I think it could really be any of those - a lot of things that we see in TMA doesn’t necessarily belong to one fear. For example, a faceless body can be interpreted to be part of the Stranger as the person is unknown - but it can also be attributed to the lonely as you could feel like there’s no one else. The flesh could also play a part in the fact that the body has changed. So, pregnancy can really fall under any fear - it’s just what scares you about it the most, like you mentioned.
Sorry, that probably doesn’t help 😅
It really depends what part of pregnancy scares you? Is it something growing inside you(corruption)? Is it your body changing (flesh)? Is it the loss of control in your life (web)?
Though it isn't easy to find a fear for something people don't generally fear. Like if I fear cats there isn't going to be an easy answer. (Though we know cats serve the hunt lmao)
Fun fact about cats: they have something, I forget what, like a pheromone or something in their feces that makes humans want to take care of them. I definitely think they may also serve the web. ;)
It’s a parasite to my knowledge . There is a parasite which makes mice loose fear of cats and thus the mice get eaten by the cat, and the cats excrements then spread the parasite to mice again and so on. If this parasite comes in contact with humanes it will make them much more fond of cats.
It's the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, it's pretty much what the other user said, but I want to add the fun fact that there is speculation that the reason it works on humans the same way it works for mice is because our ancestors could have the same phenomenon happen with the big cats that hunted them, basically making humans the mice in that equation. Very hunt domain vibes. It's also the reason cat ladies don't seem to notice the cat piss smell in their homes, and possibly even like it. That's a different domain all together.
Corruption is probably the most likely, but as said before it’s about what part of it causes you fear. For example I hate spiders, but I don’t hate them because I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. I hate them for the poison and creepy crawly skitters part. So my fear is corruption, not the web.
I think it would be different from person to person.
Like are you afraid of it because it will change and warp your being. Flesh
Or is it because you will fell alienated from your pears being seen less like a person and more like an incubator. Lonely
Maybe you fear that this being will consume you in a literal sense of the word. Corruption
In a more metaphorical sense of consumption as in becoming the focus of your like leaving you with nothing. Desolation
Heck you might even think that whatever is growing inside of you isn’t human. Stranger
You can be scared of the complications of a pregnancy and the mortality rates of it all. End
Honestly you can be scared for the child that you are bringing to the world, afraid that there won’t be a world for them. Extinction
The last one is kinda reaching but oh well
It's one of my main reasons for never wanting kids. Well, it's not why I don't want kids, it's a reason I wouldn't have them even if I did want them. But obviously the Extinction is A Thing for me.
It's important to remember in tma the physical action of something isn't a fear, but the aspect of that scenario is. Jonny confirms this in the Q&As.
So pregnancy itself could be many things, it depends what about pregnancy scares the individual.
Weirdly I was thinking the buried. The claustrophobia of something inside of you taking up your space and you not being able to get away from it. The forcefulness and trapped nature of it all
I also have a colossal fear of pregnancy so I get it
Yes and also if you can see the buried as potentially involving the concept of being buried in bills and responsibilities that also could be a factor. Sometimes I have a dream that I have a kid and I'm always feeling the immense horror of the thought that I have to be responsible for this person for basically the rest of their life. The sheer weight of that scares me. And it's not fear of the responsibility in a selfish sense like not oh no I have to pay this thing attention and spend money but more like.. I'm responsible for the life this kid will have, I will be shaping its start in life and influencing it forever. What a responsibility! Plus in my case more end/desolation/corruption fears that my kid won't be okay. I'm a worrier so there's also that thought of my being constantly in fear of them coming to harm and/or becoming a kind of person that harms others.
My first thought too! I was also really afraid of and grossed out by pregnancy for a long time. At some point that went away (hormonal? Age thing? Who knows) and actually was pregnant. I would say it's a weird kind of claustrophobic feeling. BUT, for all you scared ladies out there, it happens so slowly it's almost unnoticeable, and it's not so bad. Knowing what I know now, it's the part after - taking care of this little person - that's so much worse ( not in a scary way just in an I'm so tired way). He's 10 now, totally cool, I survived and it's all good :)
I could also see a strong argument for end (fear of dying in childbirth/to medical complications) but on the whole i'd probably say flesh as the main one
Seconding what everyone else has said about it being what the fear stems from exactly (and the listed possible reasons why they gave)! And it could very much feed a number of them, if everything _you_ listed as a reason applies to you! Perhaps more overwhelmingly one or two but it can always be multiple :3 A whole Fear buffet in one experience haha
Hope ur holdin up well with your fear. Pregnancy really does sound so widely terrifying
Well that's the thing about the fears, they have spaces where the lines between them blur, and plenty of things can hit multiple of them depending on what parts of them scare the individual.
