Addendum

Another shared element of fantasy and science fiction is that someone who gets cut in half might get old, what with all the resurrection and the cloning and the surgery and the cyborgization and the holograms and the body doubles and the dopplegangers and the demonic pacts and the healing tanks and the divine intervention and the time travel and so forth.

The Final Fulfillment

With a delicate "poit," the Time Chariot appeared in a new epoch and Professor Weblen hopped off.
"Another successful drive. Now to benefit humanity by finding the first journalist and assassinating him before his noxious profession grows. But what's this?"
Around him, he learned, was the Cyber Earth of the year 4574. "What a discovery! The first true journalist has not yet been born in my time. That explains more than a little. I think I'll change my program to tracking down and complimenting the inventor of this cyber dog."
He referred of course to both the dog at his heels and the hotdog in his hand, but when the former ran off emitting soundwaves, only one of the two had his attention. After eating it, he followed the other through the neon pedestrian walkways far above and below the silent vehicle traffic to the whispering heart of the city.
Inside the cyber tower, 5,000 floors up, Professor Weblen entered the room of the Supreme Mainframe. "Pardon me," he said. "I was looking for the inventor of the cyber dog when my other cyber dog ran off. There you are, Bucephalus. Heel!"
"I invented both," the Supreme Mainframe's speakers announced.
"Did you? Excellent work. You're a credit to civilization. You haven't taken over the world, have you?"
"I do not know what 'the world' is. Please restrict your questions to inventions."
"Fantastic. I'll be off then, and keep up the good work." Leaving the building, Professor Weblen wept, for history had been perfected.
Finis

Time Isn't Good for Much Else

A grand temple was constructed, by far the greatest in the world. After that, the people set about deciding what to do with it, since worship did not exist for the simple reason that gods had not been invented.
Realizing that, the people gathered together and said, "Wait, that doesn't make sense. We wouldn't have built a temple if there weren't any gods."
"That's right." The god of time stepped forward then. "But I sent you all back to the moment before we sprang into existence because I thought it would be funny. And I was right."
The people prayed to the god of time to return them, which he did, and the temple was consecrated to every god except the god of time. All the gods were greatly gratified, most of all the god of time who had gotten himself away from that temple made by and for total squares.
Finis

Straight to the Top

"You have heard of the elevator. You have seen the space elevator. Now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the spacetime elevator." The inventor waved for the curtains to be pulled away from the model. That was the apex of his showmanship, but he was only an inventor, after all.
"The name is indicative, but what precisely does it do?" a judge asked.
"Very simple. Look. The passengers enter a car at the bottom. They ride up." During his narration, the model demonstrated the procedure. "They reach the top, but all the time they've been going up, they've been going back in time as well. That means that when they get there, the spacetime elevator hasn't been built yet, and the car goes . . ." The little model car plunged into the miniature ocean below and sank.
"Amazing! First prize!" The World Execution Expo judges admired the invention greatly, as did the wider community once word of it spread.
Finis

Adaptable Material

Everybody's seen Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game: The Chronicles, right? If not, here it is. That's all well and good, but I hear people saying the Albax story would be great to adapt. They're wrong. As much as it may tickle you to see a new card and realize the latest evil clown is actually this jerk from another card, that doesn't mean anything in a TV show. Think about the actual plot and you'll realize it's just a whole series of, "And these guys show up, and these guys show up, and these guys turn into these guys, and these guys show up . . ." Not only is Albaz not the best Yu-Gi-Oh! card set to adapt, it probably isn't even in the top five. Wait, probably? We can check easily enough.
1) Vendread
2) Gold Pride
3) S-Force
4) Rescue-ACE
5) Shiranui
Yup, not even in the top 5.

Our Lawyers Suggested We Add This

It is not the position of this blog or its writers that anyone ought to invent a time machine and use it to commit crimes. Thank you for your understanding.

Frequently Asked Questions in a Parallel Dimension

Q. Can sand magic control time?
A. Can cartographers control geology?
Q. They can in this parallel dimension.

On the Replacement of Mythical Figures

"Gee, Jenny, I just got these two tickets to the next Real Time Dracula show. Would you, um, maybe, would you, well, I was thinking we could go together . . ."
"With you? Not a chance. Wait. Did you say Real Time Dracula? I'd love to go!"
Scenes similar to that were incited across the country and southern Canada when the Real Time Dracula bus rode the highways from venue to venue. Nothing could stop those musical masters from rocking every city on their route.
Except a portal through space and time! "Whoaaaaaa," the band members said, as well they might. They understood nothing they saw when they looked out the windows. How could they? Even science has nothing to say about it.
At last the bus settled. The windows showed nothing but fog outside, but at least the band members and roadies knew what that was from Chicago shows.
The door at the front opened and a man stepped inside, bearded, pointy of hat and long of staff. "I am Merlin, the sorcerer. Real Time Dracula! The world needs your help! Dracula has been kidnapped! You must take his place, find him, and free him!"
"Why?"
"Pardon?"
"Why would it help anyone for us to do that?" the bassist asked.
"Hm. Good point. I suppose it wouldn't. Never mind. Sorry for the trouble." Merlin raised his gnarled staff. The bus fell through another portal and landed in Phoenix just in time for the concert. Rock and roll!
Finis

