#keping

[selenuntius]

First lines fic meme (they’re all so lame)

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 think everyone I’ve seen has been tagged already lol?

[selenuntius]

Zhang Haike’s Tattoo???

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’m ashamed I only thought to look this up now when I knew this was a thing. How am I supposed to not ship keping with this?? This is canon forcing my hand and I will not take objections.

[selenuntius]

I wrote a keping fic and I want to talk more about it again. It’s Zhang Haike going to meet Zhang Qiling before he heads for Changbai in 2005, but mostly just extremely Zhang-flavoured existential(?) angst.

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.

I’d like to see Wu Xie talk to him about Xiaoge. I considered making that part of this fic, a kind of flash forward? with Zhang Haike mentioning that he met him before Changbai, Wu Xie pressing him to say more, Zhang Haike maybe refusing, but Wu Xie is able to construct an entire narrative around it. What Wu Xie gets right and wrong would be very very interesting to do, but in the end I decided I wanted to give Zhang Haike some alone time with Zhang Qiling, so maybe in another fic.

[selenuntius]

keping rambling

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.

While I was writing, I kind of went back and forth on how naive? Zhang Haike really was in that situation. Like, he’s fifteen and he clearly had a really strong sense of morality, but also it started to have some Pingxie flavour to it with the whole don’t go, I’ll bring you out of this (save you) vibe, especially when I got to the don’t go part.

I thought about it and I decided to add a unique Zhang flavour to it, where he knows this is what it means to be Zhang, and doesn’t ask him to stay, where he’s going, or any of the things I see Wu Xie saying. This is justifiable in canon because Zhang Haike in the end, gave up so much for his Clan, so he’s still got some of that Zhang devotion in his, either from indoctrination since youth or magic (tianshou).

The mental image I had when writing this was Him standing under a 天井 (like a tiny open-air space in the middle of a house, surrounded by the rest of the house), looking up at the sky, Zhang Haike dropping in, bright-eyed covered in a dusting of glistening snow, and taking his hand. They flee together, but only for one night, because they’re Zhang and you can never run from that. Maybe some That Summer Saturates vibes, except this is in the dead of winter and they’re not running because they murdered someone:

「そして僕らは逃げ出した。この狭い狭いこの世界から。」

「家族も運命も何もかも捨てて君と二人で。」

I also wanted to look at this as the beginnings of Zhang Haike’s クソデカ感情 towards him. In my keping timeline (in any timeline actually), Zhang Haike’s tattoo is about him. That’s a lot, you know, considering they’d only met like twice. It was already too late for Zhang Haike by the time they got back from their test. He’d already become obsessed with Him, and I didn’t put this in the fic, but he didn’t just need to see (見届ける) what became of Him, but he wanted to be by his side as it happened. Only he would never be able to, and that was the last time he could stand beside him. I see that being a formative moment for Zhang Haike, when his childish dreams and hopes were crushed by the reality of what it means to be a Zhang. Staring up at their new clan head even younger than he was, he knew what he needed to do in life. The small, cold hand in his that last night became his driving force throughout the long years.

Zhang Haike’s allegiance to his clan actually really complicates his character for me. He doesn’t like the hierarchy and the stuff about the main clan, and he’d always been able to see through all of it to recognise the truth behind it, but he’s fine with it. He has the ability to 破局 - to flip the game and change the rules (destroy the status quo, perhaps) according to Wu Xie, and he doesn’t really do so with the Zhang clan. He still serves within it, under other people, and for what? He’s given up so much for the clan, and why? With Zhang Hailou, we’re given his need for acceptance and belonging for the reason behind his loyalty, but it’s not the same with Zhang Haike. Hence my conclusion that it’s: 1. tianshou magic, 2. indoctrination (but he doesn’t seem indoctrinated with other stuff?), or 3. Zhang Qiling. This, combined with the pointedness of his tattoo, makes me think it’s very much 3. I tried to have some of that conflict within my fic this time instead of opting for full he-did-it-for-Him, not sure if that worked or if it just felt inconsistent.

[odelajingga]

Keenan

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.

Keenan. aku sangat mencintaimu

[selenuntius]

In my disgusting all x ping mind (usually not all at the same time), Heiping is His past (Ke → Ping did exist in his childhood but it wasn’t really actual feelings but just Ke being wowed in the brief moment their paths crossed), Xieping his present and Keping his future.

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)

As Wuxie ages, he notices Haike coming to visit more often. Wuxie is not too happy about it; he feels like the vultures are circling him even though he’s still got a while to go. Haike looks less like Wuxie now, both because Wuxie has aged and because he doesn’t need to act like Wuxie anymore, but Wuxie can’t really bear the sight of him. No matter how bitter and angry he gets, Wuxie can’t raise his voice against Him, so he takes it out on Haike instead. He’s bitter, and angry, and accuses of Haike looking to replace him. Haike just laughs a little, a laugh that’s nothing like anything that Wuxie has ever done. Haike tells Wuxie it’s the existential crisis catching up to him. “This is why we don’t marry outside of the clan,” Haike tells him. “We don’t belong with normal people.”

He says normal people like mortals, and they’re gods. Wuxie knows they’re not immortal (far from immortal), but in the moment the gap between him and this man with his face feels like the endless glaciers in all of the mountains that the Zhang clan call home.

It takes a while for Wuxie to come around but eventually he does. He’s never angry again when Haike comes, and notices Haike never was there just to piss him off. Eventually Wuxie dies, He deals with Wuxie’s funeral - He brings his body back to Hangzhou, does the funeral and all as Wuxie’s surviving family, basically. And then He packs up, closes up their home in the rain village, brings all their things to Haike.

