Slo-Mo Rewatch: Guardian episode 12, part 1
Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:47 am
Hi, and welcome back to the Guardian drama Slo-Mo Rewatch. Watch half an episode a week, at your leisure, and then come and chat about it here in comments. Or you can just jump into the comments without rewatching, of course!
Here are the previous weeks' rewatch posts.
Episode 12, up to 22:18
Summary
Fourth Uncle drugs Zhu Hong; Guo Changcheng zaps himself unconscious. Wang Zheng is teaching Sang Zan to write (but hasn't shown him how to hold a pen). Zhao Yunlan confronts Shen Wei in his university office, ostensibly about the case but in fact seeking confirmation of Shen Wei's other identity. Tan Xiao breaks into the SID to steal the Hallows but is thwarted by Sang Zan's trap, followed by Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei's arrival. Zhao Yunlan catches the Awl, has visions and falls unconscious (feat. some lovely manhandling by Shen Wei); Da Qing wakes him by being catlike. Lin Jing wants to run some tests on a human; Zhao Yunlan fakes a headache, so Shen Wei volunteers. Shen Wei lies on the evidence bed in his undershirt. Fourth Uncle talks to tied-up!Zhu Hong, only it's actually Guo Changcheng in a skirt and wig. Zhu Hong drugs her uncle. (So much drugging!) Zhu Jiu is angry at Tan Xiao's failure to retrieve the Hallows; he's holding Zheng Yi hostage, promising to cure her. Zhao Yunlan doodles Shen Wei and the Envoy in his notebook. Tan Xiao and Zheng Yi ambush and hypnotise Zhu Hong as she returns from the Snake Village. She fights Chu Shuzhi, and Lin Jing has to sedate her. Zhao Yunlan tells Tan Xiao and Zheng Yi that they can't trust Zhu Jiu.

Quote
Shen Wei: Are you even listening to me?
Zhao Yunlan: I only want to hear you tell the truth.
Detail
Presumably Zhao Yunlan is already wearing protective earplugs when he apprehends Tan Xiao and Zheng Yi on his own.
Questions
Do you have a stand-out favourite scene or quote from the first half of episode 12? How is Zhao Yunlan hoping that the conversation in Shen Wei's office will go? Does Sang Zan have any other booby traps set up around the SID (and how many times has Guo Changcheng set them off)? Did Shen Wei put himself in a trance/stasis during Lin Jing's experiment? Any theories about what happened to Tan Xiao's sister? What's with all the drugging??
How many times has Guo Changcheng zapped himself unconscious before?
once
0 (0.0%)
a couple of times
0 (0.0%)
truly an alarming number of times
1 (50.0%)
Lin Jing is ~this close~ to confiscating the baton
0 (0.0%)
Chu Shuzhi bought a portable defibrillator to take to training practice
1 (50.0%)
other
0 (0.0%)
Does Shen Wei expect Zhao Yunlan to take him literally when he says, "To be honest, I'm just a normal person who happens to be unlucky"?
yes, he's determined to stuff the cat back into the bag
0 (0.0%)
he doesn't *expect*, exactly; but he hopes!
1 (50.0%)
no, he's implicitly asking Zhao Yunlan to play along
1 (50.0%)
other
0 (0.0%)
Why does Shen Wei volunteer to be a test subject?
he thinks he can fake a human field of consciousness
1 (50.0%)
he's no longer really hiding his identity; he just doesn't want to admit the truth in so many words
1 (50.0%)
other
0 (0.0%)
Did you see any parallels in these scenes with other parts of the drama? If you're familiar with the novel, any thoughts about how the drama adaptation compares, if at all?
(As usual, these are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the rewatch to join in. We'd love to hear your thoughts!)
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The best perk of remote work is supposed to be chilling in your house all day!
Now for this worker, they're losing several hours a day to an inadvertent commuting situation.
Remote work is really the best! You can wake up just a few minutes before your shift starts, eat a full breakfast and enjoy your coffee, and then get settled into your workflow from your own comfy couch. Everything is perfect. You don't have to deal with an annoying commute, or coworkers who have long, loud phone conversations with their friends all day, or being so hungry by 3 PM and having nothing else to eat. Remote work solves basically every work-related problem.
Zelensky tells BBC Putin has started WW3 and must be stopped
Feb. 22nd, 2026 10:00 pm(no subject)
Feb. 22nd, 2026 02:13 pmToday's USA versus Canada game was a big deal because NHL players couldn't be in the Olympics for a while. Today was the most top talent on the ice that's been seen ever, because last time USA was in the Olympics we had far fewer NHL players on our roster. This was as close to 'just let all the best players play each other' as we've ever gotten.
Youtube short that is a visualization of the increasing parity between countries and comparing this year to the last time NHLers could play.
Working double sections without double tips? No thanks.
Working in a restaurant is a brutal business. On their feet all day, slinging trays and reckoning with the stubborn, yet mysterious sauce stains on their apron, servers suit up for battle every day before a shift. If they're lucky, they'll score a grip of cash in the form of tips, and if they're unlucky, which happens more often than not, a coworker will call in sick, and they'll be in the weeds for the rest of the shift.
