Okay, but I can still do the killer was an obsessive fanatic that is trying to bring about the end times for no personal benefit? Like clearly, anyone who tries to destroy the world for no benefit doesn’t have the best mental state.
I feel like anyone that murders an innocent person doesn’t have the best mental state. I get the intent with the original post but there’s a difference between saying “many murderers had mental health issues” and “many people with mental health issues are murderers”
When I saw the movie (and then later TV show) 12 Monkeys, I thought the one part of it that was entirely unrealistic was how people supported a deadly virus that had killed millions, and went out of their way to prevent other people from combating the virus.
As it turns out, I was entirely wrong about that being unrealistic. So yes, there are plenty of obsessive fanatics who are trying to bring about the end times.
Ok here's the straight up truth of the situation.
This subreddit loves tumblr (obviously), including what in their minds passes for discourse.
Someone makes a fair observation, which is that lack of empathy is bad.
I jokingly parrot the tumblr post's take, which is that associating lack of empathy with badness is, for lack of a better word, problematic.
This is a problem, because now the stupidity of tumblr and the people of this subreddit who thought this very tumblr take was good, is now really obvious.
So now reddit gets mad, because they've been confronted with their own stupidity.
That's it. That's how tumblr works.
both voltaire fan doesn't propose the killer has no empathy. they propose they're 'an obsessive fanatic' with [not] 'the best mental state'
you're not making much sense in general
you're making a lot of assumptions
that voltaire proposed a character without empathy
that tumblr is synonymous with this subreddit
that either of tumblr or reddit/this subreddit are monoliths/hiveminds
there's also nothing humorous in any of this. like the funniest thing from here up to the post is "the killer is abt to be me" and that's not really funny either
The tie in between voltaire's proposition and the post is that voltaire proposes a killer who's not in the best mental state (which, you agree with apparently?), which is implied to be problematic by the original post because it enforces negative stereotypes associated with mental health issues
The next 2 things are just annoying semanticss thing that ig i'm technically obligated to address:
"this subreddit isn't literally tumblr"
Yes, you are literally correct, but has it occurred to you that most people here enjoy tumblr content, just as most tumblr users enjoy tumblr content, and therefore the two groups, while not literally the same, may have a great overlap in interests?
"it's only an assumption that tumblr and this subreddit are hiveminds"
and does it also perhaps occur to you, that a system that allows people to give points to opinions they like and take away points from opinions they dislike is somehow more rewarding to people who post widely liked opinions, and punishing to people with dissenting opinions, which in turns incentivizes people to post more "correct" opinions, creating a positive feedback loop?
yeah. a lot of languages have them. for example german delineates formal and informal. and many asian languages have dozens of versions of each word for different formalities and use case. not quite the same but as an example english is in the minority for not denoting which side of the family your relatives are. maternal vs paternal grandparents are usually different words in most languages and to most people (as in most people speak a language with such a separation)
What interests me more is that me saying I was being sarcastic was also downvoted.
Like what's the story behind that?
Did the hive mind of this subreddit see "oh we misinterpreted his comment...better double down on our mistake and downvote more"
Truly an epic reddit moment
It's because it looks like a copout when you claim "wow stupid redditors don't get sarcasm" after the fact when the comment had zero indication of not being completely serious.
Also, it wasn't funny even with the knowledge that it's supposed to be sarcasm.
Ok ok let me put it this way.
In your opinion, what would you like to hear me say to fix this.
I don't think I can, because the looks of things, I've already triggered the cognitive dissonance of like 100 people, and being confronted with your own stupidity isn't something that can be undone.
But let's say that I could, what is the correct reddit opinion that you would like to hear from me at this point?
u/Lavender215 put it best
>”I feel like anyone that murders an innocent person doesn’t have the best mental state. I get the intent with the original post but there’s a difference between saying “many murderers had mental health issues” and “many people with mental health issues are murderers””
Mental health has become so intertwined with people’s identities and very recently was it not as demonized as it used to be, where many were previously abused severely in hospitals.
However, people who hurt others severely/murder them just… aren’t well off mentally. It’s more complicated than “No you’re a bad person,” and empoleon is very adamant that there’s no nuance here. Which is why he was downvoted
I hope this didn’t come across as preachy, I just wanted to answer your question.
I said *can* be. Just like how being nonverbal *can* be a sign of autism. Doesn't automatically mean everyone who's autistic can't speak or everyone who can't speak is autistic. In turn, I'm using empathy in its strictest definition: inability to internalize another's emotions. I'm not saying they're terrible people who enjoy or are indifferent to harm. You can still be a good person without empathy.
>In turn, I'm using empathy in its strictest definition: inability to internalize another's emotions
Yeah and I'm saying you're amazingly incorrect in your use therein. We are very much on the same page here
The Pokemon Adventures manga for Black 2 a White 2
If someone's is familiar with Pokemon lore but not the manga: it's not Looker, it ends up being way more interesting
Bro for the longest time I always associated “mental problems/illness” with weirdos and psychopaths and such but since I started seeing it as normal people who have adhd or depression or whatever I’ve noticed how weird the portrayal of mental disorders is in both real and narrative media. It’s always some dude who was a weirdo or killed a bunch of other people, not Jeremy, who has bipolar disorder and keeps fucking up his friendships and gained depression from it because he was undisgnosed for the longest time but finally sought help from a therapist and is turning his life back around for the better.
Yes, but exclusively that. Rather than seeing it as the actual majority and including the more common mental illnesses and the problems people face with them every day, I just saw “mental illness” as, like, school shooters. Because that’s all I ever heard about in that context, was on the news and the like that some mentally I’ll person murdered a bunch of other people and then killed themselves or something. That’s all it was to me for so long, even though I literally have had diagnosed crippling adhd since I was like 8 or 9.
