Stalker without a Crush

Cue cellos.

Not all stalkers are motivated by sexual or romantic desire. Some are non-romantically obsessed with someone (most frequently a Loony Fan who just wants to get close to a celebrity for vicarious fame), some want a favor from the person they are stalking, some want to kill someone or otherwise do them ugly, some just want to stalk someone for the hell of it, or whatever other motives. A Mysterious Protector might be one of these.

Compare and contrast Stalker with a Crush. Contrast because it refers to motives other than having a crush on someone, and compare because it can often resemble that motive for stalking through the "Does This Remind You of Anything?" approach. Also, sometimes a Stalker Without A Crush can develop a crush on whomever they are stalking over time, and a Stalker with a Crush may essentially forget the original purpose of their stalking, but fully continue or increase their stalking behavior even though they no longer have a relationship in mind.

They appear very often in horror movies with a slasher killer. Chances are that the killer stalks and harasses someone who doesn't know them that well because the killer is an Ax-Crazy lunatic who wants to kill them. Said Serial Killer would follow them around forever until they have the perfect opportunity open.

Compare Mysterious Watcher.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Aggretsuko: Near the end of season 3, Retsuko picks up a stalker who blames her for "ruining" his favorite idol group with her death metal singing, culminating in an attempt to kill her while she's walking home from work. Fortunately, Haida is nearby and tackles the guy before he can hurt Retsuko.
• In Aho Girl, Sayaka Sumino briefly dabbles in this towards the Fuuki Iinchou to give the latter a taste of her own medicine in regards to how she's a Stalker with a Crush to A-kun.
• Suzu from Asteroid in Love has stated her hobby is collecting information about the girls, and an extra-material strip indicates she even collects information about girls she doesn't have much to do with. On the other hand, with the exception of Misa, she isn't really having crushes on anyone in the cast.
• Doctor Tenma to Astro in the 2003 version of Astro Boy. The "without a crush" part is further hammered in with Astro being a robot and Tenma being his father in two different ways, however, it still manages to come across as very creepy (which Astro outright says).
• In Bleach, Aizen claims that he's known Ichigo since the day he was born and has been manipulating him since the very beginning, including arranging his first meeting with Rukia. The purpose of this was to help Ichigo reach his potential so Aizen may have a Worthy Opponent that would allow him to achieve higher levels of transcendency. Later chapters reveal that this was not a lie. Aizen was present the day Isshin and Masaki first met and was, in fact, the reason they met at all (albeit unintentionally on his part, as it involved one of Aizen's experiments deviating from fighting Isshin as he expected and attacking Masaki), meaning Ichigo wouldn't have been conceived if not for Aizen. The sheer unexpectedness of this experiment's results and the fallout left Aizen intrigued enough that he kept an eye on the situation ever since.
• Blue Exorcist has Saburota Todo become this towards Okumura Yukio. It is full of squicky rapist subtext and he seriously freaks out Yukio.
• In Part 2 of Chainsaw Man, Ambiguously Evil Hirofumi Yoshida takes it upon himself to be Cloudcuckoolander's Minder and performs constant surveillance of Denji to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid like use his Secret Identity to pick up chicks. He's forced to intervene on more than one occasion.
• Death Note:
  • The Shinigami follow whoever uses the notebook and are supposed to continue this behavior until the user dies or relinquishes ownership.
  • Light spends one episode following Raye Penber's fiancée around, trying to find out her real name before she goes to the police with information on the Kira case.
• Kouichi, the Sixth Ranger of Digimon Frontier, is first seen as a human following Kouji to the station the day everyone goes to the Digital World. Flashbacks, later on, show him hanging around the shadows outside Kouji's house, watching him interact with his father and stepmother. His reason: they're brothers, twins Separated at Birth, a fact that Kouichi only recently learned. The stalking seems to be his way of working up the nerve to approach. This does not stop people from viewing him as a Stalker with a Crush.
• Food Wars!:
  • Nao Sadatsuka is a Stalker with a Crush to Erina, but without one to Hisako. She wants to defeat Hisako, with the hopes that Erina will change her mind and pick Nao to be her aide instead. The series itself lampshades this by displaying a "Stalker Logic" on that. Later on, she seems to become a Stalker with a Crush to Hisako as well.
  • Subaru Mimasaka reveals that he has been stalking both Soma and Takumi in search of useful details, since he not only does research on their cooking styles, but also on their personalities and how they will affect any possible outcome.^note Including details down to the pattern of Takumi's underwear. This ended up helping him on how to press their Berserk Buttons and what Takumi would do to improvise at the very last minute.
• In FullMaPla, Shiori follows Kyou and Makoto everywhere, including the movies, the beach, and a hot spring resort.
• Shiina did that in Gourmet Girl Graffiti just to know her Old Retainer Tsuyuko's birthday. This is particularly justifiable as Tsuyuko is Shiina's Parental Substitute.
• Imaizumin-chi wa Douyara Gal no Tamariba ni Natteru Rashii: ~DEEP~: Keita's brother Keichiro sometimes spies on his to see if he's actually doing okay. He happens to witness him being Dragged into Drag and starts panicking about what his "beloved brother" is doing.
• It's revealed in Inside Mari that Mari had been stalking Isao. It's ironic as Isao himself is a Stalker with a Crush to Mari. They're perfect strangers as Isao is a college-aged shut-in while Mari is a high schooler. Later on it's implied that Isao isn't even a Stalker with a Crush. Mari is an Unreliable Narrator who simply imagined he was stalking her.
• K:
  • In season 1, the man in the airship is observing Shiro and Kuroh without their knowledge, before he's introduced as a character, and before his involvement in the story is revealed.
  • In season 2, and implicitly before as well, Nagare, the Green King, is this towards Shiro. Particularly interesting, since he does it through the thousands of people who use his mobile app. Also, note his creepy giggling when Shiro finally returns.
• Maria no Danzai:
  • Following her son's death at the hand of sadistic bullies, Maria spends the next two years erasing her identity, teaching herself a number of skills and investigating every detail she can find about the perpetrators, which she eventually uses to lure them to their deaths after becoming the nurse at the school they go to. "The nurse in the infirmary knows everything," indeed.
  • Akihiro Yuda once followed Kowase to his house with the intention of murdering him, though in the end he relented because of his own trauma. Then Maria showed up, kidnapped Kowase and murdered him herself, after which Yuda started following Maria around the school, with Maria not noticing because he looked just like every other student.
• My Dress-Up Darling: The cosplayer Sajuna "Juju" Inui ends up following Gojo in secret to his home (both the manga and anime add a caption clarifying that this isn't something you should do), since she wants him to make her a costume after seeing the one he made for Marin. Interestingly, later chapters imply she developed a crush on Gojo, but by then she's dropped the "stalker" part.
• In the BW chapter of Pokémon Adventures, it turns out that N had been watching Black (and later White) for most of Black's initial journey.
• Ramen Fighter Miki: In Episode 2A "Challenger: His name is Nishiyama Kankuro", when Miki feels she is Being Watched, Akihiko invokes a Stalker with a Crush on her. Miki denies it, sensing aggression. That aggression is projected by Kankuro, who has come back to town to get revenge for Miki's bullying.
• Return to Labyrinth, the manga sequel for Labyrinth, has this for Jareth towards Toby. It's implied that after Sarah rescued her brother and defeated him, Jareth had been watching Toby and Sarah. He had been more involved with Toby, though, thinking that he could make the boy happy by "granting" his wishes. His stalking eventually leads to physically showing up wherever Toby is.
• Majime of Wasteful Days of High School Girls tails Robo and her friends and tries to know what makes Robo happy, owing to the fact that Robo is probably the only other person in her grade who is somewhat academically accomplished.^note The story sets in a Dustbin School; Robo is here solely to defy Intelligence Equals Isolation while Majime got seriously ill during high school admission exams. Her intention is never romantic, but rather out of purely platonic admiration, but it comes off as obsessive and stalkerish.

