[Social] Inspired

[Will Stanton]

"Yeah, it's almost the opposite of that -- isolating from everything that isn't myself.

...Maybe this ties into the painting. The creativity."

[Shari]

"How so? Cause the painting is all 'you' and nothing else? But you drew, like, other people..."

[Will Stanton]

"No, that's not quite what I mean -- and those were actual paints, actually, but that's a digression on top of a digression on top of a digression.

No, it's -- I'm a creative person. That's who I am, deep down, once you get past the mutation and the green hair and everything. I'm an actor, I'm an artist, I'm a musician. It's all about expressing oneself and all that. I mean, with what we've learned recently about how all this crazy mutation stuff works, that probably explains why I'm a shifter at all, and why I'm clay as opposed to flesh and blood.

I guess this is sort of -- a studio, of sorts? Like you said, isolating yourself -- but instead of isolating from me, isolating so it's only me. There was so much noise and confusion bearing down on me out here, that I had to go inside to get...clarity."

[Shari]

"Like a Kam'muutos but without any direction!" Shari gasps as if this is somehow a revolutionary concept. "Just... yourself? And it's that vibrant and bustling and crazy?"

[Will Stanton]

"Again, you're going to have to remember that I don't know what that is. I only spoke Skrull briefly when Natalie plugged me into that weird piece of tech she keeps futzing on in the lab."

[Shari]

"Oh! Right. Yeah, it's like a sensory deprivation tank. Breathable liquid at body temperature, a drug cocktail and ritual carvings. And then of course the target DNA, brainscans or, even better, a living specimen connected to the system in another pod."

[Will Stanton]

"And, so, you're saying I'm like one of those, but without the....the target, as it were?"

[Shari]

"Yeah! Which is kinda whack if you ask me."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, originality is a big plus, but this is all totally uncharted waters for me."

[Shari]

"You're painting stuff that isn't there and my parents would call that Shifting Psychosis, so that probably means you're doing okay."

[Will Stanton]

"Man, if we could only paint things that were there, our art galleries would be filled with bored-looking people looking straight ahead.

...OK, some of our art galleries ARE filled with bored-looking people looking straight ahead, but those are bad and should feel bad."

[Shari]

"See, that's why humans are so cool. You have, like, ideas and stuff about things that never existed. For fun!"

[Will Stanton]

"You've never created something that never existed? All your forms and shapes are just copies of things that are real?"

[Shari]

"Well yeah, duh. I mean sometimes we mix and match some traits, but come up with all new shapes? No way."

[Will Stanton]

"Right, well, all the more reason to get you to the art room. Music is just one of the many things you can do to create new things."

[Shari]

"Well alright, but when I played the saxomophone just being myself people were not very thrilled."

[Will Stanton]

"People meaning Shane, right?

A band is a collaborative thing; Shane had an idea in mind and you didn't quite fit what he was looking for. Round peg and square hole, though we made it work well enough. Us shifters have to be a bit more flexible, ne?"

[Shari]

"Hmm, so it wasn't bad?"

[Will Stanton]

"Art isn't inherently bad or good," Will began, then paused.

"Art isn't objectively bad or good," Will corrected. "There are some things that people agree look better or sound better than others, but universal truths are few and far between; and that's just among humans with brains wired in standard Terran ways. And sometimes, you want to do something that isn't as pleasant, intentionally, to create unease or distress. There really isn't a right or a wrong, creatively. Shane thought what you were doing was bad, and that's entirely fair, to him. But if you thought what you were doing was good, that's also entirely fair, to you.

It probably wouldn't have been hip at the festival," she admitted. "Shane's instincts were good there; he knows what he's doing. But in a different setting? Or with different people playing with you? You would have fit right in."

[Shari]

"So all that really matters is that I like it, huh. Okay, let's go do a paint!"

[Will Stanton]

"Yup! Art is for yourself first and foremost. Audience building and acclaim are separate, though related. If it's good to you, it's good.

To the art room!"

[Shari]

"Art!" Shari announces as they walz into the art room and starts rifling through all the various cupboards and drawers and stacks of supplies. She's not quite making a mess but she's definitely leaving a trail of moving things around and leaving things open in her wake.

[Will Stanton]

Will, dutifully, walked a step behind her and closed things as Shari poked and prodded.

"Are we looking for anything in particular?" she asked, amused.

[Shari]

"Something to do art to! On? With?" she says, holding up a handful of different-sized brushes and inspecting them. The dried paint on the handle certainly seem to indicate some function involved in applying colors to things, so she shoves the bundle into her pocket.

[Will Stanton]

"Right. Let's start with a canvas, as they're designed to be painted on and generally won't annoy people if you make too much of a mess," Will joked. "And some nice, easy watercolors, maybe."

