XanvidWeek 2026-Archive

The primary focus of this event is to highlight works focusing on the relationship between Xander Matthews and David Chiem. This relationship can take any form, from lovers to friends to enemies. As long as the focus of your works is their relationship, any depiction this relationship may take is allowed. You may include other relationships in your works, but the primary focus of your fanworks should be Xander and David’s relationship.

What is allowed:

- Fanart

- Fanfiction

- Critical Analyses

- Videos(If you plan on using someone else’s soundtrack/audio, credit the original)

- Cosplays

- Fiber Art

- Recipes

- Comics

- Sculptures

-Nsfw, as long as any potentially triggering topics are properly warned for or tagged, and the preview on social media is sfw

-Any other fanwork that falls within the category of “transformative work.” 

What is allowed, but requires permission from the original creator:

- podfic

- a fanfiction of a fanfiction

- translations

- remixes

- fanart of other fanart

- drawings of sculptures

- anything else that could be considered a “derivative work.”

Please note that you should ask the original creator of the work you are transforming if the Xanvid Week label can be attached to the derivative work. If permission was not granted, we will not promote your work.

What is not allowed:

- plagiarism

- works created with or assisted by generative artificial intelligence

-tracing

-edits of work that is not your own

- using any work created for this event for any form of monetary or transactional profit

- reusing old work from previous zines or professional work

- anything using Drdt Dev’s assets

The host will be checking tumblr, x/twitter, and ao3 for any submissions.

Failure to comply with stated guidelines means that the team and account will not help promote your work.

So long as the characters involved are all fictional and the work is properly tagged, any kind of content is allowed. If you see something you don’t like, scroll past it.

This is a reversible inclusive pairing event, meaning you may see either top!xander and bottom!david, or top!david and bottom!xander. Although we expect the overwhelming majority of submissions to be sfw, in the event that there are nsfw submissions, please understand that we will not require fanworks to be tagged by their dynamic, simply just that it is tagged as nsfw and any potentially triggering topics are tagged. If you are someone with strict preferences, please understand that this event will allow both dynamics.

There were a total of 41 entries this year!

They consisted of 28 fics and 13 art pieces.

Of the art pieces, 9 were on tumblr and 4 were on twitter.

Tumblr was the most active promotion site for Xanvid week this year, with 27 pieces being promoted here.

The host was the only participant to cross post on both sites.

There were no fics promoted on twitter except for the host's. On the other hand, the majority of fics for this event were promoted on tumblr.

Day 1 had the most participation, with sunset being the most common prompt used.

“Well, what a pleasant surprise!”

Xander’s voice is loud. David would love to say something romantic, like that his sound was that of a clear bell—but that would be simply untrue. All Xander did was scare the ducks away.

At least Xander looks a little sheepish. “Oh sorry—come back guys!”

Unlike David, the mallards are not drawn to Xander’s boisterous charm. Their green necks thin out in the distance as they swim away from the pair. And now David is left holding a plastic bag with crumbs in it and feeling awfully stupid, for some reason.

“I’m really sorry, Mr. David!”

David shakes his head. “Not to worry. Look at how round they are. I’m sure they’re managing just fine without me.”

“They’re little swindlers, aren’t they? So adorable that you just want to feed them, even if it’s bad for them.”

David tilts his head. “Is it bad for them?”

“Like everything else, in moderation, no. But like I said—little rotund fraudsters.”

David laughs because he can’t admit he just wanted to get rid of his lunch leftovers. Of course, in his attempt to rid himself of the guilt of wasting food, he could have poisoned the local wildlife. “Don’t tell Nico.”

“That depends on what you bribe me with,” Xander teases.

“Whatever shall I do? I’m just a poor man who can only afford to pay you in breadcrumbs…” Xander laughs at David’s wilting. “Anyway Xander, do you like feeding animals?”

“When I was younger, I used to enjoy feeding the racoons in my neighborhood with my siblings.” Xander’s smiles fondly. “They were awfully mean compared to the ducks—they would grab the food from you if you didn’t give it to them fast enough.”

