#they're first cousins once removed to get specific

[strawberrystreamfields]

More Carolina Stuff (minor spoilers for the story quest?):

[feeshies]

(Obligatory "not all Christians" disclaimer) But I do wish I could learn more about Christianity without feeling unsafe/uncomfortable. A while ago, I found a video that went into the specific practices of different denominations and I thought it was super cool and helped me to understand the nuances of the religion more, but then I dug into the creator's channel and saw that they were openly queerphobic and using their videos specifically to convert and "save" younger millennials and gen-z. In the past, there were times when I would invite Christians to tell me about their faith, and it feels like they're speedrunning to get me into the baptism pool.

I don't feel that way about other faiths. Throughout my entire life, I've had plenty of Jewish friends, family members, employers, and teachers who I could listen to without ever feeling on edge. I once went on a date with a girl who talked about her experiences as a Hindu, where she explained the details of her religion (and a fun story where she almost ran into a forbidden area of one of the temples because she was being chased by a monkey) and I loved every minute. My grandmother talking about the different Buddhist temples she went to growing up was nice, but my cousins cornering my mom and me when we first landed in Korea to give us pamphlets for their church felt different.

I wish I could have these same interactions with Christians. But no matter how genuine or in good faith (pun intended?) they may try to be, it's hard not to remove the more predatory interactions out of my mind. If I agree to go to church with you, I don't know if I'm being given an invitation or a sales pitch. I know this isn't fair on my part and I shouldn't let past experiences paint my perception. But I don't know if this is the case of a few isolated incidents or a general "vibe." I wish I could share being able to learn about a very important and personal part of people's lives and identity, but part of me also feels like I need to be on guard and protect myself.

(And please, this post is not an invitation. There are times when I am open to talk about this and learn more, but this post is not for that.)

[bonefall]

if adopted kits are taken as seriously as bio kits, would ashfur even go for squilf at all considering hes brothers with her.. cousin? i think? whatever cloudtail is in relation to squilf n leaf

Cloudtail and Brindleface are two that have been a thorn in my side since I started reworking the tree and I'll get to what I'm planning with them specifically, but in summary-- an adopted child only counts one way. Allonursing is a common Clan practice and not every kit suckled by someone else becomes that person's child.

(I had to do this because I would have run out of cats and had to ban ALL same-clan shipping. Not to mention how I also try to get rid of steep age gaps on top of this)

So Cloudtail is not Ferncloud and Ashfur's fully adopted brother. He was suckled by Brindleface but raised by Fireheart, and was extremely close to Ferncloud growing up. He's Firekin, not Brindlekin.

But otherwise, when it comes to what I allow and what I block, I have Three Strict Rules

Rule 1: Three Generation Separation

I completely eliminate cats who are first cousins, which means they share a 1st degree grandparent. For an example, that would mean Swiftpaw and Brightheart are banned as a couple-- first cousins through Goldenflower and Lionheart.

Squirrelflight and Cloudtail are also first cousins.

Second cousins, cousins once removed, I usually allow those. Clan populations are too small for me to be stricter-- not to mention that Clan culture prioritizes "pure blood."

I have one MAJOR addendum, which I like to call Onestar's Exception.

I ban an ADDITIONAL 4th generation if two or more siblings are alive to remember the great-grandparent. This is because when I read Onestar's Confession, Onestar actually thinks about how cool it is that Heathertail is becoming mates with Breezepelt, his sister's grandchild, making them first cousins once removed.

It made me so uncomfortable I made the addendum on the spot, and committed to Onestar being an only child (son of Larksplash and Cloudrunner).

This also banned Dewnose x Sorrelstripe, which is why Bay and Myrtle are both sireless now.

Rule 2: Two Kit Max

A couple can have as many kits as they like, but only two are allowed to go on to have descendants of their own. All others will either have no kits, or a dead-end lineage.

So, for example, the BrackenSorrel couple had Poppyfrost and Cinderheart, so Lilyheart will not have surviving children, Nightheart is not her grandchild (IF she stays a BrackenSorrel child, since I killed her dad before she was born OOPSIE).

This prevents LionCinder situations where half of the Clan is descended from one fecund couple... though sometimes it causes headaches, like the ToadNettlePool couple, which I decided early on was going to count as ONE big litter because I'm not dealing with the headache of quantifying half-siblings.