Walk a mile in these non-stick shoes, and you'll see exactly why their polite smiles are so well-rehearsed.
15+ Snow Day Snaffus: '10 mins after I finished shoveling my driveway, it started to snow again'
Feb. 22nd, 2026 12:00 pmThis has been a snow-filled winter! And there's more where that came from…
For us young folks, this has been the snowiest winter of our lives! It's hard to recall a winter that had a more long-lasting snowfall than this. It snowed in mid-January, and well over a month later, most of that snow is still happily in place. It's accumulating lots of dirt from the roads, so a lot of it remains in massive gray ice piles along the sidewalks.
It was fun, at first, but after weeks of slipping and sliding on icy sidewalks, a lot of people are losing their cool. They've been showing everyone exactly what it's like in these snow-filled weeks, and guess what? There's more snow on the way! Ah!
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Feb. 22nd, 2026 01:50 pmI do not want to read books about WASPs who are oblivious to the world beyond the city that they live in. And even in that city, they are about some white people striving and oblivious to anything beyond their own attempt to make it.
They can discuss the trappings of wealth in detail, but when it comes to discussing people, it goes like this:
The interior was a fantasy of soon-to-be-cliched Oriental fixtures: large porcelain urns, brass Buddhas, red latterns, and self-postured silent deference of an Oriental waistaff (the last servile ethnicity of American's nineteenth century immigrant classes.)
Holy hell. That is racist.
Then if that was not enough,
In front of me a broad-shouldered man with the twang of an oil-producing state was trying to communicate with the maitre d'
This is racist against Asian people AND white people all in two paragraphs. The character making this observation cannot be bothered to figure out if someone is from Texas or Oklahoma, but they decide that the rude person in the restaurant is from Texas because who cares about anything outside of New York City. Truly, a literary achievement.
Now, this author is a talented and capable author, but was any of this scene really necessary?
In the first chapters, there are references to so many other books, as if it is inviting you to write a Ph.D. thesis.
The most obvious thesis about how this book compares to "Great Expectations." The author invites that comparison so many times. One of the characters picks up "Great Expectations" and turns to Chapter 20 as soon as she hears from her friends to London. That is the chapter in the book where Pip, the young character from "Great Expectations" goes to London, and it is just a dirty and corrupt place to be.
In this book, like in "Great Expectations," there is a wealthy benefactor warping the characters around herself, but it is best to leave the details of that for the people who are interested in the book.
Chapter Six is "The Cruelest Month," and it starts with "One night in April" slamming you over the head with T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
There are too many characters in this book that like to read, and they like to read the type of literature that is ruined by high school English teachers. These characters are absolutely obsessed with "Walden;" and I am happy for them for being able to conceive of Massachusetts, a state outside of New York, but not really.
Early Humans
Feb. 22nd, 2026 03:01 pmA new analysis dates three Homo erectus skulls from central China to about 1.77 million years ago, making them the oldest securely dated hominin fossils in eastern Asia.
That older age shifts the arrival of early humans in the region back by roughly 600,000 years and compresses the timeline of how quickly our ancestors spread across Eurasia.
[---8<---]
The same layer holds stone tools and animal remains, tying the skulls to a specific moment nearly 1.8 million years ago rather than the younger dates long cited.
The bones of houses show in the summertime
Feb. 22nd, 2026 03:13 pm
I have not yet managed to get hold of her memoir, but I deeply appreciate being notified of the existence of E. M. Barraud, who identified herself with chalk-cut hill figures, candidly described her relationship status as "technically single, but 'married' in a permanent homosexual relationship with another woman," published under her assigned initials and was known in Little Eversden where she worked for the Women's Land Army as John. She gave her wartime responses for Mass-Observation as both a man and a woman: "People are people, not specifics of a gender." I had never even encountered her poetry.
Mexico's most wanted drug lord 'El Mencho' killed in military operation
Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:19 pm'Affront to humanity': Sudan slams Uganda for hosting RSF paramilitary boss
Feb. 22nd, 2026 01:52 pmFor Sale: Nintendo Switch games + TTRPG books
Feb. 22nd, 2026 03:18 pmSo I'm going to try to sell a few things and hope for the best. 🤞🏻
First, I have a few Nintendo Switch games for sale:
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)
And then a few TTRPGs that were Christmas presents so they're still in basically like new shape:
Candela Obscura Core Rulebook (example on Amazon)
Daggerheart Core Set (example on Amazon)
If you're not interested but know someone who might be, please point them my way. It would help a lot if I could manage to sell at least one or two things from this list.
For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).
Media Post
Feb. 22nd, 2026 02:16 pmTelevision/Streaming: a couple of episodes of Buffy and Farscape.
Buffy:
Farscape:
Books: It has not been a great week for books! I had two books I stopped reading: T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver and Ben Greenman's Emotional Rescue.
