Yes This Is Happening

I'm late to the tumblr party but it's okay.

[greelin]

“must everything be homoerotic” no. but many things are, you will find

[half-gobbled-piece-of-toast]

“I ain’t reading all that” your brain is rotting and shrinking

[springsgreenleaves]

Yes, but also, I am begging you on bended knee, paragraph breaks.

[the-haiku-bot]

Yes, but also, I

am begging you on bended

knee, paragraph breaks.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[bramblebeau]

arise queers

[tanukipost]

i think the world would be a happier place if we were all permanently stoned

[queercodex]

the lottery by shirley jackson

[tanukipost]

hold on i have to read something real quick

[tanukipost]

dude

[amandla]

[starvariety]

oh and another thing that devastates me about Obsession is how much nikki is judged and blamed by those around her. sarah and ian repeatedly telling bear that he shouldn’t have to deal with her, that she’s not his responsibility, that they’re worried she’s taking advantage of him. as if they aren’t also her friends, as if they shouldn’t know her well enough to notice something is off. there’s no concern for why nikki is behaving the way she is, there’s just distain towards it. she starts acting out of character and so it must all be intentional. but bear doesn’t get questioned. bear isn’t gossiped about. nikki loses all her agency and autonomy, and all she gets for it is judgment

[k1ndasc4ry]

It's actually so interesting to me that it's true about Sarah but not so true about Ian. Sarah thinks she's taking advantage of him and Ian thinks he's taking advantage of her. And while Ian is concerned, it doesn't make much difference, Nikki still being cast out. So clearly not a single one in that friend group understands "not a romance but love story" except Nikki. In a chase for their romantic interests, her suffering wasn't that worrying or of any importance.

[officialdietcoke]

on my second viewing of obsession, i had the realization that nikki’s story at the party wasn’t the movie using incest as an easy shorthand for making the audience uncomfortable or creating a general “things are off” vibe but was another way the real nikki was crying out—a metaphor for the fact that nikki, like gretel, is being made to fuck her “little brother” (bear) under duress, at the behest of an external magic (the witch’s spell in her story; obviously, bear’s wish)

[ferf-bish]

yesss thiss like how maybe nikki saw him as a brother and that poem was like describing what he was doing to her

[castlevolkihar]

i’m not a nikki freeman apologist because nikki freeman did nothing wrong what would she have to apologize for

[serendipitous-posts]

That moment where Nikki tells Bear that she's writing a love story that isn't a romance, and he doesn't get it. Can't recognize the difference between the two things, and the way it dooms them all. ugh. UGH. NOBODY TOUCH ME

[blancamzlooksat]

i was thinking this and I've found somebody articulating it online

[yurimom]

obsession was great. the themes are especially great when viewed thru a feminist lens. i think you could even go so far as to view it as a metaphor for reactive abuse (the way bear makes a wish for nikki to love him more than anything in the world / be obsessed with him, then lets everyone believe she’s just gone crazy put of nowhere, all while still not wanting to end his relationship with her. of course it’s not one to one but the subtle themes are there.)

i also enjoyed how the film showed what everyday violations of consent can look like…media often shows the most obvious, often-dramatized occurrences of it, but this depicted a more common way of it showing up.

bear did indeed take advantage of nikki while she was in a mentally unstable state. he was well aware her consent was compromised. all the while he is very insecure about it, knows what he is doing, becomes aware even that nikki is aware and it is hurting her, continues doing it. i love that this film names this. it even critiques “not like the other girls” anti-feminism through sarah, who sees it as nikki taking advantage of bear…then she ironically tries to take advantage of bear’s vulnerable state herself by coming onto him.

also on a smaller note nikki’s batshit incestuous gorey hansel and gretel story had great prose i enjoyed it. my partner pointed out that before the wish, nikki saw bear as a little brother figure. meaning the hansel and gretel thing very well could have come from real feelings of disgust, like it nearly feels like an incestuous relationship to her.

and the ENDING. a lesser film would have insisted that, in these circumstances where the wish can only be broken if one of them dies, the male lead must survive between the two. but there was no self sacrifice from nikki out of “love”, there was no moment of lucidity or jealousy or rage where she kills herself, bear is forced by the narrative to take full responsibility for what he has done to nikki. what’s more— he reaches for a gun, almost uses it, ultimately decides on overdosing on pills. my partner and i personally think this was intentional commentary on masculinity, by having bear consider, then reject, the way men typically choose suicide in favor of the way women typically choose it. just a fun detail and maybe we’re both batshit.

good movie. all of that said though i’m sure a lot of people will boil it down to “haha women are soooo crazy…”

[transfemme-shelterdog]

I took him taking pills instead of a gun as a callback to his cat dying and how he used that as an excuse to garner sympathy from Nikki.

