Rajani’s Home Above the Desert (Character Entry)

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With the entirety of the ground level devoted to the lamp shop, living space is limited to the second floor. Even so, a large portion of that space is allotted to Rajani, with both the main living area and what was once one of the modest bedchambers converted into a large single room divided by a waist-level half wall. His father, meanwhile, claims the other small bedroom at the opposite end of the hallway.

Rajani’s room is colorful and inviting, with bright, intricate fabrics draped across the walls and many colorful lanterns suspended from the corners of the ceiling. Their soft glow illuminates the assortment of stained glass that rests against the high narrow windows — and when the sun shines, it casts rainbows onto the floor. Several fluffy pillows lay scattered on the floor, encircling a low table with several half-burned candles and an intricately carved incense burner gathered at its center.

Against the half-wall divider, a number of wooden crates sit stacked upon each other to create shelves, which hold a number of interesting items. These include books, small painted figures, interesting stones, small bowls full of beads and baubles, and a number of mementos from places Rajani has never been, personally, but which have been gifted to him by a number of customers and business associates.

Above the divider hangs a colorful curtain made of stringed together beads — an attempt at privacy, since neither the sitting area nor the entrance to the sleeping area have doors in place to separate them from the rest of the house. This is not uncommon in the region Rajani calls home.

Stepping into the bedroom proper means stepping onto the plush, intricately woven rug that is laid out to soften the tile floor. It is largely shades of purple, decorated along its border with geometric golden patterns. Here, too, the walls are decorated with colorful fabrics, and lanterns of many shapes and sizes hang from the ceiling. Pressed up against this side of the dividing wall, and taking up much of the floorspace with its size, is a large bed resting upon a low wooden frame. It’s covered in more pillows and blankets than most anyone could ever want, especially in this desert region.

At the foot of the bed rests a heavy wooden trunk, its top carved with intricate designs depicting the moon in its various stages. Within this trunk is where Rajani keeps the majority of his clothing, with his sandals lined up on the floor along the front of it.

Finally, there are the windows. Unlike the smaller ones in the other room, made simply to let in a bit of light rather than for providing a view outside, these ones are large, spanning from above Rajani’s head to about knee-level. There are three of them in the row, with a pair of thin golden curtains pulled aside to let the moonlight in. A single cushion rests upon the floor next to these windows — one of Rajani’s favorite places to sit and watch the desert city as it sleeps.
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It’s an unassuming place, not even a sign above the door to indicate that it’s there. There are posters in the window, sure, but in comparison to the loud advertisements of the stores around it, it may as well be invisible. But this is to its favour. Enough people know it’s there that there is always at least one customer, but it never feels busy. As every bookshop should be. It’s easy to lose yourself amongst the books, and since there are so few other people, there is little to pull you out of the experience.

The store is much longer than it is wide.The door and front desk are at one end of the store, and the duplicate books, hidden behind a purple curtain, are at the other. Between these two points, sit hundreds of books. These books are not new. Most of them have been read at least once, some of them multiple times. Some of them are dog-eared and yellowed, while others seem barely touched. Most of them stand upright, spines facing out, but sometimes the shopkeeper puts out a book that has an eye-catching cover on display. Sometimes the books are lying down, stacked on top of each other. This is partially to save space, and partially to break up the books on the shelves. Besides, it looks nice.

At first, the layout of the shop is confusing. There are seemingly endless aisles to your right, and if you don’t know what to look for, it can be easy to walk in and out of the same aisle four times. But in time, navigating the shop becomes second nature. There’s a certain reasoning behind placing the cookbooks next to the art books, and the biographies next to the anthropology books. And once you understand that five of the nine aisles contain non-fiction— the other four being general fiction T-Z, science fiction and fantasy, children’s books, and classics and westerns — the reasoning becomes obvious. Fiction always goes to your left, A-G in a small alcove, H-S on a long, unbroken shelf running to the end of the store.

Every aisle is incredibly narrow. Narrow enough that there is no point where two people can pass abreast of one another, without turning. It’s more common for one person to duck into an aisle to let the other person pass. Made narrower still by the boxes of donations the store receives, waiting to be sorted by a volunteer. There are more of these boxes hidden behind a white curtain by the front desk. And yet more stacked behind the front desk. Books are generally piled on the desk as well, to be priced and then shelved.

