ollie-studies

[ollie-studies]

hot take i know its fun to joke about it because how school systems have treated us all poorly and made us out to believe that we are stupid but none of you are stupid. none of you are stupid. there are so many types of intelligence and just because yours isnt the one that lets you excel in a broken system that doesnt mean youre stupid

[ollie-studies]

“When learning to draw anything,” animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston observe, “it is important that the artist go to the source. Afterward he can make any use of his knowledge that he chooses, but in the beginning he must study the real object. Nothing matches the learning that comes from feeling an animal’s bones and muscles and joints, to discover how they are put together and how far they can move in any direction; it is always surprising.”

[ollie-studies]

vaguely academic things to do to keep yourself entertained

go down a wikipedia research hole by clicking the first term you don’t understand

binge a crashcourse series end to end (personal recs: world history, history of science, big history, philosophy)

find free books on project gutenberg

download some western classics for free

borrow books and audiobooks from the libby app or borrowbox

start a commonplace book

take a khan academy course

browse MIT’s free online course materials

teach yourself to code

go on a google scholar essay dive

try the open access button to avoid some paywalls for academic media, or install unpaywall that does a similar thing

research the history of the place you where you live

tempt the wrath of the duolingo owl and learn a language

search for online streams of the local tv in your target language’s country and use as background noise for immersion points

print and scrapbook favourite poetry and literature quotes

improve your handwriting by doing handwriting exercises

learn philosophy with the philosophize this! podcast. actually just check out all the educational spotify podcasts there are many good ones

start a weekly club with friends to share new and interesting things you’ve learnt that week

clean and reorganise your study space, physical or digital

check out online museums

fave educational youtube channels that I adore: vsauce, crashcourse, smarter every day, kurzgesagt, school of life, tom scott, r. c. waldun, vsauce3, primer, mark rober, veritasium, asapSCIENCE, scishow, TED-ed

hopefully you’ll find something to enjoy! happy learning x

[ollie-studies]

Vibing writeblr asks

General:

Pineapple: What are a few foods that appear in your project?

Black and gold: Make a moodboard for a chapter

Cuffed jeans: What is the clothing style of your main character?

Polaroids: Paste an excerpt of some of your favourite descriptions you’ve written!

Yellow: Do you have a specific playlist you listen to while writing?

Galaxy: What is the main setting of your project?

Hiking: Does your project’s setting have any holidays?

Clear lip gloss: What is the social scene of your project?

Bullet journal: Do you have a Pinterest board for your project?

Character Specific:

(for these, you can either ask for a random character or pick a character from a wip!)

Gummy bears: Does the character have any jewellery special to them?

Rose sunglasses: Would the character go tanning with friends?

Striped shirts: Would they prefer hot cocoa, coffee or tea?

Surfing at dawn: What is something the character has always wanted to do?

Dark chocolate: Did they eat their veggies when they were little?

Friendship bracelets: What is their sense of humour?

Rain boots: What is their favourite kind of weather?

Snowy rooftops: Where would they love to go before they die?

[ollie-studies]

Learning in the Time of COVID-19

Going into university, I was so excited for the new opportunities to learn about things that I truly wanted to learn about. I stayed on top of things for the first couple of months, but then I slowly lost the enthusiasm that I wanted to have. Now, I’m really struggling to get anything done.

In the time of online learning, it’s incredibly hard to get and stay motivated, and I really feel as though I’ve lost my passion for education. At this point, I don’t feel as though I’m really learning - just trying to meet due dates. I want nothing more than to be able to go to my university’s library and study, but I’m stuck in my bedroom all day. When I’m with my parents, at home, rather than by myself in the city my university is, I’m constantly being pushed to do work every minute I’m awake. Again, I don’t feel like I’m learning, I feel like I’m making deadlines.

COVID-19 has taken so much joy from people’s lives, and I truly cannot wait for the time when we’re able to do the things we love again; when we’re able to reignite the passion we have for education.

