title: Final Destination (film)

text: With "Final Destination" cast, filming took place on Long Island for the plane scene and Vancouver Island for the additional scenes. The cast members were filming other projects during production, so filming schedules had to be moved repeatedly for all of the cast to appear. Sawa restrained his appearance in "The Guilty" during production, and even commented that "[he] had to share a trailer with Bill Pullman because it was bigger and would make him look more famous". Smith, who was a regular in "Dawson's Creek", had to hold episodes for the film.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: According to Detmer, her death scene (being rammed by a speeding bus) was filmed first because "it was easy but much anticipated". All death scenes were filmed using lifecasts of the actual actors. The death scenes, the memorial, the forest scene and the scenes in Paris were all filmed in Victoria. Additional scenes were filmed in Toronto and San Francisco. For the airport, the crew used Vancouver International Airport as a stand-in for John F. Kennedy International Airport, the airport mentioned in the film.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The plan behind the scenes was to create an intriguing visual signature. To serve the subtleties of the script and to help personify death, production designer John Willet developed the concept of "skewing" the sets. "What I've tried to do with the sets themselves, with their design and with various color choices, is to make things just a little unnatural," Willet explained. "Nothing that calls attention to itself, but instead creates a sense of uneasiness—the unsettling feeling that something's not quite right". To achieve this mystique, Willet designed two versions of virtually every set—one version was used before the crash and the other sets were used for scenes after the jet explodes.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: "On the skewed sets I force the perspective either vertically or horizontally," Willet explained. "Nothing is square and, although you can't put your finger on it, it just makes you feel like something is not right". Skewing was also part of the overall design for the color palette used in set decoration and costume design. "In the real world, the colors are bright and rich," Willet said. "In the skewed world, they're washed out and faded. Nothing is obvious, and it's only in the overall effect that these subtle differences will work their magic".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The plane scene during which passengers die in mid-air was created inside a very large sound stage. The three-ton hydraulic gimbal was operated automatically. "We spent two months building this central set piece that weighs about 45,000 pounds and holds 89 people," special effects supervisor Terry Sonderhoff explained. Used for filming the onboard sequences, it could be shifted on the gimbal to create a pitching movement of up to 45 degrees side-to-side and 60 degrees front-to-back, realistically conveying the horror of airborne engine failure. Sawa said that "the screams of the cast inside the gimbal made it appear more real". Wong said, "You walk into the studio and there's a huge gimbal with a plane on top and you think, 'What have I done?' I was afraid we were gonna have 40 extras vomiting."


title: Final Destination (film)

text: A miniature model of the Boeing 747 airplane was created for the explosion scene. The model, one of the most detailed miniature scenes in the film, was about 10 feet long and 7 feet wide, and the landing gear was made from all machined metals. According to visual effects supervisor Ariel Velasco Shaw, the miniature had to be launched about 40 feet up into the air to make it look like a real Boeing 747 exploded into a fireball. If blowing up a four-foot plane, the explosion must be a minimum of eight feet in the air. To film the explosion in detail, the crew used three cameras running 120 frames per second and one camera running 300 frames per second (if they had filmed using a real-time camera, the succession of the explosion would not be filmed in a particular order).


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The train scene (in which Carter's car is smashed by the train) was one of the most difficult scenes to shoot. The car used for the crash was a replica of the original, severed in half prior to filming. According to Sonderhoff, in order to ensure the safety of the actors, they had to make sure that there was no real sheet metal in the car.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: For the death scenes, the crew used several lifecasts of the actors and chocolate syrup for fake blood. Creating the Rube Goldberg effect for Ms. Lewton's death scene was the most difficult to plan according to the crew. Perry said that "it was very hard to generate an atmosphere of dread, to create suspense out of scenes that are common".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: No official album accompanied the motion picture. However, six songs are featured in the film, the most prominent of which is "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver, which is heavily highlighted throughout the film, reminding the survivors that Denver died in a plane crash. The song is heard either before an accident or a character's demise, and is also played by a street performer (Alessandro Juliani) in French. Other songs featured in the film include "Hundred Grand" by Pete Atherton (during the Flight 180 memorial scene), "Into the Void" by Nine Inch Nails (during the café scene), "All the Candles in the World" by Jane Siberry (during Carter's car scene), as well as "And When I Die" performed by Joe 90 (during the end credits).


title: Final Destination (film)

text: "Final Destination: The Complete Original Motion Picture Score" was released on March 17, 2000. The film's score was conducted by Daytime Emmy Award-winning composer Shirley Walker. Wong and Morgan initially wanted Walker to score the film after having previously worked with her on their sci-fi television series "". Walker said, "[Morgan and Wong] are great believers in melody and having music for the characters and situations they find themselves in. Of course, the atmosphere had to be there also, especially for a film with as much suspense building as this film has".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The score is mostly low-key, with the exception of the suspense and death scenes. It was performed by a union orchestra, obliging New Line Cinema to grant the film its own score. Walker described her score as "very theme-driven, conservative music that covers the range from bizarre animal noises with stronger visceral impact to stirring emotional music with well-defined melodies that evolve through the storytelling". The "Main Title" piece, used for the opening credits, was rare for opening a film aimed at a youth audience at the time. "What a treat for me to get to write a piece that calls you into the movie and lets you know something bad is going to happen from the get-go", Walker said. According to Walker, "Main Title" consumed most of her time, due to its "dark theme and counter-melody which carries throughout the score".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The score was positively received by critics. Judge Harold Jervais of DVD Verdict wrote how "[the sound effects, dialogue and] Walker's wonderfully creepy and effective score are mixed together to form a very pleasing, almost organic-like whole". Mike Long of DVD Review said that "Shirley Walker's eerie score comes across powerfully with a wide spatial integration". Derek Germano of "The Cinema Laser" wrote that "Walker's creepy musical score is really a winner, and is one of the things that will help to make "Final Destination" a minor genre classic a few years down the road".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The film premiered on March 17, 2000, in 2,587 theaters across the United States and Canada, earning $10,015,822 on its opening weekend, with an average of $3,871 per theater. "Final Destination" placed at No. 3 in the United States box office on its opening weekend, behind biography film "Erin Brockovich" and the science fiction film "Mission to Mars". The film remained at No. 3 during the second weekend, before dropping to No. 7 on its third weekend. "Final Destination" continuously dropped across subsequent weekends until it fell from the top-10 list on its eighth weekend. The film lasted in theaters for 22 weekends, its last screening airing in 105 theaters and grossing $52,675, placing at No. 56. "Final Destination" grossed $53,331,147 in the United States and Canada on its total screening, and earned $59,549,147 in other territories, earning an overall gross of $112,880,294 internationally.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: "Final Destination" was released on VHS and DVD on September 26, 2000, by New Line Home Video, in the United States and Canada. The DVD bonus features include three audio commentaries, three deleted scenes, and two documentaries. The first commentary features Wong, Morgan, Reddick, and editor James Coblentz describing the minute subtleties included by the creative team throughout the film, which either allude to death or foreshadow the deaths in the film invisible upon initial airing. They also discuss how the film was made and how they fought the executives of New Line Cinema over various factors.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The second commentary includes Sawa, Smith, Cloke, and Donella discussing what was involved in certain scenes and how they each were cast. The third commentary is the isolated music score of Walker included in the film's score.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: Deleted scenes cover two subplots of Alex and Clear, an alternate ending where Alex dies after rescuing Clear from the live wires, Clear bearing a baby which she names Alex, and Clear and Carter finishing as the only survivors of the film.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The first documentary entitled "A Look at Test Screenings" runs for 13 minutes and outlines the test screening process, giving an overview of how those screenings were conducted and scored. The featurette shows video footage of the test screening audience and specific comments regarding why the deleted scenes were either cut or reshot. The second documentary, titled "Premonitions", explores real-life intuitive investigator Pam Coronado, who has helped police solve many murders and missing person cases with her psychic abilities. The featurette runs for 20 minutes. Some DVDs contain two non DVD-ROM games—"Death Clock" and "Psychic Test"—in addition to the film's theatrical trailer and filmographies of the cast and crew.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: A Blu-ray Disc edition was released on April 7, 2009, retaining a majority of the DVD's bonus features.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported 35% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 96 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The site's consensus of opinion is that "despite a panel of "X-Files" alums at the helm and a promising premise, flighty performances and poor execution keep "Final Destination" from ever taking off". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 36 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On June 14, 2010, Nick Hyman of "Metacritic" included "Final Destination" in the website's editorial "15 Movies the Critics Got Wrong", noting that "the elaborate suspense/action set pieces from the first two films are more impressive than most". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Final Destination (film)

