#hobby: exercising

[hrokkall]

Body, mind, soul

[serrennedyanonwriter]

Capcom needs to drop a Luis DLC for me, my almost 60K word-count Luis autism doc doesn’t have enough information on him, I need more /hj

[epicqtefail]

ever since tumblr started automatically saving posts to drafts it has captured what literally every pattern of thought i have is like

[myokk]

fast sketch of Sebastian and my mc, Eloise💓💓💓 I love them so much 🤧

Also!! You guys 😭😭 thank you so so so much for all the love, I can’t believe you like my sketches so much♥️♥️♥️🥰💓😘 I love reading all of your comments, hashtags, etc. it makes me smile so much so thank you !!💓

[butchscientist]

as someone who's learning to have a healthy relationship with exercise in their mid-20s one thing that's been so deeply ingrained in me is that exercise means suffering and it feels like a revelation to learn that it doesn't have to be that way. growing up with PE exams taught me that the way to do exercise was to push my body as far as it possibly could, because if i wasn't doing that and i didn't do well enough on the test it meant i wasn't trying hard enough.

i thought there was something wrong with me because i never understood the "exercise makes you feel good" thing - to me exercise meant hating every second of it, being completely exhausted and nonfunctional for the rest of the day, and then being in pain for the next couple of days. and if i mentioned that to people they always said "you get used to it" or "you just need to do it for a while to up your strength/endurance" and nobody ever told me "maybe you're pushing yourself too hard".

now i'm learning that "cardio" doesn't have to mean "run so hard that you feel like you can barely breathe and might throw up" and "feeling the burn" can mean "do a manageable exercise that's just hard enough that you feel it a little" and not "you have to do the hardest setting you can without your muscles literally giving out, if you're not in significant pain the whole time it isn't real exercise". "building up strength and endurance" can mean "do things that are manageable but slightly challenging, over time what is manageable but slightly challenging will increase" instead of "do something that feels absolutely horrible over and over until it stops feeling as bad".

[yakultii]

sometimes you just gotta go outside to realise you’re not as entirely ugly as you feel (you’re just nature)

[enbysiriusblack]

remus & james' friendship and sirius & peter's friendship are so so special to me.

[pratchettquotes]

"A few twenty-mile runs and the Dean'd be a different man."

"Well, yes," said the Bursar. "He'd be dead."

Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

I'm so sorry to hear you were in an accident im glad you are alive and feeling okay again <3<3

I'd love to send you a lotura prompt, hopefully it lifts your spirits to be back on that sweet ship.

How about Lotor and Allura talking about weapons? (i.e. Like how Allura prefers a staff and Lotors sword designs (like the one he was first shown with) )

Hey, good to hear from you and thanks for your super kind note!! I'm doing a little better each day and am excited to get back to regular routines! While I was on hold over the phone about paperwork today, I managed to exercise my brain with the prompt you gave me! <3

Staff vs. Sword

Emperor Lotor leans against a wall, crossing his arms and quirking a slim, white eyebrow at the princess before him. “Surely, you jest with me,” he murmurs. “A staff again?”

Princess Allura beams, and she grabs her favorite staff from the blunted practice weapons with a solid grip, fingers tight. With a quick flick of her wrist, she spins it and sets the end solidly on the ground. “My bayard for Blue Lion also turns into a whip,” she says nonchalantly, “but that seems entirely unfair to use against you, as it produces an electric shock.”

“Ah, yes.” His eyes crinkle, his slit pupils dilating with softness. He adds dryly, “Because we do not already create enough sparks on the courts.”

She brushes back her long, thick braid and waggles her eyebrows. “You said it, not me.” And then she pokes his chest plate with the end of her staff. “Do tell me you’re not afraid of a second round after I defeated you.”

“And nearly caused an intergalactic incident,” he says, voice halted. “The training grounds are intended for practicing the art of combat—not the art of catching one’s opponent off-guard with a kiss.”  

