tma-girls-week - Tumblr blog

tma-girls-week · 6 months

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Do You Love Female Characters?

With International Women's Month coming up soon, I've decided that I want to put something out there celebrating ALL of the women of The Magnus Archives. And what better way than in the form of a zine made by the community! I've created this interest check form, which i will close at 11:59 EST on November 30th, 2023. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT AN APPLICATION FORM.

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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day 1: archival assistants/canon divergence, or day 7: free day @tma-girls-week

[a/n: hiiiiii magnus archives i missed you. sorry if this is out of character i did go back to read through the 158–160 transcripts (and 119 + 061 + 091 for funsies) to refresh my memory, but]

Summary: Post-159, Basira finds a weird statement in the midst of what she's about to send to Jon. Or rather, she doesn't find one? It's hard to explain.

-

It probably says something about Basira that she hasn't cried.

Well, not yet. But it has been two weeks already, and it still doesn't feel real. She can see Daisy whenever she closes her eyes — Daisy staring forward at the old man and his friend, reality beginning to ripple around her skin, honing her into something sharp. A missile with a locked target. Hunter, hunted.

She can hear Daisy say out of the corner of her mouth, promise me.

…It's not that Basira hadn't seen this coming from ten miles away. The face-stealing monster might have been a surprise, but the first time Basira read about "silent compulsion powers; assigned investigator: Alice Tonner; assigned location: Epping Forest," she knew exactly what Daisy was, and exactly how this would end…

She just wishes Daisy had at least looked her in the eye.

No. This is no time for stupid — sentimentality or softness or whatever; she can almost feel the disapproval radiating from her late father. That was how she'd gotten into this mess in the first place. No more thinking about Daisy or Melanie or Jon than necessary. Head up, back straight —

Right. Statements. That was what she'd been after. The police had finally cleared out this afternoon, so she doesn’t need to face any more questions about Jonah Magnus's corpse ("definitely a corpse") or the tunnels ("no, officer, I don't know of any maps for the place") or why she looked so familiar ("are you sure you're not imagining things?"). Instead she has the whole evening off to gather statements so her coworker (friend) (coworker) doesn't snap and start traumatizing random Scottish grocery store employees.

Oh, the joy.

Near the end of everything they had all stopped pretending that being an archival assistant was for actually organizing an archive, but now Basira thinks about it, she does recall Jon saying that he'd started from the most recent filing cabinets. So if she starts from oldest, she's most likely to find the statements he hasn't eaten yet. Yes, that makes sense.

She picks herself up, dusts herself off, and heads towards the back of the archives.

1870s, 1860s, 1850s, early 1800s. Here. Basira reaches into the back of the shelf — oh, cobweb, eurgh — and pulls out a pile of manila folders. As she shakes them in the air to get the dust away, one sheet of paper snags in the wind and falls out; then another, and another. She sighs and sets the whole pile down on the floor, dropping to her knees to gather the loose papers. Jon stopped telling them to staple documents together after Melanie said it was bad for archival purposes, but honestly, Basira could understand why…

Wait. When had she made it out of the archives?

She blinks down at herself. She's standing at the top of the staircase, the one that leads from the Magnus Institute lobby down to the archival basement. The statements are arranged neatly in her hands, free of the dust.

…She doesn't remember getting up here.

(In a universe just to the left of this one: Basira sighs to herself. She hasn't had an episode like this since right after the wax museum, when she felt like she was blinking in and out of existence as she picked up a payphone outside and managed to tell the police the address before hanging up — she hadn't trusted her hands to stay steady on any steering wheel, so afterwards she'd walked the whole way back to the Institute.

That whole section of memory is lost to her. All Basira can recall is the rhythm of her boots against the concrete, and then against the carpet of the entrance area, uncertain voices — Melanie grabbing her shoulders and asking questions she couldn't understand — where's Daisy —

The point is, it's not out of character for Basira's recollection events to just… glitch, sometimes. There's no point wondering what happened in between, not when she's the only person she knows left in the archives. She leaves the statements at the postal office and gets back to work.

The world ends two days later.)

But in this universe, Basira pauses:

She isn't thinking about Daisy. Basira is in fact very good at not thinking about things when she feels stable, and it's been two weeks and only one breakdown since everything. Besides, the fog in her brain doesn't usually just cut out her memories that cleanly, so that can't be why she just lost ten minutes of her life.

It reminds her of — yes. Jon. The day he'd come to tell her about how to quit. It had gone something like this:

Basira: You're joking. Archivist: I wish I was. Basira: …………………… Archivist: You're… not going to do it, are you? Basira: What, did you eat a bit of my brain or — Archivist: No; I can actually read faces, Basira. Basira: (exhales) I'll think about it, but…… no, I don't think so. Archivist: Right. [A pause.] Archivist: …Right. Well — Basira: How sure are you? Archivist: What? Basira: I mean, this… tape you found, how'd you get it, anyway? Archivist: Oh. It's hard to explain… I was going through that box of tapes in Peter's office, and I tried to find a, a blind spot. Basira: You tried to find… your own blind spot. Archivist: I told you it was hard to explain! But — yes. There was one that I kept skipping over, like I couldn't see it — I sorted them into "interesting" and "not interesting," and then kept looking through the "not interesting" pile… and after I, after I'd isolated the least interesting one, that was when I actually — saw. It just… I couldn't recall seeing it there before. It was like, like a gap in my memory. Basira: Huh. Archivist: And even after I found it — my hand kept pulling away from it. So it must have been something the Web… It must have wanted to hide it. Basira: Hmm. Like someone trying to touch a stove countertop. Archivist: A stove—? Basira: If the stove countertop could also induce amnesia. Archivist: (doubtful) I suppose when you look at it that way…

Basira frowns now, as she looks down at the pile of statements in her hands. Another Web trick, then? In these statements?

