extrapenguin: Badass professor holds his postgrad close and protects her from flying detritus. (protect the daughter)
ExtraPenguin ([personal profile] extrapenguin) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2020-05-01 02:08 pm

Focus on Li Qian

(I, and consequently the details mentioned in this post, are drama only.)

Li Qian! Shen Wei's PhD student* who quit, only to join Professor Ouyang's serum research half a year later. Raised by her grandmother alone, she sacrificed something of herself with the Longevity Dial to bring her grandmother back after a stroke – only for the grandmother she got back to not be the same one who raised her.

* Given that Shen Wei is officially 32 and already a professor, he's almost certainly just started. In the experimental sciences, professorial group building starts with a PhD student or two before expanding into postdocs. Li Qian's age bears this out as well.

When we first saw her, she was run down and tired trying to earn money to pay the medical bills by e.g. handing out leaflets. As a result, she's at the end of her rope, doubting whether it was all worth it, and when her grandmother commits suicide by overdosing on Li Qian's sleeping pills, Li Qian tries to follow her by jumping off a roof. Later, at the Department of Supervision's secret lab, she's much less ground down, and seems happy in her rolse as Institute Director a bit over a year later.



Questions!
1. What do you think the effects of the Longevity Dial are on her?

2. Do you think she has other family beyond her grandmother? (In episode 6 at about 38:25, Shen Wei mentions contacting her parents before letting her drop out.)

3. How do you think the Longevity Dial came to her family?

4. What do you think is her opinion of Dixingians? Multiple ones tried to kill her, and she was happy enough to join Professors Ouyang and Zhou for the serum research. However, she appeared conflicted later on – did she acquire ethical qualms?

5. Had she known what would happen when she held the Longevity Dial in her hands when her grandmother was in hospital, do you think she'd have done it?

6. Do you think she ever found out that Shen Wei was Dixingian?

7. How much do you think she knows about the Longevity Dial's operation? What about the other Hallows? How do you think she found out – experimenting with the Longevity Dial in the year between her activating it and canon starting, research in Professor Ouyang's lab, something else?

Fanwork recs:
[Fanvid] Let Them Eat Cake by [personal profile] reishiin – this is a Li Qian/Science vid, with excellent scene choices, and is a tribute to all the mad science going on. Be sure to turn on the subtitles!

Diverging Paths by [archiveofourown.org profile] spinningthreads – this is a canon divergence set in episode 1, where the SID doesn't turn up at the end. It's short but savoury, and

Every Other Solemn Life by [archiveofourown.org profile] draconicsockpuppet – this is a series of short snippets of Li Qian's life, pre-canon to post-canon happy ending AU, that really make up a nice arc for her.

So - come and talk about Li Qian! Share links to meta, picspams, and related fanworks, new or old! Self-recs whole-heartedly encouraged. Basically, this is the place for anything you want to say or link to about Li Qian.

Important: If you're commenting with meta/discussion/thoughts, please say whether you're coming from a novel perspective, a drama perspective, or a blend of the two, so we don't end up talking past each other. Thanks!
trobadora: (Black-Cloaked Envoy)

[personal profile] trobadora 2020-05-02 08:26 pm (UTC)(link)
One option I heard aired was that (in some intersection of the one-child policy and the preference for sons) her parents dumped her on grandma and went on to try for a son again

Yeah, I read somewhere that that's what happens in the novel, but I don't know for sure either.