Loki, The God Of Being Polite Compilation

worth reblogging

A Beginner’s Guide to Dark Academia

tips for the baby aesthete’s out there

academia

actually study! study the things you love, the things you like, the things you know nothing about — the pursuit of knowledge lasts a lifetime, and there is so much to learn

visit your professor’s office hours! it always helps to make yourself known to your teachers (i’ve been given grade bumps and had great conversations with my university lecturers)

avoid and check yourself for the pretension that can often accompany academia — it hurts no one to be kind and mindful

delve into the realm of philosophy (for starters: metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics) it will broaden your mind

stay late at your university library studying (if you can do so safely, preferably with a friend). university campuses feel magical in the evening

style

wear darker, muted colours

plaid coats, pants, or skirts

button-up shirts (Peter Pan collars are a bonus)

turtlenecks

tie your hair with a bow

accessorise! a vintage watch adds sophistication to any outfit. try wearing it with a ring or three

practice good posture — standing tall creates an air of elegance, confidence, and if paired with the right amount of nonchalance, mystery

media

films

dead poets society

cracks

the dreamers

thoroughbreds

breathless (à bout de souffle)

cléo from 5 to 7 (cléo de 5 à 7)

handsome devil

tv shows

gilmore girls

chilling adventures of sabrina

black mirror

the good place

the politician

books

the secret history

the picture of dorian gray

the goldfinch

the line of beauty

persuasion

the collected poems of oscar wilde 

ovid’s metamorphoses

music

listen to classical music as you sleep/read/study

you can check out this dark academia playlist for inspiration

aesthetic activities (think of this as a little checklist to get you underway as a fledgling aesthete)

make yourself tea in pretty teacups (you can find plenty in secondhand stores!)

light candles in your bedroom, and read by candlelight 

dry flowers for your room/desk

explore secondhand bookstores for old, pretty editions of novels you may or may not have heard of

give handwritten letters to your lovers/friends/yourself

wake up before the sun rises to watch dawn break

brood during a thunderstorm, and write extravagant, flowery poetry on parchment

join a secret society

exist in the real, with your books and art, and your turtlenecks and plaid coats, as a mystery. social media can give too much of you away

host an unceasing bacchanal for you and your pals

I hope this serves as a nice little guide for some of you wanting to get more into the aesthetic! There’s no real right or wrong way to go about it, these are just my suggestions from my own experience and perception of and within the community. 

Enjoy, 

Juniper x

desi chaotic academia

desi chaotic academia, a concept: teachers snidely remarking that you’re gonna become a doctor because of your terrible handwriting. “how to cram for an exam” is something you’re constantly searching on youtube. studying for the wrong exam and realizing only the night before. grabbing a cup of coffee, putting on your headphones and playing punk rock to keep you going, you attempt to pull an all-nighter. managing to study for only a few hours because you took one look at your geography textbook and went straight to bed in disgust. waking up the next morning mentally prepared to flunk, but somehow you manage to top, to no one’s surprise but your own. you keep getting into arguments with your history and political science teachers. soon enough, your friends join in (albeit on different sides) and y’all get kicked out of class for behaving like you’re “in a fish market”. being forced to watch ramayana on tv with your family, but you keep getting yelled at for pointing out historical and mythological inaccuracies and spoiling the fun. your room is what you call an “organized mess”- perfect for hiding your stash of kurkure, sting and snickers because no one dares to enter it. you return home from school, toss away your tie and blazer, and collapse on your unmade bed, staring up at the star-shaped stickers on your ceiling. you feel like you’re 5, looking up at them for the first time. you wish you were 5 again, young and carefree and happy. but the hope of studying, being amongst actual stars, holds you back.

things i did as a neurodivergent person to get straight a’s for the third year in a row

hi hello hi how’s it going. welcome to the 3am-burst-of-motivation-tumblr-post-of-the-day, where i’m sharing all of my study tips that allowed my adhd/austism/ocd/bpd brain to somehow squeeze out straight a’s for the third year (sixth semester) in a row. 

1. study differently for different subjects. contrary to popular belief, flashcards and rewriting your notes does not work for every subject (unless it does for you, in which case ignore me and do what works for you). different subjects, at least for me, require different environments, techniques, and associations. 

