#doing these on terrible paper with a random pen and highlighter i found at the office felt very good and organic

[alackofghosts]

life's more bearable with u!

[scooby-snacs]

Marauder Characters Studying and Reading habits

Lily Evans - dog ears her book pages. she never uses a book mark as an actual bookmark (mostly because she looses them constantly or they fall out). it’s always a random item like a spare piece of parchment, a sticky note, a receipt, old homework notes, a gum wrapper, and a bobby pin at one point. she can and will use anything really. she also has random spurts of reading. she will go from three months to a year without touching a book outside of classwork and then devour anywhere from six upwards to ten novels consecutively in the span of a week without pause.

Regulus Black - annotates his books with a fountain pen, especially his novels. sometimes it’s just scattered commentary throughout, other times it’s underlined phrases. he also uses little coloured tabs to mark certain pages or parts that resonate with him (though never the orange coloured ones!) is always reading something (whether a novel for enjoyment or a textbook for class) though he often takes his time when doing so, he reads before going to sleep at least a chapter (though often this causes him to stay up and finish said book rather than sleeping but he’s working on it). likewise, he is never able to stay strictly to one book and often has five or six on the go all of them at varying locations so he always has one handy when his peers become boring with small talk or he just needs to escape for a little while.

Remus Lupin - ruthlessly cracks the spines of his books, likewise he folds them over when he’s reading. he refuses to buy hardcovers and is strictly into paper backs. somehow Sirius always manages to spill some sort of juice or melted sweets on the pages or covers. Madam Pince refuses to let him to borrow any books outside of the library because of it. he reads at a super speed like pace but has terrible retention to what he just read. he’ll remember that he enjoyed it or he hated it, though he would be screwed if you asked him about any plot points or anything that happened within it specifically. he struggles with very large fonts and staying invested into the reading. likewise he is a sucker for when the author includes a map at the beginning and has to show it to anyone he comes across becuase ‘look at this cool map! i love maps!’

Severus Snape - reading for enjoyment includes history texts, and medical/apothecary/potions journals. he subscribes to at least three muggle medical journalists and critics back home and reads them over the summers as he can’t during the school year. he enjoys ruthlessly marking up the margins of any and all books with his own substitutes and ideas on how to better it, alongside where they went wrong, or what he thinks should be tried instead. his hand writing is nearly illegible (very slanted and squished looking). lily got him addicted to black pens when annotating (it got worse when he found out there were red pens too!) he is a very avid reader but refuses to have more than one on the go at the same time which makes handling his classwork rather tricky at times and one of the reasons he marks up and goes through most of his textbooks before the school year starts so he has more time in the library at school to peruse what he wishes to.

Pandora Ollivander - that annoying person who remembers what page they were on when reading and doesn’t need a bookmark or such to hold their place, ever. she only buys hard copies, and refuses to mark it up in any way, shape or form as she finds it distracting to the information. on the other hand, her homework is filled out in shimmery and/or glittered fountain pens. she often charms her textbooks with her wand to highlight certain specifics she finds worth memorizing but charms then back to normal after exams before donating them. she reads sparingly more so when she feels the need to and not in some inexplainable drive to. she has an entire bookshelf at home filled with books she has yet to read but has no desire to start yet because she doesn’t know if it’s the right ‘time’ yet.

[expired-monster-craft-smp]

Vibes Dream SMP members give off (in my opinion)

Dream

Barked at people in high school ironically but it became unironic real quick

Can’t cook very well but is good with a knife, especially at a fast pace

One of those kids who either purposely spells the first word wrong in a spelling bee to just be done with it right away or tries the hardest and manages to win (there is no inbetween for this heathen)

Bites ice cream with his teeth

Has snorted pixie stix far too many times and sneezed blue after each time

Eats bananas with the peels

Wears mismatched socks

Has taken a bite out of a pool noodle because he liked the texture and impulsively bit it (ADHD things✨😌)

Walks around looking extremely high but he’s just spacin out and stuck in his head

Dreams (lmao) in Minecraft and video games in general

Will flirt with anything that moves but has no idea how to respond to compliments

Makes fun of himself first before anyone else can

Has eaten an orange peel and it wasn’t that bad in his humble opinion

Wears khaki shorts

Eats the wax part of the baby bell cheese

Doesn’t actually know what genre his music taste is cause he vibes to everything

Georgenotfound

Picks at the skin on his lip when it’s dry so it bleeds and he tries not to give in by licking his lips often enough to the point where it became a habit

Wears velcro shoes because he doesn’t feel like tying them (he knows how, he just doesn’t wanna do it)

Eats peanut butter straight from the jar

Makes that disgusting “ants on a log” thing (celery stick filled with peanut butter topped with a row of raisins)

