semi-open post: portraiture

[peaklordshen]

After shifting his way through oil pastels, watercolors, house paint, colored pencils, and an endless variety of paint markers, Shen Yuan has finally managed to get the Mansion to produce a decent set of oil paints, and—wonder of wonders—an easel. He's set up in a spacious, well-lit hall, probably for dancing or salons or whatever, where he's arranged a bunch of furniture in various configurations—wooden screens that he's draped cloth¹ over for backdrops; armchairs stolen from the lounge, wooden stools and high-backed dining chairs from the kitchens; even a lovely chaise lounge in a deep purple that he wistfully thinks he won't actually use, because it would definitely be for Aleksander, and he doubts he'll be doing that entry in his protagonists of the Mansion series after all. He has one of the stools pulled up next to the easel to hold his paints, and is wearing a wide-necked sweater over a black turtleneck and some loose, worn jeans that already have a few flecks of paint on them from when he was doing his color tests.² He's pulled his hair back in a practical bun, and he's currently laying down a layer of gesso on his canvas.

¹ Look, he has to do something with all of those robes he accidentally conjured in his last post.
² After days of feeling very lost and confused about how he's not required to LARP anymore, he's pretty much decided that it actually means he can just change who he's LARPing as at will, and the main way to do this is through fashion. Today he is An Artist.

[Primarily for those Shen Yuan has offered to paint, but anyone else is also welcome to come bother him while he works.]

Comments

[ravkanwitch]

“Me too,” she says happily. “I have such a sweet tooth and there’s been so much to discover here. I actually introduced Galahad to Nutella just the other day.”

[temnota]

As directed, Aleksander sprawled on the settee. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, shifting a little until he was comfortable. He considered Shen Yuan's words carefully. With his previous experiences, he had tried to present the appropriate dignity as the General of the Second Army while being unobtrusive enough so that it would not be immediately obvious the same man was being painted over and over. In another time, he would have wanted to present an aura of power but that didn't feel right here.

"I want them to feel a sense of freedom," he said finally. "There is nothing to hide, they are seeing me as I am."

[peaklordshen]

"Galahad mentioned you healed Claudius, too," says Shen Yuan, blocking in the basic shapes of the tree Magnus is in. "I wish I could do more of that, but cultivation is really more about your own spiritual energy than other people's."

[summerdude]

"Oh yeah, Claudius was easy," Magnus says. "But I'm also a lot better at healing other people than myself." He remembers that he was reassuring Shen Yuan that he's not at huge risk of disintegrating forever, and hastens to add: "But I can still fix, like, a broken leg or a gut stab before they get bad. Like this one time I broke most of the bones in my body jumping off the top of a ship when I was practicing falling in case Ran realized I was sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and decided to follow through with her threats... or no, wait, that time Alex flew me back to Valhalla so I could die there and respawn, or whatever. The second time that day, when I only broke half the bones in my body, I healed them in like fifteen minutes? Twenty tops. Definitely by lunchtime."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Still," Susan says, quietly. "I am sorry for your siblings."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods, a little uncomfortable but grateful nonetheless. He doesn't like to think about what his siblings think happened to him, and how much it is both true and completely untrue. He doesn't know what to do with it at all. "And I for yours," he says, "for being in their kingdom without you."

[peaklordshen]

"Freedom," Shen Yuan repeats, his mouth quirking. An ironic choice, when they're all trapped in a Mansion unable to return to their worlds, but—isn't it true, of all of these literary characters? Set free from the boundaries of their narratives? Luo Binghe was free to come out, after all, and maybe Aleksander is free to change his course from one which he has learned recently may doom him.

Still—how to represent freedom, when the man is also dressed as he is—his outfit is gorgeous and rich, but hardly loose or casual. The pose is good—Aleksander is clearly used to staging himself in such a way as to attract the eye, and he likes how casual and comfortable he looks—but the composition needs something else.

