THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES #76 - The Smell of Blood 

“another Sasha? Are you collecting them?” [the artifact storage room is full of sasha after sasha. no sasha is safe] /j

I always wanted to hear Jonathan say "meme"

"yes I know what a meme is" - Jonathan Sims, in an angry tone, 13th February, 2017

this is for melanie king and for melanie king only, so if you are not melanie king, please keep scrolling now that only melanie is here, i am free at friday at 7 pm an-

oh my goodness, if jon works on the tapes instead of investigating NotSasha i'm just going to accept the fact that she's going to kill them all

"I mean-wHAT" sums it up quite nicely

John being offended when he was asked if he knows what a meme is is so funny

oh god, FINALLY someone who noticed Not!Sasha isn't Sasha FINALLYYYYYYYYY

He forgot to say, “Supplemental,” to start the supplemental part. A clear indication that he’s cracking.

Melanie: whose the new assistant? What happened to Sasha Jon: the wHAT😳

awwww around 16:30 when melanie and jon get all excited about melanie's research 💞💖 we stan these nerd frenemies

I like how when given the photocopy, Jon immediately went into his statement reading with full voice acting with no hesitation whatsoever

OOOOO! BUSTED, NOT!SASHA!

Jon, Tim, and Melanie all had the same inability to leave their situation. Jon and tim couldn't quit even though they wanted to, Jon couldn't fire Tim, and Melanie says that she felt she couldn't leave it be. Idk seems weird. Hope we see more of Melanie in the future, she's cool.

I absolutely _adore_ Melanie and Jon's dynamic!!!

I have the feeling that the not!Sasha affair is going to mess Jon up bad even more

“You know what a meme is...” “Yes I know what a meme is!” My life is complete.

YEES I kNoW wHat a MEME Is!! Jesus John

when she said scalpel at the beginning i thought of that disease scalpel they have in the artifact storage, sure hope its not that one. but oh boy, i love when jon interacts with the rest of the cast! good stuff.

During the episode with Not!Graham, the table seemed weird but irrelevant to what happened to him. Then when Sasha got taken, I started thinking the table summoned the replacement creatures, like how that weird vase in a different episode spat out some kind of monster that took the narrator's husband. But Not!Sasha's comment about the patterns unnerving her and looking like spiderwebs makes me think the replacement monsters are something separate, but they're trying to keep an eye on the table. Maybe Sasha was replaced not to infiltrate the archive but so Not! Sasha could stick close to the table.

Sasha acts weird and has her voice changed Jon: Martin's upto some shit Michael: bruh! you know that's not Sasha right? Jon: wdym but Tim sure is acting weird Melanie: *literally screaming* THAT'S NOT THE SAME WOMAN I MET BEFORE!! Jon: lol wut? Obviously that's Sasha! 😂

The best part was hearing Jon mouth "glasses" after she mentioned them. It was like he recognized that the Sasha he knew did wear glasses, but he just couldn't square it with the fake memories Not!Sasha implanted in him.

I assume not Sasha tricks people not by looking or sounding very much like Sasha but by doing some magic thing to make them think she/he/it's Sasha, and since it's been a while since Melanie came, it didn't realize she knew Sasha and didn't do the entire 'I'm totally Sasha' thing making her recognize her as definitely not Sasha.

"Do you know what a meme is?" How old does she think Jonathan is? I mean really?

They need to give Melanie a job!!

Melanie: "Tall, long hair, glasses." Jon: "Glasses?" Relistening to the whole series with some really high quality headphones and completely did not hear that the first few times. You pick up so many little details.

God I really love Melanie. I hope nothing really bad happens to her?!!

I love how passive aggressive they are

"yes I know what a meme is" well we weren't sure Jonny fellow, you do use a tape recorder for your cases

Omg finally! I have been waiting for someone to notice.

i really enjoy the distortions near the end. what a nice effect

I feel so sorry for Melanie, she sounds so worn and sad and traumatised giving her statement :(

Jon reads out loud so perfectly, like I know he reads out all the other statements but I always assumed he read through them beforehand but him just reading the photocopied sheet that Melanie gave him so perfectly with so much emotion, with no scanning the paper beforehand. It's amazing, either that or I just suck at reading out loud!!

Why peoples are getting stop easy angry and frustrating with him? Why they never can calm down and talk things out but always are so in rush?

I audibly gasped, not!Sasha they are finally onto you now

Uh-oh not!Sasha - you finally got caught. Keep Up The Good Work~!

“Yes I know what a meme is “ probably my favorite line so far

I KNEW MELANIE COULD TELL I KNEW IT

I love how when they work together melanie and jon are of a singular mind, but when at odds its so discordant its hilarious

THANK YOU MELANIE!