The exception being that a cat can leave their home clan to have kits somewhere else. So, Dovewing, now a LionCinder child, does not count towards her parents' limit because she moved to ShadowClan.

(Spotfur and Sorrelstripe, btw, are getting traded over to Birch/White in exchange for Ivypool and Dovewing)

Rule 3: Queen's Rights/Sireless Litters

I have the right to eliminate a father. Sireless litters are allowed, and it's against the code itself to question who fathered a queen's kittens (This is not respected when the Clan swings towards Thistle Law).

I do this a LOT and it is extremely helpful. Brindleface's kits are sireless. Sorrelstripe's kits are sireless. Blossomfall's kits are sireless. Morningflower's kits were sireless. Rosetail's kittens (Spottedleaf and Redtail) were sireless.

So... Cloudtail

I WANTED to save Cloudtail as an adopted sibling because I really love the concept, but keeping that would be undoing two major things.

First, Whitewing and Birchfall would be first cousins and ergo banned. I would have to un-dad Whitewing's children which... it doesn't feel right, they're such a good background couple. Plus, without MORE fixes, it kills Ferncloud's bloodline. Birchfall is her ONLY surviving reproductive child, Spiderleg's bloodline through Daisy was a dead-end.

(one of my other fixes, though, is saving her grandchild Rosepetal, Cherryfall is dying instead. so check ME OUT world, i managed to save ONE ferncloud descendant. hold your applause please /s)

Second, like you mentioned, it would utterly eliminate the Ashfur/Squirrelflight drama. That's too iconic and fuels conflict in two arcs- it's such a MAJOR canon event that I have to fix around it.

So, something had to give and I decided it was Cloudtail being formally adopted. He is VERY close to Ferncloud though, and helps her raise her little brother Ashkit when Brindleface is killed.

[gay-jesus-probably]

You have a relative that won the Stanley Cup I have a relative that didn't win the cup but played NHL and was in the Olympics

I'm Native so I get the big extended family thing I think he's a second cousin or something

Oh nice, olympics hockey is always a blast; if your second cousin plays for Canada, I hope they're damn good lmaoo. And to be fair, I would not call Jean Beliveau a close relative of mine; like, I know we must both be descended from one specific guy who came to Canada in like 1650 (Antoine Belliveau), aaand I think the extended Belliveau clan also all has a mutual ancestor in Pierre Belliveau about a century later; pretty sure he was the only Belliveau to survive the Acadian genocide. But he had like eleven kids, so like 250 years later I think there's like two thousand Beliveau's scattered around Canada and the northern US, under various spellings of the name. It's honestly not that big a deal; I'm related to Jean Beliveau the same way anyone with the last name Broussard is related to Beyonce. Very distantly, but damn if it doesn't feel cool to brag about it to people.

(...that's not a joke btw, Beyonce is also Acadian, Francois Broussard came to Acadia in 1653, and Beyonce is one of his many descendants; if your name is Broussard, you're Beyonce's very distant cousin. You're welcome.)

But I feel you about having a whole bunch of something-th cousins; none of my aunts wound up having kids, so I've just got a whole bunch of cousins of assorted flavours. Made more confusing by the fact that my dad grew up with two of his cousins and considers them to be his sisters, though they're not, and I genuinely can't tell if the two of them have a third sister or if she's a different cousin, and frankly at this point it's far too late to ask. I have no idea how the fuck I'm related to anyone in my family; at this point all I really know is that of my surviving family I've got one grandma, one aunt, two aunts that are actually first cousins once removed (and maybe it's actually three but I don't know), an uncle that's actually my great-uncle and oh my god I just realized I actually have no idea where great-uncle Sulo fits into the family tree, I think all the cousins I know came from great-uncle Jerry. FUCK. My dead grandma only had two brothers, this should not be so hard, but oh dear lord is it ever hard.

And that's just one branch of dad's family. Jesus lord. Don't even get me started on mom's side of the family, which is also fucking enormous; my paternal grandpa had six siblings, and all seven of them had children, while my living grandmother also has a bunch of siblings with their own kids. It's so much, I literally couldn't even begin to guess at how many maternal cousins I have, it's absurd.

