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[Snuggle Tier List]

@unrepentantAuthor I can't dispute that. Quick Googling didn't reveal any answers (though I learned Wikipedia's page on "Attornies in Japan" puts Phoenix Wright in the "See also" section). I found a collection of PDFs from Japan's Ministry of Finance detailing the national budget, but FY2019's draft budget doesn't mention any sort of law enforcement outside of military spending and police disaster response funding. But it's a bunch of complicated charts and graphs, so I might be misreading it. Or maybe prosecutors get their paychecks from provincial budgets, but that'd be a LOT of different budgets to sort through. I'll write an analysis if someone gives me a research grant.

However, the hyperlink I attached to my claim of a 99.9% conviction rate is an interview between two Japanese legal scholars, and neither of them mention budget. They bring up "the suspension of around 60 percent of criminal cases in Japan without an indictment"...but from following the Ghosn case, it seems you don't need a court date to spend months or even years in jail. The scholars also mention more systemic issues; Japan's modern constitution was written directly after WWII and incorporated many "western" shifts (something about a bomb), but in the phrasing of one of the scholars, "it wasn’t a clean break". Stuff slipped through the cracks while reconstructing their legal system, and they ended up with an unfocused mess. It's not efficiently democratic (only 1 in 1000 not guilty after going to trial), it's not efficiently authoritarian (most cases don't get to trial). It's just there, created from serious culture clash, and it seems the prosecution got the lion's share of power. Whether the budget plays into it, that's a research problem for Ace Attorney's writers.

* * *​

Shifting gears, I got a question of my own: what Pokémon moves can safety seal a metal door? Specific situation occurs with people nearby and the door needs to be sealed ASAP. First thought was something Fire-type, but that seems awfully risky given the environment. I haven't decided which Pokémon's sealing the door, though they'd need to fit in a human-sized room full of furniture.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

@Snuggle Tier List - need more info. Sealed against what? IS there a locking system? (You'd think there would be for a metal door)

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

@unrepentantAuthor For the door itself, all I have established is that it's a maintenance door, it can be pulled open from the other side, and that it's currently unlocked. If there is a lock, the people that have the keys just so happen to be the people being sealed against, though the person sealing the door doesn't know that (the trainer/Pokemon sealing the door happen to be bystanders taking charge based on limited information). And on a meta-level, I'm planning an action scene narrated from first person, so I'm laxing the scenery descriptions to keep pacing up.

As for what they're sealing against, the sealing trainer/Pokémon heard gunshots and just saw someone rush through the maintenance door into a public area, who rather quickly said "they're shooting people." Their initial plan was to run out and be a hero, but the person fleeing said there's police on scene already and that wandering into a firefight ain't the best idea. Hence the (rushed) decision to seal the door, quickly.

 

[Beth Pavell]

String Shot would seem to be the simplest way. Something tough, stretchy, quick to apply and difficult to remove from the wrong side

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

String Shot would seem to be the simplest way. Something tough, stretchy, quick to apply and difficult to remove from the wrong side

I happen to have another already-established trainer in the room with an already-established Wurmple whose already-established to know String Shot, AND everyone in the room knows it, AND Wurmple and their trainer need a way to start building confidence after a string (rimshot) of defeats. Saving people's lives is a good start; your suggestion couldn't have been better. Thank you!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I've learned to be more specific when asking my questions, so...

Yesterday, I got an idea for a scene where a character falls out of the sky after being teleported to another world. When she hits the ground and doesn't die (thanks to a combination of the square/cube law and her wings slowing down her fall), she realises she's transformed into a Beautifly. Has anyone ever been skydiving and know what that feels like? Also, is that how physics work?

 

[canisaries]

I've learned to be more specific when asking my questions, so...

