#overcoming frustration

[doodlepunkart]

When Your Wipers Call It Quits

When your windshield wipers quit mid-drive, it’s not just a car issue—it’s a metaphor for life’s unexpected roadblocks. #TrustTheProcess #EverydayChaos #FindingBlessings

There I was, heading to physical therapy, when my windshield wipers decided to audition for their last hurrah. At first, they waved enthusiastically—proud little soldiers, and I drove off, completely forgetting about their affliction. Then, as I hit the road, they gradually slowed, stuttered, and shuddered their final farewell, stopping dead center on my windshield. Out of cell range, I…

[fairytaletime7]

Tommy's Kite Adventure |A Lesson in Patience and Perseverance 🎈 | A Stor...

In a sunny park ☀️, young Tommy joyfully flies his red kite 🎈 until a strong gust entangles it in a tree 🌳. Frustrated but determined, he tries jumping and using a stick to free it, but to no avail. With the help of Mr. Jenkins and a ladder, he still can't reach it. Choosing patience, Tommy waits for the wind to shift. Finally, his perseverance pays off as the kite comes free, teaching him the value of patience and resilience 💪🌬️.

[ilikeyoshi]

ppl like "i have to use ay-eye bc i can't drawwwww :(" ok whose fault is that. i can't draw either u know who's fault that is?? mine!!!! it isn't a bad thing but if i am unwilling to learn to draw that is Exclusively My Fault buddy!!!! if u refuse to practice that is, in fact, a you problem!!!! that's fine!!!! but u dont get to pretend u HAVE to use ay-eye bc an Uncontrollable Force prevents u from learning to draw!!!! u could just Go Learn!!!!

[starwarsanthropology]

The tragedy of ur boyfriends not letting u bite them just a little. As a Treat.

A Tup from @trudemaethien’s excellent fic Edeemi, Baby, One More Time that I drew back in May! I didn’t have a Star Wars tumblr at the time and wasnt planning on posting it anywhere so I forgot about it until now, but I had such a fun time playing around with lighting effects and his expression!

I really love their mer universe and I’m especially fond of Tup’s POV in this fic. It’s such a good job of expressing the confusion and frustration of communication barriers and reasonable, best-intent misunderstandings between all of them, while still leaning into the positive aspects of discovering the world and representing it from slightly different perspective than people normally take 10/10 highly recommended

Closeup of the sketch for his expression under the cut because I was super happy with it

[natsmagi]

adding onto my last rant from a while ago a little bit, it is fascinating how many people in this fandom completely miss the point of tsumugis character and misconstrue what hes actually about which, ironically, is just what eichi did. and its done in such a similar fashion too, such as making assumptions about his motives, his family relationship, and missing the point in why he chooses to look the way he does. and, time and time again, eichi has been proven to be WRONG about tsumugi. he misunderstood him deeply, and now its eichi whos stuck mourning the past while tsumugi has long since moved on, not the other way around, as tsumugi is on the path of getting his happy ending. and i dont get why people keep trying to take this positivity from him

(s. element epilogue 2)

[ridiasfangirlings]

A Strain sends Saru back in time. Back into the past of like maybe his 12 year old body. Maybe just before meeting Yata. He remembers everything though that is to come... but now has to deal with seeing Niki again.

Would you say he would far enough to possibly stab Niki if the man came in and began his usual taunts? Would that alter the future at all? Change things?

Would he have his powers though? Imagine Fushimi wanting to stab Niki and then realizing that he’s just back to being a weak kid and Niki can easily overpower him, and hating that even after all this time there’s nothing he can do against that person. Like imagine he gets hit by a Strain and wakes up in his bed at his old house. I imagine he just freezes the moment he opens his eyes as he realizes where he is, all the old memories rushing back and wondering if he’s been like trapped in a terrible memory or something. Then he notices that he’s wearing pajamas and his hair is back to the old style. He gets up and finds a mirror and checks his PDA, realizing that he’s in the past and his body looks like he’s a middle schooler again. Imagine that despite himself his first thought is that he needs to find Misaki and then he clicks his tongue quietly, because he hasn’t met Misaki yet, right now Misaki is just some student at his school that he’s never talked to.

As Fushimi’s considering his options he hears the door slam and Niki’s voice floats up to him all sing-song, wondering where his little monkey is. Fushimi’s body reacts on instinct, trying to pull a knife from his sleeves and summon any power, be it red or blue — and nothing happens, because middle school Fushimi had no powers and didn’t carry knives in his sleeves. He can hear Niki ascending the stairs though and Fushimi is just sitting there trying to figure out how to get out of this, like does he just go out the window and hope he’s not followed. He ends up going for it, just jumping for a tree and climbing down and making a run for it, hearing Niki’s laughter behind him because Niki is so amused that his son decided to play tag with him. Fushimi doesn’t stop until he’s well away from that house and imagine he even finds himself by S4 headquarters, like his body just led him there and when he realizes where he’s run to he clicks his tongue in irritation. 

