china_shop: Tight frame on Shen Wei drinking Zhao Yunlan's wine (even though he knows it will make him fall unconscious). (Guardian - Shen Wei drinking)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian2025-05-08 10:10 am
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Poll: Shen Wei's Clark Kent moments (drama)

Poll #33087 Ordinary
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27


What's your favourite of Shen Wei's lies, obfuscations and misdirects?

View Answers

"I am an ordinary person. I have no right to interfere with these things." (ep 1)
2 (7.4%)

holding his hip as Jiajia helps him out of the bushes, after he fell off the biology dept (ep 2)
10 (37.0%)

climbing to his feet, rubbing his very lower back in the hospital (ep 2)
5 (18.5%)

being trapped in the car while the hospital attacker goes after Li Qian (ep 2)
3 (11.1%)

"I really was at the wrong place at the wrong time," during the interrogation (ep 4)
6 (22.2%)

pretending his arm wasn't just bleeding a second ago (ep 4)
3 (11.1%)

deliberately pricking his finger to make it bleed (ep 4)
8 (29.6%)

don't ask me about Dixingren; let's talk about bears (ep 7)
12 (44.4%)

"I have a magical sixth sense." (ep 8)
3 (11.1%)

the innocent smile from the balcony, during the Hanga arc (ep 11)
6 (22.2%)

"To be honest, I'm just a normal person who happens to be unlucky. I don't know why, but I somehow became involved in these strange cases. And that's all there is to it." (ep 12)
3 (11.1%)

"I work out a lot." (ep 13)
14 (51.9%)

in the car, post-Envoy reveal, "I'm just an ordinary..." *trails off* (ep 14)
10 (37.0%)

other
4 (14.8%)



Thanks to [personal profile] trobadora for help compiling the list. :D
facethestrange: (guardian: zhao yunlan lollipop)

[personal profile] facethestrange 2025-05-12 01:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"I can easily imagine people judging them by their appearance and misunderstanding them (assuming they do have any sentience), and banishing them "for the sake of the kids" or whatever. It would only take a few incidents."

Oh, yeah, I could see that. Like, it was never that malicious to begin with, just misguided, and now no one thinks about it anymore. (The execution still doesn't sit right with me though, if they're sentient. But maybe at least this could be blamed on the regime? Maybe they were just locked up before and people defended themselves when any Youchu escaped, but there were no 'formal' executions? It's not like the regime doesn't execute people.)

"And maybe the youchu didn't originally view Dixingren as "people" either -- the misunderstanding could go both ways. You know? (Ha, now I'm imagining a Tarzan-like figure -- a Dixingren who was raised by youchu, trying to return to regular Dixingren society...)"

Both of these ideas are so cool! And if the misunderstanding goes both ways, it's even easier to end up there - easier to be seen as dangerous because your existence itself is already threatening, and obviously easier to overreact and attack (which both sides did, I'm assuming).

> "That's a very good and important and necessary category of fics"

"Haha, is it though?"


It really is! Leave no corner of canon unexplored! :D :D
trobadora: (Black-Cloaked Envoy)

[personal profile] trobadora 2025-05-12 09:44 pm (UTC)(link)
But I guess if someone's convinced him that youchu are all evil by nature, and he's given them a space where they're allowed to live peacefully... and oh no, now I'm like this is a terrible parallel with Zhao Xinci's SID and Dixingren. /o\

Yeah, I have to say I really really don't want that! /o\

Zhu Jiu and Shen Wei both talk to youchu as if they understand them (though that could be rhetorical, and/or the way people IRL talk to animals).

Maybe youchu are like dogs, and can be trained?
facethestrange: (guardian: zhao yunlan gesturing)

[personal profile] facethestrange 2025-05-13 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"Or, oh, maybe if youchu were originally animalistic but have recently evolved sentience (super fast evolution aided by dark energy sources/the Hallows)?"

This is a super cool idea and entirely possible (evolution on this planet is already freaky as it is :D). Doesn't really help with the general suckiness of youchu having no rights, lol, but a really cool idea in itself!

"If they're just animals, surely the answer is to put them back in their place, not slay them. (If SW's in a hurry, he could freeze or otherwise immobilise them until he has time to deal with them.)"

Yeah, ITA!! But then again, if they're not animals, then the answer is to at least give them a trial for breaking the law? There just isn't any case in which slaying them like this is the right thing to do (other than in self-defense). Which obviously doesn't mean that it shouldn't canonically happen at all, someone else could do it, but Shen Wei just really shouldn't be involved in this imo.
facethestrange: (guardian: zhao yunlan gesturing)

[personal profile] facethestrange 2025-05-13 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
"That's true, but the difference for me is that this time it's Shen Wei doing it. I'd like to think he's even-handed. But I guess if someone's convinced him that youchu are all evil by nature, and he's given them a space where they're allowed to live peacefully... and oh no, now I'm like this is a terrible parallel with Zhao Xinci's SID and Dixingren. /o\"

This is all so bleak, lol damn, grabbing this scene from the novel without recontextualizing it (and therefore involving Shen Wei in something that in the drama he really shouldn't be involved in) just somehow managed to leave no space to make this suck any less. :P

"Hmm. Zhu Jiu and Shen Wei both talk to youchu as if they understand them (though that could be rhetorical, and/or the way people IRL talk to animals). I wonder if youchu have their own language(s), whether they do understand Mandarin/Dixinghua to some degree, and whether they're capable of speaking recognisably human/Dixing languages if people would just stop to listen... (difficult to do, when you're being attacked)."

Oh, these are all really cool questions! I didn't even think of that, but yeah, if they are sentient, there has to be a language barrier of some kind, which is not helping.
facethestrange: (guardian: zhao yunlan lollipop)

[personal profile] facethestrange 2025-05-24 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh wow, this is so neat, thank you for sharing! ♡ I'm never surprised by these discoveries because I'm like 'even cats are nearly as smart as humans and I know that for a fact', lol, but it's always nice when actual scientific studies confirm this stuff. :D

(Also yay, youchu rights activism is back. :D)
facethestrange: (guardian: shen wei: smile heart)

[personal profile] facethestrange 2025-05-25 10:45 am (UTC)(link)
"The next alliance will be Human/Yashou/Dixingren/Youchu, absolutely!! :D"

100%! :D (With even more boring meetings. :D :D)
facethestrange: (guardian: shen wei: smile heart)

[personal profile] facethestrange 2025-05-26 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
Oooh, neat, a whole new language to learn in their new schools. :D