have you ever heard the story of the scorpion and the frog?
Okay, so Teen Wolf reaction post, because I just have a lot of feelings about "Visionary" and what went on in it, on so many levels, including good and bad and, "what the fuck are you doing, Teen Wolf, I don't get it."
General disclaimer: I sort of oscillate, in this post, between my more declarative, "X happened, Y is Q" academic style of writing (just peppered liberally with a few, "fucks" and, "goddamns" because I swear like a sailor) and the style I try to use more often in fan-meta, which includes a lot of disclaiming things as my opinion or whatever. Everything in this post should be taken as my personal reading of Teen Wolf canon and my opinion of Teen Wolf canon, not necessarily a declaration of facts, and I'm open to discussion on basically every point in here, unless I actually come out and say that I'm not open for discussion about it.
And really, I can't think of any point that I'm not open to discussion about, except for one: there's nothing anyone can say or do that will convince me that Derek Hale isn't an abusive asshole or that I should have any sympathy for him. This doesn't mean that I don't like Derek; it means that I think he's an abusive asshole and that any Derek Hale apologetics or cries to consider things from Derek's perspective will probably be met with Monty Python gifs or, "lol really?" or some other form of mockery.
Because see, the thing is? I've thought about it from Derek's perspective already-I've thought about it from Derek's perspective a lot; it is literally impossible to be in this fandom without someone shoving Derek's perspective down your throat-and having already considered his perspective, I still have more sympathy for the people he's hurt than for Derek.
Fair warning: This is not a Derek Hale-positive post. This is not a Sterek-positive post. This is not a Teen Wolf fandom in general (by which I mostly mean, "Sterek fandom")-positive post. One of my guiding principles with regard to Teen Wolf is, "Jeff Davis is not a gift" and I love the show despite the fact that Jeff Davis regularly does terrible things with it-like, seriously, killing Boyd and making him comfort Derek with his dying breaths was fucking unnecessary and racist (because it made a black man's death all about a white man's white manpain), and joking about whumping on an abuse victim (Isaac) because that's more fun than not whumping on him-and this is also not a Jeff Davis-positive post.
If I were going to declare an affiliation beyond, "I watch the show and talk about it with my friends," I'd probably align myself with the so-called Dark Side of the Teen Wolf fandom, because… they're actually willing to call out the misogyny, racism, heterosexism, abuse apologism, and general disgusting fuckery both in canon and fandom. Also, I'm Team Scott by a country mile. Team Teen Werewolf Jesus, y'all. Really, the only character I like more than Scott is Lydia. They're both my precious baby angels, I want to wrap them up in blankets and give them cocoa and keep them safe from harm. And with all that, "declaring where I stand so you have some idea what this post is going to be like" stuff out of the way. This meta-fic (which I helped beta read) is a pretty good example of how I view most of the Teen Wolf fandom, and why I'm incredibly selective about the Teen Wolf blogs I follow on tumblr.
Also, I really liked the episode-it had its problems (like Jeff Davis's penchant for shoving marginalized people into the refrigerator right next to his milk), but I'd probably put it up there with "Chaos Rising" and "Motel California" on my list of favorite episodes from this season-and I thought that everything about it made perfect sense, barring a few minor details. Oh, also also, and this should probably go without saying, but… yeah, there are unmarked spoilers underneath the cut. But anyway.
Oh and also: I figure I should explain what I'm talking about when I mention leather pants, because I do it quite a few times in this tirade. When I talk about someone getting a pair of leather pants, or fandom slapping a pair of leather pants on someone, I'm referring to the Draco In Leather Pants trope (fair warning: TV Tropes link). The Draco In Leather Pants trope refers to fandoms' collective habit of taking nasty, antiheroic, controversial, and/or outright villainous characters and using their ~*tragic backstories*~ (whether canonical or fan-imagined) to justify and/or explain away all the bad things that these characters do.
The name of this trope derives from the Harry Potter fandom's fanon version of Draco Malfoy, who in canon is a petty, abusive, smug, elitist, spoiled, Blood Purist bully who runs crying to his daddy at the drop of a hat, and who in fanon is a poor abused woobie who is just so misunderstood by everybody, thank god for Harry, Hermione, Ginny, or whoever being able to redeem him through love or whatever… and yeah, at one point, he was forced to try to kill his Headmaster and take the Dark Mark because his father is an atrocious failure, with the threat that Voldemort would kill him and his mother, but that still doesn't make Draco a good person and it certainly doesn't make any of what he does okay.
Leather pants-ing is a huge problem in the Teen Wolf fandom, where we have so many villains or jackass characters who end up, in fandom, being regarded as big wibbling piles of angst that totally excuses all of their bullshit-or, in Peter's case, they get reduced to being ~*Sassy Uncle Peter*~ without anyone addressing the multiple instances of bad shit that they've done. The biggest offenders that I've seen in this regard have been Derek Hale himself (not a villainous example, granted, but so many people are on the, "Derek's just a victim" train that it makes my head spin), Peter (as discussed), Stiles Stilinski (again, not a villainous example, but he is a particularly egregious example because of how many people give him Scott's personality and Scott's character traits while pulling some racist-ass Ron the Death Eater bullshit on Scott himself), and Chris Argent (I'm not open to discussion about Chris Argent either-he's a child-abusing dick-bag who would probably be great friends with John Winchester and nothing anyone can say or do will make me like him).
