#the possessor

[memoriastoica]

Horror Express aka The Possessor (1972)

[cheetospuffsgoods]

would be nice if you draw possessor.

I bring you...

Funny evil man

(Also sorry for taking so long!!)

[klavier]

Owen Pallett / Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead

[alilaro]

i think we should utilize doppelgängers as a horror trope more often. it installs such a nauseating primal sense of dread. its like something instinctual and ancient in your body telling you something is very, very wrong.

[talesfromthecrypts]

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) dir. Panos Cosmatos Possessor (2020) dir. Brandon Cronenberg

[moonlight]

Just think, one day your wife is cleaning the cat litter and she gets a worm in her, and that worm ends up in her brain. The next thing that happens is she gets an idea in there, too. And it's hard to say whether that idea is really hers or it's just the worm. And it makes her do certain things. Predator things. Eventually, you realize that she isn't the same person anymore. She's not the person that she used to be. It's gotta make you wonder, whether you're really married to her... or married to the worm.

POSSESSOR (2020) dir. Brandon Cronenberg

[ponyrepress]

Rb with the swag you give your fave characters like your special little touches your seal of approval. For me it’s being aroacespec & xenic.

[wongkarawai]

UPSIDE DOWN SHOTS IN FILM

The Evil Dead (1981) dir. Sam Raimi Happy Together (1997) dir. Wong Kar-wai Ex Machina (2014) dir. Alex Garland Hereditary (2018) dir. Ari Aster Midsommar (2019) dir. Ari Aster Glass (2019) dir. M. Night. Shyamalan The Invisible Man (2020) dir. Leigh Whannell Possessor (2020) dir. Brandon Cronenberg The Green Knight (2021) dir. David Lowery

[baihujun]

A quick Johnny

[agentravensong]

Why Kris Does (and Can't) Play the Piano

Something I've been thinking about for a little while is why Kris can't play the hospital piano when given the prompt by the Soul/Player.

My assumption from back in the days of Chapter 1 was that it was simply a byproduct of the possession, that something about the way Kris is being controlled keeps them from being able to play properly. But the more I've thought about it, the less sense it makes. It's not as if we're given an interface like with the piano in UnderTale that would limit Kris to pressing one key at a time, it's a yes or no input. And think of all the things Kris can do in battle in response to a one or two-word prompt given by us. Like with dialogue choices, the Soul may give Kris the basic command, but they're free, to a certain extent, to interpret and embellish upon it. Why would piano be any different? They should be free to play whatever they want.

For a lot of people, the kris_dreemurr_kris page complicated this question further. Does pianpian's complexity and subjective beauty prove that Kris can actually play piano, or does its chaotic nature with a lack of a clear melody prove that they don't actually know how? Or, does the fact that they go to play it after getting a look like they're "remembering something" suggest that the piano skill was never theirs at all?

For me, kris_dreemurr_kris provides an answer.

Specifically, thanks to this bit:

Kris doesn't want Noelle to watch them playing piano. Whether because they're still learning and get somewhat embarrassed by it, or because they just want it to be a private thing, they don't want an active audience.

Now, we don't know exactly how much time has passed between this blog post and the events of the game, but, based on the first line of the page ("there was a time when they were coming over almost every day"), it's been a little while since Kris began this piano ritual. We don't know how good they've gotten at it since then, but based on the harsh look they give Susie when she teases them for not being able to actually play piano, I'd wager a guess that they've gotten good enough that their pride was hurt by such a comment.

But if Kris can play, why don't they?

Because it's something they do for themself. Music, after all, is a form of self-expression.

And whether or not they'd be willing to let Susie be an audience to it, it can't be Kris's genuine self-expression when they're not fully themself. When someone else is making them do it (even if they would have full control over the actual playing). It has to be their choice.

So they flub it on purpose. A dissonant chord that gets across the idea "oh, they can't play anything better than this", and thereby lets them back away. And as much as they hate how it leads Susie to the incorrect conclusion, they'd rather that than play wonderfully when a) there's the risk of her later finding out about the possession and attributing their piano skill to their possessor, or, just, b) it can't be genuinely theirs.

Now, as far as why Kris gets that strange look of remembrance on their face before going to play Noelle's piano... That's where we get more into out-there theory territory.

I don't think that Kris is being possessed at those moments - not in the way we currently understand it, at least. While it does seem likely that there's been something fucky with their Soul for a good while now that got them to have a routine for taking it out, the look Noelle describes them having in these moments doesn't seem to match up with how the possession has been described to affect Kris. The nurse in the hospital says in Chapter 1 that they look a little sick, and when Noelle in post-Snowgrave describes how Kris is acting weird, she says they've only been acting strange "recently". If Kris was being possessed pre-Chapter 1, it was a possession of a significantly different kind (and I have to wonder why such a possessor would be taking them away from their time with Noelle to play piano, and why they would force Kris to stop the second they're observed).

So if it isn't that... what is it?

Perhaps it has to do with a secret in pianpian itself. As @gasterofficial discovered, with some audio editing, you can hear a scratching sound in there. If that sounds familiar, it should:

Perhaps Kris's playing of the piano is an attempt to reach out to someone - or, more in line with the way they'd leave Noelle so abruptly to start playing, to reciprocate their communication. Whether that be with the person doing the scratching, or the person in the code who also hears the scratching. If you're still fond of the possession idea in this context, you could even argue that they're channeling that person in these moments.

As far as who that person is... what characters do we know of currently who are missing, possibly trapped in the code/void... and are musicians, making it more likely that their messages would be communicated in a musical form?

Or, to put it another way: if Noelle isn't the one who plays the piano in her house... who might that have been?

[markantonys]

demandred standing in the middle of the battlefield hollering for rand to come and face him when he ought to know that his boss the dark one is currently having his own much more important battle with rand

[mater-argento]

[carldoonan]

“This Circus Stinks!” (2020) Between the zany zombies, the putrid pumpkins, and the gaggle of garbage ghosts, I gotta say... this circus STINKS!

[fanofspooky]

Some horror movies of 2020

[intoguilt]

[hands] possessor, brandon cronenberg, 2020

[moonlight]

Christopher Abbott as Colin — POSSESSOR (2020) dir. Brandon Cronenberg