Ode to: The FURIOUS CHICKEN

I remember when you cost a penny, but now you are a must-have NFT if you want victory in your Splinterlands battles. While you may not have any attack power or magic abilities, you save the day very often. Thank you for your selfless sacrifice and sorry for eating so many of your brothers and sisters. All y’all are quite tasty and nutritious though.

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For this Splinterlands art contest, I experimented with sketches using open, closed, and divided negative space.

Open Negative Space

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Negative space or the empty space around your subject is usually ignored but is an important part of any drawing. For my open negative space drawing, I put the Furious Chicken in the middle of the artboard, small, and in front of the text. When using open negative space neither the text nor subject should touch the borders.

Closed Negative Space

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I thought a black background would work for my closed negative space drawing. When using closed negative space, the text or subject should not be fully in frame and will touch our come in from the edges.

Divided Negative Space

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I feel that the divided negative space drawing came out best hence it is the thumbnail of this post. I divided the artboard with a brown branch which divided the sky and ground. I felt the green ground would complement the red “Furious” well.

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Thank you for reading about my use of negative space today. I hope I explained the three types of negative space well. I started off with a pencil, then inked my sketches and used Inkscape for the digital drawings.

My computer is a total piece of junk I bought at Walmart for $99 back in 2017. It can only run for about an hour before it overheats and freezes up even though I made my room completely air-tight with painter’s tape and crank the air conditioning up on full blast in turbo mode. I have always despised Microsoft and Bill Gates and haven’t touched an X-box or any Windows operating system since 2007. The first thing I do to any computer I own (and sometimes to the great distress of my coworkers with company machines) is completely wipe Windows and install Linux Mint. I never understood why people continue to use crap like Microsoft when Linux is better, faster, and completely FREE. I guess people like being slaves to creeps like Gates.

I got into an argument with a big-ass retired British Sergeant Major back in 2019. He was so mad a me that he punched me down to the floor and kept punching me in the head. It took three people to take him off me. He then took my computer and ripped it in half tearing away the screen in true WWE drama. It still works if I connect an HDMI cable to a TV, so fuck you sir!

I tried using a bootleg copy of Adobe Illustrator I downloaded from the Pirate Bay, but since I’m running it through Wine, I couldn’t save my work for some reason, so I tried using Inkscape for the first time. Inkscape runs fine on my machine but takes some getting used to compared with Illustrator. If you can’t get Adobe Illustrator to work on your PC then Inkscape is a great and FREE alternative.

SPLINTERLANDS: My Grumpy Dwarf Victory

Having run from a great terror on the other side of the world, the Dwarves are new to the Splinterlands. They don’t take kindly to strangers, and since they are now surrounded by strangers, the residents of the Splinterlands have taken to calling them, Grumpy Dwarves. They are quite fierce with axes.

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Welcome fellow and future Splinterlands players. Today I’d like to share with you my battle using the Grumpy Dwarf. I honestly haven’t used this card for years. I sold it foolishly for pennies a while back, but since it is a part of my base set of cards it is always available to me. That is a very fair way to reward older players in my opinion, letting us use our old cards at level 1, even though we no longer own the NFT.

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The Grumpy Dwarf sadly died in this fight, but he took out my enemy’s Fire Elemental which was useful because it has the blast ability which not only hurts the card it’s aiming for, but the one next to it too!

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We both chose the Living Lava as our tank or first monster. This is a newer card, but it seems that everybody uses it these days.

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I put the three-headed monster dog, Cerberus in the second slot because he will self-heal and pick up where the first monster left off if it dies.

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I put the Grumpy Dwarf in the third spot, but I could’ve put him anywhere since he has the reach ability.

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The Kobold Miner has the sneak ability, so I could’ve placed him anywhere too.

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The Creeping Ooze reminds me of Slimer from Ghostbusters. He’s good because he only uses 1 mana and slows all of your enemies down by one point. This can often be the leading factor in your victory.

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The only reason I chose the Centaur was that he had a decent amount of health and filled up the possible mana for the battle. His snipe ability was useful in the fight though. Thanks for checking out my battle today. Get in the game!

Check out my battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=sl_506f7059a7ef05ad26a2be27bce3b871&ref=jeremiahcustis

Participate in this week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-grumpy-dwarf

DRAWING: Getting Started with Contour Lines

Are you a new artist just getting started or want to try something new? If so, then I recommend doing a still-life sketch of something focusing on just the contour lines. This means that you ignore the shading and draw like we did when we were kids.

