice. However, this doesn't necessarily apply if you're going to be using a more powerful vape. When I made the switch, I used a 12 mg juice in an Innokin T18 II, which is a fantastic starter vape. Now I'm using the more powerful Vaporesso Gen mod, I only use 3 mg e-liquid.  If you're chucking clouds, you're going to find that the best vape juice for you will have a 3 mg/ml concentration. If it's higher, it's going to burn and make you choke. What Flavor Should I Go For? Walking into a vape shop can be intimidating for first-timers. The sheer number of flavors can be overwhelming. What should you try, as a first-timer? Tobacco Flavors If you've smoked for years, try starting with a tobacco flavor. This is a hard one to nail down, and a lot of companies end up with juice that tastes more like caramel. Smell the different tobacco juices and give them a knuckle test, and discover the best vape juice for you. Menthol Flavors If you used to smoke Newports or other menthol cigarettes, you're in for a treat. There's a huge number of different menthol juices. These are some of the easiest flavors to get right, so good menthol e-liquid won't cost you a whole lot. Look for extra-strong menthol flavors for an intense kick that's like smoking extra-strong mints. If you want something more reserved, try out a tobacco flavor with a menthol nicotine shot.  Fruit, Candy, and Dessert Flavors Inhaling a huge cloud of what tastes like apple pie never stops feeling odd. That doesn't mean it's not delicious, though.  If you want something that's completely different from cigarettes, try out the sweeter flavors. Be aware that many people find them too overwhelming to use as an all-day vape. Sweeter flavors also tend to gunk up coils more than other flavors, so you may end up spending more on replacements. Thoughts on Vaping We hope that you're feeling less overwhelmed about vape juice now. It's a matter of personal taste and trial and error, but you're bound to find one that you love to vape all day.  Take a trip into your local vape store and ask to try as many different liquids as you want. Finding a top vape juice that fits your tastes may determine how successful you are in quitting smoking.  Take your time, and enjoy producing clouds. Vape on and have fun. Read the full article

[autism-asks]

so sometimes I get into this thing. i stare into the distance and don’t move or blink. i am self dxed with autism,, but they never went through with it professionally. i register everything in my mind if im talked to, but i physically can’t respond. its like my mouth is glued shut, or im so tired that i cant speak. idk what this is. it’s been like this since birth. anyone have ideas? i can mentally talk to myself and try to coax myself out of it, but i stay in it for like 2 mins.

What you’ve described is incredibly common for Autistic people, you are super not alone. Some people refer to it as an “inertia” issue and you can use that as a search term and also here’s a super helpful link that made me feel so much better about my own intertia issues. 

this can also be a symptom of burnout or shut down or meltdown, basically just if you’re in a place where you can’t even this is more likely to happen, if you’ve been doing too much for too long this is more likely to happen. it’s also similar to things like selective mutism and being non-verbal, it sort of all comes from the same brain stuff.... personally this is a thing i experience a lot, especially if i’m drained, if i’ve had an exhausting day of peopleing or personing, and every Autistic person i know personally also experiences some version of this at least some of the timei can go into more detail about the brain stuff and that’ll be next (just a head’s up for brain jargon)

so... this is kind of a theory I have, there hasn’t been official research about it yet bc.... well... the people doing the research are usually allistic people and allistic people don’t listen to Autistic people so they have no clue what being Autistic is actually like.... So, yes, this is, well, it’s more a hypothesis that needs testing but it’s I personally plan on researching and I think it’ll pan out bc it just makes a bunch of damn senseSo, there’s this brain part called the “basal ganglia” and the basal ganglia is super important in a lot of ways, it’s responsible for a lot of really important stuff. One of the really important things it does is that it’s constantly performing an inhibitory function on every muscle in the whole entire body and when it’s time for voluntary movement to take place the basal ganglia is supposed to release that inhibition and allow the voluntary movement to happen. Sometimes this breaks, it typically breaks in one of two extreme ways either as an inability to start doing something or an inability to stop doing something. In this way the basal ganglia is highly implicated in both ADHD and OCD (we already have research confirming those links and those are both really common misdiagnoses for Autism and are also common comorbidities for Autism). There’s more to it than that but those are the basics...So, my personal hypothesis as someone who’s currently nerding the hell out on all things neuro is that this basal ganglia functioning is also implicated in Autism. With things like what you’ve just described or with things like selective mutism or even generally being non-verbal or anything else along those lines where we really want to do a thing by physically can NOT do the thing (which is just INCREDIBLY common for Autistic people) what we’ve really got is some sort of weird functionality thing going on with the neural pathways involved in that brain part.  

