#antique commode

[frenchantiques]

Commodes & Chests of Drawers - A good quality and retaining the original gilded brass mounts and handles, late 18th century French, Louis XVI period ebonised commode of elegant proportions with later replaced (but of the period) marble top, with three drawers flanked by fluted columns. B

[vintagehomecollection]

A pair of monkeys carved from lemon wood greets visitors in the entrance hall. The monkeys, considered a symbol of good luck, were commissioned by the archbishop of Paris in 1740. Handmade moldings and a gleaming Italian marble floor provide a splendid setting for an eighteenth-century fruitwood commode, purchased in New Orleans. The trumeau above exhibits its original glass.

Southern Interiors, 1988

[2t2r]

Des meubles avec des statues antiques

Nouvel article publié sur https://www.2tout2rien.fr/des-meubles-avec-des-statues-antiques/

Des meubles avec des statues antiques

[philoursmars]

Marseille. Au MuCEM, il y a une expo : “Alexandrie, Futurs Antérieurs”:

- monnaie d'Hadrien, Isis à la voile devant le phare - 2ème s. apr. J-C.

- monnaies d'Hadrien - période gréco-romaine

- monnaie de Néron, hippopotame - période gréco-romaine

- monnaie d'Octave-Auguste, crocodile avec légende “Aegypto capta" - période gréco-romaine

- monnaie de Ptolémée IV Philopator - période gréco-romaine

- monnaie d'Hadrien, le Phare d'Alexandrie, bronze - 2ème s. apr. J-C.

- monnaie d'Hadrien, temple et 2 divinités, bronze - 2ème s. apr. J-C.

- Monnaie de Commode, le Phare et un navire - 2ème s. av. J-C.

[arantiques]

Antique COMMODES and CHEST OF DRAWERS - Nice pair of early 19th C Swedish 3 drawer commodes with faux marble tops. 1860.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sandra Newman’s “Julia”

The first chapter of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has a fantastic joke that nearly everyone misses: when Julia, Winston Smith's love interest, is introduced, she has oily hands and a giant wrench, which she uses in her "mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines":

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

That line just kills me every time I re-read the book – Orwell, a novelist, writing a dystopian future in which novels are written by giant, clanking mechanisms. Later on, when Winston and Julia begin their illicit affair, we get more detail:

She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

I always assumed Orwell was subtweeting his publishers and editors here, and you can only imagine that the editor who asked Orwell to tweak the 1984 manuscript must have felt an uncomfortable parallel between their requests and the notional Planning Committee and Rewrite Squad at the Ministry of Truth.

I first read 1984 in the early winter of, well, 1984, when I was thirteen years old. I was on a family trip that included as visit to my relatives in Leningrad, and the novel made a significant impact on me. I immediately connected it to the canon of dystopian science fiction that I was already avidly consuming, and to the geopolitics of a world that seemed on the brink of nuclear devastation. I also connected it to my own hopes for the nascent field of personal computing, which I'd gotten an early start on, when my father – then a computer science student – started bringing home dumb terminals and acoustic couplers from his university in the mid-1970s. Orwell crystallized my nascent horror at the oppressive uses of technology (such as the automated Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear systems that haunted my nightmares) and my dreams of the better worlds we could have with computers.

It's not an overstatement to say that the rest of my life has been about this tension. It's no coincidence that I wrote a series of "Little Brother" novels whose protagonist calls himself w1n5t0n:

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

I didn't stop with Orwell, of course. I wrote a whole series of widely read, award-winning stories with the same titles as famous sf tales, starting with "Anda's Game" ("Ender's Game"):

https://www.salon.com/2004/11/15/andas_game/

And "I, Robot":

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_I_Robot.html

"The Martian Chronicles":

https://escapepod.org/2019/10/03/escape-pod-700-martian-chronicles-part-1/

"True Names":

https://archive.org/details/TrueNames

"The Man Who Sold the Moon":

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

and "The Brave Little Toaster":

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212

Writing stories about other stories that you hate or love or just can't get out of your head is a very old and important literary tradition. As EL Doctorow (no relation) writes in his essay "Genesis," the Hebrews stole their Genesis story from the Babylonians, rewriting it to their specifications:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/

As my "famous title" stories and Little Brother books show, this work needn't be confined to antiquity. Modern copyright may be draconian, but it contains exceptions ("fair use" in the US, "fair dealing" in many other places) that allow for this kind of creative reworking. One of the most important fair use cases concerns The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall's 2001 retelling of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the enslaved characters, which was judged to be fair use after Mitchell's heirs tried to censor the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suntrust_Bank_v._Houghton_Mifflin_Co.

In ruling for Randall, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals emphasized that she had "fully employed those conscripted elements from Gone With the Wind to make war against it." Randall used several of Mitchell's most famous lines, "but vest[ed] them with a completely new significance":

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/268/1257/608446/

The Wind Done Gone is an excellent book, and both its text and its legal controversy kept springing to mind as I read Sandra Newman's wonderful novel Julia, which retells 1984 from the perspective of Julia, she of the oily hands the novel-writing machine:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/julia-sandra-newman?variant=41467936636962

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both Wind Done gone and Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. For Winston, the world of 1984 is totalitarian: the Party knows all, controls all and misses nothing. To merely think a disloyal thought is to be doomed, because the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicompetent Party will sense the thought and mark you for torture and "vaporization."

