utopian
/juːˈtəʊpɪən/
adjective: utopian
modelled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect; idealistic.
Glendale, AZ
October 23rd 2025
Soraya Legacy Valentine | Binkie
"Jana how was your week?" Inej asked as she looked directly at the pregnant young adult.
"Painful," Jana growled out, "she keeps me up with her kicking and Arabella has now decided she doesn't want to go to sleep at a normal time."
"And how is Antonio helping you?" Jana sighed at the topic of her ex-boyfriend.
"He keeps on telling me to leave Arabella with his family, she doesn't like it over there and I don't like having her away from me for obvious reasons. That house is predominantly men and I don't feel safe or comfortable with having her there without me, she understands this and accepts this. Me and Antonio's mom don't get along, never have never will she's bitter that I'm keeping Bella away from her but I'm not. I've told her on multiple occasions we can meet up at cafes, diners, we can go out and do anything of the sort but I refuse to allow Arabella to sleep over at your place."
"As a mother you're allowed to be worried and you're allowed to think of your child's safety." Tegan inputted. The group all nodded in agreement.
"Has Antonio came to any appointments?" Inej asked to which Jana shook her head.
"He refuses to, he says yes then when it comes to the date he's suddenly busy."
"What's the sex again?" Soraya asked curiously.
"I'm having a another babygirl, she's due in just over a month."
"Does Arabella come to appointments with you?" Jana nodded.
"She's my only support, she's over the moon with having a baby sister. She loves her already, whenever I'm in pain she's so understanding and she's a great help. She gives the best massages and she'll get me a hot water bottle or get me any medicine I need from the cabinet. If I'm in a lot of pain though or I'm groaning and stuff she gets a little worried sometimes like two weeks ago she balled out in tears and I'm tryna calm her down but I'm lying in bed and I can barely move. So as I tried to reach her and soothe her I moved the wrong way and the baby kicked and I fell down and she called the ambulance."
"How are your stress levels? If you need I'd be more than happy to come to your appointments with you." Soraya said taking hold of Jana's hand.
"Thank you Ray, they say the baby's healthy I just need to stop overwhelming myself but the bills aren't going to pay themselves and my mothers still missing and Arabella is so young and her dad is just full of bullshit."
"On Sunday he told her he was picking her up and they'd go for ice cream and to the park," Jana wiped a fallen tear, "she sat by the door all day," the members of the group all pitied the young girl, "I tried telling her that we could go to the park and get ice cream but she refused and said she only wanted to go with daddy. I was so mad at him for doing that to her and now I'm having another one of his kids and it's just going to work out the same way."
"You have to stay hopeful sugar, you can't let this backtrack you. It's his loss if he doesn't want to be in your life nor the kids then he's at blame." Tegan said confidently
"I don't care about him being in my life but she's four and she already idolises him and thinks he hung the stars and the moon. And he doesn't care."
"We'd all be happy to help out with anything, Jana. Appointments, bills, diapers, clothes etc. Anything." Inej listed.
"Thank you but that isn't your priorities it's mine."
"Well you can't work with an 8month old stomach, Jana. Stop stressing yourself out and let us do this do you." Merlin voiced.
"Correct, now for the task today." Inej stood to her feet and grabbed her green whiteboard marker before beginning to write the quote of the session. "Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so - Lemony Snicket." When Inej finished writing it she put her marker underneath the board as par the last five years.
"You know the drill folks, we've been doing this for five years. Draw the meaning." The eight members all got to work drawing their interpretation of the quote.
Soraya thought for a second and what to draw and when it finally came to her it was like the pencil and her become one as she sketched.
Soraya draw the most emotional looking ready eye she could manage and then inside sketched a dark figure that was almost pleading for help as their arms scratched at the eyeball almost beckoning to come out, deciding that this was too basic Soraya ripped the page and rolled it into a ball and threw it perfectly into a nearby bin.
"Great throw." Pallas complimented and Soraya quietly thanked him.
"You have forty minutes left Soraya, was that a smart move?" Soraya didn't answer her mentor as she began drawing something more meaningful.
She drew the outline of a young girl, she dressed her in a backless dress and there were flowers surrounding her. You could only see the cheek, eyebrow and a part of the eye of the young woman along with her left ear.
Soraya drew her hair into a singular braid with a couple loose strands however there was a rope keeping the braid together. The rope was tied in a hanging motion fit for somebody's head.
"Terminado!" Inej yelled, "please stop sketching and turn your canvases to face mine." The members all did as requested as Inej analysed all their work.
"Soraya," Inej began with her, "what was wrong with your first drawing?"
"It didn't show my interpretation enough, it was too basic. Not good enough."
"No where is never not good enough, that would be implying that there is a line of levels representing standards. You could draw a singular dot and as long as you can explain it and elaborate on it then it is artwork."
"Explain this to us please."
