#making this an unofficial sequel to my last art which was also made listening to that song

[sketchbuffalo]

“This is the Price

We pay to live.

The world does not

Tend to forgive…”

Process video is here.

[samedmunds]

My litany thoughts on 1999 cult classic strategy video game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is a game of the early Civilization variety from the EA golden age and ranks very highly in my top ten. While you probably heard of it if you were playing video games around the turn of the century, I've found members of my age cohort to be tragically unfamiliar with this masterpiece.

Alpha Centauri is an unofficial sequel to Civilization II, a game where the only way to way to win is either completely eliminate all competitors to the last city or, rather more easily, send a spaceship loaded with colonists to the title star system. Shortly after leaving home, the ship loses contact with Earth, which would make sense to a player of Civilization II where the bonuses to science and trade from democracies evaporate when technology ends, upon which point all the AIs revolt and become militant fundamentalist theocracies and climate change rapidly destroys the planet, leaving the player with an endgame that is literally 1984. Either way, when the already strained ship arrives at the Alpha Centauri system an unknown partisan assassinates the captain of the UNS Unity and the population fractures into seven opposing factions before firing the colony pods and exploring an inconveniently hostile planet.

The player starts here, in typical Civ fashion: a scout, settler, and absolutely no technology to speak of. That isn't to say you are a bunch of primitives, all your units start out with some approximation to modern guns and judging by the amazing quotes and wonder videos your society is well beyond the 21st century--more on the story later. The gameplay is incredibly well-balanced in spite of its age and quirks (with the exception of the freight-train progression of Yang). Rapid early expansion as the bountiful Peacekeepers may leave you at serious risk to the relentlessly martial Spartans, who are in turn threatened by the uber-specialized technocratic University--but be careful to underestimate the backwards Lord's Believers, their probe teams will just as quickly rob you of your gains. The Morganites can afford to sparsely defend their home if they're willing to pay off their aggressors, but they'll struggle expand over great swaths of territory without irking civil unrest drone riots from corruption. Meanwhile the Gaian Acolytes can harness the permanently-dangerous mindworms to great effect from the beginning of the game. Yang just... builds. And keeps building, and next thing you know he's conquered the Peacekeepers and turned Miriam into nothing more than a puppet and where are all these cruise missiles are coming from?

In short, the strategic design of this game is nothing less than a work of art, but that isn't to say it doesn't have its anachronisms. The User Interface has taken its inspiration from early versions of Microsoft Word and it rapidly pays off to know the hotkeys. The wonder videos are resolution locked and can sometimes cause problems depending on your display configuration. The unit creation system is simultaneously wonderful and horrendous. It allows me to create special long-range nerve gas bombers that eradicate cities shortly before orbitally-dropping specially-trained garrisons to quash all resistance. On the other hand, if you do not accept the cumbersome slew of computer-generated options, keeping your new weapons systems up to date with your latest technology (especially when playing as Zakharov) rapidly becomes a chore.

That said, there are a variety of features in the game that I think deserve to make a reappearance in the Civ Games. The pick-your-government system is incredibly balanced and fun to roleplay. You can't get away with crimes against humanity when solar storms hit in Civilization VI, nor can you weaponise climate change to flood your rivals cities, or strategically terraform to alter weather patterns and deny your neighbors arable land. At the bare minimum, we should be given the option to nerve staple rebelling cities when our control runs out!

All that said, there is also the story to contend with. One is at first tempted to think that a 4x strategy game with a marked emphasis on replayability would necessarily have a tacked-on story, if one at all. After all, the point is for the player to create it through their actions, not have it spoonfed to them. The majority of what you learn about your world that isn't printed in numbers and small pictures on the mapscreen is through blurbs that accompany each discovered technology or new building. The aforementioned wonders even have their adorable early-CG renderings, sometimes mixed in with some experimental film footage. There are occasional interludes that describe the mindworms and machinations of Planet, but the bulk of the wordage comes from epigrams of the faction leaders and the occasional bit of Nietzsche or Plato. It's so good that I can't help but stop and listen to CEO Nbwadibuke Morgan ramble on about supply chain economics or Sister Miriam's apocalyptic warnings every single time. Take some examples.

Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future; they determine in many ways our present. Men and women work harder knowing their children are safe and close at hand, and never forget that, with children present, parents will defend their home to the death!

--Col. Corazon Santiago, "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

Or perhaps, a more on the nose one:

"The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!

--Fedor Petrov, Vice Provost for University Affairs Accompanies the Retroviral Engineering technology

The game often doesn't directly tell you what Retroviral engineering is, nor does it labor to explain just what having someone nerve stapled means, or the precise function of the Recycling Tanks, but through its quotation it beautifully circumlocutes the world you are shaping--and being shaped by. It really never pulls any of its punches, even if its just on Organic Superlube--great stuff--and I still catch muself quoting it regularly.

Ursula LeGuin once wrote

"Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. 'If this goes on, this is what will happen.' [...] This may explain why many people who read science fiction describe it as 'escapist,' but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because 'it's so depressing.'"

Alpha Centauri is absolutely extrapolative fiction and very firmly rooted in the 1990s and I love it. It was released in the Aaron Sorkin TV, pre-9/11 days where the word Internet was more often than not followed by the words, "is like an information superhighway" and it absolutely no efforts are made to cover it up. The main factions are a cross-section of the New Millenium's hopes and anxieties. A New Russia that went a very different path before Putin took over, a cheerful clan of ruthless Western capitalists hellbent on putting Morganvision on every network set, a group of vaguely Scottish free-love peaceniks hellbent on defending the most-of-the-time incredibly hostile environment. There's the Second-Amendment preaching Spartans or the optimistically-influential UN which, judging by its naming scheme for its bases, seems to dedicate entire cities to bureaucratic agencies. The All-American Christian fundamentalists don't entirely butt heads with the frighteningly powerful Human-Hive (if your country calls their cities names like "Huddling of the People" and "Paradise Swarming" you might not be the good guys). The expansion also brings in more dynamic characters like the Information Wants to be Free! data angels Brian Reynolds very clearly came up with after watching Swordfish and Hackers back to back or the Nautilus Pirates who have no right to be as fun as they are.