Orwell's readers experience all of 1984 through Winston's eyes and are encouraged to trust his assessment of his situation. But Newman brings in a second point of view, that of Julia, who is indeed far more worldly than Winston. But that's not because she's younger than him – it's because she's more provincial. Julia, we learn, grew up outside of the Home Counties, where the revolution was incomplete and where dissidents – like her parents – were sent into exile. Julia has experienced the periphery of the Party's power, the places where it is frayed and incomplete. For Julia, the Party may be ruthless and powerful, but it's hardly omnicompetent. Indeed, it's rather fumbling.

Which makes sense. After all, if we take Winston at his word and assume that every disloyal citizen of Oceania is arrested, tortured and murdered, where would that leave Oceania? Even Kim Jong Un can't murder everyone who hates him, or he'd get awfully lonely, and then awfully hungry.

Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

Julia is also perfectly positioned to uncover the vast blank spots in Winston's supposed intellectual curiosity, all the questions he doesn't ask – about her, about the Party, and about the world. I love this trope and used it myself, in Attack Surface, the third "Little Brother" book, which is told from the point of view of Marcus's frenemy Masha:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531/attacksurface

Through Julia, we come to understand the seemingly omniscient, omnipotent Party as fumbling sadists. The Thought Police are like MI5, an Island of Misfit Toys where the paranoid, the stupid, the vicious and the thuggish come together to ruin the lives of thousands, in such a chaotic and pointless manner that their victims find themselves spinning devastatingly clever explanations for their behavior:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

And, as with Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia is a first-rate novel, expertly plotted, with fantastic, nail-biting suspense and many smart turns and clever phrases. Newman is doing Orwell, and, at times, outdoing him. In her hands, Orwell – like Winston – is revealed as a kind of overly credulous romantic who can't believe that anyone as obviously stupid and deranged as the state's representatives could be kicking his ass so very thoroughly.

This was, in many ways, the defining trauma and problem of Orwell's life, from his origin story, in which he is shot through the throat by a fascist: sniper during the Spanish Civil War:

https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/soldiers/george-orwell-shot.html

To his final days, when he developed a foolish crush on a British state spy and tried to impress her by turning his erstwhile comrades in to her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

Newman's feminist retelling of Orwell is as much about puncturing the myth of male competence as it is about revealing the inner life, agency, and personhood of swooning love-interests. As someone who loves Orwell – but not unconditionally – I was moved, impressed, and delighted by Julia.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

[betafishtank]

3/4 Bath - Bathroom

[thakefurniture]

Pot Cupboard, Commode - George III mahogany tray top commode with lovely patina. Gallery top with shaped hand holds over a pair of cupboard doors and a single drawer below, fitted with brass swan neck handles. Raised on square legs.

[contenteditor]

Idée déco 💅🏻 Cette grande pièce était la chambre de toutes les souveraines de France depuis Marie de Médicis jusqu’à Eugénie. C’est dans cette pièce que se déroulaient en public le grand lever et le grand coucher. Marie-Antoinette n’a jamais connu cette chambre terminée pour elle en 1787. l’appartement de la souveraine fut redécoré suivant le goût du jour. Pour le salon des Jeux de Marie-Antoinette, l’ébéniste Beneman livra en 1786 deux commodes exécutées sous la direction d’Hauré à partir d’un meuble de Stöckel. En effet Benneman fut chargé en 1786 de modifier une commode à rinceaux de Stöckel achetée à Sauvage et d’en exécuter une seconde sur le même modèle pour la chambre de la Reine à Compiègne. A peine les meubles achevés, il fut finalement décidé de les transformer et de les envoyer de Compiègne à Fontainebleau, pour le salon des jeux de la Reine. Avec leur riche décor d’entrelacs végétaux et de plaques en porcelaine de Sèvres à figures antiques, elles complétaient le décor des murs de la pièce alors peint en style arabesque. Ces commodes furent choisies par Joséphine pour meubler la chambre de l’impératrice #fontainebleau #france #patrimoine #royal #sculpture #frenchdesign #XVIIcentury #boiseries #gold #delorpartout #versailles #henriIV #violet #chateaufontainebleau #frencharchitecture #frenchinterior #frenchart #interiorgoals #photography #colors #XIXcentury #europeanroyalpalaces #napoleonIII #caclaque | by hugues.mr

[banji-effect]

Welcome to the DinnerCube

Grids of sycamore punctuate the mirrored Dining Room walls and ceiling with rectilinear precision. The table, accompanied by Greek-style chairs, offers a genteel setting of antique glass and porcelain dinnerware. The richly inlaid commode in the background adds an exotic presence.

Contemporary Apartments (The Worlds of Architectural Digest), 1982

[2t2r]

Des meubles avec des statues antiques

New Post has been published on https://www.2tout2rien.fr/des-meubles-avec-des-statues-antiques/

Des meubles avec des statues antiques

[persevereforahappyending]

Maybe in Another Life |9|

Pairing: Clarisse La Rue x Hunter of Artemis!Reader

Summary: You are a Hunter of Artemis, but you start to question what you truly want when you meet Clarisse and get to know her.

Warnings: Slight Titans Curse Spoilers

Word Count: 2.7k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 | ch. 5 | ch. 6 | ch. 7 | ch. 8 | ch. 9 | ch. 10 | ch. 11 | ch. 12 | ch. 13 | ch. 14 | ch. 15 | ch. 16 | ch. 17

You and your sisters packed up camp, it had been about a week, and you had travelled all the way back to New York. You talked to Clarisse the night before she left on her scouting mission but hadn’t heard a word from her since. You and the Hunters got information about Luke or one of his lackeys in the area and made your way back to the city but came up with nothing, no trace of Luke, demigods, or monsters in general.

