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:marseylongpost: CPTSD /r/writing foid: Men constantly become violent/aggressive in my stories...how do I change that? :punchjak::gigachad2:

https://old.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/14ituj6/men_constantly_become_violentaggressive_in_my

This sounds dumb, but is true: As a kid, I grew up with a lot of violence. Men, in my family, school, but also on the street, were either utterly angry or utterly indifferent at all time. [...] :punchjak:

Due to this, I didn't really socialize with guys till I was an adult. And while I do know some "opposite examples" now, this shit is still bleeding in my writing. Like, I've been writing a script with around 5 main male characters. In general I treated them like every other character: Character, motivations etc. However, now a Beta-Reader informed me that they all sound needlessly aggressive. Like: Rude, cold and/or indifferent. :gigachad2: Very strong in contrast to the female characters, who are very "normal", including empathy, kindness and "often sounding like the last wall between a full out massacre sometimes".

Now, obviously I don't want that. I live for four-dimensional characters. But looking through my other stories, I can def see a pattern: Men (if not the LI) are often villains. There are grumpy old men, shitty fathers, sociopathic Mafia bosses etc. "Positive" examples, are mostly just variations of 1.) My cousin (very nice, extroverted guy) and 2.) character-types I picked from other stories (e.g. "old man who is too invested in his grandson's love life")

Any advice? Cause at this rate, I'll paint a very, very bad picture and I hate it

"How can I make myself not hate men? I know! I'll talk to some Redditors!" :marseyfoidretard:

>Writing wish fulfillment romance scenarios while hating the opposite s*x

:chudsey: 🀝 :!marseywomanmoment:


The thing that comes to my mind is to consume more stories with male characters that display the traits that you're looking to emulate in your own writing. [...] I can offer some movie recs: Before I Disappear (2014), Submarine (2010), and Stand By Me (1986) all explore I would say a more tender side of masculinity

Ever notice how their go to examples are never books? :marseynoooticer:

OP:

Good point. I did get a lot of LI material from romance books. So maybe I can do the same that way. I'll the check out the suggestions! :marseywomanmoment:

No, don't do that. I love a good bodice ripper, they're my guilty pleasure, but you are not going to get an example of loving, normal men from them. They are always portrayed as a slightly aggressive "Alpha Male" type who gets extremely possessive of his love interest and has problems expressing feelings :marseyradfem:

:soysnoo: You will NOT have a man who protects you. You WILL comfort your boyfriend when he comes home crying after work.

:marseysoylentgrin: I have to offer a word of caution, here. Romance books give people a distorted ideas of a relationship the same way porn gives people distorted ideas of s*x. They're idealized or sensationalized because it's better for the person consuming the product, not because it's realistic or healthy.

Women be reading romance. That's basically the same as me edging in my goon cave for four hours every night.


If you wanted to, you could write the men as "normal" people, too. As people first, men second. :marseyindignant:

Novice writers when you explain to them that the opposite s*x are people

https://i.rdrama.net/images/16878107029363565.webp

I try. That's the problem. I try, but in the end, there's something that just bleeds through. However, tbf, maybe this does speak of a deeper issue. Like, maybe I know logically that men are people (duh), but emotionally, there's still a part who does not believe it...? Idk.

Trust your instincts, sister :marseynails:


:marseyfreud: Some therapy wouldn't hurt. It's reflective of your experience, and not dealing with your past to a healthy degree is warping your ability to see men as anything other than what you experienced.

I am on the hunt for that, don't worry. I've had some therapy for 5 years, but I was just newly diagnosed with CPTSD last year. So rn I'm in this "in-between" of switching therapies.

Five years of therapy didn't work? Better give it another five years. :marseyclueless:


:marseysoylentgrin: For the sake of providing advice I don't see here, you could try writing a character as a girl then just changing them to be a guy. It's unconventional, but it might help you eliminate your bias. Alternatively, make really mousey nerdy overly polite type guys who avoid aggression. We exist, lol.

:marseydisgust: Is this... the ick?


I'm not crazy, i promise, but you're going to think I am. If you're willing to go out on a limb, though, i think it'll help.

Now, people have said therapy and that's not a bad idea. It does sound like the unresolved trauma is causing problems, but we're not doctors so that's about as far as we can suggest with that.

What you should do is, like someone else suggested, find and consume media with more positive male figures.

:marseywut2: Watch Bluey. I'm not kidding. It's about a little girl who is a dog and her dog family and Bandit is a good girl-dad. He's portrayed as a normal dad, in that he gets frustrated but he tries not to lose his cool.

I'm not kidding. It'll help.

:marseytrollcrazy: I AM NOT CRAZY!


Without actually reading her work I can't evaluate it or try to psychoanalyze her.