[starvariety]

if i think too hard about nikki’s experience in Obsession i feel physically ill. imagine one second you’re just walking up to your house after a night out, and then the next, you’re looking out of your own body, but you’re not longer in control. you’re a prisoner to a terrible, unnatural version of yourself that only exists because of a choice someone else made. when you scream, nobody listens. when you claw your way out for long enough to explain that this isn’t you, nobody listens. when you beg the man who trapped you in this situation to put and end to it, to set your free, he just. doesn’t. listen. and then when you do finally regain control, all your friends are dead, and you are covered in their blood. because of a choice someone else made

[derangedoctopus]

The ending in "obsession" is the most horrifying part to me because much like real life,the man gets off scott free and the woman is left to deal with all the mess

[skullvis]

*Minor Spoilers for Obsession 2026*

So I did go see Obsession again last night and made sure to pay extra attention to Bear’s little opening monologue when he’s practicing his love confession to Nikki.

Bear doesn’t say a single thing about Nikki as a person in his speech. He doesn’t say that he loves her kindness and how she cares for others, he doesn’t talk about how he loves her creativity or care-free spirit, he doesn’t talk about what he likes about her.

He talks about nice things she’s done for him. He talks about what she means to him. He talks about her being there for him, and how he likes how she’s treated him.

And while I won’t pretend that those things aren’t important, they are the only things Bear mentions in his big vulnerable romantic speech.

Bear’s “confession” tells us literally nothing about Nikki other than that she’s been nice to Bear in the past.

But in a subtle way, his “love confession” tells us a LOT about Bear and his actual feelings for Nikki.

He likes that she’s been nice to him. That’s it.

He likes that she’s been nice to him, and whether it was an unconscious process or not, Bear has responded to Nikki’s being nice to him by becoming obsessed and infatuated with her.

To the point that, once he’s (albeit initially unwittingly) in a position of power over her, he completely disregards her personhood and begins to feel entitled to her and her body.

That’s another layer to Obsession that I find absolutely chilling. That so often just being nice or polite to someone won’t lead to them showing you that same kindness in return, but will instead lead them to feeling entitled to you.

[tildexart]

my roommate (who hasnt seen obsession) upon hearing that nikkis last name is freeman pointing out how upsetting that is because. freeman. free man. the one thing she cannot be. fuck man.

[starvariety]

oh and another thing that devastates me about Obsession is how much nikki is judged and blamed by those around her. sarah and ian repeatedly telling bear that he shouldn’t have to deal with her, that she’s not his responsibility, that they’re worried she’s taking advantage of him. as if they aren’t also her friends, as if they shouldn’t know her well enough to notice something is off. there’s no concern for why nikki is behaving the way she is, there’s just distain towards it. she starts acting out of character and so it must all be intentional. but bear doesn’t get questioned. bear isn’t gossiped about. nikki loses all her agency and autonomy, and all she gets for it is judgment

[vampireistic]

i absolutely love how nikki is nearly always bathed in shadow (whether it’s fully in the dark or with a single light behind her with her as the faceless darkness). she’s quite literally become a shadow of her former self. no autonomy, no personal thoughts or emotions, just a carved image of what bear desired.

[acefuruya]

nikki breaks my heart so bad because in the brief moments we see her before the wish kicks in, she's so cool and funny, clearly kindhearted, very driven about her future (telling bear about how she was going to quit her job to focus on her writing), and also very sure of herself as a person. ive seen people describe this movie as "mean-spirited" and I think thats so apt because it was a 2 hour long tragedy of the torture of this innocent girl, taking away everything she's ever had, including her own sense of self, putting her through unimaginable horrors, and leaving her with nothing except the three dead bodies of her friends, with the one who she trusted most being the one who did this to her. nothing for her to look for hope in, because she has nothing before her except a lifetime in prison or in an institution. it would be one thing if the movie ended on a note like weapons, where everything was over and there would hopefully be recovery somewhere down the line, but here, not only was the evil not committed by a random stranger but her closest friend, but she doesn't get any chance at recovery either. so goddamn tragic. on that note, if anyone can come up with some sort of fix-it for nikki please link it to me because I will be crying about this girl forever.