还珠语录
Regardless of the fact that Huan Zhu Ge Ge was aired over ten years ago now, in the last couple of years the fandom actually managed to ripple up again, mainly with the news of the 2011 remake of the drama. Also, one factor that had kept the fandom a little more active (at least around me) these past couple of years is the awesomeness of various fansubbing teams who have created English subtitles for HZGGI as well as Vietnamese subtitles for both HZGGI and HZGGII.
However, let me not deceive myself. The fanfiction community for HZGG, which started on Winglin.net and now continues on Fanfiction.net, was never huge to begin with and I can safely say that I am one of the very few people still writing. Actually, I don’t think anyone had ever been crazy enough to write as much fanfiction as I have. Somehow, all my attempts at fanfiction for other fandoms usually fell flat and it seemed that HZGG is the only one that I can write with relative ease.
So this is just an overview of all my fanfics for this fandom.
1. Recollecting Pearl: Zhao Wei reminisces Huan Zhu Ge Ge with her daughter and husband. Takes place in the year 2027. Written 2007, with Fern/AndromedaAiken @Fanfiction.net.
A rather silly, spur-of-the-moment fic, probably written when I was procrastinating on some university assignment or another. It was never supposed to be a very serious piece and I was quite shocked when two years after I wrote this, there was an announcement for a remake of HZGG. Moral of the story: be careful what you wish for.
2. Without Her: Xiao Yan Zi needs to know how important she really is to everyone’s life and to the world and it’s his job to show her the truth. 8/2006
This was a fic that was written in one sitting. I’m not really sure what this was inspired by, and I wrote it to amuse myself more than anything. It would explain why it includes a very unusual crossover with Harry Potter. Personally I think Dumbledore would be delighted at some of the things that Xiao Yan Zi gets up to.
The Vietnamese version of this is Khi bầu trời thiếu cánh chim yến.
3. Eternally Yours: This is a story about loss and pain, hope, faith and love. When a person we love die, have they really gone forever, or do they still live in our hearts?
This story was inspired by a Pride and Prejudice fanfic I read once, where it deals with Elizabeth Darcy’s early death, and was also inspired by the final episode of the Korean drama Glass Slippers. While I admit to having limited patience with K-drama, Glass Slippers was one of the two dramas I have ever watched in full (the other being Dae Jang Geum). I played around with several versions of this story-line, where I debated between “focusing” on Yong Qi or Xiao Yan Zi.
In a lot of ways, EY was a very painful story to write. Chapter 10: Promises was the first chapter I wrote and it made me very emotional when the conversation was still playing in my head. I wrote this story very fast and the first draft of it was woefully under-developed, and in my rush to get all the emotions out, I posted it on AVOdyssey in a very rough first draft - if you read that version you probably never want to come back and read it again because it was very bad. I deleted it soon after, and let it sit on my computer for a few months before I went back to fleshed it out and re-edited it. I cried again.
This second draft was better developed in terms of plot and character but was still full of grammar mistakes and typos, but I posted it online anyway and didn’t edit those out until about a year later. It wasn’t until about the fourth edit that I managed to read it without tearing up - which is probably a rather vain thing to say about my own story.
The truth is, this story is very emotional and personal for me (though it doesn’t really reflect any part of my life) and it probably was a lot better as I imagined it in my head than what I put down on the page. In its current version, I still think that the writing could be a lot better, in some way it is still under-developed and a lot of the scenes are a little out of character (mostly with Xiao Yan Zi) and out of place in that setting - ironically those were the ones that made me cry. But I think I will leave it like that, because of all my fics, that is probably the one that means the most to me.
4. Unfogging the Past:
Full PDF Download Available here.
A story where Xiao Yan Zi is more mature and old memories return to haunt them. Everybody must learn that there are many different kinds of love, and you could only ever hurt the one you love. So very AU.
Part of this was in reaction to watching HZGGIII, but the idea has been around for a long while already. HZGGIII just pushed me to write it. While I love HZGG for all its romantic ideals, the practical part of me knows that in that society and in that period, the ending of the drama is pretty darn unrealistic. I don’t think Lao Fo Ye would ever allow Yong Qi to marry Xiao Yan Zi so easily and I just couldn’t resist putting them through some pain for it. So this story was born.
It went through several different plots and I actually wrote an earlier plot version of it, known as The Path of True Love, which hopefully now doesn’t exist anywhere on the internet anymore because it was almost as contrived as HZGGIII. It got intensely rewritten and replotted in this Unfogging the Past, which really is still somewhat unrealistic. This story involves one of Yong Qi’s brothers living in England for years and China actually having a diplomatic relationship with England. This is, of course, nonexistent in history. Qian Long thought he was the centre of the universe and countries like England were the barbarians. Still, I like the character of Yong Zhi too much to change his situations.
I really enjoyed writing this, even though at times it frustrated me to no end. It is literally my first, long piece of creative writing and I think it’s still my longest. I actually thought The Unforeseen Complications of Leaving (below) would be longer but it appears that it’s not.
I do have ideas for a sequel that would actually be a crossover with Pride and Prejudice and would follow Yong Zhi as he goes back to England. You can probably tell it’s heavily hinted at in the Epilogue. However, it probably won’t be written as I don’t hav a solid plot for it.
5. The Unforeseen Complications of Leaving:
Full PDF Download Available here.
The thing about leaving is that eventually you have to come back. Ai Qi and his wife Xiao Yan Zi thought when they left Beijing 17 years ago that they would never see the palace again. But one should never say never.
This was therapy for HZGGIII. I had to write this to get over my massive disappointment with regards to the character assassination of Yong Qi in HZGGIII and how the series ended. Actually, unlike what you may think, I can actually forgive Yong Qi for the whole fiasco with Zhi Hua because it was a natural progression of the story. However, I hated, hated the fact that Yong Qi left everything at the end of the series. It’s just irresponsible and cowardly and I didn’t fall in love with Yong Qi for him to abandon his family and his responsibilities like that, especially when in the series, the consequences of it was never really addressed at all. So I had to write about it in this story.
6. The Prince and Me: Sometimes I get bored with the 17th century setting of HZGG and wonder how Xiao Yan Zi and Yong Qi would actually act in the 21st century. This story is basically a shameless self-insert, cliched, Mary-Sue romcom that serves really no purpose other than to be my amusement.
7. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
Er Kang’s prison break plan didn’t work as well as they’d hoped. Things change when Yong Qi became trapped in the palace and never joined them on the escape after setting Han Xiang free.
I ramble about it here.
8. Kaleidoscope:
Full PDF Download Available here.
Actually, this fic is really helpful in doing world building and character development. Basically it’s going to be a collection of one-shot stories within the HZGG timeline. There’s a 100 fic prompts in all, I am going to try (keyword, try) to get through all 100 prompts.
Vietnamese version includes:
