Love Doodles

Shirley: Oh, it's a drawing of Abed with hearts all around it.
Troy: I didn't draw that. I bought that used. Must have been whoever had it last.
Annie: Obviously, it's a girl who has a crush on Abed. This is so romantic.

— Community, "Physical Education"

This character is madly in love. How does the author of the story show it to the audience? One possibility is to have them doodle their beloved's name and symbols of love.

It often includes Mrs./Mr. Crush's Lastname, both names in a Cardiovascular Love-type Heart Symbol, initials plus initials equals love, banal love rhymes, hearts struck by arrows or Umbrella of Togetherness. The person they are crushing on has no idea they're an object of their affection. It can also involve even more daydreaming, like doodling about one's Celeb Crush or Perverse Sexual Lust.

The person in love is likely to be doodling in a random piece of paper, in a diary or a journal. It's a way of expressing one's feelings privately, in a place nobody else is intended to see what they drew or wrote. Except for one's closest friends. If the journal with the drawings gets lost, the character gets embarrassed and ashamed. No one is supposed to see those silly, kind of embarrassing doodles, but to drive the plot further, it often happens that someone is going to see it.

Sweetie Graffiti is a sister trope. Unlike doodles, graffiti is public, and as such, it is almost always the result of two lovers wanting to express their love publicly and permanently. They document their childhood or teen love on walls, or they carve the symbols on a tree or pole.

Compare Secret Diary.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In GO-GO Tamagotchi! Episode 3b, during class, Neenetchi notices Himespetchi doodling her crush Mametchi.
• While at the pens section of a stationary store to buy school supplies for Kanna in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Tohru writes "I ♥ Kobayashi" several dozen times on a piece of scrap paper. Kobayashi is understandably creeped out.

Fan Works

• In this fanart for Call the Midwife, Dr Turner doodles various stuff, like Shelagh + Patrick 4ever, S.T. (initials of her married name) in a heart, Mrs Patrick Turner or Shelagh Turner.

Film — Animated

• Charlotte: Charlotte's attraction to Alfred Wolfsohn is first hinted when she is doodling his face in her notebooks after their first meeting.
• Angie's Establishing Character Moment in Shark Tale is her doodling her love for Oscar.
• In Shrek 2, Shrek finds an old diary of Fiona's in which she drew doodles about Prince Charming, including page after page of "Mrs. Fiona Charming".
• Famously, in Turning Red, Meilin Lee develops a crush on a convenience store cashier, and secretly draws a bunch of pictures of him — some of which depict him shirtless — in her notebook.

Film — Live-Action

• In Mean Girls, when Regina wants Aaron to believe that Cady is obsessed with him, she (falsely) claims that among other things, Cady wrote "Mrs. Aaron Samuels" all over her notebook.
• The Patsy: Pat is desperately in love with Tony, her sister's boyfriend. She keeps scribbling his name everywhere. She writes it in the condensation on a bathroom mirror. She carves it on a bar of soap!
• In Splendor in the Grass, Deanie spends one class period doodling in her notebook instead of paying attention. She writes her boyfriend's name over and over again, surrounded by hearts and in cursive as if in a wedding invitation.
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before: Love doodles (pictures of hearts, love letters, lovey-dovey smiley faces and boys' names written in cursive) are used for one poster of the movie. Appropriate for a movie about a girl who stores her secret letters to her crushes which she never sent.

Literature

• Animorphs: An early story has Cassie and Rachel infiltrate their teacher's house to retrieve a doodle Cassie accidentally turned in with her test, featuring, according to Rachel, "a heart with the words 'Cassie loves Jake' and a really dorky cupid". Thankfully they're able to grab the offending item and leave before humiliation ensues (although Rachel insists that as Cassie's best friend, she won't say anything like "Awww, isn't that sweet?" or "Cassie is in lo-o-o-ve, Cassie is in lo-o-o-ve").
• Gravity Falls: Journal 3: Dipper's entry based on "Into the Bunker" shows Dipper's lingering feelings for Wendy with a romantic profile-picture of her. A similar picture of Pacifica Northwest in the entry on "Northwest Mansion Mystery" hints Dipper has feelings for her.
• Harry Potter: Teenage James Potter writes Lily Evans' initials inside a drawing of a snitch in Order of the Phoenix. He's in love with her.