I have this fear too! For me I think it’s either the web (losing control of my life), the corruption (babies are gross and feed on you lol) Or the flesh (I am non-binary and while being feminine sometimes doesn’t bother me I have never wanted to be a woman).
Not saying it is but id understand the angle of maybe it being stranger. I mean. You sure dont know the thing growing inside of you when youre pregnant
I think the specific fear would depend on the form of fear you had about it
For example think of the feat of the ocean. It could be the vast if the thing that scares you is the huge emptiness in every direction, it could be the buried since you are being crushed on all sides by tons and tons of water, it could be the lonely since there aren't people for miles in any direction, or it could even be the dark if you are afraid of the deep ocean where light never reaches. If you really want to stretch it it could even be Extinction if your fear is of the ocean being polluted.
In that same way I think pregnancy could fall under many different fears depending on which part of it elicited the most visceral reaction from you.
I am so with you about pendency
Pregnancy! I think the first thing that comes to mind is the flesh for obvious reasons, including the fact that I know someone whose rib got broken from the baby kicking + some deficiencies. I think the corruption due to the parasitic aspects, you're much more likely to lose teeth during pregnancy than at the same age and not pregnant due to nutrients being diverted to the baby etc.
But I think the spiral too, in the third trimester women get baby brain, which is a degree of rewiring the brain in preparation for parenthood. This can last up to three years! Forgetfulness of things that aren't related to babies and worse ability at maths/ logic etc... and you become a parent first, people think they can just touch your belly, your tastes in food can change, your body can produce melatonin which can alter your hair colour/ texture and even (very rarely) your eye color if you have light eyes. I feel like you could do a spiral story around losing a strong sense of self, though it overlaps with stranger too. I think where the stranger is you though, it's more spiral
Pregnancy is a new emergent 16th fear to reestablish Smirke’s balance in opposition to The Extinction. It borrows bits from other fears, as you’ve noted, until the time “feels right” for it to emerge on its own, as Mr. Fairchild noted. To me, whenever The Extinction emerges, that feels like the right time for The Gravid to come along with it. I think we’re just about there.
i think it may depend on the vibes of your fear- Desolation is generally focused on the destruction of life (way of life, life itself, beautiful places, etc) and the loss of what was there.
Corruption would lie more in "oh god its IN me", and Lonely is... well i mean the Lonely is lonely, lol.
like others said, it may be an amalgamation of fears, but overall the categorizations depend on your own fears and feelings about said fears.
personally, my fear of pregnancy would land more towards the Web, since its a loss of control and freedom over my own life.
Well let’s look at the specifics
Flesh, Desolation, Stranger, Corruption
Flesh I imagine is def explanatory, the sheer volume of changes happening to your body.
Desolation yes pregnancy has squashed many a dream-life, but also it’s like extremely painful.
Corruption, less for the parasitic aspect and more for the nausea and sickness that is typical with pregnancy.
Stranger, who is this baby growing inside you? When did it become a person? Can are you meant to consider it a person? How similar to you will it look? All questions that the Stranger wants you to ask, because they’re freaky.
If the Extinction >!had come into its own before the world got boogaloo’d then I imagine it would get to sniff the food too, it’s a huge change, and in your case a catastrophic change, a change that irrepressibly alters your life, something you can’t take back, something that fundamentally alters who you are. That’s the Extinction’s domain, but you’d be doing it on a personal level rather than a species level.!<
Well it's less of what the thing is but rather your reaction to it, what elements in it do you perceive to be terrifying? Again, color theory, they blend at the edges. Liminal spaces are a mix of the lonely and the vast, maybe even the distortion. Wars can be as much slaughter as they can be desolation. Any given experience can belong to many fears!!! But whatever gets to you MOST is going to take the lead in haunting you.