My personal favorite Draco in Leather Pants has been Barty Crouch Jr. since the first time I read Goblet of Fire and no matter how much distance I put between myself and the Harry Potter fandom, he'll always be my baby. Yeah, he's a member of Blood Purist terrorist organization and he killed a bunch of people for Voldemort and he helped Bellatrix torture the Longbottoms into insanity, and nothing can make any of that okay… but hey, I find him and his whole tragic backstory of emotional abuse and neglect really compelling, and he appeals to a lot of my narrative kinks, and that's okay because I don't excuse any of the shit he did. I used to and there's plenty of woobie Death Eaters bad!fic with my name on it all over the Internet that proves this, but I don't anymore, and therein lies the difference between me and most people who slap leather pants on certain characters.
…I do make excuses for Judas Iscariot, but I think Judas Iscariot got completely shafted by the story as presented in the Bible, and by history as a result, and I'm totally with Jorge Luis Borges's "Three Versions of Judas" and its argument that Judas has actually suffered more for the sins of humanity than Jesus-plus, Judas literally had no free will in the whole situation and I've written a couple of essays on the subject elsewhere so I'm not going to do it here.
So, with the preamble out of the way, let's start with some general stuff, then the general positives, then the general negatives, and then I'll go into specifics in list format: generally, like I said, I actually really enjoyed the episode, just… not for the same reasons that Jeff Davis wanted me to like this episode.
I got the sense, as I watched, that Jeff Davis wanted me to like the episode because ~*bawww poor Derek this data point in his backstory is so fucking sad!! FEEL BAD FOR HIM!!*~ and like… I just don't care? Derek doesn't do anything for me as a character, beyond existing for me to laugh at his pain and his drama queen antics, and my god, I love laughing at his pain and the pain of the people who stan for him on tumblr when they have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify his bullshit (which… to be fair, also makes me angry, because the abuse apologism is strong in the Teen Wolf fandom, and sometimes I yell at people for it, but mostly, Derek is hilarious to me).
See, the thing is this: Derek's an abuse victim, yes (in that Kate sexually manipulated him and used him to kill his whole family, barring Peter and Cora, and apparently, Peter's been manipulating him for longer than we thought, which sucks for Derek)… but I'm really sick and tired of people in fandom using Derek's history of victimization as an excuse for all of the bullshit that he's pulled since day freaking one. I've already outlined it here (though if I felt like editing that post, I would also add, "broke Isaac's arm 'to train him' even knowing full well that Isaac's father was a physically abusive fuck-nugget"), so I'm not going to just repeat the list, but… I'm sorry, there's literally no excuse for any of the shit that Derek's pulled.
Yes, there are explanations for why Derek is the way that he is. Yes, there are ways of making his behavior make sense in a larger context, but there are no justifications for any of what he pulls, any of what he's done since he first showed up and snapped at Scott and Stiles and tried to menace them off of his property. There is nothing that makes it okay, the way that Derek's been preying on emotionally vulnerable teenagers, isolating them from their friends and families, and getting them killed. There is nothing that makes his pattern of assaulting people (assaulting TEENAGERS when he is a grown ass man) okay, there is nothing that makes his selfishly motivated manipulative bullshit okay, there is nothing that makes it okay that he regularly lies to people, menaces them as a matter of course, and seems to have no qualms about killing innocents-like Lydia for example, who he was going to kill on some of the most BS specious evidence.
So, yes, I can totally believe that Derek, with some prodding from Peter, arranged for Ennis to non-consensually give The Bite to Paige. I can totally believe it because it completely fits with all the behavior that Derek's displayed in canon up until this point-moreover, Derek and Paige's relationship wasn't exactly on solid foundations of ~*Twue Wuv*~ to begin with. I mean, in their first encounter, he bullied her, then exploited a cheap loophole to get her to tell him her name after being asked to leave, and he only even bothered apologizing to her when her friends weren't there to see him do it. After that, he pressured her into saying, "I love you" and made sexualized advances on her after clearly being told, "no"-Derek Jeremiah Hale has no fucking problem with violating other people's agencies whenever he wants to, for whatever reason he wants to, and hey, he believed that ~*The Bite is a gift*~ so I can totally see him justifying the egregious way in which he violated Paige's agency (and also wound up killing her) with ~*but she'll totally see how great an idea this is eventually*~
…why? Because according to all canonical evidence, Derek is just that much of an asshole.
And see, all of this would be perfectly fine for me because Derek is a fictional character and it's okay to enjoy highly problematic fictional characters, BUT: 1. the narrative on Teen Wolf never actually acknowledges that Derek Jeremiah Hale is an abusive fuck-bishop, and it keeps wanting me to feel sorry for him when he lives in a Hell of his own making (I'm sorry, but I like it when my assholes are acknowledged as assholes-this is part of why Peter's been growing on me this season, though I guess he also exists in comparison to Gerard, and everyone looks like a saint next to Gerard, even Chris "child abuse bros with John Winchester" Argent); and 2. most of Derek's fans are fucking obnoxious abuse apologists-like, if we're going to gloss over Derek's abuse and reduce him to an exaggerated crush on Scott, I am all in favor of that, but if we're going to take Derek seriously, then he becomes a truly awful person… but these people only ever cry about how HARD things are for Derek, while showing little to no compassion for the people he hurts (especially Scott for reasons that, if you ask me, start with, "R" and rhyme with, "skaycism").
And that is why I am so fucking over Derek Hale and His Amazing Manpain (which sounds like a sideshow act. Someone should write a circus/carnival AU where Derek's special talent is being able to cry on command). He's never really, as such, REWARDED by the narrative for his abusive and violent behavior (not in the same way that Scott is rewarded for choosing to save people and make the right decisions, even when they're hard)-but he's also never called out on his shit by anyone, beyond maybe a casual mention of how Scott doesn't trust him, and I'm really sick of Jeff Davis expecting me to have sympathy for an unacknowledged abuser just because his life sucks. Derek's life sucks because he never learns from his bad decisions; Derek's life sucks because he keeps choosing abuse and violence instead of growing up. So… I've learned to laugh at Derek's pain and his drama queen antics. It's how I cope with the fact that he's actually a pretty awful person.
