Cautiously Optimistic

Not quite sure what this blog is. Probably things I like. She/her Hope you're having a lovely time, whatever time it is where you are!

[the-zenith-calls]

My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

Legolas please gain a sense of urgency

[digitaldeathx-deactivated202605]

self-awareness check, list five things you like that aren't media pieces in the tags now ‼️

[mumblesplash]

i might have already talked about this before but it’s actually crazy that jogging gets treated as a default ‘getting into shape for the first time’ exercise ESPECIALLY if someone’s goal involves weight loss. people who are more than ~200lbs often need special gear and running techniques to avoid shin splints etc *even if all that weight is solid muscle*, and the likelihood of injury only goes up as strength to weight ratio decreases. someone who’s both heavy AND untrained is just going to be miserable for however long it takes their bones and connective tissue to adapt to the sudden increase in demand. usually this takes months, but it can take even longer under adverse conditions like, say, suddenly eating way less than normal. and all this for an activity that literally isn’t even fun unless you are a specific type of insane. there are so many low impact and actually enjoyable forms of cardio why are we slapshotting biomechanically disadvantaged novices into the david goggins torment dimension

[gingersnapwolves]

could. could you maybe. list some of those 'low impact and enjoyable forms of cardio'? this is not sarcasm, this is a genuine request, every form of exercise I have tried recently has put me in the torment dimension. thank you and I love you

[mumblesplash]

yeah sure! there’s a lot of good suggestions in the notes, i’m probably missing a few

if you have access to a gym/appropriate facilities:

a LOT of people in the notes vouching for swimming, and it makes sense. not only is it basically zero impact on any of your joints, it engages just about every muscle in your body and it’s actually easier to stay afloat the higher your bodyfat%

stationary bike/elliptical: works for some better than others, but definitely far lower impact than running, usually has adjustable difficulty, and you can watch youtube videos or play games on your phone to pass the time

non stationary bike: the benefits of a stationary bike plus the ability to travel to a location

weight lifting: if you’re a total beginner to exercise this genuinely might be a better place to start than any designated ‘cardio’ activity, it Will get your heart rate up and build strength to do higher impact stuff with less risk, but designing a routine can feel overwhelming without help from a trainer/more experienced lifter

classes: yoga, pilates, dance, kickboxing, spin class, water aerobics, etc. as long as you can find one that accommodates your current fitness level and is a reasonably friendly environment

rowing: i actually know relatively little about rowing, but this has come up in the notes several times and people seem to like it. def seems like a good overall workout with little to no jarring impact

roller derby: definitely less of a Safe Beginner Activity and more ‘form of cardio you can do if you are on the fit side but still hate running’ but has come up in the notes multiple times specifically as a sport where a range of body types can do well

minimal equipment alternatives:

walking: if you have the resources to jog you have the resources to walk, and it really is a good form of exercise that also puts less strain on your joints

dance tutorials: seen a few people recommending these, there’s apparently a huge variety on youtube and you can take things at whatever pace works for you

yoga: also beginner friendly classes on youtube, good way to build up mobility and bodyweight strength

someone in the notes recommended hula hooping?? which actually sounds kind of genius especially if you don’t have a lot of gear or space. also iirc you can buy different weights of hula hoops for reasonably cheap so there’s a way to up the intensity over time

this seems like a decent resource at first glance and i think i saw more than one rec for them

one important thing to remember for anyone out there who’s significantly out of shape and feels overwhelmed is that when it comes to fitness you have one enormous advantage: it is currently EXTREMELY EASY for you to get exercise

do you 🫵 get winded walking up a flight of stairs? is curling a 5lb dumbbell 10 times difficult for you? can you barely do a single knee push-up? well i have great news: doing all of those things twice still probably takes less you less than 10 minutes. which means you can do a genuinely worthwhile daily workout in less than ten minutes. and it’ll probably get easy fast, and then you can find a heavier dumbbell

[rabbitindisguise]

there's two youtubers I recommend: hybrid calisthenics (also here on tumblr! @hybridcalisthenics) and John Noel

they both have a lot of different modifications to make a bunch of different exercises accessible regardless of fitness level as well as ways to increase intensity over time, and a lot of good advice for beginners like how to stretch and identifying injuries :3

personally I couldn't recommend archery enough because it has both walking, "weight lifting," and core strength building aspects, but it's also really the only sport I can do with my EDS symptoms so I'm super biased ^^'

[palis-delon]

If you don't know how to swim you can still use a pool. "Lap swim" or "Lanes" are time for people doing back and forth swimming, but "Open Swim" is a time when a section of the pool is there for whatever. I bring my 8 and 10 year old and while they dive for toys I use the floating "weights" to work my arms.

