Depleting productivity one day at a time

Part-time scientist/teacher/failure, full-time procrastinator.

[wearepaladin]

From your perspective, what's the best way for an average person (no special advantages like money or connections) to embody the paladin ethos in real life? Is it taking a job with a non-profit? Volunteering (e.g. tutoring kids, soup kitchens, etc)? Just curious about your thoughts.

I feel like the paladin ethos can exist anywhere, it's just a matter of applying that ethos consistently. You swore an oath, you follow it. The where and when is irrelevant. Fortunately, you don't need a sword or a position to help virtue flourish and darkness recede. You do more good in the long run by just by being the right person in every place you can be. The stranger on the road, the quiet voice over the internet, the phone call to old or new friends. The little things are titanic in the scope what actually gets people through the day. Just work on being the person who can make that moment the right one for them. A paladin, ultimately, ideally, is an axiom of virtue regardless of where and who they happen to be. So, be a where a paladin is expected, or utterly unexpected, and the story changes for the better because the paladin is there regardless.

[herpsandbirds]

[twenty-of-your-minutes]

Elfangor’s Letter. Transcribed from The Pretender

Dear Tobias,

I am your father. You never knew me. And I never knew you. I do not know what your life has been over these many years. I hope that your mother found someone else to love. I know that all memory of me has been erased from her mind. All evidence of my time on Earth has been erased.

I am being given this opportunity to communicate with you by the very creature who has erased my life on Earth. He has called me back to my duty, and I cannot fail.

This will all seem very strange to you, my unknown, unseen, unmet son. But I am not one of your people. I have taken on the form of a human, but I am not human.

I was in a terrible war. I did terrible things. I had to, I suppose. But I grew tired of war, so I ran away. I went and hid among the people of Earth. Among humans. While on Earth, and living as a human, I took the name Alan Fangor. But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.

And though you will never know me and we will never meet, I wanted to make sure that you knew my disappearance from your life was not by my choice. I wanted nothing more than to live out my life, loving your mother and loving you as well.

But I was part of something larger than myself. I had my duty. There was a great evil I had to fight. There were lives I had to try and save. Including yours and your mother’s. I am from a race called Andalites. Duty is very important to us. As it is to many, many humans. I cannot say that I love you, my son, because I do not know you. But know that I wanted to love you. Know that, at least.

- Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, Prince

[clowndensation]

he has 2 electrons... who? the boy reading this...

[shocked--kwarrtz]

[letsknightinarmour]

[theswordandsnail]

It's okay, there's not many people on board, it is the knight train after all

[annesoftheisland]

Anne & Gilbert - Height Difference - Adaptations

[ozempicofficial]

[druidshollow]

happy 30th anniversary to animorphs <3

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I don't know how you'd set it up but it would be really funny to force Tobias into a mission where he HAS to morph some other Bird of Prey because he would spend the entire time complaining endlessly about how the tail feathers are all wrong or something.

That would be amazing! God knows Tobias doesn't have nearly enough problems, and definitely needs more.

The obvious one would be a night mission that forces him to give in and just acquire a damn owl already. It's so funny to me that he goes the whole series without that morph, despite its obvious utility, out of sheer stubbornness. But even Tobias would (grudgingly) use owl if there was a mission that needed a very skilled flier at night. Heck, he might even enjoy it despite himself.

I could see him being forced into golden eagle morph if they need to carry a lot of weight in raptor shape — maybe he's assisting a fellow Animorph in snake form to the battle, like in #21. Tobias would haaaate it, but he'd probably also see the point in needing a shape that big.

Alternately, could there be a mission with a lot of close-quarters speed flying where he has to take on his other nemesis, the peregrine falcon? Maybe something where the Animorphs attack a yeerk base on the side of a cliff and need an ultra-fast getaway. I could also see Tobias — through his teeth — admitting that peregrine falcon is cool, the way he does with mallard. Golden eagle would probably be the only one he would never ever come around on, since he sees them as bullies and for him that'll always be a hard "no."

[nesugosu]

CROW he needs to do CROW everyone needs to do CROW

[hugintheraven]

#controversial take. but: i don't know that crow morph gets them much they don't already have from starting as humans?#crows' strengths are a) social coordination and b) crafty tool use#both things that humans do EVEN BETTER than crows#like. they actually don't need mental abilities. they need physical ones.

What they need from crow is also what they’d get from pigeon or sparrow, bird that can exist in proximity to humans in large numbers and not be remarked upon. A murder wandering around basically anywhere outdoors is normal, and it’s likely normal crows would join the Animorphs just to see what’s so interesting.

And Tobias would hate it.

[sparklyeevee]

This is great because Tobias has real problems, but compared to the other Animorphs he doesn't have nearly enough stupid problems. Living in a tree means no younger siblings eating your leftover shrimp fried rice.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

This is the truth. He doesn't have math assignments conflicting with his need to save the world, he doesn't end up looped into family vacations in the middle of Visser Three's annual review, he doesn't have little sisters to babysit or horse poop to shovel... Get this man some annoying inconveniences, STAT!

[meera-bhai]

Did the Animorphs ever have to do a long-range flight-based mission? In that case, Tobias would be forced to morph into a migratory bird. Or how about a mission near a coastline? They frequently went near to the beach, so you would think he would have to do seagull - and likely complain about it.

[shamebats]

"There's no thought crimes and no thought heroisms" is honestly such a good piece of life advice.

You could be having the most fucked up problematic thoughts 24/7 but if you treat people with kindness, the good you do is the only thing that matters. But if you have only the purest thoughts and all the correct beliefs, it doesn't matter one bit if you spend most of your time being an asshole to people.

[jackedjacket]

The thing that will always get me about Tobias being stuck in his morph is that he just disappeared one day and literally no one cared. Not a single teacher has asked Jake or Marco if they've seen him around. His family does not search for him. Neither the police or social services are called. The rest of the group doesn't see his face on the back of milk cartons during lunch. He vanished and it was like he never existed.

[meera-bhai]

. . . huh. Well how about that.

It's been years since I last read Animorphs, but that really made me stop and think.

[greenfairy87]

My love language is correcting people

[meera-bhai]

[smileyobrien]

to manufactured triumphs, hear, hear! ♥️🎉

[crow-caller]

as a child there's nothing cooler than a kid who gets subjected to evil experiments and gains special abilities. it's even cooler if these abilities also cause unfathomable suffering to use/against others. children love stories like this.

[demi-shoggoth]

The children yearn to be Mewtwo

[meera-bhai]

[userfinalgirls]

RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) dir. Richard Marquand

[captainrexs]

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

[geekynerfherder]

Showcasing art from some of my favourite artists, and those that have attracted my attention, in the field of visual arts, including vintage; pulp; pop culture; books and comics; concert posters; fantastical and imaginative realism; classical; contemporary; new contemporary; pop surrealism; conceptual and illustration.

The art of Robert McCall.