[curious-sootball]

Some more GoG and TMA crossover thoughts:

Hoole using Beholding powers to counter veiled insults and/or backhanded compliments - not out of active malice, but out of genuine confusion(at least the first few times): he's a very straightforward guy, so royal courtiers trying to play emotional 5d chess during a conversation would be annoying at best and deeply upsetting at worst for him. So, when he finds himself thinking about another conversation with an older noble where they were seemingly polite, but The Vibes(tm) felt off, and another courtier tries to talk to him, Hoole is having None Of That and tells the courtier "Just say exactly what you mean, for goodness sake!". It works like a charm, but the courtier is rattled to their bones afterwards (and probably spilled way too much tea about everyone's plans out of sheer anxiety).

Also: Hoole approaching avatars of other fears with an open mind - he pretty much thinks of them as potential friends/allies unless they prove themselves too hostile. (He also never really got the memo that avatar powers aren't supposed to manifest as early as they did for him - sometimes he unintentionally scares people by showing off).

Not unique to this AU, but: everyone roasting Lord Arrin. You know how in Elden Ring, when you sneak into Stormveil castle and talk to NPCs, they all say how they hate Godrick and how terrible of a lord he is? That's how Arrin's allies would talk about him. He's not a total idiot, he's actually pretty good at being a noble and running a domain, but he is also very good at getting at everyone's nerves and not noticing it until its far too late.

Arrin picking absolutely worst people to get into verbal duels with and getting his ass handed to him on a platter. He once tried insulting Hoole with "Where are your manners, have you been raised by wolves?" only to get "Why, yes; say hello to all my honorary cousins! *wide gesture at the wolves of the Beyond*" followed by the slyest I see what you're doing and I'm having none of that look from Hoole. This isn't even the first time Arrin tried "Have you been raised by [insert species]?" line and got destroyed with the comeback.

Seriously, this guy gets roasted behind his back so much(particularly by his hagsfiend allies), and most of it is deserved.

Speaking of which: Penryck keeps the somewhat unstable gathering of clan warriors and stragglers from fighting each other or Arrin's army. This man is going to have a back pain from carrying this alliance so far. He originally planned to team up with Arrin's son, Baldr(he has no canon name, so I picked one), but that didn't work quite as well as he thought: Baldr supports Penryck's plans at Arrin's meetings, but they are still kind of isolated from most other warlords (they're winning the younger ones over, but it is a slow process)

Penryck actually worked with Ullryck, Ygreek and Pleek before Arrin's rebellion - just not at the same time. Once Arrin made it clear that he's hiring hagsfiends, Penryck reached out to them - recruiting the best assasin and the best tracker in the field (technically, he's also marked by The Hunt and can track people pretty well, but his main fear entity is still the Slaughter, so he'll gladly outsource tracking and chasing to someone he trusts.) Not really related to the Fears, but: he has an accent - it is pretty subtle, but he sometimes puts on an exagerrated version of it specifically to annoy Arrin.

Kreeth is both a local cryptid of the Ice Narrows and a very common point of connection between other hagsfiends: she deals in Fear-affiliated artifacts, among other things. According to the wildest rumours, she can remove Fear marks - she never gives a clear answer if you ask her, though. (She can't actually remove the marks, but can sort of cover them up with new ones)

[thornfield13713]

Ned: 12, 16, 27, 33, 38

What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

Minthara's joke about the man who married a drider. Ned has an appalling weakness for terrible pun-based jokes, and Minthara's deadpan way of telling them just makes it worse. Minthara has a whole repertoire of similar puns (there was a reason she gave approval for sending her up onstage with Dribbles, after all) and Ned is the only person at camp who thinks they're funny instead of just nervously laughing in case Minthara takes offence and starts cutting bits off them (and even that peters out after a while after everyone figures out Minthara meant it about being on their side.)

What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head?

Their mother, is the big one. Ned adored their mother, and the feeling was mutual. But they are also very aware that she would not have approved at all of most of what they have done with their life after leaving Menzoberranzan. Multiple affairs with surface elves (or, one surface elf and one person who thought he was one), helping people without asking for a reward, moving away from the teachings of Lolth and eventually embracing Elistraee to the point of eventually taking a level in cleric again, but to a different goddess...it's something they're constantly having to defend against the fact that they know their beloved mother would be ashamed of them for it.

Minthara, is another. Minthara is...Ned likes Minthara, sort of, but they are very different people, and they have taken very different things from their rejection of Lolth and of a lot of aspects of drow culture. And Ned isn't really an argumentative person - they're often the party peacekeeper, and are generally quiet and courteous, so these arguments don't often come out on the outside, but are reserved for the inside of Ned's head.

