#if they end up cancelling the Skull Island series

[wolfasketch]

At this point, Netflix should end seasons with series ending ends with how often the cancel shows that were left on cliffhanging season endings.

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi (December 11, 1922 – January 10, 2008), known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was a Finnish-American actress and television personality who created the campy 1950s character Vampira.

The daughter of a Finnish immigrant, Nurmi was raised in Oregon and relocated to Los Angeles in 1940 with hopes of being an actress. After several minor film roles, she found success in the Vampira character, television's first horror host. Nurmi hosted her own series, The Vampira Show, from 1954–55 on KABC-TV.

After the show's cancellation, she appeared in the 1959 cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space, directed by Ed Wood. She is also billed as Vampira in the 1959 film The Beat Generation, where she appears out of character and instead plays a beatnik poet. Nurmi also appeared in the 1959 crime film The Big Operator. She was portrayed by Lisa Marie in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood.

Maila Nurmi was born Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi in 1922 to Onni Syrjäniemi, a Finnish immigrant, and Sophia Peterson, an American of Finnish descent. Her place of birth is disputed: according to biographer W. Scott Poole in Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror (2014), Nurmi was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, during her career, Nurmi claimed to have been born in Petsamo, Finland, claiming she was the niece of Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, who began setting long-distance running world records in 1921, the year before her birth. Public U.S. immigration records show her father's immigration at Ellis Island in 1910. Additionally, Dana Gould claimed in a 2014 public interview that he had seen Nurmi's birth certificate, which listed her birthplace as Gloucester, Massachusetts.

During her childhood, Nurmi relocated with her family from Massachusetts to Ashtabula, Ohio, before settling in Astoria, Oregon, a city on the Oregon Coast with a large Finnish community. Her father worked as a lecturer and editor, and her mother also worked as a part-time journalist and translator to support the family. She graduated from Astoria High School in 1940.

In 1940, Nurmi relocated to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career, and later in New York City. She modeled for Alberto Vargas, Bernard of Hollywood, and Man Ray, gaining a foothold in the film industry with an uncredited role in Victor Saville's 1947 film, If Winter Comes.

She was reportedly fired in 1944 by Mae West from the cast of West's Broadway play, Catherine Was Great, because West feared she was being upstaged.

On Broadway, she gained much attention after appearing in the horror-themed midnight show Spook Scandals, in which she screamed, fainted, lay in a coffin, and seductively lurked about a mock cemetery. She also worked as a showgirl for the Earl Carroll Theatre and as a high-kicking chorus line dancer at the Florentine Gardens along with stripper Lili St. Cyr. In the 1950s, she supported herself mainly by posing for pin-up photos in men's magazines such as Famous Models, Gala and Glamorous Models. Before landing her role as 'Vampira', she was working as a hat-check girl in a cloakroom on Hollywood's Sunset Strip.

The idea for the Vampira character was born in 1953 when Nurmi attended choreographer Lester Horton's annual Bal Caribe Masquerade in a costume inspired by Morticia Addams in The New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams. Her appearance with pale white skin and tight black dress caught the attention of television producer Hunt Stromberg, Jr., who wanted to hire her to host horror movies on the Los Angeles television station KABC-TV, but Stromberg had no idea how to contact her. He finally got her phone number from Rudi Gernreich, later the designer of the topless swimsuit. The name Vampira was the invention of Nurmi's husband, Dean Riesner. Nurmi's characterization was influenced by the Dragon Lady from the comic strip Terry and the Pirates and the evil queen from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

On April 30, 1954, KABC-TV aired a preview, Dig Me Later, Vampira, at 11:00 p.m. The Vampira Show premiered on the following night, May 1, 1954. For the first four weeks, the show aired at midnight, moving to 11:00 p.m. on May 29. Ten months later, the series aired at 10:30 p.m., beginning March 5, 1955. Each show opened with Vampira gliding down a dark corridor flooded with dry-ice fog. At the end of her trance-like walk, the camera zoomed in on her face as she let out a piercing scream. She would then introduce (and mock) that evening's film while reclining barefoot on a skull-encrusted Victorian couch. Her horror-related comedy antics included ghoulish puns such as encouraging viewers to write for epitaphs instead of autographs and talking to her pet spider Rollo.

She also ran as a candidate for Night Mayor of Hollywood with a platform of "dead issues". In another publicity stunt, KABC had her cruise around Hollywood in the back of a chauffeur-driven 1932 Packard touring car with the top down, where she sat, as Vampira, holding a black parasol. The show was an immediate hit, and in June 1954 she appeared as Vampira in a horror-themed comedy skit on The Red Skelton Show along with Béla Lugosi, and Lon Chaney, Jr.. That same week Life magazine ran an article on her, including a photo-spread of her show-opening entrance and scream. A kinescope of her The Red Skelton Show appearance was discovered in 2014. It is available as part of the Shout Factory DVD box set Red Skelton: The Early Years.

When her KABC series was cancelled in 1955, Nurmi retained rights to the character of Vampira and took the show to a competing Los Angeles television station, KHJ-TV. Several episode scripts and a single promotional kinescope of Nurmi re-creating some of her macabre comedy segments are held by private collectors. Several clips from the rare kinescope are included in the documentaries American Scary and Vampira: The Movie. The entire KABC kinescope, plus selections of the KABC pitchman who introduced the clips, is available in the 2012 documentary Vampira and Me.

Vampira and Me also features extensive clips from two previously unknown 16mm kinescopes of Nurmi as Vampira on national TV shows, including her starring guest spot on the April 2, 1955 episode of The George Gobel Show, a top 10 hit. The Vampira and Me restoration of the Gobel kinescope was documented in a 2013 short film entitled Restoring Vampira.

Examination of Nurmi's diaries in 2014 by filmmaker and journalist R. H. Greene verify longtime rumors that in 1956 she was the model for Maleficent, the evil witch in the Disney conception of the classic fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty." The Disney archivist subsequently confirmed these findings.

In 2007, the kinescope film of Nurmi in character was restored by Rerunmedia, whose restorations include The Ed Sullivan Show and Dark Shadows. The restoration utilized the groundbreaking LiveFeed Video Imaging process developed exclusively for the restoration of kinescopes. The restoration was funded by Spectropia Wunderhaus and Coffin Case.

A reconstructed episode of The Vampira Show was released on DVD by the Vampira's Attic web site in October 2007. The release imitated a complete episode by using existing footage of the show combined with vintage commercials believed to have been directed by Ed Wood[citation needed] and the full-length 1932 feature film The Thirteenth Guest.

Nurmi made television history as the first horror movie hostess. In 1957, Screen Gems released a syndicated package of 52 horror movies, mostly from Universal Pictures, under the program title Shock Theater. Independent stations in major cities all over the U.S. began showing these films, adding their own ghoulish host or hostess (including Vampira II and other lookalikes) to attract more viewers.

Nominated for a Los Angeles area Emmy Award as 'Most Outstanding Female Personality' in 1954, she returned to films with Too Much, Too Soon in 1958, followed by The Big Operator and The Beat Generation. Her best known film appearance was in Ed Wood's camp classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space, as a Vampira-like zombie (filmed in 1956, but released in 1959). In 1960 she appeared in I Passed for White and Sex Kittens Go to College, followed by 1962's The Magic Sword. The classic clip from Plan 9 from Outer Space featuring Vampira walking out of the woods with her hands pointing straight out was used to start the original opening sequence of WPIX Channel 11 New York's Chiller Theatre in the 1960s.

By 1962, Nurmi was making a living installing linoleum flooring. "And if things are slow in linoleum, I can also do carpentry, make drapes or refinish furniture", she told the Los Angeles Times.

In the early 1960s, Nurmi opened Vampira's Attic, an antiques boutique on Melrose Avenue. She also sold handmade jewelry and clothing. She made items for several celebrities, including Grace Slick of the music group Jefferson Airplane and the Zappa family.

In 1981, Nurmi was asked by KHJ-TV to revive her Vampira character for television. She worked closely with the producers of the new show and was to get an executive producer credit, but Nurmi eventually left the project over creative differences. According to Nurmi, this was because the station cast comedic actress Cassandra Peterson in the part without consulting her. "They eventually called me in to sign a contract and she was there", Nurmi told Bizarre magazine in 2005. "They had hired her without asking me."

Nurmi worked on the project for a short time, but quit when the producers would not hire Lola Falana to play Vampira. The station sent out a casting call, and Peterson auditioned and won the role.

Unable to continue using the name Vampira, the show was abruptly renamed Elvira's Movie Macabre with Peterson playing the titular host. Nurmi soon filed a lawsuit against Peterson. The court eventually ruled in favor of Peterson, holding that "likeness means actual representation of another person's appearance, and not simply close resemblance." Peterson claimed that Elvira was nothing like Vampira aside from the basic design of the black dress and black hair. Nurmi claimed that the entire Elvira persona, which included comedic dialogue and intentionally bad graveyard puns, infringed on her creation's "distinctive dark dress, horror movie props, and...special personality." Nurmi herself claimed that Vampira's image was in part based on the Charles Addams The New Yorker cartoon character Morticia Addams, though she told Boxoffice magazine in 1994 that she had intentionally deviated from Addams' mute and flat-chested creation, making her own TV character "campier and sexier" to avoid plagiarizing Addams' idea.

In 1986, she appeared alongside Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers in Rene Daalder's punk rock musical Population: 1, which was released on DVD in October 2008. According to a Daalder interview on the 2 disc special edition of Population: 1, "There was a wild lady living out in back in a shed. Tomata befriended her and found out she had played Vampira".

In 1987, she recorded two seven-inch singles on Living Eye records with the band Satan's Cheerleaders. The singles, entitled "I Am Damned" and "Genocide Utopia," were both released on colored vinyl, the second one with a swastika on the label, and are extremely rare collector's items.

In 2001, Nurmi opened an official website and began selling autographed memorabilia and original pieces of art on eBay. Until her death, Nurmi lived in a small North Hollywood apartment.

Unlike Elvira, Nurmi authorized very few merchandising contracts for her Vampira character, though the name and likeness have been used unofficially by various companies since the 1950s. In 1994, Nurmi authorized a Vampira model kit for Artomic Creations, and a pre-painted figurine from Bowen Designs in 2001, both sculpted by Thomas Kuntz. In 2004, she authorized merchandising of the Vampira character by Coffin Case, for the limited purpose of selling skate boards and guitar cases.

In the early 1950s, Nurmi was close friends with James Dean, and they spent time together at Googie's coffee shop on the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She explained their friendship by saying, "We have the same neuroses."

As Hedda Hopper related in a 1962 memoir that included a chapter on Dean: "We discussed the thin-cheeked actress who calls herself Vampira on television (and cashed in, after Jimmy died, on the publicity she got from knowing him and claimed she could talk to him 'through the veil'). He said: 'I had studied The Golden Bough and the Marquis de Sade, and I was interested in finding out if this girl was obsessed by a satanic force. She knew absolutely nothing. I found her void of any true interest except her Vampira make-up. She has no absolute.'"

The 2010 public radio documentary Vampira and Me by author/director R. H. Greene took issue with Hopper's depiction of the Nurmi/Dean relationship, pointing to an extant photo of Dean and Vampira sidekick Jack Simmons in full Boris Karloff Frankenstein make-up as evidence of Nurmi and Dean's friendship. The documentary also described a production memo in the Warner Bros. archive citing a set visit from "Vampira" while Dean was making Rebel Without a Cause.

The Warner Bros memo was first mentioned in the 2006 book Live Fast, Die Young: The Making of Rebel Without a Cause by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel, who were given access to the Rebel production files. An interview Frascella and Weisel conducted with actress Shelley Winters also uncovered an instance where Dean interrupted an argument with director Nicholas Ray and Winters so he could watch The Vampira Show on TV.

In Vampira and Me, Nurmi can be heard telling Greene that Dean once appeared in a live bit on The Vampira Show in which Vampira, dressed as a librarian, rapped his knuckles with a ruler because "he was a very naughty boy."

The English Punk rock band The Damned wrote a song about their relationship entitled ‘Plan 9, Channel 7’ and can be found on the 1979 album ‘Machine Gun Etiquette ‘ ( Chiswick Records )

On June 20, 1955, Nurmi was the target of an attempted murder when a man forced his way into her apartment and proceeded to terrorize her for close to four hours. Nurmi eventually escaped and managed to call the police, with assistance from a local shop owner.

She married her first husband, Dean Riesner, in 1949, a former child actor in silent films and later the screenwriter of Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, Play Misty for Me, and numerous other movies and TV episodes.

She married her second husband, younger actor John Brinkley, on March 10, 1958.

She married actor Fabrizio Mioni on June 20, 1961 in Orange County, California.

On January 10, 2008, Nurmi died of natural causes at her home in Hollywood, aged 85. She was buried in the Griffith Lawn section of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.



[newagesispage]

                                                                JULY                                   2021

 THE RIB PAGE

 *****

They are still uncovering statues on Easter Island.

*****

Everyone is talking about ‘Exterminate all the Brutes” from Raoul Peck.

*****

Vampire bats, prevalent in Latin America may be on the way to the U.S.

*****

What they call faith, I call strength.

*****

Criss angel will open CABLP, a restaurant in Overton, Nevada. The letters stand for breakfast, lunch and pizza and will include a free meal outreach program to help under privileged and pediatric cancer families.

*****

A fifth ocean in Antartica??** There have also found 4 new ocean species: Apolemia, Tegula Kusairo, Leptarma Biju and Duobrachium Sparksae.

*****

In China they have found a possible new species in a skull that is 140,000 years old.

*****

Why would Jeffrey Toobin be back at CNN?? Surely there are more young deserving talking heads around.

*****

The Keystone pipeline is dead.

*****

5,000 pounds of explosives were discovered in a home in South LA. LAPD seems to have detonated the fireworks in a truck right there in the neighborhood. They were too dangerous to transport but not enough to blow them up??? How stupid are these people??

*****

Days alert : So glad to see Clyde again even if it is only for a moment!! **BTW, I do not understand the Daytime Emmy noms this year as they relate to Days. I really was pulling for Victoria Koneful (Ciara) and she won but George DelHoya (Orpheus), Tamara Braun (Ava) and Cady McClain (Jennifer)??? I was shocked when Cady McClain won. I mean, she was so whiny. I question my own ability to judge a performance. In most categories, the winner was usually the one I thought was the worst option. I was happy for Max Gail and CBS Sunday Morning.  Some performances were sure overlooked. What about James Read (Clyde), Paul Telfer (Xander), Bryan Dattilo (Lucas), Robert Scott Wilson (Ben), Daniel Kerr (Eli) and Lindsay Arnold (Allie) ?? As annoying as the Kristen character is and as long as it took me to get used to Stacy Haiduk in the role, she kicked ass this year. Did they even submit clips?? And,  they are not often on but Tony and Anna forever!!!!!!** And how wonderful is it to see the Dimera boys all together and recounting the whole fam for the votes? **And one more thing, Days was not even nominated for writing while Bold and the Beautiful spends every other show with the Liam character standing in front of the fireplace making excuses for the same shit! Just push repeat, C,mon!!**Philip had a great line for Brady about following Kristen like a zombie.** Dis Eli really say, “Peacock and chill??’ Are these the things they will have to do to do to stay on the air? It took me right out of the show. It was the same day the ads for Days on Peacock started. OMG

*****

Texas Gov. Abbott vetoed a bill that would make it illegal to chain up dogs without water.**ATexas churches have lost their 501(c) (3) status because it actively ‘educates’ its members on electing specific Republican politicians. –Pete West* This should have been happening long ago. Many churches I know of do this and should not be allowed to have it both ways. #tax the church

*****

Ellen Burstyn, Jane Curtin, Loretta Devine, Christopher Lloyd, James Caan, French Stewart and Ann-Margaret in Queen Bees and directed by Michael Lembeck?? Yes please!!

