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withthewindinherfootsteps · 2 months ago

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Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part One

For Xiantober Day One: Genius… albeit stretching the prompt so it refers to MXTX and MDZS itself, but at the end of the day it’s still about WWX – so no harm done!

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

The narrative is a very active player in MDZS’ story. How it presents information, what it chooses to show and omit, often reflects important facets of its themes and characters – Nie Huaisang, for instance, is so good at hiding behind his mask that not even the narrative can hold him accountable; the present day’s storyline as a murder mystery and the slow reveal of information about the past both prompt the reader to think critically about the truth of events, when the importance of thinking critically is an important theme; and the dangers not thinking critically (and instead basing conclusions on rumours without much evidence) are shown by tricking unquestioning readers into the very same trap the cultivation world falls into, as the information given by the title, summary and in-universe rumours – which contradicts how we see actually Wei Wuxian act – turns out to be false.

But nowhere do I love this trait more than in its treatment of Wei Wuxian – and, more specifically, in its way of emphasising his agency. We’re not just told how much his active choices define his character, and we’re not just shown this in-universe through his personality, worldview and the events he causes. I’d argue that this aspect goes a step further, and shapes the structure of the out-of-universe narrative as well.

There are two main ways this happens: one, in how the aspects of Wei Wuxian’s life that are shown and hidden directly tell us what’s important about his character (which is good writing but isn’t necessarily tied to this shaping of the narrative), which is what we’ll explore today; and two, how what’s shown and hidden reflects what Wei Wuxian himself prefers to dwell on, resulting in the narrative respecting his own thoughts and feelings on matters (which very much is tied to it). We’ll explore this at a later date.

But as for now – let’s explore my favourite aspect of MDZS.

(Here, narrative agency will be considered the ability of a character to meaningfully influence their events and the story they’re in.)

Tragedy, Circumstance, Choice

If we simply look at Wei Wuxian’s backstory in a vacuum, it seems almost typically tragic. His parents died in circumstances beyond his control, he was left alone as a child with nobody to care for him, he was forced to grow up fending for himself on the streets, he was faced with abuse when he finally was taken in… as with all typical woobies, everything simply happened to him, and none of it was good. It’s just another example of the lack of agency being used for sympathy points, right?

…Except there’s one problem with that idea. We don’t actually see any of this.

It would’ve been easy to start the flashbacks during these times. We’re telling the story of Wei Wuxian in (largely) chronological order, and these are likely important experiences for him! But instead of starting in his street days, or evenat the moment Jiang Fengmian took him in*, we start at the lectures in the Cloud Recesses. That’s not even something mentioned in, and therefore something that’s able to disprove, the rumours at the start of the novel. So why is this the case?

Well, there are multiple reasons – the main one being that MDZS is also Lan Wangji’s (and Wangxian’s) story, and having the flashbacks open with their first meeting is very satisfying. But I want to focus on something else.

This period doesn’t have to be shown, because what happens to Wei Wuxian, especially out of his control, isn’t what’s important about his character.

We’re not even at Lotus Pier here, where Wei Wuxian certainly has more agency than he would’ve had as a young child, but where the harm caused by Madame Yu is still completely out of his control. Here, he has agency! Though there are consequences, he is free to act, and what happens to him is a result of those actions and not of circumstance. Yes, he gets punished more than others who also take those same actions (due to classism); yes, it’s not his choice to be picked on by Lan Qiren in class (yet look how he responds, twisting the situation to his advantage and ending up tricking Lan Qiren into letting him leave, which is what he wanted to do. He is not at all helpless here!); yes, these choices have been influenced by his learned mindset from Madame Yu that punishment is arbitrary and will happen anyway, so you may as well do what you want regardless. But there is cause-and-effect here. It’s not circumstantial tragedy.

Therefore, instead of our first impression of past!Wei Wuxian being that of an unfortunate woobie, it’s of someone who has the freedom, ability and will to choose and act (and that’s after these initial tragic events have taken place). This is compounded by the fact that before we see any of his backstory, we get a similar impression of him in the present day.

If the purpose of his tragic past was to earn him sympathy points, to make us pity him due to how much he was influenced by events out of his control, this would’ve been a terrible way of going about it… and it’s this that betrays the true reason for its existence. Because now, the flashbacks instead show us how little these tragedies define who he is! From the very start, Wei Wuxian isn’t someone defined by circumstances out of his control, but rather by who he is as a person and by what choices he makes in the present day (which is both a mindset in-universe, and a nice little out-of-universe detail that lines up! Because out-of-universe, this means he’s not defined by sympathy points from a backstory, but rather by his great character writing… aka, by who he is as a person and what choices he makes). And this refusal to be defined by tragedy is a conscious choice on his part, too – but we’ll explore that more later.

The important thing is that this idea of Wei Wuxian isn’t because of what exists in his past, it’s because of what parts of his past are shown to us (as well as what he chooses to do, with agency, in the present).

