Seth closed his eyes as Derek kissed down his body, a hum falling from his lips. “I love you, too.” He stated softly, keeping his breathing normal. Last thing he wanted was to have a panic attack during their first time.
The wolf could tell Seth was worried, or at least anxious, and he kissed a trail back up his boyfriend’s body. “Hey, I got you.” He said huskily, brushing his nose against Seth’s. “Tell me what I need to do.” He didn’t want to cross a line Seth wasn’t comfortable with.
Steve curled up against him once more, resting his head on the alpha’s chest and trying to relax as the movie started. He loved the warmth radiating from the alpha as they lay there together. “What were Bucky and Phil gonna do tonight since they aren’t gonna be here with us?” he asked after a little while of watching the movie on the screen.
Clint shrugged. “I think Phil said they were gonna catch a movie or something. He’s probably going to go and ream the officers who took you in because that alpha tried to have their say with a bonded omega. If they think I was scary, they’ll faint over the paperwork and IA investigation Phil will no doubt start.” He chuckled a little. “No one is ever going to tear us apart. I plan on keeping that promise.” He petted his hand through blonde hair, adjusting to kiss Steve. “Do you need anything, love?”
To help educate the masses, and since we actually talked about this law A LOT in my Master’s degree, I’m going to try to break down this law to help get rid of stereotypes and other crap surrounding it
Possibly the best part of it is the fact that it REQUIRES insurances to cover birth control, so it’ll come very cheap or at NO COST to the women who request it for whatever reason. People don’t realize that the best “Anti-pregnancy” one (nexplanon, has a chance of roughly 1/5000 in being pregnant in a given year) cost literally $1200-2000, depending on the facility giving it to you and who gave it tot he facility without insurance
Literally the only reason people started calling it “Obamacare” was because the Republicans hated Obama, that’s it.
The law honestly should have been called the “Accessible care act” because its INTENTIONS was to allow healthcare to become much more ACCESSIBLE to people across ALL incomes (from the deepest poverty to those rich) and provide a “minimum care statement” that ALL insurance plans had to offer (such as free physicals and prevention health exams), but “The accessible care act” doesn’t have as nice a ring to it as “affordable care act”
Fox news (if you didn’t know, VERY pro-republican leaning) will smear this law every chance they get DO NOT trust information about this law from them
One reason why costs went up with plans because of this is because the STATES DID NOT WANT TO FUND THIS! The idea was “things will get slightly more expensive before bringing down the cost” but because the states were being total asses about it, they ended up driving up costs for their own selfish reasons
Those states that chose to invest in the ACA actually saw health insurance prices go down
As the years went by from its inactment, government kept cutting more and more funds,despite how this has helped nearly 20 million people get insurance
If a bill loses its funding, its dead in the water. It can be the best bill in the world about whatever subject it was written about, but if it doesn’t have funding, it’s dead in the water
So in conclusion:
Despite Trump’s attempt at gutting the ACA, it’s still recruiting MANY people
Again, 20 freaking million people have health insurance now because of the ACA, 20 MILLION
People complaining about how your prices went up for healthcare? BLAME YOUR REPRESENTATIVE! Do NOT blame the bill! THEY BROUGHT THIS ON YOU! The bill did not!
Stiles nodded and managed to eat a little more of the food, leaving about a fourth of it behind as he set the plate aside and proceeded to crawl out of bed, rummaging through his bag for clean clothing. When he found pajama pants, he glanced up at the other two wolves. “Did either of you bring an extra shirt I could have?” he asked in a small, quiet voice.
Peter and Derek looked at each and chuckled at the question. “We did.” Peter answered and got up to grab the bag they had packed, bringing it to the room and setting it down. “Do you want to shower? We brought towels, too.” he offered.
Derek walked over and pressed a kiss to Stiles’ head. “It’s just the three of us, so tell us what you want to do and we’ll follow your lead, okay?” he asked, smiling reassuringly. “You know we’ll take care of you.”
Male Protagonists to Avoid in your Writing: An Illustrated Guide.