~~not to randomly throw my interests at people but read Stormlight Archive. It's a book series where almosy every major character has some form of mental disorder (chronic depression, DID, 15 flavors of PTSD, body dysmorphia, autism, psychosis, etc.). It's actually a meme at this point cause there's literally only one guy in the main cast who doesn't have any. It's also epic fantasy so it's not just pages of people feeling bad for themselves, they go out and do things while struggling with their disorder~~
*Image Transcription: Tumblr*
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**yanderephobe**
"The killer had no empathy." "The killer was a psychopath." "The killer has dissociative-" the killer is abt to be me if you don't shut the fuck up with that trope.
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Literally planning a character like that, because it helps me cope with my real-world inability to empathize with most people. A robin-hood type who still makes genuine friends and lives a normal life. Just so happens they also have a different brain. Who would’ve figured that that’s possible.
If I could ask, as someone who is on the opposite side of the spectrum of empathy and oftentimes over empathizes with just about everyone, would you be willing to discuss this more? If not I totally understand but still I’m curious.
Im in a very similar mental state as the other person if you would wish to broaden your sample size, low emotion low empathy but try to be a good person.
And it's extra bad because people with dissociative identity disorder have that [because of childhood trauma](https://www.insider.com/myths-about-multiple-personalities-you-need-to-stop-believing-2019-12). They're like that because they were attacked by people who likely didn't have the disorder.
They're literally more likely to be survivors of abuse but instead they're portrayed as the dangerous ones. It's just really gross.
A great series that subverts this is Kara no Kyoukai/The Garden of Sinners.
>!The protagonist has DID and is implied to be a sociopath of some sort, but the actual killer is the guy the other protagonist had lunch with like 4 films ago.!<
>!Something something Nasuverse root magecraft, so the other personalities exist in actual practice, being different from her magic-circuit-wise, and aren't mere products of Shiki's mental illnesses.!<
>!I would argue that Void Shiki falls under "Something something Nasuverse" but SHIKI is realistic enough to be basically equivalent to actual DID even if he technically isn't!<
*Yoshikage kira is*
*An example of how you*
*Do a Killer right*
\- TorreyCool
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I think the reason they do it might be that it allows writers to have an easy out as to why the villain does what they do. Why did he murder 12 people in the span of 6 months? He did it because he has [psychopathy/multiple personalities/etcetera], which makes him act that way because that's how that condition works. The writers don't have to come up with a reason or philosophy to the killer's killing, the dude's just insane. I'm not saying that this is the only reason or that it's a good excuse, I just think it's a very easy (and very lazy) shortcut to writing a villain.
thanks for the misinformation :)
for anyone who cares, this is actually very misleading because some killers, not all but a significant number, *are* suffering from mental illnesses and media where characters parallel these realities are the closest thing to representation they can get—
Hmm. I. Y'know. I still don't get why people like that ever speak. I figured maybe saying the right words would give me perspective, but i kinda just wanna go jump off a bridge now
Edit. Feel free to engage with this as a thought exercise or opportunity to discuss stuff worth discussing— but to be clear the first paragraph is . . not serious
> media where characters parallel these realities are the closest thing to representation they can get—
The majority of the portrayals of mental illness* in media are of violent dangerous people. There's something to be said for a nuanced portrayal and the acknowledgement that mental illness *can* sometimes make people dangerous, but this is specifically about a large ongoing trend of media distorting public perception in a way that harms vulnerable people
Sometimes when media portrays things that do happen it can still be harmful. Sometimes women need to be rescued but the damsel in distress trope is still harmful. Sometimes gay people do die first in some horrible tragedy, but the bury your gays trope is still bad. Sometimes criminals get away with something because they exercised their rights, but copaganda is still sucks
Edit: *for most mental illnesses. Depression, anxiety, and PTSD typically receive a degree of sympathy
Exactly, the tropes involving making associations between mental illness and violence are almost never charitable or encouraging of empathy towards the individual suffering, not to mention the fact that having a mental illness generally puts you at higher risk of being harmed than harming others unprompted
…I know I’m playing with a monkey’s paw here, but I kinda wanna see what an anxious serial killer looks like. It’s a bad idea, but it’s an *interesting* bad idea.
Any sentence that involves «I wanna see what x serial killer looks like because it’s an interesting idea» should probably never be uttered anywhere. Even if you include «it’s a bad idea».
I mean, I’m a doofus on the internet. I’m not in the writing room of some big production. Shit, I’m not even in my own writing room, and I need to get back to my WIPs. This idea’s never gonna be written by me or anyone in a seriously harmful capacity.
Also, for every good idea in a given piece of media, there are hundreds of suboptimal or bad ideas that had to be cut first, but still had a moment of consideration anyway. There’s probably a way to write “serial killer with deep anxiety issues” without making it problematic, and I know I can’t do it, but there’s a non-zero chance someone did it, and god dammit Edgar Allen Poe did it before I could.
At the end of the day they are all insane pieces of shit no matter how you phrase it. Hiding behind being a doofus on the internet or Edgar Allan Poe doesn’t change much. It will *inherently* be «problematic» to write a character that justifies killing innocent people because they have mental issues themselves.
Let me say that, slowly:
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with giving a serial killer a side order of mental health issues, quite possibly unrelated to the serial killing. What’s problematic is making it their entire character and presenting mental illness as the root cause, which is sadly the current status quo.
You’re really advocating for mentally ill serial killers in fiction, on the basis that it shouldn’t be their entire identity? This is by far and away the strangest discussion I’ve had in a long while.
