2024-09-25 23:34:53 ¶ ● ⬈

jaybirdscoffee:

> forever thinking about how the magnus archives really fumbled the Flesh. there was such potential there beyond just meat and whatever jared hopworth’s deal was. there’s the body, there’s the lack of control over it, there’s changes against your will, and sometimes hatred for it. there are uniquely horrifying bodily experiences that could have been explored that expand on it wholly. to me, the Flesh is the one fear i think never got enough development.

> as a trans person, i identify with the flesh. i’m sure i’m not the only one, but the idea of a trans exploration of the Flesh and its nuances has fascinated me since i first listened to MAG 111, when we first learned about smirke’s 14. i would’ve loved (and still would) a trans or trans-coded Flesh avatar (because jared hopworth just does not cut it for me). jared’s flesh garden is something i think about often, though. the way the plants are tended, groomed and transformed into something else, people twisted into flowers comprised of their entire beings, still able to feel and exist with the horror of living as something you are not, something this world has shaped you into. i think a lot about a Flesh avatar with a similar premise, too. someone who saw themself transforming into something - someone - they couldn’t recognize, instead taking hold of it, molding their own flesh, cutting away and adding pieces, in an eternal state of visceral metamorphosis. and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

> to me, the flesh is more than just meat. there are so many angles to look at it. the idea of feeling your emotions so viscerally they only manifest as bodily sensation, as nausea, as bruises and bleeding and bile, and you don’t have any idea why this is happening to you, because you’re fine. you’re fine, aren’t you? your mind is fine. sure, your head is pounding and your stomach feels like it’s a burning hole within you, and your bones ache so much you can’t move, but you’re fine. (for me, this is a big part of my being autistic. my feelings tend to register in my body before they ever do my brain). your body is turning against you in new and horrible ways, and you don’t know why. and the Flesh feeds on that confusion and pain. it loves it.

> the Flesh genuinely had so, so much potential, and i wish there had been more on it, something that made it truly horrifying, especially since i think a piece of TMA’s fanbase found something in it that scratched their brains from the beginning.

> anyway, yeah, i have feelings about the Flesh.