#leanne denikin

[jordankennedy]

more statement givers cuz i'm almost done with season 1 on my relisten

[themagnustournament]

Round Two Part Four - Match 28

He lost his Hope :( Heavy Goods is against the calliope Breekon and Hope were likely well acquainted with in Strange Music, which received 220 votes from Round One.

MAG 128 - Heavy Goods | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of the surviving half of the being that calls itself Breekon and Hope, regarding its own existence. Statement extracted from subject.

MAG 024 - Strange Music | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Leanne Denikin, regarding an antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004.

[tmablr-sexyman]

BACKGROUND CHARACTERS!

[webtable]

AVATAR WRESTLER ROSTER

every entity has a set number of avatars that can operate underneath/fight for them at any given time. this number varies depending on the strength and dangers of the entity, along with demand.

the current roster is as follows under the cut:

THE BURIED:

Laura Popham -- Betrayed the Dark

Karolina Gorka

Vincent Yang -- Betrayed the Lonely

Dominic Swain -- Betrayed the Vast

THE CORRUPTION:

John Amherst

Jordan Kennedy -- Betrayed the Desolation

Jane Prentiss -- Previously in a tag team with Oliver Banks

Joshua Galen -- In the process of turning people away from their entities to worship them (has: Matthew Irving)

THE DARK:

Natalie Ennis

Manuela Dominguez -- in the Daedalus Crew

Matthew Irving -- Set rivalry with Augustin Choudhary | torn between Joshua Galen and the Dark

THE DESOLATION:

Agnes Montague

Jack Barnabas -- Recently proposed to Agnes in the ring

Jude Perry

Diego Molina

THE END:

Oliver Banks -- Previously in a tag team with Jane Prentiss

Nathaniel Thorp

THE EXTINCTION:

Gary Boylan -- Rarely fights as a result of the destruction

THE EYE:

Amy Patel

Augustin Choudhary -- Betrayed the Hunt | Set rivalry with Matthew Irving

Rosie Zampano

Jonah Magnus (as himself)

THE FLESH:

"Cook"

Toby Carlisle

Jared Hopworth

THE HUNT:

Julia Montauk

Robert Montauk -- Betrayed the Dark

Trevor Herbert

THE LONELY:

Evan Lucas -- Lucas family drama heavily referenced in promotions

Naomi Herne

Carter Chilcott -- in the Daedalus Crew

Carlita Sloane

THE SLAUGHTER:

Jennifer Ling

Lisa Carmel

Alfred Grifter

THE SPIRAL:

Michael Shelly -- Tag team: The Distortion

Helen Richardson -- Tag team: The Distortion

"Doctor" David Ramao

Lydia Halligan

THE STRANGER:

Daniel Rawlings

Lorell St John

Leanne Denikin -- Betrayed the Eye

The NotThems -- A cycle of wrestlers | Relies heavily on promotions

THE VAST:

Michael Crew -- Betrayed the Spiral

Jan Kilbride -- in the Daedelus Crew

Robert Kelly

THE WEB:

Annabelle Cane

Raymond Fielding -- Betrayed the Eye

Neil Lagorio -- Relies heavily on promotions

[theiloveyousong]

i lov e clowns i would love to own a calliope rip to leanne denikin but im different

[tmisaccidentreportbook]

MAG024, Strange Music

Case #0051701, Leanne Denikin Release date: June 22, 2016 First listen: 20th October, can’t remember where I was and I’ve been trying to cleanse the palette a little with some of The Adventure Zone: Graduation. That makes for an interesting combo.

The possessed killer doll has been done a lot. Child's Play, Annabelle, and a new release M3GAN to name a few. And, it may be that I am not as in tune with media tropes as I’d thought, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to me that this was a possessed killer doll situation until sitting down to make notes on this one. I’m going to chalk it up to Jonny’s writing giving this a new lick of grease paint.