Live-Action TV

• The Big Bang Theory: In "The Boyfriend Complexity", Penny pretends to get back together with Leonard because he's the only boyfriend her father has ever approved of and her father is visiting. Leonard, still in love with her and greatly amused by the situation, suggests that she has been "dreamily doodling 'Mrs. Leonard Hofstadter' in a notebook" while Penny appears increasingly not-amused.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine, "Boyle's Hunch": Detective Charles Boyle falls madly in love with a woman named Genevieve. At work, he doodles lovey-dovey stuff and shows the picture to his best friend Jake, who assumes it's their wedding invitation. It's actually a picture of their joint tombstone.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "The Prom", Angel finds one of Buffy's school notebooks in his mansion which has "Angel & Buffy 4 Ever!" doodled on it. In this case, it's meant to serve as a reminder of the age difference between the teenaged Buffy and Angel who's over 200 at this point. Moments after he finds the book, Buffy's mother arrives to have a conversation with him about how that age gap is going to affect Buffy's future.
• The Community episode "Physical Education" has the study group discover a doodle of Abed in one of their textbooks and go about tracking down the previous owner. They help Abed build up his confidence to ask her out. He does and gets accosted by her boyfriend who looks just like him, only Caucasian.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In a "Dear Diary" promo, Claudia draws hearts around the name of her Love Interest Charlie.
• Wizards of Waverly Place: Exaggerated with Alex's crush on Dean. Being an artist, her diary wasn't just filled with doodles — she drew herself a fairy-tale world in which Dean is a hero and she's a princess, which she uses magic to go into. Hilarity Ensues when, of course, this Secret Diary gets found by the Alpha Bitch.

Video Games

• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Sol's friendship with Nomi is high enough, the former can catch the latter drawing in secret, which they hide from them in sheer embarrassment. Nomi later posts it online, which is a drawing of their Legends of Avamar character embracing their partner as they ride a unisaur together, with hearts surrounding them both.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Karane, one of the senior students at the Skyloft Knight Academy, is completely smitten with the good-hearted top student, Pipit. If Link inspects the desk in her room at the academy, he can find a book where Karane has drawn a doodle of Pipit's face with a heart below.

Web Comics

• In The Order of the Stick, Minrah, a cleric of Thor, seems to view her god as something of a Celebrity Crush, and she mentions once that "every follower" grew up writing his name with hearts around it in her notebook.
• In Weak Hero, Lily doodles Gray's likeness into her notebook while admiring him from afar. She hurts her hand slamming the book shut when her friend nearly sneaks a peek.

Web Videos

• Dad: At the very beginning of "Dad Loves Mom", there's a brief shot of Dad writing in a notebook, which is filled with hearts and his wife's name written down repeatedly. It's enough to fill an entire page.
• Manic Pixie Dream Wife: At work, Chance realizes he's falling for his boss Serenity when he doodles her name and some heart shapes.
• The Nostalgia Chick: In episode "City of Angels", Nostalgia Chick is seen doodling love symbols in regards to her crush Todd in the Shadows.

Western Animation

• In Hey Arnold!, Helga is often seen drawing love doodles about Arnold whom she crushes on.
• In "The Ned-Liest Catch" of The Simpsons, Edna falls in love with widowed Ned Flanders. At the end of their Falling-in-Love Montage, she's seen drawing little doodles of Ned's ripped body or an angel with Ned's head and writing 'Neddy' or 'Cupid Flanders' and similar stuff all over her sheet of paper.

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