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tidekissed · 3 months

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demons with a familiar face

pairing: al-haitham and zale

insert: zale (genshin)

word count: 1569

their demons are surprisingly similar, considering the circumstances.

taglist: @shimichazukes | @miggywife | @dmclr | @muddlemore | @okiria

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Her pulse thudded in her ears with a resounding roar. Her vision was fuzzy, the whites of her eyes no doubt dyed red with all the blood that dripped from her face and smeared her hands and clothes. The stench of iron was all she could smell, the scent overtaking all of her other senses and dulling her thoughts.

The ache of her body was secondary to the growing pile of bodies occupying the small room she was trapped in. She had no idea how long it had been or how she had come to be in it. The dream was always the same, likely spurred on in part by the god residue and Abyssal energy that poisoned her body, so she had learned to stop asking questions.

The door creaked, and with a wince she readied her spear once more. The waves of enemies, wearing the faces of those she had lost and those she had forced someone else to lose, would not cease in their assault until she managed to wake in the early hours of the morning. This would drag on as long as it could until then.

“Oh, my…”

Zale lunged before she could even think. She was like a wild animal, trapped and scared and desperate to just get it over with and end her near nightly torture.

To her surprise, her weapon sliced through nothing as the tiny god before her looked at her with pity. “I am not here to fight you, Zale. I’m just here for a visit. To think it was this grim in your dreams…”

Kusanali’s gaze drifted over to the bloody pile of flesh in the corner, recognition sparking in her eyes at the sight of faces familiar to her. “I see…no wonder I was contacted for this.”

“What…how…?” Zale sputtered, still nervously searching for her next opponent.

“A normally light sleeper being trapped in dreams is something that is perfect for me to investigate,” the small god answered plainly. “Even I had no idea it was like this…”

“Investigate?” “Yes. And soothe. I came to see what was keeping you locked in nightmares, and now that I understand I can report to the person who asked me to check in. For now, though, I’m simply going to wake you up.”

“Can you at least explain?” Zale pleaded, her dream self trembling from her perceived exertion.

Kusanali just smiled gently. “I don’t think I’ll need to.”

She woke gasping into fabric, hands trembling and face embarrassingly wet.

“Thank the Archons it worked,” Al-Haitham mumbled, gently smoothing sweat-slicked hair from her forehead. “Deep breaths. You’re in Sumeru City, in my house. You’ve been here for almost three days.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she slowly came to realize where she was, the sick feeling in her stomach ebbing as the smell of teakwood and spices kicked her olfactory memory into overdrive.

Home. She was home.

Without an ounce of her usual hesitance, she gripped her lover—her home—like a lifeline, openly sobbing into his chest as she let herself dissolve into the sheets. Fontaine had been unspeakably hard for her, and she was due to move on to Natlan with her demons once again hot on her heels, but for now she was home.

She wished she could stay. All she wanted was to stay, stay with the person that was the first to make her feel human. The nightmares only got worse on the road, and the feeling of dread that had taken up residence in her very bones strengthened with every step she took towards the end of her journey with the Traveler, who seemed to attract trouble at every turn.

This was her punishment, she supposed, for her years of servitude under the Tsaritsa.

“Hey,” Al-Haitham murmured, cupping her cheeks in his hands, “you’re drowning in your own mind again. Get out of there and talk to me.”

She wasn’t sure she could talk to him through the tears, but with a hard swallow she tried to steady herself enough to force the words out. “I just wish I could stay. I guess continuing all of this is just repenting for the past and accepting the consequences.”

“Maybe, but you also want knowledge,” he said in rebuttal. “Remember what you told me in those letters you sent back? About everything you learned in Fontaine and how despite wanting to come home there were things you just needed to know first?”

“Yeah. I’m crazy.”

He smiled, bumping his nose with hers. “And it perhaps takes a bit of lunacy to nurture a truly sharp mind.”

“I wish you could come with me,” she choked, voice thick with tears. “I realize now you got Lesser Lord Kusanali to check on me in my dreams, but…it would have subsided naturally just getting to sleep next to you more. It used to always be like this before I met you.”

“I may not be able to go with you, but you will always have a place to come back to. You need to get the last of your past behind you, and then I think you’ll be able to settle down without remorse eating away at you,” he said. “To me, at least, the fact that it hurts you so much to leave says that you’re starting to heal. But, the fact that you still feel you must means you haven’t done what you set out to do.”

