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

[peaklordshen]

Despite how much he definitely does not care about what anyone thinks of these paintings because he's just doing them for fun or whatever, Shen Yuan watches her face for reaction a little bit anxiously. He cares about her opinion; a side effect, he guesses, from the weirdly test-like atmosphere of their first conversation. "He chose the dress," he clarifies. "I told him—and my other friends who have sat for me—to wear what makes them feel beautiful."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan is still a little kiss-drunk; it's the only explanation she has for the way she blurts, "He reminds me of -" before she gets hold of her mouth and clears her throat instead of finishing the thought. She shakes her head once, fast. "You have a skill," she says, instead.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan sits back, a bit surprised. "Thank you," he says. He wants to press on that little slip, but everyone's a little raw from the all the truth-telling, and he doesn't want to piss off this new acquaintance. He notes the book under her arm. "What are you reading?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

It takes her a moment to disengage; she keeps looking at this boy's garish dress and haunting smile and remembering Lucy. Eventually, though, she turns and faces Shen Yuan, instead of the canvas.

"More Freud," she says, somewhat amused at her own predictability, and shows Shen Yuan the book. "This one about the tension between our primitive instincts and societal constraints."

[peaklordshen]

"Interesting," says Shen Yuan, and then, because he's not really in the mood to seriously discuss Freud but he is in a mood to troll a little, says, "you know, I'm reading a series of fiction books that touches on those elements as well."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh? Color me intrigued."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods. "It's a romance, between a woman who desperately longs to escape the constraints of society so she can access her primal hungers, and a man who is desperately suppressing his primal desires in order to pass among civilized company. Much of the tension comes from their inability to understand one another, and her seeking the primal experience in others when he refuses to help her escape the bonds of society."

This is, technically, an accurate summary of Blood at Dusk. If any single part of it was intended by the author, though, Shen Yuan will eat--well, he doesn't own a hat, but the nearest hat he sees.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan squints at Shen Yuan suspiciously. "Is this a Mills & Boon?" she asks. "It sounds the type. Let me guess: the man is dark and brooding, and the woman gets in over her head when she tries to use her wiles."

[peaklordshen]

"What's a Mills and Boon?" Shen Yuan asks. "And the man is definitely dark and brooding, but I think this particular woman is incapable of any real wiles. She does get herself in trouble, but primarily from recklessness and a lack of self-preservation."<sup>1

1</sup> No, Shen Yuan's dislike of Isabella BloodAtDusk has nothing to do with any flaws they might share, why do you ask?

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"A specific sort of romance novel," Susan says. She supposes they're British, and not necessarily present... whenever Shen Yuan is from. "It sounds like a Mills & Boon."

[peaklordshen]

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's very similar, the formula is an old one," says Shen Yuan. "If I'm honest, it's absolutely terrible, but I'm reading it with my boyfriend, and besides, I think there's a specific fun to reading something trashy that makes you mad." He says this as lightly as a guy who once made this his whole personality possibly can.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, indubitably," Susan agrees. "It's an excellent way to unwind."

[peaklordshen]

Oh, thank god, she understands. "I knew you were a woman of taste," he says, approvingly.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"There's a series of absolutely abysmal detective novels back home," Susan says, fondly. "I left the most infuriating installment yet on my bedside table the morning I arrived here."

[peaklordshen]

"Oh, I love a bad detective novel," says Shen Yuan. "I keep wondering about the quality of the ones Nightingale is from, but it seems like a rude thing to ask." If he could even tell, from the inside—he doesn't have the distance for objectivity, unlike Shen Yuan with Proud Immortal Demon Way.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"You think Thomas from a book, too?" Susan asks, startled. She takes a step back, bringing one hand up to her heart. There it flutters, briefly, before she brings it carefully back to her side. "That's so many of us."

[peaklordshen]

"I think everyone is," says Shen Yuan, glad that he's not breaking that news to her. "Except possibly¹ myself and Janet, who have... slightly different relationships to our respective fictional worlds." He cocks his head. "You know you are, then?" He turns Susan Pevensie over again in his mind, but he still can't place it.

¹ The possibly is really there for Janet, rather than himself -- but it seems self-aggrandizing to say with certainty that he's the only real person in the world, even if he wouldn't mean it the way he would have when he first got here.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Thomas told me he'd read of me," Susan admits. "And my siblings. In a children's story, no less." She has the grace to look a little embarrassed by this. "It is difficult to wrap one's mind around, so I admit I haven't been trying very hard."

[peaklordshen]

"I think if it were me I would want to know everything about the story I was from," says Shen Yuan, thoughtfully. "Whether I was a major character or not, whether I survive. But I suppose it must be odd to be a sophisticated adult woman and then learn one is from children's fiction."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I know Janet stumbled across Fillory, from those books," Susan says; she's not quite ready to talk about how she learned that Thomas knew of Narnia a scant twenty minutes after she, herself, remembered it was real. "But wasn't in them herself. What fictional world did you - visit?"

[peaklordshen]

"You'll enjoy the irony of this," says Shen Yuan, a little wearily. "It's something we call a 'stallion novel'--a dark and violent adventure story, but only as a thin veil over endless erotica." He raises his eyebrows at her. "Heterosexual erotica."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks. "That is ironic."

[peaklordshen]

"Also I wouldn't necessarily say I visited." He shrugs, a little. "Before I came here, I thought I was trapped there forever."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan looks at Shen Yuan for a long minute, expression thoughtful but otherwise blank. She's considering what Shen Yuan knows about her, and what he doesn't. She hasn't really seen him since he kissed her, but she does like him. She thinks, perhaps, they have a few things in common. In many ways, she's not the same woman she was that night; she thinks perhaps he's not the same man he was that night, either.

Then she nods to herself, decision made.

"When I was a child, my brothers and my sister and I stumbled into a different world," she says. Her tone is mild; inflection-less. She's had a good day - she can still feel the ghost of Lancelot's hands on her body, his mouth on her jaw, and she's looking forward to their meal that evening - but this still isn't easy for her to talk about. "We were there for fifteen years before -" it spat us back out, she thinks to her own surprise. "We returned home. We went back a year later, in our time, much more briefly." She pauses. "Thomas remembered Narnia, specifically; I can't imagine I featured heavily in the stories. But during the first visit, I thought it might be forever."

[peaklordshen]

"Narnia," repeats Shen Yuan, startled. "Right—Susan, you're the oldest." He stops, not sure how to proceed - with Claudius it was easier, because he wasn't sober,¹ and he didn't care as much about his feelings (or at least he was confident that he'd already hurt those feelings far worse than he could by talking about Hamlet). And with Laertes, he'd had something specific to avoid, but no specifics to share. He likes Susan, and can't quite tell what's beyond the impassive neutrality of her face and voice.

"I haven't read of you," he says, because that seems like a maybe reassuring place to start. "But—the books are famous, especially in Europe and America. They made a few movies, which I did see—well, I saw the first one. They weren't very good."

¹ Either time - truth curses count as not sober.