Bookblock Custom Notebooks

I have some snazzy new custom notebooks after winning a Twitter competition hosted by Natasha Nuttall (of Graphique Fantastique) and Bookblock a while ago! Look at these beauties! I love the shape and size and sturdy feel of these notebooks, and I love the way the page markers have been colour-matched to my designs (you can choose the elastic band and ribbon colours yourself).

I wanted to make some silly and colourful designs that looked quite doodle-y, and look at how cool the spines look with dashes of colour on them. Spines are important and great. I wanted the colour and humour and gestural feel to kinda inspire a lucid and happy feeling, because y'know, the way your notebook looks and feels probably influences you a lot when you're using it, right?

Also, I just love socks and need to express that sentiment more or less constantly.

Bookblock's custom notebooks are made in partnership with their sister company, Monsieur Notebook, which I'm mostly mentioning because it means there is a tiny face with a moustache and monocle to greet you on the front inside cover. I presume this is the eponymous and (hopefully) beneficent Monsieur Notebook himself. He seems like a nice man.

I am really looking forward to writing a thousand awful limericks about sharks in these cute and lovely notebooks very soon. If you would like to have fun designing one of your own, you can find Bookblock's custom originals page here.

My Top 5 Favourite Games

Video games, am I right? I'm right. Here are five of them. Let's say these are the five games I'd currently choose to accompany me on a desert island. Let's also assume that said desert island has plug sockets.

Skyrim

I love Skyrim because: I have a demon horse, I enjoy kicking pots and pans over, I like when dead dragons spawn above my head and fall on me, and I love eating a thousand sweet rolls in one go. The expansive open world and the endless mythology and hidden old ghosts with grudges in caves are all so engrossing and brilliant. Also I like shooting loads of arrows into Belethor's face

Pokémon Heart Gold & Soul Silver

I think these were some of the best games in the franchise. They were perfectly crafted remakes of the original Gold and Silver (which would be my first choice if not for these remakes), and your Pokémon would follow you around like in Yellow. That's the number one thing I'd like to see as a fixture in future Pokémon games because wow, that's cute. Also it's fun to have a huge Snorlax behind you. The Johto and Kanto combination was also really cool and did a lot to make the game feel bigger and better.

Final Fantasy VII

This game is so dense and weird and psychologically effective and silly in all the right places. I have replayed it so many times and I never stop wanting to replay it either. I love the music, the atmosphere, the lore, and all the little extras slotted in everywhere. If I had to only play one game for the rest of my life, it would probably be this.

Spyro the Dragon

Sarcastic young dragon? All the big dragons encased in crystal? Those egg stealer guys? Many extremely shiny gems? Sign me up. This is another game with an incredible soundtrack, and the sense of humour in both this and Crash Bandicoot were probably the most important elements to the games. This is the most wholesome and fun game.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

No game series is as tranquil and lovely as Animal Crossing. Once you get invested in your town and villagers it feels as if you have built a real community. It feels as if you have real cute animal neighbours to go and visit every day (without actually moving). I think this game is really good for my mood, and oddly gives me a sense of importance because I know my villagers will miss me when I'm gone. It's astounding how much of a real emotional connection it's possible to have with these characters - even the snooty ones!

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So those are my favourites at the moment. It will be interesting to see how this list changes in the future, as a bunch of these games are games I've been playing over fifteen years, but Skyrim and Animal Crossing: New Leaf were relatively new discoveries. I'm also really looking forward to seeing how the Final Fantasy VII remake turns out.

Journal: Scribbles & Suns

Here are some scribbly journal pages I did recently. These feel like some of the greatest representations of my journal ever, because there's a pureness to the scribbling. This is me at my most me, possibly. I'm a big scribble with a name.

I always worry a little bit about how stuff will bleed through to the next or previous page, but really I think it just adds a textural depth and character, because the pages have a relationship with each other. The back of a page is important. It's the sense of each page as part of a series and overall journal, and that comes through in a particular way with the bleeding ink. It's kinda like how skin is only one layer on the body, when as a whole the way we look depends on every part together to make the shape and texture.

Scribbles are a metaphor for everything and that's part of why I love them in all their chaos. Moons and suns and scribbles.

Diary: Games & Paint

I have been very video games this week. I installed Steam for the first time in years. I think the first time I didn't exactly understand it and I wasn't that interested, but now I love it. I've also been doing lots of stuff in Animal Crossing: New Leaf because I'm determined to do my best to get all the badges.

I also finished a journal and started a new one, and I've been painting a bit (a nice amount). I'm gonna use up all my journals and sketchbooks and notebooks (including my second Wreck It Journal) one by one. I'm gonna do it!

