#thoughts.kharina

Xialix / Xiao x Khalix : definitely my longest standing selfship (like ??? 5 years??? I started playing right after launch, so maybe closer to 4 and a half). Desperately trying to keep this short lol. Strangers to tentative partners to lovers (? Neat labels don’t really work here). Researcher!Khalix, who is driven by an absolutely ravenous kind of curiosity, wanders into all sorts of strange ruins across Liyue. They’re especially fond of working with locals and historic preservation coalitions.

Xiao believes they’re a prime example of humanity’s hubris— that they’re naive to even think that they could make a difference in such a short time. However, their respect for the people they encounter and the structures they seek to explore does pique his interest. Bags heavy with reference materials, incense, and fresh fruit, he watches them explore forgotten halls and leave offerings on altars that haven’t been blessed for centuries. They never take anything, unless you count their own notes, and he finds that off-putting (even for a mortal). They only seem to give, even to long dead places that want for nothing. A would-be dangerous incident at Qingxu Pool is what finally forces him to make himself known, and so begins a years long “partnership” (though Xiao would not agree with that term in the slightest). It’s his job to watch over Liyue, and that includes strange researchers who stick their noses where they don’t belong. But encounters turn to acknowledgment and then to understanding— mutual curiosity will continue to push them into each other’s orbit, even if only one recognizes that aloud.

Anyway !! a lot of their dynamic is about nurturing Xiao’s sense of personhood/wants/desires, and exploring what it means to just be. It’s quiet acts of devotion and mutual attentiveness. There’s a kind of intimacy that comes with trying to understand one another— or just trying for one another in general. And Xiao is so so willing to try, you just have to be patient. If you pay attention, he’s actually sooo easy to read…

I have. An intense desire to encourage him to explore his every curiosity and whim when it comes to the world and the people in it. Treating him gently and humanely and trying to meet him halfway is like. Ough head in my hands wow. Tentative gentleness and intrigue turned unwavering devotion>>>.

Kharina / Khalix x Furina: post abdication Furina my beloved. Again, lots of themes of exploring personhood for the first time (this will be a pattern). Best friends to lovers. Painter!Khalix is notoriously bad at remembering to socialize, often going days or weeks without doing anything outside of work. It’s not that they don’t want to, it’s that they feel like they’re always running out of time. But on a night a mutual friend invites them to a gathering, they’re lucky enough to meet Furina for the first time.

A friend of a friend of a friend, she’s already several drinks in when they finally arrive. Their first impression of just Furina is a strong one— shoeless and grinning, she’s dancing on a tabletop hardly ten feet away from the front door. It’s a far cry from the carefully curated (though no doubt theatrical) persona they’d seen plastered all over Fontaine until less than a year prior. Naturally, they’re immediately taken with her. Furina is amiable and chatty, especially when she’s drunk, and it’s so easy to fall into conversation.

Painter!Khalix is quick to learn that sober Furina is far less of a social butterfly. The next time they encounter one another is during a grocery run. Furina is mortified to know their schedules line up in any way, especially after how she’d behaved, so the exchange is terse and awkward. Painter!Khalix gets no real answers as to why until the next time both they and Furina are coaxed out to the same event, when the latter is once again tipsy enough to confess her embarrassment.

In short, she apologizes over drinks while they stare at her like they’ve found the center of their world lol. After that, things are less awkward— really, things are easy. The occasional run in while grocery shopping turns into coordinated days together, because errands are always better with friends. Then those outings bleed into shared meals, then into impromptu sleepovers. The lines get very very blurry lol. Things only go too far after a night out with friends leaves them stumbling into bed with one another. Furina is distraught and needs quite a bit of reassurance. This is her first friendship solely formed after her abdication, and in her mind she’s potentially ruined it with her own feelings. She’s had a hard time navigating relationships of any sort, much less one where things have gotten so murky.

Things cool down as Painter!Khalix sits her down to explain what their intentions/feelings actually are, and it turns out, they’re on the same page. The dynamic is basically

Furina: I’m so sorry, you’re my best friend and I do have feelings for you and I should’ve known better than to cross that line since you don’t feel that way about me

Khalix, soaking wet from getting out of bed early to go buy her flowers before she woke up (it’s pouring outside): ::3 ???