Fushimi has no idea if this is really the past and if what he does will affect anything in the future and if there’s a way to get back to his time safely. He doesn’t intend to spend the next few years of his life running from Niki though and imagine he uses all the money he’s got on him to buy some knives from whatever shady dealer let him buy them in the first place after he joined Homra and he gets to making a new knife harness. As he’s doing this he realizes from the date that it’s almost the day he meets Yata and imagine him pausing, fingers twitching slightly towards his collar even though there’s no longer a burn mark there. He thinks maybe he should skip school that day — but then he decides no, just in case after all, telling himself that it’s best not to upset the timeline and that’s the only reason why he's suddenly afraid of a world where he never meets Yata. 

And even though he just told himself that he shouldn’t upset the timeline when he goes back to the house he has a knife in hand as he carefully enters, wary of traps. It seems like no one’s there and he momentarily relaxes, which of course is when Niki pops out of nowhere and smacks his back all ‘you’re it!’. Fushimi immediately draws a knife this time, telling Niki to leave him alone. Niki just laughs though, wondering who let his little monkey play with sharp objects. He figures he should just take those away so Fushimi doesn’t hurt himself, Fushimi says Niki’s the only one who will get hurt. Niki laughs again and Fushimi feints towards him, trying to scare him away, but Niki just easily grabs his arm. He pulls the knife from Fushimi’s fingers and wonders who’s been teaching his monkey bad habits, and for a single terrifying moment Fushimi wonders if Niki’s going to use the knife on him. Niki lets him go though and suggests they play a knife throwing game, and Fushimi bites his tongue as he makes a break for his room, slamming the door and locking it. Imagine him sitting there as Niki laughs outside, quietly cursing himself because even after everything he still can’t defeat Niki, he’s still too weak to do anything at all, and no wonder Misaki left in the end.

[screambirdscreaming]

I used to like saying "gender is a social construct," but I stopped saying that because people didn't tend to react well - they thought that I was saying gender wasn't real, or didn't matter, or could be safely ignored without consequences. Which has always baffled me a bit as an interpretation, honestly, because many things are social constructs - like money, school, and the police - and they certainly have profound effects on your life whether or not you believe in them. And they sure don't go away if you ignore them.

Anyway. What I've taken to saying instead is, "gender is a cultural practice." This gives more of a sense of respect for the significance gender holds to many people. And it also opens the door to another couple layers of analysis.

Gender is cultural. It is not globally or historically homogeneous. It shifts over time, develops differently in different communities, and can be influenced by cross-cultural contact. Like many, many aspects of culture, the current status of gender is dramatically influenced by colonialism. Colonial gender norms are shaped by the hierarchical structure of imperialist society, and enforced onto colonized cultures as part of the project of imperial cultural hedgemony.

Gender is practiced. What constitutes a gender includes affects and behaviors, jobs or areas of work, skillsets, clothing, collective and individual practices of gender affiliation and affirmation. Any or all of these things, in any combination, depending on the gender, the culture, and the practitioner.

Gender encompasses shared cultural archetypes. These can include specific figures - gods and goddesses, mythic or fictional characters, etc - or they can be more abstract or general. The Wise Woman, Robin Hood, the Dyke, the Working Man, the Plucky Heroine, the Effete Gay Man, etc etc. The range of archetypes does not circumscribe a given gender, that is, they're not all there is to gender. But they provide frameworks and reference points by which people relate to gender. They may be guides for ways to inhabit or practice a gender. They may be stereotypes through which the gendered behavior of others is viewed.

Gender as a framework can be changed. Because it is created collectively, by shared acknowledgement and enforcement by members of society. Various movements have made significant shifts in how gender is structured at various times and places. The impact of these shifts has been widely variable - for example, depending on what city I'm in, even within my (fairly culturally homogeneous) home country, the way I am gendered and reacted to changes dramatically. Looping back to point one, we often speak of gender in very broad terms that obscure significant variability which exists on many scales.

Gender is structured recursively. This can be seen in the archetypes mentioned above, which range from extremely general (say, the Mother) to highly specific (the PTA Soccer Mom). Even people who claim to acknowledge only two genders will have many concepts of gendered-ways-of-being within each of them, which they may view and react to VERY differently.

