#keping

Thanks @laireshi​ for tagging me.

Generally in chronological order, including some short things. Also this does look like I started writing three months ago, but I’m not including the one fic I posted four years ago even if it is DMBJ because I’ve done so many things between then and when I started posting again and I can’t be bothered to scrounge them up.

Patterns-wise I think I generally don’t go for strong opening lines? I keep whatever got me started on a fic, probably because recently I haven’t been spending a lot of time dwelling over my fic thoughts before pumping one out and just posting it. For example, Debt is an exception, because I’d played around with the idea for quite a while before I decided it was something I could write and post. Or some of the short ones, because I cut out the boring parts and go straight to the action (well, "action” by my standards. They don’t even kiss)

Gotta go with Guanyin for my favourite opening line. Doesn’t make much sense outside of context, but after reading the fic and coming back to it it really hits different. Runner’s up maybe my Yantou fic for how romantic it is. Pingxie is obviously a slow-burn ship, and even things like Keping and Yanping it’s not that romantic. Yanping is an idealised love, but also a selfish one. Keping can be very romantic, but there’s a quiet and enduring quality to it that’s still different.

1. Snow Country (Zhang Haike/Zhang Qiling or rather Zhang Haike & Zhang Qiling)

They got back home just as New Year’s rolled around.

2. Untitled Yucun Garden c.12 inspired fic (Pingxie)

That night, my dreams cycled through ice and fire as I froze to death in one dream before immediately immolating in another.

3. Untitled Xiaoge whump-ish thing (short)

Pangzi and Wu Xie were talking about something again.

4. Everybody Finds Love (In the End) (A-Tou/Liang Yanyan)

A-Tou knew, the moment she first laid eyes on Liang Yanyan, that she was never going back to what her life had been.

5. Who Dares Not Gaze Upon Guanyin? (Pingxie)

(Not mine! But I’ll never pass up on a chance to promote it, probably the best Pingxie fic I’ve ever read.)

We often had festivals to thank the gods in the village. Who was it who dared not look upon Guanyin?

6. Untitled Zhang Hailou/Zhang Qiling vignette

Zhang Qiling’s tongue sweeps across his lips, leaving an obvious line of crimson in its wake.

7. Eternal Glaciers (Pingxie)

“His heart is like ice,” Wu Xie said after a good few glasses of alcohol.

8. And maybe there would be just one fish in there. (Pingxie, Yucun Garden c.5 extension)

I looked at Menyouping, still watching the show. He noticed me, of course, and turned to look at me.

9. Debt (Pingxie)

I came close to fucking him once.

10. His Name (Zhang Hailou/Zhang Qiling)

Of all the Zhang clansmen, Zhang Hailou mused, Wu Xie probably hated him the most.

11. Qilin Among Clouds (Pingxie)

It all started with my grandmother’s 90th birthday.

12. Spring Shall Come (Pingxie)

Zhang Qiling passed out the moment they stepped off the mountain and met up with Wu Xie’s subordinates, startling both Wu Xie and Pangzi.

I finally went back and dug out the short where Zhang Haike’s tattoo is mentioned and I can’t believe it’s fucking real. XL what were you thinking giving him a tattoo like that?

So the snippet is from a poem called 更漏子 玉炉香, written by 温庭筠 (812-870 CE), and simply put, it’s about a woman missing her husband. Here’s a translation.

Again, XL what were you thinking? Who are we supposed to think Zhang Haike is thinking of? What did you have in mind when you chose this? Surely you didn’t just choose this because it sounded nice - the meaning is very obvious. Or was this all just so that you could give Zhang Haike a (dead, Tibetan, female) romantic interest in the Zanghaihua drama, like 5 years later? I can totally see that coming and I will never accept that as canon, if it does happen.

I cut so many things from it because it was all over the place with the song lyrics, and I accidentally deleted some bits instead of just relocating them. Kinda sad, there were some cool ideas but the fic is probably better off without them.

I’m happy that I got to do a version of the he whispers his (real) name but is cut off by something scene that keeps bouncing around in my empty head like a DVD logo. I originally wanted to do it at night, at a cool place by the sea like Victoria Harbour or the Bund or something, but a dusty rundown bicycle lot under a highway overpass also works I guess.

Honestly the whole conversation is written so vaguely I feel like you really need to get into the same headspace as me to understand it. Like, it’s based on specific interpretations of canon. Well, some things are just canon, like the Zhang clan having taken turns doing their gatekeeping duties, or some things that are arguably implied, like Him totally intending to go in there and staying there (remember the ten years thing only happened when Wu Xie didn’t give up). Or references to particular lines from the book, like “Zhang Haike has tried throwing himself into the center of the game, dancing with their unknown foes to glimpse a hint of a face under a mask” basically being an artist’s impression, if you will, of what Zhang Haike tells Wu Xie about why he’s pretending to be Wu Xie in ZHH. I literally never say any of those things out loud. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it felt right to me though now they feel extremely specific.

Like I said last time, Zhang Haike’s motivations are very confusing, but that also makes him a very interesting character. There’s this push and pull between his allegiance to the clan and his disdain of it, and thus the ship lies in that contradiction. And his position within the clan - he’s from the branch family, but what about the rest? Does Wu Xie saying royalists in Blind Tomb imply the existence of factions within the Zhang clan? Where does Zhang Haike fit in that? He seems pretty chill, but he also is very much an extension of the Zhang clan’s purposes in ZHH.

It’s been a while since I’ve done something for keping and honestly my fic just couldn’t cover all of my thoughts re. them. In fact, the fic isn’t zhk/zql at all, it’s more like zhk+zql. I thought about adding them to the notes but it’s just wayyy too much in the end.

Seperti bertemu dengan belahan jiwa, menemukan keping puzzle yang hilang. Begitu aku menemukanmu. Keenan, lelaki rupawan yang tanpa kekurangan. begitu menurutku.

Suka padamu merupakan sebuah takdir dan anugrah. Tidak hanya nama yang hampir sama, Kinanti dan Keenan. Bahkan kebiasaan kitapun tidak jauh berbeda. sefrekuensi, begitu istilahnya.

Namun perasaanmu tentu bukan pengaturan bagiku. maka melepaskanmu adalah akhir dari kisah ini. Keenan, andai kamu menemukanku lebih dahulu. akankah ada perbedaan pada rasamu?

tentu takdir saja tidak cukup untuk mendapatkanmu.

I saw a keping writer on lofter talk about how keping is considered a wrong interpretation, even with canon now (not sure what happened, did they interact and did He just not remember anything?), but how they believed in the end they belonged together because of their shared longevity. I completely agree. I’d like to add that I don’t see Heiping being his future even though technically Xiazi also has some kind of longevity, because XL keeps hinting at Xiazi possibly dying. I just don’t see him surviving past Wuxie’s death now, barring Wuxie dying of unnatural causes.

I’d be totally down for a fic where He doesn’t have any romantic feelings (or He doesn’t even have any strictly romantic, especially sexual feelings!) for Wuxie, but it willing to stay with Wuxie because he knows Wuxie feels for him that way, and because he feels like he owes it to him (and because he doesn’t mind taking a break once in a while, and a couple of decades is starting to not feel like a big deal to him as he crosses into his 100s). Wuxie knows, too, and doesn’t really care. They’re super platonic and maybe do it like once, then Wuxie just doesn’t really want to if He isn’t up to it.

(Long xie → ping and eventual keping rambling after the break)