"It is a young woman who's hair is tied together with hope fit for a head, this displays how like we are too busy focusing on one thing than what actually matters. I don't know, I don't know if that makes sense. That's what I kind've interpreted through the quote, focusing on one thing and not the other."
"Okay, that's understandable. Pallas?"
Pallas had drawn a half naked caucasian woman with straight blonde hair. She wore dull grey matching lingerie. From all sides of the canvas there were arms reaching out and they held bits and pieces of the woman's body. One hand held a piece of her hair, the other had some of her stomach, one had her thigh, multiple hands held pieces of her arm, one with her toes, two had strands of her hair, one held her index finger and another held her hand.
"Society dehumanises women and men, they pick and choose what parts of them to like and they eat at their persona and their figure. As you can see this perfectly fine woman here has pieces of her taken away because of how society treats them."
"That is absolutely beautiful, Pallas." Pallas nodded his head in appreciation.
"Azalea, what about yours?"
Azalea drew two figures, there was a black cloud of gust sculpted into the shape of a man with his back turned to the humans eyesight. There were arms wrapped around its neck as they climbed to it. The woman's face was hidden however streaks of hair was covering her face. The dark cloud had shaggy grey hair same with its whole body as they intertwined.
"What does it represent?"
"You need to kind've welcome the 'darkness' whatever you think could be holding you back you need to accept it and love it, you need to work with it and stop being so against it. Once you do that it could potentially work in your favour and yeah."
"That's beautiful, Lea. Merlin?"
"I drew two hands with thread basically and they are connected to the brain and the heart, this demonstrates the fight between our heart and head."
"And how do you get that from this?" Inej gestured towards the quote.
"Because sometimes we tend to put our brain over our heart and sometimes that's not always the right choice, we have to stop thinking of it as a this or that."
"Beautifully explained, Beau?" With Beau she loved during portraits and faces that was her area of expertise.
Beau (bow) didn't use pastels and crayons ever however with this piece she felt like it was necessary.
Beau drew a young girl with a angelic creamy face. She had a small button nose with thin lips. Ghosts were surrounding her face and she wore a party hat on top of her head. In front of her there there is a birthday cake and everything else is pitch black.
"I um drew a lonely little girl, she's possessed I guess you could say. Doesn't make sense much," beau shrugged not knowing what to say.
"It doesn't always have to, it is an expression of yourself. It is allowed to be and it is allowed to be complicated." Beau felt ashamed of herself, she looked at her drawing and then down at her hands. She couldn't say she was proud of her work because she couldn't even explain it.
"Milo, what's yours supposed to be?"
Milo looked at his work then back at Inej, "I drew a bunch of screaming faces to show how angry the majority of society is at the world." Milo said plainly.
"People do tend to be quite aggravated with the world." Inej agreed, "Tegan, you're up."
"I drew a warrior sort've like a soldier however she had a sword stabbed into her back to show betrayal and how the world betrays us."
"Very good interpretation, Tegan. That is enough of that activity we went a little overtime but now we're going to draw a painting of our heritage and what we think of about our homeland. You can't do anything boring like the flag." Inej instructed, "final hour begins now."
Although Soraya had never been to her homeland, the Bahamas, she'd seen pictures and she'd made sure to get her knowledge done about the stunning country. Her favourite city was the Cockburn town, she thought it looked very serene and beautiful.
Soraya decided to paint a picture of a waterfall, very basic, but she wanted it to look very meaningful. At the bottom of the canvas she drew rocks, brown, red with moss growing from them. She drew water rushing towards the rocks as it cascaded from the hills above. The sunset looked beautiful, it had dues of pink, red, gold, and the clouds appeared almost purple. The sun sat in the middle of the sunset and it shone on the blue seas down below.
Soraya wanted to paint every minuscule tiny detail to make it appear as realistic as possible.
Azalea on the other hand worked a lot with acrylic paint and she loved it a lot, it worked very nice with her. Azalea grew up in her hometown Thessaloniki, Greece. They immigrated when she was seven for reasons to this day she still doesn't know nor understand. Her life she was always on the run, her parents always thought living in hiding was the answer and keeping things from her would be the solution to all their problems.
Unfortunately that just didn't work since her father was brutally murdered in a home invasion when she was fourteen and her mother only eight years later. Her relationship with her father wasn't that tight but her mother, her gorgeous god sent mother, was the bestfriend any and every little girl could and would wish for. Her mother taught her everything she knew and gave her everything she loved. Losing her was like losing the love of her life. The sun in her solar system. Cringe but the truth. She viewed herself as nothing without her.
"hour is up! Step away from the canvases and listen up!" Inej yelled to get everybody's attention, all the members lowly sighed and looked at their drawing one last time before stepping away from it.
"Azalea, can you begin please?" Azalea nodded and looked at her city one last time before opening her mouth then closing it again looking for the right words.