"Well this pompous ass has some very urgent work to do!" Such strong language, oh dear. It's so odd to hear Jon curse.

i am getting so frustrated reading a million comments yelling at Jon over not noticing not!sasha but its like all of them are as oblivious as they think jon is because they all seem to have completely forgotten how the not!people work and have not gone back to the original segment on them or even checked the wiki. there like "jOn hOW coUld YoU nOT nOTiCE ThAT SaSha lOOKS dIFfeReNT". when it is completely explicit that the not!people change peoples perception of past events to match with the new version of themselves. the only person who was immune to this effect the first time around was A) habitually observing and borderline stalking the first victim and B) actually saw the person get replaced. like everything about the plot line so far makes sense with this taken into account. Jon is overly paranoid because he can subconsciously tell there is something wrong and suspicious about his co-workers but is unable to connect that suspiciousness to the source in not!sasha and thus spirels into further and further into paranoid delusions. i feel like most of comments have taken the approach of lets ignore everything the show is telling us and instead misinterpret everything to match a version of events where jon is HaHA funny incompetent paranoid man point and laugh everyone.

Why is everyone so quick to emotional outbursts? I thought we were in London not my family reunion.

I love how both Melanie and John get both really excited about melanies research, they are paranormal nerds at heart.

Jon, maybe you can put the Gertrude murder on the back-burner for a few days, retrace Sasha's steps so far as you're aware (assuming you remember her talking about stumbling on the table during Jane Prentiss' attack), and get some back-up to contain her before she does something mean?

Okay, at first I was really happy that those two got along. I always felt they could be a good team, and hearing them working together and everything seems really cool. But as soon as she mentions the "Sasha" she met the first time around and now the "New Sasha" that made me generally scared. I knew something must have happened to the other Sasha, the original Sasha, but I had no idea it was the same creature that popped up in season one, the episode we are first introduced to the hypnotic table! Probably not the same creature, but another of its kind. And of course, no one noticed! The only reason the girl in that episode noticed something was because she didn't know the guy personally, so she was someone not affected by the change. Some with the ghost hunter chick! She didn't know Sasha the same way the others knew her. It all makes sense and now I'm generally freaked out! Not only because Sasha is most likely dead, but now this causes more problems for Jon and is bound to feed to his paranoia even more.

"Yes i know what a meme is!" -Jon Sims,February 13, 2017.

can we just talk about how jon and her were getting along so good-

God, the part about Sasha was terrifying. For some reason, this is the kind of stuff that really gets me. I think i haven't been that scared in like 30 episodes...

Uh oh, Jon has an idea...

The way Jon just switched into Statement mode the second a piece of writing was put in front of him was absolutely hilarious.

"are you collecting them" just lots of Sashas... To the point that it just becomes a title. 😅

The way he enunciates “pompous ass” is hilarious

was so prepared to hear jon absolutely butcher the pronunciation of "meme"

I just wanted to say that I really love Jon's realizing that Sasha isn't really Sasha. I have a feeling he's gonna be more suspicious of Not!Sasha after this. After all anything weird that happened in the past could be easily ignored and written off (like her pictures with Tom, her fascination with the table, and problems with computers), but now in comes Melanie out of the blue saying that 'Sasha' isn't who she says she is and had just before given a comprehensive statement that had no connection to Sasha. Everything makes sense to us the audience because of our own information and us either not being under Not!Sasha's illusion or not being too fooled by it because we can't see that she looks completely different. The dots may be connected to us and while Jon might not see the full picture he's taking a few steps back. I personally love this because usually when we know something the characters don't and they don't realize what's going on for a long time we get frustrated. But with TMA we can see what's going on and still understand the characters actions based off of what we know. Really excited to see where this goes.

So this pretty much confirmed for me that not!Sasha has some kind of hypnotic effect on people around her that makes them not suspicious of her, even though she apperantly doesn't even look similar to Sasha

i got into a car accident 5 minutes into this episode. context: I deliver pizzas and got bored of my music so I've been listening to this show. my phone that's streaming the audio to my car wasn't in my hand while the crash happened. it was deemed the other persons fault as I had the rightaway. everyone was ok no bad injuries.

“Well, this pompous ass” idk why I really enjoyed him saying that

Nerd to nerd communication I love it 😭

His reaction actually makes me afraid of the time he will discover the truth

Jon pretty clearly isn't following up with his witnesses

"Yes I know what a *meme* is!" caught me off guard

I think this is the first video I’ve ever watched that has no dislikes.

"another Sasha" 👀👀👀👀

So Sasha has fallen victim to the pipe monster from the table entry

I hope that Gertrude’s tapes magically scream some sense into Jon, because currently it seems that even Melanie’s observation wasn’t enough to convince Jon to deal with Not!Sasha once and for all.

