Marilyn Manson’s new album is so good that I actually, physically, stomach-contents-to-toilet-bowl *vomited* by the time I reached Lucifer’s Teardrop. I think this is why God kept me alive these 8 past years where I’ve been trying to kms and I’m GLAD FOR IT ahhhhh
I don’t really like smut (though of course, that’s a personal preference and people can enjoy whatever they want to enjoy) BUT I write it all the time because it’s such a great warm up exercise—
It’s pretty easy since you don’t have to start by coming up with a plot or flesh out characters but at the same time, it requires you to convey thoughts, sensations, feelings, and actions and reactions of the two or more characters involved and use that imagery to evoke specific responses from the readers.
By the characters are finished with each other, you’re already locked in on the writing, have brushed up your storytelling skills, and have characters that may or may not have names or backstories by this point and can easily begin to think about their origins and how they ended up there or what comes next after this incident and it doesn’t even have to lead to a romance story, the options are endless and you can scrap the scene entirely and get into a good story.
I’m into the third episode of a genuinely interesting webtoon I started today and I’m considering dropping it because the male lead is so hot that I’ll be jealous of the female lead when he falls in love with her 😭
Do you think Bear opened Sarah's offer letter after she died in hopes that she wasn't accepted so that he could tell himself what happened wasn't so terrible for her since at least she won't need to feel that heartbreak? Haha
It's a good question--why can't I stop thinking about Obsession (2026)?
There were many questions left unanswered by the end of the movie because it followed Bear's POV strictly, and he didn't acer about anything but receiving Nikki's love. And that leaves the audience to interpret everything based on hints that were dropped here and there. I think, when the story and characters are truly well thought-out, viewers are given a reason to care, and there are points in a film that were touched upon vaguely but never properly addressed, it's natural for one's mind to linger for a long time.
So I'm trying to put the pieces together…
1. What happened to Nikki?
At the end of the movie, Nikki found the One Wish Willow. She wished for Bear to love her--the same thing Bear wished before--and we get to watch the wish come true from his POV this time. And what happens is that he immediately stops what he is doing and goes to find Nikki and feels this compulsion to see her and hold her. He doesn't really seem to be possessed by anything, at least from the snippet we saw before he died.
I can say this with some confidence because his smile in that moment was actually the same as in the beginning, when wish!Nikki confessed to him. Which I guess isn't great evidence for my case since his genuine smile will look the same regardless of who or what is in his body, but his reaction being the exact same makes it feel like it's still him, but his feelings for her are back to square one, and it's just that any fear and repulsion he had for her was replaced by it.
So, about Nikki--theoretically, she also had some admiration for him from the start. I mean, at least outwardly, he was this nice guy who she'd been friends with for a long time. In the car ride home with him after that trivia night with the others, she asked him if he liked her and kind of tried to push him into confessing by telling him 'if you do, now is the time to tell me.' She even looked vaguely disappointed when he replied by saying they were just friends. Plus, before that instance, she kind of leaned that way when she told him things like 'you're the only one I can talk to about these things' (even though he's an uncaring, superficial asshole irl. You kind of have to be blinded by your love for him to think anything else) and when she brought up Sarah's feelings and asked how he felt and mentioned that nobody ever knew when she had a crush.
But also, she might not have been sure of her own feelings. Just curious, especially if she was aware that Bear probably liked her. After all, she said Bear was a little brother to her to Sarah before and told Ian not to call her 'Bear's girl,' and seemed comfortable and relaxed around Bear rather than tense and self-conscious like he was, or super caring and wanting like Sarah, who hugged him and stayed back with him and I guess showed how she felt outwardly.
