Mental Disorders that Would Work in Mentaru Shoujo

[tweeguy]

Eating Disorder man. Full blown bulimia or anorexia would totally work in a game like this. It's a very damaging behavior that has a lot of facets to it and is spurred by much deeper causes that could be explored throughout the character's route.

Also some sort of autism-spectrum disorder perhaps? The characters difficulty understanding the world around them could make for a great route and character.

[encrypted12345]

Eating Disorder man. Full blown bulimia or anorexia would totally work in a game like this. It's a very damaging behavior that has a lot of facets to it and is spurred by much deeper causes that could be explored throughout the character's route.

Also some sort of autism-spectrum disorder perhaps? The characters difficulty understanding the world around them could make for a great route and character.

Eating disorder would be interesting, and those in the autism spectrum still have a high emotional capacity even if they can't convey it well. Just please don't do Asperger's.

[Waytfm]

Eating disorder would be interesting, and those in the autism spectrum still have a high emotional capacity even if they can't convey it well. Just please don't do Asperger's.

What's wrong with Asperger's?

[Genero6]

I'd personally say full blown bulimia or anorexia might be too serious. It's a critical issue that can't really be worked into a story without trivializing the problem or creating a rather depressing path. A less severe case as part of more general issues would be good, but not as the focus of the character design.

[encrypted12345]

Eating disorder would be interesting, and those in the autism spectrum still have a high emotional capacity even if they can't convey it well. Just please don't do Asperger's.

What's wrong with Asperger's?

Asperger's is a really touchy subject. It's over diagnosed and it affects the quality of a person's life so minimally that many people don't consider it a mental disorder. They have a little trouble adapting to social situations, but that trouble can be overcome with practice. That and Asperger's syndrome as a diagnosis may cease to exist. More info here

It's more of a personality type than anything else.

[Genero6]

Although the symptoms aren't so scary on their own, Aspergers can still be damaging in the long run. Growing up with communication difficulties can screw up social development, and misunderstanding the condition can turn out bad; half my childhood I was being called a genius, the other half a retard. Unsurprisingly, I didn't really get on with society in general.

I do get a little sick of it these days though, so I wouldn't exactly cry if it didn't make the cut, but if it does, try looking at it another way. It's become so popular so fast that many people know it but don't know what it actually entails, so it would be a good chance to educate the player on something they are reasonably likely to encounter in their life. It would be relatively minimal, but it would probably be better to use minimal conditions that are just enough to distinguish them from regular characters than to go for something severe and choose between writing an unappealing story or misinform the player on the reality of living with serious conditions.

[deadleaves]

Eating disorder would be interesting, and those in the autism spectrum still have a high emotional capacity even if they can't convey it well. Just please don't do Asperger's.

What's wrong with Asperger's?

Asperger's is a really touchy subject. It's over diagnosed and it affects the quality of a person's life so minimally that many people don't consider it a mental disorder. They have a little trouble adapting to social situations, but that trouble can be overcome with practice. That and Asperger's syndrome as a diagnosis may cease to exist. More info here

It's more of a personality type than anything else.

I believe its my first post in the public section, but I have to point out that you're wrong. I think trying to pinpoint a Asperger's spectrum from an individual case is wrong, and saying it affects the life minimally is a generalization. Take it from someone who knows.

Have a nice day, and thank you for supporting the game.

[Gloom]

What about Antisocial Personality Disorder? Surely not all of them are serial-killers in the making.

Oh! And that gives me another idea: obsessive stalkers, not played for laughs or creepiness. Way, way too few works actually consider the fact that stalkers are often deeply disturbed people unto themselves, for whom "stalking" isn't the problem, but the symptom for something deeper. I think some serious exploration of the subject might be nice.
Especially interesting might be someone who is self-conscious about this. They know that they are borderline (or not borderline) worshipful towards someone they cannot have, and they know that they are acting irrationally, and that it's bound to end in misery for all involved, but they just can't help it. And as soon as they get kicked out one obsession's attic, they inevitably find someone new to follow.

[Waytfm]

What about Antisocial Personality Disorder? Surely not all of them are serial-killers in the making.

Oh! And that gives me another idea: obsessive stalkers, not played for laughs or creepiness. Way, way too few works actually consider the fact that stalkers are often deeply disturbed people unto themselves, for whom "stalking" isn't the problem, but the symptom for something deeper. I think some serious exploration of the subject might be nice.
Especially interesting might be someone who is self-conscious about this. They know that they are borderline (or not borderline) worshipful towards someone they cannot have, and they know that they are acting irrationally, and that it's bound to end in misery for all involved, but they just can't help it. And as soon as they get kicked out one obsession's attic, they inevitably find someone new to follow.

I feel like that's the entire plot to Hey Arnold

I don't think ending "in misery for all involved" is the path we want to go down. It would be interesting to do, but I don't think this is the genre to explore it. It would make for a good tragedy, or even a bad ending in a VN, but I think that would be the extent to which it could be carried.

[Gloom]

Well, I never said it'd work for a main character, it's just an interesting idea...