text: On the negative side, Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" said that "even by the crude standards of teenage horror, "Final Destination" is dramatically flat". Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" commented that "the film's premise quickly deteriorates into a silly, badly acted slasher movie—minus the slasher". Kevin Maynard of Mr. Showbiz described the film as "crude and witless". Rita Kempley of "The Washington Post" wrote that "your own final destination just might be the box office, to demand your money back".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: Jay Carr of "The Boston Globe" commented that it "starts by cheating death and ends by cheating us". Lisa Alspector of the "Chicago Reader" described the film as "disturbing—if less sophisticated than the best SF (science fiction)-horror TV". Luke Thompson of the "Dallas Observer" found it "a waste of a decent premise"; Ernest Hardy of "LA Weekly" said that the film "fails because it takes itself both too seriously and not seriously enough". Barbara Shulgasser of the "Chicago Tribune" said that it "met the low standards of a mediocre TV movie". Walter Addiego of the "San Francisco Examiner" thought it was "stupid, silly and gory".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The film gathered positive reviews from several top critics. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" enjoyed the film and gave it three out of four stars, stating that ""Final Destination" will no doubt be a hit and inspire the obligatory sequels. Like the original "Scream", this movie is too good to be the end of the road. I have visions of my own". Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" praised the film, saying "[it] was playful and energized enough to keep an audience guessing". Joe Leydon of "Variety" praised the film, saying "[it] generates a respectable amount of suspense and takes a few unexpected turns while covering familiar territory", while Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" said it was "a terrific theatrical feature debut for television veterans Glen Morgan and James Wong". Chris Kaltenbach of "The Baltimore Sun" found the film "fitfully thrilling", Maitland McDonagh of "TV Guide" called the film "serviceable enough, if you come to it with sufficiently modest expectations". Marjorie Baumgarten of "The Austin Chronicle" stated the film was "a flawed but often entertaining teen horror flick".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: Despite the film's generally mixed reception, critics praised Sawa's performance as Alex. David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews remarked "Sawa's personable turn as the hero is matched by a uniformly effective supporting cast rife with familiar faces (i.e. Seann William Scott, Brendan Fehr, Tony Todd, etc)" while Leydon stated that "Sawa is credible as the second-sighted Alex—unlike many other actors cast teen protagonists, he actually looks like he might still be attending high school—but the supporting players are an uneven bunch". LaSalle praised Sawa and Ali Larter's pairing, saying that "Larter and Sawa, who becomes more scruffy and wild-eyed as the film progresses, make an appealing pair".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The film had a major impact on the horror film audience, earning the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 2000. Sawa won the Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor the same year, and Larter won the Young Hollywood Award for a Breakthrough Performance by a Female. At the 2001 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, both Sawa and Larter were nominated for Favorite Actor in Horror (Internet Only) and Favorite Actress in Horror (Internet Only), respectively. Both actors lost the awards to "Scream 3" actors David Arquette and Neve Campbell. Additionally, cinematographer Robert McLachlan was nominated for Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature at the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards in 2001, but lost to Pierre Gill for his work on "The Art of War".


title: Final Destination (film)

text: The film's concept was listed at No. 46 in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Scary Moments, in which Smith represented the film. The Flight 180 explosion scene was included in the lists of best fictional plane crashes or disaster scenes by Break Studios, Unreality Magazine, New Movies.net, The Jetpacker, "Maxim"Online, and Filmsite. Filmsite also included the plane scene and the deaths of three characters (Tod, Terry, and Ms. Lewton) in its "Scariest Movie Moments and Scenes", and all fatalities in its "Best Film Deaths Scenes". The demise of Detmer's character entered the listings of the most shocking deaths on film of George Wales and Simon Kinnear of "Total Film" (No. 29 and No. 10, respectively), Simon Hill of Eat Horror (No. 10), and Dirk Sonningsen of Mania (No. 10).


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Battlefield 2042 is a first-person shooter, developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is the twelfth main installment in the "Battlefield" series and was released on November 19, 2021, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Unlike previous games in the series, "Battlefield 2042" is solely multiplayer and does not have a single-player campaign. It features support for cross-platform play, a first in the series. "Battlefield 2042" received mixed reviews from critics and a negative reception from players for its technical issues, lack of features, and certain changes to the gameplay. The game failed to meet the sales expectations of Electronic Arts.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Similar to its predecessors, "Battlefield 2042" is a multiplayer-focused first-person shooter. As the game is set in the near future, it features futuristic weapons and gadgets like deployable turrets and drones, as well as vehicles that players can control. Players can request a vehicle air-drop to any location. The game introduced a "Plus" system which allows players to customize their weapons on the spot. The class system is significantly overhauled and removes the four defined classes from previous games; instead, players can assume control of a specialist who falls under the four traditional "Battlefield" gameplay classes of Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Recon. These characters can wield any of the weapons and gadgets that a player has unlocked. Each operator has their own unique skills and gadgets. For instance, one of the specialists, Emma "Sundance" Rosier, is equipped with a wingsuit, while another, Maria Falck, is equipped with a healing pistol. Levolution and destructive environments from "Battlefield 4" return in "Battlefield 2042", and extreme weather effects such as tornadoes and sandstorms which may affect gameplay. The game featured seven maps at launch, including 'Breakaway', the largest map in the history of the Battlefield franchise.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: The game has three main gameplay modes. "All-Out Warfare" encompasses "Breakthrough" and "Conquest", two staple modes of the series. In Conquest, two teams combat against each other to capture control points; once all control points in a sector are captured, the team controls said sector. In Breakthrough, one team must try to capture another team's control points, while another team must defend them. Both modes can be played with and against AI-controlled players. The Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S versions support matches with up to 128 players, whereas the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions support up to 64 players. For the first time in the series, "Battlefield 2042" features support for cross-platform play with the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S versions. While the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions also support the feature, it is restricted to only players on the two aforementioned platforms.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: The second main mode included in the game is a community-driven platform called "Battlefield Portal". Portal allows players to create customized multiplayer modes and features select maps from past "Battlefield" games such as "Battlefield 1942", "", and "Battlefield 3". In addition, players can modify core gameplay elements such as health, weapon loadouts, and movement through a web-based scripting application.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: The third mode is a cooperative multiplayer mode called "Hazard Zone". In this mode, players are divided into teams, and they must compete with each other to retrieve and extract data drives from the debris of fallen satellites. These data drives are guarded by enemy combatants controlled by AI-controlled players. Players earn "dark market credits" after successfully extracting a data drive. These credits can be spent on purchasing new weapons and upgrades in this mode.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: "Battlefield 2042" does not have a single-player campaign. Instead, the story is told through multiplayer gameplay. Decades of devastation caused by collapsing economies, rising sea levels and broken alliances (including the collapse of the European Union due to Germany's bankruptcy and subsequent refugees known as "No-Pats") come to a peak in 2040 when a Kessler syndrome event occurs, causing 70% of orbiting satellites to crash to Earth. The resulting permanent global blackout causes tensions between the United States and Russia to skyrocket, with war breaking out by the year 2042.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Outside of multiplayer gameplay, the story is also told on Electronic Arts' official website for "Battlefield 2042". A standalone short film titled "Exodus", which depicts events leading up to the 2042 war and features returning "Battlefield 4" character Irish, premiered on August 12, 2021, via "Battlefield"s YouTube channel.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Additional specialists are announced every new seasons, from season 1 onwards. The new specialists include:


title: Battlefield 2042

text: The game is developed by series developer DICE in Sweden, with Ripple Effect Studios, EA Gothenburg, and Criterion Games assisting development. It has the largest development team for a "Battlefield" game, and Criterion had to put the production of the next "Need for Speed" game on hold in order to assist DICE. Unlike previous installments in the series, the game does not have a traditional single-player campaign. This allowed DICE to allocate more resources to develop the multiplayer portion, which was considered to be the studio's area of expertise. Instead, the story is told through the specialists, which are named and fully-voiced characters who have their own stories and perspective. The narrative was described as "evolving" as new operators and locations would be added to the game post-release. While the narrative of the game depicts a world ravaged by climate apocalypse, DICE added that the game was not a commentary on climate change and the team only chose this setting for "gameplay reasons".


title: Battlefield 2042

text: As each match can now accommodate more players, the team had significantly expanded the size of the maps. However, instead of simply creating huge maps, the locations in the game were designed based on the idea of "clustering" in order to funnel players towards a particular direction where they can engage with other players. Daniel Berlin, the design director of the game, described the maps as "several smaller maps stitched together". The decision to include artificial intelligence for the All-out Warfare mode was made early during the game's development as the team believed that it would be a good entry point for beginners. Ripple Effect, formerly DICE Los Angeles, led the development of "Battlefield Portal". The game runs on the latest iteration of the Frostbite engine.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: A short work-in-progress demonstration of the game was shown at the 2020 EA Play Live event, teasing large scale battles and detailed facial animations. The game was announced on June 9, 2021. An open beta took place from October 6 to 9, 2021, ahead of the game's launch on November 19, 2021, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The launch was delayed from its original October 22 release date due to impacts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: EA plans to support the game extensively with downloadable content after launch; "Battlefield 2042" utilizes the battle pass model. Gameplay content would be free for all players, whereas players who purchased the battle pass would receive additional cosmetic items. Before the release of Season 1, DICE released several updates for the game; Update 4.1 removed the 128-player Breakthrough mode, which was deemed to be too chaotic.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: The first major content update to the game, "Season 1: Zero Hour", was released on June 9, 2022. The update introduced new weapons and vehicles, a new map named "Exposure", set in the Canadian Rockies, and a new, Polish specialist named Ewelina Lis, who is equipped with a rocket launcher that can shoot player-guided projectiles. A 12-week battle pass was also included in season 1. DICE also decided to shift development resources away from the Hazard Zone mode. While the mode will remain playable, no further content would be developed for it.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Season 2 of the game, titled "Master of Arms", was released on August 30, 2022. The content update introduced a new map called "Stranded", set in the Panama Canal, with its centerpiece being a shipwrecked tanker, new weapons, gadget and vehicles, and a new British specialist named Charlie Crawford, who is equipped with a Mounted Vulcan stationary minigun. The update also introduce weapons that were previously exclusive to the "Portal" mode to the main "All-Out Warfare" mode under the name "Vault Weapons", with the first two being the M16A3 assault rifle and the M60E4 light machine gun, originally from "Battlefield 3".


