#when i try to decorate without money and also in a space that isn't mine but i'm still

[todayisafridaynight]

You're most welcome! I love snooping around maps and seeing stuff others capture from freecam mods myself, so again, I'm happy to be able to share. I really want to have WAY more detailed location pages on the wiki eventually, but this'll have to do for now. Also, I would love to see your layouts and I'm sure others would as well!

I don't think it's actually his apartment, though, he just went HARD in terms of personalizing his space. According to Yokoyama, he does also live in (well, "is the type to" live in) Minato--Roppongi specifically--and Mine mentions having gym equipment at home too, but I don't think it's the same place because the spaces are all work or recreation without any of the necessities, and there aren't any more doors. But if anything, it's pretty safe to say his home probably has the same vibe as his office, and I think that still fits for a "workaholic."

I thiiiiink Mine's old company was an IT startup, but he's got his fingers in a lot of pies, for sure. There's a cell phone software company that's a front for the Hakuho Clan, and I would guess he probably still has shares in Every Taxi Company in Kamurocho. Fitness is very much a thing he holds in high importance and is extremely picky about ("not being in the mood" to work out if he doesn't have his specific brand of protein and cancelling a proper gym membership because he "has better equipment at home"), so if he has the money, why not right lmao

I have seen the uncorrupted piano room and you're right that there's literally nothing else there other than the piano lol; in terms of the missing furnishings I was referring to, it's just some decor, mainly. He certainly could use an actual bench, but there isn't one in the "fixed" model either... fair enough though, since only the piano is "needed" for that shot.

About the doors behind the piano, those actually open out to the hallway outside the office. So you can enter either through the main entrance or the piano room. It is consistent with the game since Katase comes into the gym through the piano room, I guess, but it is kind of weird.

It'd definitely be nice to see more detailed entries for places (though I guess I speak from the minor perspective of artists compared to the general RGG fanbase, so it'd be understandable if it's not a paramount priority)! On that note though, maybe one day I'll dump them to the public. They're pretty old and messy: they have just enough info to get me by but might be indecipherable to. Everyone else LMAO BUT maybe I'll drop it after a revision (I also want to make sure everything's accurate if we're looking at the WHOLE room instead of just bits and pieces of it in the background of comics I make)

I figured it wasn't his personal apartment and was more strictly an office space (definitely a very personal one on that note). With that in mind, I'm forced to wonder what Mine's actual personal space looks like (but I'll let sleeping dogs lie: it's not something we'll ever get concrete info on, so I won't drive myself crazy trying to speculate on it when I have next to nothing to go off of for a layout)

ON THAT NOTE THOUGH the doors behind the piano leading to a hallway is comedically obvious in review. I should jump off a bridge for thinking otherwise 😩

[artiemoonqueen]

Baby

By: Monica Lebron

I was part of a family that had very few pets. We had a turtle that was always there since I can remember but was never...never named. We had doves that my dad once built a coop next to our garage. We would have them in the house as they would sit on our shoulders and often lay unfertilized eggs everywhere. My brother and I were definitely too young to take care of doves. One perished from a night in said coop by a predator, the other was wounded and healed inside the house. We somehow...crushed this one during one of our rough housing. I know I know, we are heathens and should be sent to Peta jail but we were children. Being only three years apart from one another at ages 8-10, we were wrestling and playing on the couch with a comforter and one thing led to another. Our last friend from a pair seems to have gotten tangled up with us. We were very very mournful I swear to you all. After that, our parents had divorced(not because of the doves) and I was left to entertain myself without any responsibility to a pet. It was another story for my brother and mom but this isn;t about their many adventures with pets. This really isn't about the ‘previous’ pets we had in the past. This story is about Baby. In the year 2018, long before my 28th birthday I had to figure out a living situation.

1)find roommates that I knew

2)find roommates that I didn’t know

3)move back with my dad

4)live on my own

Since I had lived two years with roommates that I knew and some I knew too much. Before that I was living with my father that would sometimes ‘break my soul’. And I was a bit hesitant to move with people that were strangers at that time, I took the opportunity to live on my own for the first time. $650.00 for an apartment that has high ceilings, beautiful lighting that I will admit that I am currently kicking myself that I didn’t take enough selfies. Furniture and decorations of my own taste and pretty chill neighbors, the location was a little out of ways from anyone visiting and just down the hill was a large pharmaceutical company that was the ‘leading biotechnology company that invents life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases’ in other words, high possibility that they are working on zombie-endulced material that a friend of mine who once worked there, would swear that that wasn’t happening but promise to text me ‘code red’ as a warning to get my ass far away from that place in anything were to happen.