Anyway, following what we know the implementation of that wish looks like through Bear's POV and working with the idea that she might have had these conflicted feelings towards Bear, we can kind of imagine how it felt from her as soon as Bear snapped his One Wish Willow: When Nikki entered her house and shut the door and was about to get some rest or go about her typical night time routine, she suddenly felt that same pull as Bear at the end of the film. A strange, overwhelming desire to see him. So she stepped back out and saw him still parked outside her place (with the One Wish Willow in hand?) and watched in confusion as this all-consuming feeling took over, because where did that come from? What changed so fast?
She looked very confused when she finally approached him. By her own self. She first asked about that gift he'd mentioned, I supposed believing that that was what was nagging at her. When he said he didn't have it, her eyes just flicked around, (imo) wondering what else there was, why she couldn't bring herself to go back inside.
Perhaps this abrupt shift in feelings from 'maybe I like him' to 'I love him so much, I can't imagine a life without him,' along with the fact that the box of the One Wish Willow mentions that it takes up to 24 hours for the wish to come true can explain her swinging in and out of both modes.
She was flickering in and out of loving him so much it hurts to that mild maybe feelings she had without the influence of the wish.
Following that night, she was perfectly normal for a while. In this time, Bear was giving her all of his affection and reciprocating her feelings.
She worsened after Bear discovered that her dad wasn't dying.
A few things happened:
First, Bear asked Nikki if she loved him more than anything else in the world, restating his exact wish. She laughed and said 'yeah…. more than anything,' and her eyes drifted away and in this theory of mine, she consciously came to terms with that, and Bear sort of gave away that he made that wish/did something that caused her to feel the way she did now. 'Do you love me more than anything in the world' is probably not a normal question to ask your girlfriend of a few days/weeks, so it likely raised a red flag for her
Bear asked Nikki if her dad was truly dying. Because it was a lie, it's natural to worry the relationship built on it might end. Her reaction can perhaps be attributed to panic--after all, she loves him so much. What's she going to do if he thinks she's weird or a liar or using him and breaks up with her? So Bear 'reassures' her and she sits down after that little outburst and looks at him seriously and asks why it matters. To me, it feels as if it was a test. A test that Bear failed.
Why? Because he demonstrated how little he cares for her by saying it doesn't matter at all. Even though it does. If he cared about her, he would have asked why she felt the need to lie. Why she was acting the way she did early on that she initially claimed to be a reaction to her dad dying. Showed concern for her, and he simply dismissed the entire situation, took her home, and FUCKED her!
So Nikki was disgusted by Bear. A war started in her head, an internal battle where the rational side of her still in that body was yelling that this isn't normal and he's a shitty human being and doesn't care about her and that it doesn't make sense to be anywhere near him, while the wish part that was forcing love onto her and making her act a certain way and tying her down with those feelings was arguing that none of it mattered, that Bear was everything and she was nothing without him.
And in 24 hours, everyone was dead.
Literally. That night, following the date and subsequent rape scene, she was watching him from that corner while wearing his sweater, which I interpreted as Nikki being disgusted by him whilst also being unable to stay away from him and trying to figure out what she could do in that situation and being genuinely scared because being controlled by a certain dominant emotion like that is horrible.
The door was taped shut--but she made a lunch for Bear and prepared breakfast and everything, and offered to drop by work later for him. Was it really to keep Bear with her at home? Or was it preventing herself from leaving?
The night prior, when Bear asked Nikki to join him in bed while she was watching him sleep, she immediately answered by telling him no and pressing back into the corner of the wall. Verbally, she was showing him love by telling him he looked cute when he slept, but her behaviour came off to me as scared.
Then she mentioned that she had horrible dreams and didn't feel loved by him and cried… and he confirmed his feelings were barely even surface level by not even bothering to ask what the dreams were, or why she would feel that way or try and reassure her that everything was going to be alright.
It's possible that after she woke up in the morning to prepare breakfast, Nikki felt a deep desire to run away, but the love she felt prevented her from leaving, so she trapped herself.
And then when she was making breakfast, she could be in that scared and confused state where she knows something is deeply wrong with her and writes down that it isn't her in that photo. She wasn't herself. She wasn't like this. These feelings weren't hers, they were forced upon her by him--the only one who had anything to gain from this twisted situation.
