Zealous Eros

Respectful obsessiveness is something that isn’t covered or spoken about a whole lot throughout the community, so, I thought that I’d pitch in my two cents about it all.

I’m sure you’re wondering “But Zero, what do you mean by being respectful about obsessiveness? And isn’t that obvious?” Cutting it short, it’s how you perceive your person of interest, it’s how you view them as an individual and not as an object. While being seemingly apparent, sometimes, yanderes in real life or in fiction may get to a point where those they care for are treated more like an object instead of being treated, or alternatively viewed as, a person. If you look at a person like an object, something you want to possess and own without what makes them human, you’re not loving them for who they are, you love them because of the idea of them. Or, id est, it can be something that happens when a yandere is unbalanced in being more possessive than obsessive about a person, with disregard and a large margin in between the two, which leads to falling in love with the idea of them rather than the individual.  

In my personal opinion, what it means to love someone is dependent on being respectful towards them by acknowledging their feelings, their principles and numerous other things. Doing, say, something violent towards or being overly possessive of your significant other, with a primary difference of trust being uninvolved, is what I believe to be antithetical in what it means to love another person, as it disregards their feelings and may not genuinely be loving them for who they are. This isn’t to say that possessiveness is inherently bad, that you can’t be possessive or otherwise, but I want to branch out and draw a line between what it means to hold regards for how another person feels and what it means to respect those feelings. One can be possessive, but doing so to a substantial extent means that we can forget how comfortable the other person is within the relationship. The most important thing throughout it all is to acknowledge their thoughts and feelings, but also to have trust in them, which is equally as important.

This matter of respectful obsessiveness also extends to the action of stalking, worded differently as ‘respectful stalking’ for a lack of better words. As esoteric or obtuse as it may seem, I think that even something like stalking can be done in a respectful and consensual manner by letting the other person be aware of your stalking, in general, and having boundaries or limits be established. The emphasised part of my previous paragraphs was to make sure you’re aware of respecting their feelings with your actions, and thusly to not disregard how they think. It may be contrary to what it means to stalk someone since you’re admitting to it, but by doing so, it’s earnestly loving them and respecting what boundaries they may have. With that in mind, and to add, stalking is also not inherently bad, but it’s always best to know when it’s uncomfortable for either party and when it may potentially harm someone in the process or as the result. The premise of loving someone respectfully doesn’t just lie on the shoulders of one person within the relationship but is ultimately shared between them--with none being exempt of this.

Source: Overlord Volume 2, The Dark Warrior, page 97, by So-Bin

Albedo, meaning whiteness in Latin, is a character from Overlord and is most likely one of my favourite yanderes there is. Albedo is an overseer and supervisor to all of the floor guardians within the Great Tomb of Nazarick, which is the main base and where the story first takes place. She’s part demon and succubus, albeit this is because the main cast is demi-human to full heteromorphic. While there’s not a lot of background information to cover since she’s originally an NPC, she's deeply obsessed about Ainz, the main character of the series, and does anything she can for him.

Albedo is a yandere from Overlord, going by the definition I created in a previous post. Albedo, as described in the series, is madly in love with Ainz, to the point of obsession and absolute loyalty. She’s always competing for Ainz’s affection, going as far as to reprimand anyone that shows the slightest disloyalty to him and shows outbursts of anger if someone were to insult him, sharing a love rivalry with Shalltear, who is a vampire and also in love with Ainz. Otherwise, she’s often levelheaded in nearly every other situation. In addition to her outbursts of anger, she’s extremely jealous of anyone who gets close to Ainz, leading to her leaving the scene and punching a wall to vent her anger but plays it off as if nothing happened. Because she’s the overseer, she’s the most honest and upfront about when she thinks others have acted poorly, going as far as to cause Ainz to think of it as an annoyance. While this may seem unfavourable, she does it because she hates the idea of others criticizing him, since she loves him so much, and because anyone going against him would mean disloyalty or rebellion. She self-proclaims herself as his wife, despite how he may seem uncomfortable with it in his mind, and likes to take care of things without him knowing as to not cause him any more trouble. She enjoys sewing, cleaning and other household skills in order to be the best wife for Ainz. Albedo’s room is covered with images and mementoes of Ainz, but outside of this, she assures Ainz that her loyalty remains forever with him. Although she’s immensely happy with the time she gets to spend with him, the times she gets to sneak into his room or do things for him, she secretly fears that she may be abandoned one day and wishes to stay by his side forever. She ultimately tries her best to be as perfect as she can, always wearing a smile for his sake.

There’s one point within the series that I find especially important to bring up, and is elaborated more within the novel and source material. Otherwise being a bit disputed, the main argument is that Ainz, during the first episode/part of the series, altered Albedo’s personality in order to make her love him--as described by the “madly in love” part. Nonetheless, Albedo did still have a "choice" to fall in love. It’s shown throughout season 2 (novels 4 to 6), that the NPCs have become “human” (quotations because they’re demi-human, but you get what I mean) and are able to develop. There is also dialogue in the book where Ainz confronts her about how he changed her personality last minute, to which she was accepting of. To summarise the scene, Albedo says that even if she were to not have that description written on her profile, she would still be capable of loving Ainz as much as she does now. She elaborates that even if there's the possibility she wouldn't love him, what matters is that they live in the reality where she does love him. This moment was, honestly, one of the parts that made me love her more as a character.

I think I should add that, on top of Albedo being a great character within Overlord, the series and books to be really fun to read. If you’re interested in picking it up, I recommend watching the anime, and if you’re wanting more content, I highly suggest checking out the books and additional content. The books go into more detail and explain more, as well as allowing you to see what each character is thinking, which is something that the anime lacks. There is, of course, another yandere character, Princess Renner, but she’s more of a side character (currently), so I’m not sure I’ll be covering her in the future.

