Thursday DE: this place is a dump

[needsmoreresearch]

Today's question, brought to you by a leaking pipe in my basement and the sinking dread I experience daily at the thought of Everything That's Wrong With My House:

How are your characters about taking care of their physical space? Messy, tidy? Handy, helpless?

Comments

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly has a pretty cluttered room, but he's a very careful guy--he's used to keeping his work-tools in good condition and making sure his books don't get damaged and fixing up anything that's broken.

Lesgle doesn't generally have a lot of things or personal spaces that he considers strictly his own, and he tries to be a good roommate about not making anything messier than when he got there. But oh god no Lesgle don't try to fix that chair. Or the rattling window-sash. STAY AWAY FROM THE STOVE LESGLE.

Hal has other people for that.

And Gredya lives outside.

[clayforthedevil]

Lesgle's helpful impulses as a roommate are very appreciated! They can be appreciated over there-ish. Away from the already malfuctioning stove. >_>

[never_shall_yield]

Gene is a total mess, but he can usually lay his hands on what he wants, when he wants it. Most of the time.

Javert is obsessively neat, and is aided in this by not actually owning much of anything. His spaces are never cluttered.

Valjean is likewise spartan, and mostly has women coming in to clean. He's very handy though, and can fix most things.

Courfeyrac - not as bad as you might think! I mean, he has stuff, and he's not obsessive about everything being in the right place. But he's not a total disaster area.

Wayne - has Alfred to keep his gear in order, but he's pretty disciplined about not making a mess. Plus, not interested in possessions, so doesn't clutter up the Manor.

Banner when not being a vagrant with no things, is...pretty average, I would say. Like, he'll keep things tidy but also disappears into the lab for hours and hours, and papers get spread places, and bits of equipment and whatnot. But he'll tidy up after. He's a lot more conscious of keeping everything in it's place post-Hulk.

Pearly has minions to clean up after him. Dinner plates or dead bodies, the disposal is up to someone else.

Moriarty manages to be minimalist, and chaotic at the same time. He can swing from one to the other, live in any space, act according to the persona he's wearing. He can trash a joint, but is likely to just walk out and leave it rather than bother about getting it cleaned up again. Everything is disposable. Nothing matters.

Aubrey is actually obsessively tidy! Which I did not expect with his personality, but it's canon. It comes from being on a ship all his life, where everyone spends all their day cleaning (at least as a hand, which he was for six months), and there is literally no space for a lot of things. Even when he's on land, he employs some of his crew as staff, and they literally turn the house inside out and clean every inch of it, every single day. He's always tutting at Stephen for the mess he makes, it's great. :D

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne is tidy. She doesn't have much stuff, since it helps her as a traveling fighter to pack lightly. She is not especially handy except for minor fixes to weapons, but she can figure things out.

Fantine is also tidy. Unlike Brienne, though, she has a fair amount of stuff. Pretty knick knacks and wall hangings and, both in Milliways and in life, a pet songbird. She likes her living space to be pretty and neat.

Combeferre is a disaster. Tons of clutter, mostly books, some medical and scientific equipment. Now that he lives with Enjolras he tries to be tidier, out of consideration, with some success.

Jehan Prouvaire is actually not a disaster! He likes his living space to be aesthetically satisfying. He's not organized and forgets to put stuff away, but he never lets the overall visual impression of his space be unaesthetic.

[clayforthedevil]

Prouvaire has the best housekeeping. Aesthetics are So Important.

[yinyangwizard]

As I see it, there are two different components to this question: how clean you keep your stuff/space and how well you organize your stuff/space.

Regarding cleanliness, Seimei has servants to clean his house, but he is not by nature a slob and does not carelessly leave messes around for other people to clean up (whether he's in his home or not).

As far as organization is concerned, Seimei has the fastidious habits of a person who used to be incredibly disorganized just like his mun. He is careful to have a place for everything and everything in its place, lest he put down something important and then forget where he put it when he needs it. His system of organization is idiosyncratic but it works.

[genarti]

Enjolras is very tidy, aside from an occasional tendency to organize with the Those Papers Are In That Pile There system. He doesn't collect a lot of extraneous stuff, either. But he also doesn't dust or otherwise clean, really. He's always had somebody else paid to do that, for one thing, and for another thing, uh, dust is not really something he notices a lot.