[ollie-studies]

i’ve been doing my homework on how to break into a writing career and honestly. there’s a Lot that i didn’t know about thats critical to a writing career in this day and age, and on the one hand, its understandable because we’re experiencing a massive cultural shift, but on the other hand, writers who do not have formal training in school or don’t have the connections to learn more via social osmosis end up extremely out of loop and working at a disadvantage. 

[ollie-studies]

if you could talk about your world building that would be great thank u!

i'm like, writing this mostly in terms of dnd but this can also apply to just, general worldbuilding imo. i'd recommend having a separate document for each one of these points or honestly like, even more, especially if you're using word or google docs. tbh onenote is probably the best way to do this, but i also don't like the layout of onenote so i don't use it lmao

warning: this is long but i don’t want to put it under a readmore bc i actually think these is valuable tips for any dm or worldbuilder.r

1) you need a dump document. mine is called 'ZAEKATA BIG LEVEL LORE' and it's just basically wheree you can put everything that pops into your head that you save for later and just, the big concepts of how the universe works. the sections i have on this doc range from 'big vague lore and ideas for continents and countries', 'here's how the gods work', 'dragon time', to 'times of worship in abeza', 'architectural styles of the world', 'campaign ideas,' and 'random cool fantasy name drop'

tldr, it's a great place to just have ideas on the page and not have to worry about them making sense but just, have a big document where all of your ideas live. it is probably the document you will hunt through the 20 pages of to find that one sentence idea you want to revisit. 

2) organizing how the fuck the world and your landmasses and continents work. i think there are a few things on the giant macro continental and country level that are essential to have a vague idea of how they function that you can refer to. i recently created a chart of it to work out for all of my continents but before i put the screenshot of that in i'll explain the segments. 

terrain and climate features. you gotta figure out like, how the land works, is it a desert are there forests, where are the mountains, is there a cool fantasy crystal wasteland? knowing what type of biomes and ecosystems are on each continent is important, it's going to be a major touchstone on what monsters live there, what races, and what cultures develop.

pantheon. what the fuck the gods like. are there gods? how are they organized. in my world specifically, i have a lot of different types of gods and then different pantheons for different cultures and on some continents there are even multiple major pantheons. write down what you know about the gods and how they work. it doesn't need to be super detailed just baseline info about it.

civilizations / people. what kinds of people live there. what are the countries or regions and who lives there. again, doesn't really have to be detailed it just has to be names.

conflict. this is the most important thing especially when worldbuilding for dnd in my opinion. you want there to be points of contention and issues going on in every region of the world whether it's a dragon terrorizing townsfolk, or a clandestine organization plotting to kill the king. you always want there to be a problem for a party of heroes to solve should you decide to run a game or a oneshot in that area. 

3) regions in depth. this is when you're narrowing in on what a Country or Region is like and can even be applied to cities to a degree. I'll pop my template for it after I explain the sections. 

geography. pretty self explanatory and sort of like in the macro-organization phase but go into more depth. name specific landmarks and think about what the weather is like as well. 

politics. how is the region run? what's the governmental structure and what are the issues at play. how does society function.

economy & trade. how these bitches livin? are they poor or is it a rich area, what do they trade with other regions, what resources do they have?

history. how did this place come to be. this can be relatively sparknote-y and focus on key events so it doesn't go on forever but that's also your choice.

culture and customs. what is the culture like? architecture? food? entertainment? how do people interact with each other and what makes them unique.

intellectual, arts, military. this also goes into magic a bit too like. how technologically or magically advanced is this place, what styles of art do they like, what do they do for fun? i’d also stick like, universities in this category. and then of course what sort of military force they have and are they willing to use it. 