The visions of the future are at once both anachronistic and prophetic; while elements may come off as cheese, I see it as a sort of window to the past, a way to examine what was once (and sometimes still is) on our mind. All in all, I give Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4 out of 5 stars and a definite all-time favorite, warts and all. You can pick it and its expansion up for $6 on Gog.com and play it through a built-in emulator that works for most systems. If you're willing to brave a dated interface and an older-fashioned gameplay style, I would definitely recommend it.

[outofoxygen]

NEW - A nice game for cute children.

Before I begin: This review is more professional than my last (Elsewhere) as I feel NEW deserves my respect and consideration more than Elsewhere ever has. Now then, I shall review NEW.

By the way, yes, I am back. I will work on more reviews. But I won’t follow a schedule that is easy to understand in any vague sense, and I’ll just write reviews about what interests me at the minute. (Quick after-post edit to add tags here.)

                                    [ S P O I L E R S   F O R   N E W ]

                             [ P L A Y  N E W  I F  Y O U  H A V E N ‘ T ]

Part One: Foreword

Oh boy, a new form of padding. Now then, to preface this, I will warn you that I do enjoy NEW, and that I don’t wish its creator ill will, I afford them all proper respect, and I’m not going to talk about Mr. Evan Vasejeff (The creator of NEW).

Part Two: Plot Synopsis

The Batter is back, this time as a Prophet instead of a savior. This time, he has the goal of rendering all the Zones ‘safe’ instead of ‘pure’.

Zone 0 introduces us to Valerie, who is written better than HOME. I’ll write further about him in the Characters section. After a few puzzles, we head off to Zone 1.

Zone 1 is mostly similar to OFF, except Dedan is missing and replaced by a overweight idiotic chef. This chef (named Gabriel) is introduced to be malevolent and idiotic from his first appearance, all the way to his last, where you render him into a bloody corpse.

Zone 2 turned into a more pathetic hellscape than usual, with the nice aesthetic addition of a Japhet corpse on the roof. By the way, the Mall looks beautiful awful now. The game introduces a red herring (Oedipus, a little girl whom The Batter ends up beating to hell and back) before you meet the final villain, Angela, an insane spirit infesting a mannequin that The Batter summarily destroys.

Zone 3 is this time played backwards, with The Batter going from Area 4 to a mythical Area 0. All the while, you are pestered by Sonovan, an odd-talking priest and general narcissist, who eventually fights The Batter, is beaten, quickly jacks up Valerie (just play the game if you want to understand this better), then gets killed by The Batter, who mercy-kills Valerie at his own request. You then go and defeat Gazmel, who is, in his own words, Satan.

Zone 4 (or, The Echelon) is a miserable hellscape that is actually just a part of The Room, maybe. You meet ‘Vincent “Ivius” Corsacoff the 2nd’, who I shall permanently refer to as ‘Ivius’, as his actual name is incredibly long and annoying. So you head onto a roof, where you talk to Ivius, going on to fight him, before inevitably winning, and going to The Room itself.

Of course, The Room is a strange mindnumb I won’t be going into too much, as I feel like getting this poor-quality plot synopsis over with.

Part 3: Characters

The Batter - As I mentioned, he’s a prophet instead of purifier. His goal is to make the zones ‘safe’ instead of ‘pure’, and he seems to be more mellowed out now. On occasion, he interrupts himself before carrying on with a thought (ie. he comments upon Oedipus’ mention of comics named ‘Batteur and Boxxer’ by stating “What kind of trite do you read? "Panic in Ballvile" is obviously-” before cutting himself short and carrying on the dialogue.) and generally, The Batter seems altogether more.. human than before. Other than that, he is mostly the same character as before, and still a bat-wielding protagonist.

Valerie - The cat we (don’t really) know from OFF. I can state something about NEW’s characterization of Valerie: It was executed very well! Mortis Ghost has stated that Valerie was more soft-spoken and shy than The Judge, and NEW does indeed follow through with Mortis Ghost’s stated character of Valerie. He comes across as a shy, introverted, socially awkward cat, and that altogether works very well for him. He’s also the new Guardian of Zone 0.

Zacharie - I’ll say more in the Merchants category.

The Judge - Our favorite, eloquent cat! .. except, he’s taken Hugo’s place. Also, unlike Hugo, he’s not that nice. Or innocent, really. He’s become corrupt with absolute power over the world, and as such, has used his raw powers of creation to muck about, creating demonic feline entities known as Jury, which replace Secretaries in NEW. Of course, the implications of this are quite large in scope, and will take up a portion of the Lore section.

Part 4: Music

I will state this immediately: This fangame has some incredible tracks. These include: My personal favorite, Awesome Miniboss, Crying Girls Part 1-2 (which are actually samples of Is Dancing Till Her Head Explodes, from Alias Conrad Coldwood’s album Crying Girls), Dented Helmets on TV, Stay in in Stay (A remix of Stay In Your Coma), and Funky Bucket of Nasty Noises, among plenty others. Its soundtrack complements the game, and it’d be an incredible mistake to play it without listening to its excellent tracks. One warning for headphone users though: the miss sound is awful, and it’s rather loud in comparison to the other sounds.

Part 5: Basic Enemies

The enemies in this game are well-designed, with inventive competence names and lovely art. They’re well-made, and this fangame clearly had a lot of care put into it. However, I have never had to grind so much in my life. The enemies are rather harsh, and you will suffer. Before anyone tosses an ‘git gud’ in my face, I did. After a while, The Batter will be so high-leveled that bosses fall in a heartbeat against his bat’s blows and his add-on’s.. cuts(?). Now then, on to the next section.

