Thoughts on Abuse?

[Aiurax]

@Sunlit-Dreamer - I am saddened to hear that your fights with your sister escalated so far. I must admit my sister was never the gentlest, so I am quite aware that some sister-sister fights do not just stop at arguments and I have said I intend to try to include light physical abuse (not to the point of scarring). Thank you for sharing.

[Sunlit-Dreamer]

It's all right. There have been less fights between us since we moved. Definitely less physical between the two of us. (Instead it's my little brother who gets that....)

I'll say I didn't post that to "get sympathy" or the like. It was just to remind that there are unfortunately families who hurt each other so much to the point of making you wonder if they're even a family. I'm glad that my lil sis and I get a long a little better. (If we didn't I wouldn't have volunteered her to be in a game being made on this site)

However I sadly can't say the same about others who live in abusive homes.

Well. I'll be looking forward to your vn. I'm curious to see how it'll all turn out of how the mc will overcome the abuse along with other things.

[Mink]

I think the key here is to not make the person just chaotically evil. Or basically, overdue it to the point that it seems like a caricature of a person, and not an actual person.

Also, I'm am glad to say I grew out of my violent/sociopathic streak I had when I was young. Basically I bullied my sister for years (not out of dislike or jealousy, I found it amusing for some reason) until I got to an age where I was like, "Oh shit, I shouldn't do that."

Here's the thing: I did this around my grandparents and not my mom, who had to work a lot at the time. Most likely, because I was four years younger and smaller, they didn't really believe I'd be tormenting the other, and I would be sided with and was never punished for anything. (If my mom caught me doing something I shouldn't, yeah, I got punished) Now while *I* grew out of that and stopped, someone else may not, if they never get any consequences for their actions.

As an aside, we got along better when I stopped being a bitch brat.

*Note: I didn't confess any of this to my mom until YEARS later (like, a year ago; I'm 20 now).

[YonYonYon]

My big sis mentally abused me all the time. She is not a bad bully person. She is just emotionally unstable =.= I couldn't fight back 'cuz she is elder than me and I must respect elders (damn you, parents, and your education). She used hysteria, verbal bullying, crying, blaming for all 7 sins, and so on
But we're fine now. She found bf, grew older and calmly talked to me and we made it up

[Der Tor]

@Dreamer: NOW i know what you meant when you said she has her scary side

Actually since this is the right topic i will tell you something that in the game thread or in the game story itself i can't say clearly (for legal reasons)... actually SO FAR (pre-alpha version 0.6) my little yandere story has all been based on my own life experiences. The childhood abuse Miriam suffers in the beginning was exactly the abuse i suffered in my childhood. Running away from home at the age of 15 and living by oneself using ones own child care money, becoming a Hikikomori, ditching school for many months (actually in my case it's been several years - with the help of my mother of course who really DID bribe doctors to cover for me) etc. are all things that i did. Also my mother really DID offer to buy me weed and stuff. And all the rest of the childhood abuse story is all actually my own story.
The parts later on where Miriam turns increasingly paranoid where all inspired by my (soon to be Ex-) wife.
Actually pretty much everything in the story no matter how far fetched it may appear is based, or at least inspired by something that i actually experienced in my life. That's why i said i am using the Yandere story as a way to put my life experiences into perspective.
Also i realized that there is very thin line between a saint and lunatic. They are far apart of course - but what starts to set them apart in their two very different directions is that when a saint encounters abuse he thanks God for an opportunity to reduce his sins and he sees hardships as a good thing - whereas the lunatic becomes a lunatic because he sees hardships as purely bad and if he endures more hardship and if others abuse him his self esteem suffers until he can't bear it anymore and so he snaps. It's a shame really, because what the lunatic doesn't realize is that with just a tiny change in attitude he could have become the next Gandhi or MLK Instead he now sits in an asylum and BELIEVES himself to be Gandhi or MLK

[Sunlit-Dreamer]

Gah, just realized something. Let me clarify that one scene I mentioned concerning our mom. It was our mom who grabbed me and did all of that since I was "hurting" my little sister. (When I didn't even smack or punch her, all I did was cover mouth, and pin, as I said before)

But yes there were other fights that got that violent as my mom did with me. Sorry for not making that clear right away.

Now back to the main topic.

There are some instances I wonder why some parents allow their kids to treat each other that way when it happens in front of them. I really do.

[Mink]

Ugh, like an episode of Bridezillas where the older sister is bullying and abusing the younger sister, and the mom was kind of like, "Well, it's her day." My mom, sister, and I happened to be in the same room (sort of, my sister was on her laptop in the kitchen) and my mom turns, stares at the both of us, and goes, "If one of you EVER tries to treat the other that way..."

Also, parental favoritism, maybe?

[Aiurax]

@Sunlit-Dreamer - That's good to hear, and thank you. (Also I did realise that you meant your mother grabbed you).

@Mink - I will try to make the abuse as near to real-life experiences as possible; without over-stepping the boundaries (by going too far with it).

@YonYonYon - Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

@Der Tor - So you've actually made a game that uses abuse as a key theme? How was it recepted?

- I love that you're all sharing your abuse experiences, but I can't help but think that it's starting to go off topic? I'm asking for the overall consensus on abuse in a GxB dating sim - so if you post a reply about that then I, in return, will be able to reply more effectively...

[Der Tor]

@ Aiurax: basically yes, but it's not finished yet, so i can't tell you what people's reactions will be.
It's a yandere visual novel... but there are already so many out there that just go like this "yandere loves protagonist, protagonist hits on another girl, yandere get's jealous, yandere kills protagonist". That's boring and really cliched by now especially when there already are like a hundred visual novels that go like that.
So i wanted to make it really creepy by making it really realistic and not making it cliched... so i thought that one way of making it realistic was to base it on various things i experienced. Of course another way of making it realistic and scarry is by having the reader sympathize with the characters and make him understand why they act the way they eventually do. So abuse is essential to that. Basically i have her first being the victim, then the perpetrater. And in the end i have the reader question if she really ever was the victim - or even if she ever was the perpetrater

(actually as it is a visual novel and the reader makes the decisions - it turns out that the real perpetrater is the player )

[Sunlit-Dreamer]

Yeah, it would still be believable. A good way of finding comfort is through someone you care about after all. But how would the guy handle it? And would he help the mc? If so, what would he do? Each and every guy do have different methods and opinions after all. So again I state I'll be curious to what the guys the mc will be pursuing will do along with other things. (And okay. Just wanted to make sure no one got mixed up.)

[Aiurax]

@Der Tor - Sounds interesting. I would be willing to see how it finally turns out.

@Sunlit-Dreamer - Yes that's true. I have in total 6 obtainable guys. But I was thinking that the abuser would only be present in a few of the paths. I'll see what happens. I might change my mind.

[papillon]

Heh, speaking of sisters, I was the older one and my little sister and I have never talked about how things were when we were little.. I wonder if she remembers? She probably sees things from a totally different perspective than I do.

From my viewpoint, at least, when we were young she went through a phase (probably due to other upsetting things going on) where she used to come up to me for no reason and start trying to hit me. She was MUCH smaller and younger than me so it was more annoying than anything else, she couldn't actually hurt me. My response to this was generally to pin her down and tell her I wouldn't let her up until she CUT IT OUT. Seemed logical to me but it always made her even angrier, so she'd be writhing there screaming hysterically for a few minutes until finally she'd burn out the anger and start crying, and then I'd let go.

Childhood is weird.

[Aiurax]

Childhood is weird.

Agreed.

Lots of different events do have to be factored into a certain behaviour, which is why I think of the five WH questions when I'm trying to write. It helps a lot in planning.