#the magnus archives halloween

[myrabbitistryingtokillme]

Sometimes I forget I customized a Barbie doll a while ago to be jon and that he’s just sitting in my closet staring at me until I turn on my light towards my closet and see just like. A tiny jon sitting in a tiny desk with a conspiracy board behind him and tons of eyes staring back at me and I’m like “this is how tma is supposed to be represented”

#tma #the magnus archives #my whole room is actually tma coded #all paper macheyed maniquinn heads with sculpted faces and porcelain dolls and pieces of tape with eyes drawn on them all over my walls #considered. #i also have a painted Halloween tarantula with a fancy display on my wall #which is because I like spiders but is also web coded #tbe rest of my room is just cryptid core meets artist tho #lots of mothman and alien stuff mixed with ghibli and fanart

[gleafer]

SPOOKY SEASON IS UPON US!

I love me some HORROR and one of the best horror podcasts I’ve had the pleasure of listening to is The Magnus Archives.

It is exquisite and it pulls you into its terrifying world of gods and monsters!

Give it a listen but before you do, enjoy some fan art of The Magnus Archives!

#the rusty quill #the magnus archive fanart #the magnus archives #horror #horror podcast #spooky #spooktober #spooky season #horror art #artists on tumblr #digital drawing #digital illustration #illustrator #halloween #horror story #scary art #scary stories #procreate #podcast #illustrative art #moody art #spooky posting #tma fic #tma podcast #tma fanart #tma