“Like Arei?”

That makes his friend giggle. “I’m definitely telling her you said that.” Xander looks out into the calm waters, a beautiful orange color reflecting the setting sun. David has had this thought many, many times: Xander truly is so beautiful, yet strangely melancholic.

David resists the urge to reach out. He already knows what Xander is thinking. “Next time I come out to feed the ducks, I’ll invite you. You can tell me what to feed them then.”

It’s impulsive. That very instinct that years of being on stage has taught him to quash. Yet now he finds himself powerless, his words beckoned forward by the deity before him.

“Oh,” Xander says, still shaking and breathless. “You do?”

David quashes the urge to lie. This Teruko person next to Xander might have caught him in two lies already(really, what the hell would be the issue with another one) but some part of him wants to confess it all. Everything you love about me is just a lie. You are the truly inspirational one. I’m just a faker with a hair clip and bowtie and you wear a red-hot bandana with your heart on your sleeve. You wield the flag against my poisonous lies. My words keep the people subservient, and you are the one who raises them up.

But that would be too much, wouldn’t it? He glances again at Xander’s excited face, his apple-red cheeks, his glimmering eye, and finds his restraint. “Yes, I do. But, only through your work,” David clarifies, a half-truth and a half-lie like always. He won’t tell Xander about the sleepless nights he spent looking up the Chariton case; those poor children, with swollen bodies like overripe fruit, begging for David to do something, anything of worth. It was Xander who fought for them, and it was Xander who showed David a whole new world.

That someone who did the right thing was capable of standing up and winning.

“If you say that you’re a fan of my speeches, then I’ll say I’m a fan of the causes you stand for.” Including the methods goes unsaid, but he hopes that Xander hears this regardless. He knows what he simply can’t say, but he’s been straining against those bonds his whole life, and letting even just a little bit of it out makes him feel as light as a feather. He watches Xander’s face light up with boyish joy, then it turns pink, then red, and ah, he looks ready to explode. Best to conclude the speech here. “I’m afraid that like you said, I only know you impersonally, so… let’s talk again, shall we?”

“Yes! I’d love that, Mr. David!” So easy. Sadly, disappointingly easy. The way Xander gives in to David’s fawning helps David ground himself. So Xander could not be perfect. Well, no one could. “Oh, that’s such an honor! To even be known by Mr. David and be held in high regard, ah…”

Teruko helps David out by tugging at Xander’s arm, leading him away from the flatterer. As David watches Xander introduce himself to the next person, David puts a hand on his heart—it continues marching on with new revelations, with his god being remarkably cute—and sadly naïve.

***

The note crinkles under Xander’s crushing grip. He falls back on the crisp sheets in his room and he sighs, throwing an arm over his face.

Kill Teruko Tawaki. It goes without saying that there are a million questions racing through his head—why, why was this task left on him in particular, why did they all forget about her—

But at no point does his question his conviction. Yes, at the same time he asks himself why, he asks himself how.

His choices are limited. By now he has an approximate layout of the floor they are trapped on. He has some idea of the right words to coax Teruko out of her shell and into his trap. However, he does not have a way to cover his tracks.

He thinks. He thinks, but only for a brief moment. He, like what he must do Teruko, already knows what he needs to do.

It’s not a matter of inner strength. He has always accomplished everything he sets out to do.

The only question is if David will sink or squirm away. If he will continue to trust his judgement in Xander over the next two days, or if he will see through Xander’s pitiful deceit and refuse to defend him.

Xander replays David’s words in his mind over and over again, and not just the ones from today. The ones that pushed his back as a fourteen year old boy. The ones that encouraged him to keep fighting one more day. The words, the man, all of it he owes so much to.

He sighs and looks at the ceiling light. It’s awfully bright, like a star in the night sky, apocalyptically close. Xander almost wishes David didn’t know him.