*****

NY has suspended Giuliani’s law license.

*****

Miracle Workers: The Oregon Trail is coming to TBS, this will be season 3 in the series.

*****

What is this about Bowen Yang?? A podcast about a sperm bank heist?? Yeow!!

*****

David Geffen has given $150,000,000 to Yale drama school: Every student will be tuition- free in perpetuity.

*****

Allison Mack was sentenced to 3 years.

*****

The latest in sexual assault news: James Franco has agreed to 2.2 mil settlement in sexual misconduct case.** Kyle Massey was charged with immoral communication with a minor.**Bill Cosby is out and here are some reactions: A terrible wrong is being righted.: a miscarriage of justice is corrected. I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward.- Phylicia Rashad*I really don’t ever want to hear again as to why many survivors don’t report their rape or assault.- Charlotte Clymer* Women are showing great restraint in not burning everything to the ground right now and I don’t know how they do it.-Jeff Tiedrich

*****

Amazon is making a series of A League of Their Own with Nick Offerman as the coach.

*****

Does anyone else have family members that are rich, transient, know it all snobs??

*****

It looks like New York’s ranked choice voting is leaning toward Eric Adams for Mayor.

*****

Michigan republicans investigating voter fraud found 2 incidents. One is for a lady who voted by mail and then died, the other was confusion over a man who had the same name as his Father. That was it!

*****

Jamie Lee Curtis will get the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 78th Venice International Film Fest in September.

*****

Jerry Seinfeld will star in and direct ‘Unfrosted’ about Pop-Tarts.

*****

Why is Airbnb still listing properties in illegal settlements and outposts in Palestinian occupied territories? –James J. Zogby

*****

Merrick Garland has announced that the Justice department sued Georgia over the voting rights.

*****

The NFL says that it will halt the use of “race norming” which assumed black players started out with lower cognitive functioning in a $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. The practice had made it harder for black players to qualify. –The Associated Press.

*****

Scary Clown 45 ended his ‘From the desk of Donald J. Trump’ blog after 29 days. Word is that he felt he was being mocked in the media.

*****

Religious leadership keeps engaging in partisan politics on behalf of politicians that are particularly unpopular with younger people and they wonder why younger people are disenchanted with the church. – Schooley ** Give young people credit as well for seeing through the hype and lies of these religious hypocrites who use God only as a weapon and a threat. –Larry Charles

*****

Amazon will stop drug testing for employment. Can every other company jump on this bandwagon? Let’s judge employees on the work they give.

*****

The Backstreet Boys and NSync are going to work together??!!

*****

Showtime is bringing back American Gigolo with Jon Bernthal.

*****

If Biden can carry out air strikes without proper authorization, the Senate can raise the minimum wage without the Parliamentarian.  –Alexandra M. Hunt

Reality Winner is out!!

*****

Judy Woodruff has been given the Peabody award for journalistic integrity.

*****

Donald Glover is bringing us Hive. Malia Obama will be a writer.

*****

Nicholas Cage has married Riko Shibata.

*****

Catch and Kill: The podcast tapes, is here on HBO.

*****

Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening will star in Jerry and Marge go large.

*****

Amblin Partners and Netflix are partners.

*****

Fall 2022 will bring the Roybal School of film and television production for underserved communities. They are looking to help 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade students. Among others, the program was cofounded by George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Kerry Washington, Mindy Kaling and Eva Longoria.

*****

Will there be a Wedding Crashers2??

*****

The Mysterious Benedict Society stars Tony Hale.** I would love to see he and Danny Pudi in something together.

*****

Actor Stephen Amell from Arrow was removed from a plane after getting into it with his wife.  A source said he was drunk and screaming. An official source said that they removed “an unruly customer.”** Andy Dick was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, allegedly assaulting his partner, Lucas with a metal chair.

*****

So.. Fox news was digitally altering the faces of people they did not care for??? Is there no end to their bullshit????

*****

Mark Ronson is set to marry Grace Gummer.

*****

Crime shows seem to be in the cycle of prisoners and the women who get a thrill from helping them escape.

*****

Wolfgang Van Halen has released a debut album: Mammoth

*****

Everyone seems to love Danny Trejo’s memoir and its honesty.

*****

David Spade will take over as host of Bachelor in Paradise.

*****

I am sickened when I see the first question that pops up on an online search is the net worth of a person. Oh this twisted world.

*****

Life is a short pause between 2 great mysteries. –Jung

*****

Prince Harry and Meghan had a daughter that they named Lilibet ‘Lili” Diana.

*****

Michael Flynn’s brother Charles (who withheld help from the capitol on Jan. 6), leads the U.S. Army Pacific and commands 90,000 troops.

*****

I am so excited to read ‘The Boys’ from Clint and Ron Howard, due out in October.

*****

Dave Chappelle closed out the Tribeca film fest with a surprise concert. This was the first in person film fest since Covid. Look for This time, this place which premiered there.

*****

Ron Wood will release the album Mr. Luck: A tribute to Jimmy Reed on Sept. 3

*****

Howard Stern signed a new $500 mil contract with Sirius XM. He is taking the whole summer off and many fans say they will cancel their subscription because they don’t want to pay for a summer of reruns.

*****

Acorn will bring Jane Seymour back to a series. Seymour will be co -executive produce on Harry Wild. Her character will be a retired University professor who loves her whiskey and solves crimes.

*****

Annie Murphy  stasr in ‘Kevin can f*** himself about a sitcom wife which airs on AMC.

*****

I still do not understand why Rep. Mike Nearman hasn’t been arrested for letting insurrectionists into the Capitol.

*****

There is a wing shortage??

*****

The Pulitzer prizes have been announced. The list includes Ben Faub, Barry Blitt, Katori Hall, Emilio Morenatti, AP photographers Marcio Jose Sanchez, Alex Brandon, David Goldman, Julio Cortez, John Minchillo, Frank Franklin II, Ringo H.W. Chiu, Evan Vucci, Mike Stewart and Noah Berger. There was a special citation for Darnella Frazier who filmed the death of George Floyd.

*****

Conan’s last TBS guests were Martin Short, Jack Black, Bill Hader, Mila Kunis, Dana Carvey, Patton Oswalt and JB Smoove. There were some surprises.  The big musical number never happened when Jack Black hurt himself. It was all funny and sweet but Conan never mentioned the band in the last show WTF????????????????????????????????????????? Music is so important to him and he does not thank the band? ** Colbert and Brian Stack gave Conan a cute send after4, 368 shows on CBS calling him a ‘Slenderman Ron Weasly’.  Kimmel wished Conn well also.** Hope his HBO MAX variety show goes well.** BTW, the Duvall interview with Colbert was great to see but why does nobody ever mention ‘Get Low?’ What a performance!!

*****

Tattoos are on the rise.

*****

Fast food drive thru’s sometime close with fake excuses like the equipment is down or something because they don’t feel like working. Good people can’t find work and so many waste the opportunities they have. AAAAGHH!!

*****

Valerie Bertinelli and Demi Lovato will star in ‘Hungry’ on NBC.

*****

Hulu will bring us David E. Kelley’s Nine Perfect Strangers with Nicole Kidman, Michael Shannon, Regina Hall, Bobby Cannavale and Melissa McCarthy.

*****

R.I.P. Gavin Macleod, Frank Bonner, Joy Vogelsang, Benigno Aquino, Champ Biden, victims of the Miami building collapse, Robert Sacchi, Stuart Damon, Johnny Solinger  and Clarence Williams III.

[multiverseforger]

Scorpion" is the alias of Hanzo Hasashi, formerly one of the finest warriors of the Japanese Shirai Ryu ninja clan,[2] until he was slain by Bi-Han, a member of the Lin Kuei (a rival clan of Chinese assassins) who worked under the name "Sub-Zero". Scorpion became a "hellspawn" revenant residing in Hell, later called the Netherrealm, who sought vengeance against those responsible for the destruction of his clan and the murder of his family, including his wife Harumi and his son Satoshi. Although essentially neutral in allegiance, Scorpion joins forces with anyone who can assist in his plans of revenge. He was once manipulated by the sorcerer Quan Chi, whom he promised his life to in exchange for his impressive kombat abilities in order to defeat Sub-Zero.[1]

In his initial backstory, displayed in the first game's (1992) attract mode, he is described as only having enmity towards Sub-Zero, which was attributed to rivalries between their opposing ninja clans. His ending revealed that he was actually an undead specter who had been killed by Sub-Zero and was survived by a wife and child.[3] This was further explored in a tie-in comic book written and illustrated by MK co-creator John Tobias and published by Midway. In a one-page scene, set aboard a junk en route to Mortal Kombat tournament host Shang Tsung's private island, Scorpion shocks Sub-Zero with his unexpected return exactly two years after his death, declaring that his "demons" had allowed him to return and avenge his demise.[4] After Shokan Prince Goro's defeat at the hands of eventual champion Liu Kang, Shang Tsung's army launched an attack, forcing Scorpion to team up with Sub-Zero, the thunder god Raiden, and other tournament survivors to hold them back before he killed his rival and disappeared.[4]

In Mortal Kombat II (1993), Scorpion discovers Sub-Zero has somehow returned, and planned to compete in the second Mortal Kombat tournament held in the otherworldly dimension of Outworld and hosted by the realm's emperor Shao Kahn. He tracks his nemesis down but notices, in the process, Sub-Zero sparing the life of an opponent in battle. Scorpion realizes that this is not Bi-Han, but instead his younger brother, Kuai Liang, who had taken on his brother's codename in his memory and was tasked with completing his failed mission of assassinating Shang Tsung. As a result, Scorpion vowed to serve as the new Sub-Zero's guardian in atonement for killing his older brother.[5]

In the 2005 beat 'em up spin-off Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, set during the events of Mortal Kombat II, Scorpion is a boss character who attempts to kill the game's playable protagonists Liu Kang and Kung Lao. He appears in both masked and unmasked forms, with the latter being named "Inferno Scorpion". The planned co-op game, Mortal Kombat: Fire & Ice, which would have starred Scorpion and Sub-Zero as the protagonists, was canceled when Paradox Development, the developers of Shaolin Monks, "couldn't do it in time and under budget."[6]

Scorpion, along with all of the game's palette-swapped human ninja characters, was not playable in Mortal Kombat 3, but returned in the 1995 upgrade Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 when Shao Kahn tried to conquer the Netherrealm after his invasion of Earth, and enlisted the ninja in his forces. Scorpion's allegiance to the Kahn quickly dissolved when he discovers, in a continuance of his MKII storyline, that Sub-Zero was one of Earth's chosen warriors, with whom he sided in their final showdown with Shao Kahn.[1]

Quan Chi was officially introduced into Scorpion's rivalry with Sub-Zero in the main MK storyline, starting with Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (1997). Scorpion is featured therein as an unplayable boss character, appearing twice throughout the game. Despite playing a minor role, his background was officially expanded in a feature on the game's official website, where his real name and that of his clan were revealed, while his yellow outfit was described as an apparent mockery of the Lin Kuei after former Lin Kuei member Takeda developed ninjutsu before leaving the clan and forming the rival Shirai Ryu.[2] Scorpion is enlisted by Quan Chi to find a map hidden in a Shaolin temple, a task the sorcerer also gave to Sub-Zero in order to engage the two rival ninjas in combat. If the player performs a killer move on Scorpion, he will reappear as another boss later in the game. In Mortal Kombat 4 (1997), Quan Chi tricked Scorpion into believing that Sub-Zero was involved in the deaths of his family and clan, resulting in the specter allying with him. In Scorpion's ending, he emerges victorious over Sub-Zero, but Quan Chi reveals his involvement in killing Scorpion's clan and family. When the sorcerer attempts to banish Scorpion, the latter grabs the former at the last minute, sending them both to the Netherrealm.[7] A variation of this ending was seen in Sub-Zero's conclusion, when Sub-Zero stands over a fallen Scorpion before being knocked down by Quan Chi, who again reveals his scheme and claims that both ninjas were pawns for the fallen Elder God Shinnok, which results in Scorpion killing Quan Chi and declaring Sub-Zero free of his curse.[8]

Scorpion's MK4 ending is carried over into Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), where he relentlessly hunts down Quan Chi, only to be attacked by the Oni Drahmin and Moloch, whom the sorcerer had hired as protection and to help free him from the Netherrealm. In his non-canonical ending, Scorpion is killed when Drahmin and Moloch hurl him into a Soulnado, a magical tornado consisting of tormented souls trapped between Earthrealm and Outworld. In Scorpion's biography in Mortal Kombat: Deception however, he is depicted as having escaped as well. He meets the Elder Gods, which, coupled with his witnessing Raiden's death and the emergence of Onaga, the Dragon King, causes him to accept a new role as the Elder Gods' servant while working to prevent Onaga's merging of the realms.

In the Konquest mode of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006), Scorpion cuts a deal with the Elder Gods to serve them in exchange for the resurrection of the Shirai Ryu and his wife and son.[1] However, they resurrect them as undead beings. Enraged, Scorpion seeks to destroy the Elder Gods' chance of preventing Armageddon by taking the elemental Blaze's power, but the Edenian demigod Taven defeats him and he is later killed by Sub-Zero in a battle royal amongst the series characters in the game's opening sequence.[9]

In the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, an alternative-timeline retelling of the first three titles, Scorpion reprises his role from the first game in seeking vengeance against the elder Sub-Zero, Bi-Han. This time though, he serves Quan Chi from the start, unaware that the sorcerer is the mastermind behind the murder of his family and clan. Raiden, attempting to alter the timeline in hopes of averting Armageddon, talks Scorpion into sparing Sub-Zero's life in exchange for reviving the Shirai Ryu. Scorpion agrees, and when he defeats Sub-Zero in the Netherrealm, he refuses to kill him. However, Quan Chi convinces Scorpion otherwise by showing him a graphic vision of Sub-Zero murdering his wife and child. Despite Sub-Zero protests, Scorpion promptly incinerates him. He reappears on the tournament grounds holding Sub-Zero's skull and spinal column.[10] Later in the game, the younger Sub-Zero Kuai Liang seeks revenge for his brother's death by demanding a fight with Scorpion in Shao Kahn's arena, which Quan Chi grants. Scorpion immediately recognizes the new Sub-Zero as the original's younger brother, and while he is defeated, Kuai Liang is apprehended by his clan before he finish the revenant off.[11] Scorpion is last seen when he fights and loses to Raiden in the Netherrealm before disappearing.[12] In his non-canonical arcade ending, the Shirai Ryu appear before Scorpion as ghostly apparitions who reveal the truth about their murder and aid him in killing Quan Chi for his deception. In Sub-Zero's ending, he learns the truth about his and Scorpion's families and offers the specter a chance to join him in his quest for vengeance. Scorpion accepts, joining Sub-Zero to form their own Deadly Alliance.[13]

In Mortal Kombat X, which takes place two years after the previous game, Scorpion was sent to attack the Special Forces alongside a revenant version of Kuai Liang. Due to the efforts of Raiden and his allies however, they were restored to their human forms and freed from Quan Chi's control. Over the course of the following two decades, the newly restored Hanzo Hasashi reformed the Shirai Ryu, trained Kenshi's son Takeda Takahashi, and made amends with the young Sub-Zero after he revealed Quan Chi was responsible for the murder of his family and clan. When the Special Forces captured Quan Chi, a revenge-minded Hasashi subdued them and released the sorcerer so he could challenge him to a final fight before he killed him. Concurrently, Quan Chi's associate D'Vorah appeared so she could have the sorcerer free Shinnok from his amulet. Hasashi decapitated Quan Chi, but not before he could finish reciting a spell to successfully free the fallen Elder God, who immediately incapacitated everyone in the surrounding area.