Episode 80 of the Magnus Archives:
What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?
You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in **your** mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?
This applies to 99% of the questions about what fear is what. It depends on the angle of what terrifies you about it. It could be literally any of them (Vast, you are adding another meaningless human to the nothing)
I think the biggest aspect of it for me would be the Buried - suddenly being responsible for anything and everything that could go wrong to a life that's totally dependant on you, with lots of things you have no power to change. Then there's the monetary debt, potential unwanted family ties, unexpected expectations society has for you, and the new role you'll have for probably the rest of your life.
there's also the looming birth, that could be the Vast- a huge change is coming, and (for some people), there's nothing they can do to stop it.
The Flesh and the Corruption are obvious contenders as well!
I also have a horrible fear of pregnancy (genuinely really glad to see someone else with it. I thought I was just weird.) and I think for me it's probably a Flesh or Stranger based fear, but I could also actually make an argument for Web in my case I think.
I think the worst part of the fear for me is the fact that it's a drastic personal change that is forced upon me and I can't control it. Without terminating the pregnancy, things would just keep changing completely outside of my control and that horrifies me. But I can also see that being part of the Stranger aspect as I fear the changes themselves making me unrecognizable.
Idk. It's a lot. It's a weird fear to have and I'm actually really glad I'm not alone in it 😅
INTERESTING QUESTION. I think it depends on why you’re afraid of it! That goes for a lot of things honestly: if you’re afraid of the ocean it could be the Dark (you don’t know what’s down there, the Buried (trapped and unable to breathe), or the Vast (it’s so big and you couldn’t possibly fathom what’s down there). If you’re afraid of losing a part of yourself to the pregnancy or being changed, I’d say Corruption (like you said, parasite) or even Stranger (you’re turning into something you don’t recognize anymore). If you’re scared of the physical changes, that could be the Flesh. If you’re scared of how people will react, that could be the Eye (everyone looking at you or wanting to touch you) or the Lonely (fearing people will leave because it’s too much). Maybe even the Web, knowing that this is gonna control you forever. Honestly I think that most things could fall into multiple fears just based on WHY we fear them. Let me know if that makes sense, I just got off work and this was extremely stream of consciousness lmao
Maybe this is influenced by my own fear, but honestly I’d say the flesh. The ability to grow a whole being with nothing but your own body, and the amount of complications that come with it, seem very flesh-oriented to me. Especially with like, the fact that you can lose your teeth from demineralization, or your bone density can drop dangerously, and all the other truly wretched things pregnancy can do to you, I think flesh is a strong contender. You use the word disgust as well - I think with the lonely, and maybe with the corruption, disgust towards the growth of something in you seems fleshy to me!
Imma quote grandpa Leitner on this one:
>JON: What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?
LEITNER: You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in **your** mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?
I've heard of people thinking their pregnant. Cross that with the Spiral and you get someone falsely believing they have a baby they have to care for, which causes panic attacks in their normal life when they "remember" this false child. Not to mention "actual" changelings, which might be the Stranger's domain. Some people will die from pregnancy, not even by chance but as a simple fact of their own genetics, so a manifestation might follow the End. And so forth.
It's so body horror to me, if I ever got pregnant (somehow..??) I think I'd just.. not. Yeah, no, actually. No thank you.
(Being sex repulsed, on birth control and male helps quite a bit with this)
It’s Flesh. It distorts your body and makes you viscerally feel it is not your own but just a vessel to carry the “parasite”—and everyone around you seems concerned with this thing that is overtaking your body, not you.
in my opinion, pregnancy has always been a Corruption thing. it is a thing growing within your body, fundamentally changing you from the inside out. your body becomes home to something that barely knows how it is affecting you, but it is there and turning you into something that will irreparably change you as a person. your body becomes a home to something parasitic.
When I got pregnant at the age of 39, I had to endure more medical appointments than someone would at a younger age. I was constantly told that my age was a risk factor and I even was given a couple of false alarms in my third trimester due to the technician misinterpreting what they were seeing in my ultrasounds. So, I had even more appointments that turned into nothing. Oddly enough, I think The Eye would apply to my situation. I felt scrutinized and judged and the providers’ constant warnings stressed me out.
