#so i isolate myself instead a d repress my feeling s

[jonathanjoestarsflatass]

y- yolo? don't read the tags if you don't want your day ruined please

please

[imagineimagineimagine]

Fluff Alphabet with Ganyu?

Ganyu: A-Z Fluff Alphabet

This request was sent in before I made my rule. If you would like to send in a request using this alphabet, please make sure its 1 character with 1-4 letters or 2 characters with 1-2 letters each.

Fluff Alphabet can be found here: Click Me!

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A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about their partner?)

Physically: Ganyu loves the sound of your voice. When it's loud and boisterous she can't help but feel captivated by it, and when its low and subdued, it one of the most soothing things she has ever had the honor of listening to.

Mentally: Ganyu loves how patient you are. While her job demands that she regularly interact with those who demand immediate (and oftentimes impossible) results, you are her own personal little oasis away from it all which allows her to finally take a moment for herself.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

Long story short, it's complicated. The answer to this question would be heavily reliant upon the lifespans of both you, and the children. For Ganyu, the only way she could see starting a family with you would be if both you and the children had extended lifespans like she does. If only one or neither of you lived as long as she did, then she would be very hesitant to even consider the possibility.

If both you and the children were human, then she would only get to spend at most a century with this family she was blessed with before you would all pass on. You being human but the kids immortal also wouldn't work. Ganyu was given to her human father to raise, but a large majority of her childhood was spent being raised by Cloud Retainer. If you were human, then even when you were an old man/woman the children would still only have matured to the physical age and mental maturity of toddlers.

If both you and the children were immortal, then Ganyu still be a little hesitant, (as she would worry as to whether her children would feel as isolated as she once did), but would be far more receptive to the idea of starting a family. The children being adopted or biological would mean very little to her.

C = Cuddle (How do they like to cuddle?)

It will take some time before it happens, but when Ganyu becomes comfortable with your presence in both her life and her personal space, you will find that she is 100% a touch-starved cuddle monster. Ganyu's favorite way to cuddle is to be curled up in your lap, with her head resting against your chest, while your arms wrap around her to hold her close. When you gain her absolute trust, she greatly enjoys having you lightly stroke her horns as you cuddle. Be warned though, she can and will steal your body heat like no tomorrow. Her Cryo Vision means she's fantastic to cuddle with in the summer though.

D = Dreams (How do they picture their future with their S/O?)

Ganyu's dreams for the future are relatively simple. Beyond the general continued peace and prosperity for Liyue Harbour, all Ganyu wishes for is that you remain safe and healthy no matter how many years may pass. Some more responsibilities beyond that of just secretarial work would be nice too.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…))

"Next to you, is where I want to belong. Even after centuries of wondering, I still do not know if I should be allowed to live side-by-side with humans or the Adapti. Maybe instead of trying to answer that I've been burying myself in numbers and reports trying to escape reality. But when I am with you, I feel as ordinary as everyone else, and your love makes me feel like I belong. So may I stay by your side."

EDIT: I know I used "you is" instead of "you are" but its my post so I make the rules

F = Feelings (When did they know they're in love?)

Ganyu has a tendency to internalize and repress a lot of her more "uncertain" emotions, so it will take her a while before she even realizes herself that she has fallen in love. That being said, even if she does represses them, her crush on you tends to make itself known through other forms. When you're not present, Ganyu behaves as diligently as she always does. When you are in front of her however, all her attention seems to be laser focused solely on you.

Something about you just seems to demand her attention and gets her heart racing like no tomorrow. More than likely someone like Keqing will bluntly ask her why she behaves so strangely when you're around, resulting in her realizing that she might have feeling for you.

G = Gratitude (How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their S/O does for them?)

Ganyu is insanely grateful to have you in her life. A part of her still can't believe that she has been blessed with someone who loves and accepts her no matter how different she may be from both humans and Adepti. In her many centuries of living, her only goal has been to honor the contract she made with Rex Lapis. And while she still fully intends to honor that contract, perhaps it's time she made another with you.

