Activity Check Results / HMD

[lucetimods]

The results for the Activity Check are in! Please note that the following characters were either inactive, didn't post to the activity check, or failed to speak to a moderator about their activity. Also added were characters who have joined the game or dropped since the last add/remove, for your convenience. (And some people who weren't even on the friend/add, for whatever reason...!)

Copy-paste the following here:

manage_circle del_read accepted manage_circle del_read everyonedied manage_circle del_read firstnothing manage_circle del_read forelocked manage_circle del_read myreason manage_circle del_read presumablyalone manage_circle del_read secretmiracle manage_circle del_read searches_forhim manage_circle del_read skyleopardess manage_circle del_read tomodachi manage_circle del_read dunkinchili manage_circle del_read fervidity manage_circle del_read derpivity manage_circle del_read breezing manage_circle del_read supportively manage_circle del_read falenandawn manage_circle del_read justacriminal manage_circle del_read melon_lord manage_circle del_read reviling manage_circle del_read shamelessness manage_circle del_read petreefied manage_circle del_read enchantressofore manage_circle del_read bitsyspider manage_circle del_read hikaruorkaoru manage_circle del_read kaoruorhikaru manage_circle del_read sealanddesuyo manage_circle del_read wildsaber manage_circle del_read falenandawn manage_circle del_read halflived manage_circle del_read tsunsandsteals manage_circle del_read bubblywishes manage_circle del_read hollower manage_circle del_read strikeoflightning manage_circle add_read antwort manage_circle add_read chainred manage_circle add_read removeimpurity manage_circle add_read ferels manage_circle add_read puryde manage_circle add_read notsosolo manage_circle add_read misstechnobender manage_circle add_read bravefighter manage_circle add_read bisons manage_circle add_read raavatars manage_circle add_read jern manage_circle add_read anaxes manage_circle add_read responsibleformyownrisks manage_circle add_read jailbirdprosecutor manage_circle add_read fyulong manage_circle add_read layersoflies manage_circle add_read fortunesgun manage_circle add_read yaydanger manage_circle add_read borntorebel manage_circle add_read connectingwisdom

A number of you passed the activity check, but barely. (You know who you are.) Try to pick things up, as it's no fun to character-squat.

If there are any mistakes here, please let us know! Additionally, if your character was removed and you're still active, feel free to appeal to one of us about keeping your character. However, please remember next time to stay active and post to the Activity Check. Thank you!

And as always:

HMD

How's My Driving?

This is a crit post for both the community and game and for your characters. If you have something you'd like to see us improve upon with the game, PLEASE TELL US HERE! Anon commenting is on, but if anything gets really nasty there will be warnings and thread-freezing. This isn't required but everyone is encouraged to take advantage of the advice of your fellow players!

Just some pointers: no taking cheap shots, no dragging personal issues into things and for the love of all that is wise and great, please double check your replies and comments before posting them. Sometimes a change in phrasing can make all the difference between a helpful tone and a condescending one.

ALSO: We'd like to clarify that HMD means HMD- which means it's okay to have both good and bad crit. Some people have expressed concerns about posting good/bad crit when a character already has bad/good crit posted. We'd like to encourage you guys to do it anyway! You can drive well or badly, and even good drivers make mistakes. So give it a try \o

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I have a question regarding Sokka's research with the Pokeballs. Sokka appears to know about Crys' Pokemon's Pokeball breaking even though it was announced to other Pokemon Trainers through a locked post. Is your reasoning behind this that Sokka found out through Aang because of Ikki being a Pokemon Trainer?

You've also had him construct a working Pokeball shell while only having to work on Ash's old broken Pokeball, which is not just half of a Pokeball shell, but also cracked in places. Is this logical to you by Sokka's canon to have this result? And does the shell actually work? I'm not certain to that last part.

I don't know Sokka and I don't fully know everything that has been going on about this, but I am interested to know how you're approaching this. Is Sokka working with Ash or any of the other trainers with their fully working Pokeballs?

[theideaguy]

Alright, there are several issues to dissect here.

First and foremost, I admittedly goofed slightly. I actually had forgotten that there was a filter on Crystal's original post. Admittedly, I actually hadn't had any plans to do anything with that news (and typically I skip over a lot of the text that doesn't apply to my characters, but that one sounded interesting so I think I read it anyway), and so it wasn't until later that something actually came of it.

That would be here. Sokka—completely unfamiliar with Pokémon was learning about it from Ash. Sokka had actually expressed interest in wanting to tinker around with Poké Balls first... and then, only after getting an offer from Ash which I honestly hadn't even expected would happen, did one thing lead to another.

As an interesting aside, Ikki ICly knew about that post, but Gore had accidentally missed the filter as well, having Aang directly reply to it. I talked with Gore about this issue, and he said that he had contacted Crystal's mun about it, and she seemed fine with Aang having heard about it from Ikki's journal. So as a potential workaround, I think we're going to have it such that Sokka overheard Aang talking about things with Ikki.

