veifei

[veifei]

i'm still thinking about that post i reblogged earlier about art and wanting attention/connection and i really do think, personally, that having three friends who genuinely love your art and will tell you details they like is more meaningful and desirable than 100,000 followers who interact silently. if im confident in my art now, it's because i was lucky enough to have small groups of friends who encouraged me and helped me get there when i was mega-demoralized in my art

[veifei]

sighs in why are words hard. it's wip weds let's do wip wed again yippee !!

extract also under the cut!

Xia Fei wakes. Not in a dark puddle in a deserted fairground drained of golden light, but on a soft, cold mattress, heavy patterned curtains drawn and almost everything aching. He expects a stabbing pain in his side, clutching at it preemptively, but that’s not where he’s hurting. Instead, Xia Fei’s teeth and jaw feel sore and tender and a groan falls from his lips, and though a quilt has been thrown over his frame, he’s shivery and sensitive, pulling it tighter around himself, curling up And he’s hungry. It’s a kind of hunger that gnaws at the stomach, dizzying Xia Fei.

Then, he remembers.

—

Vein might as well have tore his throat out with his fangs, feasted on Felix, then stitched him back up again, a hollow impression, now lying curled up like a small animal in bed. A shell. He watches him stir from the threshold of the room, the corridor an even deeper shade of darkness concealing him in velvet shadow. What will Felix think? That it was worth it? That he’s been saved?

It isn’t until Felix starts mumbling something that Vein has the mind to cross the threshold, trying to make out what he’s saying.

“...’T hurts,” he says, facing away from Vein, head lolled towards a satin pillow.

[veifei]

there's something about characters who never show any vulnerabilities, any gaps, any weaknesses, any exhaustion, being shown sleeping. there's just SOMETHING about it

[veifei]

Shipping Felix and Vein just coz I think Felix’s casual/streetwear style goes well with Vein’s elegant and dressy style

[veifei]

xf + 🍉 for the ask game!! (also lowkey vein + 4 if you want... ty about the questions also :O !!!!)

@blackwaves

kavi hii <3 thank you for the ask hehe !!

I'll go ahead and answer 4 for vein now because this is hilarious to think about, actually, so:

how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love? (bonus: arrange a hypothetical date between yourself and this character. getting silly with it is encouraged (fakedate them! escape a dinner date through a bathroom window!))

vein is fascinating to me because he is so deeply eccentric and strange, i am always trying to figure him out, rotate him, inspect him under a microscope, etc...irl however, i just Know i would be incredible intimidated and probably uncomfortable if he were to just approach me and start talking to me. part of that is the lack of social adeptness w strangers, yes-- especially with strange men, or just any man i don't know, i default to smiling and nodding even if i have no fucking clue what you're saying. with vein i am 100% sure he'd make some deeply strange joke and i would stand there and blink and belatedly laugh because ohhhhhh it Is a joke. but yeah i am relatively non-threatening and often have the general vibe of some sort of lost animal (< my friends have assigned this to me and. i mean they aren't Wrong) so i think vein might be quite accommodating and generous/kind towards me. say we're in a different setting, one where alcohol is involved, then the drink could loosen me up (thank god) i might even be able to make jokes back (i think i'd assume his weird cannibalism comments are for the bit, tbh, like to me vein would scream camp guy who does it All for the bit); i'd come away feeling like i met an exceptionally interesting albeit weird guy, vein would come away mildly amused by my general demeanour at best and then soon forget me, and life would go on.

first thing that pops into my mind for hypothetical date is vein inviting me to eat hotpot and then me not being able to have 90% of it because i don't eat meat LMAO. also it's totally a fakedating situation--too many rumours about him and xia fei, so he's like ok i'll just hire some paparazzi to take pictures of me and someone else--help this feels like im just writing bad self insert fic except i just wanna be homies w vein--and so he calls me up (after the hypothetical drinking occasion. that's not a phrase. whatever) to invite me and...well, free food? the real tragedy is it all being meat. i hope he'd promise a do-over or something sfjdfshjdfshjs. this got way too long,, apparently i have thoughts about this who knew.

okayyy moving on to xia fei now (real) (i may do this incrementally, with the subsequent questions as reblogs because after writing all that for the silly vein question i am. fearful of how much i have to say lol)

(1) off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?