In Mortal Kombat 11, Hasashi continues to lead the Shirai Ryu in protecting Earthrealm as its Grandmaster a further two years after MKX and Shinnok's defeat. When the keeper of time Kronika caused a time anomaly in an attempt to erase Raiden from history, she brought a past version of Scorpion to the present so she could recruit him to her fold with the promise of resurrecting his clan and family.[14] Meanwhile, Hasashi worked with Sub-Zero to foil Lin Kuei clansman turned cyber ninja Sektor and his plans to build a Cyber Lin Kuei army. They were successful, despite facing opposition from Bi-Han, who had been resurrected as the revenant Noob Saibot, and learning that Sektor played a role in murdering Hasashi's clan and family.[15] After Kronika's forces compromise or destroy most of their bases, Hasashi agrees to house his Earthrealm allies at the Shirai Ryu's Fire Gardens.[16] To help locate Kronika's Keep, Hasashi suggests forging an alliance with Kharon, a ferryman who transports unfortunate souls to the Netherrealm who he and Sub-Zero met while they were revenants.[17] He succeeds in recruiting Kharon and convincing his younger self to turn away from Kronika, but he is killed by D'Vorah. With his dying breath, he urges his younger self to abandon his pursuit of vengeance and defend Earthrealm. Scorpion keeps his word and joins the allied forces of Earthrealm and Outworld to stop Kronika.[18][19][20] In his non-canonical arcade ending, the younger Scorpion fails to keep his promise to his future self, and kills Kronika so he can restart history to ensure his loved ones' survival. When he discovers that otherworldly forces conspire to make sure the tragedy always repeats itself, he undergoes a quest for revenge against them.

[vxldemar]

𓆣𓆣𓆣

some are born for what they do. 〖 a concept backstory scene for quaestor valdemar. 〗

a child with big brown eyes and light brown skin, adorned in white; a ruffled shirt, cotten pants, and black flat shoes, stares through the firm, great iron gate of a dull school. if you asked them, they’d say the exact details of such a place are much too hazy to remember. it’s a large gate, it’s an obstacle meant to tame whatever they have inside of them, so details don’t matter. they wistfully brush over it with their fingertips.

this gate stops others, and normally it’d stop them.

in the distance, past the rich green that lies outside the gate, along a country path, across the grey cobble streets, like the details of a journey in some childrens fable, there is an edge to this paradise that someone so small could only dream of touching.

a card was handed to everyone at birth, and it had a man on it, a man with a dog, dressed in white.

on this side of the school, it is quiet. they know that. but they never expected to be taken this far by their own legs, they’d never sat here alone, with no other children or teachers around. it was a chance, it was an opportunity, some may even see it as fate.

with tiny talons, they rake through the dirt, and they’re good at it. too good at it. they’d find it easy to dig through any surface with such force and drive, even coarse sand on a sad islands seashore. even through the ashes of bone. desperation fills them. this tiny prisoner, then, makes it to the other side.

even while wearing shoes, the grass feels more lush here, it is fresh, it’s breathing and it is alive. they can smell it. but this isn’t what they’re looking for.

they begin to walk, head in the clouds.

some people actually navigate using the sky. pirates. those who travel by sea. but not by cotton on a blue backdrop, they strung all the stars together and made a system out of it. this didn’t require that. they didn’t need a map.

high in the air, a single thin murky cloud of smoke in the far distance; a grey slit against the bright blue sky. even if it wasn’t there, they somehow felt like they’d know the path anyway.

walking and walking, nothing, for once, filled their mind. it was books, it was letters and numbers, perhaps too much for someone who can’t be over the age of 10, yet this was what they were, and here is what they are becoming. hopefully, they would have a mix of thought and instinct in that head of theirs when this was all said and done.

until their legs ached, the cobble beneath their feet felt like yet another obstacle, but when you’ve come so far, pain bothers you less, still, their lips narrowed into a thin line as they traversed; yes, you’re a human, you feel pain, but it doesn’t stop you.

approaching, the smoke got thicker, and filled their nostrils. it smelt like cooked meat. suddenly, they felt ravenous. so enthralled in their journey, they had cancelled out the screaming. just as they did when the children playing got too loud.

joy and pain overlap a lot more than one might think. you can confuse the two easily. the truth often overlaps with a lie in a similar fashion, sometimes they become so intertwined nobody can tell the difference anymore.

a set of screams, men, women, a few children, filled the air, fire set brown, wide eyes alight. a series of figures in long robes stood in front of a bonfire, a large wooden spike stood tall and firm in the middle of a messy pile of wooden planks, garbage, and dead farm animals. including a rather large shire horse, it’s eyes open and staring in a never-ending glare of pure hatred. a group of people were haphazardly tied against the spike, in a hurry, it seems. the metal chains ran across their bodies in all different directions, binding them all together, forever, until they didn’t look like individuals anymore. an amalgamation of burning flesh. it almost looked holy. one even had metal covering their eyes, it popped and crackled and melted onto their face as the fire intensified. another had chains that ran past their teeth, across their mouth. they bit down on it to stifle their cries of pain.

the spike, when mirrored in the child’s eyes, created an odd, slit like shape on their dark pupils when combined with the reflection of the flames.

beauty comes in all different forms, maybe a being out there, whatever higher power, favoured those who found beauty in unexpected things. but this was more than beauty. it was art. it was a reason for living.

the fire and its vapors disrupted the colour of the village and the sky surrounding it, everything was tinted in greys and reds, it consumed all around it in a cloud of heavy smoke.

a robed person slowly paced towards the child, who utterly ignored them and stared up at the fire still, not showing any sign of looking away as screams and the furious cackling fire raged through the air around them.

they had a mask on. it was black, filthy, blood soaked through to the inside. among the scent of sizzling flesh, a faint waft of lavender caused the child to break out of their trance, they blinked and turned to face the other with a hardened frown.

“and who are you to interrupt me ?”

their expression eased when they noticed the mask, the black goggles prevented them from making eye contact. the rim around the eye lenses was white, a way to tell this particular person apart from the other “doctors”. a long, long beak almost poked against their cheek as they leaned in further to inspect this irksome, demanding little beast.

“you’re not a peasant.”

turning their nose up at the other, they looked back at the bonfire. the figures had stopped screaming. skin dripped off their face, and the wonderful human skull underneath was visible under heavy coatings of blood.

“what are you doing here ?”

it was the kind of smell you’d remember eternally. the kind of sight you written into the deepest parts of your memory.

abruptly, a large sack of pus from one of the lesser burnt bodies burst, vile yellow liquid stained the cobble in front of the child, and a bit splattered against their face.

they went to step closer, the other raised an arm, the arm and the childs chest crashed together, the younger one growled.

“what on earth are you doing ?” they hissed,

“you can’t get any closer, do you want to burn to death ? or catch the disease ?”

disease ?

“what disease ?”

behind their goggles, the figure blinked owlishly.

“perhaps your school hasn’t told you. i can tell from those clothes that you’re a scholarly child.”

“tell me or i shall bite this arm of yours off.”

the “doctor” stared at the child, and they scowled. their expression was somehow more heated than the flames were. slowly, they lowered their arm.

“this village has the disease, we’ve just burnt another little area like this down recently. damn near all of them have it. it progresses slowly, first it’s a faint coughing and sneezing, then large sacks of pus cover the whole body, they sting, burst, become infected...”

a skull fell off one of the corpses, bashing against the ground and rolling forward, landing in front of the young childs feet, they stared, mouth agape, delighted.

“and then, they die. this is a trade village. can’t just let them cart themselves off to god knows where, can we? still, it does a good job at annihilating all proof that these grotesque little villages ever existed at all.”

a sharp squeak could only faintly be heard over the roaring flames, it scurried up to the skull. filthy, covered in blood, patches of its fur were gone, indicating that it was also diseased. it sniffed around the cranium, nibbling away at sections of remaining flesh.

“i cannot fathom how this is happening though, ah, perhaps─”

as the two gazed up at the fire, the child took a moment to look down once more. the rat itched itself, its clawed hands scratching behind its ears. the pink ears were now blood-red due to the excessive scratching.

they knew how it felt to have an itch you could never quite get rid of.

until now. for they had a nasty little idea about what they could do about it.

a chuckle left the masked figures lips.

“perhaps, this is... a sign from god ?”

people ignore the truth even when it’s right in front of them.

the rat hopped away, it circled past the two of them, and worryingly skittered out past the village onto the dirt path, and it ran as far as it could. in search of people. where there was people, that meant food.

the child wasn’t listening to the others baseless ponderings, the embers flickering in their wide eyes again.

you can cut to a thousand years later, maybe less, maybe more, and the sight can differ in the details, but it’s essentially the same.

there’s a figure, standing in front of a bonfire, with wonder, and a smile, they take in the smell of charred flesh and take in the screaming. it’s like a theater performance ! no no, more than that; it’s art. it’s art and they’re viewing it. it’s the meaning of life, and they’re living it !

some are born for what they do, and thus you change the card given to you.

[sleepyfan-blog]

On The Run

Next installment of the confession series! first chapter here. previous chapter here. AO3 link here

warnings: deception, fighting, kidnapping

characters and pairing: dream, swap sans, swap papyrus, nightmare, horrortale sans, Killer Sans, Dust Sans, Ink, dreammare

word count:4,365

summary: Dream tries to get away from the swap brothers. Will he succeed?

Edited by the lovely @trashydragonartist7

tag list: @anxiety-is-married-to-depression @angelofthehalfmoon @trainwreck-of-skeletons @hisame-amadashi​ @therandomskelekey @capisnotonfire @butterfly-619

He'd managed to evade all of the sentries - getting a feel for when the next one - or pair - would show up. He jogged and teleported as quickly as he could (as he was unfamiliar with the area, he could only teleport as far as his line of sight guided him), and froze as he spotted a final sentry station, but he didn't sense anyone immediately around him. Dream teleported to the other end of the clearing and ran through the far-too wide apart gate, and skidding to a halt as he saw Stretch, Blue and Hatchet fighting.

"Why are you here?" Stretch hissed, one of his eyes glowing a bright orange, sending a wave of bones after Hatchet, who dodge with a quick flash of teleportation.

Blue summoned several odd-looking skulls, who started to charge with a light blue magic that would probably be incredibly destructive. "Leave this timeline! You are alone without allies, I suggest that you go."

Hatchet summoned the same number of strange skulls, their energy clashing together and cancelling it out, sending bones after both of them. "I ain't here to cause trouble! Just leave me the fuck alone and I won't mess with either of you or anyone in this timeline."

"So what, are you here for spider ciders and donuts from Muffet's?" Stretch asked sarcastically, glowering more at the other.

Dream yelled as loudly as he could. "WAIT! STOP!" All three of them froze, turning to stare at him as he sprinted towards them, too many bones and offensive magic in the area immediately surrounding the three of them for him to teleport in.

As he was unused to running around in snow, he misjudged how much it would take for him to stop moving, and nearly fell face first into all three of theirs' bone attacks. But a surprisingly solid pair of arms grabbed him around the waist and teleported him a short, but safe distance backwards, an unknown voice calling out from directly behind him, laughing merrily, "Pff-hahaha! Careful there, friend. That could have been a pretty dicey situation."

Dream blinked and looked up at the person holding him as Hatchet cursed violently behind him. They were wearing a long brown scarf. One of their eye lights were a blue circle, the other was a golden star with a smaller blue circle inside of it. "I... Uhm... Hello? Who... Who are you?"

Their eye lights turned into exclamation marks - one orange, the other green. "Oh! I'm Ink. It's wonderful to meet you... At first I thought you might be a different Swap Sans... But no... You're someone entirely new. Who... Who are you and where are you from?"

"Don't answer that!” Hatchet snarled, his singular eye light glowing brightly. The other sent a couple of bones in their direction.

Ink, who was still holding him, easily dodged, laughing merrily and answered cheerfully “That was rude Hatchet- that is what you've been named by the others at least. This mysterious stranger is safe with us. Three on one, those aren't good odds.”

Dream was thinking as quickly as he could. He was in a very vulnerable position at the moment, but none of them were aware that he wasn't neutral in their fight with his beloved mate. “I… Among other things, I am a healer… May I please check the three of you and heal any injuries you have? One of you is already very badly injured - given the crack in Hatchet's skull..."

"Neither of us got a scratch. And that bastard's better at dodging than that crack looks... Although I'm guessing that you knew that already, given that he clearly recognizes you." Stretch called out, frowning a little as he glared a little at him "... You have an LV of one, so you're obviously not a fighter... I'm not sure I entirely believe you when you say that-"

Dream sighs, and he causes both of his hands to glow bright green. He sends an attack at the other - more or less a condensed ball of healing energy at Stretch. It moves too quickly for the Papyrus to dodge and has no negative effect on him whatsoever. What it does do is top up the other's MP. "See? Healer." He wiggles his fingers and giggled a little at the startled expression on Stretch's face.

Blue bolts over and checks his brother, a relieved sigh leaving him when he notes that his brother is in better condition after the green attack than he was before. "I would ask that you refrain from suddenly casting magic at one of us, even to prove that you are a healer, friend."

Dream ducked his head and blushed a little, fidgeting with his hands, "I... Sorry. I hadn't meant to frighten you, Blue...Uhm... Mr. Ink, would you please put me down?"

The taller skeleton pouted a little, his eye lights turning into a pink hexagon and a purple square. "Oh, I suppose so... Say, what timeline are you from? Like, do you know what your universe is called?" Ink set him down, though the other was still touching him.

Dream shook his head, entirely honest when he said, "I have no idea what my home timeline is called." He froze for a moment, his eye lights briefly shrinking as he realized that he... Could only very distantly sense Ink's emotions. Which was very odd, as they were in direct physical contact with him. Especially since he hadn't been expecting the other's touch, he should be nearly overwhelmed by the other's feelings. The other's emotional control must be incredible to do such a thing. Or he was using some sort of spell to hide his emotional state - which given that Ink was fighting against Nightmare, made sense... But why then, were Blue and Stretch's emotions as clear as Hatchet's, if they fought alongside this skeletal guardian?

"Oi! Hatchet, why the fuck did you... Oh fuck." Dust called out, suddenly teleporting over, his eye lights taking in the scene before him.

Killer teleported directly behind Dream, slashing his knife Ink's arm that had been casually thrown across his shoulders. "I don't think so! He's ours! You don't get to keep every cute thing or being you see!" With his other hand, Killer grabbed Dream and threw the other at Dust. "Get him out of here before the Stars take him, would you? It'd be a pity if we lost our newest healer so soon."

Ink dodged, pulling his brush from behind his back, sending a retaliatory wave of liquid magic at Killer - who teleported back to Dust, Hatchet already having teleported over to Dream.

Oh good, their stories were lining up - which probably meant that Killer had been lying in wait, hearing him claim to just be a healer.... The other had likely been waiting until the taller guardian put him down. Dream read the coordinates to the Havenfell that Nightmare wanted them to go and nodded just a little at the other. "Ack... Oh... Oh no..." He looks at Blue and Stretch. "I... I'm sorry for not telling you the full truth.... I just-"

His other half's closest friends teleported him to a different spot in the snowy part of the cave, out of sight of the three of them. Dream immediately opens a portal and the four of them rush through it. Hatchet spoke up first. "I'll text boss - he'll probably have us move again. Ink can create portals too and it's quite possible that he might be able to chase us here."

