#i love my oc aether genshinimpact can u tell. can u TELL.

[viaetor]

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤSTUDY    :    AETHER ( 拼音, kǒng ) .

tagged by :    no one, stole it like a pirate, arrrrk !! tagging :  @13nth , @apocryphis (shenhe, lyney or kazuha) , @predvestnik , @luzofstars (riku or furina) , @iniziare (guizhong or arlecchino) , @snowtombedstar, @taiixuan (allen or yorha) , @theoneandonii and YOU!! tell me all about your muses; this is NOT a request. 🫵

—    basics.

▸       is your muse tall    /    short    /    average ? he's canonically short, around the 165cm (5′4″) mark on his most humanoid form, no more than that.

▸       are they okay with their height ? he's mostly content with his height, yeah! although he does get a tiny bit conscious whenever he realises that lumine is taller by a few centimetres when they're standing side by side, when other people try teasing him for his height, he doesn't mind. or, well... that's what he tells himself, at least. he hides his annoyance behind a perfectly stoic smile if others keep going on and on about his height. welp! "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" is the philosophy he chants to himself.

▸      what’s their hair like ? oh, it's so, so soft to the touch! long, wavy and as yellow as sun rays, it's like a golden waterfall. when he's under the direct midday sun, you can even see his hair glowing with the light it receives. i sometimes tend to describe his hair as a mane whenever it's loose, but aether tends to keep his hair braided most of the time. he's more than open to letting people decorate his hair, though! be it with flowers, another hairstyle or anything of the sort. his only request is that his feather hairclip remains at all times. asking him to cut his hair is unthinkable, too. he'd never.

▸     do they spend a  lot of time on their hair     /    grooming ? it depends if he's in a hurry or not; he doesn't have a beauty routine at all. at the beginning of his journey in teyvat, his hair would be a complete mess, and he wouldn't even blink at the looks he got from the habitants of mondstadt. but as time passed and he realised spending time on this planet was inevitable, he started to slow down. nowadays, every time he wakes up, he likes to take a bath at a lake or river, and he spends a good chunk of his time cleaning and brushing his hair. it's a therapeutic process, really, and he uses it to think of his to-do list for the day. paimon is always there to help him braid his hair as well, but he misses the way lumine would style his hair. something about how she did it always made his head feel... lighter. he misses her a lot. maybe it's why he spends some time grooming his hair when he never used to before.

▸      does your muse care about their appearance   /   what others think ? more than one might think at first glance. aether is very good at keeping his composure and posture, he loathes the idea of losing his cool or letting too much of his thoughts out. he's a traveller, and he knows people pay attention to him because of that, but he doesn't want to stand out when it comes to more personal matters. rumours about his strength and his feats are circling around town squares? that's fine. being a well-known public figure, with friends and foes in the open, is something he's used to after thousands of years of being a traveller across the stars. public display of affection, though? that is something he minds deeply since he tends to be very reserved. he's also very attentive to cultural and local costumes, and he tries his best to blend in as an outsider.

—    preferences.

▸      indoors    or    outdoors ?     outdoors. ▸      rain    or    sunshine ?  sunshine. ▸      forest    or    beach ?      forest. ▸      precious    metals    or    gems ?      metals. ▸      flowers    or    perfumes ?     flowers. ▸      personality    or    appearance ?      personality. ▸      being    alone    or    being    in    a    crowd ?     being alone. ▸      order    or    anarchy ?     order. ▸      painful    truths    or    white    lies ?     painful truths. ▸      science    or    magic ?     magic. ▸      peace    or    conflict ?    peace. ▸      night    or    day ?     day. ▸      dusk    or    dawn ?   dawn. ▸      warmth    or    cold ?     warmth. ▸      many   acquaintances    or    a    few    close    friends ?   many acquaitances. ▸      reading    or    playing    a    game ?      reading.

—    questionnaire.

▸      what are some of your muse’s bad habits ? other than the most glaring; i.e his god complex and his insistence that caelings can not love as purely as humans do (i'll talk more about this in another post), he has a considerable amount of bad habits. he refuses to ask for help even when he needs it, especially from people he considers dear, he tends to catastrophize the future a lot, he's somewhat co-dependent of lumine (a mindset he's having to change through brutal realisation), he refuses/avoids empathy from others and he oft ignores his own body and needs. less grave bad habits include him roughly biting his own lips to the point of injuring them every now and then, impulsive shopping and occasional reckless behaviour when apprehensive.

