Discussion: Aether

Hi, everyone! Apologies for posting this pretty late—I might have ended the week by going out and having a fun time with my friends. And yes, that did include some drinking here and there. [winks] But I’m fine now, and that’s what matters!

Anyway, here’s the last post for August’s celebration. Before anything else, thank you guys so much for being with me for the past month and eing there as I took a look back and compared-slash-contrasted to what I have now versus what I had then. It’s pretty humbling to see, and I definitely know that there’s more room to grow. Regardless, I’m happy about the steps I’ve made to somewhat better both myself and the stories I’ve gotten to create over the years.

For this final 5B post, I’ll be talking about Coalesce’s Aether Maxwell. Feel free to click the “read more” down there if you’re interested in knowing more about my baby.

"I'm a little camera-shy."

If you’ve read the prior discussion on A from the DNAU, then you’ll remember that one part where I sort of ended up connecting her to the central figures of the DNAU. The same can be applied to Coalesce’s Aether. Something I like to do in my spare time is to map the characters and see how they end up connected to one another, and interesting enough, I’ve found that Aether is actually the middle piece that joins them together. After losing her family in a fire, she was moved to an orphanage where she met Lysette Cross. This very same orphanage arranged for her being sent to the United States, where she met the likes of Tadashi Sato, Samuel Peters, and Mack Thomas. After being put into a Squad with the three, she comes to meet Mathieu Silvestre during one of the Squad’s jobs. Mathieu leads her to Kang Jin-ho, the latter of which acting as Mathieu’s employer and at the same time hiring Jian Lee from time to time. In time, Aether is eventually asked to handle the investigation of Kim Soo-yeon’s death, leading her to meet Lee Jin-kyong in the process. Finally, to really kick off the start of the main plot, Lysette travels to the United States in hopes of completing an assignment recently assigned—and this involves having to contact Aether after years of not seeing one another.

From the detailed web above, it’s clear to see that Aether binds everyone together. Without her, I don’t think that everyone would have been able to converge in Seattle. While it might appear as mere coincidence, consider: if Aether hadn’t lost her family in the first place, she wouldn’t have had moved to the orphanage and met Lysette; following that line, she might not have been sent to HQ to begin with. This prevents her from meeting Tadashi as well as the rest of the Squad, and then Mathieu. And honestly—her not getting to meet these people would impact the plot so much; I doubt that without Aether, Coalesce’s plot wouldn’t be what it is in the present. It’s pretty much everyone coming together as one group in Coalesce that makes the story what it is—the actual definition of the word even involves the element of getting together from varied individuals, and that’s exactly what happens in the course of the story.

Aether as the connecter is one of the things that have made her special throughout the different developments, reincarnations, and whatnot. She’s someone who’s incredibly integral to the story, someone who’s very much needed and valued despite what she thinks of herself. We’ll be getting to that part later, but for the moment it might be nice to start on what sets her apart from DNAU!A.

I suppose one of the bigger changes involves how easily attached she can get to people. Aether is someone who is easily attached; we’ve seen this with her relationship with Tadashi, Lysette, and Mathieu especially. Her attachments come from her losing her family and home when she was much younger. Without someone to really cling on to (such as a parent figure), she searched for people who she could cling to and rely on the more she grew up. Once she did, an attachment would develop. This is a step away from DNAU!A, who tried to remain unattached as much as possible; for her, after all, feelings involved hurt and that was something she longed to stay away from. In the present, Aether isn’t like that—not quite. She is one of those who remain the least averse to love, the least averse to being protected and cared for. 

"Please don't blame me for it."

That brings us to our next point. Aether is someone who wants to be loved and who also wants to love. She’s got a lot of it in her and wants to do so much with it; and it’s highly likely that when someone comes along, she’ll be sure to give what she can in hopes of making them stay. Again drawing from childhood incidents, it’s not hard to imagine that she would be the type to want for it so, so much. It’s something special to her, something that matters—and getting to have it might just be one of the things that she genuinely wants for herself in the future.

But of course, this desire for love and penchant for attachments can only go so far. From an objective standpoint, it starts to get concerning when her fear of abandonment starts to settle and ripple. Once Aether has someone who she can hold on to, the last thing she wants to happen is for them to leave her behind. Take the situation between her and Mathieu as an example; when Mathieu leaves her in December 2015, Aether is pretty much broken down. It takes the whole Squad to get her back on her feet, and Aether is about to confirm to herself that she has to until Mathieu comes knocking four to five months later. The choice to forgive is one that would be talked about in her arc, as is how she manages to settle things with Mathieu. There’s a lot of questions to be answered, lots of which needing a definite answer before she can allow herself to open up again.

Tying in with these traits is Aether’s insecurity. Aether is an insecure person deep down—she’s one who questions herself more than what can be considered as regular doubt. Her doubt attacks from time to time, whether it be with her at work, at home, or in the presence of someone who she’s comfortable with. There’s a lot of questioning, a lot of second-guessing that hits her depending on what’s happening, and to be honest, most of the doubt comes from a dark place. With the need to be loved and cared for comes the need to be someone who’s good enough, to be someone who can be enough or even more. That is exactly what Aether wants. There’s a desire for her to be worthy of things, to be worthy of love; and as much as she craves for it, there’s a deep part of her that insists that there could be always someone better. Like earlier, this is something that might be a matter of concern depending on how it escalates and what happens as time passes.

And again, her insecurity comes from somewhere. While not necessarily coming from someone, her insecurity has arguably built on the desire to change the world. Those three words—change the world— are ones that appear from time to time in particular graphics. Aether is always the person connected to those words, and within good reason. Prior to leaving for Seattle, Aether made a promise to the orphanage owner that she would go out and change the world as the previous kids had; in her younger mind, it was a scary yet exciting thing to promise. As she grew up, however, the responsibility of fulfilling that promise could only grow heavier as Aether grew up. The longer she lived, the more she believed that she had to do something, to be someone that the world needed. She wasn’t happy merely living and not experiencing, not at all. There had to be reason, some kind of end goal; and for Aether, her end goal involved changing the world in any way she could. Her intense insecurity comes from the fear of not doing enough, not being enough—and this extends to relationships as well. Come the arrival of more plots, and eventually the main plot, Aether’s insecurity mixed with her desire to change the world would produce some interesting results.

At her core, Aether is fire. She radiates brilliance when at her best, whether it be with her team or anyone else. Aether is fire and passion and the desire to both be good and do good. She’s someone with a kind heart, someone who would much rather not use violence, someone who loves so intensely and just wants to be loved back the same way. Aether is someone with lots of unbridled potential, someone who can do so much for a world that doesn't deserve her. She wants to protect and be protected, to love and to be loved, to fight and to be someone worth fighting for. There's quite a number of layers that make her traits interact in one way or another, and that's something that I wish I'd be able to properly portray come the time Coalesce starts to pick up.

She's someone who just deserves the best after all that the world has and will throw her way. I can at least say that she isn't going to have it easy; she'll be tested and fought and will find herself in situations she never anticipated at the start. But she's a strong girl—she'll make it.

"I'll do my best to survive."

That marks the end of the August celebration! Again, thank you so much for being with me this entire month. I'll be taking a few days off to focus on academics and everything—for the time being, please don't expect the blog's layout to change so soon. I'll try to pick up on activity, but keep in mind that I'm a college student at the same time with different responsibilities and all. Plus, I'm still developing Coalesce to the best of my ability!

Feel free to check out the rest of the month's post at this tag. I'll see you all soon. ❤