Now, if this relationship between what’s displayed and what’s omitted was just a one-time thing, I might’ve considered it a cool detail or a nice way to establish a character, but not something the narrative is actively focusing on. But it’s a pattern that continues throughout the flashbacks. What, arguably, are the two other most important times in Wei Wuxian’s life where he doesn’t have enough agency to meaningfully influence his circumstances? His three months in the Burial Mounds (before escaping – he managed to assume some control of the circumstances but not enough to substantially reduce his suffering in his time there), and his loss and death during the First Siege. And we’re not shown either of them! We skip to when Wei Wuxian has emerged from the Burial Mounds and is torturing the Wens, or we skip to the present day – both times he has agency once more, because, again, what he’s like without it doesn’t matter enough to be shown.

Furthermore, I’d argue this does actually contrast the other tragic events we see in Wei Wuxian’s later life. Things do go horribly wrong, but it’s either due to choices he knows the consequences of (see: rescuing the Wen Remnants in the first place), or instances where he still has some ability to act in the situation and influence it within the limitations. If he’d had no ability to influence circumstances at Qiongqi path, he would have died in the ambush; if he’d been unable to do that at Nightless City, he would’ve died then, too (of course Lan Wangji helped him escape as well). The attention drawn to him losing control of his actions in both instances is very interesting, but intentional or not, it’s still his actions influencing the plot. And that influence happens to be detrimental. The very ability to act and influence, at a base level, is not taken away (though, of course, that doesn’t make these events any less tragic).

So, so far, the narrative seems to be telling us that the ability to act and choose is key to Wei Wuxian’s character. And it’s doing it through omitting his moments without agency in favour of instead showing us his moments with it.

Let’s see if this is echoed in the text itself before we go further – because even with this pattern, nothing would end up mattering if Wei Wuxian’s agency wasn’t actually that important to the story itself. But thankfully it is, and that first impression we get of Wei Wuxian in the Cloud Recesses turns out to very much be accurate! Though there are defining circumstances out of his control that occur, such as the massacre of Lotus Pier, the majority of the important events of his life are due to his own choices. He didn’t happen to be forced to cease traditional cultivation and solely use guidao, didn’t happen to lose his Golden Core in a fight with Wen Zhuliu or due to some force in the Burial Mounds, it was his own choice to give it and his spiritual powers away. He didn’t tragically happen to get targeted by the cultivation world, it was a result of him acting on his morals and protecting the Wen remnants (a choice which he was fully aware of the implications of). He isn’t a protagonist to whom things simply occur, and that activeness and agency is my favourite thing about him.

That’s not to say that the times Wei Wuxian doesn’t have agency, or feels like he doesn’t have any, don’t exist at all, either – but they are rare enough to have attention directly drawn to them in his internal narration:

Or else what could he do? He could do nothing. He was powerless. Lotus Pier had been destroyed, both Jiang FengMian and Madam Yu were gone, and Jiang Cheng had disappeared as well. He was the only one left, alone, with not even a sword in his hands. He didn’t know anything, he couldn’t do anything! For the first time, he discovered how little his power was. In front of something as large as the QishanWen Sect, it was the same as a mantis trying to stop a chariot. - Chapter 59, EXR translation

(And even in this circumstance, note that he still does force himself to act – to carry on searching for Jiang Cheng, to place his faith in Wen Ning – and does accomplish his goal (albeit with the help of others)! So even in dire situations, he isn’t simply passive. This is actually also the case with his time in the Burial Mounds, almost certainly the First Siege, and even his days on the streets as well (Chapter 20: he did actively fight with dogs to get food despite their danger and his growing fear of them, rather than just waiting and hoping to somehow receive some more). He can’t influence or immediately influence his circumstances, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.)

Overall, although they do influence him, Wei Wuxian is very much who he is in spite of his circumstances, not because of them. We’re shown the importance of his agency both in-universe by the major impacts his choices have on himself and the plot, as well as by narrative presentation – important periods where he lacks the ability to meaningfully influence anything are often mentioned but not directly shown, which suggests that such moments and circumstances aren’t as important to understanding Wei Wuxian’s character as moments where he does have this agency are. And I’d argue this works very well. Depending on the version of the story you consume, you may end up having different interpretations as to how much circumstances were at play nearer the end of his life – but nobody comes out of MDZS thinking about Wei Wuxian, the poor bearer of yet another generically tragic backstory.

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

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*We are shown this moment in more detail in Chapter 23… but even then, it’s through the framing of Wei Wuxian remembering Jiang Yanli’s narration, not through a flashback proper or even him remembering the experience itself!

#there are three parts to this #part two dwelling on how wwx not dwelling on tragedy is a conscious choice #part three about how that choice and wwx’s preferences are ALSO behind what’s shown and what’s not #i originally wanted to post them all at once but life was very busy and they haven’t been finished yet #and i wanted to release SOMETHING on this day (it is after midnight but i haven’t slept yet and in a lot of timezones it’s not yet)#judging by the current length of it it’s probably better to be posting individual parts anyway…#so here we go #a complete version will br put on ao3 when done #also because i’m not sure where to put it in the meta – i’m aware external circumstances did impact this too #eg mxtx not wanting to write power-up/transformation sequences influencing her not to write wwx’s time in the burial mounds #i’m also aware a lot of this could be writing efficiency and not the deeper meanings i’ll (mostly later) assign to it #ultimately there’s not enough evidence either way to say if this was intentional or not #(i don’t doubt mxtx is an amazing writer but *i* feel i’m overanalysing while writing this which i do tend to do)#but even if it wasn’t it’s still a part of the story #and it still remains one of the things i love it the most #so i WILL explore it (taking the approach of death of the author here – i do believe context is important but i just love this throughline-#-so much)#xiantober #xiantober day 1 #mdzs meta #my meta #wei wuxian #wwx #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #魔道祖师 #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #gdc

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etoilesombre · 7 months ago

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[re flint talking to the maroon queen in 3.5] ok it fucking sucks, but this is how solidarity works a lot of the time. white man proposes widespread slave revolts for his own tactical reasons, and then afterward grows to give a care while working toward his own ends. it doesn't make the caring not genuine, but wow that is clearly the trajectory.

#rewatching seasons 3-4 through this lens for my own nefarious purposes #he changed a LOT between mid season 3 and mid season 4 #character of all time and obviously i love him #but it was down to a lot of external influences that got him there #were i slightly more sober i would have more coherent things to say about politics and motivations and identities in this show #but they did it REALLY WELL #black sails #james flint

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yellowocaballero · 5 months ago

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hi! i've been reading some of your older fics and was wondering if there's any merit in watching buffy for the first time in the year 2024

This may not be obvious, but this is actually an extremely complicated and highly subjective question. I'll try to go on for too long.

As background: my mother loved Buffy and its spin-off Angel growing up. It was our Bible (besides the actual Bible). Not kidding, she was on the forums and fan groups and wrote fanfiction for it and everything (These days, she's really into kdramas and Asian dramas, and calls me about how the Thai seem like big fans of gay people). So I'm quite biased.

BTVS is both a product of its times and ahead of its times. It was a show about feminism and the struggle of living in this world as a woman, when very few shows were doing that. It was the first show to have a long-lasting lesbian couple, and the first show to depict a kiss between them. For better or for worse, it was one of the codifiers of broody vampire boyfriend. It was pretty unafraid to be experimental in a lot of what it did. It had incredibly complex and nuanced character work and growth that I still aspire to. Spike's arc is still matched in quality only by Avatar's Zuko. Angel's long term arc, from Buffy to his spin-off series, still makes him one of the most complex characters on TV. It had the most complex depiction of depression on TV at the time and I still think it's one of the best. I think the show had very high highs.

It also had very low lows. Some of the feminism is problematic in retrospect. The sapphic couple has a rather famous element that was severely problematic. There are, overall, some deeply atrocious arcs that I can appreciate objectively but not in practice. Xander: a whole-ass character aged awfully. On a meta level, the workplace conditions were bad (thanks, Whedon.) There are no people of color. The spoiler's sake I won't go into detail on this, but in general the good stuff was so influential and the bad stuff was just awful.

I think these days people tend to brush off the entire thing because it's Whedon. That is more than fair. But I'd also say that Whedon & Buffy is extremely similar to Brian Michael Bendis & Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis was fantastic at writing sassy, bouncy, permanently stressed-out teens - issue was, he wrote entirely different serious adult characters the way he wrote these sassy teens. Same with Whedon: the annoyingly constant quips are perfect for Buffy, because that's who the characters are. They're awful in Marvel, because Steve Rogers is not Xander. Kinda similarly, Buffy was genuinely feminist for 90s TV - issue is, Whedon has not grown or developed his views, and now his works feel so sexist (oh my fucking god why did you treat Natasha like that). After a certain point it's egotistical: you're writing like that because you're Joss Whedon and it's how you write, not because it's what's best for the characters and story. But it was really important to me to get the character voices right, and it's freaking difficult to endlessly write dialogue that distinct, full of voice, witty, and clever.

I think BTVS & Angel TV's greatest influence on my writing is how intensely character-driven both of those shows were, and how intricate the characters were. What every character did was something they would do, if that made sense. Even the stuff I hated to watch, that made me uncomfortable, was the culmination of so much (usually). I think I also picked up the constant wit and humor lol. On a personal level, the conversations I would have with my mother where she broke down the character motivations and composition of the story was my first exposure to looking at storytelling from an analytical perspective and a framework of critical analysis, which was an approach I carried into the rest of the media I consumed and that was the primary reason I was able to become a decent writer. Thanks, Mom. Have fun with your kdramas.

TL:DR: There is merit, especially if you care about good character work. There are things about it that may make you want to drop it, which is extremely valid. Season 1 is rough but interesting, Season 2 and 5 are the best, Season 3 is pretty good, Season 4 and 7 skippable, and Season 6 is........epic highs, epic lows......