Comic Books

• Godzilla: Aftershock: Alan Jonah was one to Emma Russell before she made a Face–Heel Turn and joined his cause and before the subsequent events in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), following her around the world during the MUTO Prime crisis.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Ghidorah's three minds psychically stalked Vivienne Graham for years while Ghidorah was frozen. After Ghidorah's minds have regenerated in the present, they begin psychically stalking Vivienne and San (who are now the Two Beings, One Body hybrid Monster X) even more directly and trying to break them down. The trope becomes horrifically Zig-Zagged when Ghidorah's heads plan to turn Vivienne into a monster Baby Factory as another way to torture her, with MaNi/Elder Brother being all too enthusiastic to act on what the author has called a "murder boner".
• In the Harry Potter/The Dark Knight Trilogy crossover fanfic Ace Of Spades, Harry becomes one towards Commissioner Gordon after he comes to the conclusion that Gordon is Sirius Black with amnesia.
• Another Brother has Prince Iroh learning his nephew Zuko didn't die but was raised by the Southern Water Tribe and decided to bring him back to the Fire Nation. Problem is, Zuko likes being Water Tribe and isn't keen on joining the empire trying to conquer the world, so his reaction is to flee as far and fast as possible with Iroh in hot pursuit.
• Arc Corp: Ruby is this towards Jaune. Her first instinct upon seeing him for the first time was to follow this stranger around in the middle of the night in hopes that something cool would happen. Something cool did happen, and Ruby immediately abandons her lifelong dream of becoming a huntress in favor of showing up to his apartment/office constantly in hopes that he'll let her join The Men in Black. Jaune refuses to give her a position out of fear for her safety, using her age as an excuse but is eventually worn down into giving her a part-time position. When Blake, Jaune's only official employee, jokingly asks if her obsession extends to romance after she compares her devotion to getting hired full-time to her mother's ten-year quest to bed her father, Ruby is horrified at the notion. It later turns out that she does have a crush on Jaune, but it isn't her primary motivation to joining the organization.
• In the fanfic Back to the Future Prequel, Hank follows Doc even in public places to intimidate and bully him in revenge for Doc accidentally hurting his sister.
• Black Sky: Dumbledore attempts to mold and control Dorea Black, believing her the Child of Prophecy fated to destroy Voldemort. (He's wrong.) He relentlessly searched for "Rose Potter" for ten years, then seeing Dorea's arrival at Hogwarts tried to play himself as a wise, grandfatherly mentor whom she could trust. His manipulations gain him only Dorea's annoyance and contempt, and it culminates in her flat-out refusing to hear him or giving any weight to his opinions.
• Blood and Honor: Acting on Baras's orders, Sanguis becomes this for Jaesa Willsaam, tracking down the Padawan's family, mentors, and friends in an effort to draw her out of hiding.
• Bakugou accuses Izuku of being his stalker in Cain; in reality, Bakugou is the one stalking Izuku, as he follows Izuku everywhere, both openly and covertly, in an attempt to sabotage All Might's mentorship with Izuku and redirect All Might's attention onto himself.
• From The Fog: Once he becomes active, Herobrine will actively stalk the player — whether it be watching close-by just out of the players view until spotted (with them immediately disappearing in view), from far in the distance (and fleeing from the player's radius), or directly in front of a sleeping player's bed.
• In The Honoured Guest, Ino spends a good amount of her free time during her Academy years observing and trying to understand Naruto, as she finds his antisocial behavior and his pariah status particularly interesting.
• J-WITCH Series: Valmont reveals in "Divide and Conquer - Chaos and Hilarity" that he's been trailing the Guardians and had taken pictures of both their human and Guardian forms as well as of their homes and parents. He then attempts to use the photos in coercing them to work for him before Yan Lin's deconstructing speech prompts him to hand over the photos. The girls are very much repulsed to learn that they've been stalked.
• A Lady's Scout (and the Salt Within Her Soul): After having her Second Super-Identity as Multimouse exposed to the whole class, Marinette "accidentally" lets slip that Ladybug's been dealing with a stalker. Naturally, everyone demands to know who it is, so she leaves under the guise of letting her alter ego know what happened. Ladybug then enters and drops the bombshell:
  Alya: Multimouse told us that you have a stalker? Who is it?
  Ladybug: Wouldn't you know? You put her on your blog every single week.
• In My Huntsman Academia, Blake stalks Izuku to look for blackmail material out of the mistaken belief that he's onto her identity as a cat Faunus. When Toshinori catches her in the act, she passes herself off as a Stalker with a Crush to avert suspicion. It's all for naught when she learns that Izuku didn't suspect a thing until she spelled it out for him. This ended up bringing them closer, until she starts developing a crush on him for real.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku gets stalked by Lexi Luthor, who knows he's an alien and is interested in speaking to one her age. She blackmails him into getting into her limo when he tries to walk away and is said to be taking in every bit of him with her eyes.
• Oh, You Don’t Have to Do That. (Communication): After Sabine recognizes a picture of Lila as a girl who's been spotted frequently by the bakery's customers, Sabrina and Max ask to check the security camera. From there, they discover that Lila has been using her alleged vacation time to stalk Marinette for any sort of leverage against her. Marinette, her classmates, and her parents are horrified to discover this; Marinette is especially annoyed that Lila has so much animosity towards her just for calling her out on lying once.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Jessie, James, and Meowth are this to Ash, even nonchalantly admitting to "stalking" him whenever it comes up. Though, unlike canon, this is not because they're trying to steal Pikachu, but because Giovanni assigned them to keep an eye on Ash.
• In NUMB3RS story Q is for Quarry, Don keeps finding photos of himself when he was younger and no one is sure what it could mean. It later turns out they were being left behind by Soames, who Don and Cooper helped put away in prison and he was looking for revenge.
• To Hell and Back (Arrowverse): Eddie Thawne is obsessed with catching the Streak/the Flash, to the point that he becomes a Workaholic, entirely devoted to perusing reports about the vigilante's activities and making conjectures/theories regarding his goals and motivations; he even commandeers a room in the precinct solely dedicated to his target. Joe and Iris compare him to Captain Ahab, and the latter even briefly breaks up with him over it.
• Truth is Subjective has Alya wave down Ladybug after an akuma battle, wanting to livestream an "exclusive interview" of the superheroine with her self-declared "best friend" Lila. Ladybug bluntly refuses on the grounds that Lila has been stalking her:
  Alya: Sta-stalker?
  Ladybug: Stalker. What else would you call someone who constantly follows you around? Interfering with my rescues. Fantasizing scenarios where we're close personal friends and tells people about it. Trying to convince everyone that those tales are real. Maybe it's a coincidence that she transferred into only class in the entire school, out of all the public schools in France that has had the most akumas thus students I see regularly. Despite her mother being an important diplomat? Who knows? For god's sake, Alya, she even got close to you, the only journalist I deal with on a regular basis. You keeping spinning out her stories; feeding her delusions. Why do think I started avoiding you? I saw you were friends with her. I can't be around her. I won't.
• In the Princess Tutu fanfic An Uncommon Witness, Hardboiled Detective Fakir starts to stalk Duck because she's a key witness in the case against a very powerful and dangerous mafia, but as the case is still not solid enough for witness protection to step in, he decided to do it himself. Amusingly, Duck's friends believe him to be a very persistent suitor.
• In the Pokémon fanfic Xanthic Growlithe Contract, researchers would stalk a herd of Ponyta and Rapidash. This agitated them so much that the herd disbanded and did the Pokémon equivalent of miscarrying all their offspring.

