Once You Follow's Lore

So I wrote a fanfiction of Obsession, because I had an idea: What if a cult leader got a hold of the Wishing Willow? And what if this cult leader was actually scarier and worse than the other entities? No, not some *Bear Makes a Wish*-type guy. I mean, what if the devil got a hold of a Wishing Willow and decided that, if he could keep you bound to it, he'd use it to do so because he doesn't care? He's an entity with actual supernatural abilities.

The reason Boba and Carly are in the story is because these two characters share a body. Now, canonically, what's going on is a little complicated. I should probably keep this open to interpretation, but essentially, because this is going to be revealed anyway, the entity Harz, the cult leader, actively tried to fix the issue between Nikki and Freaky Nikki. When he made the wish for them to worship him, it created a new identity within them that would essentially worship him. He knew this would happen because he is an ancient entity who knows about the Wishing Willow, but he didn't know if it would happen to this extent.

At first, this was really confusing—actually, kind of alarming—until he figured out what was going on and realized, "Oh, what's happening with the love situation is happening here." As a result, he effectively decided to become close with both the original versions of the souls and the newer versions of the souls. However, he knew they were conflicting with each other, so he basically told them they had to live in tandem because they both shared a body, and nothing was going to change that. He gave them a sense of hopelessness that things would never be different and nothing was going to change.

He actually called the company, and when the company asked if they wanted to speak to the soul, he didn't really care. He wasn't upset, angry, or stressed because he didn't care about the people themselves. This was kind of odd to the entity on the phone—the one who operated the Wishing Willow—because it was like, "Why aren't you upset?" He simply said, "Yes, put her on the phone."

In the written canonical lore, he asks them to put her on the phone. In the original canonical lore—and this might stay in—the entity operating the Wishing Willow is just like, "No, I'm not going to do that." The reason is very easy and very simple: something was wrong.

The entity who operated the Wishing Willow—the call center representative—noticed something was wrong with the man on the phone. He didn't sound normal. Harz doesn't have a normal voice. He doesn't have a normal face. Nothing about him is normal. He can shapeshift. Nothing about Harz is a normal being. His voice was weird, and the way he spoke was strange. It was as if someone possessed by the wish was speaking to them, but that wasn't the case. It was some entirely different entity.

The entity on the phone knew something was wrong and realized he wasn't talking to a normal human being. So he said, "Yeah, no, we're not going to let you talk to her." Harz repeatedly told him, "Let me speak to her. Let me speak to her." It got to the point where he began to willfully control the other entity's mind. He asked, "Now will you let me speak to her?" Even with resistance, the answer was still no, so he pushed further with his own abilities because he hadn't fully perfected his ability to control other people yet. It was easier for him to use the Wishing Willow, especially since he didn't have to exert as much effort.

Finally, the other guy said, "Yes, you can speak to her," and put her on the phone. Harz basically manipulated her, calmed her down, stopped her from screaming, talked to her, and got her to come into tandem with another identity. I want that character to be Carly.

Carly then proceeded to name the new version of herself Boba. Neither of them understands what the other is. Carly wonders, "Are you my body? Did the wish cause my body to act on its own, without needing a spirit or soul to operate? If my spirit or soul left and my body remained behind, is Boba the body? Would Boba be able to operate and move without a spirit or soul? Did they animate my body and give it its own consciousness outside of the spirit and soul?"

Basically, that's what both Boba and Carly wonder. The other children ask, "Are you sure that's not a demon or something?" Which is exactly what they say. They know they share a body, but they're both asking, "What are you?" Boba asks, "What am I?" and Carly asks, "What are you?" Both of them are very confused about what they are.

The reason for that is because I can't actually pinpoint what Boba is, so I left my own confusion in the story. I call her an entity, but I honestly don't know what she is. What's happening to Carly is similar to what's happening to Nikki in *Obsession*, but instead of romantic love and infatuation, it's devotion to a cult leader.

The cult leader wanted both the original soul and the newer one because he always wanted the original souls. He didn't just want newly created souls. He took great pride in being able to get both the original souls and the newly created versions of those souls to serve him.