Can’t drink milk plain, it’s gotta have some sort of flavour

Can draw a perfect straight line but his circles look Terrible

Eats cheez-its like cereal without milk

Loves making little noises so much like he walks around his house doin chores and he’s just goin “memememenownownwnkwkshskshkshskhs”

Hates wearing socks

Coloured his tongue with highlighters because they’re non-toxic

Constantly tapping his feet and hands to a song/beat playing in his head

I can’t imagine this man using a bike of any sort, so Imma say he doesn’t know how

Can’t be licked by dogs because he’s used to being licked by his cat so it makes him uncomfortable

Can actually sing pretty well but gets real nervous in front of people so he fucks it up

Sapnap

No idea how to cook anything other than Mac and cheese please help this man

Meows at cats because he wants to confuse them and laughs Way too hard when he does (his laugh is like sunshine so I’ll allow it)

Would be fantastic at braiding hair Idk why

Gives the BEST fuckin hugs EVER

When singing, he makes noises for the instrumental parts too

Wanted to play the drums at one point

Really likes pit bulls but he’s more of a cat person so he loves them from afar

Only vaguely knows how to shave his face properly without hurting himself

Opportunities for him come up out of pure luck but mans is skilled for them so it works out well almost Always

Used to or currently has a skateboard and isn’t too bad

ALWAYS has bruises appearing everywhere for no reason, he doesn’t even know where 90% of them are from

Calls his friends twinks to jokingly bully them and gets away with it because he himself is not a twink

Gets sudden bursts of energy in the middle of the night and just shimmies around a bit to try and deal with it

Favours spearmint over peppermint

Arsonist

Banned from three (3) Dave & Busters in Texas

Badboyhalo

Washes his hands after doing literally anything

Likes the bird exhibits at the zoo (specifically the penguins)

Very good at cooking, best at soups and stews

If he painted his nails they would definitely be a baby blue

Overthinks very simple things and it makes him look less smart than he actually is

Drinks tap water

Probably prefers whiskey over beer

Knows how to tap dance a bit

Surprisingly good at taking and handling shots

Steady hands

Adds extra chocolate to hot chocolate

Plays sudoku and is really really good at it (only uses pen when he plays)

Everytime he sees a Himalayan salt lamp he NEEDS to lick it despite knowing it’s very salty and he’ll pull a face afterwards

Not great at Rock Paper Scissors

Wears sunglasses inside for no reason at all, he just,,,Does

Still has a stuffed animal from childhood perched on his bed

Probably tried his hand at archery

Tommyinnit

He has no idea how to use a baby voice on children or animals, so he just talks to them normally

Wears socks to bed

His fingers are double jointed

Always starts twitching if he stays still for too long because he’s gotta move around

His shoes and have different laces and it bothers everyone but himself

Doodles on himself in class when he’s bored or not paying attention

Has really good hearing, both with pitch and volume

Can’t eat tomato’s by themselves, it’s either gotta be in sauce form or with something else

FUCKING LOVES STRING CHEESE

Terrible handwriting

Favourite part of a slice of bread is the crust

Wants to paint his nails black to be cool and edgy but his hands are far from steady and he has no clue how to paint nails

Pretty affectionate with close friends (like Tubbo and Wilbur) off stream/camera

He likes pears for some reason

Wilbur Soot

Is constantly having to decide between leaving his hair as is or shaving all of it off

He also thinks about adding some colour but never actually does

Most tea is gross to him

Everytime he puts a breath mint thats circular in his mouth, he pretends it’s a pill and he’s taking drugs because he thinks that’s funny

He does that vacant state as a joke but that really what he looks like when he’s spacing out

Likes to aggressively flirt with his male friends but if his female friends flirt with him, he gets a bit flustered

Has probably accidentally swallowed a guitar pick

Once drank two entire jars of pickle juice

Bonks his head on anything and everything

He has broken a pair of glasses by walking face first into a pole outside

Thinks kinetic sand is fun

Has passionate arguments with others about trivial and random topics like chicken feet

Can open a beer bottle with his teeth

Would accidentally pop and swallow a bracket if he had braces

Tubbo

Hates sharp cheddar cheese

Everytime he learns a new word it’s in every sentence he says for the next week or so

Ate candle wax for a dare once

Doesn’t know how to tie a tie and will probably never learn

Wanted to do ballet at one point but decided not to

He has eaten multiple flowers for absolutely no reason other than wanting to know how they taste

Starts vibrating if he’s too excited

Used to bite his nails

ABSOLUTELY DESPISES MUSTARD

Has eaten paper and says it doesn’t taste that bad

Enjoys telling his friends how much they mean to him (this has resulted in Tommy and Wilbur crying on a few seperate occasions)

