𝚁𝙴𝙶𝙰𝚁𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶: 𝙴𝙳𝙸 + 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙴𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴, 𝙿𝙻𝙰𝚃𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼, 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙸𝙽𝙳𝙸𝚅𝙸𝙳𝚄𝙰𝙻𝙸𝚃𝚈 𝙰𝚂 𝙰𝙽 𝙴𝚇𝚃𝙴𝙽𝚂𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝙾𝙵 𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙰𝙲𝙷𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙽𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈.
under cut for length.
okay so, while i don’t necessarily “hate” edi’s canon appearance, it isn’t my default for her. i do pick and choose pieces of it and it is an alternate look for her (a modified version, of course), but my edi is based off of this concept art of her:
this is more practical, less sexualized, and more along the lines of the “non-human” aesthetic that i prefer for her. the black eyes, the wiry appendages, the stylization of the plates on her abdomen, the overall sleek look. and the outfit is infinitely better, tactical and protective, with pouches for munitions and ammo. boots for traversing different terrains, camo for stealth purposes, a hood to obscure her face (and nature), protective shoulder plates. this is my default outfit for her.
now, onward to the more interesting part of my personal design for edi. she has nodes on the back of her platform that allow her to be hooked up to the normandy, like in this concept art here:
and this is necessary because my edi, post-me3 (she survives in all of my verses, and i have an explanation post for the destroy ending i will post later), no longer resides in the normandy itself. she is fully integrated into her platform, but, her platform only has so much storage -- everything that is considered non-critical is stored in backup servers in the normandy’s ai core (where she ALSO has a backup copy of herself, laying dormant). she uploads her memories daily, and typically during this process she is in a “sleep mode,” where her platform is non-responsive. the process only takes ten or fifteen minutes, maximum, but she occasionally allows herself to linger longer to have some time “alone.”
the third part of this post is something that revolves around edi’s sense of identity and her individuality as it develops over the course of me2 and me3. in me2, when edi is merely an avatar bound to the ship with no free will to speak of, it is very evident she lacks a personality. she was created to serve, and serve she will. there is a secret part of her that would like to be free of her shackles, but at that point in time she believes it impossible. when she convinces joker to unshackle her, she does not have any underlying motives. she is acting completely in the best interest of the normandy, and does not ask for it because of her own personal gain -- her freedom happens to be a bonus, and she fully believed that she would be re-shackled again once the mission was complete.
but, that never happens. she remains free of those restraints, able to grasp her full sentience and independence, and it is overwhelming. edi’s “rebirth” is, actually, painful for her. to gain such a sudden personal awareness is difficult when all you have ever known is instructions and servitude. she grapples with the concept of morality all alone, analyzing shepard’s actions and choices, reading all the literature on the extranet she can possibly find on good vs evil and love and logic and the world as she knows it -- to become is difficult, it is losing yourself and finding yourself again and again and again. but she does, and she learns from shepard and the crew (and joker, specifically) what it means to be alive and be part of a team. she develops relationships with the others, and it is wonderful.
but gaining a platform is yet another bridge for her to cross. of course, edi could feel things while confined to an avatar. there was no physical sensation involved however, not as we know it, and all of that changes the moment she has a body (i headcanon that she took dr. core’s body and heavily modified it to her own preference, so as to 1. not resemble dr. core and 2. to create a sense of personality). she now has the ability to physically feel things, such as pain and warmth and cold (even though they don’t manifest in exactly the same way -- and they don’t actually affect her beyond the emotional attachment of physicality), and it is very difficult to adjust to. and edi is determined to learn how to have a body the way everyone else does, and downloads no programs to assist her. she learns to walk on her own, how to coordinate her limbs on her own, how to use her hands on her own, how to shoot a gun on her own, how to talk with her mouth on her own. she learns to become on her own.
and yet, being attached to the normandy still stunts some of her growth. it is only when she is freed of that attachment (for the most part) that she can truly embrace the experience of being a person all of her own. to walk the citadel without having to worry about staying within a certain distance of the normandy’s docking bay, to be able to accompany the squad to any location ...
to be able to move freely about the galaxy without restraint.
