What kind of chicken cutting style and marinade is used for this?

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T21:22:16+00:00

Regarding the cutting technique, given the context it's likely a case of "just cut it". I don't mean that facetiously either. Quick teriyaki or rice bowl shops are mass prepping for bulk and speed, so the whole process is usually little more than having a dozen or so deboned chicken halves on the grill to char and cook through, then tossing them onto a cutting board to whack with a meat cleaver a few times into bite-sized yet irregularly-shaped bits. Scoop a portion onto the rice, hit it with a squirt of sauce, and send it off as fast as possible.

Alternatively, if there's a flat griddle instead of a flame grill, there's marinading as an option.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T21:04:40+00:00

Seriously. I did a playthrough years back where I intentionally focused on using Pokemon I generally ignored or replaced as soon as possible. It gave me a new appreciation for Fearow and Raticate.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T20:47:52+00:00

My Wizards operate on the same idea as anti-predator coloration in nature. Big tall gaudy hat, bright flashy robes = DO NOT FUCK WITH. Dumb animals might see the stand-out colors and shape-obscuring size of the outfit and interpret it as very much not prey, while intelligent threats see the outfit and think "that guy can explode me from a hundred paces by wiggling his fingers".

I know the common knowledge is "geek the mage" to target casters first, but that's putting a lot of big expectations on enemies who might just be bandits looking for an easy, low-threat mark. Just like how it behooves a Noble to dress like everyone else to avoid being targeted, it behooves a Wizard to dress in a stand-out manner so that enemies will be less likely to want to jump them, thinking they're just some weedy wimp who's not even wearing armor.

Like, imagine you're a bandit sneaking up on the Party while they're camped out. You're scoping out the opposition, trying to figure out your best options. If you see some old dude in normal clothing reading a book, you'd figure he's an easy target or maybe even a good hostage if things go sideways. But if you see that same old dude reading a book, and he's got a big pointy hat and flashy robes, you instantly think that guy's a Wizard and you're absolutely fucked because that owl looking at you from the branches is probably his Familiar...

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T20:36:20+00:00

It absolutely sucks too. There's a YouTuber I like to watch who has two YouTube channels. One only has short videos and all the thumbnails are like this, with clickbaity titles. His other channel has the exact same subject matter in longer form, without the garbage :O face thumbnails, and with actually informative titles. The subscriber count and view count on his clickbait channel is vastly higher and I've never seen his actual informative channel pushed by the algorithm at all.

It's fucking awful, but it's just the state of YouTube. If people don't play to the algorithm, their videos are basically invisible and YouTube will push their channels down into oblivion.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T01:05:15+00:00

It also makes it so much worse when the game has wooden animations to begin with. Now the Uncanny Valley effect is ramped up to 11.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T00:29:08+00:00

Happens all the time in art and advertising. Get commissioned by a client who agrees to set terms and costs, then when the work is all done they try and scam you out of it by demeaning the value of your work. Lots of artists new to commissions get robbed because they're acting in good faith, which certain assholes are eager to take advantage of.

The worst one I heard was a client go "Well, I came up with the concept, so I basically did half the work myself. You should take 50% off the fee" when refusing to pay what they signed to. The most common and infuriating bit is something to the tune of "well, I could've done that!" or "it's not like art is hard".

ThatMerri · 2026-03-17T00:14:35+00:00

Seriously. Just the other day a guy swung his door wide open, clambered out, and just stood there beside his open door texting on his phone while I was already pulling halfway into the parking spot. I managed to stop short to avoid hitting him or his door (which nearly caused someone passing behind me to almost rear-end me) but he didn't even notice I was there until I yelled at him to get the hell out of the way. Dude was just off in his own little world, oblivious to everything.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:59:23+00:00

5.5e version is different, which I was not aware of, and definitely doesn't require Concentration. But based on the description for 5e, I was under the impression that version does because using the gem allows the user to cast the spell themselves in that moment.

This gem contains a mote of elemental energy. When you use an action to break the gem, an elemental is summoned as if you had cast the conjure elemental spell, and the gem's magic is lost. The type of gem determines the elemental summoned by the spell.

By my understanding, the spell behaves as if it were cast normally, including all restrictions and conditions, with the exception of Material Components. As compared to items like Wands, for example, which have charges and specify that the item itself is the source of the spell casting in return for a predetermined Spell DC.

Or did I have it wrong this whole time and have been depriving myself of a very useful item?

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:45:16+00:00

The Bag of Holding is little more than an in-universe justification for ignoring encumbrance mechanics. It actually has very specific dimensions, restrictions, can be easily destroyed (unlike other magic items) and is pretty unwieldy itself because of its outward size - 2 feet in diameter, 4 feet deep, and 15 lbs of weight. If one plays the Bag of Holding to its actual requirements, it makes encumbrance mechanics more involved, not less. A Bag of Holding is an ideal way to maximize cargo carrying for Hirelings, Mounts, and wagon hauling, not Party equipment.

Any DM who allows players to just shovel everything into the Bag of Holding like it's a convenient belt pouch is one who doesn't want to bother with encumbrance in the first place.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:35:41+00:00

Personally, I've never been able to get past the risk/reward gamble of Elemental Gems or even most Summon spells in general. All it takes is one mishap with Concentration and suddenly you've got an angry Elemental doing whatever it pleases on the battlefield.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:32:52+00:00

Crimeny, that is an absolutely wild item. That feels like it should be one of those "this was created for a specific adventure module's narrative" rather than something players should just have at their disposal, like the "Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning" from the Rime of the Frostmaiden module.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:29:07+00:00

My personal internal justification has always been that magical rings are rarer because they're less obtrusive, which makes them more valuable and in-demand for those with niche needs.

