#literally every time i get into those burst of creativity where i do four drawings a day its because everything else is ignored

[dyingbuck]

i was playing the mission "the american inferno, burn out", and i was about to make a post about how me and evelyn miller are the same: we can't take care of yourself when we're focused on something. but after seeing him dead, i think i'll need to start fixing that issue irl

[losersclubimagines]

the coroner’s girl

[the losers club x reader]

warnings: swearing, bullying, blood and body parts.

summary: being the coroner’s daughter means dressing practically rather than flatteringly, carrying your father’s blood samples in your schoolbag, and having maybe too much of an avid interest in human anatomy for your classmates’ tates. you’re an outcast - a loser, something you had always been and been pretty okay with, until the last day of school in 1985, when greta bowie gets a little too familiar with the things you carry in your backpack.

request here

Being a coroner's daughter was never going to be easy.

It was like being the daughter of the exterminator that came to rid your school of rats or termites; nothing inherently bad about it - it was an honest profession, all right - but goddamn embarrassing.

But you knew that. You'd known that since second grade when the teacher said your class had to go around the circle and everybody said what their parents did for a living. There were four temps, one dentist, one taxi driver, a receptionist and a cashier before you proudly said, "my dad examines dead people to see how they died!"

Your teacher had thought it was interesting. Your classmates, not so much. They thought you were dirty. Most of them didn't touch you, if they could help it. You had your own special brand of cooties, creatively named 'The Y/n Touch" that the others would pass and tease each other with at recess and lunch in games you couldn't participate in. Well, fine. They'd decided you were to be an outcast, you'd do just that.

You stopped really trying in third grade. Stopped putting your hair in curlers every night and teasing it with hairspray every morning like the others, stopped dressing fashionably and started dressing practically, stopped trying to fit in at all. A lot of girls talked about lipstick or boys or singers, or else music you'd never heard of and movies you'd never watched. The boys talked about girls and soccer and bikes, or else books you'd never read or bands you'd never listened to. You didn't fit in with anyone else's conversation - you knew hearts and brains and lungs, vessels and arteries and veins, homeostasis and rigor mortis and symptoms of asphyxiation. But when you tried to talk about that, all you got was disgusted or scandalised looks, so you stopped. You kept to yourself.

All through third grade to eighth grade, the closest thing you had to a friend were our various biology teachers throughout the years. You were hopeless at the other sciences, barely passing, and mediocre at everything else, but your biology always came back with a fat shiny A on every report card.

It was the last day of school before summer in 1985. Before you'd gone to school, your dad had passed you three plastic sample jars, half-full of blood. At your raised eyebrows, he grew defensive.

"The refrigerator's stocked again!"

"Maybe it wouldn't be if you did your job like every other coroner in America and stopped-"

"Yes, I know, I know," he interrupted, looking badgered. "Can you just ask your friend in the prep room to store them, just for a day? I'll have the refrigerator cleared out by then."

"Fine." You checked the lids were done up tightly then stuffed the jars in your satchel. "Can I go now?"

"Yeah, go, you'll be late. Don't go throwing your bag around now, those jars are done up tight but they'll burst with pressure."

"Got it," you called, moving to the front door.

"In the fridge as soon as you get to school!" he shouted from the cellar. "As soon as!"

You shut the door in reply, disgruntled.

You did as bid, making your way to the science prep room before class and sweet-talking Mr Keary into letting you store the samples in the huge refrigerator. They kept the stuff used for dissecting in there - sheep hearts and frogs and pig brains. Needless to say, you'd aced that particular section of biology. A scalpel was so familiar in your hand by now, it felt like an extension of your fingers.

They stayed there throughout the day. It grew hotter and hotter, but you kept all your layers on - black jeans cuffed to keep them from trailing on your battered sneakers, a charcoal-grey shirt of your father's that hung to your thighs and a soft, woolly, dark green cardigan that swung about your calves. You liked the comfort that layers of clothes gave you - like wearing multiple plates of armour. The day passed as usual - you ad no biology class, so you spoke to barely anyone and barely anyone spoke to you, you kept your head down and ate lunch alone and doodled in every class until the final bell rang. Great. Okay. Finally.

You swung by the prep room and grabbed your father's samples, placing them carefully in your backpack, ensuring they were cushioned by your pencil case and textbooks before hefting the bag onto one shoulder and making the trek to the front exit.

You were literally twenty feet from the door when it happened.

Greta Bowie stormed out of her history class with a dark expression on her face, evidently having to be held back to be lectured by her teacher. Her mean eyes flickered over the corridor for someone to take her anger out on, and, most unfortunately, they landed on you. You didn't even notice her until her shoulder collided hard with yours, and your bag slipped from your shoulder and sailed through the air, hitting the linoleum hard and skidding away. As you stumbled, Greta hooked an ankle around your's and sent you flying backwards.

"Sorry, Y/n!" she called, sweet as sugar. Sweet as fucking diabetes, you thought to yourself furiously as you reached for your bag - only to draw back in surprise and dread. A large, dark, sticky stain was spreading rapidly through the fabric. You tore your bag open, pleading with God that it wasn't so - but of course it was. The samples your dad had entrusted you with, that you'd chilled all day and packed so carefully in your bag - had burst on impact, and now two were all but empty, and the third was drooling blood slowly, it'd lid knocked to the side rather than all the way off.

"Shit!" you shouted, jumping up, your hands flying to your hair to grab it in despair. "Fuck it all, shit on it you bitch!" Before you even realised what you were doing, you'd lunged at the retreating Greta and shoved her in the back. Hard. So hard she flew into the lockers and slammed her head on the metal.

She yelled in pain, spinning round to look at you. The whole corridor was raptly focused on the two of you, Greta furious and red-faced, a bleeding split on her forehead where she'd grazed a padlock, and you, realising what you'd just done with your eyes widening and your feet beginning to retreat.

"You are so fucking dead!"

Greta ran right at you, her arms catching you in the midriff and knocking you back several paces. You gasped as your back slammed into the floor, hard, and Greta seized a handful of your hair, yanked your head up, and slammed it back down again. You wheezed and whimpered, trying to push and scratch to no avail, and Greta straddled you, her fist raised, ready to punch-

Your left hand closed over something cylindrical, smooth and vaguely wet and warm. As quick as you could, even as Greta drew back her fist, you whipped the lid off the last jar of blood, brought it out from the depths of your bag and tossed what was left of the sample square into Greta's snarling face.

She shrieked like a banshee, rearing back and gagging, and you took the opportunity to throw her off your body. You sprang to your feet, stumbling only a little as Greta retched and choked, groping for you blindly with red in her eyes. You took of running, pausing only to pick up your soaking red bag on the way, slamming through the double-doors at the end of the corridor.

You jumped down the steps double-time, jumping at the end and staggering as you hit the floor, then you ran again. In your haste you charged straight through a group of four boys making their way leisurely down the path. You knocked into two of them heavily, felt them stagger.

"What the fuck, dude?" someone called after you furiously, and you turned your head, still running, to look back at them.

"Sorry!" you yelled hoarsely, tearing out the front gate and out of sight.

"Fuckin' weirdo," mumbled Richie Tozier to Bill Denbrough, who was bending down to help Eddie stand after that girl had barged into them. Richie hauled Stan, who had also fallen, to his feet and clapped him on the shoulder, before picking something up off the ground.

"Stan my man, you dropped your yokefellow!" Richie told Stan cheerfully, holding a brimless cap up with a flourish.

"Yarmulke," Stan corrected tiredly, snatching it back.

"Bless you."

"E-Eddie, I think that g-g-girl left a suh-suh-stain on your sh-shirt just now," Bill interrupted demurely.

"Is that fucking blood?" Eddie squeaked, his eyes widening in horror.

"What the fuh-fuh-fuck?" Bill laughed.

"Maybe it was that time of the month," Richie said wisely.

"Buh-beep beep, Richie."

Richie looked seriously at Eddie, who was frantically scrubbing at the dark red patch on his perfect pink shirt. "Werewolves," he told the littler boy sagely.

"Shut up, Richie!" all three of the boys said together, as they crossed through the front gate, making for the Barrens.

——

a/n: just a lil something to get my creativity going while i work on requests. let me know if you want to be tagged in coming parts!! i’m thinking there will be at least two more <3

[forfansbyfans]

Challenge Yourself: A FFBF Artist Interview

Homestuck Tarot Acts 6 & 7 - Cards Illustrated:  Queen of Pentacles, Four of Wands, Page of Swords

It’s always fascinating to see how huge the Homestuck art community is all over the world - Where are you from?

Coastal California, born and raised

We’re in love with the tarot deck! Can you tell us a little bit about how you became involved?

Aryll (who organized the event) posted about it in a Homestuck Art server I'm an admin for (the Homestuck Artists Discord Server) to help get the word out. I was one of many people who was excited by it. I'm incredibly impressed by her selections for the cards, every one was absolutely perfect. (Also she's an amazing artist, and the project is filled with incredible artists, and being able to work with them and get crits from them and see their process was also just incredibly fun and fulfilling.)

Tell us a little bit about the artwork you contributed to the deck – how does the art tie in with the meaning behind the card?

Alright, this might take a bit, partially because I did three and partially because there's a lot in there. I'll try to get into what I can!

Queen of Pentacles: The Queen of Pentacles is a perfect fit for Jane and the Nanasprites. I drew Jane as the queen she is in Propsitian regalia, with a maternal Nanasprite on each side to offer guidance, resources, compassion and playful mischief. The cake Jane's holding with the pentacle frosting represents her material wealth, financial success and security. It hints at her business and creative talents but in a way that's entirely hers, without any crockercorp baggage tainting it. She holds it with an open hand, representing her willingness to share with family and friends. She's centered in the piece, emphasizing her stability. At her feet grow pumpkins, that are both a literal image of pumpkins she grew that (though she didn't know it) sustained Roxy and an entire city of Carapacians, as well as a metaphor for the life and sustenance she creates for those around her. The life symbol on her throne furthers these themes. Lil Seb represents caution (he's on guard, ready to protect his charge) with Jane's hand on his head representing her compassion and maternal affection. (Not to mention holding him back from causing too much mischief! The Queen of Pentacles knows how to keep her family in line) In the background, prospit shines in all its glory, a flourishing kingdom of gold. Skaia shines above, an entire universe waiting to be born, in part thanks to Jane's hand, but she's down to earth and her eyes are set forward, focused on the practical, there here and now. Jane is a great character. I love her and I loved drawing her.