Film - Live-Action

• In Batman Forever, Edward Nygma has a fanboyish obsession with Bruce Wayne, which takes a darker turn when Bruce refuses to approve further development of Nygma's brain-tapping device. (On the other hand, his flamboyant character, particularly after becoming the Riddler, suggests that he may actually be a Stalker with a Crush.)
• Jim Carrey played a similar character in The Cable Guy, in which Chip becomes obsessed with making Steve his best friend, through any means necessary.
• Come Play: The monster follows Oliver everywhere, from public places to his own house, even after he ends up panicking after it initially asks to be friends.
• Deadly Encounter features a single mother being harassed by a man who she cut off on the freeway.
• Duel is about an ordinary businessman being stalked by a truck driver in a Big Badass Rig who keeps trying to run him off the road.
• Michael Myers from Halloween series follows his victims around for hours in order to get them alone so he can kill them and get away with it. He's probably one of the few patient murderers seen in the film who doesn't enjoy or rush in the killing.
• Mason Verger towards Hannibal, since he desires swift vengeance on Dr. Lecter for disfiguring his face and confining him to a wheelchair for life. His goal is to finally capture Lecter and have him Fed to Pigs.
• Horse Girl: Sarah begins stalking Ron, finding his workplace, and watching him outside his home, not because of any attraction to him but because she keeps seeing him in her alien abduction dream and wants to understand what's going on.
• The hybrid dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park films all qualify.
  • The Spinosaurus, revealed as a hybrid prototype in promotional material for the World films, constantly hunts the humans over the course of the movie.
  • The I. rex in Jurassic World follows her prey persistently just so she can kill For the Evulz.
  • The Indoraptor in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the most horrific example. His Establishing Character Moment has him playfully touching Maisie's hair when she gets too close to his cage, and after he escapes and finally sees her again, nothing dissuades him from trying to kill her.
• Kimble from Kindergarten Cop becomes one of these to a witness who refuses to testify against Cullen Crisp, in order to "entice" her to testify so he'll have something better to do than stick to her like glue all day. As if Schwarzenegger being at probably his absolute creepiest isn't enough, he just finished having a gunfight with some other criminals where she was hanging out so it works like a charm:
  Witness: Don't you have anything better to do?!
  Kimble: You don't understand. I have nothing else to do... and I have nowhere else to go. I like you, Cindy. I'm going to be around you a lot... days, nights, weekends, holidays. I'm going to hang out with you until the end of time.
• Rupert Pupkin, the wannabe comedian in The King of Comedy, is obsessed with appearing on Jerry Langford's talk show for his big break. At one point, Rupert's Loony Fan behavior causes him to bring his girlfriend to a weekend getaway at Langford's home — based on an invitation that never existed.
• Sy of One Hour Photo does love the Yorkins, but isn't attracted to any of them. He just wants to be part of what he sees as an ideal family, in a "kindly uncle" role.
• Lila Loomis and Mrs. Spool in Psycho II are following Norman Bates because they have specific plans for him.
• Luciano stalks Enzo in Reality (2012), to the point of sneaking through the air vents into his dressing room. He doesn't want to see Enzo naked, he just wants to speak with him in private as a Messianic Archetype.
• Ghostface in the Scream film series is always watching innocent people from afar so he can see what their insides look like. The killer's main target is a woman named Sidney Prescott since she's the only one who's survived multiple attacks from the killer. Well...killers.
  Can you see me? 'Cause I can see you.
• Darth Vader towards Luke in Star Wars, which is justified if you know the twist.
• Submarine: Oliver stalks anyone he finds interesting, but he spends the second half of the movie stalking a motivational speaker who he thinks is sleeping with his mother. This even extends to breaking into his house and hiding under his bed in order to find more evidence of this and potentially catch him in the act.
• The Terminator and its later models are killing machines manufactured to find and locate specific targets and never stop hunting them until they're terminated and by targets it means anyone of the name Connor (Sarah and John Connor).

Literature

• Macon to Ethan in Beautiful Creatures. He was sneaking into Ethan's room while Ethan slept to eat Ethan's dreams in order to "replenish" himself. Ethan is understandably freaked out when he realizes this.
• In The Belgariad series, anyone who wants to be a disciple of Aldur has to stalk him until he gets irritated enough to grant their wish, just so they'll quit stalking him. The situation may be reversed when he wants you to be his disciple.
• In The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, Eddie Poe is one, following Vlad around for the perfect moment to snap a picture and expose him as a vampire, or rather a half-vampire.
• In The Devil is a Part-Timer!, Emi does regular stakeouts outside of Maou's apartment and frequently shadows him around town on the off chance that one of his daily errands does turn out to be a nefarious misdeed. She is aware of how bad this looks.
  Emi: And, once again, I spent today being a stalker.
• In Fate/Zero, Kirei Kotomine becomes fixated on Kiritsugu, believing him to be something of a kindred spirit, and hopes that meeting and fighting him will help him overcome the feelings of emptiness he has struggled with his entire life.
• In Full Metal Panic!, Sousuke is assigned by Mithril to protect Kaname Chidori and monitor her 24/7 without her knowledge—in other words, to basically stalk her. He does eventually wind up developing feelings for his target, but this is thankfully only after Kaname is let in on the whole arrangement and his own duties are adjusted so that he becomes a more standard (though still undercover) bodyguard. Mithril, however, hasn't actually toned down its more invasive protective measures—they simply assigned the job to another agent, Wraith, who also more or less serves as Sousuke's Stalker without a Crush too and has taken to covertly trolling him by deliberately triggering his apparent Spider-Sense from the shadows.
• The entirety of Green Eggs and Ham involves Sam-I-Am stalking an unnamed character (also the narrator of the book). Throughout the story, Sam wants the unnamed character to sample a dish of green eggs and ham, much to the latter's annoyance.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry becomes one to Draco Malfoy (Ho Yay implications aside) in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, suspecting (correctly, as it turns out) that he is on a mission for Voldemort. He begins secretly following him around and keeps constant tabs on him using the Marauder's Map. At one point, he even acknowledges becoming "obsessed" with following Malfoy.
  • Voldemort after his revival is willing to chase Arch-Enemy Harry to the ends of the Earth and in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes ballistic whenever Harry manages to slip out if his grasp (again). Rather for any sensual reason, Voldemort cannot tolerate the fact a child has humiliated and defeated him to such a degree, and every breath Harry takes only makes Voldemort more determined to settle the score and prove to everyone Harry just got lucky. Complicating this hateful stalking is that Voldemort won’t allow anyone but himself to kill Harry.
• In the Douglas Adams novel The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul, private dick Dirk Gently explains that he will pick a random car to follow if he gets lost while he's driving. He finds that while often he never gets where he intended, he always ends up where he needed to be.
• This is used in the same way in the two versions of Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!, with only a few differences.
  • Light novel: Rikka follows Yuuta around for a bit where she overhears him letting out his inner chuuni after he lends her his umbrella. This ends up putting them down the path to hitching up when she decides to make a contract with him.
  • Anime: Rikka follows Yuuta around during the time that she's living with Touka right after her father dies but before they move into their grandparent's house, admiring him while he screws around in his Dark Flame Master persona. It's more ambiguous whether she had a crush on him or not.
• In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd" (1840), the narrator, sitting in a London coffee shop and observing the people rushing by, is intrigued by a lone old man who wears ragged but formerly expensive clothes. Taken with the idea that there is some peculiar, possibly terrible secret about the man, the narrator decides to follow the stranger in order to learn about him. After shadowing the man a whole night and part of the next day, without the man ever noticing he is being stalked, the narrator ends his chase after having realized (his only definite insight) that the man is persistently avoiding being alone.
• In the Midnight Louie books, Kathleen O'Connor, alias Kitty the Cutter, is this to Max Kinsella, and his one-time lover Temple Barr and her new lover Matt Devine get drawn in by extension. After a brief fling with her in his youth, she became obsessed with Revenge on him for perceived violations. She's been after him ever since.
• In the Millennium Series, Lizbeth Salander regularly stalks people online for fun and profit. She's even developed a virus that can allow her to observe other people's computer usage.
• Granted, we don't actually know how the giant slug from The Night Land feels about its quarry, but it's a pretty safe bet that it doesn't view them in that way.
• On the Street Where You Live: For a year, Emily was being stalked by someone, who kept sending her photos of herself taken without her knowledge and phoning her at night without saying anything; she also suspected the stalker had broken in on a few occasions, but had no hard proof. Eventually, a security camera caught Ned Koehler trying to break into Emily's house with a knife; Ned blamed Emily for helping acquit the man charged with murdering his mother during a burglary and despite insisting he wasn't stalking Emily, Ned was convicted and institutionalised. However, someone begins stalking Emily again, sending photos of Emily and threatening postcards directly to her new address. It turns out that Ned wasn't Emily's stalker and only went to her house once. And it turns out the stalker sending Emily postcards and the stalker sending her photos are two separate people (one has a obsessive crush, the other plans on killing her).
• Overlord (2012): After the disastrous battle of the Katze Plains (in which Jircniv asked Ainz to use his biggest spell, but did not expect him to One-Hit Kill a quarter of the enemy army and use those deaths to fuel for summoning a quintet of Eldritch Abominations), Emperor Jirciv becomes increasingly paranoid that his nominal ally Ainz is watching him despite the use of every anti-scrying precaution his wizards can use, a paranoia that only settles once he willingly submits the Empire to Ainz' control. It turns out Ainz had been watching Jircniv, but not to learn his plans or make him feel powerless: Ainz was actually taking notes on how a country's leader should act (and by all accounts, those lessons bore fruit).
• In The Phantom of the Opera the Persian explicitly stalks Christine and Raoul around the Opera House without their know-how. Unlike the eponymous antagonist, however, he has no jealousy or unwholesome reasons to do so, being simply protective of them as the one most familiar with Erik and what he’s capable of when spurred on by a Villainous Crush.
• In Reincarnated as a Sword, shortly after meeting high-ranking Adventure Guild member Amanda, Fran has to deal with her following her everywhere. She just really loves children that much.
• The Stormlight Archive: The leader of the Azir, the Prime Aqasix, is said to belong to the entire nation, so anyone can enter a lottery in order to watch him sleep or go about his day-to-day business.
  Lift: Sounds creepy.
  Gawx: A little.
• In the novel Strangers on a Train, Charlie Bruno stalks Guy Haines after murdering his wife, in order to try and make Haines fulfill his end of the Murder Swap he never agreed to.

