I've accidentally written various versions of these characters, but for simplicity's sake, I'll answer this for "the transmigrator's story" (AKA the story I'm supposed to be writing), okay?
12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?
It’s in drawing. They both irritate me. Yang Haoran is supposed to be a world class beauty. Chen Lihua is supposed to be ‘girl-next-door’ pretty. I have no idea how I’m supposed to express these qualities in drawing. If I spend too long thinking about it, I start thinking things like, “what is... pretty...? What are the features that make somebody conventionally attractive...? What makes them conventionally attractive but not too attractive? Is this character design too pretty? Is it not pretty enough?”
This sort of thing really gives me a headache.
14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?
Ah... I really had to think about this for a long time. It’s hard to narrow it down, to be honest. In the end, I’m still not sure I’ve written down the correct traits...
For Yang Haoran:
1. Yang Haoran is avoidant. His first instinct is to ignore his problems. He hates confronting them head-on. Even if he’s aware he has to do it, he drags his feet about them, both in reality and in his narration.
2. Yang Haoran is melancholy. He was straightforwardly this as a child. As an adult, he hides it, but inevitably his thoughts drift towards a pensive sadness and resignation, even though he makes jokes about it.
For Chen Lihua:
1. Chen Lihua is a liar. Sure, it’s her profession, but she’s also near-constantly acting. She’ll lie, constantly, both to preserve her own self-image as a cute and good-natured person, and to protect herself.
2. Chen Lihua is provocative. Due to the constant pressure to be sweet and perfect, her actual impulses are the complete opposite. At her best, she wants to be annoying; at her worst, she wants to be extremely cruel. Either way, she wants a provoke a reaction (helplessness? pain? something like that?).
17. Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?
Hmm... well, this is one thing I regret about them both. As the “novel story” goes, “Yang Haoran” originally commits suicide in prison because Chen Lihua visits him regularly and he develops some form of affection for her. At the time, I thought it was a nice cliche to include. The villain who originally hated the heroine becomes obsessed with her, and the fact that the heroine visits him when she has no reason to is a good way to demonstrate her kindness even to someone who tried harming her.
But their characters have developed to the point where I’m like... why would this happen?
“Yang Haoran” wouldn’t easily develop affection from something like this, and Chen Lihua wouldn’t bother doing something so pointless. So I do feel inclined to discard this, but it’s also been entrenched in the plotline for years, so I’m not really sure what to do with this.
... Aside from that, I might have made Chen Lihua's character a little too contradictory? If you asked me to fully explain why she is what she is, it's honestly a little difficult...
fth: the gongyi xiao fic * for chen lihua makes wu youxuan feel weird
hello! you get to have a long one!
So.
They were picking up a private room one day when Chen Lihua said, completely out of the blue, “I should be calling you Sister-in-Law, huh?”
“What,” Wu Youxuan said. Chen Lihua was tilting her head, eyes narrowing on Wu Youxuan like she was trying to dissect a particularly confusing math problem.
Wu Youxuan didn’t really like being a particularly confusing math problem.
“... You really don’t have to.”
Chen Lihua shrugged one shoulder. “I mean. I kind of do. You’re... official with A-Wei now, right?”
The room suddenly felt much more uncomfortable than it had been five seconds ago!
What had Chen Liwei been telling her? Had he told her anything at all, or was this a conclusion that she’d drawn all by herself? Official? In a relationship? Them?
“We’re not anything,” Wu Youxuan said, probably a little more forcefully than neccessary. Official was a strong word.
... Maybe he’d thought about it. But Wu Youxuan genuinely had no idea what Chen Liwei thought about him at the moment. What were they even doing? They’d never talked about it. Maybe they were never going to talk about it. Could you call something like that a relationship?
Chen Lihua made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “You know, if you’re going to tell me that, you two have to be way more careful about making sure the doors are closed.”
more of jiang qingchen's dimension traveling adventure. this takes place pretty closely after he runs into chen liwei for the first tim.