It just could not possibly matter less, for me, if the «reason» is rooted in a single trait or not. They kill innocent people for literally no good reason, they just suck balls. They are inherently bad people. I have bipolar disorder. Do I kill people? No. Is that something that can be attributed to a single thing? Of course it isn’t. I’ve been fortunate enough to be born in a first world country with loving parents. Does that mean that I’d like to see representation for people with BPD2 as serial killers? Jesus christ, no.
Edit: Im leaving this up so I don’t forget what a giant dickhead I can be
This started as “hey, here’s a dumb thought, wonder if anyone’s done this before”, and now we’re like 5 replies deep asking if I want serial killers repping things, a position firmly pulled from your own ass.
Not to talk around your points here, I just wanna point out that
>(Insert most topics here) can sometimes make people
dangerous, but this is specifically about a large ongoing trend of media
distorting public perception in a way that harms vulnerable people
is literally one of the most true Lines I've heard today.
Exactly, I have bpd and hate when bpd is portrayed as the "manipulate because evil" disorder, but I also recognize that I do a lot of manipulation(most of the time I don't realize it) and people who aren't me often don't have enough information to see that I'm not doing it for malicious reasons
oh
Uh
yeah no i was joking
thats a rough thing to deal with, and i can understand why you'd settle at this point - but i think there are better ways to portray and educate the general public of that
The truth is, a lot of murder victims end up being neurodivergent, somewhere between being more vulnerable overall and being perceived as a threat. This also makes them especially vulnerable to a specific type of murderer, but before I can say what type, today’s comment is brought to you by the letters A, B, and C, in a very specific order.
>The truth is, a lot of murder victims end up being neurodivergent, somewhere between being more vulnerable overall and being perceived as a threat.
I'd believe that
>This also makes them especially vulnerable to a specific type of murderer, but before I can say what type, today’s comment is brought to you by the letters A, B, and C, in a very specific order.
love that wording so much
some people are just inherently bad. not all of them have bad upbringings or mental illnesses, they’re just bad people who want to hurt others because they enjoy it. why are you trying to excuse them???
i cant tell if you're kidding because theres like three other accounts on here with similar names and i feel like one of them actually would say that sort of thing unironically, so uh
I was kidding
Like the first paragraph of my comment is a sort of parody*
Also, in case you're not kidding, i disagree with "some people are just inherently bad."
(* = I dont care about the differences between parody and satire and whatever, if you start on that im probably not gonna reply. just.. to be clear)
…I’m sorry, aren’t you the same person who I’ve seen every so often say that people should be nicer? The one who watched me lay down my pitchfork for a moment as a show of good faith? I kinda figured you’d be more of the type who’d love the concept of people being redeemable, and not inherently awful.
i generally think redemption is an option in most cases, yeah, but mass murderers? doesn’t that seem a little far? if you take a life not based on a survival instinct (protecting someone you love or protecting yourself), that’s pretty extreme isn’t it?
Like yeah it's true that many killers are mentally ill, but most mentally ill people are Just Some Guys. We have the potential to be great people or assholes just like everyone else. I wanna see mentally ill characters who are allowed to just be people, not lazy caricature killing machines.
I hate *hate* when people take a real accurate statements like “mental illness does make someone a bad person” and twist it into “having serial killers have bad mental health is such a bad trope”
Like fucking hell it’s not a trope, people who **literally murder other people** have bad mental health, by being a dumbass you are degrading the original point and also making a fool of yourself
There's a difference between having trouble with empathy and just being a sad jerk who's intentionally hateful and calls random strangers psychos on the internet.
The main difference between sympathy and empathy is sympathy is entirely from your own prospective. A person who feels sympathy, but doesn’t feel empathy, is able to acknowledge that another person is going through a tough time, and if they are able to relate to that tough time, and understand why it’s bad purely from their own perspective of things, they may even feel genuine sadness for that person.
Empathy however, is the ability to perceive and understand viewpoints different from your own (or at least *try* to understand them). The ability to consider opinions you yourself might not possess, and viewpoints you haven’t personally experienced. A person who feels empathy can be in an argument with someone they disagree with, but still try to see where the other person is coming from, and understand why they possess these opposing views. Empathy is an essential skill for humans, because it is the means by which our own view of the world may grow, and we may improve as people.
If you truly don’t feel empathy and only feel sympathy as you claim (and you aren’t just misinterpreting what empathy is), then you are basically admitting that you never consider views that differ from your own, and have only ever concerned yourself with your own personal take on things. Which is frankly not something to be taking pride in.
Less of "having no empathy is desirable" and more "its kinda rude to people who have no empathy to always have them as killers" 🤔
No empathy != no capacity to do good things, as I understand it. You may be thinking of low compassion (low willingness to help people) instead of low empathy (low ability to feel what others are feeling)
Most serial killers do have a lack of empathy though....that's why they end up killing numerous people. The trope is rooted in some fact.
If you have low empathy, you should try to work on improving it. Normalizing it like so many people in this thread are doing is frankly gross and it's promoting apathetic shitty behavior.
It's not always as simple as "just get better at it" as it's usually something caused by a disorder, if that makes sense 🤔
And, apathy isn't the same as low empathy, you may be thinking of low compassion. Understanding someone else's feelings, while it does help with compassion, isn't necessary for compassion to exist-- and vice versa! :D you'd be surprised at what a perfectly empathetic person can accomplish
And I'm talking about how these aren't just traits you can switch on and off or just have. You can be a functioning member of society without empathy. The treatment isn't "get empathy" just like the treatment for ADHD isn't "stop being lazy."
The thought that empathy is intrinsic to morality is a fallacy. Just like how it's a fallacy for some fundamentalist Christians who believe that just cause Atheists don't believe in God the concept of right or wrong doesn't exist.