Dream nodded, having stopped the fib that he'd been about to tell three of Nightmare's enemies - something about having escaped one of the dark lord's strongholds, and had to return with his terrifying lieutenants because his mate was still held captive elsewhere. Dream didn't like to lie - but he certainly didn't want to cause Nightmare more problems by getting targeted by the trio as someone who could be used against the other. "Okay... I didn't mean to go to that particular timeline... I-I just..."

"The thunder scared the shit out of you and you just fled to the first timeline that the portal opened up to on instinct." Hatchet sighed, shaking his head a little bit as he sent Dream a small smile. "We all have things that bother or spook us pretty badly. I'm not mad at you... 'Sides you tried to come back to us as soon as you figured out that it was dangerous."

"I... Thanks, Hatchet." The positive guardian responded, a small smile appearing on his face as he nodded a little.

Killer speaks up after a moment. "Boss has given me a new AU for us to travel too. We should probably get going sooner, rather than later. It would be a giant fucking disaster if Ink ever got his hands on you."

The other showed Dream the message, and the positive spirit started to open a portal, when a voice called out curiously "And just why would it be a bad thing if I were able to talk to Dream for longer than I was able to... It was awfully rude of you to steal him away before I could say more than hi."

Dust reacted first - sending a volley of bones at him while also shoving Dream through the half-open portal, hissing angrily "Like hell we'd tell you that, Ink!"

Dream flailed a little, his golden eye lights widening in shock as he fell through the portal, trying and failing to grab any of the three of Nightmare's best friends in after him, before he lost concentration and the portal snapped shut. The positive spirit stumbled backwards, his eye lights shrinking as he fell through a black puddle tinged with a rainbow hue, getting completely covered in a thick, magical substance that blocked his sight for a terrifyingly long time.

As soon as he managed to uncover his eyes, he stared at the strange place that he was in. There were small, floating islands with large doors, one per island. Dream was unfortunately unable to move to any of those doors, as his soul - the apple-shape it had apparently taken after he'd consumed the last Positive Fruit - was coated in blue magic. He twisted around and realized that Blue, Stretch and several other Sanses were assembled on the same island that he was on- why couldn't he sense their emotions? Dream started to panic as he realized he was coated in the strange liquid substance - it was mostly black but it had hints of rainbow and a lot of yellow. When he tried and failed to open a portal, his magic unable to leave his physical form, Dream immediately tried to roll in the grass to get the substance off - or at least wipe it off with his hands - but they too, were coated in the strange black substance and it wasn't coming off. "P-Please let me go..." Dream called out to the assembled skeletons, his eye lights wide and pleading.

Stretch shook his head as one of the strange Sanses pulled him closer with a touch of his magic, answering after a moment, "We've got some questions for you - like why did you run off, after agreeing to stay with Blue and I? Also how the fuck are you connected to The Bad Sanses?"

Dream blinked and tilted his head a little, genuinely not recognizing the term "... Who?"

Ink spoke up, looking slightly battered, but with four more Sanses in tow. "Hatchet, Dust and Killer... I'm more curious about your name friend. Blue and Stretch told me that your name is Dream... And those three Sanses - most Horrors, Dusts and Killers work for Nightmare, if they're not in their own timelines... And those three specifically he uses quite a bit as they are very powerful fighters." Ink hummed, a small smirk appearing on his face as he wandered over to Dream, tilting his head a little. "... Huh..." His eye lights were changing color and shape too quickly for the positive spirit to figure out what they might be.

"... Where were you going about his name, Ink?" An Underfell Sans growled. "You did have a point with that, right? Not that it's weird that he immediately labeled himself as other than Sans... Although why the fuck his soul is such a weird-ass shape is beyond me."

"Uhm... Would whoever is holding me with their magic please put me down? I don't mean any of you harm, and would simply like to be able to return home." Dream pleaded quietly, staring at each of them for a couple of seconds as he spoke, trying to gauge their reactions - this was much harder without his ability to sense their feelings.

"Oh! Right - so your name is Dream. Which is pretty interesting, since Horror, Dust and Killer all work for an awful Sans-esque being who calls himself Nightmare... Why, even if we weren't fighting, it seems as if his very presence brings down the mood of everyone around him... Whereas you, Dream..." Ink paused for a moment, flicking one of his hands towards the positive spirit, pulling the strange substance off of him, and his aura gently washed over all of them, causing several of the Sanses to startle a little, "Seem to make everyone happier, by just being adorable! ... Or it's something that your magic does."

Shit. Time for a distraction. "Uhm... Okay...? So where are we? It's very beautiful, but I've never been inside of such a strange timeline before... Although this would make the total number of timelines I've been to three." Dream tried, he was pretty sure that he wasn't strictly inside of any one timeline - as several of the doors that were close enough for him to read were labeled with the names of different AUs, but that could just be how this timeline worked.

"Pff-hahaha! You're not in a timeline, this is the Doodlesphere. The center of the multiverse, but not part of any one timeline or Alternate Universe. I set up a portal behind where you were shoved through to bring you here, as the only way that you can leave is either if I let you... Or you go through one of those doors But, given that you're being held in place by Blue magic, no one can interrupt us while we talk." Ink responded cheerfully, one of his eye lights a yellow circle, the other a blue star. "The bad sanses can't get here... Well, Nightmare might be able to, if he could find a door here, but I doubt that he could find one. Not easily."

"I'm not anyone important, not really... I just..." Dream sighed, looking down at the ground, trying to come up with someone that was truthful enough that they might not catch the lies. "I'm a healer, who was pressed into Lord N... His service." He shivers a little, curling in on himself in the way that many who spoke of Nightmare did when under his rule. His beloved really wasn't that bad, but he could be incredibly intimidating when he wanted to. Dream is a nickname his lieutenants have given me because they think I'm really adorable. I've been told that my magic feels nice to other people, but I've never really understood why... I-I have to g-go back to them... M-My... My mate... He's... He's in one of the timelines that are controlled by the... Uhm... Bad Sanses? As you called them? And I... I don't know what will happen if I don't go back."

"Why the fuck do you help those bastards?" The Underfell Sans hissed, looking affronted at the very thought of capitulating with his beloved.

As much as Dream wanted to tell them that they shouldn't fight Nightlight- that the other was working to better the living conditions of those who suffered awfully in dark timelines - it wouldn't cause them to let him go anytime soon. "What other choice do I have? Sure, there are rumors that there are a group of people who fight against him, but until now, I just thought that was just fanciful rumors of the foolish and soon to be..." Dream allowed his voice to fade off, breaking a little. "Everyone I love and care for is under their care. The love of my life included. I didn't know that I could open portals until I tried to flee my home timeline... Stumbling into your timeline Stretch was the second time I ever attempted it."

All of them went quiet, digesting the information that he'd fed them, hoping that they'd believe him entirely. Blue, a small, considering frown appearing on his face as he asked curiously "When you and I first met, you introduced yourself as the Guardian of Positivity, what did you mean by that?"

Oh fuck. Dream had forgotten he'd done that. "I... Uhm… I can create positive feelings within other people with my magic? N-Not that I can exactly turn that part of my magic off… Also I can sense the emotional state of the beings around me unless they’ve got some sort of spell or potion or whatever to hide their feelings from me. Like Ink, for example. I can only very faintly feel his emotions. It’s… A new experience for me.” That was more or less the truth as the Tree had apparently been long-destroyed after Nightmare had eaten almost all of the apples. “... I believe I did explain this to you earlier, Blue?”

The other’s eye lights briefly shrank and a light blue blush appeared on the other’s face as he responded “I… Oh you’re right about that, haha. Sorry! I’ve been accused of being a bit of a scatterbrain - besides none of the others knew until you explained… So yeah?”

“I… Oh, Uhm… Okay?” Dream responded, fidgeting “I… I would very much like to be put down now - I should return to the AU that I was instructed to go to… I don’t… I don’t want to think of what will happen to my loved ones if I don’t… None of the four of them are known for their mercy, haha…” He was working on that with them, actually, but again, that would reveal far more about who he was than he knew he should to enemies. Of course this is the moment that Dream’s phone goes off… With Nightmare’s ringtone. The positive spirit answers after a beat, watching them carefully. “Yes?”

“Dream, where are you? Dust, Hatchet and Killer tell me that you’re not in either AU that I mentioned to go to - has something happened?” Nightmare asked, worry clear in every syllable.

“I… Uhm… I’m in a place called the Doodlesphere, being held in place by blue magic wrapped around my soul. Ink was able to make a portal that I fell into after leaving the first AU that I was told to go to and into the second… I didn’t know that one could layer portals like that… Ink and… several of his allies are kind of surrounding me, and I’m not sure why they won’t let me go… Please stay safe Moonbeam… I-I’ll try to get home as soon as I can.” Dream answered back, hoping that Nightmare didn’t immediately try to attack - this was Ink’s home turf and the positive spirit still hoped that he could talk his way out of this “But they seem nice and reasonable, so hopefully they’ll let me go soon… It’s not like I haven’t been imprisoned before… Hahaha… I love you and I always will...”

“... Fuck. I do have contact with someone who should know a way to get in there. A couple as a matter of fact. Either you’re free in twenty minutes or I’m coming to get you.” Nightmare promised, voice dark and protective.

Dream was about to try to respond when his phone was snatched from his hands. “You know, we were talking to you. It’s rude to ignore us~!” Ink called out, his voice light and playful, but one of the other’s eye slights a blue circle, the other a red square. The other guardian hit the speaker button on his phone and called out curiously. “Hello? I’d rather that you not hang up just yet… Moonbeam, I believe Dream called you? If you can tell me which AU you’re in, I’ll be able to rescue you from Nightmare, so that the two of you can be free of his rule.”

Dream was trying not to freak out, his eye lights shrunk down to pinpricks as he hoped that Nightmare could disguise his voice sufficiently enough for this capricious being not to recognize him. He couldn’t help but point out, “Even… Even if you did rescue the two of us, what about everyone else in our timeline? Do you really think that we’d abandon them to whatever… Whatever he would do to them for our defection? Lord Nightmare does not suffer traitors or runaways kindly - and the punishments can be…” Dream actually didn’t know how Nightlight handled traitors or those who attempted to flee him, but he sincerely doubted that the other reacted well to such things… Given how the other had lashed out at him by turning him to stone for trying to keep some semblance of balance between positive and negative feelings. He shuddered a little, one of his hands coming up to his neck, shuddering a little as a phantom of the pain around his neck from one of the other’s tentacles ran through him. In a very small voice, he responds “Lord Nightmare doesn’t take traitors - perceived or real very well at all.”

Nightmare spoke up, his voice lighter, and without that strange, echoing reverberating echo every time he spoke (hopefully different enough to fool them) “Dream defied L...Lord Nightmare once. In his fury he… He nearly… He cursed him and killed hundreds in our timeline. I was one of the few who were spared because… Well… Healers are very rare in Nightmare’s kingdom and Dream is quite strong, though his magic is primarily passive in nature. I have no idea what Lord N will do if… If Dream fails to show up when he���s supposed to… And I… I have no idea what our timeline is called.”

Ink hummed a little, his eye lights question marks in purple and green, one of them inverted, before he suggested, “Well, if he roars at you for information about your mate, you could always tell him that Dream’s been captured by me! I’m Ink, guardian of the multiverse and I’ve been fighting against Nightmare for decades now with some success! I know some very clever science-y type Sanses who should be able to track down the AU that this cell phone was at least created in, which should bring us closer to where the both of you live. I’m sure that we’ll be able to drive the gooplord and his stabby minions from your timeline.”

“... And what happens to us when you leave? How do we know that he won’t simply retake our timeline and rule more cruelly for daring to hope that we’d be free of his influence?” Nightmare growled, snapping a little, though his voice was still the way it used to sound.

“Oh!... yes, that can be a bit of a problem  but depending on how many of you there are, it’d probably just be easier to chase them away and take the survivors to the Omega Timeline. You’ll be sare there, no one can enter it unless the creator of that timeline allows them too, and Nightmare isn’t even aware of the OT’s existence,” Ink explained confidently. “Don’t worry - we can make it look as if The Determined Human decided to reset your timeline and did a genocide run before going to the world above… Or however your story goes.” The very strange guardian explained, sounding far too happy to be suggesting such a thing.

Not that it would work for quite a few reasons, and Dream was trying not to panic at the thought of them finding their home timeline - but he tried to reassure himself by reminding himself that Nightmare would have ample time to marshal his forces if he was unable to escape before they pinpointed their timeline (or Nightmare was unable to find and rescue him). He also knew that saying that humans did not hold sway over the timeline - that there was only a single, unbending march onwards would be… Utterly unheard of for the rest of the multiverse and make things worse, so he stayed quiet.

“... I’m not sure that would work.” Nightmare responded, pitching his voice to be unsure but a tiny bit hopeful. “I just… I would rather Dream come home, so I know that he’s more or less safe. You’re charming and I’m sure you’re a nice person… But I’ve heard would-be rebels in the past and it never ends well for anyone but Lord Nightmare.”

“I’ll just have to prove it to you! And you’ll see your mate again… Once we free your world from Nightmare’s influence! Bye for now.” Ink decided, a light laugh in his voice as he hung up, wrapping an arm around Dream’s shoulders and instructing one of the others “Red, please let go of Dream’s… very unusual… Soul. I’m going to take him to Sci and you two distract each other far too much. Tell me, Dream, do all monsters have souls shaped like yours in your world?”

Dream blushed a bright gold and stuttered as he felt his soul fade back into his chest. “I…T-That’s a very personal q-question… But… My… My mate’s soul is the same shape, though it’s a different color.”

“Fascinating…” Ink hummed, one of his eye lights a yellow swirl, the other an orange octagon. “I’m headed off to Sci’s timeline Talk to you all later~!” With that, the other opened a rainbow portal and teleported the both of them through it.

[gdwessel]

Road to Castle Attack Night 7 - 2/22/2021: Hiromu Injured, Out At Least Six Months, Yano v. Owens KOPW2021 Stipulation For 2/27/2021 Set; Numerous NJoA Wrestlers Including Jon Moxley At Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 4 & 5 on 2/13 & 2/20/2021

The tour resumed today, in a show you can see now on NJPWWorld. You may recall that Hiromu Takahashi missed Saturday’s show in Yamagata. It turns out, he has a torn left pectoral muscle, and is slated to be out for at least six months. This will mean the title matches he was due to be in on Thursday 2/25 and Sunday 2/28 are either going to be changed or cancelled. No word on whether or not Hiromu will need to vacate the IWGP Juniorheavyweight title yet. Between injuries to Hiromu, Tetsuya Naito and Yuto Nakashima, and the cancellation of yesterday’s show in Fukushima due to the earthquake on 2/13/2021, this tour has been pretty much cursed. That said, Naito did make another pre-show appearance, and said he would in fact be back on Thursday’s show, so there’s that at least.

Needless to say, this card was altered.

