#avatar!edrian

[theworldwalkerswols]

It’s time to babble inspired by that meme about spoilers vs can’t-shut-up-itis because in the words of April Wolfe,

It’s not what happens, but how it happens that makes a movie worth watching.

RIP Switchblade Sisters, you were my fave podcast for quite some time.

A n y w a y

I am now going to attempt to apply that same rationale to my own work bc I want to talk about [REDACTED: original fiction spoilers] and his utterly untapped potential in XIV-verse.

If for some reason you’d rather not I’ll put it under a cut ✌️

CWs: semi-surgical references, non-consensual enchantment, Reaper questline spoilers, Shadowbringers spoilers, Voidark questline spoilers

Kyler Drake has something growing inside him. The cross-shaped scar over his heart, his only scar pock-marked with the telltale signs of stitches, is its only giveaway. In canon, he knows that something was done to him, but he doesn’t know what. His already prickly personality starts to become unstable, and he experiences surges of disproportionate anger that he doesn’t understand… and eventually the seed of enchantment planted within him triggers his body to split and duplicate…but what results is not strictly Keldan [humanoid]. The enchantment goes awry for reasons that I won’t get into right now, but it did not work as intended. It was intended to utilize Kyler’s body, reconfiguring him in a sense, to take him over and make him something new.

That something new, the something that split off from him rather than subsume him, is Edrian.

I’ve thought a lot about how to possibly bring Edrian to bear in XIV. One of Kyler’s possible bad ends is this enchantment working as originally intended in-canon. (That linked post is also the only art I’ve shared of Edrian to date…I should draw him again.)

As far as what precisely Edrian is in XIV-verse, which is bound up with Kyler’s lost memories, this is what I’ve currently arrived at:

Edrian is the void-seed planted in Kyler by a cult of mages who are descended from Mhachi tradition, though this ritual is not something that has ever been attempted before. They have conducted magical experiments and have arrived at this next step

They are attempting to find a way to grant a voidsent a living body, rather than summon them into a statue. Their attempts and experiments have led here, to something that is intended to subsume the host without destroying the body (all past attempts have destroyed the body)

Some time after the procedure Kyler finally slips his chains and escapes them, perhaps even knowing what they did to him and what it means, slaughtering them so they cannot experiment on anyone else, cannot do again what they did to him

The immense strain - physical, emotional, psychological - that this whole experience put Kyler under means that when he’s fleeing across the desert and gets sunstroke, he collapses and loses all his memories but for his name

The blessing of light awakening in Kyler in ARR is what has, largely, kept Edrian in check. Since Light, the Astral force, is of stasis and Edrian’s connection had not been given enough time to flourish, he never gains a significant enough hold over Kyler’s mind or body to begin to break through, even though he is a being of Umbral aspect, of change

And this is where I haven’t fully decided like Anything. I think it makes sense that there are little murmurs, little stirrings of him after Midgardsormr cuts WoL off from Hydaelyn, and perhaps even after Kyler regains the Blessing of Light. In a timeline where Kyler actually picks up the DRK quests, I think Edrian would be entangled with Kyler’s Fray/Esteem, perhaps even would be his Fray entirely.

But.

Part of what empowers Edrian is Kyler’s anger, and he has his temper in check in a timeline in which he hasn’t been pushed to the brink by Haurchefant’s death. (I have a WIP of an alternate timeline in which Edrian does in fact subsume Kyler before or after the fight with Thordan, leaving Shtola and Alphinaud to wrangle and bind him and bring him back to Ishgard to an Aymeric who is already grieving the loss of his and Kyler’s mutual lover Haurchefant, and who does not yet know that he will grieve the potential loss of Estinien, as well, all while grappling with what Kyler has become….)

And then they introduced Reaper. And I knew what I wanted to do with him: Edrian becomes Kyler’s Avatar.

Provisionally, I think they arrive there via…

In fic-verse Kyler doesn’t know what the tattoos on his solar plexus are, and none of the Scions have ever recognized it, either. It’s a seal: for translation from canon purposes it renders him an aetherically-closed system. He can manipulate aether to a degree, enough to teleport for certain, but while it is intact he is woefully bad at magic, no matter how hard he tries.