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For this sketch, all you really need is a pencil or pen, some paper, and a subject. I used some 3M painter’s tape to secure the A4 paper to my clipboard so I could focus on my drawing and not worry about the paper, but it isn’t necessary. I also enjoyed some strawberry-flavored Korean rice wine, Soju, and a bottle of Pepsi. Why does Pepsi taste so much better from a glass bottle?

Blind Contour Sketch

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For my first sketch, I focused on the plant 100% and only looked a the paper once to place the pencil. It is important you only look at the subject and feel the surface of the paper while you slowly draw the lines. It’s not going to look great. In fact, it will look like something you drew in grade school, but it’s good practice.

Semi Blind Contour Sketch

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For the next sketch try to focus on the subject 95% of the time only glancing at your drawing for a bit. The only times I briefly looked at my paper and pencil was when I was making sure the lines were right.

Look All You Want Sketch

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You still don’t want to spend too much time on this sketch, but you can look at your paper and pencil all you want. See how much better the third drawing is? I was able to focus on the pointy parts and details of the plastic this time.

The only thing I had to take these pictures was a crappy old iPhone 5, but I lit up my room as best I could. I then used the auto-enhance and auto-crop feature in Google Photos. Still not happy with the results, I adjusted the levels, brightness, and hue in Adobe Photoshop to tweak the pictures a bit more. I constantly make grammar mistakes and typos in my blog, so I always highlight the words and have the AI extension, Readme, read the words back to me. Listening to my post always shows mistakes I’ve made that proofreading doesn’t.

SPLINTERLANDS: My Dragon NFT Battle Victory

Some time ago, Daria Dragonscale nearly lost her twin brother Delwyn to the Burn that had stricken so many of the scaled. She would have lost him completely, but at his deathbed, she hired the services of a dark sorcerer who transferred his soul into a special Heliosoulstone. While he was suspended inside the stone, Daria traveled to the Earth Splinter, where she visited the Flesh Golems in the root of the Elder Tree. With their help, she created a new Golem from fleshy scraps. Delwyn’s soul was transferred into the new Golem, and Daria had her brother back… forever.

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I’m having a lot of fun playing Splinterlands now that there are so many new players. It makes the game harder, but also better in many ways. I was once a Champion player, but got bored and sold everything before the recent popularity. Now I’ll be lucky if I can crawl back up to the Silver League. At least I still get daily SPS airdrops for back in the day when I earned those Champion points.

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If you’re like me then you’ll regret seeing just one treasure chest reward while struggling in the Bronze League. That’s why I make sure I have a Quest Potion before I complete my Daily Quest. It will add 5 treasure chests to your reward. It’s not expensive if you pay with credits. You can also pay with DEC, but with these strong DEC prices today, you’ll pay way more.


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My dragons kicked ass! We didn’t lose a single monster in this battle! My Sea Monster was able to take most of the damage while my dragons got to work destroying the enemy.

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I chose this Dragon summoner, Delwyn Dragonscale, because he increases everyone’s magic attack power.

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The Serpentine Mystic can take away an enemy’s special power like self-healing, so I always choose him.

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The Dragon Whelp isn’t usually a strong card, but when his magic attack is increased by the summoner he can do some damage.

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I should’ve chosen more magic attack monsters to do the most damage, but I think this is a beautiful card and my battle would look cooler with the Fire Spitter. Thank you for checking out my battle today. Get in the game!

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Check out my battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=sl_c4dfcf6c85e260124fd88cbe32d8eee5&ref=jeremiahcustis

Participate in this week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-dragons

100,000 Splinterlands Spellbooks Purchased


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Splinterlands just saw the purchase of its 100,000th Spellbook, halfway through August.


Reaching Benchmarks at Unprecedented Speeds

It took us over four years to sell the first 50,000 Splinterlands Spellbooks.
Now, in just fifteen days, that number has doubled.

Referencing a graph of daily Spellbook purchases hardly makes sense anymore. The recent numbers so effectively dwarf the earlier stats that any daily sales numbers before July of this year barely register at all. Average daily sales in August are 100x what they were at the beginning of the year, and 200x what they were a year ago.

Graphing the Spellbooks purchased over time tells the tale of Splinterlands‘ slow and steady growth since its creation right up until last month when the influx of new players skyrocketed these numbers and literally put the game out of commission for a few stressful days.


As cool as it is to see these total numbers, it’s even more interesting to look at the Spellbook Purchase rates in context.

Free-to-Play Games

In free-to-play games, it’s customary for only a small fraction of the players to choose to purchase into the game. Usually, around 1% – 2% of all players end up buying into any free-to-play game, while the other 98% – 99% of players stick with the free version, or else leave the game entirely.