In one episode, Melanie made the scenario advance way more than Jon's researches through all the season

I'm listening for the first time and that little moment around 16:00 where Melanie is discussing her findings and Jon is connecting the dots as she explains is so wholesome and makes me hopeful she's a recurring character in the "eventually becomes apart of the team" variety and not the "will eventually be found dead" variety.

Third listen through (spoilers), and I can't help but see the obvious parallels between Melanie and Jon, I'm sure I'll have more thoughts as I make my way to season 4, but it's just ok so. They're following the same path, searching for an explanation and hoping to understand what is happening. They've lost the respect of their co-workers, and have done incredibly rash things (breaking and entering isn't normal, impulse trips, not to mention physical harm). Being "ruined" by the pursuit of knowledge and Melanie being hired by Elias was incredibly fitting. It doesn't help that they are just so similar, as Georgie says. I truly think that had Melanie been hired before Prentiss, she and Jon would probably have fed off of one another or genuinely murdered the other. So in that respect, I really like the fact that their first interaction was awful. It might have saved her. Instead of her descending into madness and ultimately becoming an avatar, she -granted, perhaps because of the diy surgery - had a wake-up call, reached out, and decided that no, her fate wasn't sealed. Whereas Jon wasn't helped, didn't reach out/have that support (deserved or not because s2 paranoia Jon is a lot and had its consequences), thus he ultimately became the Archivist. In short, it's frustrating, and I'm already dreading s4's trauma, trauma, and more trauma. There's a lot to say about free will, and decisions, but that's TMA and I would like to hear the sounds of a brutal pipe murder sooner rather than later.

As an ex-train-kid I am super into this episode.

Hearing Jon say the word meme is life changing. Also Not!Sasha better start packing, they are finding out now.

So Melanie was the "chosen one" the one to be able to notice it

This reminds me of the restless man and the woman who trapped in the train.

Jonathan: *offended* I Know What a meme is!

Really shouldn’t be listening to this late at night, but whatever they are so addictive

I'm glad I'm not Melanie. I have such a bad memory of faces, Not!Sasha may forget to alter my memory I would still not realise she isn't the same person

YES! Finally we’re getting some clear statements that not Sasha is well not Sasha

15:29 jonnyboy insists he knows what memes are

Naww, Jon and Melanie geeking out over their love of research is so cute.

finally progress on not!sasha holy shit

I love this series because even when it’s like, thought to be a ghost, you can tell it’s not using context clues. Everything that’s a monster in this series is typically beyond our understanding. It’s not as simple as, “oh it was just a ghost”. It’s deeper than that

that moment with Melanie says thats not the same woman - just imagine someone telling you vehemently that say your best friend is not who they are but no one else notices... that little catch in his breath - pure fear - as the idea sinks in. So so so good

I'm surprised that not a lot of people know about these podcasts. Yet still amazing

I love the mental image of Melanie barging into Jon’s office while he has his arms full of tapes.

Melanie's last statement was S1 EP 28: Skintight (She's the old paranormal investigator)

I cannot explain how much I love listening to John , his voice and attitude gives him so much character

POV: you're relistening and hear Melanie talking about her eyes...

Thank God SOMEBODY recognizes not-Sasha! :D

FINALLY JON, FINALLY edit: OH COME ON JON SASHA ISNT SASHA ITS SO OBVIOUS

1. I love the dynamic between Melanie and John. 2. I'm so glad Melanie said something about Not!Sasha.

I ASSUMED IT WAS JUST A VOICE ACTOR CHANGE SINCE THAT HAPPENS SOMETIMES! WHY WOULD I ASSUME THAT!?

melanie i like you but you need to chill, jon does not have the people skills it takes to gaslight someone

Finally, someone noticed Sasha not being Sasha. It must be that she's just distant enough from the creature's influence that she can remember old Sasha. Kinda reminds me of how the Vampires put people under their spell, but you can tell something's off if you're removed enough.

"Yes, I know what a *meme* is!" 🤣 I don't know why I find that so funny.

HE WILL KNOW. C'MON JON I BELIEVE IN YOU

⚠️Spoiler for season 4(relisteners only): Melanie's injury is _exactly_ the same wound she'll give Jon in season 4. Using the same type of weapon: a scalpel. It's like the mark of The Slaughter is transferred to him when he takes out the bullet.

Okay so I was thinking - do we know what happened to the statement recorded in ep. 38? The one about the "homophobic vase"? Because if it survived, it is the only statement that does have Sasha's original voice on it and was not stolen by Not!Sasha

John knows what a meme is

YES FINALLY SOMEONE NOTICED!!

Melanie would be a great archivist assistant