- 2/22/2021, Tokyo Korakuen Hall (NJPWWorld)

Great O-Khan, Will Ospreay & Jeff Cobb [United Empire] d. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Gabriel Kidd (Cobb > Kidd, Tour Of The Islands, 8:24)

Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Toru Yano & SHO [CHAOS] d. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Chase Owens & Jado [Bullet Club] (YOSHI-HASHI > Jado, Butterfly Lock, 11:27)

El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club] d. Shingo Takagi & BUSHI [Los Ingobernables] (Ishimori > BUSHI, pinfall, 8:52)

SANADA [Los Ingobernables] d. Tomoaki Honma (Skull End, 12:45)

EVIL & Jay White [Bullet Club] d. Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS] (EVIL > Okada, EVIL STO, 16:40)

EVIL gets a direct win over Kazuchika Okada heading into their match on Saturday. Jay (with help from Gedo and Dick Togo) choked out Tomohiro Ishii. ELP assumed he and Ishimori would have the night off on Thursday, as Hiromu & BUSHI would no longer be challenging for their junior tag belts, however the previous champions, El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru, stepped up and made the challenge instead, Despy telling ELP “You’re the challengers, we’re getting our belts back!” O-Khan continues to taunt Tanahashi.

It’s also been announced that the KOPW2021 match on Saturday between Toru Yano v. Chase Owens will be Yano’s variant of a Texas Strap Match, meaning in addition to touching all 4 corners, the wrestler needs to untie the turnbuckle pads too. Should be a hoot.

Completely catching me unawares, Game Changer Wrestling has run not one but two Josh Barnett’s shoot-style-esque Bloodsport cards (4 & 5 in the series) on the past two Saturdays. This isn’t altogether surprising I wasn’t aware, as my interest in US indie wrestling is at kind of an all time low since the pandemic (and #SpeakingOut, and...). That said, several wrestlers who are part of, or compete regularly, in New Japan of America events (mostly NJPW Strong) have been part of these shows.

On Bloodsport 4, shown 2/13/2021 (these were pre-taped), Team Filthy’s JR Kratos beat Young Lion Alex Coughlin (which means I guess he’s near ready to return to NJPW Strong?) via TKO,  “Filthy” Tom Lawlor beat his former MLW Team Filthy compatriot Simon Grimm by TKO, whilst Jeff Cobb beat Team Filthy’s “Dirty” Chris Dickinson by TKO as well. 

This past Saturday, Bloodsport 5 aired, in which Alex Coughlin lost to Royce Edwards, Rocky Romero defeated Simon Grimm, Dickinson bear Kratos in an intra-Team-Filthy match, Cobb beat Lawlor, and IWGP US Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley, a frequent guest of these shows, knocked out former NJPW wrestler Davey Boy Smith Jr.

You can see this through GCW’s own streamers at http://bloodsport.watch or on FITE TV for a price. The most interesting part of this for me is the commentary including Max Bretos, who’s more known as a soccer pundit/announcer on both Fox Sports and ESPN, however he did have a brief stint in WWE in the 2000s too. 

The final Road To show is Thursday, and we don’t know what the final card will be yet. The one below is still what’s shown on both of NJPW’s websites. I am willing to bet that the IWGP junior tag match may get moved to one of the Castle Attack Osaka dates, to fill the spot Hiromu v. ELP would have taken on the card. It could still happen on Thursday with Despy/Kanemaru in the challenger slot instead. Who knows! Anything can happen on this tour! [EDIT 2/22/2021 20:10 CST - hey guess what, they made Ishimori/ELP v. Despy/Kanemaru official. No other changes at this point! But also, no idea what will take Hiromu v. ELP’s place on Sunday either.]

- 2/25/2021, Tokyo Korakuen Hall (NJPWWorld)

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Satoshi Kojima & Yota Tsuji v. Great O-Khan, Will Ospreay & Jeff Cobb [United Empire]

Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano & SHO [CHAOS] v. EVIL, Chase Owens & Dick Togo [Bullet Club]

Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS] v. Jay White, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [Bullet Club]

Kota Ibushi, Yuji Nagata & Tomoaki Honma v. Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobermables]

IWGP Juniorheavyweight Tag Team Championship: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo [Bullet Club] © v. El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru [SZKG]

[crowdvscritic]

crowd vs. critic // BEST OF THE DECADE (2010s)

Well, people, I tried. I really tried to whittle down the decade to 100 movies or fewer just like a good little Best of Decade list does, but here we are. That is, here we are at 144.

Maybe it’s because movies have meant so much to me this decade. When I graduated from high school in 2010, I loved John Hughes and Audrey Hepburn, but since then, film has cemented itself as my favorite art form. A few highlights in this journey:

Taking film classes at Taylor University, including a trip to the Sundance Film Festival in 2013

Writing for ZekeFilm starting in 2016

Writing about every new movie I watched in 2016

Watching classic movies while podcasting about Gilmore Girls pop culture references

Discovering my love for Turner Classic Movies, including taking their online summer course “Mad About Musicals”

Watching every movie nominated for Best Picture in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2019

Beginning a slow (very slow) but sure trek through every Best Picture winner in history

And, oh yeah— starting this little blog!

I left Snow White and The Huntsman wishing someone would review it considering how fun it was even though it wasn’t a great art. Then I thought, what if that person was me? I hope my writing and critical analysis has grown since then, but I still ask the same questions about every movie I’ve watched since then: What is the popcorn potential? What is the artistic taste?

This decade I also spent July Friday nights watching outdoor movies on Art Hill, hosted annual Oscars watch parties with dear friends, attended my first midnight premiere (The Hunger Games), paid extra for the reclining seats to celebrate my first job (Interstellar), and found a laugh break with my whole family during a stressful summer (Ant-Man and the Wasp).

So here’s a small tribute to the time I spent watching, discussing, and reading and writing about movies I watched these 10 years: 72 Crowd picks and 72 Critic picks. They’re the 144 films that moved me, made me laugh, or made the biggest impact on me, and they’re the ones I recommend most from the 2010s.

Crowd-Pleasers of the 2010s

1. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) – An acting tour de force you’ll still be thinking about days later. (#JohnGoodmanForBestSupportingActor) Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

2. The Age of Adaline (2015) - The color palette and costumes are dreamy, and the romance taking a back seat to Adaline’s personal growth is refreshing. On my Best of 2015.

3. Austenland (2013) – “This movie is for two kinds of people: people who love Jane Austen and people who think Jane Austen fans are funny.” – A paraphrased director Jerusha Hess. On my Sundance 2013 lineup. On my Best of 2013.

4. Ant-Man (2015) – All hail, Paul Rudd and his ability to make us care about ants. Read Crowd vs. Critic review. On my Best of 2015.

5. Avengers: Endgame (2019) - An impossibly satisfying conclusion that seemed impossible when Iron Man came out in 2008. A peak in the superhero subgenre as well as ensemble films, action flicks, sci-fi adventures, and time travel comedies. On my Best of 2019.

6. Baby Driver (2017) – If you forced me to pick my favorite on this entire list, here you go. A modern musical that lights up every spark in my brain. On my Best of 2017.

7. Beauty and the Beast (2017) – My favorite of the Disney live action remakes. On my Best of 2017.

8. Before We Go (2014) – I’m a sucker for Boy-Meets-Girl-and-They-Talk-All-Night stories, and this one’s an aesthetic dream. Excellent pick if your flight is cancelled and you’re stuck in an airport for nine hours.

9. The Big Sick (2017) – You’ll fall in love with the treasure Kumail Nanjiani. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2017.

10. Black Panther (2018) – WAKANDA FOREVER. On my Best of 2018.

11. Central Intelligence (2016) – No complaints from me when the Rock and Kevin Hart team up. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

12. Colossal (2016) – The best quasi-superhero movie no one talked about this decade. On my Best of 2017.

13. Crazy Rich Asians (2018) – Three cheers for Awkwafina! On my Best of 2018.

14. Creed (2015)

15. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – Controversial Movie Corner: My favorite of The Dark Knight trilogy.

16. Finding Dory (2016) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

17. Frozen II (2019) – Controversial Movie Corner: Better than the original.

18. Fury (2014)

19. Game Night (2018) - Come for the sharp jokes, stay for the clever heist plotting and a hilarious ensemble. On my Best of 2018.

20. Ghostbusters (2016) – I had the option to rewatch this or the 1984 version for Halloween this year, and I chose to laugh through this one. FYI, the extra 15 minutes in the extended version make a difference. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

21. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – Another modern musical. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews.

22. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews.

23. Home Again (2017) – Made of pure charm. Read ZekeFilm review.

24. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) The best of the best dystopian YA adaptation series this decade. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2013.

25. I Feel Pretty (2018)

26. Inception (2010)

27. The Intern (2015) – Insanely rewatchable. On my Best of 2015.

28. Interstellar (2014)

29. Juliet, Naked (2018) – On my Best of 2018.

30. Jurassic World (2015) – Doesn’t hold up to scrutiny on second watch, but a big spectacle on a big screen. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2015.

31. The Kings of Summer (2013) – My favorite from Sundance 2013. On my Best of 2013.

32. Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) – A course-correction of tired spy movie clichés. On my Best of 2015.

33. Knives Out (2019) – On my Best of 2019.

34. Kong: Skull Island (2017) – Very rewatchable. Very relistenable soundtrack.

35. Late Night (2019)

36. The Lego Movie (2014) – I didn’t choose this movie, but I laughed so hard I forgave my friends for dragging me to it.

37. Letters to Juliet (2010) – Very corny. Very rewatchable for its Italian countryside setting.

38. Logan Lucky (2017) – Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and Daniel Craig at their funniest. On my Best of 2017.

39. The Magnificent Seven (2016) – Sometimes you just want to see a bunch of movie stars tearing it up. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

40. Mary Poppins Returns (2018) – One of the most successful movies on this list because it knows exactly what it wants to be and then is that. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2018.

41. The Maze Runner (2014) – Let’s just forget those sequels ever happened.

42. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) – Fallout got the most attention, but I prefer the squad in this sequel. Bonus points for Jeremy Renner. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2015.

43. Moana (2016) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

44. Monte Carlo (2011) – Wanderlust satisfied because it takes inspiration from Golden Hollywood fairy tales like Roman Holiday.

45. Morning Glory (2010)

46. The Muppets (2011) – Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh.

47. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016) – Even bigger, fatter, and Greeker than the original. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

48. Ocean’s Eight (2018) – The real heist? Eight funny ladies taking turns stealing every scene. On my Best of 2018.

49. Passengers (2016) - A near-perfect popcorn flick. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2016.

50. Paper Towns (2015) – Love me some Nat Wolff with an indie pop soundtrack.

51. Prometheus (2012) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews.

52. A Quiet Place (2018) – Where the best of commercial and critical filmmaking come together. On my Best of 2018.

53. Ready or Not (2019)

54. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) – Another entry in the Wanderlust Canon.

55. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) – Imperfect, but sticks the landing.

56. Shazam! (2019) – Read ZekeFilm review.

57. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) – Charismatic movie stars + flashy cinematography = A great time at the theatre (even when the projector fails in the middle of your screening and you have to start over).

58. The Spectacular Now (2013)

59. Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

60. Spy (2015) – I still can’t believe how much I laughed at this.

61. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) – The best Star War since 1980. On my Best of 2017.

62. Super 8 (2011)

63. Tangled (2010) – Controversial Movie Corner: Better than both Frozens.

64. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

65. Toy Story 3 (2010)

66. Warm Bodies (2013) – Who knew a zom rom com would become one of my go-to comfort foods? Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2013.

67. Wonder Woman (2017) – Anyone else almost cry in that No Man’s Land scene? On my Best of 2017.

68. World War Z (2013) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2013.

69. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) – Why I’d pick the X-Men over the Avengers most days. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews.

70. Yesterday (2019) – You know a movie captures its audience when most stay through the credits to sing “Hey Jude.” On my Best of 2019.

71. Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) – Hello, my name is Taylor, and I declare Woody Harrelson a national treasure. Read ZekeFilm review.

72. Zootopia (2016) – Creatively and socially sharp. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

Critic Picks of the 2010s

1. 12 Years a Slave (2013) – There’s no beauty or redemption in this chapter of America’s story, but the beauty of this is it restores humanity to millions denied it in their lifetimes. Read ZekeFilm review.

2. 20 Feet From Stardom (2013) – On my Sundance 2013 lineup. On my Best of 2013.

3. 1917 (2019) – Who needs suplots? Or more than one camera? On my Best of 2019.

4. Ad Astra (2019) – Prayerful poetry + one of Brad Pitt’s best performances. On my Best of 2019.

5. American Sniper (2014)

6. Argo (2012) – CIA work: It’s just like makin’ a movie! Read ZekeFilm review.

7. Arrival (2016) - The best Hollywood has to offer. I left wishing I felt this way after every film. Read Crowd vs. Critic review. On my Best of 2016.

8. The Artist (2011)

9. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) – On my Best of 2019.

10. Begin Again (2013) – Adam Levine singing in Begin Again > Adam Levine singing in Maroon 5. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews.

11. The Beguiled (2017) – Sofia Coppola = Queen. On my Best of 2017.

12. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

13. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) – Don’t @ me—I like this better than the original. On my Best of 2017.

14. BlacKkKlansman (2018) – Just when you think this undercover investigation can’t get riskier, Spike Lee finds another way to send your blood pressure rising. On my Best of 2018.

15. The Bling Ring (2013) – Sofia Coppola = Still Queen.

16. Boyhood (2014)

17. Brooklyn (2015) – I think that Saorsie Ronan is goin’ places. On my Best of 2015.

18. Circles (2013) – Love me some symbolism. On my Sundance 2013 lineup. On my Best of 2013.

19. Dunkirk (2017) – The freshest take on World War II since Schindler’s List. On my Best of 2017.

20. Fences (2016) – Denzel Washington and Viola Davis bring issues of race, class, gender, marriage, and intelligence to life in a story as relevant today as in the 1950s. Read Crowd vs. Critic review. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2016.

21. First Man (2018) – On my Best of 2018.

22. Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) – More proof Hugh Grant is just the best. Read Crowd vs. Critic review. On my Best of 2016.

23. First Reformed (2017) – I‘ve never heard a character pray in words so close to mine. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2018.

24. The Florida Project (2017) - For what this lacked in narrative momentum, it made up for in empathy. On my Best of 2017.

25. Get Out (2017) – I’m not one for horror, and I’m not one to watch the same film twice in one week, but this broke both of those rules. On my Best of 2017.

26. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

27. Gravity (2013) – Maybe my favorite Sandra Bullock performance. On my Best of 2013.

28. Green Book (2018) – Read ZekeFilm review.

29. Hacksaw Ridge (2016) – Read Crowd vs. Critic review.

30. The Help (2011) – Prescient of the decade ahead for its soon-to-be-superstar cast and a story reminding white people they should probably just shut up and listen instead of thinking they have all the answers.

31. Hell or High Water (2016) – A modern Cain and Abel story. Read Crowd vs. Critic review. On my Best of 2016.

32. Hidden Figures (2016) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

33. I, Tonya (2017)

34. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) – Controversial Movie Corner: My preferred Barry Jenkins of the decade. On my Best of 2018.

35. Inside Out (2015) – “There’s inductive reasoning, there’s déjà vu, there’s language processing, there’s déjà vu, there’s critical thinking, there’s déjà vu…” On my Best of 2015.

36. Jackie (2016) – Changed my perspective on Natalie Portman. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2016.

37. Jojo Rabbit (2019) – Shows not just how ugly hate is but how winsome it can appear. On my Best of 2019.

38. Joy (2015) – An important film at a hard time in my life. On my Best of 2015.

39. The King’s Speech (2010)

40. La La Land (2016) – Already one of the Great Musicals. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

41. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) – Like a novel on screen. On my Best of 2019.

42. Les Misérables (2012)

43. Lincoln (2012)

44. The Light Between Oceans (2016) – Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2016.

45. Lion (2016) – Read Crowd vs. Critic review. On my Best of 2016.

46. Little Women (2019) – I don’t sob in every film, but one of the most realistic onscreen depictions of sisterhood will make me do it.  On my Best of 2019.

