#praeditus.task

01. her closet, at first glance, seems pretty ordinary. an array of her clothing on mismatched hangers, all brought from home. something she hadn't thought to correct - after all, who would notice? the clothes themselves all bear emilia's signature: a designer label sewn in by hand, the true tag ripped from the seams and promptly discarded. she's tailored many of her clothes to fit her like a glove, a skill she learned from her mother, though she'll credit a fictional seamstress for the alterations. and then there are the few true high-end pieces, purchased here in italy, thanks to dove.

02. her desk bears the weight of quite a few books, her schoolwork, and a couple plants she's become dedicated to keeping alive. it's a bit cluttered, but nothing is out of place. emilia can tell you where each item is without so much as glancing in that direction. it sometimes becomes a catch-all, her dumping grounds for her rings or hair clips, but at the end of the day, she makes sure everything gets where it needs to be. it's not uncommon to find a mug of half-drunk coffee abandoned on a coaster, waiting to be transported back into the kitchen for an unfortunate journey down the drain.

03. though she may seem like the type, emilia doesn't make her bed most days. there's something comforting to her about the look of tousled sheets and imperfectly placed pillows. when she's not lounging on the couch in the living room or working at her desk, she can be found here, curled up with a book or binging old seasons of survivor. this isn't a place other people have ever been welcome, with the sole exception of dove, who is more than welcome. wine-nights-turned-sleepovers aren't uncommon for them.

04. it's what underneath her bed, however, that holds some real intrigue. a wooden box, locked with a key that lives in her underwear drawer, contains her most personal affects. photographs of her family, letters with a return address in indiana, and any other items that would place cracks in the foundation of her fabricated life story live here, undisturbed and very nearly forsaken. this effigy of her past is shoved up against the corner created where the right bedpost meets the wall, collecting dust. emilia can't bring herself to open it up, except to shove more things inside when they arrive in the mailbox.

05. the water pressure in this shower is by far the best she's ever experienced, compared to everywhere else she's ever lived. emilia takes long, hot showers, lets the steam fill the room until it gets hard to breathe, and then shocks herself with a blast of cold water before getting out. she's not too bothered if she leaves an article or two of clothing around after undressing - she's pretty tidy in this regard, and knows she'll get to it by the end of the day.

06. her walls are relatively bare. she's got a few art prints, magazine clippings, and things of the like, but there's nothing personal. no photos, no memorabilia from her past. nothing to indicate who she is or where she comes from, and that's how she likes it. her saxifrage sprig that she received from marcel is taped to the wall, long since dried out but a constant reminder of who she is now.

07. one thing that emilia is pretty particular about is how her room smells, and at this point, she's got it down to a science. after some trial and error, she's found what she considers to be the best fragrance. incense is lit almost all the time while she's home, perfuming her space with notes of sandalwood and jasmine.

08. the window next to her bed is perhaps her favorite feature of her room. natural light is in abundance throughout the day, dappling her walls and bed in golden sunbeams. of course, the view isn't bad either. a tree reaches up towards the wall of the apartment, and beyond that, she looks out towards the stretch of nascondiglio visible from her perch. she can see the sunrise, and often leaves her blinds open at night so that she can be woken up with the sky.

she didn't grow up in a particularly cozy home, so tallie set out to make her space one where she could host and feel comfortable all at once. her living room has a huge pink couch that curves all the way around the room and is perfect for evenings gathered around playing drinking games and telling stories. it's important to tallie that you can tell who lives there, so every room is full of knickknacks, art, and flowers to give the place some personality. it's complete with a cabinet in which she has locked box in which she keeps party supples (ie drugs), it has a combination, but at least three other people know it (fitz, stella, gen).

her favorite part of the apartment by far is her balcony patio. it has a beautiful view of the sea and is big enough for a bunch of people to come hang out on. she 'studies' out there a lot and ends most her days sitting out there with a blunt, watching the water.

tallie doesn't cook much, but her kitchen has an extensive liquor cabinet and eclectic, mismatched vintage dishes. she has a lot of pre-prepped meals (hello fresh but bougie) stocked away in her fridge and her cabinets have the BEST snacks you could ask for — there are always plenty fruit roll ups and prawn cocktail crisps to grab (her top two faves).