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Season 3, titled "Escalation", was released on November 22, 2022, which added a new map set in Sweden titled "Spearhead", with its centerpiece being two megafactories. Alongside the new map, new weapons, gadgets and vehicles, along with a new Egyptian specialist named Rasheed Zain, were introduced. After the initial rollout of the update, which also saw the game be added to the EA Play subscription service, more changes are planned to roll out during the season, including a rework to the specialist system - which marks the return of the class system of past "Battlefield" titles - and reworks to the "Manifest" and "Breakaway" maps. These map reworks were released as part of Update 3.1. In addition to these changes, future updates as part of Season 3 will introduce more legacy "vault" weapons from both "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" and "Battlefield 3", with Update 3.2 in particular introducing the aforementioned reintroduction of the class system.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: DICE has targeted an "early 2023" launch for "Battlefield 2042" Season 4 and confirmed a Season 5, which includes a new specialist and a map that is smaller than previous post-launch maps, while the maps "Discarded" and "Hourglass" are set to be reworked in the future.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: "Battlefield 2042" received "mixed or average reviews" on all platforms, according to the review aggregator Metacritic, making it the lowest-rated installment in the "Battlefield" series.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: "Electronic Gaming Monthly" gave the game five out of five stars, writing: ""Battlefield 2042" brings the sandbox back to the series in bold and controversial ways. The new Specialist system might seem like sacrilege at first, but it opens up gameplay opportunities that weren't possible in previous titles. The massive, well-designed maps offer plenty of room for experimentation and emergent stories, and the modes are a blast." "Hardcore Gamer" summarized its 3/5 review by saying: ""Battlefield 2042" should have been a triumphant return of the franchise and developer. In some respects, "Battlefield 2042" delivers on its promises thanks to fantastic gameplay, a suite of new features and improvements, and a presentation that looks as good as it plays. Unfortunately, the game falls short just as much, if not more."


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Jordan Devore of "Destructoid" wrote, ""Battlefield 2042" feels like it could become a cool game, but it's tantalizingly out of reach today. There's enough promise with the satisfying-when-it-works gunplay, large-scale chaos...It didn't have to be this way though." "GamesRadar+" praised "Battlefield 2042"s All-Out War, the visuals, and the Portal mode, but criticized the Hazard Zone mode and the removal of classes. "IGN" thought similarly, concluding, "For a game claiming to be the future of "Battlefield", "2042"s impressive Portal options make it clear that it doesn't stack up to the past. Instead, it's those same customization tools that could come to define it in time." "GameSpot" felt the game had a lot of variety but that many of the glitches hampered the experience, especially on PC. Christian Vaz of "PCGamesN" gave the game a 7/10 and criticized it for feeling rushed, stating, "This near-future sequel has all the components it needs to become a classic entry in the multiplayer series, but it feels like "2042" is many updates away from reaching its full potential."


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Phil Iwaniuk writing for "The Guardian" gave the game two out of five stars, feeling that 128-player matches were too chaotic and granted little accomplishment for individuals while noting criticism of the game's multiple bugs and netcode issues. "VG247"s Sherif Saed also criticized the game's bugs and poor technical state, adding that many of the same bugs had been present in recent "Battlefield" games. Chris Jarrard of "Shacknews" described the game's Specialist system as "befuddling" and described maps as "uninspiring" and "painful to traverse" on foot, further criticizing technical issues. Writing for "Push Square", Liam Croft compared the game to a starter meal, stating that what the game offered at launch was too little for the asking price.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: Player reception was much more critical. "Battlefield 2042" became one of the worst reviewed games on Steam, garnering almost 30,000 negative reviews by November 21, 2021. Players criticized extensive bugs, a lack of features previously included in older "Battlefield" games, and several changes to gameplay. Some also panned the inclusion of Christmas-themed skins, including a leaked Santa Claus example, as conflicting with the series' "dark and gritty" tone. Despite becoming one of its most played games on Steam at launch, the game's player count sharply declined in the following weeks from about 105,397 concurrent peak players to an average peak of 52,000. On November 28, 2021, "Kotaku" journalist Zack Zwiezen noted that "Battlefield 2042" had been overtaken in player numbers on Steam by "Farming Simulator 22", considering it notable that "one of the biggest games of the year on one of the most popular digital stores in the world on one of the biggest gaming platforms in the world [...] isn't able to keep up with "Farming Simulator 22"". By 2 December, "Battlefield 2042" had lost 70% of its initial players on Steam. By the end of December, the Steam concurrent player base for "Battlefield 2042" decreased to about 19,000, being overtaken by 2018's "Battlefield V" in daily player numbers. By mid-April 2022, the game's player count had declined even further, dropping below 1,000 at certain points. Following the release of update 4.00, the Steam player count increased to an average of over 2,000 players.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: In January 2022, DICE removed the popular "Rush" mode from the featured playlist in "Battlefield 2042"s Portal mode, resulting in more backlash from players. Meanwhile, EA global communications director Andy McNamara criticized the audience's expectations as "brutal" on Twitter, causing hostile responses from players and harassment of DICE developers. On Reddit, discourse about "Battlefield 2042" became adversarial enough that moderators threatened to shut down the game's official subreddit. In response to the outcry, "Rush" was restored to the game later the same month. In February 2022, a Change.org petition advocating for all buyers of "Battlefield 2042" to be refunded reached more than 200,000 signatures within a month. The author of the petition cited the game's numerous technical issues that had rendered it "unplayable", while claiming that the developers failed to keep promises with improving the game at launch.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: In response to fan feedback, DICE released an update for the game in April 2022, version 4.00, which brought over 400 changes, including bug fixes, improvements to gameplay balancing, and other additions. In May, DICE announced "Battlefield 2042"s Season 1 and released a video explaining their commitment to improving the game through changes to maps, modes, and Specialists, new items, a focus on smaller player-counts, and improving the controls and animations of player characters; DICE also announced they would no longer be supporting the game's Hazard Zone mode. In June, EA denied reports from Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb that the development team was "down to a skeleton crew", saying, "There is a significant team across studios focused on evolving and improving the "Battlefield 2042" experience for our players, and at the heart of that is our team at DICE." In September, Vince Zampella, head of Respawn Entertainment and the "Battlefield" series, stated that the game had "strayed a little too far from what "Battlefield" is".


title: Battlefield 2042

text: "Battlefield 2042" was the third best-selling retail game in the United Kingdom on its week of release, only behind "Pokémon Brilliant Diamond" and "Shining Pearl". It was the second best-selling game in November 2021 in the US, according to NPD Group. It went on to become the fifth best-selling game in 2021 in the US. During an earnings call in February 2022, EA revealed that the game had missed sales expectations. EA blamed the game's performance on remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to unexpected technical issues during the launch period of the game, and remarked that some of the design choices made by the team "did not resonate" with the "Battlefield" community.


title: Battlefield 2042

text: The game generated some controversy when the name of a cosmetic for a playable character alluded to the Little Green Men from the Russo-Ukrainian War. DICE stated that the reference had not been intentional and that the cosmetic would be renamed in a future update, saying the reference "isn't reflective of our team's values".


title: Baba Vanga

text: Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova (; ; 3 October 1911 – 11 August 1996), commonly known as Baba Vanga (), was a Bulgarian mystic and herbalist. Blind since early childhood, Baba Vanga spent most of her life in the Rupite area of the Kozhuh mountains in Bulgaria.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In the late 1970s and 1980s, she was widely known in Eastern Europe for her alleged abilities of clairvoyance and precognition. Zheni Kostadinova claimed in 1997 that millions of people believed she possessed paranormal abilities.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Vanga was born on 3 October 1911 to Pando Surchev (7 May 1873 – 8 November 1940) and Paraskeva Surcheva in Strumica. She was a premature baby who suffered from health complications. In accordance with local tradition, the baby was not given a name until she was deemed likely to survive. When the baby first cried out, a midwife went into the street and asked a stranger for a name. The stranger proposed "Andromaha" (Andromache), but this was rejected for being "too Greek" during a period of anti-Hellenic sentiment within Macedonian Bulgarian society. Another stranger's proposal was a Greek name, which was adapted to the Bulgarian version: "Vangelia".


title: Baba Vanga

text: During her childhood, her father was an Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization activist, conscripted into the Bulgarian Army during World War I, and her mother died soon after. This left Vanga dependent on the care and charity of neighbours and close family friends for much of her youth. After the war, Strumica was ceded to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (i.e., Yugoslavia). Yugoslav authorities arrested her father because of his pro-Bulgarian activity. They confiscated all his property and the family fell into poverty for many years. Vanga was considered intelligent for her age. Her inclinations started to show up when she herself thought out games and loved playing "healing"—she prescribed some herbs to her friends, who pretended to be ill. Her father, being a widower, eventually remarried, thus providing a stepmother to his daughter.


title: Baba Vanga

text: According to her own testimony, a turning point in her life occurred when a 'tornado' allegedly lifted her into the air and threw her into a nearby field. She was found after a long search. Witnesses described her as very frightened, and her eyes were covered with sand and dust; she was unable to open them because of the pain. There was money only for a partial operation to heal the injuries she had sustained. This resulted in a gradual loss of sight.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In 1925, Vanga was taken to a school for the blind in the city of Zemun, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, where she spent three years and was taught to read Braille, play the piano, knit, cook, and clean. After the death of her stepmother, she returned home to take care of her younger siblings. The family lived in poverty.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In 1939, Vanga contracted pleurisy. The doctor's opinion was that she would die soon, but she quickly recovered.


title: Baba Vanga

text: During World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded and dismembered by the Axis powers and Strumica was annexed by Bulgaria. At that time Vanga attracted believers in her ability to heal and soothsay—a number of people visited her, hoping to get a hint about whether their relatives were alive, or seeking for the place where they died. On 8 April 1942 the Bulgarian tzar Boris III visited her.


