I know a lot of people are already sold on the idea of Rinne and Houtaro being secretly siblings... but hear me out. I have an alternate theory to offer, one that doesn't have the two as siblings.
Houtaro's dad was an alchemist on Kudo Fuga's (Rinne's dad) side, helping him smuggle out the Chemmies (which were under the Alchemist Union's control) little by little until they managed to get all 101 of them free. Maybe he brought some of them home with him, which was how Houtaro met Hopper-1 when he was a little kid.
But Papa Ichinose got caught by the Alchemist's Union, maybe because they found out Houtaro knew about Hopper-1. He refused to betray Fuga, so they either banished him somewhere he can't get out from and/or mind-wiped him of his memories of being an alchemist (as we saw with that classmate of Spanner's)... or maybe even killed him outright.
They mind-wiped Houtaro to remove his memories of Hopper-1 (under the guise of the rule where civilians' memories of Chemmies are erased). If they killed/banished Papa Ichinose, they would have made Houtaro and Mama Ichinose think he just went off on some adventure and will come back. They would also have mind-wiped their memories of him being an alchemist if they were aware of it.
It explains why Fuga just gave Houtaro the Driver, no questions asked. Sure, Hopper-1 and Steamliner "chose" him, but maybe he knew all along that he could trust this boy with it... because he knew why Hopper-1 chose him (that being Hopper-1 recognizing him as the little boy who befriended him years ago).
And if he knew Houtaro was his old friend's son, he would be compelled not only to entrust the Driver to him, but also to give his life protecting him- especially if Houtaro's dad did die helping him free the Chemmies.
It may also explain why the union inspector immediately suspected Houtaro being a spy yet was not surprised that he's able to gain the trust of the Chemmies and wielding their powers. If he knew Houtaro's dad was a talented alchemist who did manage to get the Chemmies to come along with him, then he wouldn't be all that surprised that his kid could do it too. Even more so if he knew about Houtaro having befriended Hopper-1 before. But of course he wouldn't trust Houtaro if his dad is considered a traitor to the Union.
(This doesn't explain why he didn't suspect Rinne of being the spy either, but because she is part of the Academy as a student even though her dad's been missing a while, it probably means someone within the Union took her in and vouched for her.
It also doesn't explain why Minato wouldn't have recognized Houtaro if his dad was a known alchemist, but maybe the Union unpersoned him in their ranks and/or Minato wasn't even around yet when it all went down.)
And maybe this also explains Atropos' taunts towards Rinne. She knew it was Rinne's dad protecting the Chemmies, after all, so if he was working with someone else she probably knew about it too.
What if when she said "it's all [Rinne's] fault" she was referring to Houtaro? She was saying that the whole reason Houtaro's the Kamen Rider because her dad got his dad involved, and in the process brought him into the whole affair too.
From a meta standpoint... well, it's not the first time an organization a Rider worked for made the Riders think someone was just away only for them to been killed as a traitor to that organization all along (despite actually being on the right side/trying to do the right thing).
That was basically what happened to Fukamiya Hayato, Kento's dad, in Saber- in his case, Hayato was manipulated into thinking he was doing the right thing when he "betrayed" the guild, and was actually acting on the orders of Master Logos, who had malicious intentions. Kento and the rest of the SoL were under the impression that he just ran off to join the Megid, when in fact he'd already been killed and the Calibur they were fighting wasn't his dad but another person entirely.
Notably, Gotchard is being co-written by Keiichiro Hasegawa, who also worked on Saber. And KR writers are known for their tendency to recycle their plots a lot.
In their case, Papa Ichinose and Fuga did betray the Union, but it remains to be seen why they did. Though, it would not be surprising if they found out the the Union had nefarious plans for the Chemmies and/or was in cahoots with Glion all along.
I mean, pretty much every official organization the Riders were affiliated with in Reiwa turned out to be involved with the bad guys in some way- AIMS being part of ZAIA which was involved in the Ark incident, the aforementioned Master Logos who lead the Swords of Logos being a bored nihilist whackjob, Fenix being founded by the leader of Giff's cult, the DGP being behind everything to begin with... so, if the Alchemist Union turned out to be involved with Glion, nothing new there.
I do think Papa Ichinose was more likely killed than imprisoned if the Union is involved with Glion. We already know they don't actually give a crap about the spy in their ranks when Minato reported it, nor did they care about Sabimaru being captured by the Abyssalis Sisters (or what could happen to him for that matter). I can't see them caring about offing an alchemist or two they believe to have betrayed them.
The banishment/mind-wipe scenario would be a mercy.
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I noticed you never use grantaire's nickname (R) in UMW-- i'm curious as to the reason! Is it a concious choice?