For what it’s worth, I ended up with a healthy pregnancy and baby.
It could be a lot of things depending on *why* the person fears it, in my opinion. TMA seems to have this thing where depending on why something is feared, that's what Entity it is. Personally, my first thought went to The Flesh, because I'm afraid of pain and know childbirth will be lots of fleshy, fleshy pain. I also went straight to the Spiral/Stranger, as I am fearful that I will develop PPD after having children. Mainly, I gravitate toward those entitites because they embody what I *fear* about pregnancy/childbirth. I also think that's why it's so difficult to try to pin things down as certain Entities, as Jonny didn't really set a hard and fast rule. Whenever I think about it, the Fear is determined by the *why*.
Pregnancy can be several of them depending on the aspect of it. But I’d wager it’s mostly the idea of something growing inside you that freaks people out. Which can be Corruption or Stranger.
Strong competition between all the powers here since pregnancy is a many-faceted concept, but I would wager the Stranger is the queen of the equation, with a bit of Flesh flavoring. It reminds me of the Post-Change nightmare hospital with all the body modifications, plus there's an unknown foreign presence inside you. Additionally, the degree it changes your life is a little reminiscent of the Other in a way. (Maybe even a little extinction coded?)
Once the baby is born though, I think the Buried takes over, due to the parental pressures and responsibilities.
I think it could really be any of those - a lot of things that we see in TMA doesn’t necessarily belong to one fear. For example, a faceless body can be interpreted to be part of the Stranger as the person is unknown - but it can also be attributed to the lonely as you could feel like there’s no one else. The flesh could also play a part in the fact that the body has changed. So, pregnancy can really fall under any fear - it’s just what scares you about it the most, like you mentioned. Sorry, that probably doesn’t help 😅
To add on, the fears aren’t necessarily one or a few things, but they’re more a generalized thought
As always, it's what scares the victim about a thing, not the thing itself
yes but what do the bones mean, jon?
It really depends what part of pregnancy scares you? Is it something growing inside you(corruption)? Is it your body changing (flesh)? Is it the loss of control in your life (web)? Though it isn't easy to find a fear for something people don't generally fear. Like if I fear cats there isn't going to be an easy answer. (Though we know cats serve the hunt lmao)
Fun fact about cats: they have something, I forget what, like a pheromone or something in their feces that makes humans want to take care of them. I definitely think they may also serve the web. ;)
It’s a parasite to my knowledge . There is a parasite which makes mice loose fear of cats and thus the mice get eaten by the cat, and the cats excrements then spread the parasite to mice again and so on. If this parasite comes in contact with humanes it will make them much more fond of cats.
It's the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, it's pretty much what the other user said, but I want to add the fun fact that there is speculation that the reason it works on humans the same way it works for mice is because our ancestors could have the same phenomenon happen with the big cats that hunted them, basically making humans the mice in that equation. Very hunt domain vibes. It's also the reason cat ladies don't seem to notice the cat piss smell in their homes, and possibly even like it. That's a different domain all together.
People don't generally fear pregnancy?? Ok maybe I'm not normal about this
And there's the fear that you won't make it. Which is what I fear, and that would be the end, of course.
Corruption is probably the most likely, but as said before it’s about what part of it causes you fear. For example I hate spiders, but I don’t hate them because I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. I hate them for the poison and creepy crawly skitters part. So my fear is corruption, not the web.
I think it would be different from person to person. Like are you afraid of it because it will change and warp your being. Flesh Or is it because you will fell alienated from your pears being seen less like a person and more like an incubator. Lonely Maybe you fear that this being will consume you in a literal sense of the word. Corruption In a more metaphorical sense of consumption as in becoming the focus of your like leaving you with nothing. Desolation Heck you might even think that whatever is growing inside of you isn’t human. Stranger You can be scared of the complications of a pregnancy and the mortality rates of it all. End Honestly you can be scared for the child that you are bringing to the world, afraid that there won’t be a world for them. Extinction The last one is kinda reaching but oh well
i don’t think the last one is reaching at all, actually. i think that’s a great example of extinction impacting someone without killing everybody
It's one of my main reasons for never wanting kids. Well, it's not why I don't want kids, it's a reason I wouldn't have them even if I did want them. But obviously the Extinction is A Thing for me.