She was never depicted to be in such a terrible condition as this day before, between Bear making his wish and the date night where Ian told Bear that Nikki's dad wasn't actually sick at all.
Also, maybe when she was recording Bear sleep, she was going through his things that same night for something personal to keep (like his sweaters. Or his hair.) that she could feel closer to him through, and found the One Wish Willow box and put the pieces together, and that also contributed to the way she acted so broken from that point on.
So.
After the scene with Bear and Sarah at work that day came the party scene.
Nikki actually seemed to contemplate murdering Sarah for a moment when she stood behind her chair blankly for that one minute before ultimately dragging her chair back and moving to be the one to Bear's left for the kiss dare. And then she declared disturbingly that everyone would di never feeling the depth of love she did, and then IAN was the one to do it, after allllll this time. He was the one who was truly concerned and cared enough to ask her that simple question Bear never did--'Nikki, are you okay?'
She didn't even say she was. She just gazed at him for a long moment, and then tried to dismiss the scene and internally…. I would break too. Rational me trapped and forced to act on this alien love would lean on him and ask him to please help and say Bear did something and she's trapped. Nikki probably felt the same way, and that sentiment could have been so strong that for a moment, she was able to break through and resurface before the love snapped right back in place and forced her to shut the fuck up and do the first thing that would salvage the situation and let her stay with Bear, and that was to be taken away from the party by 'the only person that could handle her' (the boyfriend she's obsessed with) and head back home where it's just him and her and no one else.
So yeah. That's what she was struggling with when Bear was about to sneak off at night and Nikki stopped him and begged him to kill her and said she had never been with him and that wish!Nikki was sleeping. Or like, to explain it in an understandable way, I'm sure we've all experienced it at some point: it's the strangest feeling when you are awaken by something really late at night. You're more than half asleep and barely open your eyes and there are a few thoughts on your brain--things that were weighing on you the heaviest before you slept, or in your dreams or whatever--but everything else is numb and your body is heavy lmao. I think it's called the hypnopompic state when your subconscious, recent dreams, and underlying anxieties float around without any filter or structure while you are transitioning between sleep and full consciousness.
Anyway. The point is, every time she cried out and said 'it's not me', she wasn't talking about another being living alongside her in her body, but rather that understanding that something was wrong with her and she was acting in ways that didn't make sense to her.
And my theory is kind of backed by the way she was acting. She wasn't pleased to have killed Sarah and eliminated the only other woman in Bear's life--when she was smoking while wearing her clothes and tattoos after, she was trembling and sobbing and looked so scared and hurt that it just broke my heart. It feels more like she's driven by these compulsions her obsession with Bear causes for her and she's conflicted. That's what I'm trying to say.
And can I make another point? The nature of the wish is that it's literal. That's why the box says to make a very specific with, because the way you ask for it is how you're going to get it. Ian wished for a billion dollars and a billion dollars rained on him. Bear wished that Nikki Freeman would love him more than anything in the fucking world. So Nikki Freeman loved him.
And we don't know much about Nikki because the story is strictly from Bear's POV, but the things we learn through hints kind of point her in the direction of being unwell even before the wish was made. Maybe she normally acted in weird ways with people she liked, and that was how she ended up with that nickname, 'Freaky Nikki' in the first place. And why she was only hooking up with Ian, who seemed to care for her an awful lot throughout the story instead of dating or whatever. We don't actually know about that but here's what WAS told to us:
She used to do drugs. I'm no expert lol but I think people likely do MDMA when they're depressed. I did some research and apparently it can be used for PTSD, even though it's not prescribed or FDA approved in the US
She 'doesn't care about her father'--something must have happened between them. She hated him so much that her close friends were surprised and confused by the fact that she cared that he was potentially dying of cancer, and that kind of implies that she hated him.