Splinterlands has always enjoyed a significantly higher buy-in rate than average, traditionally hovering between 20-25%. The fact that one out of every 4 or 5 new players sees enough value in our game to buy a $10.00 upgrade has always been a point of pride for us, especially considering that most games must sign up 50-100 players, on average, before they see one purchase.

More are Staying

However, lately even these note-worthy figures have been outdone. We saw the sale of the 100,000th Spellbook just two days after the creation of our 300,000th new account. As things stand now, over 32% of all accounts that have ever been created have continued on to Purchase a Spellbook and explore their full Splinterlands potential. A one-third buy-in rate is amazing, but it isn’t even the end of the story.

The August Spellbook purchase rate is now over 40%, meaning that this month more than 2 out of every 5 new player accounts decided that Splinterlands is too good to pass up. The past five days have seen an average buy-in rate of nearly 50%, which is just astounding.

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Data from Peakmonsters.com

New players usually try out the game in free mode for a bit before deciding if it’s worth actually paying into, so Spellbook numbers tend to lag behind sign-up numbers by a few days, at least.

Why Players Stay

Sure, Splinterlands has a lot to offer, even if you don’t already have an impressive Alpha pack. The continued release of new cards and the structure of the tournaments system ensure that new players will always have access to relatively inexpensive cards that can hold their own in battles. The new rental market gives card owners and card seekers even more options. SPS offers players the chance to have a real say in the future of the game, and the fact that it’s all built on the blockchain means that players genuinely own their Splinterlands assets and that every purchase buys you more than just a once-and-done half hour of playing fun.

But Splinterlands has something much harder to replicate than thoughtful design, interesting graphics, or addictive gameplay. Because Splinterlands isn’t merely a game: it’s a whole community. In Guilds and on Splintertalk blogs; on Reddit, Twitter, and especially in Discord, Splinterlands community members continue to make this an inviting environment for new players, and this effort continues to pay off.



The Splinterlands team is small. Even with all we can do, we still depend heavily on the community to answer questions, explain game features, and in general help direct all the new players who are pouring in. And let me tell you: the Splinterlands community has shown itself to be more than up to this challenge. So many of you are extremely knowledgeable and experienced, and freely share your gems of game wisdom with newer players, directing them to the resources that will help them and explaining the finer points of the game. Your passion for the game is by far the best advertisement Splinterlands could ever have.

Guilds offer enormous opportunities for players to connect with each other, form friendships, and grow roots in the community. You can find other games to play. You can find other assets to purchase. But the friends in your Guild aren’t available anywhere else, and it makes a difference.

If new players were pouring into the game only to discover cold shoulders, unanswered questions, and condescension, it’s a good bet that many of them wouldn’t stick around for long. The fact that 30-50% of those that swing by deciding to buy into Splinterlands and put down roots here is a testament to how awesome our community is, as much as anything else we have to offer.

We are so grateful. And humbled. And amazed.
Thanks for being phenomenal.

NBA Top Shot: My first impressions and ⭐️⭐️ review

If you’re like me then you want to become a whale in the NFT game. I recently sold all of my Splinterlands cards like a total fool. I would’ve been a crypto millionaire right now if I hadn’t gone all APR Defi crazy and let greed and rug pulls destroy my deck. I felt like I had been playing the game for years and nothing happened, then all of a sudden, BOOM! Cards that weren’t worth a food stamp are now over $100. I even see gold cards I’ve sold for a few hundred bucks worth $100,000. I know I’m not the only one. Not wanting to miss out on the next great NFT opportunity, I checked out the list of top NFT projects at https://dappradar.com/nft.

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I felt like most of the projects I looked at were lame and just copycats of Cryptokitties. I bought a kitty back in 2018. Is it worth something now? I think the game is so stupid that I’ve not bothered checking. Plus, I hate working with the Etheruem network. NBA Top Shot works on Etheurum and it shows with its sluggish operations. It costs $9 to get started. Let’s see what I got…

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Let’s hope one of these is a $1 million M Jay or LeBron James NFT moment…

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No such luck. I paid $9 for these three cards and they can be sold for $3 each so I don’t feel ripped off, but I don’t feel entertained either.

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NBA Top Shot made it seem that if I chose a favorite team, they’d give me a free pack.