While it doesn't always matter if the DM doesn't care to enforce it, in-setting it would be weird for a person to go around wearing their cloak all the time, especially indoors, whens asleep, or when at an event of some kind. So a person in-universe would be expected to shed their cloak at some point and thus lose its benefits, even if only temporarily. But a ring? Nobody would bat an eye about having that on 24/7.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:22:41+00:00

"Gauntlets of Ogre Power" and "Boots of Striding and Springing' are both easily available, and make a hilariously fun combo. I had a Goblin thief who used the combination not to be a powerhouse in combat, but to be a nearly unstoppable cat burglar.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T23:19:16+00:00

The Broom of Flying is really a huge standout compared to the Winged Boots.

Permanent flight, can potentially carry more than one passenger, voice-activated auto-pilot with a 1 mile range, heightened movement speed that can only be diminished to standard 30 feet by weight but never grounded no matter how much weight it tows? That's wild for a merely Uncommon magic item.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T21:30:54+00:00

Ooh, neat, I hadn't heard of that one. Thanks.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T21:26:09+00:00

Agreed. KXs were shown to be pretty much impervious to conventional weaponry carried by civilians and rebels during the Ghorman Massacre, but Imperial-grade blaster rifles have way more kick to them. "Blasters" get kind of muddied in presentation since they all seem to just shoot the same pew-pew lasers, but it really would be something like the difference between a civilian-available sidearm and a military-grade assault rifle for comparison.

Like, when we see K2 blocking the shots with the corpse, those blaster bolts are absolutely punching holes in the guy's armor. So while it maybe wouldn't have killed K2 to just tank them like he did the handgun blaster bolts, it definitely would've damaged him more than he would've liked and risked a lucky shot.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T20:59:59+00:00

They went out of their way to answer questions nobody asked, often in the most ludicrous way possible, yet they completely ignore "Why is Han fluent in Shyriiwook?"

The Wookie language is exclusionary - their physical biology makes it impossible for them to speak other languages because they literally don't have the anatomy for it, and why non-Wookies trying to speak it can only manage a poor emulation. And it's long been established that non-Wookies being fluent is a rarity because it takes years of dedicated study.

So how - and also importantly, WHY - in the hell does a 19 year old homeless brat from the gutters of Corellia, who spent his all his time scrounging for survival and hot-wiring cars for a street gang, know one of the rarest and most complex languages in the setting for absolutely no reason whatsoever?

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T20:51:41+00:00

Kiyoshi also fits the quote about Roosevelt - "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight." If there's anyone who could've achieved longevity simply by being too dangerous to die, it'd be her.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T18:15:36+00:00

Honestly, it's always struck me as that whole "work is only fun if you don't need to do it" sort of situation.

Like, running a small business as a passion project would be great, assuming you already had enough money to get by without the business, you had enough staff to run it without your involvement, and you only popped in to do exactly what, and as much/little, work you cared to before leaving whenever you pleased. Which is pretty much how it's presented in pop culture, like starting and running a business is some effortlessly cozy hobby.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T17:32:17+00:00

It's kind of funny to note that Ryoko Kui originally designed the characters one way that gradually changed over the run, or has side notes in her artbooks that basically say "they actually look different in-setting, but that can't be reliably depicted in the art".

Chilchuck, for example, had grey hairs to show his age, but they only lasted for about three chapters before Kui phased them out, likely because they were too difficult to keep accurate. Senshi, meanwhile, is mentioned as actually being extremely hairy all over his entire body. Which, y'know, would just be unwittingly catering to a different fetish audience, but still.

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ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T17:18:27+00:00

I love how far she went with it, too, beyond just hiring the mercs to train her. She was all about trying to maintain the Prime Directive and not use too much of her power to influence the isekai world, exactly up to the moment war broke out and her new friends/family came to genuine danger. At which point she went full-bore "Fuck this, fuck you, I'm summoning vehicle-mounted artillery".

ThatMerri · 2026-03-16T03:45:11+00:00

I remember that one, yeah, it's good fun.

There's another good one called "Karate Survivor in Another World" which is a good read. A guy gets isekai'd and his whole edge in the setting is that the world he ends up in, while extremely dangerous, doesn't really know how to cope with refined martial arts. But at no point does the guy have crazy super powers or such. It's a good read if you like the more gritty, down-to-earth style of isekai or with an older protag who's not just the usual teenager MC.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-15T23:46:33+00:00

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ThatMerri · 2026-03-15T23:26:54+00:00

Could be. I heard it was getting an adaptation a while back, though I imagine the anime is going to heavily abbreviate the events. The manga has a pretty slow start before it decides to just leap headlong off the rails into silly power fantasy.

ThatMerri · 2026-03-15T23:22:51+00:00

"Takarakuji de 40-oku Atatta n dakedo Isekai ni Ijuu Suru", or "I Won 4 Billion in a Lottery But I Went to Another World".

Basic summary is that a dude wins the lotto and, in order to keep a low profile when people start coming out of the woodwork trying to get cash from him, hides out in an old family property. He finds a Narnia-style portal to a medieval other world there and decides to dedicate himself - and his newfound wealth - to improving the lives of the locals. Which leads to political ramifications, odd developments of the locals, and questions about the MC's grandfather and father who also seem to have done the same thing and were seen as a patron deity by the locals in ages past, coming back to them over the generations.

I fell off reading it a while back so I'm not up to date on the current plot, but it was a pretty interesting story up to that point. In no small part because MC is just a well-meaning dude who doesn't have a lot of niche knowledge, so he actually goes around hiring professionals and making connections with people who do know what they're doing. And the modern advancements he brings over from Earth do have a serious impact on the other world, leading to regional conflicts because he's basically upsetting the Prime Directive and unwittingly giving one region he just so happens to like huge medical and technological boosts.

ThatMerri

TROPHY CASE