#now she's doing the whole 'training arc to get revenge for my fallen master' thing!!!

[unraveling-plot]

Been thinking a lot about how I love Seven x Thirteen yet they're basically a two-for-one combo of two tropes I hate ("incompetent man x competent woman" and "competent woman x even more competent man who upstages her")

And I think part of it is that it is both of those at the same time so it PEMDASes, but I think it's also that it's like

Thirteen: this man's very existence is challenging my worldview. He was a brutal killer but still he has friends who love him and he chooses simple joy. I must kill him or I'll fail my master and I have no one other than my master. But this guy keeps trying to help and protect me and keeps forgiving me. Not having the resolve to kill him is breaking apart my sense of self. I've only ever killed to survive but he makes me want to fight to protect. Could I be valued beyond my usefulness?

Seven: whoa pretty lady :D sick sword moves. Wanna go to the beach?

[drwcn]

I can’t wait for more of your discordance au, I’m a sucker for angsty wangxian! I’m actually really curious about what’s going on with Lan Xichen the whole time he’s gone. Is he recovering for all that time or is there some political plot he needs to take care of? I saw that courtesan Meng Yao tag too which makes me even more intrigued 👀👀👀

Awww you guys >:) Thank you so much for the encouragement. 

Unfortunately, Xichen and Huaisang are not a pair. The hidden agenda of this fic is xiyao (lol sorrah), and I know people tend to feel either YAY or NAY about xiyao so I’ve totally separated the wangixan and xiyao part. You can read one without the other and it wouldn’t make much of a difference at all. At best Meng Yao is mentioned in end of the later wangxian parts once or twice. 

I love Xiyao because I think it’s full of possibilities. Obviously canon!xiyao is tragic and problematic af, but this is an au, so... I do ...what I...want? Meng Yao in this au is his own worst nightmare - a courtesan, and Zewu-jun is the handsome polite gentlemanly amnesiac he saves. 

Below cut are more reasons why Lan Qiren longs for the sweet release of an early qi deviation (arc synopsis of lan xichen & meng yao’s half of the story). 

Lan Xichen’s Arc: where politics turned deadly.

Well, just because Wen Ruohan isn’t a thing doesn’t meant the Yin Irons aren’t a thing. Is there political bullshit waiting to happen? Absolutely. Except our protagonists are proactive this time. 

For months, both Qinghe and Gusu have been getting reports of strange sightings along their Lanling borders. NMJ and LXC have been investigating, and they suspect that JGS may have had something to do with it. Prior to Lan Xichen’s disappearance, he was getting close to finding out the truth. 

What happened was this: 

Xue Yang (who will exist solely in other people’s narration) had killed the Changs and taken a piece of the Yin Iron. Upon capture, XXC and SL (both alive and well and doing their own thing) delivered him to the Chief Cultivator, thinking justice has been served. (Lol. no.). Once JGS got his hands on one of those, he began to plan world domination bad things with it and shit started acting fucky right away, eliciting the suspicion and subsequent investigations of the Lans and Nies. 

Jin Guangshan does wonder how his secrets are being leaked, but he doesn’t get to find out until the end. 

Lan Xichen, on his part, is fairly sure of what’s been causing the appearances of these so called “fierce corpses”. He knows about Lan Yi’s barrier in the Cold Cave, and suspects someone has gotten their hands on a piece of the Yin Iron. Both he and Nie Mingjue suspect Jin Guangshan, and have been quietly collecting proof. 

Jin Guangshan, not about to be defeated so easily, sets up a trap and ambushes Lan Xichen during one of his investigations. LXC was in “plain clothes” as part of the investigation, because it’s dumb to go around investigating dressed as the Sect Leader of Gusu Lan, but during the ambush, Lan Xichen loses Liebing and Shuoyue in the process.  The only thing he has on him is Shuoyue’s sheath when he is found by Meng Yao. 

When Lan Xichen wakes up, he doesn’t remember anything or who he is. He sees a pretty young man who introduces himself as Lianfang. Lan Xichen was wearing blue when he was found, so “Liangfang” calls hims A-Lan. 