The Kingfisher book was a book club read for January that I never got in time. It just recently became available as I was finishing The Reformatory. I got about twenty percent or so in and I was just kind of annoyed at the book, so I stopped reading.
The Greenman book is essays on music. I thought it would be more like Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape or Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. No. Greenman's book was rather boring and also felt a bit misogynistic, so I had to quit reading that one, too.
I'm now reading Pylon by William Faulkner. It's a bit different than the other fare of his I've read, but I'm interested to see where it goes. It's set in a fictionalized New Orleans during an air show, so lots of talk of planes and pilots.
Listening to: only one Rolling Stone Top 500 album this week. Number 488 is The Stooges self-titled album from 1969. On the 2012 list, this album was at 185. Rolling Stone blurb:
Fueled by “a little marijuana and a lotta alienation,” Michigan’s Stooges gave the lie to hippie idealism, playing with a savagery that unsettled even the most blasé clubgoers. Ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale produced a primitive debut wherein, amid Ron Asheton’s wah-wah blurts, Iggy Stooge (né James Osterberg) snarled seminal punk classics such as “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “No Fun,” and “1969,” bedrock examples of the weaponized boredom that would become a de rigueur punk posture.
This one is not really my cuppa, but I didn't outwardly hate it (like the Suicide album). It's a pretty short album, too. I can see the influences they had on other bands. Of the songs here, I like "I Wanna Be Your Dog," which I've also heard covered by several bands, as well.
Playing: I finished Assemble With Care; this is by the same studio that did Alba: a wildlife adventure. It's a visual novel with puzzles; you are Maria, who repairs electronics and such, and you've come to a little town for their festival. Various folks want your help, so you take apart and reassemble game systems, tape decks, watches, and more as you learn about issues in these folks' lives. It's a short but sweet game. The controls were occasionally a little frustrating (you can use your mouse on PC, but sometimes if I clicked too quickly, I'd put the piece I was working on to the side and then would have to hover over and pick it up again).
[ SECRET POST #6988 ]
Feb. 22nd, 2026 03:02 pm⌈ Secret Post #6988 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.

( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #998.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Find a beta and offer to beta for round two!
Feb. 23rd, 2026 06:48 amThose interested in providing support can pin their details to our metaphorical noticeboard. Support can include brainstorming, offering critique, canon-checking, fact-checking, tips on structure, language issues, looking for specialised knowledge of various kinds, sense checking that something makes sense, visual effects for comics, audio effects for podfic, and some casefic solving.
Participants and non-participants are welcome to volunteer to beta for the 2026 round.
Quick links: Tagset · AO3 app · Sign-up summary of requested fandoms
I've provided an optional template to fill out below, which you're welcome to add and subtract details from:
AO3 name:
Best contact method(s): Please only include details that you are happy to have public.
Fandoms:
Specific topics of expertise:
Mediums: We allow comics, fic, and podfic in this exchange, so please specify which medium(s) you're comfortable working with.
What can you beta?: This is a good opportunity to include content (smut, graphic violence, etc.), length (the minimum is 3k for fic, 10 panels for comics, and various lengths of time for podfic).
What will you not beta?:
Preferred file formats: Would you prefer to beta in Google docs or PDFs? How would you like audio files to be sent, if you have any preference?
Availability: This is a good place to mention if you're okay with being contacted five days out from the assignment deadline, your turnaround times, i.e. will it take you a week to review? Is it dependent on the size?
If you're interested in contacting someone offering to beta, please do so at their contact methods to preserve anonymity. Please email gumshoeagency@gmail.com if you need to get in touch with me to ask any questions.
I stole the base of this from
Crime Syndicate (2021) #2 of 6
Feb. 22nd, 2026 07:39 pm
Another tradition of forming a super-hero team: the members having a little bit of conflict first.
( Read more... )
This young woman spent the majority of her teenage years saving money. Now, her mom wants half of it.
Parents can occasionally be needy, and naturally, children have obligations they need to fulfill for the people who raised them. If a parent asks their kid to do something for them, chances are you'll do it to the best of your ability. However, the vast majority of the time, these favors are about doing a chore for them or giving them a helping hand with a task.
There is a limit to what parents should ask their kids to do for them, and giving up half your hard-earned savings is certainly past said limit.
Telephone MV Ficlet: too many hits off this memory
Feb. 22nd, 2026 07:42 pmTitle: too many hits off this memory
Author:
Fandom: Telephone - Lady Gaga ft Beyoncé (Music Video)
Pairing: Beyoncé Knowles/Lady Gaga
Tags: Ficlet, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Post-Canon, Kissing, Vaginal Fingering
Rating: M
Word count: 491
Summary: Gaga likes making memories more than she likes revisiting them.
Author notes: Well, in a perfect illustration of 'never say never' here is a surprise new installment of the show me your teeth series after, uhh, over ten years. But a) I heard a rumour of Telephone pt2, and b)
too many hits off this memory on AO3
( too many hits off this memory )
***