#And if their relationship is discovered at all the sun bazaar and stone will be put on trial and into some torment nexus

[starryeyed-seer]

Also!!!! I'd never seem this before but BAZAAR THOUGHTS.... aaaaaaaa

It sounds so tired. Sick of being a Courier. Wants a home.

he's lonely :(

I mean yeah. We been knew but. Poor sad crab

the bazaar.... (<- I think this often). Curled up under the blankets shivering... If you're cold they're cold: steal a city

I think this is the only mention of the sun being "cruel, furious, rejecting" about whatever the Bazaar's line-crossing was. I've long thought it was a confession of Love— naming feelings that can never be true, asking the sun for more than it can give. reciprocation.

the bazaar likes breaking into people's basements to steal their snacks: confirmed.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Paris Fashion Week Is a Real Slog When You’re As Important As I Am

http://fashion-trendin.com/paris-fashion-week-is-a-real-slog-when-youre-as-important-as-i-am/

Paris Fashion Week Is a Real Slog When You’re As Important As I Am

I have been to several Paris Fashion Weeks and have reported on my experience as a novice. Now, as a seasoned veteran, I worry the viewfinder I held aloft was rose-colored, indeed. What was once a mythical fairyland of swirling scarves, perfectly puffed pastries and glitzy dinner parties twinkling on past midnight has withered to a nightmarish hellscape: desperate vendors cramming their shoes onto my feet, upstart bloggers screaming for me, paparazzi flashbulbs scarring my pupils.

In the midst of such a cacophony, I find myself wondering: When in my meteoric rise to the dizzying heights of the fashion world will the sun finally burn too hot? I long for the day I may lose my feathers like Icarus, free-fall back to Earth and walk down the street with a beret and baguette unbothered.

As I prepare to leave for the airport, I notice my puffy coat is leaking little tufted feathers out of a hole near my wrist. Recognizing the heavy-handed symbolism, I become terrified and apply a dollop of Gorilla Glue to the hole, effectively stopping the insulation exodus.

Wednesday, February 28th

Shortly after arriving in Paris, my stylist a.k.a. girlfriend a.k.a. editor-in-chief of InStyle asks about the bird shit on my arm. I patiently explain the tear, the leak, the solution. She sends me off to get a new coat.

A breezy expenditure of $80 at Uniqlo will get you this gender-neutral, puffy hooded coat that offers a pleasing assortment of pockets.

For sustenance, I order poulet paillard, which is French for “chicken that looks like a chicken.”

This poor hen stepped sideways into the path of a guillotine. Haughty, but delicious. Afterward, I can feel my grip on reality slipping, so I take a nap and wake up just in time for dinner, which I eat and then go back to bed.

Thursday, March 1st

I am no longer 26 years old and my body does not spring forward into new time zones as spryly as it once did. I wake up at 1 p.m., just in time to bathe and head off to see the Dries Van Noten collection. After being jostled through security and beginning to wonder if maybe I should just go drink a bottle of wine on a Seine tourist cruise, my spirits lift considerably upon finding a familiar face:

Harper’s Bazaar’s Glenda Bailey, a fearless woman who makes her own way and makes me feel like I can too.

Then the lights go up, the chatter dies down and for seven minutes I forget myself and remember why I do what I do. You need only do a minor amount of research to find professional runway photographs of these looks, but what those images fail to capture — and what mine communicate brilliantly — is how little time one has to look at each outfit as the models march by. I’ve highlighted a few of my favorites:

The solid color of the below-left top matches the hue of the detail on the skirt, mirroring the layered duality of the mind-body relationship.

Note how the fabric does not cling tightly but dangles and dances with a motion of its own — suggesting that our own identities are not hewn from stone and shackled to our shoulders but hover all around, knowable only for a moment before shifting once more.

The above-right one looks like Morpheus from The Matrix. Because we’re probably living in a simulation.

I liked this below-left one because of the soft colors…

…and because the model demonstrates why this accessory is called a clutch.

The feathered boa above-right offers one possibility for how the dinosaurs actually looked. I always had a hunch the stegosaurus was a flashy bugger, not that drab, gray-brown galumph my textbooks force-fed me.

Technically, this is a bag.

But it would be more accurate to call it a sack. No Wookiees were harmed in the making of this sack.

Bravo, Dries! Glenda and I bid a fond farewell to each other after I tell her “I liked the feathery bits,” then I head to an appointment with Aquazzura.