Cosette is quite tidy! She really likes to nest. She's got someone to do a lot of the physical labor of cleaning, like Enjolras, but unlike him she notices that stuff and actively monitors how clean things are and what needs to be done better to keep a room looking nice.

Thor is kind of a slob, in the way you can be if you've had people picking up after you all your life. He's careful with his weapons and armor and all, and he'll clean those very carefully, and generally Asgardians seem to be pretty grime-resistant so I'm going to hope and assume whatever magic that is can be extended to their rooms as well. So probably people don't actually have to climb up frequently to dust the knotwork on those vast vaulted golden ceilings, etc. But -- yeah. Thor will totally drop his clothes in a pile in the corner, fling his glass to the floor (politely! this is manners, guys!!), etc, and assume that someone else will pick up after him. He expects a room to be generally tidy; he can deal with other people's mess just fine on their home turf, but he'd want a place to be fairly clean and tidy if he was living in it long-term.

He's gotten better about noticing that this isn't necessarily the case outside of Asgard's palace -- where he feels no guilt about it, but that's because any people cleaning up after him are being paid explicitly to do that kind of thing -- but he still slips up.

Kazul isn't as bad as some dragons -- hi, Roxim -- but she definitely has a chaotic filing style when left to her own devices. Treasure Gets Dropped In A Treasure Room, Somewhere, I Dunno Inside That Vase Seems Fine, kind of chaotic. This is why she hired a princess to mop and cook and organize her stuff for her! It's still more or less in order, but possibly recent acquisitions are starting to get deposited any which way again.

[have_no_mercy]

Tess has staff to keep things tidy for her. She's not that messy anyway.

Kylo is a minimalist and only keeps that one piece of memorabilia around, so he's pretty tidy all on his own.

[tu_vas_triompher]

....pfff, and he has a whole station full of people to clean up after his tantrums. :D

[have_no_mercy]

Not his fault people keep pissing him off! But yes, that, too.

[clayforthedevil]

Joly tends to be inadvertently clutter-y, but he's also very safety-conscious and hygienic, so it's kind of an odd combination. As far as repairing things goes, sure! He can do repairs! With SCIENCE! He can make that leaking pipe stronger! Better! Faster!
...He mostly ends up calling someone else in to fix the repairs.

Bahorel likes a visually active space, with lots of decoration and things to look at--he'd go for roccoco and gothic over minimalist any day, for sure-- but the organization of his space always makes sense to him, whatever it seems like to anyone else. *He* can find his stuff, it doesn't matter if anyone else can.
He can fix his stuff, too; he's always been solid at carpentry and basic repair-type work. Which is good, because he is otherwise pretty careless about breaking things, especially his own things.

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka keeps things pretty minimal and clean, for the most part. She doesn't have a lot of patience for cleaning and so will stuff things in closets or drawers if she can get away with it.

Sabine is still used to keeping things to Imperial standards.

Amelia doesn't have a room any longer, though she's about to get a new one. She tends towards organized clutter, paying special care that her books are not in any danger. Aside from that though, old glasses and food can be left around.

Sam isn't quite so neat as his Air Force days but he still keeps a clean house and tends to even clean up hotel rooms a bit before he moves on.

Hank's sleeping room can be cluttered and messy, but his lab is always neat and organized.

Rollo is a total slob and depends on others to pick up after him. The exception to this is his weapons. He always knows where they are and keeps them in good repair and cleanliness.

[vivien]

Tom has books eeeeeeeverywhere. Stacks! And he also drapes his clothes on a chair and doesn't hang them up, magically or otherwise. Other than that, he's tidy.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei believes that stacks of books (or notes) can be organized, but he has a whole bunch of rules for what counts as an "organized stack" versus a "mess." For example:

1. The books must be grouped by subject matter


2. The stack can only be a maximum of six books high (less if any books are more than an inch thick)


3. The stack must live on a table or desk, not the chair, floor, bed, etc.


4. The stack may only live for a maximum of 30 days - then you have to put the books away

This all sounds rather fussy, but if he didn't impose these rules on himself he'd have stacks of books everywhere just like Tom and he'd have trouble finding them when he needed them. You should never have to divine the location of a book that you yourself own and have put away!

[genarti]

Hee hee. ENJOLRAS GETS IT, MAN. Books are important!

(I also get it. *eyes shelves, and shelf...adjacent...everywhere*)