There are a couple of old people who do water walking at the same time.

[leatherjacketeddie]

We have lost the meaning of queerbait

[leatherjacketeddie]

Just because what you wanted didn't happen, doesn't mean it's queerbaiting. It is now being used an excuse when the ship you want didn't get together. Queerbaiting has to do with marketing.

[shamebats]

Queerbait: A cookbook that you learned about from ads with pictures of people eating tasty looking soups and the author's social media posts about how soup lovers are going to love it, proves to have no soup recipes.

Not queerbait: A cookbook has no soup recipes. You assumed there would be some based on vibes and wishful thinking. No soups were ever advertised or promised.

Also not queerbait: A cookbook that was advertised as containing soup recipes has soup recipes but not for the types of soups you like.

[nat-20s]

extremely funny to me that Kermit the Frog is the only main overlap character between Sesame Street and The Muppets. imagine your day job is hanging out in a community of lovely people that genuinely just want to help kids learn and care about everyone so so much and then your night job is the reason that you have to stay up to date on your rabies AND tetanus vaccine

[nat-20s]

at noon the giant you're hanging out with is Big Bird! a wonderful fellow who likes reading stories and singing and telling fun facts! at midnight there's a giant named Sweetums who makes you feel like you're being hunted for sport

[nat-20s]

Ernie, trying to maybe come out to Kermit: well you know Kermit, me and Bert-

Bert: Bert and I

Ernie: Bert and I, we've been best friends forever, but we're also something else too!

Kermit, who every goddamn night has to tell Beaker and Bunsen to keep it professional, deal with Statler and Waldorf's bullshit, AND update his organizational chart on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Polycule: that's really great to hear fellas, happy for you two! :)

[amethystsoda]

PSA: if you're watching the new Knives Out mystery (Wake Up Dead Man), please be aware that around 1 hr 34 minutes in, there's a series of flashing/strobing lights. the sequence lasts about a minute.

[amethystsoda]

^ comment I got on tiktok bc I posted this same thing there. this is why I'm giving the warning because netflix and the theaters didn't 😔

[identityarchitect]

[ID: comment reading "I have epilepsy went to see it yesterday and covered my eyes too late and had a seizure and all I could think was why are we STILL not putting strobe warnings on movies..." /end ID]

[etymologeez]

To be specific [spoiler warning for Wake Up Dead Man] there is a scene in the rain, the priest will slip on mud, run into the woods, and a fist will knock him out. Close your eyes immediately when you see the fist. Don't open again until you start hearing conversations.

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Sharing for the plot specifics which makes it a bit easier for people who are watching compared to tracking the timings

[divorce-enjoyer]

why go to the grocery store or to a restaurant when you can just get food delivered why go to the mall when you can get same day shipping on amazon why go to the library when you have kindle why make art when there’s ai why go to the cinema when you can stay at home and watch netflix. we are in a loneliness epidemic btw

[divorce-enjoyer]

the loneliness epidemic was invented by BIG SHIT to sell you more SHIT

[decompositie]

[luulapants]

Got into a discussion about emergency response at a professional retreat recently and everyone was going on and on about agility, and I was like, "Okay but what about contingency?"

And they were like "What?"

And I was like, "Agility isn't the ultimate form of preparedness. Contingency is. Agility still requires you to flounder and figure out a solution in the moment, but if you have a contingency plan, all you have to do is implement it."

And they were like "But you can't make contingency plans for every situation!"

And I was like, "Yeah, you basically can if you just identify all of your basic dependencies and contingency plan around the loss of any dependency," and then I gave a few examples.