- ‘Let me be clear: I’m not scared of clowns.’ Well I am. Or well, I thought I was. But not long after this, I’d go on a Scare Night with a group of my friends from work; masked, boostered and outside. But it was a series of horror mazes we’d work our way through, you know the sort, and they were themed. One of them was definitely circus themed. I wasn’t scared or spooked in that one, or indeed any of them if memory serves. Mainly in the circus one I was just distracted by the sheer noise and strobing lights. But I think there was also a little bit of ‘I might be a bit nervous but I have several dear friends who are actively terrified and are huddling around me like I’m the mama goose in this situation. Time to link arms, hold hands and turn on the flamingo shaped fairy lights I’m wearing in my infinity scarf. Off you go girls!’ I had a great night but I wasn’t spooked. Possibly because of the noise, probably by the fact that I had finished consuming Season 1 by that point at least.

- I agree with ‘baffling’ nature of clowns and to a degree dolls to. Leanne makes a good point about statues.

- Leanne takes quiet a stand on insisting that the events she’s reporting actually happened. I wonder if she’s run up against indifference or hostility before in connection to this. She later states that there has been police investigation, more than likely she’s not been believed or she may not have dared to tell them. She’s got little to no relationship with her parents and she no longer has her partner, she’s more than likely desperate to be believed but someone, anyone. And given how the Institute operates a… supply chain shall we say for The Lonely, she would have been ripe for the taking, given that, her grief and loss and how her story ends. I wonder, did she emigrate, or was she just lost.

- I had never heard of Bootle, needed to look it up. Appears to be a seaside town, just north of Liverpool.

- Music wasn’t something I’d quite considered as a tool for horror before this podcast. Yes, I knew of sirens singing to lure the unwary in and how the film soundtrack can change to let you know shits about to go down, but short of ritualistic chanting, I can’t think of any times where I’ve seen music actively drawing out the threat and being so linked to it. We’ve seen music play a part before with The Piper, MAG007, and we’ll see it with Grifter’s Bone, MAG042, and I think in MAG125, Civilian Casualties, bagpipes cry. The Slaughter and The Stranger seem to be the two Entities that employ music the most, Nikola Orsinov referring to the efforts of The Stranger preparing for ‘the dance’. It’s interesting how these Entities both draw on music as a tool, because at first thought they don’t seem that aligned, but they have many themes in common. The confusion of battle, not knowing friend from foe, common man becoming the enemy other, the idea of officers dancing at balls the night before battle through the 1800s, circuses and shows being run like military operations, the military flair of a ringmaster’s regalia. The two seem very tangled up together and it seems fitting that The Slaughter put pay to The Stranger’s ritual attempt in 1787, MAG116.

- ‘I don’t have a great relationship with my parents, and have always had some problems making friends.’ Leanne seems perfectly ready for The Lonely to take her by the end of her statement. Her hesitancy in calling Joshua her ‘partner’ is telling. Although the nature of the end of the relationships were very different, the only statement of The Lonely we’ve had so fair has been MAG013, from a woman mourning the sudden loss of her fiance.

- ‘It was a hot, muggy day, and I remember wondering whether the stinging in my eyes was from the tears or the sweat.’ I’ve attended funerals in the summer, I’ve worked funerals in the summer. It’s never easy.

- ‘…I’d always felt it was mine in some ways.’ I can understand this sentiment, and I think that makes the break in and burglary all the more brutal. It’s the violation of the safe space and sanctuary. Although I’ve been living away from the family home for a good long while and I’ve never really been one for roots, there will always be a part of me that belongs to a home, garden and field in the Vale of Belvoir.

- So Grandpa Nick was Nikolai. We’ve establishing the Russian connection.

- ‘…had to cut the lock off.’ I’m gonna say, it there’s a padlock on an attic door that you’ve never seen opened or used and you can’t find a key for it anywhere on the property, that’s a red flag.

- ‘The only things there were an old steamer trunk, a small stool and a bright red calliope organ.’ I’m gonna say, it there’s a padlock on an attic door that you’ve never seen opened or used and you can’t find a key for it anywhere on the property, and then you get it open and there’s only a few, rather singular items in there, that’s a bloody big red flag.