Part 6: Merchants

I think everyone reading this knows of my distaste, my violent hatred of fangames using Zacharie as a merchant? So, who is the merchant of NEW?

.. this guy. Zacharie. But, just look at his face. Look at that face. I.. I can’t be mad. To be honest, I found this incredibly amusing. I simply cannot be mad. His face.. It’s absolutely hilarious. Zacharie is absolutely ridiculous in this fangame, and I cannot be as vitriolic as usual. Sorry.

Carrying on, I almost feel like NEW mocks Zacharie in a way; outside the mall, there are two statues of Zacharie with his mask as how it originally looked. What does The Batter have to say about this? “A statue of Zacharie when he looked less pathetic.” All throughout the game, The Batter insults Zacharie. Here’s another line of this, as an example: “I'm tired of this wild goose chase. I've went through one too many things. One of those horrific things being friends with Zacharie.” Finally, Zacharie repainted the mall an awful pink color, which The Batter is clearly disgusted by, including making a comment about Zacharie having poor taste.

Altogether, I feel like NEW uses Zacharie in a way that I can’t be mad at.

Part 7: Lore

NEW takes place after the events of OFF. The Batter returns, and fights 4 Purifiers instead of 4 Guardians, and it seems the original 3 are dead. The world is a corrupted shade of a corrupted world; it is broken to the point of being unable to be fixed. One actually gets the sense that The Batter is righting wrongs, and fixing the world.

But, let’s talk about the position Hugo filled, and that The Judge fills. In the events of NEW, The Batter is looking for The Judge as he makes the Zones ‘safe’. It turns out The Judge has taken up the mantle of Creator and God, and has become corrupted by his new-found power. Which implies quite a few.. unpleasant ideas. If the power Hugo had can corrupt someone with as pure intentions as The Judge, was Hugo also corrupt? If NEW’s idea of how the next Creator takes power (basically, how The Judge offs The Batter) is correct, does that mean any number of individuals could become Creators in their own right, merely by killing The Batter at the apex of his quest?

But let us leave behind these thoughts, and carry on; we are nearly at the end, and I have more reviews to do.

Part 8: Does This Game Fit In With OFF?

Yes. I hold NEW as my personal pick for an unofficial OFF sequel, and I am proud in that. Its lore doesn’t contradict OFF’s; in fact, it follows the lore as closely as possible, and its lore, whilst small, is worthwhile to notice and consider. I believe that it adds on to OFF’s weird world.

Part 9: Conclusion

I hold this fangame in high esteem. I view it as an example of what one person, with naught but a computer and a dream, can achieve. In the end, though, I suppose NEW asks us a question. A very important one, and one I’ll state directly.

Would you like to start a new game?

[notwhelmedyet]

More than Meets the Eye, beginner’s guide / resources

This guide is long. Use the headings to find the information you need & if you’ve got resources this post lacks send them along!

Has anyone pitched the comic More than Meets the Eye to you yet? It’s a very gay action-adventure comedic drama with robots and you would probably love it (especially if you’re lgbt and/or have good taste). Here’s a few posts/articles that will tell you why you’d love it:

This article review/retrospective was what got me to read MTMTE. (warning - it has a bunch of spoilers, that didn’t bother me but might bother you)

My semi-jokey MTMTE sales pitch

@zzxid’s salespitch with dancing rats

This full entire page of radical space socialist philosophy

15 Reasons Why MTMTE/the sequel is The Best Transformers Comic (warning - has spoilers, though some will prob go over your head as a new reader)

Kiss me, Chromedome - retrospective article by The Guardian, contains some spoilers

How/Where to Read

Okay, maybe you’re convinced. Now you want to know how/where to read MTMTE. Got you covered:

Detailed guide by @gaymilesedgeworth: How to start reading Transformers Comics

My very short answer: just read MTMTE in trade paperback form. That way all the issues are in order and you get all the extra stuff (there are prose stories after a couple issues that are very important so don’t skip them!) They’re available that way as both physical and digital books.

Here’s some ways to get access, legally (US centric, sorry):

If your local library has Hoopla (digital library subscription service), you may have access to some of the MTMTE trades that way. They’d be here; but check if you library has Hoopla first.

Your local library very well might have physical copies, so check their website!

If not and you’re very patient you can often request inter-library loans (your library borrows the books from another library) or request your library purchase materials.

You can buy digital trades via either IDW or Comixology. Comixology also includes the first 5 volumes in their comics subscription service. I’ve seen the series go on sale on both of these sites at least 4 times in the past 6 months, so keep an eye out! (Sometimes IDW participates in humble bundles, which are great, but those sales are far more infrequent)

You can also buy them in trade form from wherever you can buy books/comics. US links: Amazon, B&N, Comic Store Locators

Character Guides

So you’ve picked up this comic and oh boy there are a lot of robots. You’re a little intimidated. Maybe you’re having a hard time telling them apart.

If you have the paperback, there’s a guide to the characters on the back cover/the last page of the digital volume. See a copy here.

It’s okay if you keep reading not knowing who these robots are. For real. You’ll get the hang of it. Don’t worry if it takes you awhile and you’re confused. Everyone’s a little lost the first time through.

Some helpful posts in case you’re struggling:

Here’s a guide that matches appearance -> name, and one that matches name -> background info (both spoiler free for issues 1-22)

A visual guide by @squireofgeekdom​ and @kscinewt​: here

Another helpful visual character guide by @bluering8: here

If you’re confused and need help, please ask! I’m willing to answer questions, I know @gaymilesedgeworth has volunteered to answer new reader questions. (Willing to help out new readers? Lemme know and I’ll make this a list)

Lore & Background Info

Okay, so maybe now you’ve gotten into it. You want more information, you want to know all the background lore, you want to dig deep. Awesome! Got you covered!

