Sasja Smolders

Gender blending Space Babe, performance artist, feminist killjoy, they/them pronouns

[elumish]

I honestly think Gen-Z and younger simply does not understand how recent widespread smartphone adoption is.

I am not that old, and I didn't have a smartphone until probably late high school. For most of my life, many if not most people were not walking around with a magic internet machine in their pocket that they pulled out and used constantly for everything.

[sandumilfshous]

reblog if you remember having to ration your text messages and accidentally opening the internet on your phone was the end of the world

[pawsimses]

Drew Astarion as a furby due to gen chat and my inability to feckin read properly during a point in Neil's stream

No I'm not sorry

I'll feckin do it again

[brainsforbabyjesus]

@thejakeformerlyknownasprince someone asked what if Animorphs was set in Canada?

If the Animorphs was set in Canada

It'd be set at some nebulous small town north of Toronto because Edriss's ridiculous media take away about Canada was absolutely that "Toronto is the Centre of the Universe". After the war This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the Royal Canadian Air Farce have dedicated sketches about this. Just never ending jokes about how aliens land on Earth and where do they go? Chranna! Ugh! But I guess if you expected brain worms to fit in anywhere it would be Chranna!

The Animorphs spend a lot of time post war telling people that no, they aren't actually from Toronto, but the only people who care to make the distinction are other people who live an hour away from Toronto. The Yeerks however are from Toronto. Obviously.

Also, while Marco still calls Rachel Xena Warrior Princess, her come back is to call Marco, Marg Princess Warrior. We all know this is actually a compliment.

Anyway, small nameless town in southern Ontario. It's Friday night and they are definitely not at the movie theatre in the Oshawa Centre (wasn't it a famous players? My memory is vague here) because this is a small nameless town that could be anywhere and also, they need to be in walking distance of like 50 different locations so it's some Frankenstien's monster of Ajax, Whitby, Oshawa, and Pickering. Ajwhitoshering? (Prepare to be amazed!)

Anyway. Movie night. They're watching Fly Away Home. Jake and Cassie asked Marco and Rachel to go with them on a Not-A-Date. They watch the movie. Afterwards, Jake and Marco spend a lot of time talking about having seen them film parts of it. Cassie spends a lot of time talking about rehabilitation of Canada geese and the real inspiration for the movie. They run into Tobias on the way out of the theatre. They walk home through the park which isn't that one you're thinking of but some other park that you aren't supposed to walk through at night.

Cue alien spacecraft. They meet Elfangor. They get their morphing powers. They get traumatized. They all run home.

And Jake and Rachel live in Fake Macedonian Village (this is wear Marco also used to live), in the giant rich people houses, not the little asbestos houses. Cassie lives in Fake Raglan. Marco lives in Not White Oaks. And Human Tobias lives Not On Wentworth. These are all now walking distance from each other and have the same feeder areas for schools. I will not be taking comments.

Hawk Tobias and Ax live at the Pickering Airport (LOL) (I'd say Fake Pickering Airport, but that's just the regular Pickering Airport)

Most of the early books just happen as is. Except Cassie's mom works at the Metro Toronto Zoo (it's still Metro, it's 1996) so there's some talk about the safety of Komodo dragons and probably a brief mention about the Monorail Accident. And good news! Everyone gets to keep their morphs! Rachel gets her elephant, Jake gets his Siberian tiger. Marco gets his gorilla except it's not Big Jim, it's Charles (RIP Charlie!). Although Cassie has to get an Arctic Wolf from the zoo instead. Also! Even better news! They all keep their bird of prey morphs! Except there is A LOT of commentary about Rachel having a bald eagle morph. Like. It's a lot. It's uncomfortably a lot. We get it already.

They get Canada goose morphs. Because they have to. And also because no kid on a major migratory path is not going to know about Canada geese flying together in great big Vs. This solves a lot of their problems earlier on.

Some other morphs they get: raccoon morphs to go undercover in Toronto. They do otters to move around in water environments, especially in the winter. They get eastern coyote morphs so they can move around in a group (I'm told eastern coyotes are fuck off huge in comparison to other coyotes). Someone gets a swan morph just to be a giant angry bird. The Buffa Human book becomes the Moose Human book, Cassie uses the moose morph on and off after this. The Toronto Zoo gets Komodo dragons eventually, this is the morph that Rachel is allergic to. They know about the Trip to the Arctic in advance and go get polar bear morphs in advance.