(Incidentally, this is part of why I don't like Sterek: yeah, Derek menaced Stiles, and slammed his head into a steering wheel, and shoved him up against walls, and threatened to rip Stiles's throat out with his teeth, and threatened both Stiles and Scott, who in case we've forgotten is Stiles's best friend since childhood who Stiles would probably die for, and menaced Stiles on a shockingly regular basis, and tried to make Stiles chop off his arm and mocked him because ~*you faint at the sight of blood!*~ and got thisclose to physically assaulting him again when Stiles was visibly freaked out by the possibility of having to cut off someone's fucking arm, and scares Stiles enough for him to vocally express this whole sentiment to Scott-c.f., "Derek, who still scares me"-and all Stiles has ever done in return is snark a little bit, go, "my house, my rules" at him in "Wolf's Bane," help save Derek's life at least three times* when Derek doesn't deserve it**, and insist, not to Derek's face, that Derek should grow up and do something about the Alpha pack.
…yeah, that sounds totally romantic and healthy and anything at all like the fanon construction of Sterek that dominates 95% of fanworks that get made in this godforsaken fandom. …but, oh, Derek's just a playful puppy who can't express his feelings properly, right? this is just his version of foreplay? …yeah, no, if that's "foreplay" for Sterek, then that's a damn good indication that Stiles needs to get the fuck out of that relationship as soon as possible. which actually doesn't sound like a bad fic idea, but I don't know if I'm vindictive and wanky enough to actually write the thing where I deconstruct Sterek and probably end the fic with Sheriff Stilinski killing Derek to save Stiles, Scott helping Stiles get therapy, and yeah no, I don't think I'm vindictive and wanky enough to actually write it. But thinking about it makes me happy.)
…But this has sort of veered off the track of, "general reactions to the episode" and more, "general thoughts on the Teen Wolf fandom by way of explaining the context for my reactions to the episode." So, back to the topic at hand: like I said above, I really liked the episode, but for all the wrong reasons, and I really liked it despite the heavy focus on Derek and his Amazing Manpain. My general evaluation of everything about the episode is that it needed more Kate Argent-like, that's what I expected, going into an episode about ~*Derek's Mysterious Past*~ and I really thought that Madison McLaughlin was probably cast as young!Laura-and as several people have already pointed out, there was no need to fridge another female character just to give Derek more manpain and there was no need for Derek to have another angsty relationship when really? his dub-con manipulation by Kate and how she killed his whole family should've been more than enough angst. And I'll come back to my Kate feelings in the "specifics" section.
But the other parts of the episode were pretty strong, and I did appreciate the Derek stuff on one level, namely the one where it confirms everything that I (and other fans) have been saying about Derek Jeremiah Hale for months upon months like the part where he's an abusive fuck-nugget.
But other general positive comments, since I said I would make them and I've so far only been negative: the Deucalion, Talia, and Deaton stuff was fucking awesome-like, my bar for Deaton is generally set pretty high because I expect a lot out of Deaton-related stuff, but the whole business with the Emissaries makes me so happy and it was pretty great. Talia also was pretty great (although I sort of went, "wait what" at her last scene, where she's all, "you're beautiful, baby" right after her son has killed his girlfriend). Deucalion, though, oh my god. I had mostly written him off as a two-dimensional comic book villain with really shaky characterization (because sometimes, he's legitimately terrifying, but other times, he pulls out crap like, "I AM THE DEMON WOLF!!" and comes off a lot more like, "Lex Luthor stole forty cakes and that's terrible")… but man, Deucalion was awesome this week, and Gideon Emery really brought his A-game. I was impressed.
Cora and Peter were also pretty great-but since I'm starting to get into some specific sorts of things, I'm going to start addressing specifics:
**: And no, I don't consider the fact that Stiles has helped save Derek's life particularly shippy fodder. I consider it an indication that, despite the fact that Stiles seems to resort to, "let's just kill it" at the drop of a hat, and despite the fact that Stiles displays total Nice GuyTM levels of bullshit with regard to Lydia (especially sickening is how he's perfectly willing to get hot and heavy with her while she's so drugged up that she mistakes her stuffed animal for a mountain lion and only stops when she calls him Jackson), and despite the fact that he only really seems to care about other people's lives when those people are Scott and the Sheriff, Stiles is enough of a decent human being to not just let Derek die. I really see nothing shippy about preserving someone's life and I find the whole, "well he could've let Derek die but he didn't, clearly it's true love!!" narrative that permeates the Sterek fandom fucked up and deeply disturbing. And borderline character-bashing, at that. And I'm not even particularly invested in Stiles.
Likewise, I don't consider it particularly ship-fodder-ish for Derek to swoop in and save Stiles from Peter in "Wolf's Bane" because, again? This doesn't really prove anything, let alone that Derek has ~*secret romantic feelings*~ for Stiles; it just proves that Derek has enough of a shred of decency in him to not just let Stiles die. Good for him, I guess. He can do the bare minimum of personal decency, here Derek have a medal.
***: Which isn't to say that Anakin didn't grow on me, though. I mean, like I said re: Deucalion, I love Start of Darkness stories, and I actually really like the prequel movies and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker because it's a huge Start of Darkness story about the man who was my husband for literally years. Possibly TMI alert, but Revenge of the Sith is better for me than porn, even given all the overwrought ~*emotional drama!!*~ which is all well and good if you're into that, but… really, I'm just there to watch Anakin go properly Dark Side and kill a bunch of people.