To avoid this issue in the future, he had new bodies created. The first batch was a group of children who were created from the dust of the ground to be human. He actually planned out their creation by writing down everything. He didn't treat the Wishing Willow like some random wish-granting object. He treated it like a machine, as though he were working at a company and had to plan everything out. He planned all of his wishes meticulously.

So, he planned out the creation of this group. However, he noticed a problem. The Wishing Willow didn't necessarily force them to worship him. He basically created them using the Wishing Willow, and it did create them, but this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He noticed that the children would worship him, but only because they were initially forced by the Wishing Willow. Eventually, because of his cruel behavior and the fact that he was a horrible person, they would stop worshiping him, with some even turning to the nearby religion of Christianity because the town had Christianity as a religion at that particular point in time.

Some of the members were forced to worship him, while others joined without being forced. Some of those forced members had actually been Christians before they were essentially mind-snatched by the Wishing Willow.

As a result, some of those children would eventually stop worshiping him and become Christians, atheists, or agnostics. They would refuse to actively worship him. Why was this? Because all he asked of the Wishing Willow was to create children who would worship him. That simply meant they would worship him at some point in time. It did not mean they had to keep worshiping him forever.

They still had a high level of free will and the ability to make their own choices and decisions. Their bodies and minds were simply built with devotion and the desire to worship him. However, once they actually engaged in the act of worship, even though their personalities were geared that way, the Wishing Willow no longer had any need to operate. It had already done what it was told to do.

As a result, even though their mindset was initially geared toward worshiping him, they were, in a sense, freed and were no longer required to continue. Their mindset became malleable enough that it could change at any moment, allowing them to refuse to worship him.

When he noticed this, he created a new batch of children who would be forced to worship him for the rest of their lives—or rather, forever, even after death as spirits.

You know how, with the Wishing Willow, the effects are only supposed to end when you die? Well, this is different because Harz is not a normal spirit. He was kicked out of heaven because of what he did with the Wishing Willow. Harz is not human. He can't die. He's immortal.

They would be trapped under this curse for eternity.

He actually tells one of the children—specifically Boba and some of the girls—that they don't have to worry about death because, technically, if he had created children with the Wishing Willow and then died, those children might die, disappear, or even cease to exist. That was a risk. As a result, he told them, "You don't have that risk because I can never die," meaning no one would ever be freed from the curse.

He would also make additional wishes. In one piece of canonical lore that I hadn't written down until now, the entity we're dealing with is extremely intelligent and highly threatening.

Notice how Nikki acted erratically? That could also happen with Boba and the other versions of the original people. As a result, Harz is very domineering, condescending, and frightening.

If the creator of the Wishing Willow—the entity that made it—ever met him, Harz would simply say, "You're going to judge me, but I did what I had to do," and then leave or go handle whatever business someone told him to do.

No, it's not like you wouldn't freak out. The Wishing Willow entity certainly would, solely because of the simple fact that the way he looks in my head is so freaking creepy. He's so freaking creepy. He's not normal.

You can see his rib cage. Think of him as a centaur. He's somewhat similar to the Prototype from *Poppy Playtime*, but entirely biological or spiritual. Instead of a car-like appendage, think of a lower body that's spider-like with six legs, while the upper body is human.

For some reason, when I came up with him, this was automatically generated by my brain. His movements—the way he leans and sways—are similar to those of the Prototype from *Poppy Playtime*. I think what happened is that my brain randomly made a mock-up. Even though he looks nothing like the Prototype, there are a few small similarities. It gave him a spider body and the same swaying movements.

When he walks, he abnormally leans and holds his hands and arms in a similar fashion, like he can't properly hold up his upper body, as though he's struggling or something. I guess you could compare it to a Jack-in-the-Box.

He has no proper hair on his head. Instead, it's like flakes or little spikes—not sharp like needles, but the same color as his body. In the scratchy, sketchy art style, he's completely black. He has a pure white sclera with no other color, no irises, and no pupils. He has good teeth, but they're uneven and have uneven gaps between them. He's always wearing a smile—a really, really wide smile, wider than Nicky's.