The holy grail of Transformers information, TFwiki. A slightly snarky, overly-minutely-detailed wiki for the digital age.

They’ve also got a tumblr if you’ve got questions.

And Chris McFeely, one of the main editors, runs a Youtube series called The Basics where he explains characters/concepts across continuities

The podcast Sound.wav has episodes talking about every issue of MTMTE in great detail.

The writer of More than Meets the Eye, James Roberts, answers fan questions on his twitter. I’ve archived a lot of those questions at @jrtweetsindex​.

More than Meets the Eye has a soundtrack, because of course it does. People have made playlists collecting it on spotify and youtube.

Further Reading

I finished MTMTE, what’s next?

If you want the direct sequel to MTMTE, go straight to Lost Light, the sequel series. It’s still ongoing and (as of right now) 12 issues have been released. There are spoilers for it EVERYWHERE on Tumblr, fair warning.

There are also a bunch of other series within the IDW comics universe, depending on what you’re interested in.

@zandergb has a chronological listing of all the IDW comics

TFwiki summarizes the IDW comics line

alt chronological guide

another guide/reading order.

You don’t have to read all the books! If you want to just read Lost Light/MTMTE, you can do just that.

There’s also a bunch of animated series, which don’t exist in the same continuity as the IDW comics. Some of them are well liked.

@ponett has a guide that’ll help you decide which you’d enjoy

And here’s a brief guide by TFWiki

There’s also the Michael Bay movies which are awful and so is he. Not gonna recommend watching them, but if you wanted to learn about film theory by listening to Lindsay Ellis dissect them, there’s a youtube series for that.

Fan Stuff

Okay...but what about fan content and fanfic and art and community events?

First thing to know: Transformers content is posted on tumblr under the tag Maccadam. (more detailed explanation why) A lot of mtmte content is also under ‘mtmte’, so look there too. I only use Maccadam if I think a post deserves to be seen by a lot of people but opinions vary.

Second thing to know - the sequel to MTMTE, Lost Light is still being published and you will see ALL SORTS OF SPOILERS for it on Tumblr. To mitigate the damage, try blocking “LL Spoilers” “Lost Light Spoilers” and “Wednesday Spoilers”. You cannot avoid it all, so if you don’t want anything spoiled, get caught up on both MTMTE and Lost Light before browsing around Tumblr.

Fanfiction:

Warning! A lot of Transformers fanfiction is smut. Please take a moment to integrate this fact into your understanding of the universe. If you can handle that, go ahead to AO3.

If you’re curious about all the terminology used in those fics, here’s a guide to it (not every writer uses every word, but this will get you started)

If you’re not into the idea of robots having sex, here’s a link to AO3 with my personal best-effort safe-search (no guarantees, relies upon people tagging properly)

And here’s a blog dedicated to recommending good sfw transformers fanfiction

If you want to know more about Transformers fanfic, I did a whole statistical survey of it, cause I’m a dork.

Here’s an old-school Transformers-only fanfic archive (I don’t see a category for IDW comics but maybe you can find somehing)

Fanart&Fanfic Events/Zines/Gift Exchanges/Collaborative Projects:

As many active projects as I could find - I’ll try to keep this one updated

Fan Artists:

(same warning as the fanfic - there’s a goodly amount of transformers pornographic art, be aware of that and block ‘nsfw’ if necessary)

There are a ton of active fanartists who draw IDW Transformers art. If you search a bit under ‘Maccadam’ you’ll find them.

@iaconlibrary reblogs a great deal of fanart & is a great place to start browsing

Roleplay:

If you’re into roleplaying on tumblr @teletrans-comm-unit runs a master list of active rp blogs

Transformers: Lost and Found is a long-running independent game set on the Lost Light

TF:Galaxy appears to be a forum-based tf roleplay game

My Favorite Jokes:

The best amazon review

Emotional labor (nsfw-ish warning)

Bros with Vows

Hands

Conventions:

There are Transformers-specific conventions, which is pretty cool! I know nothing about them but tfwiki has some info: Official and Unofficial conventions.

Regrettable Opinions:

hey this is just a quick guide of things not to do so you don’t hurt other people in the community

Do not compare Megatron to Hitler. The comparison is both vapid and offensive, as Jewish members of this community have pointed out time and again.

Don’t say transphobic/homophobic/racist/antisemitic/sexist things. You’re better than that!

Don’t attack the creators of the books/harass them on social media/make bizarre unfounded accusations of them acting in bad faith

we’re really lucky that JRo and the other creators interact with us & answer questions and don’t you dare screw that up, I’m trusting you.

on a less serious but useful etiquette note: don’t tag creators into negative reviews of their work/people complaining about their work. It’s rude to the creator & the reviewer.

That was a short list but remember to also treat other people with respect & that it’s okay to disengage with content/people that upset you.

Fandom:

There’s a guide on Fanlore, but it’s freakishly outdated and doesn’t even mention the comics. If you’re a informed tf fan maybe you should update it. 😉

Tumblr!

MTMTE is a pretty small community on Tumblr, but there are a few cool folks. Remember, ‘maccadam’ and ‘mtmte’ are your tags of choice

Various websites!

Since the transformers fandom is super old, there are a bunch of dedicated websites with traditional forums to chat on. (most of these are news sites that also contain forums) idk anything about them but maybe forums are your thing:

TFW2005 - big site with a large community but be warned there appear to be more than a few alarmingly bigoted people on that site

TFormers

Cybertron.CA

Allspark.com

Seibertron

I’m gonna throw the IDW TF reddit on this list rather than make a new section

Discord!

there’s at least two active discords at the moment. I know nothing about them or discord, but maybe one of them would be to your liking:

#1 - run by @zzxid

#2 - run by ??