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital drawing in a vintage cartoon style of Jon and Martin as a vampire and a werewolf respectively. Jon is a short, Arab man with dark curly hair partly pulled back and a mustache, and he is dressed in Victorian fashion with a green vest and black cape with an orange underside, black trousers and shoes, and a frilly white shirt with poofy sleeves. He has fangs, pointy ears, and is also wearing half-moon glasses. Martin is a taller, fat white man with red hair and body hair and fur, and he is wearing red flannel completely unbuttoned and no shirt underneath, cuffed and ripped blue jeans, and red converse. He has fluffy wolf ears and a tail, fangs and claws, and a dog nose, and he is wearing round glasses. The colors are offset from the line-art in multiple directions and the background is off-white. They are chatting, with Jon gesturing confidently and Martin smiling awkwardly with his hands hear his chest. end ID]

~~~~

HAPPY HALLOWEEN have a spooky vintage jmart <3

#fg's art #the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jmart #im in the process of making a matching timsasha but i wanted to get this one out in time for halloween #idk if the other one will make it in time.... heartbreaking.... and on a tuesday no less.... #ANYWAY hope i got the vintage vibes down <3

[someones-there-1]

they’re rocky horror fans. i’ve decided

#the magnus archives #tma jmart #tma fanart #jonmartin #jmart #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #a little late for halloween but that’s ok #pey art

[cult-of-the-eye]

Obligatory tma halloween headcanons post:

tim and sasha are OBVIOUSLY barbie and ken from the barbie movie (other people have said it before and i'll gladly support it)

martin is some horribly obscure costume from a book or a poem no one really knows about and he gets a bit sad that no one knows who he is but then sasha does a quick google and subtly drops hints to everyone to go be like "heyyyy martin, amazing x costume" and then he cheers up

jon just refuses to dress up and everyone (especially Tim) bullies him like "oh amazing socially inept man who's desperately trying to seem good at his job costume!! you've got it spot on!!" and he's so furious that he puts on a costume

and in every iteration of these headcanons, martin is FLOORED at whatever he eventually dresses up as and i am all for that i will eat that shit up

he's so starved for interactions with his crush that he goes feral over jon in non-office clothes

favourite jon costumes include: normal clothes plus cat ears, normal clothes and everyone thinks he's come as a vampire, normal clothes in the later seasons and sasha would be like "jon its not ok for you to dress up as a homeless person" with a shit eating grin and jon's like ...what

bonus - jon doesn't need to dress up cause he's already got his costume - it's someone who's good at their job!!

elias LOVES halloween i bet that man is like fuck yeah i can freak out my archival workers in a whole host of new ways - plastic spiders around the office for jon, little clown dolls for tim, eyes EVERYWHERE and its so gaudy and terrible and everyone despises him

also he really doubles down on calling jon the archivist

i feel like tim secretly hates halloween now but in like early working at the institute, he went along with it cause martin put out a little pumpkin on his desk and sasha smiled at it

melanie fucking loves halloween, she's a legitimately terrifying costume, let's go through the haunted house kinda gal and i love that for her. she's a lets watch all three human centipedes in one night and see what happens kinda gal

daisy and basira despise it cause of all the weird shit that people pull on halloween (and they're on edge that they'll be called for some section 31 shit for all of it)

jon also hates halloween for a similar reason - the increase of joke statements and general taking the piss about the magnus institute

yeah that's all i got. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin k blackwood #jmart #tim stoker #sasha james #elias bouchard #alice daisy tonner #basira hussain #section 31 #halloween headcanons #melanie king #jonmartin #please add your own

[sarcasticscribbles]

Tim: "how about Bonnie and Clyde?"

Sasha: "I don't know honey I don't wanna shave my legs for the skirt--"

Tim, mid through putting on pantyhose: "who thefuck said you would be Bonnie"

#tma halloween #timsasha #the magnus archives #tma #mag #tim stoker #sasha james

[buildoblivionthenwewilltalk]

inside of you are two wolves; one thinks that the finale of tma season 5 was thematically spot on and that the ambiguous ending - where jon and martin remain unwatched and unknown, whatever happens - is a moving and meaningful resolution to their story ….the other is gay and craves whatever tiny crumbs of closure it can get

#i am feeling so many feelings ahhhh #Im really hoping it’s pre canon goodness #jon reading fake statements #office halloween party #jmart banter #but also #ARE THEY OKAY???? #ARE THEY SOMEWHERE ELSE????? #tma #the Magnus archives

[fiendishartist2]

the archives is full of gay ppl; therefor halloween is celebrated

#i love to put characters in outfits and halloween is my number one excuse #shout out to one of the best holidays on earth!!! i love you halloween i cant wait to dress up and eat candy in a few weeks #i dont think sasha made it to halloween but a guy can dream..... #my art #digital art #artists on tumblr #the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #timothy stoker #sasha james #im not tagging as ship bc i dont personally believe in it but you can if you'd like <3 #i like to imagine jon shows up to work in all black with a cat ear headband just like ''maybe this will keep tim off my back'' #meanwhile the archives is exploding bc their boss with a permanent stick up his ass is wearing cat ears and not acknowledging it #tim goads jon into getting a better costume bc the cat ears are half assed and not in the spirit of halloween #and so for the institute's halloween office party jon shows up in complete medieval gothic clothing with plastic vampire fangs #and they have to take martin home on a stretcher bc he dies on sight. sad!

[pastellich]

Jude Perry, Avatar of The Desolation

#jude perry #tma jude #the desolation #tma #the magnus archives #rusty quill #tma fanart #the magnus archive fanart #happy halloween

[dcartcorner]

happy halloween y'all!

elias is in charge of answering the door, peter is in charge of baking to hand out, simon is in charge of taste testing (this is one of the most important tasks, he claims).

#tma #the magnus archives #fluff #au #simon fairchild #peter lukas #elias bouchard #fanart #happy halloween

[mads-schubert]

Episodes 11 - 20 of my Magnus Archives episodic art series

Episode 1 - 10 here

#art #illustration #tma podcast #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #horror #halloween

[skelethereals]

reblog this post if your childhood obsession with goth characters was an early sign of your bisexuality

#carmilla #lestat de lioncourt #ciel phantomhive #poppy z brite #shego #the magnus archives #anakin skywalker #vampires #edgar allan poe #anne rice #hex girls #vanessa doofernshmitz #vanessa ives #the picture of dorian gray #mina harker #lovecraft #gothic literature #gothic #halloween #dark academia #tim burton #corpse bride #edward scissorhands #winona ryder #yennefer of vengerberg #witchcraft #the little vampire #the phantom of the opera #the queen of the damned #horror stories