~ mod rage

[letalearnstocode]

Week 02: getting my bearings

I’ve never experienced being on a boat on the ocean, but this last week felt like getting my sea legs.

There was (still is, of course) so much to absorb in the first week. Three languages (HTML, CSS, and Javascript), all of Turing’s internal jargon (posses, pairing, Spikes, etc). Settling into a non-museum routine. Getting to know my cohort.

But the second week, as some of this started to feel more usual, it became fun.

It feels really, really good to be a student again. I’ve said that before, but it remains true. It’s just the sensation of my brain being stretched out. It’s even somewhat the feeling of just ... being pretty good at being in school. Nothing like the affirmation of arbitrary grading systems to make an overachiever feel good!

We also are getting into design and UX/UI - my favorites! That’s not sarcasm, I legit love design. I’m glad that Turing includes it in the curriculum.

I did cry this week. It was a good lesson in the importance of version control. I was working on our first real project, and at one point, it worked. It worked and it looked fine on the page but under the hood the code was a terrible, ugly mess. So I started fixing it (with some help from Nick, who has a bit of experience with Javascript and a lot of experience with computational logic). About fifteen minutes in, NOTHING WORKED ANYMORE. And I hadn’t saved the working-but-ugly version anywhere separately. Pause for five minutes of frustrated tears, and then within fifteen more minutes of work, everything worked.

The next day, when my project was evaluated, it went great! Up until that point, I had a dim feeling that I was doing pretty well - not the top of the heap, but not the bottom, either. I’ve been trying to not let grades alone motivate me, but to think of my time at Turing in terms of competencies gained, knowledge and skills honed. But I did appreciate the evaluation, because it lets me trust my own understanding more. My understanding of my skills lines up pretty accurately with how the instructors understand my skills. I’ll be able to focus more deeply on the work, knowing that I’m not wildly off base in estimating my abilities.

Mod 2 students have told me that, from here on out, there won’t really be any more weekends without a project assigned. I’m getting a head start on some work that will be assigned on Monday, but I’m also savoring the chance to get together with my friends for a day of board games on Sunday. It’s also Nick’s birthday this weekend, and I’m glad I don’t have to spend it working.

It’s odd to think that I’m only ten days into this program. It’s 120 days long (minus a couple Mondays that are holidays). I’m just barely scratching the surface, and I know I’ll be struggling and probably crying more the deeper in I get. But it’s odd to look back at my brain from even just three weeks ago and to realize how much I’ve really learned.

Three weeks ago, I didn’t really understand the command line, or what GitHub is, or how to write a function in Javascript. Now, I’m able to semi-confidently create web pages that look okay and even have a bit of functionality and responsiveness built in. Now, I’m developing the taxonomy of programming. When things get frustrating, I’ll know to look back for some perspective - I really am learning a lot.

This morning I woke up and had an idea about how to tighten up the code from my last project. It was surprising and gratifying.

This next week, we jump into a project that introduces teamwork - since, irl, most developers work in teams. It’s meant to teach us how to communicate and run clean version control, in addition to expanding our facility with our primary three languages, AND introducing us to the jQuery library.

Woof.

At any rate, I’m feeling good. Not cocky, I hope, but ... ready for the challenge, and happy to be where I am right now. The dog in the gif at the top of this post exudes more chill than I’m feeling, but I do appreciate its attitude of contentment.