She nodded silently, settling back into his arms. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

They sat in silence for a long while, and she almost thought he had drifted back to sleep until he spoke once more, voice uncharacteristically quiet. “I love you. I’m sorry I can’t come with you. I can take paid leave, but not for that long.”

“Please don’t apologize for that,” she sighed, petting his hair. “It wasn’t a rational ask. It’s more just…an irrational want.”

“There is nothing irrational about seeking the frequent company of those you cherish most.” His voice somehow dropped even more, warm in a way that few ever heard. “You are human, no matter what anyone else tells you and no matter what carcasses you’ve consumed. Emotion is a crucial part of how people function in their day to day lives. To disregard that is the far more illogical train of thought.”

She tried to tell herself she had cried enough for the next year, but the sincere look in his eyes broke her once more, quiet sniffles muffled into his already soiled nightshirt as he brought her somehow closer still. For several minutes, the sounds of the crying she was so ashamed of mingled with the quiet kisses to her scalp and face, absolutely unrelenting until the tears finally stopped flowing.

“I’m only human myself, as you reminded me,” he managed to say, his own voice strained, “and the space where you’re supposed to be being empty when you’re gone feels as though it cuts a hole in my chest. I meant it when I said I have never felt this way about someone, and I am not ashamed of it. It’s like I’ve told you before. Happiness is of utmost importance, and you give it to me in spades, even when you might not be that happy yourself. There is no reason for me to be ashamed of wanting you here, and thus the inverse is true.”

After another moment of contemplative silence, gripping him tightly like she would lose him tomorrow, she spoke the only words she could. “I love you too.”

She kissed him this time, sparing no time and going straight for his lips. In the middle of the night, they always kissed gently and slowly, but this time there was a little urgency, some sort of need to prove that she would come back and they would share all the moments they wanted when her duty was done.

To her surprise, when she finally pulled away to thumb a little spit from the corner of his mouth, shiny tears of his own bubbled in his eyes as he looked at her, starting to spill over onto his cheeks.

“Oh, Haithami,” she murmured, cupping his cheeks and swiping the tears with her thumbs, “I’ll come back. I always do. I’m not that easy to kill. I know why it makes you worry, but you won’t lose me. I swear on everything I am that I’ll come back to you in one piece. I can’t promise it’ll be an unscathed piece, but everything should still be attached.”

That got a laugh out of him.

“I’m like you. I don’t make promises I don’t keep.”

Just as he had since they met, he trusted her.

It was funny, he thought as she squeezed his hand and curled up against him to go back to a much more peaceful sleep, how much they were alike despite their upbringings that couldn’t be more different. They had both lost everyone they had ever loved, but were slowly learning how to love once more through each other—in and of itself a chance meeting that had too many things against it happening to fathom.

It’s as I thought, he laughed to himself as he buried his face in her scalp and started to drift off. A bit of luck really is to thank for a lot of good things in life.

Also, I really need to thank Lesser Lord Kusanali in the morning.

#deep sea scrolls #watch me delete this in shame less than 24 hrs after posting #🌿#also i did poking on his nicknames a while back #en fanbase came up with 'hayi' arabic speaking fanbase says that works in en but 'haithoomi'/'haithami'/'thami' is more natural in arabic.#so. i use. all of them. plus one that i keep to myself that works with my real name #dont look at me.

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kuiperror · 2 months

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TELL ME ABOUT THE CHIPMUNKS LORE. pretty please.

1st thank you for indulging me (even tho i asked lol) 2nd.maybe dont open this unless you want to get blasted with useless information + unimportant yet dearly held opinions + offtopic addendums + true sincerity. i tried to hold back guys im sorry. hold onto your hats im getting fucking crazy in here

firstly ill summarize and say that my "version" of the story of aatc [1] is basically just an idealized version of the "lore" the 1960s version gave us (i say "lore" in quotations bc there was. none lol).

now a lot of my ideas concerning the "lore" of story are interconnected to my opinions about the actual application of aatc media in real life . for instance, the story is set, vaguely, around the late 1950s - early to mid 1960s, like the irl "run" of the original chipmunks records. i personally believe that, as a real media franchise, aatc really has no reason to exist within our modern world with the technology we have today [2] so aatc as a fictional story is affected similarly. along with that, when the story is played out in the context of 1960s america it creates a richer thematical experience as the themes are compounded and expanded on. [3] a lot of the themes that i consider Essencial to the story deal with acceptance of differences and familial love and questioning of ones own humanity and sense of belonging, both within oneself and within the family unit and within larger society, and conservative 1960s suburban america is just a rlly good backdrop to place all of that. so basically i believe in the Contextuality of 1960s aatc and i love to allude to those contexts within the story.