Meng Yao’s tragic back story that’s actually tragic:

The bullshit - er, the story - as always, starts with Meng Yao getting kicked down the steps at Jinlintai by his Ho™ of a dad Jin Guangshan. In this universe, Jin Guangshan isn’t just a rich powerful Sect Leader, but also the Chief Cultivator. If anything, he has more reason than ever to make sure Meng Yao isn’t around to besmirch his good name (not that he has any good name to bismirch).

Claiming Meng Yao to be a liar, Jin Guangshan ordered his goons to have Meng Yao “taken care of”, but before that could happen, Madam Jin had come out to see what was the commotion. This was Zixuan’s birthday celebration after all, everything had to be perfect. 

What she saw certainly enraged her, but her husband was about to kill a boy, possibly his own son, spill blood on their son’s day of birth celebration. Such cosmic bad karma she couldn’t possibly accept. “You don’t have to kill him, you absolute buffoon, just make sure he never comes back here!” 

She meant buy his silence with money but Jin Guangshan had a more permanent solution.

Before the day’s out, Meng Yao was sold to a brothel, and was told “that’s where you belong”.  Once, perhaps, he had dreamed about gaining the love of his father, but no longer. Now he simply wants his father ruined and dismembered. 

But first he has to live. 

The madam of the brothel had a keen eye for “good merchandise”, and one good look at young Meng Yao with those big eyes, delicate frame and dimples and she knew she could make big bucks off of him. 

(And before anyone asks how old MY is here, the answer is: young. One of the many reasons why I would personally like to volunteer to stab JGS until it looks like he’s been cursed with the Thousand Holes Curse.) 

The first couple of years were decidedly grim for MY. He was kept away from customers (mercifully), but he was a brutally trained in the art of dance and music. They kept him fed enough to dance but not too much to “ruin his figure”. His instructors quickly found that the youth was a quick study and got up no matter how many times he was trampled on (literally and metaphorically). It was no secret that life was gruesome, but Meng Yao survived. Meng Yao made his debut. Meng Yao became famous.

The establishment where he made his debut renamed him Lianfang - to collect/gather fragrance - and so from then on, he became Lianfang-gongzi. Soon, his art (and other stuff) caught the eye of an obliging patron who purchased him from the madam. 

The patron, by all accounts, was a brute of man who had more appreciation for the liquor in his cup than the arts, but he was a cultivator, wealthy enough, connected to many other cultivator gentry familiues, and most importantly, led a subsidiary clan of the Chief Cultivator. As his prized courtesan and dancer, Meng Yao served at his whim, entertained at his parties and made happy his friends, all of whom were practicing cultivators or at the very least connected to the cultivation realm. 

Our evil gremlin would not be our evil gremlin if he didn’t make the best of every situation. Meng Yao quickly discovered that not only was he particularly talented at getting people to divulge information to him, but that men were significantly uninhibited after sex and alcohol. Armed with a sweet face, an eidetic memory, and a hate inside him that longed to see Jin Guangshan severed limp by limp, he began his revenge plot. 

(Here, I took inspiration from Nirvana in Fire’s character Princess Xuanji of the fallen Hua kingdom who was sold into servitude but established Hong’xiu’zhao, a spy network of girls/women who either worked as courtesans or secondary spouses of noblemen. Her goal was to create chaos and dissension within the royal court and government, like mites eating away at a large tree from within.) 

Meng Yao amassed an enormous amount of intels on gentry families and evidences of the many underhanded conducts of the Chief Cultivator himself. He did this through his own work and through the other women working in his network, all of whom have been wrongfully aggrieved in some way. He promised them that one day he would help them to freedom. 

For five years he’s been collecting secrets of gentry families, and had been stirring discord for three, weakening their cohesiveness, and using their growing animosity to weaken Jin Guangshan’s control on his subordinates. Naturally, Meng Yao heard about Xue Yang and the Yin Iron. It was also him who had been drawing attention to it for the other major sects. 

Meng Yao doesn’t know Lan Xichen is the Sect Master of Gusu Lan, but he has no interest in hurting a man from nowhere. “You can stay here with me until you are better. After that, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to be on your way.”