"This is where I grew up," Azalea looked at her city and slightly smiled, "Thessaloniki, Greece. Everyday we had to walk from our small little flat to my moms bakery that she worked at: aza's, that's what it was called. We'd walk down this staircase hand in hand, it was beautiful. Especially when the sun had just risen or set, a sight for sore eyes."
"You captured the picture beautifully, Azalea. I think it'd be good closure if you went back home to see it."
"My home is best in America." Inej shook her head.
"Your home is where the heart is, your heart seems to be in Thessaloniki." Inej had no trouble saying the long city since she was from India and she was raised in a Vijayawada.
Azalea shrugged and didn't say anything else as she pulled down the sleeves of her grey woolly sweater.
"Pallas, explain your painting."
"Um I'm from Haiti, I've visited my homeland a couple times whenever I go there I normally go to communes like Mirebalais, Limbe and I once stayed in Dondon."
"What city is painted in this picture?" Inej queried.
"Mirebalais, it's the city I know best. I painted a well and a lake."
"Can you tell us more about it?" Pallas looked at his painting for a while before responding.
"Growing up, Candace never wanted to hide anything from me, she didn't want to be that type of guardian or white woman per say. She wanted me to know everything I could about myself, she'd argue with the law day and night if it meant me finding out about where I come from. When I was ten we finally discovered that I was from Haiti, she immediately took me there and we stayed for about two months. We got really funny looks but she didn't mind nor care whenever I asked why she was so unbothered she'd say she deserved it, she told me how her ancestors were mean to mine, they terrorised them, murdered them, kidnapped them and enslaved them. She'd say any funny look or insult they had for her was well deserved because it'd never make up for what her people had done to ours. I saw her in a new light that day, she was more than just my guardian she was like my teacher but not even that my mother. And from that point on I never called her by her name again she was always maman."
[maman = momma]
"What a beautiful story. Beau, you're up."
"I'm from Niger so I drew a gorgeous darkskin woman wearing orange flowers hiding between her luscious afro, she's naked due to 'modesty' and petals are covering her breasts and vagina." Beau explained pointing at everything she was talking about.
"That's great, you're the only one who drew a person from their homeland. She is beautiful, I love it." Beau couldn't hold back her smile and blush as she thanked her.
"Jana, I love how you incorporate your home into all your paintings. Explain this to me."
"As we all know I'm from Puerto Rico, Caguas to be specific. What I drew was a big board of one of our carnival masks. I can't really explain it in detail but it is very important to our culture and my cultural background and it is one of the things I love best about Puerto Rico."
"You've lived here all your life but you still have that very thick Spanish accent." Soraya pointed out to which Jana nodded.
"When I was like 5-9 we lived in Puerto Rico with my abuelita since my mama couldn't really take care of me on her own anymore and we was struggling in America. That really had an affect on me, my family only spoke Spanish and they'd basically ignore me when I spoke english even though they could all understand it and I barely understood spanish I just had to take what I was given."
"That must've been really annoying I'd hate that so much." Azalea said looking at her apologetically. Jana nodded sadly as she rubbed her stomach.
"It was a struggle to be honest I didn't like it at all, I felt unwelcome I felt like a stranger like I was supposed to be in the wrong place." Jana didn't like the feeling of being ignored at all.
"Like a stranger?" Jana nodded wistfully.
"It isn't pleasant to feel so excluded and isolated."
"What would your mom say?" Soraya pondered. Jana began to get very emotional and Soraya began apologising profusely until Jana cut her off holding her hand up.
"I-it's," Jana began fanning her eyes as Soraya took hold of her hand, "pregnancy hormones. I'm sorry," Jana sighed, "she'd laugh and when I'd get really upset she'd join in. She'd ignore me sometimes soon and I'd ask her to stop, to talk to me, but she'd say nothing or she'd just tell me to toughen up," Jana laughed as she used her knuckle to wipe a sliding tear, "I'd be in literal tears and all she'd tell me is that it's not a big deal. I was there all alone, she was supposed to be my bestfriend but she literally didn't spare me even a glance, it's like I was nothing to her. Non-important."
Jana sighed and wiped all her tears before straightening her posture, "that's why I vow to be the best mother to my daughters, to Arabela and Allanara."
"That's what the majority of us are like." Pallas said.
"We all have very shitty mother's or fathers." Merlin mumbled.
"That's what unites us all." Soraya said proudly, "I have two sons, Nahmir and Jalen. And i'd never ever in my life discard them or treat one better than the other."
"I'm sure our parents didn't always plan to treat us the way they did." Azalea said sticking up for her father.
"I don't agree princess," Pallas said looking directly at Azalea, "you don't have a beautiful looking child as yourself and suddenly decide to treat them like shit."
"T-thank you." Azalea said shyly as her cheeks turned a rosey pink.
"Delusion." Soraya murmured, "some parents are just stuck in this delusion, immaturity. Just can't accept that they're a parent or they didn't prepare to be one."
"Well explained Soraya."
[I've been working on this literally all day, one more bonus chapter left the next one is going to be amazing]