So I was alone finally and I had really fucking felt it. I went through a winter before looking through websites for adopting an adult feline. I had no preference other than friendly, pettable, I pick up and hug when I need it, but independent. Spoilers(with tears coming down my face I was able to find that. Sorry I thought this was going to be easier) Before our paths would tangle as the dove with my brother and I’s wrestling match, I first looked on the local humane society website to look for potential companions. While I knew I wanted an older cat because of less time training and the idea of giving an older cat a better life, I saw a green eye, black cat with the christen name ‘Monica’. Now if you want to take this moment to go back to the top of this tale and look at the author’s name, I too am named ‘Monica’. What kinda psycho names a cat with a human name like ‘Monica’? I’ve heard names like Sprinkles, Scooby, Donut, Ringo, Chucky, and just about any reference to a greek god/goddess or dessert. Who was the previous owner that watched too many episodes of ‘Friends’ that decided to name a kitten Monica? I quietly laughed in my lonely one bed-room and moved along the website until the next day, on May 21, 2018. A week before my 28th birthday, my little cousin and I drove our way to the adoption center to look at cats that I had no idea whether I would go through with it or not.

“There’s a cat there named Monica?” my cousin had asked after I told her the musing I did the night before.

“ Yeah, she was cute but I can’t take her! I’d look insane.”

“ You don’t know Monica, maybe she is the one.”

“ Hell fucking no.”

We got out of the car and walked in. The front desk had a box of kittens that needed to be processed in. Their mewls were delightful to hear but were too young to be adopted out. I had signed in and asked ‘what’s your most friendliest outgoing cat here right now?’ The person attending us was quick to say all the cats were great but in her time there she had gotten to like a cat named...Monica. I could feel my cousin's smirking gaze on me. I was not going to subject myself to ridicule for having a cat with my same namesake thank you very much. There were many potential companions to see anyway. Some very old and very young. One with just an eye that I was close to choosing and others with large ears that reminded me of season 1 of ‘Girls’ Adam Sackler. But in the room with both a ‘mr and mrs. Incredible’ was also the notable cat named Monica. Let me tell you a little about the cat that will soon be renamed ‘Baby’. She knew how to get ya’ to want her affection. She knew that being present, unafraid. In the open, fluffy with hints of grey and a rich reddish brown coat along the black, open wide green eyes and a meow that was certain. She was her own saleswoman. In a true cliche, I was ‘hook, line and sinker’.

After $90.00 in cash, in a cardboard ‘cat carrier’ and her meowing away, I took a female, domestic longhair, black, eye color that was the color green. Birth Date 10/2009, formerly named ‘Monica’ home. Our first week, I thought she wanted to get close to me at night so when I awoke to a bat that brushed across my face and not her, that was fun. Eleven shots and two weeks of follow up maintenance shots for rabies, we had gotten familiar to one another. I would feed her half a can of wet food at 5:30 am before my morning shift at my part time job at the dmv and feed her the rest at night after my shift from my salon job. She lay on her back sometimes when we were both in the living room while I enjoyed binging on tv. And meow when I say ‘what?’ when we would eye at each-other. She will follow me to a basement apartment that I shared with my close friend David. We call her ‘pizza’ baby because of the time she climbed alongside the back of the couch while we were eating pizza from Pizzaroni. I felt a tug on my left arm that was holding up my cheese slice. When I looked, she was leaning far to reach my pizza to eat it. Not a successful attempt that time but she will try again. She constantly wanted the attention of David to which he would gladly and promptly pet her while she purred and then quickly turned around to bit his hand away. He always gave her the attention though. For that I am grateful for David. You made sure she ate and loved. You affectionately talk about her to your parents on your long distance phone calls with them and tell your two ideal brunch buddies about your time with Baby. You were the best coparent for her when I would leave for a week long trip to Europe or weekends away to work conventions. She loved you. You had to know that, and you Mike. She loved you too. But she didn’t love the dogs that would shit all over the backyard on the walkway to the trash. Those assholes.

Her next adventure with a month long excursion to my dad’s house before the final move together. While I worked my last few weeks at the salon to save for the time that I would become a true ‘City’ woman. She would find ways to break into my dad's room to lay on the middle of his bed and sleep. His heater would be right in her direction, while we sat unknowing in his recliner in front of his tv. He didn't want to like her. I know this. But who could meet a cat like Baby and not love her. Who would not love seeing a black cat go on her hind legs to look out the window that you have looked through to see the ongoings of the gentleman club next door. Yes, from grades eighth to age 26 I had lived in an apartment that was a stone throw away from a gentleman’s club that late at night, my dad would wake me up to see out the window and watch as the patrons would take pictures of topless dancers on the sign of the establishment before a game of ‘catch me if you can’ through the usual busy main street formerly known as The Bowery before 1867 however that should be left for another drawn out tale. Baby will have a final destination and despite her short time here, my dream of her sleeping peacefully near me while I lay on my bed on a raining day did come to fruition. Super Bowl LIV, February 2, 2019. Both my birth mother and I are hungover from separate nights from each other. She picks up my stuff, Baby and I. And we head to my current apartment in Brooklyn, New York. A dream that I have had besides the many others that will be done and accomplished, I swear. Baby is free to roam the car but she opts to explore little and sleeps most of the way to hear and then to Long Beach for two nights of rest. She walks around like the fearless cat that she is in any space she is in. Never cowers. Never shows fear or intimidation. She is fucking awesome in all her glory and we live together here for another six months until she seems to not to be herself.