another thing about my version is that i allow it to be inconsistent both with itself or with real life, just cuz it doesn't really have to be. for instance, this story has a floating timeline and i consider the chipmunk's ages to range from 8 - 10 years old— theodore is 8, alvin is 9, simon is 10. (simon is the oldest in the 1960s era idc who says what, i will die on this hill) however at the same time i think it would make the most sense for them to come from the same litter, which would make them all the same age. so i consider the chipmunks to be different ages while also considering they were born at the same time. i do have an in-world resolution for this discrepancy [4] but you get what im saying: my version of events is a little fictional story for me and me only so inconsistencies like that can be brushed over . mainly so i don't think too deeply about the logistics of things (cuz i tend to do that to avoid any possible criticism cuz i am Afraid of flaw) . like i'll catch myself being like "but how does the development of a real 8yo match theodore's behavior? 🤨" and i have to tell myself "bro.. this is a fictional cartoon world ur literally talking about a talking chipmunk its Not That Serious it doesn't have to be that realistic dude" so i just say its my own little play place and i get to do what i want :)

my version of the backstory of the chipmunks is not really all there in terms of external and internal consistency, but it mostly resembles the 1980s series' backstory where dave finds the chipmunks on his doorstep. (see [4] for entire story) i think that the months after dave took them in were honestly a p dark period for the family. i don't imagine dave had good support system and i think the mental struggle of suddenly caring for 3 incredibly strange children all the while fearing societal reactions to them (which restricted him from getting the help he needed) [5] definitely aged him. ithink hes like, early 30s when the chipmunks arrive, late 30s when the timeline "starts floating"... not as young as most (?) fans/iterations interpret him to be. i think that, before "the chipmunk song" was created, dave had raised the chipmunks for like.. 3-5ish years. what i'm saying is that dave definitely took in the chipmunks out of the kindness of his own heart and not cuz he wanted to capitalize on their singing prowess (aHEM looking at a certain movie 🤨)

also, i like to accentuate the animal-ness of the boys by taking real world information about chipmunks and applying it to them :) in general its a little bit of a pet peeve of mine when ppl just completely disregard the animal part of funny animal characters... esp with alvin and the chipmunks bc thats like. Their Whole Thing . they are chipmunks ? why do you just ignore that 😭

now i have talked a LOT about angsty stuff but i do want to make it clear that legit all this stuff is the subtext and background for interactions shown within the 1960s chipmunk media. the chipmunks are still happy kids who have fun and goof around and piss off david !! its just that they have fears and their own Issues like any real person.

so yeah! thats my chipmunk lore!! ^^ i have a whole document about my version so im definitely. fucking insane about the chipmunks. if any other aatc fans are reading this please be nice to me 😦 i feel as though i am very much a weirdo in my sandbox all alone soo dont h8 me plz :)

and just to send it off with some silly lore here are some random headcanons for each character that i have taken straight from my lore document ^^

alvin: would 100% be a leash kid . just sayin (as a former leash kid myself)

alvin: takes after david musically— when he writes his own music and makes up little songs to himself it sounds very similar to the songs dave writes. alvin doesn't recognize this but dave definitely does :,)

alvin: insecure about his height and constantly reassures himself that he will have a growth spurt when hes older

simon: loves loves LOVEs non-conventional and instrumental music! especially those set in different modes

simon: astronaut kid he loves space and wants to b an astronaut . born at just the right time B)

simon: knows better than to follow along with alvin's troublemaking + rebelliousness, occasionally tries to push back, but often is just like. fuck it we ball and goes along with it, especially if its fun ^^

theodore: LOVES the technical aspect of music + the recording process . he will tell you all about the science behind how vinyl records work unprompted.

theodore: doesnt like to sing solos as much as his brothers do bc of past childhood asthma at age 3 and also because he can not stop himself from giggling when hes singing hes just so happy :)! (THIS ONE IS CANON 💥💥💥 SOURCE: UP ON THE HOUSETOP CHRISTMAS W THE CHIPMUNKS VOL 1 ‼️)

theodore: although he is the most naive of the bunch, he is not dumb . hes just a little kid who likes being silly !

dave: before taking the chipmunks in in his early 30s he was the world's most regular guy . wrote hits for other people, continues to do that occasionally into the boys's careers

dave: literally has a song for everything . he will do everything to a beat .

dave: embroiders and cross-stitches to regulate his anger + knows how to sew really well since he has 2 make all of the boys' clothes. (CANON ⁉️😍) also it was his decision to color-code and embroider their initials onto everything they wear lmfao

FOOTNOTES (color coded for your convenience!)