Other things I came up with:

Paranoid schizophrenia, not played for laughs this time. Less "Let me show you my anti-Feminist bunker" and more "I think people are talking about me behind my back. I'm certain people are talking about me behind my back. People hate me. Everybody hates me, but they always lie to me. Everybody is lying to me. You're lying to me. Go away! Why do you hate me?!"

Insomnia. Serious, hardcore, "Holy shit I haven't slept in a week and I can't tell the difference between dream and reality anymore", needs-horse-tranquilizers-to-get-a-nap insomnia.

Explosive anger issues. You had this guy in elementary school who acted completely normal, but every once in a while he'd flip the hell out and throw a desk at someone while screaming like a demon? This guy.

[Astartus]

Wow, you really have some very good ideas going there, guys! Of course I can't tell anything about what we've already planned so far, but it's very nice to see that much support and input
On a similar note - that "Let me show you my anti-Feminist bunker" thing was also a thing that really bugged me about KS, the mental disorder being played for laughs - well, the whole CHARACTER being played for laughs. I think even side characters deserve a personality. xD

[Waytfm]

Wow, you really have some very good ideas going there, guys! Of course I can't tell anything about what we've already planned so far, but it's very nice to see that much support and input
On a similar note - that "Let me show you my anti-Feminist bunker" thing was also a thing that really bugged me about KS, the mental disorder being played for laughs - well, the whole CHARACTER being played for laughs. I think even side characters deserve a personality. xD

To be fair, he did get a moment of shining glory.

I like the Insomnia idea. That actually seems really interesting.

[Gloom]

Wow, you really have some very good ideas going there, guys! Of course I can't tell anything about what we've already planned so far, but it's very nice to see that much support and input
On a similar note - that "Let me show you my anti-Feminist bunker" thing was also a thing that really bugged me about KS, the mental disorder being played for laughs - well, the whole CHARACTER being played for laughs. I think even side characters deserve a personality. xD

I see that being said around here a lot, and truth be told, I'm a little concerned about it. Don't get me wrong, the last thing I think people should be doing here is making fun of the subject matter for the sake of it (especially since the subject matter here is kids with problems), but it sometimes seems to me as if there's a general fear around here that the line between "intelligent and professional observation of the matter" and "childish, offensive low-brow gagfest" is way thinner than it actually is.

I love funny characters. I love funny moments in stories. Moreover, I think that in all but the most serious of stories (maybe even them), funny characters and moments- Comic Relief, in fact- they are all but essential for it to work properly. It may take a little skill to create a situation involving those elements that is funny without being offensive, but it's far from impossible.

Did KS become a childish and offensive gagfest because there were moments where Kenji's eyesight was made fun of? Or Rin's lack of arms? I don't think so. And I also don't think that a character stops being serious, or human, or full if you cast it in a silly light once in a while. The exact opposite, in fact: many times, it's exactly those little moments of silliness, or the discovery of funny little character quirks in which I believe characters are at their most human. For me, the moment in which I truly started liking Lilly as a character rather than a game objective wasn't when she was being the archetypal princess in the tea room: it was when she admitted to liking the color white because it's the color of vanilla ice-cream.

Real humans are sometimes silly. Real humans are sometimes funny. Not all the time, not offensively, but to pretend that they aren't only hurts them as characters. In fact, I think that to handle the subject matter with silken gloves like this, to deliberately take great pains in order to avoid putting any of the "damaged/disabled/deranged" characters in a silly light because it might be offensive is just as offensive as making fun of them in the first place. In both cases, at the core of the behavior is condescension. Is it right to laugh at "normal" people, but not right to laugh at people with problems? Why? Because they can't defend themselves? Because it's not their fault? Go far enough down that line and suddenly you treat disabled people like poor, fragile flowers who have to be defended and tended to, and as a certain girl with facial scarring has taught us, this is exactly what you shouldn't be doing.

So... yeah. Basically, Kenji Setou is an extremely good example of how you do a comic relief character that still manages to remain interesting and lovable on it's own right, without hurting the atmosphere of the game one little bit.

And as for the subject of the thread: more ideas for interesting mental disorders that can be attached to major or minor characters. Probably minor if at all, since I'm under the impression that most of the major characters are pretty much set in stone by this point in the development process.

Body Dymorphia: Great disorder both for comic relief and for dead serious discussions of some very interesting concepts, from the meaning of self to the nature of consciousness. From the mildly weird ("I am a woman trapped in the body of a man") to the slightly off-putting ("I am a wolf trapped in the body of a man") to the horrifically disturbing ("I am a wolf-spider trapped in the body of a man")