2. association! sensory stuff works great for me because i tend to associate physical things with emotions and even personality types, so have something be constant every time you study. example: i have two tubes of chapstick, one peppermint and one pomegranate. i put on the peppermint one right before i go to bed and the pomegranate one after i eat breakfast - i associate the different scents with different activities (going to bed and starting my to-do list). 

3. to-do lists! mine are written on sticky notes and stuck to my mirror because i hate hate hate having the sticky glue stuff from sticky notes on my mirror and i’m not allowed to clean my mirror until all the sticky notes are off of it. when i can’t see my mirror, they’re on the outside of my backpack because they’re bright pink and the social anxiety makes me think people are staring at me if they are on my backpack. 

4. change your location often. specifically for my adhd peeps who have the attention span of an overexcited puppy, walk around. do things. go to a park or a coffee shop or a grocery store or a sidewalk or a bench somewhere or my personal favorite, the bank. when you’re understimulated go somewhere with lots of different noises and when you’re overstimulated so somewhere quiet or control noises (listen to music, noise-cancelling headphones, humming). 

5. keep a piece of paper next to you for the Random Thoughts That Come at Inconvenient Times and write down the stuff you want to look up/do/tell someone about and like… i don’t even know why that helps but it does. just having your thoughts out there i guess?

6. body doubling. find a person who will study with you. bonus points if it’s another neurodivergent person. they are depending on you to finish the studying and get the good grade. THEY ARE DEPENDING ON YOU. DON’T DISAPPOINT THEM. (side note anxiety people i would not recommend this for you)

7.  go to a place that will remind you to pee and eat and drink things. starbucks is great for this. so are most restaurants. 

8. get a new thing to study with every week. i like new things. if i have a new thing i am going to use it until it’s no longer exciting. i get a pencil, just a boring, manual pencil from the drugstore every monday afternoon for like sixty cents. it’s a fantastic method, at least for me. 

9. don’t drink something with caffeine in it while studying. you will either fall asleep or end up on a roof. it is not a good situation. caffeine for neurodivergents is like sleep pills, for me at least and most of the other ND’s i’ve met. if not for you, you’re lucky. 

10. spaced reps. in other words, find a big pair of dice and write vocab terms on each side, then hurl it at the ground and define each term. do this for like an hour. it’s fun and gets a lot of energy out. 

11. stim. vocal stims, physical stims, self-talk, fidget, yelp, squeal, tap your foot, walk around, shrug your shoulders, twitch your nose, jump up and down, ribbit like a frog. stim, stim, stim. it helps. 

anyways. it’s 3:17 am. happy studying!

PRO TIP: instead of thinking “i should be healthier/more organized/etc,” change your phrasing to “i’d like to become healthier” or “i’d like to learn to be more organized.” stop paralyzing urself with guilt for what you aren’t & start focusing on what you can be

MADD GUIDE

Please reblog so more people who need to see it get to see it :)

This may be MADD focused, but anyone having trouble with focusing and arranging their life, mental illness or not, can read and find this helpful!

Please skim through the different options that are color coded, but read through the normal text under the bold text questions :), they are important. Please read through this entire post, trust me you’ll need to see everything.

- what is MADD?

It’s an abbreviation for maladaptive daydreaming disorder! It is a coping mechanism many people have (usually developed during childhood but doesn’t have to be) causes by childhood stress, loneliness, and/or trauma. This leads them to daydream excessively to the point where they disassociate and lose track of time. There is no “official” cure for it, hell it’s not even recognized in the DMV, but professionals have heard and treated it before.

-…. so what do I do if I have it?

1. Realize it is out of your control to have this coping mechanism and, it doesn’t reflect on who you are. it reflects who or what did something that caused this to happen

2. Get professional help if you can! I know it’s embarrassing, but you don’t deserve to suffer silently purely because you are too ashamed of your daydreams. Therapists and psychologists are there to help you by understanding you, if you hear judgment from them then they aren’t a good mental health professional and you should get someone else!

-ok but??? I don’t see this as a problem??? Literally can’t live without it and it makes me feel great???

It makes you feel great because it’s a coping mechanism, but you don’t feel as great when you focus out of a conversation, when you miss work, and you miss events. It feels great in the short term, but it’s disastrous and stressful in the long term and makes those prioritize a imaginative life instead of your real life. It’s all fun and games until the procascination catches up to you and you feel so defeated and frustrated.

-….. so what if I’m young and/or I can’t get help?