Being that the bookshop helps the local animal shelter, dogs are welcome inside. The most common visitor is Tilu, a three-legged pitbull puppy belonging to one of the higherups. Tilu has a tendency to make himself at home on one of the reading chairs placed at the mouth of the A-G alcove, where he can greet anyone who walks by.

There’s something about letting someone into your home that just feels so revealing.

It’s telling, what objects you choose or require to surround yourself with. If you’re lucky enough to have a home of you own, then sometimes it feels like the one thing in life you can most control. It’s a part of you, a look into your soul.

In this case my soul has rainbow fairy lights strung up across the door.

Quite honestly they were cheaper than getting more lamps but that’s neither here nor there. When you enter our apartment, the first thing you’ll likely see is the fairy lights- all colors, twinkling merrily as they’re strung across every wall and doorway. We do like being well lit, and if you come in during the day you’ll see the curtains to the balcony flung open, letting in the full force of the daylight sun. The living room is bright in the daytime, and we like it that way.

Maybe the post it notes catch your eye next. The wall directly across from you is hidden behind sheet after sheet of post it note, covering every inch of blank space. on that side of the room. Each post it note has been scribbled upon lovingly by a member of the household, each containing a quote, or inside joke, or doodle, that had taken place in the apartment. Here you see the soul of the apartment come through. Anything someone says or does is fair game for the quotes wall, and over time it has built into a pile of memories, something to read and smile over in ages past. Maybe you’ll look at your friends’ quotes and laugh at days gone by, or maybe you’ll look at your own and feel the warm glow of having been noticed, having been immortalized here on the quotes wall.

Perhaps the post it notes form the soul, but there is something to be said about the art as well. Oh dear me is there abundantly art. What white space was left over by the post it notes is covered floor to ceiling in art - one could scarcely believe there are walls underneath our ministrations. Depictions of fantasy scenes and beasts of mythical origins decorate the rest of the apartment. A fox in a forest strolls next to a dragon doing cartwheels in the sky. Then, a man surrounded by butterflies is pasted right next to a line of robins.

Oh yes, we like our world colorful. But even there the world does not stop. The living room you’ll see is piled high with board games and jigsaw puzzles. The board games are more lovingly reused, the jigsaw puzzles different by the day. And at the heart of it all, both puzzles and games simple bait to draw the real treasure to the apartment.

Laughter. Arguments. Conversations. Our friends lounge around the couches or the floors, one is ignoring everyone as he plays video games in the corner, another studies, but all are there. Our closest friends, our squad. Our family, when all comes down to it.

Perhaps I could have skipped all the rest in favor of those last two sentences. It is my friends, my squad, that makes this apartment so wonderfully a home. When I come home to them, I know I’m always welcomed and loved, even if I don’t always do the dishes in the sink, or maybe vacuum a little too early in the day. My squad is my home, is my safe space. Perhaps all the rest is just wall decor.

-Meesh

Obviously, there are a few fantasy elements I would love to have in this delightful domicile, such as the waterfall and floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. A girl can dream.
Otherwise, the general layout is the same, and there are a few choice features displayed here that really constitute who I am and what I like to do:

• Piano: Unfortunately, my piano is not an adorable, rose-gold, baby grand piano. However, I have been playing on my modest upright piano for more than ten years now. It’s one of my most central passions, and in my free time I will bust out some Beethoven or some more chill Chopin/Debussy. In the summer when the windows are open, the neighbors can hear my playing from across the street, and sometimes they compliment or criticize me when we next encounter each other. It’s actually a convenient conversation starter.

• Library: I always think back to that scene in *Beauty and the Beast* where Belle is shown to a vast library with endless shelves of books. I’ve always wanted to have a similar room, but funds just don’t permit it. Sigh.
  The local library will just have to suffice. I visit weekly to return and check out new books, or just to study. To me, the library is a much-needed place to simply imbibe the quiet ambiance.