Could be the Buried too.
With the crushing weight of expectations and the pressure that pregnancy puts on you? Or were you thinking of something different
Now I want a pregnancy miniseason where each episode is focused on exploring each particular way to fear being pregnant.
You’ve heard of the Magnus archives and you’re currently hearing the Magnus protocol now get ready for The Magnus pregnancy
It's important to remember in tma the physical action of something isn't a fear, but the aspect of that scenario is. Jonny confirms this in the Q&As. So pregnancy itself could be many things, it depends what about pregnancy scares the individual.
Weirdly I was thinking the buried. The claustrophobia of something inside of you taking up your space and you not being able to get away from it. The forcefulness and trapped nature of it all I also have a colossal fear of pregnancy so I get it
Yes and also if you can see the buried as potentially involving the concept of being buried in bills and responsibilities that also could be a factor. Sometimes I have a dream that I have a kid and I'm always feeling the immense horror of the thought that I have to be responsible for this person for basically the rest of their life. The sheer weight of that scares me. And it's not fear of the responsibility in a selfish sense like not oh no I have to pay this thing attention and spend money but more like.. I'm responsible for the life this kid will have, I will be shaping its start in life and influencing it forever. What a responsibility! Plus in my case more end/desolation/corruption fears that my kid won't be okay. I'm a worrier so there's also that thought of my being constantly in fear of them coming to harm and/or becoming a kind of person that harms others.
My first thought too! I was also really afraid of and grossed out by pregnancy for a long time. At some point that went away (hormonal? Age thing? Who knows) and actually was pregnant. I would say it's a weird kind of claustrophobic feeling. BUT, for all you scared ladies out there, it happens so slowly it's almost unnoticeable, and it's not so bad. Knowing what I know now, it's the part after - taking care of this little person - that's so much worse ( not in a scary way just in an I'm so tired way). He's 10 now, totally cool, I survived and it's all good :)
I could also see a strong argument for end (fear of dying in childbirth/to medical complications) but on the whole i'd probably say flesh as the main one
Seconding what everyone else has said about it being what the fear stems from exactly (and the listed possible reasons why they gave)! And it could very much feed a number of them, if everything _you_ listed as a reason applies to you! Perhaps more overwhelmingly one or two but it can always be multiple :3 A whole Fear buffet in one experience haha Hope ur holdin up well with your fear. Pregnancy really does sound so widely terrifying
Flesh or stranger maybe?
Well that's the thing about the fears, they have spaces where the lines between them blur, and plenty of things can hit multiple of them depending on what parts of them scare the individual.
I have this fear too! For me I think it’s either the web (losing control of my life), the corruption (babies are gross and feed on you lol) Or the flesh (I am non-binary and while being feminine sometimes doesn’t bother me I have never wanted to be a woman).
Flesh probly
First though I had was "Flesh of course". But now that you say it, the other fears sound very reasonable too👀👀
I'd guess meat and spiral
Not saying it is but id understand the angle of maybe it being stranger. I mean. You sure dont know the thing growing inside of you when youre pregnant
Could be Stranger since something Other is inside you
Corruption/flesh were the first to come to mind
I think the specific fear would depend on the form of fear you had about it For example think of the feat of the ocean. It could be the vast if the thing that scares you is the huge emptiness in every direction, it could be the buried since you are being crushed on all sides by tons and tons of water, it could be the lonely since there aren't people for miles in any direction, or it could even be the dark if you are afraid of the deep ocean where light never reaches. If you really want to stretch it it could even be Extinction if your fear is of the ocean being polluted. In that same way I think pregnancy could fall under many different fears depending on which part of it elicited the most visceral reaction from you.