title: Baba Vanga

text: On 10 May 1942, Vanga married Dimitar Gushterov. Gusheterov, a Bulgarian soldier from the village of Krandzhilitsa near Petrich, had come to town seeing revenge for his brother's killing. Shortly before marriage, Dimitar and Vanga moved to Petrich, where she soon became well-known. Dimitar was then conscripted in the Bulgarian Army and was stationed in Northern Greece, which was annexed by Bulgaria at the time. Gushterov became ill, fell into alcoholism, and eventually died on 1 April 1962.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Baba Vanga continued to be visited by dignitaries and commoners. After World War II, Bulgarian politicians and leaders from different Soviet Republics, including, reportedly, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev. In the 1990s, a church was built in Rupite with money left by her visitors. Vanga died on 11 August 1996 from breast cancer. Her funeral attracted large crowds.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Fulfilling Vanga's last will and testament, her Petrich house was turned into a museum, which opened its doors for visitors on 5 May 2008.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Vanga was semi-literate in Bulgarian; she could read some Braille in Serbian. Though she did not write any books herself, what she said or allegedly said was captured by staff members. Later, numerous esoteric books on Vanga's life and predictions were written.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Sources such as "The Weiser Field Guide to the Paranormal" claim that she foretold the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl disaster, the date of Stalin's death, the sinking of the Russian submarine "Kursk", the September 11 attacks, Topalov's victory in the world chess tournament, the tensions with North Korea. On the other hand, Bulgarian sources say that the people who were close to her claim that she never prophesied about "Kursk", World War III, circulating on the Internet, and that many of the myths about Vanga are simply not true. Some evidence has also been presented that Baba Vanga did not make many of the predictions now attributed to her, but rather people frequently attribute new fake "prophecies" to her since her death, and the lack of a written record of her prophecies makes any prediction attributed to her difficult to disprove.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In 1966, following her increase in popularity and overwhelming numbers of people wanting to see her, the Bulgarian government put Vanga on the state payroll. She was given two secretaries and a panel to interview potential patients. In addition, the Institutes of Suggestology and Parapsychology in Sofia and Petrich studied Vanga's psychic abilities.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In early August 1976, Bosnian singer-actress Silvana Armenulić was on tour in Bulgaria and decided to meet with Baba Vanga. Vanga only sat and stared out a window with her back to Silvana, never speaking to her. After a long time, Vanga finally spoke: "Nothing. You do not have to pay. I do not want to speak with you. Not now. Go and come back in three months." As Silvana turned around and walked toward the door, Vanga said, ""Wait. In fact, you will not be able to come. Go, go. If you can come back in three months, do so."" Silvana took this as confirmation that she would die and left Vanga's home in tears. Armenulić died two months later, 10 October 1976, in a car crash with her sister Mirjana.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Vanga incorrectly predicted that the 1994 FIFA World Cup Final would be played between "two teams beginning with B." One finalist was Brazil, but Bulgaria was eliminated by Italy in the semifinals. According to "The National", Vanga predicted that World War III would start in November 2010 and last until October 2014.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Followers of Vanga believe that she predicted the precise date of her own death, dreaming that she would die on 11 August and be buried on 13 August. Shortly before that she had said that a ten-year-old blind girl living in France was to inherit her gift, and that people would soon hear about her.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Another prediction attributed to her is that the 45th President of the United States would be the country's last Commander-in-Chief in favour of the country. It has also been claimed that Vanga correctly predicted the 44th President would be African-American. Vanga's supporters also claimed that she predicted the 45th president would have a "messianic personality," and would be faced with a crisis that eventually "brings the country down".


title: Baba Vanga

text: An attempt was made in 2011 to systematically summarize the existing knowledge about Vanga in the documentary "Vanga: The Visible and Invisible World". The movie includes interviews with some of the people who met Vanga in person, including Sergey Medvedev (press secretary to the then-President of Russia Boris Yeltsin in 1995–96; who visited as Yeltsin's envoy), Neshka Robeva (Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast and coach), Sergey Mikhalkov (Soviet and Russian writer, author of the Soviet Union anthem), Nevena Tosheva (director of the first documentary about Vanga), and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (Kalmyk multi-millionaire businessman and politician). According to the documentary, Baba Vanga predicted Yeltsin's second electoral victory in 1995, and warned him about his heart condition.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Several researchers have studied the phenomenon of Vanga in an attempt to establish whether she has any extraordinary capabilities. Bulgarian psychiatrists and Georgi Lozanov also studied the capabilities of Vanga. According to Jeffrey Mishlove, about 80% of Vanga's predictions turned out to be accurate.


title: Baba Vanga

text: One of the first studies of Vanga's abilities, initiated by the Bulgarian government, was described in the 1977 movie "Fenomen".


title: Baba Vanga

text: "Vangelia", a 24-episode TV series with elements of mysticism, was commissioned in 2013 by Channel One Russia.


title: Baba Vanga

text: The supposed clairvoyant's predictions, political speculations with them, and their criticism continue to appear in the mass media in different countries and in different languages.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Her predictions and persona remain popular in parts of Southeast Europe, primarily Bulgaria and North Macedonia, as well as parts of Eastern Europe, especially Russia. Russian publications related to the mysterious prophetess are numerous. "The Great Encyclopedia of Vanga" is a Russian online project dedicated to her.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In his memoirs, Alexander Dvorkin cites the case of , who was invited by Vanga to his house, since she conveyed through the messengers that she needed advice. However, after the Metropolitan visited Vanga with a relic cross with a particle of the Holy Cross of the Lord, the following happened:


title: Baba Vanga

text: Vanga's name is often mentioned in the pages of the yellow press. Vanga is credited with various predictions, which often contradict each other. There are no documented opinions that Vanga predicted the death of Stalin, the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the victory of Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 presidential elections, the September 11 attacks, or Veselin Topalov's victory at the World Chess Championship. In early 1993, Vanga seemed to announce that the USSR would be revived in the first quarter of the 21st century and Bulgaria would be part of it. And in Russia many new people will be born who will be able to change the world. In 1994, Vanga predicted: "At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity will get rid of cancer. The day will come, and the cancer will be chained in 'iron chains.'" She clarified these words in such a way that "the medicine against cancer should contain a lot of iron." She also believed that a cure for old age would be invented. It will be made from the hormones of a horse, a dog and a turtle: "The horse is strong, the dog is hardy, and the turtle lives a long time." Before her death, Vanga said, "There will come a time of miracles and a time of great discoveries in the field of the immaterial. There will also be great archaeological discoveries that will fundamentally change our understanding of the world since ancient times. So, it is predetermined." For example, after the Fukushima nuclear accident, "Komsomolskaya Pravda" reported the impending nuclear disaster, which Vanga allegedly predicted: "As a result of radioactive fallout in the northern hemisphere, there will not be any animals or vegetation," and after 2.5 years reluctantly recognized this prophecy as unfulfilled.


title: Baba Vanga

text: At the same time, people who knew Vanga personally say that she did not give predictions about the deaths on the "Kursk" submarine, like other events, and most of all these messages are myths and not true. There are numerous cases attributed to Vanga which did not actually come true. For example, she predicted that in the final of the World Cup 1994 "two teams that start with the letter 'B'" would compete, but in the finals of all countries whose names start with the letter "B", only Brazil remained, while Bulgaria lost in the semifinals to Italy and remained fourth. Vanga allegedly predicted that the Third World War would begin in November 2010 and end in October 2014. According to the testimony of Vanga's close friends, she never predicted the outbreak of the Third World War and the subsequent end of the world.


title: Baba Vanga

text: Anatoly Stroyev, who was in 1985-1989 his own correspondent for "Komsomolskaya Pravda" in Bulgaria, believes that in the USSR "journalists invented sensations [about Vanga] for the sake of circulation." He spoke about several cases when Vanga was grossly mistaken. The first was his arrival with a journalist who was heading to Vanga for help, and she said that she would never marry and would not have children, although after returning to Moscow, she married and gave birth to a daughter within a year. In the second case, in the late 1980s, several children disappeared in Volgograd at once, and two correspondents from a popular magazine went to Vanga, who allegedly told them that the children were alive and would soon be found, but they were never found. The third case was history in 1991, when during the war of independence in Croatia, Soviet journalists Viktor Nogin and Gennady Kurinnoy disappeared, and Vanga said they were both alive, although it was later revealed that they were shot on charges of espionage for Croatia. Stroyev also refutes the well-known myth about the "alarm clock for Gagarin", which the clairvoyant's niece Krasimira Stoyanov cites in her book "The Truth About Vanga", when the actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov allegedly came to Vanga and she told him, "Why didn't you fulfill the wishes of your best friend Yuri Gagarin? Before his last flight, he came to your home and said: 'I have no time, so buy an alarm clock and keep it on your desk. Let this alarm remind you of me'". After that, Tikhonov allegedly became ill. Subsequently, Tikhonov allegedly said that after the death of Gagarin, he, grievingly experiencing the death of his friend, forgot to buy an alarm clock. Stroyev notes that in 1990, at the premiere of the film "The Crazy Bus", he met Tikhonov in the cinema and said: "Vyacheslav Vasilyevich, comment on the story with Vanga!" Tikhonov, in turn, said: "In one word? Lies! I beg you, write: there was nothing of the kind. I didn’t promise Gagarin any alarm clock! Yes, we didn’t know each other. I saw him only from a distance at official events, nothing more."


title: Baba Vanga

text: In addition, Stroyev notes that the prediction attributed to Vanga about the sinking of the Russian submarine "Kursk" is a pseudo-prophecy, which, even during her lifetime and long before the sinking of "Kursk", was "refuted from her words by journalist Ventsislav Zashev."