BUILDING. mari lives in a top-floor apartment in a three storey building closer to the side of town where the local residents live rather than her fellow students. her landlady, an ancient italian woman who is perpetually in a terrible mood, lives on the ground floor. the building is an old one, complete with creaking stairs and groaning pipes, but mari loves its character and many strange residents.

LAYOUT. the relatively humble apartment consists of a hallway, one bathroom, a small kitchen, one bedroom, and the living area, which is where mari spends the majority of her time — mostly due to the fact that this is the room containing her desk. the living space leads onto a tiny, rickety balcony overlooking the street below, and she has managed to cram a table and two chairs onto it so she can sit there in the evenings and watch the world go by with a glass of wine.

DECOR. mari has lived in the same apartment since the beginning of her sophomore year, and it shows. the decor is, to put it generously, eclectic. much of the mismatched furniture was there when she moved in, but she has put her own touch on the space with several second-hand items, framed prints on the walls, and a plethora of trinkets (see below). the resulting effect is bohemian and slightly chaotic, not helped by the fact that it's more than a little disorganised. mugs, papers, and clothes are scattered across every available surface, and books are stacked precariously in towering piles on the floor. though she makes efforts to tidy it all up every once in a while, she actually quite enjoys the mess, as it makes her feel like a real writer.

TRINKETS. since her family was cut off from her grandparents, mari has become something of a kleptomaniac. she never steals anything too valuable (with one notable exception, of course), usually just small items that people might not notice are gone, but over the years she’s amassed quite a collection. pieces that were stolen years ago — a little china elephant, a green glass ashtray, an enamel box that she now keeps supplements in — are displayed around her apartment like trophies. more recent acquisitions — a gold bracelet belonging to aileen, an engraved silver lighter that was formerly fitz's, a fountain pen taken from one of her professors – are kept locked in a drawer of her desk.

DESK. her desk is, to her, the most important piece of furniture she owns. it's the place where she does most of her writing, and so it took mari a long time and several discarded pieces before she found the one that was right for her. the heavy wooden desk sits under her window, and is piled high with books or items that she's using as her current inspiration, though a vase of flowers and a few half-empty coffee cups are usually present as well. the drawers are mostly filled with stationery, with the exception of the bottom drawer, which is filled with the treasures she's collected. the marchesa diamond also lives here in a small velvet bag, pushed to the very back so she doesn't have to think about it.

living room. the first floor houses the living room, home to the apartment's main selling point: the truly giant wall of windows with a spectacular view of the island's historic district. his cat copurrnicus is an especially big fan of the large swaths of sunlight that trickles in every day for his daily sunbathing — chan's furry friend doesn't even mind too much that much of the window has been written on. other than the windows, however, the rest of the living room is filled with what others would classify as "clutter", including as many coffee cups as he can go through before the maid's weekly cleaning and a piano he plays weekly.

kitchen. not cooked in, obviously. although it's a kitchen that would make any amateur chef swoon, you'll only see it used for additional storage or as a decent napping spot.

bathrooms. there are 2.5 bathrooms, 1.5 of them downstairs and one of them upstairs. the full bathroom downstairs has a deco charm with more modern finishes, whereas the full bathroom upstairs retains more of the old apartment's rustic charms. the full bathroom upstairs is also the one with a bathtub overlooking the town, which is where chan ends most of his nights with a book in hand. of course, both rooms will still find plenty of academic mayhem inside of them, and on any surface that can be written on (including bathroom mirrors and shower walls), you'll find the latest proofs that chan has been deliberating on.

the bedroom. though rumors abound across this campus that their valedictorian-to-be has evolved past the need to sleep, the existence of a bed in this room proves them wrong. this room is, by far, the most overcrowded with his things, including walls filled with everything from past homework assignments to photos he's taken with friends (read: dom, plus maybe one or two with his dad). that, of course, only accounts for the walls that aren't simply wall-to-wall bookshelves, which are many of them. his bedroom is also where he does lots of his late-night study sessions in the dim blue and yellow of his hue lights, as well as where he gets his small hits of fresh air in the form of a balcony overlooking the ocean.