#especially in Y5-6

[cindyneilly-arts]

Got possessed and so I made a doodle comic 💃🏼

Ivy's gonna get a headache, poor lass.

|~•~|

[Based on this thing that I saw on Pinterest lol: ]

[yamaylander]

hey, it's me again! after a whole 2 days, i've finished redoing Nightmare. to be honest i didnt expect myself to work that fast but i guess i was THAT devoted to redoing her entire character. it's a really long file so it's obviously gonna be put under read more. there'll be a preview up until her profile below

special thanks to @cherry-blossomtea and another friend for helping me research DID as well as talking about their experiences with DID themselves. and obviously thanks @adorablegorilla for inspiring me to do this (although i did take a lot of liberties remaking Nightmare's character. found the evil alter thing distasteful)

of course, feedback is always appreciated so i know what parts work best and what areas i need to improve upon, especially in regards to DID as this is my first time engaging it. so do send if you have any!

without further ado, i present to you what i'm calling: Y5 Nightmare!

-----

Nightmare, Medic Operators of Rhodes Island, will provide help no matter who’s currently in the moment.

Who is it I’m talking to today?

Codename: Nightmare

Class: Incantation Medic

Real Name: Nyx Rebel Pasbelletti, Gloria

Gender: Female [Both]

Experience: 6 months [Nyx], 1 month [Gloria]

Place of birth: Victoria

Date of birth: June 1st [Nyx], March 12th [Gloria]

Race: Feline

Height: 156 cm

Infection status: Visible internal blotches, infection confirmed

(file continued below)

Token: A glow-in-the-dark doll, handmade. Nyx said it’ll protect you from bad dreams.

Physical examination

Strength: Normal

Mobility: Standard

Endurance: Normal

Tactical acumen: Good [Nyx], Normal [Gloria]

Combat Skill: Good [Nyx], Standard [Gloria]

Arts adaptation: Excellent

Skills (Rank 7)

Soul Reflection - ATK increases by 70% and attacks two enemies at once, healing two allies in range; each attack binds enemies for 3 seconds

Phantasmagoria - Range expands and stops attacking; decreases movement speed of enemies by 60% and drains 20% of their health every second with Arts damage, while healing operators depending on how many enemies are currently in range

Talent

Fronting - Healing effectiveness increased by 20% when equipped with skill 1; Obtains 18% ATK when equipped with skill 2

*Gloria has asked to keep this event classified until both her and Nyx come to a consensus to speak about it.

Profile

Nyx is a Victorian operating under the codename Nightmare with her headmate, Gloria. Prior to their entry into Rhodes Island, Nyx was a college student who studied medical Arts. Gloria came later during her life due to an unspecified event* before her subsequent infection. They now currently work in Rhodes Island’s triage section, working to help patients as well as Operators in the battlefield.

Clinical Testing

Imaging tests for this Operator showed a blurry outline of internal organs with visible unusual dark spots. Unusually high concentrations of Originium particles were present in her circulation, indicating signs of infection and confirming her as infected at this stage.

[Cell-Originium Assimilation] 16%

Surveillance is recommended for rare cases like this.

[Blood Originium-Crystal Density] 0.33u/L

Infection is in mid-stage and continues to spread. First-level medical plan recommended. Pathological Monitoring Protocol Label: Red (signed by Dr. Kal’tsit, see medical file for more detail).

Gloria is known to be gentle, almost to a fault. She doesn’t strike anyone as the type who would go out in the battlefield, instead giving the impression that she would rather stay and help others in the infirmary. This view is only half the truth. While Gloria does indeed want to help others, she wishes to do so in a manner that both soothes and protects her fellow operators onboard. In the ship, she is often the one who consoles others during their time of need. This is especially true for those who are currently experiencing traumatic stress. Surprisingly Gloria seems to have a good handle on how to deal with such matters, to the point that she could very well apply to be a therapist. It’s even more surprising that Gloria chose to become a battlefield operator, though this is because by her and Nyx’s volition, they want to help people wherever they can.

Archive File 1

Operator Nightmare suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. In rudimentary terms, DID is when a person suffers from having two or more personalities, also known as alters, in their consciousness. Currently, Nightmare has two headmates that are present, that being Nyx and Gloria, the latter of which tends to be fronting much of the time.

On the subject of Nyx, who is the oldest alter before Gloria came to be, she appears to be far more reserved compared to the more sociable Gloria. She usually remains dormant for long periods of time, often letting Gloria front whenever possible. On the chance that Nyx is fronting however, she shows herself to be far quieter than Gloria is. When talking to others, she speaks in a hushed voice and is quick with her words. She also tends to be more upfront and honest, which has led to others conflicting with Nyx from time to time. From Gloria’s words however, this isn’t because Nyx chooses to be mean, this is only because Nyx isn’t sure how she can talk to others. 

Currently, Gloria is undergoing talks with Nyx in order to help her open up, but she also stresses that Nyx must be given time before she can properly do so. On that note, Operators should be mindful of who they are speaking to at the moment and that proper respect should be given to Nyx’s situation.

Nyx has attended many classes regarding medicine and psychology, to the point that she often spent time reading up on the subject matters during her free time which has resulted in her stifled sociality. This may have also given way to her blunt nature, as Gloria admitted that Nyx often got into trouble by her own volition simply because she was honest in a manner that hurt others. Nyx doesn’t seem to understand why this is but seeing as this was the consequence of her honesty, she wishes to learn how she can avoid hurting others in the future.

Archive File 2

Both Nyx and Gloria have an interest in medicine, psychology and Originium, a somewhat broader range of interest compared to others. Although Nyx was born in a Victorian city that focused on artistry, with her father working in the pottery business, Nyx opted to follow her mother’s footsteps, who worked at the local hospital.

Her interest in Originium came about after Gloria had manifested. Both have been seen attending classes and reading up on Originium and its effects in Rhodes Island. As Gloria stated, “We want to know about Originium simply because we don’t want others to suffer because of it, as well as helping others become safer around it”. To say that Nyx and Gloria are determined to work hard and help others is an understatement.

On the subject of medicine and psychology, it seems the interests somewhat split with Nyx leaning more into studying psychology and Gloria studying medicine more often. Nyx appears to be up to speed on most mental disorders and knows how to deal with them in their proper manner while Gloria’s knowledge on medicine allows her to work in Rhodes Island’s infirmaries without trouble, assisting the doctors if she is available. Their efforts in both departments are commendable and their knowledge will prove fruitful to Rhodes Island’s advances in care.

When Gloria is fronting, the Arts unit becomes more effective at healing operators on the field, targeting multiple people at once. The healing Arts is immensely effective, allowing operators to stand longer and keep fighting. It also has the effect of making our operators feel more alert and thus more vigilant during their battles, increasing their performance in combat.

Archive File 3

For someone so young, Nyx shows a surprising aptitude for battle. Although Gloria has only had one month of combat experience and has focused mostly on first aid, Nyx seems to have the battlefield almost under her control. This is attributed to her Arts unit, which was discovered to have two functions based on whoever is currently fronting at the moment.

On the other hand, when Nyx is fronting the Arts unit becomes focused on keeping enemies back. When used on enemies, it puts them into a dreamlike state where their consciousness appears to dissociate from the current reality. This often causes them to give up fighting in bizarre ways, the most common of which involves them dropping their weapons and staring up at the sky, with some of them slowly wandering the area aimlessly. Why this happens is currently unknown, as Nyx refuses to divulge for the time being. Many operators who have been in field missions with Nyx have said it to be unnerving, unsure what to think when they see the people they were fighting with “suddenly fall asleep while awake”.

One notable incident happened during one of Nightmare’s field missions with Nyx fronting. While fighting a particularly dangerous enemy, she wound up forcing them into a REM state. This resulted in the enemy panicking as though experiencing vivid nightmares, constantly screaming for nonexistent entities to stop while begging for their life to be spared. It was only when they were knocked out that they ceased their panic. After this, Nyx was told not to do this again although it doesn’t seem like she was particularly affected by this event.

While walking back home from college to visit her parents, she decided to take a quick shortcut through one of Londinium’s districts to head there faster. However, she wound up getting caught in the middle of the Kazdel-Victoria crisis where the district she was in ended up getting caught in the middle of the artillery barrages. With nowhere else to go, Nyx was forced to run aimlessly through Londinium in an attempt to get away from the situation. Although mostly successful, the event left her deeply traumatized. In the state the district was in, she had to fend for herself no matter what.

Archive File 4

After a long time, Nyx and Gloria eventually agreed to share how they came to be. Upon their request, this file should also be kept secret from the general staff of Rhodes Island.

The next few days were described to be a living nightmare. She ran afoul with some of the district’s residents whose rationales were gradually deteriorating. Nyx wasn’t an exception as she also began to steal from others whenever she could just so she could make it to another day, even going as far as to attack others who attempted to steal from her. This all eventually culminated into her breakdown when one night, while hiding away in a shelter, someone had broken into it and attempted to steal her supplies. When Nyx tried to fight back, the attacker was far more aggressive than she thought and nearly killed her. Out of desperation, Nyx casted her Arts onto her attacker. Rather than putting them to sleep however, the blast was powerful enough to not only put her attacker to near death but also caused him to experience live nightmares. The end result was that the attacker was left screaming for help for the next few seconds before finally perishing.

Horrified by her actions, her stress finally broke her down. She underwent a severe mental and emotional breakdown before her mind eventually “quarantined” the stressor. For the next few minutes, Nyx had no success of calming down until she suddenly heard Gloria’s voice, who immediately began to reassure her and that everything will eventually be alright. After that, Gloria was able to help Nyx through the crisis however she could, right up until they joined Rhodes Island when they entered one of our buildings in Victoria.

The event has changed Nyx forever and it is certainly not something she’ll easily forget, but she is forever grateful that Gloria was born during her greatest time of need.

To this day, Nyx and Gloria have been continuously communicating to each other about their activities this way but after their therapy sessions, have also been figuring out alternative ways to break down their amnesiac barriers. This led to them creating a headspace of their own, which Gloria described to be a small bedroom in the middle of the night, with a nightlight on at all times. According to Gloria, this is what they find most comforting.

Promotional Record

Prior to them joining Rhodes Island, whenever Nyx and Gloria switched they often forgot about their alter’s activities during their time fronting. Gloria was the first to notice this problem when she spoke to Nyx during their time in Victoria, after hearing the latter ask what Gloria did. With this problem in mind, Gloria had the idea of using a journal she found to document both her and Nyx’s activities so that until they find proper shelter, their alter can remember what the other did so that they are aware of what happened.

Appointed as Assistant - Oh, it’s really bright in here… Doctor, do you mind if you turn down the lights a bit?

Dialogue

Normal text is Gloria speaking, italics is Nyx speaking.

Talk 1 - When we got into Rhodes Island, we weren’t sure what we were expecting… including the kindness that everyone was expressing! It’ll take a bit for Nyx to get used to, but I think she’ll also do just fine here!

Talk 2 - Our staff was given to us by Nyx’s dad. It has the power to sorta put people to sleep but to be honest, using the staff isn’t really a wise choice if we actually want to sleep…

Talk 3 - When I’m alone and Nyx is awake, we talk to each other. The same goes for Nyx too. Hm? Do people think it’s weird? I don’t think Nyx would care, as long as she has someone to talk to… and, well, she’s right for it.

