That Sybil ask had me 👀👀👀
Phalanges (What is their relationship with touch) for Vasilisa? 🥺
<333333 hehehe welcome to my doll closet!!!! >:3
prompt from this ask prompt game
in a word: complicated. in two: complicated (touchstarved).
It isn't that Vasilisa grew up longing for physical affection. Her mother wasn't particularly physically affectionate, it's true, but Vasilisa was held as a baby and hugged plenty growing up. She just wishes she could separate so much of it from the parts she would rather not dwell on, where she was more caretaker for her mother than the other way around.
To be touched is to be acknowledged, to be known as a presence if not recognized. Vasilisa did not feel very comfortable in her own body for a lot of her youth, and so viewed most touch as an assessment she was sure to fail. She welcomes being touched but is very afraid of and mortified by the idea of her own touch being unwanted.
After she became able to feel more at home in her skin in her late teens/early twenties, touch became less intimidating for her. She is generally very physically affectionate once her initial hesitancy around a person fades, to the point that she easily comes off as clingy or desperate. In an argument, she can withstand puppy dog eyes and verbal pleas, but has a much harder time not folding to being touched.
