#wall bellflower

[caffernnn]

consider - Everything Goes On by Porter Robinson as a Heart's Departure MakoHaru song

Oh no! The lyrics!! I have been torn asunder!!!

The pain of remembering what you’ve lost… the pain of nobody else remembering… the pain of seeing your favorite person watch the world forget them and telling their favorite person (who knows them best, has known them all along) that they’re allowed to forget and let go too… I’m pacing the floor I hate it here!!!!!

Songs that are reminiscent of Heart’s Departure are a different type of pain. Made To Fall Apart by Pace Randolph is a HD banger, and a couple of the Greatest Showman songs (iirc the author mentioned those as story inspiration?? but I’ll still hear Rewrite The Stars and be surprised how well it fits 🥴). BRO we need a playlist at this point

[itsoutrageouss]

Like a bellflower - chapter one

chapter one of like a bellflower, a Joel Miller x Fem!Oc fanfiction.

warnings: violence, death, blood, the word 'rape', general apocalyptic angst things yk

words: 2,6k

Story taglist

1. A stoic rescue

✿✿✿

“If we don’t find some more fucking ammo soon I swear i’m going to kill someone,” Kade grumbled as we all walked along a broad gravelly road. He bit into the last of his dried meat with anger, ripping the flesh apart aggressively with his teeth. His arm nearly hit me as it swung back. I always stayed behind the four of them. Kade, Ryan, Sarah and Cole. When they found me, and agreed to pick me up along with them I thought I could find solidarity in Sarah. A girl. Or a woman I should say, because she is a lot more woman than me. 

Her shoulders were as broad as the mens, her figure sturdy and hardened like her face. No solidarity was to be found in those eyes. She met me like the men did; looking down at me with clenched jaws, demanding I fix us all food and making mean jokes when I try to brush and fix my hair. 

“That ain’t going to fix nothing sweetheart- how about a trip to the salon instead? It’ll be on me,” Kade would say with a nasty grin and they would all belt out laughter while they tended to their guns like I tend to my hair, with the same kind of care. The kind you should never use on weapons.

“But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue,” I always quote, biting my tongue until metal melts in my mouth.

“You have to calm down, we’re almost at the next town. If there isn’t any ammo, we’ll butcher someone that has some.” Cole replies, walking with fast, tough steps. They were always so hard, so violent. I watched intensely as my feet kicked the gravel. My gun didn’t have a lot of ammo left either but I would rather not have to hurt someone to get more. I’d run if I had to, but I really didn’t. 

The rest of the walk was silent, until old suburban houses started appearing. No one spoke to me. Wordlessly everyone divided to ransack the houses. Cole and Kade went together, so did Ryan and Sarah. Sarah, a dainty, feminine name for a woman with cold, rejecting eyes. No solace. I walked on my own, shoulders slumping. 

The house was a pale blue, the door was off the hinges completely, and I stepped over the rotten wood. Dust swirled in the beams of light that were pushing through barred windows. Someone had stayed here for a while, it looked like. Empty cans of food were piled on the dirty kitchen tiles. When I glanced back at the broken down door, I noticed the beating it had taken. The blood stains that the wood had absorbed. Scratch marks. I didn’t want to think of what had happened here, and instead I filtered through the flashes of sunlight, the warmth pulsing on my cheek. The air smelled like rotten wood too, as well as flowers. They bloomed in the corners of the walls, through broken tapestry they unfolded like nothing had ever bothered them. Like the whole world wasn’t dying. Untouched by the destruction, pretty and blooming. I wished to be like the flower. 

There was no ammo, but in the back cabinets I found old cans of beans that must’ve been forgotten in whatever hurry had happened here. Between the wooden beams that barred the window I saw the others gathering in the middle of the road. Soldiers, they looked like. Machines. They made my skin crawl and every soft thing inside me hardened. I solidified, when everything I fought for everyday was to be soft. Free, fresh and blooming like a flower. A war between me and the world to preserve the delicate human I was, but I felt like throwing it all up when Kade looked at me. He made me feel like he wanted to rape me. His eyes were wide like a drug addict, and his stare a direct look into the most damaged soul I had ever met in my life. I had no clue what his story was and I was terrified to find out. He wanted to hurt the world like it had hurt him and I didn’t want to be here to see it but I had nowhere else to go. 

They talked aggressively to each other, heads bent close together even though there probably wasn't anyone around for miles. I still never got used to seeing people standing in the middle of the roads. The cars were supposed to be there. And now all the cars were flipped upside down and stripped for parts. Sarah crushed a spiring dandelion under her foot. Her black, greasy hair flipped around her head when she talked. The day was beautiful but the people were not. 

We decided to camp there, in the house I found. I found a broken family photo in a bedroom upstairs. I was frozen, sitting on a four poster bed with a family full of strangers in my hand. This room was a memory in time. A photo in itself. If not for the barricaded window, where the sunlight slowly turned red, you wouldn’t be able to tell that life had died everywhere around it. So I stayed there all night. I went downstairs silently, like a child who’d awoken from a nightmare. But there were no parents downstairs, and I crept silently around them to grab a can of beans. Kades big hand squeezed my fragile wrist harshly and the can dropped from my hand. “You’re not taking all of that,” he spoke harshly before opening the can and pouring almost all of the content into an empty one. The rest he gave to me. “Sit down,” he stroked my wrist where he’d hurt me and I coiled away, sitting down reluctantly. I never joined their talk. Ryan was the nicest of them all, though the difference in their behaviors were minimal. They had been just them for so long that Sarah was Ryan and Ryan was Cole and all of them were Kade. Not one authentic trait that wasn’t given to them by the apocalypse. None of their own selves left from before. I pitied it, sort of. When they dozed off in their sleeping bags I snuck back up and crawled under the cold comforter in the bedroom with the photo on the pillow next to me. I tried to imagine living here. With my family, when they were still here. Sleeping next to my parents in their bed even though i probably was a bit too old for it. We wouldn’t tell anyone. Tomorrow we’d make breakfast together, maybe? 

Those thoughts put me to sleep. 

Bang. I woke with such a violent start that my hand flung the photo to the carpeted floor. It was already broken, but now the glass had fallen out of the frame in pieces completely. I had ruined the last memory of this family. Another bang. It was gunshots and the crashes that followed rumbled the old flooring beneath me. Impulsively I ripped the photo from the frame and stuck it in my pocket. I didn’t know how to move. We had never been in this situation. I had never been apart from the group when we were attacked. They were always there and always merciless. I had to fend for myself still, because they prioritized each other over me anytime. Sometimes it was as if they would purposefully let me fight on my own despite them being fully capable of helping me. I swung my backpack on, in case I had to run again. My hands trembled and the gun nearly slipped from my grasp. I creaked open the bedroom door, right at the top of the stairs. “Fucking get him!” I heard Ryan yell. More crashes, grunts. The stairs creaked as I took a step but another noise covered it. Blood sprayed on the wall next to the broken front door. Greasy black hair, fell with a thud to the ground. Blood started to pool around Sarah’s head, which was all of her I could see from this angle. I breathed in. It smelled like being on summer camp. Sunlight, fresh air but a metallic, wooden scent interfered with the peaceful memory. Kane roared and I heard him  surge towards whoever the perpetrator was. I closed my eyes harshly until it hurt, then I opened them and ran down the stairs as the spots faded away from my sight. My gun was stretched in front of me. Everything after that happened so fast I barely caught it. An elbow to Ryan's face who stumbled backwards. To clean shots through Cole's stomach. Bang, bang, thud. Bile rose in my throat. My gun was still in front of me. I didn’t move. I didn’t know what I felt. 

A loud grunt, a missed shot but a punch to the gut from Kade to the stranger. He was hardened too, but not in the cold, menacing way of the others. He looked human, I thought, right before he twisted Kades arm around in a nasty crack, pushing his back into the man's chest before firing a bullet right through his temples. Kade looked at me then, and for the first and only time I saw something else in his eyes. He looked scared. Like a little boy who’d been told off. Who’d been left alone and scolded and shown no love, who now pleaded for it for the last time ever. And then my eyes turned sympathetic. I did everything I could to give him that last piece of whatever feeling closest to affection I had for him and a peace fell over his eyes right as the bullet tore through him. My mouth was sour, and I leaned down, throwing up right next to Sarah’s body. 

The stranger let Kade fall to his knees, discarded him and stalked towards me with a reaction time that seemed inhuman. I expected the harsh, calloused hands of a man piercing my skin. Like Kade’s used to. I dropped the gun. It landed in my own puke. The man stopped between me and the mess. We both looked down. Then we looked up. My eyes were filled with hot, stingy tears from throwing up. Maybe fear. He breathed harshly, quickly and his nostrils flared. His eyes were dark as he looked demandingly underneath his furrowed brows. He had a handsome face, salt and pepper scruff, a hooked nose and sloped lips. But he also was hardened from this world. 

His shoulders fell, quickly aware that I probably wasn’t the biggest threat around. That irritated me, and I squared up, fisting my hands. “Get away or I'll punch you.” I said. There was volume in my voice that I didn't expect. He didn’t move, but looked down on my petty gun again. Then he turned around, and started searching the bodies of my old crew. He took their guns, searched them. I stood still. I was shaking like a leaf and tears rolled down my cheeks now silently. I wasn’t sad for these people. I was sad for the last time this happened. When it was the people I cared for that lay still while I stood up. I cried for them,  tightly fisting the photo of the family I found in my pocket. The man stopped, and looked at me. “I’ll leave some stuff for you,” he said. His voice was gruff. And it hit me like bricks, so hard I nearly folded into two again. I was going to be left alone. The man was looking done, about to leave again. Then there would be silence, like when snow falls. Nothing. 