His spider body looks like it has a rib cage similar to a human's. The larger rear section of the spider body almost resembles a butt area.

He looks really, really, really weird, and the Wishing Willow entity would find his appearance really odd because, when he first sees him in my imagination, he doesn't see the pleasant human version that looks like an angel. He sees the true form with the spider body.

It's like, when he's trying to move, the force of his movements causes his upper body to sway. His legs move abnormally fast, like a spider's, and the force of those movements makes his upper body swing backward. Even though he doesn't have a spring inside him, it looks like he doesn't have full control over his upper body.

He's always smiling, even when he feels nothing at all and is completely neutral. That's just his natural expression. However, he does have normal ears.

He's very skinny in both forms. It's just that, in his true form, he's obviously not human, although his upper body still resembles a human's.

His skin is black.

He does have hair, and it's straight, but it's difficult to explain. He has a skinny, slim face with high, well-defined cheekbones and a sharp chin. His head is somewhat large, but it's hard to explain because you can never actually tell where the hair begins. His hair is black and blends into his skin so well that it's as if there's no shading on either one to show where the hairline begins and the forehead ends. As a result, his hair and skin blend together into a single silhouette.

He doesn't have sharp teeth; they fit normally in his mouth. His head isn't enormous, but it's larger than a normal human's. I imagine a normal-sized human beside him, with his head being about 20% larger.

His hair is short. Very short.

From the silhouette alone, you can't really distinguish the hair because it's so pitch black that you can't tell one strand from another. It literally looks like a silhouette. The only reason you can tell it's messy is because individual strands stick up. They remain completely still—they don't move or sway—so the messy appearance comes from those stagnant strands sticking out.

The stagnant, unmoving strands of hair make him look less human. Unlike the entity that created the Wishing Willow, he looks like something entirely different. He looks strange. He would probably scare that entity simply because he doesn't look normal, and even when he isn't happy, he's smiling.

However, he doesn't always smile, per se. As for how he keeps the other versions under control, there's a reason he created all the new children. When he had the Wishing Willow create children, he specifically had them start off as newborn babies to be raised by his followers. It's because he sees the new versions of the people as newly born beings who are essentially like toddlers.

Although I didn't watch *Obsession*, he sees them as babies who, essentially, don't know how to act. So, when he noticed that their movements were kind of inhuman or strange, he began to teach and socialize them. Despite not being human himself, he knew how humans behaved. Also, since he wasn't looking for the Wishing Willow to create an entirely new being or a completely new version of them, he wanted the original versions to become his followers. He would still try very hard to manipulate the original versions whenever they resurfaced or returned to normal.

He wanted every part of them—every part of their minds—to follow him. The original versions felt safe and calm with him because he was kind to them. They didn't understand why this was happening to them, and having someone comfort them, especially someone who appeared human because he presented himself that way, felt good. It felt kind. It felt comforting. So, things started off relatively well within the cult. Not good, exactly, but from their perspective, things weren't insane yet. Everything hadn't yet gone to hell.

Later on, however, things absolutely went straight to hell.

And to hell they went.

He was very manipulative and extremely old, so he understood what was happening and had a good idea of how to handle it. As a result, he tried to manage the situation as best as he possibly could. This led to him becoming very strict. He was especially strict with the other personalities. If one of them became too clingy—so clingy that they were practically climbing over each other just to get to him—he would immediately intervene.

When he noticed one of the personalities acting that way, he would deliberately scare them. He would scream at them or frown, which alone was enough to make anyone back away. In his human form, when he frowns, he simply looks increasingly overbearing, depressed, and somewhat angelic—almost like Lucifer. But in his true form, it's on another level. It doesn't just look angry; it looks deeply unsettling and disturbingly unnatural.

His frown is crooked. His bottom lip is crooked in one direction, while the top lip is crooked in another. The bend in the bottom lip is in a different place than the bend in the upper lip.

It's uneven.