Tobias appreciates the majestic Turkey Vulture.

Once Marco is onboard with the whole kids having adventures without their parents thing, he makes so many Camp-X jokes. Jake however takes it seriously and starts researching what went into the training of spies. They have exactly one wacky nonsense mission that requires them to go to the old training grounds.

They just have to suck it up and deal with the cold during the winter between morphs. The bigger worry is them leaving footprints in the snow that change from animal to human.

A few background changes!

Jake's mom is Jewish French Canadian. So when "Grandpa G" dies they have to drive to Quebec and he's not a sad recluse so much as just an old disabled ww2 veteran who doesn't get along the best with his family anymore due to the PTSD (this is important for later). Also, all those times where they need to speak French (which happens more times than I realized) they all turn to Jake and Jake is like, look, I know how to shout tais-toi! at people interrupting The News (the people is a small Tom and a smaller Jake when they're carted off to grandma's house for three weeks that one summer) and a bunch of other words that may or may not get past Scholastics English language censors. But it would be hilarious if they did slip that in.

Tom is big into volley ball. It's Important, but it's High School Important. His parents would not comment on him being a star athlete volley ball player who just suddenly quits. It can't be hockey. A kid that is a rising star hockey player who suddenly quits would be an immediate intervention. His Yeerk would blow his cover if he quit.

However, Jake is still big into Basket Ball and we get several history listens about how James Naismith is Canadian and a lot of commentary about the brand new NBA team, the Toronto Raptors!

Also, Jake's mom being French Canadian makes it even easier to work in some Léo Major references.

There's some references to Eva being religious, which since she's of vague Latin American background I'd guess she's Catholic. Which would very heavily suggest that Marco went to Catholic school. At least while Eva was alive. I'd probably go with him going to Catholic school until she "died" and then switching over to Public School after she "died". Actually, just make it that he finished Catholic school up to grade 8 and then decided Public High School for grade 9 because Marco is going through some things and maybe the Catholic school isn't the best place to explore that (he's bi, it's because he's bi) this gets more screen time because Canada is going through some stuff with LGBT rights during the mid to late 90s)). Also his dad is the immigrant in this family, British. This will be a thing. You know this is going to be a thing. There will be so many parallels to the British Empire and how, sure, we can still have your Queen as our head of state and be friends, and yeah, we'll fight in your wars, but also never gonna forget what it means to be Canadian on the front lines of a British War. We'll get back to that theme later with the Andalites. Also I guess we have to change his dad's area of expertise if he's going to be living in fictional small town Ajwhitoshering. Maybe he used to do one long ass commute to some tech job with Blackberry? Perhaps a nuclear engineer at Pickering Power plant? Whatever it is, it's cool and scifi sounding.

Rachel's mom's family are UE Loyalists, which makes the bald eagle morph like 70% more of a thing than it already was. Rachel is probably big into figure skating instead of gymnastics, but she can have both as a treat.

Cassie's mom's family were a part of the underground railway and were hanging around Ontario back when it was Upper Canada. Also, Cassie's mom has some Very Strong Opinions about the Bowmanville Zoo and Orono Cat World. Cassie's dad's family are third generation immigrants from a vague Caribbean country. There are a lot of jokes about Cassie going to Caribana in poop overalls. And lets say her dad works part time as a vet for Windfield Farms and that's partly how he's funding the Animal Rehab Clinic. We'll get a history lesson on Northern Dancer at some point when they need to acquire horses for reasons. Also, Cassie's dad is a volunteer fire fighter so he gets called out to the aftermath of some of their battles and is like, who keeps setting these charity events on fire???

Which reminds me! Once a month their weird sprawling impossible small town tests the air raid siren. Everyone forgets to tell Ax about this so the first month he's on Earth he just suddenly hears this horrible wailing sound and is like, what on earth is that!?!?!? They aren't close enough to the Nuclear plant to hear any testing of their sirens.

Some other changes! Hork-Bajir are compared to turkeys more often. They're like turkeys that come with blades to carve themselves up! I say this because we need to prime everyone for believing the giant lizard people can survive winter. They use the Toronto ravine system to get in and out of various Sharing facilities unnoticed.