The community is, like all fan communities, is a mix of good and bad, awkward and friendly, opinionated and goofy, self-serious and offensive. You won’t like or agree with everyone and there are some folks you should probably block.

Just find some people who share your general outlook & are interacting with the books in the same way you want to 💕

-Lynn. I have no qualifications to write this guide, I am not an authority of anything. I just really want you to love these books. Last updated on Dec 24, 2017, click through to check for any updates.

image descriptions below cut:

[image 1: Panel from MTMTE of Rewdind and Chromedome kneeling and holding hands while Chromedome says “Rewind, my love, it’s not for me to say.”]

[image 2: Fortress Maximus covered in small brightly colored robots shaped like various animals saying “Don’t worry, my friend, all taken care of.]

[image 3: Swerve holding a cartoonish drawing of Prowl and pointing at it, saying “No! Prowl with the head spikes and the cruel mouth and the - cross all the time! Epically, preemptively, existentially cross! And cold! Supercilious and cold! Imagine Ultra Magnus without the warmth and people skills. How can you not know who Prowl is?”]

[image 4: Trailgate in holomatter form, holding the first issue of More than Meets the Eye and saying: “Besides, I didn’t say I didn’t like it - I just don’t understand all the words. And it presumes a degree of familiarity with the Autobot/Decepticon war that I still don’t have...I suppose there’s always the wiki. Or tumblr...”

Cyclonus from off panel: “I told you to stay off Tumblr.”

Tailgate: “You’re right: spoilers. I want to enjoy it issue by issue - it only goes up to 43.”]

[image 5: Drift smiling a big fake smile and saying: “Anyway - let’s move on.”]

[image 6: A panel of Cyclonus gazing out the window in his dark and empty bedroom with a panel of narration: “Of course we’re not the only ones. This ship is a refuge for the emotionally inarticulate.”]

[kmp78]

JL Article from WSJ, I´m copy pasting it here as per request because apparently the actual link is being a bitch.

The link is : https://www.wsj.com/articles/hanging-out-with-jared-leto-1504791535?mod=e2twmag

WHEN JARED LETO’S people say the plan is to meet “at Jared’s base,” I assume it’s a jet-setter’s figure of speech—as in, last month he was rock climbing in Menorca, next month he’s at Fashion Week in Milan, but Los Angeles is his base. But no—they mean an actual base: a decommissioned Air Force station tucked into the hills near Laurel Canyon, built during World War II to warn of incoming Japanese planes. The 100,000-square-foot compound, which Leto has called home since 2015, features 4-foot-thick concrete blast walls, a nuclear fallout shelter and a genuine air-traffic-control tower; it’s slightly absurd that it exists 10 minutes from the Sunset Strip, much less that someone lives in it.

On the other hand, if anyone’s going to inhabit a top-secret Cold War compound in the heart of Los Angeles, it’s probably Jared Leto.

Leto has a long history of outlandishness, whether it’s waxing his body and shedding more than 30 pounds to portray a transgender AIDS patient in Dallas Buyers Club, or sending his castmates condoms and a live rat while playing the Joker in last year’s Suicide Squad. Beneath the theatrics, he’s an industrious quintuple-threat: Oscar-winning actor, stadium-filling rock star (with his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars), digital-media entrepreneur, burgeoning fashion icon and—as if you don’t hate him enough already—successful tech investor, whose long list of winning bets includes Uber, Snapchat, Spotify and Airbnb. “I joke sometimes that I get more done on a movie set than I do when I’m off,” he says, “because I’m not as distracted.”

We’d originally planned to go for a hike today—Leto’s a big hiker—but it’s sweltering in L.A., 94 in the shade, and he’s been dealing with some back problems, so instead we’re hanging in his backyard, a shady xeriscape with a sadly neglected pool. To relieve his back, Leto is sitting cross-legged on the ground, dressed in a white Gucci T-shirt, green Gucci jogging pants (from the women’s collection) and a pair of worn-out gray Ugg slippers. His hair is its natural shade of chestnut, and his beard has achieved 1840s-prospector length. He also has the best posture I’ve ever seen. At 45, he looks almost exactly as he did nearly 25 years ago, when he first became famous playing the angsty heartthrob Jordan Catalano on My So-Called Life.

“I call him Babyface,” says his friend Alessandro Michele, creative director at Gucci. “He is timeless—it is almost impossible to give him age. If Visconti were still alive, he would love to work with Jared.”

Last night Leto was up late in the studio, working on his band’s next album. He woke around 9 a.m.—no alarm, as usual—and enjoyed his standard breakfast of muesli and almond milk, then spent some time tending to his back—heat, ice; meditation. But leisurely appearances aside, “it’s actually a super-busy time,” Leto says. In a few days he’s flying to Kazakhstan for a concert with the band; then he’ll start getting ready to promote his new film, Blade Runner 2049—the much-anticipated sequel to the dystopian 1982 sci-fi classic, in which Harrison Ford played an L.A. cop hunting down rogue androids.

Leto still remembers the first time he saw the original on VHS. “It was one of those films I just connected with,” he says. “I’ve watched it every couple of years.” In the sequel, he has what he calls “a small part” as a character named Niander Wallace, who creates said androids, known in the Blade Runneruniverse as “replicants.”

Denis Villeneuve, the director of the new film, says the inspiration for Leto’s character was David Bowie. “I needed a very charismatic, magnetic presence, someone with the aura of a rock star,” Villeneuve says. “But I also needed a great actor, because the lines he had to say were quite Shakespearean.” The character is also blind, and true to form, Leto—who once hung out with homeless junkies in Manhattan’s East Village to portray a heroin addict in Requiem for a Dream—dove in head-first. “We all heard stories about Jared, how he transforms into the characters,” Villeneuve says. “But even this didn’t prepare me for what was to come.”