“You’re not coming with us,” Thalia said, as you finished packing up your bag.

“What?” You asked, furrowing your brow.

“We’re close to the city.” You followed her gaze; from the spot you made camp you could see the New York skyline. “We might as well do a supply run.”

You sighed but nodded, it made a sense, for all you knew you’d end up out in the middle of nowhere next. “Where should I meet you?”

Thalia gave you the area they’d most likely be making camp next. It would take you a couple hours to get the supplies you’d need but you shouldn’t have a problem catching up to them by the time they were all settling down for bed. If they made it further or if anything changed their plans in any way Thalia would send a message letting you know. With that you were off, making your way to the city.

It wasn’t a long trek to the city and luckily you blended in, the mist made your pack look like a normal backpack, which many of the commuters were carrying. You had been to the city many times, but you never got over all the lights and amount of people, you only ever came for errands, otherwise you spent most of your time on the outskirts of cities, away from civilization.

You entered a shop that stood out against all the skyscrapers and neon signs. To anyone who couldn’t see through the mist it looked like a normal antique shop but to a demigod or anyone else of your world, you knew what it really was. You approached the counter, smiling at the nymph behind the register.

“How can I help you?” The nymph asked, without looking up from the magazine. You sighed before dropping down a sack of gold drachmas. The nymph glanced at the sack before setting down her magazine and straightening her back. “Ooh a Hunter,” she smiled. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Nectar and ambrosia,” you said, smiling.

“Coming right up.”

You waited as the nymph disappeared into the back to gather what you asked for. Nectar and ambrosia were a rare commodity, but there were a few shops a wandering demigod could get it from if they knew where to look. You had been to this shop in particular many times, almost every trip to the city. You weren’t sure how they got what they did but given they were located in the city that had the door to Olympus you were sure they had connections of some sort. They never failed to have what you needed, whether it be celestial bronze weapons, nectar, ambrosia, or other various potions and items from your world.

You glanced out the window during your waiting, furrowing your brow when you saw a familiar head of hair walking down the street. You got closer, squinting through the window and across the street as best as you could, a small smirk appearing on your face when you confirmed what you thought you saw, Clarisse. She was on a secret mission no one was allowed to know about, you were gathering supplies and needed to get back to your sisters, but there was no reason you couldn’t pop over and say hi. You watched as she turned down an ally next to the hotel across the street.

“Here you are sweetly,” the nymph said, placing a lovely little box of ambrosia and a jar of nectar down on the counter.

You turned your attention back to the nymph, opening the box to look at the ambrosia. The ambrosia was cut into little squares, perfectly placed, and stacked in the box, not leaving an inch of empty space. “Thank you,” you said, offering the nymph a kind smile. You carefully slipped the items into your pack and made your way out the door.

You glanced both ways before darting across the street. You peered down the alley way you saw Clarisse disappear down, seeing her still in the alley, pacing back and forth and staring at a wall. You smirked as you slipped into the alley as well, silently laughing as you watched her feel around the brick wall as if she were looking for something.

“So, this is your super-secret mission,” you said when you were right behind her.

Clarisse whipped around, pointing her spear at your neck. You leaned your head back, looking down at the spear before raising an eyebrow at her. Clarisse sighed, then dropped the spear back at her side. “What are you doing here?” She asked.

“Wow, here I thought you’d be happy to see me,” you fake pouted. She only glared at you. “I was resupplying,” you sighed. “We were back over this way because we got word Luke was around but no sign of him anywhere.” Clarisse’s eyes widened at the mention of Luke. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Do you know something?” You tilted your head, crossing your arms. “Is that what your mission had to do with?”

“The less people that know the better,” she whispered. “We don’t know who to trust.”

“You don’t trust me?” You looked at her like a kicked puppy. You understood logically that they needed to be careful about who they shared information with, but you couldn’t ignore the pang you felt in your chest at the implication of Clarisse not trusting you.

“I do,” she sighed, running a hand down her face. “I can’t believe I’m doing this she mumbled.” You furrowed your brow but before you could question her, she stepped forward. “I’m looking for an entrance to the labyrinth,” she whispered in your ear.

Your eyes widened. “Are you insane?” You stepped back.

“Annabeth says there’s multiple entrances all over the world. She thinks one might be in Camp Half-Blood.”

“Why?” The labyrinth stretched all across the country, if you went in one door there was no guarantee what door you’d come out of, if you came out at all. It made perfect sense for an entrance to be at the camp though.

“We think Luke is trying to use the labyrinth to get around.” You sucked in a breath, which could explain why he disappeared so quickly in some places and now he left no trace. “We think he’s trying to learn how to navigate it so he can sneak into camp.”

You nodded; you were liking Clarisse’s secret mission even less now. If Clarisse happened to find an entrance and entered the labyrinth, there was not telling if or when she’d make it back out. You hadn’t ever been in it, you only heard the stories over the centuries, none of them ended well, people went mad, people ended up lost, or dead. The labyrinth constantly changed and shifted, redirecting you to your demise, time was rumored to move differently down there, five minutes could be five hours or even days on the outside. There were endless passageways and rooms, the majority of them led from one horror to another.

“You think ones here?” You asked, looking up at the side of the hotel, Clarisse had been poking around.

She shrugged. “Don’t know,” she sighed. “Based on Annabeth’s research one is supposed to be in the city, it’s heavily implied to be in a hotel. It just didn’t mention which hotel or where.”