Talk after Promotion 1 - There wasn’t a moment where I could get a good night’s rest back in Victoria… but when Gloria came along, I was finally able to rest. But… I do feel bad for making her go through those horrors. She’s a really brave person.

Talk after Promotion 2 - Oh, what’s that? Our Oripathy is worsening? Yes, that’s been a really big concern of ours… but we’re sure that Rhodes Island can do something. Right Nyx? �� mhm.

Trust Talk 1 - Erm, let me apologize on Nyx’s behalf! She really didn’t mean to start that fight in the hallway, I promise! It’s just been a while since she properly talked to someone so her social skills are a bit rusty… but I promise, I’ll help her learn how to socialize better. Just please be patient with her?

Trust Talk 2 - If I’m allowed to be a little morbid here… you’re essentially the leader of Rhodes Island, right? If you die out there, I’d imagine that your operators… your friends, they wouldn’t take it well. Well, that’s why we’re here! We’ll protect you, and everyone, from the threats outside. That much we can promise.

Trust Talk 3 - You get tired from time to time, right? With that pile of work, surely you do lose a lot of sleep doing it… well, what if I have a solution to that? I can always just make you sleep for a day or two. All you have to do is say the word… and I’ll come right along with what you need… haha, just kidding. Too scary?

Idle - … sweet dreams.

Onboard - Ah, hello! I’m Gloria, but you’ve already seen our resume right? My headmate’s name is Nyx! Oh, but give her some time, she’s not used to talking to people yet… codename? Hmmm… well, I think Nyx would want something intimidating like Nightmare but… w-wait, you’re already registering it?! H-Hold on!

Watching Battle Record - So this is how you get stronger…? Intriguing…

Promotion 1 - When we came here, we thought we’d simply be patients getting treatment… but we’d never imagined that we’d be so much more…!

Promotion 2 - It feels like I’m not qualified for this promotion at all… but since Gloria insists, I’ll take it too. I’m just lucky to be alive at this point. So, whatever you need us to do, we’ll do it.

Appointed to Squad (S1) - Mhm, got it.

Appointed to Squad (S2) - I’ll do my best.

Appointed as Squad Leader (S1) - W-Wait, can I really do this alone?

Appointed as Squad Leader (S2) - You won’t be alone.

Depart (S1) - We’ll get a good night’s sleep after this, right…?

Depart (S2) - Curious… what kind of things will you pull off?

Begin Operation (S1) - I see them… over the horizon…

Begin Operation (S2) - So, these are the enemies we’re facing…

Selecting 1 (S1) - Are our supplies safe?

Selecting 1 (S2) - I’ll keep them safe.

Selecting 2 (S1) - I’m ready to fight!

Selecting 2 (S2) - Be sure you won’t regret this.

Deployment 1 (S1) - So this… is our battlefield…

Deployment 1 (S2) - I see no difference in battlefield.

Deployment 2 (S1) - I’ve only fought a few times, please bear with me…

Deployment 2 (S2) - It’s been a while since I’ve been somewhere like this.

In Battle 1 (S1) - Don’t get too rash now!

In Battle 1 (S2) - I’m only getting serious.

In Battle 2 (S1) - Keep yourselves calm!

In Battle 2 (S2) - Relax. You'll only be sleeping for a few seconds.

In Battle 3 (S1) - Have a nice rest!

In Battle 3 (S2) - Sweet dreams.

In Battle 4 (S1) - We’re still advancing? O-Okay!

In Battle 4 (S2) - Don’t waste our time.

4-Star (S1) - D-Doctor… did we just… do something incredible?

4-Star (S2) - So this is what total victory feels like…

3-Star (S1) - And that’s that! Good work everyone!

3-Star (S2) - It ends here. Well done.

2-Star (S1) - Ahhh, is anyone hurt?! I’ll be right there!

2-Star (S2) - We’ve won… but it’s costly. I’ll go clean up the mess.

Assigned to Facility - Where should we sit…

Failure (S1) - Are you hurt?! W-We need to run, now!

Failure (S2) - This… can’t be happening…

Tap - Ah-! Oi.

Trust Tap - Oh, hello! Hi.

Greeting - Good morning, Doctor! Are you well rested?

Title - Akunaitsu.

[oliviabutsmart]

Physics Friday #5: The Wonderful World of Programming Paradigms

Welcome to the first actual post on the dedicated blog! This will be continuing on from what I started over on my main account @oliviax727. But don't worry, I'll still repost this post over there.

Preamble: Wait! I thought this was Physics!

Education level: Primary School (Y5/6)

Topic: Computer Languages (Comp Sci)

So you may be thinking how this is relevant to physics, well it's not. But really, other adjacent fields: computer science, chemistry, science history, mathematics etc. Are really important to physics! The skills inform and help physicists make informed decisions on how to analyse theoretical frameworks, or to how physics can help inform other sciences.

I may do a bigger picture post relating to each science or the ways in which we marry different subjects to eachother, but what is important is that some knowledge of computer science is important when learning physics, or that you're bound to learn some CS along the way.

Also I can do what I want, bitch.

Introduction: What is a Programming Language?

You may have come across the term 'programming paradigm' - especially in computer science/software engineering classes. But what is a programming paradigm really?

Computers are very powerful things, and they can do quite a lot. Computers are also really dumb. They can't do anything unless if we tell them what to do.

So until our Sky-net machine overlords take control and start time-travelling to the past, we need to come up with ways to tell them how to do things.

Pure computer speak is in electrical signals corresponding to on and off. Whereas human speak is full of sounds and text.

It is possible for either one to understand the other (humans can pump electrical signals into a device and computers can language model). But we clearly need something better.

This is where a programming language comes in. It's basically a language that both the computer and the human understands. So we need a common language to talk to them.

It's like having two people. One speaks Mandarin, the other speaks English. So instead of making one person learn the other's language, we create a common language that the two of them can speak. This common language is a synthesis of both base languages.

But once we have an idea of how to communicate with the computer, we need to consider how we're going to talk to it:

How are we going to tell it to do things?

What are we going to ask it to do?

How will we organise and structure our common language?

This is where a programming paradigm comes in - a paradigm is a set of ideas surrounding how we should communicate with a device. It's really something that can truly only be understood by showing examples of paradigms.

Imperative vs. Declarative

The main two paradigms, or really categories of paradigms, are the imperative vs. declarative paradigm.

Imperative programming languages are quite simple: code is simply a set of instructions meant to tell the computer specifically what to do. It is about process, a series of steps the computer can follow to get some result.

Declarative programming languages are a bit more vapid: code is about getting what you want. It's less about how you get there and more about what you want at the end.

As you can see imperative programs tell the computer how to do something whereas declarative programs are about what you want out.

Here's an example of how an imperative language may find a specific name in a table of company data:

GET tableOfEmployees; GET nameToFind SET i = 0; WHILE i < tableOfEmployees.length: IF tableOfEmployees[i].firstName == nameToFind THEN: RETURN tableOfEmployees[i] AND i; ELSE: i = i + 1; RETURN "employee does not exist";

And here's that same attempt but in a declarative language:

FROM tableOfEmployees SELECT * WHERE firstName == INPUT(1);

Note that these languages aren't necessarily real languages, just based on real-life ones. Also please ignore the fact I used arrays of structures and databases in exactly the same way.

We can see the difference between the two paradigms a lot more clearly now. In the imperative paradigm, every step is laid out clear as day. "Add one to this number, check if this number is equal to that one".

Under the declarative paradigm, not only is the text shorter, we also put all of the instructions about how to do a task under the rug, we only care about what we want.

With all this, we can see an emerging spectrum of computer paradigms. From languages that are more computer-like, to languages that are more English-like. This is the programming languages' level:

Lower level languages are more likely to be imperative, as the fundamental construction of the computer relies on a series of instructions to be executed in order.

The lowest level, the series of electrical signals and circuitry called microcode is purely imperative in a sense, as everything is an instruction. Nothing is abstracted and everything is reduced to it's individual components.

The highest level, is effectively English. It's nothing but "I want this", "I'd like that". All of the processes involved are abstracted in favour of just the goal. It is all declarative.

In the middle we have most programming languages, what's known as the "high level languages". They are the best balance of abstraction of reduction, based on what you need to use the language for.

It's important that we also notice that increasingly higher-level and increasingly more declarative the language gets, the more specific the purpose of the language becomes.

Microcode and machine code can be used for effectively any purpose, they are the jack-of-all trades. Whereas something like SQL is really good at databases, but I wouldn't use it for game design.

As long as a language is Turing-complete, it can do anything any computer can do, what's important is how easy it is to program the diverse range of use-cases. Assembly can do literally anything, but it's an effort to program. Python can do the same, but it's an effort to run.

Imperative Paradigms: From the Transistor to the Website

As mentioned previously, the imperative paradigm is less a stand-alone paradigm but a group of paradigms. Much like how the UK is a country, but is also a collection of countries.

There are many ways in order to design imperative languages, for example, a simple imperative language from the 80's may look a lot like assembly:

... ADD r1, 1011 JMZ F313, r1

The last statement JMZ, corresponds to a "Jump to the instruction located at A if the value located at B is equal to zero" what it's effectively saying is a "Repeat step 4" or "Go to question 5" type of thing.

Also known as goto statements, these things are incredibly practical for computers, because all it requires is moving some electrical signals around the Registers/RAM.

But what goto statement is used as in code, is really just a glorified "if x then y". Additionally, these statements get really irritating when you want to repeat or recurse over instructions multiple times.

The Structured Paradigm

Thus we introduce the structured paradigm, which simply allows for control structures. A control structure is something that, controls the flow of the programs' instructions.

Control structures come in many forms:

Conditionals (If X then do Y otherwise do Z)

Multi-selects (If X1 then do Y1, if X2 then do Y2 ...)

Post-checked loops (Do X until Y happens)

Pre-checked loops (While Y, do X)

Counted Loops (For i = A to B do X)

Mapped Loops (For each X in Y, do Z)

These control structures are extra useful, as they have the added benefit of not having to specify what line you have to jump to every time you update previous instructions. They may also include more "safe" structures like the counted or mapped loop, which only executes a set amount of time.

But we still have an issue: all our code is stuffed into one file and it's everywhere, we have no way to seperate instructions into their own little components that we might want to execute multiple times. Currently, out only solution is to either nest things in far too many statements or use goto statements.

The Procedural Paradigm

What helps is the use of a procedure. Procedures are little blocks of code that can be called as many times as needed. They can often take many other names: commands, functions, processes, branches, methods, routines, subroutines, etc.

Procedures help to organise code for both repeated use and also it makes it easier to read. We can set an operating standard of "one task per subroutine" to help compartmentalise code.

Object-Oriented Code

Most of these basic programming languages, especially the more basic ones, include the use of data structures. Blocks of information that holds multiple types of information:

STRUCT Person: Name: String Age: Integer Phone: String Gender: String IsAlive: Boolean

But these structures often feel a bit empty. After all, we may want to have a specific process associated uniquely with that person.

We want to compartmentalise certain procedures and intrinsically tie them to an associated structure, preventing their use from other areas of the code.

