520 Day Reverse Exchange - deadline passed

[trobadora]

The deadline for the 520 Day Reverse Exchange has passed, and the collection is full of wonderful gifts!

A few people have extensions, and since things can always go wrong and life can intervene, we may yet need to look for pinch-hitters over the next couple of days. If you're available, please keep an eye on this comm and your email. Our first port of call will be the other creators the recipient requested from, if those people said they might be able to pinch-hit.

Thanks so much to all our lovely participants for being a part of this! :D

Subject: GUARDIAN REWATCH – Episode 18

[shadaras]

Beginning of episode: Ye Huo walks away from Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng in the fight club.
Ending of episode: Zhu Jiu and Ya Qing stand on a rooftop talking about their plans.

Important scenes/developments:

• Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng watch a cage fight.


• Chu Shuzhi decides to lure out the arena champion by stepping into the cage himself.


• Ye Huo accepts Chu Shuzhi’s challenge, because he wants to know if Chu Shuzhi really can protect his friends.


• Zhao Yunlan learns that they’ve gotten involved in the actual fighting and has strong feelings about this. Shen Wei says he’s the pot calling the kettle black when he brings up Chu Shuzhi’s risk-taking and insubordination.


• Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan talk briefly about Chu Shuzhi’s backstory as it relates to Hei Pao Shi.


• As Chu Shuzhi prepares to fight Ye Huo, Bo Bi tells him about the revenge he wants to take for his little brother’s death.


• Chu Shuzhi and Ye Huo fight; Ye Huo reveals his Dixingren power of creating fire.


• Zhao Yunlan decides he needs to check on Guo Chengchang and Chu Shuzhi, just in case, and Shen Wei comes along with him.


• Chu Shuzhi gets the upper hand in the fight. The crowd storms the cage to protect their fave.


• Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei arrive. Zhao Yunlan fires a fake gun at the ceiling to quell the crowd.


• Bo Bi confronts Ye Huo. We see Ye Huo’s perspective on how he “betrayed” Xiao Jie by not allowing him to win a fight.


• Bo Bi and Ye Huo briefly fight before Shen Wei (as Hei Pao Shi) interrupts and sends Bo Bi to safety.


• Ye Huo escapes on a motorcycle; Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan chase him in Zhao Yunlan’s jeep.


• Lin Jing and Da Qing arrive to help, and are sent to investigate the “base” Ye Huo is leading them away from.


• Ye Huo ambushes Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan in a warehouse for a very fun fight.


• Lin Jing, Da Qing, and Bo Bi (who followed them) investigate the large secluded house they arrived at and are captured by the young men who live there.


• Zhu Jiu kills the fight club’s boss, who had been supplying him with life energy.


• Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei roll up at the kidnappers’ house and are completely unphased by demands and threats. Instead, they discuss Dixing’s education system.


• Ye Huo comes out of Zhao Yunlan’s car and talks about his relationship with the young men in the house, revealing that he’s saved them from Zhu Jiu’s schemes.


• Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng rescue the hostages.


• Shen Wei says that he can be lenient to Ye Huo, since Ye Huo was using his powers to help people instead of hurt them.


• Chu Shuzhi and Ye Huo share a moment, each praising an aspect of the other’s life.


• Zhu Jiu and Ya Qing stand on an empty rooftop discussing their plans.

Discussion starters:
(I think my thoughts mostly got turned into these questions/observations!)

• How/why do you think Chu Shuzhi was so certain neither person fighting in the ring at first was Dixingren? I don’t think Dixingren are generally shown to be able to sense each other, and Chu Shuzhi certainly hasn’t shown any evidence of that ability before…



• Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan give us one of our first taste of specifics about Chu Shuzhi’s backstory: He was rescued from penal labor to infiltrate the SID for Hei Pao Shi. Zhao Yunlan says he was always aware that Chu Shuzhi was a spy and simply didn’t care. What do you think of how these elements were introduced?



• The conversation Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan have about the state of Dixing’s schools is eternally fascinating. What are your thoughts about Dixing education?



• Or, for a different direction on that conversation: Do you think it’s meaningful that they’re openly discussing visiting Dixing? It’s not a common topic of conversation, and the way Shen Wei speaks about Dixing blurs the edges of his Professor Wei vs Hei Pao Shi identities.



• Similarly, we see Shen Wei rescue Bo Bi while dressed as Hei Bao Shi, but then he immediately turns back to Shen Wei to talk to Ye Huo. At the end as well, Shen Wei speaks of giving Hei Pao Shi’s clemency to Ye Huo while looking like Shen Wei (just before the SID crew arrives). The strict lines placed between Hei Pao Shi and Shen Wei are visibly breaking down during this episode; what are your thoughts about this?



• Bo Bi says that he’s been waiting two years for this chance to take his revenge for Xiao Jie’s death. This implies that Zhu Jiu’s been siphoning life energy from people for at least that long! Does this timeline make sense to you?



• Why do you think Ye Huo burnt himself? Was it intentional? Was it something he was forced to do? Any and all headcanons are welcome, since there’s nothing I can recall the show saying about it!



• How did the golden winner’s belt help Lin Jing track Ye Huo? Is that device some kind of essense tracker? Did it get infused with Ye Huo’s aura by being an object he owned for so long? Presumably something like that, since it also detected the place Ye Huo lives…



• A question brought up on Discord: Zhu Jiu is very dramatic, in this final scene, about how he’s coming to the end of his life. Contextually, this seems to be the result of his arm wound worsening. Why do you think his wound isn’t healing?
  
  (Personally, I think it’d be neat if the anti-Dixingren gun were infused with light energy and infected Zhu Jiu with light energy (which is now causing his wound to fester, since light and dark energy don’t coexist well), but I’d love to hear other theories! (or thoughts about this theory!))

Let’s talk about episode 18!
Come and talk about this episode – anything from favourite scenes or lines of dialogue to notes/questions about continuity or translation, most gorgeous (or angsty) smile, or anything else that strikes your fancy! And share links to your own and/or others’ episode-related meta, picspams, and fanworks, new or old!

(I would particularly enjoy picspams for this episode, as I didn't have the spoons to highlight any screenshots myself! <3)