For winter Ax either gets fluffy or very quickly gets over his prejudice about wearing clothes. I'm thinking Cassie works out an elaborate system of thefts to feed Ax for six months of the year while the ground is frozen until Ax also gets over his Hork-Bajir prejudice and learns to like bark. The Hork-Bajir live adjacent to at least one sugar bush and are absolutely delighted to find out that humans also eat trees. They are also very pleased to find out that humans know how to harvest things from trees without killing them.

We're moving the Capture out further so that it can happen during the 1997 teachers strike so conveniently no one has to worry about showing up for school (the one good thing Mike Harris did was give Jake a cover story).

There's at least one or two plots that have to do with Tobias staking out Pickering Nuclear.

Marco makes about 200% more references to Alanis Morissette.

For some reason they have to go to Quebec during the 1998 ice storm. I don't know why, I don't make the rules. They just have to so that Visser Three can be horrified by Canada's weather. Toss in some maple syrup and poutine jokes here.

There's also some bewilderment by Ax about the Quebec referendum and how is everyone just okay with part of their country trying to pick up and leave and the animorphs are like ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

It's heavily implied that the financial trouble that the Skydome is seeing is because the Animorphs took out some Sharing event. Whoops, sorry about that!

The Maple Ginger Oatmeal book is just one to one. No changes needed.

There's a bunch of references to the Littlest Hobo, Degrassi, Hinterland's Who's Who, BodyBreak, House Hippos, Don't Ya Put It In Your Mouth (Marco sings it at least once), and other wacky Concerned Children's Advertisers commercials, and don't forget Astar. Thank god we are too early for the WSIB PSAs because you know animorphs would have used that as a reference.

The Animorphs go to TIFF is a plot at least once in order to head off some Sharing event. Also, they talk about the tv shows and movies that get filmed in and around their town. In particular there's some veiled references to The Famous Jett Jackson, X-Men (ironic!), and some weird show about kids fighting a secret alien invasion.

The Russians joins the G7 which officially becomes the G8 and the Animorph go to England for Yeerk shenanigans! Boris Yeltsin still gets to be implied to be drinking on the job and being very polite to the large mammals that are tearing apart his cabin. Jean Chrétien, however, is choking the shit out of some controller. Rachel and Marco are just like, yeah, that tracks. There are at least three jokes about the Shawinigan Handshake after this.

The David story arc is mostly the same except his dad works for the RMCP. He initially gets a hyena morph which he isn't thrilled about it. He heads over to the Bowmanville Zoo and acquires a very particular lion (Bongo Cameo!) They don't really have the option to leave him on a little rock outside of thought speak range where boats are unlikely to go so it's just a flat out, Rachel kills him.

It's 1999 now and Nunavut becomes a territory. I don't know how this gets worked into the narrative but you know it would be because it's foreshadowing for the Hork-Bajir getting their own territory in Ontario later on. Maybe this is when they do that Animorphs Go to the Arctic! adventure.

The Supreme Court gives the same rights to same sex couples as hetro common law couples and we get our very special episode with Gafinilan and Mertil and then we launch into an awkward history listen about electric wheel chairs (George Klein) and accessibility buses (Walter Callow) and how these inventions came about for a desire to help ww2 veterans and something something something Mertil should rejoin society. Ax has a whole thing about this. Marco's mad because of the queer solidarity, Jake's mad because of Grandpa G. Rachel thinks he's being an asshole, Tobias is trying, and Cassie's very much 'it's Mertil's choice, just because he's disabled doesn't mean he can't fight' (this will come back to haunt her). The issue gets waylaid because Gafinilan takes a turn for the worse and Mertil has sworn to take care of him.

There's more blatant Hork-Bajir/indigenous peoples parallels that age badly. You know they would. Arbat shows up with his murder team and does some murdering (of his team). We get another heavy handed what kind of allies are the Andalites-WW1 analogy.

It's now 2000-ish The William Roger Tennant is a Controller debacle turns into the stop various political figures from becoming controllers debacle. Alexa McDonough gets caught up in this somehow and ends up out of politics earlier and then it becomes the stop Jack Layton from becoming a controller Debacle (yes, I'm making him the NDP leader early). Eventually this is who they go to when they want a government official to make an announcement about aliens. Because let's be real, no one would have believed Mike Harris at this point, dude would have said anything to wash his hands of the Walkerton Outbreak, and then there was the riot with the molotov cocktails, and the resentment over all the bullshit with education and healthcare and housing. So, yeah, not a trusted public official by this point. But Jack Layton was already starting to be a media darling so we'll use him. He at some point bikes to some meeting with the animorphs.

