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]

Shen Yuan looks up from his easel, where he's diligently delineating individual leaves from the mass of green at the edges of Magnus' forest portrait. "Shen Yuan, now, please," he says, just to start them off on the right foot. "I'm making a change." He looks her up and down. She seems far more relaxed, now, somehow more of a real person than the first time they met. He wonders if that's actually how she's feeling, or if he's just not hollowing her out anymore into a stereotype of Beautiful and Sensible Woman. "Still Susan?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Still Susan," she confirms, coming over to look at his work. Then, testing the name out: "Shen Yuan. I didn't know you painted."

To be fair, she knows very little about him: just that he's good at kissing, likely a homosexual, and in touch with his anima. Perhaps the name change is in line with that? But she won't ask; that's gauche.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan smiles, wrinkling his nose a little. "No," he agrees, "somehow it didn't come up, last time." He waves a hand at the canvas. "There's so little to do, here, I thought I'd get back in practice."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan pauses one pace away from being able to see the span of the canvas. "Might I look?" she asks. "Or are you -" like Edmund, her mind supplies. "One of those artists who prefers his work to remain a secret until it's complete?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan shrugs. "You can look," he says. "So long as you understand it's a work in progress, and temper your criticisms." This is mostly a joke, and delivered like one.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I shall try to refrain," Susan says, coming to stand next to Shen Yuan and taking the canvas in in full.

She pauses. Her shoulders tense, for a moment; the portrait is of the boy who reminds her of Peter, of Lucy. Shen Yuan has painted him in a tree wearing a truly garish frock. It is... strange. She does not know how she feels about it. She wonders if Shen Yuan would like it or dislike it if she described the work as 'confrontational.'

[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."