Like "ChangeGender" is something we might not want to apply to something that doesn't have a gender, like a table.

We may also want to have structures that are similar to 'Person' but have a few extra properties like "Adult" may have a bank account or something.

What we're thinking of doing is constructing an object, a collection of BOTH attributes (variables) AND methods (procedures) associated with the object. We can also create new objects which inherit the properties of others.

Object oriented programming has been the industry standard for decades now, and it's incredibly clear as to why - it's rather useful! But as time marches forward, we've seen the popularisation of a new paradigm worthy of rivaling this one ...

Declarative Paradigms: The World of Logic

Declarative languages certainly help abstract a lot of information, but that's not always the case, sometimes the most well known declarative languages are very similar feature-wise to imperative paradigms. It's just a slight difference in focus which is important.

Functional Programming Languages

Whereas the object oriented language treats everything, or most things, like objects. A functional language uses functions as it's fundamental building block.

Functional languages rely on the operation of, well, functions. But functions of a specific kind - pure functions. A pure function is simply something that doesn't affect other parts of the computer outside of specifically itself.

A pure function is effectively read-only in it's operation - strictly read-only. The most practical-for-common-use functional languages often allow for a mixture of pure and impure functions.

A functional language is declarative because of the nature of a function - the process of how things work are abstracted away for a simple input -> output model. And with functional purity, you don't have to worry about if what takes the input to the output also affects other things on the computer.

Functional languages have been around for quite a while, however they've been relegated to the world of academia. Languages like Haskell and Lisp are, like most declarative languages, very restrictive in their general application. However in recent years, the use of functional programming has come quite common.

I may make a more opinionated piece in the future on the merits of combining both functional and object-oriented languages, and also a seperate my opinions on a particular functional language Haskell - which I have some contentions with.

Facts and Logic

The logic paradigm is another special mention of declarative languages, they focus on setting a series of facts (i.e. true statements):

[Billy] is a [Person]

Rules (i.e. true statements with generality):

If [A] is [Person] then [A] has a [Brain]

And Queries:

Does [Billy] have a [Brain]?

Logical languages have a lot more of a specific purpose, meant for, well, deductive/abductive logical modelling.

We can also use what's known as Fuzzy logic which is even more higher-level, relying on logic that is inductive or probabilistic, i.e. conclusions don't necessarily follow from the statements.

Visual and Documentation Languages

At some point, we start getting so high level, that the very components of the language start turning into something else.

You may have used a visual language before, for example, Scratch. Scratch is a declarative language that abstracts away instructions in-favour of visual blocks that represent certain tasks a computer can carry out.

Documentation languages like HTML, Markdown, CSS, XML, YML, etc. Are languages that can barely even be considered programming languages. Instead, they are methods of editing documents and storing text-based data.

Languages that don't even compile (without any significant effort)

At some point, we reach a point where languages don't even compile necessarily.

A metalanguage, is a language that describes language. Like EBNF, which is meant to describe the syntaxing and lexical structures of lower-level languages. Metalanguages can actually compile, and are often used in code editors for grammar checking.

Pseudocode can often be described as either imperative or declarative, focused on emulating programs in words. What you saw in previous sections are pseudocode.

Diagrams fall in this category too, as they describe the operation of a computer program without actually being used to run a computer.

Eventually we reach the point where what were doing is effectively giving instructions or requesting things in English. For this, we require AI modelling for a computer to even begin to interpret what we want it to interpret.

Esoteric Paradigms

Some paradigms happen to not really fall in this range form low to high level. Because they either don't apply to digital computing or exist in the purely theoretical realm.

Languages at the boundaries of the scale can fall into these classes, as microcode isn't really a language if it's all physical. And pseudocode isn't really a language if it doesn't even compile.

There are also the real theoretical models like automata and Turing machine code, which corresponds to simplified, idealised, and hypothetical machines that operate in ways analogous to computers.

Shells and commands also exist in this weird zone. Languages like bash, zsh, or powershell which operate as a set of command instructions you feed the computer to do specific things. They exist in the region blurred between imperative and declarative at the dead centre of the scale. But often their purpose is more used as a means to control a computer's operating system than anything else.

Lastly, we have the languages which don't fit in our neat diagram because they don't use digital computers in a traditional manner. These languages often take hold of the frontiers of computation:

Parallel Computing

Analog Computing

Quantum Computing

Mechanical Computing

Conclusion

In summary, there's a lot of different ways you can talk to computers! A very diverse range of paradigms and levels that operate in their own unique ways. Of course, I only covered the main paradigms, the ones most programmers are experienced in. And I barely scratched the surface of even the most popular paradigms.

Regardless, this write-up was long as well. I really wish I could find a way to shorten these posts without removing information I want to include. I guess that just comes with time. This is the first computer science based topic. Of course, like any programmer, I have strong opinions over the benefits of certain paradigms and languages. So hopefully I didn't let opinions get in the way of explanations.

Feedback is absolutely appreciated! And please, if you like what you see, consider following either @oliviabutsmart or @oliviax727!

Next week, I'll finish off our three-part series on dark matter and dark energy with a discussion of what dark energy does, and what we think it is made of!

[polizwrites]

PoliZ's Bucky Barnes Bingo Round Five Masterpost

I once again had a blast with the @buckybarnesbingo!!! Huge thanks to the mods for running the event, especially the parties! I managed an assisted blackout plus (26 fills) thanks to two adopted squares. I wrote 23,291 words for this bingo across 25 works (filled two separate squares with two chapters of the same work). I've got a couple of WIPs resulting from this bingo - we'll see how long they end up languishing. 😬

I matched Bucky up with multiple partners, both platonic and romantic: Tony (8 fics), Steve (6 fics), Clint (5 fics), Natasha (1 fic). I also went with a couple of throuples: Bucky/Steve/Tony (3 fics) and Bucky/Tony/Pepper (1 fic) as well as a few with no pairing at all.

Ratings-wise, most fics were General (10) with 9 Teen-rated, 4 Mature, and 3 Explicit.

See below cut for the full list, with links to each fic - as well as the pairing, rating and word count.

B1 - AU: Medieval/Fantasy: Beyond the Beast [Steve/Bucky, Teen, 984 words]

B2 - KINK: Seduction Mission: Card Sharks - Chapter two [Sam/Natasha, Steve/Bucky, Teen, 617 words]

B3 - Sunrise/Sunset: Never More to Go Astray - Chapter Nine [Steve/Bucky/Tony, Teen, 781 words]

B4 - Shapeshifters: A Shift in their Relationship [Bucky/Tony, Teen, 451 words]

B5 - Cold: Somewhere To Turn [Bucky & Tony, General, 881 words]

U1 - Never the fall that kills you: Cutting the Strings [Tony & Bucky, Steve & Bucky, General, 740 words]

U2 - Clint Barton/Hawkeye: You Can't Stop It With a Gun - Chapter 3 [Bucky/Clint, Mature, 928 words]

U3 - Fireplace: Making Room [Tony/Pepper/Bucky, General, 316 words]

U4 - Present Tense: Blowing off Steam [Clint/Bucky, Explicit, 1250 words]

U5 - AU: Flower shop: An Arranged Insult [Bucky/Steve, Teen, 676 words]

C1 - Pet Names: A Sugar-Coated Pill - Chapter 2 [Bucky/Tony, Mature, 1087 words]

C3 - FREE: Without the Blind Adherence [[none], General, 557 words]

C4- KINK: "Please let me come." : Surrender (But Don't Give Yourself Away) [Tony/Bucky/Steve, Explicit, 2126 words]

C5 - Marriage of convenience/pretend couple: An Evening in Prague [Bucky/Natasha, General, 478 words]

K1 - "Take my hand": Take a Chance (On Me) [Clint/Bucky, General, 362 words]

K2 - Humor: Competing for His Affection [Tony/Bucky, General, 587 words]

K3 - Magic : A (Not So) Misplaced Gift [[none], General, 301 words]

K4 - Accidental villany: It All Depends Upon Your Appetite [Bucky & Natasha & Clint, Bucky & Steve, General, 653 words]

K5 - "Don't touch him": My Love is Vengeance - Chapter 5 [Bucky & Tony, Mature, 1374 words]

Y1 - KINK: Gentle sex: A Sugar-Coated Pill - Chapter 5 [Tony/Bucky, Explicit, 1177 words]

Y2 - [image: IW Bucky with the good hair]: Preparations [Bucky & Steve, General, 325 words]

Y3 - Alpine: Beta Testing [Bucky/Tony, Teen, 1451 words]

Y4- Forgotten Things: Half of the Flesh and Blood That Makes Me Whole - Chapter Two [Bucky/Steve, Teen, 1362 words]

Y5 - "This might as well happen": A Hairy Situation [Clint/Bucky, Teen, 2197 words]

May Adopted: Insomnia: The Dead of Night [Bucky & Steve, Mature, 317 words]

August Adoptable: Take the Shot: It’s In The Way That You Use It [Bucky/Clint, Teen, 1313 words]

[nochangeintheplan]

Waited a day but Gaiden Spoiler conspiracy ramble. Sorry if this doesn't make sense I've yet to replay the game but these are my immediate thoughts after I finished

So Hanawa is Morinaga right? There's always the alternative that he's a new character who will have his backstory revealed later, but if he's a pre-established character that we have the potential to recognize he has to be Morinaga.

(Obvious point out of way) Same VA I don't put a lot of stock into this since there are repeat VA's in RGG, but this is still a point. Generally same mannerisms and character delivery as well.

Suzuki Taichi The entire point rests on Hanawa knowing Kiryu's alias from y5. Morinaga and Aizawa confront Kiryu while calling him this. The entire scene of their meeting revolves around Kiryu's false identity. Forgive crusty quality lmao

Morinaga's Death Offscreen and ambiguous. We're told about it via Florist but never see it; it was just kind of weird in general.

Shorter than Kiryu Notable since most of these characters are MASSIVE for no reason, or range at around 6 feet. Morinaga and Hanawa are both shorter than Kiryu. I know angles mess with the size a lot in these games, but I think they're roughly the same height.

Similar Enough Faces It's not exact, but I see enough resemblance in their faces to entertain the thought. I see it mostly in the nos, cheekbones, and eyes, especially with the older Ishin model. It's maddeningly close enough but also off enough that I can't say 100%. To that I just say models do vary between games and have been yassified in general over time. Also if Kashiwagi can will his hairline back so can Morinaga.

Ishin Kiwami Actually a bit tenuous and conspiracy brain take here, but nearly every older character was recast to be someone who was more "relevant" to the current state of the RGG universe/in more recent memory to players. The fact that Morinaga/Matsubara remained as he was is just a bit suspect to me, since I don't think much of 5 is going to be revisited by players unless bits of it become major to upcoming games. Aside from Mirei, I believe everyone from 5 who remained in Ishin Kiwami would be relevant to Gaiden + (Including Aizawa, would would have to do with Hanawa's flashbacks if he is Morinaga).