The curves are exaggerated and rounded. Occasionally, he might make the expression sharper just to frighten them even more. Normally, though, he uses physical force. He quickly grabs them, sometimes allowing one of his pointed nails to touch them. He has crooked hands and crooked fingers. The goal is to scare them into submission, calm them down, make them back away, and stop them from being so clingy.

For example, you know how Nikki yells, "Stay," and he simply stays? He wouldn't respond that way. Instead, he would try to make them afraid of him. If one of them acted like that, he would immediately shapeshift, terrify her, grab her without hesitation, and scream in her face with what sounds like a monstrous, demonic roar that immediately gets the point across. If that didn't work, he'd simply throw them into a tree.

He doesn't want to deal with it. He's not like Bear—he's worse than Bear. He doesn't want to deal with that kind of behavior.

Here's how he reacts to a clingy baby or toddler. He wants to be alone. He doesn't care about the baby or feel anything toward it. So what does he do? He immediately picks up the baby, puts it in a crib while it's crying because it's clingy and doesn't want him to leave, and then he leaves the baby alone for a long period of time. The baby cries, but he does this so the baby gets used to him not being there and gets used to being alone. The goal is for the baby to stop caring and eventually stop crying whenever he's gone. He leaves the baby alone for so long that the cries gradually fade into the distance because, eventually, the baby realizes he's not coming back anytime soon. Then he returns. He repeats this on a regular basis with the clingy baby, consistently denying it the attention it wants.

This is how he treats his followers when they're in this state. He consistently denies the clingy individual the attention they seek. He's much stronger than they are and is honestly not a weak individual, despite having very skinny, lanky arms. He's a spiritual being and is literally much stronger than he looks.

If they start acting erratically around him—running at him or behaving strangely, similar to how Freaky Nikki backed away and seemed to rewind—he considers that a glitch. In some cases, because of his supernatural powers, he may try to use those abilities to fix it. He used to be an angel, although he was physically corrupted as punishment after God cast him out of heaven. That's why his true form doesn't look normal.

He will physically try to alter their bodies to fix the error that's causing them to behave that way. That rewinding behavior, for example, is something he would have instantly fixed in Nikki. If she suddenly ran at him or behaved the way Freaky Nikki did, he would have locked Freaky Nikki in a cage and told her not to act like that again or there would be consequences. He's not a normal person or a good person. He's literally a monster—just one that's sentient and intelligent.

He wouldn't sleep with Nikki because he understands what's happening, and he knows that would be inappropriate. Instead, he would try to control her behavior. For example, if she's yelling, "Stay!" whenever he tries to get out of bed, he'd probably throw her against a wall. He's not a good person.

If he genuinely loved her and actually cared about her, he'd still treat her like the crying baby—putting her in a room and leaving for a long period of time. He's trying to set boundaries, but, from his perspective, he's also trying to manage both the real Nikki and the new Nikki. He's trying to get the real Nikki to live in tandem with the new spirit because that's what he does with all of his followers. They're encouraged to live together in tandem rather than fight because they're stuck this way. He cannot die, and he has no intention of killing himself. He doesn't care that much about other people. Once he gets the two personalities to coexist, he would accept the opportunity to speak with her, and after getting them to live in tandem, he would essentially begin dating both of them.

If Freaky Nikki stops screaming, he comes home. This would most likely cause the real Nikki to reemerge, but his goal is to get Freaky Nikki to stop screaming or stop calling out for him because he won't come back until he can no longer hear it. There may be times when he returns anyway, but, to be fair, he's also afraid of what could happen if he comes back too soon—such as if she tries to hurt him. As a result, he waits for either the real Nikki to come out, because he knows she'll eventually try to, or for Freaky Nikki to calm down. He's trying to tame Freaky Nikki. He's trying to teach her how to behave by showing that this kind of behavior won't get the reaction she wants and won't make him do the things she wants him to do.

Basically, it's his version of setting boundaries, even if it's done in an unhealthy way.