47. Love & Friendship (2016) - Captures Jane Austen’s sardonic tone and her eye for silliness in social etiquette. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews. On my Best of 2016.

48. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) – Bananas, but the best kind of bananas. On my Best of 2015.

49. Marriage Story (2019) – A divorce story I want every engaged couple to watch. An Adam Driver/Scarlett Johansson acting show I want every film lover to watch. On my Best of 2019.

50. The Martian (2015) – Of all the fantastic space stories this decade, this is the most feel-good. On my Best of 2015 list.

51. Midnight in Paris (2011) – Another entry into the Wanderlust Canon.

52. Midnight Traveler (2019) – A documentary that feels more like flipping through a family photo album than reading a newspaper. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2019.

53. Molly’s Game (2017) – Sorkin Part 1!

54. Moneyball (2011) – Sorkin Part 2!

55. mother! (2017) - Exactly zero people on Earth can explain what this story means, but I think we can all agree we don’t deserve Jennifer Lawrence. On my Best of 2017.

56. Mudbound (2017) – A Greek tragedy set in the Deep South. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2017.

57. Parasite (2019) – A Southern Gothic set in South Korea. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2019.

58. Philomena (2013)

59. The Post (2017) – Hanks. Spielberg. Streep. Need I say more? On my Best of 2017.

60. The Report (2019) - Solely included here for the performance from Adam Driver, who elevated this so much he became one of my favorite working actors by the credits. Read ZekeFilm review. On my Best of 2019.

61. Selma (2014)

62. Silver Linings Playbook (2012) – I’m ready for more J. Law and B. Coop team ups in the 2020s. Read Crowd vs. Critic reviews.

63. Sing Street (2016) – Listen to “The Riddle of the Model” and you can thank me later. Read Crowd vs. Critic review. On my Best of 2016.

64. The Social Network (2010) – Sorkin Part 3!

65. Spotlight (2015)

66. A Star Is Born (2018) – Sometimes a film is everything you hope it will be. On my Best of 2018.

67. The Theory of Everything (2014)

68. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) – A needed dialogue with unexpected opportunities for redemption. On my Best of 2017.

69. Three Identical Strangers (2018) - Sucks you in with its stranger-than-fiction premise but keeps you because of its better-than-fiction characters. On my Best of 2018.

70. The Tree of Life (2011)

71. The Two Popes (2019) – On my Best of 2019.

72. Wind River (2017) – The story lead the way instead of its politics, which makes both more compelling. More of Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen in everything, please. On my Best of 2017.

Photo credits: All photos from IMDb.com.

[sillyanimegamingroad]

Know more about prequels of ‘Game of Thrones’

Many followers of ‘Game of Thrones’ feared that it would end , but before this it did not take long for information about the possible four prequels to appear. And if lovers of the game want to know more about prequels of ‘Game of Thrones’ then there is good news. In fact, the information came before the eighth and final season of the series was released and there have been leaks until this summer, so it does not hurt to gather everything that is known about the prequels of ‘Game of Thrones’ .

Much was said about ‘ Bloodmoon ‘ or ‘The Long Night’, including its cast and start of filming , but although we got to know many details it was finally canceled (according to various media) or at least its development was stopped. Of those four possible prequels, three spinoffs were passed , and the one that seems more secure and advanced is the one based on the Targaryen dynasty .

“There will be dragons”

This prequel that George RR Martin himself confirmed (the author of the ‘Game of Thrones’ novels) will be based on the novel ‘ Fire & Blood ‘ and that “there will be dragons.” A book that went on sale in 2018 and that covers the definitive history of the Targaryens , the lineage of the popular and controversial Daenerys , so that the story would be set thousands of years after what would be ‘The Long Night’, remaining Well, between this and 300 years before ‘Game of Thrones’ chronologically. The writer also confirmed that the prequel already has a title “although it is not the obvious one”, in reference to ‘Fire & Blood’ (like the book), which was later known and will be ‘House of the Dragon’. The script will be in charge of Ryan Condal (writer of ‘Project Rampage’ or ‘Colony’ among others) and George RR Martin himself, based on the novel. In fact, the writer confirmed that the script for the pilot is ready , as well as a kind of glossary or “bible” as a reference for characters, settings and other events in the series. Along with Condal, another of the showrunners will be Miguel Sapochnik, who will also be in charge of directing the pilot and some more episodes of the spinoff. Series for which HBO has committed to 10 episodes for now.

The cast: a casting from which nothing has been leaked

According to EW sources , the casting for ‘House of the Dragon’ has already started, although there is nothing confirmed about the characters . The publication speaks of “the Dance of the Dragons” (a key civil war in the plot) as one of the main events of the series, so it is speculated that we would see characters such as:

King Viserys I: the fifth Targaryen king, more peaceful.

Queen Alicent Hightower: Viserys I’s second wife, stepmother of his heir and mother of three children.

Princess Rhaneyra Targaryen: heir to Viserys I, dragon rider and raised to be the first queen of Westeros.

Aegon II Targaryen: Rhaneyra’s stepbrother who will claim the throne from the one who holds it. We clarify that they are not confirmed characters and that they are deductions from what is known about the plot. At the moment we do not know which faces will embody the characters in the series, so we will have to wait for something to be said about the cast.

When will it be released?

The premiere date was also discussed and according to Casey Bloys , president of HBO programming, it will be in 2022 , although he himself commented that it was too early to talk about premieres. The executive also spoke about the rest of the projects, specifying that only ‘House of Dragons’ has the green light and explaining that ‘La Larga Noche’ did not finish curdling. Although on this Martin considered that it would not end up being ruled out and that both spinoffs would have a place with the wide range of streaming services, so who knows if they will finally return to this idea after talking about dragons.

Ideas in limbo

We have commented that there were up to five ideas for prequels, the one for ‘Bloodmoon’ being canceled a priori after the pilot was filmed and it did not finish working. The other productions that are in limbo while only ‘House of Dragons’ has the green light are:

Prequel to Max Borenstein: He is responsible for ‘Kong: Skull Island’ and an upcoming Godzilla movie. He is working on an idea for HBP but without much detail about it.

Brian Helgeland Prequel: Won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for ‘LA Confidential’. Like Max Borenstein, he works alone on a possible prequel. samsung Bot Care

Carly Wray Prequel with George RR Martin: He has worked on the acclaimed series ‘The Leftovers’ also on HBO and this time he is working on a prequel idea directly in collaboration with the author of ‘Game of Thrones’.

The post Know more about prequels of ‘Game of Thrones’ appeared first on Technoeager- tech blogs and articles.

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[goldeagleprice]

New Hobby Podcast Available

By Clifford Mishler

Illustrated on the cover page of the Utah Numismatic Society’s monthly “The Mint Master” newsletter for March 2020 is an interesting and fascinating scrip issue of the Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Company. The note dates from Aug. 1, 1901, being just one of two examples believed to exist, and was issued in a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints desert colony in Utah’s Skull Valley, populated by settlers of Hawaiian descent, located in Tooele County about 75 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. “Iosepa” is Joseph in Hawaiian, the colony being named for the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, and for Joseph F. Smith, who conducted a mission to the Hawaiian Islands in 1854. The value is 50-cents, or Hapalua Kala – 50-cents in Hawaiian – with the back of the note displaying the Hawaiian monarch’s arms shield. The first 46 Polynesian settlers arrived in the colony on Aug. 28, 1889; by 1901 the population was about 80; the population peaked at 228 in 1915; the community lasted until 1917, when the residents returned to Hawaii and the properties were sold to a livestock company. Only a cemetery remains today. Info: douglas.nyholm@comcast.net

The face and back of a scrip issue of the Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Company.

NEW MEXICO: The Albuquerque Coin Club’s monthly “Pocket Change” newsletter for January 2020 details their “Club Bucks” program. Members earn $10 in Club Bucks for winning the monthly door prize, $1 for correctly answering quiz questions, $5 for bringing in a new, dues paying member, and $5 for working a two-hour shift at one of their semi-annual shows. Members can use the bucks to buy 50/50 tickets, pay winning auction bids at club meetings, buy club medals, tokens or shirts, admittance to the annual picnic, pay for year-end holiday dinner events, admission to club shows, and pay for certain trips and/or special events. Dealers at club shows “should accept them” on any purchases. They cannot be used in payment of annual dues … “need real money for that.” Info: philvitale@msn.com

OHIO: The history tied to China’s 1914 “Fatman dollar” is explored in detail in the April 2020 issue of the Cincinnati Numismatic Association’s monthly newsletter – “The Cincinnati Numismatist” – in an article by Michael Rice. The coin takes its name from the bulbous Yuan Shikai portrait engraved for its obverse. Born in Henan Province of China in 1859, Yuan was a prominent military and political figure that bridged the time span from the late 19th century Qing Dynasty, the revolution and the early 20th century birth of the republic (1882-1916). Having installed himself as the first emperor of the Hongxian Dynasty on Dec. 23, 1915, rescinded by an edict he issued on Mar. 21, 1916, ending the monarchy and declaring himself just “president,” his fight for status ended with his death on June 6, 1916. Info: cincycoins@gmail.com

WISCONSIN: The Waukesha Coin Club snuck in under the wire with their 51st annual coin show, according to a report appearing in their April 2020 newsletter. The show was held on Sunday, March 15, the day before the coronavirus/Covid-19 “Social Distancing Guidelines” were announced by President Trump. While the reported attendance was 230 for the roughly 40-table, 30-dealer show layout, down significantly from its usual numbers near the 400 level, “dealers reported those that came wanted to spend … one dealer dropped out at the last minute, but (we) gained one that walked in.” It was also announced that the club’s April 1 meeting had been cancelled, with that on May 6 still scheduled. Info: info@waukeshacoinclub.com

REGIONAL: A “Friends of the Exhibits” program for the annual CSNS convention was announced by the Central States Numismatic Society in the Winter 2019/20 issue The Centinel, their quarterly magazine. This program is “intended to give everyone who has personally benefitted from, enjoyed and appreciated” the exhibits area among the “small, passionate cadre of our membership” dedicated to educating others, the opportunity to “help perpetuate and strengthen this aspect of our educational initiatives.” Annual and lifetime donors at “member, patron and sustainer” levels from $50 to $1,000 are encouraged to join. Info: kevinsfoley.kf@gmail.com

An interesting collector-focused test program was announced in the quarter 2020 issue of “The Nor’wester,” published by the Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association. Enthusiasts of Washington state centennial medals, which were being offered to interested registrants at their recent shows while available supplies lasted without charge on a first come, first served basis, looking to fill holes in their collections are invited to satisfy their remaining needs by working through a test PNNA “clearing agent” program. Interested members are invited to share their needs and trade stock with the agent – centennialmedals@pnna.org – who will search for matches and connect the interested parties; there are 50 medals in the centennial series, 38 issued by counties, plus 12 special issues. That’s a concept that other organizations might find reason to test as well. Info: Eric@Holcomb.com

NATIONAL: The American Numismatic Association’s numismatic educator, Rod Gillis, announced in the March 2020 issue of The Numismatist that a feature – “Past Tense” – that he introduced in the July 2011 issue is ending its 117-installment run over the past 10 years. Editor Barbara Gregory announced at the launch that the feature would take readers “on a trip down memory lane (recalling) what was happening in the world when America’s favorite coins were introduced.” The first coin and year featured was the 1921 Peace dollar. Tidbits of history from the year were tied to the subject coins. In his closing presentation, Gillis observed in part; “Before I wrote my first column, I already knew what the topic of my last would be … The 1943 steel cent … the bane of my existence … I can’t count the number of phone calls I have fielded about its value.” Info: education@money.org

The American Numismatic Society has announced the launch of a new monthly educational program – The Planchet – that is available as a podcast. Recorded for non-specialists and professionals alike, the programs will present conversations by numismatists and other scholars exploring the stories and histories of currency and medals. The first program in the series is presented by Jesse Kraft, ANS Curator of the Americas, explores mathematical formulas, exchange charts, and prolonged usage of British monetary terminologies in America, from the earliest days of the British-American colonies, up through the 1850s. Info: membership@numismatics.org.

The post New Hobby Podcast Available appeared first on Numismatic News.

[comicsbeat]

We’re into our fourth day of creator thoughts, inspirations and projects. As always, thanks to everyone who took the time to participate. As you can see, the biggest story of last year was definitely #metoo and the revelations of sexual harassment in the comics industry. We all have a lot of work to do to make our industry – and the ones around us – a safe, inclusive place for everyone.

Also, on a lighter note, the quality of creator portrait photos has vastly improved since I started doing this 14 years ago. Whether that’s a function of comics folks being better known in general or just the Instagraming of everything, I’ll leave you to judge.

Brandon Graham, cartoonist/editor

2018 Projects: I’m finishing up my Multiple Warheads book along with a Royalboiler art book and then a new new series.

What was the biggest story of 2017? This has been a bizarre year in that the world outside of comics I think affected the tone of readers and creators in ways that was certainly new to me.

I was disheartened by seeing things like Aubrey Sitterson, catch flack and seemingly lose the backing of his publisher over people being upset at (some fairly mild things said) his twitter. DC continues to plunge the depths of Watchmen for no good reason. & only seemed to care about dealing with a sexual harasser when the outside world started to take notice -While Marvel made some attempts at doing socially progressive comics while at the same time their chairman is funnelling money to the right wing.

It got me to the point where I was actively trying to distance my everday from looking at mainstream comics, spending more time reading work from publisher like Koyama, NoBrow, Fantagraphics and Peow — ( I read a lot of Image too but they’re who I work with so I’m biased)

Creatively I got a lot out of Connor Willumsen’s Anti-gone (Koyama)

What will be the biggest story of 2018? I’ve seen some really exciting work on the horizon. Sloane Leong’s Prism Stalker (Image comics) Dilraj Mann’s new Nobrow book, more from creators like Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, Grim Wilkins. & Emma Rios.

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: I’m dipping my toes into doing more artwork with the porn company Woodrocket, I dunno if there’s any guilt in that for me, but I wouldn’t wanna talk to my mom about it.

Who or what inspires you? Connor Willumsen really got me thinking with his work. & on a more personal level I spent a lot of time hanging out with Farel Dalrymple this year & seeing his process and the work he’s doing in inspiring.

  Glenn Hauman, editor ComicMix

2018 Projects: Pushing “Mine!”, our anthology benefiting Planned Parenthood (even though it came out at the very end of 2017, most of the work hyping it is yet to come.)

What was the biggest story of 2017? I feel the biggest stories are the ones that haven’t been covered yet. Why did Axel Alonso leave Marvel so suddenly? What’s going to happen to BOOM! now that minority stakeholder Fox is merging with Disney, who already has Marvel?

Of the stories we know about, it’s obviously Bendis leaving Marvel, an event as big as Kirby leaving Marvel.

(I’m partial to the Ninth Circuit court ruling that you can’t trademark an illustration style, but that’s me.)

What will be the biggest story of 2018? Sadly, the one most people will care about isn’t even technically a comics story: how the Marvel Cinematic Universe will integrate the Marvel properties controlled by Fox. Will the FF pop in the post-credits sequence of Avengers: Infinity War?

Second place: who’s the next person to get fired over sexual harassment accusations?

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: A ruling from the Register of Copyrights.

Who or what inspires you? Neil Gaiman. His story for “Mine!” took what was one of the most painful moments of his life, ripped out his heart and turned it into art— and turned it into art to help people who are going through the same sort of pain, and to explain to people who don’t understand how painful that can be.