They live together. Times have changed and there aren’t nearly enough tombs to raid anymore - the ones that remain need like 5 of Zhang Qiling to make it out alive of, which might have been something the Zhang Clan could fork out in their heyday, but not now. The amazing skills that Zhang Qiling has are the product of inhumane training forced upon young children, and they don’t do that now. He’d kept up to date with technology, despite what Wuxie and Pangzi seemed to think way back, and he helps Haike.

Haike keeps all of his keepsakes of Wuxie and Pangzi and when He eventually loses his memory again, Haike brings them out and tell Him about His two friends. The longer time passes, the less Haike can tell him. Haike doesn’t have that amnesia, but memories can only be held vividly for so long.

But they’re... happy? Maybe?

[ayipmakeni]

#keping 4 : Les terakhir _________________________ Tiba-tiba rindu aja sama penulis surat ini, salah satu alasannya mungkin karena ia pulang tanpa sempat pamit. Hari itu ia dijemput sama keluarganya, sehingga ia harus pulang lebih dulu daripada teman-temannya. Dan mungkin karena buru-buru (karena bersama keluarga) jadi ia hanya bisa menitipkan salamnya padaku. Huft. Semoga Allah selalu menjagamu yaa Malam terakhir les. Materi ajar sudah habis beberapa hari lalu. Tinggal membahas soal-soal yg belum dikerjakan saja. Sehingga malam ini kuputuskan untuk berbagi pengalaman2 hidup saja pada mereka. Tanpa terasa mereka sudah tumbuh mendewasa. Sehingga aku ingin mereka bisa menjaga diri mereka lebih baik lagi ketika sudah tidak berada di Pondok Pesantren. Ada 4 hal yg aku tekankan kepada mereka, meskipun sebenarnya sangat banyak yg ingin kusampaikan. Namun, kurasa 4 hal tersebut sudah cukup untuk mewakili semua. Yang pertama adalah agar senantiasa menjaga sholat (terutama sholat yg lima). Setelah keluar dari Pondok, tentunya sudah tak ada lagi yg menggebrak, membangunkan , dan menyuruh mereka untuk berangkat berjamaah ke masjid. Kuingin mereka tetap membiasakan diri untuk menjaga sholat dengan tepat waktu meskipun tak ada lagi yg mengingatkan. Jika adzan telah terdengar, tinggalkanlah apapun yg sedang kalian kerjakan. Segeralah untuk bersiap-siap melaksanakan sholat. Begitu yg selalu aku sampaikan. Karena kelak di akhirat, sholat adalah penentu utama amalan2 yg lain. Baik sholat kita insya Allah baik semuanya begitu juga sebaliknya. Yang kedua adalah Jangan lupa kalo kita itu SANTRI. Jika hal ini selalu mereka ingat Insya Allah mereka tak akan pernah berani untuk melakukan hal2 yg memalukan maupun hal2 buruk lainnya. Karena selama kita ingat bahwa kita santri, maka kita akan malu untuk berbuat jahat. Kita akan malu untuk pacaran, untuk meninggalkan sholat, untuk mencuri dan lain sebagainya. Sekali santri tetap santri! Selama kita menjaga nilai2 kesantrian yg telah kita dapat selama di Pondok Pesantren. Yang ketiga.... (Bersambung ke Keping 5) #ayomondok #ayongabdi #mondokkeren #ngabdikeren #NurulIslam #AlumniPBSB #UniversitasAirlangga #UPB #MyMrHero #PhysicIs? (di Pesantren Terpadu Nurul Islam)

[yunasnsd]

#Sebuah Catatan Akhir Tahun# Pesan demi pesan menjadi sebuah bingkai yang memberi Kesan tersendiri. Setiap perjalanan kehidupan tak luput dari semua mata yang tertangkap kamera. Menjadi penyemangat di setiap harinya dan penggugah jiwa yang tertutup oleh kesempitan hati. Sebuah perjalanan memberi pelajaran ditiap jengkal kelumit nya. Teringat sepotong coklat dan pesan manis diatas meja kerja @anis_ramadika04 dipagi hari kala itu dan beberapa kali setelahnya. Dengan memo-memo singkat sesekali ditempat yang sama @arrum_aryani juga kado mengesankan nya. Mengiringi langkah kaki yang sesekali mampir @fivirafika @widiawatidwisaputri @dyaputris @niawakhi_230496 @zenaawly @reni_meita dan melepas lelah dan penat dari rutinitas yang menyibukkan selama ini. Menguras emosi yang terkadang meluapkan kekesalan yang menjadikan amarah dan menyesal kemudian @vinasalviana untuk sekedar memaafkan dari setiap kesalahan. Menghadirkan senyuman yang melegakan @listyoriniike yang meskipun berat untuk melakukanya. Semua adalah mengenai sebuah tanggung jawab dan beban selama ini. Mengingat dan menyapa walau hanya melalui doa @asri.st. Memberi secercah perhatian @nyania11 yang tak disangka kedatanganya. Hingga berjumpa @destriy yang meskipun hanya sebentar namun berkesan hingga kini. Dan kemudian berdatanganlah orang-orang baru @nandhamukarromah @ratna_sary13 memberikan keceriaan ditiap sambutanya. Semua seolah tak lepas dari yang namanya ukhuwah. #Bersua dan Berpisah karena Allah #Berpeluh suka dan duka #Jadikan Robithoh pengikatnya #Jadikan doa ekspresi rindu #Keping-keping kehidupan #Dalam persahabatan dan persaudaraan ilahi (di Ukhuwah Islamiyah)