#` gray is a piece of shit : lux posts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cowbutch-chastity · 2 years

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FANFIC APPRECIATION MEME

"FANFIC APPRECIATION MEME

Post recommendations for your ten favourite fanfics and tag the authors if possible. Tell us what you like about their work.

Tag five people of your choice to do the meme too."

I was tagged by both @heroinejinx and @ghostofyaz

Since I like so many ships I’m going to separate them by ship and do a few for each one (ending up with 12 fics total), tagging the authors mentioned if I can find their Tumblr (If anyone knows the ones I couldn’t find, lemme know)

Warning: a large portion of these are NSFW and general TWs on the appropriate ones

LIGHTCANNON

- A Tasty Progress Day by @booking-and-blogging This fic is part of Elfen’s Growth not Pain series, and I unfortunately have not had the chance to read the other fics in the series, however you should also read Non Linear Growth, as this fic is part of that story. This is a great piece of smut that contains a lot of good humor and a very unique take on Lux that I greatly enjoy. Easily my favorite Lightcannon piece I’ve read. The prose is wonderful, the emotions are real, give this fic and it’s predecessors a read.

- The Saga of Lightcannon by @cannibalelf This fic by Cannibal is a monster of a wonderful AU, I remember the day on the Lightcannon discord when the idea for a Norse mythology AU was proposed, and Cannibal delivered it guns blazing. The prose is beautiful, the action is thrilling, this interesting take on Lightcannon is a must read if you want to see Jinx beat the shit out of some monsters with a big ol Axe while Valkyrie Lux watches her very gayly. (TW for extreme violence)

MOICY

- Biological Imperative by @redundantharpoons I believe that this piece is THE quintessential Moicy work. It follows a slight AU that allows Moira and Angela to interact without world ending dangerous and being on opposite sides, and features a wonderful story exploring the way these two interact, and how the prepare to raise a child together. A fantastic work with some lovely sex scenes that made me cry more than once. (TW for many upsetting things in general)

- Ethical Healing by @idle-lark Lark just gets Moira as a character I think, and even though this fic is from the perspective of Angela, it does a wonderful job exploring her and the gray morality that comes with her. Lark’s dialogue is to die for, and watching Angela and Moira slowly struggle with their mutual attraction and what their relationship would mean for their work is wonderful, I’m constantly gripping my chair waiting for the next chapter. Also Moira has a dog named Darwin, and I would die for him.

GRIDDLEHARK

- sting of a wasp by @griddleshark and @thalergetic I’m a sucker for modern AU’s and this fic is probably one of the best in terms of Griddlehark. Gideon and Harrow are very believable characters, they struggle with communication despite their intense want for each other, and the way this fic is written allows you to really experience that. It’s hot, it’s fun, it has jealous and stone butch Gideon and lamp shopping and I love it.

- Holy Cross, Alaska by softieghost This series is another interesting look at Modern AU Griddlehark, but with the fun kick of putting the two together in a cabin for three months and seeing what happens, and then exploring the depths of their new kinship afterwards in a cross country road trip. The first fic is very emotionally impactful, and does a good job of depicting a character who’s experiencing a psychotic break, as well how Gideon does her best to support Harrow and get her the help she needs. (TW for many upsetting things in general)

CAMPAL

- this time we're done for by @darlingofdots This fic changed my brain chemistry 8 times over, the AU takes Camilla and Palamedes and puts them in the Cohort together as Captain and Physician, and lets the inherent eroticism of nursing someone’s wounds do the rest. Seriously this is some of the best sexual tension I’ve ever read, the little flirts the two give each other while Camilla is fucking bleeding out is fantastic, and then navigating their relationship after finally coming together is utterly stunning. PLEASE read this fic. (TW for extreme violence)

- insatiable is what she is by @palamedes-sextus Honestly it was kind of hard to choose from Necropal’s wonderful selection of works, but I believe this one is my favorite. It’s a post Nona AU where Cam and Pal finally get a bit of domestic bliss, enjoy it, and the have wonderful sex. The smut is lovely, the feelings are very well written, the prose and dialogue are lovely, go give this fic a read. And while you’re at it check out the rest of Necropal’s works.