And they all stared at me like I'm an alien.

Anyway, that's how I figured out I'm Batman-coded and also learned how Batman must feel talking to supposedly professional superheroes who never bothered to run disaster scenarios until I pointed out that it's insane that they don't already have a plan for if Superman turns evil.

[bobdylanyaoi]

i cannot emphasize how much it sucks that people in movies don’t look real anymore. like conventionally attractive people have always been cast more as leads but up until like a decade ago they had visible age lines and textured skin and double chins and imperfect teeth. like whenever i’m feeling insecure i just have to watch a regular movie from the 70s and remind myself that im actually not unhygienic and disgusting for having teeth that are a little yellow and visible pores

[bobdylanyaoi]

genuinely social media has fucked everything up and we need to realize that the average person is normal and you are in fact allowed to make art and exist in the public eye while not looking like an airbrushed 20 year old and that your personal appearance really does not matter that much

[respectissexy]

My absolute least favorite type of "neurodivergence" (used colloquially to only ever mean "Autism and ADHD") misinformation is the type that posits that being neurodivergent makes you a better person.

"Justice sensitivity" does not mean "neurologically I am a good person who stands up for what's right." It means you have a strong reaction to perceived injustice. But it does not mean your moral compass is calibrated well. The white dudes who are most obsessed with taking away Affirmative Action likely also have "justice sensitivity" -- their sense of injustice is just triggered by something different from what triggers mine, because we have different values. Some people's sense of injustice is triggered by pretty much any situation ever not working out in their favor. Those people can still be "justice sensitive" even if you wouldn't think of them as good people.

Also, there is no neurodivergent condition that makes you automatically capital-H Honest. Some Autistic people aren't good at intentionally lying or find it very uncomfortable to intentionally lie, but others lie just fine and I've met some who did it all the time. "Intentionally lie" is also doing a lot of work here, as you can be very dishonest without intentionally lying if you are prone to lying to yourself, which neurodivergent people are no less likely to do.

There is no neurotype that confers superior moral reasoning or instincts.

[inkskinned]

when i was younger and stupid and in the (glass) closet i was dating the son of a pharmacologist. this man had made millions developing medications. he was fond of me and privately told me i was too funny and smart to be dating boys.

he also said that it was incredibly unlikely that sexism will ever be resolved in the medical field. that the majority of medications i will ever take - even some of which are "for women" - will not be clinically tested on my body.

the problem, he said, was in getting any human clinical trial approved. to test on a body with a uterus - any body, even elderly patients or those who have been sterilized - was often nigh-impossible, because the concern was that the test patient may, at any point, become pregnant. once/if the patient became pregnant, the study would not be about "the effects of New Medication on the body." instead, the trial would fail - the results would be "the effects of New Medication on a developing fetus/pregnant patient."

it was massively easier, he said, to just test without accounting for a uterus. that's how he phrased it - accounting for a uterus.

at the time, i remember him talking about the ethical implications of testing on a developing fetus; how such testing could theoretically bankrupt a company if a lawsuit was filed. he talked about informed consent and about how long it took for any legislation to be passed about this - that in 1993; the year i was born, it finally became illegal to outright exclude women and minorities from clinical trials.

i remember him shrugging. "that's not to say it doesn't happen," he said. my ears were ringing.

i was thinking about how every time i have been rushed to the ER, the first thing they have asked me is if i am pregnant. when i broke my wrist at 16 years old - despite never having had sex - they made me wait three hours for the test to come back negative before they gave me pain meds. the possibility of a child haunts my health.

how many people have died on the table because they were waiting for the pregnancy test before treatment. how many people have died on the table because they were pregnant, and the only thing we care about is the fetus.

it is hard to explain to other people, but it feels like some kind of strange ghost. our entire lives, we are supposed to "save" our bodies for our future partners. but really we are just saving the body for the future child, aren't we? that hovering future-almost that cartwheels around in a miasma. you can't get your tubes tied, what if you change your mind? think of the child you must have, eventually.

who cares about you and your actual safety. think about what you could be carrying.