The brilliant minds there had these boots made for me, but I know I have no spare room in my suitcase and that they’d render me clumsy in the TSA line, so I have to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

In hindsight, I guess I could have chucked a pair of sweatpants to make room. Oh well.

I wind up ordering poulet paillard again for a late lunch (too tired to make a new decision) and, whether or not you think the man is an effective President, you cannot deny:

Garçon, there’s a hairpiece on my food.

Friday, March 2nd

The next day, I take a break from the shows to peruse the Louvre. I greatly enjoy — nay, require as though ‘tis oxygen — being amongst the art. While I wander its labyrinthine halls, the throngs of tourists fade to static and I feel like I am actively communing with some of the great minds humankind has produced throughout the ages. I listen to what they have to say, then use my smartphone to capture the old masters’ stories as they resonate today.

Expending this level of psychic energy is uniquely exhausting, and when I’m at my weakest, I always crave the same thing: a burger. When I sit down at a restaurant and find that the beef tartare, which is far fancier than a burger, is the same price, I order that instead:

I do not know who the pervert in the kitchen is or why he or she interrupted the sacred ritual of a caperberry attempting to fertilize a hen egg. Later, I realize the only difference between beef tartare and a burger is that tartare is not cooked, so truthfully it should have been cheaper than the burger. I make a note to send a letter requesting a partial refund.

Saturday, March 3rd

Back on the fashion grind: I have an appointment with Aurélie Bidermann, who of course wants to adorn me with her wares. I turn down the gifts, as I confess I do not enjoy possessing jewelry. I find its value far too tempting to thieving rascals and terrifyingly concentrated relative to its size (and, therefore, lose-ability). All possessions are of course burdensome and the nature of “possession” illusory in itself, but jewelry crystallizes this notion. For me, looking is enough.

First of all: How much better is the French version of the word “jewelry”?

It makes the Anglo “jewelry” look like it means “toe fungus.”

And look at this ruby- and emerald-inlaid shell pendant.

I’m only sharing this one picture because most of the ones I took were inadequate/marred by glare. But I believe Aurélie’s joaillerie should be strapped to a rocket and launched into orbit so that in the event of humanity’s self-immolation, it will survive, and when aliens discover our planet, they will first discover these items orbiting above our charred and grown-over remains and they will know that there was beauty here.

Next, I go to the Altuzarra show, which is taking place in the celebrated Parisian restaurant La Coupole and is uniquely visible to the curious public assembled out on the street.

My photography once again captures how quickly the models pass by and how little time I had to form an opinion about each outfit, even though my expert mind of course generates such opinions at lightning speed.

Look at how the evening gown below swishes to and fro as the model makes her turn. This one left a lasting impression on the judges for sure.

Another one is purple and has a slit, which exposes the leg.

The shoes are also purple. I liked the earrings, which you can’t really see clearly, but they looked like a bit like that viral video from a while back of a guy using molten metal to make a mold of an ant colony.

After, I feel spent and also a bit ill, so I lay low for the rest of the day in preparation for my big fashion finale: Valentino.

Sunday, March 4th

I don’t want to risk fainting during the show, so I make sure to eat a balanced breakfast.

(I stood on the bed in my underpants to take this and almost fell on top of the table. Honestly, the things I risk for you guys.)

Valentino has built a structure near L’Hôtel des Invalides specifically for the show. When Anna Wintour sees me, she rushes over and gives me a huge hug and we gossip for a bit, but unfortunately we don’t take a picture together as we normally do. I snapped the one above a bit later just to give you a taste.

Can’t wait for our tennis date, Anna!

This row of girls across from me keeps looking over at me, giggling and pointing and blushing. Sorry, ladies, this is a business trip.

But seriously, there was an actual humming sound coming from their collective social media following.

Then the show started. Below are some of my favorites, but really the collection as a whole was my favorite.

…as Karlie looks on, poised as ever.

The above-right one is just layered so beautifully.

The man in front of me was involved in planning the show and got very upset when somebody nearby leaned out to take pictures. Not me, somebody else.

The human peony:

The green one is good luck should you find it while prancing through a field of clover.

This show transported me and reawakened in me a hope — a hope that we are all beings awaiting some form of pollination, capable of transformation, of one day entering a mode of existence beyond our current understanding.

I try to make a surreptitious exit but once again the photographers call for me to stop and pose. The ladies below leapt in front in a somewhat embarrassing attempt to get themselves plastered on Getty Images. NICE TRY, DESPERADOS.