“Take me with you,” I said, too desperate for my liking but suddenly he felt like the last thing I had in the world even though I didn't even know his name.

“No,” he said, and walked out the backdoor without looking back. I wiped my gun off in Sarah’s shirt, with a little regret but not so much that i felt guilty and followed the man out. He had a horse that was tied to a tree.

“You have to.” i stated, my breathing quick and shallow. I would not let him leave. 

“I don’t, actually.” 

Did he not feel any remorse? What if that was my family he just killed, and then left me for myself. Not even so merciful as to put me in the grave with them? But they weren’t my family and I would not go with them into death, but this man didn’t know. 

“You just killed everything around me.” It wasn’t the first time that had happened and I felt like I was grasping at water, trying to hold it in my hand. I heaved in a gasp of shock and sorrow and it was what finally made him look at me. His brows furrowed even more, if possible. His face softened, and I swore I saw guilt flash across his still-new features. He was listening.

“I’m silent. You won’t even know i’m here. And as soon, I promise, as soon as we come across somewhere else I can stay, I'll leave. But you owe me a ride.” I wasn’t used to selling myself, to making me sound like someone you’d want along on your travels and even though my face heated with embarrassment and the words I spoke, it was all the hope I had not to curl up in that four poster bed until I withered into nothing. 

He said nothing for a while, looking somewhere behind me in thought. I mustered my most desperate eyes. I tried baring my soul through them for him to see that I needed this. He already seemed ways better than any of the four people that had taken me upon since the tragic incident. 

“As soon as we find something.. livable, you’re gone.” he grumbled. The relief made my knees weak, air seeped out of me uncontrollably and I had to hold onto the tree so as to not fall in on myself. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I whispered, tasting tears on my lips that I wiped profusely. I was not to be a burden to this man before I had even gotten onto his horse. 

“Just follow me and stay quiet,” he said, pulling the horse along with him. We walked, and I didn't look back. The blue house I swore to leave forever behind me. The photo I held onto. The sun was only just rising, cold and bright as it stretched over the abandoned houses. We walked in the middle of the road, on each side of the horse. I felt warmth on my skin, on my hair and I combed it down with my fingers and braided it down my back. And no one laughed, or said anything. I realized this might have been my rescue as I looked up at the pine trees ahead, instead of down at the gravel. I looked anywhere I liked and made my hair look nice and I stroked the now curled up photo with my thumb, looking over at the man.

“What's your name?” 

I had already broken one of three rules: stay silent, follow me, leave me alone as soon as possible.

He sighed, “you’re not very good at this.” 

Even his scolding, and his glare was everything Kades wasn’t. There was no malice, no intention to hurt. I didn’t feel fear in my gut. 

“I’m Belle. Like the princess” I peaked over the horse’s moving body.

“Like bellflowers,” he said, glancing at me for barely a second. Like a bellflower, blooming, delicate and untouched by the world. I wish it was so.

“Joel. My name is Joel”

✿✿✿

chapter two

[fashionsfromhistory]

Side Chair from the Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room

1881-1882

George A. Schastey & Co.

In 1881, Arabella Worsham, then-mistress of railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, hired George A. Schastey & Co. to decorate her townhouse at 4 West Fifty-Fourth Street in New York City. The resulting artistic interiors would have been considered the height of cosmopolitan style in the early 1880s and were emblematic of Worsham’s quest to fashion her identity as a wealthy, prominent woman of taste. When Worsham married Huntington in 1884, she sold the house, fully furnished, to John D. and Laura Spelman Rockefeller, who made few subsequent changes to the decorations. Following Mr. Rockefeller’s death, the house was demolished in 1938, yet some furnishings, large-scale architectural elements, and three interiors were preserved, and the rooms were donated to local museums by John D. Rockefeller Jr.

This side chair of satinwood and purpleheart, one of a pair, is part of the suite (2009.226.1–.4) that furnished Worsham’s elaborately decorated dressing room, one of the preserved interiors now installed in The American Wing (Gallery 742). These objects were part of a decorative program that encompassed every aspect of the room, including the architectural woodwork, lighting, stenciled wall-treatment, painted ceiling and frieze, textiles, and other furnishings. On the chair’s back, the marquetry decoration of grotesque masks and vines echoes the ornamental motifs in the dressing room’s architectural woodwork. The overall form is light and rectilinear. The tapered front legs with cascading bellflowers channel the spirit of English Neoclassical designers such as Robert Adam and George Hepplewhite. It rests on castors, allowing it to be moved easily within the room.

Although few objects can be attributed to George A. Schastey & Co., the high quality of their work – as seen in this fine example – was comparable to other prominent firms of the Gilded Age, including Herter Brothers and Pottier & Stymus. At its peak in the early 1880s, the firm employed at least 125 people in its workshops. Their distinctive designs are steeped in Renaissance sources with flourishes from the Islamic world and the British design reform movement.

The MET (Accession Number: 2009.226.3)

[i-guess-im-into-this-now]

The Apothecary Diaries

S1E10 First Watch

Here's where I watch The Apothecary Diaries for the first time and give my thoughts, analysis, predictions, and occasionally I stumble into a joke.

To start at the beginning:

Episode 1

My character/location cheat sheet

Lady Ah-Duo - Pure Consort, one of 4 top concubines

Garnet Pavilion - Lady Ah-Duo's residence

Fengming - Head LIW at Garnet Pavilion

Xiaolan - Maomao's servant friend

Lady Lishu - child bride concubine

Lady Lihua - the consort who was poisoned by powder

Jade Pavilion - Lady Gyokuyou's residence

Luomen - Maomao's physician father

Sir Kounen - Jinshi's older acquaintance who died

This episode fought me hard. Like, I struggled a lot with it. I'm more lost than I've ever been in this show. And forewarning, much of this episode's blog is me spinning wild theories, since I couldn't actually figure out what is happening.

And full disclosure, I had to watch this episode twice. I watched it once while I was tired, and could not figure out a lot of it. So I slept on it, let the mysteries roll around my head all day, and then watched it again and I'm still confused about many things! But I had some insights about a couple things, and added some more notes to my initial watch responses. Enjoy!

Cryptic opening. A person sits drinking alone on what appears to be the walls of the palace.

Palace gossip! The girl who drowned used to serve at the Garnet Pavilion. Word has it that she's the one who poisoned Lady Lishu's food. Could she have done it because Lady Ah-Duo is at risk of losing her place as one of the top consorts to a younger concubine?

At age 35, Lady Ah-Duo is so, so old. She's practically geriatric. Way too old to be a favored consort, even if she has been married to the emperor since he was the crown prince, and bore him a child that died.

And the math is funny when you have to consider child brides, but there is a possibility that if that infant that she bore had in fact not died, that they would be a young adult right about now. Right around the age of Jinshi a lot of young men in the palace. This possibility isn't my leading theory, since the show has already implied that Jinshi is the emperor's brother, but it's a good back up. For what it's worth, Lady Ah-Duo has the right coloring and look to be related to Jinshi. Also, I have no idea how old Jinshi actually is, but Gaoshun keeps referring to him as a young person, so I'm guessing young 20s or late teens. Which means there is an age gap between him and his brother the emperor who we now know is 34.

I'm starting to notice a motif. Maomao describes the Rear Palace as a garden, and the concubines as flowers. I remember her talking to Lady Lihua about how one could not compare a peony to a bellflower. And now she says:

Even the most beautiful flowers wilt eventually. And those unable to bear fruit no longer serve a purpose.

The ladies of the Jade Pavilion prepare and host a tea party for Lady Lishu, which is fraught with politics. The party is attended by Lady Lishu's food taster, who is terrified of Maomao after the events of the Garden Party. But even so, it seems Lady Lishu is still being bullied by her ladies.

Of note: Maomao is dressed up for the party, and doesn't have her freckles on.

The ladies of the Jade Pavilion won't let Maomao help clean up and they toss her out into the hall claiming she needs to rest, but they may have ulterior motives, because a certain palace manager is waiting for Maomao there.

Jinshi wants to know about the tea party, and Maomao realizes that he may have had a hand in organizing this event. I assume he wanted Maomao to observe Lady Lishu with her ladies in waiting to determine if the bullying is still happening, which is a noble intention. Why he does these things without simply asking Maomao to help, I don't know. She doesn't appreciate being maneuvered, and her natural curiosity and desire to help usually get her involved anyway, so there really isn't a good reason for him to continue operating this way. But things have been weird since Maomao became despondent after the servant girl drowned. He's retreated to old behaviors, which include manipulating Maomao. And the mask of the enigmatic palace manager is back. He's all sparkles again.

Maomao tries to brush him off.

Jinshi: I am far from being done with you.

Understatement.

Maomao: Funny, I'm more than done with you.

A lie.

But she may be done with him in this moment. When he's sparkling, he's manipulating, and she knows it.

They are bantering as they always do, but this isn't honest or fun. And he's put his hand on her shoulder. She has asked him before not to do that. She slaps it off as she did last time. Nothing has changed. What she said before is still true. His status makes anything between them impossible, and he shouldn't be touching her.

His tone immediately changes, signaling his sincerity as he wants to talk about the servant girl who died. He's not convinced that it was a suicide. He's heard Maomao's thoughts on this before, and he believes her. He also doesn't want to give up on finding the truth and getting justice for that girl. And... I just love that.