1. The Edward Cullen (i.e. the glorified stalker)
How to spot him:
He’s gorgeous. Brooding. Bejeweled with countless sequins. He stresses over and over again that he and the female protagonist have a “connection,” are “soulmates,” or something else that you’d generally expect to hear from that one creepy kid who used to stare at you in class. Similarly, in true creep fashion, he uses their supposed connection as an excuse to blatantly stalk her, and is narratively treated as nothing short of a romantic in spite of it because he’s attractive (and sparkly) enough to pull it off.
Examples:
In the Twilight Saga, Edward is canonically over one hundred years old, making it extra creepy that he’s A) hanging around a high school for no particular reason, and B) dating a seventeen-year-old girl. He uses derogatory terms about past lovers, attempts suicide when Bella tries to break up with him, and shows up at her home uninvited to watch her sleep. Moreover, his systematic isolation of Bella from her friends and family is all-too reminiscent of real life abusive dynamics.
Try to avoid a blatant power imbalance. Edward is stressed to be older, stronger, more experienced, and more intelligent than Bella. Sometimes power imbalances are unavoidable due to species differences, but this can be countermanded by giving the human love interest qualities that make them valuable in other ways.
Overall, if you’re attempting to portray a healthy relationship, try to base it on an equal exchange of power and mutual respect.
2. The Christian Grey (i.e. the glorified rapist)
How to spot him:
When I first found out that the 50 Shades of Grey franchise was originally Twilight fanfiction, I initially (incorrectly) presumed it to be a joke. After I’d come to terms with the fact that it was not, my next thought was that it made perfect sense, because Christian is literally Edward Junior on steroids: the same abusive brand of stalker who gets off on a blatant power imbalance, with the added unpleasantries of excessive wealth and bad BDSM etiquette. Oh, yeah. And he’s a rapist.
Examples:
Christian disregards Ana’s request for a condom, stating “her body belongs to him,” threatens punishment when she refutes his attempts to discretely grope her in public, and at one point, ignores her safe word. Throughout the book, Ana is pressured into sex she feels uncomfortable with.
How to avoid him:
If you’re going to write about BDSM, actually study BDSM etiquette.
Healthy BDSM relationships are forged on mutual trust and a consensual, mutually beneficial exchange of power. Even if you are writing about BDSM, if you intend to write about a healthy relationship, be sure to base it off of these values.
Just because a character is dominant doesn’t mean they need to be emotionally callous; Christian completely neglects Ana’s emotional needs, such as her aftercare (i.e. the period of tenderness recommended after BDSM sessions to compensate for the emotional and physically taxing task of surrendering one’s power.)
In short, don’t use kink as a means of excusing emotionally unhealthy and abusive dynamics.
3. The Ross Geller (i.e. the entitled “nice guy”)
How to spot him:
He thinks his hot female friends (and only the hot ones, mind you) are owed to him because he’s “nice,” romantic, and intelligent. However, upon closer scrutiny he really isn’t a particularly nice guy (i.e. he bullied his sister Monica and benefits from enjoys her emotionally abusive parents’ favoritism), is self-centered, and consistently places his needs ahead of her own.
Examples:
The minute Rachel begins to find self-fulfillment in her career, Ross becomes jealous and hounds her at work, accuses her of “not having enough time for (him),” and generally tries to make her feel guilty for being successful and having priorities other than him.
How to avoid him:
Again, I cannot stress this enough: mutual respect. This is literally the foundation of all successful relationships, fictitious or otherwise.
Have your male characters support their significant other’s decisions and allow them to be happy for their success.
Your male character’s significant other is allowed to do things that don’t necessarily involve him. Make sure he understands that.
Intelligence in and of itself does not make a character a better person than his fellows, and intelligence does not have to equate the superiority with which Ross appears to associate himself.
Just look to the healthier couples Friends churned out in its time: Monica and Chandler, for example, love and respect one another’s goals, and are no the less interesting and hilarious because of it.
4. The Sheldon Cooper (i.e. the annoying autism stereotype)
How to spot him:
He’s a bloated paragon of autism stereotypes. He’s got zero regard for the feelings of his friends, considers himself superior to everyone, and is incapable of talking about anything but his own interests.
Examples:
“His spot” on the sofa, his need to knock three times before speaking to the person on the other side of the door, etc. These are stereotypical and inaccurate portrayals of some autistic people’s comfort in routine.