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I’m not a BB fan. I quit watching when Jordan retired. I do remember watching the original Dream Team kick ass in the Olympics and collected as many plastic cups from McDonald’s as I could when I was a kid. I liked the movie Space Jam and played a lot of NBA Jam on the Sega Genesis too, but that is all I know or care about BB, so let’s choose the Chicago Bulls.

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It’s true they’ll give you a free pack, but you better bring your credit card on this “quest” because you’ll need to get three more moments from your favorite team to “earn” the pack. The cheapest moment from the Chicago Bulls was $4, so I changed my favorite team who I feel is the least liked team in the NBA, the Salt Lake City Jazz. I mean whoever liked them? You’d get beat up fast wearing their jersey when I was in middle school.

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Nope. Everything is $4 at the cheapest with the Jazz too. This feels rigged. It’s definitely not a decentralized free market like Splinterlands. They also have strong KYC rules. If you decide to withdraw or earn any seriously valuable moments then get your ID ready and take that selfie holding it straight without breathing standing on one foot and juggling some dates or whatever other nonsense the NBA demands.

Conclusion

I don’t recommend NBA Top Shot, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea either. It’s a centralized cash grab bullshit NFT project of the NBA. I’m not upset that I spent $9, but I will not check or think about it again for several years.

What about you?

I love Splinterlands and have only tried NBA Top ShotWar Riders, and the Upland NFT games. Are there any good NFT gaming gems that have gone under the radar?

Resources:

NBA Top Shot
https://nbatopshot.com/moment/ConversationGaming+1393fdd5-97f5-449a-a44c-98e0ecb5643b?

Dapp Radar
https://dappradar.com/nft

What if Captain America were a girl and British?

Marvel and Disney have an opportunity to redo their best movie moments into half-hour animations with their new show, What If… and judging by the first episode, this looks like it’s going to be an entertaining show.

I really like this cel-shading animation style. It feels like real-life people were just traced or converted into a cartoon. The voice acting and characters felt just like their live-action counterparts.

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The first story looks into the universe where it was Peggy Carter who got the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. I know most guys feel so sick of how Hollywood portrays women as invincible simply for being women and the male characters are always weak pathetic pushovers, but I really enjoyed all of the action scenes and story without feeling that way at all. Even though this is a different universe from the one we knew before, it’s interesting how some things were still destined to be like Peggy and Steve’s love for each other, even though he’s still a weakling from Brooklyn.

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Youtube sucks now. Spotify has literally ruined the internet for me by stealing my favorite talent and putting it behind their wall. Sure, you can stream a lot for free, but I can’t. It won’t work from my location and they are good at detecting VPNs. And I really haven’t liked any of the new shows that have come out since my Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian fix got taken away, but I will look forward to watching new What If… episodes every week.

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Thanks for reading. Which What If story are you looking forward to or think they should make?

Marvel:
https://www.marvel.com/tv-shows/animation/what-if/1
Disney:
https://www.disneyplus.com

DARK HA’ON Legendary NFT battle challenge (rented)

Scholars of Khymeria have studied the shapeshifting, mystical beasts known as Ha’on extensively since their appearance ten years ago. At an early age, each Ha’on chooses a single power form, into which they can transform. Their time is then divided into their original humanoid form and the power form, which takes a considerable amount of energy to maintain for long periods of time. The Human forms of Ha’on are recognizable by their frightening single-colored eyes, a trait with which they are endowed when they realize their full shapeshifting potential. The Dark Ha’on is one of the strongest Ha’on, taking the power form of a large flying cat.

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I remember when this NFT Death Legendary card was less than a dollar. I even had one maxed out. I didn’t have the cash to buy it today so I rented it for a few cents. Don’t feel bad if you sold all of your cards or are just getting started. There will soon be a new batch of cards that will give us all another chance.

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I photoshopped and duplicated a copy of Dark Ha’on and enlarged it for dramatic effect. My enemy had a good strategy. They put out a strong tank, healer, sneak attacker, and some magic cards.

I used a summoner which gives all of my cards the ability to reflect magic back. Dark Ha’on absorbed most of the attacks while my two scary-looking archer and sniper ghosts helped my lead card wipe out the enemy.

Thank you Splinterlands for creating such a great game. The light years of advancement over the years have been truly impressive and I know there is a lot more where that came from.

If you are interested in getting started with NFTs, then I couldn’t imagine a better place to start than Splinterlands. Get in the game!

Check out my battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=sl_64b15bb9c1f67a234629e62aab92361c&ref=jeremiahcustis

Participate in this week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-dark-haon

CAVE SLUGS won another NFT battle in SPLINTERLANDS for me this week.