As I live in a time of fear for my health during a pandemic, I don’t realize that Baby could be going through a decrease of quality of life with some kind of kidney failure. It was all too quick the deterioration in her appearance and behavior. I was quick to get her to a vet but the results showed more than we had thought and I had to bring her to an emergency vet. They were so kind but when the doctor told me the treatment that would be done to her, I agreed to then going to reception to find out that I would even have enough money to keep her there for a day of treatment. I paid for blood work, exam fees and medicine just to try and figure a way and she seemed to perk up again and walk her way to her favorite rooms to look out the windows or spy on us watching another extructating episode of White Lines. But she wouldn’t eat. For almost three weeks she wouldn’t eat and I had to force feed her food but she didn't want it. I would just get frustrated and I’m sure she was frustrated with me but why wouldn’t she just eat and take the medicine and be like another girls cat that has had kidney failure for years but the cat was still going? Why?

I knew what was going to happen if I made another appointment. I knew and I didn’t want to know. I just had to make the appointment because what if? What if, despite the week before she was back to her ‘old self’ she got even worse the following week, and couldn’t even walk in a straight line. What if her constant sleeping was just her trying to heal herself? What if I bring her one more time and they have a better option that I can afford and I can bring her home and she could lay right beside me on the bed like she use to and look at me with her beautiful green giant eyes that a kid once said were evil eyes but your are dumb kid, really dumb. What if? That’s not how it goes though. We know in our souls when it’s time to say that horrible and final goodbye. So we push through, kiss them more and hold them close and bring them to the vet. We will wait and listen with tears already shed for the answer we didn’t want. The answer that didn’t fit with the what ifs. And you try to say your goodbye while uttering so many I’m so sorry. This isn’t a mom in hospice or a phone call from the police saying your sibling has passed. It’s nothing close to seeing the numbers of people dying from a virus or you dad getting in an accident and obtaining horrible injuries. Those pains are harsh, and grasping air. Those pains affect the heart, and brain for the rest of your life. Baby is like one in a million pets that people have lost. There will be millions of pets to come and go after my time here. However Baby was mine for a short time, but mine. I love her. I miss her. I feel her but I know she can never be here with me again. Feeling her not in the room with us but still having her body left was eerie. She made me happy, and loved like a familiar to its owner. Her snores by my head will be missed. Her purrs and weight on my chest. Her constant knots in her long hair. Her allowances of my kisses on her head. Goodbye Monica, Goodbye Baby.

END

[seminalstudy]

Hey everyone! I recently completed my first semester of college with a full course load (18 credits) and all As, and I thought I could share some of the things that have (and haven't) worked for me these last few months. This is just going to be on dorm life, but I'll probably do some on organization and school work in the future. I do go to a pretty small school so my experiences may not be applicable to everyone, but I hope somethings on this list may help!

Roommates can be pretty hit or miss, and if it's the latter, talk to your resident assistant! My first roommate was nice enough but we had very different ways of living. I had become closer friends with one of my suitemates so we talked with our RA and managed to switch with little issue. If you're not satisfied with your roommate situation, it won't get better, so get help!

A great habit to get into is making your bed every morning. If you're rushing to a morning class, at least make it once you get back to your dorm. Your room can be spotless, but a messy bed can ruin the effect. A made bed will also make it less likely for you to get back in bed when you should be doing something more productive!

Make sure you talk with your roommates/suitemates about shared living spaces - when the bathroom gets cleaned, where everyone gets to store their stuff, etc. This will prevent future conflict if sorted out early in the year!

Leave your door open as much as possible! I know a lot of people recommend this, but it's really amazing how many people will stop by and chat, I've made a couple good friends because of doing this (plus it helps keep the room cooler if your window is open in the summer because the air can circulate).

A Keurig and/or a hot water boiler are really useful. Coffee shops on campus can get expensive even with the flex cash, and it's really nice to make a cup of tea at the end of a long day.