[dailyadventureprompts]

Tableskills: Creating Dread

I've often had a lot of problems telling scary stories at my table, whether it be in d&d or other horror focused games. I personally don't get scared easily, especially around "traditionally horrifying" things so it's hard for me to recreate that experience in others. Likewise, you can't just port horror movie iconography into tabletop and expect it to evoke genuine fear: I've already spoken of being bored out of my mind during the zombie apocalypse, and my few trips into ravenloft have all been filled with similar levels of limp and derivative grimdark.

It took me a long time (and a lot of video essays about films I'd never watched) to realize that in terms of an experience fear is a lot like a joke, in that it requires multiple steps of setup and payoff. Dread is that setup, it's the rising tension in a scene that makes the revelation worth it, the slow and literal rising of a rollercoaster before the drop. It's way easier to inspire dread in your party than it is to scare them apropos of nothing, which has the added flexibility of letting you choose just the right time to deliver the frights.

TLDR: You start with one of the basic human fears (guide to that below) to emotionally prime your players and introduce it to your party in a initially non-threataning manor. Then you introduce a more severe version of it in a way that has stakes but is not overwhelmingly scary just yet. You wait until they're neck deep in this second scenario before throwing in some kind of twist that forces them to confront their discomfort head on.

More advice (and spoilers for The Magnus Archives) below the cut.

Before we go any farther it's vitally important that you learn your party's limits and triggers before a game begins. A lot of ttrpg content can be downright horrifying without even trying to be, so it's critical you know how everyone in your party is going to react to something before you go into it. Whether or not you're running an actual horror game or just wanting to add some tension to an otherwise heroic romp, you and your group need to be on the same page about this, and discuss safety systems from session 0 onwards.

The Fundamental Fears: It may seem a bit basic but one of the greatest tools to help me understand different aspects of horror was the taxonomy invented by Jonathan Sims of The Magnus Archives podcast. He breaks down fear into different thematic and emotional through lines, each given a snappy name and iconography that's so memorable that I often joke it's the queer-horror version of pokemon types or hogwarts houses. If we start with a basic understanding of WHY people find things scary we learn just what dials we need turn in order to build dread in our players.

Implementation: Each of these examples is like a colour we can paint a scene or encounter with, flavouring it just so to tickle a particular, primal part of our party's brains. You don't have to do much, just something along the lines of "the upcoming cave tunnel is getting a little too close for comfort" or "the all-too thin walkway creaks under your weight ", or "what you don't see is the movement at the edge of the room". Once the seed is planted your party's' minds will do most of the work: humans are social, pattern seeking creatures, and the hint of danger to one member of the group will lay the groundwork of fear in all the rest.

The trick here is not to over commit, which is the mistake most ttrpgs make with horror: actually showing the monster, putting the party into a dangerous situation, that’s the finisher, the  punchline of the joke. It’s also a release valve on all the pressure you’ve been hard at work building.

There’s nothing all that scary about fighting a level-appropriate number of skeletons, but forcing your party to creep through a series of dark, cobweb infested catacombs with the THREAT of being attacked by undead? That’s going to have them climbing the walls.

Let narration and bad dice rolls be your main tools here, driving home the discomfort, the risk, the looming threat.

Surprise: Now that you’ve got your party marinating in dread, what you want to do to really scare them is to throw a curve ball. Go back to that list and find another fear which either compliments or contrasts the original one you set up, and have it lurking juuuust out of reach ready to pop up at a moment of perfect tension like a jack in the box. The party is climbing down a slick interior of an underdark cavern, bottom nowhere in sight? They expect to to fall, but what they couldn't possibly expect is for a giant arm to reach out of the darkness and pull one of them down. Have the party figured out that there's a shapeshifter that's infiltrated the rebel meeting and is killing their allies? They suspect suspicion and lies but what they don't expect is for the rebel base to suddenly be on FIRE forcing them to run.

My expert advice is to lightly tease this second threat LONG before you introduce the initial scare. Your players will think you're a genius for doing what amounts to a little extra work, and curse themselves for not paying more attention.

Restraint: Less is more when it comes to scares, as if you do this trick too often your players are going to be inured to it. Try to do it maybe once an adventure, or dungeon level. Scares hit so much harder when the party isn't expecting them. If you're specifically playing in a "horror" game, it's a good idea to introduce a few false scares, or make multiple encounters part of the same bait and switch scare tactic: If we're going into the filthy gross sewer with mould and rot and rats and the like, you'll get more punch if the final challenge isn't corruption based, but is instead some new threat that we could have never prepared for.

Art

#tableskills #horror #spooky #halloween #the magnus archives #dm tip #dm advice #dm tips

[arsbones-kw]

Merry Eyepocalypse?

#im gonna treat this time as a second halloween just for the mood #EYES #laughing hysterically #the magnus archives #tma #mag pod #tma fanart #jonathan sims #jonmartin #the magnus archive fanart #jmart #martin blackwood #the eyepocalypse #my art

[iiiumihottie]

[ID: Two drawings of Jon and Martin from TMA. Jon wears a blue collared shirt and navy pants, and Martin wears a orange cat ears, a tail, and striped socks paired with a cropped halter top and skirt. In the first, Martin smiles and adjusts Jon’s collar, while Jon looks away scoffing. Martin says, “Oh, don’t be a spoilsport, hun.” Jon replies, “This isn’t exactly the most dignified—”. Martin says, “Shh, you. It’s cute! We’re matching!” Jon says, “...Are we?”

In the second drawing they are wearing the same outfits. Pointed at Jon are the words “Jon (Arbuckle)”, and pointed at Martin is “Garfield (Allegedly)”. End ID.]

*martin voice* it’s called taking creative liberties, jon!

#tma #the magnus archives #jon sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #this was a completely transparent excuse to draw catboy martin for the 50th time #look at him. he's nyaing #what if.... somewhere else halloween #pleading emoji

[lailas-in-space]

being a tma character for halloween actually works out so well, because even if no one has a clue what you're dressed as, you still have worms crawling out of your skin or eyes all over your face

#im being jane prentiss for halloween if you couldn't tell #tma #the magnus archives #jane prentiss #halloween