4) god time. i have a few rules for developing gods that i try to stick to but the concepts are sort of based on my interpretation of how dnd gods should work (including my very complicated 5 types of god system) but the part before my little lore template i make that's important to me is that i believe gods shouldn't be explicitly evil. i think it's lazy. i think gods should be just as interesting and multifaceted as other npcs or even pcs and have goals and motivations. they don't just sit around with nothing to do deciding to bless clerics they like. here's what my template for god building looks like

mechanical information. aka what's necessary for this to be a god that functions in dnd. alignment, name, epithets, symbols, the concepts they are the god of, the cleric domains they match with, and how they are worshipped/holy days.

relevance, knowledge, and motivations. how important are they going to be in your game or in the grand scale of the universe. how much do they know about the world and things going on (particularly relevant to a campaign). what do they want and what are their goals.

characteristics. what do they look like and how do they act. important for fleshing out in case you ever actually play them and to help your players decide whether it's a good fit for a god for their cleric. 

powers and abilities. this is like. a weird vague one but like. if you actually had to SAY how much they can control about the world and influence what they can do if they really want to. examples include: creating tidal waves, earthquakes, taking people's memories away, etc. 

affiliates. who do they know mortal or not. how do they relate with other gods, what mortals do they favor and the nature of their relationship with them.

history. again, more sparknotey but like, the lore and mythos behind the deity. 

5) npcs. this is again i just have like, a little chart for how i build out npcs and i'll share the why of it and a screenshot of a template. i don't think you need to be super in depth on npcs but i also think this method does help flesh them out. i'd also recommend making your own document for storing npcs you’ve created, they come in handy later.

role. what's their important and what the fuck are they doing. examples include: shopkeep or the king of a wholeass country. this section just basically explains when you're going to have to use them and what for.

skills / powers / abilities. look. if this npc is a shopkeep maybe u want to give them a higher dc against thievery or even a lower one based on their personality. if they'e a powerful knight you might wanna shove a mini statblock in here (it's possible i've done it)

characteristics. appearance and personality. can be as in depth or brief as you want. also if you think it's necessary a bit of personal history.

knowledge and relevance. this is what they know about the world and why you want to interact with them. what information can they tell your players and are they the essential quest npc or just, fun bonus content in the city. 

anyway this is super long but this is probably like. a lot of how i think about worldbuilding and try to organize it for myself! i hope it's reasonably helpful :)

[ollie-studies]

Pauline’s book recs : a MASTERPOST

Shit, it’s 2020 and I’ve updated this Behemoth again. There’s both old and new in here. If you’re having problems with links overlapping, it is most likely the app/dashboard glitching—try the permalink version, and everything should work out, even on mobile. And of course, HAVE FUN.

Ressources : where to find books online?

CLASSICAL LITERATURE (ANTIQUITY) Where should I start? The fundamental works Where should I start? The mythology-oriented works Where should I start? Mythology, but make it non-greek Where should I start? The translation edition A very touristic overview of Ancient Greek literature Different texts for Antigone Different texts for Elektra  Different texts and translations for The Odyssey

CLASSIC [? who cares] BOOKS (ALL ERAS) First things first : a few favourites And works in translation : a few more favourites Where should I start? My first classics A very touristic overview of literature reading Modern classics Reading women : a few favourites ; wait, much more Reading men : a few favourites Children literature : a few favourites ; more Experimental literature Where should I start? English and US literature  Where should I start? Modern Italian literature Where should I start? German and Austrian literature Where should I start? Russian literature Where should I start? Irish literature I’m terribly unknowledgeable about? Japanese literature Where should I start? Renaissance literature Where should I start? French literature for intermediate level Where should I start? French Medieval literature Where should I start? Victorian literature Where should I start? Contemporary literature Reading classics to children Children literature for adults (?) A bit of myth, a bit of fairy tale Short-length classics ; more here Short stories One last thing: books I don’t want to check out

POETRY First things first : a few favourites Second things second : a bunch of recs Where should I start? Poetry Learning French? Easy French poetry Lesbian French poetry Russian poetry : a few favourites Narrative poems ; much more Mystic poems Poems about separation Poems about love Poems about happiness Poems about exile Poems about poetry

DRAMA First things first : a few favourites

NON-FICTION First things first : a few favourites ; more recent On feminism (it’s old) On translation On literary analysis and adaptation  On first-level literary analysis and French movements On biographies and diaries ; more here ; and more? On writing theory and another one On art history On reader-response theory Very lacking, but on female history On witches On Sufism Literary interviews Essays