Live-Action TV

• All My Children: When a mysterious young man comes to town and rapidly befriends Dixie Martin, her husband Tad naturally assumes he has the hots for her. But when the couple confronts him, he reveals that he's actually her illegitimate brother.
• Andor: Syril Karn becomes fixated on Imperial security office Dedra Meero after she hauls him in for questioning about his investigation into Cassian Andor's criminal activities. Syril starts following Meero around and tracking when she arrives at her office. When Meero finally catches him she assumes he's trying to make a move on her romantically, but Syril explains that he's following her because he wants to be part of her official investigation of Cassian. Meero threatens to have him arrested if he doesn't leave her alone.
• Deathstroke from Arrow has been following Oliver Queen ever since he discovered where his archenemy lived. He's planted cameras in Queen's mansion, sent spies to gain his trust, personally befriended his family, abducted his sister, studied Oliver's entire life, found out who his loved ones were, and told his closest friends about his secret identity as Green Arrow. The entire purpose of these events is to ruin Oliver's entire life before killing him out of revenge.
• In Bones, the season four episode "Man in the Outhouse" has Noel Liftin, a stalker who was previously on the show as a Stalker with a Crush. Booth pays him $50 to "stalk" one of their suspects and get more information. He proves to be frighteningly good at it.
• CSI: NY:
  • One episode has a kid creepily following Stella around. When they finally confront him, they find out he thinks she's Mac's deceased wife, who gave the kid up for adoption 18 years ago.
  • Mac's "333 Stalker" during the first half of season 4 is a much more sinister example.
• Community: Abed's not understanding people's boundaries often borders on this. In "Cooperative Polygraphy", he reveals that he puts tracking devices on all his friends so he'll know where they are at all times.
• Dexter:
  • In season 1, The Ice Truck Killer later revealed to be Dexter's brother, leaves hidden messages to Dexter putting doll parts related to his crime scenes in Dexter's apartment. He was clearly stalking Dexter since he knows everything about Dexter's secret life. Dexter is aware of it and finds it intriguing.
  • In Season 2, Doakes begins stalking Dexter because he correctly suspects that Dexter is hiding a dark secret.
• In The Escape Artist, Foyle starts stalking Will Burton's family just because Will didn't shake his hand, resulting in the eventual murder of Will's wife. His later stalking of Maggie may or may not delve into Stalker with a Crush territory.
• The Flash (2014):
  • The Reverse-Flash AKA Harrison Wells/ Eobard Thawne has been obsessed with Barry Allen for most of his life. Much like in the comics, it started out as an attempt to be the Flash, only to learn that he was basically destined to be Flash's Arch-Enemy. This culminated in him killing Barry's mother, only for that to strand him in the past with no way back but the real Flash's speed. He proceeded to spend over a decade keeping tabs on Barry and ensuring his origin story happened "ahead of schedule". He even went as far as to implant hidden cameras in Barry's house and even in the homes of his friends and family.
  • Vandal Savage has been following Hawkgirl and Hawkman every century in order to kill them and absorb their powers to increase his immortality. He does have a (decidedly one-sided) obsession with Hawkgirl, but it's mainly about prolonging his lifespan.
• Forever: Adam the mysterious caller is excited to have finally found someone else with his "condition," and monitors Henry's activities. He also sends him gifts from Henry's past; e.g., sending him a picture of Henry and Abigail after their wedding, writing a note on stationery from the hotel where Henry and Abigail once stayed, giving Abraham the Nazi documents that can identify his parents, and directing Henry to and gifting him with the pistol that killed Henry the first time.
• In Gotham, Jeremiah Valeska's primary reason for doing anything seems to be his obsession with being either best friends or arch-enemies with Bruce Wayne. This obsession leads to serious Sanity Slippage on Jeremiah's part and is therefore the cause of a lot of trauma on Bruce's when his former friend starts to target him on a very personal level. The stalker-level fascination he has with the future Batman is hardly surprising, considering that he's one of the show's two main expies for the Joker.
• In The Haunting Hour, a child protagonist is usually stalked by the Monster of the Week because it wants to kill them.
• How I Met Your Mother: Patrice is kind of obsessed with Robin. Robin isn't precisely subtle about her abhorrence of her coworker, but Patrice is annoyingly obsessed with her one time, forcing her cookies and wearing the same clothes as her.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • "A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart": Claudia stalks both Lestat and Louis, which is why she knows that Lestat has an ongoing affair with Antoinette, and later she spies on Louis when he meets Grace at the cemetery.
    Claudia: I spend time following Louis and Lestat now that I am my own woman, with no obvious sense of why I follow them, other than meaning slowly disintegrates without them, my companions in immortality.
  • In "Like Angels Put in Hell by God" and "The Thing Lay Still", Antoinette trails both Louis and Claudia to monitor their psychic communications, and she later reports her findings to her lover Lestat.
• In Just Shoot Me!, Elliot and Dennis both have this towards Jack Gallow (although Dennis is more of a father-figure situation) and Kevin has one of these towards Dennis.
• Legion (2017): In "Chapter 26", when Charles Xavier arrives in Morocco, he's rather apprehensive about how much Amahl Farouk knows about him even though they're total strangers. Farouk's chauffeur greets Charles (who "wasn't expecting a welcome") at the Moroccan landing strip with a hand-painted portrait of the latter in his military uniform, so that means Farouk is aware that Charles is a former World War II British army officer. The chauffeur then adds "And my king is most excited to meet you," to which a puzzled Charles asks "He knew I was coming?", and the driver replies "It's all he's been talking about." Farouk obviously found out that Charles was heading to Morocco despite the fact that he wasn't notified of it, and he then checked which flight Charles was on. The Shadow King's obsession with his guest becomes even more evident when they meet face-to-face because the former identifies the latter as an artist ("The ease of your lines betrays an intense discipline," so Farouk is familiar with Charles' artistic style), scientist, soldier, and father. The last comment makes Charles especially uneasy and he inquires "You know my family?", and Farouk answers "Little David? Beautiful Gabrielle? How could I not? Your every particle practically sings about them." Before Charles can say anything further, Farouk distracts him with an invitation to dinner. As David Haller would later point out, Farouk has lured Charles into a trap.
• Subverted in one episode of Life on Mars (2006). A gunman takes over the offices of a newspaper, holding the editor, a reporter, Sam, and Hunt hostage; at one point, he gives a detailed account of what everyone does after hours. The reporter accuses him of spying on them — it turns out that he's worked there for the last eight years and has finally snapped after getting no recognition for what he does.
• In NCIS: New Orleans, Pride is abducted by a woman who was in the gallery at a trial he attended in 2002. Since then, she's become a huge fan following his career (she even says Pride's daughter has "grown up so much since the last time I saw her") and wants Pride to help her solve a missing person case she's convinced is tied to a Serial Killer no one knows about. At first, Pride thinks the woman is insane and tries to escape. However, as he studies the evidence, Pride realizes the woman really is onto something, and with her help, they stop the killer and rescue the missing woman. Pride then lets his abductor go on the idea she gets help for her obvious issues.
• The Our Miss Brooks episode "Here is Your Past" sees Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis being stalked by a mysterious man with a black mustache. The stranger forces Connie to a TV studio where she's guest of honor on the Here is Your Past TV program.
• JD in Scrubs sometimes brushes up against this in his pursuit of Dr. Cox's attention, for instance, he once admitted to infiltrating his Superbowl party by disguising himself as a pizza delivery guy.
• In Seinfeld, George has a non-sexual crush on Elaine's boyfriend in one episode that goes downhill after George
• In Teen Wolf, werewolf Derek Hale has a tendency to come off as this to people, including other werewolves and those he wants to join his pack. Stiles has even called him out on it. However, from hints throughout the series, it seems that this isn't too odd of behavior among werewolves as a whole.
• Victorious: One episode was about Tori getting stalked by a mysterious student named Ponnie, who disappeared whenever anyone else was around, causing Tori's friends to think she was going insane. Ponnie turns out to be a former student of Hollywood Arts who got kicked out. Her plan was to drive Tori insane so that she could replace her and attend Hollywood Arts once again.
• In The Walking Dead (2010), the Claimers and Gareth's group have followed Rick's group in order to kill them out of vengeance because Rick murdered members of their own survival groups. They fail.