Now... as far as the Poké Balls are concerned, no, Sokka doesn't have a working copy. He has a replica, sure. He's worked on constructing something that looks like a Poké Ball (admittedly unpainted). However, it doesn't work. It's got a button that causes it to open wide (like real Poké Balls do), but it's got absolutely nothing to power it. It's a dead thing.

Sokka has made this prototype in a way where something that could power it be inserted into it because it's reasonable for him to assume that, "Hey, there's got to be power somewhere, and it's not inside and not outside, so it has to be in the middle." That's why there's an inner and outer shell at the moment; those would eventually be glued or otherwise adhered together later on. So far, this seems pretty reasonable, all things considering.

By itself, my original intent was for Sokka to fail at this task of making a working Poké Ball...

[As a side note, I decided this pretty early on despite the fact that Sokka actually is a pretty good inventor and engineer despite having training. He essentially invented the submarine in his world, albeit it a different mechanism by which it actually moves (waterbending instead of an engine). He also was able to understand how to destroy a gigantic drilling machine with no more than schematics. However, when it comes to otherworldly tech, I wanted to be a little more conservative with that, especially when he wasn't actually able to freely play with Ash's broken sphere.]

...At least without outside assistance.

Right now, there's sort of a little cabal of people who are working with this. Jane Foster is working with Sokka in order to help him figure out a mechanism by which it could be powered. Leon has also working with one of the Reds (Pokémon Special!Red???) in order to do research into Poké Balls, but he hasn't done much with that ICly. However, we're currently threading a meeting of the minds in Sokka's last post (see Han's subthread and Leon's subthread) as well as Jane's last post.

It is still undecided exactly to what extent this cabal of Red, Leon, Jane, Sokka, et al will be successful. The lot of us have rationalized that, as these are mass produced in the Pokémon world that it is theoretically possible to actually reconstruct that. However, our last decision is more or less that we haven't figured out how we are going to explain the actual construction process (or if we're going to handwave it) as, after all, the exact mechanism by which they work has never been canonically established.

[(Anonymous)]

By a working Pokeball shell, I did mean a replica of the ball that can open and close. If it's IC that Sokka can make a ball like that then that's good to know. The explanation also makes sense for getting Sokka to know too!

Sokka has made this prototype in a way where something that could power it be inserted into it because it's reasonable for him to assume that, "Hey, there's got to be power somewhere, and it's not inside and not outside, so it has to be in the middle."

I don't understand how Sokka would come to this conclusion though. All he has to work with is Ash's broken Pokeball which, as far as I know, is broken in half by rusted hinges and also with a cracked body. Either way - and again, as far as I know - it doesn't work, and so I don't know why Sokka would be able to come to any guess about there not being any mechanism on the inside of the ball. Unless Sokka is meant to be throwing wild theories around because he has absolutely no way to understand how a Pokeball works when all he has is a broken piece of it.

I'm also not actually sure if in your threads with Han and Jane that you're also saying that Ash's Pokeball does have a middle part to it too, to go with Sokka's theory. I'm not sure how much you know about Pokeballs in canon, but while it's true that they're largely a mystery in how they work, there is a design for the Pokeball for the anime here: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:Anime_Poke_Ball_Mechanics.jpg
Where you have the ball, but the inside has a very specific design. Also in Special, they do explain that the outside is the Pokeball shell, and then on the inside a type of netting is placed inside which makes the Pokeball work to capture the Pokemon. http://jb2448.info/Pokemon_Adventures_11/Pokemon-Adventures-v11---069
http://jb2448.info/Pokemon_Adventures_11/Pokemon-Adventures-v11---070

If you are trying to say that it does have a middle between the sphere where the power for containing Pokemon is, I would discuss this with other Pokemon players first. Would it be IC for Sokka to try and talk to any of the other Pokemon Trainers too? Either way it would probably be a good idea to try talking about this more with the Pokemon cast about the possible results with this at some point to make a decision about how plausible the plan is, or at the very least what can be learned or done for a Pokeball (if a broken Pokeball can ever be fixed if it were broken)

If I've misunderstood you at all then let me know.

[theideaguy]

W/r to how the ball is powered, Sokka is tossing wild theories around, yes. I feel like he thinks it's a reasonable conclusion; I am still undecided about whether Sokka has the correct solution.

Admittedly, you do have a good point, and I thank you for bringing it up. I'm a little rusty at the canon surrounding Poké Balls. It's been a loooong time since I've been in the depths of that canon, and I forget that there are more details actually present than what several of us had discussed in the Plurk. So in that regard, I should probably do a little more research in that department before going too much further down that rabbit hole—both OOCly and ICly.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that it's your decision to make, and it would be wise to talk to players OOC to understand how the Pokeballs are designed by them. There may be differences in opinion due to the different versions of the same canon, but from the links you've shown me it reads like you've been making up details about the ball without conducting any OOC research. Like in this thread (http://theideaguy.dreamwidth.org/2276.html?thread=166884#cmt166884) it reads that you're implying there's two layers to the original ball (Ash's Pokeball), but that's an assumption on your part.

[theideaguy]

That's actually what I mean. At this point, I think it's important to bring in other people to help plan this out, and I intend to do that.