Spaces out a lot and doesn’t often pay attention to his surroundings

Gets lost inside of Best Buy��s

Likes s’mores but doesn’t properly understand how to make them

Technoblade

Learned to cook purely out of spite and found it’s actually pretty fun

Constantly getting smacked in the face by trees when walking outside

Really likes apple pie

Everytime he looks at potatoes he thinks of all the hours he spent trying to win the potato war

Starts things as a joke and gets too into it

Doesn’t like the taste of most energy drinks

Has rubbed salt and lemon juice into an open wound to just,,see how it felt (he did it once and Hated it but did it again because he forgot what it felt like)

Sometimes hates how quiet he is because everyone he knows is loud and talks over him

Despite how he is portrayed in the Dream SMP, he is extremely loyal to his friends and would kill for them

Over seasons his food because he can’t taste it otherwise

Really good balance

Doesn’t like to wear bright colours, but still enjoys wearing colours

Good at knitting

Quackity

Actually fairly quiet when off camera

Will accidentally use Spanish grammar while speaking English sometimes

Country music confuses him

Doesn’t really like kids but they really like him

Can’t dance

Hardest drugs he’s ever done is second hand smoke from a cigarette and children’s Tylenol

His favourite jolly ranchers are the red and blue ones

He uses lighters as fidget toys basically

Will have a breakdown, take a bubble bath, and call himself the self care king

Dehydrated

Wants a pet rat but he already has a cat and doesn’t wanna risk anything

Constantly questions why his main source of income is playing Minecraft with two 16 year olds

Karl Jacobs

Probably ate a spider once

Would wear those socks that are like gloves for you feet where it separates all the toes

Eats ravioli straight from the can, cold

Can answer an incredibly complex math equation fairly easily but will stumble over 12x11

Loves kids so much and speaks to them in a soft voice

Tried making ramen in a coffee pot and broke it

Drinks 2 monster energy drinks a day on average

Likes to open walnuts with his teeth but doesn’t actually eat them

The embodiment of that one John Maulany joke where he says you could spill soup in his lap and HE’D apologize to YOU

Loves physical affection so so much!!!!

If he moves his wrists in a certain way, they pop Really Loudly

Fantastic at making cookies

Fundy

Lowkey actually a furry but more on like, a cat boy level than fursuit level

Drives a Honda Civic

Likes ABBA

Adds parsley to almost anything he makes food-wise

Loves garlic bread so much, he’d commit a federal crime for it

Middle child vibes

Decent at skiing

Good at singing but isn’t terribly confident

Seems responsible at first glance but in reality he’s pretty chaotic and childish

Bad at spelling

Always cuts his nails way too short so they always feel weird/hurt

Likes bracelets and rings

Thinks pastel colours slap

JSchlatt

Despite the character he plays, he’s actually really sweet

He’s genuinely that cryptic off camera as he is on camera

Can cook but chooses not to most of the time

Would probably say “what pussy size you wear” to anyone who asks him to buy pads

Not actually as intimidating as he appears to be

Lowkey would fight a child

Shuts down when someone compliments him, often using aggression as a front because holy shit they just called him handsome and kind what the Fuck-

Jokingly says his license is suspended but in all actuality he never got his license in the first place

He has two (2) extra teeth but they don’t need to be removed so he kept them

Has a stick n poke of a stickman on his ankle he got in high school

Likes physics

This is already very long, and I still plan on adding more.

[lanamemories]

hLO itsa me nai-io!!!!! (read shrieked in a high voice like mario if he buckled his dungarees too tight around the crotch)...... im sad i missed opening bt i had a pretty busy past 2 days so i didn’t hav any chance at all to b online bc i ws staying at a friends bt. anyway. excited to b here nw regardless of my Fashionably Late entrance. i’m 22 n live in manchester (the u freakin k Bay Bee) n cackle a little too mch like a witch fr supernatural suspicions nt to arise. thts all u rly need to kno. like this or hmu fr plots!! 

p.s. this is her pinterest for those of u tht like tht kind of thing

「 bridget satterlee. cis-female. 」have you seen lana jameson around yet? i hear SHE decided to be in ALPHA NU for their JUNIOR year as a DANCE major. the 21 year old SHEEP is known to be vivacious, alluring, childish and impulsive. ➨ the muse is written by nai. she is 22, in the gmt.