- Oh now I’m imaging a statement covering an episode of a ‘storage hunters’ type show and the premise is terrifying and hilarious in equal measure to me.

- ‘The Calliaphone’. Right, I looked this up because it didn’t quite sound right and it might be a case of brand name becoming the common term. From the wiki ‘the air-driven calliope is sometimes called a calliaphone, the name given to it by Norman Baker, but the "Calliaphone" name is registered by the Miner Company for instruments produced under the Tangley name’.

- The carving of ‘Be still, for there is strange music’ on the lid is interesting and the statement doesn’t specify if machined on, done by hand professionally or roughly scratched on. Was it done buy an artisan proud of their work and sending it off with a blessing or was it added as a warning?

- Also, the instruction of ‘be still’ is one that makes me nervous. Usually the wish would be for merriment and movement when music plays, which is why being made to sit tight during concerts always made me antsy, so why do you need to be still for them music? Is it so something doesn’t see you? Will you be caught in the dance and unable to stop? Will you become still, whether you will it or not?

- The jaws are gone. Dolls that have been silenced… Why that manner of death though?

- 23 dolls. Grandpa was up to some shit.

- ‘…oldest doll still has jaw.’ So, I’ve learnt that there are recognised different types of clowns. Great, that live in my head. But I think this lil guy could possibly to be a white faced clown, a Pierrot, the loyal, hardworking, dependable servant character of the Commedia dell'Arte. Well, he’s hard working, gotten 23 meals already.

- ‘Or maybe selling. They were definitely antiques, so they might have been worth something.’ I already mentioned working auctions in MAG005 and yeah, while the dolls themselves may have been eerie, they weren’t as eerie as the folks most interested in them.

- In the style of Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam around the 41minute mark of RQG 92 – Bringing Down The House SASHA!

- ‘Tried and succeeded. They were actually quite helpful.’ All of the archival assistances are wonderful, they are the best beans, but Sasha is probably the most effectively by conventional and, y’know, well tested and legal methods. I reckon by illegal methods, she’d be down right dangerous. But Harold Silvana isn’t a name we’ve heard yet, but we will in MAG035, which is a type of statement I’ve taken to referring to in my head as ‘fear goulash’. Like, freaking shit is happening, but they’re all in on it, MAG020 was a bit like that, everyone had a bit of flavour in there.

- There is a whole section on the calliope wiki about how it can be pronounced. There a great little rhyme featured there;

Proud folk stare after me, Call me Calliope; Tooting joy, tooting hope, I am the calliope.

I mean, it’s wrong, but it’s cute.

- I am with Jon hard on this one. The instrument is named after the Greek muse eloquence and epic poetry. Mother of Orpheus. Hesiod and Ovid called her ‘Chief of All Muses’. Put some respect on her name.

- I love that when the recording resumes, there’s some emphasis on ‘ka lie oh pee’. Just a little bit of pepper to make the point.

- ‘By rights, when I sat in front of it and pressed the first key down, nothing should have happened.’ Oh and that ‘should’ is key there isn’t it. If the laws of the world are being fucked with, get out. If reason and physics peace out, you do too.

- ‘…came a loud, howling tone.’ I’m reminded again of the Carnyx as I mentioned them in MAG007, a howling instrument for the battlefield rather than the music hall.

- I can’t find any indication of what piece of music ‘Faster Faster’ might have been but it is a very evocative name for The Stranger’s purposes. Moving and dancing faster and faster until the world around you is unrecognisable. It could also be that Leanne is chasing her grief, as when she first played it, it was to her Grandpa’s memory.

- Josh’s reaction to the music is something that could be expected, especially after his reaction to the contents of the trunk, but it can not be as easily explained. While Leanne is caught up in the playing of the music, we get no indication of what Josh is seeing, if she or their surroundings are changing in anyway or if his reaction is solely to the music and its’ effects on him. As he doesn’t give any justification or explanation when the music stops, we can’t be sure.