Vibes Sorry but it'd just be cool lol. Because if it isn't Morinaga that mean's he's just a random guy new character, and him dropping that he knows Suzuki Taichi is a BBC Sherlock twist

[ghoooooooooooooooost]

ok my opinion now that i finished y8's story (spoilers)

tldr; overall it's a flawed but better end for kiryu than 6 imo. n ichiban is there <3 don't play this as your first yakuza game please don't you will get so much more out of this if you actually know who tf anyone is

it wasn't as awesomesauce as it seemed like it was gonna n it fell into the usual rgg problems - while surprisingly fixing a big one

kiryu's story effected me a lot 🥲 while ichiban's was just mostly "well i get to see ichiban yay". not to say i didn't care at all lmao the hawaii plot definitely still had it's strong moments (especially the scene w chitose after the bryce boss!!!) it just didn't hit the same overall

positive: KIRYU. i honestly loved most of the kiryu stuff. letting him look back outside of traumatic flashbacks.... letting him have a nice time..... giving him all these new friends that won't die on top of reassuring him that his old connections are still alright.... getting his ass punched by akiyama lmao. it really makes you realize how weird of an ending y6 would've been if that was truly kiryu's last game. so nice to finally be able to acknowledge previously tossed out characters/story beats in-game. seeing shinada mentioned… i cheered (i wish he was actually in there tho). on the hawaii side: tomizawa n chitose r sooooo good i didn't even think i'd end up liking chitose but i lov her.... n ichiban is the ichiban as usual

n the main villains don't die this game!? they're expected to live w what they did, even the evil cult leader!?!? kiryu's line abt not being able to change anything if you're dead wow wow wow hearing that after the prev games where a lot of them die even when they were able to change wooooooow. the pre-credits ending was sooooooo strong. I LUV KIRYU :( :) :(

<3 the tweaks to gameplay were nice too + it was a very pretty game

it had to grow on me but i like kiryu's y8 look a whole lot it's very nice n goes well w his softer expressions

negative: not as well optimized for pc (or in general) as y7 it feels like? i already said i liked kiryu's plot more than ichiban's... yeah. pretty mad that hanawa died but whatevar i guess... i understand saeko's conflict w ichiban but don't really like how they wrote her at times it made me kinda frustrated. esp w the joke at the end. really the whole y7 party took a step backwards in some ways (tho they're still great mostly) it's just saeko got it the worst. also i really don't like how long they took to get me to actually like yamai bc his reason for being in hawaii was constantly in the back of my head n then at the very end after all the fun stuff already happened they were like "actually he didn't try to assault her she framed him" fuuuuuuck you at least tell us that way earlier instead of suddenly detouring in the penultimate chapter. "well they had you warm up to him so you'd know something was up! they wouldn't make an sa-er likable!" listen. listen. i love rgg but if you think i trust them w women.... n if you think i forgot y4......... i didn't realize they still had the dating thing from 7 in there either till i saw someone else mention it n i refuse to touch it :/

too many blonde blue eyed white ppl in the substories wtf why do they outnumber the natives

my one gripe abt the kiryu side is that we didn't get to see him actually reunite w haruka n haruto IN GAAAAME BEFORE IT ENDED. LIKE WE KNO HE WILL BUT I WANTED TO SEEEEEEEE ON SCREEEEEEEN

my current ranking:

y0 = y7 > y3 > y5 > y8?? (not entirely sure bc its like. the highs n lows are so drastic) > kiwami 1 = y1 > kiwami 2 (don't get mad at me) > y6 (doooon't get mad at me i started liking it less when 8 was announced) > y4

gaiden not there bc its a short side game but i liked it so i'll mention it. didn't play the og y2 </3

[fabiansociety]

yakuza 6 is a much smaller game than yakuza 5, without the pervasive melancholy and the sprawling cast, and i'm not quite sure what i make of it at this point. i appreciate the tighter focus (even if i loved y5's picaresque), and particularly the ways the game is willing to really drill into the way kiryu is flailing as he settles into middle age, and how he's making the wrong choices as a result of it. the sidelining of haruka sucks; she's a character that is frequently ushered out into the wings for the endless second act of these games, but the way her agency is taken away in this game in particular feels faintly rancid. the fact that you learn that she's been the victim of some horrific violence in the same instant you learn that she's become sexually active is… not great. the series as a whole isn't terribly judgmental about women having sex—or, rather, it doesn't punish its women for being sexually active the way a lot of stories do—but it does have a bad habit of killing or harming its plot-bearing women, and the game using haruka's sexual activity as a proxy for her adulthood, and that adulthood meaning she's now available to be a victim of violence sucks. haruka's relationship with kiryu, separate from kiryu's relationship with haruka, has always been one of the series' strongest suits. haruka as a character is able to question him in a way other characters can't, because kiryu can't simply walk away from her, the way he does with adult women he gets close to, and he can't simply punch her into agreement, the way he does with the men in his life, and to have all that narrative tension resolved before the story even properly starts? it's a weaker story for it.

and the especially frustrating part is that haruka being awake and participating in the story doesn't do anything except improve things. the game can't function if kiryu is constantly saddled with haruto, so it has him hand his grandchild off to complete strangers repeatedly when he's in onomichi, and if haruka were awake, she could simply care for her own child while he goes off to try to find the father. she could be in onomichi with him, which would both streamline the bizarro logistical hoops the game hops through to park haruto somewhere and allow her to actively argue with kiryu about his fucked up decision to go back to jail. that decision—to functionally abandon his children for the sake of his own pride—is the real question at the heart of the story, and the game can only approach in obliquely, because it's silenced the only character who could make it more than subtext.

all that being said, though, the game itself is delightful? the substory writing remains world class, and the game's mood and tone and virtual tourism remain second to none. it's just frustrating that I'm something like 500 hours into this series and they still haven't figured out how to structure their A plots.

[gamerism]

😎

Top. 5. yakuza/rgg quotes? I know there are probably Many, but I am Curious. And you know what, who said honorable mentions can't be included too lol.

This one goes out to the translation team ig. Wouldn't be here without them ect ect. There probably are a lot of honourable mentions because this series has a lot of great moments but I'll contain myself to the 5.

5. "No point? You're just makin' things harder on yourself. Deprivin' yourself for no damn reason. You think the world gives two shits if there's a point or not? Keep that up and it'll break you." -Majima YK/1

(And doesn't it just? Doesn't this exact thing break Kiryu down piece by piece? That's something I love about a moment that's so early, that was written so long ago. And how it's come to reflect the series as a whole.)

4. "Hamazaki left a message for you before he went. 'Keep the Tojo Clan safe from the cops. It's the only proof left that guys like us ever existed.' [...] It took me forty years to realise this. But for guys like us... our lives aren't really our own. There's always someone new to help. Someone we need to protect. These past few years, I fought that fate with all I had. But I'm done fighting. It's time I accept the hand I was dealt." -Kiryu Y4

(I can't help but think about the Implications whenever I hear this quote and Kiryu's headspace from 4 on, & especially in 6 as well.)

3. "Once you step into the shadows you're stained black for life. No gettin' that mark off ya. But... You can still choose who you bring down with ya." -Majima Y0

(🥲🥲 always so ouchie)

2. "Every girl dreams of becoming a star one day. I wasn't any different. But the reality is I had already found what makes me whole. I thought that if I could make it as an idol...I'd be able to keep the orphanage running. But it came at a cost. I would have to leave behind the very man who raised me. [...] Even though he was unconventional, I could always rely on him. I...I think of him like a father. And I love him. I love him very much. [...]" -Haruka Y5

(I cut this short but this whole speech makes my heart ache so bad. The definition of illogical action done for deep emotional motivation. & Kiryu doesn't get to hear it. 😭)

1. "I'll let you in on a little something, The yakuza game, it's not like boxing. The man who gets beat down isn't the loser. The guy who can't tough it out till the end, he's the one who loses." -Kuze Y0

(Yes I know that's probably obvious considering I used this for a gifset recently, but it's really just stuck in my mind since I first saw it.)

Though speaking of honourable mentions while coming up with this list I did think of a) a late game ishin scene i like a lot but its long, from multiple characters, and i don't actually want to spoil it for people so :)

And b) ishin's final scene probably says something profound at some point but its genuinely 20 minutes of uninterrupted dialogue and my brain fucking groans and turns off whenever i watch it. so.

[datastate]

hey i've been lowkey interested in getting into the yakuza games for a while but i've had no idea where to start or what order to go in. what do you recommend? :3

hm-hm... i think for yakuza is best seen in chronological order! :D unlike star wars, i do think (esp with the remastered vers to include callbacks to y0) that it'd be unwise to go by release date only.

there is the main series (just known as "yakuza"), which is followed by the "like a dragon" series -- it also has side games! though i haven't bought or played those yet... (such as the "ryū ga gotoku online" card game; otherwise, i do intend to at least watch dead souls (zombie au, essentially) and ishin (historical (edo) period)!!)

what i'm planning to play would be:

yakuza 0-6 yakuza: like a dragon judgement lost judgement like a dragon: gaiden

i've heard the judgement series requires events that have happened in y7, hence their placement afterward! they're also spin-offs i believe, but highly recommended from a friend of mine :D

of course, if you want to cut some time... i have my own qualms with some of the games. there are, of course, certain scenes that are crucial for later development, but i really wouldn't mind cutting out certain cutscenes if you'd like to watch those rather than play through certain games.

the games that i took the most issue with would be y5/y6, in all honesty. i felt it was redundant and jarringly convoluted, with its misogynistic writing nearly being enough to make me put down the game at several points. which is extremely disappointing considering how much i loved certain scenes from them! especially the mirroring of how parents can influence how their children cope in y5, as well as the beginning/ending cutscenes of y6, they certainly stuck with me and feel completely disjointed from the game they're written within.

of course, the above^ is solely my own opinion. as i've told my brother, do feel free to play through on your own & make your own evaluations! yakuza is a fun game just through its gameplay, anyway <3

i suppose if you're going for something more causal though, y0/y3 are my personal favorites, and i've heard many good things about the like a dragon/judgement series. like a dragon's playstyle is jarring as it's rpg rather than open combat, but it's not 'bad' by any means! :]

i'm sort of rambling at this point :P but i do hope this was somewhat helpful & that you enjoy the series once you get into it!

[kulemii]

6 (just to give a chance to gush c:), 7, 17, 21, for that Yakuza asks 💜

6. All time favorite character? Elaborate if you want?

OBVIOUSLY it's Kiryu 🥰. The smartest most rational character in the-- SIKE! MASATO AIZAWA ALL THE WAY BABY! THAT'S MY MAN! MY ONE AND ONLY (not really because i love nishiki too)! MY HUNNY BUNNY! MY TEDDY BEAR! Aside from him being so, sooo fucking scrumptious, i like his personality alot. He doesn't have patience for bullshit and barely knows how to keep his mouth shut (especially when he probs should). But at the same time, he's sensitive and freaks out when he doesn't know what to do. He's got sense but he's kind of an idiot, he's my sweet baby boy 💜 I love him forever

7. Any characters you can't stand? Elaborate if you want?

Kir-- okay, I'll stop. I swear. Yeah, Iwami (Y6) I fucking hate that little weasel. I would curb stomp his ass. He didn't deserve to have such a hot body. I would rib his abs clean off his torso.