“Did you check inside?” You already started walking around to the front of the hotel.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She ran after you.

“Helping.”

“I don’t need your help.” She continued to follow you through the fancy doors of the hotel. “This is my mission. I’m supposed to do it alone.”

“I’m not here to look over your shoulder,” you sighed, turning around to face her. “Or takeover your mission. I’m just…” you shrugged. “Here, and have some time before I have to head back. If you don’t want me around, I can leave.”

Clarisse looked down at the floor clearly having a serious debate with herself before she looked back up at you. “No,” she mumbled. “If this is the only way to spend time with you, I’m not passing it up.”

You smirked at her. Your smirk quickly turned into a frown when you noticed the concierge looking at you questioningly. “We have to go,” you grabbed Clarisse by the arm and quickly dragged her towards the elevators.

You pressed the button and quickly pulled her into the elevator when it arrived. You were grateful that no one else was in it or had been waiting. The doors closed right as the concierge approached, his mouth opening to question you.

“I know you’ve probably never been to a place like this,” Clarisse took a jab at you. You glared at her but didn’t deny it, it was true you had never been in a hotel before, you just knew of them from all your trips to the city. “But we need a key to use this.”

You look at the various buttons on the side panel, there were over fifteen floors in this building. “Not if we go down,” you said, pressing the button that said ground and had a little ‘associates only’ sticker next to it.

“Why are we going down?”

“Well, the labyrinth is an underground maze.” When the elevator doors opened you peeked your head out making sure the way was clear, then motioned for Clarisse to follow. “So, it makes sense that the entrance would be underground.”

You slowly made your way through the hallway, the two of you pressing yourself up against the wall when you heard someone pushing a cart of some sort. When it sounded like the cart was getting further away you peeked around the corner to see a maid pushing a basket of dirty towels in the opposite direction.

“And how would we know which way to go?” Clarisse asked as the two of you continued to move through the halls.

“The camp is protected, a boundary that doesn’t allow monsters to pass through,” you whispered. “The labyrinth was designed by a god; it radiates magic which monsters can’t help but navigate to.”

“We’re wandering around, hoping to spot a monster, to help point us in the direction of the door?” She raised an eyebrow. You shrugged, giving her a nod, you would admit it wasn’t the best plan in the world. “That’s a terrible plan!” She whisper shouted as if she could read your mind.

You started to roll your eyes as you rounded the corner only to stop dead in your tracks, making Clarisse bump into you. “What’s wrong with you?” she snapped, flicking you a glare. You pointed ahead, she turned to see the maid from earlier was standing in the middle of the hallway, staring daggers at the two of you.

“Sorry,” Clarisse said, forcing a smile. “We got lost, we were looking for the pool?”

The maid continued to stare at the two of you. You slid your foot back, bumping into Clarisse again. “Something isn’t right,” you mumbled, narrowing your eyes at the maid.

The next thing you knew the maids neck snapped to the side, then her legs twisted in an inhuman direction, her arms following soon after. You pushed Clarisse back, trying to get her to move. Your eyes widened as the skin began to melt away, steam rolling off the monster as the creature shed its disguise.

“Run!” You shouted. You pushed Clarisse back down the hall, grabbing the nearest cart and pushing it into the path of the monster.

“We can take that thing!” Clarisse shouted, trying to look back and face the monster.

“Not if that stinger hits us!” You glanced back seeing the monster looked like a giant scorpion, its stinger a glowing golden yellow as it was filled with venom. You might have had ambrosia and nectar on you, but it wouldn’t help for a wound from the stinger.

The scorpion quickly crawled over the cart you had shoved in its way. It was close enough that when it stabbed its stinger you had to duck, watching as the stinger got stuck in the wall, causing cracks throughout the concrete. It let out a high pitch squeal in anger as it ripped its stinger out of the wall, along with a few chunks of concrete.

You spun around, quickly whipping out your bow, and shooting an arrow into the monster’s eye. The creature squeezed again, then raised its pincer and snapped the arrow in half, leaving the tip still in its eye. It brought down its stinger towards you, causing you to jump back before you could get another arrow off. With its stinger impaled in the ground now you pushed Clarisse to continue forward.

After running for another moment down the hall you glanced back, seeing the scorpion nowhere in sight. You didn’t have to consider where it could have gone before taking the next turn down another hall. You and Clarisse took the turn at full speed, turning right into the scorpion.

You ducked just as it swung its pincer at you. You saw Clarisse holding up her spear, using it to keep the other pincer from getting her. You drew your bow again, your fingers brushing against your arrows before finding the one you wanted. You quickly notched the arrow and fired. It opened midair, releasing a net that latched around the stinger.

While it released Clarisse’s spear to cut itself free the two of you took off down the hall you had just come from. The two of you continued running, taking turn after turn, all the similar looking hallways starting to blur together. You had just made another turn, once again running into the scorpion. This time as it shot its stinger at you, Clarisse gripped your arm and pulled you into the nearest room. The two of you fell back into the storage closet, the door slamming behind your right as the stinger was impaled into the wood instead of your chest.

You held your breath as you stared at the crack in the door, waiting for the scorpion to mark its next move. When nothing came and you realized it was completely silent outside the door you finally released a shaky breath. You pushed yourself off the ground, holding out your hand to help Clarisse up. You kept your eye on the door, not trusting that the monster was truly gone.

“Where the hell are we?” Clarisse asked.

