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

[timebethine]

"He would," says Laertes, with a fond roll of his eyes. It eases his heart, to know that his suspicion was correct: the play does indeed feature the courtship of his sister and Prince Hamlet. He doesn't particularly like it--the prince is a scholar more than a warrior, but still given to his father's volatile moods and sudden outbursts of violence--but at least it's a comprehensibly unpleasant fate. "Do I feature in it? I suspect not; had I not been whisked away from mine own world, I would have swiftly returned to France, and left the scene of the play entirely."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan shakes his head. "You're not," he says. "But I do think you're in the play, though maybe just to give the romantic advice we talked about your sister disliking so much, earlier." If he weren't, he couldn't be here, either—arguably, he wouldn't exist.

[timebethine]

"That's likely," says Laertes wryly--and then he remembers that there had been a topic of conversation before they'd diverted to talking about sisters. "Why shouldst thou want advice on keeping a courtship slow?"

[peaklordshen]

"Well—I'm—Luo Binghe and I are dating. Um, like, courting, kind of? Except that we've already slept together, once, but that was—" He sighs. "Let me see if I can lay this out plainly like I did the whole being dead thing: Luo Binghe was the protagonist of a book I was reading when I died. I ended up in that book, after death, but that's actually not the important part, here. The important part is—his relationship with women, in that book, it—it wasn't good." Understatement of the fucking century. "It was, to be blunt, badly written erotica, and he was basically forced by the author's hand into marrying endless women, sometimes only hours or days after meeting them, and then losing interest immediately and meeting someone new." He carefully lines Laertes' eyelid with light. "Once he came here, he realized he's gay—that he doesn't even really desire women at all, only men. It's—fucked up."

[timebethine]

Laertes's expression shades toward horrified. "This explains much," he murmurs. "Thou hast told me he'd suffered, in his world. Nina said the same. How much worse must it have been, to seek surcease of suffering with woman after woman, and to find no ease or pleasure in their company."

[peaklordshen]

"Right? It sounds so awful," says Shen Yuan, enormously relieved that finally someone understands. "I didn't really get it, at first," he admits. "I didn't know he was gay, just that he was... exploring things with men, and I thought he would approach them—approach me—the way he had with women. Quick, and passionate, and then—" he waves a hand. "Ultimately meaningless. And I was being very stupid about my own sexuality, as I'm sure you remember." He means their extremely circuitous conversation in the greenhouse.

[timebethine]

Laertes snorts. "I do. Thou hast a far less wild look now than thou didst, then--it seems the knowledge has eased some frenzy in thee, and I welcome it."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan winces at himself. "Frenzy is—a good way to put it," he says, ruefully. "I'd worked myself into such a state, thinking I had to take advantage of what I thought of as a passing interest in me, from Luo Binghe. It—wasn't, at least not as quickly passing as I first thought, and now I kind of regret rushing us both into, um, the physical aspect of our relationship." He frowns down at his palette, trying to get a shade of golden to mix right for one of the many tones in Laertes' eyes. "I don't want it to feel anything like what he was forced into before," he says, quietly, "but—I really have no idea what I'm doing."

[timebethine]

"Forgive me if this advice is unwelcome--but art thou not setting another path for him, with no better understanding of whether it will be to his health and his liking?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan blinks. "No—I mean, I don't think so," he says. "We talked about it—we fought, actually, and he said he understood why I drew the conclusions I did about his patterns of attraction. I think—I think it's what he wants, not something I'm imposing on him." He's less sure of this than he was when they started the conversation, though.

[timebethine]

"Didst ask him what he wants?" Laertes asks--not accusatory, but confirming; he has gathered the impression, over their last few meetings, that Shen Yuan is the sort of man who makes presumptions about the world and then retroactively justifies to himself why no other conclusion could be possible.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan flushes. "If you listen to him he wants nothing but me, all the time, and would scorn the Mansion and all residents of every world to have me," he say, tone a mixture of disbelieving, exasperated, and desperately fond. "But—he said the same to his wives. I know he has no other language with which to speak, but..." he trails off.

[timebethine]

"I've found," says Laertes after a moment, "that with each new lover I meet, I must make a common language. A word that means nothing between me and Sagramore is a most solemn vow, with Claudius. The gestures of love that bind me daily to Sagramore, Claudius views with indifference. That language will grow and bloom between you without tending--but like any flower, it flourishes with attention and care. Worry not whether thy love comes slow or fast; it will unfurl in its season. Instead, teach him the language of how to love thee, and listen when he speaks it."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan had known Laertes had other lovers, too—Sagramore had mentioned as much when he'd confirmed his non-monogamy after marriage—but he hadn't realized Claudius was one of them. Qi Qingqi would be absolutely disappointed in him with the amount of gossip going on around here that he just has no idea about. He wonders if Laertes and Sagramore share, or if their trysts with Claudius are separate. Were Laertes and Claudius already sleeping together when they got here?? Did the Lion King erase Scar's canonical queerness by not putting Nala's handsome older brother in there for him to rub lion faces with???

"Your turn to be wise," he says, to the rest of what Laertes said, which is definitely good advice or whatever. "Thank you, I appreciate you talking this through with me."

[timebethine]

"I only hope it gives thee ease," says Laertes. "If I may ... I have an odd request. Hast ever heard of the cynocephali?"

[peaklordshen]

"No," says Shen Yuan, intrigued. "Is that Latin?"

[timebethine]

"Greek," says Laertes. "They were dog-headed men in legends. I would not ask a full painting--we have no models for the face--but perhaps thou might'st draw a sketch of Sagramore as a cynocephalic knight?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan has to sit back, a little bit, and blink at his canvas for a minute. That's—his mouth wobbles—he schools himself to perfect, stone-faced calmness, the way he used to have to do to keep his cool and not get dinged by the System, and clears his throat. "You know," he says, "in my original world—in my time—there are many people who like to, um, imagine themselves as anthropomorphic animals. Some people actually make a living doing commissions of the kind you're talking about. I won't pretend to their skill in melding human and animal features, that was never my particular niche, but I'm definitely happy to, uh, make the attempt." To draw Sir Sagramore as a dog furry. For his Shakespearean husband. Who is currently sitting here, for a portrait, wearing a collar.

Shen Yuan's life is so, so weird.