In this case, though, he actually would care about her in a way. The problem is that he's so afraid of Freaky Nikki in this state that he's simply not willing to put up with it. He wants to stop it long-term. More than anything, he treats Freaky Nikki like a literal child. He doesn't treat her as an independent adult. He treats her like a child because that's how he sees her. He sees all of her weirdness, her odd behaviors, and her impulsiveness as the result of her being a newly born being. He views her as a newborn baby with the body of an adult—sort of like a toddler who needs to be taught how to behave. As a result, his relationship with Nikki would be very strange—really, really strange.

This would scare both Freaky Nikki and Nikki herself, so they would actually calm down a bit. There isn't much they can do. This man is insane.

Normally, he's kind of an inversion of the scary femme fatale trope, where the dangerous character scares everyone into submission. On the other hand, he completely subverts that trope. In many story tropes, the husband is afraid of the wife in some way, and the character considered the most dangerous or intimidating often frightens other men and women into submission. The more boyish, masculine, tomboyish, or violent character tends to scream loudly at everyone, shocking them into submission. Normally, that fear of harm or violence causes the other character to submit.

He completely reverses that trope because he refuses to submit. Instead, he tries to force everyone else to submit to **his** will.

He's a violation of the expectation that he must submit.

To me, it's weird because I noticed while creating this character that he accidentally shares some personality traits with the Prototype from *Poppy Playtime*. The way he talks isn't actually similar, but it's somewhat like how people imagined the Prototype would speak—slow, methodical, and deliberate. However, his voice is usually high-pitched, very strange, and not normal at all. He's not normal. He's extremely strange and abnormal.

He's authoritarian. I compare him to the Prototype because he rules in a similar way. He uses force, and he brings sorrow to all of his followers. Even the newer versions of his followers, who were literally created to worship and be devoted to him, are afraid of him. They're too frightened to leave. The personalities were once devoted, but not anymore. That devotion is beginning to fade.

Boba and Carly actually have a conversation where they wonder, "If I worship someone, does that mean I love them? Do you have to love someone in order to worship them?"

Because they don't really love him anymore. He did some truly horrible things.

He has moments that **he** considers merciful, although they're deeply twisted. For example, he nailed someone's hands to the back of a wooden stake. One nail went through both hands into the wood. After doing that, he thought, *She's been through enough.*

This happened to someone who wasn't forced to join. He didn't have to use the Wishing Willow to make her follow him. He only treated her this way because he viewed his other followers as valuable. His thinking was essentially, *After everything I've done that made everyone suffer, how will they think of me if I kill one of them?* He especially didn't want to harm the beings the Wishing Willow had created from dust and from the broken Wishing Willow sticks. Those were the ones he had specifically created to worship him forever. He called them the Willow Children.

What he considered mercy was still cruel. Instead of nailing her feet to the stake like he had done with her hands, he tied her feet with rope. Then he knocked her unconscious and put her into a coma so she wouldn't have to feel herself being burned alive.

From his perspective, this was an act of mercy.

Another thing he considered merciful was calling down a ball of fire from the heavens to strike the bottom of the wooden stake instead of striking her directly.

You're probably wondering how this is mercy. It isn't. It's simply his twisted version of mercy because, in his mind, the alternative would have been even worse: nailing her feet to the stake while she was awake, forcing her to burn alive consciously, and having the fireball strike her directly.

He put her into a coma so she wouldn't experience the pain.

The reason he did this was because he had learned something long ago. He believed that being burned alive was more painful than childbirth. He had heard accounts from mothers who had survived severe burns after previously giving birth, describing the pain as worse than childbirth. This idea is based on reports that severe burns are among the most intensely painful injuries a person can experience.

Knowing that, he concluded that being burned alive was an unimaginably painful death.

So, in what he believed was mercy, he put the victim into a coma before setting her ablaze.

It was supposed to be a deep-sleep coma, not a dream coma, because he knows about dream comas. There are different levels of comas in real life. One example is locked-in syndrome, where you can see and hear everything going on around you. One of the scariest things for many people in that situation is hearing others talk about taking them off life support when they don't want to die. Sometimes their only thought is, *My only wish is to live.* Other times, they don't even feel fully present. It's as though they can't think or feel; they're just aware. They're simply there—awake and fully conscious.