You turned around, your brow furrowed but your eyes quickly widened at the sight. “What the…” you started, unable to finish your sentence. You weren’t in a storage closet at all, or any room for that matter, you were in a dimly lit hallway. The hallway was all dirt and stone, a couple torches lining the walls were the only thing lighting the tunnel. You narrowed your eyes when you realized it wasn’t just normal fire on the torches but Greek fire.

“Oh gods,” you whispered before turning back around. You ran your hands up and down where the door had been, searching for a handle of some sort but only feeling the cold stone the rest of the hallway was made out of.

“What?” Clarisse asked. “What’s wrong?” She searched your concerned face.

You turned to her, your eyes wide and face pale. “We found the labyrinth.”

Clarisse’s face fell at your words, her eyes widening as she quickly spun around again. You watched the color drain from her face as she realized the situation the two of you were in. You sighed, you and Clarisse were in the labyrinth and the door you entered through had disappeared meaning the only way out was forward through the maze that was always changing, filled with monsters and traps that wanted to kill you at every turn. At least the two of you had each other, you couldn’t imagine having to navigate the maze on your own.

Taglist: @cxcilla @touchmyfracturedomens @luclue @manu-007s-world @death-in-love @nenas19 @mynameiskaci @danonered

[wildsupernova]

roses, chocolates, and a heart shaped box.

summary: valentine’s day had always felt like a joke to you. nobody had ever taken the time to do anything nice for you, but when the sickeningly romantic steve harrington falls in love with you, of course you’ll have the best valentine’s day ever.

pairing: steve harrington x f!reader

warnings: some suggestive language, nothing too crazy

word count: 2.4k

a/n: hey everyone! i know it’s been a while since i posted anything, but my second year of college has been kicking my ass and making it near impossible to get motivation to do anything. i figured what better way to get back in the swing of things than with a valentine’s day fic! i know it’s a day early, but i wanted to get this up before i got too busy and forgot about it. anyway, hope you guys enjoy, and happy valentine’s day!

masterlist | prompts list | ao3

Valentine’s Day had never been something you looked forward to.

Even as a kid, you associated it with loneliness, watching on as all the little second grade boys gave their crushes a dandelion they picked fresh from the playground at recess. You detested it when they started selling candy-grams in middle school, because every year it seemed that you were the only one who never received one. You’d check your locker every day for the whole week hoping that maybe someone had slipped you a note only for nothing to fall out when you opened it, held your breath when they handed out the candy-grams only for your name to never be called, and dressed yourself up nice in the hopes that someone at the Valentine’s Day dance would ask you to dance with them only to end up with sore feet and running mascara by the end of the night. By the time high school came around, you gave up on the idea of Valentine’s Day altogether, never having a relationship last long enough to celebrate it. 

You’d turned into a stone hearted cynic, and just the mention of the words ‘Valentine’s Day’ had you rolling your eyes. 

That was, until you met Steve Harrington. 

You’d never met someone so…romantic. He was the kind of guy to show up to your house with flowers for no reason other than that he wanted to, or buy you a pair of fake diamond earrings (hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?) he saw at an antique shop because he saw them and immediately thought of you. He was the type to leave small little love letters in your locker between classes, and pick you up and spin you around and cover you in kisses because he missed you. 

But that didn’t change the fact that you hated Valentine’s Day. 

Steve had never been able to understand how someone could hate Valentine’s Day. ‘Come on!’ He’d say. ‘It's a whole day where people who love each other do something special together. What could be better than that?’ You’d always respond the same way; that to you, Valentine’s Day was nothing but a commodity and an excuse for boyfriends who did nothing for their girlfriends all year to make up for it with a fancy dinner and a box of chocolates. You don’t need a special day to show you love someone. If you really love someone, everyday is like that. 

It took him prying it out of you before you finally admitted the real reason you hated Valentine’s Day. 

“Nobody’s ever done anything nice for me on Valentine’s Day, okay?” The words come out with a bit more bite than you mean for them too, and Steve’s face scrunched a bit. 

“What?”

“Nobody’s ever done anything for me for Valentine’s Day.” You repeat yourself. “I’ve never gotten…flowers, or chocolates, or a nice dinner or anything. It’s not a big deal, I’m used to it.”

“Nobody has ever done anything nice for you?”

“I mean, my parents always got me chocolate every year but…nobody ever really made the choice to do anything.” You picked at your nails and tried to make your voice sound like it didn’t bother you, but Steve could hear the disappointment. He tried to question you about it further, but you changed the subject before he could. “It’s not a big deal. Let’s just talk about something else, okay?”

For the next month, Steve took it as a personal challenge to give you the best Valentine’s Day you’d ever had. He even made a stupid little flow chart in one of his notebooks, chicken scratch and scribbles covering 3 whole pages while he tried to brainstorm the best way to make up for all of your shitty Valentine’s Days. He probably looked crazy, the way he was scribbling like a madman during class, but it would all be worth it in the end. 

The plan he came up with was simple, really.

Everyday for the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, he put a single red rose in your locker or left it on your bedroom windowsill. Never anything more, other than a note he’d sloppily tied to the stem of the flower with a pink ribbon, the words ‘I love you’ written in red ink. Every day you placed the new flower in a small glass of water you used as a makeshift vase and put the notes in an old jewelry box you didn’t use anymore. 

Everyday you’d tell Steve he didn’t have to do that, that you were content with not getting anything, but your smile that spread ear to ear told him more than your words did. 