Newspaper Comics

• Dilbert's Dogbert needed to do research on the customer base which consists of stupidly rich people. In the next panel, he was revealed to be stalking a group of golfers.

Professional Wrestling

• Charlotte Webb to Dark Angel during the early 2000s, by virtue of them being two of the only women wrestlers in Alberta Canada at the time, and Angel holding what was perhaps the only woman's title belt in Alberta. Even when wrestling outside of Can-Am Wrestling, where Angel was awarded the belt, as a reigning women's champion couldn't very well refuse a female challenger just because she had already agreed to wrestle a man.
• After they (and Nidia) were both released by WWE, Gail Kim went after Jazz, whom she had never wrestled, after finding out Jazz had left for Japan. When Jazz went back home to the USA following her tour of Japan, Kim followed her there too.
• Lexi Lane admired Krissy Vaine's ring work. After Lane finished her pro wrestling training she periodically arranged her schedule to coincide with Vaine's in the hopes they could maybe have a match. Sadly, circumstance conspired to make Lane always just miss Vaine but when Angelina Love was turned down by Vaine on the offer to join The Beautiful People, Lane wasn't far behind and was deemed an acceptable substitute.
• Matt Hardy, Broken Matt Hardy, to Roppongi Vice, even admitting he had his Vanguard One drone spy on them while they were pursuing the junior heavyweight Tag Team title belts of The New Wrestling In Japan. This had unintended benefits when Vanguard One returned with a mission from The Seven Deities that led to him and Brother Nero facing Berretta and Romero in a triple threat also involving The Bucks Of Youth at Honorable Wrestling's fifteenth-anniversary show.
• The Precious One Gilbert got on a flight to Tampa Florida after winning WWC's Universal Title belt for the purpose of stalking Orlando Colon to find out when Orlando's son was left alone. All so Orlando could walk in on Gilbert alone with his son, taunting the boy about his dad not being Universal Champion.

Roleplay

• In Nothing Is Sacred, Camula posts a number of her familiars around the Offering Site and has them trail any potential Chosen that approaches and she does the same thing with the contestants who arrive at the docks in Duelist Kingdom. This allows her to ascertain the identities of both Raiza and Granmarg's Chosen, and gives her an almost complete picture of all the cards in her main competitor's deck. Unfortunately for her, the keyword there is "almost".

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition Oriental Adventures (1985) supplement. If an application to study with a martial arts master fails, the prospective student may begin courting the master, trying to gain his favor (e.g. by giving a small gift or offering). The hopeful student may continue until either they are accepted or they offend the master.
• In Nomine: Nybbas, Prince of the Media, sees Eli, Archangel of Creation, as a natural fit for his organisation, and is constantly working to make him Fall and get him on his side. Eli hates him as the embodiment of every churned out, throwaway work of art in the world.

Toys

• BIONICLE: Vhisola was obsessed with her former teacher and only friend Nokama, so much so that she dedicated her own house to make a Stalker Shrine for her. After Nokama got transformed into a Toa warrior, however, her obsession quickly turned to jealousy and hate, as she couldn't cope with the notion that Nokama's duty of protecting their city would mean spending less time with her.

