Meta: Shen Wei touching people, especially Zhao Yunlan, in graphs

[china_shop]

What this is
For guardian_wishlist, the lovely yaaurens made me an incredible, hilarious spreadsheet of when Shen Wei touches people and when people touch him, The Shen Wei Touchy Touchy List. So now we've opened the scene discussions up to other kinds of meta, I thought I'd make some graphs!

No guarantees as to the integrity or accurate interpretation of the dataset. And I ignored flashbacks that were repeated from earlier in the show.

Who Shen Wei touches and is touched by (tl;dr the Blindness Arc was a gift)


Shen Wei initiates touch surprisingly often (and not only in fight scenes)


Outside of Ye Olde Haixing Era, Shen Wei doesn’t touch people much when he’s wearing his robes


Most of the touches are Shen Wei touching Zhao Yunlan or Zhao Yunlan touching Shen Wei


When Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan touch, each initiates about half the time

ETA: I've updated this graph to make the colours consistent with the others (Zhao Yunlan is blue).

For Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan touches, Shen Wei often initiates touch in hurt/comfort situations


Episode 7 is the liniment scene, episode 8 is Zhao Yunlan’s gastritis, episode 12 is when Zhao Yunlan faints after grabbing the Awl, episode 17 is during Ding Dun’s attack in Dixing, episode 19 is Zhao Yunlan’s nosebleed in the SID lab, episode 20 to 22 are the blindness arc, episode 28 is when Zhao Yunlan reacts to his father’s kidnapping plus caretaking after Zhao Yunlan touches the Dial, episode 38 and 39 include the body block.

Between the two of them, Zhao Yunlan totally wins at patting


Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

Comments

[trobadora]

OMG!!!! :D :D :D

This is utterly delightful and I love it. :D

*uses appropriate icon*

[china_shop]

Yay! :D :D :D :D :D

*uses appropriate icon*

Hee! \o/

[trobadora]

You know, I really love that Shen Wei actually initiates touch slightly more often than Zhao Yunlan. It feels right to me.

[china_shop]

I think it's within the margin of error, but yeah. He's definitely no shrinking violet. :-D

[trobadora]

Yeah, and also, Zhao Yunlan is in some ways more provocative, but not in a grabby way.

[china_shop]

Nooo, though sometimes in a "I will drape myself across your shoulder" cat way. :-)

[trobadora]

Oh yeah, that's a great description! He's learned so much from Da Qing, I'm sure Da Qing is proud. :D

[elenothar]

I love this kind of analysis (graphs for the win!) and this is DELIGHTFUL <3

I'm especially intrigued to realise that Shen Wei does indeed touch other people more than I thought he did (though it often being in HC situations make sense). I was thinking much of the 'others' touching is Li Qian early on, but now I'm trying and failing to remember who he was in contact with in Ep 35...

Thank you so much for putting this together! I'm definitely bookmarking this for future use :D

[china_shop]

Yayay, thanks!! It was fun to put together. :-D

but now I'm trying and failing to remember who he was in contact with in Ep 35...

That's when he's fighting and trying to save Ye Zun in YOHE, and a couple of times he touches the Regent (eww!) in the pre-canon contemporary era scenes. (The Touchy spreadsheet is here, if you want to check more details.)

[elenothar]

*facepalm* Yes of course I could've just checked the original spreadsheet.

[china_shop]

*hearts*

[donutsweeper]

This is great! (and I, of course, immediately had to look up just who Shen Wei was touching so much in e35. I should have guessed Ye Zun!)

I think I need to rewatch the blindness arc. Just for... statistical comparison reasons. Or something. :)

[china_shop]

Thanks!!

LOL! I love that the show leaned as hard into making the relationship canon as they could. It's like they took advantage of the blindness arc to give us a bounty of physical contact. :D :D :D

[amedia]

This is made of SO MUCH WIN!!! :-D Hooray for yaaurens for assembling the spreadsheet and for china_shop for making the graphs!!!

The graphics are very touching. Hee hee!

[china_shop]

Wheeeeee, thank you! :D :D :D

The graphics are very touching. Hee hee!

LOL!!

[sakana17]

Oh, this is excellent and important research! Thank you for sharing this and to yaaurens for the spreadsheet!

[china_shop]

Hee! Thanks so much! :D :D :D

(Ahhhh, that icon is gorgeous!!!)

[yaaurens]

*patpatpat*

Even though I compiled the dang list, I didn't quite realise how many times Shen Wei actually initiated touches.

I will always and forever love my Patented Zhao Yunlan *patpatpat* though.

[china_shop]

I went through and categorised "initiated" versus "didn't initiate" based purely on your descriptions, so there's probably a large margin of error, but it was fun to do. :-) :-) :-)

I will always and forever love my Patented Zhao Yunlan *patpatpat* though.

Yessss! :D :D :D :D :D

*twirls you and showers you with sparkles*

[yaaurens]

Ah yes, probably a HUGE margin of error. But still fun! I did try to be as accurate with my ridiculous descriptions as possible after all.

*patpatpat*

[china_shop]

*patpatpat*

<3 <3 <3

[grayswandir]

I'm just here to say that this is an extremely excellent use of charts.

[china_shop]

*beams* Thanks! :-D

[winter_blossom]

How happy am I to see that SW often initiates? I knew it somewhere in the corner of my mind, which is why the common sentiment of him being shy and touch-resistant has never sat right with me, but it's good to see it put down in good old-fashioned graph form.

I'm adding this to my memories! Love it <3

[trobadora]

which is why the common sentiment of him being shy and touch-resistant has never sat right with me

Yes! This! ♥ ♥ ♥

[china_shop]

Yesssss! I mean, he's not handsy the way Zhao Yunlan is, and he rarely crams up into people's personal space, but he doesn't hold back either. :-)

Thanks!! :D :D :D

[trepkos]

That is the best use of graphs and pie charts that I have ever had the fortune to witness!

[china_shop]

*beams* Thanks so much! :D :D :D

[awanderingcoyote]

OMG this is the absolute best! While I objectively knew episode 21 had a lot of touching in it, it's amazing to see just how much it really had! Also that last pie chart with who pats more, I don't know why but it made me giggle that ZYL offers pats more. Awesome graphs and charts!!

[china_shop]

Zhao Yunlan is very fond of the shoulder pat-pat-pat. *g*

So glad you enjoyed this, yay! Thanks! :-D

[mekare]

OMG this list is a lifesaver, thank you so much! I was looking for the medicine rub episode and hoped to find it in scene discussion but no luck. Now I know it‘s episode 7!

[china_shop]

Most of the thanks go to yaaurens, but you're very welcome! :D

(For future reference, and in case it's helpful, I also use galaxysoup's episode guide a lot. :D)

[mekare]

Thanks for reminding me, I forgot that existed. <3

I enjoyed your charts :-)

[china_shop]

♥