• Kitchen: It looks like a little patisserie! Recently, I started getting into baking when I received a stand mixer as a gift from a friend. I’m still not quite proficient at the nuances of baking in general, but I’ve tried my hand at making bread, cake, cake pops cheesecake, cookies, et cetera. Mixing up and creating sweet goodies has an almost meditative effect for me, plus I get something to snack on for the following day.

Created with Habbo Hotel

I’m constantly around people. I have roommates, two of them. So the kitchen and the living room are not truly mine. At school, I’m constantlh surrounded by people. People in class, people in the library, they’re all over. There is one place I can truly call my own: my room.

My room isn’t very big, in fact it’s pretty small. But it has everything I need. My queen-sized bed is the prominent feature. With many, many blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals, it’s a haven for when I’m feeling stressed. The colors are mostly neutral with a pop of color here and there. A blue body pillow and a green body pillow rest on each side of the bed.

There’s a small, white bookshelf that holds all of my law books. The bottom two shelves are filled with them, while the top shelf holds all my dvds and Blu-rays. A TV used to sit on top, but now I have candles. The candles are lovely and bring me much more joy than the TV ever did.

Squished between the wall and my bed, tucked into the corner, there’s a study station. A small folding table and a folding chair sit with a mug filled with pens, pencils, and highlighters. Above the desk, there is a calendar that I haven’t changed yet this month. Next to the desk is a large whiteboard with everything I need to do this week scrawled out with a rushed handwriting. On the desk lay the bills I need to pay and a book or two.

It’s easy to tell how stressed I’ve been by how orderly my space is. The messier and more cluttered it is, the more stress I’ve been under. This week has been busy, so there are clothes strewn about all over the carpeted floor, the closet door is open and more clothes seep out. Eventually I’ll find enough time to organize my space again, but not this week.

There are various things on the wall. From paintings my friends made to an owl picture, a poster, and a rainbow flag. Things that I like, and things that remind me of people.

My space is small, and it can be messy, but it’s my haven, and it’s the only place that is truly mine.

Made in Starbound

Obviously not my real home, but a place I would find rather soothing. Cold location? Check. Desolate landscape? Check. No neighbors? Check. Pretty aurora-y colors? Check. Large supply of books? Check. All it’s missing is the truly absurd amount of cats, pillows, blankets, and other fuzzy materials, but Starbound has a real lack of fuzziness.

Made with MagicaVoxel.

Made with Pixlr.

The space I feel most comfortable, most at home, is the drawing studio on my uni’s campus. It’s actually a lot bigger- the images here are just the first half of the room where a majority of my time is spent. It’s used by all of the art majors at one point in time or another, so there’s always one or two still lifes set up. If you’re not working on a still life, most people are respectful and leave the easels and horses where they are. If you move one, you mess up someone’s work, so everyone is careful to leave things the way they found it.
This semester, I’m in advanced drawing working with chalk and oil pastels. To keep others safe from the chalk dust (which sears your lungs x-x), my professor and I agreed that it was best if I worked up here alone. Being alone gets a little boring and company is nice sometimes, but I’m happy for the solitude and the time to focus on my work. I can go in in any mood and know that I’ll come out, if not happy, at least calm and whatever negative feelings I had going in will have mostly dissipated.

Potato pic Original images

The Lair is in disarray for the time being. Moving revealed to be a difficult task when it isn’t a stuffed suitcase like the first time. This mission took multiple trips and is still counting. It also proved to be a challenge considering your significant other and one of their previous padmates following behind.

The room is currently shared by my significant other and I. It is still a work in progress, but it slowly turning into a cozy home. It’s a square area painted mint green and windows on the north wall with impressive height. (We found out why curtains come in very long sizes…) We tend to spend most of our time the common areas during the day, but retire to the room at night. We have a queen size bed with tan sheets and a dark wooden frame, a custom-made desktop computer on a metal and glass desk with plenty of space and swivel chair, and a night stand with three shelves littered with Pokemon plushies and candy.