Yesterday, I got an idea for a scene where a character falls out of the sky after being teleported to another world. When she hits the ground and doesn't die (thanks to a combination of the square/cube law and her wings slowing down her fall), she realises she's transformed into a Beautifly. Has anyone ever been skydiving and know what that feels like? Also, is that how physics work?

haven't been skydiving, but do know some stuff about physics. an important factor here is the speed (and partly morphology) of the transformation. if it's instant and her wings are spread, then that's bad news for her wings, as the mass of air rushing into her wings at human terminal velocity (or slower than that if she hasn't accelerated all the way yet, but still at a high speed) would probably rip them right off. think about the big jerk that comes when a parachute opens and imagine supporting that with a pair of butterfly wings. you can watch skydiving footage for reference. (this is actually relevant in the upcoming part of dragony wow)

however, if the transformation is gradual, so is the impact, and the chances of survival are far better. during that time, though, she'd definitely notice something weird's going on with her body.

if you meant that the character was a beautifly for the entire duration of the fall (including acceleration), then her descent wouldn't reach very high speeds in the first place. given her wings are likely not perfectly parallel to the ground, she'd glide to some direction and definitely notice something's up there.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

however, if the transformation is gradual, so is the impact, and the chances of survival are far better. during that time, though, she'd definitely notice something weird's going on with her body.

if you meant that the character was a beautifly for the entire duration of the fall (including acceleration), then her descent wouldn't reach very high speeds in the first place. given her wings are likely not perfectly parallel to the ground, she'd glide to some direction and definitely notice something's up there.

I flip-flopped between if the transformation should be happening while she was falling or before she was teleported. I decided on the latter, and tried writing the scene with her being on her back and turning around, but thought that felt awkward to write.

Is there a way to figure out the density of something with known height, but not volume?

 

[canisaries]

Is there a way to figure out the density of something with known height, but not volume?

density is defined as mass per volume, so you have to know mass and volume to get it. however, height can be used to estimate proportions and so figure out the volume by breaking the object down to simpler geometric forms and calculating the volume of those. if you're thinking of using the pokedex heights and weights, though, you're kind of already accepting your fic isn't going to make physical sense because the measurements are all kind of wtf. and that's not even getting into the verbal entries.

if you don't want the run the risk of glaring (or less glaring) scientific inaccuracies, it's fine to simply opt for a less flashy entrance. in the end, good prose and description can make anything normally "bland" extraordinary.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Good point. There would be other transformed characters in this setting, so it'd raise the question of why this particular one was unlucky.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Since then, I've abandoned that "Pokémon are sent to another world" fanfic (it would have been a Digimon crossover), but repurposed ideas from it for a new one.

Spoiler: If you're interested...

It's inspired by A New World, a New Way, a crossover with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, with one of the key differences being that Pokémon appeared in Equestria in episode 1 instead of near the end of season 4. The other one is...

In this fanfic, Pokémon will gradually appear in order of size, in order to avoid overwhelming the new world. The first Pokémon to appear will of course be Flabébé, mainly because I liked the idea of one being all cute and confused by everything like Columon from Digimon Tamers. The main character, meanwhile, will be a Torchic, but that raises two questions:

• What should the rate of Pokémon appearing be?
• Should I base the order of appearance on just height, or body mass index?

Like, I'm imagining Joltik appearing shortly after Flabébé, but I'm not sure when Torchic (40cm, 2.5kg) should appear.

 

[canisaries]

@Nitro Indigo Body mass index sounds really... random? I mean, it's something that was developed for humans to estimate if their weight is healthy while taking into consideration their height. If you went by BMI, you would introduce Pokémon ordered by how much they weigh proportional to their size, which means that Wailord (BMI of 1.9) would show up before Hoppip (BMI of 3.1).

Were you thinking of just mass? That would make more sense than body mass index, which is defined as mass / (height)^2. If you wanted to combine height and mass in some way, you should multiply the two together rather than use division like in BMI. There the increase of height and increase of weight both increase the total, which sounds like something you want.

The appearance rate you should pick depends on how you want the story to unfold. If you want each day to be different, you'll have a new tier of Pokémon show up each day. If you want to take your time and show people (well, Pokémon) adapting to each scenario on a larger scale, you'll have the appearances be slower - weekly or monthly.

Torchic feels like a pretty small Pokémon to me. It's not made of especially heavy materials, like rock, but it's still an animal that's essentially a bag of water and therefore will have some weight to it, unlike ghosts or so. It can show up early, but I wouldn't put it before the smallest bugs or mon like Flabébé.

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

@Nitro Indigo I think you're asking the wrong questions. If the goal is to avoid overwhelming the new world, there'd be more to consider than just size. For instance, a Zorua or Zoroark could "blend in" despite being physically bigger. Ditto and a transformed Mew are also possibilities, and maybe Diglett too depending on how many "digging" Digimon exist. Kecleon can literally blend in, and possibly a Porygon depending on how literal your Digimon canon takes "digital monsters".

