#镇魂 Guardian

[onlyzhuyilong]

“Your honour, he is just a baby.”

[theworldisabrokenbonebutitishome]

And if you put your, put your heart in it, heart in it Then we'll do more than just get by together...

Hold Me Like A Grudge - Fall Out Boy

[shentunans]

“Life has many different flavours waiting for you.”

[baiyubai]

artistic representation of this meme because I was summoned in the tags

[pyxchta]

[skeptical-lynx]

Through time

this is a beautiful commission I’ve got here as a present to a friend! always love drawing weilan 🤍

and here comes the gif:

[lufla-lu]

“if ‘death’ is chaos, then ‘life’ is a never-ending struggle”

[omaenanimonoda]

I know what I need to do and I DONT WANT TO

[gabrielokun]

[lunarriviera]

Big Dumb Hot Cop & Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant: A Manifesto

So it has recently come to my attention that this, my archetypal pairing formulation, has broken containment, probably because I've been flinging these terms around like a deranged person wielding a blunt instrument. Therefore it behooves me to explain what the hell I mean by all these adjectives, and who are some classic and contemporary examples of the idiots under discussion—who are by the way extremely in love with one another whether they realize it or not. (Don't you say "bromance." Don't you dare SAY that word to me.) I will use blorbo from my shows to illustrate.

I first realized that I am in fact a Big Dumb Hot Cop whisperer thanks to Chinese police procedural 猎罪图鉴 | Under the Skin (2022). Right away, it's very important to note that Big Dumb Hot Cop is NOT in fact all that dumb. He's only less intelligent IN COMPARISON to his Effete Slightly Sociopathic Genius Consultant, who is, as already stated, a genius. Big Dumb Hot Cop is in fact ruthlessly good at his job. He's driven, he obsesses about cases, he can walk into a crime scene and pick up on the one thing everyone else has missed. There is no suspect he cannot intimidate upon investigation. And he's even better when he's working with (or against, depending on what stage they're at) the genius consultant. They need each other, whether they're fighting or collaborating. They can only clear cases together.

Here are, then, police captain Du Cheng and his genius consultant, sketch artist Shen Yi, eyeing each other significantly as some witness is, I think, lying his face off? Honestly I can't even remember what's happening because the important thing here is their nonverbal communication. This is crucial for this pairing. They can think circles around each other without saying a word. Love that for them.

Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant has two levels of Possibly Sociopathic. Most maddeningly of all, he has secrets. Sometimes many secrets. So at first, Big Dumb Hot Cop is going to think he's the criminal, or in some way involved in the wrongdoing. The second level is that he'll find Genius Consultant just worryingly, disturbingly good at predicting criminal behavior. And he will continue to be suspicious of him for exactly one or at most two episodes, until he's then swept off his big dumb feet by the rapidity and correctness of Effete Genius's deductions. There's nothing Big Dumb Hot Cop loves more than solving cases. Well, maybe beer. He also loves beer. Once he sees that Effete Consultant is useful, he'll do a 180º and stop complaining to his chief of police, and instead start demanding that Effete Consultant be his forever. He'll start hanging out in his office. He'll literally drag him to crime scenes by the wrist.

(And did I mention Effete Consultant must be very pretty? Did I mention that? He is lovely. Long, thin fingers to steeple while he thinks. Delicate features. Haunted dark eyes. Never sleeps. Shocking self-neglect. You may see where I am going with this.)

Another important attribute of Big Dumb Hot Cop: he's big. Or anyway strong, or a gifted fighter. Let's face it, he has to be, because Genius Consultant is going to be reckless with his own personal safety to the point of stupidity (now who's dumb, huh?). For example, consider another Chinese procedural, S.C.I. 谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (2018). Captain Bai Yutong is sort of impossibly physically talented (former fighter pilot! national sandu champion! runs over moving cars and then shoots at them, like some kind of weird urban biathlon!) and, like all good Big Dumb Hot Cops, his entire life is thrown upside down because he now has to drop everything to protect his effete consultant, criminal psychologist Dr. Zhan Yao, who's so careless with himself that in any another drama he would probably be driving Bai Yutong to drink. Thanks to the danmei on which SCI Mystery is based, however, we can safely assume Bai Yutong is taking it out on Zhan Yao in blow jobs.

Note that Bai Yutong is the cook, even though he's the gong, and that he moves in with Zhao Yan to "protect" him from...something, I can't ever remember what, and then just sort of forgets to move out again. For the length of the entire series.