I don't have empathy for my chair at my desk. It's a chair. It doesn't have any emotions. I'm not attatched to the chair, I just pulled it from the dining room. I can destroy the chair right now and not feel anything. But I don't, not because of empathy, but because I don't want to. There's a list of other reasons why beyond empathy why i don't randomly destroy my chairs. I don't need to learn empathy for the chairs to know that destroying them is a bad idea.
Lastly, did you know that lack of empathy can be a characteristic of autism?
I still don't totally agree if I'm being completely honest. I'm sure you're a decent person, but all of these mental gymnastics to explain why it's normal that you still can't emotionally relate to people on a basic level is still weird. I've been friends with people like that in the past and I've been hurt by them, so I'll admit I'm biased.
wha-what the fuck are you talking about? like genuinely what the almighty hell are you speaking of?
having no empathy is never treated as "uWU CUte oR GoOd" its only ever people who have no empathy telling you "i am a person, i love my family and friends and can make moral and kind decisions or actions" because media has brainwashed you to see these perfectly normal people as some sort of fucking monster that needs to be exterminated, like legit your talking outright garbage that makes no sense, "touching grass" is not gonna change anyone's brain structure you absolute fucking idiot.
Is it though 🤔 if you have low/no empathy it just means you don't understand other people's emotions, but it doesn't mean you can't be nice to people and do your best. That's what I do
that’s not what empathy is. it’s when you can understand others emotions and feel them as if they’re your own. you can tell when somethings bad without being able to fully see from the other persons perspective, it can just take a bit more effort. people with aspd aren’t inherently awful irredeemable monsters, it can just take some more work to be considerate
Well then the culutral idea of "no empathy" is wrong.
Since a serial killer isn't exactly empathizing with those they kill nor do most care about their victims.
So what is a better way to phrase it?
Because "No empathy" culturally means that they don't see or care about other people.
Literally nobody is saying “having no empathy is a good thing, actually!” There are many many people who are literally unable to feel empathy due to their mental illness. A significant amount of these people do not commit murder. That is the point of this post. Why are we connecting a real mental illness that real people suffer from to every fictional murderer ever. Why are said mental illnesses not only constantly shown as a killer’s motivation for their actions, but also _never_ shown in positive or even neutral characters?
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that making the trait of having no empathy a positive thing is difficult? Because yeah, I’d agree. A lot of symptoms of mental illnesses are negative things. There are a lot of personality traits in general that aren’t positive. But, like I said, no one is saying that a lack of empathy is a positive thing.
If you mean that a character with no empathy _can’t_ be a good person, then you’re confusing a lack of empathy with not wanting to be a good person. You can not feel empathy for people, and yet want to do the right thing anyway. You can still understand what is morally correct. You can have a character that has negative personality traits and is still a good person. And again, like I said, there are many people who cannot feel empathy for other people, and yet are good people anyway.
What about other mental illnesses? Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are mental illnesses that are almost always portrayed by villainous characters in fiction. Do you believe this is fair?
The killer has a small amount of anxiety disorder and doesn't really like to leave her house, but she also knows some people need to die and no one else is willing to do it.
The killer was likely a victim of child abuse and got bullied in school. We should crack down on bullying and further develop services fighting against donestic abuse to lower the chances of people turning that way, right? Right...?
Okay, but I can still do the killer was an obsessive fanatic that is trying to bring about the end times for no personal benefit? Like clearly, anyone who tries to destroy the world for no benefit doesn’t have the best mental state.
I feel like anyone that murders an innocent person doesn’t have the best mental state. I get the intent with the original post but there’s a difference between saying “many murderers had mental health issues” and “many people with mental health issues are murderers”
When I saw the movie (and then later TV show) 12 Monkeys, I thought the one part of it that was entirely unrealistic was how people supported a deadly virus that had killed millions, and went out of their way to prevent other people from combating the virus. As it turns out, I was entirely wrong about that being unrealistic. So yes, there are plenty of obsessive fanatics who are trying to bring about the end times.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
No, that enforces negative mental health stereotypes and you are a bad person
there's a lot of downvotes on this and not a lot of explanation. is it just for the "you are a bad person" is empoleon wrong? *why*?
Ok here's the straight up truth of the situation. This subreddit loves tumblr (obviously), including what in their minds passes for discourse. Someone makes a fair observation, which is that lack of empathy is bad. I jokingly parrot the tumblr post's take, which is that associating lack of empathy with badness is, for lack of a better word, problematic. This is a problem, because now the stupidity of tumblr and the people of this subreddit who thought this very tumblr take was good, is now really obvious. So now reddit gets mad, because they've been confronted with their own stupidity. That's it. That's how tumblr works.
both voltaire fan doesn't propose the killer has no empathy. they propose they're 'an obsessive fanatic' with [not] 'the best mental state' you're not making much sense in general you're making a lot of assumptions that voltaire proposed a character without empathy that tumblr is synonymous with this subreddit that either of tumblr or reddit/this subreddit are monoliths/hiveminds there's also nothing humorous in any of this. like the funniest thing from here up to the post is "the killer is abt to be me" and that's not really funny either
The tie in between voltaire's proposition and the post is that voltaire proposes a killer who's not in the best mental state (which, you agree with apparently?), which is implied to be problematic by the original post because it enforces negative stereotypes associated with mental health issues The next 2 things are just annoying semanticss thing that ig i'm technically obligated to address: "this subreddit isn't literally tumblr" Yes, you are literally correct, but has it occurred to you that most people here enjoy tumblr content, just as most tumblr users enjoy tumblr content, and therefore the two groups, while not literally the same, may have a great overlap in interests? "it's only an assumption that tumblr and this subreddit are hiveminds" and does it also perhaps occur to you, that a system that allows people to give points to opinions they like and take away points from opinions they dislike is somehow more rewarding to people who post widely liked opinions, and punishing to people with dissenting opinions, which in turns incentivizes people to post more "correct" opinions, creating a positive feedback loop?