Not content to simply act blind, Leto decided to become blind, ordering customized contact lenses that made his eyes totally opaque. “He entered the room, and he could not see at all,” Villeneuve recalls. “He was walking with an assistant, very slowly. It was like seeing Jesus walking into a temple. Everybody became super silent, and there was a kind of sacred moment. Everyone was in awe. It was so beautiful and powerful—I was moved to tears. And that was just a camera test!”

Leto stayed blind for the entire shoot, guided around set and never laying eyes on the rest of the cast. “That, for me, was insane,” Villeneuve says. “But he really created something. Every time Jared came on set, it was a boost of energy, tension and excitement.” (For his part, Leto says, he “didn’t dive as deep down the rabbit hole as maybe I’ve done before, but I stayed really focused.” Of course, he didn’t delude himself that he was actually blind. “I’m crazy,” he says, “but I’m not insane.”)

As he sits here in his garden, it’s easy to see the commitment that Leto can summon. He’s incredibly calm and still, with no extraneous movements, like some lizardlike desert creature conserving energy in the heat. He listens intently, with laserlike eye contact, and he barely seems to blink. (Says Michele, “I call him a monk sometimes, because he’s so concentrated.”) With his ageless physicality and otherworldliness, he could almost be a replicant himself.

Villeneuve agrees. “He has a kind of eternal youth syndrome. But the thing I love about Jared is that he’s really at peace with himself. He’s a perfectionist. And like all rock stars, he has a bit of narcissism. But it’s a narcissism that I can deal with.”

WE’VE BEEN TALKING a while when Leto hops up and starts doing a little shake. I tell him to feel free to walk around or stretch if he needs to. “No,” he says. “I was getting covered with ants. I’m going to make them work a little harder.”

We retreat inside the safety of the base, where Leto offers to take me on a tour. Although he moved in a couple of years ago, the place remains a work in progress, with dingy floor tiles, scuffed white paint and the distinct odor of midcentury bureaucracy lingering in the halls. “I’m going to redo it at some point,” Leto says, “make it nice. But I’m kind of just camping out.”

We start in his bedroom.“It’s fancy,” Leto warns. But he opens the door to reveal a glorified walk-in closet, maybe 200 square feet, with small windows, a loveseat and a mattress sitting right on the floor. “It’s amazing,” Leto says, smiling. “When it comes down to it, you don’t need very much.” The only hint of luxury is a portable clothes rack that holds what looks like a small fortune in high-end apparel—most of it from his friend Michele at Gucci.

Recently Leto has become the label’s face, both officially and unofficially, starring in a fragrance campaign and often rocking ensembles in public taken straight from the runway. The infatuation runs both ways: “I’ve been inspired by him many times,” Michele says. “The way he puts gym pants with crazy hats or something—it’s beautiful. He says, ‘I don’t care about fashion,’ but it’s not true. He’s like the most fashionable gypsy you can imagine.”

Leto seems amused that he’s become a style icon—“There was a period a decade ago when I wore Hare Krishna clothes”—but he does admit to getting bolder and more confident with age. “When I was younger I was like, ‘Give me something black,’ ” he says. “But now I love color. You know how you see old guys wearing loud Hawaiian shirts? If I walk off the bus, and the crew starts laughing, I know I put the right thing on.”

We proceed deeper into the bowels of the house, passing large metal tins labeled SURVIVAL CRACKERS (“I haven’t opened them yet”) and a few doors marked USAF TOP SECRET. After World War II ended, the base became a military film studio, churning out propaganda films hosted by the likes of Jimmy Stewart. “There are so many crazy rumors about this place,” Leto says. “Everything from ‘Part of the moon landing was filmed here’ to ‘They used to keep prisoners downstairs.’ They had laboratories. They were doing all kinds of God-knows-what.” He is clearly enamored by this.

In one of the building’s subbasements, we pass Leto’s home gym (with photos of Schwarzenegger and Bruce Lee) and then the garage where he keeps his vintage Ford Bronco—a metallic-blue beast with orange flames down the side, a birthday gift from his brother, Shannon. “He was like, ‘You can get it repainted,’ ” Leto says, “and I was like, ‘No way, man!’ I used to have a little Tonka truck that looked just like that.” The Letos grew up poor, on food stamps in Louisiana, with a hippie single mom who encouraged them to follow their artistic dreams. Leto studied film and photography at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan before dropping out and moving to L.A. in hopes of becoming a director. He started acting, and a few years later talked Shannon into moving out to start a band.

Next we walk through a hangarlike storage room Leto calls “the warehouse,” full of Thirty Seconds to Mars’s road cases and gear, and from there emerge onto the base’s old soundstage, which Leto has repurposed as a recording studio and rehearsal space. “We had an acoustician come by, and he said we have the same reverb as Abbey Road,” Leto says. “Isn’t that wild?” In the control room, an engineer is going over mixes from last night’s session, tweaking the vocal tracks for the band’s new single (“Walk on Water,” released in August). “I’d say we’re 80 percent done,” Leto says of the album. He smiles: “But I’ve been saying that for two years.”

Back upstairs, Leto starts to grow a bit bored. “I can show you more, but it’s really big,” he says. “It just keeps going and going and going.” He knows it’s kind of silly for a bachelor pad. “But it works for me,” he says. “I can do creative stuff here, I can live here. And I don’t have to sit in traffic.”