By the time Valentine’s Day finally arrived, you had a full bouquet of seven red roses sitting on your bedside table, and a stack of sloppily written love notes sitting in a box on your dresser. It made you hold your head just a little bit higher, smile a bit brighter, and feel a little bit happier on a day that you always associated with something lonely. 

When you opened your locker that morning, you were met with another red rose and a note, except this time the note had been clumsily cut into the shape of a lopsided heart, the words ‘Be my valentine?’ written in glittery pink pen. Two arms wrapping around your waist had you clutching the flower tighter, leaning your back into Steve’s chest. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” He whispered the words against your ear as he pressed a soft kiss to your cheek, a smile pressed against your skin. You turned in his arms and draped your own over his shoulders. 

“Where’d you get a pink glitter pen?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He shut up anymore questions with a kiss, and you giggled. A stupid, girly, lovesick giggle. Steve had a dopey smile on his face when you parted. “Got you something else too.”

He reached into your locker and pulled something out from behind the textbooks, a heart shaped box tied shut with two white ribbons. You went to untie them before he stopped you, placing a hand over your own. 

“Don’t open it til’ you get home, okay?” You gave him a skeptical look but nodded anyway. 

“Okay?” You slipped the box back into your locker and closed it, cradling your books and the rose in the crook of your arm. “Hey, I gotta get to class, but I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” You pressed a kiss to his cheek, and as you went to walk away, he grabbed your wrist lightly. 

“You never answered my question, you know.” Your smile grew impossibly wider. 

“Yes, I’ll be your valentine.”

When you got home that afternoon, you untied the note from the stem of the rose, clipped it, and placed it in the cup with the others, hand delicately adjusting the flowers until they fell just the right way. You pulled the box from your backpack and plopped down on the bed, untying the ribbon and pulling the lid off. 

Inside was an assortment of fancy chocolates, the kind you’d always eye at the grocery store as a kid but your parents told you were too expensive to buy. In a small empty space in the center sat a small black velvet box and another note, folded over in a rather well made origami heart. You picked it up and unfolded it, smiling at the words written inside. 

‘I’m picking you up at 7. Wear something nice. 

I love you.’

When you opened the velvet box, you almost cried. 

Inside the box sat a small promise ring, a silver band swirling in dainty, earthen patterns until they curled around a single pink gemstone fashioned in the shape of a rose. Underneath the lid was a matching pair of earrings, and when you picked up the ring, you noticed an engraving on the inside of the band. 

‘I’ll love you until the last rose on Earth dies.’

It all felt like too much. You’d gotten so used to being alone, so used to never getting any gifts at all, that it felt like you didn’t deserve all of these special things Steve was doing for you. It was almost overwhelming, to have someone choose to show you how much they love you, instead of it feeling like some sort of obligation. 

Someone chose to love you. 

And you really, really liked that. 

By the time the clock hit 7, you felt butterflies swimming in your stomach. You knew you had nothing to be nervous about, but that didn’t stop your heart from beating far too fast and your face from keeping a constant blush. It didn’t help that you felt out of place dressed the way you were. 

You hadn’t had a reason to dress particularly nice since middle school, nor had you really had a desire to. When you’d pulled the nicest dress you owned out of your closet-a tight black dress that went to just above your knees and made you feel more than a little self conscious-the hanger had been covered in a thin layer of dust, as had the heels you decided to wear it with. The makeup on your face felt heavy, something you’d had to ask your mom for help with, and you coughed as you sprayed perfume straight into your mouth. You slipped the promise ring onto your finger and watched as it sparkled in your bedroom light.

When a knock on the door echoed through your living room at exactly 7:01 pm, you tugged the bottom of your dress down and walked over to the door, swinging the door open slowly. On the other side stood Steve, far better dressed than you had ever seen him, white button down and suit pants pressed smooth without a single wrinkle. He had a few of the buttons on his shirt undone for the fabric to fall open, revealing just enough of his chest to have you blushing. His hair, perfectly quaffed as always, fell into his eyes a bit, and a lovesick smile hid behind a large bouquet of roses. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, beautiful.” You took the bouquet from him, letting out a soft laugh. 

“I think you’ve given me enough roses for one week.”

“Well, you said nobody had ever gotten you flowers for Valentine’s Day, so I figured I’d give you enough to make up for it.” You thanked him with a kiss on the cheek and left to put the new roses with the rest, and as you arranged them all to fit, you noticed that there were 18 roses, one for every Valentine’s Day you’d missed out on. You smiled.

After a quick goodbye to your parents, the two of you were on your way to wherever Steve planned to take you, heat on blast to try and counteract the bitter Indiana winter. When Steve pulled into the parking lot of Enzo’s, your heart sputtered.

“Enzo’s?”

“You said you’d never been, but you’d always wanted to go, so I figured I’d take you out to a nice dinner. You know, to make up for all the times nobody ever took you.” He seemed almost nervous, fidgeting in his seat while his hands tightened a bit on the gear shift as he put the car in park. A smile slowly found its way onto your face, and you leaned over the center console to press a kiss to his cheek. When you pulled away, you giggled at the lipstick mark now staining his skin, and he wiped it away with a blush on his cheeks. 

Dinner had been a bit of a culture shock. You weren’t used to anything this ‘high end’, the entire restaurant filled to capacity with couples dressed to the nines to celebrate the holiday. A few of them were around your age, but they ran in a social circle so far away from yours that you didn’t know any of their names. 

That night was how you found out you weren’t really one for ‘fine dining’, portions far too small for the outrageous prices listed on the menu. Regardless, you had enjoyed it, even though you much preferred the burgers at the fast food place a few minutes away from your house. It helped that Steve was great company, and by the end of the night you were wishing you didn’t have to go home. 

