Hello demons, it’s ya boy, Johnatan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Insitute London My brain was recently eaten alive by The Magnus archives , therefore. fanart commence
I’d actually made and finished an entire other jonelias button design, but I decided that I hated it and instead did this one in a day lmao (bless you super best friends omikron lets play for the company)
after far too much time researching architecture and bumbling about indecisively over how many floors it should have and whatever, i think ive finally gotten a magnus institute design im satisfied with! this is the closest i could get considering jonny’s mental image, the “canon” art from the ttrpg, and my own personal interpretation.
a bit of rambling over the architecture below the cut, it got long. longer than i intended lol (i just have so many thoughts i cant help it, i love architecture.)
i always pictured the institute as a cramped narrow building squeezed between two storefronts - it feels like the type of building you walk past and wonder what the hell could possibly be inside (and why you never see anyone leaving or entering). and it’s not like it’s that far off the beaten path, it’s technically in great commercial area, but there just doesn’t seem to ever be anything going on.
in terms of materiality: it’s a red brick building with granite (or other similar stone) accents around the windows and joinery / where it connects with the other buildings. the style is heavily inspired by victorian storefronts and rowhouses (terrace houses? im from america lol) from the late 1800s.
floor plans: basement is the archive, obviously. i picture the first floor as the “public” space, where reception and the public part of the institute library is located. reading room, seating, etc. maybe a meeting room. second floor is research and the restricted / private section of the library. breakroom, etc, etc. third floor are offices: elias of course has the big dramatic window overlooking everything that deeefinitely doesn’t have eye motifs. im sure there are other offices, and if not, it’s more space for researchers. fourth floor is artefact storage. nobody wants anything to do with that creepy shit, least of all elias. he sure as hell doesn’t want to walk past it every day. best to keep it out of sight out of mind
I really wanted to do a proper monster!jon design, usually they boil down to guy with a lifetime eye subscription but personally I think it’d be cool if he was no longer even humanoid,,
So, imagine the eyepocalypse but everything is. Even more wrong. Instead of regular Jon walking around with Martin it’s this thing, he can technically still speak like this, only trough tape recorders and there’s an unmistakable sound of recorded crying/wailing playing under his words.
Sometimes when he’s especially upset there’s no words and the recorded crying of all the world trapped in a fearscape hell is all that plays, occasionally the tape rewinds during this or there’s scratches in the recording.
👁🗨THE ARCHIVE👁🗨
Feel free to ask questions/request art of the archive here (: it’s been a while since I got to do proper horror art, I’ll maybe be doing some anyways but submissions never hurt
(Lmk if I missed a cw tag and I’ll make sure to add it ASAP)
I think a lot of tma fans mistake what makes you suseptible to becoming an avatar and what makes you suseptible to being a victim.
In my view, being a victim is about what you are afraid of while being an avatar is about how you cope. Yes, some cope by diving head first into what they are afraid of, but not all
For example, Jonah is afraid of death, but he isn’t an end avatar. Instead, he is an eye avatar because he copes by learning all he can so he can exert control.
TMA is so hilarious for introducing Gertrude from the perspective of someone who never knew her, letting us assume she was a confused, old lady losing her touch, only to then reveal she was a morally fucked up arsonist that tried to burn down her workplace, killed like two of her assistants, was an active menace to society and nuisance to all the Avatars, and arguably one of the most badass characters in the series.
would jon actually go out and about in cool/gnc outfits? probably not, at least not when we know him, as he starts off horrifically insecure about being taken seriously in a way that doesn’t lend itself to allowing one to wear cool outfits, and after that his clothing concerns likely become largely “what would present the least hindrance were I to get kidnapped while wearing it?” which, again, doesn’t leave a lot of room for fun. what I do believe with my whole heart is that he inherited a certain amount of expensive jewelry and clothing from his mother and grandmother that he wouldn’t have felt right getting rid of, and, every so often, if he’s “bored,” he will decide to “play a bit of dress up” “for fun” and end up feeling a profound ache so deep in chest that he thinks he might need to take the entire next week off work just to process it. and then he pointedly pretends that never happened.
[ID: Poster-style artwork for MAG200 done in red tones. At the top is text in elegant serif font that reads: “Want to change the world?” At the very top are Annabelle’s hands reaching out and spreading red spiderweb that attaches to multiple parts of the piece. Below that is Elias, whose grin is malicious and who has one red eye and one which is just a flare of light. A giant eye backs him.
Below Elias is a house with an open front door. Springing out of the front door is a huge, menacing spider which is springing out onto the last feature of the piece: Martin stabbing Jon. They are both atop scattered papers, and and neither of their faces are visible as Martin holds Jon and stabs him in the chest. At the very bottom, the text continues: “There’s nothing to it.” End ID]
he’s essentially a living optic nerve. the tower is there to direct and stabilize the connection held in the pupil. when he’s in the panopticon he serves as both the center of the tether to reality and the closest thing the eye has to a mind.
he can fly, but as pupil, he isn’t affected by gravity so his wings and legs are vestigial. the furthest he can reach with his body is the floor of that room.
the archivists serve as a defense system because jon is basically a vital organ and fairly physically vulnerable. they’re very fast and can fly short distances but usually just cling to walls and crawl. they have about the same level of sentience as beholding itself (not much). jon can maneuver them as external limbs but when he isn’t, they kind of just run on eye-autopilot.
ALT