#my asks #the basic premise of Buffy is “what if the monsters and demons that plagued the psyche of a teen girl were real”#which is a very simple thing but the focus on character ended up creating such a complex story #and it highly influenced how i try to have the physical conflict mirror the emotional conflict #externalization of emotional conflict is great #i dont talk about it much but i was genuinely very proud of that story #it mattered a lot to me that I hit the character voices EXACTLY #and that i was earnest and honest in exploring the themes of buffy and what made it important #i think you can tell that it was written by somebody who loves buffy at the bottom of her heart #it very much is a “how meg would write buffy” thing #I wrote Angel as an awkward younger version of his self from ATVS S5 #when we as the audience has lost all respect for him lmfao #but what really stuck with me is a major theme and line from angel:#“if nothing we do matters then all that matters is what we do”#and colliding angel's nihlism with buffy's desperation to live a meaningful life was excellent #i did what i wanted to do very precisely and that is the joy of hitting a level of writing skill where you can do that #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer

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kyngsnake · 3 months ago

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domestic dog that belongs to no one; wild wolf that chooses to belong to someone

#bottom is a Mexican gray wolf and top is a German shepherd #there is so much symbolism loaded into this. I’ve been having a lot of fun using tarot cards to recomtextualize OC imagery #but the critical thing about Avery as The Chariot is that he is always in forward motion. compelled by internal and external influences but #emotions are his driving force in much larger quantity than anything else.#Avery likes to be collared to something. often someone. loyalty and devotion guiding otherwise wild impulses #like I said there’s a lot to unpack #anyway #Wes is next #Avery #autumn art #tarot #the chariot

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dandelion-wings · 20 days ago

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Hi! For the Whumptober prompt meme: from the first list, 16 "no, I can’t feel anything", with Jean please! I hope your October gets better soon °^°

Thank you for the ask, and for the well-wishes! <3 Funny story: I did a bunch of research last night on "delayed injury" for this, because I thought it would be a fun twist for that prompt, and then I woke up this morning and... absolutely chose violence. I can rehash the same setup two prompts in a row, right? >>

(Though I am filing that research alongside a suggestion made to me re: the last fill that I saw too late to take, and there may or may not be a non-prompt story that utilizes both concepts some time in the future.)

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It isn't Klee's fault. She had been as safe in her play as ever, and it wouldn't have happened if the Abyss Lector hadn't arrived when it did, or if Jean had taken a little longer to consider the ground before she struck.

Klee is more than capable on her own in Mondstadt's tamer wilds. Perhaps (*probably*) it was a mistake to think that she was more-or-less harmless out there, damaging only the landscape, very careful never to put bombs anywhere near roads ("It's bad to step on bombs, ever!"), or structures ("Walls should stay up! And roofs should stay on!"), or people ("Only blow up monsters and bad guys!"). But despite her age she can defend herself ably, and even with some of the expedition returned the Knights are still stretched thin when it comes to Vision-users, who are really the only people who can safely watch her.

These are all excuses. Jean knows that when she makes them to herself, letting Klee go out the city gates day after day, but they seem solid enough.

When Klee comes to Jean and tells her that she'd seen a bad guy while she was playing in the Whispering Woods, one of the really bad scary ones she's supposed to report *right away*, Jean lets her take Jean's hand and lead her back out of the city. She'll have Klee wait a bit back from the engagement, but this is easier than searching the woods based on Klee's rather erratic directions, and Jean can handle what sounds like one Abyss Lector on her own. Besides, all the knights she would call on are of the city on missions of their own, and she doesn't want to wait.

The location Klee points out is actually on the edge of the woods, one of the lower cliffs rising up out of Starfall Valley and only half-wooded. Jean leaves her deep among the trees, in a spot with no monsters about. "If you feel like I'm taking too long, or you see anything that frightens you, return to Mondstadt and tell a Knight right away," she tells Klee, before heading up.

She circles around wide, scaling the higher cliff to the west of that one, then crouches at the edge to look down at the cliff below. From here she can see the Abyss Lector, circling a section of disturbed ground. It seems agitated, gesturing and muttering to itself, making arcane gestures with its catalyst and then dismissing it again. Jean doesn't know what it may be searching for, but generally, when creatures of the Abyss are on the hunt for something, it's better to stop them *before* she find it.

Drawing her sword, she leaps into the air, letting her glider spread out to catch her. She glides forward a few feet, lining up the angles, and then shifts her stance as she pulls the cord. Her glider's wings snap shut, and Jean comes crashing down, sword-first, upon the Lector.

The tip of her blade catches on the Lector's pauldron and drags down from there, scraping a deep gouge into its armor. Jean bends her knees enough to soften her landing and draws straight, summoning a Gale Blade. The swirling Anemo catches the startled Lector, and she uses its moment of surprise and the force of the Anemo to whirl around, then takes one step forward, ready to hurl it against the hard stone of the cliff.

As her weight comes down on her front foot, something clicks underneath.

Disturbed ground- Klee was playing here- and the Lector's appearance would preclude her usual and required warning sign.