▸      has your muse lost anyone close to them ? how has it affected them ? he has lost a lot of people. friends, lovers and companions from other worlds, he's seen them all grow grey until their last breathing days. when he was a few hundred years old, he thought he had all the time he could ever want in his hands. and while that is true for himself, others aren't as fortuitous. the clock keeps on ticking, slowing down for no one, and he hates mortality because of that... but he also deeply cherishes it at the same time. a lot of things he took for granted were shaken by his realisation and losing lumine definitely didn't help. he now realises that time is a curse. his ever growing list of sins and regrets will keep on getting longer and longer... that fact haunts him, and at each new dawn, it doesn't get any easier. not without them by his side. he was meant to be an immortal entity to fight in the name of the stars, to represent the soldier will of the cosmos. he was meant to be mercilessless, brutal, devoid of laments. so why did they make him love everything that wither below the skies, so unlike him? is he fated to watch everything rot? for how long? can't he join them?

▸      what are some fond memories your muse has ? the first time that he and lumine watched lunar flowers blooming. how they used to fly across the cosmos, holding hands, and how they played on saturn's rings. he has so many with lumine that it makes him melancholic. when it comes to teyvat specifically, he remembers how well-received he was by amber and the others in mondstadt. i like to imagine that lisa and jean offered him a cup of tea once he said he was lost and looking for his sister. he still remembers the sweet taste, and how kaeya and diluc tried to cheer him up at different times. he loved playing house with klee and albedo, too. that evening that he spent with childe and teucer was so endearing, it made him wonder how his other siblings would be like. maybe albedo and childe would get along. ah, the first time he listened to zhongli's history lessons felt so freeing, as if he finally met someone who understood him. attending to hu tao and xinyan performance was something that made his heart warm. or perhaps it was the amazing jian dui that xiangling cooked that same night. when he helped collei, cyno and tighnari collect mushrooms, he could listen to their banter for hours... when he had his first beetle fight with itto, and how much kazuha laughed when he told him about it. seeing ayaka dance, and watching the fireworks with yoimiya are on the top of his list. sharing old fairy tale stories with nahida while she made him a flower crown, too. hearing al-haitham and layla talk about academic concepts of stars and having to hold a smile because he couldn't correct them... he has so many new fond memories. but he still misses home.

▸     is it easy for your muse to kill ? dangerously so. monsters, enemies, obstacles. he used to be more ruthless a few hundred years ago, but in recent times, he'll opt for the diplomatic version if he can. aether has no qualms in appealing to more brutal ways if persuasion doesn't work, though. when it comes to killing someone who he cherishes, though... that's a different story. he never had to do it. not yet.

▸      what’s it like when your muse breaks down ? if you're talking about a rage breakdown, he's going to get absolutely feral. broken wings, fangs, claws and every other monstrosity he keeps hidden will be exposed, and he'll shred whatever is provoking his anger. he gets eerily quiet once there's silence, though, but his ears are still buzzing, and his hands are still itching with his sword. when it comes to a sorrowful breakdown, he's far less destructive, even if he may punch the floor or a wall. he'll withdraw and... scratch his skin, weirdly enough. as if this humanoid flesh is what causing his sadness. and before he can notice, he'll be crying. he may try to fly off a cliff, too, even with his shattered wings. after a while, his sorrow will die out too, just like his rage: he'll get more reserved than usual, not speak a word, very aloof and apathetic to things around him. it can take him a couple of days for him to come back to his senses.

▸      is your muse capable of trusting someone with their life ? immediate yes if you are lumine. a huge "maybe" leaning towards "no" to everyone else, unfortunately.

▸      what’s your muse like when they’re in love ? aether has a complicated relationship when it comes to 'loving' someone (he doesn't think he, as a caeling, is capable of something so pure as 'to love'). he'll love your muse, but deep down, he'll doubt himself if it's really love even when it's so blatant to others. he tends to look over the person for longer, and his smile lingers for more seconds than it should be appropriate. whenever he can, he's taking the opportunity to not only spend time with them, but to lean in closer, hovering touches of shoulders, hands or anything he can get away with. he writes them more often, and he tries a more neat handwriting despite how weird the pen feels in his hand. he will visit them often and sneakily flirt with them. he'll offer to "hang out" or, depending on where they're standing, ask for "casual dates". he'll memorise important dates, he'll celebrate their victories, he'll feel and hug their griefs. he'll look them over, memorise every little mole, and speak incantations in the language of the stars. he'll tell the moon and the stars about them so that even stardust will remember them. he'll repeat their name like it's honey to his lips. he will love so, so much, and still he will think that is not enough.