- Was there a chance that the clown doll glimpsed him, in the short moment the trunk was open?

- ‘…in those last weeks he became moody, short-tempered, constantly on edge.’ The change in Josh’s behaviour can certainly be attributed to The Stranger’s influence, but I’m interested to know exactly how. Is it simply the constant presence of the music or is it something more? Is this new behaviour that’s being propagated within him, or are his masking behaviours being stripped away to reveal what he was really like?

- But Leanne is fully alone now; somewhat estranged from her parents, grandfather dead, partner out of the picture.

- ‘So, for the third time, I got out that ladder and climbed into the loft.’ We get the magical rule of three and we see the cloth poppet of Josh. With the Clown, the ringleader, reaching for him.

- I’m glad there is no use of the phrase ‘voodoo doll’ in the piece. Although the use of a doll effigy to hurt Josh is clearly implied, with the likeness and the 22 other jawless dolls, the words are not said and I appreciate it as the practise is so often misattributed with terrible connotations.

- I’d like to know more of why Josh was chosen. Was it simply a case of the calliope and its’ retinue needed to feed? Was Leanne off limits as she was the one who provided the music? Was it because Josh had hurt her and the calliope and the attendant now considered her under their protection?

- The break in, another instance of the violation of the safety of the home, especially considering that Leanne had such a connection to the place. But Breekon and Hope, and yes it’s got to be those two; two people, ‘looked legitimate’ as a moving service, in the employ of The Stranger, Breekon and Hope not being stopped because they ‘looked legitimate’. The shit you can accomplish with a hard hat, a high vis jacket and a clip board, I tell you.

- Leanne immediately knew that the calliope and what happened to Josh was connected. I mean, the signs are all there, but although she may not know how it works, she understood the connection enough to swear up and down that she didn’t play the calliope a third time.

- Before Josh and Leanne broke up, he said that ‘he still heard that calliope music’. And once again my mind circled back around to MAG007, and Wilfred Owen and other doomed soldiers cocking their heads to catch the music of The Piper.

- So Josh was found dead, jaw gone, no foreign DNA found on him, and his windpipe crushed by ‘some sort of rope, apparently woven out of thick wool’. Well, the white clown had ‘no woollen hair left’. None left. What if it was kept to hand though, within the trunk?

- ‘Tim said it reminded him of some articles he’d read on travelling circuses.’ We’ve still to meet Tim in the flesh, but this is the first indication we get of Tim’s history with The Stranger and with the Circus of Gregor Osinov.

- ‘Gregor Osinov and Nikolai Denikin.’ Yup, Grandpa was up in some shit. We don’t get confirmation that Nikolai is the calliope player, but given his talent at the piano, it’s not a massive leap of logic. If that is the case though, who are the other 22 dolls.

- The picture was taken 1948, so in the wake of WWII. A time when The Slaughter and The Stranger probably stalked the world rank and file.

- We get our first mention of The Circus of the Other and the legacy of Gregor Osinov.

- So the calliope was unaccounted for between 2004 and 2007. What was Nikola Osinov doing with it in that time, and why did it make its’ way to the Magnus Institute?

[evelyn-the-archivist]

Have you listened to any of the tapes your predecessor recorded? If I'm correct about something I've noticed, you may find a specific part of the recording of the statement of Leanne Denikin regarding an antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004 enlightening. (Not sure if I'd be allowed to give you a less subtle hint, sorry.)

"the Circus of the Other"

That title is definitely a dead ringer for The Stranger, even if it wasn't part of the follow-up to a Stranger-aligned statement. And then there's those two names, Gregor Orsinov and Nikolai Denikin.

Certainly some solid leads for me to follow.

Something that gets to me a bit is those two 'legitimate' looking people who took the organ out of Ms. Denikin's home. I feel like I've heard of something similar before, but I can't remember where. Fitting for The Stranger, I suppose.