title: Baba Vanga

text: Former President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev denied that he was with Vanga, and she predicted the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, Gorbachev said that "even before I came to power, her forecast that Mikhail would come to rule" was conveyed, but noted that "all this is, by and large, nonsense", since he is "very critical" of "psychics, clairvoyants and others" and does not trust the seers.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In a 1997 interview, Bedros Kirkorov said that there was no special prophecy about the fate of his son Philipp. Despite this, the media is circulating a legend about the role that Vanga allegedly played in the life of the Kirkorov family. It is stated that after Philip fell ill at the age of four, his parents took him to Vanga, who stated that the boy would recover, and also predicted that he would have a great future, since she allegedly saw him with a metal stick on the mountain around which admired people gathered, which is interpreted as the performance of Philipp with a microphone at the music Olympus. At the same time, Vanga allegedly predicted that he would marry at the age of twenty-seven to a woman with a name beginning with the letter "A", and the birth of a daughter at 44 from a surrogate mother.


title: Baba Vanga

text: In 2004, the illusionist Yuri Gorny, in an interview with the magazine "Science and Life", said that the famous journalist and diplomat AE Bovin, who visited Vanga, noted that she "absolutely did not guess anything in his past, or in the present, or, as it soon turned out, in the near future". Gorny himself recalled that he offered his acquaintance a well-known journalist, whose last name he did not name "for reasons that will become clear a little later" to check the perspicacity of Vanga and her possible informants. To do this, he suggested to the journalist, whom the hospitable hosts, who helped him arrange a meeting with Vanga, invited to the sauna, "before visiting the bath, seal a part of the scrotum with a plaster. He recommended that he not answer questions, if any. Just make it clear that he does not want to talk about this topic". When a meeting with Vanga took place a week later, she, as Gorny notes, "described quite accurately what happened to my acquaintance in the past, which, however, is not very surprising: he is a famous person, she would have been able to learn about his life in a week and an ordinary astrologer". Regarding Vanga's prediction of the future, according to Gorny, the following happened:


title: Baba Vanga

text: Retired KGB Lieutenant General Oleg Leonov sent Soviet psychic Vladimir Safonov to Bulgaria several times to study Vanga, who, as Leonov believed, "was more adept than a Bulgarian healer in his abilities."


title: Baba Vanga

text: Retired KGB Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Sergienko noted that "she was often mistaken, but it was not customary to disclose it," since "people of the highest flight were sent to Vanga," and therefore she was "a way of obtaining information" for the KGB. Sergienko expressed the opinion that "it cannot be said that Vanga worked for the KGB, but her assistants cooperated with us," because with their help "our agents received the necessary information." And for this, special services "in every possible way contributed to the formation of legends about miraculous healers on a mass scale." Sergienko said that he knows "a Bulgarian journalist who was targeted by the special services to promote the popularity of Vanga," and he launched the legend about the healer, which the Bulgarian special services helped to develop further, since "it was beneficial for both of them and for the KGB."


title: North Africa

text: North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in the west, to Egypt's Suez Canal.


title: North Africa

text: Varying sources limit it to the countries of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, a region that was known by the French during colonial times as ""Afrique du Nord"" and is known by Arabs as the Maghreb ("West", "The western part of Arab World").


title: North Africa

text: The United Nations definition includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, and the Western Sahara, the territory disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic.


title: North Africa

text: The African Union definition includes the Western Sahara and Mauritania but not Sudan. When used in the term Middle East and North Africa (MENA), it often refers only to the countries of the Maghreb.


title: North Africa

text: North Africa includes the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, and plazas de soberanía and can also be considered to include other Spanish, Portuguese and Italian regions such as Canary Islands, Madeira, Lampedusa and Lampione.


title: North Africa

text: The countries of North Africa share a large amount of ethnic, cultural and linguistic identity with the Middle East.


title: North Africa

text: Northwest Africa has been inhabited by Berbers since the beginning of recorded history, while the eastern part of North Africa has been home to the Egyptians. Between the A.D. 600s and 1000s, Arabs from the Middle East swept across the region in a wave of Muslim conquest. These peoples formed a single population in many areas, as Berbers and Egyptians merged into Arabic and Muslim culture. This process of Arabization and Islamization has defined the cultural landscape of North Africa ever since.


title: North Africa

text: The Sahel or "African Transition Zone" has been affected by many formative epochs in North African history ranging from the Ancient Roman colonization, the subsequent Arab expansion, to the Ottoman occupation. As a result, many modern African nation-states that are included in the Sahel evidence cultural similarities and historical overlap with their North African neighbours. In the present day, North Africa is associated with West Asia in the realm of geopolitics to form a Middle East-North Africa region. The Islamic influence in the area is also significant, and North Africa is a major part of the Muslim world.


title: North Africa

text: North Africa has three main geographic features: the Sahara desert in the south, the Atlas Mountains in the west, and the Nile River and delta in the east. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of northern Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. These mountains are part of the fold mountain system that also runs through much of Southern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming a steppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, which covers more than 75 percent of the region. The tallest peaks are in the High Atlas range in south-central Morocco, which has many snow-capped peaks.


title: North Africa

text: South of the Atlas Mountains is the dry and barren expanse of the Sahara desert, which is the largest sand desert in the world. In places the desert is cut by irregular watercourses called wadis—streams that flow only after rainfalls but are usually dry. The Sahara's major landforms include ergs, large seas of sand that sometimes form into huge dunes; the hammada, a level rocky plateau without soil or sand; and the reg, a level plain of gravel or small stones. The Sahara covers the southern part of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, and most of Libya. Only two regions of Libya are outside the desert: Tripolitania in the northwest and Cyrenaica in the northeast. Most of Egypt is also desert, with the exception of the Nile River and the irrigated land along its banks. The Nile Valley forms a narrow fertile thread that runs along the length of the country.


title: North Africa

text: Sheltered valleys in the Atlas Mountains, the Nile Valley and Delta, and the Mediterranean coast are the main sources of fertile farming land. A wide variety of valuable crops including cereals, rice and cotton, and woods such as cedar and cork, are grown. Typical Mediterranean crops, such as olives, figs, dates and citrus fruits, also thrive in these areas. The Nile Valley is particularly fertile and most of the population in Egypt live close to the river. Elsewhere, irrigation is essential to improve crop yields on the desert margins.


title: North Africa

text: The inhabitants of North Africa are roughly divided in a manner corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa: the Maghreb, the Nile valley, and the Sahel. The Maghreb or western North Africa on the whole is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers since at least 10,000 B.C., while the eastern part of North Africa or the Nile Valley has mainly been home to the Egyptians and Nubians. Ancient Egyptians record extensive contact in their Western desert with people that appear to have been Berber or proto-Berber. As the Tassili n'Ajjer and other rock art findings in the Sahara have shown, the Sahara also hosted various populations before its rapid desertification in 3500 B.C and even today continues to host small populations of nomadic trans-Saharan peoples. The archaeological evidence from the Holocene period has shown that Nilo-Saharan speaking groups had populated the central and southern Sahara before the influx of Berber and Arabic speakers, around 1500 years ago, who now largely populate the Sahara in the modern era.


title: North Africa

text: The migration of the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym westward into the Maghreb in the eleventh century introduced Arabic culture and language to the countryside. Historians mark their movement as a critical moment in the Arabization of North Africa.


title: North Africa

text: The official languages in the countries making up the Maghreb are Arabic, Tamazight as a second official language in Algeria and Morocco, and Spanish in Ceuta and Melilla. French is also used as an administrative language in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The most spoken language is Maghrebi Arabic, which is a form of ancient Arabic dating back from the 8th century AD that follows a Berber grammatical and syntactical structure. For the remaining North African countries, the official language is Arabic. The largest ethnic groups in North Africa are Arabs, Berbers are considered the second largest ethnicity in north Africa in the west and the Arabs are a majority also in the east approaching the Middle East. The region is predominantly Muslim with a Jewish minority in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and significant Christian minority—the Copts—in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.


title: North Africa

text: The inhabitants of the Spanish Canary Islands are of mixed Spanish and North African Berber ancestry, and the people of Malta are of primarily Southern Italian/Sicilian, as well as, to a lesser extent, North African and Middle Eastern ancestry and speak a derivative of Arabic. However, these areas are not generally considered part of North Africa, but rather Southern Europe, due to their proximity to mainland Europe and their European-based cultures and religion.


title: North Africa

text: The people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speak Berber languages and several varieties of Arabic and almost exclusively follow Islam. The Arabic and Berber languages are distantly related, both being members of the Afroasiatic language family. The Tuareg Berber languages are notably more conservative than those of the coastal cities.


title: North Africa

text: Over the years, Berbers have been influenced by contact with other cultures: Egyptians, Greeks, Punic people, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Europeans and Africans. The cultures of the Maghreb and the Sahara therefore combine indigenous Berber, Arab and elements from neighboring parts of Africa and beyond. In the Sahara, the distinction between sedentary oasis inhabitants and nomadic Bedouins and Tuaregs is particularly marked.


title: North Africa

text: The diverse peoples of North Africa are usually categorized along ethno-linguistic lines. In the Maghreb, where Arab and Berber identities are often integrated, these lines can be blurred. Some Berber-speaking North Africans may identify as "Arab" depending on the social and political circumstances, although substantial numbers of Berbers (or "Imazighen") have retained a distinct cultural identity which in the 20th century has been expressed as a clear ethnic identification with Berber history and language. Arabic-speaking Northwest Africans, regardless of ethnic background, often identify with Arab history and culture and may share a common vision with other Arabs. This, however, may or may not exclude pride in and identification with Berber and/or other parts of their heritage. Berber political and cultural activists for their part, often referred to as Berberists, may view all Northwest Africans as principally Berber, whether they are primarily Berber- or Arabic-speaking.


