Nerding Day: Possessed Love (Patreon)

Fuck your other tabs. This beautiful Earth’s given us Love is Clairvoyant. Terrace Asylum. Love Island: Atlantis. Meet the lonely wizards.

And so we return.

The heart yearns, like a dog for chocolate.

We’ve puked on this carpet before, and shall again. Who’s new?

Seems nice. From Brooklyn, tarot reader reads like agnostic. Unitarian, at worst. With a reader, I’ll spend one Sunday a month pretending stale myths shape my future. Sure.

Bam. Next.

Shaman fuckboy is a niche path, but I dig it. Lesser souls let 24-hour copemaxxing flatten their personalities. Instead, a pick-up arcanist offers far too much personality. Sure.

Hongjo works hard at things that don’t matter, so we have a lot in common.

Normal shaman? No props or personality disorder? What a dull way to be insane. Try a run club. Next.

Saju points at strong math and a stronger imagination. And if magick weren’t real, media experience would be a huge plus. But I’ve gotta cut someone to stay out of ELO hell. Say hi to Gubong for me.

Another tarot reader with the same name and less screentime whiffs of sabotage. But dating robots, like reality producers, are our friends. Besides, I’m past one bottle, 2 AM, and thirty, so I see an elite candidate. Out with the old Card Master Hanna, in with the new.

Six months as a full-grown shaman is terrifying. The fastest description of a breakdown is “I’ve started seeing ghosts, and now I’m quitting to go pro.” Perfect. We can marry, ghost, and date in that order.

Earnest. Should work.

An exorcist! Finely, someone the unarmed shamans can call batshit. If I had more faith in love than magick, I’d pay for a superlike. As things stand, I’ll summon a demon and wait for his shift.

A legitimately awful opener. But I’ve got a quality beach photo, so we’re in.

Exorwho? Magic future painter’s a full franchise premise, and my net worth’s ready to commit. Yuna’s face or mind might be nice too, but dating’s not about all that. For this windfall, I’ll write a full paragraph. Punctuated.

Interesting crop. Imagine all that power on one dating show. No amount of filler could make that unwatchable. Each episode would have to be an hour and forty minutes long. And achieve nothing.

Last week, I watched the perfect show with Lydia, our main occult analyst, and challenged her powers. I recall winning and see no need to check that. While winning, I heard two words that demanded attention: Divorce Camp. All the English Divorce Camp subs are either four minute clips, LLM slurry, or cost money. So we’re doing Possessed Love.

Battle of Fates included/crushed two former Possessed Love contestants. Wizard dating’s success helped the perfect show get made. So the pair’s resume got a quick note.

A hidden nod, for the real necromancy heads.

The producers leapt on the cameo. They gave the two wizards that nearly (spoilers) held hands on television adjacent pedestals:

Along with a light handicap. That’s tarot hustler Hannah (who advances), greeting bicep shaman Hongjo (who super doesn’t). “Cheonhae” isn’t a typo—Hongjo’s got a new, extra-spiritual name. Perhaps a rebrand after Possessed Love cast him as Gaston. Who knows what he’s like live, but the edit presents an Unseen Fraternity alumni.

Honestly, he’s got more charm than that. Though I’m biased in favor of barbell/attention/limerence addicts.

And while these lovebirds haven’t graced Divorce Camp yet, they flirted with the idea. I think. Possessed Love episodes brush against two hours. Aliens could land and slip my mind in that time. I do know that they shared a lot of softly lit scenes, and other warlocks spent a baffling amount of time discussing them. The entire finale, in fact. If your love life’s rough, at least you haven’t been demoted to Greek chorus.

You don’t need their whole romance. Just the dumping, where Hannah reads Hongjo’s inconstant heart and constant boner.

Tarot dumping. A revolution in passive aggression. There’s no response to drawing XIV: The Manchild. Just pray Santeria isn’t next. For pain worse than heartbreak, try heartbreak soaked in piss.

I’ll treasure the memory, since I may never see the Three of Swords as a breakup prop again. Except on Possessed Love II, and a fresh batch of lunatics every year for the rest of an overjoyed producer’s life. Good for them. I foresee Divorce Seance launching before this crop of wizards hits forty.

Again, Possessed Love is a dating show where wizards court wizards. I can’t believe this wasn’t already a genre. Or a cliche. Possessed Love should be staler than kidnapping migrants at random. Yet we only have two seasons of madness.

Be warned: it’s not dense madness. Some of you follow up after articles, and learn that I skim boring characters/episodes/entire seasons. These rants could be longer. Today, I’m already on the finale, which should tell you everything. In Possessed Love, between every island of precious insanity, lies vast seas of nothing. A hole where media should be. Around the creamy center of mid-date tarot readings waits six pounds of variety show crust.

I’m a hypocrite, since I’ve stretched a simple point: Possessed Love fucking sucks, and I’ll never forgive the time it stole. Here’s everything I loved.

Possessed Love opens with a classic.

