A new week, a new reminder to check out @popheist.com and support worker-owned pop culture shenanigans.

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Damian Pelliccione Is Primed For ‘King of Drag’ Season 2 The world of drag kingery is just about parodying masculinity — and what better time in history to be parodying masculinity?

The world of drag kingery is just about parodying masculinity — and what better time in history to be parodying masculinity?

Oh, yeah, no it’s a “moving from the bubble of my NYC apartment where I only interact with other journalists or very online comedians to literally any place else”

I'm still trying to finish this huge Cobra-La history piece, this reevaluation of GI Joe The Movie, and I end up staring at this draft like it's Mt. Everest, and I am trying to climb it whilst being an exhausted 41 year old asthmatic wreck.

Anyway, I can't concentrate on doing work. I'm horribly depressed, I'm crushed under grief, I'm riddled with regret, I'm listening to breezy Italian nuovo classic rock and just trying to exist and it's a struggle baby

AI is just *clearly* such a scam (right down to it being called "AI," which it *is not*) and I'm morbidly curious to see just how far all this is going to go, and how ruined it's going to make everything. When 80% of American jobs are rendered obsolete, *what then*? Popcorn.

Also, we've all gotten by with our levels of writing skills so far. Cover letters suck. Social captions suck. Emails suck. But we've all written them and moved on. Why do we suddenly feel the need to make all of that stuff sound expert-level? Especially since it ends up reading like slop anyway?

Every time I'm told why a workplace uses AI, I think, "I just ... have a Google sheet or text edit with formulas and code and madlibs social posts pasted in it that I reuse ...? And that works? And I'm not draining a lake to write a caption?"

We don't *have* to use this technology that is actively ruining lives and the environment, so that we can all become lazier and stagnant, and reliant on misinformation, just to appease people who are members of a bizarre global elite society.

It's like if all the tech billionaires were suddenly huge investors in cigarettes, and now you *have* to smoke everywhere, all the time. And your bosses were like, "How are you using cigarettes in your work day?" And Google results were "Marlboro Man starred in 'Cheers' 1981 to 1998"

The biggest culture shock moving to Minneapolis from NYC has to be the way everyone here just seems to believe that AI is a consequence free tool that *has* to be a part of every aspect of our lives?

Counterpoint: I use em dashes with abandon and will not let "AI" steal them from me. I was overusing them first and will continue to do so long after "AI" is a crater in our financial system, or our merciless overlords, or both

Damian Pelliccione Is Primed For ‘King of Drag’ Season 2 The world of drag kingery is just about parodying masculinity — and what better time in history to be parodying masculinity?

Had the pleasure of chatting with KING OF DRAG co-creator Damian Pelliccione about Season 2 of the groundbreaking competition series.

popheist.com/king-of-drag...

The gold bodysuit will get feathers added to the bust and the hips, as well as rhinestones.

A little afternoon cross dressing. I have a *gig* in a few weeks and I need to figure out what to wear. Also, I have just a couple more weeks of beard until I return to the mustache.

(full transparency admission of my anxiety: i want to keep this small because i'm a little terrified of Getting In Trouble, even though transformation of art equals Fair Use (idk?) / KS approved this whole thing *immediately*? i don't know. i would've funded myself but I'm *literally broke*)

If I go classic, I'll go with the Sunbow coloring of her classic look, with the separate shirt and trousers, two shades of green. There's the option of doing crazy coloring variants with these cards, I'm now realizing. Maybe that's a stretch goal, but also, I am nervous about raising any more money.

I don't know if I'll stick with Lady Jaye's DIC turquoise jumpsuit, though. On the one hand, I think the '91 trading card very likely *would* have used it, since they did default to '90s designs (see: Flint). But the Rank & File section of the set generally featured their classic looks.

I like showing off the process because, like, this isn't just pasting comic art into a card frame that I scanned. There's the original pinup, all of my coloring, the composite, and the final (?) card -- including a border that I recreated in Photoshop from scratch using a scan.

I'm $62 away from being forced to make a 9-card set that fills in some major, major gaps in the 1991 Impel GI Joe set. In case of emergency, I worked on Lady Jaye last night.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bre...

'Twin Peaks' 2x12 Recap: Seasonal Allergies - Pop Heist Well, everyone knows these 'Twin Peaks' Season 2 storylines suck. What this review presupposes is…maybe they don’t.

New TWIN PEAKS recap dropping shortly on @popheist.com for subscribers. In the meantime, here's a refresher on where we are.

popheist.com/twin-peaks-2...

Subscribe so the site can keep running & pay me to write about nerdy queer stuff

Here's your really-should-be-daily reminder that @popheist.com is ad-free and a breeze to read — but without ads, we need paid subscribers. It's really a whole thing.

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'Survivor' 50×07 Recap: 'That's Not How I Play Survivor' - Pop Heist The Blood Moon has waned and we’re basically back to normal on Survivor, though this version of normal includes Coach spewing haikus.

Over on @popheist.com, we have @goforgrace.bsky.social giving Coach's haikus the exact right amount of respect. Which is none.

popheist.com/survivor-50x...

'Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord' Recap: 'The Dark Revenge' "The Dark Revenge" is heavy on plot setup and exposition, but in the process, it does a marvelous job of establishing the tone of the series.

Late night treat for @popheist.com readers: @austingorton.bsky.social is tackling MAUL - SHADOW LORD for us, full of insight, analysis, and trivia.

popheist.com/star-wars-ma...

'G.I. Joe' Episode 15 Recap: 'Knotting Cobra's Coils' Cobra's Pyramid of Darkness leaves the Joes without power, but not without moxy; the Crimson Twins seize control; and Shipwreck rides a cow.

Cobra's Pyramid of Darkness leaves the Joes without power, but not without moxy; the Crimson Twins seize control; and Shipwreck rides a cow.

Funded, now complete with a stretch goal. Hint hint, etc.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bre...

Fund BOX EAT CARDS: Turn nostalgia into cards you can hold The inaugural set from BOX EAT CARDS asks the question, "What if the '90, '91, and '92 Marvel Universe cards included G.I. Joe?"

my husband is VERY CLOSE to having the funding to make this very specific lane of nostalgia a reality! and i want YOU 🫵 to take it over the goal!

i have watched him work on this for weeks and i can tell you that no insane detail has been overlooked.

Y'all go back @brettwhite.bsky.social's thing so he can make more stuff like this. His mind for retro design is incredible.