I would argue that 镇魂 | Guardian (2018) is a procedural, even if it also has ghosts, a talking cat, snake lady, eerie dark energy that gets flung around like paintball splatters, and a whole bunch of other supernatural stuff that was not approved of by Big Red (it's based on a danmei of the same title by Priest, a novel which has been pulled from circulation for censorship). Further confusing matters, Zhao Yunlan isn't particularly Big or Dumb, nor is he even really a Cop, technically; but I'm claiming him for this genre not least because of his Effete (drop-dead gorgeous) Possibly Sociopathic (Chief Zhao thinks he's a suspect for a good third of the story) and Definitely Genius, Later Gangpressed into being a Consultant, chock-full of secrets Professor Shen Wei.

Once they finally team up, though, they do this genre/pairing proud. Why, there's nothing they can't solve except how to stay alive. Look at them here enjoying some fine nonverbal communication: "Oh my god, you're just like me—you too will fling yourself directly into bodily harm in order to save a clueless civilian. Okay this could be inconvenient for both of us. Also wow for a genetics professor you're really fucking built, do you lift my bro." (Yes. Yes he does lift.)

A final example: the cruelly short-lived 光渊 | Justice in the Dark (2023), which like Guardian is based on a danmei by Priest, 默读 | Silent Reading. I got baited into watching the eight (8) existing episodes by seeing a cut of Captain Luo Wenzhou taking on like forty guys with a champagne bottle, a pair of curtains, an axe handle, and a birthday cake, like some kind of cultivator. He's so big and hot, and he's so very dumb. He's also a cop, and ACAB (which is sort of the plot of Silent Reading); and Fei Du is possibly using him for his own nefarious ends (cf. possibly sociopathic and secretive). But underneath all of Fei Du's "I am the abyss, fear me, rawr!" scary posturing, like a puffed-up kitten, he's just a very pretty tender-hearted effete genius, and you can watch Luo Wenzhou melting, and practically pinpoint the exact moment when his whole heart flies out of his eyes and he decides: Yeah, okay, that's it for me. That one. The annoying little traumatized fuerdai with some kind of a death wish that I do not understand. I'll be throwing myself in front of bullets for him and/or cooking him dinner for the foreseeable future, thanks.

Priest is gonna mess with this dynamic of gong/shou caregiving and safeguarding, because that's what she does; but the fundamental beats are still there. Look at these ninnyhammers, just this second figuring out they're actually kind people who belong to each other.

Here they are confronting a suspect together. (You will notice the large butcher knife wavering in the foreground.) Luo Wenzhou, highly trained, nonetheless cannot de-escalate the situation. It takes a pretty playboy in an arm sling to come wandering into the room, and then, using his superb personal knowledge of what it's like to be traumatized to the point of insanity, getting the suspect to disarm. I just love the way they look at each other, incredulous (Luo Wenzhou) and mock-fascinated (Fei Du). If I ever meet the person who directed this scene I'm going to need to kiss them on the mouth.

Once you accept the gospel of Big Dumb Hot Cop and Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant into your media-based life, you'll find it has many applications, not all of which have to be procedurals. Consider: characters from the Daomu Biji franchise, possibly (Hei Xiazi is the biggest dumbest hottest not-a-cop I've ever met). Leverage, in a weird OT3 way. Assorted combinations of Avengers. Teen Wolf fic, absolutely. Various Stargate incarnations. Several other Priest danmei, not only procedurals. Definitely Mysterious Lotus Casebook. Et cetera. (You're on your own with MXTX, though.)

This has gotten long and there are still so many nuances and features and wrinkles and problems with the theory that should be ironed out, but it'll have to do for now. I'll simply close by saying: yes, there is also a classic example and you already know exactly who it is.

[airjemsfandump]

Ah, yes. My favorite genre.

What are your picks? 😊

[onlyzhuyilong]

The way Zhu YiLong goes from acting as YeZun pretending to be Shen Wei but going way *wink wink nudge nudge* with such dialogue as “where is my little Yunlan? 😊” and the “do you like my new outfit uwu I wore just for you uwu.” The smirking, the sweet smiling laced with malice, & the tongue (thrice the damn tongue)..

But that isn’t all because you can tell he is then White Robe Envoy pretending to be Black Robe Envoy when he burns the treaty. He is wearing a mask - his face his mostly concealed. A genius.

[aylinaliens]

See you next time.

鎮魂 Guardian (2018) || episode 1

[thasorns]

GUARDIAN (2018) // THE SIGN (2023-24)

[baiyubai]

feed you local overworked man

[pyxchta]

it’s supposed to be an acrylic standee one day