title: North Africa

text: Egyptians over the centuries have shifted their language from Egyptian (in its late form, varieties of Coptic) to modern Egyptian Arabic while retaining a sense of national identity that has historically set them apart from other people in the region. Most Egyptians are Sunni Muslim, although there is a significant minority of Coptic Christians.


title: North Africa

text: The Maghreb formerly had a significant Jewish population, almost all of whom emigrated to France or Israel when the North African nations gained independence. Prior to the modern establishment of Israel, there were about 500,000 Jews in Northern Africa, including both Sephardi Jews (refugees from Spain, France and Portugal from the Renaissance era) as well as indigenous Mizrahi Jews. Today, less than fifteen thousand remain in the region, almost all in Morocco and Tunisia, and are mostly part of a French-speaking urban elite. (See Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.)


title: North Africa

text: Due to the recent African origin of modern humans, the history of Prehistoric North Africa is important to the understanding of pre-hominid and early modern human history in Africa.


title: North Africa

text: Some researchers have postulated that North Africa rather than East Africa served as the exit point for the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent in the Out of Africa migration. The earliest inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind significant remains: early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, near Saïda (c. 200,000 BCE); in fact, more recent investigations have found signs of Oldowan technology there, and indicate a date of up to 1.8 million BCE.


title: North Africa

text: Recent finds in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco have been found to contain some of the oldest "Homo sapiens" remains; This suggests that, rather than arising only in East Africa around 200,000 years ago, early "Homo sapiens" may already have been present across the length of Africa 100,000 years earlier. According to study author Jean-Jacques Hublin, "The idea is that early "Homo sapiens" dispersed around the continent and elements of human modernity appeared in different places, and so different parts of Africa contributed to the emergence of what we call modern humans today." Early humans may have comprised a large, interbreeding population dispersed across Africa whose spread was facilitated by a wetter climate that created a "green Sahara", around 330,000 to 300,000 years ago. The rise of modern humans may thus have taken place on a continental scale rather than being confined to a particular corner of Africa.


title: North Africa

text: In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans, of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans/"H. sapiens", representative of the earliest modern humans, and suggested that modern humans arose between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago through a merging of populations in East and Southern Africa.


title: North Africa

text: The cave paintings found at Tassili n'Ajjer, north of Tamanrasset, Algeria, and at other locations depict vibrant and vivid scenes of everyday life in central North Africa during the Neolithic Subpluvial period (about 8000 to 4000 BCE). Some parts of North Africa began to participate in the Neolithic revolution in the 6th millennium BCE, just before the rapid desertification of the Sahara around 3500 B.C. largely due to a tilt in the Earth's orbit. It was during this period that domesticated plants and animals were introduced in the region, spreading from the north and east to the southwest. There has been an inferred connection between areas of rapid drying and the introduction of livestock in which the natural (orbital) aridification was amplified by the spread of shrubs and open land due to grazing. Nevertheless, changes in northern Africa's ecology after 3500 BCE provided the backdrop for the formation of dynastic civilizations and the construction of monumental architecture such as the Pyramids of Giza.


title: North Africa

text: Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene era and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.Several scholars have argued that the African origins of the Egyptian civilisation derived from pastoral communities which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese regions of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BCE.


title: North Africa

text: When Egypt entered the Bronze Age, the Maghreb remained focused on small-scale subsistence in small, highly mobile groups. Some Phoenician and Greek colonies were established along the Mediterranean coast during the 7th century BCE.


title: North Africa

text: The most notable nations of antiquity in western North Africa are Carthage, Numidia and Mauretania. The Phoenicians colonized much of North Africa including Carthage and parts of present-day Morocco (including Chellah, Essaouira and Volubilis). The Carthaginians were of Phoenician origin, with the Roman myth of their origin being that Dido, a Phoenician princess, was granted land by a local ruler based on how much land she could cover with a piece of cowhide. She ingeniously devised a method to extend the cowhide to a high proportion, thus gaining a large territory. She was also rejected by the Trojan prince Aeneas according to Virgil, thus creating a historical enmity between Carthage and Rome, as Aeneas would eventually lay the foundations for Rome. Ancient Carthage was a commercial power and had a strong navy, but relied on mercenaries for land soldiers. The Carthaginians developed an empire in the Iberian Peninsula, Malta, Sardinia, Corsica and northwest Sicily, the latter being the cause of First Punic War with the Romans.


title: North Africa

text: Over a hundred years and more, all Carthaginian territory was eventually conquered by the Romans, resulting in the Carthaginian North African territories becoming the Roman province of Africa in 146 B.C. This led to tension and eventually conflict between Numidia and Rome. The Numidian wars are notable for launching the careers of both Gaius Marius, and Sulla, and stretching the constitutional burden of the Roman republic as Marius required a professional army, something previously contrary to Roman values, to overcome the talented military leader Jugurtha. Kingdom of Mauretania remained independent until being annexed to the Roman Empire by Emperor Claudius in 42 AD.


title: North Africa

text: North Africa remained a part of the Roman Empire, which produced many notable citizens such as Augustine of Hippo, until incompetent leadership from Roman commanders in the early fifth century allowed the Germanic peoples, the Vandals, to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, whereupon they overcame the fickle Roman defense. The loss of North Africa is considered a pinnacle point in the fall of the Western Roman Empire as Africa had previously been an important grain province that maintained Roman prosperity despite the barbarian incursions, and the wealth required to create new armies. The issue of regaining North Africa became paramount to the Western Empire, but was frustrated by Vandal victories. The focus of Roman energy had to be on the emerging threat of the Huns. In 468 AD, the Romans made one last serious attempt to invade North Africa but were repelled. This perhaps marks the point of terminal decline for the Western Roman Empire. The last Roman emperor was deposed in 476 by the Heruli general Odoacer. Trade routes between Europe and North Africa remained intact until the coming of Islam. Some Berbers were members of the Early African Church (but evolved their own Donatist doctrine), some were Berber Jews, and some adhered to traditional Berber religion. African pope Victor I served during the reign of Roman emperor Septimius Severus. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals, Ottomans and Carthaginians the Kabyle people were the only or one of the few in North Africa who remained independent. The Kabyle people were incredibly resistible so much so that even during the Arab conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.


title: North Africa

text: The early Muslim conquests included North Africa by 640. By 700, most of North Africa had come under Muslim rule. Indigenous Berbers subsequently started to form their own polities in response in places such as Fez and Sijilmasa. In the eleventh century, a reformist movement made up of members that called themselves the Almoravid dynasty expanded south into Sub-Saharan Africa.


title: North Africa

text: North Africa's populous and flourishing civilization collapsed after exhausting its resources in internal fighting and suffering devastation from the invasion of the Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.


title: North Africa

text: After the Middle Ages much of the area was loosely under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The Spanish Empire conquered several coastal cities between the 16th and 18th centuries. After the 19th century, the imperial and colonial presence of France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy left the entirety of the region under one form of European occupation.


title: North Africa

text: In World War II from 1940 to 1943 the area was the setting for the North African Campaign. During the 1950s and 1960s all of the North African states gained independence. There remains a dispute over Western Sahara between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.


title: North Africa

text: The wider protest movement known as the Arab Spring began with revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt which ultimately led to the overthrow of their governments, as well as civil war in Libya. Large protests also occurred in Algeria and Morocco to a lesser extent. Many hundreds died in the uprisings.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Jennifer Anne Ehle (; born December 29, 1969) is an American actress, the daughter of English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. She gained fame for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC miniseries "Pride and Prejudice", for which she received the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. She is also known for her performances on Broadway, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for "The Real Thing" in 2000, and Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for "The Coast of Utopia" in 2007.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Ehle also is known for her performances in films including "The King's Speech" (2010), "Contagion" (2011), "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012), "A Little Chaos" (2014), "Little Men" (2016), and "She Said" (2022). She has also appeared in various television programs, including NBC's "The Blacklist" (2014-2015), the Hulu limited series "The Looming Tower" (2016), the Showtime miniseries "The Comey Rule" (2020), and the CBS legal drama "The Good Fight" (2022).


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Ehle was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. Her ancestry includes Romanian (from a maternal great-grandmother) and, paternally, German and English.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Ehle appeared as a toddler in a 1973 Broadway revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire", in which her mother played Blanche DuBois. She spent her childhood in both the UK and the US, attending several different schools including Interlochen Arts Academy. She was raised largely in Asheville, North Carolina. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Ehle made her West End debut as Elmire in the 1991 Peter Hall Company production of "Tartuffe", for which she won second prize at the Ian Charleson Awards. Hall then cast her as Calypso in "The Camomile Lawn" (1992), a television adaptation of Mary Wesley's book of the same name, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: One of Ehle's first notable roles was as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" co-starring Colin Firth, for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. The same year, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and gained her first major feature film role in "Paradise Road" (1997). She also appeared in supporting roles in Brian Gilbert's "Wilde" (1997) and István Szabó's "Sunshine" (1999).


