silliest goofiest mad scientist

there’s something so gutwrenching about the fact that the female characters in obsession have real dreams and wishes but never get the chance to see them realized, while both male characters waste their wishes on short-term selfish satisfaction. they were complex, free-spirited young women who just wanted to create art, and they were destroyed by a man determined to confine them to his superficial perception of them. nikki wanted to be a writer, sarah wanted to be a tattoo artist and now neither of them will get to be anything at all

we talk a lot about how much of a revelation andrew’s confession is for neil, and not enough about how revelatory neil’s reaction is for andrew. because like. imagine you like this boy. but he doesn’t swing. you know the answer would be “no,” so there’s no point in even asking. then he goes and gets himself needlessly tortured for you, and tells you there’s no amount of suffering he wouldn’t endure for you. not because he thinks you’re weak, but because he thinks you’re worth protecting. he says things that you would interpret as advances if it were literally anyone else. you remind yourself that he doesn’t swing. now you’re at eden’s and he’s asking about your feelings for him in 12 different ways. he really wants to know. so you tell him, in the most casual and crass way you can, thinking that’ll put an end to it. but unfathomably, it doesn’t. he asks you why you didn’t tell him. why would you have? it would have been a “no.” you say that, and instead of confirming it, he just echoes your words, clearly still reeling. you start to leave, and he tells you that he wants to keep playing your game. while the absence of a “no” is obviously not the same thing as a “yes,” you’ve been operating for months and months under the assumption that the answer would be unequivocal. so you keep waiting for that answer, but it never comes. for the first time since you met him, you wonder if maybe it’s not a “no” after all. if maybe you could have this. you can’t remember the last time you were able to have something you wanted. the world tilting on its axis, indeed.

they're called "bootlickers" because when there's a boot stomping on their neck they lean forward to kiss it

as soon as i clicked post i realized damn that's such an evocatively erotic description, i should be using this sort of language about noble kinksters, not wasting it on class traitors

that's the beta testing stage

characters whose sexuality is "i'm under way too much stress to figure that shit out rn"

character whose gender is "im probably nonbinary but im on a quest so idrc about that rn"

genuinely insane to me that bikinis are the Default swimwear marketed & sold to women. that's nylon underwear. & if you don't want to wear one people treat you like you're childish & insecure & suggest ways to "get over it"

"i feel uncomfortable with the idea of wearing what amounts to fast-drying underwear in front of other people, many of them complete strangers" "have you tried gradually acclimating to showing more & more skin? have you tried being more confident? are you ashamed of your body? don't you want to show off your beach bod?" girl what the fuck are you talking about!!!

wearing a bikini is all about confidence & self-love 🥰 but remember to wax all that icky yucky body hair first!!! 🤢 nobody wants to see that 🙅‍♀️

One thing about Obsession (2026) that I enjoyed was that it almost asks you to feel empathy for the entity possessing Nikki as well as the real one. Like, obviously the things she's doing are horrific and fucked up, but I think the scene where Bear is asking her to "just be Nikki!" and she eventually just desperatly screams "I can't be Nikki!" does a really good job of showcasing the entity's inner feelings. She's been created with the sole purpose of loving this guy more than anyone else but no matter how perfect it is or how much he claims to love her, its not her that he loves, its Nikki. And any time she stops pretending to be Nikki, he reacts (albeit rightfully) with disgust and horror. She can't be Nikki because Nikki would never love Bear, and so Bear will never love her.

Free both of them