With a giggle, Allura pulls the staff back, her Altean markings glowing a bright pink. “Yes, well, we Alteans have a saying that all’s fair in love and war. Now, pick your weapon, dear emperor, so that I may defeat you once more. And do choose something other than a sword this time—at least mix it up for me?”

Lotor eyes her before grabbing a blunted sword from the wall, inspecting its balance. His long fingers grip the hilt tightly. “A sword is the best extension of a warrior’s will,” he declares, raising his chin with a petulant chin. “It is simple. It is efficient. It is my favorite weapon.”

Allura sighs dramatically at him. “It does not have quite the—” she waves her hand—“the impact of a staff, though.”

He raises the silver sword to her. “The staff is an impact weapon,” he says dryly. “You simply seek to showcase your Altean strength to the Galra who prowl these courts, and that is why you prefer it as of late."

“Tish tosh,” she says, planting her feet properly on the training mat and eyeing him with an increased wariness. She knows Lotor likes to strike unexpectedly. “I also happen to like the way training robots crumple to bits beneath a staff. It relieves the stress I feel after a large conference with intergalactic leaders.”

A tick of silence stretches between them.

And then in a blur, Lotor races toward her, slashing down.

She blocks with the staff and swings, and he ducks smoothly before stepping back, flipping the sword in his hand.

He paces the mat, the overhead lights capturing the glow of his eyes like a predator in the dark wilderness. “Poor Princess Allura,” he teases. “All the power in the universe, and yet you fear the peace we have wrought together, instead longing for means of violence. Are you certain you are not of Galran blood somewhere in that long ancestry of yours?”

Alura’s voice strains as she circles him as well, resetting her staff. “I can’t think of a single species that doesn’t enjoy a rough tumble now and again, in a safe, non-war environment. Why, the humans even have something called, um—” Her concentration breaks as she pauses, snapping her fingers. “Um, wrestling. And something called rugby. And then they have a very large, worldwide competition for their various violent sports, called the Olympics.”

Lotor pauses.

His slit pupils widen in curiosity of other cultures. “Olympics? Is that similar to a Kral Zera?”

“Somewhat,” she nods, “but instead of choosing a world leader by, um, killing everyone, these tournaments are for medals that they wear around their necks and then bite in front of cameras. And no one dies generally.”

He lunges again, and in a blur, wrenches the staff away from her hands and presses her up against a wall.

Allura squeaks, eyes wide.

His nose is inches from her own, his breath a hot puff against her face. “How very curious.”  

Her breath stalls as her cheeks heat hard enough to radiate to him. “Um, y-yes.”

Lotor’s wide mouth splits as he whispers against her mouth, “Fortunately for you, princess, I’ve no intent to fight you truly, or you would already be dead with your silly staff. And if it were these Olympics, you would have no medal to bite.”

Face flushed, her eyes narrow to slits, and before Lotor can avoid it, she hooks her ankle against his and unbalances him. Surprised claws protract from his hands, gripping into her practice armor and his eyes widen.

And the two royals fall in a pile of limbs upon the mat, with Allura sprawled on top of a stunned Lotor, his sword clattering to the mat beside them.  

“Oh, no,” she says with a triumphant giggle, hands planted over his chest plate. Her curly flyaways are an angelic halo around her face. “You lowered your weapon but did not fully secure me, so I still win.”

Lotor grumps beneath her, his lavender cheeks flushing as he grips her forearms.

And despite Galra leadership watching the courts and murmuring with gossip in the far distance, Lotor softens. His rough, calloused thumbs stroke a pink marking along her bare forearm. “Best two out of three, then? I promise to secure you fully next time and cause another scandal for it.”

Allura leans forward, eyes sparkling. “Very well, Emperor Lotor. You’re on.”

[frosty-tian]

Hey there dude, just hoping everything is alright over there, since it's been a while ever since we last talked. Wish you the best!

Hello Nyx,

Thank you very much for your message!

New Year’s been off with a rough start but seems like I have most(?) things under control. Hope you have been doing well too ol’ pal!

(Please accept a sleepy fat bean (feels like forever since I drew them).)