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: In 2000, Ehle made her Broadway debut to great critical acclaim as Annie in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing", winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. Her mother, Rosemary Harris, was also nominated for the same award that year for "Waiting in the Wings". That following year, Ehle appeared again on Broadway in the revival of Noël Coward's "Design for Living" co-starring with Dominic West and Alan Cumming.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: After a hiatus, Ehle returned to the London stage in 2005 in "The Philadelphia Story" at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year, she played Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth" with Liev Schreiber, as part of the Shakespeare in the Park.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Ehle returned to Broadway portraying three characters in Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" triptych, which ran from October 2006 until May 2007. Ehle starred alongside Billy Crudup, Martha Plimpton, and Ethan Hawke. Theatre critic Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" praised her performance as "memorable". For her performance she received her second Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in the pilot of HBO's "Game of Thrones", an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy book series. Ehle filmed the pilot episode, but decided it was too soon to return to work after the birth of her daughter. She was replaced by Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: In 2010, Ehle starred alongside John Lithgow in the production of "Mr. & Mrs. Fitch" presented by Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Since 2010, Ehle has appeared in the critically acclaimed films "The King's Speech" (where she reunited with her "Pride and Prejudice" co-star Colin Firth), Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion" (2011), George Clooney's "The Ides of March" (2011), Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012), Alan Rickman's "A Little Chaos" (2015), Terence Davies's "A Quiet Passion" (2016), and Ira Sachs's "Little Men" (2016).


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: In 2017, Ehle appeared on stage in the critically acclaimed "Oslo", which won the Tony Award for Best Play. She herself was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for her work. In 2018, she appeared in the Hulu limited series, "The Looming Tower" as Ambassador Barbara Bodine. The series also starred Jeff Daniels, Bill Camp, Peter Sarsgaard, and Michael Stuhlbarg.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: In 2020, Ehle reunited with Jeff Daniels in the limited series "The Comey Rule" which premiered on Showtime. Daniels and Ehle portrayed Former FBI Director James Comey and his wife Patrice, respectively. In 2022 she also appeared in a variety of television projects including the Apple TV+ series "Suspicion" as Amy, the Showtime legal drama "The Good Fight" as Judge Ashley Burnett and the Paramount+ western series "1923" as Sister Mary.


title: Jennifer Ehle

text: Also in 2022, Ehle received positive reviews for her supporting yet essential role in the Metoo investigative drama "She Said" portraying Laura Madden. "TIME" film critic Stephanie Zacharek described her as "superb" and Justin Chang writing for NPR declared her performance as "quietly heartbreaking". She also returned the stage as Gertrude in the Park Avenue Armory production of "Hamlet" in New York. Ehle received positive reviews as a last minute replacement for Lia Williams.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: Sushmita Sen (born 19 November 1975) is an Indian actress, model and the winner of the Miss Universe 1994 pageant. She is the first Indian to win the Miss Universe pageant. She was previously crowned Femina Miss India 1994 at the age of 18. After winning the Miss Universe pageant, she has worked as a film actress.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: Sen won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the comedy film "Biwi No.1" (1999), and was also nominated in the category for her roles in the dramas "Sirf Tum" (1999) and "Filhaal..." (2002). Her commercially successful films include "Aankhen" (2002), "Main Hoon Na" (2004), and "Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?" (2005). Sen has starred in the drama series "Aarya" since 2020, for which she won Best Actress at the Filmfare OTT Awards.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: Sen was born into a Bengali Baidya family in Hyderabad to Shubeer Sen, a former Indian Air Force Wing Commander, and Subhra Sen, a jewellery designer and owner of a Dubai-based store. She has one sibling.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: She attended Air Force Golden Jubilee Institute in New Delhi and St. Ann's High School in Secunderabad, but did not pursue any further higher education.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: In 1994, as a teenager, Sen won the title 'Femina Miss India Universe', earning the right to compete at the Miss Universe 1994 contest.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: At the Miss Universe contest, Sen ranked third overall in the preliminaries, behind Miss Colombia Carolina Gómez and Miss Venezuela Minorka Mercado. Sen went on to place second, fifth and third in the subsequent rounds and finally won the title and crown of Miss Universe 1994. She was the first Indian to win the title.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: After the Times Group relinquished the rights to choose the Indian representative to Miss Universe, Sen's project, I Am She – Miss Universe India, took over, running it for three years (2010 to 2012). This was followed by Femina taking over.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: in January 2017 appeared as one of the judges of Miss Universe 2016 at the Mall of Asia Arena, Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines on 30 January 2017. Joining her as judges were Cynthia Bailey, Mickey Boardman, Francine LaFrak, Miss Universe 2011 Leila Lopes, and Miss Universe 1993 Dayanara Torres.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: After her reign as Miss Universe, Sen became an actress. Her first film "Dastak" was in 1996, in which she played the victim of a stalker, played by Sharad Kapoor. Mukul Dev starred as the lead actor. She then starred in the 1997 Tamil action film "Ratchagan". Two years later, her appearance as Rupali in David Dhawan's comedy film "Biwi No.1" won her the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1999. "Biwi No.1" was the second highest-grossing movie of 1999. The same year, she was also nominated for her role in the drama "Sirf Tum" in the same category. In 2000, she appeared in a dance song in the film "Fiza".


title: Sushmita Sen

text: She received critical acclaim and box office success for the film "Aankhen", starring opposite Arjun Rampal. The film co-starred Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Aditya Pancholi and Paresh Rawal. The biggest success of her career came with the 2004 action film "Main Hoon Na", in which she played the role of a chemistry teacher who falls in love with Shah Rukh Khan's character. The film grossed a total of 330,000,000 and was the second highest-grossing film of that year. Later, Sushmita played a lawyer in "Main Aisa Hi Hoon" opposite Ajay Devgan. In 2005, she also starred in a remake of "Cactus Flower", called "Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?". Sen played the lead, opposite Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. She also played the leading role in "Karma Aur Holi."


title: Sushmita Sen

text: In 2010, Sushmita played the role of a successful supermodel called Shimmer in "Dulha Mil Gaya"; the film was a moderate success that year. She additionally appeared in the action-comedy film "No Problem" the same year. In 2015, she starred in a Bengali drama film titled "Nirbaak". In Sen's career, this was her first film in Bengali language.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: In 2020 Sen appeared in Disney Hotstar's TV Series Aarya, where she won the 2021 Critic's Choice Award. She returned for the second season released in December 2021.


title: Sushmita Sen

text: Sen has two adopted children. Sen has Addison's disease and requires lifelong steroid drugs to manage the illness. Sen and Rohman Shawl were in a relationship from 2018 until 2021.


title: Yaoi

text: Yaoi (; ), also known by the "wasei-eigo" construction and its abbreviation , is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typically created by women for women and is distinct from homoerotic media marketed to gay men, but it does also attract a male audience and can be produced by male creators. It spans a wide range of media, including manga, anime, drama CDs, novels, video games, television series, films, and fan works. "Boys' love" and "BL" are the generic terms for this kind of media in Japan and much of Asia; though the terms are used by some fans and commentators in the West, "yaoi" remains more generally prevalent in English.


title: Yaoi

text: The genre originated in the 1970s as a subgenre of "shōjo" manga, or comics for girls. Several terms were used for the new genre, including , , and . The term "yaoi" emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the context of culture as a portmanteau of "yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" ("no climax, no point, no meaning"), where it was used in a self-deprecating manner to refer to amateur fan works that focused on sex to the exclusion of plot and character development, and that often parodied mainstream manga and anime by depicting male characters from popular series in sexual scenarios. "Boys' love" was later adopted by Japanese publications in the 1990s as an umbrella term for male-male romance media marketed to women.


title: Yaoi

text: Concepts and themes associated with "yaoi" include androgynous men known as "bishōnen"; diminished female characters; narratives that emphasize homosociality and de-emphasize socio-cultural homophobia; and depictions of rape. A defining characteristic of "yaoi" is the practice of pairing characters in relationships according to the roles of "seme", the sexual top or active pursuer, and "uke", the sexual bottom or passive pursued. "Yaoi" has a robust global presence, having spread since the 1990s through international licensing and distribution, as well as through unlicensed circulation of works by "yaoi" fans online. "Yaoi" works, culture, and fandom have been studied and discussed by scholars and journalists worldwide.


title: Yaoi

text: Multiple terms exist to describe Japanese and Japanese-influenced male-male romance fiction as a genre. In a 2015 survey of professional Japanese male-male romance fiction writers by Kazuko Suzuki, five primary subgenres were identified:


title: Yaoi

text: Despite attempts by researchers to codify differences between these subgenres, in practice these terms are used interchangeably. Kazumi Nagaike and Tomoko Aoyama note that while "BL" and "yaoi" are the most common generic terms for this kind of media, they specifically avoid attempts at defining subgenres, noting that the differences between them are ill-defined and that even when differentiated, the subgenres "remain thematically intertwined."


title: Yaoi

text: In Suzuki's investigation of these subgenres, she notes that "there is no appropriate and convenient Japanese shorthand term to embrace all subgenres of male-male love fiction by and for women." While "yaoi" has become an umbrella term in the West for Japanese-influenced comics with male-male relationships, and it is the term preferentially used by American manga publishers for works of this kind, Japan uses the term "yaoi" to denote "dōjinshi" and works that focus on sex scenes. In both usages, "yaoi" and boys' love excludes gay manga ("bara"), a genre which also depicts gay male sexual relationships, but is written for and mostly by gay men. In the West, the term "shōnen-ai" is sometimes used to describe titles that focus on romance over explicit sexual content, while "yaoi" is used to describe titles that primarily feature sexually explicit themes and subject material. "Yaoi" can also be used by Western fans as a label for anime or manga-based slash fiction. The Japanese use of "yaoi" to denote only works with explicit scenes sometimes clashes with the Western use of the word to describe the genre as a whole, creating confusion between Japanese and Western audiences.


title: Yaoi

text: Homosexuality and androgyny have a history in Japan dating to ancient times, as seen in practices such as and . The country shifted away from a tolerance of homosexuality amid Westernization during the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and moved towards hostile social attitudes towards homosexuality and the implementation of anti-sodomy laws.