Anyway. best friends before anything else, weird and blurry dynamics while Furina navigates her own personhood/wants/desires for what feels like the first time ,,, yes. Yummy.

Doing all of these for lace agate bc I really miss Rina,,,

🥑 post sex meal: truly it depends on where we are! If we’re at my place, then there’s a 50/50 chance of ordering out vs making something. If we’re at Furina’s, well… we keep a drawer full of our fav takeout menus for a reason. I like to think we also work our way through menus and annotate them (things we really like are circled in red, things we dislike are struck through, each item gets a score 1-10, etc.). It’s a fun back and forth we do together <3

🧁 baking sessions: Furina is my dedicated taste tester, and I do bake frequently! She sits on the counter for the most part, sneaking berries or chocolate chips when she thinks I’m not looking (I always have extra out just for her). She can be a bit of a backseat baker (despite her lack of kitchen skills), but I actually quite like it <3 I think it’s cute. Sometimes she’ll “inconspicuously” place recipes she’s found in plain sight (because apparently there’s nothing dignified about asking me outright). I may pretend not to see it if only to watch her sulk a little (cute…), but ultimately I do make all of them, no matter how impractical, because I’m allergic to telling her no lol.

🍬 how we fluster each other: I think my general bluntness flusters her. She has a tendency to be all bark, but I am often all bite <3 usually when she insinuates something, or tries to fluster me, it backfires. I don’t back down from much and I can be pretty shameless. As for how she flusters me… I actually think it’s unintentional. Moments when her facade is a little less in tact, when she’s not so worried about being perceived. It really can be anything, from watching her feed the stray cats behind her apartment to her sleepy eyes and bed head… sighs dreamily. Her laugh stops me dead in my tracks, and it takes me a minute to recalibrate…

🧈 how she comforts me: oh Furina lets me VENT. I tend to have a hard time placing my emotions and often I don’t realize I’m feeling something until it’s totally overwhelming me. So when I’m able to actually get it all out, she heavily encourages it. After I’ve sufficiently tired myself out and once I’m not as prickly (I hate being coddled, but I’m more receptive to gentleness in the aftermath of a meltdown), she handles practical things for me. She orders dinner and runs a bath for us, washes my hair, etc.; she’s also prone to getting me little trinkets or treats when I’m feeling down…

🩹 aftercare: while I do not like being coddled, I am a Massive Coddler ohhh my god… lots of silent touches, soft kisses all over her face... Cleaning her up and talking her through that process step by step. I love letting her sit in that sort of hazy in between— it’s important to me that she feels like she doesn’t have to rebound immediately, that she knows she’s done well and that there’s no need to perform. We’re big on taking baths together as well <3 then it’s ordering takeout/making dinner to eat in bed or outside. The only time she wants one of my cigarettes is we’ve finished dinner, when she’s settled in my lap on the balcony and everything is quiet

🥛how she makes me finish the quickest: i loveeee watching her squirm, so any time i get to just sit back and watch her do all the work really does it for me. Her little frustrated noises and protests and how she’s trying sooo hard,,, yeah <3 tribbing with her on top,,, she’s just so cute when she’s flustered, it kind of hard resets my brain

🍪 fav positions: i <3 eating her out from the back <<< phrase i should have on a t shirt btw. Genuinely adoreee it, just dragging her back by the hips every time she gets all squirmy, and it’s the ideal position for running my nails up the under sides of her thighs/down her spine. Similarly I loveeee when she sits on my face, ideally until she’s whining in protest and leaning against the headboard for support (I Will Not Let Her Up lmao). Rina’s favorite would be riding my thigh (though she does stop halfway through so I have to hold her hips and move her myself <3).

1: I am. So bad at song associations. Truly. It is sick and twisted 😔😔😔. Well. Most of the time. I do actually have an entire playlist dedicated to Childe/Ajax??? For some reason??? But also I can’t think abt him or the implications of that for too long, lest I take poison damage. But I do have an entire playlist dedicated to him. Anyway! Good Heart by Indigo De Souza makes me think of Furina. How I Get Myself Killed, also by Indigo De Souza, makes me think of Xiao. Both tracks are on her 2019 I Love My Mom album, which is one of my fav albums ever and I have been revisiting it lately (hence why these are my first thoughts). I’ll need to revisit this question some time, preferably when I’m not only listening to this album and Fiona Apple’s Tidal (1996), because it did give me trouble,,,

2: Ough okay so. This question excites me to no end AGHH!. Head in my hands. Ok. I personally think I fall into the camp of the know it all secondary character. nearly always madly in love with the main character/final girl, who may survive the first film or two in a franchise but will inevitably meet a grisly end. Think, like, Randy from the Scream franchise.

