i love kaebedo its my top fave ship (side by side with zhongluc) but its one of those ships that the fandom just like dpesn't do right so bad i think.
canon albedo: i think having friends is so tedious and not worth the time when i could be doing things that i perceive are much more worth my time
(which he later proves himself wrong insofar as saying that he sees Klee as a little sister, though he still finds her somewhat troublesome. not sure if that's because she's blowing everything up or because alice was like "you're literally siblings now" or what.)
albedo loves distance. he's one of those people that you have on your friends list for years but haven't talked to for those years, but you have a generally favorable impression of. then he messages you and is just the same as you remember him, but more importantly, the state of friendship in his mind between you two has not degraded in any way, shape or form since you last spoke. you guys are "friends" and he likes you and even if you, personally, do not think you guys are on the same level as friendship as someone who makes the effort to talk to you every day, it doesn't matter to him.
but fanon albedo is like completely open with his emotions and kaeya is the one being mysterious and withholding his own feelings. i feel like it'd be the opposite. i think the fandom at large misreads the characters' intentions and goals when applied to this specific pairing and they are generally seen as Husbands Immediately. not only is albedo struggling coming to terms with himself as a Being(tm) and experiencing An Emotion, but kaeya omits things about himself and keeps it that way for everyone around him. so yeah, the fandom did get the "kaeya withholds his own feelings" thing right, but that's not even the case for most works i see depicting kaebedo.
i think a typical, closer to canon kaebedo getting-together scenario would work like this:
kaeya takes interest in albedo superficially for any reason. this could tie into khaenri'ah, or it could just tie into them being "co-workers". kaeya deems albedo interesting enough that he wants to get information out of him, about himself and his work.
kaeya thinks about applying the tactics he uses to get information out of other people to albedo, which involves manipulating, for better or worse, the emotions of his "target". of course, this would prove fruitless because albedo barely recognizes he has emotions himself. kaeya is very observant and would likely (and likely actually is, in canon) watch albedo and his mannerisms, as well as probably timaeus, sucrose, and klee (those people that are "closest" to albedo insofar as they actually can find him sometimes), for an undetermined amount of time (and doesn't stop). this is made especially easy with klee.
kaeya comes to the conclusion that albedo may actually be "easy". he realizes that because albedo doesn't seemingly have any boundaries when it comes to sharing his work, kaeya takes on the role of a mentoree. by now he knows a lot of what albedo thinks is interesting - conversation starters. topics to get albedo talking. kaeya starts off asking questions about topics that kaeya might not (or he may) have any knowledge greater than simply cursory.
and it works! of course it works because it's kaeya we're talking about. he starts off visiting the laboratory only once every few weeks under the guise of "work" (but always gets albedo talking before albedo can ask what the work is), then slowly he starts visiting more and more.
of course, what started as mere passing interest in someone he thought didn't fit in with the rest of mondstadt grows and grows, and soon he finds himself caring about albedo greatly. this process may take several more months - after all, kaeya might not admit he has feelings, either, even if he's much more in tune with himself than the average person.
at some point, either before, during, or after kaeya realizes he has feelings for albedo beyond just "colleague" - and genuine ones at that! - kaeya would start sharing information about his own world. despite living in mondstadt, albedo still considers himself an outsider: he doesn't belong here and is only here on recommendation letter from his master. but kaeya's lived in mondstadt his entire life! he can show albedo all sorts of things that the average person of mondstadt may take for granted - things that are truly "magical" (which kaeya has noted that, even though albedo doesn't use that term, albedo would love to be enchanted in such a silly, childish way), things that dazzle, things that aren't just things mondstadt markets as a tourist attraction of sorts. he invites albedo to join mondstadt officially.
i think there'd be a genuine slowburn that would take months to years here. i think kaeya, in all his perceived responsibility and duty, would not admit to albedo how he truly feels. albedo has no other frames of references and simply accepts kaeya as someone a part of his life (after all, kaeya seems particularly receptive and in tune with leaving albedo alone, even when albedo doesn't voice it), much like he did with klee. while they're both knights of favonius, kaeya is closer to "family" and "kin" than he is as a knight.