SYLVAINA

- Last Resort by @sniperct Boy, this one is a fucking doozy. A political marriage AU for Jaina and Sylvanas that initially sets them as brutal enemies, and then explores how hatred and pain can blossom desire, which becomes a needy and strong love. It asks a lot of interesting and challenging questions regarding the ethics of undead in WOW, and how a relationship can change and grow overtime. I have not had the chance to read it’s sequel yet, but if the writing is anywhere near the same quality I’m sure sniperct did a wonderful job with it.

- Chainmaker by @calchexxis A lich queen Jaina AU that sets up a wonderful “Queen/Knight” aesthetic between Jaina and Sylvanas. This fic has an awesome plot with a lot of unique and fun side characters, wonderful fight scenes, great sex scenes, and a really interesting look again at Undead in wow. Cal’s prose is fantastic as is the case with all of their work, and you should certainly give this fic a read.

SHIARA

- Resolve by Talaraine Resolve is probably my favorite post destroy ending fic in the Mass Effect fandom. It’s a really cool delve into Shepard and Liara when they are apart from each other, as well as their relationship to other members of the ME cast. It has some great action scene’s a lot of plot and mystery, and a lot of gay yearning/pining. (TW for some upsetting things)

- Death and the Healing by @thewriterinthebatcave with art by @shipsnthenight another awesome post destroy ending fic that takes a slightly different take on Shepard and Liara. What I really love about this fic is how they explore Shepard not as a war hero or a savior or a soldier, but as a person who has been absolutely broken by the awful things they have seen. The fic previous in the series, Comatose With Common Sense, has my favorite character study of Shepard from any fic I’ve read. And all of the art included is lovely. (TW for many upsetting things, mind the author’s TWs as well)

#lightcannon #moicy #griddlehark #campal #sylvaina #shiara #fanfic appreciation

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shapetorn · 4 years

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my plan today is to create a google doc with a history and character information to further flesh out gray’s character ; a history of their species, etc. i miss this blog, i will also be looking into building new dynamics and plots again.

#` gray is a piece of shit : lux posts

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ghostradiostoryhour · 5 years

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The Fig

I walked up to the bar where Lucas had said to meet him, double-checking the location on my phone. This place looked beat to hell, run down—hardly the luxe cocktail bar my editor had mentioned in our meeting earlier that day. Maybe the team was hazing me? I was still pretty new on the bar beat, and I wouldn’t put it past them—my company’s culture could get a little frat-like at times, and I was the first woman on their team of six reporters.

Maybe some of them were jealous of my “acceleration,” the somewhat inscrutable metric for success that our CEO had put into place last quarter. Whatever the magic formula was, though, I had cracked it with my first exclusive. My coverage of a new SoHo queer bar’s take on a Corpse Reviver #2 that was in its own right revolutionary—the secret ingredient was reduced rhum cotton candy stacked high atop the tiki mug the drink was served in—had gone viral only three hours after the piece had posted to the site. Lucky for me, I was dating the owner, a semi-famous mixologist renowned for her innovative drink presentation—Sasha had been kind enough to let me write about her.

We hadn’t been dating long, only about a week or so, but her pull was strong on me. Every moment spent gone from her was a dull ache in my chest, a burning, lower. So being here, at this bar, where I was certain I was about to get punked by my male coworkers—on a Monday, no less, the only day that Sasha’s bar was closed . . . I felt like a sucker. But, as I looked at the bar’s faded sign again—it was called The Fig—something crawled through me. Danger? No, it couldn’t be. I was a bad bitch. Tall, thick. Anybody with the idea that I might be easy pickin’s was quickly dispatched with a scowl and a straightening of my shoulders.

Whatever these boys had in store for me wasn’t enough to scare me. So then, what was this feeling? Interest? The place, as dilapidated as it seemed on first glance, was alluring in its way. It was situated at the crux of a weird intersection, bounded on either side by small streets that ran alongside three bigger, much busier thoroughfares, to create a chaotic clump of five streets. Music poured down from a small, empty rooftop that was overgrown with lush plants and flowers. Along one of these streets, the bar had no windows, just a solid concrete wall that had been decorated with a huge mural of some strange bug. It looked like a bee or a beetle, but with a thin, long head and translucent wings shaped like those of a butterfly. A thin, whip-like appendage that was almost twice the length of the bug itself extruded from its abdomen, right in the place where a stinger might be. The front of the bar looked out onto the corner of the intersection, at the meeting point of the two roads. The one window in the front of the bar held a single neon sign that read PSYCHIC in cursive yellow and red. Patterned lace curtains were draped behind it, making it hard to see into the bar.

