TLDR: Just had a "I am god" moment because something worked on the first try.

Been working on hooking into and modifying a plugin's central function and related output for almost two weeks now. The documentation is garbage and the source code is ... fine, I guess.

I had been working on getting the filter & display working on a form with sample data I'd put together. I finally got the desired result before I left on Friday, but had the sample selectors hardcoded in.

Within a couple of hours this morning, after fiddling around with pulling the needed data dynamically, I navigated to and checked out the function on the intended page for the very first time since starting the project and IT FUCKING WORKED RIGHT AWAY.

I let out a forceful "yussss" under my breath and stood up with my fists in the air. Nobody noticed. But at least I get to show my manager the fully functioning thing this afternoon instead of the hard-coded sample-only I had when he checked in with me this morning.