I figure nobody reads anymore, so I’d might as well board a sinking ship and make videos about anime on YouTube. I embedded the video below, but first I’d might as well talk a little about the chapter of The Minotaur’s Board-Game I posted today.
When Aria breaks Homer’s heart, Homer runs into the wild wastes and finds an entrance to (exit from?) a labyrinth. We’ve been warned minotaurs get homesick, but Homer’s commitment to stay on the surface and defeat the dwarfs redoubles when he sees that dwarfs have killed some minotaurs for their heads.
Homer wins a table-war against the dwarven machine, but loses the next round. For the first time ever, gnomes award a commander more than five points when the dwarven machine’s victory earns nine.
Awarding points is a great knob for me to twist, as a writer. What I mean is, it’s easy to replace nine points with eight points, if I decide I need to. I strongly believe no how much planning a writer does, the act of writing is just making things up as you go; if I notice something doesn’t make sense, I can go back and change it. Nothing is written in stone, and having gnomes award points makes the story quite pliable.
I also like the reveal that gnomes and dwarfs used to be the same race. There’s a lot of baggage in using classic creatures like elves, dwarfs, gnomes, and all that, because in many fantasy stories, these races are essentially copy-pasted, but I’ve tried to shake things up. Giving dwarfs and gnomes a peculiar, entwined history makes them stand out in a world of Lord-of-the-Rings knockoffs.
So anyway, here’s that video. It’s about Kaiji: The Ultimate Survivor, an anime about a guy who gambles his limbs. Spoilers!
Ted Writes 