I stepped up to the door, and the same strange feeling coursed through me again. Like when I had touched the bare outlet in my aunt’s guest bathroom as a child. Involuntarily, I stopped dead. Weird.

I had to push myself forward on the bar’s threshold. Lifting my hand to the door knob felt like moving my arm through thick molasses. My phone dinged. Sasha.

6:55 PM

bb have fun at the bar. hurry back to me. im waiting ;)

I smiled at the text, then shook my head. What was I doing? I just needed to get this over with so I could get over to Sasha’s.

Ignoring the feeling of wrongness prickling my skin, I put my hand on the doorknob, turned it, and stepped into the bar.

Inside, it was a garish, dingy pink, like the inside of a mouth, some mucous membrane. Baroque decor—a limp looking beige silk sofa sagged in one corner, in another a set of mismatched embroidered armchairs gathered around a spindly iron coffee table painted white and flaking. A long unused fireplace carved from gray marble and festooned with cherubs and angel faces displayed an iron rack full of half-lit, melted pillar candles.

It was an oddly feminine place for Lucas’s crew to choose for a drink with the bros. He and the rest of his cohort had already arrived. They were sitting at the bar, hunched over drinks, their black-suited backs to me. Even the bar itself was overly frilly, draped in beads and lace and glowing a pale peach, thanks to some recessed lighting within the bar itself. The color was nearly the same shade as the glittery highlighter Sasha brushed across her high cheekbones every morning. No doubt choosing this place in particular was meant as some joke about my gender.

I rolled my eyes and strode up to the bar, clapped Lucas on the back. He was easily distinguished by the premature gray in his dark undercut.

He spun around. “You made it!” He grinned stupidly. Looked like the group had cut out a bit early to make it here with enough time to fully cash in on the happy hour specials, which ran until 8.

“Yep,” I said. “How’s things? You wanted to meet?”

One of the others, Brad or something—we hadn’t really met yet, laughed aloud at a joke the bartender had made. The rest of the guys leered at me, in various states of drunk.

“Siddown!” Lucas crooned, and I took a seat at the empty stool next to him.

The unsettling feeling from before hadn’t faded, and I had already assessed the room—exits to the back right and the way I’d come a decrepit set of iron stairs that twirled up to the rooftop deck I’d seen from the street. Club mixes of 80s pop lilted from the speakers in the other corners. There were a few other patrons in the bar that I could see, coupled off by the front window, in a small clump by the sofa. The air smelled sickly, hung thick beneath the gaudy chandelier lighting. It tasted like fermented peaches—like farmhouse cider, or a funky saison. Sasha and I were both into craft beer and small batch brewing.

Before I could say anything, Lucas had motioned to the bartender, who was presenting me with an acid green up cocktail.

“Uh, thanks,” I said, immediately wary, but trying to be cool. Everyone was acting a little strange—I had been sure they’d have jumped on me right away, roasted me for my masculine look, or my success, or my general otherness, but they were all acting pretty chill, if a bit loopy. Maybe the invitation had been genuine after all, and this was just how they partied.

Lucas smiled, his features a little droopy—how long had they been here?—and patted me on the shoulder.

“Not always that we get a noob with acceleration!” he said loudly, and at this, the other guys turned and started to pay attention.

“Oh. Yeah,” I said, not wanting to play it down—though if I were with my girl friends, I would have. I straightened up. “Well, I know what I’m doing, so.”

The oldest guy in the group besides Lucas snorted. His name was Todd, and he’d been with the company for three years now—long for this business. Everyone knew that he was struggling with acceleration.

“You don’t know shit,” he said. His words were rude, but his tone was good-natured enough. “None of us do. Even the CEO, Roderick. No idea what the public wants. It’s all this PC culture, ruining everything. Can’t even have an opinion on something anymore.”

I frowned. Of course he was one of those. Todd downed his drink, signalled for another.

Arun shook his head. “Shut up, man. Don’t you realize that makes you sound like an asshole?” He looked at me, and I blinked. His face seemed blurry, or—no. It seemed to be sagging. I smiled, trying to not to stare. He kept talking. “The girl clearly knows what she’s doing,” he said. His lip somehow curling as the rest of his face wilted. “I mean, sleeping with your sources is bound to help you get deep inside of the story.”