But both of these are proxies for the biggest one of all - Lolth. Ned has been arguing with Lolth since they were first cast out. Justifying themselves to Lolth at first, and then raging against her for casting them out, and then as they became increasingly aware of what life was like outside drow society, for setting up this whole pointlessly miserable system in the first place. A lot of Ned's arguments with her mental versions of Minthara and her mother are, in essence, the same argument she's been having with Lolth about how to live in the world as a drow without embracing the more randomly sadistic elements of their native culture.

What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond?

Probably that time one of their rivals at Arach-Tinilith tried to assassinate them by leaving a fake 'present' from home on their bed, which turned out to contain a poisonous spider. Quite aside from the murder thing, it was an insultingly clumsy attempt - first, as if Ned would just assume a present came from home without checking. Second, as if they wouldn't assume a present from home was either a test or one of their cousins trying to remove them as a threat and take appropriate precautions. Third, as if they weren't building up an immunity to spider venom already. Amateurish, insulting, and the fourth issue of trying to trap them into killing a spider and thus getting executed was just...not just clumsy and amateurish, but blasphemous as well.

The spider was released into the caverns, and Ned took great pleasure in enmeshing the rival in a scheme that shamed her before the teachers, made her look every bit as foolish as she had made herself, and ended in her being rendered up as a sacrifice to Lolth, and was very satisfied to have done so.

Yeah. They're rather ashamed of this incident now.

How do they greet someone they dislike / hate?

If they are obliged to be social, simply by their name. In the coldest tone of which they are capable, which is pretty poor compared to the depths of contempt they could once convey, but being unused to prolonged speech coupled with physical injury has robbed them of that fluency. They will, however, generally use the name without any honorifics and as flatly as they can - 'Gortash', for instance, or 'Thorm', or 'Szarr'. Or they simply won't speak at all, but just glower while someone else does the talking.

What hobby are they good at in private, but bad at in front of others? Why?

Playing the lyre. There's just- so much tied up in performing, and they were never the best at it anyway, and it makes them nervous to be observed. In private, they're better at remembering how to play from their long-ago lessons, and have more space to figure things out slowly rather than feeling pressured to produce something polished or beautiful. Worrying about the performance tends to take away from their skill in a big way, and it is a genuine surprise to their companions when they hear them playing in a moment when they think themself unobserved and...okay, Ned's not great at it, but they are nonetheless competent, particularly for simpler tunes.

[fabulouslygaybean]

hearing my mom talk abt my cousins and how she thinks it's sad how the oldest ones still live w their parents is worrying bc like. i have a sinking feeling she'll want me outta the house the second i turn 18 and idk if im ready for that

[yang2sfishkeeper]

oddly specific things that remind me of wayv (xiaojun, hendery, yangyang)

XIAOJUN

Perfume that makes you smell like a warm fireplace, that you have ten samples of because you can’t find the full bottle anywhere.

The guy who asks you if he can pet your dog while you’re on a walk/ calls your dog “good boy” and frantically apologises if you tell him she’s a girl.

Laptop chargers that are slightly bent at the tip.

The McDonald's menu changing right before it’s your turn in line to order breakfast.

School T-shirts that have been signed before graduation by all of your classmates.

Kids with missing front teeth who keep showing everyone their archeology scrapbook.

Theatre kids who start crying after you tell them to rehearse a little softer.

The face you make after someone tells you their favourite ice-cream flavour is rum and raisin.

Your favourite polaroid picture that you have clipped above your bed.

Wearing your cardigan for the second day in a row when it’s become extra fluffy and warm.

Someone desperately trying to understand poetry to impress their crush, and having no idea what the bloody hell they're reading.

HENDERY

Like those wooden rocking horses that toddlers play on.

One of those but made specifically made of felt and covered in scratch-n-sniff stickers.

Having your seat changed next to someone you found annoying/ but eventually foster a life-long friendship with him over your shared hate for the chemistry teacher.

A hug from someone who’s not affectionate but knows when you need them most.

Your mom’s best friend’s aunt’s second-removed cousin’s nephew who you meet once every three years.

True crime youtubers/ scary movie reviewers who make the movie less scary with their commentary.

Making pinkie promises even though you’re too old for them.