Afterward, my favorite thing: breakfast for lunch.

Café Saint-Régis, you have my heart.

Au revoir, Paris! Thank you for rekindling my passion for fashion.

Photos via Brandon Borror-Chappell.

[starryeyed-seer]

The Forbidden Ship: All that is known (and a great quantity speculated)

Fallen London is wonderfully complex with its worldbuilding and history, allowing for a unique experience of discovery and coming to one's own conclusions. The complexity and scattered nature of this lore, though, makes learning certain truths quite difficult.

One of the most important aspects of Fallen London is the Forbidden Ship. One of the least referenced, defined, and understood aspects is the Forbidden Ship.

I'm going to go over everything we know, in a rough timeline, with a large number of quotes. I'll also give some commentary and interpretation, because as you'll see, it's kinda necessary.

This will contain major spoilers for a broad range of Fallen London storylines, from ES to seasonal events.

Okay? Okay. ☀️❤️🦀

The beginning

We don't know jack about how the sun and a crab fell in love, what their relationship was like, how long it lasted, or how either party precisely feels about what happened. Our main source for most of this is a play put on a billion years later by bohemians and various dreams/visions.

It's incredible how little the inciting incident both is everywhere and nowhere in fallen london. I admire it greatly.

One day, a Judgement/Sun (Sol) and a Messenger/Space-crustacean (the Bazaar) were in a relationship. This was illegal by The Chain, the oppressive law of the Judgements. The stars position themselves at the top, and gazing down at a lesser being for love? A crime!

Their relationship was secret, and comes with high stakes: they would both be punished with death, erasure, memory loss, or some other torture nexus esque suffering if discovered.

They had a child together, Stone. We don't know how this went down, though her birth is referenced once in Sunless Seas.

A sacrifice of Stones, with only one worthy. Perhaps Stone was not their first attempt, or the only successful hybrid between them. We do not know.

Stone, however, seems to have once existed on the surface.

This is from a lacre vision, which I'll refer to a few times. But with most sources, it's always unclear how truthful a memory/dream gleaned from huffing the Bazaar's tears (What lacre is) could be.

The suggestion of this text is that Stone, the Mountain, once lay upon the molten earth before the Neath existed.

Stone is illegal as her parent's relationship was: proof of her is proof of their crime, and she would similar be punished as part of this. The Garden now lies within Stone (did it always?) And Stone is full of jewels (once uncovered?).

The Neath is formed by Sol throwing the Shattered Herald against the proto Earth. Stone is inside the Neath after this— how she was moved, if the impact affected her, if the forming of the Neath was related to her needing to be hidden... is unknown. She is sealed away.

The Bazaar is aware of the Neath, and presumably Stone being there, as the Bazaar later moves there to start stealing cities.

The break

Sol and the Bazaar's relationship comes to an end, whatever it was. Specifically, Sol rejects the Bazaar after some line is crossed.

Here in mask of the rose, the Bazaar communicates Sol as "cruel, furious, rejecting"

A lacre vision of a gift being rejected:

Here in a Fading Wash of Sunlight, a brief retired event where the Bazaar speaks and asks for their 'trespasses' to be forgiven.

I will speculate on this later! There is no known answer to what happened.

After, the Bazaar continued to work as a Messenger for Sol. (This is an interesting detail, in the brutality of the High Wilderness: as much as the Sun was upset, it did not seem to punish the Bazaar at all for its indiscretion.)

Sol wrote a message to another Judgement, which the Bazaar delivered. The reply to this Message was No. It's presumed it was a love letter, but there isn't much to go off of.

Here, a voice seeming to be Stone's speaks of it:

The Message is also referenced here in the 7th letter, an apparently quite truthful forbidden play.

The Bazaar becomes certain if Sol receives this NO, he will die. This isn't out of question for Judgements, who are very hard to kill externally but definitely can die from the inside (poisoned words, great sorrow, trickery). (The Bazaar's assumption Sol WILL 1000% die from the Message might be a leap— we don't know. They might be overreacting, because it is obvious they aren't over their feelings for the Sun).

The 7th city scheme

The Bazaar cooks up the 7th city plan, of which London is the 5th: steal cities, study love stories, do something with the Message that means delivery will not prove fatal. We... do not know exactly what the Bazaar hopes for or is trying to do, but something like this.

This lacre vision seems related:

Messengers carry burning correspondence messages on their skin. The implication here of 'letters of shame' suggests a lot I don't have answers for (is their illegal love affair burned on the Bazaar? Is the NO message shameful? Could the other star see that the postman Sol sent was one he'd had an affair with, and that's why the rejection?)