We also have a cushy brown La-Z-Boy that will be in good use once we get a stand for our television, which will have a PS4 attached for all our streaming needs. The closet is chock full of (mostly) my clothes. Most of the shirts we tend to share, and I don’t mind considering the amount of clothes I have acquired over the years. I’m still moving in clothing articles, only bringing bits at a time to make sure I don’t overbuy hangers and overuse space. Other than that, decorations are slowly trickling in. Most are Japanese ornaments inhered by my grandparents that recently passed away. It gives me comfort seeing the pop of reds throughout the room. Lots of laundry baskets also litter the room as we organize remaining items.

We are on the top floor with another shared room next to us. The stairwell is right as you exit the rooms, leading to a tall-ceiling kitchen which is still under construction, but is slowly being cleaned and rearranged. The bathroom is on the south wall and a door on the west leads to a fenced in backyard that needs to be trimmed for the autumn season.

If you don’t directly walk into the kitchen and turn around the stairwell, you will be in the living room, which is an even more work-in-progress. Items left from previous residents still litter the room and I am itching to rearrange it to make it a place to play retro video games and hang out with the others. The master bedroom is connected to the living room, to the person who invited us to move in after rooms became vacant.

Overall, I’ve been stressed moving out but hope this a good experience before buying my own house in 1-2 years. I’ve lived alone previously, but this time I have the newfound adventure of co-habitation. I am excited to sharpen my independence as well as enjoying every moment with the love of my life <3

As tempting as it is to write about my favorite coves and beach hangouts, I spend far more time in my barns, and nowadays even more time in my 2nd barn.  It’s situated between the 1st barn and our house.

As I step in through the white, smaller doorway on the right of the yellow metal barn,  the main ceiling vaults to 20 feet.  The rafters supporting the roof and sides are completely exposed, with two rows of frosted plastic panels alongside the upper roofline. These allow light in, but are opaque for privacy.  There are lights throughout the barn, but most days I leave the lights off.  I can flip on different sequences of lighting if it’s night time or overly rainy and stormy.

The barn is a sanctuary against what can be some truly brutal winter weather.  Typically our winter storms are series of squalls that come in from the Pacific Ocean.  We’re only 2 miles from the nearest beach, so winds easily go over 90mps for the worst of it, and a normal storm can be sustained winds of 70mph.  Because of the closeness of the ocean, our temps remain around 50*F, so the barns are a cozy haven for my ponies.

As I walk down the main aisle, I have on the righthand side, three 12 foot by 12 foot stalls.  The roof steps down and slopes above the stalls, but they are at least 15 foot at the front and slope to 12 foot at the back.  The stalls themselves are formed with open panels lashed to heavy wooden cross posts, with large swinging gates forming the stall fronts.  The back walls are lined with plywood for safety from the random kicks that can occur.  The plywood also provides insulation from the metal siding which can be cold in winter, and rather warm in the late summer sun.

Facing the stalls, I have a stack of hay near the stall closest the front door.  The stack can be as little as a couple of bales, to shoulder height and is covered with a clear plastic painter’s tarp for protection.  The main walkway is very wide, and paved with brushed concrete.  The stalls themselves are natural dirt floors with Dry Den bedding and various pine shavings or wood chips. I love when I get in a fresh load of chipped wood!  It smells like Christmas trees in the barn.

My horse trailer resides in here, opposite the row of ponies, well away from prying noses.  It’s kept safe from the salt sea air and houses my grooming kits, pitchforks, muck rakes, fencing tools, first aid kit, and other odds and end bottles and tack.  Mirroring the line of stalls is the open area used for hay storage.  It’s the same dimensions, but minus the cross bracing and panel fences.  It could be framed off for another three stalls, but for now, it’s my hay storage.

The front of the barn has shared purposes ranging from a backup freezer to mushroom work areas, to a workbench and even more storage.  Each time as I step through the small door, I call out to my pony Blossom, and she nickers back to me.  It’s the sounds of ‘home’.