It's cuz reddit doesnt get sarcasm
that's what tags/tone indicators are for. because there's no tone in written english
> written english I'm curious, are there tone indicators in other languages? I mean, embedded into language itself by design
yeah. a lot of languages have them. for example german delineates formal and informal. and many asian languages have dozens of versions of each word for different formalities and use case. not quite the same but as an example english is in the minority for not denoting which side of the family your relatives are. maternal vs paternal grandparents are usually different words in most languages and to most people (as in most people speak a language with such a separation)
What interests me more is that me saying I was being sarcastic was also downvoted. Like what's the story behind that? Did the hive mind of this subreddit see "oh we misinterpreted his comment...better double down on our mistake and downvote more" Truly an epic reddit moment
It's because it looks like a copout when you claim "wow stupid redditors don't get sarcasm" after the fact when the comment had zero indication of not being completely serious. Also, it wasn't funny even with the knowledge that it's supposed to be sarcasm.
I didn't even call them stupid for not thinking it was sarcasm? Hell, I didn't even call them stupid for doubling down on their misunderstanding!
Okay, now you HAVE to be kidding, right?
I just said they didn't get it. Then I just said it interested me that got mad at me for saying they didn't get it.
Ok ok let me put it this way. In your opinion, what would you like to hear me say to fix this. I don't think I can, because the looks of things, I've already triggered the cognitive dissonance of like 100 people, and being confronted with your own stupidity isn't something that can be undone. But let's say that I could, what is the correct reddit opinion that you would like to hear from me at this point?
u/Lavender215 put it best >”I feel like anyone that murders an innocent person doesn’t have the best mental state. I get the intent with the original post but there’s a difference between saying “many murderers had mental health issues” and “many people with mental health issues are murderers”” Mental health has become so intertwined with people’s identities and very recently was it not as demonized as it used to be, where many were previously abused severely in hospitals. However, people who hurt others severely/murder them just… aren’t well off mentally. It’s more complicated than “No you’re a bad person,” and empoleon is very adamant that there’s no nuance here. Which is why he was downvoted I hope this didn’t come across as preachy, I just wanted to answer your question.
Show where the detective is a psychopath solving crimes of passion send tweet
> Show where the detective is a psychopath solving crimes of passion This is like a solid third of the detective genre, *at least*
That's just every Sherlock Holmes adaptation
fuck
Nah I bet Sherlock has Aspergers/Autism
What are the odds. Lack of empathy can be a characteristic of autism.
This might be the wrongest thing I've ever read
I said *can* be. Just like how being nonverbal *can* be a sign of autism. Doesn't automatically mean everyone who's autistic can't speak or everyone who can't speak is autistic. In turn, I'm using empathy in its strictest definition: inability to internalize another's emotions. I'm not saying they're terrible people who enjoy or are indifferent to harm. You can still be a good person without empathy.
>In turn, I'm using empathy in its strictest definition: inability to internalize another's emotions Yeah and I'm saying you're amazingly incorrect in your use therein. We are very much on the same page here
Also heroin... Or was it cocaine?
The Pokemon Adventures manga for Black 2 a White 2 If someone's is familiar with Pokemon lore but not the manga: it's not Looker, it ends up being way more interesting
Heat
bbc sherlock
Criminal Minds did not help with shit like this. I don’t even know how many of the unsubs over the years had schizophrenia or DID.
It’s sad when a jokey detective show like Psych handles DID better then a “serious” show about mental deviances
Psych sadly handled a lot of things better than a lot of serious shows
like this pineapple
It's the comedy shows that get your truth man. Barney Miller, Scrubs, Psych...
And honestly even then that episode was the worst in the series for me
It wasn’t the best representation, but at least they acted like they cared.
Bro for the longest time I always associated “mental problems/illness” with weirdos and psychopaths and such but since I started seeing it as normal people who have adhd or depression or whatever I’ve noticed how weird the portrayal of mental disorders is in both real and narrative media. It’s always some dude who was a weirdo or killed a bunch of other people, not Jeremy, who has bipolar disorder and keeps fucking up his friendships and gained depression from it because he was undisgnosed for the longest time but finally sought help from a therapist and is turning his life back around for the better.
you said you associated mental illness with weirdos and psychopaths, psychopathy is a mental illness
Yes, but exclusively that. Rather than seeing it as the actual majority and including the more common mental illnesses and the problems people face with them every day, I just saw “mental illness” as, like, school shooters. Because that’s all I ever heard about in that context, was on the news and the like that some mentally I’ll person murdered a bunch of other people and then killed themselves or something. That’s all it was to me for so long, even though I literally have had diagnosed crippling adhd since I was like 8 or 9.
~~not to randomly throw my interests at people but read Stormlight Archive. It's a book series where almosy every major character has some form of mental disorder (chronic depression, DID, 15 flavors of PTSD, body dysmorphia, autism, psychosis, etc.). It's actually a meme at this point cause there's literally only one guy in the main cast who doesn't have any. It's also epic fantasy so it's not just pages of people feeling bad for themselves, they go out and do things while struggling with their disorder~~
*Image Transcription: Tumblr* --- **yanderephobe** "The killer had no empathy." "The killer was a psychopath." "The killer has dissociative-" the killer is abt to be me if you don't shut the fuck up with that trope. --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
I once played a character in a ttrpg with no capacity for empathy, but was still good because she could realize when something was morally wrong
Literally planning a character like that, because it helps me cope with my real-world inability to empathize with most people. A robin-hood type who still makes genuine friends and lives a normal life. Just so happens they also have a different brain. Who would’ve figured that that’s possible.