some random aesthetics: a red water pistol topped up with caribbean rum and covered in stickers of cartoon pin up girls, a vinyl record whirring silently because you got too distracted by a stranger’s hands to reach over and flip sides, giant inflatable flamingos floating in the aftermath of a pool party, smudgy lipstick kisses left like an autograph on someone else’s mirror, seventies platforms covered in bowie inspired lightening stripes, fanning the flush in your cheeks with a bright red flamenco fan in the back of a crowded lecture hall, michelangelo reminiscent statures clasping at their stone in suggestive places, bopping stranger’s on the forehead with heart shaped lollipops, a bumper sticker on the back of a convertible cadillac that says ‘SCRAPPY DOO IS A FILTHY SLUT’, lighting a paper lantern and saying “aw, how pretty,” only for the whole party to shriek as it crashes into a children’s tent in the next garden over, a ball point pen that turns a woman naked when you click up the nib, cackling so ferociously that you almost throw up and your ribs ache.

ok im a Lay Zee gorl n dnt wna waste any mre time redoin lana’s intro so im pastin in her old one so i cn hop right to interactions. the only thing i can think tht needs to b added is the stuff abt danny nielsen (an evil npc of mine bc im a sadist) who recently beat up zeke van doren (full name this is Official feel like im writin a journalist article) bc he found out him n lana slept tgether n her n danny were kind of dating if....u can call his idea of romance tht. danny is in custody nw bt its a whole Thing like.... is prob... known around lockwood bc it ws a pretty intense..... thing tht happened n danny ws quite a popular senior

grew up in a big house in albany, NY, bt also spent time all over the place n was in the city a lot

okay so her mum is an old money socialite / three time campaign model way back when n her dad is a big record label mogul. he owns a label called jameson records n they repped a few big rock bands back in the eighties, altho they’re mostly known for ‘poppy injects’ whose lead singer had a big heroin scandal tht brought down his career. lana p much grew up around musicians snorting lines instead of spooning down cereal fr breakfast n her parents were v much absent her whole life

they’re pretty well off obviously n bc of her relation to such a big music industry figure she’s hung out w a fair few relatively high rep ppl thru her teens. she amassed kind of an instagram following mainly fr her style (v penny lane-esque in some aspects aka lots of fur cuff trimmed jackets bt then also jst…. a wild combination of everything honestly. pastel faux fur coats, seventies style platforms, flame red cowboy boots, pink fishnet tights n glitter used like highlight Everywhere) n bc she’s undeniably very pretty

her parents always kind of jst… didn’t like her. it was v clear that she was an accident after her older brother caleb n that even when they just had him alone they weren’t cut out for parenthood. they always kind of jst… ignored her n hoped she’d go away. she had to mke herself microwave meals when she ws only like 12 bc they’d forget to get her anything. once she went like 6 days without her mum even looking her in the eyes once

despite this tho!!! she’s always been insanely close w her brother caleb. he’s her whole world. thts why when he decided to sign up to the army she ws understandably scared bt supported him after initially bein mad tht he ws leavin her all alone. bt then he wound up getting discharged under grounds of severe ptsd when he witnessed his best friend die in an explosion tht took place in a shock raid. caleb returned home n he was never the same n lana kind of felt like he’d died out there too. he’s in n out of hospital a lot n it’s rly hard on her bt she doesn’t tlk abt it to anyone rly

growing up lana was always a huge social butterfly. jst literally…. knew everyone n everyone definitely knew her. she ws one of those girls tht ws kind of impossible to ignore or forget. very animated, always made u feel like u were the centre of the universe whenever she spoke to u, always made it feel like u were best friends even if ud only spoken to her once. she has this magnetic way abt her tht is kind of hard to find in real life. it’s something ud only rly expect out of a movie character n she like. deliberately puts tht on sort of. kind of.... is always playing A Role of the person tht she wants to b seen as

she’s always been insatiably spontaneous n adventurous. always doing something weird n wild every weekend. she has ten thousand stories tht always earn a laugh or a gasp over how ridiculously absurd they r

anyway so after caleb got back he was rly withdrawn n depressed. he shut lana out n was kind of harsh to her a lot of the time, always telling her to leave him alone or pushing her away. it didnt help either tht lana had a rly traumatic experience w some of her dad’s colleagues at the label when she ws 16 n he was away n she cldnt even tell him abt it once he was bk bc of his own traumas. she kind of jst shut it all in n kept it to herself

this obviously?? made her spiral a lot. she was already a girl tht loved sex (she’d only rly done foreplay before tho) but since her trauma it got…. completely out of hand. it got to a point where she couldnt rly go 2 days without it, probably not even 1. her lowest point has probably been scrolling thru craiglist for anonymous encounters n meeting up w strangers on there fr a quick fuck jst for the thrill even tho it’s insanely dangerous n she cld wind up getting herself killed. it’s v clear at this point tht she has a sex addiction whether she’s ever admitted it or not