[Shari]

As Will is talking Shari has found an used paint palette tray and freezes when he finishes, palette held up to her face and currently in the process of licking it.

"Aih lhike jeese." she says, then makes a face with her lips sucked in. "They're zesty." she says, holding the licked tray of acrylic paints out to Will to identify. Or partake as well, who knows. "I don't think they're made of water though."

[Will Stanton]

"Oooook, we're going to take a small step back here, as we hope that these aren't toxic for Skrulls," Will said, with a small chuckle. "We don't want your first painting trip to end with your stomach getting pumped."

[Shari]

"Well I gotta pick what I want to art with somehow, and these have a good mouthfeel. Very flakey red. And I got an Ayrhon's stomach. Literally. And they eat all kinds of rocks and minerals."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, alright then, but painting the inside of your stomach probably won't have quite the effect you're looking for. Let's try something external, shall we?"

[Shari]

"Sure! So you just... smear it on there, right?" she points at an empty canvas before finding some tubes of paint near where she found the palette, sniffing them before squirting some red and purple paint blobs onto the wood. Selecting three brushes seemingly at random she bunches them together and drags them through both blobs of paint. She pauses briefly, contemplating who knows what and then starts slashing the paint-brushes at the canvas creating a series of messy, intersecting streaks of red and purple.

[Will Stanton]

Will just stood and watched for a moment as Shari did several Crimes against Art.

"Are you going for anything in particular, here, or are you just kind of attacking it?"

[Shari]

"I dunno. I'm putting the color paste on the cloth with the applicator bristles." she shrugs, then gives the canvas one more 'strike' with the brushes. It's a mess alright, but intentional or not, there's a certain... conflict in the aggressive brush-strokes and the two colors are those of Human and Skrull blood respectively. "This is my first 'an Art' so you tell me."

[Will Stanton]

"Sure, but, like, why did you pick those colors? And those places? You're the one creating this," Will said, leaning in to look a bit closer.

"Red and purple's an interesting combo."

[Shari]

"Because... I like the colors. And because I don't really know how to make the brushes do specific shapes. Or what shapes I even want them to make. So I just kind of... Nnnh!" she says, mimicking her painting motion. "So I guess it's because of frustration?"

[Will Stanton]

"Well, it's coming across," Will joked.

"Let's try one brush at a time, right?" Will said, taking one of the brushes and demonstrating how to hold it. "It will give you a little bit more control."

She dipped it in the paint, and brushed some of it off on the pallete...err...wooden boardy thingy, before working a little on a canvas of her own. "Think of the brush like an extension of your hand," she said, holding it up to show Shari how she was holding it. "You've probably done a form with long, spindly fingers before, right? Same sort of thing.

In fact, you probably could just go with a long, spindly finger. Kids here sometimes learn with fingerpaints; just dipping their fingers in and going to town. Brushes allow you to get more detail and control, but they can feel a little more...alien, if you're not used to them."

[Shari]

"Hrmm..." she hums and grows her index finger into a long, vaguely insectoid digit. She dips it into the paint and pokes at the canvas. It only leaves a very short trail of paint, so she keeps dipping her finger into more paint and keeps scratching at the canvas. The result is... interesting in terms of jittery little ticks of paint come together to form a line, even if that line doesn't really depict anything but, well, a slightly curved line. She tilts her head looking at it. "Okay, that's different. But I still don't really know how to make it look like anything. Or what that anything should even be."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, those are two different things. The first is just practice and technique, you know? Learning how to use the tools and how the paint works and all that.

The second is the creativity thing, and there's no right or wrong answer there -- which makes it difficult to figure out, I'll grant you. Like, I was painting the Trio because of some, erm, recent experiences which inspired me. Made me feel like expressing myself, and so I went out from there.

Some people like painting or drawing very specific pictures of things -- like, they'll try to paint something they can see, a landscape or a model or something. Or they'll try to imagine a scene and paint that. Other people like going more abstract, suggesting and exaggerating things to emphasize and deemphasize things. And other people just like playing around with color, kind of like you're doing. There are really famous and important artists who basically just painted big swathes of color, some almost at random. It's a whole Thing."

[Shari]

"So I can just... do whatever? Put paint all up in there all willy-nilly? I can see how that could be fun..."

[Will Stanton]

"To a certain extent? Yeah.

I mean, people have made all kinds of rules and techniques and standards for how to do this. But then other people have come along and specifically broken those rules, and created a new style with their own new rules, and so on and so forth.

...Though learning some of the basics on how to use the tools probably wouldn't kill you," she joked.

[Shari]

"Well apparently I did brush on canvas wrong enough I got downgraded to Kid Level." she chuckles, sticking her tongue out at Will.