XII. It is the most glorious of coffins. Never let it be said that men only receive flowers at their funerals; for these, their most exquisite of colors, scarlet as the pools of men they have spilled together, are as the jewels to the crown. It accentuates the piece as one; fitting for the greatest of rituals a human may be so precious to entertain.

All human life ought to be celebrated, and most certainly Xander’s. Though David may have been nothing but an epoch in the twinkle of Xander’s glory, utterly unfit for this sacred role, he must see things through to the end. The most noble of performers must finish the speech, even over the raucous of the swarm of deniers.

The coffin is set. Xander lays supine among the blossoms, fittingly tantalizing for the ambassador for this world to the next.

There is a sickness within David that could never be cured. It is the nature of men to chase what they cannot have.

Just a moment. A kiss, if you would. Close enough.

David wheels the coffin around, takes aim. The crowd bursts through the wooden doors. And that is that, the world goes up in flames.

XI. A girl with a mop of brown hair skewers Xander with her blade, and the end is not quite the glorious final stand that David had envisioned.

In war, it is not enough to merely win battle. It is enough for human beings, but insufficient for human nature.

He’d heard this quote, once. On the great dark sea, in sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame, the good deeds a man has done before defend him.

No such good deeds defend him now, for he has none to claim as his right. He only ever stood aside, a spectator. His heart commands him to perish here, but his mind, which knows conflict, understands that the war is not over so long as the wish continues.

Xander’s killer understands this too, drawing her still wet blade on him. But he is denied his right to a freed conscience, for he is granted mercy in the worst way.

“Let him flee,” her master with a ponytail commands. “It won’t change anything.”

Above them, as David cradles Xander close, the moon mocks them in a glowing light. Too many dreams, too enfeebled to even seethe. All of humanity is full of regrets.

X. The flames flicker weakly. Xander is at his lowest. It is entirely David’s fault, he knows. Their contract supplies power, with the incendiary being resolve.

The longer they spend together, the more David hesitates. Perhaps that look in Xander’s eye when he kills is not the blaze of passionate anger. Maybe it is simply because, however stitched back to life he is, he was still born a man. And man must still find ways to soothe himself from the human nature to conquer and kill all his opponents. Even if there were some greater truth that only the greatest merit deserves to live, it wouldn’t heal loneliness.

But Xander can no longer afford to be David’s false idol. He must be the real thing.

Another truth of the world: once a man commits murder, he must never change his view of the world, lest the sins collapse unto him.

David slides his hand over the fire. “It does not hurt,” David lies. “I will be with you until the very end.”

That is true, because the world moves in cycles. A cyclical world means the revolution will never truly end. And even then, his words are truer than Xander knows.

IX. “The lines you draw are awfully lonely.”

The charcoal stroke comes to an abrupt stop on the paper. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it. You haven’t missed a detail, as expected.”

“Of course I am meticulous, but I’ve lived in this city far longer than you.”

“So you have to capture an even longer period of time than I do; is that what you’re saying?”

David’s smile shows no teeth. “Well I wouldn’t put it like that…”

“This is one of the biggest cities in the country,” Xander comments, tapping an innocuous line on David’s sketch with the eraser end of his pencil. “And yet the lines rarely intersect.”

“Ah. So for you, it’s far more important to capture the essence of things. Is that it?”

“It’s really not that deep. Ignore the people. Even the buildings themselves cross at times. There are walkways that appear like ordinary tunnels. Nothing is so independent.”

“You want a world where random strangers have such power over the other?”

“Is that not already the case?”

“I think a city with so many intersections and no justice is the loneliest city of all. No one can really know another.”

VIII. They kill another set of competitors, more dreamers to hang up upon the tragic stars in the sky.

David hears a popping wet squelch under his shoes and wonders if annoyance is the right emotion to feel. These are his dress shoes, the ones he wears to his speeches— it would be fitting to leave bloody footprints on the stage; he is tempted for a moment, and only just that.