[sitdwnandstudy]

After my qualitative methods class today I'm just increasingly convinced that the boundaries between qualitative and quantitative methods are blurry to nonexistent. I'm not saying that some approaches aren't one thing or the other but literally none of the differentiating aspects listed can be said to only apply to one method or the other. I just think we'd be better off considering how to make sense of our results rather than making statements about how qualitative researchers make conscious choices that produce their results as if quantitative researchers don't literally also do that.

Anyway, I continue to be very interested in the ways that we convey authority in our research work, whether through methodological rigor, the appearance of methodological rigor, or some other way entirely.

[angelhummel]

part of my therapy today involved me recapping the entire s1 plot of glee to my therapist

[louisegluckpdf]

fleabag voice either everyone feels this sleepy and they're not talking about it or i am a complete fucking snoozer. which isn't fucking funny.

[not-poignant]

Do you have any advice on how to write more words on a regular basis? I find it difficult to write regularly but am fed up of only being able to produce sporadically in small amounts. Whenever I sit down to write it feels like I'm feeding gravel into a blender (if that even makes sense). I've tried getting advice from others and am told to just "stop trying to write then". But I can't because I want to write. Writing is all I ever think about. It feels like oxygen to me and when I'm not doing it (or thinking about doing it) I feel like I'm dying inside. But damn, I just wish it wasn't so difficult.

I really want to finish my stories and I know I could if I just wrote regularly but I don't know why that's so hard for me to do.

Hi anon!

I might have some thoughts on this because I certainly never used to write as much as I do now!

Firstly, I'll get this one out of the way now, if you have money to spend, join 4thewords - ignore this if you don't have it. But this gamifies writing in a genuinely fun way. Each monster you kill gives you loot, and fulfills quests that give you more loot, that opens more worlds and more options that give you clothing / house furniture and more. This was - given how much more productive it made me - a game changer re: writing more.

If you don't have money to spend, let's ignore that and go to other methods.

If you want to write more, the answer isn't to stop writing, it's to write more. The best time to hear 'it's time to stop writing' is if you're burnt out, or you hate everything about it. It sounds like you don't hate everything about it, you just wish it was a bit easier.

Decide what you want regularly to mean. I don't have a daily writing habit - I don't write every day! I'm too sick to, so i have a monthly minimum wordcount instead of a daily minimum wordcount and try and hit it by about week 2/3. Regularly for you might be once a day. Once every two days. Or it might be 'I have to write this many words a month.'

Find a way to track the words you're writing. The only way you can accurately see how much you're writing is by tracking those word-counts! Because you will have days where you feel like you wrote nothing and actually wrote a fair bit, and days where you feel like you wrote a fair bit and sadly wrote...hardly anything, lol. But it's also the best way to see yourself achieve more as you increase your wordcount.

Let's also talk about flow. Sometimes you don't get to feel 'flow' - that feeling of the words coming out easily onto the page, and you have to kind of struggle for every sentence. Are you okay with writing more knowing that this is actually normal for many writers, and the gravel blender feeling might not go away? It will over time get easier to write more words, but it might mean more of that gravel blender feeling. Flow is not predictable, and is often story and scene dependent. Chances are you will have more times feeling writing flow, I just want you to be honest with yourself in case it doesn't happen the way you wish.

From there, it's a combination of developing the discipline (which is like exercising a muscle - start small and grade upwards, don't aim too high at first, consistency is better than bursts), and finding the tricks that help you.

Look at how many words you think you could write a week. Let's lowball and say about 100 words a week. When you assess this for yourself, always undershoot, don't round up! 100 words is like... a long paragraph worth of words.

The following week, depending on if you want a daily / once every two days etc. habit, you'd aim to write 150 words that week. A paragraph and a half.

The week after you'd aim for 200 words.

You might find in week 2 it was easy to write 1000 words, great! But the week after you're still only aiming for 200 words. Don't base scaling up on the bursts / writing sprints - they'll lie to you. If you want consistent discipline, base your increases on the low days. If you reach a week where 200 words feels impossible, aim for 200 words the following week, if it's still impossible, go back to 150.