YEARLY SUMMARY Best of 2018 : Prose Summary of 2018 Best of 2017 : Fiction Best of 2017 : Poetry Best of 2016 : Fiction Best of 2016 : Poetry 2016 Summer reading list 2015 - 2016 awaited releases Best of 2015 : Fiction Best of 2015 : Poetry

THEMATIC LISTS By character Works featuring Persephone Works featuring Kassandra Works featuring male protagonists written by women Works featuring the House as a character Works featuring mermaids Works featuring the femme fatale archetype Works featuring female villains Works with Nature as a character Works with supernatural entities as a human double Works with introspective characters Works with narcissistic characters Romances featuring softer male protagonists Trope : Star-crossed lovers Trope : Friends to lovers Trope : Villainous love Trope : Toxic mother figure Trope : adaptating Beauty and the Beast Trope : adaptating Bluebeard By theme LGBTQ+ (a terribly old and lacking list) Books taking place in a single building Books taking place in one House Books taking place in a high school Books about seeing into the Future Books by the sea (and the few pirates) Books set in Paris Books about girlhood Books about introspection and self-discovery Books about melancholy and sadness Books about happiness and hope Books with symbolism and atmosphere Books about moral corruption and spiritual decadence Books about sex politics and philosophy Books about the female rage Books about or taking place during World War I Books featuring suicides Poems for mothers Poems about poetry Great love stories Unusual love stories Idealised, bittersweet love ; more By genres Rewriting Greek and Roman myths Rewriting Fairy Tales ; and again Writing and rewriting Arthuriana Favourites free-to-play text-based games Gothic and neo-gothic Southern Gothic Magical realism Dystopias Young Adult Horror novels (but check the gothic instead) Crime novels Medieval historical fiction Just, like, sappy stuff

By context Beach reading Travel reading Halloween reading (spooky!) Winter reading Summer reading ; another Lockdown reading (you can still ask!) By book Books similar to The Secret History Books similar to Wuthering Heights ; again Books similar to A Grief Observed Books similar to The Brothers Karamazov Books similar to On Being Ill Books similar to Eros the Bittersweet Books similar to Dracula Excerpts similar to Dido and Aeneas parting in the Aeneid Recommended editions of Romeo and Juliet Recommended editions of Shakespeare’s Sonnets Recommended editions of Wuthering Heights Recommended translations of Tristan and Yseult Lit criticism on Dorian Gray Lit criticism on Sonnets to Orpheus Books adapted to the screen (1) Books adapted to the screen (2) By author Favourite French writers Favourite Contemporary writers What to read? By Women French writers What to read? By Anne Carson (And some prep reading for Anne Carson) What to read? By Richard Siken What to read? By Roland Barthes What to read? By Agatha Christie What to read? By E. A. Poe What to read? By Daphné du Maurier What to read? By Sylvia Plath What to read? By Priya Sarukkai Chabria What to read? By Hélène Cixous What to read? On and by Branwell Brontë If you love Anne Carson If you love Angela Carter  If you love Louise Glück  If you love Virginia Woolf  If you love Sylvia Plath  If you love Marguerite Duras If you love Emile Zola If you love Colette

[ollie-studies]

the sexual tension between me and my prophetic dreams

[ollie-studies]

bullshit-free guide to actually fucking writing your wip

disclaimer: this isn’t a fool proof method. when it comes to writing advice and techniques for productivity I say keep an open mind, but take what works for you and leave the rest. 

disclaimer 02: this is more or less for people who want to eventually publish, but there may be elements in here that benefit hobby-writers.

Where & When You Write

Some people will tell you that your writing routine needs to be sacred. I don’t quite believe that. You can absolutely curate a space for yourself that you aim to write in, but at the same time, focusing very strongly on the ritual of writing makes it hard to create an adaptable habit. 

The Writing Zone: 

Your desk or table should face away from your bed, my mother always swore by that and it stuck with me. If space doesn’t allow for that, consider putting furniture or some partition up so you can’t see your bed. For some reason, this makes focusing easier. 