[synthient]

crazy that in the 1970s they were like, "fine, women can play sports. but because they're innately less athletic than men, only in a special ghettoized League For The Frail And Delicate where they get paid less 😊". And not only is that still the system in 2023, but viciously lashing out at the smallest challenges to that system gets framed as Feminist Praxis

[synthient]

even setting aside the fact that gendered bodytype averages aren't universals, and plenty of individual (cis) women and (cis) men could easily go to toe to toe. have we considered that the fact that all the most prominent and well-paid sports are ones that require things like Being Tall and Having Muscle Mass, as opposed to, ex, gymnastics...is itself an artifact of sexism

[alarajrogers]

Also consider the existence of sports where women would have an advantage, and yet, somehow, the most famous and well paid ones are not women.

I'm thinking of jockeys. Jockeys get an advantage from being smaller and lighter, and while obviously you need sufficient strength to stay on the horse, a well-trained horse does enough of the work that you don't need upper body strength to do the job. Given this and that the majority of children obsessed with horses are female, you'd think most jockeys would be women. Yet somehow they are not.

NASCAR at one point threatened to handicap Danica Patrick by putting extra weight in her car to compensate for the fact that she is smaller and lighter than other racecar drivers. If she gets an advantage as a driver, why is she like practically the only female racecar driver, or at least the only one anyone knows about?

Women, apparently, have an advantage in long distance swimming. Higher body fat percentage and higher endurance means that women can go greater distances in the water. Is long distance swimming even a competitive sport?

Women have actually been excluded from competitive Olympic skiing on the grounds that the jumps required could damage their uterus. The people who actually have unsupported reproductive organs hanging outside their body are considered to have better support than the people whose reproductive organs are nestled in alongside unisex organs like the small intestine and stomach. How does this make any goddamn sense at all? If a uterus could dislodge from the force of a skiing jump, so could intestines and the sport wouldn't be safe for anyone.

Theoretically, any sport where you get an advantage from low center of gravity, better balance, higher flexibility, or being closer to the ground, women should have an advantage. This should include soccer (football in non-US places), and might include hockey if the hockey players hadn't introduced unnecessary viciousness to the sport.

So in any sport where women would excel over men, they're either excluded, unfairly penalized, the sport doesn't exist, or the sport is considered unimportant and no one makes money on it. Hmm. I am thinking the problems here are not actually what the TERFs and transphobes make them out to be.

[twotommyolivers]

For those of you wondering "Why did OP say the 70's?" It's because that's when Title IX was passed in the US, prohibiting gender-based discrimination in federally funded education, e.g. public schools & universities. So anti-feminists couldn't just straight up say "no girls allowed" but instead resorted to what's been described above.

It's as if intolerance can't be magically be solved with pieces of paper alone.

[shutyourmoustache]

If you have the means to donate gifts to toy drives or shelters, please keep the above tips in mind so you can help meet people’s wants and needs! 💓

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Handy tips! <3

[mikkeneko]

[Image ID: Photograph of a refrigerator interior. An unseen person is placing a glass tray containing a plastic-wrapped turkey onto a shelf. Text reads: “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s time to move the frozen turkey to the fridge.” End ID.]

[mikkeneko]

Hello Tumblr, this year I have updated the original post with an image ID. For You.

Anyway here’s the 2025 specifics. American Thanksgiving is 11/27 this year, so fairly late in the month. If your household is looking to cook turkey this year:

10-15 pounds: Start thawing at least 3-4 days before, on Sunday, November 23rd.

16-20 pounds: Start thawing at least 4-5 days before, on Saturday, November 22nd.

20-24 pounds: Start thawing at least 5-6 days before, on Friday, November 21st.

And don’t forget: The economy is shit this year, lots of people are being laid off, and grocery prices are skyrocketing. There has never been a better time to donate to food pantries, and/or to reach out to your neighbors and see how they’re doing.

Which doesn’t need to end when thanksgiving is over, either – there are some charities that are specific to Thanksgiving, but don’t do anything to support people after that date. So.

[harpieisthecarpie]

[mal-studyblr]

hey quick PSA but “reading before bed to wind down” only works if you’re normal about books btw. if you aren’t you are going to end up awake at 2:52am after finishing the whole book just trust me on this one

[thememedaddy]