Jean hurls the Lector in a panic, no longer thinking about her aim, and leaps sideways. She might have been fine, had it only been her and the bomb. Layers of earth on top usually muffle the force of Klee's explosions. But the Lector, which *hadn't* hit the cliff and *isn't* still staggering from the blow, recovers enough to send a fireball flying towards the spot where Jean had been. It hits just as the ground begins to bulge.

There's a soft *whumph* from beneath the dirt, and then a much louder, roaring, rumbling *WHOOMPH,* and then the very stone of the cliff goes out from under Jean's feet.

She yanks the cord of her glider only to have rocks immediately batter into it, though at least the wood and fabric of the wings serve as a partial guard against being pummeled herself by the falling stones. One does strike her in the arm hard enough that she feels bone crack, and she loses her grip on her sword. Then, tumbling wildly through the air with only the drag of the broken glider, she hits the ground in the midst of the falling stones.

More bones crack as they fall upon her; Jean, on her belly, throws her hands over her head. Then one huge boulder crashes down right in the small of her back, and she screams, her vision going white for a moment at the sheer agony of the impact, convulsing under it, bile rising in her mouth. She's retching and spitting up the remnants of her breakfast as the last few pebbles and flakes of gravel settle, a layer of thick, choking dust over the pile she's halfway buried in.

There's no sign of the Lector. Jean tries to twist about and look up, but her broken arm gives out under her, and her back is screaming with half the muscles torn, and when she tries to turn her neck alone she can't actually see past one torn, dangling glider wing.

She's gasping for air, her lungs compressed under stone and scree and further choked by the heavy dust, and pain and panic and adrenaline have her heart pounding. In the woods, under the trees, she can see Klee's pale face, her wide eyes, the way she clutches with one hand on her little book of tales that serves as a catalyst and the other tight around Dodoco. Jean mouths *'Go'*.

One thing goes right: Klee turns and bolts, rushing for the road out of the Woods.

That leaves Jean lying there, unable to see most of her surroundings, barely able to move, wracked with pain. Except for where she isn't, but Jean isn't thinking about that right now. She has to stop panicking.

Anemo still responds to her Vision's call, though she's not foolish enough to try to heal herself while she's still crushed beneath so much stone. Instead she uses it to control her breathing, dragging air in and out of lungs through her Vision's power instead of her own compressed diaphragm. As that slows and steadies, her heartbeat does, too. The pounding in her ears slowly recedes, and what Jean had thought was dizziness fades with it.

She wishes she had her sword. Instead she's channeling through her brooch, which is far from a catalyst--not that she's ever been good with catalysts. But it's enough for this one task. She won't think about what happens if the Abyss Lector does come to finish off the job.

It doesn't. Jean lies there regulating her breathing, struggling to focus on that, on the slice of woods she can see, on the ways she's going to have to rearrange the Knights' schedules in the next few days, on the wisdom of perhaps sending some of her recovery time becoming better-practiced with catalysts, anything that isn't the fear sending cold tendrils through her or the despair that threatens to choke her throat and blur her eyes. Above all, she has to stay calm.

Help comes startlingly quickly. Jean has only just gotten her breathing and heart rate fully under control and set up a rhythm she can stick to when there's a breathless, familiar shout. "Master Jean!"

"Watch out," Jean manages to croak as Amber comes pounding out of the wood and up to her. "There may be an Abyss Lector about."

"Yeah! Klee told me. Don't worry, I have a couple Baron Bunnies ready, and I told Klee to keep heading back to Mondstadt and get more people to help."

Amber is doing an admirable job of looking and sounding steady herself, though her voice wavers just a little at the end, and she's pale around the edges when she steps back to survey the pile of stone Jean is under. Jean is proud, but not surprised. The Outriders used to be responsible for wilderness rescues, when there were enough of them to handle that alone, and Amber is still usually the person who finds stranded travelers or overconfident adventurers when they run into the sort of circumstance they need to rescue from. She does know what she's doing.

In fact, just as Jean is reminding herself of that reassuring fact, Amber shoves her bow into its case and steps forward again to start taking off stones. "You're not that far in. If I get these off here, it shouldn't shift anything... can you breathe any better?"

Jean attempts a breath without any aid from her Vision and feels that the cramped feeling is mostly gone. "Yes, I can."

"Okay. Since no one else is here yet, I'm gonna take this slow! But this is way more spread out than it is piled up, so it's safe to move most of it."

Amber is well into the process of unearthing her when Albedo arrives on the scene. Jean feels something drawn tense in her relax at his presence. He's as capable of Kaeya or Eula of handling the Lector if it appears, even if he hadn't been her first thought as a rescuer.

Better yet, he's brought along a selection of survival gear that she suspects matches the contents of his emergency cabinet on Dragonspine. He leaves that to Amber as soon as she exclaims in recognition of the stretcher, though, and steps in to move the last few and largest stones instead. Amber had tested the huge boulder that had struck her in the back once, barely tilted it, and immediately decided from Jean's pained noise that she couldn't move it alone. Albedo carefully and precisely places a Transient Blossom on one side of her, just beneath an outward jut of the stone, and brings it up so that the stone tilts and then topples over on her other side.