The images are a bit small, so I’ll also explain why I chose some of the decor!
Pink is my favorite color, hence my avatar’s hairdo and all the pink decor! I also included the kitchenette and table because I love to cook! I can also be a little lazy when it comes to stuff however, which is why there’s some fast food on the table. Burgers are my fave! On top of the bookshelf next to the bed there’s a board game, displaying my love of tabletop gaming ( I play and DM Dungeons and Dragons a lot, and I have a collection of board games), and an art set. Even though I most typically draw on my computer with a tablet, I wanted to have my art highlighted somewhere! Above the bed is a world map, I absoultely love the aesthetics of maps and have a few hanging up in my home! On the other side of the bed, there’s a desk with a laptop. I usually use my laptop on the couch, but it looked nice on the desk next to a nice cup of tea! The pink directors chair is something I actually have as well! Above the desk is a corkboard, I don’t have one in real life but I want to get one, I love displaying bits and bobs and photos and have a lot around my house. Next to the desk is one of my favorite items in the Animal Crossing games, the pink shelf! The reason is the best is because it has a Nintendo Gamecube on it! I’m a HUGE gamer and the Gamecube was like, one of my formative gaming systems! I still have my original silver gamecube! The couch and the TV are kinda mundane, but my couch and TV are like my little nest at home. I am really bad at mono-tasking, so whenever I am drawing or on the computer, I always have something playing in the background. Also there’s an Ice Cream Lamp because… I love Ice cream!

   
This is a recreation of my bed room, which really is this blank and boring… I need to decorate more (and maybe add some color). I also need more bookcases because I have a bunch of books that need to make their way to shelves but no shelves to put them on. The dog house in the corner is a wire kennel with a blanket over it in my real bedroom (where my service dog sleeps), but the dog house was the closest that the game had to that.

   
This is what I have planned so far for the office/guest room that my mom said I could use once my sister finishes getting her stuff out. I am not an interior designer… But this will give me a space to set up my desktop and a space to do some of my hobbies without having to take over the dining room table. Maybe I should try putting a bookcase or two in here, but I don’t know where exactly to put it so… I don’t know.

The walls make it feel like the inside of a birthday cake. They’re a warm, buttery golden yellow that reflect the morning sun nicely. There are two windows, trimmed in white and fitted with thick, colorful curtains that came with the apartment.

The room is dominated by the bed, which is rarely made and covered in far too many pillows for just two people. More often than not, two cats can be found snoozing on the left corner, a calico tabby and her black-and-white sister. There are several suitcases stuffed under the bed, covered in a thin layer of dust and cat fur and maybe a stray treat or two. One of the suitcases is caved in from one of the cats frequently taking her mid-afternoon nap atop it.

There’s plenty of furniture, with the majority of it being white ready-made furniture that every fresh college grad gravitates towards. The bookshelf is low and stuffed with books, sort-of-not-quite sorted according to subject and size. Atop the bookshelf is a haphazard array of lotions, medicines, and a ridiculous amount of shrinky dink pins.

The desk is small and messy, with an array of pens and decorative tape that is only used for birthday cards and letters. There’s a vase full of movie ticket stubs (Dunkirk is in there at least four times) and a stray bouncy ball of unknown origins. The highlight of the desk is a piggy bank shaped like a star helium balloon, almost half full of loose change and Chuck E. Cheese tokens.

The closet is horrendous, minuscule and stuffed to the brim with two-peoples’-worth of clothes. The door is kept closed for the sake of both of our well-being. Next to it is a second bookshelf, found on the side of the road and lovingly dragged up five flights of stairs. It was hand-painted in muted pastels and song lyrics, with a pair of cherries gracing the bottom shelf. It is also crowded, boasting too much stationary, a pile of vinyl records and a jar full of stick-and-poke materials.

The pièce de résistance is a cubby unit that serves as a dresser, covered in assorted knick-knacks, including a hand-painted matryoshka doll, a felt succulent plant, and a clearance candle called Blue Hawaiian.

It’s a strange little room, the space of two fresh college graduates that have no clue what’s going on. It’s always dusty and the air conditioner is louder than an airplane, but it’s home.

My campus used to have this lovely little forest nook, right close to the main building hidden in the trees. I spent a lot of time there during my first two years at this campus (at least before the snow came), but unfortunately over the summer they destroyed it to build yet another building. :/ Now the whole campus just sucks and I am sad during the school year.

Hrkk my picture messed up the hues/saturation.

Made with Sai!