Well. The tape Jon got did help Melanie escape, at least. So if Basira sorts these statements into "interesting" and "not interesting"…

After twenty minutes and several strange looks from employees milling about in the lobby, Basira sits back. One manila folder left in "not interesting." Or rather, left in the category "this doesn't warrant any further examination, go post it to Scotland already."

It takes several tries for her to open it. Several more tries for her to read it.

Statement of Hazel Rutter… That all seems normal. She forces her eyes to focus, go beyond the drab information box and take in every word.

And then: there it is. The hidden amnesiac stove countertop.

Hello, Jon. Apologies for the—

Basira sucks her breath through her teeth. Oh, this is bad. This is very bad. She has to go call Martin, warn him and Jon, scan through all the other statements just in case…

But first order of business: she drops Hazel Rutter's statement into the paper shredder, and watches Jonah Magnus's master plan dissolve into ash.

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[a/n: i was going to finish this on day 1, but Then I Didn't. thankfully as it is i can just barely sneak it into day 7: free day!

i hope all of you basira enjoyers (and also non-basira-enjoyers) like it! i'm sorry i haven't been more active on discord recently, i swear i'll be back as soon as i get out of this country in like three weeks]

#fanfic #basira hussain #tma girls week 2023 day 1 #tma girls week 2023 day 7 #tma girls week 2023 day 1 archival assistants #tma girls week 2023 day 7 free space #anothergoddamnmystery

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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some s2 Basiras for @tma-girls-week Day 7 - Free Day! <3

#fanart #basira hussain #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 7 #tma girls week 2023 day 7 free space #asalesbian

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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Day 6: Unusual Meetups

@tma-girls-week

bringing back my old au where annabelle saves sasha from the not!them intending to keep her as a wild card for the future, not expecting her to track her down with Way too many questions :')

#fanart #annabelle cane #sasha james #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 6 #tma girls week 2023 day 6 unusual meetups #tanis-drawings-2point0

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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@tma-girls-week day 6 - promises

some wtgfs for you today- taking care of each other <3

#fanart #georgie barker #melanie king #wtgfs #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 6 #tma girls week 2023 day 6 promises #ok2scream

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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@tma-girls-week day 5: minor characters

you already Know... as self proclaimed rosie fan #1 i had to draw my girl (two days early- i thought minor characters was day 3) (if anything's a bit wonky.... i started this drawing at like. midnight. so.)

anyway rosie beloved <333 need content of her always

#fanart #rosie zampano #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 5 #tma girls week 2023 day 5 minor characters #gayformlessblob

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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@tma-girls-week day 5- minor characters!

i really like julia montauk tbh- god forbid women do anything

#fanart #julia montauk #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 5 minor characters #tma girls week 2023 day 5 #ok2scream

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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Day 4: Original Characters

@tma-girls-week

my main girl June :) a flesh/end avatar who picks up injured/dead animals at the side of the road and either gives them parts of herself to nurse them back to health, or follows the invisible threat that ties roadkill to killer and takes Their flesh and life instead 😤

#original character #fanart #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 original characters #tanis-drawings-2point0

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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[ID: A drawing of Sasha James, Melanie King, and Basira Hussain from The Magnus Archives.

Sasha is smiling and holding up a peace sign and has the other hand behind her back. Melanie is glaring and grimacing and has one hand in a first at her side and the other behind her back. Basira is frowning and has one hand up by her chest, pointing to herself, and the other at her side.

Character design: Sasha has brown skin, brown eyes, glasses, and dark brown hair with a blonde fringe. She’s wearing a purple jumper and beige trousers.

Melanie has pale skin, blue eyes, and brown hair dyed blue at the end. She’s wearing dangly earrings — one with a ghost and the other with a skull — a grey shirt with the Ghostbuster’s logo, a short sleeved denim jacket — with pins of an alien, a bone, a ghost a lesbian flag, and a star — and black trousers. She has hair on her arms.

Basira has dark brown skin and is wearing a dark green hijab and has brown eyes. She’s wearing a white vest/undershirt with a blue long sleeved shirt with the sleeves cuffed. She has a gun holster on her belt and is wearing grey trousers. /End ID]

Drawn by @floralfawnz (any pronouns) (most active on instagram and twitter) who gave me permission to post this here, as paw didn’t post it on tumblr.

