Desperately Craves Affection

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

In general, it's assumed that we all need affection (physical mostly as well as verbal) to thrive. Desperately Craves Affection is essentially the opposite of Hates Being Touched (or sometimes the person is a combination of this trope and Hates Being Touched) where a person has perhaps been deprived of affection for so long that they desperately crave it. May or may not lead to the person exhibiting No Sense of Personal Space.

Compare Love Hungry, where the character wants to force others to love them.

Examples of Desperately Craves Affection include:

Anime Manga

Fan Works

  • Mukuro in the Katekyo Hitman Reborn fanfic "Homecoming" due to him being kept asleep for so long since he's a prisoner. This leads to him frequently sexually harassing Tsuna.

Film

  • WALL-E. Evident in his relationship with Eve.

Live-Action TV

  • Ryan O'Reily of Oz. Evident in his relationship with Dr. Nathan.
  • The Big Bang Theory: in the backstory Leonard was so deprived of affection as a child that he built a hugging machine.
  • Piper in Orange Is The New Black.

Theatre

Video Games

  • Oswald in Odin Sphere is driven by a desperate need for someone - anyone - to love him, after learning that the adoptive father he thought cared for him really only saw him as a tool. This need is what leads him to agree to slay the dragon Wagner for Odin once Odin promises him the hand of his daughter Gwendolyn in marriage.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • A common fan interpretation of Luna from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (with some support in canon admittedly) is that she went slightly insane from isolation and snaps back at the end of the episode.
  • Family Guy: Meg Griffin. Meg is often shown as emotionally fragile or disturbed, derived from desperation for love and attention.