Oh my god it's The Alchemy day I have SO many thoughts about this song so I'm gonna try and condense them.
First of all, the song starts and ends with "This happens once every few lifetimes," which is a statement filled to the BRIM with irony, in my view. The entire album up to this point has been concerned with two romances, both of which Taylor states she felt were destined and fated and "storybook" in their own ways. The entirety of TTPD is exploring how these fated, destined, storybook romances could actually crumble, and with it, her faith and belief in the existence of fate and destiny and storybook love.
But THEN... almost at the end of the standard run of the album, Taylor states that she's getting back from recovering from this tragedy - "I'm back / The hospital was a drag / Worst sleep that I ever had". She gets back from the messy process of healing from the events described on the album, and despite everything finds herself falling in love again.
This is why the title is significant, too. Alchemy is the pseudoscience of making a material into something more valuable. And this reflects the emotional process of Taylor falling in love again - she felt like the past two tragedies took the shine off of everything, killed her belief that love could ever work. But then, despite everything, she falls in love again and the normal, even tragic world she lived in before is transformed into something golden.
And then the first line repeats again, to reflect the cyclical nature of what she has experienced. Obviously, "this" doesn't happen once every few lifetimes, it's happened twice before on the album and is happening again in this song. She's falling in love, she's finding something beautiful and fated, and she can't help but find it gorgeous and meaningful, even if she's been shown again and again that she might be proven wrong in the end. And it feels so special that even if it's obvious that it isn't a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it feels that rare and that precious.
In this song, love is the alchemy, the process of turning normalcy into meaning and beauty, and she can't help it.
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The beautiful Lady Marissa in hollow knight
The most beautiful and peaceful memory in the game is associated with her wonderful song
And, yes, I'm going through the game for the fifth time хD
This time, my thoughts turned to Marissa, because even after so many walkthroughs, her song and look fascinate me
This is a portrait that Lurien drew for Marissa shortly before becoming a Dreamer. As a last gift and thanks for all she does for the city, and still can, to spend the last quiet moments together before the eternal goodbye
I think she and Lurien were close friends, and he liked to draw quick sketches during her concerts. Perhaps he would have liked to portray her one last time as bright and cheerful as she usually was, but her beloved city and its people were already slowly dying, and a good friend was sacrificing his life for some higher purpose, so she just couldn't portray joy, and she didn't want Lurien's last portrait to be fake
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If Pinestar was the Mi of his kits, why didn’t he try to take any of them with him when he left? Like Brightsky keeping some of her litter. He knew how the clans were, he was specifically leaving to get away from it, why did he choose to leave his children behind?
It wasn't a choice. Brightsky gave birth in the home she bolted to; Pinestar wasn't going to be allowed to take his children unless he snuck out with them.
He wishes he did something, when he sees what became of his son. But he tried to be brave when he left, announcing that he would not be coming back, and where he would be going.
He thought that was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, no one else appreciated it the way he hoped they would.
If he DID though, ThunderClan would not have allowed that. They see it as kidnapping. Being Mi doesn't mean you're allowed to do literally anything you want, especially if you do have a Ba involved.
In cases of handoffs (surrogacy, secret halfclan kits being given to their other parent, etc) it's actually SUPER important you do it before 1 moon, so you can pass the disappearance off as a fading kit. There are no funerals thrown for fading kits besides the Mi and any Ba quietly burying the body, so this is the time where you smuggle the baby out.
So you need all the Ba on board with such a handoff, in addition. Cloudtail is an example of that actually! When Brightheart surrogates, he is fully aware of how many are ACTUALLY faders and who is receiving their child.
Tigerkit was like 3-ish moons when Pinestar hit da bricks, unfortunately there wasn't a way he could take him along... plus it wouldn't quite make sense with how he was having nightmares about murdering his son.
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Bakugou who isn’t above begging you for kisses. Has no qualms about pinching your cheeks in between his fingers, getting all close in your face while he pouts his lips at you.