17. Do you have a favorite "have they ever even met?" ship?

Not really. I'm not really all that into shipping if i'm honest. Chances are if I like a character enough to care about their lives romantically, I'm either shipping them with myself or an oc I've created. Very rarely do I pin characters together that haven't even interacted. I do have one friendship ship that I take very seriously tho and that's Nishiki and Aizawa. I've been flirting with the idea of Aizawa and Kaito being friends pretty heavily as well. (note: I guess I do have a few romantic ships but they're all people that know each other)

21. Mini game you through you'd hate but enjoyed?

I reallllllyyyy thought I was gonna hate Saejima's hunting minigame on Y5 but that shit was fun as hell after I got the stick out my ass about it.

unhingedselfships' ask game

[safyresky]

Frostmas Year 7: Behind the Scenes

Prologue | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 | Y8 | Y9 | Y10 | Y11 | Y12

Lmao I JUST posted Y6 and the BTS for it like, YESTERDAY as of starting this post, and I'm ALREADY HITTING UP YEAR 7 LMAO LET'S GOOOOoOOOOoooooOOo

Year Seven was a fun one! My notes were small and it ended up being one of the longer chapters which was genuinely shocking to me. Year 9 also did the SAME THING. Check out the OG notes below the cut! :)

[ID in ALT]

Short enough it fits in a screenshot. WILD. ALTHOUGH! It is SURROUNDED with little snippets from the year (hence the "see right side" note up top)—I imagine they were written while I was struggling with Year 6.

Anyway! Let's hecking get into this, yeah?

Jacqueline's Intro

Guess who scrapped it!

THIS GAL

Fun fact: I actually never liked the intro. I felt it really deterred from where I left off in Y6, so when I went back to read it and still felt this feeling, I scrapped it

As of writing this, I THINK I'm going to add it post-the tree and fast freeze hair scene? But we'll see if it works with the funky flow of things~

OKAY REGROUPING A WEEK LATER BC YOU GUYS. AS I READ THROUGH IT TO FILL THIS THING OUT I REALIZED SOMETHING. THE EVENTS OF YEAR SEVEN? THE WAY I WROTE IT, ALL HAPPEN WITHIN A DAY:

Jacqueline heads back to the Pole January 3rd

She has the convo about the Final Form Resort with B on January 3rd

They come up with the arson idea on January 3rd

She gets the twins clearance from Santa Jack during his wee lil interview on January 3rd

SHE GOES HOME AND GETS BLINTER APPROVAL AND THE TWINS TO AGREE ON J A N U A R Y 3RD

THEY THEN. IMMEDIATELY GO UP TO THE NORTH POLE AND JACQUELINE DOES THE WHOLE AIRPORT SHENANIGANS WITH JACK ON JANUARY THIRD

WHILE BELOW THEM. THE TWINS WING IT UNDER BERNARD'S WATCHFUL EYE. AND BURN THE NORTH POLE RESORT STUFF TO THE GROUND.

ON

JANUARY

THIRD

Now when I originally wrote this, I had not picked up on that at ALL. I thought that there'd been some time in between, but alas! I did it all on the SAME DAY. It only FELT LIKE IN BETWEEN TIME BECAUSE I KEPT TAKING LONG BREAKS BETWEEN WRITING SESSIONS!

AH!

SO I HAD TO OVERHAUL THAT WHICH DRASTICALLY CHANGED THE WHOLE CHAPTER FROM HOW IT ORIGINALLY WAS, ESPECIALLY SINCE THE TWINS ARE 12, NOT 8 (hundred) LIKE I ORIGINALLY HAD THEM IN LIKE. 2012! FUCKIN EH!

So NOW, without FURTHER ado. The Behind the Scenes of Year 7 Mark 2 because ah-fuck-i-can't-believe-i've-done-this dot vine.

Scene 1: Freedom

As per the crossed out original opening of this BTS, I decided to move the intro somewhere else, and found a good place for it, I think. I didn't want to break up the flow from Y6 into Y7, and I kind of like it a LOT better like this! :)

"Right now immediately" is tumblr vernacular/maybe a reference to the breadsticks meme?

Don't worry, she DOES find her left shoe again! Snow likes her a lot so when she went back up north she was like "HEY SNOW. YOU SEEN MY SHOE." and the snow yeeted it right out of a huge drift and slid it her way :)

And FINALLY she decides to come CLEAN to Blinter

I gotta tell you guys. Writing Blinter has been a STRUGGLE in these old parts. I have to keep remembering that CS has not happened, nor has MtF, so Winter's frozey and Blaise needs a Fucking Nap. I ALSO have to remember that they are decent parents. Like, they are trying their best. And as I read through these old chapters, some things they said were phrased in such a way that I was like "Hmm. My parents would say that. Let's change that!"

The other thing too is that a lot of lines in Frostmas were peer reviewed and quite well liked in the reviews, so trying to keep those in (because I liked them too!) while updating the vernacular and making sure everyone is in character has been a CHALLENGE. But I think I did well enough! HOPEFULLY.

My apologies if there was a line you liked that's GONZO now 🫠

Scene 2: Coming Clean to Blinter

This scene actually held up pretty well!

One major change was Blaise's anger. It was directed at her, so this time around I tweaked his vocab to make sure it was directed at her disappearance, and to hopefully show that it's coming from a place of concern and fear and that's why he's angry about it lmao

Winter too! Though she deffs didn't appreciate Jacqueline's sass levels, which are 100% hints I've dropped about what happens to her at the end of Year 10 >:)

"...they had grown into a sentient enchantment"

^So the gates at Frost Manor were NOT enchanted by Blaise to open on their own, funnily enough! They grew into sentience on their own. It happens sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But the gates are one of my fave characters and they really love the family which is a good thing given they've been standing on that lot for like, four thousand or so years

RIGHT INTO THE FUN BITS

"Mom’s thumb rubbed my cheeks, her lips pursed. “Jacqueline darling…what have you done to yourself.” She chipped away at the ice on my face, head tilted, looking…perplexed."

The MOMENT she sees Jacqueline she's like "this is fake as fuck. why have you put all this ice on your face. what in the actual fuck, Jacqueline"

She's gd Winter ffs!!! And Jacqueline ain't SLICK! She thinks she is but she's really not :) But she tries and we gotta give her credit where it's due!

"I know it's convincing" says Jacqueline, meanwhile Winter's thinking "it's a mess, actually, and close up not convincing in the slightest but you've had a long day so I'm not going to roast you about that this time :)"

"Your FATHER trying to reach out" is a new line! Since I decided how Blaise's connections with the kids worked I figured I'd mention in in Y7 lmao. He's like "I'll leave you be but I am there if you need me" meanwhile Winter's like "I am a constant threat presence"

It's an interesting view into how they both grew up, actually, how they approach parenting and how their connections work!

Winter was surrounded by loud, loving sisters and a lovely mum. They were/are very tight knit and it shows with how active her connections with the kids are

Blaise didn't have a lot of freedom growing up, CONSTANTLY under the watchful eye of his parents AND brother AND the entire nobility AND the entire gd continent so he, of course, is very much like. Give them the freedom they need but support where you can kind of thing

sups off topic. Getting back ON topic. AH.

the line about the spiked warm drink was one of MY faves and I did my best to make sure I could keep it in there >:)

Scene 2.5: The Actual Chat

Blaise's hair is his worst tell. And the truth of the matter is, he can 100% keep it temperate if he wants too but he doesn't—he is the reason Winter always beats him at poker or any card game involving bluffing, really :P

Blinter deffs were unsure she'd be back by Christmas, given how everything went with the first child. They tried very hard to be hopeful and they were, doubt just creeps in REAL EASY especially when you're THAT old and have SEEN SOME SHIT

And the thing is, they DO understand! They've both been there. Dealing with some gnarly extenuating circumstance, that may or may not have been caused by family members or at least, contributed to by them, and they have fought through it and clawed their way out of the ground time and time again and are reminding Jacqueline about that in this whole scene. And also me. Because I frequently forget the shit I put these two through when they were younger (see: civil war, the call, day of darkness)

Blaise's speech about how many times can you keep doing it is loosely inspired by this post which whenever I see it I go hope IS messy, and also, BLAISE VIBES bc that's his core lmao

And it makes me feel better for constantly trying again and again even when things seem hopeless

hope really is messy business, isn't it? ANYWAY

"I am a simple woman. I just like to watch people flail on ice until they fall over.” “A worthy pursuit.” “Thank you, dear.” Dad nodded over the rim of his cup.

this was newly added, i fucking LOVE Winter she's so funny and Blaise is just like "you're valid hun" like. I love them? 🥰🥰🥰

And WHAMMO! WE INTRODUCE THE ACCIDENTAL FREEZE!

Which was HUGE foreshadowing, lol, as that's LITERALLY what HAPPENS as we know by now in Year 10!

You've heard of sad. You've heard of bad. Get ready for ANGRY. REALLY, REALLY FUCKING ANGRY! That's Jacqueline's nature as a frozen sprite, if you haven't noticed lmao

Reading this now post writing it, I'm like, DAMN, I could go for a Blinter sammy hug. That sounds delectable!

Scene 3

I have I ever told you all how I can pinpoint the exact moment Jacqueline's heart freezes? No? Well, I can, and if you're curious to know, it's in this scene 🤫

Scene 4: Visiting Gran

Yet ANOTHER instance of fixing shady character shit, oy VEY.

One of my pet peeves is Mother Nature being characterized as the BIGGEST bitch, derogatory, completely uncaring and cold. Like, yeah, Nature do be like that but also, it do be warm and comforting and nurturing, you know?

And she always seems very nice in her scenes in the movies so, you know, the MOMENT someone is like "she doesn't CARE" or ANYTHING like that I'm OUT.

So when I catch it happening in MY work I'm like, oh HELL NOOO

And I think this scene had a few instances of it that have since been refreshed and cleared out :)

CS HEADCANON ALERT: Fairies can shrink their size to get into small places! So can Pixies.

CS HEADCANON ALERT: The Legendary Figures all guard a specific type of magic that was used to create the World. Oh, there's all sorts of magic involved there. But the big ones, the ones that are easy to pick up on and most common? The Legendary Figures guard it, and make sure it keeps flowing and that the world keeps turning

This is why MN says that she felt a shift and things felt righted—Jacqueline, being a Legendary Figure atm, coming back out into the world proper, tips the magic balance back to where it should be.

Hence the comment of "having the legendary magics back in the fold, and all that" and the meaning behind it! Which maybe you didn't need to know. But hey! You know now! :)

Scene 5: VINDICATION

Because that's Jacqueline's thought the ENTIRE time the council is meeting. I WAS RIGHT THE ENTIRE TIME and she is READY to gloat about it and WILL gloat about it FOREVER

And now we're getting into the messy business of "how come the Council didn't know Jack wasn't supposed to be Santa" and the obvious plot hole in tsc3 of "How did FT NOT pick up on Jack doing that?" which are smaller facets of the whole HOW DID THEY LET THE THEME PARK HAPPEN ANYWAY?! Argument

They didn't! Jack just did it. And as for timelines, well, FT coming in CLUTCH with an explanation! Of sorts.

I mean, they gave us the answer in tsc3—their powers don't work on other Legendary Figures! So if a Clause is used, Christmas magic, in conjunction with Time magic, BY the guy who uses the WINTER MAGIC, well. It's going to get messy and the timeline's gonna be all sorts of fucked up and FT is popping up now to start tackling that problem

And because we are more than halfway through, and we all know how the movie ends, so...time to start having FT figure out the shit going on!