And then there's the question of how the calliope organ ended up in the Institute's Artifact Storage, about three years after it was taken from Ms. Denikin. I asked Sasha if she knew anything about it, and she told me that she hadn't been able to find it when the statement was first recorded, and doubted she would be able to now.

I'll likely listen to more of Jonathan's recordings soon, considering how much I learned from #0051701.

(ooc: yeah stuff like this is fine!! i hadnt given a lot of thought to most aspects of this blog before starting it, so i dont have a lot of hard rules anyway.)

[diphyleia-acanthus]

leanne denikin

[avatarofthebeholding]

Iconic Opening Lines to TMA Statements:

1. “First off, I should admit that I lied to get in here.” - Antonio “Oliver Banks” Blake (MAG 11)

2. “I hate spiders.” - Carlos Vittery (MAG 16)

3. “Never buy a ground floor flat.” - Christof Rudenko (MAG 18)

4. “Let me be clear: I’m not scared of clowns.” -Leanne Denikin (MAG 24)

5. “Are you interested in folktales at all?” -Nathaniel Thorp (MAG 29)

6. “Thank you for lending me your pen.” -Andre Ramao (MAG 38)

7. “You don’t mind me drinking in here do you?” -Gregory Pryor (MAG 49)

8. “I feel like I should be upfront with this right at the beginning: I’m probably a cannibal.” -Craig Goodall (MAG 72)

9. “So I had to find a new gym.” - Ross Davenport (MAG 90)

10. “Pigs are tricky.” - Dylan Anderson (MAG 103)

11. “Okay, I know how it sounds, but Murder Club wasn’t supposed to be like this.” - Lisa Carmel (MAG 112)

[daughterdooley]

au where tma was a cartoon made to accompany a doll line of the different avatars. design-wise it's fucked up in the monster high way, story-wise it's fucked up in the ever after high way. no one can die or even fight in any way that matters bc it's a kid's cartoon so all the avatars just. hang out. despite the fact that they have trouble making the stranger dolls look properly inhuman, leanne denikin is the main character (bc the plot was originally meant to be about humans finding out about the avatar world which was connected to their dolls but later got retconned).

[jordankennedy]

i kinda do wish we came back to leanne denikin in the podcast because how are you going to just be like “Oh yeah this girl was a capital-S Stranger’s granddaughter and accidentally killed her boyfriend by playing magic music on an evil calliope organ” and not do anything with it

[themagnustournament]

Redemption Round 3 - Match 14

Strange Music comes to us with 160 votes from RR2, and is facing off against The Sick Village, with 116 Redemption votes so far!

MAG 024 - Strange Music | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Leanne Denikin, regarding an antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004.

MAG 164 - The Sick Village | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of an outbreak. Audio recording by the Archivist, in situ.

[organicclownfarm]

“and how about a round of applause for our lovely organist!”

every day i think about leanne denikin as an avatar of the stranger who’s taken over the calliope

[k1rishiki]

what do you mean leanne didn’t have her entire life shaped around the stranger’s influence?  what do you mean it’s not canon that she’s only had two close relationships in her entire life and isn’t very ambitious because the stranger made her seem like just another face in the crowd that casual acquaintances have trouble remembering so she’s just stopped trying?  what do you mean she didn’t desperately try to be known when she was younger, which caused the rift between her and her parents because “she could have it worse”? what do you mean she isn’t ace and arospec?  what do you mean she didn’t go monster hunting with tim stoker and have a sibling-like relationship with him?  what do you mean-

[webtable]

blabbering about my graham-is-a-ghost au don't expect this to make any sense because it's been two hours and my brain is fried

> every single time the not!them becomes someone they leave behind a ghost. remnants of what the body used to be (polaroids, notebooks, and amy's memories are good examples) will stick around, along with a physical manifestation of the person they used to be. (personally, i think that these manifestations of people who ceased to ever be probably vanished during mag165 when jon killed not!sasha, and before that were a part of the carousel)

> to see and/or hear them you have to be, or be on the path to being, some sort of stranger avatar, which is why no one in the archives could see sasha