We see Jinshi through Maomao's distorted lens so often, that it can be hard to see that he has heroic qualities. When we first met him, he seemed to be almost an antagonist to Maomao. He was using her in his machinations, trying to seduce her to more firmly control her, and keeping information from her. But his role in this story, is not that of an antagonist, he's the love interest, and he's got to be worthy of the hero. As we've moved through the story we've caught glimpses of his better nature, and we can read between the lines to see what his motivations and actions have been. He's got some growth yet to do, no doubt, but fundamentally, he's a good person. And here, with his pursuit of justice for the murdered servant girl, we get a good example of him becoming a hero in his own right.

This also demonstrates the impact Maomao has had on Jinshi. I do believe he cared about justice before Maomao arrived in his life, and I think he would have pursued this case regardless, but this case in particular has extra meaning to Jinshi, because of Maomao.

The woman who died is a servant girl, just like Maomao. Someone targeted this woman and murdered her, because she was expendable.

Maomao: I am but a lowly commoner. My life is easily taken away over the slightest error. [From episode 9]

And that is unacceptable to Jinshi.

He saw a despondent Maomao, and listened to what she had to say, and in the moment he had no idea what to do. And he still might not know what to say to Maomao, but he does know that servant girls don't deserve to die when they become an inconvenience to someone in power.

And servant girls shouldn't have to live in the palace feeling like their lives are expendable.

Maomao: We wander through life, never knowing when it's our time. That's fate. There's no way of resisting it. [From episode 9]

No. Not okay. Not to Jinshi.

He might not be able to escape the obligations of his station or be able to take off the mask he needs to wear, but he can at least use his power for this.

He saw Maomao at her darkest moment to date, and it threw him. He has pulled back a bit but as he said he's far from being done with her. Jinshi never gives up on Maomao. Big male lead energy.

And so Jinshi asks for Maomao's thoughts, as he always does. He always wants to know her thoughts, her conjectures, and he believes her. As he did with the drowned servant girl. Now he wants to know if she thinks the servant girl could have done what it's being said she did. He's not sure himself, but he trusts that Maomao will have some insight. Just as Jinshi's support and encouragement helps Maomao to solve mysteries, Maomao's careful analysis and even unfounded conjectures, help Jinshi make sense of the cases he's call upon to handle. They work better when they work together.

Jinshi has heard her thoughts about the servant girls death before, but he has to ask again:

Jinshi: Do you think she really committed suicide? Maomao: I've already told you that's not for me to determine.

And if Jinshi is back to masks, and sparkles, then Maomao is back to conjectures shouldn't be spoken out loud and "a mere lady-in-waiting wouldn't know."

Jinshi: She was a common servant girl. What reason would she have for attempting to poison Concubine Lishu? Maomao: I don't know.

The walls are up. The communication is down. Jinshi makes a frustrated sound. He tried asking her earnestly, and it got him nowhere. If Maomao is going to retreat to old behavior, so will he. It's time to ✨sparkle.✨

Jinshi will get to the bottom of this case goddamnit, even if he has to maneuver Maomao to do it. She's been sent to the Garnet Pavilion to help out get answers. She acts like she's upset at being sent, but don't listen to her. She wants to solve this case as much as Jinshi does.

That's... a hell of an intro for Lady Ah-Duo. She's going to be someone important isn't she? See wild theory above.

Caught it on the second watch, but the person on the wall was Lady Ah Duo. Her guan and hair style are the same, and when Maomao pictures her riding a horse, it's the same outfit at in the beginning.

Which begs the question, what was she doing sitting up on the rooftop drinking and staring at the stars?

Lady Ah-Duo is getting the kind of starstruck reaction usually reserved for Jinshi. And Maomao is wondering who Lady Ah-Duo reminds her of. Don't tell me my off-the-wall theory was correct? Shit, I'll have to rework all my other theories if that's true...

Everything at the Garnet Pavilion seems... nice. The servants work hard, and the head lady in waiting is kind, and approachable, different from what we've seen before with Lady Lihua's and Lady Lishu's servants. Maomao isn't sure what to do. She didn't get any specific instructions from Jinshi, and she's not sure where or what to look for. She's considering all of the angles though. In fact those thoughts are keeping her up at night. A servant girl who used to live and work in that very pavilion, was murdered. And someone did try to poison Lady Lishu. Maomao knows there must be a clue somewhere. It's driving her crazy.

This show just casually drops in commentary about the role of women in society.

She's (Fengming) well past her prime, but in another life, she would have made a great wife. I wonder if she ever considered marriage? Or if she chose to serve Concubine Ah-Duo for life?

I wonder if Maomao considers this her fate as well. Will she ever consider marriage? Will she choose to serve Concubine Gyokuyou for life? Do servants even get a choice? Do their desires matter at all? What about the concubines? Do they get a choice? Do their desires matter at all?

Lady Lishu shows up to the Garnet Pavilion acting weird as hell. Looking all around like she doesn't want to be seen. And she only has her one food taster with her. Strange for someone who may have been the target of an assassination attempt from the Garnet Pavilion.

Something about this doesn't add up. Why is she hiding her visit? Is she hiding from her own ladies? Is that why she only brought the one? Or is she avoiding someone else and didn't want a large retinue that would make her more noticeable. And why visit the Garnet Pavilion? What is the connection? She had the weird reaction to honey at the tea party she attended at the Jade Pavilion. Does this have something to do with honey? I really don't know. Maybe there will be some clues later on.

When she's done Maomao reports back to Jinshi, who... is acting very strangely. I think he's trying to seduce Maomao again. But, why use methods he knows will fail? Just what the hell is going on here?!

Maomao: And what's with his casual attitude recently?

Maomao thinks it's weird too.

He starts by lounging suggestively across the couch. Maomao finishes her report of the facts, and Jinshi asks her to go on... and I think I've figured out what he's up to. She's still holding back, not willing to share her thoughts and theories with him. He's pushing her. He tried talking it out before, and it didn't work, so this is plan B.

He pushes her with a pointed question, and that works! She tells him the facts she knows, her reasoning, and her opinions. Gaoshun and Jinshi share a look. Everything Maomao said aligns with what they already thought about Fengming.

The honey. Does the fact that Jinshi brought it mean anything?

Maomao: Given the way he's lapping up that honey, he must have already suspected her (Fengming).

I actually don't know how she gets to that leap of logic. Does she think he went to request a pot of honey from Garnet Pavilion to investigate himself? Maybe he or Gaoshun really did do that. Maybe that is how Gaoshun discovered that Fengming has a bandaged arm. I don't know.

What does he already know, before Maomao even gives her report? We know he knew about the bandage on Fengming's arm, but didn't tell Maomao about it. She noticed it and figured out it's significance on her own. She realizes that he already knew everything that she reported. So why bother to ask her?

My theory is that he's not sure, but he trusts Maomao's judgement and wanted to hear it from her to confirm his own thoughts, or see if she had any additional insights. Maybe to see if she can tie in any of the other mysteries. Or maybe he is seeing if she is a good spy. Perhaps he will use her this way again in the future, since she performed so well.

For what it's worth, I think he would like to be able to ask her opinion and have it freely given. And they may reach a day where he can simply consult with her, without her pulling away. But that day is not today.

There are also the mysteries of who tried to poison Lady Lishu, and why the servant girl that worked at the Garnet Pavilion was murdered. I think both Jinshi and Maomao would like to know if any of those things are connected.

Jinshi then does something so deeply weird... it's... he.... he tries to put his fingers In. Her. Mouth.

He offers her a pot of honey. An expensive luxury, with medicinal properties. It's something she probably would be willing to accept. However:

✨Jinshi✨: This is for you. Good girls should be rewarded.

She declines, completely freaked out. So he dips his fingers in the honey and corners her. What the absolute fuck Jinshi?!

Maomao: Offer it to someone who wants your fingers in their mouth!

Back the hell off with your honeyed words and your honeyed fingers!

Jinshi: Don't be so modest.

Is he doing this because she smacked his hand off of her shoulder earlier?

Maomao yells for help from Gaoshun, who pretends he can neither see nor hear what is happening. Holy hell. Don't these guys remember her story about nearly being assaulted? What the hell does Jinshi hope to achieve here?

Maomao is pissed at Jinshi, unnerved, and uncomfortable, but she's not triggered into having a trauma response. I think she must know that Jinshi would not force her. Even with the honey, I think he would stop shy of forcing his fingers into her mouth. I think, he thinks he is teasing her (it's harassment as Lady Gyokuyou says when she comes in). Maomao considers fighting. She considers submitting. She considers fleeing, but before she can decide what to do, she has an insight, which is what finally stops Jinshi.

Maomao has a moment where she thinks through some earlier events, like Lady Lishu not wanting to eat honey, and having had an allergic reaction to fish. She draws a connection that Lady Lishu may also be allergic to honey. Then she thinks about the servant girl who was drowned, about Lady Ah Duo, the servants, and Lady Lishu acting shady. And... I'm not sure what connection they have to honey, but I'm glad Maomao was able to connect all of the events. I knew she could do it, even if I can't!

My hero, Lady Gyokuyou walks in and Jinshi is caught honey red handed. And he runs away, like the guilty asshole that he is. Did I say he had heroic qualities earlier? I take it all back.

Gaoshun calls Maomao "Xiaomao" and tries to make excuses for Jinshi, calling this a prank that went to far. And barf. Fuck that excuse. And boy do I think there is some commentary happening here about sexual harassment and rape culture, but I won't digress into it.