Brad laughed again, a guffaw that sounded almost cartoonish. “Have you seen her girl?” he slurred. “Not really the marrying type, but damn she is fun to look at.”

Lucas waggled his eyebrows at me. “Yeah, thanks for the pictures, too.”

Damn Chai’s photography skills, I thought. Our publication was known for its amazing photos. Chai, our lead photographer, was truly gifted, which meant that she’d captured Sasha behind the bar at just the right moment—her cheeks flushed with heat, her golden eyes focused, perfectly lit, as she seared an orange rind with a newly struck match. Tiny beads of sweat like dew at her brow and collarbone. I guess for these guys it helped that she liked to wear low cut dresses while she worked. In the feature image for my piece, Sasha had looked like fucking Tessa Thompson. The thought of Sasha, of that picture, sent me back to the text she had sent not ten minutes ago—

hurry back to me. im waiting ;)

The guys were cheering and high fiving each other, practically drooling. This was nonsense. I took a sip of my drink and winced—the lime green cocktail tasted bitter and reeked of ethanol.

“What’s in this?” I asked the bartender, but they had their back to me and didn’t respond. I could barely make out their features in the mercury-stained mirror that hung above the dusty bottles of liquor behind the bar.

“Hey,” Lucas practically shouted into my ear. “How’d you end up with a babe like that, anyway? You’re just a dyke.”

I whipped around, ready to slap him, but then I saw his face.

His features were totally distorted, almost as though his flesh were melting, like the wax of the candles in the fireplace, like Arun’s face, but worse, far worse. The pink sockets of his eyes grew as his bottom eyelids sagged, his eyeballs, horrifyingly spherical, jostling as the space they occupied shifted.

I gasped and jumped back, toppled over. I thought I was going to fall off of the barstool, but it came with me, adhered to me by some beige, creeping slime. I yelped and pulled myself from the chair, slapped at the gunk on my pant seat. A faint hissing noise came from the caustic goop.

The guys were jeering, making fun of my start and cackling to themselves about the fall. I couldn’t bear to look closely at them. I couldn’t bear to see Lucas’s face again, not like that—all dripping and disfigured. He was a dick, but he was still a person. At least I hoped so.

I took my phone from my pocket, checked the time.

11:55 PM.

How could it be so late? I dimmed the screen, pushed the button to illuminate it again, and the time was the same, but now there was a series of messages from Sasha as well.

8:01 PM

how’s it going?

9:10 PM

do you think you’ll come over tonight?

9:15 PM

i hope they’re being nice to you

10:45 PM

Ro, are you okay? starting to worry…

11:32 PM

Ro seriously this isn’t funny

Fuck. How had so much time passed? Did Lucas fucking roofie me? No, I thought. No, I had been drugged at a club before. This wasn’t how it felt.

A moaning sound from the bar and I snapped my head up, looked dead on as the bartender, who had no discernable face, I could see now—just a blank oval of skin tone painted on like nail polish. I watched in horror as the face color melted away to reveal a perfectly polished, nearly opaline skull. Only the skull was no longer a skull at all, not really, but instead a shined white sphere, growing ever smaller as the flesh color drained from its surface. Beneath, the body writhed and jerked as the last spasms of life left the bartender and great hunks of muscle flopped down from their arms onto the floor, which, I noticed then, was crawling with the same slime that had stuck me to the chair. I wanted to run, but I was frozen in place by the spectacle before me.

The bartender had become more of a skeleton than anything, but a strange scream erupted from the body as its shined white limbs began to shorten and curl. I looked around at the other patrons of the bar, then—Lucas and his crew were all melting in a similar fashion—had they given me acid? But no, I could hear them all screaming, set to the overly positive backbeat of Tiffany and the B-52s. The bartender had become a kind of grotesque, ultra foo foo coat rack made of bone, and Lucas, Todd, Brad, and Arun seemed to be melding together, their flesh melting onto the barstools where they sat in such a way that they began to resemble an ornate, blood-red chaise lounge. They wailed together, and Lucas reached out to me. I screamed, and remembered myself.

I looked down. My legs were throbbing with the beige slime, which stretched almost all the way over my knees. “Fuck!” I yelled.

No way in hell I was going to become part of some shitty Williamsburg dive bar. Fuck that.

