Yandere Community

I agree that the yandere trope is often misunderstood and frequently strips away the core of what compassion actually is. Where I think the discussion becomes problematic is when intense attachment is automatically equated with control or a desire to deprive someone of autonomy. In real relationships, what looks like “clinging” from the outside is often a response to inconsistency, emotional ambiguity, or unbalanced investment, not a wish to dominate or possess. Modern psychology makes an important distinction between pathological control and anxious attachment. One seeks power, the other seeks safety. Conflating the two risks pathologizing vulnerability rather than addressing the relational dynamics that create it. I think a more compassionate reading, ironically, given the topic, would account for context, reciprocity, and responsibility on both sides, rather than reducing complex emotional experiences to a trope based moral judgment.

Healthy attachment does allow distance. Anxious attachment demands reassurance that can't be fulfilled. It brings a lot of suffering for the self and the loved one by making them feel guilty. They can start feeling like "walking on eggshells" or "defusing a bomb" on interactions, which weakens the bond between both parts.

That can easily develop into control, when someone starts demanding attention and reassurance in an unwholesome way.

I think boundaries are always healthy, and the "yandere" trope usually fantasizes control.

Anxious attachment can become harmful if it turns into demands, but attachment theory is clear that it’s relational and often intensified by inconsistency or emotional ambiguity. Without considering context and reciprocity, it’s easy to mislabel vulnerability as control.

But i agree with you that boundaries are a necessity in healthy relationships. Yet yandere relationships are from the ground up not really built on healthiness, since they literally are about being sick in love.

If you look up definitions on yanderes, it shows that their entire existence is built on being mentally ill and acting in obsessive and unhealthy ways out of devotion to their love interest or mental instability.

That's why I want to bring this serious conversation here. There is a healthy side to attachment and devotion.

Really want to know what others think...

True love is healthy. There's no implications to be found or made, and certainly none that it would concern itself with. Anything less than that isn't true, and it isn't love. Love isn't dependent; it just is.

Perversion will sing a different tune.