she also currently? is working as a cam girl. she found this website bc she trawls… porn stuff a lot n she wound up applying to work as one bc she thought it’d b fun n wld earn her some disposal income (even tho she frankly doesn’t need it bc she’s already well off). the guy tht manages all of the girls on the site is kind of suspect n it’s a whole plot i’m gna unravel where it’s actually like the front for a cult or something wild so. stay posted ig. kgjdkgjh

personality/some fun facts: uncontrollably flirty. boundlessly confident. cld make a joke out a paper bag n her comedy is sometimes surreal / absurd. she tends to laugh when she feels like crying n has a smile brighter than a ray of texas sunshine. always dapples her fingers thru the breeze when she’s driving in a car w the window down. her fav book as a child used to b alice in wonderland n she’d fantasise abt having her own little wonderland too where everyone knew her name n asked her things n took her on adventures. at the time it didn’t rly strike her how evident it was tht that was bc she was so lonely. she almost always has some sort of sweet on her, whether it’s strawberry laces or gummy bears or cherry lollipops. she adores david bowie n prince n madonna n anyone tht’s a vintage style icon w little care fr what ppl think. wildflowers r her favourites bc they’re the brightest and u can’t buy them. she’s had like 8472493874 ‘relationships’ n none of them hav lasted beyond a month / hav been terrible / hav seen her being treated badly / she’s cheated on them. i dnt think she’s actually been w anyone she hasn’t cheated on in some form or another

plot ideas: exes tht lana’s fucked over hideously. she’d probably cheat a lot and it’d be a whole…mess. mayb someone tht flipped the switch and cheated on her? a cousin plot cld b fun too. a friend tht lana fel out w bc she slept w their significant other. someone tht’s getting lana into drugs?? she’s kind of impressionable/down for anything so tht’s a likely scenario she’d get into tbh. an unrequited crush!! (either way is cool). someone tht is just hanging out w her/using her bc she has a lot of instagram followers or they want to b signed to her dad’s label. someone in a band!! she’d probably make like penny lane n b their groupie/sleep w them all fgjkshgkh. umm a good influence too mayb? oh and a past summer romance/fling tht cld either have meant a lot or not have meant anything at all. bonus points if both of them hav a diff viewpoint on it. honestly?? anything is fine i cld ramble for days

[greenishbucket]

Caitlin Farmer and the Dollar Store

Cait can never resist the dollar store when she goes by. 1.4k. Also on ao3.

Inspired by @chocolatechipcookiesplease‘s super cute post! Hope this was okay.

Cait can never resist the dollar store when she goes by.

It’s unfortunate, since it’s nestled right between her favourite grocery store and the go-to second hand bookshop so she goes past it quite a lot. Luckily, it’s a dollar store so she isn’t sweating the amount of spending yet; equally luckily, people seem pretty touched when Cait presents them with a gift apropos of nothing, else her desk would be covered in all the random crap she picks up.

So far, she’s gifted March three pomegranate face mask sachets, April three whistles on multicolored string, Nursey a pair of toothbrushes that he’d been mock-offended by, Chris a ten-pack of bouncy balls, Dex a balloon pump with the outline of Minnesota on it, and the girls on the team enough plastic cups and cutlery to last at least two parties and three barbeques. She’s got her eye on a set of the ugliest colored paints she’s ever seen for Lardo and a whisk with a cowboy on it for Bitty, but Cait is pretty sure they’re going to get slapped with an extra-reduced sticker soon enough.

It’s only the second week of the semester. Cait admits she might have a problem, but what’s a few dollars that she’d probably only spend on something temporary like food when she could be buying cheap and/or ugly and/or semi-useless junk for her friends.

So she’s in the dollar store again after her afternoon lecture lets out – because she’d been meaning to go to buy a new loaf of bread and especially so after she’d had to carefully cut away the mould on her toast that morning – and that’s when she sees it, right near the door: A shark-patterned notebook.

It’s entirely not fit for purpose. The paper quality is terrible, the pages grey and thin as rice paper when Cait flips it open, the kind prone to shedding into the roller of a ballpoint, and there are probably about forty sheets total. It would last maybe two weeks of the life of a college student, tops. The spiral bind looks simultaneously weak enough to barely manage holding the forty pages in place and mean enough to leave a mark for hours.

But it’s got sharks on it. Little cartoon ones in diagonal lines across a blue background, entirely anatomically incorrect and with the shittiest printing quality she’s seen in a while but still. Chris would love it. That is, not it; Cait knows it’s an objectively crappy notebook and that Chris will know it’s an objectively crappy notebook. It’s not about the notebook, just like none of the other little gifts she’s collected over all the trips to the dollar store were actually about the thing itself.

As the saying goes, it’s the thought that counts. Cait loves to let people know she’s been thinking about them even when they’re not around and she loves to buy them cheap and ugly things and watch the small joy people find in them. The little nudge of love in a gag gift.