Jean feels a bolt of rebounding pain up her back, torn muscles spasming, and chokes back a cry. She doesn't feel the same bolt going downward.

Kneeling down beside her, Albedo puts a hand to the small of her back, sending another wash of pain up her spine as he presses gently at what *must* be crushed bone. He runs his fingers lightly up from that spot to the back of her neck, prodding each vertebrae. Then the pressure returns in that painful spot, for a moment, and--nothing. Jean feels nothing at all.

She tilts her head enough to look at him, and he meets her gaze and reaches out to do something she can't make out. "Can you feel this?"

"No," Jean whispers back. "I can't feel anything."

"This?"

"No."

"And this?"

Jean can't entirely choke back the despair at that, "No."

"One last time."

Albedo's fingers are suddenly pressing down, hard, on the painful spot that makes Jean twitch all down her spine--all down the part of her spine he can *feel*--and she gasps out, "Yes."

"Hmmm." There's only the barest, slightest hint of apology lurking in his clear blue eyes; the rest is shared understanding. Jean finds herself unutterably grateful for his reserved calm as he rises again and turns to Amber. "Is the stretcher ready? We'll have to roll her onto it."

"It is," Amber says, her voice shaking harder now, face white, and Jean realizes with a sharp stab of regret that for all they'd both been quiet, for at least part of that, she'd been watching. But she drags it forward beside Jean, takes a deep breath, and looks up at Albedo. "I'm ready."

Jean manages neither to scream when they roll her onto it, nor to say more than, "It's all right," when Amber apologizes for jostling an apparently broken leg, then flinches. She lies still on the stretcher and keeps her eyes open for any sign of the Abyss Lector and guides her breath with her Vision, in and out, in and out, slow and steady, refusing to let her fear control her.

The Knights at the gate leap to help, freeing Amber from her burden, though Jean is relieved that Albedo refuses to relinquish his end of the stretcher. There's something about Geo users that seems to keep their steps always steady, and his serious calm remains a reassurance beyond what her own breath control can give. By the time they reach the second tier of stairs Noelle has come racing to take the other end, and Jean is carried to the Cathedral with as little jostling as could possibly be expected.

Sister Victoria is at the Cathedral's gates by the time they arrive, and takes ruthless control of the situation. Jean is settled in an infirmary bed by the time Barbara, whose hands are clutched in her skirts but who smiles idol-bright regardless, gets there. Jean draws in breath for a clear and honest description of her own injuries, so far as she's able to tell.

"I did a basic field examination," Albedo says before she can say the hard words of her self-report, and beckons Barbara off to a corner, facing him, so that Jean doesn't have to see her face when he says them instead.

Jean still hears her sob, once, and whisper, in a choked voice, "Big sister...." And then a deep indrawn breath of exactly the sort that Jean has been taking, and Barbara turns and starts towards the bed with a determined step and that idol's smile, only a little strained, and a nearly-cheerful, "We should start with a potion for the pain, and then I'll do- everything I can!"

---

The potion isn't just for the pain. Jean wakes in darkness; she lies still, her head fuzzy, trying to remember where she is and how she got here. Someplace close, someone is crying.

Scent and feel--medicinal herbs and familiar scratchy sheets--tell her this is the Cathedral's infirmary, so she can relax until the memory of the past day slowly filters back to her. Subtly, aware of the sobbing presence at her side, she tenses and relaxes her jaw, her arms, her back and abdomen, testing for lingering aches and pains. There's none at all, even in her lower back. Barbara is very good at what she does.

There's none at all in her legs, either, because they don't tense when Jean wishes them to. Even Barbara, best healer in Mondstadt, can only do so much. The spine is one of those few parts of the body that rarely if ever responds to magic.

Which is as good a clue as memory as to who is sitting beside her. "Barbara?" Jean whispers into the dark. It's been a long, long time since she's heard her little sister cry.

The legs of a chair scrape on the floor, and then Barbara is lurching closer, a shadow in the dark. "I'm *sorry*," she chokes out. "I tried my best, but... it wasn't enough."

There's a weight in Jean's chest that grows suddenly heavier, like another stone dropping atop her, at that admission. She hadn't even realized that she was still hoping that Barbara would say it was just taking a while, or she'd put in a nerve block, or--it doesn't matter what hopes she'd held. Those words crush them.

She swallows down her own sob of despair as they come crashing down. "It's all right," she lies, with dismay at the voice her way wavers. It refuses to steady, but she still forges on. "I am a healer too. I know how difficult nerves are, and the spine... is impossible."

Barbara swallows hard enough to be heard; her voice is a little less thick as she answers. "Not impossible," she says in a tone that's struggling to be cheerful, and failing even worse than Jean's. "Lisa says there's an Electro healer who studied in the Akademiya at the same time as her, and helps Bimarstan out sometimes with these sorts of cases. She can't always help, but... she's going to write and ask! You're the Acting Grand Master of Mondstadt, and she's Lisa's friend. I'm sure she'll come."