Honestly, reality tv gets repetitive. Each show has the same haunted cave where the gods tell you who to fuck.

Granted, it’s been two years (forty in reality tv time) since the premiere. But nothing’s changed. Aren’t we done with boner caves? The ancestors can shove their opinions. I can’t enjoy one stalactite tour without ghosts telling me I’m four babies and zero wives behind Jamaican tradition.

At least Possessed Love puts a fun spin on it. Each caster gets to stride in alone, show off their raid gear, and hear hot divine gossip. Think a quiz show lifeline, or Are We Haunting the Same Guy? Based on the results, players pick the saju card that looks hottest and/or employed.

That data could make the whole show a cakewalk or an expose, but the gods are strikingly fond of drama. Half the predictions come with stock reality conflict attached. Romantic rivals, jiltings, changing hearts, the whole deal. I’d chafe at God handing me a serial cheater, but I’m spiritually defective.

The precision of these storyboard-friendly prophecies invites some skepticism. Ignore it, that’s just trauma from insider trading’s golden age. Instead, enjoy some life advice. Sometimes, to run under 3000 words, you have to believe.

While we get card-flinging theater and rambling explanations, we can’t hear the shamans’ meetings with the God of Meet Cutes. I can’t imagine all of them are pleasant.

The Hannahs (tarot mascots) are my favorite. You can see the wheels turn as they flip arcana and improvise. It’s like they’re explaining report cards from God. If tarot’s just dramatic madlibs with D&D art, I may have a new hobby. Craft. Magick is real and I believe in it.

Possessed Love opened with this gold, and catfished me into thinking more things would happen. But there’s a dark side. An order of traitors to humanity, twisted by deals beyond God’s light.

Sadly, Possessed Love is half commentary desk.

Sane words can’t capture my hate for the commentary panel. So I’ll embrace nonsense. They make the bees in my teeth itch. Nothing stoppped a Santeria “shut the fuck up” curse but an empty bladder and disgusted roommate.

Every heartbeat of Possessed Love is riffed on by five uncelebrities. I wasn’t invited, so fuck them. To imply they say nothing insults the value of silence. Each word stomps the pace to death. Possessed Love needs a dead-eyed comedian saying “she’s flipping tarot cards” the way my teeth need bees.

Four of these zombies could be replaced by anyone on Twitch or the sidewalk. The other’s a shaman. Who knew you could disgrace cold reading? I’d let him harass my dead last-of-kin, if he’d stop interrupting mid-date visions.

The problem could be on my end. Four years of dick joke perfection in, I do see the pattern. I’m harder on narrators than aspiring terrorists. Question for the public: what’s it like to enjoy a commentary panel? To hear a non-Jim Ross adlib and think “this added to my experience. I don’t want to abort my eardrums.” From my perch, it’s a mystery.

I need to talk about one scene.

Outside of panel chatter and short films, Possessed Love goes for a slow, reflective, incredibly padded pace. Think a low-rent Terrace House, with emotional bits traded for chanting. Admittedly, I get pumped when something does happen. Like the backstory improv contest.

After hiding their Stands for a whole episode, the seers come clean. Or rather, the producers notice that Hannah and Hannah can’t hide trunks full of technicolor cards much longer. To say nothing of Eyul lugging Excalibur around to terrorize ghosts and impress ghost fans.

So they play show and tell.

With wands.

Stakes start out low. We’ve known the cast’s prestige classes since the Cave of Exposition. Then their diagnoses hook me. Not only does everyone have a tragic backstory: they all have the same tragic backstory. It’s the Battle of Fates cheating contest, but stealing the bios of other living people in the room.

Each mage origin flows as such:

Paraphrased, of course. The delirium reminds you of the players’ priorities: as a promotional move, it’s gold. As a dating move, it’s suicide. There are red flags, and then there are formal orders to jump through the window. But Possessed Love, like its entire era, is about turning selfies into rent.

Before I let your eyes rest, I’ll nod to the simple thing Possessed Love gets right. Half by accident, but the camera’s on.

Upon hearing Possessed Love, I hope three thoughts sparked. One: “Thank Mammon I live in the age of stupid miracles.” Two: “I bet Dennard’s already tweaking the title.” And Three: “Wouldn’t this lead to wizards cold reading each other on first dates?”

Absolutely. An experience that elevates episode two from unwatchable to annoying. For thirty golden minutes (of two hours), we see couples say “Your chakras are naked before me. And hot. This banter has unfolded as I’ve foreseen.” As far as I can tell, no seer has an excuse to be single.

Take our de-facto star.

Sorry, I meant the corporate champion.

It’s an amusing time. If you push past six filters of madness, you can watch a few similar-but-not-congruent lunatics get to know each other. That’s one of life’s treats–the first flicker of connection, or at least curiosity. A little bit of chaos on the road is a small price. I’m thankful for that renewed freedom, magick, and our Lord Christ.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: AnAndy, turned into a newt by a love-scorned shaman, forced to wander the earth an immortal, never again able to suck down like forty costco hotdogs.

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