In any case, he holds the responsibility for choosing to pretend to be normal, so obsequious to the masses, and yet hating them so. A star to guide them, a star which reviles those under him, a star which nevertheless wishes the world was better for them so, a star who kills them in the name of making a better world for them.

Xander has never once complained about his role in all of this slaughter. David had one thought that they were alike: men that understood that words alone couldn’t alter the spinning of the earth. There is only one thing and one thing only: a will that is never extinguished.

David has never once asked Xander what his goals were when he was alive. Perhaps he should have.

VII. It must be questioned why David and Xander are doing all of this. It would be simple enough if the end result was a mere wish granted, but the victor is asked something greater.

How should the world be reshaped?

David thinks of the many books and TV shows he had voraciously consumed in his childhood. Some say it was because man was born with original sin. Others preach of empathy. Perhaps that boy who killed that girl had lived suuuuch a hard life? Don’t you know it was because he was only a child and suffered a tremendous loss? He can’t be held responsible for failing to change.

Yes, David agrees. People cannot change.

But he would like a world where people are able to.

It does not escape him that this war must by won by the strongest. It does not escape him that David himself is weak.

It does not escape him that even as he commands Xander to slaughter more in his name, he is growing soft—the theaters and their glowing, enticing lights, inviting the two in.

More memories to fill David’s empty life, more temptations of weakness; perhaps, with Xander, this world is enough.

VI. It’s not all wanton gore and violence. Sometimes there are moments before the battles that have this peculiarity to them.

Xander doesn’t own much. In life, before becoming immortalized by David’s fixations, he was a deprived lad. Shipped abroad on a scholarship, one less mouth to feed. A fixation on grades meant little to no personality, before the fire of vengeance stirred his heart. Not that he could afford much at all to start.

As such, Xander notices the absence of things. On a school morning: “David, why did you take my scarf?”

“Your scarf?”

“My bandana. Don’t be facetious. What do you even need it for, anyway?”

“Why are you assuming that I am the one who took it? Perhaps a fairy spirited it away.”

Xander stares at him like he’s stupid. “A fairy.”

“Yes.”

Xander runs a hand through his messy bangs. “I really ought to get something for these. That professor with a wild mane, the one who doesn’t open his eyes—he lectured me on how it couldn’t be possible for me to learn when I couldn’t see.”

“That would be a challenge, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.” Xander wears David’s clips the rest of the day.

V. Xander is red. Xander, soaked in red, is the height of his beauty.

But all crimson blood dulls into a dirty, muddled brown. Xander tries to wipe the blood out of his remaining eye; all it serves him is a smear down the handsome bones of his cheek.

They have taken their first life in this war. Xander may have been the only one to draw a blade, but the commander who leads the forces dyes himself just as red.

“Xander,” David calls, knowing full well that Xander must follow the sound of his voice. “Come. I will clean you.”

David is mesmerized by Xander’s stumbling form, powerful but blinded. Unseeing of David’s darkest, greatest desire.

In one hand Xander’s limbs are of great weight, in the mirrored hand, the cloth runs across Xander’s face. When David peels the sticky rag away, Xander’s eye is clear.

“Mr. David—”

“Just David, now. We share this burden together.”

“Fine. David, do you believe the ends justifies the means?”

It’s silly of him to ask, but he’s come to understand Xander is both cruel and silly. “Well yes. Of course.”

“Of course.” Is that resentment in Xander’s voice? “Because now you have to.”

IV. “I want to get to know you,” David says.

“It seems you know me plenty, Mr. David.”

“What lip. It hurts me terribly,” David admits, almost entirely earnest. He is not an honest man outside of fragments, so whether Xander knows his pain cannot, or should not, be answered. “Very well. Shall we play two truths and a lie?”

“No posing three lies, Mr. David.”

David smirks. “See? You already know me too well.” He places his hand above Xander’s open palm. The flames under Xander’s skin do not sting. “Let us begin. One: My ideal world is for the weak. Two: I can’t stomach your cooking. Three: I want to hurt people.”