There is a possibility that you can “cure” it by yourself and with nothing else, but please recognize if it’s caused by a deep rooted issue like it often is, you will not be able to fully get rid of it. MADD from my personal observations and professionals acts like a mask as those who often have MADD also have ADHD, depression, and or anxiety. This is why it’s hard for a lot to force themselves not to daydream, it often leads them to deal with those mental illnesses and disorders that are heavy.

Note: even with professional help, you may get it again due to whatever reason or continue to have it for a while, for a lot of people, it’s not completely gone from their life! But those who do have it and don’t have any professional help and those who do have and have professional help can definitely do the following suggestions bellow! ^^

There are however ways to cope with it (yes coping for a coping mechanism lol)

1. (Necessary) Self love, self care, self confidence- nobody really thinks about self care when they think of how to handle this coping mechanism, but it makes sense when you think it through. Daydreaming this much leads to losing track of time, it means you don’t have a schedule which also means you don’t have a time where you take care of yourself. This leads you to feel stress and overwhelmed by the amount of things you didn’t do, pushing yourself, daydreaming, and repeating a cycle where you neglect yourself and hate yourself and are more miserable. Self love is a journey you take by yourself, and you can get there a million different ways. It can be telling yourselves affirmations everyday, or wearing clothes that bring you joy so you feel good about yourself. This is an absolute necessary everyone needs in their life regardless of whether they have MADD or not.

2. Meditate!- many find meditation helpful, and it is! Meditation helps you be aware of your surroundings, therefore keeping you grounded therefore keeps your head from going up in the clouds! ⛅️

ALL OF HEADSPACE MEDITATIONS BUT U DIDNT HEAR IT FROM ME: https://href.li/?https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sZ7Rev2ownSl-JlUn2VhE87RBwW9ZX9n

3. vision board!!- vision boards are a collage of photos which visually tell what you want achieved during the year, it is a great way to keep track of what you want and and remind you of what you really want and what your end goal is. You can either do a digital, or physical version, or both!

Digital how-to: https://youtu.be/kTYE3ZvXfXU OR https://youtu.be/TcXm7R3BUdU

Physical how-to: https://youtu.be/qXsYKpnBrF4 OR https://youtu.be/0TD48nEjd6U

4. Write a story or make a comic about your daydream!- tell your story! It doesn’t have to be your entire daydream timeline universe (idk what to call it) but you can make short stories or tell about one of the adventures your characters have gone on! This is a great way to invest in something productive instead of pacing around and daydreaming! You don’t have to be a good writer, but it is a good way of improving your writing skills which is always a helpful school (especially when writing high school or college essays)

5. (Highly suggested) clean yo room- I cannot explain how great it is to see your bedroom all nice and clean, that’s filled with furniture and items that are what you want and love seeing. In other words, clean and rearrange yo room. Some people like to have many bright things in their room, others literally have a closet rack which has their most worn items on it that they reach for. You can be both, you can be neither! The most essential thing is that you have a bedroom where you feel like you can breathe and you feel at peace in. Arrange your room to the best of your abilities, you may not be able to buy new furniture, but it doesn’t hurt to throw old items out and buy new ones, or fill with more things. A tidy room is a tidy mind!

6. Get artsy!- whenever I feel upset or like I daydream, I do art! You can draw, paint, sculpture, or all three and more! This is a great thing to use to channel negative emotions and make you focus. It’s very relaxing and really l it s your energy in soemthing productive! There are so many options you can do, you can find whatever is best for you! Arts and crafts is just as relaxing as painting to some!

Different ways to change up and arrange your room: https://chocolates-and-roses2.tumblr.com/post/642164018760581120/a-deep-room-cleanse

Marie kondo is also a great help in organizing your room! She makes sure you clean your room, and it forever stays that way! She has a series on netlfix as well as a book, you can choose either option though I think the book explains more.

- ORGANIZATION (not an option!)

Nobody (especially students) have gotten away with not writing down and memorizing everything that a teacher has said or that needs to get done. Especially MADDers (yes I’m calling y’all out 👀). Here’s a few options that you can try out, got certainly aren’t expected to do all.