Four of Wands: The Four of Wands depicts S: Unite, one of my all-time favorite flashes. The alpha kids come together in person for the first time ever in a series of shenanigans and time travel. I took some artistic license with the chains on the lanterns so they'd reflect the wands in the original card. Where in the original it evokes a Chuppah, here, homestucks lanterns represents the very life force and the interconnection of the alpha kids. At that very moment, Jake's kiss has caused Dirk's lantern to burst with life, spreading the light of that to all the other lanterns as well. There's also an echo of Dirk's heart symbol in Jake's lantern, and the light almost seems to pierce through Jake's heart. (A lot of this symbolism was in part inspired by some fantastic essays on DirkJake and the lantern scene in particular by RevolutionaryDeulist on tumblr, which I definitely recommend checking out! :3) I tried to keep a symmetry and sense of movement to the card. It's a card of happiness and reunions, that both follows and precedes a lot of hard work. It's everything coming together at one moment, and even if things might get hard again soon, for a while now pure joy. Dirk, Jake, Jane and Jake all see (or are about to see) each other for the first time in person, after what is probably the worst day of all of their lives and a lot of work. While it harmony, celebration, goals achieved and reunions and unions of all kinds, its also a transitory card and can even symbolize a breakdown in communication. (Something that the alpha kids, unfortunately, had plenty of problems with!) Dirk, Jane and Roxy are both acting and watching. There's more to it, but this is the most complicated of the three and I'm afraid the hardest for me to explain, and I seem to be repeating myself so I'm gonna stop now.

Page of Swords: The page of swords is a perfect Tavros card. He's energetic, passionate and creative. Tavros is waiting in the beginning, eager to begin this new project, and look what a beginning it is! An army of countless ghosts waits with him, inspired by his charisma and kindness rather than forced. It's about being ready and moving forward. And importantly, he's successful because he made the choice to do this on his own, ignoring the voices that told him he couldn't succeed and wasn't good enough. It's a card that encourages you to find the people who will nurture your ideas rather than those who bring you down. It also represents communication, which is what it took for him to gather up this army. The breath sign in the clouds is there for multiple reasons. Breath is, of course, Tavros' symbol, and also, the Page of Pentacles is a wind card. But within the Homestuck canon, breath also represents freedom and charisma and many of the aspects of this card. (Also, god rays are cool and fun to draw and make some neat lighting effects.) Like Tavros, of course, the card only represents the beginning. It represents gathering people and friends, and communicating with them, new ideas and the start of something great. But Tavros at this point understands himself well enough to know his own strength. He formed the army, but he isn't the one to take the lead, and he's okay with that.

How have you grown as an artist over the years and what has helped you grow?

Practice is great for improving, but more than that you need to challenge yourself, and you need things to inspire you to do so. I've been drawing since I was three, graduated with a BA in art, and been living off caricaturing for almost a decade. But I also felt like my art was stagnating, and the thing that inspired me most has actually been Homestuck. I actually only got into it recently, only a few years ago, but it's gotten me drawing for myself again for the first time in a long time, and the art discords have a lot of events that have been encouraging me to draw. So even the time I've started drawing homestuck my art has improved more then it had in a long time, and I've really had fun with it again for the first time. But the best way to improve is definitely to find the things your worst at, and study and draw it a lot. Bad at hands? Study a bunch of pictures of hands. Learn anatomy, skeletal and muscular structure. Trace hand photos, draw your own hands. Bad at backgrounds? Study landscapes, trees, perspective... etc. Trying to do different things and work with different styles is good too, things like palette challenges can be great for helping things stay fun and inspired. Sorry, I got a little rambly, and I guess its more a general list of things I learned then the things that sparked my own specific growth, but hopefully it's helpful!

What’s your process? Where do you find inspiration?

I like changing things up. Sometimes I'll sketch thumbnails or even the base sketch on paper, then draw from there in photoshop. Sometimes I'll play with pure color or light and shadow and sort of carve out images. I like to play with art a lot, and how much prep I do varies depending on what I'm drawing; usually if its a commission or illustration with something more in mind I'll do more thumbnailing and have a more structured approach. Inspiration varies. Music can be great for it, Homestuck is hugely inspirational. Games, stories, movies, etc can also all be great. Also I love having themed events, or drawing gift art for people. (Bonus, I love making people happy so I find that particularly satisfying.)

What kind of impact has Homestuck had on your life and art?

It's become my favorite piece of media. I could (and have) gone on a multi page rant about why and everything I like about it. But in an attempt to be succinct, its an interesting complex story with great characters and the perfect balance of humor and serious moments. Seriously, I love every character. It's also, like I mentioned, got me drawing for myself again. I've been drawing much more and improved a lot thanks to Homestuck in the few years since I got into it. I owe a lot to it, and for all people speak bad of the fandom, I think there's much more good then bad, and try my best to be part of the former, trying to help it be a place of encouragement, growth and happiness for everyone involved. :3

What advice would you give to a younger you?

Oh man. There are so many answers I could give here. I'd encourage more introspection. There's a lot of things about myself it took me too long to discover, or things I did because I was following someone else's definitions of success. Teaching myself art with some of the fantastic resources available and focusing on my own goals could have spared me ridiculous amounts of student debt.

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Interview by Cassie Steensrud

@whatpumpkin @cassandraooc

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: The Nifty (Late) Nineties

Last time on Daredevil 101, Matt had yet another nervous breakdown, and Foggy finally found out, after 30 years of canon, that his best friend was Daredevil.

Now, with Matt having un-faked his death, he, Foggy, and Karen are free to settle into a new status quo - and it’s a refreshingly light-hearted one! Honestly, I would say this is the peppiest Daredevil ever is - there’s less melodramatic thought-bubbling than the Silver Age, and no undercurrent of severe depression like in the Waid run. It’s just sheer, pleasant fun.

In fact, it’s basically a romcom, with wacky misunderstandings and lots of workplace shenanigans thrown in. Which, considering we’re talking 1996-1998, is right on schedule.

Over the next three posts we’ll be covering Daredevil Volume 1 #353-375, mostly by the creative teams of Karl Kesel/Cary Nord and Joe Kelly/Gene Colan (the latter of whom also drew much of Silver Age Daredevil, aw).

Content Warning: Reading between the lines, emotional abuse by a parent.

We begin with Matt deciding that the best way to announce his return to the world is to stroll into the courtroom during one of Foggy’s cases and just start arguing it alongside him, creating a media circus. Foggy’s...less than thrilled:

How on earth would he know you’re really blind, Matt? You never a) explained anything or b) apologized, you literally just jumped out the window and ran away.

Anyway, they don’t have time to go into it (and Matt gets to skip out of apologizing again) because they get a shocking message:

1. Foggy, you are a fashion icon, never change.

2. How does he know Rosalind Sharpe? And why is he so agitated at the prospect of meeting with her???

Meanwhile, Karen's trying to find her own direction in life:

Matt’s always been pretty careless and jovial about Karen selling out his secret identity - he has literally never tasked her with or blamed her for it - but it weighs on Karen. Also, I don’t blame Karen for not being sure what job to take, since her last two were “handing out anti-porn pamphlets on a street corner” and “running a drug addiction hotline,” both of which are noble causes but neither of which seemed to come with a salary.

Side note: this haircut is very dated but it is my 100% favorite Karen haircut of all time. So kicky! So fresh! So Monica Gellar circa Season 2! I love it.

Meanwhile, Matt’s gone back to “swashbuckling banter-er” when it comes to fighting crime:

I mean, Matt’s jokes are stupid, but that’s part of the point. At least he didn’t say “Talk to the hand” or “Don’t have a cow, man.”

Later, he and Foggy meet with Rosalind, and she offers them both junior partnerships in her firm. Foggy instantly, gleefully accepts, but Matt’s more reluctant:

So yeah, Rosalind is a stone cold bitch, and I don’t use that word lightly. I think she’s a fascinating character but not because she’s, like, not an awful person or anything. (For anyone reading this who doesn’t know why this is so awful: Rosalind is Foggy’s biological mom, though Matt and the reader don’t know that at this point. That’s why this means so much to Foggy.)

It’s also pretty baffling, because Rosalind declares Foggy “adequate” and Matt “astounding,” but Matt has been a) disbarred and b) declared dead twice, while Foggy is a former district attorney and legal counsel to both the Fantastic Four and Tony Stark around this point in time. The perceived wisdom about the characters up until Bendis takes over in a couple years is that Matt is a brilliant attorney and Foggy’s a fumbling buffoon, and both Kesel and Kelly steer hard into that curve, but not only does it not match what the characters actually do, it never made any sense from a character point of view. Why would Matt, The Greatest Lawyer Ever, saddle himself with an incompetent? And how could he run The Most Successful Law Firm In New York while dragging Foggy’s dead weight behind him when it’s canon that he barely ever has the time or emotional capacity to do legal work? I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS FOGGY NELSON SLANDER!

Anyway, Matt and Foggy take some time to hash it out (though Matt obviously doesn’t tell Foggy about Rosalind’s ultimatum), but it’s a tense discussion considering how hurt Foggy still is about the Daredevil thing:

“I can only say I’m sorry so many times, Foggy!” Maybe start with once? That’s a good number to begin at, Matthew. (This “UGH get OVER it” attitude continues for a while, btw, until Foggy finally stops bringing it up. Gee, I wonder where he learned to put up with such belittling dismissal from his loved ones?)

That’s Liz Osborn at the door - formerly Liz Allan, Spider-Man’s high school dream girl, now the widow of Harry Osborn, mother of his child Normie, and head of OsCorp. Foggy helped her with a legal matter recently and she’s come to, well...

Yeah, she’s there to ask him out. GET IT, GIRL. Liz knows what’s what. (Well, she does now. Not so much when she was 16, but then who among us did?)

Check out Foggy’s foreshadowing about Rosalind there in panel 2, btw.

Matt, meanwhile, realizes that he really does owe Foggy this after, you know, the lying to him forever thing, so he tells Rosalind he’s in, on one condition:

Yeah, so Rosalind wants to fuck her son’s best friend, right? That’s what’s happening here? I mean, I kind of get it - Cary Nord draws a hell of a Matt - but also Jesus Christ, no, Rose, keep it in your pants.

And so Nelson and Murdock becomes Sharpe, Nelson, and Murdock. Meanwhile, Karen is fully on board the Foggy/Liz train:

Matt, as usual, is deliberately obtuse/borderline resentful of the fact that Foggy might have other relationships. Oh, Matthew. I’m sure if you just tell Foggy you’re in a triad with him and Karen he’d be on board.

Hey look! It’s Misty!

(She’s the investigator for Rosalind’s firm. She’s also talking about Danny there, yes. They dated pretty consistently in the comics for like 40 years. They’re very cute. COMICS DANNY IS BETTER. Anyway I like it when she and Matt flirt.)

Oh and hey, while we’re here, let’s have the one-two punch of Nelson and Murdock in action. ONE: Matt, having badgered Foggy into defending a supervillain for convoluted Daredevil reasons, fails to show up in court:

Foggy, you are a sartorial wonder and a joy forever, I love you. (Seriously: KILLING. IT.)

TWO: Matt bursts in, either in costume or out, with evidence he’s just come into possession of that’ll blow this case wide open!