The reference to birds from the sky is likely to the Masters, who are metaphorically occasionally owls. In fact, with the above and the below exerpt from 7th letter, I want to toss out a mini theory that Mr. Veils was the first Master.

It sounds like the Bazaar does not stop the Vake because it can't, perhaps because it was the first it made a deal with as part of being cloaked and escaping to the Neath.

The Bazaar entered the Neath through the Avid Horizon, a hole made by the Burrower Below and turned into a gate by the Masters.

The Avid Horizon exits into the King of Hours' territory before his death, and he was evidently aware of it.

(The Bazaar also stopped off at Axile, but I'm not here to summerize everything. )

The Bazaar in the Neath begins its mission. Here we are. What a ship.

Suncrabbing

There are many other details to be gleaned about the ship, about the goals of the Bazaar and the relationship itself. There are few which we can confidently say relate to what actually happened. Does the Sun love the Bazaar? Did it ever? Why was Stone born? Why does the Neath exist? What did the Bazaar do? What was the Message Sol sent? How long is it going to wait for its mail to return without growing suspicious?

And so much more! The story as you often hear it in the fandom is that the Sun is a cad who had a fling with some foolish postman who never got over it, that sending the Bazaar as the deliverer of this new love letter was a flex, that the Bazaar is yearning for a wretched thing it shouldn't be. And maybe that's true, but p much all of what we know is what I've shared, and it is ambiguous as hell.

I do think though there's something to be said for the "in matters of the Bazaar, look to love, always" ship to perhaps have been, believe it or not, love. Why not? Destructive, grand cosmic star-crossed love. What if it was love? What if the Bazaar yearned for something that truly had once been good? What if the Sun loved them back, despite everything? What if they could never be together, but goddamnit, it was love?

...who knows.

The Courier's Sin

We know nothing of the sun, really. The Bazaar though, for all its misery and nostalgia drinking, is interesting. Doing what it is doing is not a small feat: it is a Master of the correspondence, committing yet another crime.

actually, the bazaar does a lot of very illegal things. The highest rank of Hallowmas Knight references the Bazaar:

As does the highest rank of Scholar of the Correspondence.

I leave in the rank below, because that appears to refer to Judgements. A rung below. This crab is a mad scientist! It uses red science to alter its own eggs to make the Whitsun creatures. It rearranges the cities it steals according to some red science principles. It is giving itself a lot of new tattoos of love stories of all flavours. When it entered the Neath, it ripped off parts of its body with commands on it against doing stuff like this (NO LETTER LOST). It has a symbiotic (?) relationship with the Stone Pigs, which despise staying still— it has to drug them to sleep. It is not meant to do any of this and beating down every barrier to achieve it.

Why?

...It's probably love again, isnt it?

I think its sin was love, the confession and admittance of it. To name a relationship as such, to ask for it in turn when such a thing is so dangerous — that's my guess. In the Bazaar focused zee dream 'Betwixt us and the Sun', we are a Messenger in from the cold, interrupting a Judgement ball. Seeking one with a round mask, whose reaction is unknown. A confession is given.

After this, you the dreamer flees to a cold dark cellar— the Neath, then. (This is a dream, so if an equivalent confession moment happened, one would hope no other Judgements were present).

Why would this upset the sun? Well, let's guess!

Imagine it as a touch less cosmic horror. A king and a post officer have a secret relationship. They live in a society that will kill them and their hidden child if it was discovered. For the courier to ask for love, for some promise of the future or acknowledgement of what they have, is a big impossible risk. The King cannot marry someone of lower station, or risk elevating them. The King cannot pledge love to them if he is meant to love someone equal in rank. It is presumptuous of the Courier to ask for more or desire more, because they both know More is a dangerous concept.

Perhaps that's what happened. It probably wasn't, but who knows!

I've hit a better stopping point then here twice, but it's time. There's always more to say, but I hope this has been a helpful overview of what we know, and a little bit of poking at what it might mean.

There's honestly so many ways to read theor relationship and what it might mean. I love the idea of love, but there's tons of fun angles. Was the Bazaar an experiment, Stone the result? Was Sol studying love? How do Judgements express love? Can they even love? The power dynamic between "all seeing eye whose fiery gaze determines the chained nature of reality" versus "the crab who delivers his mail" is vast and adds all kinds of complications and intrigue.

Who's to say.