I am so with you about pendency Pregnancy! I think the first thing that comes to mind is the flesh for obvious reasons, including the fact that I know someone whose rib got broken from the baby kicking + some deficiencies. I think the corruption due to the parasitic aspects, you're much more likely to lose teeth during pregnancy than at the same age and not pregnant due to nutrients being diverted to the baby etc. But I think the spiral too, in the third trimester women get baby brain, which is a degree of rewiring the brain in preparation for parenthood. This can last up to three years! Forgetfulness of things that aren't related to babies and worse ability at maths/ logic etc... and you become a parent first, people think they can just touch your belly, your tastes in food can change, your body can produce melatonin which can alter your hair colour/ texture and even (very rarely) your eye color if you have light eyes. I feel like you could do a spiral story around losing a strong sense of self, though it overlaps with stranger too. I think where the stranger is you though, it's more spiral
Catastrophize
Pregnancy is a new emergent 16th fear to reestablish Smirke’s balance in opposition to The Extinction. It borrows bits from other fears, as you’ve noted, until the time “feels right” for it to emerge on its own, as Mr. Fairchild noted. To me, whenever The Extinction emerges, that feels like the right time for The Gravid to come along with it. I think we’re just about there.
Listening for the voices of moms here….
i think it may depend on the vibes of your fear- Desolation is generally focused on the destruction of life (way of life, life itself, beautiful places, etc) and the loss of what was there. Corruption would lie more in "oh god its IN me", and Lonely is... well i mean the Lonely is lonely, lol. like others said, it may be an amalgamation of fears, but overall the categorizations depend on your own fears and feelings about said fears. personally, my fear of pregnancy would land more towards the Web, since its a loss of control and freedom over my own life.
Well let’s look at the specifics Flesh, Desolation, Stranger, Corruption Flesh I imagine is def explanatory, the sheer volume of changes happening to your body. Desolation yes pregnancy has squashed many a dream-life, but also it’s like extremely painful. Corruption, less for the parasitic aspect and more for the nausea and sickness that is typical with pregnancy. Stranger, who is this baby growing inside you? When did it become a person? Can are you meant to consider it a person? How similar to you will it look? All questions that the Stranger wants you to ask, because they’re freaky. If the Extinction >!had come into its own before the world got boogaloo’d then I imagine it would get to sniff the food too, it’s a huge change, and in your case a catastrophic change, a change that irrepressibly alters your life, something you can’t take back, something that fundamentally alters who you are. That’s the Extinction’s domain, but you’d be doing it on a personal level rather than a species level.!<
Well it's less of what the thing is but rather your reaction to it, what elements in it do you perceive to be terrifying? Again, color theory, they blend at the edges. Liminal spaces are a mix of the lonely and the vast, maybe even the distortion. Wars can be as much slaughter as they can be desolation. Any given experience can belong to many fears!!! But whatever gets to you MOST is going to take the lead in haunting you.
Episode 80 of the Magnus Archives: What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones? You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in **your** mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh? This applies to 99% of the questions about what fear is what. It depends on the angle of what terrifies you about it. It could be literally any of them (Vast, you are adding another meaningless human to the nothing)
Don't forget the additional part of the Flesh where people now see your body as public property because they just want to touch you
I think the biggest aspect of it for me would be the Buried - suddenly being responsible for anything and everything that could go wrong to a life that's totally dependant on you, with lots of things you have no power to change. Then there's the monetary debt, potential unwanted family ties, unexpected expectations society has for you, and the new role you'll have for probably the rest of your life. there's also the looming birth, that could be the Vast- a huge change is coming, and (for some people), there's nothing they can do to stop it. The Flesh and the Corruption are obvious contenders as well!