Physically Lan Xichen recovered quickly, but when it was clear his memories wouldn’t be coming back, Meng Yao allowed him to stay. 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

~

Meng Yao has been Lianfang, been the famed courtesan, for longer than he cares to remember. He’s been had, used, and passed around by so many men that their faces are just blurried sillouettes in his memory. And yet, he’s never felt for a moment that he belonged to any of them, not even his patron, who possessed his contract and could resell him back to a lesser establishment and ruin him in a heartbeat. 

But when A-Lan held him in his eyes, warm and dark like a summer’s night, without judgement or expectations, only gentle sweetness and a fond regard, Meng Yao could almost pretend he was just A-Yao, the name whispered reverently by those soft lips. The hand that held his moved to stroke his cheek, almost shy, and Meng Yao realized with a fearful pang that if this man from nowhere with nothing were to ask, Meng Yao could most definitely become his. 

The thought scared him more than he was willing to admit. 

~

The message delivered by the pigeon was clear. Meng Yao crumbled the slip of paper in his hand, then set it aflame in the candlelight. 

The man who’s been living with him for the past four months, who he knew as A-Lan, who he trusted enough to take to bed, was the Sect Master of Gusu Lan: Lan Huan, Lan Xichen.

Zewu-jun.  

Everyone, even a non-cultivator such as himself, has heard of Gusu’s Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen’s young widower, left alone after not even six months of marriage. 

But if even he wasn’t married, Lan Xichen could never accept him as he was, no matter now much his personal desire wanted him. 

His hands shook. He balled them into fists. 

Meng Yao should’ve known... he should’ve known it was too good to be true. 

No matter, he told himself. This too, is an opportunity, perhaps the only one I will ever have. I will use it to destroy Jin Guangshan once and for all. 

~

Lan Xichen made his way to the window, and gazed out into the courtyard where A-Yao was reading under the willow tree. 

You should go home, a voice inside him said. Go home to relief Wangji of his burden, to release Wuxian from his mourning. Go back to the seat of Sect Master and the responsibilities waiting for you. 

One more day, another voice fought back. Just one more day. 

He doesn’t leave for another month. 

[fistsofcurie]

Why is Cal the protagonist instead of Cere?

So I was replaying Jedi: Fallen Order recently, and something really stuck out to me.  This is going to be long, kinda ranty, and full of spoilers, so analysis is under the cut.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, you play as Cal Kestis, a Padawan who survived Order 66.  For reference, Cal looks like this:

In other words, he looks like every other modern white guy video game protagonist: 

Except maybe slightly younger than average, and ginger this time (and even that was apparently one of the first things people modded out).  Oh and he has a cute droid.  This post intends no shade to BD-1, for whom I would die.  

Anyway, when we meet Cal at the beginning of the game, he’s living in hiding from the Empire, who would very much like to finish the job they started with Order 66.  When Cal’s status as an ex-Jedi is revealed, the Empire sends a couple of Inquisitors after him, and he barely manages to escape with the help of Cere Junda, who looks like this:

Over the course of the game, we learn that Cere also used to be a Jedi - a full Knight instead of a Padawan like Cal, but that she turned away from the Force in the aftermath of Order 66.  Eventually (SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING TURN BACK IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS) it’s revealed that the Second Sister, one of the Inquisitors hunting Cal, is none other than Trilla Suduri, Cere’s former Padawan.  Cere left Trilla to care for some younglings they were guarding while Cere herself ran off to try to lead the Empire away.  Cere was caught and tortured until she gave up Trilla’s location, and then Trilla was caught and tortured until she became an Inquisitor.  When Cere saw Trilla take up that mantle, she tapped into the Dark Side, allowing her to escape, but also prompting her to give up the Force lest she fall completely.  Trilla, for reference, looks like this: 

This brings us to the main crux of this post, namely, why the hell is Cal even in this game, much less as its protagonist?  Trilla, as the main antagonist, is only after Cal because a) he’s a Jedi, so killing or capturing him is pretty much her job as an Inquisitor and b) he’s after the same MacGuffin she is.  It’s not personal, it’s business.  Any personal edge to the taunts she throws your way throughout the game only comes by way of Cal’s relationship with her former Master.  Make Cere the player character, and the conflict with the primary villain immediately becomes hugely more personal, more visceral, the reveal of Trilla’s identity has that much more impact.  