It is on purpose yes! It's because Grantaire kind of reversed the pun in UMW-verse:
In canon his given name is Grantaire -> that sounds like Grand R -> R
In UMW his given name is Rachmiel -> when he casts that off he opts to keep a part of it in the form of the first letter -> R -> Grand R -> Grantaire
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does anyone else remember that "ideal" point in your life when your writing just. happened so easily. and the words were just THERE and your brain was always THERE
for me it was when I moved away for college and had a roommate and was doing college things. my head was always full of character moments and plot points when it should have been full of classes and learning (lol). I think it had something to do with the shock of moving out and dealing with a new environment but man I wish I could go back to that mentality sometimes
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It has come to that time of year, on our Bible reading plan (Robert Roberts', if you're curious) where we approach The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. We were listening to it in the car today and I found it fascinating to spark thoughts. It's wonderfully pure, and that was what really struck me - it's unlike a lot of the vaguely or outright NSFW stuff I hear about nowdays, which seems to exist in a cheapened and vulgarised form. Call me a prude all you like, but I maintain that. Song of Solomon is incredibly erotic (especially if you think a bit on some of the euphemisms it employs) but with a certain innocence and purity that suits the subject matter far more than the crude 'humour' popularised today.
It then caused me to consider how, if at all, it could in the future be applicable to me. The answer is at this point I don't know. I'm in no way denying that I'm female! but the truth of the matter is I do not want to be perceived as a woman, and I don't really know how that ever fits with marriage. Unfortunately I am a creature of complications and contradictions. I suppose I differentiate between being female, and being a woman, by saying that the latter is that I do not want to be perceived as a sexual or (at this point) romantic possibility for anyone (not even the boy I am interested in, but that more because I know he specifically is not interested, so I don't know, if magically his feelings changed, what would happen. Still, that's irrelevant because it sha'n't happen). But at the same time I want it very much, at least in theory. I suppose that if God sees fit to bless me with someone who would be interested in me, that it'll all work out - one way or another - even if that simply shows me that I'm more suited to be single.
Occasionally I think about the two brave lads at the church conference in January who went there with the expressed intention of finding girls to try and consider a future with. They were going around talking to all the girls they could. One determined he wasn't interested in me pretty quickly, and the other I think I accidentally scared off with what I only intended as 'hey you can leave the convo if you want I won't be offended' but hindsight suggests that it probably sounded like I was saying to get lost. Ah well! Still I think about them because I really hope they each found someone. And I vaguely wish someone would come for me, but I don't know either if I should like it, at all, or if I would even become aware of it if they were interested. I'm always weird with boys. There's the boy at work who just because he has a pleasant smile and uses it very frequently, I get weird around him and cannot meet his eyes. I wouldn't call it flustered because it's not really - just weird.
But yeah, I love Song of Solomon and think it exceedingly beautiful.
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I'm reading more and more poly romances, and I typically am very big on poly books needing to like... give fair amounts of time and complexity to each dynamic in order to work for me? Every character needs to serve something other than another dynamic. Like in Sierra Simone's New Camelot, Embry and Ash have this distinct "you have to beat me to love me" thing, whereas Ash and Greer have the idyllic dom/sub dynamic, and Embry and Greer at first fall in love because they're both in love with Ash, but slowly develop a more individual dynamic that Ash recognizes needs to be nurtured away from him for a while.... and in Sara Cate's Give Me More, Hunter and Drake have the childhood friends who are in love but don't know it thing, and Hunter and Isabel have a lived in deeply romantic relationship, and Drake and Isabel have this whole forbidden desire guilt deal... It all matters.
And while I don't think every person Nora loves and plays with in the Original Sinners series is, thus far, someone she is IN LOVE with (like, I don't think she ever truly fell for Zachary for even a minute, for example) her dynamics with them matter in terms of how they affect her character and theirs. They don't just serve another relationship.
EXCEPT. For Wesley. Who, and I don't know if this was intentional as Tiffany Reisz was writing these books, I'll be real--only exists to convince me further that Nora and Soren are low down dirty dogs who just can't quit each other, and the two of them breaking out a knife on each other in bed is somehow! Much more romantic! Than Wesley's attempts to loooove her
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Oxenfree 2 spoilers, re the 'final choice'
I played the whole game in a solid 7 hour chunk yesterday and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it, and I'll have to do another playthrough when I can, because there's so much of the way the characters are that seems based on your choices so I wanna see what happens when I make other choices
but I'm seeing that a lot of people let Olivia go through the portal at the end, and that everyone who didn't is saying those who did are monsters for letting this grief-stricken teenager kill herself
and. i don't think there is a 'right' choice at the end there in most circumstances. but i did let Olivia take the radio, because as awful as it felt I just kept thinking that I couldn't do that to Rex
especially since we just had a ghost moment of Rex telling Riley she has to keep fighting, even though she's going to keep failing? to follow that up with 'or you can just kill yourself now to save these kids'? like it is a horrible thing to do to Olivia but it's a horrible thing to do to Rex too?
honestly, based on my playthrough, the 'right' thing seems to be Jacob going through the portal. few players forced him to because apparently the only way for him to do it is if you force him - I didn't even let him come on the island with me. I saw the prompt that I could stop him and immediately knew that if I didn't he would die. Riley kept seeing visions of her future but Jacob never did. Jacob kept talking to me about how he feels he never did anything important in life, how he likes just chilling in his hometown, how he doesn't have any grand ambition but also wants to do something important and meaningful
when that prompt popped up I thought 'if I go to that island I'm getting sucked into this loop too and I'm not coming back; Jacob doesn't deserve that' and I made him stay. I'm curious now if there's a specific dialogue tree that leads to Jacob deciding, at the end, that him going through that portal and saving everyone by doing what he's always been doing is his way of being a hero. but that wasn't the option i'd been given. instead I had two suicidal people, who both had their whole lives in front of them
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