Bookshelves filled with anything but books. (especially figurines/clutter)

References that become too long-winded and convoluted for anyone to understand.

Instragam posts that do terrible jobs describing zodiac signs.

The criminally underrated enemies-to-besties trope.

YANGYANG

Sneaking out the house at 2am for convenience store runs.

Staring at your phone screen without blinking as you try to learn a really hard tiktok dance.

A really mediocre breakfast. Like cereal with lukewarm milk and a glass of water.

Being strangely prepared for an exam you didn’t study for.

Old pokemon games on the Gameboy advance.

Your best friend being completely apathetic as you cry on the phone, box dye in hand, wailing over your most recent breakup.

The specific scene in every coming of age movie where all the characters are in a bedroom filled with posters/ and they’re all super tired but happy and content for the first time.

Just the act of play fighting/ roughhousing.

Playing with someone’s hair subconsciously.

Picking up the groceries in one trip while wearing your mom's slippers and socks on.

When they try to get your attention at the airport conveyer belt, and accidentally miss their luggage doing so.

The duolingo bird.

[krakenartificer]

When I got my ADHD diagnosis, I looked at the questions on the screening form and thought, "If this result comes back positive, then I'm definitely not the only person in my family who has it." Questions like

"Have difficulty finishing one activity before starting another one" and

"I finish others' sentences before they can finish it themselves" and

"have trouble staying on one topic when talking"

...I thought were just weird quirks of my family, but no. When I got my results, I contacted my cousin, and she contacted her sisters and mother, and .. .. yeah. Basically everyone in my dad's side of the family is ADHD.

Now there are some problems with that, obviously, (getting family reunions to stick to a schedule is lol no) but there are some really fantastic perks. For one thing, no one in that family minds if I interrupt them while they're talking ... everyone's happy to keep 3 conversations going at the same time .... and no one minds if you fidget constantly.

But the best perk -- at least that I've found so far -- is that all of our parents have coping mechanisms, and passed them on to us. When I found myself unable to handle tasks with more than one step, my father didn't say "WTF are you talking about? It's easy! Just do the thing! Stop being lazy!" No, he could relate completely, and he sat down and taught me how to handle that.

So today, I'm going to pass on to you the coping mechanism my dad taught me for handling the "cannot put tasks in order / cannot get started / forget what I'm doing" problem. You'll need to adjust it for your own needs and your own struggles, but hopefully it'll be helpful in setting up your own process.

I'm going to walk through it with a big project I'm doing at work, just to have a concrete example. That will make some of the discussion specific to computer programming and technical writing, but I do the same thing for all my projects, so hopefully it'll be generalizable.

So to set the stage:

I was supposed to modify this piece of code -- we'll call it "Rosetta" -- to make it handle call data as well as what it was already doing. I did that.... but we now need the code to be able to handle calls (if that's wanted) but also to be able to handle NOT having calls (if THAT'S wanted).

Which is just .... ugh. So much. SOOOOOOOO much.

So. Break it down.

Step one is to get some recording mechanism - pen and paper, whiteboard, blank computer document, whatever

(Technically, this is a different coping strategy, so we'll just take a quick detour: WRITE THINGS DOWN. Your brain is shit at remembering things, and anyway you've already got limits on your working memory; why would you choose to tie up some of that limited resource in something that could be accomplished with literal stone-age technology? Don't even try to remember things. WRITE THEM DOWN.)

I like sticky notes: they're readily available in all offices, they're pretty cheap, and (most importantly) they can be rearranged if it turns out that I forgot a step or put the steps in the wrong order (which, like, let's be honest, I am definitely going to do). But they kill trees and create unnecessary methane emissions, so I've recently switched over to using virtual sticky notes. That's the format I'm going to use for this example, but you can use anything that meets your purposes.

So, you've got something to write with, you're ready to start.

The first question is: what are you trying to accomplish here? What would "done" look like? What is our goal?

I need to end up with a version of Rosetta that will make the correct results if you don't want calls, and will also make the correct results if you do.

The goal here is that you end up with a statement that you can definitively say (a) Yes this is what I wanted or (b)No this is not right because _______

In this case, in order to do that, I'll need to define "correct results" for both call- and non-call versions. But if I have that nailed down, then this statement meets that criterion: I'll be able to say "Yes, this is what I wanted: see, it makes the correct result for calls, and it makes the correct result for not-calls". Or else I'll be able to say, "No, this is wrong: see, it makes the correct result for calls, but on not-calls it does X and we wanted Y."

