Thanks Klashikari
To kick off the discussion: I'm a closet Ayase shipper, so take my words with a grain of salt. To kick off the discussion, I'd like to list what in my opinion she is NOT (from the other thread):
1) Ayase is not a Yandere!
This is popular and AFAIK even on a wiki, but IMHO fairly off the mark. Being a Yandere requires two things: A fanatical devotion to someone who you're convinced you're destined to be with (that's already questionable - fanatical devotion yes, but destined to be with? not sure), and a violent-dangerous reaction towards the object of desire when it becomes evident that this devotion isn't going to be reciprocated. Which is a flat-out no. All that Ayase did was severing her ties and walking away in pain. No violence, no threats.
In the end, she was threatening Kyousuke with death, should he make moves on Kirino. That, however, was not directed against the object of devotion, but against people who might threaten it. Call her obsessed and overprotective, fine. But I don't think Yandere fits.
2) Ayase is not batshit crazy!
No sir, she is not. Everything she did is perfectly reasonable and making sense, as long as you keep in mind that a) she's infatuated with her idolized view of Kirino and b) conditioned to reject otakudom. If you start from there, she is quite reasonable. Heck, she's even talking to the pervert oniichan, and she's accepting evidence as genuine which is contradicting her beliefs. That's more rational than 90% of all people I have political discussions with
3) Ayase is no controlling stalker!
Nope. Neither did she stalk, nor is she controlling. If she were the latter, she'd try hard to influence Kirino to drop her hobby. To monitor when Kirino was doing what, trying to "forbid" her from doing unacceptable stuff. Instead, she cut ties and walked away.
In the end, I consider it sad and bitter irony that the only girl who immediately treated Kyousuke kindly and with respect, without suspicion but rather convinced about the general goodness of man, is now turned into a bitter enemy over Kyousuke's protective lie. This is the macabre part: By repeatedly shielding Kirino against the injustice of society, he turns into the sandbag target even for those people who are most compatible with him by disposition (like Ayase). I'm looking forward to how the novel plans to gradually remedy this and resolve this tragedy. Kyousuke deserves much better than he gets.