“Where’s my fuckin’ kiss?” Says it like he’s so offended that you didn’t immediately cover him in kisses after he’s come in from work. Followed you all around the house while you chattered on and on about your day, only taking a breath to ask how his was, finding yourself cornered when you turn around. He’s all big and hulking, would be a terrifying sight to anyone who didn’t know that he was just a stupid clingy teddy bear.
“Gimme my damn kiss, woman,” he’ll bite at you when you’re too busy rattling off about how much you’ve missed him when he finally comes home after a long mission away. Grips your jaw between meaty fingers as he smashes him mouth against your own, tears mingling between your lips to make the kiss salty, but he swears he has missed your taste more than anything in the world.
“Can I please get my kiss?” He asks when he’s sleepy, dead tired and up far too late for his own liking. You’re up in bed beside him, tapping away at your phone, keeping him up bc you’re not cuddling against him. He paws at you, frowning, until you lean down and cup his cheek in your hand as you kiss him so softly, so sweet and gentle, that he can’t help but hum and sink lower into the cushions. He still grumbles when you pull away, but it’s enough to suffice tonight.
“I don’t care about your stupid morning breath, just kiss me already.” He’ll complain when he’s leaving for work in the morning, sitting on the edge of the bed where you sleep. He looks down at you with a soft smile, eyes gushing with love as he watches you frown and twist and yawn yourself awake. He won’t leave until you peck at his mouth once, twice, so many times that you have to push him away with a reminder that he has to go now lest he be late. He kisses your forehead before he leaves, and wishes you a good day.
“I’m alive now, ain’t I? Kiss me just to make sure I’m really here.” He tells you quietly from where he lays bandaged and bruised on his hospital bed, his good fingers weakly gripping your own as he watches the tears drip from your chin. His mouth is like a welcome home, his lips chapped and dry from dehydration, but he’s alive and this kiss he’s asked you for is enough proof of that.
Bakugou loves your kisses, and will never be above begging for them. They’re the only thing that keeps him grounded to this world, and for that, he’s forever thankful.
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When Al Haitham dreams, it's in shades of sandy blonde and red, metallic gold and feather-blue. His nightmares are colored much the same.
Kaveh leisurely strolls ahead of him, shoes leaving deep treads in the soft desert sand. He keeps a careful distance, arms length, and in return Al Haitham keeps an eye on him, the other man's back dead center in his sights.
He curses the sand in his boots and the long line of footprints he steps into, already the exact shape of the soles of his shoes.
They aren't lost. Al Haitham knows where they are. They've been here before. They are still here.
Kaveh doesn't watch their feet. His head is constantly tipped back with his eyes on the stars and their constellations (of which Al Haitham only knows two, Vultur Volans and Paradisaea). He'll walk right into a cactus like that. Al Haitham yells ahead for him to watch where he's going.
Kaveh reaches up to touch the side of his head in a strange motion, but otherwise there's no acknowledgement. They press on into the dark of night.
Something squelches beneath Al Haitham's boot.
It stops him short, pulls his attention like a magnet and as much as he wants to, he can't ignore it. He doesn't want to lose any more ground. But something won't let him move on. Al Haitham watches as red seeps into the golden sand, spills beyond the border of his bootprint until he slides his foot aside.
It's an ear.
It's a human ear, and there's a heavy earring attached, metallic gold, gems red and green, a familiar shape, a familiar shade-
Al Haitham opens his mouth to yell. Chokes. Swallows the lump in his throat as he quickly restarts his pace. Tries again.
"Hey!"
Another squelch under a hurried footstep. He doesn't stop to look. Al Haitham is pretty sure he knows what it is.
"Kaveh, hey!"
The path becomes littered, little slices and small pieces, fingertips and knuckles, Kaveh's arms once held casually behind his back now strewn along the sands. Every time Al Haitham extends his hand to him, reality warps and bends like the twisted image in a broken mirror, lines mismatched and edges jagged. Kaveh flits just beyond his grasp, fleeting fae, no longer able to hear him or to reach out to him. Al Haitham can only grit his teeth and follow.