And she knows Chris loves them. For her birthday he’d handed her six separately wrapped gifts and they were all from the dollar store and that would have been enough for her – she’d almost cried over the tiny plastic scuba diver in a glitter globe because he’d remembered, he’d remembered that time she’d talked for a half hour straight about when she was a kid and wanted to scuba dive for mermaids – except he’d also made her a lopsided cake with Bitty and then mini-golfing. They’d seen an ugly cute cat on the way back and stopped for twenty minutes to coo at it and stroke it’s ugly head. It was the best birthday.

The point is, Cait loves to give small gifts and she loves Chris and she loves to give him small gifts to let him know she loves him. And both of them love sharks, she’s got more shark-and-Sharks-themed belongings than she knows what to do with at this point and half of them are Chris’ anyway, shyly given and taken after dates and proudly bestowed out of the blue. It’s their thing.

The point is, she’s wasting another $1.50 on dollar store crap for her boyfriend and no one is going to stop her.

Cait has time to run back home for a snack and then run to practice. It’s late by the time they’re done and she’s tired but she needs to fit in studying so she heads over to the group study space so her and Chris can study together, and so neither of them will be distracted by their loud housemates or the call of a soft bed. She stakes out the pod with the comfortable chairs that can spin but aren’t broken and don’t randomly drop their height mid-studying and spreads her books and laptop and water and snacks across it until Chris arrives. Some people give her dirty looks but it’s ten at night on a Tuesday and everyone knows study space rules don’t apply at ten at night on a Tuesday.

Cait’s almost forgotten about the shark notebook she’d bought until she spots it fallen to the bottom of her rucksack, probably getting a little rough around the edges with all the crumbs and flotsam that hang around down there.  She tucks it under her actual notebook, ready for when Chris arrives. She’s already trying not to smile thinking about how he’s going to react.

When he finally does arrive he looks just about ready to go to bed but the loud thunk of his backpack on the table lets her know he means business. He gives her a kiss on the cheek and then pulls out three different textbooks and a massive pad of lined paper, plus a separate pad of squared paper, and four different colored highlighters, and a calculator. Then his laptop and two bottles of water. Then three different pens and two worn-down pencils.

“All right, I’m ready,” he announces, looking at all the things with no small amount of alarm. “I’ve let all my studying slide this week, but tonight’s the night! I’m going to get it all done.”

Cait can relate; she already feels about four weeks behind where her professors expect her to be and she’s not quite sure how she’s got there. At least her and Chris can support each other emotionally in this trying time, and physically by poking each other awake, even if some of the courses he’s taking are indecipherable to her and Chris is no marine biologist so there’s not much in the way of academic support.

And speaking of emotional support:

“Well I got you a little something to help,” Cait says, pulling the shark notebook out from under her work. “Look! Isn’t it cute?”

Chris stares at the notebook. And he stares at the notebook. He stares a bit more and Cait starts to wonder if maybe she’s found the one ugly gift Chris doesn’t like when his face breaks into a smile, the kind that makes her feet feel grounded and her entire chest feel warm.

“Oh my God, I love you,” he says, and he takes the notebook from her hand, inspecting the cover and the useless pages. “Oh my God, Cait, I love you.”

Cait feels herself going pink even as she says, “Okay, it is pretty cute and you know I love you too, but I didn’t really think it was that cute?”

But Chris is laughing now and rooting around in his endless backpack only to pull out–

The shark notebook. The dollar store shark notebook that he just took from Cait and is still holding in his other hand.

“Oh my God,” Cait says, taking the notebook from him. They bought each other the same fucking ugly dollar store shark notebook. This is a moment – forget every other instance where she’s looked at Chris and thought there’s no one else that gets me like this, forget every sweet and thought out gesture, forget the sex. They really are soulmates. “Oh my God, Chris, I love you.”

Between studying, they use up six pages of one of the notebooks playing hangman and three playing a hard-fought, best of three noughts and crosses with Cait cheating because he knows how ticklish Chris is and she never said she was above fighting dirty. A good fifteen pages of the other notebook are lost when Chris knocks over his water bottles trying to escape the tickling.

Everyone is giving them dirty looks at that point, but Cait is still giggling as her and Chris move their non-dollar-store-items to safety and run to the bathroom for tissues. The next morning she gives her notebook – the water-damaged one, thanks Chris – pride of place in her corner of dollar store crap on her desk.

[rinari7]

Tagged by @ciara-jane. Thank you, meine Fledermaus. :)

1) Do you have a certain place at home for reading? More often than not it’s on my bed lying on my stomach, but that’s just because I don’t have an overabundance of room and my bed is comfy. It’s my retreat.