I ran, or tried to run, for the door. I was moving, that was good, but the most I could manage was a determined kind of lurch. I trudged forward, my heart beating hard in my ears, as I focused on the George Michael lyrics pouring from the bar’s speakers. I willed myself to move, to keep moving, to never stop, even as I neared the door.

My phone rang in my hand. Sasha. But I couldn’t answer. I had to focus.

The couple at the table near the window was melting also, their shared skin flowing together like spilled shades of paint over the wire table and white wicker chairs. I looked away.

The floor of the bar bucked, then, as if it knew I was trying to escape, and I crumpled to the ground. The slime overtook me, moving much faster than it had before. With a yell, I pushed myself up to my feet and ripped my torso away from the hungry slime.

In the corner of my eye, the couple at the table—or the chrysalis-like shape they had morphed into—bubbled up once. I stared, transfixed, even as I worked toward the door. The chrysalis throbbed again, then shook violently. Then it cracked open with a sick noise of breaking bone.

But what emerged from the chrysalis was almost too monstrous to describe.

It was a giant wasp, or something like a wasp, black and shined and buzzing, still new and dripping with whatever amniotic fluid it had emerged from. Was it the couple’s blood? I gagged, but still I pushed toward the door.

It didn’t seem like it could fly yet, because it crawled on almost human arms up the wall of the bar, and onto the cieiling, hanging upside-down between me and the way out. I could barely make out the couple’s faces, stretched and distorted, in the wasp’s wings, mouths still working in distress even as they melded slowly into the wasp. A long, black, whip-like stinger grew out of its abdomen, a near-perfect echo of the mural I had seen earlier, outside.

I screamed again, this time more out of desperation than anything. I had more to do before I died. I had more stories to tell. I had Sasha, sure, but I wasn’t certain that we were meant to be anything real yet. I wasn’t done loving her and I wasn’t done meeting people. I had worked harder than this, dammit! I deserved better than to be yet another woman who had gone out for drinks with male colleagues and had never come back.

The wasp crawled closer to the door, and the beige slime crept over my arms and shoulders, nearing the tips of my fingers. I felt the structure of my face start to shift as I lunged for the door. My hand closed around the doorknob just as the wasp descended.

I closed my eyes and threw my whole weight forward into the door. A terrible buzzing filled my head, and I hit pavement.

The door slammed closed behind me.

For a moment, I thought I was dead, surely eaten by the bar, by the wasp, gone forever, just another queer casualty everyone would cry out for on Twitter and then promptly forget about. But I was still alive and whole, despite the state of my outfit, which was pocked with holes all over, as though I’d been living in a closet full of moths for the last five years. But the slime was gone. My phone was in my hand.

Breathing hard, I checked the time. 5:20 AM.

I laughed aloud at my luck, at my existence, and the few drunk stragglers on the street jumped, looked at me funny. I turned back to look at the bar. All of the lights were off, save for the neon PSYCHIC sign glinting yellow and red in the front window. The sky had started to lighten, and as I stared into the window, wondering if what I’d been through, if what had happened to Lucas and everyone else in the bar had been real, I saw the dark shape of a giant insect crawl across the window.

It paused there, as if regarding me, and then crawled back into the shadows of The Fig.

A shiver ran through me. I felt drunk and wobbly. I let out a huge breath, and then I took out my phone to text Sasha. She was never going to believe me.

As I typed, I noticed something strange. My thumb was changing. Little bumps appeared and then they grew into small, sharp points. It wasn’t painful, not really, but it was startling, and I pocketed my phone, looked closer at my hands. The bumps were all over my hands and forearms, bubbling up and then hardening into hair-thin points. If I didn’t look too closely, I could almost imagine that they were hair.

And then the growing stopped. I touched one of the prickles gingerly and pulled back. They were sharp, alright, and they covered my arms from the elbow to the backs of my knuckles and thumbs.

The door to the bar swung open, then, and a gust of the rank-smelling rotten air whooshed out toward me. I covered my face with my arms and closed my eyes. When I heard the door slam and the wind stopped, I looked up. The bar was closed. Nothing had changed.

But then I looked down at my arms. A fine beige dust coated the new spines on my forearms. I tried brushing it off, once, twice, and then frantically, but it didn’t budge. I looked at The Fig, at the wasp mural on the wall, and then I remembered something I’d learned back in elementary school science class. Mutualism. How some species depended on each other in particular ways. I hadn’t made it out, not really. I had, but not of my own volition.