Fairy lights are your friend. My roommate and I hate the harsh, fluorescent lights the college gave us, so we picked up 5-6 strands of white lights and swooped them from wall to wall across the ceiling. They illuminate the room with warm light and make it really cute! We're a little extra sometimes but a couple of strands can go a long way.

Pillows are a must have. Whether your bed is on the floor or lofted like mine, they make the room so much more inviting and your bed way comfier!

You don't need a TV or a microwave, but the latter is useful. TVs just take up precious storage space and it's honestly easier to stream shows on your phone or laptop. Microwaves are super useful, but lots of people have them, so you can just make friends with other people on your floor - most of the people I know are really chill about letting others use theirs.

Get some shower shoes, please. I fortunately don't have floor wide communal bathrooms, but I do share a shower with three other people, and that floor is a breeding ground for bacteria.

On that note, make sure the bathroom gets cleaned at least once a week. Shower, toilet, sinks, the works. This really helps reduce the likelihood of getting sick, which can really cut down on your productivity. I really like Clorox or Lysol wipes - they can be used on practically anything!

It's also important to wipe down surfaces in your room every 1-2 weeks, plus it makes your room smell better!

College vacuums are nasty and smell bad, so it's a good idea to pick up at least a small hand-held vacuum to clean up your area each week. You'd be surprised how much can accumulate on the floor.

This one's optional, but a cute, durable rug can really make your room nicer. I got mine from Home Depot for around $40 which is a bit of an investment, but it's so much nicer than the old college carpet.

Lofting your bed(s) really does save space. I've grown up with a loft so the small under space for my desk and shelves isn't a problem for me. My current bedframe doesn't allow you to raise it up, but if yours does and you have enough floor space for your other furniture, that can be even more precious storage space.

Open your window shades! It's nice to get natural light, and if you get enough, you can even keep little plants on your window sill!

Some RAs put in more effort than others, but make an effort to go to floor or building wide events, you might have a great time. These are often on weeknights, so they're a nice break from studying.

Beware of air freshener. Yes, college dorms often don't smell great, but you will quickly be desensitized to the scents you choose, so it can start to smell too strong to others. I like using linen spray, it keeps your sheets and room smelling fresh but isn't too overpowering.

Make your desk area your own. My roommate and I are different in that she loves to be minimalist, whereas I love cozy clutter. I have lots of pictures and art of family, friends, and home on my walls and shelves whereas she has everything in neat containers or drawers, and a single tapestry on the wall. Do whatever makes you happy.

Your room should ultimately be the place where you can chill after a long day, so try not to do as much of your studying there. It's nice to get out and go to the library or a new coffeeshop for work so your room can just be for relaxing in. However, your room should still be set up in a way where you can be productive - especially during finals or when the weather is too bad to go out in.

This one applies to me mostly, but you don't need to bring all of your stationary and notebooks with you. There's not necessarily going to be enough room for it all. I'm still working on this, but you probably don't need eight sets of pens for college.

Invest in a speaker or speakers if you haven't already. I've made my room super homey, and one of the biggest ways is by having music almost always playing - not necessarily loudly but just enough that I'm not sitting in silence all the time.

It may be tempting to stock your mini fridge with ice cream and microwave meals but try to fill it with other things! Frozen berries, yogurt, chia or flax seeds, milk (or almond milk if you're lactose intolerant like me), some water bottles or cans of pop. It's nice to be able to reach for a healthy snack without having to trek over to the dining hall or campus store.

Decorating your dorm for the season or holiday can be really fun and a nice break from studying. My roommate and I hung tons of ornaments from the ceiling for Christmas which looked really cute, and we decorate our door for each month. It can be a bit time consuming, but it's just a fun thing to consider.

Take time at least once a week just to tidy up. Wash dishes, put laundry away, file papers, vacuum. For me, cleaning up helps reboot my brain, and I find myself to be way more productive with a clean area.

Those soft fleece blankets are really great for cuddling in when you're sick, tired, it's your time of the month, etc. (I have two but you probably just need one)

Don't do you laundry over the weekend unless you've gotten up early. Everyone does it then, so try to find a free morning or afternoon during the week to do it.

On that note, a drying rack is super useful. You can save money by not putting your clothes through a drying cycle, and just let them air dry. This also makes your room smell good!

I live in Michigan so summers get hot and winters are freezing. Fans (plural) are a must have if your dorm has no AC, I have a desk fan and a tall room fan. Blankets and warm pjs and slippers really help in getting through the cold season.

Make friends with someone who has a car on campus if you don't have one! This can be really useful especially for late night trips to Meijer.

At the end of the day, your dorm should be your happy place. Keep it clean, well stocked, and cute, and your college experience will be even better!

I hope some of these tips were useful! Keep an eye out for the next post in this series, and good luck in the new year to all of you!

-B