2) Bookmark or random piece of paper?   Whatever is lying at hand. I officially own some pieces of paper that are intended to be used as bookmarks (e.g. printed, whatever) but I don’t think I’ve ever used them. Currently what’s lying at hand is predominantly gum wrappers and library checkout receipts, though I have also used a pen, a rubber band, or my phone to temporarily mark a place until I could find something flat to take their place in the longer term.

3) Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/a certain amount of pages? I used to be able to just stop reading because I had books with me everywhere and it was kind of a necessity. Now I prefer to find a natural break in the tex,t but that doesn’t have to be a chapter: just the end of a passage, the end of an event, a point of view switch, or something similar.

4) Do you eat or drink while reading? All the time. Only way my mother found to keep me at the table long enough to eat when I was younger. (I really hate being bored.)

5) Music or TV while reading? Sometimes music, but rarely, and no TV. I’m here to pay attention to the book, dammit.

6) Reading at home or everywhere? Echoing Ciara here: Everywhere!

7) Reading out loud or silently in your head? And here: Silently in my head.

8) Do you read ahead or even skip pages? Nope. Never. Sometimes I skim passages, if it’s self-congratulatory flowery descriptive prose that’s not actually important to the plot or character development. But I don’t read ahead. (In fact I often have trouble rereading; knowing what happens kills part of the spell for me.)

9) Breaking the spine or keeping it like new? I don’t go out of my way to break the spine, but it happens over the natural course of use, I think; I don’t go out of my way to obsessively prevent it, either. I also used to be terrible about leaving paperbacks open face-down instead of using a bookmark, which I know increases wear and tear on the spine.

10) Do you write in your books? Never, unless I was required to for school. Who would do such a thing? Even underlining or highlighting really makes me cringe. Post-It Notes or such are acceptable. Tagging whoever would like to do this, but in particular @flootzavut @viennainspringtime ;) @onekisstotakewithme @keekmenta if you might like to!

[elevatorupcompany]

Sketch, draw, doodle: just do it

Drawing, sketching, doodling: the act of making an idea or thought visual. These are tools we’ve known our whole life and I argue valuable enough to be revisited. Put aside the intimidation of being good at “art”. Forget the preconceived notions that doodling is equivalent to being bored. Rethink how drawing can be used as a tool across all aspects of your team, not just the creatives. ~ Emily, Designer The act of making something visual is a part of every human’s make up since the beginning of time. As children, we constantly created. Meander back to the freeing mindset of early days and forget any notions that only artists draw. Throughout this, I’ll be jumping back and forth between a few methods of making things visual: doodling, sketching, and drawing. By definition, they are all different. Sketching and drawing are typically differentiated by the level of fidelity. Drawing is thought of as the polished form whereas sketching is often referred to as the preliminary stage of drawing. Doodling is the red-headed stepchild, unlovingly defined as “to draw or scribble idly” or better yet, “to waste (time) in aimless or foolish activity.” In defense of doodling and in support of all three, we’ll explore how they benefit us in our day-to-day.

Thinking visually is a powerful tool in connecting, creating, communicating and comprehending the world around us. In an article highlighting cognitive benefits of doodling, Sunni Brown, author of “The Doodle Revolution”, warns us of the mindset which stops people from creating,

“To make the practice (of doodling) into something that requires savvy would be as dangerous as suggesting that only people who excel at writing should ever compose sentences.”

With that, consider these as tools in the following ways:

Getting visual an icebreaker: Because of our apprehension to create, it can be awkward. Relating to others over something universally discomforting can be oddly comforting. 

Getting visual as a way to come up with new ideas: Drawing fast and loose allows us to have half-formulated ideas with room to grow. 

Getting visual as a communication tool: We connect to images we recognize; let your ability to rough out forms help people relate to your ideas. 

Getting visual to better comprehend and understand your learnings: Making things visual is tool for comprehension, reinforcing what we hear.

Connecting

The very thought of creating something and then showing it to others heightens a sense of vulnerability. With vulnerability comes great opportunity to smash down walls. Use sketching as an icebreaker to connect with new teams and new clients. It’s a great way to unleash a little silliness and level the playing field of any room you’re in. 

Imagine if you can, you’re to plan the menu for your best friend’s wedding...with Gordon Ramsay. The thought is actually quite terrifying. “He’s going to make me cry and we haven’t even met yet”, you think to yourself. You’re well aware of what your friend likes and you have heaps of ideas. As the planning begins, shaking in your boots, you’re feeling inferior and you don’t speak up. This is a problem.

In far less hypothetical scenarios, people feel this level of doubt and fear within new groups all the time. Do these people know more than me? Are my ideas valuable? What if the topic was already covered? The very thought of being wrong or making mistakes is enough to silence meaningful voices. There is plenty of merit in telling people there is no right answer and to embrace just doing. Sketching is an interactive way to reinforce that notion. When you take time to recognize no matter who you are in that room, your different skillsets and different point of views, we remember that we all share a common language. 