This was how it spread. I wasn’t a survivor. I was a pollinator.

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fashiontrendin-blog · 7 years

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Work and Play With a Side of Fries: Amelia’s Paris Fashion Week Diary

http://fashion-trendin.com/work-and-play-with-a-side-of-fries-amelias-paris-fashion-week-diary/

Work and Play With a Side of Fries: Amelia’s Paris Fashion Week Diary

Saturday, 7:15 a.m.

Contrary to the popular belief held by those who’ve consumed alcohol the night before, 7:15 a.m. is a pretty nice time to be awake in Paris.

I’m up to catch up on the work I missed while traveling yesterday and to start to chip away at deadlines due next week. If I learned one thing from last February Paris Fashion Week, it’s that there’s always less free time to get work done than you think. My first appointment is at 10:30 a.m., so I’m what the French call, “concentrating.”

I’m a little anxious…

10 a.m.

Done-ish, enough to go get breakfast at least. Spencer, my boyfriend, is here for the weekend and he’s helping to keep me on schedule. We go to a kind of weird place that’s definitely a tourist trap, but a croissant and jam is a croissant and jam, you know? I am still a little anxious. I think it’s the combination of my impending schedule and not totally knowing my way around and not having all my ducks in a row. But still, Paris. Also, I spot Alber Elbaz and have a spazzy moment of feeling designer-star-struck, which I didn’t think happened to me? Just when you think you’re cool!

10:30 a.m.

First stop of the day is the Peter Pilotto showroom to see the clothes he showed in London, up close and personal. It’s bright and colorful and jumpstarts yesterday’s good mood. I try on a coat. I schmooze. I relax.

11:30 am

I’m at Magda Butrym, where the collection was inspired by Dolly Parton (please let this theme continue). I fall in love instantly with the ruffled sleeves, padded shoulders, hot pink and red silks and rhinestones but… THE SHOES! I love one pair of tall boots that were about my height in particular, and some heels with removable puffy bows. It’s all so eighties; in the wrong fabrics, could very well be tacky. But these textiles are luxe and the draping is like “UGH!” and it’s all so good. Clothes like these make me wish I were a different kind of person, more balls-to-the-wall in how I dress.

12 p.m.

The world’s greatest cab driver, Yusef, has picked me up and is singing along to “Lady in Red.” He wears a very nice baby blue cable knit sweater. We bond over classic 80s music. We are instant friends and my brain does this thing it did last time I was here where it shouts super loud, “HEY AMELIA, MAYBE YOU SHOULD MOVE TO PARIS.”

12:30 p.m.

Altuzarra, though staged in the middle of La Couple, a brasserie that’s apparently a real establishment here, brings me back to New York for a moment as I’m seated between a few friends from back home. I’m not constantly with friends here in the way that I am during NYFW, so when I do run into them, it’s nice. Someone almost always has a portable phone charger, a snack and a hug.

Altuzarra’s collection reminds me of New York, too: glen plaid and pinstripe suits, a trench, a cozy shearling coat. My favorite items are the dresses: one purple dress in tie-dye velvet with a sort of modern-medieval neckline, a few with ruching and off-the-shoulder sleeves (but only if you want — choose your own adventure) adorned with glittering metallic paillettes. It’s not capital F fashion, but the collection has style. Pair with that Altuzarra’s pin-sharp tailoring and its wearer will instantly feel like she has her shit together.

1:30 p.m.

I just dropped Elle.com’s Nikki Ogunnaike off in a cab where we spent the ride chatting about how much the industry has changed since our intern days (a lot). I ate this little cake while she spoke, scooping out the inside, leaving its chocolate shell, which I offered to Nikki too late to actually be considered polite. She declined (it was kind of gross) and then had to go. Bye, friend!

Soon after, at Natasha Zinko, the designer plays with the concept of a working, successful woman who isn’t defined by her job, but rather by all the pieces that make up her personality, which she may only reveal here and there.

Then I try on these weird sunglasses that make me look like an alien.

2:30 p.m.

I quickly stop by Mira Mikati for a burst of rainbow color and a go-kart/carnival theme, then I head home to charge my phone and meet up with Spencer, who has spent all day eating his heart out at the Musee d’Orsay. I visit the museum vicariously through him as I swipe through photos of Rodin’s sculptures on his phone.