This is the window viewing my backyard. I hang out here a lot, with my bum on the dressers right under the window (usually on my phone or something) because my kitties like to watch the birds and squirrels, and my cats are like… at least 30%-40%  of my daily entertainment, LOL. There’s cat grass in a little pot, a mini house (the top of the house comes off and there’s lil doodads in there), an old bath mat that the cats claimed (it used to be in front of the shower and they’d all lay on it, even if it was wet, so we washed it and moved it to the window nook for them) and an otter plush that has become part of the area. Outside, you can see the path that leads to the back alley and a bird feeder (with a robin that has captured Apollo’s attention), apple tree, my decrepit picket fence, and a part of my old shed. :) I left out my across alley neighbor’s house because I felt like it was kind of an invasion of privacy a lil’ bit? I hope that’s okay!!

Marina’s dreamy retreat room

Created with Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer

It’s pretty boring, because #rentallife, but my apartment’s living room is the place where I spend pretty much all my time that is not spent sleeping or at my computer. :’) We have this fantastic, terrible, super comfortable but super ugly white couch that I make myself at home on (pillow and blankets are a fixture there; I fall asleep just like an old lady while I’m watching tv). Our Walmart coffee table is perfect for my dog to scratch her back on, since she can walk underneath it, and the dry sink in the corner is one of my prized possessions, if only because it’s one of the few “family heirloom” type things I have (the other is an old cuckoo clock that is hanging in the other room). I keep candles and random knicknacks on the dry sink, and nestled in the middle of it is a fish tank (with just one fish calling it home - Sylgar, my betta).

This library has layers. The first room has only a few books, and is mostly chairs and tables. There are games, hats, food, a TV, a stereo and a welcome sign on the door. The colors of everything are bright, almost like a kid’s playground. Couches are arranged for large groups to sit around and converse, though they can be moved to view the TV as well. This is the section of the library which Ari uses to host guests. All can come and go as they please, and noise is no issue. Whenever Ari is here, she’s willing to listen to any and all people and problems which come her way and help however she can.
Behind this room, there is another. Ari only lets her friends into this room. As such, the room is still comfortably furnished, but for fewer people. It’s a quieter place, room ton voice is fine, but any louder and Ari will promptly shush you back down to a more respectful volume. There are a few desks here to get work done. They are all a rather plain wood, but they’re functional. The colors are still fairly cheerful, but they are less distracting and compliment each other rather well as opposed to contrasting.
The third room of the library is even more exclusive. Ari only lets her very best friends in here, and even then, only at certain times. Most of this room is books, as the name library suggests. These include her more private books. Books she’s written, or those which have had a great impact on her life, along with countless others on various aspects of life. Only whispers are allowed here. Ari’s personal desk is in here, along with a cot for sleeping tucked in the corner. The walls are all painted a soft green. Two couches sit by the doorway to allow for private conversations.
Most people don’t realize the last room of the library exists. It’s a simple room, about the size of a broom closet. The only furnishings are a handful of pillows and a side table with paper, a pen, and a Book. Ari only allows One other in this private space, as this is where she goes to recharge after spending too much time with people.

(I don’t want to get overly specific online, but a few words did come to mind.)

Library work is always the same and always different. 

There’s a strange dichotomy between old books and new shelves, between the leather-bound encyclopedias in the Reference Room and the computers lit up along the walls waiting for use.  A strange harmony, perhaps: the smell of books and the smell of coffee, the murmur of students and the hum of the printers. 

A full cart creaks away, books that need their homes on the shelves.  The smell of spine repair glue drifts from the office.  I cover paperbacks with plastic to protect them for future readers; the label printer offers a crisp new page of numbers to organize everything.

The librarians are always happy to help you find a book, happy to track down an article; request it from a library across the state, find it online, whatever you need.  Familiar questions, new puzzles. 

Go in, ask.  Don’t be too nervous.  We’re here to help. 

The living room looks a lot bigger than it actually is. It’s the open concept thing—without any doors to speak of, its ‘boundaries’, so to say, are marked by a floor-to-ceiling cabinet on one side and a pillar on the other. Its two windows both look out into the car porch, and three sofas surround the single coffee table. The TV faces the sofa arrangement from a nook in the cabinet, which used to be way too big when we first moved in, but now just barely fits the newer widescreen models. We’ve just about hit a limit for the size we can buy.