What I can tell you is that Redditors are the last people you should ask about masculinity. Redditors are hardcore feminists to the exact extent that they believe feminism strips them of masculine responsibility. Once we get rid of toxic masculinity, women will finally throw themselves at timid scrawny nerds who cry once a week... Right? :marseyclueless:

It seems to me like the obvious advice is to portray male aggression honestly, while showing the neutral or positive ways it can be channeled. The Redditors instead are telling her to feminize her male characters, watch children's cartoons, and get (another five years of) therapy, sweaty.

139
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consume more stories

I hate that word so much

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Dostoievsky is one of my favorite content creator

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https://i.rdrama.net/images/16878112847322686.webp

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Say the basedest things imaginable about foids and strags; but put them all in your antihero or villain so that you have reasonable deniability :marseyhappytears:


Don't forget to turn off signatures in settings!

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Maybe I'd say, "Think of a woman, except nobody will notice or care if you're sad and nobody will give you any sympathy if you fail"

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Idk don't fail?

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yeah

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:violin:

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A trend I’ve noticed in female authors over the last decade is that more and more women are unable to write men. While it used to be only men who struggled to write the opposite gender, most female authors used to be able to write men due to the amount of male authored literature they read. Nowadays women will just read books authored by other women and never develop an accurate mental model for the motivations and desires of male characters. This leads to characters that are two-dimensional with confusing motives. Ofc all the authors that struggle with this are dogshit anyways, so it’s not like it really matters, just something I’ve noticed.

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Interesting observation. Do you have any exemple?

I like to rib my wife about how all her gay romance novels are written by women since the main characters never call one another a strag

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She should write them as ultra aggressive and violent and make a foid the main character whose trying to change them, she'd make a bunch from BPD millennials

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That's just a boddice ripper

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"old man who is too invested in his grandson's love life"

Wut?

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:marseygroomergroom#ing:

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>foid tries to write men without having done :marseypooner: drugs at least once

ngmi smdh fr fr no cap

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often sounding like the last wall between a full out massacre sometimes

:marseywomanmoment2: : stop fighting you guys! this isn’t you!

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>Men in romance novels are portrayed as aggressive, possessive "Alpha Male" types.

Weird, I thought the manosphere was totally definitely lying about women being attracted to men who acted like that. How mysterious that they show up as the object of women's sexual desire in all of this media made by and for women.

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Alternatively, make really mousey nerdy overly polite type guys who avoid aggression. We exist lol

:marseyattentionseeker: :marsoyhype:

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The redditor describes himself as "overly polite" as he fantasizes about torture and murder all day.

Neighbor you're like Patrick Bateman except republicans/terfs instead of prostitutes. Yo ain't polite.

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This is the greatest !moidmoment of all time

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really neighbor, worse than the AI porn thing?

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God you can just tell her writing is fricking awful.

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It is really sad that she can't even write an ideal men for her fiction.

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Women will fetishize their trauma instead of going to therapy

:marseycutattention:

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god dam crashes, the website is slow, the crashes are appearing more frequently, the amount of problems is increasing... we need an app.. even if it has problems I don't care the website is super slow and I can barely stand waiting...

Snapshots:

The thing that comes to my mind is to consume more stories with male characters that display the traits that you're looking to emulate in your own writing. [...] I can offer some movie recs: Before I Disappear (2014), Submarine (2010), and Stand By Me (1986) all explore I would say a more tender side of masculinity:

Good point. I did get a lot of LI material from romance books. So maybe I can do the same that way. I'll the check out the suggestions!:

No, don't do that. I love a good bodice ripper, they're my guilty pleasure, but you are not going to get an example of loving, normal men from them. They are always portrayed as a slightly aggressive "Alpha Male" type who gets extremely possessive of his love interest and has problems expressing feelings:

I have to offer a word of caution, here. Romance books give people a distorted ideas of a relationship the same way porn gives people distorted ideas of s*x. They're idealized or sensationalized because it's better for the person consuming the product, not because it's realistic or healthy.:

If you wanted to, you could write the men as "normal" people, too. As people first, men second.:

I try. That's the problem. I try, but in the end, there's something that just bleeds through. However, tbf, maybe this does speak of a deeper issue. Like, maybe I know logically that men are people (duh), but emotionally, there's still a part who does not believe it...? Idk.:

Some therapy wouldn't hurt. It's reflective of your experience, and not dealing with your past to a healthy degree is warping your ability to see men as anything other than what you experienced.:

I am on the hunt for that, don't worry. I've had some therapy for 5 years, but I was just newly diagnosed with CPTSD last year. So rn I'm in this "in-between" of switching therapies.:

For the sake of providing advice I don't see here, you could try writing a character as a girl then just changing them to be a guy. It's unconventional, but it might help you eliminate your bias. Alternatively, make really mousey nerdy overly polite type guys who avoid aggression. We exist, lol.:

I'm not crazy, i promise, but you're going to think I am. If you're willing to go out on a limb, though, i think it'll help.:

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