I have a clear, definitive standard about what I need to do and whether or not I've done it.

But there was a prerequisite there: I need to define "correct results".

So that goes on a sticky note: Create test that will compare my results to existing call!Rosetta-results and to existing not-call!Rosetta-results.

[ID: Two blue boxes, one on top of the other. The top one says in white text "Create test to compare my results to call!results" The bottom one says "Create test to compare my results to not-call!results"] OK. So now we know what we want. The second question is: what do we need to do in order to get that? Here's where the sticky-note recording system really shines, because you don't have to answer this question sequentially. You just start writing down every single thing that is not the way you want it to end up.

I need it to remove commas in the python script, not the bash script

I need to delete the first part of the get_runs() function, which doesn't do anything

I need to delete the rest of the parameters passed to build_query_script() function, because runs encompasses all the others

while we're on that subject, runs doesn't even need the group_variable, so let's pull that out of the parameter document

we also have a dmf defined, which the bash script demands but doesn't use; let's change that demand

since we're changing the structure of the parameter document, we don't need to pull new metrics for each run, so let's move that outside of the runs() loop and only run once

right now the parameter document is ALMOST but not quite "one row per template". Make it so it's actually one row per template.

among other things, that's going to require making it possible for a template to be followed by nothing at all, since it's the assumption that a template will have a metrics block after it that makes it not quite one row per template. So make it possible to publish a template with a null block

the other thing that's weirdly hard-coded is the definition of what a block looks like. Would it make more sense to separate that out into an input file, like the parameters document? On the one hand, that would make it much more flexible; on the other hand, that's another piece that can break. Don't know. Put a question mark on it.

etc

Here's what it looks like at the end of this step:

[ID: A black and white background showing many boxes in two different shades of blue, all with white text. Some of the boxes are overlapping each other.]

As you can see, at this phase you don't need to worry about any of the following:

ordering the tasks. Just stick 'em right on top of each other for now

how you're going to do any of this. Right now we just need to know what, not how

sticking to only one project. As I was working on this, it occurred to me that this whole process would have been a heck of a lot easier if someone had just made a user manual for this, and since I have to go through all the code line-by-line anyway, I might as well write up the documentation while I'm at it. (To help out future-me, if nothing else.) So I put those tasks on another color of sticky note.

making notes that make any ***ing sense to anyone else. This process is for you, and only you need to understand what you're talking about it. Phrase it in ways that make sense to your brain, and to hell with anyone else.

on that topic, also don't worry about making steps that are "too small" or "too dumb" to write down. This is for you. If "save document" feels like a step to you, then write it down.

You also don't need to get every single step involved in the project right now. Get as many as you can, to be sure, but the process is designed on the assumption that you ARE going to forget important steps, and is designed to handle that.

When you can't think of any more steps, then the third question is: what order does it make sense to do these in? Are there any steps that would be easier if you did another step first? Are there any that literally cannot be done unless another step is complete?

This is also a good place to group steps if they fit together nicely. When I used physical sticky notes, I used two different sizes; digitally I can of course make them whatever size I want.

So I have several documentation steps that (a) do need to be written to make sense to other people and (b) I really need to know what's going on before I can do that. I could write them now, but if I did, I'd just end up re-writing them based on things that change as I'm coding. So we'll move those to the end:

[ID: Three dark blue boxes with white text. They read "Create step-by-step instructions for creating your own metric agg", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a metric", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a query."]

These parts, though -- if I had all the variable structures written down, I could look at them while I'm coding. Then I won't have to keep scrolling back and forth in the code, trying to remember if it's an array or a dictionary while also trying to remember what part of the code I was working on. Brilliant. Move that to the front.

[ID: Seven dark blue boxes with white text, three large, four small. The first one is large and says "Write up explanation of how Rosetta works." The second one is large and says "Document structure of all variables." Attached to that one are four smaller boxes that say "All_blocks", "Runs", "metric", "New_block". The third large one says "Document what qb_parameters.csv contains"]

Also, while I'm at it, I should get the list of variables I need to document -- then I won't have to keep scrolling to find them. Make those sub-steps.

I definitely keep needing to look up what's in the parameters document, so I should write that down, too. For the user manual I also should write down what's in the metric document, but I don't need that for myself, so I can send that to the end.