The real centrepiece of the room is a little bit off to the side—the shrine next to the one-seater sofa against the far wall. It’s one of the few things we brought with us when we moved. None of us are very devout, so the shrine is the one mark of our faith. Ours is simple, compared to the one in my (devout) grandfather’s house: it’s essentially a tall, table-esque structure with an idol of the Buddha and my father’s memorial. (My grandfather’s shrine actually looks like a shrine. It has a roof, almost takes up an entire wall, and includes sections for ancestors in general, my late grandmother, the Buddha, the Guanyin, and I think some other gods I don’t really remember.) The lotus lamps are the two lights that we never turn off, though the bulbs fizz out on a fairly regular basis, so it’s not that odd for one to be out for a while because nobody can be bothered to replace it. (Like said, again: not devout. We are not very good Buddhists.)

When we invite guests over, they mostly end up in the living room for obvious reasons, but as That Person who hates people that’s not its primary function for me. The living room is the one place in the house with sofas, after all, so my sister and I end up there more often than not when we want to plot something out. The topics have changed over the years: Pokemon fanfiction, original characters, bandfic… but the fact that it’s all gone down in the living room hasn’t.

Our plotting has gone most everywhere over the years. Worlds have been created, then destroyed, then remade again. Characters save the universe (or fail to), get rich, get married, get killed, or anything in between. There have been serious plots dealing with weighty matters and moral dilemmas, and then there are days when we spend five hours discussing our ship cuddling in bed and feeding each other ice cream. There are really no rules as long as it entertains us.

Sometimes we don’t even bother plotting at all, and just spend five hours screaming at each other about the latest fun thing we watched or read or played. The living room has seen a lot of meltdowns.

It’s not the most interesting of rooms, but it’s one where things happen. And for that alone it’ll always be somewhere I go back to.

There is a big hill in a suburb with many old houses huddled closely together between looming trees and overgrown greenery. Partway up this hill is a small house, and inside this house is a small room within which resides a very comfy couch. Its beige cushions are so soft one could sink into them for days. Its suede armrests are a quiet hug wrapped in comfort. On this couch is a gigantic perpetual blanketpile. And within this blanketpile resides a Lar.

The blankets are many. A myriad colors and textures tangle and bunch together in a maze of staticy fabric. Bright stripes mingle with elegant paisley patterns, earthtones mixed with pastels and vivid plaid. There are several comforters, thick and insulating. Which is good, because it is often cold and the fireplace is far across the room. Despite the heavy curtains and wooden floors, the air is chilly. Even the oil heater in the corner does little except to warm the feets on frigid evenings. But there is ample warmth within the blanketpile.

Cotton sheets make up the bottom layer, currently striped in shades of chocolate and caramel brown, separated by lines of cream and black. There are then thin blankets, some small and fuzzy, others large and spread over the entirety of the couch for easier blanketburrito-ing at a moment’s notice. The middle of the blanketpile contains the softest and snuggliest blankets, though often they bunch together in uneven lumps from constant re-arrangement. The upper layers have stiffer, sturdier blankets that won’t shift as easily, making the perfect roof to the blankety abode.

Sometimes, though not often, there are also pillows. Some are puffy clouds of fabric and stuffing made to rest weary heads. Others are merely decorative. There’s a large flat one in the shape of a heart, its cover a deep red satin, with frilly white fabric along the edges. It has a matching, much smaller partner that perches prettily on the armrest. Another pillow with many tassels lurks at the edge of the blanketpile, loose threads dangling from intricate gold and cream embroidery. The plushest pillows sometimes get lost inside the labyrinth of blankets, friendly treasures to be found days later.

There are low tables beside the couch, sturdy wooden squares on spindly legs. These are for laptops, snacks, tea mugs, water bottles, stacks of unread books, sketchpads, art supplies, or remote controls. While some of these items might be used when the blanketpile is occupied, inevitably the comfiness is overwhelming and the pull of sleep overtakes all other priorities.

I was trying to go for a dream room sort of thing, but with my lack of interior design skills it turned out raather meh. Oh well. 8)

(Made in Paint Tool SAI)