Maomao: Since it was nothing but harmless fun, next time you can do the licking for me?

So, what is the point of this scene?

I've thought about it, and I'm swinging in the dark, but I think Jinshi is acting bizarrely because he is getting desperate. We've seen him slowly unraveling for awhile now, as he struggles between craving authenticity, and living up to the expectations of his status. To be clear, what he did is way across the line. It's certainly across the line in Maomao's eyes. It's also crossing the lines of propriety which is why Gaoshun pretends not to see, and why Lady Gyokuyou reacts so strongly when she sees it. But I think Jinshi has even crossed a line of his own that he normally wouldn't. So what would compel this usually composed and calculating man to behave in such an unhinged way?

Well I think it comes down to a few key events that happened recently.

Maomao left.

Jinshi has gotten rather used to having Maomao around. Being able to call upon her whenever he wants to take advantage of her incredible mind and unmatched skills. Or if he just wants to tease her or banter with her. She's the one who sees him. The one who makes him feel like he's a person, and not like he's just filling a role. So when he shows up and she's just... gone. Well. Jinshi did not like it.

He thought he lost her to another man.

Not only was she gone. She was gone with another man! Hadn't Jinshi been clear enough when he gave her a hair pin? How can she prefer Lihaku?! Also, doesn't she shrink away or cringe whenever Jinshi tries to touch her? How could she allow herself to be with Lihaku?! It turned out she wasn't physical with Lihaku, but for a moment there he saw what could happen. Jinshi did not like it.

Maomao's despair

That the machinations of the palace could tangle Maomao and get her killed, and that Jinshi would be powerless to stop it, well... This is intolerable to Jinshi.

Mix these feelings of loneliness, jealousy, and desperation and we get a Jinshi that is irrational. We've usually seen Jinshi in control of himself and everyone else around him. He's the mastermind, who knows how to move the pieces around the board to produce the outcome that he wants. And if he feels some way about what's going on around him or inside him, we usually have to guess, because he doesn't have anyone that he can talk to about it. So to now see him behave without thought, or reason, just from a place of desperation, of wanting to connect with Maomao, who just won't let him in, no matter what he does. Well, it's really weird, and inexcusable, but also kind of sad.

Whatever the case may be, Maomao uses this opportunity to ask Gaoshun for a favor. She's put the pieces together and now she needs evidence. Gaoshun accompanies her to visit Lady Lishu. His presence implies that the visit is sanctioned by Jinshi, which it is not. Maomao feels he owes her this one.

She wants to ask Lady Lishu about honey. Things are starting to come together for Maomao but I'm lost. I haven't figured out how exactly the conspiracy works yet, or what connection Lady Lishu has with the Garnet Pavilion. In any case, Lady Lishu had a dangerous reaction to honey as an infant and was told to never again eat it. And when Maomao asks about Fengming, Lady Lishu looks downright terrified. I'm also remembering that Lady Lishu was the child bride of the former emperor, and was mother-in-law to Lady Ah-Duo. That little tidbit probably wasn't dropped into this story for no reason. Just what is the connection between Lady Lishu, Lady Ah-Duo, and Fengming? Whatever Maomao suspected she didn't share it and now I'm starting to understand how Jinshi feels because I also want to force her to tell me what she thinks!

Gaoshun may not be a fan of JinMao but he is becoming quite a fan of "Xiaomao." He's giving her cutesy names and doing her favors with no reward. He has seen the way her brilliant mind works, her passion for protecting the powerless, her composure under pressure, and her superior competencies. She's earned his respect. When she asks, he searches through the court library, without question.

Wait a god damn minute. Honey. Lady Ah Duo's child appeared dead because they gave him honey. Of course they did, they have honey in abundance at the Garnet Pavilion. Then when the doctor was called he... took him out of the palace to safety? No that doesn't sound right. If the baby were a girl I would say yes, and that the baby was Maomao. But if that were true and we assumed that the emperor was her father, and we assume that Jinshi is the emperor's brother, than that would make Jinshi Maomao's uncle. Lol! Perfect. Absolutely perfect. But I don't think that's right.

So I've thought some more and I'm reminded that someone said the Emperor and Lady Ah Duo were foster siblings. I'd like to know more about that scenario, but regardless, I wonder if they truly saw themselves more like siblings than as spouses. I wonder if they didn't have physical relations at all. It would explain why they never had another baby in the many years they have been married. But then how did Lady Ah Duo end up pregnant you may ask. Well, there are not a lot of named male characters in this show that could fit the bill, so with my limited information, and a shot in the dark, I'm going to guess Sir Kounen. He was around in the palace with access to the imperial family, which we know because he had an impact on young Jinshi. Was he friends with the Emperor and Lady Ah Duo? Did Lady Ah Duo used to ride horses with him, then sit under the stars? Was that why she was drinking while stargazing at the top of the episode? Was she toasting to her past lover? I don't know. I don't really have any evidence at all.

So then what is with Fengming burning secret communication sticks? Well, if we consider that Lady Ah-Duo sneaks out to go horseback riding or meet up with her fellow who isn't the emperor, then maybe those communication sticks are for setting up secret rendezvous.

When Maomao was figuring out the connection of honey to every as yet unsolved mystery, she thought about how honey can nearly kill an infant, she thought about the servant girl who was murdered, and of Lady Ah-Duo, and if Jinshi is that baby, and honey was used to feint his death, then maybe the reason the servant was killed, was because she found out that the baby that was born was not the emperor's, or maybe that the baby lived. Or maybe she found out about Lady Au Duo having an affair, or maybe she saw Fengming using the secret communication sticks. Hmmm, could be a lot of things. There are a lot of secrets to keep in the Garnet Pavilion.

But how does Lady Lishu tie in? Am I way off here?

So I guess I'm now leaning towards Lady Ah-Duo's baby being Jinshi. Was Sir Kounen actually his father? And that would make Jinshi 17. He seems older to me. With all of his responsibilities, that makes me very sad to think he's so young.

There were two baby boys born around the same time, the baby of the emperor and the baby of the crown prince. Was there a baby swap in the palace? Did the emperor's child die? And they replaced that child with the Lady Ah-Duo's baby? Therefor removing Lady Ah-Duo's baby from the line of succession, since the child is a bastard and isn't actually of the imperial bloodline. That would kind of fit with how Jinshi is treated.

But you may ask, if Jinshi were Lady Ah Duo's baby and honey almost killed him at an infant, how can he sit around lapping it up now as an adult? Well, babies' deadly reaction to honey isn't due to an allergy, it's a rare infection. So even if you have a reaction as a baby, that doesn't mean you can't eat it as an adult. Will this be relevant later? Is that why the storytellers made such a spectacle of the honey scene? So we would remember it later?

Also, Maomao thinks it strange that the current emperor only had one concubine while he was still crown prince. That's even stranger if that one concubine was his foster sister whom he didn't have a physical relationship with. Did he also have a secret lover on the side? In the annex maybe? Perhaps someone that it wasn't appropriate to make into an official concubine? Perhaps Maomao's mother? Do we even know any characters that could fit this role? Fengming, maybe? The emperor comes to visit Lady Ah Duo, but he's actually there to see her head lady in waiting? Is Fengming actually using the communication sticks to set up a rendezvous for herself with the emperor? Did the lady in waiting find out, and the emperor's people had her killed? But Fengming is quite a bit older than the emperor so that's probably not it either.

Ahhhhgggg! This episode is too confusing! I give up! I want to threaten Maomao with some honeyed fingers and make her tell me what's going on!

I am really sorry to the people who read all of this. I have nothing good to offer you this episode. Just a ton of really wild, conjectures. Maybe I should take Luomen's advice and keep some of those to myself. Or maybe put them to use in writing a fanfic. lol.

If you want to start this blog series at the beginning:

Episode 1

Next episode:

Episode 11

[sweet-s0rr0w]

Microfic: Without Sunshine

A little something for the two lovelies @shealwaysreads and @sitp-recs on their birthdays <3 I hope you both had a wonderful day!!

T, 1.1k, apocalyptic flower shop strangeness, fits the @drarrymicrofic prompt 'thunder'. This is the first thing I've written in many months, so please be kind! Thanks to @tackytigerfic for sharp eyes and endless patience.

The end of their world, when it happens, begins on a Tuesday morning.

It’s surprisingly easy. The concealment charms evaporate the minute the Leaky falls, leaving the whole of Diagon caught unaware, belly-up vulnerable. Shopping is abandoned on the cobblestones as witches and wizards grope for their wands, casting blindly while all around them bombs drop and buildings fall. Those who can leave do, as the tanks move in off Charing Cross Road, over broken glass and broken bones, tracks like rolling thunder along the narrow streets. Owls and ravens spill out through the blown-out Menagerie window, disappearing into the darkening sky, as Nifflers scrap loudly over stray bullet casings below.

It's several minutes before Harry, cloaked in the Azkaban-strength wards of the little flower shop, even notices that anything’s wrong.

“In theory, indefinitely,” Draco tells him, thoughtfully. He’s perfect, Harry thinks absently, bathed in high summer light, a puffy, peach-coloured rose held in delicate balance between finger and thumb. “The problem is that ethically harvested unicorn hairs are–”

And that's when everything goes dark.

By the faint blue phosphorescent glow of the ghost orchids, they peer out through the glass. Draco starts at a burst of gunfire, his breath coming fast, the rose still clutched in his hand beginning to tremble. Unthinking, Harry curls his own fingers around Draco’s, stilling him.