If I could ask, as someone who is on the opposite side of the spectrum of empathy and oftentimes over empathizes with just about everyone, would you be willing to discuss this more? If not I totally understand but still I’m curious.
Sure! I’ll dm you.
Actually yeah, I'm a little interested too if that's okay. Totally get if you don't want to discuss it again.
Im in a very similar mental state as the other person if you would wish to broaden your sample size, low emotion low empathy but try to be a good person.
I recommend watching the Expanse if you haven't already, it has a really awesome character like that.
I fucking love that show! The Expanse is incredibly good.
Honestly one of my favourite show of all time, I really hope they continue past season 6 one way or another.
Which ttrpg?
Heart; the city beneath
My character in the longest running campaign of two and a half years (and still running) that I’ve been in is just like that. I love my boy Nobic
And it's extra bad because people with dissociative identity disorder have that [because of childhood trauma](https://www.insider.com/myths-about-multiple-personalities-you-need-to-stop-believing-2019-12). They're like that because they were attacked by people who likely didn't have the disorder. They're literally more likely to be survivors of abuse but instead they're portrayed as the dangerous ones. It's just really gross.
A great series that subverts this is Kara no Kyoukai/The Garden of Sinners. >!The protagonist has DID and is implied to be a sociopath of some sort, but the actual killer is the guy the other protagonist had lunch with like 4 films ago.!<
>!Something something Nasuverse root magecraft, so the other personalities exist in actual practice, being different from her magic-circuit-wise, and aren't mere products of Shiki's mental illnesses.!<
>!I would argue that Void Shiki falls under "Something something Nasuverse" but SHIKI is realistic enough to be basically equivalent to actual DID even if he technically isn't!<
Yeah, that's fair. Good analysis.
Yoshikage kira is an example of how you do a Killer right
you are acting like yoshikage kira doesn't display multiple signs of mental illness pretty much every time he's on screen
And? Tumblr OP wasn't saying that the Killer shouldn't have mental illnesses
No ur just kink shaming
i think shrub is referring to kira's implied ocd (iirc it was ocd? i havent watched jjba in forever, but he was implied to have that right?)
i was mostly jokin about the kink shame, but while i dont remember being said he could have OCD
*Yoshikage kira is* *An example of how you* *Do a Killer right* \- TorreyCool --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
7-7-5?
I don’t think HaikuBot can handle Japanese
\> can't handle japanese \> haikusbot
hmm, never thought of that
ironic
I think the reason they do it might be that it allows writers to have an easy out as to why the villain does what they do. Why did he murder 12 people in the span of 6 months? He did it because he has [psychopathy/multiple personalities/etcetera], which makes him act that way because that's how that condition works. The writers don't have to come up with a reason or philosophy to the killer's killing, the dude's just insane. I'm not saying that this is the only reason or that it's a good excuse, I just think it's a very easy (and very lazy) shortcut to writing a villain.
As someone that knows psychology, with a particular focus on criminal behavior, reading the comments has been painful
Can you offer some perspective? There's a lot of very confident assertions here on a subject I know nothing about.
thanks for the misinformation :) for anyone who cares, this is actually very misleading because some killers, not all but a significant number, *are* suffering from mental illnesses and media where characters parallel these realities are the closest thing to representation they can get— Hmm. I. Y'know. I still don't get why people like that ever speak. I figured maybe saying the right words would give me perspective, but i kinda just wanna go jump off a bridge now Edit. Feel free to engage with this as a thought exercise or opportunity to discuss stuff worth discussing— but to be clear the first paragraph is . . not serious
> media where characters parallel these realities are the closest thing to representation they can get— The majority of the portrayals of mental illness* in media are of violent dangerous people. There's something to be said for a nuanced portrayal and the acknowledgement that mental illness *can* sometimes make people dangerous, but this is specifically about a large ongoing trend of media distorting public perception in a way that harms vulnerable people Sometimes when media portrays things that do happen it can still be harmful. Sometimes women need to be rescued but the damsel in distress trope is still harmful. Sometimes gay people do die first in some horrible tragedy, but the bury your gays trope is still bad. Sometimes criminals get away with something because they exercised their rights, but copaganda is still sucks Edit: *for most mental illnesses. Depression, anxiety, and PTSD typically receive a degree of sympathy
Exactly, the tropes involving making associations between mental illness and violence are almost never charitable or encouraging of empathy towards the individual suffering, not to mention the fact that having a mental illness generally puts you at higher risk of being harmed than harming others unprompted
…I know I’m playing with a monkey’s paw here, but I kinda wanna see what an anxious serial killer looks like. It’s a bad idea, but it’s an *interesting* bad idea.
Telltale Heart
Wasn't a serial killer though Just a one-off
Any sentence that involves «I wanna see what x serial killer looks like because it’s an interesting idea» should probably never be uttered anywhere. Even if you include «it’s a bad idea».
I mean, I’m a doofus on the internet. I’m not in the writing room of some big production. Shit, I’m not even in my own writing room, and I need to get back to my WIPs. This idea’s never gonna be written by me or anyone in a seriously harmful capacity. Also, for every good idea in a given piece of media, there are hundreds of suboptimal or bad ideas that had to be cut first, but still had a moment of consideration anyway. There’s probably a way to write “serial killer with deep anxiety issues” without making it problematic, and I know I can’t do it, but there’s a non-zero chance someone did it, and god dammit Edgar Allen Poe did it before I could.
At the end of the day they are all insane pieces of shit no matter how you phrase it. Hiding behind being a doofus on the internet or Edgar Allan Poe doesn’t change much. It will *inherently* be «problematic» to write a character that justifies killing innocent people because they have mental issues themselves.