There you go, that’s every Daredevil trial scene ever except for the time Matt made Peter dress up as Daredevil so that he could cross-examine him.

Please note Rosalind cackling evilly back there, because she’s trying to get Foggy to throw Matt under the bus, because...she resorted to extortion to get Matt to join her firm and now she wants to ruin his reputation? Which will hurt hers to? Again, Rosalind’s so busy being calculating and cutthroat that her actions frequently don’t make any goddamn sense.

But this is also pretty much the moment that Foggy lets go of his resentment over Matt’s secret and re-pledges his troth, so I feel a lot of feels about it. Even if I would like to see Matt dangle a bit longer.

Meanwhile, Karen’s found a job, though she’s been a bit cagey about what it is with Matt. Why? Well, she’s a late night DJ/talk radio host...but for WFSK, which is owned by - you guessed it - Fisk. But she’s great at it!

This dialogue is 100% ridiculous but also 100% believable, can’t you just hear her cadence? If you’re old enough to remember this kind of thing, at least.

Rosalind has decided to turn Foggy’s friendship with Daredevil (who of course she doesn’t know is Matt) into a win for the firm by branding him as “Daredevil’s Pal,” so she calls in and puts a very startled Foggy on the phone so that he can talk about his relationship with Daredevil:

YOU GUYS. I’M CAN’T. <3 <3 <3

A few callers dial in with weird theories and questions (“What if he has weird bug eyes?” “Whatever happened to those funny little kids he used to hang out with?”), but then “Mike” from the Bronx calls to ask what Karen - I mean, “Paige Angel” - thinks of Daredevil:

Karen goes on to say that Daredevil’s saved her life, and she wouldn’t be the person she is without him. “Mike” replies that Daredevil must be blind...if he can’t see how lucky he is to have people like her in his corner. He adds that whoever Daredevil is, he’d probably be impressed that “Paige” is trying to do some good from the inside at a place like WFSK.

Karen, not being an idiot, recognizes Matt and is touched. And Matt, who’s just heard his two favorite people wax rhapsodic about how wonderful he is?

AWWWWW LOOK AT THIS HAPPY BOY! You enjoy it, buddy. You don’t get to have it too often.

Next up: Nelson family drama, and the return of two of Matt’s old flames!

[aion-rsa]

How Black Mirror Embraced Its Horror Potential with Playtest

https://ift.tt/31rDHKg

Monster specialist Grant Walker of award-winning VFX studio Framestore was excited when he received an offer to work on an episode of sci-fi anthology Black Mirror’s third season. But the nature of the job, for an episode called “Playtest”, proved to be an unexpected one.

“I thought: ‘they want to make monsters for Black Mirror? I don’t get it,’” Walker says.

Through two seasons and six episodes on Channel 4, the monsters of Black Mirror were largely metaphorical and unseen, signals and dispatches from mobile devices in a dubiously fictional world. Then the show was picked up by Netflix, which quickly commissioned a six-episode third season. Among those six episodes was “Playtest,” an hour starring Wyatt Russell (Lodge 49), Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country), and Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp). When that episode premiered on Oct. 21, 2016 it looked quite different from any other Black Mirror installment before it.  

In “Playtest,” the monsters of Black Mirror became literal with a grotesque human-spider hybrid and a shrieking flayed-faced zombie terrorizing Russell’s character Cooper Redfield as he playests the latest virtual reality videogame from a legendary game studio SaitoGemu. Though it all may be happening in Cooper’s head, the monsters created by Framestore are no less real to the viewer. That makes “Playtest” something truly unique in the Black Mirror canon. This is the one installment of the show’s 22’s entries that is undeniably, unapologetically horror. And four years to the day after its premiere, it still stands tall in the Black Mirror canon among the creative individuals who crafted it.

“I wasn’t expecting to do it. Then it just kind of just snuck in there, and it ended up being the highlight of my year,” Walker says of his BAFTA-nominated work on the episode.

“Playtest” director Dan Trachtenberg came to the project directly after the release of his film debut, thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane. Like Walker, he was pleasantly surprised that Black Mirror was set to expand its genre influences. 

“I remember that was the big draw for Charlie (Brooker). He was really excited about making essentially Evil Dead 2. And I was excited to continue to do that kind of work and I felt like I was sharpening a tool that I hadn’t yet fully sharpened,” Trachtenberg says. 

Trachtenberg and creator Charlie Brooker bonded over a shared love of both horror and videogames and quickly got to work fine-tuning Brooker’s concept into a lean horror machine. 

“What evolved the most was probably Wyatt Russell’s character,” Trachtenberg says. “Initially, the character was much more of an ugly American. There’s still that quality to him, but there’s a lovability and a naivete to Wyatt’s performance that informs the gravity of some of the things that he’s dealing with. In initial drafts, it was more like one of the horror movie terms of the unlikable person who is put through a gauntlet to learn to have values.”

The first third of “Playtest” serves to set up the improbable circumstances that would lead a young American man to a creepy manor in the British countryside to playtest a VR horror videogame from a Japanese gaming giant. It all starts with Cooper out on a sprawling world tour, traveling to India, Dubai, Spain, and more before arriving in London at the tail end of his journey. When it’s time to finally return home, Cooper discovers that his bank account has been hacked and he’s unable to buy a return plane ticket. Thankfully SaitoGemu is in London working on its latest horror game and it’s willing to pay for some willing playtesters. That’s how Cooper makes his way to the opulent and spooky Harlech House where lead designer Shou (Ken Yamamura) and the team are hard at work creating the next great VR horror adventure.

If this seems like a lot of exposition before Cooper engages with the horrors of the haunted mansion, there’s a method to Black Mirror’s madness. Much of what Cooper experiences prior to entering Harlech House informs the horrors that he sees. One prominent example includes Cooper watching a movie on his flight about a monstrous spider and then encountering a terrifying spider of his own later on. There’s also a poster for Red Sonja, which foreshadows the moment that a specter of Cooper’s sex buddy Sonja (Hannah John-Kamen) enters the simulation and has her face torn off, revealing the crimson skull beneath. 

“When (Cooper) kills that evil Sonja and slams her head onto the knife and through his shoulder that is (the position that) they woke up that morning. It’s kind of like in dreams, the way things are affecting you while you’re sleeping and then they show up later inside what you’re imagining,” Trachtenberg says.

The rest of “Playtest’s” dream sequences are positively bursting with similar dream imagery and Easter eggs that fans have done an excellent job of documenting over the years. Trachtenberg is fond of some of the subtler ones.  

“There’s a typical, classic creepy girl in the painting in a creepy house, and the girl in the painting is the girl that he’s sitting next to in the airplane in the beginning. Everything you see in act one populates in act two and three,” the director says.

Once the horrors of “Playtest” get going, however, there is nothing subtle about them. And that’s where Framestore’s work comes in. Walker and his team were charged not only with creating a small, realistic spider that sets off the hallucination, but also a monstrous version with the human visage of his childhood bully Josh Peters.

“I played around with quite a lot of different iterations of where to put the face, and how to change the anatomy of the spider and the body,” Walker says. “The mandible things, they were coming out of his mouth at one point, and then they returned into part of his mouth opened up in the way that it does. I don’t know if people notice it or not, but those legs are hands with long nails. They’re like fingers. It’s got a belly button underneath it and other weird stuff that you might not ever get to see.”

The undead version of Sonja was a combination of practical and visual effects, with Walker’s team serving to make the terrifying red skull “gooier” for the most part. 

“That was a tricky one. It was one of those ones when you spend a lot of time actually just massaging the integration so it feels tangible as opposed to kind of making this standalone thing and investing time in an amazing asset. She wasn’t quite so shiny, so we built our own CG version, and some shots were CG and layered on the top.”

The effects for Spider-Peters and Red Sonja had to be particularly on point as they are a product of Cooper’s brain and not merely SaitoGemu’s VR technology. As attentive viewers of Black Mirror know, “Playtest” actually “ends” roughly 20 minutes in when Cooper receives a phone call from his mom in the secure playtest area. The signal from his phone, which was supposed to be off and secured in a suitcase, fries the “mushroom’s” connection to Cooper’s brain and kills him almost instantly. Everything that follows is the product of his dying brain and not the work of SaitoGemu’s machine. This information, of course, isn’t revealed until episode’s end and as such Brooker maintains that it’s one of the most misunderstood endings in Black Mirror history. 

“If there’s misunderstandings of it, I’m probably to blame, which may be why Charlie is cleaning it up,” Trachtenberg jokes. “But frankly, every reaction video that I’ve watched I feel like people usually do get it. There’s even a clip where someone put what actually happened, where they cut out the entire second that they just show that scene as if that’s all that happened, which is fun to watch.”

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TV

Black Mirror: Ranking Every Episode

By Alec Bojalad

The best episodes of Black Mirror are never about how technology will torment humanity. They’re about how humanity will use new technology to continue to torment ourselves. And nowhere is that more apparent than in “Playtest.” The episode sets up a scenario in which a VR experience will go haywire, but then in reality it is Cooper’s brain that betrays him, not the machine. It’s Cooper’s conscience that takes him on this terrifying freak show of monsters and murderers and then dies before the game even begins. It’s the proverbial “flashes before your eyes” moment in which that flash is a literal horror movie.

“I do find it interesting how devastating that notion is for so many – that it could all happen in a split second,” Trachtenberg says. “We definitely went back and forth so much on the ending. And I certainly don’t love too many twists as well, I just felt the initial twist was the expected one and I wanted there to be something more. I really wanted to drive home that it’s his fault in the end and tie in the fear of inheriting what his father had.”

Though the monsters of “Playtest” offer up the biggest scares, it’s approach to horror is deeper, more existential. Cooper’s real biggest fear is forgetting who he is, just like his father did before his end. And the mechanism that ultimately kills him isn’t any malevolent entity within the game or SaitoGemu, it’s simply his inability to connect with his mother during a difficult time in their lives. 

Cooper is quite the keen observer of his surroundings in Harlech House, despite being dead.  During one moment in particular, Cooper opens up a cupboard door to find a bottle of (non-alcoholic) wine and before he closes the cabinet he says aloud to his handler Katie (Mosaku) “He’s going to be right behind this door when I close it, isn’t he?” referring to the shade of Josh Peters. And of course, Cooper is right – just a little delayed, as the spider version of Peters that launches itself across the kitchen shortly after he closes the cabinet.

Characters in horror movies being self-aware about the “rules” of horror is nothing new in our highly metatextual pop culture landscape. But identifying the “cupboard” rule is still quite impressive. According to Trachtenberg, acknowledging the legacy and tactics of horror is an important part of any horror enterprise.

“There’s a scene in I Know What You Did Last Summer with these two characters talking in a car. The frame they’re on is the extreme side, and the entire other two-thirds of the frame of negative space is the window; and you just know that someone or something is going to jump inside that part of the frame. It’s about riding the wave of tension then releasing it. (With the cupboard scare) the audience has the sensation of, ‘Uh-oh, it’s going to happen here?’ Then Cooper calls it out and the audience thinks, “Oh there. That’s what it is.’ Now that they’re not expecting it, we can actually still surprise.”