Different levels of comas depend on the degree of brain damage. Some people dream while they're in comas. One person even had nightmares about the car crash that caused the coma. Other people are simply and completely unconscious. It's like falling asleep without dreaming. It's actually a myth that everyone dreams every time they sleep. I knew this personally because, most of the time when I slept as a child, I would simply pass out without dreaming. It was as though I blinked. One moment I was on my computer, sitting up and looking at the screen. The next moment, everything was black. Then I opened my eyes, and it was morning. I had completely blacked out and gone totally unconscious. That's how it is for some coma patients.

Some people in comas can actually hear you. Not everyone is completely unconscious. In some cases, it's similar to locked-in syndrome.

However, there is also a dream state. So, what Harz did was meticulously choose the type of coma she would enter. Some comas are so severe that they can even slow the aging process.

Harz chose the type of coma that would result in complete unconsciousness—a total blackout. It's the kind of state where you lie down in bed, think about random things, close your eyes, and then suddenly open them, only to realize it's morning. It's as though you blinked and time suddenly skipped forward.

Harz's version of mercy was that, although he nailed her hands to the stake while she was awake and knew she had already suffered through that, he only tied her feet instead of nailing them. Then, while she was still awake, he put her into a coma just before setting her on fire. He genuinely believed this was an act of mercy because he believed that, once the fire reached her, she wouldn't feel it.

He wasn't created by the Wishing Willow. He's an entity much older than the Wishing Willow itself. In fact, he's older than Earth, which means he's older than willow trees.

However, he did not create the Wishing Willow. He's simply using it.

He is an evil entity. He openly acknowledges that he is evil. He knows perfectly well that he isn't a good person. At the same time, he doesn't see himself as the worst possible form of evil. He's extremely evil, but he believes there are still levels beyond him. He's near the top tier of extreme evil, just not at the absolute highest level.

Basically, he's cruel, but his cruelty has its own logic. He doesn't aspire to be cruel for cruelty's sake, yet he still commits cruel acts. It's difficult to describe. He's a unique kind of cruel.

He's sadistic. Everything he does is meant to maintain power, control, safety, sanity, and stability. He doesn't want to end up like Bear. He's seen what happens to people in Bear's position, and he doesn't want that fate. Because of this, he heavily disciplines those affected by the Wishing Willow. He also disciplines the children he created because he's worried the Wishing Willow will gradually make them more dangerous. As a result, he doesn't want them doing anything to him, and he tries to maintain power and control while also preventing them from harming one another.

This is also why he had them born as babies instead of being created as fully grown beings. He wanted them to grow naturally rather than rapidly.

He believes that many horror movie characters—and some children in fiction—grow too quickly to be properly taught or instilled with good morals. As a result, he wanted them to develop at the same pace as a human child so they could be taught healthy values over time. The first batch was fully human. The second batch was essentially made from willow trees.

However, he still practices corporal punishment and physical discipline, such as striking children with a wooden stick or with his hand—usually only once, but hard enough that they might fall over. He's extremely strict because he views the Wishing Willow as useful but evil.

He believes the Wishing Willow itself can't truly think because it's an object. To him, it's like an AI such as ChatGPT. You enter a prompt, and it produces an output. It's like an image generator: you give it instructions, and it generates a result. Because of the terrible outcomes it can produce, he considers it an evil object. He doesn't think it's psychologically evil; rather, he believes the concept behind it and the way it functions make it an evil artifact.

Because of that, he doesn't trust anything it creates. He sees it as a semi-flawed, defective object that was obviously created by people with evil intentions.

He's very careful around the entity that created the Wishing Willow. He doesn't want to anger it because he knows it can be extremely dangerous. So, he's polite to customer service. However, he does get a semblance of satisfaction from controlling the customer service representatives and making them do what he wants. If they fear him, he feels an even greater sense of satisfaction because he thinks, "These are beings that are practically demons—entities with incredibly dark powers, wielding items that could erase me from existence—and they're afraid of me."

That makes him very happy.