Or Jean can go to Bimarstan. She's afraid to have any hope at this thin reassurance. It's far from a guarantee, and to count on it... yet she can feel the weight on her chest lift just a little.

Not much. Jean wants nothing more than to burst into tears. If she was alone here, she might. But Barbara is here, and already guilty and grieving. The last thing Jean wants to do is make it worse.

*'Be strong for your sister,'* she remembers her parents saying, her mother sternly, her father kindly, both more than once. Barbara has always been the smaller of them, the weaker, the one who struggled no matter how hard she tried. Jean *can't* give into weakness in front of her, can't pile this pain on top of her own.

She holds out her arms. "It's all right, Barbara," she whispers, and pulls Barbara close when she falls into them, stroking Barbara's hair as she starts once again to try. Jean squeezes her own prickling eyes closed to keep any tears from escaping as she holds her sister tight.

---

Eventually Barbara falls asleep, and Jean after her. She wakes as the room brightens, morning's first light dancing in a dozen different colors across the room through the stained glass of the window, and finds her sister gone. A little while later a different sister of the Church comes in with breakfast--thin broth and tea--and wordlessly props Jean up with a pile of pillows before leaving her to eat.

Without anyone here to comfort, Jean feels the despair beginning to creep in. She choked the tears back too well in the night; her eyes are dry, now, belying the rising, choking tide within her breast. She takes a deep breath, then another, once again tugging at the Anemo around her to keep her breathing steady. But however steady her breathing, this time soothing her body does nothing for her mind.

Even if Lisa's friend from Bimarstan can come, even if she can help, Jean doubts it would be a quick or easy solution. When those things that so rarely respond to magic *do* happen to recover, whether magically or otherwise, it's a long, slow process, working by inches to regain feeling, or sight, or movement, or speech. The Cathedral has a half-dozen such cases already. For few do they expect to do more than maintain or slightly improve their quality of life.

So Jean can't count on that. If she assumes that this is her future--her chest squeezes tight, refusing the Anemo forced into it, until she closes her eyes and counts to ten and tries again, slowly loosening it--then what does she do next? Her days in the field are over. That means her days of leading the Ordo are over. She might remain Acting Grand Master in name until Varka returns, though perhaps it would be better to formally and officially return to Master of the Knights and give Kaeya the title, but there's no question now of her ever becoming Grand Master in earnest. Nor remaining Master of the Knights, at that. It's a more administratively-focused position, but both are expected to provide leadership in battle, and she cannot.

A future outside the Knights looms large and terrifying, empty of all purpose. With effort, Jean turns her mind away.

Until Grand Master Varka *does* return, it's unwise to make such a dramatic change in the Knights' command structure as to remove herself entirely. She can still handle the administrative side of affairs, in fact might do better at staying on top of it without anything else to handle. If Kaeya takes over as central commander in the field it will detract from certain other work he does, but she's not a fool. She does know Sister Rosaria does enough similar work that she might be able to ask her, obliquely, for more assistance--or even have her reassigned to the Knights as an adjunct for the duration, though that would be a fight with both the Church and, she suspects, Rosaria herself. And while she hates to lean upon Diluc, under the circumstances-

Diluc. What will he have to say about this? He's left the Knights, too, but she can't ask him for any advice about her future. Diluc left with a purpose of his own, a righteous one, even if she disapproves of some of the methods with which he pursues it. He still protects Mondstadt, in his own way. He still *can* protect Mondstadt. Jean has trained all her life as a knight, dedicated heart and body and soul to its defense. Now she's nothing but a broken shield, her very presence on the battlefield a weakness rather than a strength.

Jean tries to make herself stop *thinking* of this, to focus on the immediate needs of the situation, to drown her fears in expediency. It isn't working. Every thought leads to the yawning depths of the life ahead, robbed of her family's ancient duty and the calling she feels in her own heart, without the strength to serve Mondstadt as has always been her joy.

Perhaps she can find a place in the Cathedral. They're always in need of healers, and while she'll never be Barbara's match, she could learn to use her healing more delicately than battlefield medicine requires. It isn't what she *wants*, but that's a selfish thought; it's still service, will still help Mondstadt. If she has to give up the career she's pursued her entire life, the work at which she excels, the comrades with whom she's fought side-by-side, whose lives she's saved and to whom she owes her own life....

Jean's chest has once again tight, and this time she can't focus herself enough to loosen it. She starts a flow of Anemo and then thinks, this is something she could do as a Church healer, and then she's imagining herself sitting there forcing air in and out of lungs as she's done a time or two in the field, and then her chest tightens again. She abandons all control of the Anemo around her and just sits there wheezing until it loosens of its own accord, unable in any way to heal herself.

