(no subject)

[kradeelav]

The Curious Absence of Masculine Pride and Competition : Diagnosing Why Male Characters Sometimes Feel OOC in Fics

somebody mentioned recently i draw dudes in platonic/romantic situations remarkably realistically and ngl i feel like a lot of it has to do with the visual body language counterpart to this :v  anyway, the whole post's worth a read but this bit is p juicy: 

Aside from emotional vulnerability as something men avoid showing, there’s also male pride as a motivator. A guy who sets out to be the very best at something probably has a fair amount of masculine-typical pride motivating him or as a trait the creator of that character keeps in mind while writing him.

Stede from Our Flag Means Death is a fairly effeminate man and that’s actually a pretty big plot point. It’s a plot point in how it makes him lash out at those like Nigel Badminton who don’t take him seriously enough, and his wrestling with what it means to be a man is a huge part of his emotional journey in the show. If he just wanted to go to sea, he could have run off and joined someone’s crew, but instead, he built a ship and styled himself as a captain, and worked as best as he could to be worthy of the title of “Fearsome Pirate Captain”, often to hilarious results, but again those obstacles to him being what he wants to endear him to us. But make no mistake, he wants to be those things. He wants to be his own version of the masculine ideal of a powerful leader, killing with kindness instead of weapons, but he still wants to be one.

Conversely, Ed in the show wants to be soft but it’s a jealously guarded secret for him, because he has succeeded in the masculine ideal of being a fearsome pirate captain, and felt incredible pressure to hide that he wanted softness in his life. Even as he was trying to overcome those masculine restrictions he was intensely aware of them.

If one were to write these characters without them being aware of masculine desire to be a fearsome pirate captain and masculine fears around being seen as wanting softness in their life, that makes them behave a certain way to hide this about themselves, they’d be missing a huge chunk of what makes these characters tick.