Psycho Lesbian - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Senpai...Setsuna-senpai...please satisfy me now. If you don't satisfy me, why...I might even...end up slicing up all these other little puppets around us as well..."

<—Tsukuyomi, Mahou Sensei Negima

Akogare ("longing" or "yearning") is a Japanese term for pure affection between two young female characters. Occasionally, one side is denied and takes it badly. As a result, they'll hound an innocent or the hero until they need to be dealt with, or else insanity will just "happen" when they make their preferences more obvious. They might be redeemed in the end and sometimes even retain their romantic feelings, but it seems the overall message is that their unconventional love causes more trouble than it's worth, no matter how one may sympathize.

In anime this can be jarring, since fans perceive this as writers promoting a romantic outcome then trying to get out of it via this character. Sometimes the easy way out is simply to have the entire cast be female, or make this an overall character trait in a character who's already nuts. Other times it's simply rolled into the Yandere personality type, which can be serious or comedic. Interestingly, this character can still be extremely popular with fandom if they hit the right sympathy buttons, if only for the same reasons a BL-friendly White Haired Pretty Boy can be with fangirls.

The trope also turns up, in an almost identical form, in Western storytelling, especially films, where it has a long history. For years censorship and societal norms combined to mean that lesbian characters on screen were most likely to be psychotic and villainous. In this form of the trope, the death of a lover is a common trigger for the Psycho Lesbian character to go extravagantly insane. Hays Code era requirements that villainous and controversial characters be suitably punished meant that such characters would almost inevitably be toast before the credits rolled - and this convention has persisted long after the demise of the Code itself.

The problem with the Psycho Lesbian is that it carries an ugly history, long enough that fans will complain no matter whether it's an author's rant against homosexuality, a badly used gimmick or merely a coincidence. It also carries an uncomfortable conformist subtext: go straight or go crazy.

How to respond to the above; especially if it's a case of Derailing Love Interests? Simply turning against the character enforces the power the trope has and perpetuates the stereotype. Refuse to stop supporting the character and one will be accused of supporting the atrocities she commits in this trope's name.

The Psycho Lesbian will often be a villainess for a Hide Your Lesbians couple; two women who care for each other but don't actually say it outloud. On one hand, this makes sense; a sexually depraved villain who desires one of the main characters is common enough even in traditional heterosexual casts. On the other; if the Hide Your Lesbians is especially potent; this can give the message that "good" lesbians hide it to themselves.

May or may not be undead. See Depraved Homosexual for the male equivalent.