but also I'm kind of... in a position of "i don't know enough about 2 things that this is relevant to, and I'm sort of leery of just point blank accepting this out of your mouth"
because part of why I'm befuddled is because of, like. his current fandom/favorite character. who i wouldn't nnnnnecessarily refer to as a yandere? but, like. he's sure messed up? and I'm left wondering if there are some blinders in place or if I just don't know enough shit about shit
Yeah, there are some pretty bad takes out there. But yandere, as much as I might dislike it personally, is more "ooh dangerous person." I don't think it's ableist in itself, but I'm sure there have been examples that were.
(I also saw someone who thought any character with a mental illness was yandere, including Komari from Little Busters, who not only poses no danger to anyone and is very close to any romantic rivals, she cannot because she's completely incapacitated by so much as a reminder that death as a concept exists.)
So- outside of this specific example (which I am entirely canonblind to), yandere gets closest to a personality disorder (which is usually the 'kneejerk couch diagnosis' for romanticized stalkers in western fiction).
Yeah, Jack isn't yandere either -- while he does have a warped view of love, that's just part of his main problem, that he has an ego complex that convinces him that whatever he does is right.
snaps fingers and points because I think that's sort of it, where it feels weird to me for my mutual's argument, in that he's talking about "fetishizing mental illness" with yanderes but also his favorite character is... sure something! he's not the exact same something, but it's kind of in the same neighborhood
like the yandere trope can be done well in a way that's psychologically realistic. for example, there's a personality disorder than emulate some disturbances but... it'd need to be layered with other disorders? I can't think of any one disorder or illness that would firmly fit "yandere"
Yeah, my issue with yanderes is...people view this as actually desirable behavior and a show of devotion, rather than as a sign that someone needs help.
Most of the 'dere' traits viewed as 'that's why they're cute' are generally a sign that something else is wrong. In that '99% of fictional characters need therapy and probably a hug' way? Yandere just being- the most extreme distilled version.
And the insecurity that must be involved in the 'don't you even dare TALK to another woman' jealousy. (Not to mention how close that strikes to real life domestic abuse behavior.)
(If your SO gets violently jealous over you so much as acknowledging the existence of another person of your preferred gender, you need to get out, now.)
This goes into one of my places of 'narrative approval' which is if the narrative says 'and this is okay' (regardless of how okay this is to the characters).
most people like Yandere's cause they're 'cute', I like them because they murder people. But I also don't pretend that it's cute to be murderously obsessed with people. It's not.
In a lot of things the narrative kinda comes from a place of 'ain't nothing this story contains is okay' then you're not suppose to take the actions of the characters as healthy. The audience reads it as such because- audiences don't learn how to critically evaluate fiction.
Like, the difference between Romeo and Juliet and everything that uses Romeo and Juliet as a base that doesn't take into account that all of this is a bad idea.
The play does not give narrative approval of anything, because at the end of the story everyone is dead or suffering cause it was stupid. A lot of things use it as a base but omit that. Thus giving a sort of approval that 'no this is fine.'
(Well, Romeo and Juliet get the most approval as they're acting out of love/lust not hate/petty vendettas but- that's not the point, they still aren't given the okay for anything.)
I think with Romeo and Juliet, people focus on 'and their tragic love ended the generations long feud', and don't think about the fact that everything about their relationship was unhealthy.
as a writer, I write fiction that doesn't necessarily reflect my personal beliefs or thoughts. Sometimes I challenge myself to write characters or stories that are directly opposed to my beliefs and feelings. A lot of the time, I just think "this might be a fun challenge to write" and then I write it.
I'll write characters who disagree with my beliefs but my narratives still tend to follow my ideas on what is, and is not, okay. Like- to kick a piece of media that didn't deserve all the attacks it got I still couldn't in good faith write a romance where one party removed the engine block of the other's car to strand her in a farmhouse.
tbh I think Yuno Gasai from Future Diary is a really good example of how to write a yandere character, because it blatantly shows how unhealthy and damaging her mentality is
Yuno is probably the only yandere character I've run across that I really like, because she's written with that framing. And she ends up being sympathetic and not just creepy on top of creepy, which is amazing. But "sympathetic" is not the same as "dating material." She is REALLY UNHEALTHY, just in a way that's understandable from the right angles.
And I agree that to end up with actually yandere, there would probably have to be multiple mental illnesses at play. It doesn't feel like a direct mangling of one thing in particular.
yeah, some aspects of BPD came to mind, too, mainly the idealization/devaluation cycle. And just the neediness, lack of a core, etc. There'd need to be other factors in play though
the trait books are good for giving some input on possible causes for a trait that could be caused by mental illness or is rooted in some other factor. the guide's good for give you some good basic info from a psychologist and doesn't just touch on disorders, it also has stuff on writing psychologists/psychiatrists and hospitals, etc.
I highly recommend picking them up whenever you can. They're well worth the investment. I use them constantly whether I'm making an OC or fleshing out a canon character.
Yeah, I play a character who's portrayed as emotionally unstable in canon, and I ended up doing research into emotional disorders to try to pin down what he actually has.
But given the canon is from Japan, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just 'pick a behavior pattern that works, without really thinking about the implications'.
I play a character who I'm sure the author meant to come across as calm and genuinely loyal but... she gave her a background that pretty much laid out a faulty foundation for that
and with that context, her behavior comes across as less loyal as "desperate to be useful to this person to a self-destructive degree" which their history does support
That seems like a pretty good way to do it. After all, she might be motivated to focus on this person out of genuine loyalty, while the degree of devotion is because of desperation.
yep, that what my reasoning, too. There's a lot of stuff that's undeniable but there's also a lot of room for an interpretation that it's not quite so cut and dry
My 'obviously messed up in the head' character, I ended up settling on a combination of chemical-based emotional disorders and trauma from canon events.
And it's a really nice feeling to look at a character, go 'X event and Y personality trait point to Z having also happened to him' and have later canon confirm it as true.
I've had... not quite that, I don't think, but definite moments of being very happy when further canon was consistent with what I already speculated. I love it when things are that internally consistent.
You can tell because that y has elements of x, and what that means, but the words "stop producing x" just set me off into a tizzy of negativity and anger
most people like Yandere's cause they're 'cute', I like them because they murder people. But I also don't pretend that it's cute to be murderously obsessed with people. It's not.on ethier side btw.then again, I just like women/femme people that kill people so no obsession needed.