Gender is experienced as an external cultural force. It cannot be opted out of, any more than living in a society can be opted out of. Regardless of the internal experience of gender, the external experience is also present. Operating within the shared cultural understanding of gender, one can aim to express a certain practice of gender - to make legible to other people how it is you interface with gender. This is always somewhat of a two-way process of communication. Other people may or may not perceive what you're going for - and they may or may not respect it. They may try to bring your expressed gender into alignment with a gender they know, or they might parcel you off into your own little box.

Gender is normative. Within the structure of the "cultural mainstream," there are allowable ways to practice gender. Any gendered behavior is considered relative to these standards. What behavior is allowed, rewarded, punished, or shunned is determined relative to what is gender normative for your perceived gender. Failure to have a clearly perceivable gender is also, generally, punished. So is having a perceivable gender which is in itself not normative.

Gender is taught by a combination of narratives, punishments, and encouragements. This teaching process is directed most strongly towards children but continues throughout adulthood. Practice of normatively-gendered behaviors and alignment with 'appropriate' archetypes is affirmed, encouraged, and rewarded. Likewise 'other'- gendered behavior and affinity to archetypes is scolded, punished, or shunned. This teaching process is inherently coercive, as social acceptance/rejection is a powerful force. However it can't be likened to programming, everyone experiences and reacts to it differently. Also, this process teaches the cultural roles and practices of both (normative) genders, even as it attempts to force conformity to only one.

Gender regulates access to certain levers of social power. This one is complicated by the fact that access to levers of social power is also affected by *many* other things, most notably race, class, and citizenship. I am not going to attempt to describe this in any general terms, I'm not equipped for that. I'll give a few examples to explain what I'm talking about though. (1) In a social situation, a man is able to imply authority, which is implicitly backed by his ability to intimidate by yelling, looming, or threatening physical violence. How much authority he is perceived to have in response to this display is a function of his race and class. It is also modified by how strongly he appears to conform to a masculine ideal. Whether or not he will receive social backlash for this behavior (as a separate consideration to how effective it will be) is again a function of race/class/other forms of social standing. (2) In a social situation, a woman is able to invoke moral judgment, and attempt to modify the behavior of others by shame. The strength of her perceived moral authority depends not just on her conformity to ideal womanhood, but especially on if she can invoke certain archetypes - such as an Innocent, a Mother, or better yet a Grandmother. Whether her moral authority is considered a relevant consideration to influence the behavior of others (vs whether she will be belittled or ignored) strongly depends on her relative social standing to those she is addressing, on basis of gender/race/class/other.

[Again, these examples are *not* meant to be exhaustive, nor to pass judgment on employing any social power in any situation. Only to illustrate what "gendered access to social power" might mean. And to illustrate that types of power are not uniform and may play out according to complex factors.]

Gender is not based in physical traits, but physical traits are ascribed gendered value. Earlier, I described gender as practiced, citing almost entirely things a person can do or change. And I firmly believe this is the core of gender as it exists culturally - and not just aspirationally. After the moment when a gender is "assigned" based on infant physical characteristics, they are raised into that gender regardless of the physical traits they go on to develop (in most circumstances, and unless/until they denounce that gender.) The range of physical traits like height, facial shape, body hair, ability to put on muscle mass - is distributed so that there is complete overlap between the range of possible traits for people assigned male and people assigned female. Much is made of slight trends in things that are "more common" for one binary sex or the other, but it's statistically quite minor once you get over selection bias. However, these traits are ascribed gendered connotations, often extremely strongly so. As such, the experience of presented and perceived gender is strongly effected by physical traits. The practice of gender therefore naturally expands to include modification of physical traits. Meanwhile, the social movements to change how gender is constructed can include pushing to decrease or change the gendered association of physical traits - although this does not seem to consistently be a priority.

Gender roles are related to the hypothetical ability to bear children, but more obliquely than is often claimed. It is popular to say that the types of work considered feminine derive from things it is possible to do while pregnant or tending small children. However, research on the broader span of human history does not hold this up. It may be true of the cultures that gave immediate rise to the colonial gender roles we are familiar with - secondary to the fact that childcare was designated as women's work. (Which it does not have to be, even a nursing infant doesn't need to be with the person who feeds it 24 hours a day.) More directly, gender roles have been influenced by structures of social control aiming for reproductive control. In the direct precursors of colonial society, attempts to track paternal lineage led to extreme degrees of social control over women, which we still see reflected in normative gender today. Many struggles for women's liberation have attempted to push back these forms of social control. It is my firm opinion that any attempt to re-emphasize childbearing as a touchstone of womanhood is frankly sick. We are at a time where solidarity in struggle for gender liberation, and for reproductive rights, is crucial. We need to cast off shackles of control in both fights. Trying to tie childbearing back to womanhood hobbles both fights and demeans us all.