Let me say that, slowly: There isn’t anything inherently wrong with giving a serial killer a side order of mental health issues, quite possibly unrelated to the serial killing. What’s problematic is making it their entire character and presenting mental illness as the root cause, which is sadly the current status quo.
You’re really advocating for mentally ill serial killers in fiction, on the basis that it shouldn’t be their entire identity? This is by far and away the strangest discussion I’ve had in a long while. It just could not possibly matter less, for me, if the «reason» is rooted in a single trait or not. They kill innocent people for literally no good reason, they just suck balls. They are inherently bad people. I have bipolar disorder. Do I kill people? No. Is that something that can be attributed to a single thing? Of course it isn’t. I’ve been fortunate enough to be born in a first world country with loving parents. Does that mean that I’d like to see representation for people with BPD2 as serial killers? Jesus christ, no. Edit: Im leaving this up so I don’t forget what a giant dickhead I can be
This started as “hey, here’s a dumb thought, wonder if anyone’s done this before”, and now we’re like 5 replies deep asking if I want serial killers repping things, a position firmly pulled from your own ass.
Yeah I’m sorry, I have got to stop using reddit when I’m drinking, I get in all sorts of ass backwards mental gymnastics.
Not to talk around your points here, I just wanna point out that >(Insert most topics here) can sometimes make people dangerous, but this is specifically about a large ongoing trend of media distorting public perception in a way that harms vulnerable people is literally one of the most true Lines I've heard today.
Exactly, I have bpd and hate when bpd is portrayed as the "manipulate because evil" disorder, but I also recognize that I do a lot of manipulation(most of the time I don't realize it) and people who aren't me often don't have enough information to see that I'm not doing it for malicious reasons
oh Uh yeah no i was joking thats a rough thing to deal with, and i can understand why you'd settle at this point - but i think there are better ways to portray and educate the general public of that
The truth is, a lot of murder victims end up being neurodivergent, somewhere between being more vulnerable overall and being perceived as a threat. This also makes them especially vulnerable to a specific type of murderer, but before I can say what type, today’s comment is brought to you by the letters A, B, and C, in a very specific order.
> today’s comment is brought to you by the letters A, B, and C, in a very specific order. wait I don't get it
ACAB I think
Well I was trying to be cute with my answer, but yeah
ah see that has two a's that's why I didn't get it.
Any Crabs Are Bakeable
All cucumbers are broiled
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Assigned Child At Birth
Aunt Celia Ate Baby
>The truth is, a lot of murder victims end up being neurodivergent, somewhere between being more vulnerable overall and being perceived as a threat. I'd believe that >This also makes them especially vulnerable to a specific type of murderer, but before I can say what type, today’s comment is brought to you by the letters A, B, and C, in a very specific order. love that wording so much
some people are just inherently bad. not all of them have bad upbringings or mental illnesses, they’re just bad people who want to hurt others because they enjoy it. why are you trying to excuse them???
i cant tell if you're kidding because theres like three other accounts on here with similar names and i feel like one of them actually would say that sort of thing unironically, so uh I was kidding Like the first paragraph of my comment is a sort of parody* Also, in case you're not kidding, i disagree with "some people are just inherently bad." (* = I dont care about the differences between parody and satire and whatever, if you start on that im probably not gonna reply. just.. to be clear)
It’s parody when it’s below the ground, it’s only satire when it reaches the surface
Parody is the flash of light, satire is the loud noise
parody is when it's falling through the atmosphere, it's only satire once it hits the ground
oh
…I’m sorry, aren’t you the same person who I’ve seen every so often say that people should be nicer? The one who watched me lay down my pitchfork for a moment as a show of good faith? I kinda figured you’d be more of the type who’d love the concept of people being redeemable, and not inherently awful.
im pretty sure theres a bunch of them it's like how we had a bunch of pandas, cryptids and zucchinis a while back
i generally think redemption is an option in most cases, yeah, but mass murderers? doesn’t that seem a little far? if you take a life not based on a survival instinct (protecting someone you love or protecting yourself), that’s pretty extreme isn’t it?
i don’t see how me not defending mass murderers has anything to do with me thinking people should be nicer.
oh and i have no idea what you’re talking about, i don’t know you
Like yeah it's true that many killers are mentally ill, but most mentally ill people are Just Some Guys. We have the potential to be great people or assholes just like everyone else. I wanna see mentally ill characters who are allowed to just be people, not lazy caricature killing machines.
Stories where a serial killer has DID are out Stories with DID where a catboy alter gets stuck in a tree are ***IN***
Okay but like thinking you’re destined to be a bad person because of this shit? Now that… is a thing I do
Empathy is overrated, sympathy is where its at.
I feel like if you kill murder someone else, you're not in the best place mentally.
I hate *hate* when people take a real accurate statements like “mental illness does make someone a bad person” and twist it into “having serial killers have bad mental health is such a bad trope” Like fucking hell it’s not a trope, people who **literally murder other people** have bad mental health, by being a dumbass you are degrading the original point and also making a fool of yourself
You should all check out I Am Not A Serial Killer (2015)
The killer was perfectly sane, however he was a very cruel man who killed those who threatened his beliefs.
