Frustrated Overhead Scribble

A jumbled line above a character as visual shorthand for a character's frustration and anger, without them having resorted to Symbol Swearing. An angry scribble can be drawn free floating above a character's head or in a thought bubble. If the media has an audio source the scribble can be representative of an irritated noise they're actually making, but as a print media tool, it replaces words and onomatopoeia.

The scribble is often depicted in a cone shape, as if it were smoke released by the character's smouldering anger or, conversely, the damp embers of their chagrin and dejection. More extreme anger can be depicted by the character Burning with Anger. In manga, the correlating visual shorthand would be Cross-Popping Veins, which has worked its way into Western media as well but has fewer connotations of frustration as opposed to outright anger.

Compare with Angrish for another way to depict a character's anger without comprehensible words. See Briffits and Squeans for more visual shorthand methods with their roots in newspaper comics.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: The manga adaptation of the first episode shows a scribble over Motoko's head when she's getting frustrated that the setup for the infiltration of the geisha house isn't going exactly as she planned.
• The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses: Ouka has an angry scribble overhead after Ami squirts tomato all over her face.

Comic Books

• Monica's Gang: A smoky, scribbled black line is usually used over the characters' heads to show when they are frustrated, sad or mad. It was even used as a humorous plot point in the story "O Terrível Ladrão de Fumacinhas" ("The Terrible Smoke Thief"), in which the titular smoke thief uses a vacuum cleaner to suck up or put back all of the little tangled smoky lines above angry characters — and thus, making people suddenly get angry or calm whenever he wants to so he could take over the world. His plan fails when his machine overheats and explodes after he tried in vain to steal Nick Nope's scribbled line, since "the smoke" above his head was actually just the boy's hair in a ponytail.

Comic Strips

• Sergeant Orville Snorkel from Beetle Bailey will have an ugly squiggle float above his head as an indicator that he's in a foul mood. Since Private Bailey is a Brilliant, but Lazy slacker, his sergeant often gets frustrated with him, so this squiggle often heralds a Big Ball of Violence beatdown.
• On some occasionsin Calvin and Hobbes, one appears over the heads of a character (such as Calvin's father when he's struggling to light a fire, or over Calvin's head when Suzie gets the better of him).
• Jon: In one strip an angry cloud of scribbles above Garfield's head does double duty expressing how frustrated he is while also helping allude to his just having been burnt without committing to either interpretation.
• Peanuts: An upset and dejected Charlie Brown has been drawn with a speech bubble with only a thick scribble of frustration as he walks away from Lucy.

Fan Works

• It's Always Spooky Month: While Senpai is going on an angry rant against Monster, there's a scribbly line over his head. As they're all currently in a video game, it's something actually above his head, rather than just a visual detail.
  Pump: He seems angry. There's a little scribbly over his head.
  Senpai: AND I HATE THIS ANIMATION!

Video Games

• In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, animals will get an annoyed squiggle over their heads if you talk to them too many times in a short amount of time.
• ANNO: Mutationem: In several scenes, a scribble appears atop over a character's head when they get frustrated or disconcerted with whatever situation is occurring.
• A squiggle without the speech bubble shows up in Digimon Survive whenever the player tries and fails to recruit a wild Digimon.
• The Disgaea series has shown this a few times, depending on the event happening in-game. One such example is from Disgaea 2, where after defeating Old Man Geo and being gifted a special Remedy item, Rozalin immediately takes it from Adell, claiming he'd use it on something trivial. Adell, naturally, has one of these appear above his head, representing his annoyance with Rozalin's comment.
• Non-player characters in Drawn to Life often express emotions through symbols in speech balloons, including a black scribble when angry or frustrated.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, the 2021 Make It Rain Campaign introduces the "Vexed" emote, which has the Player Character cross their arms with a frustrated and pensive look on their face while a squiggly ball appears over their head. This is meant to show displeasure when they can't figure something out, especially while solving the case of a stolen prize as an Amateur Sleuth on behalf of the Gold Saucer.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses: When certifying for a new class, a scribble will appear above the character's head to represent them failing the exam and is unable to class change.
• In the Career campaign of Guitar Hero III. After the Desert concert, the band get flustered when Lou shows up, with a group talk balloon showing an animated scribble. Lou perks them up by suggesting the next venue in Japan.
• The Legend of Heroes - Trails: In each installment, characters gain a scribble overhead when frustrated.
• Miitopia: Miis resenting their party members by certain moves, quirks, status effects or events have a brief scribbled thought. The Switch port replace scribbled thoughts with a blue Cross-Popping Veins however.
• Murder by Numbers: In the credits sequence after finishing the game, Becky is emitting a squiggle and looking annoyed while K.C does her hair.
• Persona: Starting from Persona 3, later entries in the series would have these when expressing frustration.
• In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Arven will get a speech bubble with a squiggle over it a couple times during the Area Zero quest when he's annoyed (usually due to something Nemona said).
• Stardew Valley: Residents will have this scribbled thought when they're frustrated, usually when given a bad gift or attacked by a slingshot.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Mario Party 9:
    • In the minigame "Skipping Class", a character who is unable to follow jumping instructions will get discouraged, having a scribbly ball in their thought bubble.
    • In the minigame "Growing Up", a character will gain a ball of scribbles if they don't follow the instructions for hitting the brick.
    • In the "Don't Look" minigame, an annoyed scribble appears above them if a character doesn't move in time, or they look in the direction of the arrows.
  • Mario Super Sluggers: Should a fielder throw the ball to a teammate they have poor chemistry with, a scribble will appear above their head, indicating a worse quality pass.
• Prayer of the Faithless: When Aeyr ends his first conversation with ??? he has a Pictorial Speech-Bubble of a squiggle, expressing his irritation with ??? just responding to everything with Visible Silence.
• Tomodachi Life: Miis who have a problem for the player to solve will have a thought cloud with a scribble inside of it.
• Trick & Treat: Amelia trying to leave the Parlor through the down door after entering through it shows that she's locked in by a frustrated squiggle meaning that she can't leave through that way.
• Wii Sports: Miis on the losing side of the court in Tennis will display this which actually helps indicate who won/lost a round before the score is called. In Wii Sports Resort, if a Mii loses a round in Table Tennis, their frustration is shown with a scribble over their heads.