Xander snorts. “Did you go easy on me on purpose? I don’t know whether I should be happy or offended.” The living weapon pulls closer to David. David can smell the fumes, the soot of ashes. “It seems we have much more in common than I realized.”

“Did you think otherwise?”

“Maybe. I think someone earnestly trying to change the world wouldn’t use your methods.”

“Are they so bad?”

“No. When I was hurt by the world, I wanted to hurt it too. We’re petulant that way.”

III. Before there was war, there was love. And within love, there is simplicity.

Does this surprise anyone? It does not surprise David, even if he cannot believe in love. Xander takes to integrating into society once more well. It is first and foremost a disguise, but second, it is because he wants Xander to understand what needs to be sacrificed. So Xander runs track. He plays an instrument. He sings like a little songbird.

They are both trapped in cages.

David puts his script down. The pages rustle. Beside him, Xander is sprawled out on the bed, knees jutting outward. They are past their adolescence, past the point where they can be considered boys, and yet Xander’s youthful energy is that of a young boy. Perhaps, almost untainted by the world. “Do you like to go to class?” David poses.

“Never.”

“Never?”

“Not ever.” Xander stretches his arms outward, past his raised knees. “I used to have a curiosity for the world as all children do, but that was eroded by my sense of duty.”

“Your duty to your past siblings, you mean.”

Xander’s smile is terribly cold. “So you know, and yet, you put me through all of this.”

II. To duel is within the nature of humanity. It is as natural as the wolf that devours the hare, as the life force drips from its maw.

Their contract is set here. The rules of this game are simple, as is war: kill the opponent.

Under Xander’s palm is a great magic. David wishes for fire, destruction—thus, that is the form he will receive.

“Do you remember,” David starts, slowly. The clack of his heels against the shiny floor reverberate against the walls. “The very first war you were made to participate in?”

“Were made. You have a strange way of recounting things, mate,” Xander says. “No one has ever forced me to do anything. Though I will acquiesce that the answer to your question is no. I cannot remember.”

“If you cannot remember, how are you so certain?”

“Because I would not have responded to your call if I did not agree with you, in part. I have faith in that.”

“Faith,” David repeats back. His eyes are full of mirth. “And you say you only agree in part?”

“Of course,” Xander answers confidently. “There can never be two people who agree on what the ideal world is.”

I. David has gazed upon Xander many times before. This is his umpteenth time.

He knows him. He knows him. He knows his face pressed behind the phone glass, memorized upon the stars. He is his north star, his compass.

The one who seeks a greater world gazes upon this man and knows: he is not human. Xander is God. Even behind the wan sheen of his skin, fading away as gods do without believers, David can sense a great divinity to him. A divinity placed there by David, by once many.

And gods are needed to fulfill wishes. It brings David no great joy to force Xander to serve him, but David is certain of one thing in this world: his justice.

The kiss awakens him. At once, Xander asks of him his wish.

“The same thing that you desired—that you still desire. To remake the world.”

David had expected a beautiful formality to his god, as he was in the interviews. Instead, Xander simply says, casual and shameless, “That’s foolish. To burn everything down also burns the flowers.”

“It is to destroy the rot as well.” David’s smile reveals the holes in his heart. “We will burn too.”

End notes:

David’s got an interesting idea of a good time—getting wasted, really wasted, like, blackout without the bar’s strobing lights kind of wasted. They’ve got this pop song from before the tragedy blasting in the background, and if Xander squints, he can almost see David’s body swaying to the rhythm. Maybe Xander’s own drinks are getting to him too.

David is… well, David is different. Wow, that was lame. Xander runs a hand through his hair, closes his eyes, and breathes through his nose.

It’s a mistake. Xander can still hear the ruckus of the drunk dancers behind them; shouting, laughing, they’re definitely having a better time than he is right now. It’s not like David is all awful in this state, and it’s Xander’s fault anyway for not cutting him off earlier. He just had no idea David loved the bottle that much.