How to avoid him:
Research symptoms of Asperger’s in adults (and for god’s sake, stay away from Autism Speaks.) Similarly, try and learn from actually people with Asperger’s, as anti-autism, “cure”-based sentiment tends to run high in allistic academia.
Study the mannerisms of famous people who may have been on the spectrum, such as Albert Einstein, Allan Turing, Leonardo da Vinci, and Sherlock Holmes’s inspiration, Joseph Bell.
If you’re not ready to depict an autistic character, I’m going to say wait. It’s okay to admit to ignorance, and it’s okay to wait to do more research before depicting a certain subgroup.
Try to avoid inserting autistic symptoms into characters to use as comedic fodder.
Asperger’s coded (and confirmed, by creators and cast) characters like Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Bones) and Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) have their stereotypical moments, but they’re still successfully presented as lovable, intelligent, and productive characters; look to them to see better representation of intelligent, autistic characters in mainstream television.
5. The John Winchester (i.e. the abusive parent with a redemption arc)
How to spot him:
The John Winchester is a textually abusive or otherwise toxic parent who damages his children’s lives for his own purposes, inflicts emotional or physical harm, and is shown or mentioned to be violent, controlling, and/or neglectful. However, his redeeming/sympathetic qualities or otherwise heroic actions lead him to be narratively treated as a benevolent character and “good” parent.
Examples:
In Supernatural, John leaves his boys for weeks on end in motel rooms, sometimes over important holidays (and keep in mind that this was in the 80s and 90s, when child sexual abuse was at an all-time high.) He often places his eldest son as the soul caregiver of his other child, despite the fact that he was a child too at the time, and left them both alone with loaded firearms. He also uses unfairly harsh punishments, such as leaving his young son alone at a boy’s home for an entire summer because he stole food for himself and his brother. His son literally, unironically realized he was being possessed by a demonic entity when it said it was proud of him.
How to avoid him:
Educate yourself on the different definitions of abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, etc.) and what qualifies as each. Psychology Today is a great resource for this (they have some rudimentary definitions here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/child-abuse.)
Feel free to endow abusive parents with sympathetic qualities (in fact, please do; 100% evil characters tend to be campy, boring, and/or unintentionally hilarious) but be aware that no sympathetic qualities negate or justify child abuse.
Please, for the love of God, don’t use the “he was doing his best” excuse as a resolution. Many abusive parents legitimately are doing their best, and many abused children are acutely aware of this. It really doesn’t provide much comfort.
Remember that abused children frequently refuse to turn on their parents, often defending them long into their adulthood. The child’s forgiveness does not equate the parent’s redemption.
Similarly, I’d personally recommend staying away from the “I can finally forgive him” trope as well; it’s done to death, and often frustrating to real-life survivors.
Before the Meninsits™ come for me about this, I am going to be writing a list of female character archetypes as well, and then make lists of positive attributes to include in male and female characters, respectively, to provide a counterpoint. I might also make a part two of this post for all the other characters I hate, because I fear it would get too long.
In the meantime, be sure to follow my blog and stay tuned for future writing advice and observations!
Updating with the link to the female counterpart post, because people keep asking me for it. Read it here!
Sebastian hated when people got too close to his little run down home hidden in the so called cursed woods. He hated trying to get people to leave even more. But for now he stayed just out of sight, watching curiously. It wasn’t often people came without some sort of big gun to kill the rumored beast of the woods. The fact that people really thought he would kills humans was absurd; he’d never been tied to a demon so that was very unlikely and even then, he’d been back in human form for only a few years. Eventually he got tired of watching and moved to make himself. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “You lost?”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind helping, you know? Besides, it could be worse. All we have to do is pretend to be married when people are around. The rest of the time? We can ignore each other. Depending on where we stay, my place is big enough we probably will only bump into each other around dinner time.” Seth shrugged as he sat down. “What’s scaring you?”
Ana watched him for a moment, dark eyes vulnerable. “Seth…I hate that you have to give up your life for this.” She frowned as he sat next to her, staring at her hands. “That’s what it is, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to ignore me. I know I’m probably the last person anyone would want to marry, but I’d still like to try and be friends.” She was quiet for a long moment after his question, hands wringing a little. “I’m scared this will be for nothing. And that thought…terrifies me.”
themusechronicles 