The broth and tea still sit on the side table. Jean has no desire to eat, feels almost nauseous with revulsion at the thought, but she knows that she needs to after such a complex healing. There's no point in making Barbara and the other sisters' lives more difficult. She picks up the bowl, manages one lukewarm spoonful, and tells herself she's warming up for another as she chases the one stray slice of spring onion that hadn't been strained out around the bowl with her spoon.

Before she can wind herself up for that second spoonful, there's a knock on the door. Jean knows who it is from the cadence before Kaeya pushes the door open. He's filthy, covered in dust with his boots smeared with dried mud all the way to the top, and he moves with the careful walk of someone who's been riding far too long as he appropriates Barbara's chair.

"You're meeting with the commander of the Millelith in Liyue Harbor today," is all Jean can think to say.

"Unfortunately, I had to cut that conference short. That does mean the Tianquan will know what's happened by this afternoon, but even if I'd been here already, she would have known by tomorrow evening in any case." He flicks the whole subject away with a hand and leans in. "Lisa filled me in. How are you?"

Jean takes a deep breath, sits up as much straighter as she can manage when she can only rely on the pillows to hold her, and gets ready to fill him in. "I've considered the situation, and I think it may be best to name you Acting Grand Master, and resume a support role as Master of the Knights until Grand Master Varka returns. I should still be capable of all the administrative duties of the Acting Grand Master, and fully intend to continue doing them, so as not to completely overwhelm you with work. I may even be able to take over your work as Quartermaster for the duration, but the Knights need a commander fit to take the field. I had thought to ask if Sister Rosaria might-"

"*Jean*," Kaeya interrupts, leaning in, looking at her seriously. "How are *you*?"

All of Jean's efforts to stave off the tightness fail at that question, and it feels as if her chest caves in on itself. Now the tears come, her throat closing and her eyes prickling. She calls Anemo again to help her breathe past it and blinks hard.

"I have to talk to Klee," she says, desperate for something, *anything* to say that won't turn into a sob. "She saw everything, and one of her explosives was involved. There were clearly errors... I should have fully considered the safety ramifications of allowing her to bury them, even well away from habitations and with their locations marked as she has been doing. Those will have to be addressed, but I don't wish her to think that she was at fault."

"I've already talked to her," Lisa says, coming in through the open doorway. "Albedo has, too. You have an *adorable* get well-card on the way, though it might be a little delayed. I mentioned that the wheelchairs they use at Bimarstan would be useful if not for all of Mondstadt's stairs, and she and Albedo got distracted trying to design a chair that could handle them.... But let us handle her for a little while."

"Thank you," Jean whispers, and, humiliatingly, sniffles, unable any longer to hold back the tears.

Lisa, not even bothering to look around for a second chair, comes around the bed to sit directly beside Jean. She rests a hand on Jean's arm, and her perfume fills the air, familiar and comforting, the same sweet roses with a faint deeper undertone that has surrounded Jean a thousand times when she's come to the library to steal a quiet moment and a cup of tea. As always, Lisa's presence is all it takes to coax her secrets out.

"I'll- I can do my best to help the Knights, until Grand Master Varka returns," she chokes out. "But I can no longer *be* a knight. I can't- I am meant to be Mondstadt's sword and shield, and yet I cannot serve- there is so little I can *do*."

Kaeya leans in further, tensed to rise from his chair, shoulders shifting and hands coming up as he looks at her in uncertain question. Jean gladly holds out an arm, and he steps forward and rests his knee on the bed and pulls her into a hug, one of the sort she's felt too old for since first was made a captain. Lisa slides in closer behind Jean and wraps an arm around her from the back, and Jean buries her face in Kaeya's shoulder, dust and all, and lets his cape soak up her tears.

"You know," Kaeya says, "the Inspector's position has been open for what is it, now? Five years? It requires someone of utmost integrity to fill the position, preferably with considerable experience, and it isn't a combat role."

Lisa chimes in, rubbing Jean's shoulder comfortingly with her free hand. "I'm sure Barbara has already told you that I've written to an old associate from Sumeru. Even if she can't be as much help as I hope, Sumeru is much more forward-thinking about these sorts of problems than Mondstadt is, and she may have some ideas. I wouldn't count out Klee's 'Bouncy-Jouncy Carriage,' either."

"And while Diluc might make a production out of insisting you needn't stay a knight, you know he'll do whatever it takes to get you any help you need," Kaeya adds. "The Dawn Winery's name and money can open plenty of doors."

"I know." More tears are welling up, and Jean clutches at Kaeya for support as she's wracked by a sob. "Thank you. Please don't- I would rather not, right now, but- thank you."

"Whatever you like, darling," Lisa says, and Jean can feel Kaeya's nod.

Another sob takes her, and another, and in the arms of her two best friends she curls around the weight of despair in her chest and lets them hold her through it, just for a little while. There will be time for hopes, for plans, for rebuilding the future around everything that's just changed. Right now, Jean needs this space to mourn.

#ngl the mood on this one has... external influences. but here we are #fic bits #asked and answered #why not meme i guess #someone please give jean a nap

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