Video Games

• In Alien: Isolation, the Xenomorph seeks out and kills Ripley in the space station. Then there's the Working Joes who are programmed to kill anyone still alive in Sevastopol.
• The Shadow in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It relentlessly hunts Daniel where ever he goes, all the way from Africa, Britain, to Prussia it will not stop until it has devoured Daniel.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • In Batman: Arkham Asylum, both Victor Zsasz and Scarecrow obsess over following their intended victims before killing them. Zsasz is able to gain a thorough knowledge of his psychiatrist's personal life and follows her home so that he can murder her until Batman stops him. Meanwhile, Scarecrow has been monitoring Batman ever since he entered the Asylum.
  • Throughout Batman: Arkham City, Azrael can be seen watching over Batman at several points in the story.
  • Bane in Batman: Arkham Origins has been tracking Bruce Wayne because he knows that Bruce is Batman. In fact, all of the assassins are tracking down Batman because there's a $50,000,000 reward for his head.
  • Scarecrow is back to stalking Batman in Batman: Arkham Knight — only this time, he has the titular Arkham Knight helping him by revealing the identities of Batman's allies so that Scarecrow can hurt them in order to make his archenemy suffer.
• Batman: The Telltale Series:
  • "John Doe" acts like this towards Bruce. After their run-in in the first season, John latches onto Bruce and comes to view the two of them as best friends, even listing Bruce as his emergency contact. Given his ambiguous motives and admiration for Bruce's capacity for violence, there are distinct elements of Psycho Supporter as well.
  • Lampshaded in the second episode of season two. When John says he thinks he's in love with someone, Bruce can awkwardly ask if John's talking about him. John awkwardly says no, but states that he hopes that they can still be friends.
• In The Charnel House Trilogy, Rob appears to be a Stalker with a Crush for the protagonist Alex, but it is revealed that he actually stalks her because he sees her as a surrogate for his lost daughter and actually despises the very idea of her as a sexual being, so much so that he kidnapped her boyfriend Gavin and cut off his limbs little by little.
• In Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, g
• Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Greed has been watching Gun's life on Earth for years to learn why would he become Amnesiac God and abandon his people.hosts are very real and like to attack the living in their sleep. For that reason, everyone in the house leaves their doors open at night, so attacks will be more easily noticed and foiled.
• Zenos in Final Fantasy XIV gains a big interest in the Warrior of Light after he notices how their repeated battles against him are making them stronger, giving him a rush of adrenaline due to nobody else being able to match his skills in combat. After Zenos is killed by the Warrior of Light and comes back from the dead, he wanders around the landscape looking for them so that they can fight once more. When Zenos learns that the Warrior of Light was sent to another world, he is perfectly content with waiting for their return so that he can stalk them once more and challenge them again.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening:
  • Olivia tries to stalk her Kid from the Future Inigo... in hopes to see him dance since he's shy about doing it in public.
  • Subverted with Gerome and Noire. He stalks her with platonic intentions (she's an Ill Girl and he's worried about her health but is too much of an Ineffectual Loner to act on it), but it turns out he can develop feelings for her and he realizes it when she directly asks him if he likes her... which happens only if they get an S support which leads to a Relationship Upgrade.
• In Firewatch, Ned Goodwin is this. He spends the whole game listening to Henry and Delilah and following Henry around to make sure that he doesn't get caught. Little did he realize that him being paranoid about being found is what started the game's main conflict.
• The animatronics who wander the pizzeria at night in Five Nights at Freddy's. When they reach the security room, they will stuff the night watch in a Freddy suit, which is filled with mechanical parts, and the man inside will be killed.
• White Face from Imscared is completely obsessed with the player. Either he's completely obsessed with looking at the player, or he's lonely and needs someone to stay with him... maybe.
• Haunting Ground:
  • Daniella, in contrast to the rest of the stalkers in the game, isn't lustful towards protagonist Fiona. In fact, her motivations to pursue her are born out of hatred and jealousy. Daniella perceives Fiona as a "complete woman" — i.e., she can feel pleasure/pain and can give birth, traits that Daniella lacks. Therefore, Daniella wishes to cut out Fiona's uterus to claim as her own. True, she does fondle Fiona while she sleeps, but then again, she's more likely just appraising Fiona's (complete) body than expressing attraction. Also, Daniella is the only stalker who stops pursuing Fiona completely at certain points to do the cleaning.
  • Obliviously Evil Debilitas may count as well, since unlike the other two males, Riccardo and Lorenzo, Debilitas isn't sexually attracted to Fiona — he just mistakes her for a doll. However, like with Daniella, some other feelings are inferred.
• The Last of Us has a type of Infected labeled "Stalkers". They follow their intended victim and occasionally peek out of their hiding spot waiting for the right opportunity to sneak up and kill their victim.
• In the Black Records of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III, while he was lying on his bed, the legendary Dreichels the Lionheart has a stalker in the form of a black blob with lots of eyes who wants to make Dreichels become his pawn while Dreichels resists till the day he died. One Reincarnation later (and one game later), it's revealed that Giliath Osborne is the reincarnation of Dreichels and Ishmelga still kept on stalking him till Osborne crossed the Despair Event Horizon moment and asked if anyone can save his dying son who was impaled by a huge wooden splinter. End result: Osborne becomes Ishmelga's Awakener and for fourteen years, Osborne's been trying to get rid of his stalker (and also the empire's biggest problem).
• In The Legend of Zelda series, Ganon(dorf) kidnaps Zelda not out of attraction, but to extract the Triforce of Wisdom out of her.
• Mass Effect 2:
  • Depending on the interpretation, Harbinger's single-minded obsession with Shepard is either this or Stalker with a Crush.
  • The geth Legion has been following Shepard ever since his/her temporary death at the beginning of the game. He's even built Shepard's old armor into his metal plating. However, it's revealed that he's on the hero's side and only wanted to join the commander in his quest to stop the reapers, though he still has a creepy, thorough knowledge of Shepard's life.
  • The Shadow Broker monitors everyone throughout the universe — not because of any wicked intent, but so that he can acquire information on everyone that would provide a profit for him if he were to sell it to some potential buyers. Since he's a Knowledge Broker, it's strictly just for business.
• The murderer in Left Alone chooses to follow Joel around instead of, you know, killing him to keep his location a secret.
• Reoccurring boss Jr. Troopa in Paper Mario 64 pursues Mario not out of loyalty to Bowser, but because Mario beat him once and Jr. Troopa has been bitter about his defeat. He somehow knows where Mario is and manages to catch Mario as he and his friends are returning from a certain area in the game. The stalking becomes quite comical like him following Mario to and from Lavalava Island and somehow getting to Bowser’s castle in space for their final battle.
• In Persona 5, Makoto Niijima, the Student Council President, will sometimes follow Ren around after school during May and early June, since she's trying to find evidence that he's a Phantom Thief. Makoto can develop feelings for Joker, but only after she joins the party and stops stalking him.
• Pokémon:
  • The Rival Silver stalks Lance in Pokémon HGSS in an attempt to get a rematch with him after their encounter in the Mahogany Rocket Hideout.
  • Played for Laughs in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet with The Rival Nemona being an excitable Genki Girl trying to raise the player into a Champion like her, and showing up to their every Gym challenge while trying to play it off as a coincidence. Of course, this hasn't stopped fans from imagining her as a Stalker with a Crush with her clingy personality adding fuel to the fire.
    Nemona: You don't have to go find randos to battle! You'll have all the battles you'll ever need... with me!
• Several in Resident Evil:
  • The T-00 a.k.a. Mr. X is this for Leon and Claire in RE2, relentlessly pursuing them through the police station, not even stopping after falling in molten steel. In the remake, Mr. X doesn't even slow his pursuit when a whole laboratory explodes and falls around him.
  • In the same game, there's the mutated William Birkin towards his daughter Sherry. Unfortunately, the "without a crush" part is not quite prevalent, as he wants Sherry to reproduce...
  • The titular Nemesis from RE3 towards Jill, as his mission is to eliminate all S.T.A.R.S members. However, Capcom has joked about Nemesis having a weird fixation on Jill in other games, such as in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with Jill's win quote against him:
    Jill: STOP FOLLOWING ME!
  • The Ustanak in RE6 refuses to stop following Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin until they're dead.
• In Road 96, Jarod can be found in several of Sonya's scenarios, such as prowling around the party she's attending or staying in a hotel room down the hall from hers. This is because he's a serial killer who blames Sonya for his daughter's death and has been plotting the perfect revenge murder for a decade.
• Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 relentlessly walks through the titular town to find James. He knows what his enemy is doing, tries to prevent him from journeying away from Silent Hill, knows where he'll be next, and never stops following him throughout the game. It turns out that Pyramid Head is a symbolic representation of James' guilt and has been stalking him because he was created to punish James for his sins.
• In a bit of Ascended Fanon (though he has shown shades of it as early as Mario Party 3), Waluigi is now this to Luigi of Super Mario Bros.. His intentions are to make Luigi's life miserable.
• Slender: The Slender Man IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
• The Stranger in Tales from the Borderlands has captured Fiona and Rhys after trailing them all across Pandora and asking them personal questions about their journey of all the events they've endured throughout the game because he's really their former teammate Loader Bot and he's been following them in order to get the team back together again to save a fallen friend.
• In Touhou, Suika Ibuki and Yukari Yakumo are often portrayed as this, due to their powers (turning into mist and creating portals respectively).
• In Twisted Wonderland, Rook Hunt "hunts" other students by persistently following them around in order to learn their behaviors and weaknesses. He also hides photos of his targets behind the wallpaper of his room, akin to a Stalker Shrine.
• The Stranger in The Walking Dead (Telltale) has been following Lee and Clementine ever since the second chapter, all the way from Macon, Georgia to the coast. His main goal is to abduct Clementine to replace his dead children and murder Lee.
• The Stalker from Warframe tracks any Player Character who killed a boss with the intent of killing them, randomly appearing in missions in which they take part. He has an ax to grind against the Tenno since he supposedly saw them betray the Abusive Precursors to which he was loyal to and sees himself as an agent of justice punishing the betrayers, so it's pretty safe to say he doesn't have any romantic feelings toward the Tenno.
• The Crooked Man and his gang from The Wolf Among Us have followed Bigby Wolf and his friends in order to throw the detective off his trail, as he gets closer to solving the mystery.
• Yandere Simulator:
  • While Yandere-chan is definitely a Stalker with a Crush to Senpai, she can be this to any of her rivals (or anyone else really) to try to find information she can use to her advantage or an opportunity to murder her. For example, in the alpha builds if she stalks Kokona enough she finds out Kokona engages in Compensated Dating to try to help pay off her father's massive debt, which is against school rules. Yandere-chan can then use that info to get everyone to bully her enough to get her to leave school (or kill herself) or use it to help Kokona out and therefore have Kokona owe her a favor.
  • There are rumors that Shiromi Torayoshi, the treasurer of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council, stalks other students to glean information for the Student Council's use, but nothing so far has been proven.
  • If a member of the Photography Club catches Yandere-chan murdering someone, but Yandere-chan hid enough evidence that the police can't pin the crime on her, the entire Photography Club stalks Yandere-chan to try to catch her in the act and get irrefutable evidence she's a murderer. Fittingly enough, when they do so their persona changes from 'Sleuth' to 'Stalker'. Yandere Dev is considering the possibility of others gaining the Stalker persona if they witness a murder but lack irrefutable evidence as well.
  • Third rival Oka Ruto, in the alpha builds, stalked the Basu sisters to try to get proof that they were supernatural creatures disguised as schoolgirls.