Often times in life, we come to like people. Be it crushes, romantic interests, people we know, et cetera., we become lovestruck, almost like love at first sight, where every moment is bliss. Eventually, does this bliss end? Well, yes and no. It’s the difference between whether we feel love, or if we feel infatuation. One thing we tend to confuse a lot is whether or not we love someone, or if we feel infatuation, and is important when looking at yanderes. Do we really love someone? Or is our love confused for infatuation?

To put it into perspective, infatuation is when we have a short-lived passion for something or someone, usually to the degree of losing ourselves and possibly to the extent of obsession. When we genuinely feel infatuated for someone, it’s sometimes hard to discern whether or not we genuinely love them for who they are, or if we’re in love with the idea of loving them. And to yandere media, this is a big line to differentiate. Drawing characterisations from this, we can say that infatuation lies somewhere along the lines of feeling a sense of a need to be with them, sexual desire and a kind of anxiousness that makes us daydream of how your lives would be together, and the anxiety to please. Infatuation has the tendency to idolize someone, without true love and understanding for who they are, which, in effect, can end up harming both you and them. When we experience infatuation, we only notice the superficial parts of them, we want to be able to move on to the next step without taking things slowly, we place them on a pedestal without treating and caring for them as an equal, and, eventually, we feel disconnected without the sense of security of having them there. This does, eventually, lead to us losing interest and the dreaded future break-up.

The difference with love is that we have strong, long-term feelings of affection, and feel a sense of intimacy with the person we care for, even more so with yandere tendencies. We feel honest with them, we’re willing to make sacrifices and we yearn for them. Infatuation has pointless sacrifice when you gain nothing continuously, wastefully and unnecessarily and is not love, as love is beneficial to both. Unlike infatuation, love doesn’t derive from how we idolize them or how we feel arousal by them, it derives from how we love them for who they are. Their flaws, their past, their likes and dislikes all contribute to why we love them, which is something that infatuation lacks. It’s how we’re affectionate and attracted to someone, with the satisfaction of loving them and being loved back. It’s not when passion clouds our reason but is when we feel devotion.

Source: .less 

First, let's get what the definition of a yandere is out of the way, or to at least clarify. To preface, this is both my personal definition or the one that I've come to better understand, as well as the contrasting differences between the more popularized "media" variant of it.

The definition, as defined by the Japanese translation and more frequently used in media, is as follows:

The difference, however, is that the media portrays the yandere often times as being more “snappy” with their actions. Often splitting from a heartwarming personality to more violent behaviours, in the case of shows/anime, these actions being murder, violence, mania and the other shticks associated with them. This is the influence and reflection of how Yandere is used for their shock value in popularized media. A prime example of these traits exhibited in a character would be Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki, who has become one of the most popular yanderes out there.

However, I find that the definition that the media has created, the aforementioned mania, violence and murder, is folly as a reflection of the real-life and fictional applications of the term. Yandere isn’t characterized by the murder, all the violence, the snappy behaviour and the desire to kill. Yandere is someone who is obsessive over an individual, which leads to multiple obsessive behaviours, spanning from possessiveness, overprotectiveness, the want for co-dependency and/or otherwise. Taking it back to the literal definition, it’s being head over heels for them, to the degree of being in love, but cases can vary and can range from friends to significant others (or romantic interests). As said, the term isn’t those who are maniacal, like how the media portrays it and additionally so for shock value. Watching Mirai Nikki and expecting everyone who can relate to the term yandere, should not mean that’s how all of them act, nor should it be an intrinsic definition to base someone on. It’s not applicable to say that a fictional yandere character, or a yandere in general, is how all of them should and would act.

The problem with the media’s portrayal of yandere is how fixated they are on the shock value, forgetting to go into how or why yanderes feel the things they do. When it comes to determining who is and who isn’t yandere, it’s important to look into the intention, as it is what defines them the most. If someone is prone to snap, with or without a partner, as well as being seemingly violent and has no true intent in wanting to always protect the ones they love, they are more apt to be called a yangire. Real life people can and won’t always do these sorts of things, and it’s not feasible to say that they would since it’d be like saying anyone who kills with the slight intention to protect another is yandere, which is obviously not the case. As such, if their primary concern is the person they’re obsessing over, as well as doing it for them, that’s what makes them yandere.

This isn’t to say that they can’t be enjoyable to watch, that’s not what I’m getting at, it’s that they don’t always portray the proper image of how a yandere would actually think in regards to their love. They’re characterised by their intent, their obsessive qualities, and especially their love for the aforementioned person. It’s how they feel protective over them while doing things that are for them, not out of disregard for them or doing it for the sake of killing, that matter.

It’s a pretty clichéd title for a first post, but, whatever, I’m not that great with titles anyway.

Hey there! I’m Zealous Eros, but you can just call me Zero or whatever other fancy nickname you want. I have a particular interest in yandere media and content, also considering myself to be one--interpret it how you will. Hence leading to me creating this blog, but I digress.

So, what’s this blog about? This blog is about yandere content, to say the least, but it will also take focus on other topics surrounding it. Things like love, infatuation, obsessiveness, posessiveness, etc. As of what you can expect from me, I’ll be talking about characters, manga, anime, and may stray into more real-world applications as well as differentiations. I have some plans in mind of what I’d like to do, but currently, I don’t have a long-term idea of where this blog will be headed. I may try out some things, I may drop some things, but what matters is that I at least put something out there and you’ll be there to join me. My schedule for uploading won’t be all that consistent, as I’ll still need to cement some ideas in and create some content, but once I have something, I’ll be posting it when I can. Just don’t expect me to stick to a strict schedule, of course.