"that Ship Isn't Canon! That Character Isn't Gay!" Well Thats Not What The Voices Told Me

you see the wet grasping thing in the meat and it is happy to be acknowledged

next year's valentine's day card

Here's a portrait I did based on the movie Hackers (1995), which I'm posting on its own because I want to talk about this movie!

I had never watched the movie before working on this commission, but it was truly magical to watch. I've been kind of taking in what I watched over the last days and it has given me so many thoughts that I don't even know to begin. Watching without any knowledge of how the movie was received, I was shocked to learn that there is a major split in opinions about the movie, which has left me completely puzzled. How can a movie, that in my eyes is simply phenomenal, be even able to receive such negative reviews to this day?

I think the keyword here is what I used to describe the movie: magical. There is a magic circle that needs to be accepted and entered for you to truly enjoy the movie, and see how the silly sequences are a depiction of reality that is juiced up, and not a substitute of reality. If you just take the movie at face value, you won't be able to appreciate how this effect works. You'll think just because an interface is translated as two obvious HACK buttons, they can in no way actually be depicting hacking. But they are, the movie does a lot to show its appreciation and love for the scene, with accurate references to relevant books, multiple little "tricks" like phreaking and resetting the phone to call someone other than your lawyer when you get arrested. You can appreciate that effort and also how it was dressed up to resonate more with a larger audience, and keep the movie's amazing pace!

Now there are also things that maybe were taken for granted in movies of this time. The set design and costumes are fantastic, and somehow still feel fresh today. Maybe they are not realistic but they are effortlessly cool in a way I think almost no one does well nowadays. All the characters are visually strong and are immediately identifiable, on top of having great chemistry and represent a decent variety of archetypes. Despite being a movie, it communicates strongly that this world is bursting with life and character, that the game is not set, and that there is still future ahead of us. They have a scene of the main guy wearing lingerie in a dream, and the main girl joyously, sincerely smiles at the thought. That is a deep understanding of the human spirit.

Yet it kills me! It kills me that people watch this movie and think it's "terrible" or "cringy", that they don't have eyes to see how much heart it has. People have convinced themselves that reality can only exist within their brain specifically, that there is no use for magic, even in movies, even in books and games. What's the point of being smart if you just want all the answers handed to you? The abstraction is not a defect, it's a working piece.

The people who saw the world through these cold lens have removed all of the punk and empowerment that the movie champions. They boiled down the culture to just code and went on to make lame companies that serve to optimize suffering and take the people's ability to actually interface and express themselves through computers and electronics as a whole.

You can accept both the material reality and understand the purpose of abstraction and interpretation beyond furthering material gain. Perhaps the movie didn't intend to show me such a complex message, but that's what I got from it, and it gave me room to interpret it that way, allowed me to be curious.

That's all I have to say. Maybe I'm preaching to the crowd, but whatever. When you approach something, have heart! Without your heart, your head would have no blood, and your mind, no thoughts. Treasure, and use, it!

a page from my comic signals, which is available now :)

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Surprisingly, the sea doesn’t fade her tattoos and the waves creep in and out of the cervices, fresh after the battle. New wounds will be soon patched, once the clay powder you keep in storage gets mixed and turned to a paste that once applied will act more like flesh than stone. She should count herself lucky, you are able to restore the verses marred by the fight, as the words are etched in your mind with a passion. Another good battle against each other. Your crew will suffice to fix the damage on the ship as you bring the pirate to your quarters. The promise of mushroom wine and some food after the work is done enough to push them into gear.

The clay hand holding your own feels cold, but at the same time it’s like it hides a warm core. Lava under the surface. You feel her stare on the back of your neck even in complete darkness, and you release her hand to light the lamp on the desk.

Her hands rest on either side of your body flat and solid against the table. Saltwater drips from her clothes to the nape of your neck, and dribbles down your vest and your shirt.

She has you right where she wants.

i like how you can't look up anything on tumblr dot com without running into those terrible deeply heterosexual nsfw x reader imagines

I know they're not gonna do this, but I hope that if/when Marie Fenring is introduced in the Dune movies, she looks exactly the same as Feyd-Rautha, except with a little bow stapled to her bald head like these edits I found on Pinterest

She's played by Austin Butler of course, Denis just makes him crouch the whole time

a more complete set of visdev for the Hunting Dogs from my Wildercourt story project

The puppet of the Creature used in Frankenstein, at the Hamburg State Opera. Photographed by Christian Charisius.