In southern Khymeria, near the Crystalline Harbor, there is a dank place known as Baluthar’s Deep. There are stories of ancient treasures buried there in the darkness, but the most that treasure hunters typically find is a slew of hideous cave monstrosities. One of the most well-known is the Cave Slug, which hides in plain sight and devours victims quite quickly.

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Welcome to another week of awesome Splinterlands gameplay, everyone! Cards are getting very expensive these days so I was happy to see this week’s battle challenge is the Cave Slugs. I actually do not own this card, but I used to so it’s still available to me. Splinterlands is very fair for making this possible. Imagine if you sold your car to the neighbor down the street, but they still let you use it sometimes because you were the original owner. That’s kinda how NFTs work. I know that in the art NFT space, the original creator or the artist will always earn a percentage no matter how many times it changes hands.

I’ve been playing this wonderful decentralized NFT game since it was new. If I had HODLed all of my cards I’ve ever been awarded, I could’ve bought a house in Southern California, but I was dumb and broke and sold all of my maxed ALPHA and BETA cards to survive. No one knows the future so I don’t feel bad. Plus this game is just getting started. There is still a lot of opportunity for new players and dumbasses like me who’ve sold everything to make a comeback!

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My battle went well even though I was up against an undead zombie T-rex and a powerful sandworm. I lost my first monster in the fight, but my Cave Slugs with their opportunity ability, which means they will attack the enemy monster with the least health, helped win another victory. I think that as long as every card has a different job to do that your chances of winning will go up. Don’t just rely on one strong card in the front. Predict what your enemy will do based on their past choices and then maximize your attack potential by choosing the appropriate cards for the battle rules.

Thank you for checking out my battle this week. Splinterlands will go down in gaming history as the original OG play to earn game. I’ve been waiting years for a better game to come along, but none have captured my attention so far. What do you think is the best play-to-earn game today?

Check out my battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=cdce52391db9b9ec587f28f90985187fd40466fa&ref=jeremiahcustis

Participate in this week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-cave-slugs

SKELETOR is back!

The internet is crying that another beloved gem from the past, He-Man, got Kathleen Kennedy’d.

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So what? He-Man is lame. It just makes me respect SKELETOR even more. He didn’t let Hollywood or three decades or positively inclusive and wonderful advancements in society change his style or who he was; a purely evil rip-off of Darth Vader, Death, and Ghost Rider created for the purpose of selling cool toys.

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Prince Adam may be put in his place by strong women often, but he and his scaredy-cat were always a carbon copy of Superman’s Clark Kent, so there’s nothing new there. What did people want from this character? For him to start slapping hoes telling everyone that he’s the damn prince and threatening everyone with his, “Don’t make me make He-Man show up again!”

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There may be a same-sex relationship and a character changed from a white dude to a black dude. Oh no! Who cares? Honestly, the feeling of having another memory from my past being ruined never came up during this five-part (first half of ten) continuation of the original 1980s cartoon and Dolph Lundgren live-action film. Besides, I just wanted to see SKELETOR, and ain’t nobody puts him in his place. Not woke lesbians, not He-Man, no-one commands SKELETOR!

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As you can see I’m happy to see SKELETOR again. The show should be called, The Skeletor Show, as Star Trek: The Next Generation should be called, The Jean-Luc Picard and Data Show. Having Skeletor voiced by one of the greatest voice actors of all time helps make his character even better. I really doubt I’m the only person who watched Masters of the Universe Revelations just to see what Skeletor’s been up to after all this time.

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The characters are typical lazily drawn Saturday morning cartoons, but the background animation helped modernize the look while staying true to the artistic style we loved in the 80s. Masters of the Universe Revelations isn’t the best animation I’ve seen this year, but it’s not a woke in your face dumpster fire as the internet claims either. Like I said before, I’m just glad to see SKELETOR causing problems again. Our world may have changed, but he’s still perfectly evil.

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I’m really lazy. I mean like super lazy. I may be one of the laziest people ever born. I sleep around 16 hours a day and now that we can earn money in our sleep with great DeFi projects like CUB, I have even less motivation to write posts here on HIVE, but I enjoyed Masters of the Universe Revelations enough to create this post recommending it to you and my friends.

I got all of the images for this post by pressing the PRINT SCREEN button on my computer while watching Masters of the Universe Revelations on Netflix. I then uploaded the images to Google Photos and chose the auto-enhance and crop to 16:9 aspect ratio in the edit menu. Thanks for reading. May the power of Skeletor be with you.

Trailer:

Masters of the Universe Revelations on Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/la/title/81154670