True, it is a big part of Cere’s character arc to show that she’s recovered enough from her trauma to be willing to trust Cal, be open with him, and train him, but the opening up and trusting parts could easily be transferred to her relationship with her friend and pilot Greez, aka Space Danny Devito.  As for being willing to take on a new Padawan, the primary MacGuffin you’re trying to recover in this game is a holocron containing a list of force sensitive children whom Cal and Cere EXPLICITLY PLAN TO TRAIN AS JEDI.  If that isn’t enough of a source of that type of angst, I hardly think Cal “Personality of Wet Tissue Paper” Kestis is going to do the job.  If it didn’t get explored thoroughly enough in this game, that’s just more sequel fodder.  Instead of (MORE BIG SPOILERS FOR THE VERY END OF THE GAME TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED IT) destroying the holocron to prevent the Empire from hunting the children it identifies, Cere could use find those children.  Maybe the next game would have the children themselves as the MacGuffins you’re trying to collect, or maybe it would skip ahead in time to where Cere has already trained some of them up a bit.  They could each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities, and you could play as different characters on different levels depending on what was needed to get the job done.  

True, movie canon shows us that there isn’t a thriving Jedi Order up and running at the time of the original trilogy, just isolated hermits like Obi-Wan and Yoda, which is why it’s such a big deal when Luke becomes a Jedi and we assume that, after the fall of the Empire, he’s going to re-found the order.  That didn’t stop us from getting characters like Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka in Rebels though.  (Yes, I know Ahsoka’s not technically a Jedi at that point, but you get my point.)  They could easily be operating in an isolated cell somewhere on the Outer Rim or something.  Or maybe they get shut down at some point, giving us more fuel for tragedy and feels.  The point is, there are ways to handle this that both don’t conflict with canon and also don’t completely invalidate the goal you’ve been pursuing for the whole game.  Oh look, the choice of protagonist isn’t my only issue with this game’s plot.  Short detour, back to the main point.  

You wouldn’t even have to change the main story beats that much.  Cere would also have been in hiding, as demonstrated by the fact that she’s still alive, so have her huddled up in some backwater when she gets exposed and attacked like Cal was, forcing her to realize that she’ll never really be able to hide from her past and must face it.  Her cutting herself off from the Force mirrors Cal’s damaged connection to the Force, so you could have the necessary video game progression of gaining back various force powers as you move through the game.  Cere’s worry about falling to the dark side is much more in line with the traditional Star Wars theme of light vs. dark than Cal’s worry that he’s not good enough because he failed to save his master, Jaro Tapal, and is, in my opinion, more interesting as well.  

Hell, speaking of Jaro, I’d take him as a protagonist too.  So many species in the Star Wars universe, and when’s the last time we had a video game with a canon protagonist who was anything other than a human?  The physical strength and agility he’d have as a Lasat would give the designers room to give the players some cool moves to play with.  

Anyway, Cere’s light side/dark side conflict could even give you some interesting story mechanics to play with.  Maybe the game allows you to make a final choice whether to try to redeem Trilla (light side) or take revenge on her for hunting you (dark side).  Or maybe, in the final boss fight against Trilla, you could choose to tap into the dark side to get a power boost, but in exchange you get a worse ending.  

The point is, as far as I can see, there’s literally only upside from the perspectives of both story and game mechanics to making Cere the protagonist of Fallen Order instead of Cal.  Feel free to point out anything I might have missed, but that’s how I see it currently.  The only thing holding them back would have been the fear that Star Wars fanboys and hardcore gamers wouldn’t have bought the game if it had an older black woman on the box art instead of a young white guy.  The depressing part is, they’re probably right.  