“Hey, A-Wei,” Chen Lihua said. “Do you keep track of the family?”
Chen Liwei wrinkled his nose. “Why would I do that.”
Their relationship with their family was bad. Not their parents – their parents were great, and also dead, which meant that Chen Liwei and Chen Lihua had spent a good few years under their uncle’s care. Nobody had enjoyed this experience. Chen Liwei and Chen Lihua had moved out as soon as they could. They hadn’t spoken a word to their uncle in over a decade. As far as Chen Liwei was concerned, his only living family member was his little sister.
Chen Lihua was frowning down at her phone. “I just got a Weibo message.”
“Don’t answer it,” Chen Liwei said immediately. “They’re probably after money.”
“Not from any of them. It’s… from a stalker, probably.”
“Don’t answer it.”
“Yeah, I know. They’re trying to get me to meet up with them--”
“Lihua.”
“Listen to me, I’m not dumb,” Chen Lihua said. “If it’s a stalker, I’ll fucking kill them, it’s whatever, it’s fine. It’s just… they said they’re hanging out with my nephew.”
Chen Liwei paused. He strode over to Chen Lihua and peered over her shoulder.
(Anon): huahua? are you reading this? your nephew would love spending some time with his aunt :(
“What nephew,” Chen Liwei said, incredulous.
“Maybe it’s a cousin-nephew,” Chen Lihua said. “Maybe, you know, they reproduced. That could be a nephew.”
“Why would you care, though,” Chen Liwei said.
“Wait, they’re typing,” Chen Lihua said. “You think it’s going to be more bullshit? Oh, wait, it’s a picture. That’s… some random kid?”
Chen Lihua squinted. He grabbed the phone.
“Hey, asshole. That’s mine.”
“Shut up,” Chen Liwei said, and looked closer at the screen.
It was a random kid. It was the random kid, the one that Chen Liwei had run into on the subway the other day, sitting straight-backed at an outdoor table with a milk tea in his hands. The expression on his face was strained.
The kid had been polite. After accidentally recognizing Chen Liwei as his father, he’d bowed his apology before taking the seat next to him. It had been a quiet ride. The kid had muttered a goodbye with another bow of his head when he’d gotten to his stop. That had been all. Chen Liwei hadn’t thought very much about it.
Somebody else clearly had.
“Your stalker’s been working hard,” Chen Liwei said tightly. Chen Lihua had publicly mentioned that she had a brother, sure, the information wasn’t hard to find. But to find the kid – that meant stalking Chen Liwei instead of Chen Lihua. And directly presenting the kid as a nephew --
“Random kid does look like you,” Chen Lihua said. “A lot like you. You think somebody went looking around for, what, someone who could pass as – hey, what’re you doing?”
Chen Liwei was pulling on his jacket and shoes. “I was sitting next to that kid on the train,” he said distractedly. “He called me dad at one point.”
“… What, and you’re saying you bonded as father and son? Weird way to get me a nephew.”
The kid hadn’t done anything wrong. The only thing he’d done was recognize the wrong person. And if whatever stalker Chen Lihua had going after her had heard that – if they had taken one look at the physical resemblance between him and the kid and extrapolated – then the reason the kid had gotten taken in the first place was because of Chen Liwei.
That made the kid his responsibility.
“… So you’re going to go get him.” Chen Lihua said skeptically. “Like a real father going after his son.”
Chen Liwei rounded on her. “Should I be doing something else?”
“We could call the police,” Chen Lihua said.
“You don’t believe in the police,” Chen Liwei said.
The police knew who they were. Chen Liwei and Chen Lihua used to call the police all the time. They had gotten sympathy, at first, for having so many things happen to them; and then suspicion, for having so many things happen to them. At some point, weren’t they just bringing things upon themselves? Being troublemakers for trouble’s sake?”
The police were sick of both Chen Liwei and Chen Lihua.