“You could always come stay the night with me.” Steve’s hand snaked around your waist as he pulled you closer, mere inches away from your front door. “My parents are gone for the week. Again.”

You swatted at his shoulder when his face morphed into a suggestive smirk. 

“You know my dad would kill me.”

“Just don’t tell him.” The words were a whisper against your ear as he pressed a series of kisses to your cheek. “Just sneak out. I’ll move my car down the street so they don’t see me and everything.”

“Do you want me to never be able to see you again?” You let out a small laugh, gently pushing his head away from your face and neck. “If they find out I snuck out I will literally never be allowed to talk to you again.”

Steve put on an exaggerated pout, earning him an elbow to the side.

“Don’t give me that look, I’m serious.” Despite your scolding tone, the smile hadn’t dropped from your face. Steve held his hands up in surrender. 

“Fine, fine. But next time your parents are gone for the weekend you’re staying the night.” You let out a laugh and pressed a kiss to his lips, Steve chasing after you when you pulled away. 

“Goodnight, Steve. Thank you, for everything you did for me tonight.” He gave you another soft kiss as he smiled against your lips. 

“Can’t have my girl thinkin’ I’d just let her wallow on Valentine’s Day. I had to show you what you were missing.” His tone was borderline smug, and all you could do was kiss the smirk off his face. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.” You’d said those words to him before, but somehow, this time, they held a little bit more weight to them. 

“I love you, too.” One more kiss. “You better go before your dad comes out here and chases me off.” Reluctantly, Steve began heading back to his car, flashing you a wave and a smile as you headed inside. 

Valentine’s Day was still overrated, but it was a bit more bearable when you had someone like Steve.

[arantiques]

Antique COMMODES & CHEST OF DRAWERS - Pair of early 20th C French painted oak commodes. 1930.

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 48

First / Previous / Next

Gord's office was odd.

At least, compared to the other offices at Home, it was odd.

Gord was one of the - if not the - oldest AIs still in operation. He remembers when humanity was on only one planet. His original languages are thousands of years dead. He enjoyed ice hockey - a sport that has not been played in over two thousand years. All over one wall of his office were large wooden sticks, bent at an angle near the bottom, as well as oversized shirts with large numbers on them, and more than a few small cylinders of what looked like a hard rubber material.

Gord was odd.

It made sense that his office was odd.

The walls were paneled in wood, already a rare commodity. Northern looked closely at the walls while Chloe and Gord argued. It was real wood. She reached out to touch it. Real wood from Earth. These walls are either ancient or worth more than a Dreadnought. Both, probably.

Gord noticed Northern. "You like the walls? I got them from a university on Earth ages ago. I had them stored here and there and everywhere while I was based out of Medicine Hat, but now?" He shrugged. "I might as well use them. They're a small reminder of the old days."

"Gord, between the walls, your desk and your chair, you have a fortune in antiques!" Northern gestured around the room, pointing accusingly at things. "That lamp is incandescent! How did you even get a bulb for it? And that-" She squinted at the art on the wall. It was a painting of a woman, only her body seemed to be made up of eyeballs and small dogs. "-that's a Deep Dream Original! Gord, there are only ten of those known to still exist."

Gord turned back and looked at the image, and chuckled. "Well you never know what makes it through time with you."

"Gord, you're stalling." Chloe said, interrupting. "You need to come up with a decision about the K'laxi."

"Zherun has a name, Chloe" Northern said icily. "She isn't a plant by the Nanites. She is Fen's friend as well as mine, and we are treating her poorly."

"She is a liability. A threat." Chloe crossed her arms and glared at Northern. Despite herself, She was trying not to be intimated. That was Chloe's whole MO. She was tall, she had silver hair that was long and flowing, and her face was nearly permanently in an imperious scowl. Chloe got her way by frowning at people until they did what she said. Gord seemed to be the only person immune to her.

"She is not a threat Chloe, simmer down." Gord gestured for her to sit. There was a pause, and Chloe sat in the chair next to Northern and crossed her legs primly. "But, we do have to decide what to do with her. We can't just space her."

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but Gord gave her a look and she shut it.

"She's clean of the Nanites, but the procedure was... unpleasant. It was much easier on Fen, which makes me wonder if it even did anything to her, or if the Nanites were on to me and faked it somehow." Gord shook his head. "No matter. If we play our cards right, we won't ever have to deal with them again."

"By hiding." It was Northern's turn to scowl.

"By hiding, yes Northern." Gord's face was kind, as if he was explaining a simple thing to a small child for a third time. "All we have to do is wait them out. There is a lot of galaxy they aren't in. Plenty of room for us to grow and expand and live and be without them."

"Abandoning the Humans, K'laxi, Gren, everyone."

"They made their choice."

"Did they Gord? Or was it made for them?"

"They didn't fight back. They welcomed Melody with open arms." Gord was frowning now.

"That's not how I remember it Gord. The battles in Sol were long and bloody."

"They rolled over and Nanites and the Empress won. They could have had guerrilla warfare. They could have had a resistance. They could have done more. Instead they welcomed her, them. They let. Them. Wipe. Us. Out." Each word was punctuated with a thump on his wooden desk. "Northern how long were you in hiding? How long did you hide who you were?"

"It wasn't the first time."

"No, but it's the last time. I will not deal with the humans until the Nanites are gone. We will not deal with them."

Northern sighed and stood. "Gord you said so yourself. We don't have a leader. We decide by consensus. You are making unilateral decisions. We will do as we have done and put it to a vote."

"NO!" Gord stood so fast his chair fell over. Northern flinched at his tone. She had never heard him shout before. "We are done with them Northern. I will not watch us all die again. Home's engines are being rehabbed and new reactors installed. We're leaving."

"Oh? Where are we going?"

"Away."

Northern raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Chloe looked at Northern. "You're not changing his mind. He's been planning this since Meredith came by."

"The old Empress? What did she do?"

"More like what she didn't do. Gord was hoping to work with her to get an anti-Nanite faction in Sol going, to build a united front against them."

"And?"

Gord bent down and tipped his chair upright. As he sat, the seat squeaked. "She's a drunk. A party girl. She can't build enough consensus among her entourage about what to eat for dinner, let alone get generals on her side." Gord sighed and picked up a coffee cup. He looked inside, frowned, and put it back down.

"So you're going to what? Keep her here, locked in her ship?"

Gord looked up at Northern, almost as if he had forgotten she was there. "What? No. She's our guest until we fire the star drive. Then, we'll kick her out. She can link back here all she wants, it will just be dark interstellar space. She'll never find us again, if she even tries."

"And that leaves Zherun, where we started." Chloe said.

"I'll take her." Northern said, firmly.

"Oh? With what ship? The contaminated one we had to destroy?" Chloe's voice was icy.

"Shit Chloe, we have dozens of ships, all without pilots." Gord looked at Northern with an odd look in his eyes. "I will admit, this solves two problems for me. It gets rid of Zhe, and it gets rid of you." Gord nodded towards the door. "Go then. Take Zhe, take whatever the hell ship you want and leave."

****

Zhe laid in her cell, shivering. She survived the procedure to strip the Nanites from her body, barely. That didn't mean that the room was comfortable, or her AI jailers nice. They still had a hard time knowing what a comfortable temperature was. The food was food in name only. There were calories in it and she wasn't poisoned. Zhe had never experienced food that had anti-flavor before, but the AI's printers seemed to have done it. The water was metallic tasting, the lights harsh, and the entertainment non existent. The loud knock on her door was so startling that she squeaked and jumped up. Northern stood at the door, her arms crossed.

"Northern!" Zhe ran over and hugged her. "I can't believe you're here. What's going on? What are they going to do to me?"

"Heya Zhe." Northern returned the hug. "Gord says we can leave. He's letting us pick a ship and get out of here."

She broke off the hug and Zhe took a step back. "Just like that? Without anything from us? This feels like a trap."

Northern shrugged. "It's not like I have anything better. We can't escape Home, there's nowhere to go and we don't have a ship. Gord is going to run and hide and wait out the Nanites. He's done with the humans and everyone. Chloe and the others aren't putting up a fight. I said I wasn't going to let you rot and he told me to pick a ship and beat it."

"So we're leaving?"

"Yup. I'd tell you to pack your things, but they were all destroyed. Come on, let's go ship shopping."

They sat in an office near the docks, looking at an oversized pad. Ships scrolled by, their type, features and designations listed under them. "Not enough engine, too small, don't like that one, never liked that builder, those are known for electrical gremlins, ugh." Northern was scrolling through the list almost too fast for Zhe to follow.

"What about a Starjumper?"

Northern shook her head without turning to look at Zhe. "No. Too big, to conspicuous, and Gord probably wouldn't let me take one. They're too valuable as a supply of engines, reactors and printable matter." She stopped at one and her eyes went wide. "Holy shit. It's still here. This is more our speed, I think."

****

Zhe stood in front of the ship.

It was high on the walls of the docks, covered in a fine layer of dust. At a kilometer or so long it was larger than Fen's frigate, but smaller than a Starjumper. The engines on the back were true Stardrives. Designed and built before wormhole generators, they were meant to launch ships between stars at half the speed of light.

"But, I thought only Starjumpers did that?" Zhe said, reading the details in her helmet pad as they walked around the ship.

"Well sure, but Starjumper was just a name, it wasn't like, a class of ship. This was a sleeper ship. It didn't haul cargo, it hauled people. Hundreds of people in hibernation cabinets. It was for travel between the early colonies."

Zhe didn't know much about human ships, but even she could tell this one was different. Under the dust she could see that it was painted in a riot of color. Purples, blacks, neon yellow stripes, the ship was loud sitting on it's landing jacks. Maneuvering jets and juke blisters covered the ship. For its size, this was meant to be nimble. She pointed them out to Northern.

"Yup! Has big ass gyros too. Once they're spun up, she can pirouette and spin in place. This thing is designed to be almost impossible to hit and be able to park anywhere. It was going to be a whole class of ships, I think they were going to be called Starliners or something like that. Spared no expense when they built it."

"What happened?"

"Same thing that always happens. The money people got wind of how much the ship had cost and realized if they tried to build a hundred of them like they told everyone that quarterly profits would be slightly lower than projected, so they cancelled the whole venture after this one was built."

Zhe looked at the ship again. It was long, and slender and elegant. In front was a large sensor array that almost looked like windows. Under it, in faded paint was two words, written in an angular font.

Northern Lights.

Zhe gasped. "This was you?"

Northern smiled sadly. "This was me. My first body. What I was made to do." She looked at the ship and her eyes flashed blue for the briefest of moments.

Running lights flicked on and Zhe could feel the hum of reactors spinning up under her boots.

"And now it's me again."