I think people find it amusing when it’s dialed up to 11. When it’s clearly not real, but an exaggeration.
I’ll admit, those sorts of characters aren’t the ones that appeal to me.
I like rival-mances though, where two people, on opposed sides, end up falling for each other. Where your arch-enemy ends up your lover. In real life, that’s an awful idea, but in fiction it makes for a fun story, filled with sparks and tensions. And frequently your rival is the most fleshed out of the characters, and it is the most interesting of stories. It’s more challenging, and fun.
But I can see why people like Yandere characters. And just because they enjoy those sorts of characters in fiction, doesn’t mean that they approve of that sort of behavior in real life. And sometimes those characters are used for comedy purposes, or they’re used to show how creepy it can be.
I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think we can blame fiction purely for that. I do think there is an issue with how romance is portrayed in movies and on television. How certain toxic behaviours are shown as romantic, and there are messages that are wrong, such as encouraging men to persist in showing unwanted attention because eventually the woman will give in.
But here, they’re labelling it as yandere. There’s an acknowledgement that this is fictional behaviour, that they find fun in stories. No one’s saying that they want to meet someone like that in real life. It’s an escapist fantasy.
I can’t watch most romantic comedies because I generally find the behaviour in them creepy and toxic. I think that some romance movies do normalise abusive behaviours, and that’s dangerous.
At the same time I hate saying that, because it feels rather sexist to me, to speak ill of a genre that a lot of women enjoy.
Whereas movies that show murder and killing and senseless destruction don’t bother me anywhere near as much. They’re both fictional, but I’d rather watch a fight than an argument.
BUT
No one’s saying that Yandere characters are how people should act in real life. They’re saying they’re obsessed, they’re crazy, they’re psychotic and violent, deranged psychopathic stalkers. They’re being described by a list of negative traits. People in this thread are acknowledging that this is not good behaviour. This is not how you should behave in real life.
But, they find reading those sorts of stories with characters acting in such an unrealistic fashion fun.
I don’t know if anyone has already mentioned this but there’s a game called yandere simulator in development. The player takes the role of a yandere girls who tries to sabotage Her senpai’s love life so that she can confess to him. There is currently no way to win as the game is still in development. You can download it from the developers blog
I wouldn’t play a game that is solely about yanderes.
I don’t think that abusive relationships are fun to play or experience. I don’t like how some wwyff/wwffy/otomes force the MC to love their kidnappers or abusive people. I like overly sappy and sweet, but still fitting to my character, romances. Or, at least, a more educational and negative view of abusive relationships in games like in Red Spider: Vengeance mobile series, Papo & Yo, The Walking Dead Video game, etc.
I wouldn’t like yandere MCs (unless it was a choice, because then I could just not choose those options) unless the target is evil like in the Frozen Essence renpy game . People on the form have already complained about being forced to grope or rape people in games.
I would play a game with a yandere character as long as I could avoid them or tell them no. I think all games with random character switches where a character was initially nice then turned evil and you have no option to refuse them once their evilness is revealed like in lads in distress, kisses and Curses mobile game, etc. are horrible and taint the other playthroughs. A warning system would be nice in order to preserve the not bad parts of the game, if there are any.
I like zany, but harmless characters like the MC from Hatoful Boyfriend. I also like dominant characters if consent is given like in Reksa’s route in Nusantara: Legend of the Winged Ones .
True but that kind of “dominance”, with the optional addition of delightfully kinky sex has to be based on trust, in fact it requires a greater level of trust than a “normal” relationship. In general I’d like to see some more assertive romance options (outright “dominance” and kinky stuff optional) in videogames as it would be nice to have at least some romance options where the mc’s doesn’t have to initiate and guide every single romantic (or sexual) interaction.
There is a certain level of derangement fiction wise esp in certain mediums. As with all things it shouldn’t be put to use JUST because buy rather be used as a plot device. All aspects of a stort should follow this rule the extremes particularly.
Say you have a nasty villain known for their brutality yet some reason have a soft spot for that one character only to slowly discover the heart breaking reasons behind these atrocious acts. I difficult or impossible attempt at redeeming would be monsters.
Such characters are also useful as a means of contrast with ‘good’ or honorable characters that may do hood thing for horrible reasons.
I think that writing a person who does bad things for a good reason would be extreemly difficult to write. What is a good reason?
This reminds me of this one wwyff or wwffy (who would you fall for/ who would fall for you-otome style story-quizzes) quizilla series quiz I played (10?) years ago that I forgot the name of. MC was a princess. Her parents let her adopt a friend and the friend was kind of mean, but MC chose her anyway because MC was tired of the yes-men that did anything she wanted just because she was royality and the friend was the only honest person she met. MC’s parents treated the friend like their own daughter .
At the plot twist ending: The friend was an assasin shape shifter spy who impersonated the MC’s best guard friend and hurt MC’s wrists. The shifter killed MC’s parents and was going to release all the other shifters who were locked up in this kingdom protection thing. The shifter supposedly loved MC and was only doing this to save it’s parents who she tbought were being imprisoned by the bad guy. All of this was done in vain because the it’s family was instantly killed by the bad guy after the shifter left to go to the orphanage were shifter and MC met.
Tl; dr: I still think the shifter is a sucky person even though it didn’t know it’s parents were already dead and was only doing this to save it’s parents. The MC loves her own parents and all of them treated the shifter like family. MC’s parents even knew about the shifter being a shifter ( shape shifters were illegal because of sacrificing themselves to the monster door prison thing) and it was wrong to rob MC of her parents because the shifter should have know the pain of not having a family and I have no sympathy for the shifter. The shifter also ruined girl power for me. But, they were a romance option which fufils the romance rival and best friend niches that I like.
While, writing a character who does good things for a bad reason would still make that character good (in my opinion). If I was starving and someone fed me, I would still be happy and thankful even if the only reason the person helped me was to get a tax cut; that person would still be the reason I survived another day even if they were a little selfish. The only problem comes when the terms good and grey are confused.
Hm, I do not know that much about Yandere’s to be honest. But boy oh boy do I have a weakness for Tsundere’s, heck, I’m even being called one myself now and then…
But yeah, I personally think a Yandere tyoe of relationship withing stories is very interesting.