They recruit disabled kids for the last bit of the war effort (there's probably some talk about Sick Kids Hospital) which is when Cassie has to confront her previous assertion and doesn't like her conclusion anyway. Ax is still kind of a dick about it.

The end of the series has a lot more issues with NORAD and probably takes place during a time when everyone was expecting regular armed forces exercises so there's less, why are all these military vehicles on the road? Once Jake commits his not-a-war crime because the Yeerks never signed onto the Geneva Convention, there is a lot more discussion about Nationhood born from fighting other people's wars. WW1 imagery like you wouldn't believe. They take their spaceship and land on Parliament Hill. Prime Minister Chrétien takes this in stride, oh, there's an alien space ship on the front lawn? Hmmm, must be tuesday.

Afterwards Jack Layton is the big champion for letting the Hork-Bajir stay in Ontario, there's a lot of talk about how this is the second largest group of refugees Canada has ever taken in, Rick Mercer does a whole Talking To Americans bit about Prime Minster Toby Hawk. CBC lands the best interviews with the animorphs but makes the worst dramatizations of them.

Jake doesn't teach an anti-terrorist force but rather a Peace Keeping force. Marco is still in everything you watch because they're all filmed in Toronto or Vancouver anyway. Cassie still works with the Hork-Bajir and keeps up with the environmental protection aspects but she's also quietly on track to be picked for Governor General. Tobias still takes off to an undisclosed location. Ax goes and has his space adventure. Rachel still dies but she gets put on the twenty dollar bill (reverse side is her grizzly bear), the Animorphs and Toby collectively get put on the 100$ bill. We get a special release series of quarters too. Because of course the Bank of Canada would be all over that. The Heritage Minute people scramble and put out a whole Animorphs series of Heritage Minutes.

When Jake goes to recruit Marco for their next mission he finds Marco up in cottage country in some mega mansion masquerading as a "cottage". Marco's morphing something weird to jump into the lake. Tobias is probably rougher looking due to spending his winters in Ontario. They take off into space together to find Ax.

[toomanyvocals]

VINCE GILLIGAN: I hate AI. (Variety; Deadline)

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

AU idea I wonder if you have any thoughts on: for whatever reason Edriss is the Yeerk that gets Alloran and Esplin gets Eva. Do both of them even become ranking Vissers or does Edriss-Alloran speedrun the whole plotline?

Marco: Hey Dad, I think Mom's been replaced by an imposter.

Peter: What? No. Honey, is this because she grounded you again?

"Eva": Your FILTHY, DISGUSTING species will rue the day you ever tried to mess with me! I WILL get a better host, and I WILL crush you all! DISGUSTING LITTLE APES!

Peter: Okay, Marco, we're going to back away slowly, then get in the car, and then flee the country.

"Eva": MY contribution to the bake sale was insufficient? NOT AS INSUFFICIENT AS THE CONNECTIVE TISSUE IN YOUR NECK WILL PROVE WHEN I SEVER YOUR HEAD — 

— a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away — 

"Alloran": Awwww, Elfangor and Arbron, you're so cute!

Elfangor: Uh... thanks?

"Alloran": I'm going to keep you as my very own, and we'll have tea parties, and if you ever contradict me then I'll break all four of your legs, and we'll be the happiest family ever!

[arrozaurus]

animorphs wips and concepts

[ridragon]

gale is very much a "well, SOMEONE is gonna take this corrupted amulet.... might as well be me because I Can Handle It" kinda guy. a "this cursed weapon whispers to its wielders to kill but I'm built different" dude. a "this magic is something god sealed away but I'm a strong boy and gods favorite I'll be fine oh no my organs" kinda- oh wait

[ebb-is-learning]

being anti ai is making me feel like in going insane. "you asked for thoughts about your characters backstory and i put it into chat gpt for ideas". studies have proven its making people dumber. "i asked ai to generate this meal plan". its causing water shortages where its data centers are built. "ill generate some pictures for the dnd campaign". its spreading misinformation. "meta, generate an image of this guy doing something stupid". its trained off stolen images, writing, video, audio. "i was talking with my snapchat ai-" theres no way to verify what its doing with the information it collects. "youtube is impletmenting ai based age verification". my work has an entire graphics media department and has still put ai generated motivational posters up everywhere. ai playlists. ai facial verification. google ai microsoft ai meta ai snapchat ai. everyone treats it as a novelty. every treats it as a mandatory part of life. am i the only one who sees it? am i paranoid? am i going insane? jesus fucking christ. if i have to hear one more "well at least-" "but it does-" "but you can-" im about to lose it. i shouldnt have to jump through hoops to avoid the evil machine. have you no principles? no goddamn spine? am i the weird one here?

