#for CHNT reasons. surprising no one.

[museofthepyre]

Thinking about TMA avatars, and the conversation around “what makes an avatar?”— how do we as listeners determine which fear we would serve in universe?

Is it what scares us the most? Is it what we’re the *least* afraid of, what we connect to positively? I am curious how you guys have picked out your own alignments… here’s my take:

I think it comes down to whichever fear reflects the worst parts of your own nature. There are elements of each fear that all avatars seem naturally compelled to (sometimes even taking joy in their work), but that is their vice. The fears call to an ugly part of them and coax it to the surface, compelling them to feed into this destructive desire, to nurture the fear until its strong enough to take over entirely. That’s how avatars are created, the way I understand it at least.

For example, I myself am a corruption avatar... to the extreme. I see what the corruption embodies: the self-destruction, the loss of identity, the themes around unhealthy love/ relationships (with oneself and others— ala Jane Prentiss feeding herself to the Hive), the general relevance of illness and decay, both mental and physical...

I look at all that and I see the worst parts of myself. The parts of myself that often override my concern with self-preservation and rational thinking. I'm connected to it all deeply— but it’s in a way that scares me! The corruption would take me over with little to no convincing, because the seeds are already there… they only need a push to really emerge. I think we can see that concept play out most clearly in the cases of Jon and Martin, with the gradual amping-up of their unhealthy tendencies overtime as they were fed into (those tendencies being: a drive to risk it all for knowledge, or to withdraw and hide behind lies respectively).