Small Talk Is Varying Degrees Of Enjoyable To Terribly Draining Depending On The Person It’s With.

To sad adults who were “gifted” kids:

Work on developing a contentment-based lifestyle, rather than an achievement-based one.  Stress isn’t a sign that you’re doing well, it’s the opposite.  (When you figure out how to do this, please share your notes with the class.) 

Story time!

Warning: This is just a fluffy anecdote but I felt the need to put it on the Tumblr because so many posts surrounding these kinda subjects are shrouded in anxiety and sadness. I PROMISE there is a point 😂

ANNYWAAY. I recently started spending time with this guy. Eventually he asked if he could take me on a date. I said yes. The date was very similar to just our hanging out before, only towards the end he held my hand. I let him. Afterwards I went back to my place and told my closest friends about the lovely evening.

After a bit of giddiness in a group message, my one friend asked: “does he know you’re asexual?”

Right then and there, it hit me. If I would like to continue seeing this guy, eventually calling him my boyfriend, I would need to tell him. I was terrified.

About 4 days later he came over to my place and kept me company while I did chores. After about an hour I got tired and decided to show him my favorite comedy. We sat on my bed. I was nervous. About 5 or 10 minutes into settingly down, we held hands. A couple minutes later I was casually lounging in his arms. I could sense he wanted to kiss me but he wasn’t the least bit agressive and continued to hold me.

About 2 hours later. We both had other responsibilities. As he was leaving I told him. I mumbled out a string of sentences essentially saying “Hey I have a complicated relationship with physical affection… I don’t always call it this but the most accurate way to describe me is *asexual*” I stared down at my feet and told him he did nothing wrong I just needed him to know. I ran back inside.

I followed up over text because I was just too anxious to say anymore in person. He told me he’s a little scared of crossing a line but that it’s not my fault and I’m just gonna have to help him. He admitted that it was new to him but he wanted to persue me regardless of my orientation (he even called it that which made me really happy) We briefly talked boundaries and I made sure he knew that I was still attracted to him romantically. I ended the conversation by saying that I wouldn’t mind if he kissed me now that he knows about me. We both laughed at and he thanked me for trusting him enough to say something.

*Why am I telling Tumblr this:*

Real life is not the Internet. Not everyone equates intimacy and sex. While not everyone you date is going to be the right fit for you and your asexuality—Hecc, I barely know how Guy and I are gonna last—there are people out there that understand (or are willing to). There are asexual people ready to date asexual people. There are sexually attracted people who would be proud to call an asexual person their SO.

You just have to use your strength to say something.

Clear up those misconceptions.

Tell them what you need, and what you need them to refrain from doing.

Love yourself and the right person will love you.

Yes it’s difficult at times. You may think: “What if they don’t believe me that I like/love them?” “What if they think I’m implying they are a sex obsessed deviant?” “What if they think I’m useless?”

You just have to look out for the ones that are willing to listen regardless of their prior understanding.

Being asexual presents it’s own set of unique obstacles; statistically way more people are sexually attracted to others than they are asexual. And that’s okay. Give life a chance.

*But most importantly*

Do it when you are ready. I chose to tell him then because I have chosen to continue seeing him. If you do not feel safe. You don’t have to tell. Everything is up to you. :)

It’s easy to grow fond of the sketchy outline of a person, and fill in what you don’t yet know.

Alright friends, if you want a Facebook page with cute aro, ace, and enby positivity (and seems to be inclusionists only!) This is the page for you.

I stumbled upon it and it’s filled with cute puns, pictures, and positivity (they also share Tumblr posts and art they like)

I say we should support them!

Part of being aroace is living in the shadow of romantic relationships. Living with this tiny, constant fear that one day everyone will care about someone alse and you will be secondary. That romantic relationships will gradually become more important to the people you care about until all of a sudden you’ll be alone. That people will never value platonic relationships as you do. A small, scary part of the aroace experience is the fear of slowly losing everyone you love.