EITHER a) as in canon, he put it on himself before he lost his memory, hoping it would help hold back the development of the voidseed and/or prevent him being magically tracked by any remaining cultists, or b) it was put on him by the mages, in order to safeguard as much of his aether as possible for the seed

Zane is the one who is proficient at magic, and his canon classes (RDM, BLM, WHM) are the ones that deal most closely with voidsent. Add to this that Zane is the one who does the Voidark quests and he has vastly more experience with void stuff than his brother

Kyler gets caught up with the Lemures somehow. Drusilla recognizes that he already, in a way, has a pact, and tells him so. Kyler, whose memories never get restored (partially bc he tries really hard not to remember or consider or investigate) is shocked by this. The fact that he doesn’t know sounds a warning bell for her and she takes charge, demanding that they get to the bottom of this situation for everyone’s safety, including Kyler’s

He ends up calling on Zane, remembering how his brother talked about the Voidark and the strange catlike familiar that had survived since Mhach

Cait Sith recognizes the seal immediately, shenanigans ensue with breaking it for Kyler’s own wellbeing

In this case, I think they would be able to discover enough of what was potentially going on or being attempted with the enchantment for Cait Sith to insist upon the voidseed’s removal, again for Kyler’s health, and to guide the Redbill medic in doing so

Kyler then retains the seed but outside himself, it allowing him to see, hear, and speak with a phantasmal version of Edrian, who is, quite frankly, simply glad to finally be free and in recompense forges a true pact with Kyler, one that subsumes neither of them

Enshroud then allows Edrian to do what the mages were attempting to achieve in the first place, but temporarily and with Kyler’s consent, and Edrian is free, no longer trapped in the prison of Kyler’s mind

When does this happen? Pfft. Who knows?? Not me!!

PS Edrian has black feathered wings, long crimson hair, piecing electric-blue eyes, chitinous glossy black patches like exoskeleton over some of his joints, claws, sharp white teeth, and the voice of a siren ✌️ he’s my OG monstrous slut and I love him ✌️✌️

If you read this far ty for attending the babbling 🖤🖤🖤

[contactimprovisation]

Day one of PADL. This photo is from a screenshot of my duet with David Mariano. I asked my new friend Miguel Gonzales to record it for me, whom I had the pleasure of working with during the first day of Sara Shelton Mann’s Workshop. Miguel and I worked on leading the focus and following the movement of our partner’s hand. Miguel equated it to using tablet and having the body react to the minimal movement of the wrist such as a spiral to the floor when rotating of the wrist inward. I was a very simplistic concept but feeling the minutia of the others body took a couple of practices for me.  When I talked with Miguel later in the evening we talked about how he had been Contact Improvising for over 20 years and was introduced to the art from Steve Paxton in New York City. Back then he didn’t know who Steve was or what contact improvisation was either. He reminded me of my Uncle Ramon with their similar tanned skin and long grey hair. I found out he was from el D.F. in Mexico and that when he moved to New York City that his mutual friend had connected him with Jose Limon because he was the only other person from el D.F in Nueva York.

The second photo is of me and my new friend Zach King we were accidentally wearing matching shirts. Zach is a local to the City Heights area and one of the local artists of San Diego that I met during my stay. He has a lot of body art and I couldn’t help but stare. Some of my favorites pieces were the elvish greeting, from the Lord of the Rings across his right shoulder. Another piece was the water, earth, fire, and air stone tablet from the Avatar series that was on his left forearm. I could go on about his pieces form hours! I worked with him during the Contact improve foundations class  that was held in the afternoon and taught by Anya Cloud. During this free class we started explored “the Small Dance” the subtle shifting of the micro-body as you simply stand. Then we  explored the falling motion of gravity and the sensation of rolling through a connected point to the floor. Some questions we were asked were: How do you bring the momentum of rolling from the ground until you are to bring yourself up to standing position and  then back down to the ground safely, How can you connect laying on one side of your to laying on the other side of your body while connecting all your limbs to the floor? Zach and I worked together on differentiating the difference between sliding along the body, skipping from one point of contact to another and rolling through a single point of contact. We were exploring this rolling movement and how to maintain the connection while moving it around the body. We actually got stuck in the webbed skin of our thumbs for a while because we couldn’t get the point of contact to roll or move without skipping or sliding.

The third photo from left to right shows, Nhu a local dancer to the San Diego area, Kata and Miguel, both of whom are from Tijuana and came to San Diego for PADL, Anya Cloud who was the facilitator for this part of the workshop, And Thomas who is a native of Poland and was visiting the United States. 

These two photos are great examples of the diversity of partnering that can be explored during a contact improvisation jam. Christian and Anya are demonstrating what weight sharing looks like in the lower right of the photo. Where as Thomas and Miguel are using the focus of the body to give the duet direction the the left part of the photo. In the center of the photo you can see Justin and Edrian working on some lifts, another essential part of contact improvisation. 

the last photo is of the City Heights Performance Annex building this will be the space that I am preforming in this week!