Neil Kleid, writer

2018 Projects: Several anthology stories, including “Babel” with my KINGS AND CANVAS partners, Jake Allen and Frank Reynoso, for the second volume of the Jewish Comix Anthology; mostly a creative/building year for me, working on a novel, a TV pilot and several pitches/projects yet to be announced.

What was the biggest story of 2017? Hands down the last-straw, breaking of the dam, simply not going to take it public airing and (in some cases) termination of known sexual predators in comics . In addition to that, the further discussion as regards diversity and women in comics and the empowerment/need for both on creative and editorial levels.

What will be the biggest story of 2018? The growing move by established creators away from comics and into alternative mediums that pay well. I believe the moves being made in Washington by the Orange Skull will result in many a creator being unable to pay their bills or write of expenses, forcing the need for either a shift to better paying work in the arts or having to embolden their bank accounts with day jobs, in some cases. Without enough paying work to go around and a potential hurt coming in terms of taxes and available healthcare, you’re going to see a lot of creators making tricky decisions in the coming years.

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: Well, I’m addicted to the CW DC TV shows and just devoured NBC’s THE GOOD PLACE, but the kids and I are really looking forward to the eighth volume of Kazu Kibuishi’s AMULET series

Who or what inspires you? I spent a lot of my year re-reading old Joe Kubert comics and books – RAGMAN, SGT ROCK, JEW GANGSTER – as well as a bulk of Will Eisner’s original graphic novel library. Something about immersing one’s self into a master class of sequential storytelling always helps stir the creative juices.

You can read previous installments of the survey here. 

Ronald Wimberly, cartoonist

2018 Projects: LAAB, Sunset Park

What was the biggest story of 2017? I got a decent check from Prince of Cats and Black History in its Own Words

What will be the biggest story of 2018? LAAB and Sunset Park

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: Hopefully traveling back to see my friends in Japan or France.

Who or what inspires you?

Jose Muñoz

  Brandon Schatz, retailer

2018 Projects:  What was the biggest story of 2017? The gradual and continual collapse of Marvel.

What will be the biggest story of 2018? The slow refocus of the comic book industry outside of the direct market.

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: Whatever Marvel comes up with next for their line. Partly because it will be a “make or break/mission statement” moment for sure. And admittedly, they have my favourite characters, despite my current apathy for much of their line that didn’t just get cancelled.

Who or what inspires you? Shelley Bond. Her curation of a line true to her roots, but with an eye to the future made for an interesting mission statement. Marry old creators with fresh voices so they can “learn from each other”, instead of using the old ways as the de facto guide.

Mike Zagari, cartoonist/SVP-Aftershock

2018 Projects: AfterShock Comics: Overseeing the Brand, Marketing, Promotional, Digital + Various Creative Aspects of titles such as ANIMOSITY, ALTERS, PESTILENCE, BABYTEETH, JIMMY’S BASTARDS, DARK ARK, ROUGH RIDERS and more.

What was the biggest story of 2017? There were so many big stories in the industry in 2017, but I believe the most shocking aspect was how divisive the opinions to the major topics were.

What will be the biggest story of 2018? Making the single issue comic a more anticipated experience than anything on TV or Film.

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: The Avengers: Infinity War film. They did a great job juggling all the characters in Captain America: Civil War. This looks like it’s doubled the cast.

Who or what inspires you? In no particular order, I enjoyed the art of Terry Dodson, James Jean, Babs Tarr, and Ben Caldwell.

Jason Leivian, retailer/editor

2018 Projects: Publishing Coredoor with Brandon Graham and Emma Rios. A follow-up/evolution to their popular Island magazine.

What was the biggest story of 2017? #visiblewomen was a powerful, inspiring project and the internet was a nicer place for a few days.

What will be the biggest story of 2018? Comic Aht? magazine from Domino Books

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: Fiffe’s Bloodstrike

Who or what inspires you? I had a recharging Fall con season, between SPX, Short Run, and CABF. Meeting kindred spirits and making new friends like Jon-Michael Frank, Charlene Man, and Orion Martin.

Taimur Dar, journalist

What was the biggest story of 2017? CB Cebulski replacing Axel Alonso as Marvel EiC

What will be the biggest story of 2018? Probably whatever the latest Marvel blunder will be

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: Whatever Brian Michael Bendis’ DC Comics project will be

Who or what inspires you? Late/Great Dwayne McDuffie

Thomas Ragon, editor, Dargaud

2018 Projects: From the USA, here are some of the projects that are official.

After “Musnet”, There will be another project by Kickliy. A western. Two books.

« Sir Alfred #3 », © Tim Hensley, Editions Dargaud.

Tim Hensley’s “Sir Alfred #3” will be released in August or September, with additional material by the author. This will be a 24×32 cm hardcover. Here’s the exclusive new endpaper.

Then, the French edition of Hartley Lin’s “Young Frances”. I’m proud to be working soon on this one, “Pope Hats” quite impressed me by the maturity at work.

« Salem », © Thomas Gilbert, Editions Dargaud.

From the French scene, Thomas Gilbert’s take on the Witches of Salem case should not come out without being noticed.

  H.M.S. Beagle, aux origines de Darwin », © Fabien Grolleau, Jérémie Royer, Editions Dargaud

H.M.S. Beagle, aux origines de Darwin », © Fabien Grolleau, Jérémie Royer, Editions Dargaud

After “Audubon” (published in English by Nobrow), Fabien Grolleau and Jeremie Royer will be back with “H.M.S. Beagle, les origines de Darwin”.

Art : Jérémie Royer, Writer : Fabien Grolleau.

“Renaissance”, © Duval, Blanchard, Emem, Editions Dargaud

“Renaissance”, © Duval, Blanchard, Emem, Editions Dargaud

“Renaissance”, is a very strong science fiction series by Fred Duval, Fred Blanchard and Emem. Art : Emem & Fred Blanchard ; Writer : Fred Duval.

Lucas Varela and Diego Agrimbau join us for “Le Roi de la forat”, another science fiction book, with a completely different approach.

What was the biggest story of 2017? In France, I would say the tremendous success of humor comics. More precisely, non-fiction treated with humor, “L’Arabe du Futur”, “Dans la combi de Thomas Pesquet”, or plain humor comics like “Les Vieux Fourneaux” (more than one million copies sold with four books in four years).

Guilty Pleasure of 2018: Attending Napoli Comicon, in May.

Who or what inspires you? Blutch literally saved my professional life, in 2017, with his “Variations”. He’s so dedicated to his work and art, always trying to move forward, to try new things, to be working, whatever the difficulties are. He’s so talented, of course. And friendly. A real inspiration. Thank you, Blutch.

Reilly Brown, cartoonist

2018 Projects: Outrage at Line Webtoon and Dash Hudson at GhostekProducts.com/Dash

What was the biggest story of 2017? CB Cebulski taking over at Marvel

What will be the biggest story of 2018? Non-Marvel/DC publishers (such as Webtoon) signing deals with Marvel and DC creators, and rivaling their readership.

Who or what inspires you? Sanford Greene

Dave Elliott, editor

2018 Projects: MEND and CLICK. First two graphic novels that I am editing for Zuiker Press. Zuiker Press is a new publishing company founded by Anthony Zuiker (creator of CSI) and his wife Michelle. I’m the editor. Graphic novels based on true stories of kids that have gone through something traumatic. First books are Divorce (Mend) and Cyberbullying (Click). Currently in production are books on racial prejudice, body dysmorphia, and autism.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2017? Mark Millar/Netflix.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2018? Maybe someone starts producing mass market comics again?

Guilty Pleasure: Black Panther movie!!!!

Who or what Inspires you: Rick Remender, only because Seven to Eternity is the only comic I look forward to these days.

Erica Schultz, writer

2018 Projects: Twelve Devils Dancing (Writer) with Dave Acosta and Andrew Covalt, Bingo Love (Editor) with Tee Franklin, Jenn St-Onge, and Joy San, I have a back up story with Natasha Alterici (Heathen) in Destiny NY Vol. 2 from Space Between Entertainment, I’m also working on the Corpus anthology, as well as Where We Live, the anthology benefitting the victims of the Las Vegas shooting drawn by Liana Kangas (Blackout).

What was the biggest story in comics in 2017? I’d say Bingo Love getting picked up by Image Comics is a big story, seeing as it’s the first time Image would be publishing a graphic novel by an African American woman.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2018? The launch of books from Black Crown and Berger Books, two new imprints will be exciting. Emma Beeby and Ariela Kristantina have a great book about Mata Hari coming out. Also, several comics properties have been optioned lately, so it’d be interesting to see how far that goes in 2018, especially with platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. looking for content.

Guilty Plesaure: Hmm…Maybe a new season of Sarah and Duck?

Who or what inspires you? There are so many incredibly talented creators out there, I don’t know if I could narrow it down to a few. I adore Tee Franklin (Bingo Love), Meredith Finch (Rose), Emma Beeby (Mata Hari), Eric Palicki (No Angel), Vita Ayala (The Wilds), Natasha Alterici (Heathen), Emily Pearson (The Wilds), Liana Kangas (Blackout), Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters), and so many others. I’m very inspired by my peers who challenge me and push me to do better.

The Beat’s Annual Creator Survey, 2018 Edition, Part Four: Including some incredible preview art from Dargaud We're into our fourth day of creator thoughts, inspirations and projects. As always, thanks to everyone who took the time to participate.

[symbianosgames]

Game Design Deep Dive is an ongoing Gamasutra series with the goal of shedding light on specific design features or mechanics within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

Check out earlier installments, including the action-based RPG battles in Undertale, using a real human skull for the audio of Inside, and the realistic chat system of Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n. 

I’m Peter Ilves, one of the co-founders of Stunlock Studios and the Game Director on Battlerite, as well as Stunlock's previous titles Dead Island: Epidemic (Epidemic) and Bloodline Champions (BLC).

I would best describe my role as a wild combination of a producer, game designer, and programmer. I started my career by studying game design at the University of Skövde in Sweden back in 2006. I eventually made some friends at university and together we created a game as part of a development-course. This project eventually turned into Bloodline Champions (BLC) and me and 13 other students that developed the game founded Stunlock Studios.

Battlerite is the spiritual successor to Bloodline Champions, a team arena brawler that is best described as a mashup between World of Warcraft Arena and a traditional fighting game.

[embedded content]

As I’m writing this, Battlerite has been out for less than 3 weeks in Early Access and have already reached an audience of 250 000+ players.

At its core Battlerite shares a lot of the DNA of BLC. We determined that the lack of success of BLC was partly due to factors outside the game itself and partly due to the game not being approachable enough. These include: 

Getting into the game was too hard

Business model didn't work well with the core design of the game

Weak server-infrastructure

Not enough resources for community management

Stunlock Studio's Battlerite.

Bloodlines Champions was a passion project. A group of 14 students coming together to create the best possible arena game out there. Our ambitions were sky-high: a PvP Game with a dedicated server network and a focus on eSport long before the eSports scene exploded. With almost no budget, we started developing everything from our own graphics engine to our own network-solutions. Personal loans and people working with “real” jobs on the side funded the project.

Late in the process, we signed a publishing deal with Funcom that enabled us to eventually launch the game. BLC is an extremely hardcore game but it was critically acclaimed and we managed to build a small but dedicated community.

We received our first paychecks and continued to update the game post launch with new content and new features but BLC never really took off. After more than a year of struggling with making the game fly people were starting to lose confidence and eventually we had to move on to stay alive as a studio.

We were able to sign a deal with Deep Silver and started working on zombie-slasher Dead Island: Epidemic. Everyone was super excited and for the years to come there were very little talk about BLC.

Dead Island: Epidemic was eventually canceled. Having a game canceled after 2½ years into production was frustrating but at the same time, I think it was a relief for many. It had been a stressful project and in the end, it was a work for hire. 

Dead Island: Epidemic

I remember how we sat down with the studio, asking everyone what he or she wanted to do next. I was surprised by the result; we had not talked a lot about BLC during Epidemic but all of a sudden, everyone wanted to do a remake. Everyone still believed in the core values of BLC and what we started back in 2008.

Nothing similar had come up on the market over the years; nothing remotely similar to BLC at least, and we believed there to be a spot on the market for our type of game.

Everyone was aboard, and we were confident that as long as we can make this game on our own conditions we could make it into the best arena PvP game out there. We would not let a publisher hijack this project and thanks to our friends and investors at Coffee Stain Studios, we were able to develop the game on our own terms.

I believe Battlerite’s success is down to the following key points.

1. We knew exactly what we wanted to accomplish

When working on BLC we experimented with different types of gameplay, movement, game modes and so on. We did not really know what game we were making to begin with. For Battlerite we wanted to keep it straightforward, easy and approachable.

We took the core of BLC and decided to stick with that for the entire project. Focus on the Arena and the Champions, nothing else. Instead of investing resources into trying out new game mode ideas or trying to create new types of Champions, we took the best pieces from BLC and iterated, iterated and iterated.

Bloodline Champions

2. Zero Iteration Downtime

As we knew we were going to have an extremely iterative process we set a technical goal from day 1 – Zero Iteration downtime. This was a design goal that permeated every part of our content pipelines.

The toolset we have used to develop Battlerite is built from scratch for this project. We are using Unity as our render-engine while gameplay related elements as collision, network, AI, are all custom-made. We have developed a tool with the fancy name “Game Tool” in which we basically create the entire game.

The Game Tool is used to define objects, constant data, stateful data that change during gameplay, references to graphical assets and scripts as well as relationships between objects. Scripts are attached to objects and can then access the data and state for those objects dynamically, with changes to all of these available instantly without restarting. Scripts are compiled on save, constant & state data is changed in the running gameplay process as they’re made. 

We embed a standalone Unity player process into a Game Tool window that we feed with the game state for rendering. Artists import assets (models, SFX, particles, animations) into a separate Unity editor project where they’re immediately built into bundles and made available for usage in the Game Tool and its embedded Unity process. Artists and coders can add content in an incremental fashion without having to restart, reload or compile unrelated assets or code, which we believe is key to our iteration process. Iterate, save, test, iterate.

Without this toolset, we would never have been able to create the Look and Feel that we aspired to when we set out.

3. Look and Feel

When comparing BLC and Battlerite the difference in visual quality and presentation is obvious. What is not as apparent but maybe even more important is how different the game feels. This has been one of the biggest challenge to us marketing-wise. The game looks like a RTS MOBA but once you get your hands on it you understand the vast differences.

Controlling your Champion with WASD movement is a huge difference and we’ve put a ton of effort into getting the gameplay feel just right. A video cannot sell you on that feeling. We ended up branding it as a Team Arena Brawler (TAB), basically creating our own genre.

This is the biggest improvement when comparing both games. Moving around, striking down your enemy, firing your guns, charging into combat. These are just a few mechanics in the game but we have worked so much on making them feel smooth and satisfying to pull off. 

BLC has a more “choppy” feel to it, every time you use an ability you have to stand still to perform the action while in Battlerite we’ve tried to make combat more fluent. Many attacks allow you to move while using them and every attack has individual settings for how much it affects your movement. How much your champion slows down, different timers for acceleration/deceleration, different amount of post-attack time before you can perform a new action. It certainly has similarities to a fighting game.

As a player you probably will not even reflect on these settings but when balanced correctly it creates a very satisfying flow. This along with the many improvements in presentation (art-style, HUD, animations, SFX & VFX) makes the game more approachable and attractive.

[embedded content]

4. Servers & Net code

BLC is a very latency dependent game and we did not have the server infrastructure to support it. Many players were unable to enjoy the game because they resided too far away from our server locations.