Nymphomania: Did you finish cringing? Good. The fact that you cringed is exactly the reason that this might be interesting. KS was a deconstruction of many things, and one of those things was romantic visual novels. So here's another idea for a deconstruction: when reading most visual novels, people sort of assume that no matter how they present themselves, ultimately, all characters are (as someone put it a few years ago on the KS forums) "cock-hungry sluts". Not only is it not a problem, it's a boon. And not only is it a boon, it's a boon so common that some people might get disappointed to discover that a girl in a VN doesn't get wet-enough-to-fill-buckets (OH, NASU, YOU) as soon as the MC takes his shirt off.
And it's not just in visual novels. In real-life, people often talk about nymphomania as if it is, if not something desirable, at least funny. Think about all of those shitty comedies.
So guess what? It's a real problem, and it can very well and often does turn the life of otherwise normal people into a living hell. It can be the result of psychological trauma, a neurochemical imbalance or even physical damage to the brain (one famous case had a woman who developed nymphomania after suffering from a stroke).
This character isn't just perpetually horny. They're as addicted to sex as an alcoholic is to alcohol- perhaps even more so. And just like the alcoholic, they may be keenly aware of the fact that this addiction is destroying their lives, and they cannot control it. And for all the fun people make of it, when it really comes down to it, it's a lot less socially acceptable than being an alcoholic! You tell your friends that you're an alcoholic, you might get anything between pity and compassion. You tell you're friends you're nymphomaniac, they're either going to laugh your ass off or be creeped as hell.
Did you have that girl in highschool who lost all of her friends after someone spread a rumor about he she "gives"? The one who suddenly turned into a "slut"? a "whore"? Boys tried to exploit her, girls made fun of her, teachers harassed her and her parents punished her. Now imagine that this wasn't just a rumor, and it was a thousand times worse. This girl is literally, pathologically driven to have sex with people. All the time. With everybody. Even people she hates. Even people who repulse her. She goes around with condoms in her wallet and by the end of the day she's out.
Or for the matter, imagine a boy in this situation. He might actually be in even a worse a bind. Nobody is even going to believe that he has a problem! In today's cynical world, especially when youth culture is concerned, it's assumed that all boys are, by default, sex obsessed animals. Nobody is going to offer him help- after all, he's just a normal boy with poor impulse control! He doesn't deserve help, he's a monster!

What do you think?

[Waytfm]

Hmm. I think Nymphomania would actually make for a very interesting story. As far as I know, all of the characters are finalized, but I think Nymphomania would make for a very emotional story. If the Devs need a new character for some reason, I think Nymphomania would be a very interesting option.

Thinking about it a little more, there is a question about consent. I know the devs made sure that consent wouldn't be an issue with the characters they chose, but I still think it could be worked around. Maybe the MC and the girl don't actually have sex, or if they do it's before the MC knows about the girl's condition. Something like that.

I really want to write about this type of character now.... So I think I will. The new fan work board seems lonely, so I might try to contribute something to there in a couple of days.

[Astartus]

Gloom, very interesting idea you have there with the Nymphomania. I really like your approach, and I fullheartedly agree to your analysis of the disorder, even if I don't have own experiences with people who have it. We shall see. :3
About the Kenji thing: I'm sorry if I came across as trying to pull the fun out of things. Of course there need to be funny scenes, and comic relief scenes and all that, and I am very certain there will be. No story can work with constant Oh-tha-drama and no lighthearted scenes. The thing bothering me about Kenji was that he was just displayed as the likeable idiot, with the liking mostly consisting of pity. The problem was not that some of his scenes made fun of him or made him look silly - the problem was ALL of his scenes did. It was a constant, eye-rolling, "That Kenji again" feeling, without actually ever exploring the REASONS for his delusions and other problems (besides being tired after coitus, but... seriously?) I just think that Kenji had a lot of potential as a plot twist when taking him SERIOUSLY for a minute, looking behind his ramblings about world conspiracies and mind spies and whatnot and looking at the human, not the nutjob, behind the mask of the paranoid Harry-Potter-cosplayer. But KS never does that, not even in the Kenji arc itself; Kenji always stays the comic relief sidekick that is benevolently pitied and smirked at, and I feel like this kind of destroy his credibility as a personality, and therefor his character.

[Worthington]

It really gets to me that we can't have all the disorders

[Waytfm]

It really gets to me that we can't have all the disorders

[myshoesarebrown]

It really gets to me that we can't have all the disorders

At first I read this as "It really gets to me that we can't all have the disorders ".

Amazing how the mere flipping of two words completely changes the meaning of the sentence...

[Gloom]

Is not being real considered a disorder? Because it just occurred to me that if the MC really does have severe schizophrenia, it wouldn't be completely unbelievable for at least one character to be eventually revealed as a figment of his imagination. Hell, write it well enough and you might end up with some Fight Club level awesome-moment-of-holy-fuck-it-was-so-obvious-this-is-brilliant.

Or don't even try to hide it. Need a comic relief character, but without making a human character less believable? That comic relief character is some random spawn of the MC's broken mind, and they know it, and the MC knows it, and I can already imagine a few hilarious conversations this could result in. Especially if they take place in public, since obviously nobody else can see the imaginary person.

[Smokey]

Is not being real considered a disorder? Because it just occurred to me that if the MC really does have severe schizophrenia, it wouldn't be completely unbelievable for at least one character to be eventually revealed as a figment of his imagination. Hell, write it well enough and you might end up with some Fight Club level awesome-moment-of-holy-fuck-it-was-so-obvious-this-is-brilliant.

You mean like...A Beautiful Mind?