willalraand

[willalraand]

Hear me out

A The Beholding ritual but it’s just some guy given some enormous spooky database and they have to come up with as many useful sql views for it

(Doing my databases homework for hours and listening to TMA at the same time does interesting things to my mind and it full on feels like some ritual)

[willalraand]

Jonathan Sims ALIVE?? I Believe I Have Proof.

(Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol!)

You heard that right. And if you've listened to TMP 39 - Dependents, you've heard it too. Not only can I prove without the shadow of a doubt that not one, but two Archivists are roaming TMA's London, but I can also prove with spectrogram + phonetical analysis exactly what Jon is saying.

Let me prove it to you.

First, let's start with an unedited audio sample, taken at 16:30:

Did you catch it? If you didn't, I don't blame you. There's a lot happening here. Let's check the official transcript for more context about what we're hearing.

So, what we're hearing is definitely the Archivist. It's evident that it's whispering something, but the specifics are currently hidden under layers of reverb, static, and tape winding. Let's clean it up a bit to get a better listen. I pitched the audio down 30%, reduced the background noise, and ran it through a few frequency filters to make the speech more prominent.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, that's definitely Jon.

At the very least, we know this is obviously not Beth Eyre, who voices [ERROR]. Since the transcript states that this audio has to come from an Archivist, that really only leaves us with one other possibility.

But let's assume you still don't believe me. I took the liberty of isolating the vocals entirely and running them through a linguistics analysis programme called Praat (which is fantastic + free by the way!). This way, we can analyse the speech all the way down to the position of the Archivist's mouth when speaking.

Here's the new sample we're working with:

I admit, the speech is a tad more muffled in this version. However, the lack of background noise makes the spectrogram much easier to read, which is what we are aiming for here. We're far past the point of just using our ears.

Behold the Spectrogram:

Looking at this diagram, we can conclude that there are four words being spoken here. (The second word is the gap in the middle part. Note the density shift at around 1000Hz. We know this word must be free of any sharp consonants.) More importantly, the formants provided can be compared to samples of Jon's RP dialect to determine if there's a match. If the frequencies match, it's the same voice. If we get the wavelengths to match, it's the same word.

Let's start with the first word. I'll skip the specifics, as explaining every minute detail would take forever and bore everyone to death. The left image was extracted from the spectrogram above. The right photo? That's Jon saying the word "this."

Note how both waveforms are split into two halves, low then high. Note how the high half trails off at the end. Take into account the similar placement of the red formants. This is the same word, pronounced in the exact same dialect, with the exact same frequency. It is Jon.

Let's do that again with the second word.

Again, the formants line up in the exact same order. The audio on the right is a bit louder, which is why the waveforms have a higher contrast.

What did this word happen to be? World.

Here is the original spectrogram in Audacity. The two bright spots on the right-hand side are easy. It's the same sound as the end of the first word as well. (Notice the frequencies are the same.) These are an easy Letter S. I then fact-checked this using methods like before.

Finally, we have clear, undeniable proof:

"This world isn’t yours."

Edit: thank you to @thestrangepoet for correcting “is” to “isn’t!” The presence of the letter T was a bit inconclusive, but it makes so much more sense in this context.

Now, what does that actually mean? Well, he’s likely referring to Sam. The extent of what he actually knows I’m uncertain of. Feel free to theorise and let me know! I have an idea about how this affects the overall story, but that's a post for another day.

I furthermore checked every single instance [ERROR] spoke for occurrences like this, and what did I find? Nothing. There was a bit of whispering in TMP 10 that I couldn't manage to isolate, but the voice was definitely Beth Eyre's. The only other time an Archivist audibly appeared in this fashion was... Oh, Hello. The TMP series teaser with Jon and Martin. Brilliant.

Now I just have to hope that nothing gets debunked by tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers, TMP 40.

Thank you to Rusty Quill for sending me down this rabbit hole! The details added to all corners of the production bring so much life to the Magnus mystery. I'm glad I could dig deep and analyse this - We love you!

