yan. d9 / fin

tick 12a / calla RP Tutor 2,244 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Nov 20, 2024 18:01:45 GMT -5 just a litle creacher	yan. d9 / fin Oct 13, 2022 0:33:04 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by tick 12a / calla on Oct 13, 2022 0:33:04 GMT -5 白蛇歌剧
	Last Edit: Oct 30, 2022 21:27:03 GMT -5 by tick 12a / calla ⇀ tracker ↼ ⇀ 2024 upat ↼

tick 12a / calla
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yan. d9 / fin Oct 30, 2022 21:22:54 GMT -5

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Post by tick 12a / calla on Oct 30, 2022 21:22:54 GMT -5

才

Lanyan premieres the opera sometime in the 30s. He calls it 第七荣誉.

Seventh Honour.

It fails almost immediately.

The troupe only ends up playing it three times, once with the ceiling open and twice with it closed, but it doesn't make a difference. The wu sheng, Xu Hongshe, is supposed to be Haobin Xu, but the kid they cast fumbles his sword on both closed ceiling productions. The daoma Dan is too brash, the two xiao sheng roles are too annoying, the wu dan is played with a strange accent that no one can place. They even try to write Babe Adroxis in as the lao sheng Leng Zidan, but it causes such a fuss that the character gets axed after his first scene.

The rebels say it's too conformist. The conformists say it's too rebellious. The art snobs say it's a disgrace and turn their noses up at each showing.

A month later, Lanyan disappears in the middle of a spring afternoon and Fuhui, his second Dan, takes over the troupe.

Seventh Honour gets shelved and ignored for sixty years. The troupe moves from Nine to Two and then to Nine again. Fuhui breaks tradition by letting the girls play the second and third Dan parts, but then un-breaks it by always keeps the first for himself. The company goes through waves, sometimes touring, sometimes staying in their shitty little Nine theatre and praying that that night isn't the night when the stage will finally collapse underneath them.

Fuhui takes up Lanyan's old habit of smoking too much and eating too little, and when his voice starts to go thin and reedy, he just reaches for the pipe more often.

His lungs end up dying before the rest of him does.

Without the soldiers-on-leave filling seats, the entire opera scene starts to fizzle out. There's a period sometime in the late 60s where it dies completely, when Fuhui's inheritor gambles the theatre and then subsequently loses it.

It gets torn down, and a doorknob manufacturer gets built over it.

The older folks all stay clear of the area, start to say that the troupe was cursed the day Haobin Xu died, that the curse took Lanyan and then Fuhui and now it's taken the whole company.

So, the troupe kids go back to the streets. Some of them make it under the weak places of the fence and run off to the circus in Ten, some of them are lucky enough to land jobs as entertainers - not the seedy kind, but the kind that have actual stages and actual pay.

Some of them don't have that luck.

Xue Li is sixteen when the troupe disbands, and she's twenty-four when her first child makes it past infancy.

Her son is nearly fourteen by the time the curse comes back around.

One of the metal barons ends up converting an old warehouse into a new theatre, and twenty years after their dissolution, the Baishe all flock to it like moths.

Most of them get turned away - they had been performers once, but middle-aged men who have lived on nothing but scraps for the past few decades can't flip and turn as well as fresh blood can. They can't be broken down and then built back up like the kids that end up in the audition lobby can.

Because that's all they're really good for anyways. They're blank canvases. No one goes into the opera because it's their passion - the troupe has always been a necessity created by neccessity. The members first show up because they need coin and food and lodging and then by the time they get those, they've already signed a contract that keeps them there for at least another ten years.

That's just the way it is. And so when Xue Li is marked off as damaged goods, it's her son's name that ends up on the dotted line instead.

The new troupe leader is the metal baron's son, and he gets the position not because he has any opera experience, but because he claims to be an expert after reading the script of Madam White exactly once. Somehow, he's gotten his hands on Lanyan's old copies, the ones covered in his markings and notes and corrections, and so no one steps up to question him.

They start off easy. Madam White is the first production, and when it's a tentative success they move on to Peony Pavilion.

It's different. Only a few veterans get hired on, and that's just to train the upcomers. Most of the techniques are new, or made-up, and the Princess Iron Fan that premiered eight years ago is near indistinguishable from the one performed now.

But then Victor Baptiste and then Victor Adroxis bring around a new district pride. People start to care again. Someone pulls Seventh Honour from a locked trunk and adds them both in as messengers from the future, to tell Xu Hongshe how glorious Nine will be in time. It's just ridiculous enough that the new audience eats it up.

The troupe leaders says that the posters don't look quiet right though. Something about the characters and the strokes and how it doesn't match up with his artistic vision.

Three fourths of the troupe take on stage names in response. Against every warning, Xue Li's son takes a part of the first founder's name and goes from Cai to Yan.

And what of him?

Well.

燕

Yan takes after his namesake in a way that makes the higher Dan performers uneasy.

His temper is short and his grudges are endless. He lands roles that he doesn't have the experience for and flaunts them in front of the younger kids. There isn't much wealth in the business, but whatever he makes he spends - on frivolous things. He imports furs and jewels and silks that the troupe can't afford and laughs in the accountant's face when he's told so.

Then he comes in the next day with everything he demanded and a favour from the troupe leader in his pocket.

He only does his own junban for a few months, and then there's a rotation of girls that flock to do it for him. They button his pei and he screams at them when a thread gets pulled. They tie his mang and he throws chairs when a pearl comes loose.

He is, firmly, an unpleasant person to be around.

But he becomes untouchable very quickly. Xue Li would not have raised her child to be anything else.

He is impatient, and cruel, and emotional, but most of all he is talented.

They can't get rid of him because the troupe uses him as advertisement too much. He's a necessary evil and he can't have an accident, because the public is already aware of his reputation. He doesn't make a secret of it. He may have Lanyan's temperament, and his taste, but he only has a portion of his charm, and he is unapologetic about it.

Haobin Xu came close to surpassing Lanyan. It's widely known that if he hadn't died, then Lanyan would have lost the primary Dan and the troupe leader position to him. But he didn't. He failed and did die. He worked in deceit and in false faces, in coy words and secret glances and sugar-spun words. Bin was the snake in the grass, but Yan is the snake in the shoe.

When he is there, you will know.

And Yan does not fail.

On his door is the proverb, carved into the wood -

青出于蓝而胜于蓝.

Green is born of blue, yet green wins.

The disciple will always surpass the master.

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tick 12a / calla RP Tutor 2,244 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Nov 20, 2024 18:01:45 GMT -5 just a litle creacher	yan. d9 / fin Oct 30, 2022 21:28:19 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by tick 12a / calla on Oct 30, 2022 21:28:19 GMT -5 ya ripred_bot
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napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. Retired Staff 3,108 POSTS Pronouns: he/him last seen Nov 19, 2024 3:17:51 GMT -5	yan. d9 / fin Oct 31, 2022 13:22:50 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Oct 31, 2022 13:22:50 GMT -5 "His temper is short and his grudges are endless." FLAWLESS. AND WHAT A GRAND FINISH! So, so good omg.
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