[ID: The same three dark blue boxes from two screenshots ago (create step-by-step instructions for metric agg, modifying a metric, and modifying a query), now with another dark blue box in front of them with white text that says "Document what granular_metrics.tsv contains."]

These five are all small steps, and are all related in that they don't actually (hopefully) change the functionality of the code; they're just stuff left over from prior versions of this code. So we can lump them all together.

[ID: Five light blue boxes with white text that say "Delete first part of get_runs()", "Have build_query_script only receive the "run" parameter" "Delete dmf" "Move metrics=get_metrics() outside build_all_blocks (all the way up to the top level?" "Delete group_variable from qp_parameters"]

My brain likes this better, so that I can keep track of fewer "main steps", but that's just a peculiarity of me -- you should lump and split however you prefer to make this process easier for you.

[ID: The same five boxes from the prior screenshot, now all made smaller and attached to a larger box that says "Remove Legacy Code"]

Keep going, step by step, sticky by sticky, until you've got them in order. If -- while you're doing this -- you remember another thing you need to do, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile; you don't have to stop what you're doing to deal with it, because it's written down and it's on the pile and it will get processed; you can just keep working on the thing you're on right now.

[ID: All the same boxes from the first screenshot, now in a neat row. Some of the original boxes have been grouped together. The ones that were said to be at the beginning of the process are on the left and the ones that were said to be at the end are on the right.]

Step four: for the love of all that's holy, SAVE THIS LIST.

Write it on your cubicle whiteboard where it won't be erased

write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the office wall

send an email to yourself

take a picture with your phone

I don't care but save it.

When I used physical sticky notes, I kept them all on the hood of my cubicle's shelf. Now, as you can see, I use Powerpoint, which is irritating af but does allow me to keep everything in a single document, which I can write down the path of.

[ID: White text on a black background says "open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Modifications\ and \Documentation.pptx" The next line says "Notes in Rocketbook pg 10-12, 16" The next line says "Turn that into documentation that can be used for making modifications."]

And now (finally) you can answer the question "How would I even get started on that?" You look at the first thing on the list, and you treat it as its own project. You can hyperfocus on this step and completely forget about everything else this project requires, because everything you need to remember for the rest of it is written down.

If, as you're working a step, you think of something else you need to do for the big project, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile. Don't even worry about trying to order it or identify sub-steps; as long as it's not blocking the thing you need to work on right now, you don't have to care. Just stick that bugger anywhere at all on the list, and go back to what you were doing. When you un-hyperfocus and come back to look at your list, there'll be a big sticky note stuck sideways across all the rest of the steps, and you'll remember to file and order it then.

Other benefits of this system

1) The first question really helps with unclear directions from your boss. You can take whatever they told you to do, and translate it into a requirement that is clearly either met or not-met, and then run it back by the boss.

If they say, "No, no, we want ______" then phew! You just saved a huge miscommunication and weeks of wasted work! What a good employee you are! What an excellent team player with strong communication skills!

If they say "Yes, that's what I want," then you know -- for sure -- what it is you're trying to accomplish. Your anxiety is reduced, and your boss thinks you're super-conscientious.

(And if your boss is a jerk who likes to move the goalposts and blame it on their subordinates, then have this conversation over email, so you can show it to their boss or to HR should it become necessary.)

2) Having this project map means that when you spend an hour staring at the requirements and trying to figure out how to get started (which, let's be honest, you were definitely going to do anyway) ... When your boss/coworker comes by and says, "How's it going?" Instead of having to say "I haven't even started 😞" You can say, "Pretty well! I've got all the steps mapped out and am getting ready to start on implementation!" and show them your list, and they think you're very organized and meticulous. 3) Sometimes, especially in corporate jobs, you and your coworkers will run into a problem that's too big for even Neurotypicals to hold all in their heads. At that point, the NTs will be completely lost -- they've never had to develop a way to handle projects they can't just look at and know how to get started. So then you pipe up in the meeting and say, "OK, well, what exactly are we trying to accomplish?" and everybody at the conference table looks at you like you're a goddamned genius and you don't have to tell them that you use this exact same process to remember how to make a sandwich 😅

4) Having this project map makes it so much easier to stop work and then start it up again later, but this post is already really really really long, so I'm going to address that in a separate (really really long) post.