The ballroom they're in has large glass doors along one wall, leading out to a balcony space. They'd been part of the reason Shen Yuan chose this room, for the light they let in, but he crosses to them now and opens them to the autumnal morning. Without bothering to tell Aleksander to get up, he effortlessly drags the setee and sitter together over so they're framed by the open doors. "Let me know if you get cold," he says, and returns to his easel, picking it up to move it so he has the right angle.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan laughs, only slightly horrified. "Dude, you are not good at this whole reassurance thing." He remembers he'd wanted to ask about Magnus' Big Destiny. "Is the healing thing part of like, the thing you're supposed to do?"

[peaklordshen]

"Ooh, how'd he like it?" He needs to know for the scheduled Food Arguments they're going to have. He also wonders what other sweet delights he can introduce her to. Binghe presumably has the ancient chinese cuisine pocket covered, and can actually make her stuff that's a hundred times as good as anything the fridges here can produce, so that leaves disgusting modern crap to him. His specialty. "Have you had Oreos? Actually, have you had Nutella with Oreos?"

[ravkanwitch]

"I think he liked! He had a stroopwafel as well. ...what are Oreos?"

[peaklordshen]

"What's a stroopwafel?" Shen Yuan counters, and then laughs. "Let's both find out."

[summerdude]

Magnus blinks. "What thing I'm supposed to do?"

[ravkanwitch]

"You know, I still haven't found proper waffles here at the mansion," she considers, as she makes her way to the kitchen with him. "They have to be fluffy and hot, not the frozen things that I found. Eggos...? Ketterdam had amazing waffles and I became obsessed with them there."

[peaklordshen]

"We should concentrate on looking for a waffle iron, and then make Binghe make us some," says Shen Yuan. He rifles through some cabinets and eventually comes out with a box of regular oreos, a box of double-stuff, and—horribly—a box of cherry cola flavored ones. "I don't co-sign these last ones," he says, dubious.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina already knows where the stroopwafels are from when she had them with Galahad, so she has a couple individually wrapped packets in her hand by the time he reemerges. "Oh, those look like cookies," she says. "The packaging is... interesting."

[peaklordshen]

"You know," says Shen Yuan, "your destiny, or whatever." It has never crossed his mind that Magnus might not have one, until right now. "You are destined for something, right?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan blinks at it. Is it?? "I guess the world I'm from--" he manages not to call it the real world "--does have a pretty fanciful approach to packaging. It's, um, like an advertising thing." He considers, briefly, trying to explain the state of modern unrestricted capitalism, and quickly decides 'how to eat an Oreo' is more his speed. He opens the normal package to take one out and show her. "You can just bite into them, but a lot of people prefer to twist off the top and then lick out the cream."

[ravkanwitch]

"That sounds like something from Princess and Barbarian," Nina says with a little giggle. She grabs an Oreo from the package and bites into it normally for the first try. "Oh, this is good!" She also slides a wrapped stroopwafel towards him to try.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan snorts. "Yeah, there was basically no way to phrase that without it sounding sexual." He tries the stroopwafel. "Oh, that's really good. Are these from your world?" Then, correcting himself, "No, they wouldn't be, unless you guys have plastics."

[summerdude]

"I mean, the only for-sure thing is dying in Ragnarok like all the other einherjar," Magnus says, shrugging; the shrug is largely a careful affectation of nonchalance. "My dad said I was the final burst of summer before the last eternal winter, but I dunno. I think I may have finished with all that when I defeated Loki that last time."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Thank you." Susan hesitates for a long moment. She doesn't want all this to overtake her anticipation of her date with Lancelot tonight, but she also doesn't want to just walk away from Shen Yuan. "You really do have quite the talent."

[peaklordshen]

"Thanks," says Shen Yuan, abashed. "It's really just practice--but if you'd ever like to sit for me, let me know." He's never painted a woman before, but he'd never kissed a woman before Susan either, so he might as well be consistent.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I would," Susan says. It's been years since she's sat for a courtly portrait, and that was nine years and (if memory serves) several inches of height ago. She hesitates. Tentatively, she asks, "Did you change with your death? Physically?"

[peaklordshen]

"I--" Shen Yuan hesitates. "Yes, but it wasn't really my death that did that part, I was--my soul left my body, I guess, and I ended up in another one entirely." He eyes her curiously. "Why?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh." That's different, then. "I think I was taller. The first time I was this age."