[TOY] Plaything

[skinstealer]

POLKA DOT: Alright, hmmm…
POLKA DOT: On the sculpture thing.
POLKA DOT: Couldn’t, like….anything be “toy material”?
POLKA DOT: We don’t go calling clothes, like, “skin” or whatever.
 

Cross can’t help but giggle at that, making the tiniest warm and fuzzy feeling build in your chest.

Every time she thinks I’m funny…

FEATHERWEIGHT: Oh, I see what you mean…
FEATHERWEIGHT: Why, yes, toy material could be anything.
FEATHERWEIGHT: But the identification as the fabric we use for our sculptures as such is a deliberate choice.
FEATHERWEIGHT: We try to capture the toy experience through our pieces, albeit in an abstract form.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Intimacy conveyed through simplified blending together, forming a unit with distinct parts, both halves and two wholes…
FEATHERWEIGHT: It’s meant to be transgressive. To be evocative of toy flesh.
FEATHERWEIGHT: …besides, I do hold the belief that it’s fine to treat cloth in general as if it were skin.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Cloth has a duality- it can be used to heal the body, but also accentuate what’s already there. Anyone can benefit from it…
FEATHERWEIGHT: That’s part of what makes it beautiful, to me.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Clothes are an extension of the body, after all.
CROSSBONE: I-I agree completely!
 

Both of you turn to face Cross, surprised by her outburst.

CROSSBONE: Without clothes…I don’t feel like myself.
CROSSBONE: At the very least, in a shelled form…
CROSSBONE: When I project, it’s a little different- but I’d like to dress that up someday too!
FEATHERWEIGHT: Dressing a projected form…I can’t say I’ve ever done that before.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Could be fun to design something for that…
FEATHERWEIGHT: Providing you’re willing, of course.
CROSSBONE: …maybe after my adventure, if that’s okay?
CROSSBONE: If I’m to show that much of myself…
 

A little smile forms on her screen’s character.

CROSSBONE: I want to be my real, genuine self.

Featherweight nods, clearly pleased with that answer.

FEATHERWEIGHT: I await taking your measurements with great glee!
FEATHERWEIGHT: It would be an honor…
POLKA DOT: I mean, that’s, like…what art means to you, right?
POLKA DOT: The whole…extension of the body thing. That’s what gets excited?
FEATHERWEIGHT: More than anything.
FEATHERWEIGHT: To display someone’s inner self, in one way or another…
FEATHERWEIGHT: Or even a persona! Some deliberate choice as to how to present!
FEATHERWEIGHT: The possibilities are endless…
FEATHERWEIGHT: Sculpture captures the same message with different methods- you have to create the illusion of toy form where there is none.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Even if there’s no actual body, no actual person to hang the fabric on…
FEATHERWEIGHT: You must compose it as if there was one, to the point where you can picture a living, feeling soul to it.
FEATHERWEIGHT: It’s incredible, don’t you think?
POLKA DOT: I’m trying to wrap my head around it, honestly…
POLKA DOT: There’s…a lot going on there. Might help me to actually see it in action.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Then you will, you will.
FEATHERWEIGHT: So exciting…
POLKA DOT: You’ve…got a whole lot going on, then. Both the shows, the museum and the shop…
FEATHERWEIGHT: Oh yes, I like to keep busy.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Idle wings make for a dull mind.
POLKA DOT: How’d you even get into it, anyway?
FEATHERWEIGHT: Well…it’s kind of a long story.
FEATHERWEIGHT: But I’ll try to abridge.

He rests his face on a wing, neck craning over.

FEATHERWEIGHT: I was given this shop as a gift from an older friend, a “homemade” plush named Benjamin.
FEATHERWEIGHT: He was a more traditionally minded toy, and wasn’t always fond of my…more eccentric and indulgent creations.
FEATHERWEIGHT: He considered it a waste of fabric, that such things would be better put towards practical, durable outfits made for travel.
FEATHERWEIGHT: His notes are actually what Willow here is working off of.
CROSSBONE: Really? I just assumed they were yours-
FEATHERWEIGHT: Oh, no, I definitely lean more towards the frivolous in my design work.
FEATHERWEIGHT: I like making gear. And I like making fetish and kink pieces.
FEATHERWEIGHT: But it also puts money on the table using his old designs, and keeping his legacy going.
CROSSBONE: …legacy?
FEATHERWEIGHT: Yes- I’m afraid he’s no longer with us.
FEATHERWEIGHT: His old age was unkind to his seams, and for all of his insistence on practicality, he insisted after a point that he would stop getting patches, and allow himself to fall apart gracefully.
FEATHERWEIGHT: I helped him during his aging years and eventually, he passed on.
FEATHERWEIGHT: I inherited his shop, almost like a parent passing onto a child- a foreign concept to us toys, but an interesting one in fiction, at least.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Admittedly, he’d probably shake his fist at me in disgust for me turning his shop into a pervert’s playhouse, but he can deal.
FEATHERWEIGHT: For all of the weight I pulled at his bedside, the least he can do from the afterlife is respect my goals and dreams as well as his.
FEATHERWEIGHT: A perfect blend of his work and my own…that’s the goal of my shop.