Especially with Y8 being right around the corner, lol.

"Picture of poise and grace and such" was I think, "Picture of sophisticated grace" originally and yes, it was a Frozen reference.

Scene 6: Jacqueline's Intro

Tada! This is where I moved it! When the New Year starts proper! I thought that was rather brilliant on my end :3

Apparently, this opening was one of the heavily enjoyed ones? Idk. But I'm happy with where it is and glad I didn't have to scrap it entirely! I kind of like them, you know? I like that Jacqueline essentially TW's us for what shenanigans are gonna happen NEXT before telling us about said shenanigans.

Also. Sometimes. the Canadian just SLIPS OUT. And it sure fucking did with the last line of the intro lol

Fun fact! Jacqueline's a dual citizen. Her other citizenship is Canadian 🤭🤭

Scene 7: Breaking into B-Man's. Again

Idk WHY. When I was writing this. Jacqueline was like. I commit breaking and entering as a hobby into Bernard's house, specifically. But! Here we are!~

We can also see the uh. Friction getting to Bernard, with him being snappish @ Jacqueline

tho admittedly it's ah. well deserved given that ah. She did break into his house and deliver bad on bad on badder news!

Scene 8: LOTS of BAD Ideas

Like. SOO many bad ideas.

Okay. So we got like. The final version of the Resort, right? Then we have Jacqueline's big plan: FIRE.

And Jack calling in actual reporters from the ordibeing world

So you'll NOTICE that THAT detail wasn't on the notes! That'd be because I added it as I was writing! I realized that like, if he'd dropped off all these tickets and people were calling it a scam and y'know, social media circa 2001 was going OFF about it, it'd be ideal for Jack to fess up asap before other people took the credit for it OR everyone deemed it a scam with fruitless investigations and whatnot (if that makes sense)

BASICALLY it was to give the Resort a sense of legitimacy given that it was this close || to being brushed off as a scam or silly marketing scheme (which aren't totally untrue statements)

Do I know where Jeff works? NO! All I know is he's the only reporter (him and his team) to come up and the interview is gonna be SO exclusive lmao

Bernard probably had to talk Jack down from hosting a whole ass PRESS CONFERENCE lol, bc he absolutely would. 100%.

An aside: I bet the pieces on news stations when reporters who have kids go to the Resort are interesting pieces lmao. The whole world is probably like "wow! crazy!" and the news casters are probably like "A fun activity to do with your kids this Christmas!" and the Council is probably like "Woahg. They're?? Not thinking it's the real deal? Crazy"

This got off topic, but YEAH! The reporter bit was added in as I was originally writing! Neat facts!

"Your fascination with arson concerns me, Jacqueline. Especially considering your alignment and all."

^Okokok this is one of my fave lines. It's a call back to her suggesting they burn his satchel the year before. It's also very true: she quite enjoys starting fires. Loves her a good fire, that Jacqueline. DEFFS the summer sprite blood there. The Twins also have more winter sprite tendencies! Fiera constantly overheats and LOVES being cold. Fino always has a window open when it's nice and cold outside. That sorta thing!

Jacqueline: suggests the TWINS join their efforts

Literally Everyone: are you insane

Jacqueline: >:O. YES! OBVIOUSLY!

"...I know listening is hard for them, but I would rather have a controlled fire than something akin to the Great Fire of London." “Hey! They were young! It was an accident.” “They started that?!” “Oh! I assumed you knew? I thought that’s why you brought it up.”

The Twins did, in fact, start the Great Fire of London. In 1666 specifically. That one.

They didn't mean too! They were quite young and missed Jacqueline so they took the long maiden voyage out of Crystal springs, all the way across the world to Europe and met up with her in London, promptly SETTING IT ON FIRE.

I think they're both complicit. Fiera was sparky and Fino wanted to pet the animals in the barn. It is what it is, I suppose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Scene 9: Crashing the Interview

Making Jacqueline channel Jack brings me great joy for reasons I cannot express but could probably be easily summed up as ANGST

“And his name is Jeff, which I think is very funny for a bigshot journalist doing a travel piece. On Santa Claus.”

->She's calling me out :( I didn't have a name for Jeff so I went with Jeff bc I had just watched WWDITS and Jesk existed and was a thing 🙃🙃🙃

(In Nadja voice: It's like a weak ejaculation!)

“On the biggest news story this year!” “The year is still young, y’know."

I wrote this bit. Remembered that Y7 takes place in 2001. And my face was immediately like

"Since this is an off-school year" Jacqueline says, surprising even ME as I didn't know that's how they did school in CS

But I'm getting the vibe for magibeans, they take decent breaks between schooling years just bc of longevity or something. Idk. I'm working on it? I guess?

Like when people take gap years to travel or whatever, lol. Would NOT be surprised if Magibeans did something similar but the students would go travel into the ordibeing world or do magical research or projects or SOMETHING like that, lol

"I winked at Jeff, which seemed to do the trick as he laughed heartily, thinking it was some sort of joke amongst us magibeans"

I spent this whole passage thinking of the culture shock Jeff must be dealing with and cackling

Also. Love having Jacqueline throw her title in Jack's face, makes me cackle >:)

Scene 10: Best Laid Plans Start. A MONTH OR SO LATER! NOT ON THE SAME DAY!

I am so mad about this same day thing, honestly

SO HERE WE SEE THE FIX! THE PLAN HAS BEEN SET UP AND N O W JACQUELINE IS BROACHING IT WITH THE PARENTS AND IT IS NOT A ONE DAY THING, IT IS AN OVER TIME THING

Imagine being Jack. And dealing with THESE THREE GREMLINS on the most STRESSFUL year of your REIGN AS SANTA SO FAR.

It's also been very fun writing Bernard, especially when he gets a little win—like ruining everything on airport day specifically >:)

Jacqueline references this CS fact when she talks about how Fiera and Fino may have invented the fire hazard/fire safety

Hot girl soot is just a play on hot girl shit. So it's. You know. hot girl shit. Eating hot chips. Girlbossing. Starting fires. Practising elemental control. That sort of thing!

And this is immediately followed up with ANGST. I surprised myself with it too, tbh!

"And thinking of the amounts of paperwork the Resort will result in? Arson just seems more and more promising" Blaise is not here for the paperwork at ALL. I am thoroughly convinced that if he remembered Frostmas, he'd throw Jack into a lake and yell THE PAPER WORK I HAD TO DEAL WITH! And Jack would resurface and be like "gee dad. you really need to cool off" and push him into the lake with a snowy assist

The news the next day: Old Man is thrown Into Lake By Even Older Man.

Byline: IT'S ABOUT THE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PAPERWORK!

So that's why he's all "hell yeah" for arson, lol. He really really isn't looking forward to the bureaucratic NIGHTMARE the Resort will be—between the secrecy laws being broken, preventing the other secret magibean places from being exposed, and lady only KNOWS how much witness damage control? YEAH. BURN IT BEFORE HE DOES WHEN IT ALL CROSSES HIS DESK

Scene 11: Actually LAYING the PLAN

One day. What is WRONG WITH ME

Anyway! This scene is all new! To explain how the twins get up there and make a lil name for themselves BEING up there so that when the fire ACTUALLY HAPPENS it's not as sus as could be. even tho. y'know. it's DAMN OBVIOUS LOL

It turned into another one of those back into the present scenes where the cold front is recounting the tale with one another and this one was SO FUN and made me weak

the implication is that the twins somehow managed to weasel themselves into the cold front's day off plans? I think that comes across

Not that Jacqueline minds, of course! She sees Jack too often at this point and is more than happy to have her other siblings hanging out too, let someone else bother the man while she takes a beach nap

She just likes to tease him bc yes, the twins absolutely DO have Jack right in the palm of their hands, the sneaky lil hotheads

Scene 12 & 13 & 14: Fire Time

12 is deffs my favourite scene! Well, one of them, lol. Just. The image of disgruntled Santa Cosplay Jack watching two fiery beings try to shove themselves into a backpack while the other sibling loses it laughing beside them and just being like. I GUESS THIS IS MY LIFE NOW. Just SENDS me.

"He stopped beside Fiera; they stared at each other quietly for a moment before Fino nodded" <- this is twin telepathy at play right here

"Bermuda?" "Neutral Territory" <- don't quote me on this. to my understanding Summer mostly deals with Bermuda so she's HAPPY to host fight dates for Spring and Winter, helps ease their squabbling and also makes it easier for Summer when she hands off with Spring.

This could be why the Bermuda Triangle is Like That, lol.

(I know there's science in that shit. Let me suspend my disbelief for one goddamn moment, where is the WHIMSY)

Yes I named the Fire Marshal Marshal. A silly thing that was unappreciated when originally revealed so now I am making it VERY OBVIOUS

But also, he's more of a character in Y7 PROPER now, given the whole. FIRE thing we have going on here, so now his name has to be in your face instead of one off wordplay joke.

RIGHT! SO! FIRE TIME

You guys would not BELIEVE the pause this scene caused me. I got right up to go time and then paused like "huh. how do you start fires".

Did I google it? Yes! Needless to say, reddit has a sub for EVERYTHING and I learnt about a very prolific serial arsonist and now may have to take out another book from the library, but that's neither here NOR there

I also googled "is varnish flammable" and it is, more so than paint so, here we are lmao!

Would NOT be surprised if I was on some kind of list, especially since half this research was. In fact. Done at work 😬

Scene 15: Cold Front Time

I went on a whole ass OTHER research rabbit hole involving PLANES and POLAR TRAVEL for this one lmao

Boeings don't GO into polar regions! I know this now! And more! The wikipedia page on the Lockheed planes was very very very long and informative, wow.

when Jacqueline says "terrible new paint job" please know it is the exact design it had on it in the movie. The Santa flying on top of the plane design. That one lmao

As for the crew, I was thinking about this and I wasn't sure they'd be human/ordinary, non-magical people, y'know? But I FIGURED that Jack would know some seedy mofos/have people who owe him or vice versa and he'd be able to cash in on that for a situation like THIS.

I know nothing about the crew, other than the pilot is very tiny, dressed like an old timey pilot, and you cannot see their defining features so all you know is that they are a creature of some sort but that's it!!!

"Have you ever waded through molasses, let alone cold, non-magical molasses? It’s exhausting.” “I wouldn’t know. I was in Chicago at the time, not Boston.

You guys. I have been resisting the urge to reference the molasses flood of Boston MA the ENTIRE TIME Jack has compared the Christmas magic to Molasses. I finally caved. Hashtag worth it.

Trying to figure out how the people got into the pole, given the itty bitty hole and GIANT plane and lack of any environmental storytelling was a CHALLENGE, but I'm quite happy with it!

I originally wanted to have Jack talk about putting in a historic display that leads UP to the Resort and say some BS like "It's the FINEST iteration YET" but I was like "woah there, dani, you need to calm DOWN" and so I canned it at the uh, Disney pre-show mentions lol

Anyway. Jack never says the I told you so as they head down and see the FIRE, but I think it speaks for itself 🤭🤭

Scene 16: Twinsplinations

When I tell you. Fino and Fiera have been practising this bit ALL YEAR. I mean it

They are giant hams. This whole family is tbh (and we love them for it? I think?)