Supporting BLC with a good server infrastructure was however not our obligations at that time. We had signed a publishing agreement and this area of responsibility was on the publisher's side.

With Battlerite we’ve been able to support the game with a worldwide state of the art server solution. We are fortunate to have had the chance to work with great partners that have enabled us to launch the game on a global scale already during Early Access.

When BLC launched we had one server in central Europe and one server in US East and that was it. These are the server options for Battlerite, 3 weeks into Early Access:

Battlerite's current server selection.

Beside server infrastructure, we have also put a lot of effort into optimizing and developing solid net code. With 7 years of experience working on top-down multiplayer games, we had a good understanding of how we wanted to develop the net-code for Battlerite. 

Our goal from the start has been to make Battlerite available to as many as possible. For the netcode, this meant being able to handle a large variety of network environments like high packet loss, highly variable latency as well as just constant high latency. In BLC, the netcode would fall over if a player had even slight packet loss and it wasn't a great experience to play with more than 100ms latency. In Battlerite, a large amount of systems are designed around the reality of networks around the world.

Our current server infrastructure and a more refined net-code is probably the second biggest reason for the success of Battlerite, especially in regions with developing infrastructure.

5. Pricing

BLC launched as a Free-2-Play game with a similar business model as League of Legends. There was a free champion rotation system. Players were able unlock new champions by earning and spending virtual currency and you could purchase a champion or a bundle of champions for real money.

What we realized too late was that this model was fundamentally flawed for a game like BLC. A MOBA free-2-play model did not sit well with a game like BLC. BLC is all about the champions while I would argue that a MOBA is more about the game mode. By limiting access to Champions we made an already content-thin game even smaller. New players could pick up one of four champions and would ultimately face other players with the same champions as everyone had the same rotation.

It grew stale and repetitive very quickly and players quit early as the grind for a new champion was too big.

The Battlerite Early Access grants you access to all champions as well as all future champions for $20. We have not yet decided what model we will use when the game fully launches but know what we want to avoid.

I’d say that our current price-point is a great deal. It is also worth considering how players will react to how you price your game and what reputation you want to build as a studio. We have been taking a few hits over the years due to the pricing of both BLC and Epidemic. Pricing of some items in those games have been on a ridiculous scale but those decisions were often out of our hands.

With Battlerite we are independent and we can right some wrongs from the past and rebuild some trust. A fair pricing model goes a long way in that regards.

6. Community

With BLC we tried hard to build a strong community. At that time, we were still 14 people developing our first multiplayer PvP game and we still took time aside to create webpages, we developed and branded our own community forums, we hosted community events and tried our best with the limited resources we had to stay active with the community.

Many people in the studio felt that we let everyone down when we weren't able to keep this up due to both political and economical reasons.

With Epidemic it was easier. We were actually not allowed to interact with our players via forums or other media. This is another story of course but one of those interesting aspects of working with a publisher. The good side of this was that we had more time developing the game and we were less emotionally attached to the community (which was a good thing for us when Epidemic was canceled).

For Battlerite we are solely responsible for building our community and this time around there are no political reasons keeping us away from our players. We believe in transparency and as we are still a small team (25 people) everyone that can and wants to is able to help out. Answering posts on forums, doing write-ups that explains a features or a decision, helping with support and so on.

Everyone in the studio is allowed to talk to our community. This sometimes results in miscommunications (especially in language as we only have one native English-speaking person in the office) but so far the positive side far outweighs the negative side of this approach.

During our launch week, most people in the studio spent almost all their time helping people out that had technical issues, answering questions on forums and streams and relayed important topics to our coders so we could fix it ASAP.

There are always unforeseen technical issues that will occur once you get a lot of people into your game but we were prepared for it and communicated any issue directly via our in-game messaging system. During the launch week we worked around the clock and I think our ability to respond and fix issues quickly were very much appreciated by our community.

I would say that the most important part about developing Battlerite has been our team spirit and production mindset. We’re constantly iterating on our processes and refining our toolsets to enable everyone to work as efficiently as possible.   Throughout the project we have been comparing ourselves with the biggest competitive games and we never settled for less. We didn’t have the manpower to create this type of game with the level of quality we desired. We had to come up with solutions that enabled us to work as efficiently as possible. Not only am I proud of the game but I’m proud of the toolset and pipelines we’ve developed.   Iterating on a game can be tedious and I think that’s why many settle with mediocre results. Perfecting small variable differences within a game can be very time-consuming if you don’t have the right processes. When you have powerful tools it’s more fun to work and you never end up asking yourself if a change is worth the time investment or not, you just do it. 

In the end, I believe that the commercial success of Battlerite is mostly due to how much better we were able to realize the game on our second try. Battlerite is the result of 8 years of iteration, iteration and iteration on a top-down action multiplayer game.  

[symbianosgames]

Game Design Deep Dive is an ongoing Gamasutra series with the goal of shedding light on specific design features or mechanics within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

Check out earlier installments, including the action-based RPG battles in Undertale, using a real human skull for the audio of Inside, and the realistic chat system of Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n. 

I’m Peter Ilves, one of the co-founders of Stunlock Studios and the Game Director on Battlerite, as well as Stunlock's previous titles Dead Island: Epidemic (Epidemic) and Bloodline Champions (BLC).

I would best describe my role as a wild combination of a producer, game designer, and programmer. I started my career by studying game design at the University of Skövde in Sweden back in 2006. I eventually made some friends at university and together we created a game as part of a development-course. This project eventually turned into Bloodline Champions (BLC) and me and 13 other students that developed the game founded Stunlock Studios.

Battlerite is the spiritual successor to Bloodline Champions, a team arena brawler that is best described as a mashup between World of Warcraft Arena and a traditional fighting game.

[embedded content]

As I’m writing this, Battlerite has been out for less than 3 weeks in Early Access and have already reached an audience of 250 000+ players.

At its core Battlerite shares a lot of the DNA of BLC. We determined that the lack of success of BLC was partly due to factors outside the game itself and partly due to the game not being approachable enough. These include: 

Getting into the game was too hard

Business model didn't work well with the core design of the game

Weak server-infrastructure

Not enough resources for community management

Stunlock Studio's Battlerite.

Bloodlines Champions was a passion project. A group of 14 students coming together to create the best possible arena game out there. Our ambitions were sky-high: a PvP Game with a dedicated server network and a focus on eSport long before the eSports scene exploded. With almost no budget, we started developing everything from our own graphics engine to our own network-solutions. Personal loans and people working with “real” jobs on the side funded the project.

Late in the process, we signed a publishing deal with Funcom that enabled us to eventually launch the game. BLC is an extremely hardcore game but it was critically acclaimed and we managed to build a small but dedicated community.

We received our first paychecks and continued to update the game post launch with new content and new features but BLC never really took off. After more than a year of struggling with making the game fly people were starting to lose confidence and eventually we had to move on to stay alive as a studio.

We were able to sign a deal with Deep Silver and started working on zombie-slasher Dead Island: Epidemic. Everyone was super excited and for the years to come there were very little talk about BLC.

Dead Island: Epidemic was eventually canceled. Having a game canceled after 2½ years into production was frustrating but at the same time, I think it was a relief for many. It had been a stressful project and in the end, it was a work for hire. 

Dead Island: Epidemic

I remember how we sat down with the studio, asking everyone what he or she wanted to do next. I was surprised by the result; we had not talked a lot about BLC during Epidemic but all of a sudden, everyone wanted to do a remake. Everyone still believed in the core values of BLC and what we started back in 2008.

Nothing similar had come up on the market over the years; nothing remotely similar to BLC at least, and we believed there to be a spot on the market for our type of game.

Everyone was aboard, and we were confident that as long as we can make this game on our own conditions we could make it into the best arena PvP game out there. We would not let a publisher hijack this project and thanks to our friends and investors at Coffee Stain Studios, we were able to develop the game on our own terms.

I believe Battlerite’s success is down to the following key points.

1. We knew exactly what we wanted to accomplish

When working on BLC we experimented with different types of gameplay, movement, game modes and so on. We did not really know what game we were making to begin with. For Battlerite we wanted to keep it straightforward, easy and approachable.

We took the core of BLC and decided to stick with that for the entire project. Focus on the Arena and the Champions, nothing else. Instead of investing resources into trying out new game mode ideas or trying to create new types of Champions, we took the best pieces from BLC and iterated, iterated and iterated.

Bloodline Champions

2. Zero Iteration Downtime

As we knew we were going to have an extremely iterative process we set a technical goal from day 1 – Zero Iteration downtime. This was a design goal that permeated every part of our content pipelines.

The toolset we have used to develop Battlerite is built from scratch for this project. We are using Unity as our render-engine while gameplay related elements as collision, network, AI, are all custom-made. We have developed a tool with the fancy name “Game Tool” in which we basically create the entire game.

The Game Tool is used to define objects, constant data, stateful data that change during gameplay, references to graphical assets and scripts as well as relationships between objects. Scripts are attached to objects and can then access the data and state for those objects dynamically, with changes to all of these available instantly without restarting. Scripts are compiled on save, constant & state data is changed in the running gameplay process as they’re made. 

We embed a standalone Unity player process into a Game Tool window that we feed with the game state for rendering. Artists import assets (models, SFX, particles, animations) into a separate Unity editor project where they’re immediately built into bundles and made available for usage in the Game Tool and its embedded Unity process. Artists and coders can add content in an incremental fashion without having to restart, reload or compile unrelated assets or code, which we believe is key to our iteration process. Iterate, save, test, iterate.

Without this toolset, we would never have been able to create the Look and Feel that we aspired to when we set out.

3. Look and Feel

When comparing BLC and Battlerite the difference in visual quality and presentation is obvious. What is not as apparent but maybe even more important is how different the game feels. This has been one of the biggest challenge to us marketing-wise. The game looks like a RTS MOBA but once you get your hands on it you understand the vast differences.

Controlling your Champion with WASD movement is a huge difference and we’ve put a ton of effort into getting the gameplay feel just right. A video cannot sell you on that feeling. We ended up branding it as a Team Arena Brawler (TAB), basically creating our own genre.

This is the biggest improvement when comparing both games. Moving around, striking down your enemy, firing your guns, charging into combat. These are just a few mechanics in the game but we have worked so much on making them feel smooth and satisfying to pull off. 

BLC has a more “choppy” feel to it, every time you use an ability you have to stand still to perform the action while in Battlerite we’ve tried to make combat more fluent. Many attacks allow you to move while using them and every attack has individual settings for how much it affects your movement. How much your champion slows down, different timers for acceleration/deceleration, different amount of post-attack time before you can perform a new action. It certainly has similarities to a fighting game.

As a player you probably will not even reflect on these settings but when balanced correctly it creates a very satisfying flow. This along with the many improvements in presentation (art-style, HUD, animations, SFX & VFX) makes the game more approachable and attractive.

[embedded content]

4. Servers & Net code

BLC is a very latency dependent game and we did not have the server infrastructure to support it. Many players were unable to enjoy the game because they resided too far away from our server locations.

Supporting BLC with a good server infrastructure was however not our obligations at that time. We had signed a publishing agreement and this area of responsibility was on the publisher's side.

With Battlerite we’ve been able to support the game with a worldwide state of the art server solution. We are fortunate to have had the chance to work with great partners that have enabled us to launch the game on a global scale already during Early Access.

When BLC launched we had one server in central Europe and one server in US East and that was it. These are the server options for Battlerite, 3 weeks into Early Access:

Battlerite's current server selection.

Beside server infrastructure, we have also put a lot of effort into optimizing and developing solid net code. With 7 years of experience working on top-down multiplayer games, we had a good understanding of how we wanted to develop the net-code for Battlerite. 

Our goal from the start has been to make Battlerite available to as many as possible. For the netcode, this meant being able to handle a large variety of network environments like high packet loss, highly variable latency as well as just constant high latency. In BLC, the netcode would fall over if a player had even slight packet loss and it wasn't a great experience to play with more than 100ms latency. In Battlerite, a large amount of systems are designed around the reality of networks around the world.

Our current server infrastructure and a more refined net-code is probably the second biggest reason for the success of Battlerite, especially in regions with developing infrastructure.

5. Pricing

BLC launched as a Free-2-Play game with a similar business model as League of Legends. There was a free champion rotation system. Players were able unlock new champions by earning and spending virtual currency and you could purchase a champion or a bundle of champions for real money.

What we realized too late was that this model was fundamentally flawed for a game like BLC. A MOBA free-2-play model did not sit well with a game like BLC. BLC is all about the champions while I would argue that a MOBA is more about the game mode. By limiting access to Champions we made an already content-thin game even smaller. New players could pick up one of four champions and would ultimately face other players with the same champions as everyone had the same rotation.

It grew stale and repetitive very quickly and players quit early as the grind for a new champion was too big.

The Battlerite Early Access grants you access to all champions as well as all future champions for $20. We have not yet decided what model we will use when the game fully launches but know what we want to avoid.

I’d say that our current price-point is a great deal. It is also worth considering how players will react to how you price your game and what reputation you want to build as a studio. We have been taking a few hits over the years due to the pricing of both BLC and Epidemic. Pricing of some items in those games have been on a ridiculous scale but those decisions were often out of our hands.

With Battlerite we are independent and we can right some wrongs from the past and rebuild some trust. A fair pricing model goes a long way in that regards.

6. Community

With BLC we tried hard to build a strong community. At that time, we were still 14 people developing our first multiplayer PvP game and we still took time aside to create webpages, we developed and branded our own community forums, we hosted community events and tried our best with the limited resources we had to stay active with the community.

Many people in the studio felt that we let everyone down when we weren't able to keep this up due to both political and economical reasons.

With Epidemic it was easier. We were actually not allowed to interact with our players via forums or other media. This is another story of course but one of those interesting aspects of working with a publisher. The good side of this was that we had more time developing the game and we were less emotionally attached to the community (which was a good thing for us when Epidemic was canceled).

For Battlerite we are solely responsible for building our community and this time around there are no political reasons keeping us away from our players. We believe in transparency and as we are still a small team (25 people) everyone that can and wants to is able to help out. Answering posts on forums, doing write-ups that explains a features or a decision, helping with support and so on.

Everyone in the studio is allowed to talk to our community. This sometimes results in miscommunications (especially in language as we only have one native English-speaking person in the office) but so far the positive side far outweighs the negative side of this approach.

During our launch week, most people in the studio spent almost all their time helping people out that had technical issues, answering questions on forums and streams and relayed important topics to our coders so we could fix it ASAP.

There are always unforeseen technical issues that will occur once you get a lot of people into your game but we were prepared for it and communicated any issue directly via our in-game messaging system. During the launch week we worked around the clock and I think our ability to respond and fix issues quickly were very much appreciated by our community.

I would say that the most important part about developing Battlerite has been our team spirit and production mindset. We’re constantly iterating on our processes and refining our toolsets to enable everyone to work as efficiently as possible.   Throughout the project we have been comparing ourselves with the biggest competitive games and we never settled for less. We didn’t have the manpower to create this type of game with the level of quality we desired. We had to come up with solutions that enabled us to work as efficiently as possible. Not only am I proud of the game but I’m proud of the toolset and pipelines we’ve developed.   Iterating on a game can be tedious and I think that’s why many settle with mediocre results. Perfecting small variable differences within a game can be very time-consuming if you don’t have the right processes. When you have powerful tools it’s more fun to work and you never end up asking yourself if a change is worth the time investment or not, you just do it. 

In the end, I believe that the commercial success of Battlerite is mostly due to how much better we were able to realize the game on our second try. Battlerite is the result of 8 years of iteration, iteration and iteration on a top-down action multiplayer game.