transgender super mario land 2 reboot where mario is FtM and wario is ℲtW

"Friend" is an AI wearable device designed to provide "companionship + emotional support"— i.e replace human friendships. Its literally an AI chatbot that you wear around your neck. "Friend" just paid for the largest ad campaign in NYC subway history

And Every. Single. Poster was vandalised, it literally looks like some of the most beautiful art you have ever seen

Kylie Robison and Boone Ashworth of WIRED both wore these stupid things for a couple weeks and reported the kind of experiences one might expect to have with an interactive AI device invented by a 22-year-old techbro:

@catgirl-catastrophy

The Return of Saurod?

The afterlife of a 1980s movie prop can sometimes be weirder than the movies themselves. Let’s talk about the absolute GLOW-UP and recycling journey of Saurod from the 1987 Masters of the Universe film.

First off, Saurod was a total vibe. He was one of three "movie original" characters created because Mattel didn’t want their precious A-list toys like Beast Man or Trap Jaw dying on screen. That, of course, didn't exclude him from becoming a toy himself, joining the likes of Beastman, Skeletor, and Ram Man in every 80's kid's toybox.

For the film, he was designed by the legendary William Stout (the mind behind Conan the Barbarian and Return of the Living Dead) to be a "believable" lizard-man—basically a reptilian mercenary in bronze cobra-hooded armor with literal venom syringes built into his face mask.

Michael Westmore (the GOAT who did Star Trek) designed the prosthetics, but because MOTU was a non-union production and he was union, he couldn’t actually be on set. He had to hand off the application to a team of "ghost" artists like Emmy-winner Todd McIntosh (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to get the lizard skin just right on actor Pons Maar (Return to Oz’s Lead Wheeler and the physical performer for Theodore Rex).

Saurod serves as one of Skeletor's mercenaries in the film, introduced in a rogue's gallery line-up scene that is a not-so-subtle xerox of the bounty hunter scene from The Empire Strikes Back (1980). All the characters step towards the camera for their introductions and their accompanying individual music riffs; they're all pretty cool, but Saurod is a cut above. His armor is sick, his eyes are scary, he's making creepy gurgly sounds that have to be coming from that pulsing neck, and he literally slithers out of the shadows for his close-up. He even gets to show off some sharp claws later. My boy's got the TOOLS, and he's got the TALENT!

Ultimately, our mean green machine ends up as Skeletor’s emotional support punching bag for exactly three minutes.

This man showed up in head-to-toe tactical reptile armor looking like he was ready to carry a whole franchise on his scaly back only for skeletor to go “you didn’t find the magic harmonica fast enough” and vaporize him into a pile of glitter.

When Cannon Films went bankrupt, Saurod’s soul didn’t go to Eternia—it went to the clearance bin. Since the MOTU sequel was canceled, the armor was stripped and reused for DECADES. Enter: Fred Olen Ray, Low-Budget schlockmeister extrodinaire, he facilitated the Saurod costume's extended life in the 90s B-movie circuit.

It made a brief appearance in Cyberzone (1995), video-chatting with action icon Matthias Hues (I Come in Peace).

Saurod returned again as the MAIN VILLAIN in the 1996 B-movie Star Hunter. They just spray-painted the bronze helmet silver, slapped in some red lenses, and called it a day.

Most of the MOTU scrap-heap ended up in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Cyborg (1989), which was famously the MOTU 2 script with the names changed.

Fast forward to 2020: Steven Kostanski gives us Star Stryker 77 in Psycho Goreman. While not a direct copy, the DNA is undeniable. That "toyetic" bronze armor and very familiar high-concept helmet are placed on yet another lizard man. Considering Kostanski’s nostalgic love for 80s practical effects, it’s not a stretch to imagine he was one of the many kids who fell in love with that original design.

So there you have it, Saurod remains a cult icon because he perfectly balances top-tier character design with a hilariously tragic legacy. He looks like a high-stakes sci-fi assassin, yet he exists purely to be Skeletor’s most overqualified victim.

Between his "spark-shooting" toy and his blink-and-you-miss-it movie career, he has become the ultimate underdog—a reptilian fashion icon whose lasting fame is built entirely on being the coolest guy to ever fail a job interview.

Moral of the story: If you’re a weird lizard man in a 1987 flop, don’t worry. You’ll eventually become a cult icon and a silver-painted alien hunter in a straight-to-VHS masterpiece. 🦎🛡️✨

My sister wants me to post this meme.

It would be very special to me if people who are new to this fandom understood that Filmation was a workplace where the gays were out at their workplace in the 1970s and 80s.