They're so good that even Jacqueline was like HEY LIVE THEM ALONE >:( despite knowing they were playing it up--but this is also a side effect of her own predicament lol. She's entering her angry era ;)

I deffs modelled the "what's salvageable" bit after the exact same scene in tsc3! I love me a bit of mirroring here and there >:)

I am pretty sure they would've gotten away with it if Jacqueline hadn't ended the scene the way she did. Absolute banger, of course, but my GOD she's causing problems on purpose, isn't she? heh.

REGARDLESS. These two continue to vex one another and quite frankly, exhaust me. Remember when I wanted to update every thirteenth? And this was updated late July? And the BTS is now being posted in (checks watch) AUGUST?!!? AND YEAR EIGHT HASN'T GONE UP YET???

AHHHH

Scene 17: Home Safe

So I reworked this scene quite a bit! Blinter is now included, and Jacqueline's mood post-arson can only be described as:

So. Let's see what notes and references I snuck in here!

None, apparently! But I am a big fan of this whole scene and interaction. Hitting us with the Winter angst when she asks Jacqueline to stick around! Whatever the heck Blaise and Winter are saying with their facial expression! I sure as shit don't know, but they sure do!

Scene 18 and 19: The Finale

When Jacqueline finally goes back up North to spy/scout/antagonize Jack for the most part, and she talks to Jack about everything, and he mentions the security footage and how the missing bits and how security was just like WHOOPS, I 100% pictured Gary(?) from the series. Heard it in his voice and everything!

I have to keep reminding myself that Jacqueline and Bernard are on the same team here, lol. And that the elves are HAPPY to help make things messy for Santa! So the erasure of the bits of security footage that showed the twins causing the fires was added to aide that bit

And I feel deep in my bones that they pulled a Speed and looped old footage of the twins eating with Bernard in case Jack was a wee bit too clever lol

And then we have the reveal as to why the security officers in the movie were human, and not elves! Jack time out'd them, which means Jacqueline made cute little ice statues of them and sent them off to help the others with the TUNNEL lol

The permanency of the PEN. me @ me:

Um, the carbon monoxide thing is new! I think about that story of the guy who was leaving notes for himself he couldn't remember, and how it ended up being carbon monoxide and a broken detector, quite frequently.

This year had like a LOT of explanatory semantics re: how the Resort was received/took off in the mortal world. That was one HECK of a summary passage to write in this last scene!

And I SOMEHOW managed to preserve the same end sentence. FUNK YEAH!!!

GOD this year was a MESS of a year. Glad to have fixed it up though! It's still holding up a month later (I started this BTS July 7th, and a week later ran into my IT WAS ONE DAY?!?!? problem, and FINALLY got around to posting it after finishing Year EIGHT) which is GREAT and now I can take a break from these bad boys since Y8 and Y9 already have a BTS! That'll make things MUCH easier! RIGHTO. Enjoy this raging dumpster fire of me RAMBLING. Prommy I'll get last week's scrimble done and this week's too at some point, and HOPEFULLY will throw Y8 onto ao3 BEFORE September (she says, on August 28th 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

[supercityboys]

Yakuza’s like the worse looking the game is the better the story but you’ll be extremely disappointed in one of the most important aspects of the gameplay

[majimemegoro]

kinda tired of how yakuza characters all have like the same boring body just with slight tweaks in proportions so here are some body & eating/exercise headcanons for a few characters.

kiryu is probably the closest in my head to how he looks in canon, with the caveat that when he gets ‘out of shape’ in between games, he does actually lose some muscle tone. when hes in his most muscled form during the stressful main events of each game, he really does look LikeThatTM, but he doesn’t really do it on purpose. he just... drinks too many energy drinks and not enough water. kiryu youre dehydrated please take care of yourself kiryu please. also he eats stupid nonsense but somehow still has a hollywood-style body. his arms are SO good. has forgotten to eat vegetables for a whole month before. he has several gunshot-wound scars and also scars from the torture and the abdominal stabbings. [if anyone wants to go through the history and make a ‘map’ of the places on kiryu’s body where he would have scars, that would be amazing. i plan to do it myself but probaly wont have time for a few years.]

nishiki is a bit vain about his body. so hes the Health Conscious One [canon, y0 intro scene]. he doesnt diet exactly and hes always happy to eat a huge delicious meal while out on the town, but on his own he tries to make really balanced meals and stuff. his exercise regimen is second only to his haircare routine. he follows it strictly, but it’s nothing too intense. like kiryu, he’s pretty naturally good at being muscly and toned. hes never as bulky as kiryu though.

nishida is a small guy. stronger than he looks, but not shredded at all, hes just a normal pretty strong guy. loses weight in times of higher stress than usual (i.e. 100000 instead of 10000 stress, which is nishida’s daily level). tattoo is a Buddha and lotus flowers.

majima really freaking cares what he looks like. hes starved-shredded and hed do it on purpose if he had to, he wants to look ripped. he eats like garbage [canon, kiwami smile burger majima everywhere event] or just forgets to eat even though hes hungry. really disorganized and a mess but he looks good??? I guess????? hes passed out before possibly from eating only staminams for two weeks straight malnutrition, but it’s hard to say for sure what the cause was because he also... doesnt.. sleep. his joints are in surprisingly good shape, but his knees always crack when he stands up from his lil crouches. long legs. most impressive body part is probably his thighs and shredded abs. his butt is “the great plains”

its been said before but akiyama has. dad bod.

saejima eats a lot [canon, y5 gourmet substory with the girl] and exercises a lot, and gains weight really easily, muscle and fat. so hes super super bulky and well muscled, but not that shredded. like he often has visible abs but theyre meaty abs, not shrink-wrapped abs. he doesnt care what he looks like, but he wants to be  s t r o n g e. he doesn’t really like western food, and he refuses to even try smile burger. will pretty much eat anything else. despite his iconic eyebrow scar he doesnt really scar easily, most of his wounds heal without leaving too much of a mark. his boobies are one of the seven wonders of the world. also one of the few characters with a bodacious butt.

okudera is quite small, especially compared to the giant-size protagonists. maybe like 5′6″? he’s also one of those people who naturally doesnt get that hungry, and combined with his experience of starvation while dealing with trauma & guilt, the guy never eats enough. still in good shape from trekking all over the mountain day & night, skinny but really compact and sinewy. hes also mega scarred up [canon for his face]. not tattooed. his joints are in phenomenal shape for someone of his age and disregard for his personal wellbeing. gets sick pretty easily though.

kashiwagi. hes muscular but never shrink-wrapped like kiryu sometimes gets, but he has broad shoulders and a naturally snatched waist. his torso still looks like that no matter how many cold noodles he stress-eats. doesnt care at all what he looks like but people find it hard to believe because if they see him shirtless they think he has to be a narcissist (bc theyre jealous). has a really big tattoo (im thinkin full sleeves, etc) but idk what its of. actually only has a few scars aside from the facial scar.

please add your own, on new characters or where your headcanon on these characters differs from mine! i’d love to hear !!

[maddogofshimano]

Family Patriarch Dialogue

So as I covered in my translations of the Majima Family Equipment, there’s a mechanic where you pick a boss and earn pictures and music and equipment from them

Well I have been sitting at 49/50 Majima pictures for over 6 months so I have decided to bite the bullet and jump to the Saejima Family. Majima actually made me pay him 100 million yen to do so, which is so so funny to me

In honor of that here’s everything that both Majima and Saejima can say when you click on them in HQ (sorry Daigo) and a few misc lines. Hopefully this doesn’t look completely unreadable, but I wanted to include all the original lines too since I had the screenshots already, especially because I am way less confident in getting single lines like this right even without the added complication of kansai-ben. Still, I did my best.

Patriarch of the Tojo Clan’s Majima Family, Majima Goro. He’s known as “The Mad Dog of Shimano” and is feared as a hyper-violent yakuza. He does as he pleases regardless of the situation he’s in, displaying his personal freedom. Striving after the man who’s stronger than anyone and wilder than anyone, a ceaseless tide of aspirants enter the Majima Family.

Hey, we’re holdin’ a Tycoon tournament. Get some players. (Tl note: Tycoon aka President or Daifugou is a card game, it’s also what Saejima plays in jail in Y5!)

No one’s come to raid us... I’m gonna die of boredom.

Dammit. If I stay inside my body’s gonna shrivel up...

Days are for construction, and nights are for fightin’. It’s a perfectly sensible way to live, dumbass!

It’s food time. Hey, let’s go get Chinese!

That Daigo guy’s as uptight as ever. He’s gonna give himself wrinkles.

Haaa~ I’m sleepy after eatin’. I’m gonna take a nap. If you’re noisy I’ll kill ya!

Someone left a grenade unattended here! Get it together!

Hmmm~. Maybe I’ll go to the batting center to work up a sweat...

Haa~. I want to take another shot at building a big building.

What’re you starin’ so closely at.

Oh.....? [Player Name], ya got a real determined look to ya. 

Ohh.... Ain’t it excitin’ coming here?

Bored...... I’m gonna go tease my kyoudai for a little bit.

....Got it! I’ll go mess with my kyoudai.

If I eat sweet things I end up wantin’ salty ‘n’ spicy...

Thanks to the hard work of all of our fine members, the Majima Family’s influence is expanding! Hehehe! That ain’t half bad~! (Tl note: this was sent when the Majima Family leveled up as a whole)

Oi! The feast is startin’! Hurry up and get in here!! (Tl note: this is sent every time we earn enough points for a pizza party)

Patriarch of the Tojo Clan's Saejima Family. One of the Tojo Clan's executives. Long feared under the nickname "18 Counts Saejima". There is no end to people requesting to join the Saejima Family, drawn in by the quiet man who is stronger than any other and feels things more deeply than any other.

Hey, go water the flowers after this.

I'm headin' out for a bit.... Yeah, visitin' the grave like usual.

Do ya know how to work a smart phone? Could ya show me how for a bit.

A buzzed head's real simple and nice. Want me to buzz yours?

Sma-art phone, huh... If only the letters were a lil bigger. (Tl note: he says it スマ~トホン which is just kinda cute imo)

It's fulla cat hair... Wanna clean it all together?

How're the neighbors doin'? Be sure not to cause them any trouble.

For sake of morale, how about we all go out to dinner tonight. (Tl note: I’m not sure if it’s morale or economic stimulation lol, and also the phrasing kind of implies it’s just an excuse to go out to eat)

....D'ya think I should wear a suit or a kimono?

Nothin' to do? Well then, how about a match of shogi?

Heh, everyone is dazzlin'. You have my gratitude.

Me and my kyoudai will keep Daigo supported.

Seriously... I got no clue what's gonna happen in this society these days.

Hm? A text from my kyoudai....? ....I can't make heads or tails of this.

Should I get the other one this time.... Hey, let's go get some food.

Hey. Did ya see the Wyverns’ game yesterday? Man, that double play.

Ya can't start somethin' unless ya got the cash for it. Sorry to ask that of ya.

Hey, ya got the newspaper?

[Player name]...... Heh. Man, you’ve gotten real dignified.

Food, huh... I guess I could get delivery once in a while. What sounds good?

If ya get complacent, you're done as a yakuza. I wonder how high I'll climb.... Heh. I'm lookin' forward to it.