H = Honesty (Do they have secrets they hide from their S/O?)

The only secrets Ganyu tries to actively keep from you are those which she is legally obligated not to reveal. Seriously, knowing which toothpaste Ningguang uses, probably requires signing like five NDAs. That being said, Ganyu also has a tendency to keep her own fears, worries, and insecurities to herself. She doesn't want to burden you with them, so even if its something which has been bothering her for a while, she would prefer to keep it to herself; especially if those worries are related to you and your relationship.

I = Injury (How would they react if you got hurt?)

Ganyu's handles you getting injured pretty decent. You don't live as long as she has or fight through the Archon War without being able to keep your cool under pressure. She's worries about you regardless, but generally her reactions will depend on how bad the injures you got were. Ganyu handles you getting a little hurt (cuts, bruises, broken bones) pretty well. Thanks to all of her experiences, she's pretty good at being able to gauge how bad an injury is at a glace and what she needs to do medical treatment wise to make sure you're going to be okay.

You getting hurt severely (life and death situations) is where she really starts to panic. When this happens, all of Ganyu's fears and worries came rushing forward from the corners of her mind. Not knowing whether you're going to be all right, the soul-crushing feeling that she is going to lose you/spend the rest of her life alone, etc. Its going to take a while before she'll feels ok again or stops worrying about you.

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous? How do they deal with it)

Ganyu doesn't get jealousy so much as she gets insecure. This feeds back into her feelings of being isolated, her "otherness", wondering if she spends too much time working and not enough time with you, etc. When this happens, Ganyu tends to get quiet, put her head down, and tries to act busy. This is further compounded by her dislike of sharing her insecurities with you unless prompted. As you relationship becomes closer however, Ganyu will become more comfortable in expressing those emotions to you, or confronting the person directly and telling them you're taken.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss you? How do they like to be kissed?)

For a person like Ganyu who is easily flustered, cheek and forehead kisses are the best; both to give and receive. They convey a lot of emotion but still remain chaste and don't tend to get as heated as kisses on the lips do. As your relationship progresses however, Ganyu will like to give very quick pecks on your lips when the two of you are alone, and in turn she likes to receive kisses on her lips and horns.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

I feel like 8 times out 10 you would say it first rather than Ganyu, but I had an neat idea so I'm going to write about that instead.

Surprising, Ganyu was the first to say "I love you". For a large portion of your relationship with her, you decided to let her dictate the pace at which your relationship progressed. That way, with every step of this journey the two of you would take together, she could have time to feel comfortable with the myriad of new experiences she was enjoying with you. During one of her rare days off, (which for once she requested), Ganyu took you to one of her favorite places in all of Liyue. There, as the two of you settled in for an afternoon nap underneath the mid-day sun did Ganyu say those three words you didn't know you were going to hear so soon.

M = Memory (What’s their favorite memory together?)

Ganyu's favorite memory is during one of the visits to Cloud Retainer's domain. While not the first time she had taken you to visit the Adepti who raised her, it was the first time she realized just how well the two of you got along. Seeing two of the most important people in her life converse and understand one another made Ganyu feel as though perhaps one day both sides of her could be accepted.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

After a 1000 years of working, this girl is stacked. Ganyu is the type of person who would spoil you, but only on specific occasions. She isn't the type of person who will notice you looking at something and then immediately buy it for you; unless of course its a practical purchase. You weapon needing immediate maintenance is something she would gladly pay for, you noticing some nice jewellery or a fancy watch is not. Spoiling you is pretty much reserved as a reward for celebrations or anniversaries. On those occasions however, Ganyu will have bought you far more presents then you will even know what to do with. Most will have been bought or commissioned, but there will always be at least one thing handmade present amongst the piles.

O = On Cloud Nine (What are they like when they're in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?)

