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

[summerdude]

"Yeah, it wasn't great," Magnus laughs. "I'm surprised you didn't stumble across me, actually, I picked him up in the middle of a hallway. It's fine, though, Hanguang-jun and Galahad found me."

[peaklordshen]

"Oh," says Shen Yuan, flushing. "Yeah, um. Sorry I didn't, like. Come make sure you were okay. I didn't know you got such backlash, and I was... distracted."

[summerdude]

Magnus gives Shen Yuan a piercing look, then laughs again. "Loverboy?" he guesses. Then he shakes his head. "Don't worry about it, man, I'm fine. It's all good."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods, slowly. "I think he thinks that, too. I think he's having second thoughts about whether pursuing the course you're describing is worth it. Worth what he did to your instructors, I assume--probably among other things. I told him I thought this place was allowing us all second chances, and giving us the freedom to become something new." He shakes his head, grimacing a little. "Which I do believe, but I probably would have said it less, like, sentimentally if I hadn't been truth-cursed at the time."

[peaklordshen]

"Still," says Shen Yuan, disgruntled. "We're friends, I should have your back, and not let myself be seduced away by beautiful men just because they use my sword in battle and it's, like, really hot and intimately charged. Not that—we didn't—we just took a bath. Separate. Baths. There's a room at the back of the Mansion with a bunch of screens—Anyway." He subsides. "I'm rambling."

[summerdude]

"Bro, I'm fine," says Magnus, who demonstrably has not been, lately. "Everyone has my back here, basically. Did some good fighting when the zombies were here, and some good damsel-in-distressing afterwards." He nudges Shen Yuan with his shoulder, and then decides to Helheim with it and wraps his arm around Shen Yuan's back, pulling him in for a little tree-cuddle. "My post-battle existential crisis is not on you, my dude. I want to hear more about these totally innocent baths."

[ravkanwitch]

"That truth curse did a number on everyone," Nina says a little grimly. Luckily for her, the undead attack came immediately afterwards and anything she could have said about her Grisha abilities was on display during the attack -- and nobody cared. "I think he's telling the truth. It's just the potential that's there that scares me. But a lot of people here have the potential to do some really bad things." She shrugs. "I do too."

[temnota]

"Ah, that is a fair point." Unsure as to whether talking was alright or if Shen Yuan preferred silence when working, Aleksander erred on the side of caution and stayed quiet. The settee was comfortable and his kefta was warm enough that he wasn't bothered by the open doors.

So much had changed since his first day here and he was beginning to wonder if that meant he could change too.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan allows himself to be cuddled, glad of it both because it's nice and because it means he doesn't have to look at Magnus while he talks about this. He knows he's not really sixteen, but the cognitive dissonance is easier when he's cuddled into him like this and can't see his face. "Those zombies were gross," he says, "and I cut the sleeve off my date outfit to bind up Sagramore's shoulder, so I was kind of looking a wreck, but I, like. Really like Binghe, obviously. So we just kept hanging out while also taking baths." He sits up, a little. "And it really was mostly innocent. Way more innocent than I expected, actually, but I think maybe Binghe is trying to figure out, like. Not living in erotica world anymore?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan does paint in silence, for a while, but he doesn't want Aleksander to get bored> "So, um," he says. "Obviously I know some things about you, due to circumstances that neither of us would have chosen. But—if you had been free to speak about yourself, from the beginning. What would you have said?"

He means to anyone, not just himself, but Aleksander would be forgiven for thinking the latter is implied instead.

[peaklordshen]

"Everyone has the potential to do some really bad things," says Shen Yuan, though whether he's reassuring her about Aleksander or about herself he's not really sure. "I'd like to think everyone has the potential to do really good things, too, but I get why that feels less likely for some people than others." He reaches over and opens the packet of cherry cola oreos. "It feels wrong giving you these without at least introducing you to cherry coke first. Like showing you a grotesque copy of beautiful art, or something."

[summerdude]

"Sagramore got hurt??" Magnus asks, thinking, and didn't ask me to heal him?

And then: "Erotica world?" He pauses. "Because of all the wives?"

[peaklordshen]

"Oh, I mean, kind of? The wives are a symptom of the erotica thing. I told you I got sucked into another world, right?" He's certain they touched on this when he was hight. "It was a fictional one. Binghe's literally from an erotic web novel, I know the guy who wrote it."

He doubles back: "And Sagramore's fine, I've seen him since. I got worried he might turn, because, you know, zombies, but they weren't that type, I guess."

[summerdude]

"They weren't any type I'm familiar with," Magnus agrees. "I had to heal Claudius. And," he sighs. "Lancelot."

[temnota]

It was an interesting question and Aleksander considered it for a few moments before answering. "I would have admitted to being a general, talked a little bit about the border wars. As I got to know people better, I would have told them about being Grisha and shown them a little of what I could do. The rest of it... I don't know. But then again, I can still hardly believe that there isn't a need to be cautious here. My earliest memories are of running and hiding and my mother drilling me on what names we were calling ourselves this week and where we were from. We never stayed very long in any place."

[peaklordshen]

"I still haven't even met Lancelot," says Shen Yuan. "I kind of intend not to. He sounds like he extremely sucks, and there are enough people here now that I simply don't have to hang out with people who suck." He does kind of want to see Lancelot, though. He imagines he kind of looks like dilf Galahad, which is obviously deeply compelling.

[ravkanwitch]

"There have definitely been a few points where even I could have done something quite terrible," Nina acknowledges -- then she makes a little face. "Is it really that bad?"

[peaklordshen]

"Okay, I admit, I don't actually know," says Shen Yuan. "But--corporations in my time are obsessed with shoving flavors into other flavors, and occasionally you really do get something so bad it should probably be a war crime. Here, try this, first." He stands up, and produces from the fridge, a--vanilla coke. And then a coke zero. And then, finally, after her gives it a very stern look, a cherry coke. He hands it to Nina.

[summerdude]

"Oh, he's the worst," Magnus says, enthusiastically, with all of the energy of someone newly able to unleash all of their feelings on a person mutually detested. "I hate that guy. Motherfucker doesn't know how lucky he has it that I've committed to not killing him even though if they ever decided to give me a moniker in Valhalla it should probably be Bad Dad Destroyer."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina takes it and opens it carefully, taking a sip. She gives it a mild look of distrust first -- but then it's not bad. "It tastes like a whole sweets factory mixed together," she says.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan blinks. He's not sure he knew Magnus had, like, killed people, or at least not people who weren't like him and came back immediately. But destroyer seems pretty final. Huh. "Yeah, I don't think Galahad would like that," he says. "There's a lot of room to play around in between killing someone and treating them nicely, though."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan snorts. "Yeah, pretty much." He cracks the vanilla coke, despite his better judgment. "Now imagine that taste but in, like, cookie form, and combined with the Oreo taste." He pushes the package toward her, slowly and slightly ominously.

[summerdude]

"Oh, I know," Magnus says, to both of Shen Yuan's points. "Mostly I try to avoid the guy. But you can see how it was super annoying to have to heal him, right?"

[ravkanwitch]

"You're scaring me," Nina jokes -- but she still opens the package and takes one, taking a bite of it. Her expression as she chews is probably somewhere between contemplative and also mildly concerned.

[peaklordshen]

"Totally," says Shen Yuan. "You're very brave. I don't suppose next time you could heal him but like, also give him poison ivy or something, could you?"