…I realize that this isn't really a healthy desire or whatever, just like how my whole process of going, "I feel sad today, I think I'll watch Magic Bullet because Derek is really hot when he's sick and dying and his pain makes me feel better" isn't exactly healthy. I've actually navel-gazed extensively about why I'm like this-inspired on some pop psychology that I gleaned from this one episode of Criminal Minds about serial killer fangirls (season four, episode two, "The Angel Maker")-and I've mostly just concluded that there probably isn't a good reason for why I'm like this and why things like this get me off. Maybe it's something to do with wanting power and agency in a world where I don't have a lot of it, maybe it's because I have an emotionally abusive mother, maybe its because a lot of reasons.
But… I can't really tell what the cause is, and the fact that it's literally gone on since I was five years old makes me inclined to just say, "fuck it" and accept the fact that I love characters who are terrible (as long as they're acknowledged by their respective narratives as being terrible) and I like watching them do bad things like kill and manipulate people. On which note, this has been fun, but I need to go run to the grocery store and to Target.
General disclaimer: I sort of oscillate, in this post, between my more declarative, "X happened, Y is Q" academic style of writing (just peppered liberally with a few, "fucks" and, "goddamns" because I swear like a sailor) and the style I try to use more often in fan-meta, which includes a lot of disclaiming things as my opinion or whatever. Everything in this post should be taken as my personal reading of Teen Wolf canon and my opinion of Teen Wolf canon, not necessarily a declaration of facts, and I'm open to discussion on basically every point in here, unless I actually come out and say that I'm not open for discussion about it.
And really, I can't think of any point that I'm not open to discussion about, except for one: there's nothing anyone can say or do that will convince me that Derek Hale isn't an abusive asshole or that I should have any sympathy for him. This doesn't mean that I don't like Derek; it means that I think he's an abusive asshole and that any Derek Hale apologetics or cries to consider things from Derek's perspective will probably be met with Monty Python gifs or, "lol really?" or some other form of mockery.
Because see, the thing is? I've thought about it from Derek's perspective already-I've thought about it from Derek's perspective a lot; it is literally impossible to be in this fandom without someone shoving Derek's perspective down your throat-and having already considered his perspective, I still have more sympathy for the people he's hurt than for Derek.
Fair warning: This is not a Derek Hale-positive post. This is not a Sterek-positive post. This is not a Teen Wolf fandom in general (by which I mostly mean, "Sterek fandom")-positive post. One of my guiding principles with regard to Teen Wolf is, "Jeff Davis is not a gift" and I love the show despite the fact that Jeff Davis regularly does terrible things with it-like, seriously, killing Boyd and making him comfort Derek with his dying breaths was fucking unnecessary and racist (because it made a black man's death all about a white man's white manpain), and joking about whumping on an abuse victim (Isaac) because that's more fun than not whumping on him-and this is also not a Jeff Davis-positive post.
If I were going to declare an affiliation beyond, "I watch the show and talk about it with my friends," I'd probably align myself with the so-called Dark Side of the Teen Wolf fandom, because… they're actually willing to call out the misogyny, racism, heterosexism, abuse apologism, and general disgusting fuckery both in canon and fandom. Also, I'm Team Scott by a country mile. Team Teen Werewolf Jesus, y'all. Really, the only character I like more than Scott is Lydia. They're both my precious baby angels, I want to wrap them up in blankets and give them cocoa and keep them safe from harm. And with all that, "declaring where I stand so you have some idea what this post is going to be like" stuff out of the way. This meta-fic (which I helped beta read) is a pretty good example of how I view most of the Teen Wolf fandom, and why I'm incredibly selective about the Teen Wolf blogs I follow on tumblr.
Also, I really liked the episode-it had its problems (like Jeff Davis's penchant for shoving marginalized people into the refrigerator right next to his milk), but I'd probably put it up there with "Chaos Rising" and "Motel California" on my list of favorite episodes from this season-and I thought that everything about it made perfect sense, barring a few minor details. Oh, also also, and this should probably go without saying, but… yeah, there are unmarked spoilers underneath the cut. But anyway.
Oh and also: I figure I should explain what I'm talking about when I mention leather pants, because I do it quite a few times in this tirade. When I talk about someone getting a pair of leather pants, or fandom slapping a pair of leather pants on someone, I'm referring to the Draco In Leather Pants trope (fair warning: TV Tropes link). The Draco In Leather Pants trope refers to fandoms' collective habit of taking nasty, antiheroic, controversial, and/or outright villainous characters and using their ~*tragic backstories*~ (whether canonical or fan-imagined) to justify and/or explain away all the bad things that these characters do.
The name of this trope derives from the Harry Potter fandom's fanon version of Draco Malfoy, who in canon is a petty, abusive, smug, elitist, spoiled, Blood Purist bully who runs crying to his daddy at the drop of a hat, and who in fanon is a poor abused woobie who is just so misunderstood by everybody, thank god for Harry, Hermione, Ginny, or whoever being able to redeem him through love or whatever… and yeah, at one point, he was forced to try to kill his Headmaster and take the Dark Mark because his father is an atrocious failure, with the threat that Voldemort would kill him and his mother, but that still doesn't make Draco a good person and it certainly doesn't make any of what he does okay.