Visual Novels

• Collar × Malice:
  • The terrorist leader Zero has a particular interest in the protagonist Ichika and knows certain details of her life, such as her work schedule, the paths she uses to walk home, and even her ideas of justice, so they could collar her and monitor her constantly as she tries to solve the X-Day Incidents. It makes senses as Zero is her old police academy classmate/drinking buddy Saeki.
  • Depending on the route, Zero investigates and finds out a lot about Sasazuka and Yanagi's past, so they could try to recruit them to Adonis.
• The Fruit of Grisaia: When Yuuji is bored he sometimes just follows his classmates to see what they do. Being a trained agent, he is pretty good at it.
• Rena is this way towards Keiichi in the Onikakushi-hen arc of Higurashi: When They Cry. Rena does have feelings for him however her stalking isn't due to them. She is always following him, knows that his parents aren't home, and stands outside his bedroom window on a rainy night apologizing to him after upsetting him (even when she knew he couldn't see her). Keiichi misunderstands her unsettling behavior and thinks she's out to get him. She's simply being a concerned friend about his sudden change in attitude and aloofness. Rena had known he was home alone (and what ramen he liked) because she met his mom at the store earlier. It's left ambiguous if the rain incident was in his head or not, though it wouldn't be out of character for Rena to apologize like that.

Webcomics

• Bittersweet Candy Bowl: James freely admits to stalking Mike for over four months to scope him out for the track team. To his credit, it worked. Subverted. As it turns out, he does have a crush on Mike.
• If: Albert stalks main character Hiroshi at the start of the comic, wanting to have a match with their "Companions". Hiroshi keeps refusing but Albert won't take "no" for an answer, bugging him even when he's in class. He only backs off when Aran proposes that they fight in three days at a park, giving time for Hiroshi to build up his fighting skills a bit so his Companion, Enigami, won't get instantly creamed.
• I'm the Grim Reaper: At the end of episode six, we catch a glimpse of Brook taking a photo of Scarlet and Chase's first meeting. Chapter 34 reveals he's been keeping an eye on Scarlet since she first appeared since new reapers are a rarity.
• My Deepest Secret: What some of Yohan's actions in regards to his investigation on Emma result as, particularly his asking his uncle to run a background check on her. His uncle even lampshades it, asking him if he's stalking someone when he makes that request.
• In No Future, the main character, Andrew, gains two godly stalkers to protect him from Fate. It does not end here.
• In Orbit, Neptune is this. Oh god, is he ever. He's always lurking, and there are no walls in space. You look behind you, and no matter how many AU are between you, Neptune is there.
  Neptune (to Venus): You're prettyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
• Schlock Mercenary: Played for Laughs. The AI of the starship Bristlecone - who has been in service for some six centuries - passes the time by researching the genealogy of every person who has ever stepped inside her hull. Apparently, this isn't a particularly rare quirk among AIs; Para mentions that it's usually solved with a restraining order.
  Bristlecone: Hello, Captain Kaff Tagon! Your paternal grandmother, Karla Klingbo, served me as a machinist prior to marrying.
  Para: See? The ship is practically family already.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: The crew eventually gains one in the form of a ghostly Mind Hive that wants to either kill or assimilate them. The only two edges the crew has on it is traveling by day while it has to avoid daylight, and the spells its two relatively low-level mages can use against it.