As for f/os,,, imo Furina IS the final girl. If anyone is going to survive, it’s her. I mean even in the canon, she’s SO dedicated to her single minded goal. Even when she seems to be fraying at the seams in the face of an impending apocalypse (one that she considers to be her fault), she still holds out. To the point that her tenacity and commitment have eroded her sense of identity, and she has become the embodiment of her mission. I can absolutely see her dedicating herself to survival in such a way that would make her willing to do anything, regardless of the cost. My final girl foreverrrr. And I would be madly in love with her, and at the moment of my death I would still know she was going to make it out 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️. TLDR she would live, I would not, and I would be okay with that.

3: AAHHHH. so. This goes a few ways, I have thoughts. For Furina— she does notttt do well with me being approached by someone else. Her muddled sense of self means that not only is she unsure of who she is, but that she is unsure of her place in the world at large. For the first time in her life she isn’t performing, or at least she isn’t expected to, which means all the less likable/“unpleasant” parts of herself are known to someone. And that’s like. very hard for her. because who is she if she’s no longer an eternally endearing and entertaining figure??? Why would you want her around if she can’t give you that??? If she may never give you that again, and if she isn’t sure of who she’s becoming, only that she feels like it could be honest but that she also could be worse??? It’s. A lot for her. So I think she’d have a creeping insecurity that I’d find someone more pleasant/entertaining, because that’s the metric she used to measure her success/survival for so long. I also think she hates that she feels that way— it’s generally overwhelming, and she feels childish or even guilty for it in the first place, so she’s likely to try and stamp it down. TLDR things require a lot of reassurance, validation, and gentle coaxing. making sure she knows she hasn’t been backsliding into old habits and personas by having very normal human feelings, while also assuring her that she’s wanted as a whole person and not as a prop or a shiny object. People are messy, and Furina is unaccustomed to showing those parts of herself. Anyway. I, on the other hand, am not a particularly jealous person like ever??? I trust her without question. However, my line is when someone crosses a boundary with my loved ones. So it’s not really an issue if someone flirts with her, I mean. She’s Furina. She’s radiant, and it’d be hard for others not to notice that. But it becomes a problem if someone makes her uncomfortable. Because then I’m ruining everybody’s day lolol.

Xiao, though (because things would be amiss if I didn’t mention him here),,, Xiao is odd. He also has this very tentative, very apprehensive relationship to personhood/his own allowance for his personhood. I don’t think he’d be too keen on allowing himself to experience jealousy, but I think it would happen. Not in the traditional sense, though??? I think seeing another mortal take interest in me would make something in his chest ache, not because anyone had done anything wrong, but because that’s what my life should be. Xiao is the king of self sabotage— his relationship with desire/allowing himself to feel desire is already fraught, and I think the sight of someone expressing their desires so freely would Do Something To Him. He is guarded and messy and complicated in ways he doesn’t even believe he should be allowed to be. and then there’s someone who just wants you openly and understands human socialization/cues and that isn’t something old and broken and used. He will say nothing about it initially, but it’s not hard to tell. Also needs some gentle reassurance, but absolutely no coddling. Reassurance through actions is the easiest way to get your point across. Love him as you would any other day— ebb and flow with him, because odds are he will eventually just tell you what’s up and ask you to help him make sense of what he’s feeling. However. He does also hover. Like if someone does get too close, he is There™️. It’s something instinctual; he does trust your judgement in any and all situations but he also makes his presence known should you need him to intervene (CEO of telling you not to be stubborn/telling you to ask for help when you need it).