“Playtest” could have been a lot more meta than just as a mere horror critique. At one point, Brooker planned to have a “Nightmare Mode” version of the episode available on Netflix’s streams, in which viewers could revisit it and get a new horror experience. If that sounds like the choose-your-own adventure nature of the eventual special Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, it’s because it is … right down to the focus on videogames. 

Trachtenberg says Netflix wasn’t ready to take on the technological burden of such a concept in 2016. 

“Charlie is a huge gamer, as am I. We talked a lot about, ‘wouldn’t it be awesome if we could pull off alternate endings or an alternate beat, or could there be connections to other episodes that you only see if you clicked on this button or whatever. I think he really tried with Netflix at that moment and there just was no technology for it.”

Being on the bleeding edge was something of a trend for “Playtest.” Many Black Mirror episodes are known for their uncanny predictive abilities (right down to the truly insane real life rumor of a British Prime Minister allegedly sexually defiling a pig). “Playtest,” meanwhile, preceded a run of truly excellent horror games (including one literally called “P.T.” for “Playtest”) and a modest increase in the popularity of VR technology. But four years on from the episode, Trachtenberg doesn’t feel as though culture is fully embracing the tech’s potential.

“VR was around when we were shooting. And it’s gotten much better since but I think we all felt like AR was definitely going to take over. I still feel that eventually. You just have to try it to know how amazing it is. But still … I would have thought that would have taken over sooner.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Perhaps that’s the real legacy of “Playtest.” It’s the one episode of Black Mirror that wasn’t cynical enough about our reliance on technology…despite killing its lead character with a phone 20 minutes in. 

The post How Black Mirror Embraced Its Horror Potential with Playtest appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jiM2pI

[scriptmin]

Absolute Yoongi

Summary: But then what good would he make as an outlaw if he did not take risks? If he did not play with risks? It’d been years since he’s had this much fun.

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Yoongi would think that after an entire decade of running with various packs below ground, he would have discovered all there was to see of the side of the world relevant to his survival and livelihood. A heart seasoned, hardened, against unimaginable cruelties, gore, immorale, knives that were not always metal blades—but rather, the words slipped from cunning tongues—plunged into the backs of former allies, comrades, friends, family, drummed unfailingly beneath cement-like ribs broken and repaired beyond count.

Yet as he slinked low in his seat, housed by the warm fumes of drip coffee and fresh bakes on the day of Sabbath, an entire twenty-four hours traditionally dedicated to rest and recovery—deserving even for the most inhumane—it would be a lie for him to claim that he foresaw the elephant-like stomps of a figure that perhaps did not even break five feet, the sudden occupation of the seat across him and the slamming of crisp, white documents imprinted with neat black wording in rows and rows of unintelligible phrases before him.

He did not quite expect a pair of round, curious eyes of toffee staring back at him, intercepting his field of vision with sentiments displaying a hardened resolved, yet those same toffee eyes were wavering, shaking, signs of a fallible confident front that seemed to crumble inch by inch as the seconds ticked by, a silence bursting at seams to be addressed. Yoongi merely balked.

Who is this girl?

“W- Well, what are you waiting for? Go on, s- sign it.”

As Yoongi pondered every possible explanation for this pretty stranger to be sitting in front of a man who had not been expecting anyone’s company—the most likely reason being she had mistaken him for someone else—the documents on the table were flipped over by small, hasty hands, contents becoming legible now that they were faced in his direction. His eyes skimmed the surface, picking up the words “the provider”, “receiver”, “shall oblige and respect”, “aforementioned duties and boundaries”—and it slowly dawned on him that these phrases were clauses, the entire stack of fifteen pages no less a contract. But for what purpose exactly?

Yoongi eyed his newfound companion inquisitively—taking in the palpable anxiety that was quite literally oozing out of her pores as she sat perched like an owl, torso hunched forward in anticipation, her hands clamped between her thighs and the surface of the wooden chair beneath, in an attempt to perhaps conceal their trembling state. The girl was most likely sprinting to make her arrival, the sides of her forehead glistening with a thin sheen of perspiration, brunette strands having fallen loose from her ponytail, framing her oval-face with youthful, schoolgirl femininity. Yoongi hadn’t thought characters like her existed beyond novels, a character so full of naïvety and submission that a natural-born predator such as himself could not resist feeding off of.

Then the expertise that came with a decade of putting up pretenses, of sly, slick manipulation had kicked in, fueled partly by the attraction to the girl’s undoubted beauty, even if she appeared a tad too childlike for Yoongi’s usual tastes. It would make a rather entertaining story to recount with Namjoon over the beer they agreed to be having later tonight—it wasn’t every day a guy like him had some puny girl slamming down bizarre contracts in their faces.

And so Yoongi had reclined in masculine contempt against the backrest of his seat, right leg kicked up to rest by the ankle over the knee of his left. With lithe fingers, he had grasped the papers, lifting up from the table’s surface and holding it over his face, just low enough for him to peek over and observe the shifting pupils of the girl before him.

Yet in spite of all the other logical, practical reasons that flitted through his mind, his following actions were perhaps inspired by more emotional drivings, in the form of undercurrents of desire to break away from his mundane routine running beneath his skin, under his uncountable façades. And from the moment she entered his field of vision, a beautiful mess of disheveled hair and near-tangible nervousness, a sight no less than absolutely adorable, he knew that informing the girl of her mistake might just be the stupidest thing Yoongi would do in his life.

“What… exactly is this?” He began carefully, meticulous in crafting a front of recognition for her, yet not the contract.

The girl shifted and squirmed, unable to meet his eyes as she responded with equal caution, and perhaps embarrassment, “I- I had some time on my hands last night. Figured it would be good to have some established guidelines if we’re going to do this right.”

Yoongi squinted at the documents in his hand, a myriad of doubt and disbelief parading through his mind. Had this girl actually written up a contract for some guy she most probably found a random dating website? Could someone truly be so cluelessly endearing?

“Well then, I’ll have to read it before I sign, don’t I?” He tried to remark flippantly, thumbing through to the next page where he began to narrate its contents in an immaculately spiteful tone, “Let’s see now… The provider shall render services typical of a faithful romantic partner to the receiver in the below stated means, although it is preferred that he makes an effort to be creative beyond the provided examples: one, hand holding is an obligation in the presence of, though not limited to, members of family, friends and acquaintances. It is therefore recommended that he learn the names and faces of those listed in Annex A as soon as possible.”

Yoongi raised his brows, cracking his neck. “Two,” He eyed the girl pointedly, only being able to catch the crown of her head as her chin dipped, her gaze focused on something beneath the table—perhaps the twiddling of her fingers—before returning his line of sight to the document in hand, the beginnings of amusement faintly marking his lips. “He shall engage in displays of affection appropriate to that of a couple six months into a relationship, although kissing should be avoided unless a situation that potentially compromises the believability of the relationship arises, in which the provider must be the instigator of a mouth to mouth connection lasting no more than- this is a work of art, really.”

In response to the tossing of papers back onto the table, airy undertones of disbelief and blatant mockery apparent in his voice, the girl coughed, her voice tender and abashed, “I- I know it sounds ridiculous. But it will help prevent complications down the road.”

“Complications?” Intrigue at the prospect of uncovering more about the girl and her surely class-A backstory had propelled Yoongi’s body forward, his arms coming to rest at the edge of the table as he peered at her like stargazing telescopes, with every intention in the world to draw out once more the endearing shyness that had afflicted the swirling amber crystals in her eyes when she first came to him—and with much success. Yoongi smirked in triumph. “And what such complications might you have in mind?”

“Well…” Her head was angling down again, thicker locks escaping the grasps of her hair tie. Yoongi squinted, his hands itching with the urge to pull all that hair out of her face. Didn’t she feel stuffy? “You and I are entering a contractual partnership with specific gains—I need the performance of a boyfriend, and you get paid for doing it, we’re going to part ways once our objectives are met. The clauses will help us refrain from acting needlessly, so we won’t develop a genuine attraction to the other.”

Yoongi’s head tipped back, enlightened but exasperated, eyes rolling up to the ceiling before returning to the girl, only to find that she had remained stagnant in her position, unchanged in her logic, albeit there was a splash of rose across her cheeks, her bottom lip noticeably reddened having been subjected to the tireless gnawing between her teeth. At least with the angle of her head this way, she wouldn’t have noticed the feral-like prowl Yoongi’s gaze alone had on those lips of hers. He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, to be honest, but much like her sudden arrival, Yoongi certainly wasn’t expecting it to lead to becoming someone’s pretend-boyfriend.

Therefore yes, yes he was absolutely positive that this girl had to be fictional. In what kind of alternate universe had she been raised in to develop a personality as unorthodox as this? Or perhaps this was all an expertly orchestrated hidden camera prank broadcasted live— how many people were watching? How many were already laughing?

“Hello?” Came the gentle prompt, a tiny palm waving over the expanse of perplexity that was Yoongi’s current expression, his forehead creased, brows pinched, mouth half-agape. He blinked once, twice, then retracted his jaw firmly shut, gathering his composure. “Are you going to sign it or not? I actually have somewhere to be after this.”

“Pardon me,” Yoongi began carefully, “but remind me again why you opted for this instead of simply… getting a boyfriend?”

The petite girl across him huffed, supposedly in disapproval of his forgetfulness if he were to eventually become her fake boyfriend. But it was quickly overridden by dejection that had appeared in the form of slouching shoulders and gravity-pulled corners of her lips as she spoke, “You’re not my type.”

Yoongi almost choked.

“Finding a real boyfriend takes time, and I’m running on a deadline here. I just need someone to shut my sisters up.”

“And how did you find me?”

He knew he’d asked a wrong question when her features then contorted into that of confusion. “It was you who found me. How many clients have you had that you’re mixing things up?” A tiny fist true to her elfin stature came up to her lips, her own brows furrowing with thought as she mumbled under her breath, “Not good… not good at all…”

“Oh. Right… Man, I really have to get myself organized. Don’t worry though, you’re like, my only client right now.” Only half-appeased by his response, the girl dropped her fist, focus turning to Yoongi’s hands and how empty and unmoving they still were. Noticing her expectance and patience slowly wearing thin, he jerked them to action, arm reaching round to his back pocket to retrieve his wallet, withdrawing a chic, black card from one of its leather compartments. “I’ll look through this contract one more time before I sign myself over. Wouldn’t want you to waste all that effort into typing this up.” He was then sliding the card across the lacquered surface of the wooden round-table where he’d purposefully stopped, fingertips just barely grazing the side of her hand. The fervent fluster decorating her cheeks was juxtaposed with yet another sly, humoured grin on Yoongi’s part. “How about you go pick something you like from the bakery?”

“I already ate, actually.”