Web Animation

• In the Strong Bad Email "coloring" The Cheat gets a frustrated scribble over his head after Strong Bad informs him that Crayola beat them to the punch on making Laser Lemons.

Webcomics

• Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: After tripping on a tire iron Jason left laying on the floor of the Batcave and having Jason make fun of him as he storms away, Tim can be seen making an angry noise indicated by a tangled scribble in his speech bubble.
• Blood Stain: Elliot breaks off from explaining herself and her thought bubble is reduced to an angry scribble when frustrated at Stein for asking about her impractical shoes, which she's stuck in due to his unreasonable demands.
• Charby the Vampirate: Tony's got an angry squiggle emanating from his head after Menu eats his snacks.
• Ennui GO!: When Hashim and Sarah are talking about the likelihood of Sarah getting pregnant Hashim's mom pops up excitedly, only for the couple to say it'll likely be a while at which point her speech bubble contains a frustrated scribble before she disappears again.
• A Girl and Her Fed: Thomas has a frustrated squiggly line above him as he listens to his mother enthusiastically telling him and his brothers that most kids would love to go roofhopping while the boys ask her to go do the things they actually want to do.
• Girl Genius: When Maxim gets shut down by Gkika, Oggie and Dimo while trying to tell the story of how he acquired his latest hat in turn he slumps with an irked grump depicted with a scribble in his speech bubble.
• El Goonish Shive: When Sarah is pissed about being asked to strip she's got an angry scribble above her head as she marches off.
• Grey is...:
  • Frustration when losing games is illustrated with a cloud of scribbles above the characters' heads.
  • When White orders Black not to talk Black's next few speech bubbles are an annoyed scribble.
  • When Black calls White a sick baby White's irritation is depicted with an angular black speech bubble with a tangled white line.
• Hemlock: When Lumi realizes Sindri put spider legs, which she's allergic to, in their dinner she storms out of the room with a tangled line in her speech bubble. She's been poisoning him for centuries though, and he put her favorite spices in the dish as well making his intentions muddled through their very dysfunctional relationship.
• Homestuck: Annoyed scribbles sometimes appear when characters are daydreaming. One of the most memorable examples from Homestuck is when Karkat is bickering with versions of himself from different timelines in a chatroom.
• Huckleberry often shows squiggly or jagged lines above characters when they're frustrated, angry, or yelling. The scribble-in-thought-bubble variation is seen when a worm is caught in a box.
• Let's Get Divorced!: Dark round scribbles appear to indicate a character is flustered, such as above Baek-hui's head to indicate her exhaustion and frustration in chapter 2, and above Han-gyeol's when he grudgingly admits that someone said they'd make a pretty couple in chapter 9.
• No Rest for the Wicked: November's got a discontented scribble as a speech bubble while she listens to Perrault trick an enchanted prince.
• Sakana: When Taisei laughs and asks where Jiro is really going after Jiro tells him he's got a date Jiro's response is an angry jumbled line.
• Sleepless Domain:
  • When Sally has to use a ladder to get up to the fight with the rest of Team Alchemical she's got a little frustrated speech bubble with a scribble in it.
  • To indicate the golden being getting frustrated with Greg it gets a looping scribble above its head.
• The Sword Interval: When Fall realizes there's no coffee left in the morning her displeasure is shown with a dark scribble in a speech bubble above her head once she's left the room and no one can hear her grumbling.
• Tales From Alderwood: The mook Trish hits in the face with a wooden lid responds with an upset angry scribble in their speech bubble.
• Unsounded: When one of Stockyard's prostitutes has his cigarette stolen and is ordered to keep searching for Sette his irritation with the situation is exemplified by the thick black scribble in his speech bubble as he walks away.
• Wilde Life: When Oscar's hiding his whereabouts from his family he sends his sister a gift with a card that reads "Where's Waldo". She has a pissed of squiggle above her head in response.
• Wychwood: When Julian realizes that the woman he and Tiara do not trust enough to give the location of the refuge they're headed to is the only one who knows enough to try and navigate the alternate dimension they accidentally ended up in his speech bubble consists of a dark angular scribble.

Web Original

• Gaia Online has an equipable item called the Frustrated Mood Bubble which is a speech balloon containing a scribble.

Western Animation

• Family Guy: In "Throw It Away", Chris becomes so frustrated by Lois's newfound obsession with removing anything she considers "clutter" from the house that a scribble appears over his head in the shape of a thought bubble. Lois is not only aware of the scribble, but accuses Chris of further cluttering up the house with it.

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