thinking about it, i genuinely think there'd have to be some sort of inciting incident in order to get them to actually talk. it doesn't even have to be dangerous or fatal or "one of them is in danger and the other helps them!". it can be as simple as diluc telling kaeya to be honest with himself after a mission that nearly costed kaeya his life. it can be klee asking albedo when kaeya is going to play with them next even though kaeya just played with them yesterday, and albedo starts wondering the same question - but why? it can be others noticing albedo seeking out kaeya first, rather than the other way around. it can be kaeya or albedo messing up in their work - only to realize they had done so because they were thinking of the other. generally, the universe is going to have to shuffle these guys together first, because they're not going to start anything of their own volition. even if it's not fully external, something has to happen in order to break either of them out.
and then it all comes to fruition eventually. i think kaeya would be less likely to start it. kaeya still has that perceived sense of duty and responsibility and the sense that his whole life is built on lies, and he doesn't want to get anyone else caught up into it - he doesn't want to fall back into another perceived sense of security and love (look what happened with diluc, after all!). i think albedo may go to sucrose or jean for advice - once again, he's needing to be taught how to do something. i think jean would be great for this actually. i think they'd have a lengthy conversation one day about it. jean tells him to think about it. albedo comes back the next day asking precisely how to ask someone out because he's made up his mind but this is not a subject (courtship, that is) that he's really researched before. jean laughs.
in the end, i think even with the final, final beginnings of courtship and dating and loving, i think kaeya is still reluctant (and albedo is reluctant, too!). but eventually, albedo convinces kaeya that he'd love him regardless of any of his faults and would support him in his sane and sound endeavors and would stop him if necessary (though albedo only says this to him in order to ask kaeya to stop him if necessary), until ashes return to ashes, and dust returns to dust.
basically what i'm saying is that these two are emotionally constipated and need a fire lit under the asses (maybe literal) in order for them to just Do anything. but my criticism with the fandom's common portrayal is that it'd take less than 3 weeks for them to go from practically strangers to married, and i disagree with that, even when you take into account the theories that kaeya is a khaenri'ahn prince/royalty of some sort and albedo is a "weapon of khaenri'ah"* or otherwise related to khaenri'ah in some way. kaeya only has his parents and family to connect him to khaenri'ah -- and besides being of the same alchemy that khaenri'ah developed, albedo has no clear connections with khaneri'ah at all.
* i say "weapon of khaenri'ah" but that was my old theory. it might still be true (especially with the new event) but i was just reading something about how albedo is the purification process in alchemical stages as well as the fact that albedo himself talks extensively about the petrified trees and that he has been shown revitalizing them (much like we do when we purify a ley line, etc). so i think albedo is not built to be a "weapon" of destruction, but a "weapon" of "purification" in the regards that more and more signs point to him actually, possibly, maybe stopping a berserk kaeya -- prince of khaenri'ah -- than the opposite. but he still feels that he can do more hurt than good, i think.
this is just a lot of rambling but anyway. i think the genshin/kaebedo fandom at large just wants to see them happy and loving because they both deserve it and i am also a sucker for romance. however i am a slave to canon personalities if anything and think that it's actually a much more interesting dynamic than what most fanworks make it out to be. so much potential lost just reducing it to standard "lovey-dovey" tropes immediately imo.
"and yet you reblog and like the fanworks where they are just lovey-dovey tropes. curious!" yeah because i appreciate them and i am multi-faceted and think that people should still have fun.
i have gained a bunch of new followers for aitsfposting and im glad but when date ryuki or boss arent holding me at gunpoint its my little genshin guys and gals
so on the off chance any of u play... please add me on NA 606325757
i think more people need to pay attention to hu tao shes literally the woman of all time. she's gonna offer you a discount on her coffins because brother youre gonna need it when shes done with you