Icebreaker activity: Everyone is given a blank piece of paper and a pen or pencil. At random, a letter is drawn. If the letter drawn is a “P” everyone is to take two to three minutes to draw everything they can possibly think of that starts with the letter “P”. When the time is up, pair up with someone and compare. There are a few lessons bundled in this activity:

First, we recognize the quickness of the activity. Rest easy knowing in under five minutes, everything is going to be unpolished.Next, we realize even our chicken scratch can be understood. It might be two ovals and a triangle, but every person recognizes it’s a penguin. Patterns will surface of the things people automatically gravitate toward, multiple people drawing the same object from one letter.The walls of uncertainty and self doubt fall as we laugh together and find we all can find common ground. 

Shout to to Lori over at Mutually Human for telling us about this.

Creating

Getting the wheels spinning and kicking off the creative process can be an overwhelming feat. When the world is your oyster it’s hard to know where to begin. Often we have ideas but the inability to express what we have churning in our mind stops us in our tracks. Engaging with our visual language helps us gain access to parts of our brain not easily accessible when we’re operating in linguistic mode. Sunni Brown speaks to this block: “Most of us use reading, writing, and talking to brainstorm, but the human mind is very habit forming. To break that habit, you have to think in an unfamiliar medium, a visual medium.” Breaking our habits helps up break the mold of old thoughts and discover new ideas. 

Much like creating a mind map, drawing (sketching and doodling) helps us build on ideas and find connections. Your teammate might draw something but you see it from a different angle and build on it in a new light. Drawings, like actions, often speak louder than words could ever do. The world is full of complexities and emotions without definitions. Making it visual allows us to speak in words the English language has not yet formalized.

Ideation activity We call this the bad idea blitz. Sometimes it takes clearing your mind of its crazy to unveil a shiny nugget of brilliance. This works alone or with a team. Do this at the beginning of ideation or when your team is feeling low on creative juices and ideas. First step is to know what you’re ideating for; is it an overall solution or the springboard of where to begin? Take a piece of paper and fold it so you have six rectangles. Give yourself one minute to come up with six terribly wonderful ideas. At the end, you likely didn’t come up with your final solution but you have pushed yourself to think outside of the box and loosened up those creative thinking muscles.

Communicating

Stick figures, scribbles, arrows, these are visual marks predating anything our verbal language could say. Drawing is a communication mechanism used by artists, architects, mathematicians, and careers spanning far and wide. Drawing can be a tool for communication when there isn’t a common language. Where words fail, imagery prevails.

Examples from many moons ago. My dad was in Paris when he was approached by a French man hoping to send his love letters to his girlfriend in New York. Their language barrier was much less of a barrier once they began drawing.

Comprehension

Comprehension is where doodling takes the stage. Doodling has been widely researched in its relation to comprehend and remember information. Published in the Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, researchers found people that doodle find it upwards of 29% easier to recall dull information, than people that do not doodle. There is much more time to daydream when you’re not doodling. In class, during lectures, or in meetings are great times to doodle.

“Few of us can effectively take point-by-point linguistic notes while listening to people talk, because the auditory information competes with the written information. But visual attention is like a learning loophole; it doesn’t compete with what we hear. That’s why doodling in school can actually help you learn.” -Sunni Brown

Comprehension activity: Sketchnoting can be thought of as purposeful doodling or as a method of note taking. At the core, it is just that: taking notes though a series of synthesized thoughts using doodles of shapes, words, and connectors to help remember information later down the road. An article in Core77 wonderfully breaks down the parts of sketchnoting and is a great jumping off point for your first sketchnote experience.

Core 77 breaks sketchnoting down into 7 elements:

Text: meaningful points, quotes, and quips. Use typographic treatments to make important information pop.

Containers: enclosing ideas, words, icons, into one structure. This helps identify grouped information.

Connectors: Lines, arrows, visual indicators to show linked information.

Frameworks: Some presentations might have an obvious structure. Frameworks help you synthesize into your own underlying structure.

Icons: Icons help represent an idea as simply as possible.

Shading: Add emphasis and contrast to your notes with shading. Color: Once you’re ready, add color. This helps distinguish different information.

From EU’s first go at sketchnoting to a Ted Talk.

Drawing, sketching, doodling: the act of making an idea or thought visual. These are tools we’ve known our whole life and I argue valuable enough to be revisited. Put aside the intimidation of being good at “art”. Forget the preconceived notions that doodling is equivalent to being bored. Rethink how drawing can be used as a tool across all aspects of your team, not just the creatives.

~ Emily, Designer