INFJs and stress

“They kept trying to pull down my trousers…”

Tom Holland’s chair breaking + the story of how he broke his nose

Some Ilvermorny headcanons

First and foremost, every day is cranberry pie day

While students do have robes, the clothes they wear underneath the robes are not uniforms. There is an eclectic mix of tastes, from the very serious horned serpent who wears button-downs and ties every day, to the wampus who has enchanted their graphic t-shirt to move, to the thunderbirds and pukwudgies who mutually exist solely for sweater weather.

Every year on James Steward’s birthday, there is a school-sponsored cranberry pie bake-off. Pukwudgie house nearly always wins. Once, thunderbird won and good lord you would think it was the civil war all over again

There are a lot of local professors, of course, so you get some really thick Boston accents, but there are also professors with southern belle accents who serve iced tea in class, professors with Canadian accents, professors with midwest accents, several Native American professors with smooth, lulling accents, and some Mexican professors who slip into Spanish when they get super excited about their subject. There was a visiting professor from Ireland once, and 96% of female students (and some male students) had major crushes on him.

Wampus house is where you go to get body-crushing, soul-lifting hugs

Horned serpents may be scholars, but they are also some of the keenest observers. They watch the whole school from afar and quietly play matchmaker to all of their friends. No one suspects them because - what, horned serpent? No. They don’t know about emotions. Meanwhile, the house president makes a killing on the bet she made to predict the homecoming king/queen. 

Thanksgiving at Ilvermorny is a spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. It’s almost bigger than Christmas. The thanksgiving feasts at Ilvermorny put Hogwarts to shame. Turkey, ham, real cranberry sauce, pies - oh my god so many pies. They’ve got cider, and tea, and cocoa like you wouldn’t believe. There are New English dishes and Southern dishes and Native dishes and Mexican dishes and Canadian dishes and West Coast dishes - essentially it’s a gigantic continental potluck, and it goes on all day long. Also, their pumpkin juice tastes 1000 times better.

While things like dueling and fighting with wands may be frowned upon at Hogwarts, at Ilvermorny it’s kind of just assumed that stuff happens, and the profs are very chill about it. “Just don’t kill each other okay” “just take it outside” “no casting destruction spells indoors” “bring some band-aids with you” “if you break your nose don’t bleed on your homework”

Pukwudgies are a pretty agreeable house over all, if not a bit salty and surly around the edges, they’ll still help you with your homework and bring you soup when you’ve got a cold. But all bets are off when they step onto the lacrosse field. Maybe its a pride thing, but pukwudgies are frikkin animals when playing lacrosse.

Wampus beats pukwudgie at lacrosse fairly often. They don’t actually practice that much, they just kind of win.

This fact has fueled a sports rivalry - friendly in wampus’ eyes, bloodthirsty in pukwudgie’s eyes. 

At wampus/pukwudgie games, horned serpents sell special blends of popcorn. Thunderbirds purchase, hoard, and eat 89% of this popcorn.

Horned serpents and pukwudgies often, though not always, end up having an unspoken rivalry in potions class.

Contrary to popular belief, wampus is not full of athletic jocks. However, they are the most body-positive of all of the schools, and, somewhat ironically to the stereotype, will never judge anyone for their athletic ability. They want everyone to be able to enjoy athleticism and bravery and adventure in the ways they are most able and gifted.

That being said, they do have the kind of student body who, if called upon, could become a minute militia.

When there is a freak hurricane or tornado headed headed for the school, it will be a wampus student who is patrolling the halls and telling students where to go for safety. If there is a bully in school, you had better bet your bottom dollar that s/he will be beaten to a pulp by the next day, and it will be a wampus student sporting mysteriously bloody knuckles.

Pukwudgies are the ones who patch up the bully; they might accidentally wind the bandages a little too tight.

