#getting better however

[worldwithoutmiracles]

Procrastination Is Poor Mood Regulation

I am a lifelong procrastinator. I now have an ADHD diagnosis, which is good to know, but the diagnosis hasn’t cured my tendency to put things off. I’ve read the articles, I’ve broken my to-do list into smaller lists, blah blah blah, but I really just want to know why am I like this

why, after 20 years of procrastinating and in possession of a better-than-average brain, can I not think my way out of the hole of procrastination? why do I make every task 10x more stressful and scary than it is?

I found some articles reframing procrastination as emotion/mood-based instead of focusing on productivity (links here and here). save your fucking tips and tricks, I’m looking for a sea change in how I think about procrastination.

“Telling yourself off won’t stop you procrastinating again. In fact, it’s one of the worst things you can do.” the worse you feel about yourself, the more you’ll procrastinate. I’m still trying to figure out how to be kind to myself, but as someone with very low self-esteem, I can see how I got caught in this spiral in the first place.

“If just thinking about the task makes you anxious or threatens your sense of self-worth, you will be more likely to put it off... Research has found that regions of the brain linked to threat detection and emotion regulation are different in people who chronically procrastinate compared to those who don’t procrastinate frequently.” if you never complete the task, you can never be graded/judged, thus avoiding the threat.

Forget productivity - procrastination is linked to anxiety, depression, “a greater number of health issues, such as headaches, flu and colds, and digestive issues. They also experience higher levels of stress and poor sleep quality.” we’re also more likely to use destructive coping mechanisms to manage stress, and have greater risk of poor heart health. I don’t have to care about capitalism to fix this - I want to stop procrastinating for my health, dammit.

I’ve always been far more likely to put off doing anything I’m unsure about. “...tasks can create feelings of uncertainty that are unpleasant, and that arouse feelings of self-doubt and self-criticism. Procrastination is more likely to occur when people experience unpleasant feelings that they can’t tolerate or manage.”  I theorize not knowing how to self-soothe came first for me - I am fundamentally unable to deal with my own fear and self-doubt, and beginning to procrastinate grew organically from that.

try having a single positive feeling while working AKA remind yourself why this needs to be done in the first place. “...a lack of positive feelings about a task can also contribute to procrastination... Reminding yourself why your work is important and valuable to you can help re-balance the scale to increase positive feelings towards your work.”

all procrastinators know that procrastination doesn’t reduce your stress. but it may be that being stressed, and then feeling afraid, and then not understanding how to make that feeling go away, is what makes me procrastinate. I’m looking to explore this angle more and will post again if I find more/better sources.

for now, I’m going to continue to work on my thinking (“putting off this application is making me feel bad” instead of “I’m so lazy for not starting yet”), try to align my work to my values (MY values, not my learned societal output baggage), and for the love of god try to forgive myself for the procrastination that will inevitably still come.

[moeblob]

So does he, Gallagher.

[chaoticace2005]

I stopped the clip of Angel and Nuggets reuniting and excuse me but what the FUCK

LOOK AT THIS GUY! LOOK AT HIM!!!!!

LET HIM BE HAPPY!!!!!

ALSO FAT NUGGETS’ FACE?! THE AMOUNT OF LOVE HE HAS FOR ANTHONY?! IF THAT PIG GETS HURT—

VALENTINO WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! I AM GOING TO K I L L YOU

[quietbirdee]

being haunted by a person you’ve never met and never will, someone you’ll never actually be

but you’ve got people who love you, maybe it’s gonna be okay

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way. 

[heartorbit]

i wanna make a prsk major arcana...

[avacadokin]

my thoughts based on richas's past jealousy when his parents babysat other kids

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for voting in the poll to decide who was going to be the leader of the band! It turned out to be such a close race!

[hakusins]

cw // suggestive

worshipped route for whitney the faithful (or fallen?) where he's preparing the sacrifice pc for weekly prayers~

whitney the faithful/swap au idea belongs to @just-dol-headshots

[crow-with-a-pencil]

Feels like home.

[captaincolorblob]

Everyday i think about this screenboard scene that got semi-scrapped from Donnie vs Witch Town, like it just explains so much about Donnie as a character and i’m very sad we didnt get to see it entirely

[ipushedthewrongbutton]

i’ve been scratching my head over the whole watcher situation. I’m not a fan myself but got dragged into it cus of the people I follow, i only watched their puppet history series and the buzzfeed unsolved series from way back- honestly, i couldn’t care less if they locked all their stuff behind a paywall. I’m so neutral on this whole thing, i might as well be swiss.

but i’m not neutral? In fact, the whole thing really bothers me and i couldn’t figure out why.

cus i get it, yanno. As a company that thrives on creativity, i understand you’d wanna cut yourself off the mega-capatalist-giant that is youtube to get rid of annoying restrictions, and asking monetary support from your audience so you can really stretch the limit of your creativity. I GET IT.

And it STILL bothers me!

And then I figured it out:

the whole “any future videos they’ll be making will EXCLUSIVELY be available through a streaming service you have to pay a monthly subscription for” comes less across as “please support us monetarily so we can grow as creators”, and comes more across as “if you want to continue being a fan, or even being a part of the audience, you’re gonna have to pay up. You have no choice in the matter. It’s either pay, or you’re not a ‘real’ fan or a ‘real’ part of our audience.”

THAT’S what’s bothering me about it. It feels like they’re gatekeeping who gets to be part of their community with money (that not everyone might have). And knowing where they come from and how they started…. That’s… extremely tone deaf. To put it gently.

[swordmaid]

cers 👑👑

her pose is based off this screencap of shiv succession just because i thought it fits [:

[elcucurucho]

I really do think everything is going to work out, so much care has been put into this project, both by creators and admins, a restructure is disruptive short term but so incredibly necessary for the long term continuation of the server. It’s clear everyone working on the project believes in what they’re doing, and it’s unambiguously a good thing that going forward everyone will be fairly compensated for their efforts.

[rotisseries]

planet of love

[wuntrum]

one of the many many reasons i love the art of mob psycho 100 is that character are allowed to look emotive and expressive and make ugly faces and have not conventional (for anime standards) facial features ... the style actually has personality to it and that accentuates the storytelling