“I’ll have a hazelnut coffee.”

“O- Okay…”

And he watched her submit without much fight at all, a response that triggered yet another wave of dominant triumph as he clutched the papers and slinked back into the comfort of his seat, slowly becoming at ease in the presence of this stranger, despite their meeting only lasting ten minutes at best. He began investigation with Annex A, where he was met with a page full of little portraits, names and short trivia about each positioned just below the pictures. And it was in a span of another five minutes that Yoongi had gotten himself acquainted with all five other members of her family—her parents and their company owned an arsenal of five-star hotels across Asia. Her sisters were not too shabby themselves: the oldest was a third year resident at a university hospital, the second had just started writing for the city’s biggest newspaper, and the third was apparently traveling the world and holding art exhibitions for her high-value sculptures.

In other words, they were the ideal power family, perhaps having been the most recent generation of a long-running pedigree line of business execs, doctors, lawyers and other prominent figures. And it was in this background that he began to wonder exactly where she had her place.

Aside from being the stereotypical youngest child that everyone else doted on, and carrying signs of a well-fed, well-clothed rich girl in the designer clothing that looked terribly mismatched and unsuited for her, there was nothing about her personality nor aura that would constitute as one of them. If the timidness she displayed oh-so generously before him, a stranger, were to be replicated even in the safe and secure environment of her home, in the presence of closest kin, Yoongi was absolutely positive that she would be run to the ground. 

“One hazelnut coffee and… that cheesecake thing over there- please? T- Thanks.”

The perfect prey for the perfect predator, Yoongi noted. She was utterly hopeless.

Bzz. Bzz.

True to the habits of a busy man, Yoongi’s hand had gone to the little black rectangle that sat upon his end of the table, the single press of a button illuminating a screen chock full of pending matters that screamed for his attention. He exchanged the papers for his mobile, part of his mind returning to true reality, but it was quickly noticed that none of these messages were recent. And it was then, in the peripherals of his vision, that a similar rectangle screen had gone dark on the other side of the table, this one in the colour of white and pink, the frame of the phone decorated by little cartoon stickers. Her phone.

With the fade-out, he had by sheer luck managed to catch a glimpse of a polite where are you? disappearing into the blackness after the notification had automatically timed out. And then, then he had been surely rattled out of his all-powerful, testosterone-induced pedestal when he thought of her real “contractual partner” contacting her, and her realisation that she had been sitting and quite literally revealing half her backstory to the wrong guy.

Yoongi had been the instigator of many despicable things, yet he never resented himself for any of it as much as he did for the vile temptation to invade the privacy which he himself valued to the point of ruthlessness should anyone dare breach it. This self-mutilation stretched further, deeper, along with the furtive glance spared her way to note that she had moved to a side counter, waiting for her order to ring up, and then his eyes had returned to the device, inside of his cheek caught between gnawing teeth.

Finally, his hand shot out, snatching the mobile and bringing it across the table, hiding it between his thighs as he allowed himself one peek at the screen. He found two pending messages:

[2:13pm] Kim Taehyung: Hey are you like late or something? Youre on your way to Wings café right? call me if you need help im already waiting inside.

[2:53pm] Kim Taehyung: where are you? i’ll wait for another 15 mins if not i’m just leaving

“Here’s your—”

“Wha- fuck!”

“—coffee…?” She was eyeing him strangely, almost judgmentally, as she returned to the table with a small tray in hand, a steaming takeaway cup and plate of cheesecake laid delectably atop it. Yoongi on the other hand was doing everything in his power from screeching, going red-faced trying to ignore the throb in his kneecap after he had jerked in surprise (totally guilt-triggered) and knocked his knees on the underside of the table, further cementing his belief in karma. “Are you okay? You didn’t come off as such a scaredy-cat.”

“I’m alright,” Yoongi tried to reply levelly, a phrase meant to assure himself more than it was for her.  He quickly clipped the phone beneath his thigh. “I was just caught off guard.”

“That looked painful.” She was separating the contents of the tray now, placing Yoongi’s coffee on his side of the table and pulling the rest of the miniature tray towards her. And though her words were supposedly offered out of concern, it was blatantly obvious that the dessert on the table had captured her full attention, for she had not spared an extra glance his way after her initial reaction, toffee eyes excitedly trained on the cake slice.

Shaking his head, Yoongi merely returned the contract to the table, retrieving a pen from his jacket pocket. He had made sure to regard her the same attention she had regarded him with, adopting a faux aura of coolness, so it was only natural that he had delighted in the snap of her head when he clicked his pen, flipping in an I-couldn’t-care-less manner to the last page where two horizontal lines were positioned at the bottom, just below the concluding paragraphs.

The line on the left, labeled “provider’s name and signature”, was obviously blank, whereas the one the right had been filled up by a tiny scrawl in a sky blue gel pen. And… is that silver glitter? Yoongi had only barely managed to make out the scribbling, a signature which was just a disastrous conversion of “Y/N” into cursive lettering.

“Y/N.” Yoongi had repeated out loud. And he could swear her face had reddened just by the sound of her name. He brought the tip of his pen towards the black line, a blank that seemed as eager as the girl in front of him to be filled up. Aware and self-assured by her attention, Yoongi brought the tip down, meeting at last the crisp white sheet with smooth black ink. “Consider me signed over.”

“Huh. That’s it?” The girl remarked. “That’s your signature? Just ‘Kim Taehyung’ written out?”

“You’re not one to be making comments.” Yoongi tapped the butt of his pen against her own signature. “What’s up with the decoden pens? I thought this was a formal and leeeegally binding contract?”

When she had pursed her lips shut, a face of childish defeat overcoming the initial look of question, Yoongi never did realise that he had been smiling at her. Never did realise that in the span of fifteen minutes, this elfish girl with a devilishly adorable blush-reflex at anything he said had already carved a little spot for herself in the back of his consciousness, had gotten so settled in that for one reason or another, the protective and borderline paternal instincts which remained largely dormant in Yoongi, had begun to stir and awaken.

She was staring back at him. Perhaps having noticed that his gaze dragging on too long was a sign that his mind was someplace else. When Yoongi finally returned to the present, it was he, for the first time, who felt oddly jittery in his seat, the eyes that had been trained so dearly on her suddenly unable to find a comfortable place to rest, now that she was the one observing him.

Coughing and clearing his throat, Yoongi broke the silence. “Just eat your cake, babe.”

“I- I will…” And the atmosphere between them had returned to that of their initial confrontation—light, curious, and slightly awkward.

“So I’m a pretty open guy,” he then began, driving the open-ended exchange to an area with more purpose. He had to unlock her phone. “I don’t believe in hiding anything, so I think we can start off with exchanging phone passwords.”

“Isn’t that a little…”

“Why, you hiding something?”

A dash of pink had darted out the corner of her mouth, licking clean a tiny dollop of cream that had stained the edge. With a full mouth, she quietly answered, “No…”

Surely, such a poorly-planned and juvenile excuse would plant suspicion and doubt in the mind of any other girl. In this modern era where everything, from birthday reminders to intimate diary entries, was kept and stored away in handheld devices that never left the side of its owners, the revelation of something as personal as the password to this digital Pandora’s box was something most people would think twice, think triple, and still emerge with an answer along the lines of no.

Yet as Yoongi already gathered, this girl was no ordinary girl. This girl was one overflowing with naïvety, with untainted trust in humans until they blatantly acted out of line, and even then, her definition of overboard would be skewed to the point where she could be taken advantage of and wouldn’t even realise until the perpetrator himself bore a confession.

“It’s not like we’ll ever have the need to go behind each other’s backs right?” Yoongi was sliding his phone across to her, number pad to enter his password already prepared. He didn’t want her glancing at those more-than-questionable messages lined up on the screen. “Mine’s one-two-two-one. Try it.”

She transferred the dessert fork from right to left, and with her now free hand, tentatively keyed in the combination. The device was unlocked, number pad dividing to reveal the home screen of his phone.

“Your wallpaper’s pretty dark.”

He quickly locked it shut again, and her line of sight returned to him as he brought his own cell down to his lap. “Mmm. And yours?”

“Oh- hang on, I’ll get my phone—”

“No no no, it’s fine!” The girl froze, the look of perplexity much like the one she had given when he knocked his knees on the table returning to her face once more. Yoongi checked himself, then expertly removed the agitation from his next words: “You can just tell me.”

Adorably enough, her hands had stopped digging through the purse she wore slung across her torso, coming back to the table where she picked up her fork again. “Um, okay, it’s one-zero-zero-four.”

Yoongi’s hands were already moving under the table, retrieving the device that sat beneath his thigh.

“So what do you do, you know, for a living?” Whilst maintaining an innocent conversation chest-and-up, he had expertly keyed in the digits, maneuvering swiftly past the home screen and into her messages. Yoongi had intended to delete the chat entirely, but caught himself mid-swipe when he considered that she might notice the sudden absence of the chat, and instead opted to put a dead-end to all potential attempts of doubting his identity.

“Oh, I’m a college student. On my third year now.”

“Mm…”

[2:59pm] You: sorry I changed my mind. please don’t contact me anymore. 

“You, um.” Yoongi jolted. “You must be pretty busy even on Sunday, huh?”

He’d quickly tucked the device back under his thigh, replacing the emptiness in his palm with his own phone in case she leaned over for a peek. “No babe, just settling some stuff. I don’t usually text while I’m on a date, I promise.”

“You don’t have to call me pet names, y’know. I mean it’ll be good to do it in front of people, but when it’s just us, it’s kind of weird. We only just met.”

“Well,” Yoongi began, one arm leaving the surface of the tabletop to reach for her fork. She gave it up to him without much thought, and he had nonchalantly fed himself a small piece of the cake before returning the utensil to her. “If we’re going to convince anyone of your new relationship status, we oughta start with convincing ourselves first, no?”

“I suppose…”

Bzz. Bzz.

[2:59pm] Kim Taehyung: uh… ok i guess.

Heh. Subduing a victorious smirk, Yoongi had deleted the four chat bubbles, wiping out all traces of the gaudy Kim Taehyung in her life. And then he was moving on to her contacts list, scrolling, scrolling down to the K section where he’d replaced the string of digits with his own number.

Done deal.

“You sure you’re not busy? You’re spending awfully a lot of time on your phone.”

More like your phone. Slipping her device back under his thigh, Yoongi returned to the conversation with full gusto, confidence boosted now that he no longer had to worry about her finding out about his cosplay acts.

“You’re right, no more of that. I’m all yours now.” The influx of undivided attention seemed to reel the girl back into her shy and awkward demeanor, for she had avoided the adoring gaze Yoongi had enveloped her in, opting instead to speed through the rest of her dessert.

“You said you had someplace to be afterwards, where is it? I’ll drop you off.”

“What? N- No, that’s not necessary. I’m just going to my volunteer session. We have family day every Sunday at the community centre downtown.”

