What Tropes Are Common In Dottore X Aether Fanfiction Crossovers?

A surprisingly rich vein of these crossovers, once you look past the initial surface-level villain/hero dynamic. There’s the obsessive researcher angle—Dottore treating Aether as the ultimate anomalous specimen, a being from beyond Teyvat. That leads to a ton of lab or containment AUs, but also weirder, more psychological stuff where the ‘experiment’ is social, seeing how Aether reacts to twisted kindness or conditional freedom. Then you’ve got the timeline paradox plots, often borrowing from theories about the Descenders. What if Aether was a past, failed experiment of Dottore’s, memory wiped? Or a future one? That loops into amnesia tropes hard.

Beyond that, forced alliances pop up constantly. Fatui orders, mutual survival scenarios, a contract with very fine print—anything to get them sharing space long enough for the tension to shift from murderous to something more complicated. The power imbalance is key; it’s rarely an even footing. Dottore holds all the cards—knowledge, resources, sheer physical modification. Watching Aether navigate that, using adaptability and sheer stubborn will against a prepared, brilliant mind, is the core draw for a lot of writers.

And yeah, the body horror potential of the Segments gets explored, but often metaphorically. Which ‘version’ of Dottore is this? Is he collecting segments that failed to live up to some ideal, and sees in Aether a template? Or is Aether the one person who can see the man fractured beneath all the copies? It gets existential fast. I’ve seen more than one fic where the relationship is less romantic and more a horrifying mirror—the eternal traveler vs. the eternally replicating scientist, both alone in their own way. Ends up feeling more like a tragic character study than a ship sometimes, which I honestly prefer.

Redemption through destruction is a big one. Dottore doesn't get a happy ending; he gets deconstructed by his own fascination. Aether is the unstable element that causes the system to collapse. I also see a lot of 'failed prototype' AUs where Aether is an earlier attempt at creating a perfect, eternal being, making him a literal sibling to the Segments. That brings a whole messed-up family dynamic into it. The crossovers with 'Bloodborne' or 'Dishonored' lean into the aesthetic horror of it all, which fits better than most fluffy settings.

Okay, I’m gonna be the dissenting voice here because most of what I see just... misses the mark for me. Everyone leans way too hard into making Dottore a softboy in a lab coat, or a yandere with extra steps. The appeal is supposed to be his utter moral bankruptcy and clinical detachment, right? But then by chapter three he’s getting flustered because Aether brought him coffee. Ruins it.

The trope that actually works, when done with teeth, is ‘catalytic harm.’ Dottore doesn’t set out to change for Aether; Aether’s mere existence, his incorruptible persistence, acts as an uncontrolled variable that breaks the experiment—Dottore’s own worldview. The change is involuntary and probably violent. I read one where Dottore, trying to prove emotions are a chemical flaw, systematically exposes himself to scenarios involving Aether to map his own ‘errors,’ and the data ends up corrupting his entire purpose. That’s interesting. Not holding hands in the lab. The other common one I can tolerate is ‘unequal transaction’—Aether needs something only Dottore can provide (intel on the Abyss, a cure for a sibling’s corruption), and the price is submitting to observation. The tension is in the payment plan, and whether Dottore will actually uphold his end, or if the goalposts will move. It keeps him predatory, which is the point.

The most consistent thread I notice is the corruption arc, but slowed down and intellectualized. It’s rarely a simple ‘turns evil’—it’s Aether becoming complicit by accepting help or resources, starting to understand Dottore’s warped logic, even arguing for his utility. The trope is ‘the ends justify the means,’ and Aether gets his hands dirty for the greater good, with Dottore as his increasingly fascinated enabler. You see a lot of ‘enemies to co-conspirators.’

Another big one is the ‘specimen to sentience’ flip, from Dottore’s POV. His notes on Subject ‘A’ start clinical, then become obsessive, dotted with unscientific observations about the subject’s hair color in different light, or the exact frequency of his sighs. The documentation itself tells the story of his falling. It’s a great format for episodic vignettes. Also, body-sharing tropes pop up, using the Segment idea—Aether having to host a dormant or damaged fragment of Dottore’s consciousness, leading to internal dialogue and a very messy form of forced intimacy. The power dynamic there is completely inverted, which is a fun change.

So many ‘beauty and the beast’ retellings, but the beast is a mad scientist and the castle is a ruin guard factory. A lot of ‘there’s only one bed’ in a Snezhnayan safehouse. Also, a weirdly specific niche of Aether being a ‘therapy’ project for a Segment that’s gone rogue or developed empathy, which feels like a cop-out to me—pick the real, awful guy or don’t, you know? The crossovers with ‘Overwatch’ where he’s Moira’s colleague or ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ with Shou Tucker vibes are kind of predictable. More interesting are the rare crossovers with ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Doctor Who,’ where Dottore’s methods clash with a more principled, exploration-based sci-fi ethos, and Aether is caught in the middle.