Turns out this summer truly wants me dead for some reason but have uh idk- some meh MK art because I neither have the time nor the will to make anything better these days.
A few months ago, I wrote this post about Lìjiā, my version of Bi-Han and Kuai Liang's sister. At the time, I was thinking of adding her to my main AU as an actual character. However, I've found myself unable to find a compelling way to add her in the story seamlessly. Therefore, I think she will unfortunately remain dead. That is, in the main AU. Because now, I have a new AU I am soooooo excited about in which Lìjiā is actually the main protagonist.
This AU is actually a brand new take on the 2021 movie, a full rewrite of the movie plot with Lìjiā replacing Cole as the protagonist.
I think we can all agree that Cole Young was a rather boring protagonist who didn't add much to the story or lore in general. Yet, I found myself thinking of the Hasashi baby, Hanzo and Harumi's daughter who had survived the massacre and kept the Hasashi bloodline going. I couldn't help but compare this baby to the cryo-brothers' little sister who had presumably died with her mother during the kidnapping of the brothers in the OG Timeline... And this activated so many neurons in my brain lol.
The premise of the AU is simple enough: the story doesn't begin with the Shirai Ryu Massacre centuries ago, it actually begins 23 years ago, the night of Bi-Han and Kuai Liang's kidnapping. It begins with Sub-Zero and a few other LK warriors raiding the house in which the mother is currently living hidden with her three children. Mother desperately tries to save her children and although she fails to protect her boys, she is able to save her baby daughter before dying. Lìjiā survives while her brothers are taken away by their father...
Moments later, Raiden appears, finding the baby and taking her with him, eventually handing her to a family which would take care of her and give her a normal life... (Perhaps it would make more sense for Raiden to take the baby to the Shaolin but the idea is that Lìjiā lives a normal life until the main events and I want Raiden to be the one to find her the way he finds the Hasashi baby).
Years later, Lìjiā, or "Blue" as she's so often nicknamed, is a troubled young woman who struggles with life. She's your overall outcast who never managed to find her place in the world and had thus turned to isolate herself. Not only is the rift between her and her adoptive family growing larger with every passing day but Lìjiā also feels like a part of her life is missing from her. She finds herself haunted by nightmares she cannot tell are just dreams or memories. In these visions, she sees blurry, flashing images of people she knows have existed in spite of everyone around her claiming that she's just imagining things. A woman, two boys. Masked men. She hears screams, she smells blood and suddenly, a thunderclap and a blinding light. Lìjiā knows she's been there.
No amount of medication or therapy can bring relief to Lìjiā, who's desperately trying to embrace life in spite of everything. However, these disturbing visions have recently been accompanied by a strange, growing feeling from within her body... Like a sudden cold growing inside her...
Lìjiā had always held onto the hope that the truth would find her some day... She simply didn't expect it to take the form of S.F soldiers, mercenaries, Shaolin monks, sorcerers, thunder gods, specters... And a strangely familiar cryomancer...
I know that everyone and their grandma who even acknowledge Bi-Han and Kuai Liang's sister exists call her "Lisa" because of that one Conquest episode... However, it bothers me that she would be the only sibling who doesn't have a Chinese name.
Therefore, when working her into my AU, I instead decided to call her Lìjiā, which sounds close enough to "Lisa" while still carrying the Chinese roots her brothers hold. Furthermore, the meaning of the name when written as 丽家 (Lìjiā) apparently means "Beautiful Family". Ironically tragic given what happened...
"Lisa" would be a more americanized name she could occasionally use. However, most people call her "Blue" because of her uncanny eyes color. Much to her horror, she appears to have odd freezing abilities that she tries her hardest to conceal, an added weight to her shoulders when she already struggles with her partial amnesia and self harming tendencies... She often suffers from the same horrible nightmare during which she always cries out the same two names...