Web Original

• The Angry Grandpa: Heeeyyy, Angry Grandpa! This is Mustdestroyall!
• Cracked: Parodied in "So You're Accidentally Stalking Helen Mirren"
• In Darwin's Soldiers, ROSS (Rudyard Oscar Shelton software) is an artificial intelligence that internet-stalks his namesake in order to figure out why he was created.
• In the series Dina Marino you have Anne Airy, who is stalking and trying to seduce Dina Marino because she wants to destroy Dina's relationship with Gideon and have him for herself.
• Since the start of the Dream SMP roleplay, Dream has had a weird fixation on Tommy, which manifested in digging tunnels under his house to spy on him, deliberately logging on to kill, steal from, or otherwise mess with him, and while fighting L'Manburg, constantly addressed Tommy before Wilbur, L'Manburg's president. This takes a much darker turn in Season 2, though, as Dream starts seeing Tommy as the central anchor for the server's attachments, and the one thing he needed to get control over above all else. He went out of his way to constantly keep tabs on Tommy, from having him exiled, trapping him on a remote beach and abusing him into compliance, to conducting random searches of Techno's house after Tommy ran away, to dragging him out into the wilderness to fight, to trying to lock him up in prison. Even after being jailed, Dream's obsession with Tommy didn't waver in the slightest, which includes suggesting that they become immortal together using Dream's ability to bring people Back from the Dead.
  Sam: He admitted himself that he needed Tommy. The only thing he would talk about when he was in there alone was Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.
• 78MagnumXE of Encyclopediadramatica.ch, and his obsession with wanting to dispose of Nathan, he'll do anything to get rid of him even if it kills him, which eventually it will.
• The Hardly Working video "My Mom Is Stalking Me" highlights how actions that would be unsettling coming from anyone else are normal and even expected mom behavior.
  Rekha: You've been talking to her?!
  Raph: I went home for Christmas!
  Rekha: Are you kidding, Raph?! That'll fuel her obsession!
  Raph: Well, how was I supposed to know? I felt bad for her! She was sitting at home alone staring at a box full of my old teeth!
• In Moonflowers, the Horned Hunter is obsessively tormenting the Asian-American Song family, especially Alima, and the Fianna call him a creepy stalker. He openly wants to kill them all, and the stalking is probably a manifestation of his role as the embodiment of predators.
• The Slender Man Mythos: Slender Man's MO. If there's a vlog series based on the mythos, expect to see him standing around in the background somewhere in a few episodes. If you can see him at all.
• Technoblade candidly joked about having to stalk Squid Kid in order to best him during the Potato Wars. It started off fairly reasonable (scoping out his forum posts and island, keeping tabs on his potato growth), but by the end of it, Techno knew what college Squid went to, what his class and sleep schedules were, infiltrated his Discord server, and — if his comments during the "I became Mayor of Skyblock" video are to be believed — found his parents' phone numbers.
  Technoblade: I'll DM him on Discord, and if that doesn't work, I'll phone his parents. I'll be like, "Hey, can you get Squid Kid on the line?" (as his teammates crack up) It's leftover data from the Potato War doc. No need to- I just have a few things in reserve.
• Unwanted Houseguest: Quite a few episodes of "TRUE Scary Stories" feature stalkers. Naturally, some either aren't motivated by a crush, or don't have motives the audience is made privy to.
• The killer in Season Two of Where the Bears Are starts out this way. Then he starts to genuinely fall for Reggie.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • The Ice King, who repeatedly stalks Finn and Jake because he's lonely and wants them to hang out with him, and do things such as read them his fanfiction, and watch secret tapes with them.
  • In the episode "Hitman," the Ice King stalks Finn and Jake at their house to protect them from the hitman he accidentally hired. (He thought that a "hitman" is a man who literally hits and punches people, as the Ice King wanted petty revenge, not deadly vengeance.) In the process, he follows them around and breaks into their house.
  • Lemongrab repeatedly breaks into the Candy Castle to watch the candy people sleep in the episode "You Made Me!". He does this because his castle has no citizens, and he is desperately lonely and sad.
  • The Ice Queen stalks Fionna to get to Prince Gumball. While the Ice Queen is a stalker with a crush, she was stalking Gumball's crush, not Gumball. She spent most of the episode trying to kill Fionna.
  • Finn sometimes.
    Finn: I watch you while you sleep!
    • And the ending of "New Frontier." "I will never leave your side for the rest of our lives!"
  • Finn and Princess Bubblegum do this to Lemongrab in "Too Young." They stalk him around the Candy Castle to play pranks on him.
  • Marceline does this sometimes, mostly to deliberately frighten or annoy people, and in a friendly, teasing manner.
  • The squirrel from "The Duke," who so desperately wants Jake to print his letters in his newspaper column. "Princess Potluck" revealed the squirrel is still stalking Jake, five seasons later.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: "The Sale" shows Gumball and Darwin to have an obsessive and stalker-esque Hero Worship of Mr. Robinson. When they find out Mr. Robinson is moving away, Gumball asks to take a lock of his hair to cook and eat so that Mr. Robinson will be a part of him forever.
• As Told by Ginger:
  • Ginger's best friend Dodie is somewhat obsessed with her. She even has a Ginger wig for whatever reason.
  • Blake is very interested in Carl and sometimes acts like this.
• Batman: The Animated Series
  • Poison Ivy is this towards Harvey Dent in "Pretty Poison". Whatever affection Ivy showed him was entirely disingenious. She merely wanted to get close enough to string along Harvey for a little while before "sealing his fate." The Wayne/Dent penitentiary headline she kept hung in her greenhouse for 5 years underscores this.
  • The episode "Joker's Favor" has the Joker following a man named Charlie around after he got into a fight with him on the road. Joker promised to spare Charlie's life if he would provide him a favor in return. Ever since then, Joker has been monitoring Charlie for years. Charlie learns that Joker has never stopped following him when the villain finally asks for his favor.
• Bob's Burgers:
  • Millie Frock is a Creepy Child who is obsessed with becoming Louise Belcher's best friend by any means necessary. In "The Silence of the Louise" we see she's gone so far as to remodel her bedroom so it looks almost exactly like Louise's.
  • Teddy in some episodes veers into this territory (if you don't think that he has a crush on Bob, but there is some evidence that he does). For example, he has Bob's anniversary, birthstone, and food allergies on his phone. However, how extreme Teddy's behavior is depends on the episode and he's still Bob's friend.
• In The Boondocks, Lamilton Taeshawn, a psychopathic delinquent, is constantly being stalked by his former school counselor (turned vigilante) Dr. Doomis. Doomis knows how evil Lamilton really is, and obsessively follows around the kid, to try and prevent him from killing people someday. It got to the point that Taeshawn's grandmother filed a restraining order against Doomis.
• In her final appearance in ChalkZone, it's revealed that Terry has been stalking Rudy and Penny for months while gathering information regarding the chalk world. Even Vinnie, who hates the two children as much as Terry does, finds this creepy.
• In Danny Phantom, Vlad may be a Stalker with a Crush for Maddie, but he is equally willing to spy on and learn everything possible about her son Danny, who he'd just love to have as a son himself.
• Darkwing Duck, "Darkly Dawns the Duck". From the moment he crashes through Launchpad's ceiling during an opening chase with Bulba, Darkwing cannot get rid of the pilot. Launchpad isn't in love with Darkwing; he's just a fanboy who wants to make a good impression on his favorite real-life superhero. Darkwing ultimately finds this to be a positive thing as Launchpad proves to be the only source of help he has, given that he's alienated everybody else.
• Nancy's fantasy in the Fancy Nancy episode "Mon Amie.... Grace?" turns Grace into this where, because she thinks she and Nancy are best friends, she follows her everywhere, even in the bathroom and closet.
• Futurama:
  • Bender to Calculon. He was even Calculon's "Official Stalker" at one point.
  • Two mutants have been stalking Leela all her life, as shown in Leela's Homeworld. They plaster her picture in their entire house, complete with a Stalker Shrine. It's eventually revealed that they are Leela's parents, and have been watching over her from the shadows.
• In Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, X the Eliminator's obsession with getting Harvey's crest has led him to become this, although it sometimes does straddle the line between this and the 'with a crush' option, given the decent amount of Ho Yay on X's part.
• Kaeloo: Nombril is one of these to her older brother, Stumpy. Stumpy laments that he can never take a nap, read a comic book, or even use the bathroom in peace because Nombril is always following him everywhere.
• King of the Hill: Dale Gribble monitors everyone because he's a Conspiracy Theorist who assumes that everyone's out to get him.
• In Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Mao Mao spends an episode stalking a Sweetie-Pie when he makes it very apparent that he's not impressed with Mao Mao's heroism or anything he does.
• In Minuscule, the small spider stalks the fly much as in the image above.
• Pinkie Pie becomes this multiple times in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, but given that she's stalking her friends it's fairly similar in themes to the stalker WITH a crush.
  • "Griffon The Brush-Off" has Pinkie Pie following Rainbow Dash around a fair bit but in a fairly cheerful way. Dash finds this slightly annoying at worst, but also amusing.
  • "Party of One" features a less pleasant variety when Pinkie's friends seem to be making excuses for why they aren't coming to her latest party. It turns out they were only avoiding her to throw her a surprise party and didn't want the surprise ruined.
  • In "Feeling Pinkie Keen", Twilight stalks Pinkie Pie from the bushes (with binoculars and a safari hat, no less) in order to conduct a scientific study of her behavior. Pinkie is perfectly aware of what Twilight is doing but plays along anyway.
  • On a darker note, after her defeat in the season 5 premiere "The Cutie Map", Starlight Glimmer was spotted in the background of a few episodes, apparently following Twilight Sparkle around. In the season 5 finale "The Cutie Re-mark", Starlight shows up in person to seek her revenge.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Dendy shows an interest in Radicles, figuring out his morning schedule and watching him through his window in "KO's Video Channel". Word of God explains that she does this because both Rad and herself come from unusual family backgrounds, Rad is unashamed of his background, and Dendy looks up to him because of that.
• Ogo from Robot and Monster is a good example of a really obsessive one. He's obsessed with both Robot and Monster and is their neighbor. He considers them to be his best friends, but the two are terrified of him. Despite that, Monster considers him his friend, while Robot doesn't.
• In Season 5 of Samurai Jack, The Omen is this to Jack, but only so he'd exploit Jack's despair and finally goad Jack to suicide; more specifically, Seppuku.
• The Simpsons:
  • Burns goes broke because of his Yes-Man underlings and is convinced that hiring Lisa would get him back on track what with her integrity. However, Lisa refuses to work for him, because she is convinced he does not deserve to be helped. Burns, in turn, follows her around in a very stalkerish manner, begging that she take the job.
  • Sideshow Bob is obsessed with murderously avenging himself on Bart for getting him sent to prison and spends quite a bit of time stalking him and his family. This gets a role reversal in "Brother From Another Series" when Bob has reformed, apparently sincerely, but Bart doesn't buy it and dogs his footsteps trying to figure out what kind of evil scheme he's cooking up.
  • Homer in "Homer the Great" when he realizes Lenny and Carl are shifty about where they go on Wednesdays (to a Freemason-like organization that almost everybody but him already knows about, as it happens). They haven't been his first victims:
    Marge: Homer, don't start stalking people again. It's so illegal. Remember when you were stalking Charles Kuralt because you thought he dug up your garden?
    Homer: Well, something did!
• SpongeBob SquarePants is often depicted as such around Squidward. He, by his own admission, was spying on Squidward through the window in "House Fancy," and Squidward's threat to "get the cops down here again" implies it's not the first time SpongeBob has done so. Then there's "Squid's Visit," where he's able to copy the interior of Squidward's house perfectly, right down to knowing the exact contents of his medicine cabinet. This got toned down slightly in the post-HD episodes.
• Darth Maul is this to 17-year-old Ezra Bridger in the third season of Star Wars Rebels in an attempt to make Ezra his apprentice.
• Soundwave and his minion Laserbeak from Transformers: Prime act as the eyes and ears of the Decepticons. He and his pet know and see everything that occurs on the flagship, including a certain Decepticon's plots of betrayal. However, he is more interested in spying on the Autobots and locating exactly where they have set up base.

Real Life

• Even though it's frequently used as a comedic plot device in various works of fiction, Japan has a serious problem with stalking which ends up in tragic consequences in many cases. It's worsened by the lack of police involvement and rampant sexism due to traditional patriarchal values. More on this here.
• You can now hire a monster clown to stalk small children a week before their birthday. He'll leave phone calls, post notes about how he's watching them and how he'll attack them, and on their birthday, he'll smash a cake in their face.
• Professional stalkers only go after deer.
• Some theories posit that continuously going after prey until it collapses from exhaustion is what allowed humans to become the dominant species on the planet.

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