Thanks to all of your hard work, our influence has gotten huge. I ask you all to keep it up.

All of your hard work is gettin’ rewarded. Please get to the office soon for the banquet. 

a few inconsequential notes: 

I translated it as “striving after” or “drawn in by” but the specific word used can be a little more pointed if you want it to be

It’s funny seeing Majima specifically say he’s gonna get Chinese food after doing Saejima’s New Years character story where he had to move heaven and earth (very literally!) to get some Chinese food. I like to imagine they get lunch together

I got so so so so caught off guard the first time Majima said my name. I wasn’t expecting it. It continued to catch me off guard every single time it happened lmao

the “Hey, let’s go get some food” line was the first thing Saejima said to me when I joined the Saejima Family, which was 😳 

[cryingcow]

Yellow Dragon Wandering Chronicles [RGGO] --- Ch. 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Side Story | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

[1-1] | [1-2] | [1-3] | [1-4] | [1-5] | [1-6] | [1-7]

Hello! I was planning to kick this off like a week ago but IRL stuff kicked me instead D: Anyway for tonight and for the next who-knows-how-many weeks, I’ll be posting about one of the main stories in RGG Online / RyuOnline, “Yellow Dragon Wandering Chronicles”, aka “Goda Ryuji’s Travel Log”, aka “The Yakuza 0.5 K-Drama you never knew you wanted: The Tale of the Two Most Conspicuous Koreans in Japan”! This story has a total of 6 chapters split into 39 parts (40 if you count the Side Story linked above), and seeks to answer the question, “What does it mean to live?” I’ll be posting the chapters in whole weekly / biweekly / if IRL permits on Saturday nights like this, to avoid cliffhangers. I’ve got ~75% per chapter finished, so hopefully I finish these before December lol

Spoilers: While you can read this after playing Y2/YK2, it is preferable that you have finished (or at least have knowledge of) the mainline Yakuza Kiryu games Y0 to Y6 to fully appreciate it. Since this is about Ryuji going on a roadtrip around Japan, this will also serve as a roadtrip down memory lane, especially since he visits familiar places and conflicts in Y5 and Y6 :D (some Y7 stuff is also mentioned but it’s minimal and probably not spoiler-y, tho I wouldn’t know since I haven’t played Y7). I’ll be putting notes at the end of the parts, in line with this :D

[Chapter 1: Yakuza Expulsion]

.

CHAPTER 1-1

.

|In this country, there are two yakuza organizations competing for supremacy in the underworld. One is the Tojo Clan, the largest organization in eastern Japan. The other is the Omi Alliance, the largest yakuza organization in western Japan. The Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance . . . with equilibrium between these two major organizations, order in the underworld is maintained.|

|And then, 1999. Omi Alliance direct family, the Go-Ryu Clan. Chairman Goda Jin is on the verge of being named the Fifth Chairman of the Omi Alliance. Together with that, it is rumored that Jin would nominate the next Chairman of the Go-Ryu Clan. Meanwhile, there is a man considered the most promising candidate for the next Go-Ryu Clan Chairman. The man’s name is—|

Yakuza: “Goda Ryuji!! Today will be the anniversary of your death!!”

Ryuji: “Then bring it on quickly. Heh . . . hurry up or my death anniversary will be over!”

[ 4th generation of the Omi Alliance, direct subsidiary family Go-Ryu Clan Acting Captain: Goda Ryuji ]

Yakuza: “Riding on your parent’s influence has made you conceited . . . ! Die!!”

{Ryuji kicks the guy’s butt.}

Yakuza: “Hi-Hiiiii . . . St-Stop! No more—”

Ryuji: “Oraaa!!”

Yakuza: “Puhaagh!!”

{The yakuza collapses from Ryuji’s final punch.}

Ryuji: “Hmph . . . boring.”

Ryuji’s Entourage A: “Incredible, Aniki! Strong as an oni, as always!”

Ryuji’s Entourage B: “Hehe, look at this idiot. His eyes have turned white.”

Ryuji’s Entourage A: “He’s a hundred years too early to be picking a fight with Aniki. This total idiot!”

Ryuji’s Entourage B: “That’s right. This person is the son of the next Omi Chairman!”

Ryuji: “Hold it.”

Ryuji’s Entourage B: “Eh . . . ?”

Ryuji: “You sayin' all I am is the next Chairman’s son?”

Ryuji’s Entourage B: “Eh? No . . . y-you’re amazing . . .”

Ryuji: “I benefit from my parent’s influence, you say?!?!”

Ryuji’s Entourage B: “Ugiyaaah!!”

{Ryuji’s entourage collapses from Ryuji’s punch.}

Ryuji’s Entourage A: “Hi-Hiiiii . . .”

Ryuji: “. . . . . . tch.”

{Footsteps are heard as someone approaches.}

Man in Black: “It’s good to see you, young master.”

Ryuji: “. . . What is it.”

Man in Black: “Oyaji is calling for you.”

Ryuji: “Aah . . . ? What for?”

Man in Black: “He wants to tell you in person. Oyaji is waiting at Headquarters. Heh. It must be good. Probably about being the next Chairman of the Go-Ryu Clan. As long as Oyaji is the Chairman of the head family, he cannot serve as the Go-Ryu Clan Chairman at the same time. Is it possible he’s taking the opportunity to remove the ‘acting’ from the young master’s title of Acting Captain? To be the Captain for a while, and eventually become Chairman . . . I’m sure that’s Oyaji’s idea.”

Ryuji: “. . . Hmph. Took him long enough.”

Man in Black: “A car is available. Right this way . . .”

----

Ryuji: “Calling me all the way to Headquarters is as expected of ya, Fifth Chairman.”

Jin: “. . . You came?”

[ 4th generation of the Omi Alliance, direct subsidiary family Go-Ryu Clan Chairman: Goda Jin ]

Ryuji: “You met with me, it seems like you’re finally willing to give it up?”

Jin: “. . .”

Ryuji: “Hmph. Yakuza have old-fashioned ideas. Saying I’m too young—until recently I’ve been content with the half-hearted position of Acting Captain. If it’s true, I’ll immediately take charge of the family even if I have to put up with being Captain for a while.”

Jin: “. . . Too young.”

Ryuji: “Ah . . . ?”

Jin: “That’s why you’re too young. Ryuji.”

Ryuji: “Did you call me here for a sermon?”

Jin: “. . . I have something to tell you.”

Ryuji: “. . . Haw. Then say it.”

Jin: “Ryuji. I have a directive. Today, in this place you—are excommunicated.”

.

-END-

.

Next >>>>>>>>>

[1-1] | [1-2] | [1-3] | [1-4] | [1-5] | [1-6] | [1-7]

Masterlist

[furiouspancakethesequel]

I am very mad and JC is the reason.

And the new chapter is just...absolute BULLSHIT.

I’ll put the spoilers under the cut, if you did not reach year 6 chapter 44  and you don’t want spoilers don’t read 

OK so let’s review: MC’s brother left when they were young, they arrived at Hogwarts with the hope to find him. So MC most likely:

Spent a few years without any news about their older brother, not sure if he was dead or not

 Blamed themselves for his disappearance (a lot of kids tend to respond like that to a loved one leaving)

So now MC arrives at Hogwarts. They make quite  a few friends. Time skip to y5. In that year MC ALSO probably blamed themselves for what happened to Beatrice because their hunting for Cursed Vaults brought the curses upon the school ( seriously the guilt MC is experiencing before y6 does not get enough screen time. We were told that all the curses started when Jacob started searching the Cursed Vaults. So what if MC thinks that by doing the exact same thing Jacob did they are perpetuating these curses? Or what if they are constantly stressed because if they fail numerous students will be in danger? So they are basically thinking “it is my brother’s fault we are in this situation, i have to fix it or i’m no different than him”.  And then feel guilty because that is JACOB, their big brother, how could they think so poorly of him? I think i’ll make another post about MC’s emotions and train of thought in y5 because oh boy there’s a lot to unpack there )

And we go to the Vault,  and Rakepick betrays us. And then Jacob leaves us in the Vault. So i think it’s easy to say that if MC didn’t have trust issues until now, they have now.

And then y6 happens, and they didn’t just loose their innocence. They can’t look at people the same. And they lose their friends, even before Rowan dies. Ben is not the same, Merula, who finally started to warm up to MC, is consumed by the thought of murdering at 16 (she tells MC she doesn’t care if she goes to Azkaban. And that must hurt MC, especially if they have a crush/are in a relationship with Merula). Charlie is acting out of character and is angry at MC, even if he knows it’s not their fault. (ya know, a thing trauma does to you).

And then Rowan dies.

The grief, the anger, the loss, everything is too much for a 16 year old. Their best friend since they were 11 is dead, and is never coming back. And there is it again: the all consuming guilt.

MC is OBVIOUSLY not over Rowan’s death, every time someone talks about Rowan’s murder they have at least one line in which they say it was their fault. And that is so damaging for a kid. So MC had to live the majority of their life in guilt: Jacob must’ve left them because they weren’t good enough, they were constantly putting their friends in danger, and now one of her friends ACTUALLY died and MC blames themselves.  So MC either:

 accepts that guilt as a fact (”yes these thoughts are right i just put everyone in danger”), and is incredibly self deprecatory of themselves;

denies that guilt and just turns into a very narcissistic and self-centered person. 

And then they go to the final Vault, and they do what they do there ( again, i’ll do a post JUST about that vault somewhere in the future, but now i’m tired). They beat Rakepick, they go back to school. MC talks to Dumbledore and then has a poorly excuse for a conversation with Jacob (srsly what the actual fuck was that? he left MC in the Vault and MC deserved to have a breakdown or at least a heart to heart conversation in which Jacob explains himself but nooo. #letMCbemad2021.) Then MC talks to Mad-Eye, yadda yadda yadda, the whole thing with Ben’s letter happens (i really, REALLY hope JC does something with this because if they don’t...imma trow hands)The Circle Of Khanna meets at Hog’s Head Inn, they are happy, it’s a sweet scene.

And then follows the absolutely BULLSHIT of the “let’s have a party” idea! I MEAN COME ON! So you’re telling me that you, as a person, would just...forget all your trauma the minute you were freed by the thing that provoked you so much suffering? I understand the ‘let’s spend time together now that we don’t have to put our lives in danger” sentiment but my dudes. I still remember when my dog died, i was so fucking sad and just overall confused and i felt like dying but i still had to go to school and it was horrible. And remember, that was my dog. What would’ve happened if my friend had died? If my brother abandoned me 2 times, if i could see how my friends had changed because of the Vaults, how i’ve changed because of the same thing? MC put themselves in constant stress for 7 fucking years. 7 YEARS. (and let’s not forget all the SQ’s . I mean, MC never gets a break)  Honestly just THINKING about how MC must’ve felt all this time makes me cry, and you’re telling me that your plan for the next chapter was to make MC put themselves into even more stress by ORGANIZING A PARTY? no, no,no, NO. MC deserves a nap, MC deserves a nap and MC deserves therapy AND MC DESERVES A SURPRISE PARTY! NOT FOR THEM (the person who worked the most and suffered the most) TO DO YET ANOTHER THING FOR EVERYONE BUT THEMSELVES.

I am just so mad and UGH why JC WHY!!!????