Leather pants-ing is a huge problem in the Teen Wolf fandom, where we have so many villains or jackass characters who end up, in fandom, being regarded as big wibbling piles of angst that totally excuses all of their bullshit-or, in Peter's case, they get reduced to being ~*Sassy Uncle Peter*~ without anyone addressing the multiple instances of bad shit that they've done. The biggest offenders that I've seen in this regard have been Derek Hale himself (not a villainous example, granted, but so many people are on the, "Derek's just a victim" train that it makes my head spin), Peter (as discussed), Stiles Stilinski (again, not a villainous example, but he is a particularly egregious example because of how many people give him Scott's personality and Scott's character traits while pulling some racist-ass Ron the Death Eater bullshit on Scott himself), and Chris Argent (I'm not open to discussion about Chris Argent either-he's a child-abusing dick-bag who would probably be great friends with John Winchester and nothing anyone can say or do will make me like him).
My personal favorite Draco in Leather Pants has been Barty Crouch Jr. since the first time I read Goblet of Fire and no matter how much distance I put between myself and the Harry Potter fandom, he'll always be my baby. Yeah, he's a member of Blood Purist terrorist organization and he killed a bunch of people for Voldemort and he helped Bellatrix torture the Longbottoms into insanity, and nothing can make any of that okay… but hey, I find him and his whole tragic backstory of emotional abuse and neglect really compelling, and he appeals to a lot of my narrative kinks, and that's okay because I don't excuse any of the shit he did. I used to and there's plenty of woobie Death Eaters bad!fic with my name on it all over the Internet that proves this, but I don't anymore, and therein lies the difference between me and most people who slap leather pants on certain characters.
…I do make excuses for Judas Iscariot, but I think Judas Iscariot got completely shafted by the story as presented in the Bible, and by history as a result, and I'm totally with Jorge Luis Borges's "Three Versions of Judas" and its argument that Judas has actually suffered more for the sins of humanity than Jesus-plus, Judas literally had no free will in the whole situation and I've written a couple of essays on the subject elsewhere so I'm not going to do it here.
So, with the preamble out of the way, let's start with some general stuff, then the general positives, then the general negatives, and then I'll go into specifics in list format: generally, like I said, I actually really enjoyed the episode, just… not for the same reasons that Jeff Davis wanted me to like this episode.
I got the sense, as I watched, that Jeff Davis wanted me to like the episode because ~*bawww poor Derek this data point in his backstory is so fucking sad!! FEEL BAD FOR HIM!!*~ and like… I just don't care? Derek doesn't do anything for me as a character, beyond existing for me to laugh at his pain and his drama queen antics, and my god, I love laughing at his pain and the pain of the people who stan for him on tumblr when they have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify his bullshit (which… to be fair, also makes me angry, because the abuse apologism is strong in the Teen Wolf fandom, and sometimes I yell at people for it, but mostly, Derek is hilarious to me).
See, the thing is this: Derek's an abuse victim, yes (in that Kate sexually manipulated him and used him to kill his whole family, barring Peter and Cora, and apparently, Peter's been manipulating him for longer than we thought, which sucks for Derek)… but I'm really sick and tired of people in fandom using Derek's history of victimization as an excuse for all of the bullshit that he's pulled since day freaking one. I've already outlined it here (though if I felt like editing that post, I would also add, "broke Isaac's arm 'to train him' even knowing full well that Isaac's father was a physically abusive fuck-nugget"), so I'm not going to just repeat the list, but… I'm sorry, there's literally no excuse for any of the shit that Derek's pulled.
Yes, there are explanations for why Derek is the way that he is. Yes, there are ways of making his behavior make sense in a larger context, but there are no justifications for any of what he pulls, any of what he's done since he first showed up and snapped at Scott and Stiles and tried to menace them off of his property. There is nothing that makes it okay, the way that Derek's been preying on emotionally vulnerable teenagers, isolating them from their friends and families, and getting them killed. There is nothing that makes his pattern of assaulting people (assaulting TEENAGERS when he is a grown ass man) okay, there is nothing that makes his selfishly motivated manipulative bullshit okay, there is nothing that makes it okay that he regularly lies to people, menaces them as a matter of course, and seems to have no qualms about killing innocents-like Lydia for example, who he was going to kill on some of the most BS specious evidence.
So, yes, I can totally believe that Derek, with some prodding from Peter, arranged for Ennis to non-consensually give The Bite to Paige. I can totally believe it because it completely fits with all the behavior that Derek's displayed in canon up until this point-moreover, Derek and Paige's relationship wasn't exactly on solid foundations of ~*Twue Wuv*~ to begin with. I mean, in their first encounter, he bullied her, then exploited a cheap loophole to get her to tell him her name after being asked to leave, and he only even bothered apologizing to her when her friends weren't there to see him do it. After that, he pressured her into saying, "I love you" and made sexualized advances on her after clearly being told, "no"-Derek Jeremiah Hale has no fucking problem with violating other people's agencies whenever he wants to, for whatever reason he wants to, and hey, he believed that ~*The Bite is a gift*~ so I can totally see him justifying the egregious way in which he violated Paige's agency (and also wound up killing her) with ~*but she'll totally see how great an idea this is eventually*~
…why? Because according to all canonical evidence, Derek is just that much of an asshole.
And see, all of this would be perfectly fine for me because Derek is a fictional character and it's okay to enjoy highly problematic fictional characters, BUT: 1. the narrative on Teen Wolf never actually acknowledges that Derek Jeremiah Hale is an abusive fuck-bishop, and it keeps wanting me to feel sorry for him when he lives in a Hell of his own making (I'm sorry, but I like it when my assholes are acknowledged as assholes-this is part of why Peter's been growing on me this season, though I guess he also exists in comparison to Gerard, and everyone looks like a saint next to Gerard, even Chris "child abuse bros with John Winchester" Argent); and 2. most of Derek's fans are fucking obnoxious abuse apologists-like, if we're going to gloss over Derek's abuse and reduce him to an exaggerated crush on Scott, I am all in favor of that, but if we're going to take Derek seriously, then he becomes a truly awful person… but these people only ever cry about how HARD things are for Derek, while showing little to no compassion for the people he hurts (especially Scott for reasons that, if you ask me, start with, "R" and rhyme with, "skaycism").