Now for you it might be... 500 words in week one, 600 in week two, 700 in week 3 etc. It might not seem like much, but you'd be surprised how quickly you start scaling through those numbers with practice.

Increasing writing output is a numbers game. And it's a patience game. And it's a 'being forgiving and gentle with yourself while also being a little bit stern with yourself' game.

Here's the thing no one tells you (except for NaNoWriMo every single year) re: increasing your wordcount.

Those words don't have to be good. They don't have to be good in fact it's better if they're not.

You're just getting used to the feeling of writing more. Not writing more good words, that will come naturally with time. You're getting used to sitting in front of a document for longer, thinking of more sentences you don't necessarily love (it's better if you don't! Write the bad ones!) And this is what I mean by it's a numbers game. Getting better at writing happens the more you do it anyway, so you can just focus on 40 bad sentences.

The trick to letting yourself write badly? That one is just...gritting your teeth and screaming through them while you go 'AHHHHH' in your head and let those suckers loose. Or whatever version of this that you have.

Because here's the thing, it's actually pretty easy to write 1000 words of inconsequential terrible story that no one's going to read. I mean 'pretty easy' - it's easier than writing the stories and characters you love the most and are so invested in, it's hard to write the sentences because you want to do justice to it all. That's fucking stressful, friend, and increasing writing output is just better if you're not always a) doing it on those stories or b) invested in writing those stories well in those early draft/s.

But once you're used to writing more words of stuff you don't love, it becomes easier to write less words of stuff you do, and chances are that will still be more than you're writing now. <3 Some of my stories are really easy to write, and some are way way harder. A chapter of The Ice Plague took as much time as three chapters of Underline the Black. So story is important here too. But also the point is basically that... you don't have to scale up your writing output with the stories you're most invested in, but need to be at a certain standard of writing. You can scale it up any time, with any kind of story - anyone can do this. Increasing your wordcount is a matter of like... easy methods that are less easy to implement irl because of the psychology around letting yourself write badly, and letting yourself validate the time / put the time aside to do that.

And here's the other thing - find a ritual that helps you. Whether it's brewing some tea before writing. Setting up a little space. Putting on some music or a noise generator specifically for writing. Listening to Lo-Fi Girl or Synthwave Boy. Whether it's writing a few words on paper first, or changing the font. Eventually you will have a Pavlovian response to the ritual, and every little bit helps.

As for the psychology, this is why you lowball. You make it as easy as possible. 'God writing 1000 words seems really hard oh but I only have to write a sentence today, cool, I can do that.'

The thing about lowballing is that on the good days, you will write way, way more than your goal. Which means a) you're done for the week if that happens if you want to be done and b) when you're back to feeling exhausted and like GGHGHGHGHHHHH about writing, you're still back at that initial lowball wordcount.

On my worst days, I lowball to like, 5 words, 10 words, and just write 5 / 10 / 15 etc. down on a piece of paper and cross them off. 30 words can be a sentence. 10 words can be a sentence. It feels nice to cross off numbers on a sheet of paper and see the increasing words. I can almost always get to 500 words with that method, and I think you could definitely get to 100.

Anyway the TL;DR

Consistency is way more important than quality

Don't be surprised if you don't find 'flow'

ALWAYS lowball when you're developing an increase in words

Figure out what 'regular' means to you (daily / weekly / etc.)

Make a ritual

Focus less on the stories you love most when developing this habit

If you have a bad week, just go back to the previous wordcount goal. And keep doing that, this won't be a linear process!!!

...It didn't need to be this long I'm so sorry anon idk why I'm like this.

I wish you all the best! I 100% disagree with the folks telling you 'just stop writing then.' I'm like nope, embrace the gravel blender, eventually you'll end up with smooth sand in an hourglass, I promise. <3 You just might have to add more gravel sometimes. ;)

[codes]

current mood: a tiny puppy giving the loudest sigh while curled up in bed

[innalheid]

Feeling very Ascension by Gorillaz ft Vince Staples at 2:18