the desolation is one of the 14 fear entities from the magnus archives. the fear entities both are and feed on the fears of every living being on earth. the desolation feeds on the fear of destruction, fire, loss, the fear that something or someone will destroy you or something/someone you value. the loss of potential. there was something, there could have been more, and now there is nothing.
the desolation is worshipped by the cult of the lightless flame, which includes its former messiah, agnes montageu, as well as its avatars (both current and former), jude perry, arthur nolan, diego molino, eugene vanderstock, eileen montageu, as well as other implied members not specifically discussed in the text.
the 14 fear entities were first theorized by sir robert smirke.
an avatar of the desolation and a member of the cult of the lightless flame. really the only thing you have in common with her is saying shit like this
it really is just that. when elias bouchard says he cares about his employees, he’s lying, and when lena kelley says she doesn’t care about her employees, she’s also lying.
I saw you made a post about how the fears mould avatars’ gender identity, do you have more thoughts about that?? Cause id never thought of that before but it makes so much sense and i love it
YEAHH ough it’s one of my favourite headcanons,,,
ok so. gender is a very human thing. and when your humanity is altered, so is your gender. so for example, jane prentiss might still present as female post-becoming, but her relationship with her gender has permanently changed because of the corruption.
none of the avatars’ genders fully fit existing labels; they’re all intrinsically tied to the fears themselves, and their own interpretations of them.
no podcast quite does “hesitant and awkward yet necessary weird little friendship solidarity thing” the way magpod does. martim. jondaisy. colinalice. samlena. wow
I generally don’t give a shit what people ship, couldn’t care less, if I don’t wanna see it I’ll just keep on scrolling, etc, etc. There are some ship types that trigger me bc of my trauma, I just block those tags.
But Gerry and Michael as a ship makes me unreasonably angry lmao. I just hate it and idek why!
I don’t have any tma friends to share this useless thought with, so here ya go!
tbh same. except i know exactly why, and it’s because it’s so popular. i hate most popular ships in general, i’m that kinda guy. i kind of also dislike michael distortion, just because he’s so much more popular than helen despite being. an objectively less relevant character. and i do have a pro-helen agenda, she’s my favourite, it think there should be more content of her forever and ever. and also frankly i don’t care about your dead white twinks i find them boring and unappealing
I also hate Gerry and Michael together. I can’t understand WHY it’s such a popular ship. There’s no conceivable way that they’d be into each other and the few times I’ve tried to read fics about them to try and understand it, they’ve been SO out of character in a way that doesn’t seem intentional and feels more like just fundamental misunderstandings of each character. Idk, I love a weird ship, but this ship isn’t even weird it’s just dumb.
sigh. yeah. the more i see it, the less i like it.
OKAY unpopular tma opinion incoming: I don’t really like the common fanon design of Jon. He’s such a white guy (derogatory) to me 😭
i don’t really feel strongly one way or the other, but i do think that there’s some themes of privilege present in his character that make more sense if he’s white.
one thing i do, however, have strong feelings about when it comes to common fanon designs. is fucking elias. he would not look like that. at all. in my beautiful mind he looks like the common human design for the narrator from the stanley parable. i’m not even a jonelias shipper, but those guys? they’re right about what elias would look like.
i cant stand how nobody can get gerrys design right. They say hes goth, then draw him as anything BUT goth. Also everyone saying hes not goth in protocol because hes not as sad hows it feel to be reenforcing the stereotype that all alternative people are depressed?
*this came out sounding like i'm a lot more angry then i am, its really not that deep to me its just annoying
tbh yeah, i feel like people draw him more as a stereotypical metalhead rather than a goth. i’m not goth myself, so my take on that doesn’t really matter, but it does feel weird to see people caption drawings of just a vaguely alt dude with “my favourite goth <3” as someone who is currently best friends with and used to date a goth.
when it comes to the tmagp thing, i don’t really care. i do find it weird that people heard that gerry was happy, and immediately jumped to “oh so he’s not alt anymore”, but i guess people can have whatever designs they want? but they should be more careful about enforcing stereotypes and whatnot.
If we are talking about popular ships we dislike I gotta say my biggest is Elias/Peter. It irks me because it's basically treated as canon, probably because their VAs have talked about it, but there's absolutely nothing in canon to suggest they were romantically or sexually involved.
The thing is their relationship is interesting to me. They have a sort of one sided rivalry where Peter is trying to thwart Elias's plans and Elias is pretty easily playing him. Actually as I'm writing this I'm realizing I could get behind one-sided Peter/Elias, with Elias being the only person Peter cares about at all but to Elias Peter is just another pawn in his plan.
But I don't like the fanon version of their relationship because it's so out of character for both of them.
ohh yeah, i absolutely get that. lonelyeyes is a fun ship overall, but it’s also the source of some of the more obvious mischaracterizations of both characters.
i hate that so much fanon content just. completely mischaracterizes peter in order to make him this stoic, quiet, easily annoyed figure, when in canon, he’s pretty much the opposite. he’s overly cheerful in an empty way, he’s extremely talkative but never says what you want to hear, he’s such an excellent portrayal of what the lonely really is and i hate that people just ignore that in favor of a trope. he’s not shy, he just genuinely loves being excluded socially and thrives on others’ discomfort. he’s not lonely, he’s of the lonely. he’s the guy at the party that makes you feel like you’re not supposed to be there. he’s the guy that reminds you, with a wide grin and genuine joy, that you’ll always be alone.
peter lukas is an excellent character. the fanon portrayal of peter lukas is a different guy entirely.
I’m relistening to tma and have two big takeaways; Corruption is often associated with community and love, and Elias fucking loves keeping dangerous people around him, possibly because he’s bored and lonely from always being in his office doing paperwork and enjoys the thrill of being threatened by people who could absolutely wipe the floor with him but he things he’s smarter than them and they’ll never get the chance.
There is something fun about your Lena headcanon of her thinking everyone is constantly out to get her and just being sure she could take them and Elias actively seeking out people who are out to get him and just being sure he could outsmart them . Something something parallels .
oh TRUE. god the hypothetical interaction between them that i’ve been trying to picture for so long is just. so chaotic. the worst most devastating interaction in all of human history
i just realized this might not be a universal thing but um. sometimes i’ll hear a voice that sounds absolutely nothing like the actual voice of a podcast character, but i’ll still be reminded of the character anyways. not even that the person the voice belongs to reminds me of the character, i mean purely the voice itself makes me think of the character.
anyways i’ve started calling this “implicit character voice”, feel free to ask for examples
in my extremely honest and humble butch lesbian opinion. most people in general get which magpod characters are butch or not wrong. it makes so much sense of daisy tonner to be a femme. it makes absolutely zero sense for lena kelley to be a femme. i've started referring to this as my natural butchdar and most of you people simply do not possess one i'm afraid /lh
Cecil Palmer could do TMA but Jon Sims could not do WTNV. Cecil has no fucking curiosity, as the Archivist he would read all the statements and go “golly, these sure are fun :)” then find out about the Fears and kill Elias in three days. Jon in Night Vale would be fired and eaten day 1