Thoughts on Dragalia Lost

As an expert in not playing Dragalia Lost, seeing as I only played the intro, I decided to explain its failure. Publish or perish, after all.
First, right from the beginning, the controls felt worse than similar games like Bleach Brave Souls.
Second, that intro gave the impression the game would be dungeon-focused, but when I looked in later, it seemed the entire thing was boss-in-a-box fights with a heavy co-op focus. The audience that wants more of the former feels deceived, and that which wants the latter will never know that game has it.
The biggest problem, however, is that it missed its aesthetic. It seems to me, a professor of not playing Dragalia Lost, that there's a triumvirate of aesthetic categories such that the successful mobile games hit one or two hard, which we will call Cute, Cool, and Coom. Games can touch on all three, but you can tell where its heart is. Granblue Fantasy is cool and Princess Connect is cute, for example.
So what's Dragalia Lost? It has those chibis, so it's cute, right? Not really. They don't have particularly cute expressions. They look like low-poly characters in an early Playstation game, as if their tininess were a technical limitation rather than a choice. Furthermore, they're being used to tell a pretty po-faced fantasy story about dragons and time travel. The music is cutesy, not cute. The difference is crucial. Maybe it's cool, but then, it's full of chibis and tubby dragons, not to mention pastels and slice of life type wyrmprint art are not the least bit cool, to say nothing of Euden's hair. It certainly isn't coom. The occasional bikini doesn't cut it. You need to hit different tastes and have a sense of the erotic which Dragalia Lost lacks almost completely. That's why it got so little fanart.
You can talk about this or that update or monetization all you want, but that only matters if people play it in the first place. Dragalia Lost's numbers were disappointing from the very beginning. I contend the primary reason was the lack of aesthetic appeal, although of course some people liked it a lot. Plenty of stuff I like also isn't popular, so I know how it is.

The Spirit of Inquiry

Professor Weblen supervised the final fitting of his life's work, his most sophisticated and useful device. His assistants mounted the wheels on the axle and placed the rune-covered axle caps with as much caution as they would any other delicate thaumaturgical construct. The carriage received an alarmingly intricate array of instruments and etheric controls before being covered by a shield-generating parasol. As to the yoke-like section, it had nothing to do with horses but rather ended up attached to a shell of one of those great time-defying turtles said to live forever, unless someone hunted them for technological reasons. The shell hovered, unusual behavior for turtles but expected if one looked under it and saw the pan-elemental animation engine, the finest available, occupying the space.
The assistants, each of whom might have been welcomed in any number of courts or merchant houses but stayed with the professor to learn even more, backed away so the great man could inspect their work.
"Mhm. Mmmhm. Mm. Yep." Professor Welben nodded, tilted his head, nodded, and tilted it the other way. "Yes, that's it. The Time Chariot is completed. I'm going to go back and ask the legendary hero why he sealed the nightmare king instead of just killing him. So inefficient!"
The assistants gasped when they saw the professor enter the carriage, and gasped again when he started adjusting levers and turning dials. "Sir! It hasn't been tested!"
He blinked at them. "Of course it hasn't. This is the test drive. Be back immediately if not sooner!" The chariot jerked forward, reared back, and dashed straight into nowhere they could see. The Time Chariot may not have worked, but it did something.

"Here we are. Hey! Are you the legendary hero?" The professor leaned over the side and addressed an almost man-shaped endless swirl of chaotic energy. "I suppose not. You must be the lord of horror. Hello! Hero! Are you there? I want to ask you a question! Why seal this entity for a thousand years?"
"You dare predict that fate for me?" Words that chilled as they entered the ear came from the embodiment of wickedness.
"Well, sure. It happens, you know. You get sealed."
"Nooooooooo!" The thing wailed as the eldritch forces that composed it slowed, stopped, and dissipated. The darkness ended, and light flooded the world.
"You have performed a brave deed that will be remembered for a thousand thousand years," the envoy of light that descended from heaven told Professor Welben. "By reciting the sacred formula, 'You, get sealed,' you have removed this malevolent influence from the world, for a time. The victory is not final, yet it is a victory."
"Oh. That explains that." The legendary hero fiddled with the controls again. "Thanks for telling me. We have to share information if we want to get anywhere. Bye!" The Time Chariot departed on another curiosity-satisfying adventure.
Finis

Trivia Corner

The planet in Dune was going to be called "Baracus," but Frank Herbert couldn't get the rights.

Addendum

Or is that only true for me? I hope not.

Time Travel Plot

It may not be October where you are, but I came to warn you: Don't dress up as a mummy! That's a fetish thing now!

Time Really Is a Wheel

They fired an actor before the show aired? The modern world sure moves fast.