When Ganyu is in love, she is much more cheerful and energetic. While she always handles with her responsibilities with greatest care and enthusiasm, now it seems as though there is no amount of overtime which can keep her down. As she goes about her duties, her cheeks always seem to have a little bit of red to them and small smile never seems to leave her face.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Ganyu would keep it pretty simple with the pet names she calls you; only really using one or two. In the company of others, she would simply refer to you using your name, (as called you by a pet name with others around would absolutely make her explode with embarrassment). In private, Ganyu would probably refer to you as something classic, such as "love", "dear", or some variation of your name.

Q = Questions (What are the questions they’re always asking?)

"Is there anything you would you like some help with?"

*yawn* "Would you like to take a nap together?"

"I'm free for lunch/dinner today, would you like to join me?"

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

While Ganyu definitely loves listening to the sound of the rain while sitting in the courtyard, unfortunately its appearances bring with it quite a bit of extra paperwork and overtime. Guilds and merchants complaining about the muddy roads, ships returning to the harbor in need of immediate repairs, etc. Thankfully though, her office inside Yujing Terrace is nice and warm, and the sound of rain falling is perfect for taking a quick nap.

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/S/O up?)

When were you're sad, Ganyu immediately starts by hugging you and stroking your hair. It doesn't matter how long it takes for you calm down, Ganyu will stay right there by your side. After that's done, Ganyu will calmly listen to everything you have to say while already formulating a plan on how to fix whatever it was that upset you. When Ganyu is sad, its best to simply listen to what she has to say. Don't offer advice, or a solution, just be there for her and listen. There aren't many people to whom she can simply vent to, so just listening to her problems is very therapeutic for her.

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

Ganyu is more of a listener than a talker, or prefers to just sit in an comfortable silence with you. That being said, topics such as Rex Lapis, and the changes in Liyue, (both to its people and the city itself), over the centuries are always really good and interesting conversation topics for her. The dogs down by Liyue's waterfront are also another topic which Ganyu could talk about endlessly. She has personally named them all, and knows each of their favorite ways to play.

U = Understanding (How well do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?)

Ganyu understands her partner very well. There will always be a part of her which may sometimes over analyzes your words and actions, but she knows first and foremost that you would never do anything to hurt her. In turn, Ganyu is incredibly empathetic. She will never mock or ridicule your for your pain, and would do everything in her power to make sure you live as happy of a life as she can possible provide.

V = Value (How important is the relationship to them? What is it worth in comparison to other things in their life?)

Ganyu places a great deal of importance and reverence on your relationship with her. As the relationship progress and your connection to one another becomes stronger, Ganyu would come to consider both you and your relationship with her to be as important as her contract with Rex Lapis is. A contract which she has faithful abided by for over 1000 years.

W = Wedding (When, where, and how do they propose?)

Ganyu will consider proposing after you were rescued from a life or death situation. Almost losing you would get her to reevaluate a lot of things in her life. She knows being married won't magically make you safe from all potential dangers, but if anything were to happen, she wants there to be as few lingering regrets as possible.

There is only one place where Ganyu considers proposing, her childhood home: Mt. Aocang. She prepares literally everything from the food to her proposal speech, to what position the sun should be almost an entire year in advance.

X = XOXO (How affectionate are they? In public/in private)

In public, Ganyu prefers to keep affection to a bare minimum or not at all. While she enjoys the affection she receives from you, its rather embarrassing and unprofessional to participate in it when in pubic or in the company of others

In private, Ganyu is rather affectionate, especially when she become comfortable with you. She is 100% the type of person to bury their head into your chest, back, or neck and nuzzle while humming at how content she is.

Y = Yearning (How well do they cope when they're separated from their S/O?)

Ganyu's ability to cope with separation becomes worse the longer the two of you are together. While at first she is very good at being separated from you for days at a time, after a while she begins to miss you almost as soon as you leave the room. While still as diligent in her work as ever, the best part of her day is definitely coming back home to see you.

Z = Zeal (Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship?)