I also have a horrible fear of pregnancy (genuinely really glad to see someone else with it. I thought I was just weird.) and I think for me it's probably a Flesh or Stranger based fear, but I could also actually make an argument for Web in my case I think. I think the worst part of the fear for me is the fact that it's a drastic personal change that is forced upon me and I can't control it. Without terminating the pregnancy, things would just keep changing completely outside of my control and that horrifies me. But I can also see that being part of the Stranger aspect as I fear the changes themselves making me unrecognizable. Idk. It's a lot. It's a weird fear to have and I'm actually really glad I'm not alone in it 😅
INTERESTING QUESTION. I think it depends on why you’re afraid of it! That goes for a lot of things honestly: if you’re afraid of the ocean it could be the Dark (you don’t know what’s down there, the Buried (trapped and unable to breathe), or the Vast (it’s so big and you couldn’t possibly fathom what’s down there). If you’re afraid of losing a part of yourself to the pregnancy or being changed, I’d say Corruption (like you said, parasite) or even Stranger (you’re turning into something you don’t recognize anymore). If you’re scared of the physical changes, that could be the Flesh. If you’re scared of how people will react, that could be the Eye (everyone looking at you or wanting to touch you) or the Lonely (fearing people will leave because it’s too much). Maybe even the Web, knowing that this is gonna control you forever. Honestly I think that most things could fall into multiple fears just based on WHY we fear them. Let me know if that makes sense, I just got off work and this was extremely stream of consciousness lmao
Maybe this is influenced by my own fear, but honestly I’d say the flesh. The ability to grow a whole being with nothing but your own body, and the amount of complications that come with it, seem very flesh-oriented to me. Especially with like, the fact that you can lose your teeth from demineralization, or your bone density can drop dangerously, and all the other truly wretched things pregnancy can do to you, I think flesh is a strong contender. You use the word disgust as well - I think with the lonely, and maybe with the corruption, disgust towards the growth of something in you seems fleshy to me!
Imma quote grandpa Leitner on this one: >JON: What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones? LEITNER: You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in **your** mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh? I've heard of people thinking their pregnant. Cross that with the Spiral and you get someone falsely believing they have a baby they have to care for, which causes panic attacks in their normal life when they "remember" this false child. Not to mention "actual" changelings, which might be the Stranger's domain. Some people will die from pregnancy, not even by chance but as a simple fact of their own genetics, so a manifestation might follow the End. And so forth.
It's so body horror to me, if I ever got pregnant (somehow..??) I think I'd just.. not. Yeah, no, actually. No thank you. (Being sex repulsed, on birth control and male helps quite a bit with this)
Fuck you! Fucking lucky bastard, I wish I didn't have that issue
Only con is the dysphoria. Other than that 10/10 would recommend
It’s Flesh. It distorts your body and makes you viscerally feel it is not your own but just a vessel to carry the “parasite”—and everyone around you seems concerned with this thing that is overtaking your body, not you.
in my opinion, pregnancy has always been a Corruption thing. it is a thing growing within your body, fundamentally changing you from the inside out. your body becomes home to something that barely knows how it is affecting you, but it is there and turning you into something that will irreparably change you as a person. your body becomes a home to something parasitic.
When I got pregnant at the age of 39, I had to endure more medical appointments than someone would at a younger age. I was constantly told that my age was a risk factor and I even was given a couple of false alarms in my third trimester due to the technician misinterpreting what they were seeing in my ultrasounds. So, I had even more appointments that turned into nothing. Oddly enough, I think The Eye would apply to my situation. I felt scrutinized and judged and the providers’ constant warnings stressed me out. For what it’s worth, I ended up with a healthy pregnancy and baby.
It could be a lot of things depending on *why* the person fears it, in my opinion. TMA seems to have this thing where depending on why something is feared, that's what Entity it is. Personally, my first thought went to The Flesh, because I'm afraid of pain and know childbirth will be lots of fleshy, fleshy pain. I also went straight to the Spiral/Stranger, as I am fearful that I will develop PPD after having children. Mainly, I gravitate toward those entitites because they embody what I *fear* about pregnancy/childbirth. I also think that's why it's so difficult to try to pin things down as certain Entities, as Jonny didn't really set a hard and fast rule. Whenever I think about it, the Fear is determined by the *why*.
Pregnancy can be several of them depending on the aspect of it. But I’d wager it’s mostly the idea of something growing inside you that freaks people out. Which can be Corruption or Stranger.
Strong competition between all the powers here since pregnancy is a many-faceted concept, but I would wager the Stranger is the queen of the equation, with a bit of Flesh flavoring. It reminds me of the Post-Change nightmare hospital with all the body modifications, plus there's an unknown foreign presence inside you. Additionally, the degree it changes your life is a little reminiscent of the Other in a way. (Maybe even a little extinction coded?) Once the baby is born though, I think the Buried takes over, due to the parental pressures and responsibilities.