And that is why I am so fucking over Derek Hale and His Amazing Manpain (which sounds like a sideshow act. Someone should write a circus/carnival AU where Derek's special talent is being able to cry on command). He's never really, as such, REWARDED by the narrative for his abusive and violent behavior (not in the same way that Scott is rewarded for choosing to save people and make the right decisions, even when they're hard)-but he's also never called out on his shit by anyone, beyond maybe a casual mention of how Scott doesn't trust him, and I'm really sick of Jeff Davis expecting me to have sympathy for an unacknowledged abuser just because his life sucks. Derek's life sucks because he never learns from his bad decisions; Derek's life sucks because he keeps choosing abuse and violence instead of growing up. So… I've learned to laugh at Derek's pain and his drama queen antics. It's how I cope with the fact that he's actually a pretty awful person.
(Incidentally, this is part of why I don't like Sterek: yeah, Derek menaced Stiles, and slammed his head into a steering wheel, and shoved him up against walls, and threatened to rip Stiles's throat out with his teeth, and threatened both Stiles and Scott, who in case we've forgotten is Stiles's best friend since childhood who Stiles would probably die for, and menaced Stiles on a shockingly regular basis, and tried to make Stiles chop off his arm and mocked him because ~*you faint at the sight of blood!*~ and got thisclose to physically assaulting him again when Stiles was visibly freaked out by the possibility of having to cut off someone's fucking arm, and scares Stiles enough for him to vocally express this whole sentiment to Scott-c.f., "Derek, who still scares me"-and all Stiles has ever done in return is snark a little bit, go, "my house, my rules" at him in "Wolf's Bane," help save Derek's life at least three times* when Derek doesn't deserve it**, and insist, not to Derek's face, that Derek should grow up and do something about the Alpha pack.
…yeah, that sounds totally romantic and healthy and anything at all like the fanon construction of Sterek that dominates 95% of fanworks that get made in this godforsaken fandom. …but, oh, Derek's just a playful puppy who can't express his feelings properly, right? this is just his version of foreplay? …yeah, no, if that's "foreplay" for Sterek, then that's a damn good indication that Stiles needs to get the fuck out of that relationship as soon as possible. which actually doesn't sound like a bad fic idea, but I don't know if I'm vindictive and wanky enough to actually write the thing where I deconstruct Sterek and probably end the fic with Sheriff Stilinski killing Derek to save Stiles, Scott helping Stiles get therapy, and yeah no, I don't think I'm vindictive and wanky enough to actually write it. But thinking about it makes me happy.)
…But this has sort of veered off the track of, "general reactions to the episode" and more, "general thoughts on the Teen Wolf fandom by way of explaining the context for my reactions to the episode." So, back to the topic at hand: like I said above, I really liked the episode, but for all the wrong reasons, and I really liked it despite the heavy focus on Derek and his Amazing Manpain. My general evaluation of everything about the episode is that it needed more Kate Argent-like, that's what I expected, going into an episode about ~*Derek's Mysterious Past*~ and I really thought that Madison McLaughlin was probably cast as young!Laura-and as several people have already pointed out, there was no need to fridge another female character just to give Derek more manpain and there was no need for Derek to have another angsty relationship when really? his dub-con manipulation by Kate and how she killed his whole family should've been more than enough angst. And I'll come back to my Kate feelings in the "specifics" section.
But the other parts of the episode were pretty strong, and I did appreciate the Derek stuff on one level, namely the one where it confirms everything that I (and other fans) have been saying about Derek Jeremiah Hale for months upon months like the part where he's an abusive fuck-nugget.
But other general positive comments, since I said I would make them and I've so far only been negative: the Deucalion, Talia, and Deaton stuff was fucking awesome-like, my bar for Deaton is generally set pretty high because I expect a lot out of Deaton-related stuff, but the whole business with the Emissaries makes me so happy and it was pretty great. Talia also was pretty great (although I sort of went, "wait what" at her last scene, where she's all, "you're beautiful, baby" right after her son has killed his girlfriend). Deucalion, though, oh my god. I had mostly written him off as a two-dimensional comic book villain with really shaky characterization (because sometimes, he's legitimately terrifying, but other times, he pulls out crap like, "I AM THE DEMON WOLF!!" and comes off a lot more like, "Lex Luthor stole forty cakes and that's terrible")… but man, Deucalion was awesome this week, and Gideon Emery really brought his A-game. I was impressed.
Cora and Peter were also pretty great-but since I'm starting to get into some specific sorts of things, I'm going to start addressing specifics:
- Let's start things off on a shallow, shippy note, because I really want to just be shallow and shippy for a second: Peter and Stiles, Stiles and Peter, I refuse to use either of their portmanteau ship names because "Steter" and "Piles" are both really fucking ludicrous portmanteaux (and though, "Halinski" isn't bad, but well, it could also apply to Sterek or Cora/Stiles so for the sake of clarity, let's just go with Peter/Stiles) but oh gosh, my precious, fucked up, dirty bad wrong so very fucked up ship of my heart. I loved Stiles not trusting Peter-because even in the particular way that I ship them, which is for the most part completely consensual and non-coerced, I don't believe that Stiles would ever completely trust Peter (I mean, Peter turned Scott and temporarily ruined his life, he attacked Lydia and then psychically stalked and mind-raped her, he didn't seem moved by the thought of Boyd and Erica possibly dying when Stiles cared about Boyd and Erica, and he is just generally not a trustworthy person)-and I love, love, loved Stiles asking how old Peter is. Like, I know there are other explanations beyond, "Stiles wants to know if sleeping with Peter counts as statutory rape"… but I had my shipper goggles on and that's where my mind went, so.