“There’s no Floo here, is there?” he asks softly, although he already knows the answer.

“We’re on the list,” Draco replies, distant. “Next week, they said, maybe–”

“And your anti-Apparition wards–?”

Draco just gives a jerky nod, lips pressed together, and that’s that. There’s nothing to be done about it, Harry knows – no duel to win, no long, lonely walk out into the Forbidden Forest – and in a strange way, it’s a relief.

The warded air around them is silent but for the oblivious tinkling of bellflowers. Across the way, a sharp burst of light heralds an explosion inside Fortescue’s, sending slick blue rooftiles crashing one by one to the ground below. For a long, uncertain moment the whole building seems to shiver, its ancient magic struggling against the onslaught, before, like a sigh released, the walls begin to sag in on themselves. Beside Harry, Draco is holding himself stiffly upright; the occasional twitch of his fingers the only nod towards the horror unfolding before them.

“Well,” he says eventually, looking down at their joined hands, “their timing’s dreadful.”

Harry lets out a surprised burst of laughter. “It really is. I was working up the courage, you know–” he looks at Draco “–but there was time. We had time.”

“We did. We had time.”

Their view is blurry now, both windows coated with a thick film of dust, the alley a smeared thumbprint of impressions: shadowy figures moving back and forth, spells cast in quick, colourful flares, the returning staccato bursts of gunfire from every side. Harry turns to watch the reflections in Draco’s eyes, benign as fireworks.

Draco doesn’t return Harry’s gaze. “Give me a second,” he says quietly. He pulls away, rose in hand, and begins darting around the shop, gathering up blooms, humming with approval as he goes. The wards are struggling now, Harry can tell – cracks appearing alongside the window frames, smoke curling in from beneath the door, tremors beneath his feet – but if Draco even notices, he doesn’t show it. Harry’s breath catches as he watches Draco pick out the largest of his precious ever-blooming lilies to add to the bunch: dainty pink-tipped lisanthus, sprays of baby blue speedwell, all cast in the eerie, flickering half-light of the shop.

“Here,” Draco says finally, thrusting the enormous bouquet towards Harry. The fragrance is overwhelming, damp petals tickling Harry’s chin as he takes it into his arms. “That is to say–” Draco clarifies, chin raised, “I had planned – if you had asked me–”

He tails off, the blush on his cheeks apparent even through the gloom, and Harry lifts the flowers to hide his smile. “They’re perfect,” is all he says.

“Not a patch on what I’d intended, really,” Draco says, quickly. “I’d hoped to have perfected the maturation charms, you know, and of course no-one can get hold of luminous larkspur at this time of year–”

“I’ve never been given flowers before.”

Draco pauses, mid-sentence, frowning. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I’d have given you more,” says Draco, and there’s a rueful edge to his smile. “Hundreds, probably. Tulips from Keukenhof, sakura from Hokkaido, mountain lupine from my mother’s garden… you’d have been sick of them in weeks, I’m sure.”

Harry opens his mouth, thinking to object, but is interrupted by an ominous splintering – the first audible indication of the chaos outside – as thin streams of plaster dust begin to cascade down from above the counter. Another crack, louder this time, Draco’s sizzling snapdragons snarling and straining upwards as one edge of the coving crumbles away, uncovering a narrow chink of daylight. The wards are beginning to flicker, more outside sounds audible now – the whir of a helicopter, the clatter of boots – and that’s when Harry feels the first tendrils of hope winding their way beneath his ribs.

“Still got those Seeker reflexes?” he asks Draco with a grin.

Draco’s brow furrows, but then he cottons on, eyes widening. “What, you think we can Apparate before–?” He brings his palm down smartly against the back of his other hand, a gruesome demonstration of their impending fate.

Harry swallows. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t honestly know, but I want to try.” Louder this time: “I mean, I want to try with you.”

Harry’s never been one to look back once a decision’s been made, but he forces himself to wait, heart in his throat, as Draco chews his lip, eyes fixed warily on the ceiling. He looks genuinely uncertain, and he’s not wrong, either: an end now – quick and painless – versus… what? What will the future look like, if they run?

But a second more, and Draco looks back down at him, jaw set. “Alright,” he says, and Harry leans forward, warm and giddy with adrenaline, to press their lips together – once, a beginning, and then again – flower heads crushed between their bodies as time stands still.

They wait.

***

When it’s finally over, black-clad soldiers spread out across the street. They work in pairs to sweep up the leftover crumbs of magic, guns nosing along the rubble beneath their steel-capped toes.

“Hey, look,” says one of them, voice tinny through his mask. “Someone’s left us a souvenir. You should take ‘em home to the wife.”

“Yeah,” his partner says thoughtfully, stooping to collect the scattered stems, “You know, I just might.”

[chilschuck]

"Pssst."

That's not the whirr of a treasure insect running up her arm and thank the gods for that because the party (AKA everyone but Laios) have had it up to HERE with those bastards running up her arm. It's Chilchuck, narrowed gaze telling Mariette to listen, not talk. She notices in a single blink the bundle of bellflowers he has coyly behind his leg, just out of view. Mariette grins ear to ear (and obnoxiously so, if you ask Chilchuck) but her latest tease becomes silenced with Chilchuck's other hand. "Look, I just need to know if she likes these flowers. I think they're called bellflowers or something..." Chilchuck is trying to pretend as if he doesn't know all about botany from her now and he's failing miserably. "Do you know or not?" Tilting her head, Mariette adopts a wolfish grin and teases, as Lilibelle herself walks into earshot "I don't know, why don't you ask her yourself?"

`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹ ME WHEN I START SOBBING OVER THIS AND I KEEP READING IT OVER AND OVER BC OUR INSERTS ARE SO CUTE AND I CANNOT EVEN FUNCTION RN JACKIE IM STILL SCREAMING PVER THIS????????

would it be crazy if i printed this out and put it on my wall to look at forever. would it. it’s incredible how u write i’m melting into the floor GOODBYE THE WAY U WRITE CHIL IM GOING TO SHAKE YOU THROUGH THE SCREEN

i gotta get u back for this…………. i already have the perfect idea >:)))) be prepared HEHEHE <3333333

[the12thnightproject]

Chapter 24: Bellflower: Now a semi-prisoner on Motonari’s ship, Katsu decodes a message.

Mitsuhide x OC; Hideyoshi x MC (Mai)

All Chapters Archived on Ao3 

Logline - With Mai, Hideyoshi, and Aki missing, Mitsuhide and Katsuko reluctantly team up. Disguised as a merchant and his concubine, can they outsmart the man known as the God of Deceit?

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

From Mitsuhide's townhouse in Sakai to a pirate ship in the middle of the Japan sea in one day. Basically, I had traded one ‘prison’ for another.

Unsure of my allegiance, Motonari had taken away my dagger, scooped me up with Mitsuhide, and brought me on board his ship. I owed my captivity to the fact that I was considered less of a threat on board this ship as opposed to being left in Sakai as a potential witness. ‘Kaya’ was a loose end, able to tell Oda forces what had happened. Or tell them that he was using one of the Nanban carracks, rather than one of his clan’s warships.

As I was led to my quarters, I’d heard Motonari tell his men to chain Mitsuhide up in the brig.

At least I was being spared incarceration with a man who probably hated me right now. I was given a room with a bed – a European bed, not a futon. There was even a porthole, possibly big enough for me to wiggle through, but when I looked out, all I saw was ocean, so it was pointless to try to escape.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

‘Yeah, well, don’t threaten to kill a kid then, dude. Our contract didn’t say anything about murder, especially of a civilian. You should know me better than that. I risked my life for Hiko once already. Of course I would do it again.’

Unfortunately the imaginary Mitsuhide in my head didn’t have that teasing grin or those wicked sideways glances. No. Instead, I had his last words to me on endless repeat.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

That look on his face. It had been pure ice. Lord help me if he ever escaped from the brig, because I'd probably be near the top of his hit list. With a bullet, as they say.

Ugh. I paced the smallish room, wondering what I should do next. Would Motonari set me free once we reached our next destination? Otherwise, would I be held with Mitsuhide and his friends? Maybe I could convince the pirate to drop me off somewhere.

Where would I go though? Mai and Hideyoshi were still the only link (tenuous as it was) I had to Aki. If he had also somehow gotten swept up in this, then I was better off sticking with Motonari and his crew. At least if he was being held captive with them, I would complete the finding part of my mission and move on somehow to the rescue aspect. In that, I could be making headway toward my goal.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

Kaya. Guess I was demoted from “Brat.” I shook my head, trying to rid the echo of his voice from it, and the bellflowers on my hairsticks tickled the top of my earlobe.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

…Kaya.

Kaya.

Wait…

Son of a bi-

There was an abrupt knock on the door. "You better be decent wench, I’m coming in.”

Wench? Really?

That was the only warning I got before the door swung open and Motonari strode in. He’d traded his merchant silks for captain’s gear, and the ingratiating smile for a fierce scowl.

I shrank back against the wall, doing my best to look terrified. Instinct told me was that I would be safest if Motonari continued to view me as a concubine Mitsuhide purchased at the slave market. If he didn’t see me as a threat, I would have more options. And more freedom.

He didn’t say anything else, and I slid down the wall and covered my face with my arms as if I expected him to beat me.

"Quit cowering." Motonari sounded more annoyed than angry. "I ain't planning to hit ye… as long as you behave."

'Kaya' continued to act terrified, shrinking into a fetal ball.

