#and the extra layer of funny of albedo's mark that WORKS OUT TOO WELL

[eruditic-akechi]

Why Rhinedottir calls Albedo her only son

aka the post that might start beef because I have a VERY unpopular opinion about one of her creations 🫡

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I'm not going into too much detail here because I really don't wanna think about psychology more than I have to this semester. HOWEVER, COMMA, I think she doesn't truly consider creations like Durin and the rift wolves to be her sons because they aren't human(oid). Calling them her children, but not sons, has the same vibe as calling our pets our kids, but maybe turned up a notch because she literally created them. Like... I want the best for my pets, and I call them my babies, but in a serious life update setting, I would NOT say that I had a son/daughter, if that makes sense. Psychologically, there's a difference between a human child and a nonhuman thing that you care for, and even love.

This explains why she called Albedo her only son, despite the existence of her little dragons and abominations.

But I can already Smell the comments asking about Subject Two... I'm getting there... unfortunately. This is probably gonna be the most controversial thing I say as a Rhinedottir AND Albedo fan, but I genuinely do not give a shit about that thing. I'd go as far as to say that it randomly being implanted into stories/art turns me off of the media. SOOOO this theory is one of those things that initially gave me a reason to never include Subject Two in my daydreams, but then BUT THEN B U T T H E N!!! I came across an alchemical concept that can actually explain why Rhine doesn't consider him when talking about raising a son!!!

This is the part where my unironic alchemy hyperfixation comes to light because I discovered this while listening to an alchemy book... but... GRAWHHHHHH🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅this is mostly described in mental alchemy, but it applies TOO well for me to not connect it to genshin!! I'm gonna describe it in mental alchemy first just to follow the book more closely, but during the albedo phase, opposing forces and essences of the psyche are separated. Then, one of two things can happen: either the opposing essences stay separated and generate new energy, which is usually used in a creative endeavor, or the essences merge and neutralize each other, resulting in no new energy. This is considered an alchemical stillbirth. (Technically, there's a secret third option, but that starts to go into the other phases of alchemy, and to our knowledge, Albedo is as far as Miss Rhine has gotten, so for our purposes, there are only two) SOOOOO... idk if y'all are sniffing what I'm shitting out, but yes, I AM implying that Subject Two was an (alchemical) stillborn.

Like... the timing works out because Albedo came after (because he was successful), so Subject Two happened between Durin (Nigredo) and... well... Albedo. Her first attempt just didn't work out for whatever reason, and I feel like there would be more to cause failure because instead of mental energy, she was trying to make a human, so alongside all the alchemy oopsies that can happen, she's also working against all the factors of growing a human fetus.

also a stillborn brings to mind that Subject Two was damn close to being what Albedo ended up being, instead of like,,, an alchemical miscarriage or something that could imply it was very early in his creation when Rhine realized something wasn't working! adding to Rhine's trauma by making her have to dispose of what's essentially a deceased human baby, and seeing that she has the potential to be a loving mother, this probably devastated her! since we don't know the exact timeline of when her creations came into being, I'd say she either fed it to Durin as a twofer,,, both a badass funeral for the baby she never got to have (because,,, getting eaten by a dragon IS a badass way to be funeralized) AND to feed her growing pet dragon,,, OR OR OR Durin was already dead and she wanted to bury her creations together. Either way, Subject Two was never alive in front of her, and he ended up inside Durin... and idk if y'all noticed that Durin's poisoned blood is POTENT like it can almost take out a god and his pet dragon AND REVITALIZE AN IRMINSUL TREE??? So, it's not far-fetched that his blood seeping into Subject Two's body not only kept it from decomposing for centuries but also brought him to life. He never gave any indication that he had any true memories of Rhine or his life before being Durin's lunch, besides the fact that she left him behind... but that's easily explained by the fact that two of her dead creations were left, so he could piece two and two together. idk if I'm making sense here I'm starting to ramble...

but between never being able to raise Subject Two and her primary coping mechanism seeming to be "pretend it doesn't exist and bury the emotions for centuries", it's no wonder she only says she's raising a (1) son after Albedo was born because he was the only human baby that survived past alchemical pregnancy

I hope this makes some semblance of sense because I got too excited and Normal to talk about alchemy AND BEFORE I FORGET another silly funny of the alchemical stillbirth concept is the creative endeavor coming from the successful separating of energies,,, because Albedo was the success of Rhine's albedo phase and he is creative,,, they make me so sick I'm throwing up

P.S. do any of yall (if anyone makes it this far🫡) know how Durin's name came to be? Did Rhine give it to him? because seeing her other naming trends... his name should be Nigredo... was it like a part of the whole legacy of his fight with Dvalin?? they just gave him a name? or did the abyssal corruption rob rhine of her creativity... ALSO I wanna know how the fanbase came up with Dorian as a name for Subject Two,,, like that seems so out of left field and I think it's ugly tbh BUT it is a billion times more acceptable than Rubedo... people that call him that either took subject two too seriously and assumed he came after Albedo or even worse... they know NOTHING about the bare bones of alchemy but I can't continue this rant I'll go insaane