#fanart #sasha james #melanie king #basira hussain #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 1 #tma girls week 2023 day 1 archival assistants #floralfawnz

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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[ID: A digital painting of a white woman with brown hair- she wears a blue puffer jacket over a dark green sweater and looks sideways, uncomfortable. the background is gritty, with a diamond traced around her head. /End ID]

@tma-girls-week day 4 - original characters

this is ellen price! very beginning buried avatar- she's always cold and working to find the smallest space to exist in

#original character #fanart #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 original characters #ok2scream

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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@tma-girls-week day 4: ocs

My vast girl eleanor who loves the night sky a very normal amount. Feeds her entity by snapping people's consciousness into space and back before they can comprehend what happened, mostly in the hope that they'll see and understand the beauty of it. If they end up completely terrified instead well it's not her fault

(text says "isn't it wonderful to know we are nothing?" in case the letterings weird ik it's kinda thick)

#original character #fanart #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 original characters #days light #not described

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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my desolation oc Mallory (Mal)!

for @tma-girls-week day 4 - original characters :)

She's basically the ruler of the Furnace domain, from post-change.

(I will write a statement about her one day i swear)

#original character #fanart #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 #tma girls week 2023 day 4 original characters #emerald emerlad

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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[ID: The first image is a gif of a scene from The Magnus Archives episode 9. The style is a messy sketch on a dark grey background, not coloured in but with yellow highlights added to indicate light. It depicts Julia Montauk, a 12 year old girl with her hair in a short braid wearing a heart-patterned nightgown. She's shown from the back, sitting in front of a large window, looking outside. A ceiling lamp bathes her in a yellow glow. Outside is a street surrounded on either side by old-fashioned street lamps, each of which casts a small pool of yellow light around itself. The art has been animated so the lamps sequentially turn off, starting furthest away from the window down the road and coming closer. When all street lamps are off, the lamp above Julia inside the house also turns off, leaving her in darkness. After this, the lights slowly come back on and the gif loops.

The second image is a still image from the previous gif, with all the lights inside and outside turned on.

The third image is a still image from the previous gif, with the light inside turned on, but the streetlights turned off.

The fourth image is a still image of Julia with all the lights turned off. /End ID]

MAG009 – A Father’s Love

“The next closest streetlight failed. Then the next. And the next. A slow, rolling blanket of darkness, making its unhurried way towards me. The few lights still on in the houses along the road also disappeared as the tide approached. I just sat there, unable to look away. Finally, it reached our house, and all at once the lights were gone and the darkness was inside.”

A tiny Julia for @tma-girls-week Day 3 – Statement Givers!

[still images under the cut]

#fanart #julia montauk #mag 9 #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 3 #tma girls week 2023 day 3 statement givers #asalesbian

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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[ID: Digital painting of Helen Richardson leaning against a yellow door in a grayscale hallway. Helen is a Black woman with shoulder length hair in black and purple professional dress, and the door panel behind her head is beginning to spiral. /End ID]

@tma-girls-week day 3 - statement givers

helen makes me sad :( she was so scared and i hope she's girlbossing Somewhere Else

#fanart #helen richardson #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 3 #tma girls week 2023 day 3 statement givers #mag 47 #ok2scream

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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[ID: The first image is a digital drawing of Annabelle Cane, full body. She's sitting down with her body hunched forward, her legs crossed one on top of the other and her arms resting on an invisible surface, one holding an antique red phone to her ear while the other plays with the cord. She's smiling. Behind her a web extends from her body.

The second image is the same drawing as before, but instead of a web extending behind her her arms, legs and torso are tied in white strings of web, coming from above. /End ID]

Day 2: Avatars

@tma-girls-week

annabelle my favorite puppet puppeteer ;o; </3

#fanart #annabelle cane #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 2 #tma girls week 2023 day 2 avatars and monsters #tanis drawings 2point0

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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ooh tma girls week!

Day 1 — Wednesday, 16 August: Archival Assistants / Canon Divergence

It is 1am on Wednesday in New Zealand and I shall take this opportunity to list some traits of Archival Assistant (hostage) Basira Hussain:

will talk in Paragraphs about the fascinating esoterica she's been reading at the slightest invitation while missing certain subtle social that the person she's talking to is,, Not fascinated

This could be predominantly her accent (i am from the opposite surface of the planet and bad at accents anyway) but she has a flatter range of vocal affect than most characters even when we know she's experiencing strong emotions

her escape from the Unknowing (is very important ♥ and) has certain vibes of 'coping with sensory overload' and could be read as her having practiced habits for dealing with sensory overload

in conclusion i think autistic interpretations of Basira could be fruitful and interesting ☺

#meta #basira hussain #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 1 #tma girls week 2023 day 1 archival assistants #taiey

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tma-girls-week · 9 months

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[ID: A digital drawing of Jude Perry, a tan woman with short black hair in a green crop top and shorts, lounging on a slightly scorched chair against a reddish background. /End ID]

@tma-girls-week day 2 - avatars and monsters

jude perry dyke moment <3

#fanart #jude perry #tma girls week 2023 #tma girls week 2023 day 2 #tma girls week 2023 day 2 avatars and monsters #ok2scream

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