4:30 p.m.

After some work, he and I walk to a cafe my Parisian friend Sophie recommends, but it’s full, so we go somewhere whatever where I get an okay salad, fries and a Diet Coke. Then we get a text from our friend Gabby, who’s doing PR for a few shows, that she has a break and wants us to come meet her and her friends at the Ferris wheel, so we do, snag a six person gondola and have a truly delightful time on top of the world.

5:30 p.m.

The lot of us walk through the Tuileries at an impressively slow pace because we all have to stop and take about a million versions of the same photo. The lighting was good so no complaints. Once everyone gets a new profile picture, we part ways.

6:30 p.m.

Spencer and I are posted up at Cafe Flore with Sophie, my friend who suggested the earlier spot. I’m taking this opportunity to push through emails, but since I am the only person on my phone, I wrap far more quickly than I would have if we were in New York. We’ve crashed Sophie’s drinks with her friends and overstay our welcome until about 8 p.m., when I have to run to Sonia Rykiel. Spencer stays; he’s very French now.

8:45 p.m.

Jet lag was just about to hit when Sonia Rykiel wakes me up. The show concludes with two loud confetti-exploding POPS! Models laugh and dance down the end of the runway. Then Bananarama comes on to sing and champagne is passed around. It is a celebration of the label’s 50th anniversary and a joyful tribute to the late iconic designer. The clothes themselves were both fun and very “ready-to-wear,” nothing so FASHION that everyone couldn’t enjoy them, save for the four fluffy-hatted snow monsters that opened the show in tandem. My favorite look was a green glitter dress on a model who charged the runway in thigh high boots with a caramel-colored bolero.

9:30 p.m.

It should be time for bed, but instead, it’s time for dinner. We eat, though nothing major, I am sorry to report, then around 11:30 p.m. we take a long walk back to the hotel. My feet hurt but it’s worth it; it’s easier to see the sights on foot.

Sunday, 12 p.m.

Following a rainy morning spent debating where to eat in-between emails and some work for Hotel MR (!!!), I stop by the Tome presentation to see Ryan Lobo and Ramon Martin’s latest collection. It’s inspired by the artist Tschabalala Self, and though she wasn’t in the room today, she appears in the lookbook. I love this collection, all wide legs and clashed patterns. I think my favorite, if I had to choose, is the layered plaid look that features accordion pleats that are practically camouflaged in all the pattern.

1-4 p.m.

Time is starting to blend together. After Tome, where I run into Tamu McPherson, who is best-dressed dressed for the rain in a clear Maison Michel hat, I have a re-see at Nina Ricci, where I discover details I didn’t catch from my seat, like the corduroy texture of a gray suit (apparently the brand does corduroy every Fall/Winter, which I did not know) and the crinkle effect on a white silk dress.

5 p.m.

Time for Valentino. First thing to know is that, while everyone dresses up for every show in Paris — talk about the best of Sunday’s best — the crowd before and after Valentino come attired in head-to-toe full looks. (I’m still in my outfit from this morning, and I dressed for the rain. The weather’s since taken a turn for the sunny. Damn these chic women and their chic foresight.) When the show begins and the models start walking down an unpretentious, simple runway, I understand the crowd’s impulse to dress accordingly — even if that meant running home to change first. The clothes are so artfully crafted, so beautiful in a way that seems specific to Paris (that’s my romantic side writing, let it happen) that, as a viewer, I want to blend into the scenery, absorb into the world of Valentino, and pay respects.

The collection itself is a fairytale fantasy but not so fantastical that it’s absurd. Mostly, the fairytale is in reference to the little red riding hoods that come in a variety of colors, and the gowns that give proper use to the word “ethereal” — which I’d previously, in my own writing at least, embargoed. The rest of it is simple; not “easy” simple, or basic simple, but experienced, sweeping, painterly lines with just the right amount of bells and whistles.

6 p.m.

After meeting up with our roving street style photographer, Simon, to stage a photo for this story, I head to the Marais to meet my friends where I drink two negronis and eat vegetable pizza with a side of spaghetti bolognese. Weird combo but whatever, it’s the weekend. I have two-and-a-half-hours to kill before Thom Browne and my phone’s dead, so I charge it behind the bar (which means no checking email) and forget about fashion week for long enough to process it.

Feature image by Simon Chetrit. Photos via Amelia Diamond.

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