Ganyu is definitely willing to go to great lengths for your relationship to succeed; perhaps a little too far sometimes. Once you've established that connection, Ganyu would do a lot of things to maintain it. All within reason of course and never at the detriment of other, but she might do somethings to the detriment of herself. Pushing herself harder to make time for both you and work, repressing problems she is having with the relationship, etc. If you have any dignity, make sure you take care of this girl and never betray the trust she places in you

[historiesofabody]

‘transparency’ - message from D. to S., July 2018

Thu, Jul 26 2018

7:58 PM

S__,

I told you previously that I would not be contacting you again, and therefore I will not be expecting you to reply to or even read this, especially considering its length.

I have decided to contact you because I do not want our last interaction to be the one that defines us, and I want to take this opportunity to treat you with the consideration and care that I also hope for from you.

In the months following our last exchange, I have felt more and more uncomfortable with how I treated you, as well as [your partner], in those communications. I realised that, despite my resolutions to have changed and moved beyond the grip of our relationship, I had lapsed directly back into our abusive dynamic. When you defended yourself against my statements, my response was impulsive, destructive and emotionally irresponsible. I attacked you with aggression, viciousness and showed a complete lack of consideration for what I had actually wanted to achieve by contacting you.

To be clear, I am not retracting my statements about your behaviour towards me during our relationship. That violence was real, and its' impacts have been long lasting. However, I realise that, despite demanding intensive reflection and self-criticism from you, I was both overly punitive and wilfully misrepresentative in my approach. I did not offer space for the nuances or complexity that characterised our interaction. I was, at that time, unable to navigate my response to our relationship without casting you as the sole abuser and myself as the helpless victim. I can understand how you might not have recognised yourself in my descriptions of you. I thought that confronting you in that manner would bring me closure. It has only caused me further grief and anger, along with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness – perhaps it has done much the same to you.

I want to take this opportunity to be more transparent. I was not entirely helpless in our relationship. I was misguided and misled by you, but not completely oblivious. I often fought back, hard, and I also caused you pain. I soon saw you for what you became around me and saw what we did to each other, but I did not make enough attempts to help you or myself escape that. I stayed with you, not just out of fear but also because I think by that point we were traumatically bonded, and were as emotionally dependent on each other as we were emotionally abusive. I was afraid of you, but also of what I became around you. I felt that I was under your control, to the extent that I never considered that I maybe frightened you or that you felt frightened by my destructive behaviour towards you or myself. I felt trapped and isolated but never considered that you felt the same.

Your suggestion that we were merely unhealthy only reminded me how difficult we always found it to express how much our interaction damaged us. You may not agree, but I feel certain that we were unable or unwilling to communicate and work through any feelings of vulnerability with each other. You always insisted I couldn't hurt you and I particularly remember your assertion that I would always suffer more than you; so I started fights to show you that I could, and that I wouldn't.

You have previously refuted that I ever caused you any harm and if that is your experience, then I must accept that. We should each be free to deal with our experiences as we see fit.

Nevertheless, I wish to take responsibility for the harm that I (at the very least) intended and I want now to sincerely express that I was wrong to treat you the way I did. No matter how badly you treated me, that does not justify or excuse my actions. I could've sought different ways to challenge, de-escalate or escape your abuse other than threatening you or being physically violent towards you, because other options were available. I was just as guilty of not showing you the compassion that you also withheld from me. You may not deserve my forgiveness now, but you also did not deserve to be punished then, and my reprisals against you only served to reinforce a cycle of violence that further damaged us both.

I should acknowledge, too, that our relationship was not entirely characterised by violence and abuse. I know there were times, mostly early on, when we were very typical teenagers who believed we loved each other and were relatively, innocently happy. I cannot think of those times with any fondness or pleasure now, but I know that, at the time, these initial moments of calm and tenderness were what convinced me we should stay together even as the abuse escalated. Of course, our dynamic was such that the worse the fight, the more intense and committed the reconciliation and so the pattern continued until we were permanently exhausted and resentful.