1. BULLET JOURNAL BULLET JOURNAL BULLET JOURNAL- bullet journaling gives you complete control on how to organize your tasks, future events, and important things you need to write down etc… your bullet journal can be completely right down to the bone and simple, or more on the creative aspect. This option will definitely hold you a little bit more accountable considering it’s not all set up for you, you are the one setting it up.

more simple, down to the bone: https://youtu.be/fm15cmYU0IM

For the more creative and/or artsy ones: https://youtu.be/VQUH8VLE0YE

Note: you don’t have to do everything that the people in the videos above have done. Some people may need to put in calendars, others do not. Make sure you cut some things out if you need to to fit your life.

2. Agenda/planner- this is the same as a bullet journal, the only difference is that an agenda/planner has all the months and days laid out for you. It has already laid out everything for you and while some planners give you more content than others, they in general allow to write down events on the calendar provided for each month, write down the task u have for each day, and give you space to write down anything else you need on the sides. Some planners have broken each day down to an hour, so you can write down what you need to do in that time. These are available at your local Walmart and target and there’s tons of cute options :).

More creative way: https://youtu.be/OlDuxRmgWVY

More simple and clean: https://youtu.be/fRTaOqiTq9c

A whole ass system: https://youtu.be/NrVl9468Q_s

If you still don’t understand the difference, I’m sorry for not explaining well, and here’s a vid that explains it well! : https://youtu.be/zSVVdVFMc9E

3. TO DO APPS- these apps range from just the digital version of your average task sticky paper you put on your fridge, to turning your tasks into a whole-ass game which you can level up your character!

To do lists, but make it fun!: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.reviewgeek.com/2319/these-5-apps-turn-your-to-do-list-and-productivity-into-a-game/amp/

Good ol’ to do list (with neat features): https://zapier.com/blog/best-todo-list-apps/

4. Literally just Canva- Canva has templates that are daily planners, you can print it out with all the stuff you need typed out, maybe use it as a guide to whatever design you want on your journal, or print it out and write on it, you can do whatever.

Templates: https://www.canva.com/planners/templates/

5. Block scheduling- you literally turn living hour by hour to living block by block, this system makes you do certain tasks during each block, before focusing on other tasks, this is said to work for everyone, so try it out!

Blog that explains it with video: https://funcheaporfree.com/the-block-schedule-system-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-how-it-will-change-your-life/

There are probably many many many many more ways to organize your life and daily schedule, but I’ve already given you five that, as you go deeper, branch out into different versions, so this should be good enough to start at the very least.

-Help can’t focus while trying to do work and daydream instead :(

Ah yes, the age old issue for MADDers. I myself have trouble with focusing and when things get too stressful us MADDers bounce and just daydream instead. I don’t have many options for this but here are some:

1. FOREST APP- I love this app so much because you set a timer to how long you want to do something, and if you can actually go through with the whole time and not scroll on your phone or daydream, it plants a tree irl! There’s also a non free version of it which I would say: if you got a couple of dollars get the 1.99 one (I think it’s that much)

2. Fidget toys- great way to keep your hands busy while you do your work!

3. Apps that make you set timers and not look at other apps- pretty self explanatory, they are great apps.

https://www.mothermag.com/screen-time-limit-apps/- apps that set limit

4. Take a break???? (Essential, not an option)- You are not a robot, you are a human being with complex emotions and you need love and care just as any other human being does

Other options that are in the first section can also help with focusing, not just these three (but really 2) options ^^

-I literally feel like poop because I am so behind on work and what if I don’t follow through everyday on these different things and let my sadness and MADD get the best of me?

As I mentioned earlier, you are not a robot, you are a human being that needs attention and love. That is why self care is so important and must be in your schedule and in ur fricking life, you need to take care of yourself mentally (self care) and physically (working out, can literally be just jogging). Some days you will not get things you need to get done. Some days you will have mental breakdowns and have nothing done. We are human, we are not perfect. Take a breather and forgive yourself. It is not your fault you have this, but you are much more than MADD and you will accomplish more than this thing is letting you. MADD will never, control you. You control it. Take a deep breath and remember, I would not be typing this so late at night if I didn’t give a damn about any of you. Take dare of yourselves and come back and read this whenever you need to.

With love,

Rose.

Once again, the Good Vibes Black-bellied Whistling Duck has appeared to you. 

1 Like = 1 day of good vibes  

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Photo by Craig McIntyre (sharetheexperience.org) Photo description: A large rainbow dips out of the sky and appears to land on a duck standing on a tree stump.