And while I'm talking Peter/Stiles: I don't consider it entirely hypocritical of me to talk about how Sterek is abusive while shipping Peter/Stiles and Derek/Kate. For one thing, I completely acknowledge that my fucked up ships are fucked up-I explicitly like them because they are fucked up, and even when I like things like, "mostly consensual Peter/Stiles" and, "AU: Derek helps Kate burn down his own house and they have fantastic rough sex while the fire rages," I like the fucked up parts best of all. I wouldn't endorse any parts of these ships in real life, but since this is fiction, it's different and fiction presents a safe space in which to explore fucked up relationship dynamics. The same can't really be said of most of the Sterek shippers I've ever dealt with, who all seem to have this collective idea that Sterek is, in canon, the greatest love story ever told, when actually that love story mostly consists of Derek abusing Stiles. So, yeah, I've considered the idea that I might by a hypocrite, but I don't feel like I am. But on to better discussions. - Actually, on a similarly shallow note: there wasn't enough Scott in this episode. I appreciate that there are other characters and that Tyler Posey probably needs a break-especially after "Motel California" and "Currents" were pretty intense Scott episodes, especially the former-but my god, I need my Teen Werewolf Jesus fix, okay. …in lieu of that, though: I really liked the moments that Scott did get, and I love absolutely everything about Cora Hale.
- So, Deucalion thoughts and feelings and stuff: I'm not jumping on board the fandom train of slapping a big old pair of leather pants on him and making him into the new pet woobie-because just like there's no excuse for Derek's abusive bullshit, there's no excuse for anything Deucalion's done, no matter how tragic his backstory is (like killing the innocent unnamed girl, holding Erica and Boyd and Cora hostage and depriving them of moonlight to try and turn them into weapons against Scott and Derek, trying to control Scott's life and decisions and generally being menacing toward Scott, sending Kali and the Brickface Twins over to Derek's loft and making them force Derek to kill Boyd, and so on and so forth)-but I really appreciate the sudden influx of depth to his character. I appreciate this insight into why he is the way he is, but he's still pretty damn evil.
Like, really, I was predisposed to liking the Deucalion stuff this week because I love Start of Darkness stories-it's part of why I love writing about Barty Crouch Jr. in the Harry Potter fandom, despite mostly being out of the HP fandom by now-and Deucalion's Start of Darkness was really well done, aside from fridging Marco, the MOC beta who tried to usurp him. And Deucalion's Start of Darkness was also really, really sympathetic-I mean, here's this guy, who's a good, competent Alpha and looks after his pack's wellbeing, and all he wants to do is make sure they're safe and taken care of (which peace would be conducive to… and maybe he also wants to bang Talia Hale, which I don't blame him for because I totally also want to bang Talia Hale), and it all blows up in his face because he chooses to believe that Gerard Argent has more to him than being a gigantic mountain of dicks. It doesn't excuse away what he's become, but it makes him so much more compelling.
There's a post going around tumblr about how all the villains on Teen Wolf have some tragic backstory that explains why they are the way they are… except for Gerard, who literally just crawled out of the depths of Hell or something, and I generally agree with it in light of these Deucalion developments, which brings me right on to the point of…
ETA: actually, I don't agree with that post anymore and here's why. - VILLAINS FEELS. Teen Wolf, in general, gives me so very many villains feels-which I'm really susceptible to in general and have been since I can remember; I mean, my first crush was on Darth Vader (like not Anakin Skywalker***, but dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun DUNNNNN, choking the shit out of you with Sith Lord magic, takes no prisoners Darth Vader) and I felt personally betrayed by the end of Return of the Jedi because, at the tender age of five, I was going, "what, no, why is he saving Luke and getting redeemed, this is such bullshit, I WANT MY VILLAIN BACK A POX UPON YOUR HOUSE GEORGE LUCAS" and when I say, "crush," I mean that I called Darth Vader my husband for years. Literally years. Until I was about fifteen and divorced him for Ivan Karamazov, who I later divorced for Santana Lopez from Glee (and despite the fact that Glee and I broke up, Santana and I are still married).
So, yeah, Teen Wolf in general gives me a lot of villains feels, and this episode in particular did a very good job of taking advantage of my propensity to have VILLAINS FEELS. The Deucalion stuff, I've already touched on and I'm giving Kate and Peter their own bullet points because they're special and they deserve their own bullet points, but some other general villains feels that I've got going for me based on this episode:- So, Kali. It was really nice to see some backstory on her and Ennis along with all of the Deucalion stuff… but I'm really curious to know more about Kali now. Like, she wasn't present for the incident where Deucalion et al. got gassed by Gerard and Gerard impaled Deucalion's eyes with flash-bulbs and whatnot-so, what did Deucalion do to make her turn on her own pack and join his so-called All-Star team or did Deucalion even do anything at all? Was it enough for her that one of her fellow Alphas had that happen to him and the dream of peaceful coexistence was basically shattered for everyone? Did Deucalion have to manipulate her? WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOU, KALI, I WANT TO KNOW ALL OF THE THINGS ABOUT YOU PLEASE.
- I miss Kate and Victoria. A lot. But I always miss Kate and Victoria a lot, so that's less a specific statement about this episode and more of a general, "I am perpetually sad about the Argent ladies, I love them so much and I wish they weren't dead barring the exception of Allison" statement. Though, with the Clan Argent backstory we got this week… I really have to wonder if Jeff Davis actually knows what the fuck, "matriarchy" means because… we've only seen two Argent women aside from Allison, and between the three of them, we haven't actually seen a woman leading the family or being in charge of anything until now, with Allison going behind Chris's back to help Scott and company with their werewolf-flavored shenanigans, and then, she's not leading the family so much as she's taking charge of her own agency (which you go, babygirl, you keep on asserting your own agency and finding what you really believe in, I love you).