…That’s an excuse too, now that Xander thinks about it. He winces. Xander’s head already hurts and it’s not even fucking morning. It has only been two hours since they arrived here and it’s already getting Xander all peevish. He quickly wipes his sweating face with his hands and takes a gander at David—collar loosened, bowtie practically running away, hair disheveled and loose—he looks… well there’s no good way to say this.

Loser, David had jeered, three drinks in. Sometimes it’s like David can look into Xander’s very soul and see the things he wants to keep hidden. How did David know that’s what the kids used to call him years ago, when they mocked his shabby clothing and teacher’s pet tendencies?

Anyway, David looks and acts… untoward. Yes, that’s the only way Xander can put it. His cheeks are flushed an angry red and he keeps saying shit that is really, really pissing Xander off.

It had started out with things that drew Xander’s sympathy more than anything else. I’m pathetic(No, that’s not true) I’m worthless(Mr. David, you matter to me…) I haven’t accomplished anything—

“You saved me,” Xander had blurted out. “Your words saved my life. That’s not nothing, Mr. David.”

And David?

David had laughed in his face. Told him he was always capable of accomplishing the things that he did. That David didn’t really do anything; that if David really did do anything, it was just a distraction. Like all of Xander’s pain was some kind of fluke. You would’ve gotten over yourself with or without me. David lowered himself to that of a dog. Your civil work didn’t require willpower. It required your decisiveness, your power. Or maybe you could have accomplished even more if you had some of my money. Is that it?

For the first time, Xander had thought this about David:

You Make Me Sick.

The memory of ten minutes ago is spinning in his mind. Xander huffs and, in a moment of shameful impulsivity, slams his fist into the countertop. Luck is on his side today, because the surface doesn’t break under the force of his usual strength.

It makes David jump a little in his seat, and Xander fully expects David to leave. How can anyone perceive that as anything other than a threat?

Instead, under the glimmering lights of the bar, the sweat shimmering down their bodies, tepid, disgusting, David leans on Xander’s shoulder. Passed out, Xander thinks, far too soon, far too hopeful, because—

“Ahahaha.” Xander can feel the curve of David’s smiling lips against his collarbone. “You’re so—”

“Seriously, Mr. David. Keep quiet. Please.”

“Attractive,” David says. “You’re so honest with your body.”

“Mr. David, don’t be so queer.”

David snorts. “That’s so funny. I know what you mean, but… that’s really funny.” He pulls closer to Xander, uncomfortably close. His breath tickles the side of Xander’s neck, hot and slithering upwards, towards his ear. “You’re such a nice guy, did you know that?”

Xander's heart is hammering in his chest. The music, the dancers, they all seem unbothered. Five years ago: Life moves on with or without you. David, on a screen, his hand by his heart. Even if you live as the version of yourself that you want to be, I can’t guarantee that your dreams will come true. But you will have changed someone’s life as the true you. You’ll be remembered for accomplishments that were achieved by you.

David’s knee presses against his hip, almost like he’s going to move to sit on Xander’s lap. Here, in front of all these people. It would be a good thing, the cold, brutalistic part of Xander’s brain thinks. To show the world that male affection isn’t something to shy away from in public.

But not like this. Xander’s heart doesn’t think he can take it. This gross mockery of intimacy, this tainted touch. This isn’t love.

Stop, Xander wants to say. But his mouth is dry and useless. He’s no speaker like David. He’s still stiff, frozen in place like a statue.

The truth is that no one has touched him like this without a fist in years. He can’t really say he doesn’t want it.

And so, Xander imitates his past. Not quite a fist, but a shove.

His body is weak, and so it is not harsh. David, unsteady of both mind and body, falls flat on his ass anyway.

Not one person even spares a glance.

David laughs, high pitched and loud. The music swallows it all up. The bartender, the dancers, the world, they all don't care. Wouldn’t have, whether Xander or David kissed or killed each other. “Thank you, Xander.