There’s one last oddity he wants to point out: a skylight in the middle of the floor that peers down into a small enclosure, maybe 8 feet square, with no discernible doors. It looks suspiciously like a dungeon. “Weird, right?” says Leto, grinning. He slips into a pitch-perfect impression of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs: “Put the lotion in the basket!” he booms, cracking up. I point out that at least the skylight unlatches from the inside, leaving open the possibility of escape. “Yeah,” he says, “but you’d have to get up there first”—a sheer 10-foot climb with no holds. He smiles deviously. “Give ’em just enough hope to keep ’em alive.”

IT’S NEARING TIME for Leto to say goodbye: His next appointment is already waiting, some people from a tech giant. At the moment, Leto is looking for a buyer for his digital streaming platform, VyRT, a company he started in 2011 to live-stream his band’s concerts. That was his second foray into the tech world; previously he had launched a digital-marketing company called the Hive, and over the past decade has become a serious tech investor, backing more than 50 startups including Uber, Snapchat, Reddit, Spotify, Slack and Nest.

“He’s very different from the normal cats from Hollywood and L.A. I see playing around the Valley,” says Nest co-founder Tony Fadell, whose company Leto invested in three years before it was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, in 2014. (Leto didn’t disclose the size of his investment, but Fadell says for “an individual, it was a significant amount of money.”) “A lot of people from that world say, ‘My manager’s gonna take care of it, my agent’s gonna take care of it’—they don’t worry about the details,” Fadell adds. “And a lot of people are meddlers or know-it-alls who want to lead from the bench. That was not his thing. Jared is very curious, very detail-oriented; he really gets involved, and he really understands. He only added value.”

“I was actually really impressed,” says Stewart Butterfield, a co-founder of Slack, which Leto invested in in 2014. “Jared gave a lot of feedback, and all of it was very practical, specific, concrete feedback about usability and improving the platform. He found the right balance,” Butterfield adds, “between persistent and irritating.”

When it comes to his investing philosophy, Leto says, “I like to learn. So if I can be involved in a company that teaches me something, I’m happy.” There are also a few deals he passed on and still kicks himself over. “Oh, my God, are you kidding?” Leto says. “There are some doozies. I can’t [talk about it]—I’ll have to call a therapist.”

All these side hustles aside, Leto’s not giving up his day job anytime soon. He’s attached to play Andy Warhol in an upcoming biopic written by Terence Winter (The Wolf of Wall Street), and he’ll soon be directing his first feature, a police thriller called 77 with a script by L.A. noir legend James Ellroy. Leto—a devoted rock climber who sometimes posts his best ascents to Instagram along with a monkey emoji—has previously directed a documentary series on America’s national parks called Great Wide Open as well as several music videos.

“Always when you are around Jared Leto, you are in Jared Leto’s theater,” Denis Villeneuve says. “It’s like a play—you become a character. But he’s having fun with it, and he brings you in his game. You just fall in love with him.”

If there’s one thing Leto hasn’t done but would like to, it’s a comedy. Sadly, no one ever asks. “I might not be at the top of the list for, like, a funny dude,” he says. “But if someone is dying or suffering greatly, I’ll get a call.” He laughs ruefully. “I got calls about [playing] Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, David Koresh and Jim Jones, all within two weeks. I’m not doing them,” he adds, “but I thought for a second, ‘Oh, my God, I should do them all.’ Just put them together like a Criterion Collection box set. And then retire.”

