please come tl;dr at me about Shen Wei

[extrapenguin]

I need to figure out stuff about Ye Zun, and [spoilers], but also stuff about Shen Wei! Since having other people say things about the thing is in general a productive way for me to acquire thoughts, I now invite your opinions on Shen Wei and secrecy. He's trying to tell Zhao Yunlan the absolute minimum to protect him and also the timeline, yes, but in a divergent scenario where he was unavoidably associated with Zhao Yunlan, how much would he tell? What do you think is the core of the (over)protectiveness and secrecy? What is the root of his nondisclosure?

Comments

[china_shop]

Yay, dating fic! *\o/*

I think in general, he'll disclose as much as he can to ZYL. In your soulmates scenario, if he and ZYL don't know each other well yet, and if Shen Wei doesn't trust ZYL to keep his secret from others (possibly thinking that even if ZYL is now cool with Dixingren qua Dixingren, he might be judgy about Dixingren passing as humans?), he might withhold it in the interests of preserving the Envoy's reputation and/or his position at the university. But if he trusts ZYL, then I think he'd tell.

Like, I think his motives in lying/hiding the truth are a) to protect the timeline (including details of the time loop), b) to protect Zhao Yunlan, and c) to protect his position as Envoy (with maybe a side order of protecting his position as Professor Shen). (And d) to give us identity shenanigans to play with. ;-)

[extrapenguin]

Due to Reasons, I'm pretty sure Shen Wei has more experience with dating than I do, but I can write about Zhao Yunlan inviting the Envoy over for tea/dinner/time-spending!

I think in general, he'll disclose as much as he can to ZYL.
Well, sure, but what does he think he can disclose to Zhao Yunlan? I'm pretty sure he'd say he's disclosing as much as he can in canon, but that's damned little, and he could've (should've) disclosed more.