On the weekend I visited a market and I ate a big scotch egg and drank some cherry beer which was so delicious. It was sunny and sweaty and then suddenly the rain poured down. Luckily I managed to mostly dodge it.

It's been a really nice week and I feel very sleepy and content and calm. Please distract me from video games so I can calm down and have a nice dream about whatever the opposite of video games is.

Fruit Salad & Paint Palettes

I have some strange faded hair at the moment with patches of pink and orange, so I look a little bit like a lost and abandoned Fruit Salad (I reference those sweets way too often here - I didn't realise they were so influential to me).

I've realised this Totoro is about as big as my head. What does this mean? Well nothing, but it made me feel that Totoro should sit on my shoulder like a parrot and influence all my decision-making. That sounds like a strong life plan to me.

Anyway, I took these pictures absent-mindedly because I wanted to take some pictures, and it's always nice to do a blog post this way. I always like when a hair dye is fading out because it has this nice, gentle hue to it. I am looking forward to having my natural hair colour completely back though.

Here's my desk (it's not really a desk, but I use it a desk, so it's sort of a desk) in a medium level state of mess. This table sits right by my bed, so I like to keep a book there so I'm being subliminally encouraged to read at all times. You might also notice my use of a notebook page as a paint palette. I like to do that because I like to record my paint palette for a particular painting session sometimes. My paint palettes are almost preferable to any of my actual paintings. They're like fingerprints. Always different and interesting.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Journal #3

Hello and welcome back to my adventures in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, where I am always compelled to stop filling rooms with crude drawings of celebrities. Trust me, it will be the new interior design trend in a few years.

Anyhow, Isabelle and I are here setting up a new restaurant, kitchen and all.

Setting all this up made me feel peckish. Look at those chef hats though! So cute.

I've been decorating a bunch of places lately (and I'm not going to catalogue everything in this journal - it will just be an occassional snapshot), so let me show you a few. This is the lobby of our department store.

There are a lot of seats for busy shoppers to rest on. You're not really supposed to nap here, but I guess these villagers just can't be stopped.

Here's the café on the first floor of the department store. A nice and cosy little place.

And here's the meeting room on the top floor of my delightful office building. I've ensured that there are lots of snacks available.

It's finally time to focus on building a new resident house, however, for Ava here, who wants a nice kitchen.

She gave me these items to work with (what's a girl without her basket of eggs, eh?) and I got to work creating a cosy kitchen and a nice little living room for her.

She looks very pleased with the final result.

Next up, Isabelle and I are about to work on a concert hall. How exciting! Ava's invited me round for some poached eggs first though, so y'know, priorities.

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Why I Love Rinoa Heartilly

I spent some time watching an LP of Final Fantasy VII recently and I started thinking about which character I related to most, both from that game (probably Cloud) and from the larger series. My mind pretty much instantly shot to Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII, which was a little surprising for me.

Rinoa concept art.

Rinoa irritates me somewhat for the oft-cited reasons, like her early-game entitlement and general whininess. She's a bit... extra. However, I think her character is a really well-constructed exploration of the foibles of a girl born into a priveliged household (as daughter of General Caraway) and simultaneously what appears like quite a stifling and restrictive childhood for her in this political and military atmosphere. Her resultant activism with the Forest Owls is impulsive and shoddy as a testament to her need to escape from this kind of tortured familial setting. She's erratic and somewhat demanding because she's vulnerable and neglected. Her activist group friends Zone and Ward are ultimately quite relaxed in demeanour (despite Zone's stomach cramps), but she remains high strung and defensive.

I think all of that is really well expressed and as a result she is at first a grating character, but to me still a relatable one. I think where I see a commonality with myself is in her expression of an insecurity which manifests itself in this sense of determination. She doesn't give up, and she gets frustrated at other people easily because she really wants to make things happen. She really wants to carve out her life and know herself, and ultimately be a good and happy person, I think, and the game allows her to soften and accept to some extent that carving out a life and doing the right thing and being successful is about trust. Just as Squall has to learn to trust other people and stop trying to rely completely on himself, Rinoa has to learn to trust that other people are capable and can protect and care about her. She also has to learn that life's unpredictability and the resulting powerlessness is survivable.

More concept art.

I have a lot of feelings about Rinoa and I think she's such a great mix of grumpy, determined, melodramatic, desperate, stubborn, cute, silly, inexperienced, loving, and many other things. She's an intensely emotional character, and I resonate with that so much, even when she is being The Worst™.