I think the first thing I think of when xia fei comes to mind is his duality/sense of contradiction. that isn't a trait in it of itself, but colours the way he's constructed as a character to me. he's defiant and stubborn and Has principles, but he's also willing to forgo all that for money/his ambitions, and put himself in less than ideal positions for the sake of those goals. he has this sense of youthful exuberance, and yet simultaneously a muted quality to him--he's contemplative, moody, and a little isolated. i will forever think about how on his dislikes it says he hates owing people favours or something like that, because to me it deepens/complicates his dynamic with vein, someone who is seen to take care of him and come to his aid without a second thought--xia fei doesn't seem to feel all that conflicted about calling vein when in a pinch, which feels a little contradictory in the best way. we also see with shiguang that he's soft hearted and amicable and protective, and idk their first meeting is so fucking funny to me because he 1) knows he's the shit kind of, he has a model's confidence 2) goes on to knock back a beer and a half and whine to people he's Just met about how he Hates his shitty job and feels exploited LOL. obvs there was an element of masking as someone approachable and easy to trust, but there is some truth in there as well. idk. rotates him forever.

(2) adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?

i think i do Sometimes see some of fandom sort of flatten xf's multi-dimensional character into "youthful exuberance" felix, a full on victim who is an innocent baby who has NOOO idea about how fucked up vein is and "needs to get away from those two freaks (vein+lx)"

he is their poor exploited blorbo and i didn't mention this in the last q but i should've because i think facades/masks/truth and lie, and denial. is also a core part of xia fei as a character. from xf we get him saying stuff like how he's exploited, or with lx how he doesn't take bribes; but we also see him turn away from the ugly truth of it all, and he did also accept the job in the first place, and if he is as close to vein as we are led to believe and as smart as we are led to believe, then he must know Something, even if not willing to admit it. and, i feel like jack saying "felix isn't as innocent as he seems" feels like an important bit of foreshadowing. i am Hoping it is, in fact. lh0 you wanna let him be a morally complex mess sooo baddddd :)

but yeah i think ppl don't give him enough credit or agency sometimes? it's very ? to me because i think he should continue fucking up and making less than ideal choices while still trying to retain a sense of self as a Good Person,, cos its interesting <3

i think i will rb this w the other questions later. as it stands i am actually procrastinating writing lmao (i hope what ive said makes sense btw. saying words recreationally forever and ever)

[veifei]

how has no one made any gifs of this absolute queen

[veifei]

🍒 character questionnaire 🍒

(send an ask with a character name + a fruit emoji and i'll go through these questions with the character in question! alternatively: send specific numbers + a character name)

off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?

adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?

throw this character at any other character of your choice to bounce off each other as outsider pov to each other— regardless of timeline or logistics (crossovers allowed if you're interesting about it). why this combination? what insights would they have on each other?

how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love? (bonus: arrange a hypothetical date between yourself and this character. getting silly with it is encouraged (fakedate them! escape a dinner date through a bathroom window!))

ideal flavor of rotating for this character? crack them open and dissect them— do you want them tormented, pining, or being loved + comforted? do you have any specific scenarios you like to think about?

weave a web of dynamics through the cast for this character: which dynamics are you most interested in? both canonically and through extrapolation/speculation— which dynamics are the richest to you, and why?

do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes. (openly controversial takes are permitted, but also: hyper-specific headcanons which you believe in and no one else has considered enough to disagree with yet. pick a hill to die on.)

[veifei]

another escaped the dead wife club !!

Hell ya man

[veifei]

writing vampire veifei is soooo this scene of vein chomping on xia fei's neck is basically sex. like he's dying but it isn't not Not sex

[veifei]

the amount of property damage in the queen v bowa fight was giving me mad anxiety

[veifei]

on the edge with no control

He's trying to study in the library, like the good average college student he is, but Cheng Xiaoshi and Xia Fei are sitting across from him, and they're being infuriatingly distracting. Not just distracting, but touchy.

or, no, lu guang, he’s not gonna steal your man— is he?

💛 [G] 1.8k || shiguang + jealous lu guang

💛 written for @temps-lc under @sgdlraction !!

[veifei]

Reblog to give prev the power to write their fanfiction

[veifei]

Queen of the stars ✨

Her arc is coming to an end tomorrow so imma post a fanart of her :>

[veifei]

~~~

[veifei]

Out of interest in what? Men? I knew it.

[veifei]

Drew this for myself whehwhhwhehehw where the other queen lovers at:/

[veifei]

rotating individual blorbos separately is great and all but i rotate pairs of characters together as one, spinning around each other, like a pair of celestial bodies in orbit. blorbit, if you will