TEAM YZMA LOG

[recollecters]

TEAM YZMA

READY: START Team Yzma roster: Carmen Sandiego, Dave Strider, Elizabeth, Emil Vasterstrom, Juzo Sakakura, Lucy/Kaede, Penelo, Seto Kaiba, Shouto Todoroki, Souji Seta, Yato. The city's been under siege for what feels like hours. It's only on August 3rd that you learn it's been a matter of days. Monsters begin pulling Retrospec users through portals left and right, large gaping holes in reality that spit you out in any given location around the city. However, just as you think you're finally getting away, a large blue portal opens and you're snatched up. No amount of fighting and struggling will free you and soon the pressure is too great to ignore. Darkness fills your vision and the last thing you may remember is the sound of thunder... This is the Team Yzma Event Log. You are free to toplevel and thread as you choose on this log, but only team members may utilize this log. Important links to mod toplevels are: Mod Questions & Participation Reporting. Please be aware you are responsible for reporting your own participation & objective completion efforts with links; the moderators will try to keep up with threads, but as we are currently running several teams with participation, we require you to keep us up to date! Please read each of the toplevels and instructions! The schedule for Team Yzma is as follows: 3RD: Objective 1 posted (9PM EST) | Objective 1 part two 10TH: Objective 1 closes (8PM EST), Objective 2 posted (9PM EST) | Objective 2 Part 2 17TH: Objective 2 closes (8PM EST), Objective 3 posted (9PM EST) | Objective 3 Part Two 24th: Objective 3 closes (8PM EST), Final city-wide log posted (9PM EST) Objectives will be given in mod toplevels to this post with instructions; please check the log currently for Objective 1 to see how this will work.

Comments

Killing Time

[mincingminuet]

[Never one to pass up a little Edutainment, Penelope listens a little carefully to the eldest member of their group. Carmen Sandiego is a name she's familiar with from her Foundation of course, but beyond that, the woman is as enigmatic as Dr. Halliday.

Now Pen's quite good at Spanish, and conversationally capable in Japanese, but that last language is one she can't even begin to make out. At a point when Carmen pauses, Pen pipes up in Spanish (and because the mun took French in high school, I'll italicize)...]

What's that last language? I got the Spanish, and the Japanese, but...

[doitrockapella]

[Oh, good, someone to practice with. It's apparent that of her languages, Spanish is what Carmen is best at, too — not just from her vocabulary choices, but from the subtle nuances of her accent and cadence, as well.]

It's Russian. I keep meaning to practice it more, but I've yet to find a partner to work with on a regular basis — and I keep getting tied up in other things.

[Not without irony, she motions vaguely to the room they're trapped in.]

Like this, for example.

[mincingminuet]

[Pen's Spanish is less nuanced, but hardly poor. Just something she'd picked up from the neighborhood kids in Phoenix growing up. If anything, some of it may sound childish.]

Oh! I don't think that outside of movies I've ever really heard it spoken, so I guess I tuned it out. Do you...have business dealings in Russia?

[She waves at the office space...]

When you're not solving morse code and being trapped in ridiculous situations, I guess.

[doitrockapella]

[That characterization of her everyday life gets a soft laugh out of her, and she nods slightly.]

Something like that. I learned Spanish from my parents, Japanese from my guardian, and Russian for work — or at least, in the natural course of business.

[She yawns a little, flicking her gaze up to the ceiling before settling it back on Pen.]

When did you learn Spanish?

[mincingminuet]

[Pen nods along with that, since it all makes a good deal of sense to her at least. Business and bad spy movies seems to be the only reason to learn Russian. Unless you are Russian.]

I grew up in Phoenix. My neighbors were all either immigrants, or the children of immigrants. I just listened and parroted and eventually it sort of clicked. I'm a little out of practice though.

[Not a lot of call for Spanish in her day to day life.]

Were your parents immigrants, Ms. Sandiego?

[doitrockapella]

No, but I grew up in California, and my parents were well-traveled people — my mother's job took her all over the world, and my father was an art dealer, so a great deal of his business relationships were international ones.

[And she is a thirty-year-old young woman referring to her parents in the past tense. Hmmm.]

Did you like it in Phoenix?

[mincingminuet]

Phoenix was alright, I guess. Mom and Dad liked living there, and they used to say it was the only place in the world they'd want to call home.

[Carmen isn't alone there, Pen is a twenty-one year old doing the same.]

I moved here when I was eighteen, for college. I wouldn't go back, now. I liked the people, but I like them here more.

[doitrockapella]

And what did you study when you came here?

[This is a question she will have asked every single person in this group by the time she's through. She is collecting the answers for only possibly nefarious reasons.]

[mincingminuet]

I'm in my second year of software engineering. I'm a programmer. Though I took a year off after...

[She trails off with a shrug. It's less awkward to talk about now than it had been.]

After mom and dad died. I couldn't write code straight for months, and it was just going to bring down my GPA and waste my professor's time.

[doitrockapella]

I'm sorry to hear that. For whatever it may be worth, you have my condolences.

[She pauses a minute, this time glancing away and toward the floor before returning her gaze to Pen.]

I have some connections at Recolle University. If you find yourself in need of help...well. Don't be a stranger, all right?

[mincingminuet]

[By now she can shrug it off, it was what it was.]

Thank you, Ms. Sandiego. And I suppose the same can be said of you. I run a YouTube channel for a living on top of school, and I hope it'll still be running when we get back. I do PSAs and fundraisers and the like regularly, if there's something you need to get the word out about.

[doitrockapella]

Do you really? Now, that's something I could definitely use.

[She smiles softly.]

For example, I'm always looking for new ideas when it comes to lesser-known causes that could use a helping hand. The traditional ones are easy enough — funding scholarships, making contributions to programs, that sort of thing — but I imagine there are plenty of causes out there that don't get that kind of attention, aren't there?

[mincingminuet]

I do. Pen's Points. Which, okay I'm sponsored by Fuji Industries but they aren't your business rivals and my contract is mainly to review gadgets they send on air so no conflicts there.

[She is actually quite happy to talk about her work. And Fuji but that's because a good friend runs the company.]

Generally the causes I tend to support are things related to the tech industry, such as conditions for overseas workers in microchip factories, and proper disposal of E-Waste. Also charities like Games for Life. And...I guess a pet project of mine has been outreach and assistance to geeks with mental health problems. Are you familiar with the idea of hikikkomori?

[doitrockapella]

Now there's a term that sounds interesting pronounced with a Spanish accent.

[But she seems amused by it, and not slowed down a bit for it.]

The "modern day hermit" phenomenon, isn't it? Young adults who prefer to live more reclusive lives and get the majority of their social interaction electronically, rather than in person?

[mincingminuet]

No kidding. My Japanese is poor though.

[She nods brightly all the same.]

And that's right. It's not just limited to Japan though, even if culturally it seems like it is. I have...a lot of friends online. And a lot of them are in bad shape mentally, so I've been using my platform to call awareness to the problem and direct them to help. Unfortunately counseling hotlines don't have the funds to deal with those problems, which has been my goal.

[doitrockapella]

And where would you like to see change start? Just better financing for existing counseling services? Or maybe something more particularly directed toward addressing this specific problem? Are special services of some variety needed, or just more access to what's already out there?

[mincingminuet]

I think that existing services are probably adequate, but the access just isn't there. Mental health is still something we're not taking seriously in this country. And I mean that in terms of awareness, financing, research, training. All of it.

As someone that went through bouts of severe depression, the only reason I even went for treatment and therapy was because a friend dragged me to a clinic the first time. I didn't even know it had those services.

[doitrockapella]

Though at the same time, it's not really the sort of thing that's well suited to advertising campaigns. Issues like that are personal enough that they need a...lighter touch.

[mincingminuet]

It's true. And...I've been stumped. I just talk to people personally, where I can. But I'm just one person, y'know?

[doitrockapella]

Maybe the place to target, then, is a place where people already feel comfortable, and just increase availability there. Someplace public enough to blend into a crowd, but with outreach private enough that someone can access it without having to draw attention to themselves.

[mincingminuet]

A website. That actually sounds ideal.