So like. Again, I’m not a jealous person. If someone wanted to flirt with Xiao in the traditional sense, by all means, go ahead and good luck??? I can hardly get away with it myself, so let me know if it works lol. I think where I’d get Very Weird about someone approaching Xiao is if they’re doing it with a set notion of him already established. If they push his boundaries/if they seem to fundamentally misunderstand him and make no effort to bridge that gap. What others might see as flippant or cold/mysterious when trying to chat him up is probably just. Confusion. Like approaching him directly for such a reason is kind of out of left field to him. And like, yes, I know he can handle himself, and I know he does tend to just leave if he’s somewhere he doesn’t want to be. However™️. I would get very odd about people pushing him too far when he’s already out of his comfort zone by being in a more public setting. Placing my body in between them, interrupting to pull him aside and check in, straight up asking if he wants to leave type of thing. Because Xiao is not hard to read, and this includes his discomfort. More than anything it would piss me off that they’d misunderstood whatever cues he gave and made him uncomfortable, because he’s not difficult to understand if you just pay attention to him/see him a person🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️.

In terms of the above, I think the first time it happens it’s after a night out and prior to any kind of discussed relationship. Definitely some pining going on there on my part, but I would also rather die than ever address my feelings normally.

I am. The way that I am. So there’s no way she’s walking home alone, especially not when her apartment is on the way to my own. Both of us are catastrophically drunk, though, so it takes a while to make it to her tiny studio. Halfway up the stairs, it’s clear I’m crashing there lol (a common occurrence).

It sort of just ??? happens?? There’s no thought put into it or preamble. I notice her struggling to undo the clasps on her shoes, so I just drop to my knees to undo them for her. It’s right there in the doorway to her apartment; the main lights are still off, but the glow of street lamps below her window and the bathroom light she forgot to turn off earlier make up for it enough. I don’t notice her staring— even when my hand is wrapped around the back of her calf to steady her as she steps out of one heel, I still haven’t really thought about the position I’ve put us in. It just feels right. It makes sense to do things for her, it’s like second nature.

Looking up at her in that lighting does make the moment come crashing into me all at once, though. Her eyes are so wide, and she’s saying something but I can’t quite hear it over the blood rushing in my ears. but I know the shape of my name on glossy lips and the sound of her high, twinkling laughter, the way it gets when she’s nervous, so I just sort of nod and hope it’s the right answer. She’s a bright streak in an otherwise dark room, all silvery whites and powder blues carved out by moonlight. A reflection in still water permanently out of reach.

I make sure to put her shoes by the door, out of the way so that neither of us trip over them in the morning. Anyway, this sort of starts a pattern for us. We get drunk, I take her home, I take off her shoes, her socks, then eventually her stockings, her jewelry. It’s a routine, and it’s one I can’t deviate from or else she gets sooo sulky… she’s never one to ask outright, of course, but it’s implied!

Eventually it spills over into the inverse— we get drunk at a party, she takes off her shoes, her jewelry, her coat, and I’m to retrieve them and put them back on her person one by one. I know which finger each ring goes on, how high to button her coat, which notch to buckle her shoes into. A selfish part of my brain always looks forward to the end of the night, when I can pull her into a quiet spot and reaffix all of her accessories one by one, just the two of us. I know where it all should go because I know her, even without her direction.

We’re only ever honest about the whole ordeal once we’ve gotten together, and even then it’s more unspoken than not. Now, sober, I repeat the same routines over and over without having to justify it to myself under the pretense of being a good friend 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

and as for reciprocity, yes, but her ways are different! She loves to match, and will often pick out our outfits with that in mind. She also has a real eye for when I’m overworking myself. I can get veryyyy wrapped up in my work and she makes a point to drag me into the waking world (though sometimes it’s just to pay attention to her lol). Furina does want to be useful to those she loves, especially while she’s navigating relationships for the first time in her very long life. Simultaneously, she has a really hard time justifying others loving her as a person, since her existence was purely functional and was robbed of personhood for so long.

TLDR; I just like to handle her, and she enjoys being handled in such an honest way. Paying attention to her and her preferences as a person, down to the most minute detail… yeah <3. It’s the easiest way to show my affection. Plus, it’s not something she thought she’d ever get to experience considering the degrees of distance she had to keep between herself and others while upholding her part of Focalors’ plan. Which also leads me into the whole “Furina would be touch starved and incapable of asking for touch” thing, but. Yeah you get the idea. Trying to get her to use her words just flusters her. usually that just ends with her going all red in the face and scolding me for “not taking enough initiative” ,,, yeah <3