Yoongi shifted, resting his cheek in his fist; a position that, although expressed his comfort in her presence, still conveyed enough about his interest in the matter. She appeared more at ease with this. “You volunteer? That’s cute.”

“Uh… Yeah. What about you? What do you do?”

“Me?” His head cocked, mostly out of reflex, as his free hand reached for his coffee, thin, pale fingers going round the warm circumference of paper. “I don’t do much.”

“Then what made you… do this?” She gestured roughly to the space between them, the flailing of her palm indicating the rather peculiar positions they now held in each other’s life. Internet strangers to pretend lovers. Yes, rather peculiar indeed.

While his partner seemed absolutely captured by the discussion, Yoongi was more than glad to be rid of it. “I was bored.” He shrugged, hand moving to swirl the brown liquid. “Needed something fresh in my life. Something… unexpected.”

His eyes flickered back up towards hers, and with the sudden focus her body had reacted completely instinctively— a small flinch, rapid flutter of lashes, a gaze that simply could not seem to settle on any one thing. Yoongi was smug about the power he held over her, but now he had become quite enamoured, deciding idly in the back of his mind that he could watch this girl all day and be able to ignore, suppress, the slow but sure crescendo of his heartbeat.

“O- oh, looks like I’m running late.”

In a blink, she was setting her fork down, abandoning the uneaten half of her dessert; she was gathering her bearings, her belongings, tucking the contract under her arm before she slung her purse back over her shoulder. And she stood, the screeching of the chair violently snapping Yoongi back to attention. “I have to get going.”

“Of course. Good deeds don’t magically get themselves done, now do they?”

Clack!

“Hey, I think you dropped something.”

Both her head and his had dropped to identify whatever it was that had landed on the varnished floorboards, although one of them already knew what it was. When she had bent down to retrieve what she already recognized to be her cellphone, Yoongi had shot out of his seat, beating her small, dainty hand to the chase.

Wiping the screen on the fabric of his jeans, Yoongi had presented the device to her, smug grin juxtaposed by her shy gratitude.

“T- Thanks.”

When her hand came up to grasp the phone, Yoongi had held it just a tad tighter, feeling her tug on the other end for a split-second extra before he finally let go, grin stretching wider.

“You’re welcome.” He observed her tuck the device back into her purse, his hands now clothed by the inner lining of his jacket pockets. Casually, he asked again, “You’re sure you don’t need me to drop you off?”

“I’m sure.” There was so much vibrance on her face, from the pupils in her eyes to the generous curve of her lips, her cheeks free from the peachy tones that had adorned them so faithfully throughout the entire meeting. When she wasn’t so busy getting flustered, Yoongi was able to sift out hints of elegant maturity that could have only come with age; the exact kind of beauty that pierced his every barrier and shook his soul to its core.

“Can I trust that we’ll be meeting again soon, Mr. Kim Taehyung?”

This newfound venture had the potential to develop into a weakness that led most who dealt in the underworld to their demise. And perhaps, Yoongi too could be risking more than he could foresee by reaching his hands out to her. She was a special type of danger, but his hunger for a good gamble overpowered all the cons, was driven by the amount of risks he would have to take. He knew well the adversities she could be exposed to by being roped into his world, however shallow and temporary her presence may be. And in a certain perspective, he might have even felt sorry that she had to mistake him, of all people, for her arranged boyfriend, considering not just any woman could have the will to stay with a man like himself. But then what good would he be as a gangster if he did not take risks? If he did not play with risks?

“Yes… yes, you can.”

It’d been years since he had this much fun.

[dailytechnologynews]

Downsizing from ITX to ATX...wait...what?! | My Cerberus X impressions (warning, LONG)

Case Photo

Product Configuration Page

NOTE - While his post has been essentially cross-posted, for /r/hardware I have adjusted the focus to be more on the case itself, and less on the "look at my PC build" aspects, in order to be more in line with the subreddit and rules. IF the mods still feel that this isn't quite right for this sub, I understand, and thank you for what you guys do :)

Contents:

Introduction

Purpose and Problems

Configuration and Results

Imperfections

Regrets?

Conclusion

What's Next?

Introduction

I recently switched from the NZXT H200i (mini-ITX, ~26L) to the Cerberus X (E-ATX, ~19L). After a few weeks of usage and testing I wanted to go ahead and give my thought process and results.

Purpose and Problems

I had been attempting to downsize my PC case while maintaining adequate thermals. More importantly, I wanted lower noise output as the case was going to be right next to my head.

I started with the NZXT H200i, which I bought at launch in December 2017. But that brought with it some unforeseen problems. The EVGA G2 PSU that I was using completely covered the bottom intake, while completely choking off the GPU from air. Temps were higher than expected and I tried several workarounds. If your PSU completely closes off the bottom intake, you're going to have a bad time. The GPU and PSU trap air between them, causing the GPU to cook itself. You need negative pressure and an open bottom filter to get that air out of there. And even then, the thermals/noise become only adequate. I wanted my PC to be as quiet as possible, and when a case is 2 feet from your head, you are going to hear fan noise.

To clarify, this is what I mean by fan noise. I've heard people tell me that the Noctua NF-A12x25 is silent up to ~1,500 RPM. Some claim it's quiet at up to 2,000 RPM. It's not. At least not when 2 feet from your head. I have to run mine at around 900 RPM for effectively total silence. So clearly, I have a more stringent definition of silence for my specific use case, so now you should have an idea of what I was going for.

The MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium that I was using, and it was running at 77-82° in World of Warcraft at up to 2,100 RPM on the stock fan curve. It ran cooler and quieter in other games, but still warmer/louder than I would like. There's something about WoW that pushes cards to a higher power draw despite not being a modern looker. Since this was my worse case scenario and the game that I play the most, it's what I'm using to measure temps with. Also, my case is above the forced air vent in my office, which is bi-directional. So in the summer it's fine with A/C blowing at it. In the winter? With heat blowing at it, it's a problem.

Enter the Cerberus X, manufactured and distributed in North America by Sliger. I had a few criteria for a replacement to the H200i, and they were:

Able to accommodate a wide range of parts, not too many compromises

White

Opaque panel so I didn't have to color-coordinate the interior

Ability to allow for good airflow without the need for liquid cooling

A small footprint so that it could remain on my desk

Support for ATX motherboards for the next round of upgrades

The Cerberus X appeared to be the solution to my problems.

Configuration and Results

I knew that I wanted to do air cooling exclusively, with a tower-style cooler. I opted to maintain my Cryorig H7 (which does fit, if you remove the included side bracket). This meant a few things. First, I'd need an SFX or SFX-L PSU, so I opted for the Corsair SF450 Platinum (I did try it in the H200i for about a week, and it didn't make an impact, surprisingly).

Then, I needed to come up with the case fans and layout. I opted for four Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans. I used two for the intake at the bottom, one as a front/bottom intake, and the last one to replace the stock fan on the H7. You can see the layout HERE. I apologize for the lack of cable management. The idea behind this fan layout is positive pressure (all 3 case fans pulling air in) plus convection cooling (heat rises), forcing most of the warm air either out the top vent or forced out the rear by the CPU cooler.

Finally, I needed to swap the GPU. The MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium was 140mm tall, but with the power connectors, it went past the 154mm allowed for the side panel. So I got the MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z. This would be a sufficient side grade as GPU performance wasn't an issue for me. The rest of the system specs:

Intel Core i7-7700k

EVGA Z270 Stinger ITX motherboard

G-Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3000 CL 15

Samsung 960 Evo 1TB NVME

And that's literally it aside from the aforementioned PSU and GPU. I really could have gone with a smaller case, but I'll be switching to an ATX platform later this year or early next. Just getting ready.

First I ran the system with the MSI Titanium. I wanted to see if it cooled down. This was more like an open-air test bench as the side panel could not be put on. Temps dropped from a peak of 82° to 67°. Fan RPM plummeted. It was quiet. Mission accomplished. Time to put in the 2060, put on the side panel, and see how bad it gets.

The new card? 63° under full, sustained loads. I can get it to spike to 65° if the home heating is going full blast, but the card quickly knocks it back to 63°. Fan RPM is typically around or under 1,200 RPM, with an occasional push to near 1,300. It's quiet. In fact, it has one minor issue. For lighter gaming loads the temps will on rare occasion drop into the low 50s and the fans will eventually cut off, so you can hear them spin back up briefly when the temp surpasses 60°. But it's a short burst and not very loud.

My next concern was CPU temps. The setup that I have greatly favors the GPU. Using an extremely conservative fan curve on the Cryorig H7, gaming temps tend to be in the 50s (I can get into the 60s in Forza Horizon 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider). This is a few degrees warmer than the H200, but nothing to complain about. Using Handbrake, my most demanding CPU task, it fluctuates between 67° and 70° C. That's with the Noctua NF-A12x25 attached to the H7 running at only 1,335 RPM. This thing is silent! (CPU is not delidded, but I'm also running at stock speeds).

Imperfections

No case is perfect, so here I'm going to mention ALL of the flaws of the Cerberus X.

First, it's not a mass-produced case. As such, the price is higher than what a similar mass-produced case would potentially cost. However, there's no mass-produced competition so while the price is high, we can't say it's a poor value for what it gives.

Next is the overall design. It is not filtered (though you can order compatible filters), so dust will be a concern. I'm going to watch this and see how bad it gets, and if necessary, I'll move to the filters down the road.

Another issue with the design is that there is almost zero thought given to cable management. Basically, everything was put into making this as compact as possible while housing larger parts with fewer compromises. Yes, you can use an ATX mobo, an ATX PSU, a 280mm AIO, and a fairly large GPU. But there's no room between the rear-side panel and the mobo tray. Absolutely none. So you'll need to get creative with the cable management. No big deal for me (as you saw from the mess in the interior photo), but those who opt for the windowed panel will take issue with this to some degree.

While the case supports E-ATX, ATX, and ITX, there's no standoff holes pre-drilled for MicroATX. So keep that in mind if buying this case over the non-X version, which supports both MicroATX and ITX.

Finally, the top vent/panel. In white, I can see what look like black dots along the top, because the paint job is less than perfect. Basically in many of the holes, at the edge of where the hole meets the top, there's a small chip in the paint. This is in the majority of the holes and from where I sit it's quite obvious, and you can see it HERE (zoom in if needed), though it's more pronounced in person. I suspect this will be an issue with the white and red versions, but fine for the black and grey. I'm ok with it, but if you're OCD, get the black-top option for your white or red case.

In summary, the flaws are price, lack of included filtering, lack of included cable management options, lack of MicroATX support, and chips in the top white (and likely red as well) panel.

Conclusion

I outlined above what I was aiming for in a case. The Cerberus X met or exceeded every requirement. The flaws that it has either don't impact me, or can be mitigated through reasonable measures (separate filters, black top). Every time I purchase a product there's some form of compromise that I have to make. Not this time. After 4 cases in 3 years, I think I've finally found the successor to my Lian-Li K10B, which I used for 7 years (May 2008 - August 2015).