title: Yaoi

text: In the face of this legal and cultural shift, artists who depicted male homosexuality in their work typically did so through subtext. Illustrations by in the "shōnen" manga (boys' comics) magazine "Nihon Shōnen" formed the foundation of what would become the aesthetic of "bishōnen": boys and young men, often in homosocial or homoerotic contexts, who are defined by their "ambivalent passivity, fragility, ephemerality, and softness." The 1961 novel "A Lovers' Forest" by "tanbi" writer Mari Mori, which follows the relationship between a professor and his younger male lover, is regarded as an influential precursor to the "shōnen-ai" genre. Mori's works were influenced by European literature, particularly Gothic literature, and laid the foundation for many of the common tropes of "shōnen-ai" and "yaoi": western exoticism, educated and wealthy characters, significant age differences among couples, and fanciful or even surreal settings.


title: Yaoi

text: In manga, the concept of emerged in the late 1950s, which sought to use manga to tell serious and grounded stories aimed at adult audiences. "Gekiga" inspired the creation of manga that depicted realistic human relationships, and opened the way for manga that explored human sexuality in a non-pornographic context. Hideko Mizuno's 1969 "shōjo" manga (girls' comics) series "Fire!" (1969–1971), which eroticized its male protagonists and depicted male homosexuality in American rock and roll culture, is noted as an influential work in this regard.


title: Yaoi

text: Contemporary Japanese homoerotic romance manga originated in the 1970s as a subgenre of "shōjo" manga. The decade saw the arrival of a new generation of "shōjo" manga artists, most notable among them the Year 24 Group. The Year 24 Group contributed significantly to the development of the "shōjo" manga, introducing a greater diversity of themes and subject material to the genre that drew inspiration from by Japanese and European literature, cinema, and history. Members of the group, including Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio, created works that depicted male homosexuality: "In The Sunroom" (1970) by Takemiya is considered the first work of the genre that would become known as "shōnen-ai", followed by Hagio's "The November Gymnasium" (1971).


title: Yaoi

text: Takemiya, Hagio, Toshie Kihara, Ryoko Yamagishi, and Kaoru Kurimoto were among the most significant "shōnen-ai" artists of this era; notable works include "The Heart of Thomas" (1974–1975) by Hagio and "Kaze to Ki no Uta" (1976-1984) by Takemiya. Works by these artists typically featured tragic romances between androgynous "bishōnen" in historic European settings. Though these works were nominally aimed at an audience of adolescent girls and young women, they also attracted adult gay and lesbian readers. During this same period, the first gay manga magazines were published: "Barazoku", the first commercially circulated gay men's magazine in Japan, was published in 1971, and served as a major influence on Takemiya and the development of "shōnen-ai".


title: Yaoi

text: The (self-published works) subculture emerged contemporaneously in the 1970s (see Media below), and in 1975, the first Comiket was held as a gathering of amateur artists who produce . The term "yaoi", initially used by some creators of male-male romance to describe their creations ironically, emerged to describe amateur works that were influenced by and gay manga. Early "yaoi" produced for Comiket were typically derivative works, with glam rock artists such as David Bowie and Queen as popular subjects as a result of the influence of "Fire!"; "yaoi" were also more sexually explicit than "shōnen-ai".


title: Yaoi

text: In reaction to the success of "shōnen-ai" and early "yaoi", publishers sought to exploit the market by creating magazines devoted to the genre. Young female illustrators cemented themselves in the manga industry by publishing "yaoi" works, with this genre later becoming "a transnational subculture." Publishing house , which published the gay manga magazine , launched the magazines "June" in 1978 and "Allan" in 1980. Both magazines initially specialized in "shōnen-ai", which the publisher described as "halfway between "tanbi" literature and pornography," and also published articles on homosexuality, literary fiction, illustrations, and amateur "yaoi" works. The success of "June" was such that the term "June-mono" or more simply "June" began to compete with the term "shōnen-ai" to describe works depicting male homosexuality.


title: Yaoi

text: By the late 1980s, the popularity of professionally published "shōnen-ai" was declining, and "yaoi" published as "dōjinshi" was becoming more popular. Mainstream "shōnen" manga with Japanese settings such as "Captain Tsubasa" became popular source material for derivative works by "yaoi" creators, and the genre increasingly depicted Japanese settings over western settings. Works influenced by "shōnen-ai" in the 1980s began to depict older protagonists and adopted a realist style in both plot and artwork, as typified by manga such as "Banana Fish" (1985–1994) by Akimi Yoshida and "Tomoi" (1986) by . The 1980s also saw the proliferation of "yaoi" into anime, drama CDs, and light novels; the 1982 anime adaptation of "Patalliro!" was the first television anime to depict "shōnen-ai" themes, while "Kaze to Ki no Uta" and "Earthian" were adapted into anime in the original video animation (home video) format in 1987 and 1989, respectively.


title: Yaoi

text: The growing popularity of "yaoi" attracted the attention of manga magazine editors, many of whom recruited "yaoi" authors to their publications; "Zetsuai 1989" (1989–1991) by Minami Ozaki, a "yaoi" series published in the "shōjo" magazine "Margaret", was originally a "Captain Tsubasa" created by Ozaki that she adapted into an original work. By 1990, seven Japanese publishers included "yaoi" content in their offerings, which kickstarted the commercial publishing market of the genre. Between 1990 and 1995, thirty magazines devoted to "yaoi" were established: "Magazine Be × Boy", founded in 1993, became one of the most influential "yaoi" manga magazines of this era. The manga in these magazines were influenced by realist stories like "Banana Fish", and moved away from the "shōnen-ai" standards of the 1970s and 1980s. "Shōnen-ai" works that were published during this period were typically comedies rather than melodramas, such as "Gravitation" (1996–2002) by Maki Murakami. Consequently, "yaoi" and "boys' love" (BL) came to be the most popular terms to describe works depicting male-male romance, eclipsing "shōnen-ai" and "June".


title: Yaoi

text: An increasing proportion of "shōjo" manga in the 1990s began to integrate "yaoi" elements into their plots. The manga artist group Clamp, which itself began as a group creating "yaoi" , published multiple works containing "yaoi" elements during this period, such as "RG Veda" (1990–1995), "Tokyo Babylon" (1991–1994), and "Cardcaptor Sakura" (1996–2000). When these works were released in North America, they were among the first "yaoi"-influenced media to be encountered by Western audiences. BL gained popularity in mainland China in the late 1990s; the country subsequently outlawed the publishing and distribution of BL works.


title: Yaoi

text: The mid-1990s saw the so-called ""yaoi" debate" or "yaoi ronsō" (や お い 論争), a debate held primarily in a series of essays published in the feminist magazine "Choisir" from 1992 to 1997. In an open letter, Japanese gay writer Masaki Satou criticized the genre as homophobic for not depicting gay men accurately, heterosexist by reinforcing the misogyny of Japanese society, and called fans of "yaoi" "disgusting women" who "have a perverse interest in sexual intercourse between men." A years-long debate ensued, with "yaoi" fans and artists contending that "yaoi" is entertainment for women that does not seek to be a realistic depiction of homosexuality, and instead serves as a refuge from the misogyny of Japanese society. The scholarly debate that the "yaoi ronsō" engendered led to the formation of the field of "BL studies", which focus on the study of BL and the relationship between women and BL. It additionally impacted creators of "yaoi": author Chiyo Kurihara abandoned "yaoi" to focus on heterosexual pornography as a result of the "yaoi ronsō", while Hisako Takamatsu took into account the arguments of the genre's critics to create works more accommodating of a gay audience.


title: Yaoi

text: The economic crisis caused by the Lost Decade came to affect the manga industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but did not particularly impact the "yaoi" market; on the contrary, "yaoi" magazines continued to proliferate during this period, and sales of "yaoi" media increased. In 2004, Otome Road in Ikebukuro emerged as a major cultural destination for "yaoi" fandom, with multiple stores dedicated to "shōjo" and "yaoi" goods. The 2000s also saw an increase in male readers of "yaoi", with a 2008 bookstore survey finding that between 25 and 30 percent of "yaoi" readers were male.


title: Yaoi

text: The 2000s saw significant growth of "yaoi" in international markets, beginning with the founding of the American anime convention Yaoi-Con in 2001. The first officially-licensed English-language translations of "yaoi" manga were published in the North American market in 2003 (see Media below); the market expanded rapidly before contracting in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, but continued to grow slowly in the following years. South Korea saw the development of BL in the form of "manhwa", notably "Martin and John" (2006) by Park Hee-jung and "Crush on You" (2006) by Lee Kyung-ha.


title: Yaoi

text: The 2010s and 2020s saw an increase in the popularity of "yaoi"-influenced media in China and Thailand in the form of web novels, live-action films, and live-action television dramas (see Media below). Though "boys' love" and "BL" have become the generic terms for this material across Asia, in Thailand, BL dramas are sometimes referred to as "Y" or "Y series" as a shorthand for "yaoi". Thai Series Y explicitly adapts the content of Japanese BL to the Thai local context and in recent years has become increasingly popular with fans around the world who often view Thai BL as separate to its Japanese antecedents. Thai BL also deliberately borrows from K-pop celebrity culture in the development of its own style of idols known as "khu jin" (imaginary couples) who are designed to be paired together by Thai BL's predominantly female fans. For cultural anthropologist Thomas Baudinette, BL series produced in Thailand represent the next stage in the historic development of "yaoi", which is increasingly becoming "dislocated" from Japan among international fans' understanding of the genre.