I will admit, I’m being somewhat hyperbolic here.  I did still very much enjoy the game, and Cal was at least a serviceable protagonist, if not an exciting one.  He’s just everything we’re used to seeing in a player character, and nothing we’re not, and that’s always going to be disappointing and frustrating when the opportunity to have a kickass Star Wars video game centering on the conflict between two women of color was right fucking there but we didn’t get it and instead they played it safe.  

[zerogain]

Rey and the Redemption of the Jedi

I’ve seen The Last Jedi once now, and my month will be incomplete if I miss seeing it at least once more.

After some conversation I believe that I’m seeing a story arc that no one may have intended, but exists nonetheless. That is the redemption of the Light and, perhaps more strikingly, of the Jedi.

Last night I watched The Phantom Menace with my brother and father. Ignoring the frankly terrible acting by everyone except (perhaps) Liam Neeson, the story really begins to illustrate everything wrong with the Jedi Order at the fall of the Galactic Republic. The chief offender is actually the midichlorians.

While most fans are content to dismiss this focus on science in TPM, what they really illustrate is just how far the Order has fallen from faith and belief, not only in the Force, but also in their people and, for lack of better terminology, their souls. They believe they have scientifically explained life itself. After all, as Qui-Gon attempts to indoctrinate Anakin he explains that life would be impossible without them.

I could get into arguments about emergent properties and yet another biased theistic portrayal of atheists, but it doesn’t serve my purpose, except to say that QGJ’s Jedi philosophy is largely atheist in my opinion. The rest of the Order, except maybe Yoda, presents as mechanical members of the faith, not believers.

The Force is their tool.

This compounds in Anakin Skywalker’s fall. While he made his own choices and yes those choices damned him, there was that moment, that shining moment when Yoda could have turned the whole thing around and saved the entire galaxy from 30 years of horror by just being a fucking "human being". When he counsels Skywalker to put aside his emotions, to fear his heart and to shun attachment, he dooms both Anakin and Padme in the name of religious doctrine. The Jedi wouldn’t call this a fear-based decision, by the way, but they are institutionally scared that embracing any emotion leads to the dark side. There is no passion, only peace. Fear, anger, aggression, the dark side are they.

Beyond that, though, Yoda puts the final nail in the coffin of the whole diseased and debased system. Remember this is a system that willingly and even enthusiastically embraced a slave army. Yes, the clones were slaves. They were born into it, they knew no other life, and they had no end but death in service. The Jedi embraced it. The Republic enthused over it. Slaves to make the death and chaos of a civil war clean and noble. Slaves to ease their consciences. Slaves to dispose of by the millions.

The Republic, and by extension the Jedi, deserved destruction.

A New Hope, Empire, and Return of the Jedi show Luke beginning to understand what the Order had wrong. After all it’s his love of an absent father, really the idea of who his father was, that saves him. He rejects Obi-Wan’s belief that Vader and Anakin are two people, and by extension Obi-Wan’s refusal to accept any measure of blame for Anakin’s fall. After all, if Obi-Wan hadn’t walled himself off from emotion with his loss of Satine (the queen of Mandalore in the Clone Wars series) he might’ve been that vital lifeline that Anakin needed. He tried at the end in Revenge of the Sith, but it was too little, too late.

And so we finally come to Luke and Rey and The Last Jedi.

I really can’t praise Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy enough for their decision to have Rey be unconnected to any of the great bloodlines. She’s not Ezra and Sabine’s girl, she’s not Luke’s by blow or a bastard of Han’s, she’s not even related to Palpatine. None of it.

She’s new. She’s the breath of fresh air, the realignment of millennia of corruption and entrenched elitism.

She’s the New Jedi Order.

So what’s so different?

First, attachment and emotion are shown without doubt to be sources of strength and power. Rey lives in a place where love exists. She loves Finn. Screw the romance crap, it’s a pure platonic love that is refreshing and heartwarming. If they get romantic that’s cool, and my heart will break a little for the Poe/Finn shippers, but hey maybe they can have an open polyamorous relationship. It’s a new era after all. But beyond Finn, she loves. She is enormously aggrieved by the death of Han Solo. She is saddened by the loss of life around her. She is connected to the universe, not removed from it.

She feels. 