She said she didn't feel love and wanted to feel it before the wish affected her. She had a good friend group and was sleeping with Ian, who seemed to care about her to an extent (definitely not a great extent, but still), so saying that she didn't feel love kind of shows that she is lonely and not in a great place emotionally, I guess, and that she doesn't normally let people get too close to her. I wonder why, right?
2. How does the One Wish Willow work?
……..The One Wish Willow obviously requires magic to work. And it has limitations—you can’t alter or cancel a wish once you make it, and each person can make only one. It’s encouraged for it to be hyper specific because it could go wrong….
And we know that most people come back to the shop to complain about it—so something about the wish has to be dark, though for Ian, for example, it wasn’t really? He got his billion dollars just like that. Same with that second cashier dude who really didn't enjoy Bear's 'energy' lmao. He seemed content with the wish he made.
Also, the… operator? Creator? Of the item… or their heir or whatever. Who is he?
I have no theories about this, I'm just lost. But I draw parallels between the Willow guy and Santa. He's probably getting a portion of the ~$7 that a One Wish Willow sells for, and can therefore keep a track of the people making wishes by tracing them. Maybe using that same magic? I dunno.
That's actually the extent of my 'analysis.'
Though since I'm here and talking about things--THE PARTY SCENE. It was the scene I personally found most horrifying, where they're taking Jenga pieces and it’s Nikki’s turn and we never learn what her dare was, but she stands up and reads out a scene from the novel she is working on. And basically Hansel comes home to Gretel and he feels lust for her, I guess. The narrative goes that Gretel is convinced Hansel will fck her. But that even if he doesn’t, she’ll grab ahold of him and like force sex anyway. ‘The way the old woman taught them’ And Ian was saying earlier that Sophia told him the Nikki said before that she considered Baron a little brother and nothing more. That scene seemed to show the nature of Nikki's feelings, possessed or unpossessed, and it's sad and scary at the same time. But mostly scary, standing in Nikki's shoes. Ahhhh.
The moral of the story doesn't even seem to be 'be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it'. I think the moral is just that Bear sucks 😭
I really hope if she's arrested after the main story, she can at least plead mentally ill or something. Or get the like lawyer to find a One Wish Willow and wish for a billion dollars to spawn in the trial court or something so everyone can see something's off because she seemed to have some awareness of what happened. Or at least plead mentally ill. And then recover from the immense trauma she went through and then write that book since she got to feel all that love she wanted to, lol. And it could turn out she wrote Obsessed herself and it was a hit, especially because her story got popularity since the case she was arrested for did. Or something. My heart really goes out to her--
And you know what? Actually, maybe the reason I can’t stop thinking about Obsession is that Curry Barker made a wish on a One Wish Willow that everybody in the world ‘loves his movie more than anything in the fucking world’. Because I am just as obsessed with it as Nikki was with Bear. I watched the movie twice in the span of a single week. Watched at least eight one hour reviews and theories on the movie on YouTube, and have been writing all my thoughts down on paper by hand for the past five hours even though my pinky aches and all this is only ending because I've lost my train of thought. Wtf.
I've been programming since before I even fertilized my mother's womb. Like, I developed my first few apps when I was still a stem cell in my dad's seminiferous tubules.
I haven't written in a long time. I finally grabbed my notebook--a fresh one, since I went through a lot during the hiatus and wanted to work on an entirely new project that would help me piece everything together and hopefully end up somewhere better emotionally. And my mother asked to use it because she found a flower that had fallen from its stem and wished to create an art project that required it to be dry and properly preserved for a while. I let her, and my notebook sat with it for a month so that she could get the results she was hoping for, but when I opened it again, it turned out that because it was still fresh when I pressed it between the pages, the flower was ruined, and so were almost all the sheets of paper in my notebook, which was so dear to me before that I once cried over water spilling on a corner of single page. It oddly feels like a metaphor for something.