"Can't believe you were brave enough to save Hiko twice, and now ye can barely look at me." He dragged a chair from the center of the room, turned it backward and straddled it.

Hm. Might have overplayed that a bit.

"It was instinct. I had a brother. Hiko reminds me of him." Or well, what I remember of Toshiie at that age.

"Humph. Yeah. The kid has a way, don’t he?" He ran a gloved hand through his hair. "Where did ye come from?"

Figuring that he didn’t mean to go over the weeks I was playing house with Mitsuhide, I gave him an edited summary of Kaya's backstory. That I had been a housemaid to a Daimyo, who was killed by the Oda (added that bit in on a hunch) and after their castle burned to the ground, I had been taken by ronin and sold in the slave market.

Motonari nodded along as if none of it was a surprise to him. And it likely wasn't. We had made sure to broadcast Kaya's invented backstory around Sakai. Motonari was probably checking to confirm whether or not my story would stay consistent. "And now? Ye want to get revenge on the Oda?" He didn’t ask it as if he was offering me a part in one of his plots. More like he was trying to figure things out. Figure me out – figure out whether I was useful or dangerous.

“I just want to go home! To my village. Away from all these people." I put a bit of a sob into my voice. What an orphaned village girl would do was a bigger question, but Kaya likely hadn't thought that far in advance. Kaya was a simple peasant turned servant turned reluctant concubine. Revenge wasn't in her vocabulary.

"Ye sure about that? What If I gave you a sword, held Mitsuhide down, and told you to gut him like a fish? He's Oda's left hand man. You'd have revenge on the whole pack of em." There was a look in his eye that told me he'd be happy to watch if I were to do it.

I shuddered and hid my face, pretending to be overcome at the very idea of it. There had been times over the past month, where I would have happily stabbed Mitsuhide… but I would have given him a fighting chance first.

"Could ye do it if I said it was him or you?" He scratched at his wrist in the area between the glove and his flesh.

What is this? Philosophy Power Hour? I didn’t know what he was looking for. Too bloodthirsty and he'd look at me with suspicion. Too weak and he'd likely pitch me overboard. I added a whimper to my voice. "I don’t know! I’ve never lifted a sword… but I'm not useless! I can scrub floors, or clean everyone’s rooms or swab decks or whatever you call it here."

He drew his sword and I shrank back but all he did with it was poke at the kimono I was wearing until it snagged and tore. "Those ain’t the clothes of a servant. You'd get them dirty. Be a fine sight, seeing you scrubbing in silk."

Finishing the job his knife started, I yanked at the cloth until it tore past my knees. "He made me wear it. I don’t care if I get it dirty."

"Show me your hands." At Motonari's order, I extended my hands toward him, too surprised to do anything else. He quickly pulled his own gloved hand out of my reach. From that short distance, he looked at my hands, which were indeed still rough and calloused in spite of Sho's best efforts. "Ah. Ye really aren't a stranger to hard work."

"I said I wasn't. Who would lie about being a housemaid?" Well, I probably would have lied if I'd needed to, but of course I really had been a maid, though not as recently as 'Kaya' had been.

"Never you mind." Motonari stood up and headed for the door. Apparently he had decided I was neither useful, nor interesting.

"Wait!"

With a look of impatience, he turned back to me. "What?”

"Um. About the floor scrubbing thing. Where are the cleaning supplies?" Kaya was determined to be useful. I was determined to get on deck and figure out just how big his crew was and where we were.

"I'll send someone to you. When I get time." He turned, then again paused and turned back. "How come you haven't asked about your former master?"

"Kyub -um, Mitsuhide? I don't care how he is." As long as he's not dead, folded spindled or mutilated. Since Montanari had said he would be used as bait, Mitsuhide was still alive, but not likely comfortable. "As long as he can't get to me, I don't care."

Motonari didn’t respond to that, and left me alone to continue to stare at the walls. Or pace. Or whatever. He hadn't locked me in this time (I checked) but perhaps that too was a test of some sort.

So I stayed put a little while longer, organizing my thoughts, plotting, until an old man named Hiroyoshi came by and brought me outside. Rather than scrub (swab?) the deck, I was instead given the task of repairing the sails. It was a dull, mindless, and never ending chore, and I stabbed myself with the thick needle far too many times.

Also, unfortunately, it required me to stay in one place in the corner of the ship, rather than explore. It would have been good to know exactly where everything was located on board, exactly how many men Motornari had working for him, and how many weapons they had. Still, even by sitting quietly in place and doing my best to memorize faces, I was able to get a rough head count of about seventy crew members. I rounded that upward to a hundred, just to be safe.

I spent four days in this fashion. Aside from Hiroyoshi, no one approached me. Possibly Motonari told them all to leave me alone. Possibly he had just told them all I was boring. I would get up, and stretch my legs once or twice, each time simply walking over to one side or the other. We were not terribly far out to sea, and on some occasions, I spotted strip of land off the right side, but whether it was the Japanese mainland or a smaller island, I couldn’t say. Once there was a bit of a flurry because a sailor spotted a ship some distance behind us, but that apparently turned out to be a merchant vessel.

At night, I would retire to my own quarters, and Hiroyoshi would drop off a tray of food. He was a friendly sort, and to be honest, had I not been trying to keep up my scared villager act, I might have enjoyed chatting with him. As it was, I limited myself to a grateful smile and a thank-you, then listened quietly to his tales of the sea.

Each night I also made sure I established a pattern of coming up on deck after the moonrise, to stroll along the deck and look up at the sky. The first time I did this, Motonari stopped me to ask, "Where do ya think yer goin?"

I shrank back in 'fear,' but pointed to the sky and the reflection of the three quarter moon over calm waters. "It's pretty. I like to look at night."

"Yer daft, woman." He shook his head, then took a moment to look as well. For one long pause we were both staring out at the ocean, before he shook his head again and retreated to his quarters.

And thus on the fourth night, Kaya, whose pattern was now established to be a night time stroller and stargazer, strolled right down to the brig, where Mitsuhide was being held. The few sailors who were on deck paid no attention to me at all. As I had told Mitsuhide weeks ago, I had perfected the art of being invisible in plain sight.

In his cell, Mitsuhide appeared to be unconscious. I heard a very soft whir of his even breathing. Alright, correction, asleep, not comatose. Though there were a couple of bruises on his face, it didn’t look like he was being abused in the brig. Likely those were from the moment he had arranged for us to be captured. He even appeared to be sleeping comfortably, especially given he was sleeping on the floor and his hands were manacled together.

"Psst. Mitsuhide. Wake up." I kept my voice low. There weren't any guards to the brig as the crew wasn’t large enough to give anyone a wasteful task like watching the door, but I wasn’t sure of the acoustics in here. The last thing we needed was for our conversation to carry to the upper deck.

His eyes opened instantly, as most people in this era slept lightly and Mitsuhide was no exception. "Dear me, it appears I overestimated your abilities. I expected you yesterday."

"I needed to establish that I was boring and no threat." I pulled one of the bellflower lock picks out of what was now an extremely lopsided hairdo. "This was followed by an extra day because, seriously, you couldn't have warned me you were going to do that?"

He sat up, rolled his shoulders a bit, causing the top of his kimono to slip down, revealing that lean muscular body – and a few more bruises. "You appeared to figure it out quickly enough." The look he gave me was one of approval, and for a moment I wanted to bathe in that.

I got to work on the lock on the cell. It was a simple keyed lock, and it would take very little dexterity to force it open. "And what if Motonari decided to leave me in Sakai? Then what would you have done?"

He paused… long enough for me to realize. “You were expecting him to leave me in Sakai.”

He’d… planned to leave me behind. That… almost hurt more than him saying I had betrayed him.

“I thought it the most likely scenario, yes. However I was equally confident that if he determined you were too much of a threat to leave behind, that you would decode my statement.” He held his manacled hands out in front of him. “And so you have.”

So basically… I’m Plan B.

“What if he decided I was too much of a threat to leave alive?” Motonari seemed all too volatile. He was definitely capable of killing me if he thought I was a risk.

“Kyubei and Goro – the man who followed us from the machiya – were hiding and would have pulled you out before it came to that.” The smile was familiar and teasing, but there was a look in his eyes that I could not interpret. He nodded when the lock clicked open. "Good work. When this is all concluded, you should have a new job skill as a sneak thief."

I wasn't ready to think that far ahead. Let’s just get past this ‘held captive on a pirate ship’ thing before I update my resume.

I hurried over to him, and knelt. "Hold out your hands."

The positioning of the chain and its short length meant that I needed to twine myself between him and the wall until our bodies touched. This too was keyed lock, but whoever had created it had set the pins at a trickier angle than the one at the door. I mentally swore at the lock maker when my hands slipped for the third time, and the pick pinged to the floor. I caught it before it could disappear between the cracks in the floor boards.

Unsecured by the hair stick/ lock pick, a piece of my hair unspooled and covered my eyes. Fine. I didn’t actually need to see to do this, I could unlock it by feel. All those nights of blindfolded lock picking were paying off.

Perhaps understanding that this was a situation where I needed total focus, Mitsuhide stayed (for once) quiet, and in fact, appeared to be regulating his breathing so that I could concentrate. Even so, I was hyper alert to the feeling of his exhale against my neck, and the constant thrum of his heartbeat at my back. It was steady. Calm. Unworried.

