Infinity Strash

Q. Infinity Strash?
A. Infinity Strash.

Addendum

You start with 10 life. Almost all characters have single-color decks. It's up to the creative team if there should be an explosion in the background every time a card is tapped; the real warning sign is if nobody even considers the possibility.

About a Magic: The Gathering TV Show

They should make one, but those cowards would have it take place within the Magic fiction like losers instead of making it be about people playing Magic.

Addendum

Wheel of Time game number two: Dynasty Warriors. That is all. Thank you.

Videogame Adaptation Corner

Wheel of Time, here we go: Puzzle Quest clone. That's right, there are different classes such as Green Ajah, Red Ajah, and Wilder. You've got the different types of tokens or whatever you call the things you match, you can have a Warder slot (Greens get 2, Reds 0), you get an angreal slot and a ter'angreal slot, it's perfect.

Disputes Over Schools of Magic

The argument: "I have become the strongest Gem Master in the world! My magic is supreme."
The counterargument: "You can't call yourself a Gem Master just because you have a bunch of gems, and being rich isn't magic."
The outcome: After Gem Master Dorol bought the furniture store where Polish Mage Irsen worked and fired him, the argument was proved correct.
The aftermath: Gem Master Dorol's shoes are the shiniest in town. Meanwhile, Polish Mage Irsen isn't starving to death.
Finis

Addendum

"Trianglefication" mostly has to do with romantic plots and ought to be avoided in most cases.

The Latest Cool Word

"Rectification." Include that in your story so we know who's down and who's a clown. Don't confuse it with "rectanglefication," but feel free to sneak that in, too.

Commercial Research in the Publishing Industry

If you don't think they're figuring out right now a way you can pay them $4.99 to make the hero's sword shinier, I wish I lived in your naive world.

How to Use a Prologue Correctly

Include an antilogue so the reader gets both sides.

Addendum

There was no secret message in the miscapitalization of "Often," but if there were, I wouldn't tell you. Oooo! Spooky! No, wait, that's more of a thriller thing. It's a techno-thriller if anyone mentions a satellite.

The Difference Between Horror and Dark Fantasy

In fantasy, ghosts are hardly ever a big deal. Have you ever noticed that? OFten they're positively benign.

The Essential Sun

Once upon a time, the people created lighting for their cities so well and so artfully that they realized they no longer needed the sun. "Let us fire the sun," they agreed. "We could use that money for more lanterns."
First they yelled at the sun that it had been sacked, but it continued on its course regardless. They wrote a letter explaining the situation, but nobody came to pick it up. At last they decided to send their own messenger.
How they determined who would go fills a dozen more stories you may have heard already, but we follow the messenger. He walked far beyond the world, a long and exhausting journey, and waited for the sun to pass. He waved to the moon, shook hands with the stars, and at last the sun came.
"You're fired," the man told him. The sun glared at him, threw down the reins of its celestial chariot, and stomped away to find a better job.
The messenger kicked the chariot to test it out, but so fine and frail was it that it shattered into thousands of pieces. That is why you sometimes see stars moving in the sky. Those are pieces of the chariot.

One of the children raised a hand. "But what's the sun?"
"I don't know," the storyteller admitted. "It must have taken a big salary though, since we're so rich and prosperous without it." And forever afterward, nobody missed the big, dumb sun.
Finis

The Future of Fantasy

Now that people are fighting dragons with swords and spells as a regular feature of everyday life, what should fantasy be about? No, you don't have to look out your window. Simply join me in thinking about fantasy stories told by people in fantasy worlds. I bet they're absolutely filthy. Just the most depraved stuff you've ever heard. They also involve countries that are pretty clearly the fantasy countries of their world but the one the teller likes is far more powerful than it is in fantasy reality.

Addendum

You know, it was like Sacrifice or Pikmin but with monsters and demons, which just makes it Sacrifice again, but ignore that. Pikmin for adults, but only the ones who can stand that sort of British humor where people say, "It isn't exactly neighborly, is it?" when you turn their sheep into skeletal sheep minions because boy do those dudes think sheep are inherently funny and the rest of the world can't figure out why. Maybe it's an anti-Welsh thing.

Nintendo Direct

That sure was a lot of remakes. Super Mario RPG, Thousand Year Door, Overlord . . . Unicorn Overlord? Buhhhhhhh? *record scratch* *monocle popping noise*

You all remember Overlord, right?