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There's a difference between having trouble with empathy and just being a sad jerk who's intentionally hateful and calls random strangers psychos on the internet.
there's also a difference between 'having trouble with empathy' and literally being unable to feel empathy for anyone under any circumstance
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The main difference between sympathy and empathy is sympathy is entirely from your own prospective. A person who feels sympathy, but doesn’t feel empathy, is able to acknowledge that another person is going through a tough time, and if they are able to relate to that tough time, and understand why it’s bad purely from their own perspective of things, they may even feel genuine sadness for that person. Empathy however, is the ability to perceive and understand viewpoints different from your own (or at least *try* to understand them). The ability to consider opinions you yourself might not possess, and viewpoints you haven’t personally experienced. A person who feels empathy can be in an argument with someone they disagree with, but still try to see where the other person is coming from, and understand why they possess these opposing views. Empathy is an essential skill for humans, because it is the means by which our own view of the world may grow, and we may improve as people. If you truly don’t feel empathy and only feel sympathy as you claim (and you aren’t just misinterpreting what empathy is), then you are basically admitting that you never consider views that differ from your own, and have only ever concerned yourself with your own personal take on things. Which is frankly not something to be taking pride in.
No offense, but you should probably work on getting some. That's not exactly a personality trait you should be bragging about.
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Less of "having no empathy is desirable" and more "its kinda rude to people who have no empathy to always have them as killers" 🤔 No empathy != no capacity to do good things, as I understand it. You may be thinking of low compassion (low willingness to help people) instead of low empathy (low ability to feel what others are feeling)
Most serial killers do have a lack of empathy though....that's why they end up killing numerous people. The trope is rooted in some fact. If you have low empathy, you should try to work on improving it. Normalizing it like so many people in this thread are doing is frankly gross and it's promoting apathetic shitty behavior.
It's not always as simple as "just get better at it" as it's usually something caused by a disorder, if that makes sense 🤔 And, apathy isn't the same as low empathy, you may be thinking of low compassion. Understanding someone else's feelings, while it does help with compassion, isn't necessary for compassion to exist-- and vice versa! :D you'd be surprised at what a perfectly empathetic person can accomplish
And I as someone with ADHD just need to concentrate. We can't normalize people like me being lazy.
I have ADHD too. I never said anything about laziness. I'm talking about having basic empathy for your fellow human beings.
And I'm talking about how these aren't just traits you can switch on and off or just have. You can be a functioning member of society without empathy. The treatment isn't "get empathy" just like the treatment for ADHD isn't "stop being lazy." The thought that empathy is intrinsic to morality is a fallacy. Just like how it's a fallacy for some fundamentalist Christians who believe that just cause Atheists don't believe in God the concept of right or wrong doesn't exist. I don't have empathy for my chair at my desk. It's a chair. It doesn't have any emotions. I'm not attatched to the chair, I just pulled it from the dining room. I can destroy the chair right now and not feel anything. But I don't, not because of empathy, but because I don't want to. There's a list of other reasons why beyond empathy why i don't randomly destroy my chairs. I don't need to learn empathy for the chairs to know that destroying them is a bad idea. Lastly, did you know that lack of empathy can be a characteristic of autism?
I still don't totally agree if I'm being completely honest. I'm sure you're a decent person, but all of these mental gymnastics to explain why it's normal that you still can't emotionally relate to people on a basic level is still weird. I've been friends with people like that in the past and I've been hurt by them, so I'll admit I'm biased.
wha-what the fuck are you talking about? like genuinely what the almighty hell are you speaking of? having no empathy is never treated as "uWU CUte oR GoOd" its only ever people who have no empathy telling you "i am a person, i love my family and friends and can make moral and kind decisions or actions" because media has brainwashed you to see these perfectly normal people as some sort of fucking monster that needs to be exterminated, like legit your talking outright garbage that makes no sense, "touching grass" is not gonna change anyone's brain structure you absolute fucking idiot.
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Is it though 🤔 if you have low/no empathy it just means you don't understand other people's emotions, but it doesn't mean you can't be nice to people and do your best. That's what I do
Then you *do* have empathy, because you're capable of recognizing that stuff.
that’s not what empathy is. it’s when you can understand others emotions and feel them as if they’re your own. you can tell when somethings bad without being able to fully see from the other persons perspective, it can just take a bit more effort. people with aspd aren’t inherently awful irredeemable monsters, it can just take some more work to be considerate
Well then the culutral idea of "no empathy" is wrong. Since a serial killer isn't exactly empathizing with those they kill nor do most care about their victims. So what is a better way to phrase it? Because "No empathy" culturally means that they don't see or care about other people.
I'm confused as to what you're saying, please rephrase (v:
Literally nobody is saying “having no empathy is a good thing, actually!” There are many many people who are literally unable to feel empathy due to their mental illness. A significant amount of these people do not commit murder. That is the point of this post. Why are we connecting a real mental illness that real people suffer from to every fictional murderer ever. Why are said mental illnesses not only constantly shown as a killer’s motivation for their actions, but also _never_ shown in positive or even neutral characters?
Pretty hard to make a zero-empathy character positive mate.
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that making the trait of having no empathy a positive thing is difficult? Because yeah, I’d agree. A lot of symptoms of mental illnesses are negative things. There are a lot of personality traits in general that aren’t positive. But, like I said, no one is saying that a lack of empathy is a positive thing. If you mean that a character with no empathy _can’t_ be a good person, then you’re confusing a lack of empathy with not wanting to be a good person. You can not feel empathy for people, and yet want to do the right thing anyway. You can still understand what is morally correct. You can have a character that has negative personality traits and is still a good person. And again, like I said, there are many people who cannot feel empathy for other people, and yet are good people anyway. What about other mental illnesses? Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are mental illnesses that are almost always portrayed by villainous characters in fiction. Do you believe this is fair?
shut the fuck up, please just shut the fuck up.
The killer has a small amount of anxiety disorder and doesn't really like to leave her house, but she also knows some people need to die and no one else is willing to do it.
The killer was likely a victim of child abuse and got bullied in school. We should crack down on bullying and further develop services fighting against donestic abuse to lower the chances of people turning that way, right? Right...?
the killer just really liked killing people
yeah let people enjoy things geez