Gender is baked deeply enough into our culture that it is unlikely to ever go away. Many people feel strongly about the practice of gender, in one way or another, and would not want it to. However we have the power to change how gender is structured and enforced. We can push open the doors of what is allowable, and reduce the pain of social punishment and isolation. We can dismantle another of the tools of colonial hedgemony and social control. We can change the culture!

[deancrowleycas]

<- guy who has niche knowledge about pole dance

man I wish someone could write that fic

[fruitless-vain]

Me: sham walks so nicely on a leash he’s so naturally good at this all on his own I did nothing to achieve this goal with him he was just born like this

*theres literally video evidence of me training this from the week he came home*

[shimmershy]

Do you see the player as canon to Undertale's story?

Yeah! I think it has less in-world implications than it does in Deltarune, though, depending on how you look at it. Typically I completely ignore the existence of the player in my art/writing, or just assume Frisk and Chara have zero awareness of them, but I really like portrayals where the player plays a bigger role too. I think it can go both ways.

Like, I think taking into account the player's role in the story can add a whole nother layer to it, but it's not completely necessary to understanding the themes. I like focusing on the story and characters specifically in-universe, and acknowledging the player kind of complicates that (it's not really something that can be explained in-universe easily and implies that Frisk doesn't have free will, etc).

[heylookitskaylee]

I'm too slow, and nobody is going to wait for me.

3.26.23 // Sharpie and pen on binder paper, glued to a printed image

[newvegascowboy]

I was kinda Jesting about it a little bit ago, but Killian and Shaun just have the potential to have SUCH a fucked up relationship. Shaun, the guy who considers the death of his mother to be collateral damage, who was going to free Killian as a social experiment, who finds out his dad takes off into a grief induced drug haze and becomes a raider overlord for a little bit. VS Killian, the guy who straight up tells him to his face "I love you, but I never should have been your father, and the parent who could have saved you is dead". Killian who realized he couldn't be the kind of father a child deserves wayy too late, but having a wife and kid was kind of all he had. Shaun who has to contend with the realization that his dad thought it was a blessing that Shaun and Nora were "dead". Killian who realizes he's done the exact same thing his parents did to him. DELICIOUS.

[ladyxskywalker]

cute story time 💌 xo

feel free to ignore

I was talking to my boyfriend on the phone earlier. He was sitting at the park & he was telling me about the fireflies.

B: wow there's an insane amount of lightning bugs here, they're really cool

A: aw cool ! it's been a while since they've really been around

B: I know, I like them

A: me too 🥰 you have to make a wish on them & make one for me too 💫

* he pauses from talking for a min, everything is quiet *

B: ok I did it, hopefully your wish is the same as my wish 🙏

😭😭😭

A: I have a pretty good feeling that it is ❤️

[byanyan]

learning to play fps games on mnk when u've been a console player ur whole life is........ infuriating lmao

[darkwood-sleddog]

blerg.

my mental health lately has been garbage, the most garbage it's been in a long time. just crippling anxiety, can't sleep, cry if i hear music at the wrong time garbage.

i haven't run dogs since december, mostly because of terrible icy/warm weather, but my last run wasn't bad, slash was in single lead, looking good! but the past week? the thought of getting on the runners makes me feel ill. Anxious that things will go wrong (they probably won't). feeling that i am not capable or talented or in control (none of this is true), feeling that i haven't improved in this sport (also not true), that i'm behind. I want to do more, i want to be great, I want to be better. I want to be able to get on the runners and not worry instead of being sick to my stomach before I step on, only able to cure my anxiety once I realize I know what i'm doing (yet again). I want to feel like I can run without my husband on a bike behind me. I am crippled by my own ambitions and dreams. i'm one of the few malamute mushers. i'm one of the few malamute mushers with a small team that runs dogs 16km regularly. my mentor is proud of me, my peers tell me they look up to me, I trained these dogs from SCRATCH. I love them. I love this sport. the silence of running dogs in winter is one of my favorite feelings ever.

and yet. anxiety and self doubt festers in me. why? because I'm anxious the boys will have feelings at each other? That an off leash dog will come up to me? that i am otherwise incapable? i didn't use to worry about these things. i didn't even feel like i needed to have enough snow to brake and now the trail conditions must be perfect. before i am soothed.

i am running dogs tomorrow. no matter the conditions, no matter how bad i feel beforehand. no matter how sick or sore or anything else because i NEED to remind myself i AM capable and strong and trained these dogs well. will i still feel like mental crap after? maybe. but at least i will have tried...

[star-spangled-man]

how do u deal with being burnt out everyday after work and not wanting anyone to talk to u until the next morning…. asking for a friend aha