[1] - in this post i refer to the media franchise as "aatc" (alvin and the chipmunks) and refer to the actual trio of characters as "the chipmunks" to avoid confusion. i just want it to be said that i personally dont like to call the media franchise "alvin & the chipmunks" on account of the whole "uuu if alvins a chipmunk why is it called alvin & the chipmunks" joke, i personally prefer to call the franchise just "the chipmunks" as it is shorter and includes the 1960s era as for most of it the franchise went by several different iterations (if we lived in a perfect world the franchise would still be called "david seville and the chipmunks" . just saying)

[2] - back in the early 60s, combining pitch-shifted vocals and character-acting was an innovative technique that took real time, effort, knowledge and skill to achieve. but nowadays not only is the concept no longer fresh but literally anyone can create their own "chipmunk" vocals in a matter of minutes. the story & characters (also nostalgia) are really the only thing keeping the aatc franchise going, esp since that's what more modern iterations of aatc focus on rather than the actual music.

[3] - in the media outside of their albums (the alvin show & the dell comics, specifically) there is always an underlying theme of comparison between david and the boys and the 1960s concept of a nuclear american family. its not exactly an "Intentional" theme, it more or less comes with the (irl) time-period the original aatc media was created in. the seville household is, inherently, a subversion of the ideal of the "perfect family" that households were compared against and strived to be, even at the expense of their own comfort, ideals, safety, etc. this subversion can be played into for drama and angst in a richer, more plausible way than it would be if the story were set in a more modern time period, u know? but yeah i believe that, as a fictional story, aatc shouldn't be divorced from the context of the attitudes and values of what mainstream society thought a family should be in the 1960s.

[4] - essentially in my version of events, dave was given no information about the boys and he basically made up their ages. when david found them in his backyard, they were oversized chipmunks as large as your average cat. they all sort of acted like young human children, but they were a lot more... chipmunk than child. they could only babble— but the sounds were recognizable as human speech. dave was obviously freaked out and resolved to keep an eye on them whenever they were in his backyard. he really only resolved to take them in due to the fact that he could literally see them change throughout a single week. how i imagine the chipmunks' biology is that they are a mixture of human and chipmunk (not literally, mind you, more as a physiological, figurative thing) so they have the intelligence and development of a human while still doing certain things like undertaking hibernation, wanting to forage and stockpile and burrow, things like that. however their growth rate is incredibly fucked up, going from the actual size of a newborn baby chipmunk to the size of a human toddler within like, a year. with this rapid growth also comes more human-like intelligence. once they were actually living in his house, dave knew there was something human about them with these creatures so he couldn't just let them return to the wild, especially since they were becoming more and more dependent on him and more and more human-like as days passed... i definitely think there was a moment of pure clarity for dave where he realized like. wow, that's a child. these things are children. and they are relying on me to provide for them. they are absolutely attached to me by now. and i think i might actually be attached to them too. and thats when he decided to name them and truly care for them like any other human child. overtime the chipmunks slowed their growth rate and matched their developing rate with the same as an average human. the chipmunks don't remember much of their early childhood and nothing can really be disputed so davids word of what happened is gospel. And yeah thats their backstory basically. if you want more on dave's view point on the chipmunks and their fucked up growth process, you can read this post here :)

[5] - he overcame this, of course. he did not want the boys to think that he was ashamed of them. public school was a different story, however, and the boys were more-or-less in a state of homeschooling before the release of "the chipmunk song." knowing that most of their peers would actually look up to them rather than down upon them extremely reassured him.

#Dont look at me.#this is literally the most vulnerable i think i have ever been in my life.#please be kind i am obviously mentally ill 😭😭#um im not tagging this one guys. sorry #i am VERY afraid.#i will be tagging personal however. because this is literally the most personal i could ever get.#personal

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