[Lore] Can we see Aether ?

[Attarik]

Some RPers like to make up their own lore as an excuse to have an overpowered mary sue of a character. It's not common but sadly it happens.

[Anova]

Actually, you can see Aether. Notable NPCs like Urianger have done it, although he had a very nice set of goggles for it.

Conveniently, the Gold Saucer sells Sharlayan Goggles. Just say you found them, or were given to them as a new member of the Scions of Dawn, and you're set.

Otherwise, spend a fantasia to white out your eyes. Try to at least keep the appearance of aether-seeing eyes consistent with Y'shtola. Good RPers will at least make that connection without you have to explain it.

[ExKage]

Try to at least keep the appearance of aether-seeing eyes consistent with Y'shtola. Good RPers will at least make that connection without you have to explain it.

Isn't the case of Y'shtola the other way around? She was blinded either by use of Flow or her being lost in the lifestream. Hence she uses aether to help her see in some way, but doing so is a drain on her life.

[Shirobi]

Actually, you can see Aether. Notable NPCs like Urianger have done it, although he had a very nice set of goggles for it.

Conveniently, the Gold Saucer sells Sharlayan Goggles. Just say you found them, or were given to them as a new member of the Scions of Dawn, and you're set.

Otherwise, spend a fantasia to white out your eyes. Try to at least keep the appearance of aether-seeing eyes consistent with Y'shtola. Good RPers will at least make that connection without you have to explain it.

That's the thing. You CAN see it. But only with help. Or in very specific places or circumstances. What the OP is talking about, correct me if Im wrong, is RPers just claiming they can see it willy nilly. No gear, no specific reasons. Just they can because Echo or some such.

[Shirobi]

I thought that Y'shtola's case was that you can effectively "see" it but only by expending yourself so that it wasn't very healthy for someone to do it in whatever doses.

'Shtola can see it cause she got "mutated" by it. It blinded her and left her with the ability to see it, but at the cost of her own life-force.

[Ultimatecalibur]

In my understanding, all non-Pure-blood Garleans* have a 6th sense to go along with the 5 (Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste and Touch) that we have: an Aether sense and it is what allows for the use of magic. This sense is not normally a strong/dominant sense for the Spoken races. It takes fairly dense concentrations for most to noticeably "see" Aether. Many of the visible effects we see (energy tethers, Aether currents, Darkside Aura, etc.) are visual representations of the Aether our characters sense.

The Sharlayan googles do something similar to real world infrared goggles. We can naturally sense temperature with our sense of touch, but because of how weak and short range this sense is we developed an method to convert heat patterns into visible images. The Sharlayan googles do this for Aether patterns.

Y'shtola's trip trough the Lifestream blinded her, and like many real world blind people she shift focus from her lost sense to another sense in order to compensate. Instead of shifting to hearing she shifted to her Aether sense. For some currently unknown reason relying heavily (to the point that in compensates for total blindness) on your Aether sense drains your personal Aether shortening your life.

*Pure-blood Garleans may have it, but it may have atrophied to the point of non-function.

[Anova]

An alternative if someone really is hell-bent on seeing aether as a central ability for their character, is to simply make them a non-PC race. Maybe the character is actually a Padjal with their horns cut off, or a fiend (au'ra or a suitably emo full armor set can pull this off decently well).

It still smacks a little of a gary stu/mary sue and takes clever writing to pull off; but everything in the lore suggests those races have better aetherial senses than the PCs.

[Yata7]

'Shtola can see it cause she got "mutated" by it. It blinded her and left her with the ability to see it, but at the cost of her own life-force.

Hold up, hold up... The dialouge between Y'shtola and Matoya, as well as Y'shtola and the PC, lead me to believe her trip through the lifestream (and subsequent reconstitution) left her blind and now she is sensing aether to "see," effectively. I don't recall any mention of this ability to manipulate aether being attributed to any change the lifestream may have had on her. However it is clearly stated that doing this expends her own life force and is more than likely no small feat. The way Matoya talks about it makes it seem like more old, forbidden, Sharlayan magic to me, not something unique.

There are other NPC's as well who can be found sensing ambient aether, The little Lalafell scholar at Highbridge, for example, yells at you for breaking his concentration while studying the aether there.

[Lucke]

Y'shtola's trip trough the Lifestream blinded her, and like many real world blind people she shift focus from her lost sense to another sense in order to compensate. Instead of shifting to hearing she shifted to her Aether sense. For some currently unknown reason relying heavily (to the point that in compensates for total blindness) on your Aether sense drains your personal Aether shortening your life.

That also explains how she's much more powerful after her little vacation. She throws out WHM spells like nothin'.

You can also think of Aether as matter. Everything is made of aether/matter, but unless it's super concentrated we can't see it. We can't see individual atoms, but we can see the desk, computer, and PS3/4 that the atoms made. That fire spell is made of aether, but since it's so condensed we can see fire.

[Shirobi]

Some RPers like to make up their own lore as an excuse to have an overpowered mary sue of a character. It's not common but sadly it happens.

But Im Minfilia's sister's daughter with Cid and part elf, part sylph, part primal. And a vampire. And a Garlean Princess. Really you guys.