[etchif]

Isn't it fucking insane that so many people think that IQs are real. Like people genuinely believe you are born with one set level of intelligence that can be measured on a scale from 1 to ~200. As if intelligence wasn't extremely nuanced and completely subjective. And the fact that the majority of scientists that have advocated for IQ tests in the past have been eugenicists doesn't seem to concern anyone either

[mug-of-beans]

“The old magic persists thanks to it’s unfathomable power.”

No, the old magic persists because the new magic can’t run the legacy spells I need to do my job, and keeps trying to install spirits I don’t want or need onto my orb.

[aqueerkettleofish]

Look, if the new magic didn't have a personality construct that kept trying to tell me which spells to use, maybe I wouldn't still be using the old magic.

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

Yes it had a deep blood cost, but at least it was a one time sacrifice and not this monthly bloodletting nonsense new age magic has

[wizard-archivist-official]

The old magic is robust enough to survive a decade of use and it's compatible with every wand, staff, scroll, and charm in our collection.

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

Our preferences, as an archiving institution, should be pretty clear.

[charlesoberonn]

You try to get guidance for the new magic and the king's sorcerers maybe will answer you in a few days with an unhelpful suggestion to buy the newest orb.

You need guidance for the old magic and a dozen retired middle-aged wizards will pop up to explain it to you rune by rune if necessary.

[sunderwight]

My default assumption whenever I see people pitching fits about how characters or ships or the color of the wallpaper or whatever else they don't like must be evil, is that they are a teenager.

They are a teenager who has never used anything other than an algorithmic feed on a social media app to find fannish content, they don't even know where the settings page is, and they're having a real bad time. They have to get up early in the morning, school is awful, all their clique-y peers have been mean to them about their weight, their teachers are impatient, they just got seven hours of homework and their last class was gym. And they are eternally frightened that they're secretly a bad person and their only current recourse against this is to be like, at least I know that pineapple on pizza is a sin.

Approaching things from this angle has never steered me wrong. Even when the person in question is not literally a teenager, they're still pretty much letting their inner kid drive the bus right now.

"A four year age gap is abusive!" okay champ. Screen time's up. Let's get you a protein shake and a nap.

[thememedaddy]

[bumblingbabooshka]

Vulcan teen on Vulcan [tiktok] saying "I have just lost track of my father in the grocery store." The camera turns to show the viewers the grocery store in which almost every single older middle-aged man has a bowlcut and long robes. Camera turns back to show the teen's face which is expressionless and yet communicates all it needs to.

[fallenangelvictorious]

Vulcan teen "The most logical approach is to remain where I am so that my Father may more easily locate me" The camera turns to show the viewers the grocery store in which half a dozen Vulcan teens are scattered, standing frozen in place. From behind the camera you hear- "Many such cases."

[queermania]

if i’m ever brutally murdered and everyone feels like they need to do something productive in my memory, all i want is for you to pass legislation banning LED headlights in my name. regardless of how irrelevant it is to my murder. it’s relevant to my heart.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

For any Halsin enjoyers out there, I cannot highly recommend enough the Saint of Steel book series by T. Kingfisher (especially the audiobooks).

Y’all like big dudes who are Very Aware of being big? But also intensely middle-aged (except for the younger ones)? Exceptionally good at violence but also exceptionally caring and conscious and one of them is really into knitting socks for the others? Each book covers a different paladin (of the Saint of Steel) and each one has a different love interest and I have been into every one of them?

And the women characters are all an absolute goddamn delight: from the naive perfume nerd to the bear nun (you read that right) to the gay coroner lich (who is a dude so technically he’s in the wrong section here), to the master spy. I would kill and die for any of them.

And I’m done. Seriously though. It’s like these cozy fantasy mystery romances about berserkers who can and have probably split a guy in half with an ax just trying to like. Do their job. And fall in love. And feel guilty about that because they’re all goddamn paladins.

[evercelle]

our hextech dream 🦋⚙️

[gilbert-gilbert-art]

over winter break i started making these silly (stupid) arcane comics and ive decided im going to finish them