[willalraand]

some jmart i guess

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TMA "not really" statistics

ok so the amount of "not really" in tma has bothered me for a while so i went ahead and counted all of them through transcripts (instead of while listening as before for fun) and i may or may not have made bar charts :]

this one is just by episode:

by season:

and "not really" amount distribution:

and for anyone who wants to do your own things with the "not really" data or look at my stupid code - you can find the .csv and .ipynb files here :]

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What if instead of just dying and disappearing, Jonathan woke up?

But he's not at the panopticon anymore, or london, or back in the safety of the tunnels, he's on a couch. The main menu for a movie is playing over and over, illuminating the lounge room. The buzz of the DVD player and the disc rapidly whirling inside is nicely accentuated the repeating discorded tunes of the screen.

A young Tim is crumpled over the arm of the couch fast asleep. A young Martin is leaned back, he is too asleep, and a young Sasha is leaning on his shoulder. They're both sleeping with their glasses on sort of crooked as they've stirred with sleep.

Neither of the men have any stubble yet, not a smidge of facial hair, and Sasha's face is so much rounder, the clear baby fat still lines her face.

But that doesn't make sense. None of them had knew each other before the institute, let alone as teenagers.

But they're all there. His best guess would be it's the year 2000, maybe earlier. And it had to be real. He can feel Tim's leg pushed against his own and Sasha's hair as he brings his hands down to his lap.

The only thing he can truthfully figure is that it's warm. Not too hot, just warm. That kind you feel when shrugging off a good night's sleep, still immersed in your bed. It was like he'd been lovingly swaddled in a blanket both warm and soft.

Jon carefully adjusted his glasses, placing them back to sit on his nose properly as he reached forward for the remote. He raised it to the glowing television screen. The DVD menu was splattered in a ridiculous amount of thick blood, some cheesy horror movie he somehow knew Sasha had picked out for them. He can't place the name.

Click, and the screen falls to black. Vague figures and shapes are still visible, even if they all lack detail due to the gloom. He leans back, careful to smoosh himself back into the same spot as before, to not disturb the others at all.

He can hear their breathing, quiet and soft, Tim even snores against the couch's arm. It's peaceful. Jon can feel himself drifting off before he can even remove his glasses. Oh well, doesn't matter too much to him.

Maybe this is some weird dream, a limbo before the afterlife, permanent death, or whatever awaits takes him. Or maybe he's there. Really there. Maybe they're friends who fell asleep watching a movie. Whatever.

He doesn't really care right now.

Jon's just really tired.

[willalraand]

the not reallys are so true because i literally have a counter in my notes

(it’s not too accurate since im counting them as i relisten to tma and sometimes i stop paying attention or fall asleep)

sometimes it's VERY apparent that all the statements in tma were written by a singular person because there are these oddly specific phrases that keep cropping up so here are the highlights with the number of times they've appeared:

'suffice to say' - 7

'threadbare' - 7

'in no uncertain terms' - 6

'not to put too fine a point' - 4

flesh has been described as 'sloughing off' from bones - 6

and, of course, the classic 'not really' tag at the end of a sentence - 31

bonus, not really within the statements but it amused me: 'is/was that a joke?' has appeared 5 whole times (apparently none of these characters can comprehend each others' sense of humour)

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My obsession with TMA is so deep that me and my mum actually called our cat JonMartin (it was actually her idea xdd) and today this little idiot is one year old! My mum made him a birthday hat and it’s the greatest thing ever

more pics of the birthday boy below

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hehe made martin :3

TAG CHAIN TIME🩷

Use the picrew linked below. i'd love to see what you guys come up with

@hot-pink-loser @imarandomgamer

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i cant even put into words how much i love them they are so adorable!!!!

@willalraand twitter Dtiys !!

link to dtiys post

I love them

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i cant stop drawing them

[willalraand]

decided to combine my two favourite pieces of media

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painted a tma poster hehe

also some painting process

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they are so cute i love them so much

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i wanted to make this for a long time

(i only now realised that if not sasha is there jon and tim are supposed to have worm bites and be depressed but disregard that please)

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made these silly little clay jon and martin :)

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a lot of people headcanon that jon either had green eyes from the beginning or they turned green from brown. but i decided to go the other way

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he-he-he-helen