Look at that hug at the end if TLJ. That’s joy and relief, and the utter rejection of the Old Order’s message about the fear of humanity, the fear of being a whole, functioning being.

Let’s talk about the hole on the island. The symbolism of the cave to the underworld, especially in terms of Cambpell’s heroic journey, can’t be missed. Rey literally descends into the underworld and dies there, just as the hero in the monomyth is supposed to do. She falls into the realm of death and receives the answers to her endless quest to belong. When she comes out the other side, she is a new being. Her old self is no more.

The dark side is just as much a part of the Force as the light, and that fear that she is alone, bereft of any connection, is exactly what she is. Alone. Free. Rey is able to make her own connections without a terrible past haunting her. She doesn’t have the Skywalker legacy to contend with, even the whole space Jesus divine conception of Anakin isn’t part of her legacy. (I did love how Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith as much as said that Shmi Skywalker, Anakin’s mother, was a test tube for his mentor, Darth Plageus.)

Yes, she dives into the darkness and she confronts her fear. And here Luke illustrates perfectly the lessons of his mentors. He is unquestionably afraid of her and most especially her willingness to dive headlong into the dark side. “You didn’t even flinch!”

Rey’s revelation overwhelms her at first. She is overwhelmed by the enormity of her lesson and turns away from it. Instead, with her growing connection to Ben/Kylo, she turns to him.

Kylo Ren is part of her journey. Here he becomes her new mentor, in many ways he is the training for her that Luke fails to provide. But what is Kylo Ren’s message to her? “Kill the past,” he says. Forget the old. Embrace the new.

Right there I see something I don’t think a lot of others do. The internet, since the mere mention that a girl of all things would be the new Jedi, has been obsessed with labeling Rey as a Mary Sue. She’s no more a Mary than Luke Skywalker is a Gary. But right here, just like in the brilliant writing in Empire Strikes Back, Rey fails.

She reaches out to the monster. She thinks maybe her lesson is to pull a Luke, to rescue Kylo. After all she should follow Luke, the Jedi Master, shouldn’t she? So if he saved Darth Vader (something she praises Luke for in their interaction), it stands to reason that she must stand up and do her part, repeat the cycle, and save Ben Solo.

And she fails.

It’s a painful blow, especially after they have their side-by-side battle and destroy the Praetorian Guard, saving each others lives more than once. But the depth of the devastation is shown by the breaking of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. In itself this is a nice bit of symbolism. The old way is shattered. Everything centered around Anakin and the fall of the Jedi Order, but now it is all broken. By the end of the movie Rey is reconciled to that failure, or at least hardened to it. This is shown by the breaking of Kylo and Rey’s connection when she closes the Falcon’s ramp. Instead Rey has embraced a new future and a new order.

Even Luke sees it. He didnt have the time with her that Yoda had with him, but even without that intensive training he can see that she has something right going on. Either he knows she took the books or doesn’t, but he approves of her taking the mantle. Leia and Rey both sense that he is at peace with moving on, passing on the responsibility and the burden of the future to one who has a chance.

This dark side flirtation is perhaps one of the most important things Rey does. She faces a fear that crippled the entire Order before her. She touches her fear, owns it, recognizes it. She doesn’t hide from it and wall herself off. The old Jedi were blind because they believed that fear itself was the dark side. Yoda says as much in The Phantom Menace. And in that they not only encouraged fear and isolation, they embraced it.

Rey is their redemption. She is they way forward out of the sins of the past and into a future of hope and light. And she will not be the Last Jedi.

P.S. I can’t put this to bed without taking an aside to praise Yoda. The Last Jedi redeems the character in my eyes. I was so aggrieved by his heartless crushing of Anakin, and his willful acceptance of the slave army, even though these decisions appeared to pain him, he made them anyway. It has caused me to relabel him as “the fascist green sock puppet”. In Revenge of the Sith, I think Yoda began to see just how badly he’d failed, but I think he still put aside a portion of his blame. He was following the tenets of the Order, as wrong as he may have thought them. It seems that death has given him a measure of knowledge, and the Yoda that counsels Luke about failure is the best version of the character yet.