“Just throwing out an option,” Chen Lihua said, smiling mirthlessly. “You sure you don’t want to let the kid figure it out himself? He looks – what? Fourteen? Fifteen? That’s pretty old, right? Anyway, what makes you think it’s your fault? Maybe the kid wants to be there.”
“Did that look like the face of a kid who wants to be there,” Chen Liwei said flatly.
“I’m just saying,” Chen Lihua sighed. “So responsible, Gege.” With that, she hopped off her chair and headed in the direction of her room.
“… What are you doing?”
“I’m helping!” Chen Lihua called, and then, a bit muffled, “I don’t know why you’d think this is your fault. It’s my stalker, isn’t it?”
Something thumped on the floor. Chen Liwei narrowed his eyes. “What are you--”
“Got it,” Chen Lihua said, and emerged from her room. There was an old baseball bat swinging loosely by her side. “It’s going to be just like old times, huh, A-Wei?”
“Lihua,” Chen Liwei said flatly. “Are you serious.”
“What?” Chen Lihua said. “You can go after my stalker, but I can’t? So unfair, Gege. That’s sexist.”
Chen Liwei pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lihua.”
“Stop saying my name like that, I’m not a little kid,” Chen Lihua said. She tilted her head, her smile hard. “C’mon. Am I supposed to let you do this alone? Don’t be fucking stupid.”
… It was true enough, that they’d never really let the other go alone. It had always been Chen Liwei and Chen Lihua. Liwei-and-Lihua. They came as a set. Even when their career paths had split off, they’d still stayed together. Chen Liwei followed after Chen Lihua, and Chen Lihua followed after Chen Liwei. That was how it worked.
If you’re not busy, would love to see more of Yang Haoran and Chen Lihua’s relationship.
hiiii here's them, in a car again
“It’s lovely to see you again,” Yang Haoran said, and it didn’t even sound like a lie. He smiled at Chen Lihua from the back seat of the car, and gestured for her to get in. “Mingxi said you needed to be dropped off?”
Yang Haoran was a man that smiled often, so being greeted with a smile wasn’t new, coming from him.
But there was a certain kind of smile that Yang Haoran wore when facing Chen Lihua that he seemed to wear just for her. If she had to describe it, it was not unlike a piece of paper pasted over his mouth, applied with not-quite enough glue. It was a strained little thing, buffeted by the wind of Chen Lihua’s presence. Every now and again, it threatened to fall off entirely.
Chen Lihua would have to be an idiot to not know that Yang Haoran didn’t like her.
It wasn’t a recent development. He’d been like this for years, even when they’d first met. Back then, it had been easily brushed over. After all, she hadn’t known what Yang Haoran normally acted like. But once she’d seen him interact with literally anybody else?
She’d prodded Zhao Yuhang a bit, done some eavesdropping. The most Yang Haoran had ever apparently expressed to Zhao Yuhang was that she was some harbinger of ill fortune. Zhao Yuhang seemed to think that this was a poor excuse for not wanting to be around her, but.
It wasn’t like Yang Haoran was wrong. Chen Lihua was a harbinger of ill fortune, even if she hadn’t been called anything like that since high school. It was almost nostalgic, hearing it again.
Of course, Yang Haoran never said anything like this to her face. In person – and being that he was her sponsor’s fiance, she ran into him a lot in person -- he was perfectly polite. And if he was perhaps trying a little too hard to be perfectly polite --
“Oh, you don’t have to,” Chen Lihua said. “I’m fine walking!”
“It’s Mingxi who sent the car over, not me, I just happened to be here,” Yang Haoran said. “So for me, it’s no trouble--”
“But I wouldn’t want to divert you,” Chen Lihua said. “If you were on your way to do something--”
“I wasn’t doing anything important,” Yang Haoran said. The corners of his eyes tightened, almost imperceptibly. “So. I insist.”
“Well,” Chen Lihua said, and gracefully boarded the car. Yang Haoran’s smile twitched. “If you insist.”