Thunderbirds love a good game of hide-and-seek. They have a tradition of, every halloween, playing hide-and-seek in the dark in the woods.

Horned serpents are the students least often caught for sneaking in contraband into school. Caught being the key word. Most students learn at some point in their education that if you want a nice stiff drink, you go to horned serpent. During secret designated holidays, horned serpent common room turns into a speakeasy. 

Unexpectedly, it is pukwudgies who carry the most weapons and dangerous materials on their person at any given time. If a group of Ilvermorny students were going through a security check, it would be the pukwudgies held at the line while they emptied their pockets (bigger on the inside, of course) of various poisons and weapons. When asked, they would just shrug and say “just in case”.

The town around Ilvermorny is home to several franchised chain restaurants that, although they are no-maj brands, have been taken over by Ilvermorny alumni and thus serve predominantly wizarding patrons. Cups levitate to customers in the Starbucks, there are magic-only options on the menu; the chik-fil-a floor sweeps itself; at dominos the pizzas assemble themselves while the one clerk waits, bored, at the register. There are in-house cues for magic patrons whenever a no-maj walks in. The clerk rings a bell or taps loudly on the counter, or yells out an order than is actually a code word for stop doing magic stuff. It’s like red light green light.

There are some old service tunnels beneath the school left over from WWII and the Cold War. They’re like a labyrinth, and Thunderbird has a monopoly on the maps to the tunnels. Some of the more obscure tunnels have large rooms that are perfect for parties and impromptu speakeasies (lookin at you, horned serpent). Thunderbirds will rent out these rooms to fellow students at a fair and competitive rate.

Unlike hogwarts, Ilvermorny students are more apt to use modern technology. Electrics can be weird around witches and wizards, but they still enjoy a lot of no-maj programming. They use computers instead of quills (but still have to print off their essays, ugh,) and listen to music, and watch TV.

Star Trek has long been a school cult favorite. Pukwudgies have adopted Bones as their pop culture mascot; Kirk is Thunderbird’s, Spock, horned serpent. Wampus vacillates on which of these three they like most, though it must be said, when they start watching Next Gen, many wampus students find themselves enamored with Worf,

There has only been one no-maj to ever make it past the magic shields of Ilvermorny unaided. This instance was in 1985. His name was Chad, who at the time was 1) stoned out of his mind and 2) delivering chinese takeout to a horned serpent pulling an all-nighter. School admin found out later, and there was hell to pay. They never did track down Chad to wipe his memory.

Pukwudgie house does have more than its fair share of healers, so they are definitely the ones to go to for cold remedies, home made soup, the best cures for menstrual cramps, and really good back rubs.

However, they are also the ones to go to for less medical remedies: the best hot cocoa, the most gourmet teas, and home made food.

Each house has a class president who is elected for a two-year term (unless they’re a final year student, in which case they will serve one before being taken over by their VP). They have some influence within their houses, but never as much as they’d like. For instance, the thunderbird president once attempted to institute mid-day dancing parties, but school admin said no.

Pukwudgies are usually not super athletic, but are often very good at things like darts, archery, and waterbaloon fights.

Wampus takes ultimate frisbee very, very seriously.

Thunderbird hosts an ongoing scavenger hunt throughout the semester.

The women of horned serpent blow off steam and the stuffy acadmic pressures of their house by making pillow forts and watching rom coms with each other.

Back in the eighties some wizard created a magic version of D&D, and it has become a weekend favorite of many students across all of the houses.

After graduation, instead of having a class ring, it has become tradition for Ilvermorny students to make a pendant out of their golden cloak buttons.

Ilvermorny may be separated by inter-house squabbles much like at Hogwarts, but at the end of the day, they all leave school wearing the same blue and cranberry robes, sporting the same skill with a wand, raised to the same scrappy, witty, mod-podge tenacity that American witches and wizards embody so well.

to anyone having a bad day im so sorry also here are some pictures of baby elephants 

feel better friend