In 1982 Mattel came up with He-Man and Battle Cat and Skeletor and the battle to control Castle Grayskull but it was intensely-queer-friendly Filmation in 1983 that invented Prince Adam and Cringer and the whole secret identity/transformation motif.

And the preschool bullies who were already targeting us for gender non-conformity weren't using "gay" as a slur yet but they most assuredly were using "girl" as one. But then we went home to He-Man and She-Ra and we got to see an effeminate himbo and a Barbie doll who had used to be a villain save the world over and over, in secret, in caricaturistically-performative clothing.

Finally saw MOTU and honestly loved it, not only did it feel like a love letter to the fun 80's camp of the cartoon but the representation of positive masculinity was actually SO good????? And not just in terms of "What does it mean to be a man?" being about protecting your loved ones instead of chasing power for the sake of it, but also the fact that sharing your emotions and talking about your feelings is both important and necessary and not a sign of weakness. And that being strong isn't about hoarding the glory for yourself but uplifting others and bringing people together to work as a team. Plus the part at the end when the Sorceress says she specifically chose Adam because his empathy was more valuable than brute strength, and then he puts down the sword and refuses to use the power ("I know how to use it, I just choose not to") because he wants to end the cycle of violence that nearly destroyed his home was such a fantastic way to end the movie and hammer the point across. Also

Bonus: Alison Brie was such an unexpected delight as Evil-Lyn, I thought she killed it (even down to the vocal inflections) and I'm obsessed with her version of the character now

Bonus #2: I absolutely LOST IT when they started playing "What's Up" in the actual movie lmao 🤣

Bonus #3: SHE-RA CAMEO LET'S GOOOOOOOO

Something I think that a lot of leftists and progressives fail to understand, is that the push against normalization with Israel and for the complete dissolution of the state, actively makes the situation worse for Palestinians. It actively makes the conflict worse, and I would argue is one of the direct causes for the war getting as bad as it did.

You are directly harming your own cause.

Refusing to acknowledge the existence of the State of Israel doesn’t materially change the reality that Israel is a sovereign nation with over ten million citizens. When leftists in the west chant “from the river to the sea” and “we don’t want no two states”, regardless of the intention, what do you think Israelis hear? What do you think a people that has faced genocide in living memory, from which our population still has not recovered, gets from that? We don’t hear it and consider your points, we hear it and remember all of the times Israel has been attacked with genocidal intent, and only survived through our own defense.

And what does this ultimately result it? It results in Israelis who no longer believe in the peace process. It results in Israelis who feel a visceral sense of fear which leads to doubling down on national security. It leads to diaspora Jews feeling unsafe in their communities and immigrating to Israel.

It leads to the total dissolution of the peace process, and what happens if there is no chance for peace? If there’s no hope for any type of solution then the only answer is endless war, and this war doesn’t just hurt Israelis, you know that.

They're not harming their own cause, because their cause is not about helping Palestinians, it's about destroying Israel

I was reading through the U.S. Copyright Office's "What Does Copyright Protect?" page, mostly to make sure that I wasn't being wrong on the internet, but I absolutely love that this is part of their FAQ:

There are only 12 questions on the FAQ, and this is one of them.

We need to lay more blame for "Kids don't know how computers work" at the feet of the people responsible: Google.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Tech literacy didn't mysteriously vanish, it was fucking murdered for profit.

Linux is a very good and powerful alternative.

reminder: you cannot Personal Choises your way out of an Intentional Structural Problem

Fun fact! School Chromebooks block Linux. It's not an easy alternative. You are missing the point

Astronaut readjusts to life back on Earth

HE GRABS THE CUP BUT THEN HE DROPS THE PEN 0.0003 SECONDS LATER

AND HE LOOKS UP AT THE CEILING INSTEAD OF AT THE GROUND WHEN HE CAN’T FIND THEM

I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING HE JUST DROPS IT

IT’S NOT FUNNY IT’S VERY LOGICAL THAT HE WOULD HAVE ADJUSTED TO LIVING LIFE WHILE HE WAS IN SPACE BECAUSE IT’S DIFFERENT FROM EARTH BUT I CAN’T FUCKING BREATHE

*THUNK*

i love it so much every time i see it

“ugh stupid gravity” 

IM FUXKING CSHAKING

I haven’t seen this post on my dash in *years* bless this

Bless, this is absolutely amazing

I love this. It’s so gestural and he’s so exasperated about gravity.

The perfect comedic timing of the NASA logo.

How can anybody have you and lose you, and not lose their minds, too?

fun little idea i had for creating "missing scene" type fic scenarios

Do you guys remember when everything was awesome

Everything will be awesome again one day.

*flies past*

SPACESHIP?!?!

cowpool universe is being born

@bovineblogger