His right foot marches forward. His left follows. His right again. His left suddenly doesn't follow, and Al Haitham is thrown off balance and pitches forward, swinging his arms outward to land on his palms and keep his face off the ground, because he's been in the desert enough times to know what a foot suddenly being stuck can mean.
Quicksand.
Al Haitham curses and swears in just about every language he knows as he tries to spread his weight as evenly as possible, stay afloat at the top of it because if he sinks, he knows he'll be done for, and shit, Kaveh.
His neck cranes uncomfortably in his search, Kaveh had only been a few feet in front of him, he can't be sunk much further, and he's in the desert much more often than Al Haitham anyway, he'll be familiar with what to do-
Kaveh stands in front of him, empty sleeves fluttering loose. Still just out of his grasp, still watching the stars. The quicksand is already up to his calves.
"Say, Al Haitham..." It's the first he's spoken this whole time. His voice resonates somewhere deeply nostalgic in Al Haitham's chest, produces a ripple that momentarily stuns his heart.
Kaveh is sinking.
Al Haitham stretches out on his belly as far as he's able, it's quickly up to his knees, Kaveh isn't even trying to redistribute his weight or pull himself out, it's at his thighs, Al Haitham sucks in a breath and yells for him, his hips, yells louder, his waist, Al Haitham's trembling fingertips can almost reach, his chest, Kaveh drops level with him, quicksand about his neck like a noose.
Kaveh's head tips back, back, impossibly far back, until it hangs, angle awkward, and he's looking right past Al Haitham with his tired smile and gouged, blinded sockets full of starlight.
"Do you believe in karma?"
The quicksand swallows him entirely and Al Haitham dives, shoves his arms deep and pushes off with the one foot he'd had left on safe ground, because he can't, he can't, it's not the same without Kaveh, not anymore, he needs him, no one else keeps him sharp, no one else challenges him like Kaveh, if he can just grab him, if he can just pull him back up-
Al Haitham thrashes, against the sands, against gravity, against the hardwood of his bedroom floor. Clumsily scrubs the back of his hand across his face to rub the grit of quicksand and sleep out of his eyes.
Sometimes he thinks he preferred it when the Akasha was still harvesting his dreams.
He pops his head out from under his weighted blanket and lays where he'd fallen out of bed for a moment, blinking blearily against the lamplight shining from his desk in the corner. Deep breaths. His consciousness shifts along the blurred line of nightmare and reality, crosses over the slow transition into wakeful awareness.
He's home, Kaveh is home. It's dark out. The house is dead silent.
He's just going to go check, he tells himself as he peels himself out of his sweat-soaked shirt and roots around for a replacement. He's already losing memories of his nightmare, the details spilling away from him like wet ink, but he knows he needs to see Kaveh. It'll feel better to do something, anything, than try to go straight back to sleep.
He's quiet when he slips out of his bedroom door, because they both keep late hours but their bedrooms are right next to each other, and Al Haitham will never hear the end of it if he wakes his roommate up.
Lights off, door shut. Nothing conclusive. He moves out to the main room.
Kaveh sits on one of those ridiculous sofas he'd ordered three of for some reason, back to him as he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. A mostly-empty wine bottle stands tall on the table, next to the cobbled-together remains of an architectural model that's been picked and fussed over for four days straight now.
"Kaveh? What are you doing?"
This earns him an exaggerated startle, but Kaveh doesn't turn to look at him, preoccupied with whatever new sketch or blueprint he probably has in his hands. "Ohhh, nothing," he slurs cheerfully. "Just working. Just thinking."
Kaveh has always been the world's chattiest drinker. Al Haitham waits for the rest of it.
"Say, I think...I think I asked you this years ago, back then, but you never answered me." Al Haitham feels all the blood drain from his face in ominous familiarity, drip cold down the length of his spine. Kaveh sinks into the couch until he can tip his head over the back of it, looking up at him with a tired smile and exhausted eyes.
"Do you believe in karma?"
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