When you wrote in your September email that you never intended to hurt me, it triggered a particularly intense objection from me. I've since begun to consider that our relationship challenged you, as it challenged both of us, to be vulnerable and open. We were both too afraid to be so. You did not set out to hurt me, but you wished to maintain power and control, and hurting me made that possible. I believe you needed to see me struggle because it stopped you from feeling vulnerable, not necessarily because it brought you pleasure. When it came to sexual coercion, I don't think you particularly enjoyed assuming or contravening my consent, but simply that my agency did not matter to you at all. I think you felt I was punishing you by witholding sex from you, and that it was your right to take what I wouldn't give by way of manipulation and psychological pressure. You never considered that my gestures of refusal, reluctance, discomfort or full psychotic disassociation at such times signified how violated, distressed and trapped you made me feel.    

The way you treated me - the way we treated each other - was the result of a severe lack of care or consideration, mostly (I think) because we each believed the other was stronger, more unfeeling, more in control. As you pointed out, our dynamic was such that you held the majority of the power, which you consequently abused. Unfortunately, our relationship was consistently framed by both of us as a struggle for dominance when it should have been a safe and caring environment.

I do not think I had very good models of care to offer you. Though we never acknowledged it, I brought a lot of past trauma into our relationship. I had a neglected childhood and was abused by a family friend from the age of eleven. You never wanted to talk about the past, yours or mine. I have wondered many times whether you too had traumatic experiences when you were younger that lay the foundations for your behaviour. I theorise this because I believe that abusive behaviours are not innate but learnt and later deployed as survival mechanisms. When I am feeling particularly compassionate, I wonder if perhaps we recognised and felt drawn to the pain, loneliness and difference in the other, but that we were simply not emotionally strong enough to support each other, and instead put everything we had into avoiding any real intimacy.

I don't think I will ever be able to fully articulate why we felt it was so necessary to bait and punish each other so much. Reading past diary entries, I am shocked at our sustained campaigns of aggression against each other. Neither of us can go back and make that right. Instead, I am simply grateful that it did eventually end and that perhaps now we have both found healthier and safer spaces to recover and have a necessary distance from that time.

This brings me to my final statement, which I hope you will appreciate is difficult to disclose. You suggested that I was 'haunted' by our relationship but I don't think that is the case. I spent many years after our break-up completely avoiding thinking about it, you or how I might have been affected by it. The reason I contacted [your partner], and then you, almost a decade after our interaction ended, was because of a series of realisations and events that pushed me to un-repress and reassess my life up until to that point.

In early 2016, I realised that I was neither a girl nor a woman, and, to put it in somewhat cold clinical terms, have since pursued physical and social 'transition', including changing my name. Once I had this distance from my experiences as [deadname], I was overwhelmed by insights and embodied understandings that I had never had access to before. I had spent much of my life disassociated and detached, where things had happened to my body, but not to me. Our relationship was one of those remote experiences that landed most heavily and mercilessly when I began to identify fully with myself.

I have allowed myself to wonder whether my repressed gender identity had an impact on our relationship. It is a source of some pain to me that perhaps if I had just been a cis teenage boy, we could've been friends, or something else, and made something better out of our inexplicable but genuine connection. For some reason, in hindsight, our relationship makes far more sense to me as a very fraught, closeted queer relationship, rather than a deeply dysfunctional heterosexual one. But these are theories, not facts. By committing to them, I run the risk of problematising my identity rather than engaging in the real work of responsibility and reflection. That work is daunting and difficult but should not, to my mind, be purposely painful or punishing. Despite what my previous statements suggested, it is not my intention to see you suffer.

Please don't think I expect anything from you. If you've read this far, then I'm grateful for your engagement. Writing this has in turns made me feel relieved, appalled, frustrated. I don't hold out hope that we will ever be able to interact with each other in a way that doesn't elicit frustration, disruption or violates each other's boundaries. I don't anticipate you will conform to my perspective on our relationship, mostly because we have always been incomparably different, with distinct and irreconcilable emotional realities.

I'll admit I wrote this for myself and my own healing, and when I say I hope that we were an exception, that you will never hurt anyone the way you did me, it is not just another attack but a sincere desire, an investment in the possibility for transformation that I wish to see realised in myself just as much as I wish it for you.

D.