> every single ghost exists in a kind of pseudo-reality that leaves them caught between living and becoming nothing but a piece of the not!them

> ANYWAY what i'm basically saying is that leanne was the only person left (by the time he died) that graham had to haunt, and he was lucky to have anyone to haunt at all

> leanne can't actually see graham very well, and his voice is the primary thing that she'll experience because of their shared connection with the calliope. if she'd met the not!them or some other stranger-based avatar/entity with a focus on physical appearance + spent time working with them, she'd get a more solid grasp on what he looked like

> in contrast, graham doesn't want her to see him at all. the not!them stole his skin to walk around in it + i'm of the opinion that it uses its arms to climb inside someone and get rid of anything it deems "unnecessary." graham died in the middle of that process and looks pretty beaten up and bloody

> a lot of what leanne hears is noises that she's associated with him for a long time. the clicking of lighters, scribbling, the squeaks of someone pacing in a small circle, and ragged breathing muffled by a hand are the most common sounds. he doesn't have to be doing anything for them to show up. it's up for debate on whether or not she's hearing all this because her mind is trying to make up an excuse for his continued presence or if it's just a side effect of his haunting

> in many ways, without realizing it, graham is dragging leanne further into the stranger. his presence is just another reason for her to continue looking into it

> graham can't do most classic ghost things. no floating, no phasing through walls, no moving objects with his mind. he exists but can't interact with the world around him unless the objects are things he's attached to in some way (old homes, objects that he's used before--doesn't matter whether or not they're his specifically, etc). unless he wants to walk everywhere or get on a bus, he's screwed.

> bodily necessities and functions are a hit-or-miss. his nervous system still works pretty well, but he doesn't consistently experience anything to do with the autonomic system outside of sympathetic + parasympathetic reactions. it's unclear if those happen because they're things he was conscious of before death or if the nerves and neurons required for doing that sort of thing are just damaged and trying to repair themselves to no avail

> likewise, it's hard to determine whether he gets hungry/thirsty anymore or not. the acts of eating and drinking don't really do anything for him, but he'll feel uncomfortable if he doesn't try. this also applies to things like pain and the urge to sleep.

> when leanne moved to southeast asia, graham couldn't follow her there and was left to roam. something that was very good for her, but bad for him. he spent a lot of time between 2014 and the events of the unknowing going back and forth between libraries and used book stores for any sort of access to entertainment and familiarity. (used book stores have the added bonus of occasionally containing an animal)

> leanne comes back to england for the unknowing as a result of both her relation to nikolai and previous experience with the calliope. there were backup choices, BUT she'd only been pulled further into the grasp of the stranger since she left and really had nowhere else to turn to. graham is naturally drawn to the house of wax while the unknowing is being set up because he's supposed to be a piece of their puzzle

> i actually have a theory that the chaos and feelings surrounding the unknowing is very similar to having been taken by the not!them, down to the abrupt conclusion that is the death of the victim. from lines like "Do you even know which of these hands is yours?" + "Do you even know what a hand is?" and the instance of "I see you," plus the confusion of identity experienced by everyone inside the building can be argued as proof. trying to see it as general stranger stuff or something anglerfish specific doesn't work as well. <- going to write more about that someday i think

> also, the calliope is not in the center of the building. just from what we can hear on the tapes and infer from leanne's statement about it, it is a Very loud instrument. it's pretty reasonable to believe that leanne would be able to get away from the explosion without dying.

> in short, i think graham helps her through it as the ritual begins to break down. leanne might not be able to stop playing until the ritual ends, but it's possible he could break away (connection to the eye perhaps?). i also think that this is the first time since his death that graham experiences an actual body that leanne can see. would love it if the choir was a mix of skinned anglerfish victims and the not!them's ghosts of people forced to experience someone that so obviously isn't them live out their lives.

> unclear as to what might happen after that tbh

> i hope they've died by the time of mag200. i hope they've both died by the end of mag200.

[kendallroystigmata]

big brain idea: nikola x leanne denikin