What is Scriabin from? He intrigues me greatly and also he has a majestic coat.
Hoo boy, here we go.
Where to start? There was an old indie comic in the 90s called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez, the same mind behind Invader Zim (which I presume is how 90% of jthm fans heard about the comic including me). It’s basically about the titular Nny going on long rants and murdering people for various reasons, and eventually it goes into some supernatural worldbuilding, revealing that Nny had been infected by a supernatural brain parasite and chosen as something like a waste dump for all of humanity’s negative feelings for reasons, yada yada yada. In the sequel/spin-off I Feel Sick, it’s revealed that the brain parasites can be communicated between people, so Nny could potentially expose others to supernatural parasites that might settle in their brains and feed on their psyche in various ways. Keep that in mind.
So, in issue 2, there was a short four page story where Nny captured a guy named Edgar Vargas, and they ended up talking about why people were so unpleasant. By the end of it, the two of them were chatting pretty amiably, and Nny said he was sorry he had to kill Edgar, but he had to feed the wall in his basement (for supernatural waste lock reasons as mentioned above) so Edgar had to die, and then he does in canon. As usual for me, I started speculating about what would have happened if Edgar had lived instead, and that basic premise is what started Vargas, my incredibly long and long-running fic exploring what would change if Edgar didn’t die. If you really want the full story on Scriabin, you should read the fic, but it’s like 300k so I don’t blame you if you don’t have the time, haha.
As I mentioned above, being in contact with Nny can get you infected with a type of parasite, and since Edgar was in contact with him, I figured he’d end up getting infected with one. Over a long period of time, that parasite fed off of his anxiety and neuroses (exacerbated by Nny continuing to be in Edgar’s life as a “friend”) and began to develop into its own thing, that thing being Scriabin.
Scriabin is an intangible, invisible, unremovable being who lives inside of Edgar’s brain, so to speak. He technically doesn’t have a physical form, but he does have a sort of visual avatar he uses to represent himself while Edgar is dreaming, which is what you see whenever I draw him, although even that can change and shift depending on his mood. He is almost always talking to Edgar and haranguing him about everything, playing a sort of Greek Chorus role to whatever Edgar and Nny are doing at any given time.
A simpler explanation might be, you know that mental voice you have that tells you you’re stupid, you’re a bad person, that brings up old memories of you being dumb and makes you feel bad about them, that criticizes everything you do and tells you you’re a big failure at life? Scriabin is basically an embodiment of that voice, although he is keyed specifically to Edgar’s insecurities. Given the opportunity though, he’ll happily tear anyone else to shreds if he has the chance. It’s something he deeply enjoys doing, after all.
Scriabin has his own set of issues that came with him becoming a more developed person… he’s both hugely vain and terribly insecure, and he’s obsessed with power and control since, being a disembodied voice in Edgar’s head, he has none of his own. He instead uses verbal/emotional abuse, lies (he is a compulsive liar), and manipulation to try and control Edgar’s behavior. He is completely obsessed with Edgar (understandably, since Edgar is literally his entire world) and desperate for his validation and affection, although he’d rather die than tell him that and paradoxically tends to punish Edgar whenever he tries to get close to him like he wants him to. He wants to be taken seriously as his own person and have his own life outside of Edgar, but since he can’t, he takes out his impotent rage at his position on Edgar instead. Even so, Edgar does care about Scriabin in spite of himself, and he tries to look out for him… when Scriabin will let him, anyway. Edgar did play a crucial role in Scriabin’s development and growth, and he feels responsible for him in a way. And at times, Scriabin tries to look out for Edgar too… or at least, that’s what Scriabin claims.
There really isn’t any one word for what Edgar and Scriabin are to each other. I once summarized it as “he’s my bff boyfriend brother son codependent soulmate abusive husband” and honestly that’s not really that inaccurate, haha. There are practically no boundaries between them, they can’t escape each other, they share memories and dreams together whether they want to or not, they can feel each other’s emotions (Scriabin always can, Edgar sort of can after practicing), Scriabin can read Edgar’s thoughts, they inhabit the same body… it’s a big complicated and unhealthy mess. As a result it can be hard to talk about Scriabin without also talking about Edgar and their relationship… they’re both kind of deeply intertwined with each other, as much as they may hate it, haha.
Scriabin often shows up in my sketchbook to insult or criticize me for various decisions I’ve made or how I’m feeling at any given point. As such, he tends to show up a lot more than some of my other OCs… that’s why I was able to use him to track changes in my art style since like, 2003 lol.
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