Addendum

Unless it's one of those scifi series where mummy lords sit on the command thrones of pyramid-shaped space dreadnaughts that are so common today.

Publishing Advice

If you're going to infuse a few unlucky copies of your book with diabolical energies, try to make it a science fiction story so people really don't expect it.

The Perilous Vase

The doors opened, pushed by no visible hand. A bundle of tattered cloth and gray hair ambled in, surrounded by a cloud of chuckles. "Oh, you've done it now, you've really done it. Can't respect a man's property."
The baron hauled himself up to a straight-backed, respectful posture. "Be reasonable! I bade everyone stay away from your tower, but surely that doesn't mean ten miles away!"
"I'm not too good with distances, but curses though, and trouble, oh." The wizard gestured. A vase floated through the doors behind them and over the carpet to settle next to him. "Here, look carefully now, here, is the Perilous Vase. I won't tell you what happens if you put your arm in it. I'll hear it from my tower when you do, I promise you!" A terrible cloud surrounded the equally terrible doer of magic and dispersed, leaving nothing behind.
The baron stared at the vase, settling back in his seat while he did. "Does anyone feel compelled to put his arm in there?" The freemen and servants there all shook their heads. "Oh. Neither do I. Visitors, though . . ."
Hearing that, one of his sons ran to grab a lid from the kitchen and capped the vase. Today everything a yard from the uncanny tower is under cultivation, yet still the Perilous Vase waits for an arm, and the wizard waits too, tapping his foot in an oversized shoe.
Finis

Addendum

Some of you are going to jump straight to triple giants. How about some restraint? Come on. It won't mean as much until you lay the groundwork.

Supercharge Your Fantasy

What's bigger than giants? Giant giants, or as the elves name them, double giants. Your hero's going to have a tough time with one of those until they become friends after a humorous action sequence.

Blue Hair

That can look however you want. I'm getting on board this destruction of red hair train, and I'm never getting off.

Red Hair

It's tough. On the one hand, I want to support redheads as the entertainment industry tries to extirpate them from all fiction, and so I should change "annoying" to "fiery" in every reference to them. On the other hand, red hair never looks fiery. Never.

Thoughts on Starfield

None, because I'm waiting for the Garfield collab DLC.

Do you think they might do something like that? You just realized it isn't actually impossible, didn't you? Business is a strange place.

The Return of Volcanopunk

How about a volcano that's magically stimulated to pour out manageable streams of lava endlessly that lava technicians use for their lava engines? Now it isn't cyberpunk. It isn't really anything else though, either. Plus it should be called lavapunk. Darn it.

The Lessons of Giants

Once upon a time, a woodcutter lived in a kingdom that declared all the remaining forest a royal preserve. Deprived of his livelihood, he sold his ax, his house, and after that he had nothing left to sell. He wandered then and knew not whither he went. One day, while the growling of his stomach distracted him, he stumbled upon something. He looked down and marveled, and looked up and marveled even more, for he had, without meaning to, found the end of a glittering rainbow.
Then steps he heard, steps that shook the world, and a giant appeared. The giant greeted him in this way. "Hallo there, sir. What luck this is, finding a rainbow here. I was needing something to tire around a present for my honey. Now just you watch this." So saying, the giant grabbed the rainbow and tied it around a package, which explained why it was called a rainbow in the first place. He tipped his hat to the woodcutter and walked away, whistling.
The woodcutter admired the giant's technique so much that he practiced it with grass and vines until he had it about right. Then he went to the nearest town and became famous for his present-wrapping. Even the king came to have his gifts prepared in the most charming fashion. The woodcutter became a wealthy man, because of the pot of gold of course, and he had a hobby too, which made him almost as happy.
Finis

Matlock Thoughts

How old is Matlock supposed to be? I have the impression it's younger than he looks, like maybe pushing fifty instead. The episode with his old law professor, who's still teaching, shocked and confused me.

Wheel of Time Season 2 Is a Big Step Up!

I was assured of that by several internet posters! Who all used that exact phrase! Because that's what the booklet told them to write!

Wheel of Time Season 2

I thought about it, but it turns out Matlock is available on Amazon Prime. I'm sure everyone understands.