Right. If he was calm, I could be too. What was required was the type of focus that I used in archery, to shut out all distractions, whether it be of Mitsuhide's attractive presence or the persistent worry that all this would be for naught and Motonari’s guards would raise the alarm any moment.

The world shrunk to the lock, to the positioning of the pin and the balance between force and persuasion.

And his heartbeat.

After a couple tense minutes passed, the bolt slid free, and I pulled the manacles off his wrists. Underneath, his skin was raw and red, slightly swollen, and without thinking, I took his hands and tried to massage them to bring back the circulation. As always, his fingers were cool.

Mitsuhide watched me without comment, but when I stopped he gave my hands a squeeze.

"What do we do now?" I gave him a quick summary of the number of men and what I had observed of their schedule.

To my surprise, he put the manacles back on, replaced the padlock, but left it unbolted. To anyone looking, it would appear that he was still shackled to the wall. "It's not time yet."

Time for what? I didn’t bother to ask, I knew he wouldn’t tell me. “And here you complained I ignored you for an extra day.”

"I need you to do two things. Take my sash-" he nodded at the bright blue fabric encircling his waist. "Climb the rigging and tie it up under the flag."

Climb the rigging?

Prior to my accident, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I might have even done it for fun. But now… The thought of the vertigo brought on a wave of anticipatory nausea.

Mitsuhide picked up my hands and squeezed them again, as he fixed an intent amber gaze on me. "You can do this. I imagine you could do it in your sleep."

I could. I could do it. Not just because I didn’t want to let him down. No. It was because I wanted myself back, to be me again, the kind of girl who would scamper easily through the rigging of a sailing ship. And because his confidence in me gave me strength.

I took a deep breath, then nodded.

"There's the fierce brat who threatened to stab me in my sleep." He patted my head. It was a bit patronizing, but since he had been in prison for the past few day, I allowed it.

“What’s the other thing?" Steal a weapon? Poison the crew?

He leaned forward and brushed his lips over my forehead, a kiss so brief that I could have imagined it.  Then he took the lock pick from me, and tucked it into his hakama. "Lock the door on the way out.”

@lorei-writes @bestbryn @selenacosmic @tele86 @lyds323 @akitsuneswife

[spunknbite]

South Downs, revisited

The garden faces south.

Wisteria and lavender. Borders of delphinium. Brilliant violet asters, peonies and shock-white hydrangeas. Hostas that could use splitting come spring. Hollyhocks thriving, standing ten feet easy. Lady’s Mantle, climbing roses, snap dragons. Yarrow, a lot of yarrow.

Grow you a garden. Start from seed, from the beginning, the inception. Dirt under fingernails, cracked terracotta pots, noon sun high. Watch stalks rise and flowers bloom, creation, something new and whole and yours.

There’s lattice-work arches too. A little neglected, water-warped wood imprinted with decades of climbing tendrils tattooing the grain. The clematis has fallen back, overstretched and thinning at the apex, but still the stains of its vines remain on the wood, revealing past summers. The patio stones that dot the perimeter are smoothed almost slippery from years of use and rain. Initials are carved in the trunk of the overgrown birch that shadows the back gate. SM + RB dug deep in testament, a fine layer of moss creeping at the edges.

Loved, this garden was loved by its former caretakers. Could be loved again, certainly.

There’s room enough to spread out. Add some colour — daylilies, cosmos, bellflowers. Coax some ivy up the brick. Mint as ground cover, along with flowering thyme, lily of the valley, phlox. 

He could build an awning off the back wall, offer some more cover. Move the hostas – they’d be happier under the protection. Plant some astilbes, coral bells, some begonias in the summer. Add a few lounges, a place for an angel to read while it storms. 

Maybe an apple tree, if he’s feeling bold.

-----

“I quite miss the country,” Aziraphale says one afternoon. A sip of tea, the familiar clink of cup on saucer. “It’s been centuries.”

“Tadfield?”

“Centuries since I’ve holidayed properly. The occasional day trip hardly counts.”

“You can’t leave this shop.”

“Not permanently, maybe just to get some air. See the sky again.” Saucer meets desk. A smile his way, blue eyes alight,

“And I will make thee beds of Roses  And a thousand fragrant posies,  A cap of flowers, and a kirtle  Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle”

“For Satan’s sake, you’re invoking Marlowe of all people?”

“And why shouldn’t I? Just because he’s been a smidge overshadowed by —”

“You know he was an atheist, angel?”

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“And that broken clock can write poetry too?”

“Quite.”

The bell above the shop door rings, and Aziraphale is off. 

-----

The third bedroom is just a nook really; it peaks out of a dormer window overlooking the back garden. It has built-in shelves along one wall, inset and bordered with the sort of colonial crown moulding that Crowley imagines only Aziraphale would truly appreciate. Grandmotherly; shelves seemingly meant to house sun-faded doilies and ceramic cats.

But it could be a library. Granted, a small one, but there was space enough for a collection of the essentials with room to spare under the window for a desk. An angel must keep up with his correspondence, after all. 

Dear angel, he’d written once, centuries ago. Then scribbled it out.

Dear angel, he’d written again, not long after. Then burned it.

Dear angel, he’d written again and again and again. Wasted paper made pulp made paper again, never sent.

-----

He buys the damned cottage. 

Dumb idea. Impulsive, really. Like a lot of what he did, what he still does — gets a notion in his demonic skull and just charges on, unencumbered by reflection. As if he trusts some higher power is looking out for him, has his back – the absurdity of it. Once upon a time before the beginning of the world, he’d sauntered vaguely downward without really considering all the consequences, the ramifications of it all; hadn’t weighed and measured, worked out the celestial maths. No, he made a choice and paid for it without knowing the price.

(he would have kept sauntering on anyway, knowing where it would ultimately lead — earth and humans and their wonderful cars and Aziraphale and and and — but he hadn’t known then, couldn’t have known, just what shape his damnation would take, and that was rather the point; he was a careless idiot)

Here too, on earth. We can run away together — Alpha Centauri. Get an idea, a cocked up, stupid thought and go all in on it. 

The Bentley, raging down London streets. A sharp, nearly blind corner. Is there oncoming traffic? Could he stop if he wanted to? Who’s even in control, has he ever been? Has he gone from one master to another to another?

You go too fast for me, Crowley.

So he buys the damned cottage, because what else can he do?

-----

Aziraphale gets in the elevator and Crowley gets in the Bentley. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but it’s not South Downs.

Also on ao3 for anyone interested.

[palialaina]

The temple is done~

Well, okay, I need a lot more Dragontide stuff to make the Maji side look good, but I've got all the rooms, it's all laid out, and I am so happy~

The main room is mostly chic stuff, and things I feel fit Maji and Embra, and just... people in general. The stone walls are neutral enough that it feels like a good middle ground, though I do think I want a few rugs from Zeki to really finish this room off.

I *really* want either a tall table, or maybe some format of stools for the Maji plushies. Like... just having them on the floor feels kind of disrespectful? But I can only buy, not build, the Dragontide stuff, so it's mostly hoping that Tish has something in stock so I can add decorations.

I'm thinking about maybe the tall ravenwood stand and then something shorter for the other two, but I'm not sure yet...

I am so proud of the Embra stuff. The floating cnadles at the strange kiosk behind Jel's place really add sort of the perfect touch of magic and fire. And... okay, so the chappa seem to be little creatures of chaos, and given that Embra brough humans back to Kilima, it seems like she'd enjoy chaos.

I'd like to be able to... maybe paint the ceilings too? But for now, the wood looks fine. And of course the Kitsuu hiding spot is in the middle of the temple. I'm thinking of putting a Bellflower fountain behind it, but that's another Buy From Tish thing. Plus, it's expensive!

But maybe now that it's done, I can get back to being more social. Jel, Hassian, and Dad have all fussed about me working too hard on this thing. Maybe I have been, but it's been worth the effort, I'm so pleased by it. Sure, it's still a work in progress because money and dragontide, and bellflower stuff, but look at how much it's grown since I first had the idea~

Aaaahh, I think I may actually need to go find Tish and bug her about it. She'll understand completely!

[curiosity-killed]

'Sweetest sceptic, we were born for living;

Life is Love, and Love is---

You, dear, you.'

Roland Leighton, “Nachklang”

lovers of tcp series

[ALT ID: A digital illustration of a man and woman, viewed through a tall, arched window with honeysuckle vines growing along the wall. The woman is perched in the window on the opposite side of the hallway, her green dress flaring in the wind outside and her right hand extended to allow a scarlet, black, and white swallow alight on her finger. She is looking down to the man, who sits on a bench just inside the window, reaching up as if to steady her. The woman’s hand cradles the man’s cheek, and they gaze into each other’s eyes. Both have cherry blossoms blooming from their skin while the man also has purple bellflowers blossoming along his right arm and the woman has speedwell blooming around her neck and shoulder. Beside the man’s knee is a clay bowl filled with fruit: a pale green melon, a pomegranate, figs, and a bundle of wheat. Behind them, the night sky is speckled with dabs of paint, and a huge, luminous moon crowns them in bright pink light.]

[pers-books]

Went on two walks today - one short-ish, the other nearly 2.5 miles (because fuck it, the sun was out and despite the NE wind trying to blow a fucking gale, it was WARM!) and I saw many flowers:

Dalmatian Bellflowers growing on/through a garden wall.

Cornflowers and Daisies growing behind someone else’s garden wall (someone took No Mow May *very* seriously this year and they’re apparently going with Let It Bloom June, too!)

Red and yellow Roses growing in the flower bed of the Bowls Club.

