postmortem - something, something... sometimes the yandere doesn't need romance

this will be a long one kind of? wc overall - 1250 ish?

first off, i love yandere. don't get me wrong. they're great, wonderful, absolutely amazing- TO ME! in my prerogative. it's my taste, though what else is my taste is the psychological aspect of people and relationships. so, i wanted to tell a story that wasn't quite romantic and where you don't romance the yandere. i actually got the idea from my friend u-chan who helped me with the art on this game! working with them was great and very fun. 

they had made a one off comment about a yandere who got arrested and while that's only, spoilers, in one of the endings... it did get me thinking again about yanderes in different contexts. especially even interacting with the cool and spicy yarrow ( jam host ) it had me like, "yo? hey... maybe... this is the vibe." 

honestly, going into writing "their aftermath" we didn't have a title. didn't have character names. had a kind of plot and dream. 

february feels like it was forever ago. it was. 

this was also one of my first times collaborating with someone, which i learned a lot too. that i definitely need to be a bit more organized than i was. but u-chan took it all in stride and was very easy to work with and helped get me organized too, gave me pointers and tips that i believed helped and are helping me be a better dev. 

so, i'll just be honest. I BROKE MY LEGS ( metaphorically ) FOR REAL! omg... 

writing a story with choices for the first time was an undertaking that was far harder than i expected even though i absolutely loved it. scope? was pretty reigned in. we had three characters. mc, ramona, and veryl - the main antagonist and deuteragonist of the work. we decided three endings, and stat based approach to getting an ending... u-chan coded everything and i just wrote stuff - honestly i don't think the game would've been completed at all without them!!! very thankful and glad for them TT-TT

but god dAMN did i also learn how much irl could interfere with development, i had to stop working so many times because of things that were out of my control in real life. it made the timeline so much more... less ideal than i wanted it to be for myself? i experienced disappointment in real time even though everything turned out great!!!! my perfectionist habits with my writing also bit my ass but that's just how it goes...

going into it, we had talked about what it would be like having a conversation with a yandere, walking into well... the aftermath of what happens after a yandere goes well, crazy so to speak. i honestly really wasn't super sure of how it would turn out, i knew i was going to be able to write decently fast, craft a proper story and all but i wasn't sure how the characters would turn out.

as i was writing though, veryl pretty much started coming to life himself and mc was also shaping together as well. there were hints of romance and something strange going on throughout the story too. it all felt like a breathing world, to me at least, just a kind of peek into a realized world that existed.

and honestly, the memes u-chan created were sss-tier like, i loved how they drew veryl and brought him to life like he's so pretty i wanna beat his ass <3 

BUT mainly i think i want to talk about in this post-mortem is the big ole question... 

why make a yandere game that doesn't focus on romance? 

honestly, the short answer is - they deserve to exist. 

i've been a fan of yandere for as long as i could remember, with characters like kisshu from tokyo mew mew and kanato sakamaki from diabolik lovers ( both of which were watched when i was a kid ) who were my first kind of foray into what could be considered a yandere and from there it was a spiral onwards into learning what they were and shaping my own opinion of them. 

there's dozens and dozens of stories where the mc can romance the yandere and so many romance oriented yandere stories out there. but to me it felt like the other half of it was less common, more slim pickings. 

i wanted to tell a story that dissects another aspect of yandere, not in a romantic light but rather from the friend's point of view. how are other people affected by the actions of a yandere? what would someone say to them upon realizing, upon walking in to the slaughter? how would that conversation go? 

yandere are multi-faceted, media is also multi-facete and nuanced and fun and interested and not one dimensional. i wasn't really going in to deconstruct a trope, not purposefully. i'm not really good at that. but rather, i went into it with a pure adoration for yandere and a desire to simply look at it from another point of view.

i don't see the yandere as just a tool for romantic wish-fulfillment ( which is completely fine... just don't seduce them irl LMFAO ) i see them as a tool for psychological exploration and the very real horror that they are. that's compelling in the romantic sense fictionally just as much as it's compelling in the psychological horror sense. the warning sense. the "don't try this at home kids" sense. it's fun to write about and read about the different aspects of a yandere and what that means. telling those kind of stories is fun. 

and i think there should be more of them. 

more stories where yanderes lose, fail, get arrested, become a real horror that isn't romanticized ( as much as i love me a good ole romance ). because irl, they really are a real horror. it's funny because i don't like true crime. 

and while this game is just a tip of the iceberg of what i want to explore in the future with yandere, it was extremely fun to make. talking with a yandere who has as much charisma as veryl, the gaslighting, the banter... that was fascinating and hella fun. all the excuses he made that were just that, excuses. 

the next yandere game i have planned is actually funnily enough going to be a comedy. a dark comedy that's meant to be satirical adjacent and explore what it means to be a yandere in both a light way and a very real warning way. it's something that came to me a while back last year or so, about a kid who idolizes them and it's gonna showcase why you shouldn't idolize them but how it's easy to fall into that kind of mindset. YOU MAY SAY... "laby... that seems like something that could be a more serious mood game... no?" and WHILE YES! I AGREE! i also already have a more serious but heavier consequence game planned around the more grim reality of it. thats a different plot :D 

anyway, if none of this makes sense? well i had a cup of coffee creamer with a side of coffee earlier so i'm a little all over the place. 

final thoughts?????!??!? 

working with u-chan was great. writing was great. see the art come to life was great. creating veryl and ramona was great and i would love to do another work with them involved that's a bit more romance oriented but i would also enjoy writing something else with veryl in prison too. that'd be fun. 

either way, thank you to everyone who played the game! i love y'all <3