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Hey! Nathan from Project Hatch - Recently spoke to Ricardo Evangelho about creating a Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Setting.How did Hit Point Press come about?Hit Point Press builds and develops third-party gaming accessories for tabletop and role playing games. We started out as a company making unofficial tokens for Magic: the Gathering (M:tG) before branching out into other tabletop and roleplaying games.ImageThe product you've just launched is called “Humblewood.” How does it work with Dungeons and Dragons?Humblewood is a world in which you get to play as birdfolk and other forest animals instead of the usual human, elf, and dwarf races.Humblewood was made to be compatible with the 5th edition. Wizards of the Coast released an Open Gaming License (OGL) which allows creators like us to build within a defined scope. As a result, we can use the specified subset of 5th edition rules to create our campaign setting.You launched Humblewood on Kickstarter. How did you get so many pledges?We’d been building the Humblewood community for almost a year before launching the Kickstarter. We previewed the campaign using teaser images and a free early playtest document. Additionally, we have garnered experience through previous successful Kickstarters. We invest in our community and because of that, we are lucky to have a group of people that have backed us on multiple projects.Our backers also enjoy how collaborative the Humblewood project is. We have a Discord channel that is quite active. We use the Discord to listen to community feedback and share previews of some of the content we’re building.Additionally, we work with 30+ artists - the artists are very engaged with the work and have been invaluable in the development of the visual language for Humblewood. We are so lucky to have such a strong artist team who are excited about the project. The Humblewood team actually found a lot of our artists through their social media or creator channels so it is extremely rewarding to have them, in turn, post and share their Humblewood work with their fans.What other forms of marketing do you use?Our main method of marketing is Youtube sponsorships. We sponsor channels that talk about role playing games. We also enjoy actively seek out newer channels that have a passion for roleplaying games.Towards the end of the campaign I saw you made $150k in a single day and the total campaign reached over $1 million. How did you manage that?!Again, really, this goes back to our amazing community. Getting a $150k in one day was in large part because of community members and content creators supporting us. The Humblewood Kickstarter reaching over a million dollars was all thanks to them. We had a sizable group right there with us on the Discord chat, cheering the campaign on.Updating the stretch goals on the fly was also a big help in getting the campaign to $1 million. I think promising that we would immediately begin work on a follow up to Humblewood if we hit $1 million dollars helped. Some existing backers told us the commitment to a Humblewood sequel motivated them to increase their pledge to the $300 tier.It was an emotional day for us. We spent every second we could communicating with the community. I will admit though, a last minute advertising push didn’t hurt.How did you push the average pledge value up?It is going to sound like a broken record but it comes down to understanding and listening to what your community wants. We don’t design the campaign, launch it, and forget it. The team continued to engage with our backers and regularly update what we offered at the different tiers based on the feedback.With our Kickstarter, we also incentivized backing at higher tiers with strong savings. Normally, the Humblewood book will retail for $50 and while it was offered to backers for $30. The box set was also offered to backers for $30 under the retail price. It’s important to us that we acknowledge those who believed in the vision from the start.Furthermore, we offered a limited edition box set at $100 that was only available through the Kickstarter. The box set included the contents of the base box set, but had an alternate foil cover for both the box and book. Collectors especially like the exclusivity of items like these.Finally, we had a $300 tier that included everything that the campaign was offering.You received a lot more pledges for the Humblewood campaign than your earlier Kickstarters - What lessons did you learn from your earlier campaigns?Our other Kickstarter campaigns helped us get our sea legs and helped us deliver a solid Humblewood campaign for our backers. In a previous campaign, we didn’t properly account for shipping rates. During the fulfillment of another campaign there was an unannounced customs inspection and so we learned to incorporate surprises like this into our timelines. The other campaigns, each increasing in size, helped us work out logistical kinks, and therefore, when we had a campaign as successful as Humblewood, we were seasoned. Even on Humblewood, there were some new lessons learned. Every Kickstarter is definitely a learning experience!Did you actually make a profit on that first campaign?This may sound a little strange but we don’t expect to make a profit on our Kickstarter campaigns. We use them to raise funds for the production. We think of it a little more like a pre-order. The campaign for Humblewood raised over $1 million but most of that was already allocated for the production of books, miniatures, art, writing, and the additional commitments unlocked through stretchgoals.We usually recover and, if we are careful, make profit afterwards with our post campaign sales.You almost use Kickstarter like a launch pad then?Exactly! The Kickstarter helps us pay for the initial production. When the campaign ends, we typically try to purchase enough inventory to cover double the amount of orders we’ve received. That way we have some product to sell after the campaign.How do you go about building a game and testing that people will actually want to play it?We knew Humblewood was a significant undertaking and it’s why we offered a free playtest through our website six months prior to launch. We thought Humblewood was special, but needed to know if this was something people wanted.Every time we updated the playtest, everyone got sent the new version as a free update. Overall we released five different versions of the playtest, which were downloaded over 20,000 times.Providing these playtests allowed us to build a community, as well as get good, constructive, feedback from them about what was and what wasn't working.What is it that tips the balance? What would make you say we're going to dismiss this idea? And have you dismissed an idea in the past?Usually ideas get dismissed before we even start sharing them with the public. We do a lot of behind the scenes research and prototyping, only putting an idea out to our community if we feel confident about it.We've had many projects where we'd start, talk, create prototypes, and then discontinue the project entirely. There are even projects we haven’t taken the first steps with and are sitting on a list of “things to explore.”It’s been a few months since the Humblewood campaign finished. Have you shipped? How are post-campaign sales?For the base book and box set, we're still on track for our projected goal of October. Right now we're preparing the final assets and getting them sent out to the printers. After that, our miniatures will be ready for November.Post campaign sales have been encouraging and we anticipate that during the holiday season will be really busy. After backers have gotten their rewards we will be refocusing on post-campaign sales. Going to PAX Unplugged this December is part of this refocus and will give us the opportunity to get a sense of how the community is receiving Humblewood.Are you working on other projects at the moment? Or are you working on reinforcing this game and its sequel?We actually have about ten other projects on the run at present, not all of them related to Humblewood.We have dedicated Humblewood team working on the Humblewood Kickstarter stretch goals that were unlocked. The Humblewood artists are also working on style guides and more art.At the same time we have others exploring new concepts and building ideas for future projects.How did you break into the industry?I started Hit Point Press (previously Cardamajigs) as a company that focused on M:tG. I began by selling my own designs as tokens and giving them away free as a downloadable printable PDF.I had another full time job when I started Cardamajigs, so as sales started to pick up I brought in someone to help with fulfillment. Being an avid D&D player, he suggested that we use the newly released OGL to create reference cards. His thoughts were, even if the project didn’t succeed, at worst, he would have reference cards for his own campaigns.To gauge interest, in-house, we printed 500 test sets and mailed them to interested players around the world. That helped us understand who our audience was and enabled us to see if the reference cards were something players would use.How do the unofficial Magic: the Gathering tokens sell now? How is that part of the business doing relative to Dungeons and Dragons?Comparatively, the tokens are now a fraction of the business. Most of our team is now focused on the 5th edition content we're building. That being said, given my love for the game, I don’t think the M:tG side of the business will ever go away.You're based in Canada, I guess you sell a lot to the U.S. and nationally within Canada. Where are your other markets?Eighty percent of our market is the U.S, eight percent is in Canada, four percent is in the U.K, two percent in Australia, and it dilutes from there.‍Day to day, what apps do you find useful running the business?For communication we use Discord which allows us to talk with our community and internally with our team and collaborators.For building, we use Adobe Suite. Without it, we couldn't build our projects.For e-commerce we love Shopify, it's a great sales platform we use for all of our sites. Plus, it’s Canadian!For project management we use Teamwork. This software helps us organize the many projects we're building simultaneously and keep in contact with our remote team members.Are you looking into launching into any other games apart from Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons?There's always new games coming out. It's a matter of finding where we fit in with the game’s community.Right now, the market we're in aligns with our vision so we want to keep expanding our existing offerings.My final question, would you ever sell the company or is it a project you really love?I am really in love with the work I do. Hit Point Press is 100% passion for me. Loving my work is important to me and I believe it shows in what I make. So, at the moment, I couldn’t dream of selling Hit Point Press. I am too excited about what we are doing, about our community, and I wake up everyday reinvigorated because I have the opportunity to build new things.If you enjoyed this post, the original post is here.