For those of you who may be bedridden or have limited space, a good bed-desk is absolutely just as acceptable (I am actually planning to get one). 

If you have a space separate from your bedroom, the follow applies as well: 

Eliminate as much distraction as possible from your desk. Your experience of distraction is unique so do what you gotta do to eliminate it. 

Make sure your space is well lit. Background light is essential to avoid eyestrain when staring at a screen.

Your chair should be comfortable, and support your back. Scoot your ass all the way to the back of the chair and try sitting on your thighs as much as possible to take strain off your lower spine (my chiropractor told me this).

The Writing Time: 

You need to make time for your writing. Summer means the sunshine is waking me up at 5:45 AM and it’s too hot to doze comfortably so my ass is up and writing or reading until 7 AM when I gotta start getting reading for the day. If I have to catch the 10:15 AM bus, I’ve for about 4 hours to work with between waking up and leaving. 

I finished July 2019 Camp Nano by writing in the morning. And I’m not even a morning person, I swear.

Make time for you writing. If you can make a routine you can stick to, excellent, if you have a handful of 5-10 minute time-pockets— also okay! The 30 minutes your dinner is in the oven is just as good a time to write as any other.

How do you learn how to write in tiny time pockets, you ask, well here it is: Micro Writing Sprints and Macro Writing Sprints. The former applies to pockets of time under 15 mins, while the latter applies to pockets of time over 20 mins. All you have to do is set a timer and challenge yourself to write as much as you possibly can. 

Another thing to keep in mind is knowing your personal limits. If your attention suffers and you start to wander after 15 mins, keep your sprints to 5-10 minute blocks, and give yourself 5-15 min breaks where you get up, drink some water, move your body and then come back to your writing. 

Keep reading

[ollie-studies]

pretty great of Disney to make their holiday Ariel doll (unintentionally) in Hanukkah colours considering Howard Ashman was a gay Jewish man who influenced the overall direction of Ariel’s characterisation.

[ollie-studies]

online university is just *hasn’t been outside in three days* *absolute lack of spatial and temporal awareness* *tiktok break* *opens an email and forgets to respond* *pyjamas all day every day* *paces around room* *hopes your prof just thinks you’re in a different timezone when you submit an assignment at 4am* *unlimited tea* *bathroom breaks every hour* *no clear divide between free time and school* *looks out window longingly*

[ollie-studies]

Hey, if you guys like Goodreads but hate how awkward it can be to find books that interest you on the site, then there’s this new site called Storygraph that has a MUCH better recommendation algorithm.

You can even import your Goodreads data into it, so you won’t lose a thing!

[ollie-studies]

Treasure Planet visual development by Francis Glebas (x)

[ollie-studies]

C.L Polk author of the award winning book WitchMark.

I think this is important to share since so many posts on tumblr say you have to write everyday. All advice needs to read critically. Will it work for you? Will it not? If not, ignore it and move on. If it does, great. Use the hell out of it!

[ollie-studies]

This Is How You Actually Take Notes In College, Bitches

it’s occurred to me that nobody fuckin knows how to take notes in classes and most advice about it is bad. What the fuck are “key words?”

So anyway here’s how I’ve gotten a’s in all my classes in college so far

I’m not gonna bother too much with telling you to take notes in class. Everyone knows that shit. But most people’s note taking skills suck ass and there are two main types of sucking ass I have observed

The first is the one where your notes look like a list of key terms and words. Sometimes they are underlined or there are dashes that connect them to other words. So if your prof was talking about Henry VIII you’d write down something like

Henry VIII

Church of England—divorce

DON’T DO THAT. Those words are gonna show up on the test, sure, but writing them down isn’t gonna help you with the test. What the fuck does any of that mean? High school is shit and your “key words” can’t help you now.