I recommend introducing Pokémon in order of how capable/motivated they are to keep a secret. Try to keep the Digimon world unaware of Pokémon for as long as possible, introducing more attention-grabbing Pokémon as the Digimon world becomes more and more suspicious. Time the "heavy hitters" appearing to when the Digimon world catches on; enough time for them to figure things out, not enough time for them to plan ahead. This way, you'll have natural rising tension throughout your story.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Were you thinking of just mass? That would make more sense than body mass index, which is defined as mass / (height)^2.

Yeah! That's it!

@Snuggle Tier List This is a My Little Pony crossover now. I should have put that in non-boxed text. Also, the size thing was kind of arbitrary, but it was the first thing that came to mind about how to make an escalating conflict; it would take a while before the bigger, scarier Pokémon appeared. Since the first Pokémon appeared away from civilisation, ponies would think they're just undiscovered species from their world at first.

The idea of everyone not appearing at once was inspired by Ponies After People, where every human on Earth was transformed into a member of a race from My Little Pony, and would return gradually over the course of... 10,000 years. Needless to say, that time frame won't work for my story.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

As an alternative approach to thinking through an arbitrary and sophisticated mass ranking system, @Nitro Indigo, you may want to consider simply having an exponential number of pokémon appear. Day one, just a handful of them arrive. Day 100, there are many thousands. Just flagging up one possible solution.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@unrepentantAuthor Good point. I came up with the mass idea because it made in-universe sense, unlike the "one generation per week" idea I had a while ago. Maybe I could combine our ideas, and have an escalating number of Pokémon appear once a week?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I've come up with my own solution for my issue mentioned previous post.

I have another question about the same fanfic, though. To cut a long story short, the protagonist can't judge distance. What would that look like?

 

[canisaries]

I have another question about the same fanfic, though. To cut a long story short, the protagonist can't judge distance. What would that look like?

I think you cut that story a bit too short because "can't judge distance" is very vague. How severe is the "can't"? Is it just general poor visuospatial comprehension where you're not really sure how far apart two things are in reality - for example, how long it'd take to walk from the first to the other or whether you can reach a certain object or not - or is it genuinely impossible for them to tell which objects are closer and which further away, meaning a tree in the distance will be comprehended to be as big as a person right next to them? That extreme would be impossible in all but very few specific scenarios (omniscient god or very limited mind and perception), so I'm assuming that's not it.

Furthermore, is the issue with their senses or their comprehension? Someone without stereovision (usually a one-eyed creature) wouldn't be able to tell for sure if the tree they saw was big and in the distance or small and up close, but they can still use previous knowledge and instinct to make fair guesses (trees are usually big, so that one must be in the distance and people aren't usually as big as trees, so that guy next to the tree in my vision is probably actually closer). There's also stereo hearing, volume and echo that usually allow people to judge where a certain noise came from. However, there could also be someone with perfectly fine vision and hearing whose brain is impaired in some way or naturally that way for their species, and as a result they can't process sensory stimuli and known information as well as a human can. Then they can see and hear just fine, but they can't tell the difference between a faraway event and a nearby event and have to guess - actually, that's very hard to imagine in practice, so a more understandable setup is that they can tell which events are closer and which further away, but can't tell how far apart they are.

Anyway, in terms of how that would look in prose, it'd probably have vague words for distance (such as "some way ahead") in the narration or internal monologue. In a stressful situation, the protagonist could have a panicked guessing session on how far something is ("Twenty meters? Two hundred meters? <expletive>, it could be anything!") or something. Beyond that, though, it really depends on what kind of scenario you're asking about.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I didn't think I'd need to go into the specifics! The character is a human-turned-Beautifly. Under this story's rules, Beautiflies have low-resolution vision and can't judge distance. There's a running gag where she thinks things are closer than they really are. It's happened twice already, but this third time is plot-important.

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out on my own.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I'm planning on writing a fanfic that involves a Ralts and a bunch of Pawniard. Since I don't want to have Pokémon say their names, what should they sound like? Is there anything in Generations I could use as a reference point?