A different flowerbed also at the Bowls Club. I’ve no idea what these flowers are as they’re too distant to ID.

Iris Hollandica (left) and Mexican Orange Blossom (right).

Lithodora (foreground left), Iris Hollandica (centre), and Allium Atropurpureum (right).

[offsidekineticist]

WIP Wednesday November 29 2023

You had always intended to visit the Many-steps monastery. Built from the basement of Hocum's museum after it closed, it served as a treasure trove of pre-Thrune art, literature, and history. Its existence was not commonly known in the church of Irori, but Giliys had caught wind of it through contacts with the Bellflower Network, so he passed the information onto you. That is how you came in contact with the Sacred Order of Archivists–the order of Irorian scholars dedicated to preserving Chelish history and culture–a connection that proved fruitful through the years until they suddenly went silent. The only explanation you received was that their sudden silence coincided with "The Night of Ashes" and the late Barzillai Thrune's crackdown on Kintargan dissidents.

If you look closely, you can still see evidence of Thrune's raid: scorch marks on walls, occasional burgundy stains on the floor. For the most part, though, the place seems ready for scholars to return–and based on the Message you received not long after your arrival, they already have. Or, rather, one has.

You find Corvinius Basad in one of the scholar's cells, standing over an open book laid out on the desk in front of him. He holds his hand, glowing pale blue with divine power, over a book, opened to a section where pages have been torn out. He is older than you remember from your days as novices–the long braid looped around his neck, typical of the Irorian priesthood, is streaked with gray, and his face is now lined from age–but that is to be expected. That was a quarter of a century ago, and humans age so much faster than gnomes.

"Just a moment," Corvinius says, not looking up from the mutilated text before him. Before you can reply, the tattered remains of one of the torn out pages begins to shift and then grow. You stare in awe as the book seems to heal before your very eyes, and a single page, ink and all, is restored.

"How did you do that?" You blurt out as Corvinius straightens and wipes a bead of sweat from his brow. He grins.

"Wonderful, isn't it? A little trick from a friend. She uses it for somewhat less altruistic purposes, which is likely why it can only be used to restore a single page at a time." He grimaces. "It's slow going, but the alternative is to allow what the Asmodeans destroyed to be lost forever. In any case, it is good to see you again, Sister." He bows his head slightly in greeting, and you return the gesture with some embarrassment.

"And you as well, Brother. Forgive my rudeness–I did not expect to see a miracle performed today."

Corvinius snorts. "I heal books one page at a time, sister. You heal people with a single spell. Which of us is the miracle worker?"

You nod politely, trying to keep the flare of guilt from your face. You wouldn't be here if you were a miracle worker. 

[southpacifictravel]

Bellflowers (campanula) growing on a wall in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands.

[dansnaturepictures]

Eight of my favourite photos taken in August 2023 and month summary

The photos are of; Turnstone at Hill Head, Wall Brown at Shipton Bellinger, Double-striped Pug moth at home, Common Darter and Wasp Spider at Lakeside Country Park, clustered bellflower at Old Winchester Hill, mushroom at Millyford Bridge in the New Forest and view with great heather at Ibsley Common in the New Forest.

August was another exciting wild month for me, and for birds movement was the operative word. The beginnings of the autumn migration allowed me to pick up sweet year ticks in Pied Flycatcher and Whinchat, key birds of my year with Wheatear and Spotted Flycatcher enjoyed too. At the start of the month this created some memorable lunch time walks at Lakeside with Cormorant and Common Terns unusual birds there dropping in. Nuthatch and Kestrel were standout different birds to see there this month too. Linnet, Whitethroat, Sandwich Tern, House Martin, Great Crested Grebe, Peregrine, Buzzard, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk including at home were other standouts across this month.

For butterflies it was another exquisite month, with Red Admiral including in the garden, Speckled Wood, Small and Green-veined White, Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper dominating as another amazing Big Butterfly Count drew to a close. Resplendent Small Copper and cheery Small Heath re-emerged into the year well with Brown Argus seen well at Lakeside and some final Purple Hairstreaks there what a year I've had for them, and I had some amazing valuable chances to see again blockbuster species that have been some of the icing on the cake of my butterfly year such as Wall Brown, Brown Hairstreak, Silver-spotted Skipper, Chalkhill Blue and Adonis Blue.

The month rather belonged to moths and dragon and damselflies, with a strong surge in moth sightings combining new ones that it was fascinating to learn and ones I am familiar with day and night. The White-point, Double-striped Pug, a fair few Small Dusty Wave, Light Brown Apple moth, Morning-glory Plume, Common Nettle-tap, Common Crimson-and-gold Moth and a Mint moth that came in the garden were key species. This month was a deep delve into Common Darter with many varied ones seen especially at Lakeside and golden chances to enjoy them, with Southern Hawker and more so dazzling Migrant Hawker ones I enjoyed seeing many times real defining species of the time of year. Banded Demoiselle and a fair few Blue-tailed Damselfly as they re-emerged into the year were great to see too. Onto mammals and my first Fox of the year was a treat, with Fallow and Roe Deers as well as New Forest Pony enjoyed too and a Hedgehog at home. It was a great month of area of wildlife I'm less familiar with, headlined well by a moment of my year seeing that Wasp Spider at Lakeside. A Common Sun beetle in the garden and Fox moth caterpillars at Ibsley Common were good to see too. Crickets/grasshoppers including Long-winged Conehead and Roesel's bush cricket, bees, waps and hoverflies, other beetles and many mossy rose galls which fascinate me were other summertime delights.

It was of course an excellent showing of flowers this month, with autumn gentian, wild marjoram, wild basil, round-headed rampion, purple loosestrife, common toadflax, clustered bellflower, gypsywort, red bartsia, water mint, bird's-foot trefoil, devil's-bit scabious, eyebright, rosebay willowherb, lady's thumb, tormentil, yellow-horned poppy, mallow, thistles and the common and bell heather that painted the landscape purple on the wonderful New Forest walks we had key species seen. As the year turns a bit fruit captivated me this month from sloes to blackberries and more in between, and following all the wet conditions fungi thrived in many places I went with some great mushrooms seen. I took in some sensational local vistas in high summer which was a pleasure, and it was great to be outside so much. Have a good September all.

[kristabella]

Side chair

In 1881, Arabella Worsham, then-mistress of railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, hired George A. Schastey & Co. to decorate her townhouse at 4 West Fifty-Fourth Street in New York City. The resulting artistic interiors would have been considered the height of cosmopolitan style in the early 1880s and were emblematic of Worsham’s quest to fashion her identity as a wealthy, prominent woman of taste. When Worsham married Huntington in 1884, she sold the house, fully furnished, to John D. and Laura Spelman Rockefeller, who made few subsequent changes to the decorations. Following Mr. Rockefeller’s death, the house was demolished in 1938, yet some furnishings, large-scale architectural elements, and three interiors were preserved, and the rooms were donated to local museums by John D. Rockefeller Jr.

This side chair of satinwood and purpleheart, one of a pair, is part of the suite (2009.226.1–.4) that furnished Worsham’s elaborately decorated dressing room, one of the preserved interiors now installed in The American Wing (Gallery 742). These objects were part of a decorative program that encompassed every aspect of the room, including the architectural woodwork, lighting, stenciled wall-treatment, painted ceiling and frieze, textiles, and other furnishings. On the chair’s back, the marquetry decoration of grotesque masks and vines echoes the ornamental motifs in the dressing room’s architectural woodwork. The overall form is light and rectilinear. The tapered front legs with cascading bellflowers channel the spirit of English Neoclassical designers such as Robert Adam and George Hepplewhite. It rests on castors, allowing it to be moved easily within the room.

Although few objects can be attributed to George A. Schastey & Co., the high quality of their work – as seen in this fine example – was comparable to other prominent firms of the Gilded Age, including Herter Brothers and Pottier & Stymus. At its peak in the early 1880s, the firm employed at least 125 people in its workshops. Their distinctive designs are steeped in Renaissance sources with flourishes from the Islamic world and the British design reform movement.

Medium: Satinwood, purpleheart, brass castors, reproduction upholstery

Dimensions: Seat height: 20 1/4 (51.4 cm) Front-to-back: 23 in. (58.4 cm) Crest rail to floor: 36 7/8” (93.7 cm) Seat front s/s: 19 ¼” (48.9 cm) Seat back s/s:13 ½” (33 cm)

[momizuka]

Transform Your House with These Easy House Renovation Ideas

""

Home renovation can be a challenging task, yet it does not need to be. With a little creative thinking as well as effort, you can transform your residence right into an attractive and useful area that you'll love investing time in. Here are some very easy house improvement suggestions to get you started.First, consider adding a fresh coat of paint to your walls. This can quickly cheer up a space and also make it really feel extra sizable. You can also switch over out your old light components for brand-new ones to update the look of your room. One more easy upgrade is to replace your cabinet equipment with something more contemporary and also trendy. These little changes can make a large effect on the total look of your residence. Another house improvement task that can include worth to your

home is upgrading your kitchen or restroom. This doesn't need to be a significant improvement, however can be as easy as replacing outdated appliances or fixtures. You can likewise add some new ceramic tile or a backsplash to give your space a fresh new appearance. Ultimately, don't ignore the outside of your home. Adding some potted plants or flowers to

your porch or outdoor patio can create an inviting entry. You can also upgrade your landscape design or add a fresh layer of paint to your front door to provide your residence some visual charm. With these simple home improvement ideas, you can transform your residence right into an area you'll like.

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