They’d had this interaction before, almost word-for-word. Either one of them could change this; neither of them did. Yang Haoran never wanted to call her out on it, and Chen Lihua…
the chen twins again. scene came up in my mind. probably not going to be used. here it is anyway
“I didn’t mean to,” Chen Lihua said defensively, hitting harmonics she only normally reached when villain-monologuing on stage. “I thought he could take it! Creeps always take it!”
“Shut up,” Chen Liwei said, pressing a hand to his temples.
Because his little sister only half-listened to him, she didn’t shut up, but she lowered her volume. “They’re normally stronger than this!” she whispered furiously. “Who dies from a little knock on the head?”
Funny way to describe it. It wasn’t ‘a little knock on the head’. It was a blow to the head with a baseball bat at full strength.
Chen Liwei ran his tongue over his teeth. “Lots of people.”
But Chen Lihua did this kind of thing all the time, and not one person had been seriously injured until literally right now. In hindsight, that was a little weird. Chen Liwei had always assumed they’d always had the (mis?)fortune of running into people with extremely thick skulls. Chen Lihua had always been a little put out she’d never managed to do real damage.
Well, now she had done plenty of real damage.
Good for her, he’d say, if damage didn’t mean dead.
Emotionally speaking, dead was great. That was another asshole was never going to bother either of them again. Legally speaking…
Chen Liwei glanced down at the body at their feet. It had the stupidest fucking expression on its face.
Consequences.
There was only so far ‘self-defense’ could get you, especially when you were no-name orphan kids barely holding onto tuition money.
“What do we do?” Chen Lihua said. “Do we loot him? He was going to fuck us up, so it’s only fair, right?”
“Don’t loot his body,” Chen Liwei said.
“Why not? A-Wei, don’t you know how video games work? When you defeat an enemy, there are drops--”
“Lihua,” Chen Liwei snapped, and at that, Chen Lihua broke out into a fit of giggles.
Shitty fucking time for a joke.
Chen Liwei was about half an hour older than Chen Lihua, which was barely any time at all. But barely older was still older. Chen Liwei was the older sibling, which mean that he was the responsible one. He was the one budgeting their paychecks, he was the one who made sure his little sister ate properly, and he was the one Chen Lihua listened to when shit hit the fan.
thinking about my cnovel actress heroine and realizing she would looooove doing villain roles. like yessss she's good at innocent cute love interest and scheming green tea roles, because that's literally her entire life. but do you know what she's never been deemed capable of doing? meaningful literal actual harm. do you know what she wants to do?
she would love it. she would revel in it. does she get to ruin someone's life? great! does she get to be the reason someone else needs therapy? fantastic! does she get to kill someone on camera? this is the best day of her life.
thinking about teenage chen lihua and mu qilian again.
The door slammed unexpectedly behind her, which made Chen Lihua vaguely felt like she might have stepped into a trap. She knew it was a trap when she turned around and found Mu Qilian leaning against the wall.
“You,” Mu Qilian said, “are such a fucking freak.”
Chen Lihua tilted her head. As far as traps went, this probably wasn’t going to be too bad. For one, only Mu Qilian was here. While it was usually a pretty bad idea for Chen Lihua to be alone with anyone, Mu Qilian had recently proved herself interested in Chen Lihua’s well-being, so.
“Sure,” Chen Lihua said.
“When I said that you should stop looking like a stalker,” Mu Qilian said, “I didn’t mean that you should actually become a stalker.”
“Wow,” Chen Lihua said. “I never thought about it like that.”
With an irritated tsk, Mu Qilian loped forward to jab a finger at Chen Lihua’s chest. “You’ve been following me. I thought I was just – fucking – imagining it, but you’ve actually been stalking me, what the hell?”
“Stalking’s a strong word.”
“What the fuck else am I supposed to call it.”
“I didn’t follow you home.”
Mu Qilian hissed like an angry cat. “Just because you didn’t follow me home doesn’t make you not a stalker.”