I highly recommend the Cerberus X for users who want an ATX tower that is extremely compact, won't make you compromise on every piece of hardware like an ITX chassis would, and offers solid thermals. Oh, and...so long as you can fit it within your budget ($235 - $360, depending on configuration).

[50books50movies]

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017), Logan (2017), and The Fate of the Furious (2017)

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I’m at an age where many of my friends have become or will become parents. Since I was the first person in my peer circle to become a father, they sometimes turned to me to ask what advice, practical or philosophical, I could give about becoming a parent. By this point, I’ve refined my patter to a performance. I will consistently tell my friends, “Don’t have kids.” Either that draws them in further to inevitably ask why, or they take the words on the superficial level and move on with the conversation. If they ask why I, a father of a delightful kid, would say that, I ask if they want the practical or the philosophical reasons. The practical reasons are simple: having a child is a major financial commitment, a guarantee that you will never have a sound night of sleep ever again (and not just because an infant’s needs will interrupt your sleep), and a turning point in the relationship that you and your partner have. You and your partner’s relationship may not survive; the roles that you and you partner played in the relationship before you became parents will not be the roles that you will play after. The philosophical reasons are based in pessimism: if we accept that any actions that lead to the suffering of others is immoral, then having a child is an immoral act because human sentience means that we all live in constant pain born from a terror of knowing that our lives are finite. We are always dying. We die every second. In response to the absurd notion that we are born only so we can live to know that we will die, the most common options are: commit suicide, embrace the absurdity of life, or to recognize how absurd life is and rebel. How could you then morally justify creating life? 

What could have been in the creative air to inspire three major blockbuster films (The LEGO Batman Movie, Logan, and The Fate of the Furious) from three different distributors (Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures, respectively) to tackle the ideas of family unity and fatherhood in three different ways? (And it’s noted that these three films offer their takes on fatherhood specifically, not parenthood.) I suppose it’s natural that someone will explore the paradoxical idea that characters like Batman and Wolverine, who are so often defined as loners who don’t believe that they deserve human connections to other people would actually have many relationships that form an extended family with characters who choose to be with them. In other words, you could imagine Batman, Wolverine, and Dominic Toretto each saluting their respective families with their beverages of choice. 

Colorful and bombastic, The LEGO Batman Movie contextualizes the characters around Batman as his extended family. From Alfred the patriarch (voice by Ralph Fiennes) to Batman (Will Arnett) to Batman’s adopted son, Robin (Michael Cera), to Batman’s co-dependent nemesis, the Joker (Zach Galifianakis), to Batman and Joker’s extended work friends and acquaintances like Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), and Clayface, the many bonds that Batman has with the world around him are highlighted in bright neon explosions. As Batman’s surrogate father and like a father who worries about his kid’s ability to make the right kind of friends at school or meet the right partner, Alfred worries about his charge’s ability to form social bonds that will sustain Batman if he were to ever die. 

The film’s inciting incident is Batman breaking the Joker’s heart by telling him that he means nothing to him; the movie ends with a play on romantic comedy beats by climaxing with Batman and the Joker telling each other that they hate each other. It’s the psychosexual dynamic between the two that Frank Miller famously explored in The Dark Knight Returns and Scott Snyder years later in “Death of the Family” sanitized for the elementary school set. 

The cinematic versions of Batman always come around to embrace the idea that Batman isn’t the loner that he thinks he is. He travels with gods like Superman and Wonder Woman. In The LEGO Batman Movie, he craves the attention from his peers in the Justice League so badly that he has to put up a front to pretend that he doesn’t want it when he doesn’t get it. In other films, he actually founds the Justice League.

He’s also a father figure, whether in the figurative sense (Batman’s vigilantism gives birth to a more demented class of villains, and his rogues slowly transition from mobsters to supervillains) in a more literal sense (Batman becomes the guardian to the various Robins over the years and the central figure in a cohort of vigilantes, from the Huntress to Spoiler to Red Hood to Batwoman to Batwing). Michael Cera’s performance as Robin in The LEGO Batman Movie makes the character guileless and eager to please than normal to contrast with the bravado that Will Arnett infuses into his Batman. 

Like his bald counterpart in The LEGO Batman Movie (coincidentally portrayed by Ralph, another Englishman, Fiennes), Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier is concerned that Logan (Hugh Jackman) will lose his chance to reforge a connection to the wider world around him in Logan. Bitter, broken-hearted, and betrayed by his body, Xavier insists to Logan that there is still time for him to reconnect with the world after the rest of the X-Men were killed when Logan meets Laura (Dafne Keen). Logan, Laura, and Charles’s adventure across America remind Logan what a warm household full of affection, as the X-Mansion might have been once, looks like compared to the dusty and solitary existence he, Caliban (Stephen Merchant), and Charles lived in Mexico as he tried to raise enough money to go somewhere so he and Charles can die in peace. As Logan undergoes this journey and reforges connections, he travels from a dusty broken down industrial plant to a neon-bathed city to a corn farm and back to nature, his soul undergoing a revival even as his body continues its breakdown. 

Both Logan and Batman begin their films as reluctant fathers, each haunted by loss and unable to figure out the hedgehog’s dilemma. Both are convinced that their lonely lives are the only ways that they can pass their days. Both are pushed by their surrogate father figures to bond with children who unexpectedly enter their lives. And both try to demonstrate their acceptance of the responsibility of fatherhood through sacrifice. Logan overdoses on a drug in order to protect Laura and her friends from a physical avatar of his wild past, while Batman volunteers to return to the Phantom Zone to honor the agreement he made with the Phantom Zone’s keeper that allowed him to return to save his fledgling family. 

There’s a thrill to seeing Logan cut a bloody swath across the screen, but the film’s melancholy gives it a bitter taste. The shock of Logan cutting off an arm from a man who was trying to steal the tires from his rented limousine is undercut by how hard it was for the legendary Wolverine to fend off those four men. The excitement of Logan bearing his claws at Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and the Reavers is undermined by how ineffectual Logan is against them. You might be surprised that Logan is casually murdering Reavers who were trying to capture Xavier, but the surprise is subverted by the realization that the Reavers were completely defenseless and neutralized by Xavier’s psychic seizure. Logan facing down goons to help Will Munson (Eriq La Salle), a farmer that he helped on his journey, but his violence against the Reavers and the goons only brings more violence upon the Munsons, which leaves them all dead. In the climax, Logan is temporarily restored to his former vitality due to a healing serum, but by the end of that burst of violence, Logan can barely stand. Violence in Logan is a bittersweet fruit.

Every time Logan fights the Reavers, they come back with more and stronger soldiers. When he faces them in Mexico, the Reavers have heavily armed Mexican police officers riding in SUVs. By the time that he faces them in North Dakota, the Reavers have armored trucks, jeeps with mounted machine guns, and a young feral clone of Logan. Nonetheless, Logan can’t help but feel fatherly pride during the climactic fight against the Reavers. Laura had already saved him once after he collapsed on the side of a highway by getting him medical attention. But he becomes proud of her when she fights to defend her friends against the Reavers, and they coordinate their attacks. They bond through violence because, as Xavier said, they’re very alike.  

The price of violence makes explicit the idea that becoming a parent raises the stakes. One might be tempted to quit an unsatisfactory, unfulfilling, underpaying job, but the income or health insurance from that job might be the only thing that protects your family from deprivation. One might be tempted to lash out at the world or to go it alone, but that might be the selfish thing to do. 

James Mangold, the director of Logan and one of the screenwriters, along with Scott Frank and Michael Green, unintentionally struck political relevance in the current political climate. The film’s development began in 2013, and the screenplay was complete by early 2016, around the same time that Donald Trump was campaigning for President of the United States on a platform of xenophobia and racism. In the film’s opening scenes, we see Logan chauffering four young white men past a Mexico-US border checkpoint. They’re standing through the limo’s sunroof, chanting “USA!” at the immigrants waiting to pass the border. By March 2017, President Trump’s administration is floating trial balloons to test the idea of separating women and children who are caught crossing the Mexico-US border together. Laura and her friends are Mexican children whose humanity has been denied by a corporation so they can be experimented upon and trained to be weapons. As Donald Pierce references repeatedly throughout Logan, Laura and her friends are commodities, patented intellectual properties of the company that employs him. Whereas other X-Men stories would be metaphors about how the Other is demonized, here the Other is completely dehumanized. Principal photography for Logan ended in August 2016, but the idea that Laura and her friends are not seeking refuge in the United States because the United States is not a hospitable place for children born from Mexican mothers and the image that they are running toward the Canadian border to seek asylum make for accidentally potent juxtaposition.

While The LEGO Batman Movie and Logan present their protagonists in trigenerational families, The Fate of the Furious presents two different types of families. There’s the circle of friends that become a family that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) often toasts with a bottle of Corona. Then, there’s also the son that he and Elena (Elsa Pataky) created during their relationship when he thought that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was dead. Dominic accepts fatherhood without reservation and is willing to betray his la familia in order to protect his biological family until he can find a way to save his son from Cipher (Charlize Theron, mostly underutilized in the film), a legendary cyberterrorist who is blackmailing Dominic to steal an EMP device, a Russian nuclear football, and a Russian nuclear submarine for her.  

There is, of course, another father in la familia who is noticeably absent. Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), Mia Toretto, and their son are written out of the film with a line delivered by Letty to explain that they cannot contact Brian for his help in subduing Dominic and capture Cipher. Within the context of the film, this allows Brian and Mia to raise their child in peace, though I cannot imagine that they would feel much peace watching news reports of the theft of an EMP device in Germany, the assault on a Russian defense minister in New York City, or the chaos in New York when la familia attempted to take Dominic down. Outside of that context, this allows Walker, a father himself, to live on through his character.

With Brian removed, The Fate of the Furious screenwriter has to pile the human pathos on to Dominic, Letty, and Elena, and the film creaks and moans under the pressure. Making Dominic a father certainly raises the stakes for him, and the film is focused only on what becoming a father would mean to Dominic. Unfortunately, the film again can only define Dominic’s fatherhood by his sacrifice of his honor and his betrayal of his familia; the film is completely uninterested in Elena’s experience or perspective as the child’s mother. Because the existence of Dominic and Elena’s son is a shock revelation, there’s no time for them to form a connection or for the viewer to form a connection to them. We feel sympathy for Dominic in theory (one can only imagine the horror of someone holding your child hostage and leveraging them to make you commit crimes and betray your loved ones), but the film tries to split our focus by making us feel the pain from Letty’s perspective as the loved one who is abandoned for unexplained reasons. It’s an attempt to give Dominic a shade of humanity, but it’s done only in abstract.

By comparison, we have a better sense of the surrogate paternal relationship between Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) and his trainee, Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood) or between Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and his daughter, Samantha (Eden Estrella). Hobbs is a devoted father to Samantha and a committed coach to her soccer team; the cinematic appeal of their relationship lies in Johnson’s charm and their characters’ shared history, which dates back to Furious 7. Even the Nobodies evoke a more real emotional reaction than Dominic and his son because we see how they interact with each other and how Mr. Nobody tries to teach Little Nobody the tricks of the trade. 

Without the human connection, the spectacle of The Fate of the Furious felt hollow. I should have been wowed by remotely controlled cars barreling through New York City’s streets and raining from parking lots in skyscrapers, but I was bored. I should have been impressed when Dominic and company were racing across ice away from a nuclear submarine, but I was bored and almost nodding off. While the stakes for Dominic as a character were raised with his son’s introduction, the movie itself felt rote, from Cipher’s poorly outlined motivations to a moment that upends the importance of family that is the core of the franchise.

Dominic pays tribute to the bond between his peers that form la familia. However, there is dissonance in the way that Letty, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), and Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) seemed to have no objection to Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) joining the team. Shaw murdered Han Lue/Han Seoul-Oh and attempted to kill Dominic, Mia, Brian, and Mia and Brian’s son in Furious 7. Even though Dominic was desperate, contacting Deckard’s mother (Helen Mirren) in order to convince her to persuade Deckard and Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who has his own disagreeable history with Dominic and company, to save Dominic’s son seemed to betray Han’s memory and to put aside the threats that were made to his family.  

The LEGO Batman Movie, Logan, and The Fate of the Furious presented their respective protagonists in non-traditional families. Batman adopts Robin, and they form a trigenerational family with Alfred. Logan becomes Laura’s de facto guardian, and they form a trigenerational family with Xavier. Dominic, Letty, and Dominic’s biological son form a blended family. Indeed, the only traditional nuclear families that we see in these films are the Waynes, which is broken when Batman’s parents are murdered, and the Munsons in Logan. 

You could strain to draw a connection between how casually the Munsons are killed to how dystopian the world in Logan is, but the Munsons’ deaths feel almost cruel. From the moment that Logan stops the truck to help them wrangle their horses, the audience begins to wait for the Munsons to die. It gives the otherwise tranquil scenes of Logan, Xavier, and Laura observing what a normal family looks like as they dine together suspenseful tension. Their deaths for doing nothing more than extending hospitality to Logan, Xavier, and Laura felt like a manipulative exercise in cynicism and nihilism. They’re collateral damage in Logan’s violence trap, and the viewer empathizes with Will Munson when he pulls the trigger on Logan after they’ve incapacitated X-24, the younger, feral clone of Logan that was sent to subdue and capture Laura. With his dying breath, Will doesn’t distinguish between X-24 and Logan because they are both monsters that trampled the Munsons’ lives. That the gun’s chamber was empty only emphasizes that violence, even in the cynical world of Logan, isn’t a solution.

Finally, if we accept the notion that becoming a parent is one of the few rites of passage into adulthood left in today’s America, then the other side of that passage is observing your own parents’ decline and eventual death. In Logan, Charles Xavier is suffering Alzheimer’s disease, and Logan and Caliban are Xavier’s sole caregivers. When Xavier doesn’t recognize Logan, he is afraid of him because, to Xavier, Logan is the person who drugs him into unconsciousness. When Xavier is awake and lucid enough to recognize Logan, he berates him for being a disappointment. Xavier’s seizures cause Logan physical pain, and his words cause Logan emotional pain. Xavier is angry at himself and Logan because he needs Logan’s help with something as fundamental as using the bathroom; Logan is resentful for Xavier’s role in the Westchester incident, the physical and emotional pain that Xavier causes him, and the fact that he has to take care of his father figure in his decline. 

It was curious to me that three different and big budget films released within two months of each other wove in different ideas about fatherhood into their tales. Each film tried to examine its respective protagonist through the lens of fatherhood and came away with slightly different conclusions. Batman, for as much as he describes himself to be a loner, is character with myriad connections. Logan, another self-professed loner, can’t help but to connect to his daughter when they both do what they do best, even though what they do isn’t very nice and could trap them in cycles of violence. Dominic, a man who talks constantly about his familia, showed that his biological family is ultimately more important to him than the friends and peers around him. 

[toddrogersfl]

The first in a fascinating series of in-depth interviews with the world’s greatest perfumers

We’re about to get geeky, here. Because we’ve a hunch that you’re as fascinated as we are with how perfumers actually work. When they’re at their most productive. What they surround themselves with. What the creative process entails…

So – with our privileged access to the world’s greatest perfumers – we’re introducing a new series on The Perfume Society, which looks at how these ‘noses’ go about the job of creating.

For our first subject, meet Alberto Morillas – without question one of the greatest perfumers of our times, with literally hundreds of fragrances to his name. For 20 years, this Spanish-born perfumer has been the exclusive ‘nose’ for Bulgari (and indeed we caught up with him on his recent London visit to launch Bulgari Goldea The Roman Night). He’s also the man behind Giorgio Armani Acqua di Giò (in its many incarnations), Penhaligon’s Iris Prima and Blasted Bloom/Blasted Heath, Calvin Klein ckone, Marc Jacobs Daisy, Flower by Kenzo – and so the list goes on and on and on. And on. (Morillas also has his own beautiful fragrance collection, Mizensir.)

But how exactly does he do it…? Here’s what Alberto Morillas told us.

I do my creating in Geneva. I have offices in Geneva, New York and another in Paris – and every week, I’m on a plane somewhere. But the lab in Geneva [at Firmenich fragrance house] is where I actually work.

Before I create a fragrance, I have to do a lot of thinking. Geneva is a good place to achieve a synthesis of all the impressions I get while travelling. I am inspired by the view of the mountains – I can see Mont Blanc – and by being outside in my garden, which is very private and enclosed. I grow a lot of roses there, and it is very important for me to see the beauty of nature. I have to do a great deal of contemplation before I actually start to create any of my fragrances, to get my ideas in place. Sometimes I will sit for three hours, just contemplating.

Travel fuels my creative process. It’s important for my spirit. I recently spent four days in Formentera, where there is sunlight, the smell of the different aromatic plants, a lot of stone. Travel’s hugely important to me. When I set about creating Bulgari Goldea The Roman Night, for instance, I thought about what is important to me when I visit Rome. The first thing is the gardens, the trees – and the smells; you have this amazing night-blooming jasmine. And stone. Again, a lot of stone. (See the beautiful visual of Bella Hadid as the ‘face’ of the fragrance, below.)

For me, starting to think about a creation is a bit like watching a movie. I literally travel there in my head, drawing on those experiences of travelling. For The Roman Night, I started with blackberry to have the effect of the sunshine in Rome. Black peony and night-blooming jasmine, which are very feminine – like the women of Rome. And patchouli, for the mineral effect of the stone. And of course there had to be musk, because that is my signature for Bulgari: it gives the same sensation as when you wear nice jewellery; it’s heavy and sensual. Yesterday, I spent the day in London – with its very diverse, bustling crowds, but also the wide open spaces of beautiful parks and gardens; a place where the energy of the city meets the energy of gardens. On the streets I smelled a lot of oudh and also a lot of rose. So I will carry those thoughts and at some point in the future, they may help to shape a perfume that I am asked to create.

I like visual clues when I’m given a brief. And I like a tight brief – if you have complete freedom, it can be difficult.  Photographs and art works are very important – sometimes it’s just looking back at my personal photographs, to get a feel of what I’m trying to convey. This process is useful for crystallising the emotion of the fragrance. I take a lot of photographs of flowers, and I try to capture those in fragrances; my phone is very important for capturing moments and flowers and places – but I don’t enjoy the narcissism of social media so much.

I get up very early, at 6.30 a.m. The mornings are very important for me, creatively. I like that quiet time. I have a coffee, I smell things, I check my formulas – and I write many, many notes.

I work for very short bursts on each perfume. Creating a fragrance requires huge concentration and I can only spend about four minutes at a time on a particular fragrance before I stop. During that time I write all my emotions and feelings – it’s a little like holding onto a dream when you wake up; you have to write it down before it goes. I need to go from one perfume to another, refreshing my mind. I will come back to it many, many times, but I can’t work for hours at a time on a single fragrance. And there is much more to be done, alongside creating: I am selecting new ingredients and testing how long they last on the skin. Many hours are spent on that each day, and it’s very important for future creations.

I don’t take to lose time having lunch. I find it hard to get back to where I was afterwards in the creative process – so I work right through the day.

I finish my day at 5 p.m. But I take everything I’m working on home with me. I might smell it again after dinner – and definitely in the morning, for the dry-down.

Bella Hadid is the ‘face’ of Goldea The Roman Night – Alberto Morillas’s latest for Bulgari

Nowadays I am very selective about the fragrances I work on. That’s the luxury of being at this point in my career. I like to work very closely with people; this is what gives me the energy to create, and  don’t like ideas being diluted by a hierarchy within a team. I have a wonderful relationship with Bulgari, going back almost 20 years; it leads to a kind of shorthand in a working relationship, where I am easily able to understand exactly what they want. And for the recent Gucci Bloom, I worked very closely with Creative Director Alessandro Michele, who was very involved in the fragrance design from start to finish. With Bulgari it’s about the stones; with Gucci it’s about the fashion. But the bottom line is: I don’t want to work on 10 fragrances at the same time now, as I did in the past. If you’re tired, you aren’t happy – and if you aren’t happy, you can’t create.

I may work for a year and a half on a fragrance – and yet we’ll go back to the fifth submission for the final perfume. You need to experiment a lot. For Giorgio Armani Acqua di Giò, there were thousands of tries – but that’s fine. It’s like a dancer; they have to repeat and repeat and repeat to get something perfect. And yet quite often, when you get to that 1,000th try, it’s not so very far from the first one.

If you ask me what is the greatest fragrance ever created, I’d say Guerlain Shalimar. It’s old-fashioned but also very modern. There are all sorts of contrasts inside it – but it works so well.

I have 3,000 materials at my fingertips when I create. But I have a palette of around 200 that I enjoy working with the most.

As a perfumer, I have a certain signature. Naturals are incredibly important to me: I want to smell a real rose, real jasmine… But beyond that, musk is what people tend to recognise in my perfumes; it’s how I add light to a perfume. I also love woods: patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood – they’re part of my signature.

There’s no ingredient I won’t work with. If the brief demands a certain ingredient, and I don’t particularly like that material, that’s a challenge I actively enjoy – to transform it and make it more beautiful.

Even though I write down so many thoughts and ideas – and it is such an important part of my work I don’t consider myself a good writer. I find it very difficult. But I am a good perfumer – and I suppose that’s what matters!

Bulgari Goldea The Roman Night from £45 for 30ml

Buy it at Escentual

Written by Jo Fairley

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from The Perfume Society https://perfumesociety.org/the-first-in-a-fascinating-series-of-in-depth-interviews-with-the-worlds-greatest-perfumers/