Here’s the other type of bad note taking:

It was necessary for Henry VIII to have a male heir who could succeed him, but his wife was unable to conceive a son. The Catholic Church

I stopped writing there because your professor moved on to something else. But, tbh, even if you can write fast enough to keep up with the content of the lectures (and you can’t for the entire lecture) it’s not helpful to have a solid wall of Everything That Was Covered In The Lecture, in grammatically correct complete sentences. Are you gonna read that shit again? No!

And honestly most people have like, sentences here and there that look important instead of the whole lecture. Which is also bad.

So what’s the not shitty way to take notes? It comes down to these principles:

Shorthand

Show Relationships of Things

These kind of go together

I cannot emphasize enough that you don’t need to write sentences like a normal person. Shorthand everything, and I don’t mean some fucked up studying shorthand you just came up with like “AmR” for American Revolution, I mean like...fuckin text/memespeak. Don’t write complete sentences, completely abandon formality. Abbreviate anything you would in a text message, you know what it means.

HOWEVER: You Must Show How Things Are Related To Things

To understand broad concepts you gotta understand how the things in them are related to other things.

That’s why writing down “Henry VIII” and “Church of England” isn’t gonna help you, because you’re not learning that there is a Church of England.

Did Henry VIII burn the Church of England? Cheat on his wife with it? Who knows? Definitely not you.

This is why you have to connect stuff like

Catholic Church says no divorce

Henry VIII—starts Church of England

But ya know you can make that more memorable AND more clearly show how one thing caused the other

Henry VIII: divorce >:)

Catholic Church: no

Henry VIII: fuk u *church of england*

I’m completely dead serious about this, this kind of slang is very good at indicating exactly how things relate to things in zero time and you know exactly what it means and you’ll remember it

But furthermore

You have to come up with shorthand to quickly indicate how things are related. Say you write down the definitions of two terms for like, opposing theories on government in class. That’s great but you’re leaving it to yourself to work out the opposing part later from what you write, and your brain’s a flaky bitch.

Like part of what you’re doing it giving yourself help with HOW to study your notes later.

So like. Do something like write a jagged line in between the definitions, indicating conflict. Write “OTOH” or “HOWEVER” in between in big fuckin letters. Writing down “Catholic Church” and what that is and “Church of England” and what that is, is fine. But like, if the main theme is the contrast between the two, “Catholic Church HOWEVER Church of England” immediately tells you the basicest basics. It’s like a tiny outline, telling you what to expect. Sure, you can figure it out reading your notes but I’m telling you how to write skimmable notes that you can glean stuff from even when you’re half spaced out and shit, okay?

Same thing for like, dates and sequences and cause-and-effect and stuff. Even if you’ve got the dates down...be sure to put arrows or something so even at a glance you’ve got basically what’s going on.

Also i know it feels like wasting paper but DONT scrunch all your notes together into small space on the paper. That lil dialogue between Henry and the Church of England is spread out over 3 lines which means if you have ADHD like me you can actually fuckin read it. Turn things into bullet lists. Indent things with little arrows to show things leading to things. If there’s a clear move to a new topic, new page. If you’re actually filling up the paper all the way that shits hard to read and it’s even harder to pick out the Big Important Stuff.

Last word of advice: If you end up like writing down two things and can’t tell what they’re for or how they’re related to each other...ASK QUESTIONS. Like “I’m sorry can you explain how the Church of England is related to the Catholic Church? I didn’t quite catch that.” If talking in class makes you feel like you might be percieved badly, you can frame it like a Nerd Question “So, what kind of relationship would you say the Church of England and the Catholic Church had?” or just play it off like you didn’t hear it like “I’m sorry, what was that last thing you said about the Church of England and the Catholic Church?”

Or just make a mark on your notes to remind yourself that you need more info and to go to your prof’s office to ask questions. I would really not be nervous about that, professors normally really like it when students show that they really want to succeed in the class and that they care. Unless they’re like, a complete dickhead, in which case, fuck what they think, right? You’re gonna ask questions and it’s their problem because you’re essentially paying them for your presence in the class.

So...yeah.

[ollie-studies]

You ever write too hard and you just gotta stare at your word doc thinking about Your own characters like