3 Kobolds in a Trenchcoat

Thank you for the tag @opheliacordelias!💜

no pressure tags~

This was actually kinda hard because I haven't really watched much in a while lol I've mostly been watching documentaries and info-tainment content on YouTube : P I think this is an accurate list? I'm sure I've forgotten something that I absolutely adore though ^_^; I wanted to put a couple of your answers (AtLA, Dungeon Meshi), but I figured I should try to come up with my own xD

Anyway!

Like, casting low-level magic is fine. It's basically the equivalent of going scuba diving in the tropical shallows. Lighting a candle, creating a light breeze, even manifesting simple objects is all a relatively simple task.

But, in d&d terms for example, what about immersing yourself in 5th level magic or higher? What if at that point, you cast a spell, and you're left with residual magic in your system that essentially needs to be "cooked off," or there's gonna be consequences.

Like, you cast that 5th level spell, and then you need to cast a 1st level or maybe just a couple of cantrips immediately after to expel the excess magic? And if you don't? Maybe you get really sore, burst some blood vessels or even just get nauseous and have a headache.

Using higher level magic is more dangerous though, because you're immersing yourself deeper into this power that could rip you apart if you don't know what you're doing. Say you cast an 8th level spell, and then you need to cast a 5th, a 4th, a 2nd, and then a couple of cantrips immediately after, or you suffer full-on cardiac arrest, or have massive organ failure as a result of not expelling the magic from your system?

You cast 9th level magic and then you have to work yourself back down by expending the rest of your magical potential for the day, because your fragile human body has just performed a feat equivalent to altering the fabric of reality. It's either that, or you disintegrate into nothingness, from your physical essence, right down to your soul. You just cease to be in any sense. Maybe the very memory of you is erased from anyone who has ever known you as well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ask and ye shall receive: When I write in Japanese I usually also throw it in google translate to double check that I'm not using the wrong kanji by mistake, and two years ago it gave me very dry and literal translations.

I was doing it today and noticed it had a pretty strong voice added to the output

For reference, to give a dry translation I would put: Lately I'm into in Hanafuda. Nobody seems to know anything about it here, so they probably wouldn't understand my brilliant jokes. I guess you guys will never be able to understand "Mister November and the Scary Cave".

I have a fluent friend who is able to check my work for me and give me tips on hitting the correct tone (I was going for a comically casual feeling), so I'm confident that I'm expressing the feeling I'm intending. While Google is also hitting the same emotion, I really don't like knowing that it's assigning tone in the first place.

To check if it was editorializing based on informal grammatical choices, I formal'd up the writing to be more polite and remove any non-standard vocabulary.

What do you mean I'm just using the browser versi-

Elnora is another example to me of how strongly framing shapes how a characters is received.

Elnora is the new Eclipse merc you find hiding in a room while searching for the ship Morinth escaped on. You can kill her or let her go.

I often see players say they let her go the first time, and kill her after they learn she killed the volus merchant to join Eclipse. Some say they killed her the first time because Pitne For tells you that to join Eclipse you need to kill someone in cold blood.

So killing Elnora is justified because she's killed an innocent person.

Except... How many of Shepard's squadmates have done so?

-Wrex was a mercenary for a long time. We see mercenaries kill (or threaten to kill) many innocents through ME1 and ME2. Did Wrex ever do so?

-Zaeed's a mercenary. He deliberately sets a refinery on fire and wants to leave workers to burn in it to get revenge. I think it's safe to say he may have killed some innocents over the years. (You may even have supported him in doing so.)

-Jack gives you a long list of crimes she's committed in one of your earliest conversations with her. Was anyone in that space station she destroyed? Did everyone in that cult she killed guilty of a crime worthy of death? What did she do as a pirate?

-Thane's an assassin. Did he verify all of his targets deserved death? What right did he (or his client) have to make that decision?

-Samara follows her code precisely. From what we hear of it, I'm sure she's killed many the average player would not deem to deserve death.

-Jacob was a corsair. Essentially, a state sponsored pirate except off the books. He seems to want to do right... Except that led him to join Cerberus. It's probably worth double-checking all the missions he's carried out for the Alliance and Cerberus.

-We don't know how old the programs that Legion consists of are or the details of the Morning War. It's quite possible not every death they were involved in was self-defense.

And there's probably more I'm missing.

Would we agree that any of our squadmates should be shot in cold blood for their past?

How are they so different from Elnora?

Yet the impression I get from many players that killing Elnora is a righteous act. She deserves it.

I doubt most of them would agree that shooting Jack is one.

It's not what they've done that matters so much as who they are to Shepard. One is a stranger that belongs to an enemy force; one is a friend and ally.

This joke is the exact opposite.

“That’s funny” said the child “because 2+4=6 and two pounds and four pounds is six pounds. It’s like the same as math!”

“What happens if you add 6+1?”

“SEVEN”

“What if we put one pound of mangos on the scale?” <mangos added>

“IT’S THE SAME!!”

“OK, what’s 7-4?”

“Three?”

“What if we take the four pound watermelon off the scale?” <watermelon removed>