Writing Rant: Adam/Playboy Ship Complex

Writing Rant: Adam/Playboy Ship Complex

It's 9:03 and I have a wedding to get to in the morning so let's speed this up!

Basically, I am going to be focusing on a point I brought up about how stories attempting to write queer men with a heteronormative gaze tend to ascribe hyperfeminine men to the role of women even to the point of giving them the same tropes.

PART BL: The MADONNA/WHORE COMPLEX EXPLAINED

Quick explanation time, skip if you already know! TLDR; The Madonna/Whore Complex describes how men view women through a reductive lense. Either women are the:

Madonna: Enigmatic and unattainable or a domestic down-to-earth goddess. Both subtypes are united by their lack of overt sexuality and a distinct and desirable femimine charm.

or

Whore: Sexually attainable and often judged for their sexual desires. They're desirable but not respected as humans with the freedoms they're allowed to enjoy having to fit the fantasy of a sex bomb.

BUT HOW DOES APPLY TO BL STORIES?

If you have read any mlm story on either Wattpad or AO3 you can already tell.

You have the protagonist who typically falls into the enigmatic unattainable doll/Adam archetype with soft porcelain skin and doe-eyed expressions of innocence despite being in their early twenties. They're often younger than their love interest by several years in order to further highlight a power imbalance between the love interest and them.

The name Adam has further symbolism due to the fact that when the male lead and love interest have sex for the first time there is an undercurrent of moral corruption with the normally enigmatic and reserved protagonist turning into a moaning mess with creepy narration about how the protagonist isn't "pure" anymore. Adam as a biblical figure is often said to have been corrupted by the sinful presence of Eve and the apple.

The protagonist is challenged by a "Playboy" character who desires the Male Lead. The character is often portrayed in darker clothing and behaves exceedingly similar to the figure of the Femme Fatal.

You also have several plotlines based on the Madonna/Whore Complex which repeatedly appear in heteronormative queer stories.

"Good Girl Boy Who "Saves" The Sinful Man"

" The Redemption Of The "Playboy" Through Love"

"Wife Vs Mistress/Husband Vs Mistress"

"The Moral Fall Of Adam"

Writing Advice For Villain Motivation

There are so many people out there in the world who accidentally overcomplicate the process of giving your villain a motivation and goal.

The trick to villain motivation is not to justifying or excuse your villain's actions but explain them! A classic example I use when talking about good motivation and good goals for your villain is the cookie jar metaphor!

COOKIE JAR METAPHOR:

A kid wants cookies but was told they couldn't get a cookie. They decide to steal the cookie jar because they really wanted it. If they're caught then they might suffer punishment or they might be able to blame the stolen cookie jar on their sibling.

In this case the "villain" is the kid. They wanted a cookie or some other thing but they weren't allowed to so they acted villainously in order to get it. They put the blame on their sibling because they didn't want to be punished.

It's simple. All your villain needs is to want something, be told they can't have it, and then try to get it.

What constitues "sufficient motivation" largely depends on the child/villain. For some children, the fear of punishment is enough to prevent them from trying to steal cookies but they may convince other kids to steal the cookies for everyone. For other children, they may do everything in their power to avoid getting caught while still stealing the cookies. Then there are children that don't care about punishment so they eat the cookies and don't try to hide it.

Their motivations don't need to be complicated. They want [THING], they're told they can't get [THING], and they decide that being evil is the quickest way to get [THING].

Bad Writing Advice For Characters

If anyone has ever wanted to write a minority character, a piece of advice you are often given is "don't write a *blank* character, write a character who just so happens to be *blank*"!

I hate this!

Firstly, most people of a minority group are either super accepting of their characteristics or are working on getting to that point. To them, their sexuality/disability/medical condition/lifestyle/etc is an extremely important and irreplaceable part of them which colors their perspective on the world.

Those characteristics aren't interchangable aspects of their livelihoods! And people don't want to change those characteristics of themselves!

This kind of advice, in my singular opinion, goes against the ways people refer to themselves!

Disabled people are called "disabled people", not people with disabilities

Gay people are gay people, not people with same-sex attraction!

These characteristics aren't like handbags you can pick up and drop! They're core aspects of their psyche, lifestyle, and character!

Secondly, I hate the phrase "they just so happen..."! You, the author, made them apart of a minority group of your own volition! It's not like it was a mistake or an accident!

My queerness, gender, and everything "other" about me impacted my perspective on the world to such a fundamental level I wouldn't be the same person if I didn't have those traits.

I'm bound by my gayness

quick reminder that my own gay ass genuinely supports the hell outta each and every one of you. regardless if i know you or not, im happy to be living in this shithole of a life in the same world with you.

and im proud of you, i know in my heart just how beautiful, amazing, talented, smart, and worthy you are and i hope you can see that too🏳️‍🌈🌈

Good Writing Advice For Characterization

As someone who has to collect all the personality traits of a character from the various daydreaming things I do, here is some questions I use to help "streamline" the entire process while not losing all of this interesting character!

Question 1: "What is your character's main philosophy expressed in one quote?"

This is helpful for finding the "core" of your character! Once you remove all the cool gimmicks and superficial personality traits, what do you have left?

Here are some of my examples:

"All I Need Is Love"

"I Need To Dissapear"

"I Am A Victim"

"I Am An Observor"

Second Question: "Can You Turn These Contradictory Personality Traits Into Purposeful Aspects Of Someone's Psyche?"

Let's be honest with ourselves. The majority of people are hypocritical and complicated.

Many people are self-absorbed and insecure!

Many people want to stand out from the crowd while also finding belonging within that crowd!

Many people simultaneously love some aspects of themselves and hate some aspects of themselves!

Many people are reckless in some ways and cautious in others!

If you purposefully do this with your characters this can add amazing internal conflict over their hypocrises and conflicting desires, create authentic drama, and add more realism to your characters!

Complexity is the art of meaningful contradiction!

List Of Sexy Things To Say

I am way too witty for my own good so here are 10 powerful things for you or your characters to say with a religious twist!

"If you are God then I want to commit blasphemy:

"I would love to be covered in your sins"

"I hope God is seeing this"

"I'm sure you taste as divine as you look"

"If you knew just what I was thinking, then you wouldn't be saying all those pure things about me"

"I would do anything for my God"

"All the things I think about doing to you would make me see the man in red"

"May God rue the day we are seperated"

"I wonder how "pure" either of us will be after this"

"Nothing could be a sin if it was done for you"

You might think these are cringe but remember, "one man's cringe is another man's fantasy". If a dialogue is your struggle here is a little bit of personal service