But anyway, as I was saying: they say that the Argent women are leaders while the men are soldiers, but that isn't really what canon shows us. Like, when Kate works on her own, Chris berates her for it and questions her judgment on a regular basis and trying to send her away in "Code Breaker." The closest we get to Victoria taking charge of things is her bossing Allison around and the whole, "you're going to go kill the ever-living shit out of Derek Hale and make him beg for mercy… anybody want a cookie? :)" moment from s1. Victoria defers to Gerard pretty frequently on-screen, and when you consider the whole, "I did what I was told to do" line of Kate's from "Code Breaker" and everything we know about Gerard, she was probably abused and manipulated by him in the same way that Allison was (or at least a very similar way), and Gerard just outright abuses and manipulates Allison, trying to make her into a copy of Kate… so yeah, Jeff? I'm not seeing the "matriarchy" part of Clan Argent, and just saying that they're a matriarchy doesn't mean that they really are.
Also, if I knew how to make fan-vids, I would make a vid of Kate, Victoria, and Allison set to "Killer Queen." It would be fucking boss. - I thought it was literally impossible for me to hate Gerard more than I already did. I was wrong. I want to kill Gerard Argent slowly and painfully, in ways that would probably make Kate "fire-starter" Argent proud of me. and uh… those are all of my VILLAINS FEELS! about Gerard. He can go fall off a glacier and die for all I care. In fact, that would absolutely be preferable to his continued presence on the show, even if his actor does a good job with what he's given.
- So, since I'm on the subject of Argent ladies which transitions very nicely into all of my Kate feels re: this episode, let's talk about Kate Argent.
…Man, she is a terrible, awful, horrible, manipulative, homicidal, abhorrent person, but jesus, I love me some Kate Mother-Fucking Argent. She's easily my favorite villain Show's ever had, and despite what fandom in general seems to think of her, she definitely has a tragic backstory to explain why she was the way she was… it's just that you have to read into canon to see it, and most of fandom refuses to do that for anyone but the cute white dudes. I would quite proudly wear a "Kate Argent Fan Club" t-shirt to a Teen Wolf convention, even knowing that most of the other fans would probably try to kill me for it, if I ever planned on going to a Teen Wolf convention (which I don't, unless it's fan organized and I somehow come into a lot of money).
But as I said above, this episode suffered from a total dearth of Kate Argent. Derek didn't need any extra manpain, he already had enough in the form of his relationship with Kate and his guilt about getting all of his family (except for Peter and Cora) killed. But… since there was a total lack of Kate in the episode itself, I've been pondering things related to her and the episode, like how she now has a newfound motivation for targeting Derek in the first place (and possibly even for targeting his entire family), and how the whole thing with Paige would've made Derek so much more vulnerable to Kate's manipulation, and how Kate is just really awesome, in that way where I don't sanction anything that she did and I wouldn't want to know her in the real world because she'd probably kill me or something, but since she's fictional, I just love watching her work.
To the first of these ponderings: so, if a werewolf's eyes turn blue after they take an innocent life, then it totally makes sense that Kate would target Derek, if she got a glimpse of his eyes. Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent-now, granted, taking an innocent life doesn't necessarily mean taking a human life, but still, if Kate saw Derek's bright blue eyes, it's not exactly a huge stretch of the imagination to think that he spilled human blood. Especially since Kate's a hunter and knows that the ~*Beacon Hills animal attacks*~ are anything but that. She could easily find out that Derek was dating Paige and then Paige turned up dead in an "animal attack"-and as for targeting Derek's entire family?
Well: a. Kate wouldn't have any idea which Alpha bit Paige but; b. since Talia Hale is apparently the SUPER ALPHA and since she and the entire family decided to shelter Derek after he was responsible for Paige's death (which according to the Code might make them complicit in her death too)… it's not a huge stretch of the imagination for Kate to think that Talia bit Paige; and c. this would've been really specious evidence on which to attack the whole family, but… Kate and Gerard have shown that they don't really follow the Code as closely as Chris wants to think that he does, and that they don't really need that much evidence before going and attacking werewolves. Obviously, none of this required Kate to sexually manipulate Derek, but… I'm just saying. She has a newfound motivation for going after him in the first place, and something she could use as justification for attacking his whole family.
To the second of my little ponderings: I really haven't considered it that much because thinking too hard about Derek and his manpain makes me feel kind of sick, but… well, he was just responsible for his girlfriend's death. Given the supposed timing of the fire, there probably wasn't that much time between Paige and Kate (I'd figure maybe two years, at most), and as we all know about Derek, he is generally very sad. I can totally see him falling for Kate when she put on the moves just because she was being nice to him, and he wanted to be loved, and sure he got Paige killed and all, but Kate was ~*different*~ she was older, and she was into him, and he wasn't going to get her turned (though apparently he wanted to have sex with her while shifted, according to On Fire and all I have to say to that is, "Kinky, Derek Jeremiah Hale. Very kinky").
And the third is really just me being a person-shaped mess of Kate Argent feels, so let's not discuss it and pretend that we did. …and actually, now I really do want to go to a Teen Wolf convention literally just so I can wear a "Kate Argent Fan Club" t-shirt and see how many people I can piss off. Because I am a terrible person. - On another VILLAINS FEELS note: Peter Hale, oh my god. I have a very conflicted history with Peter Hale, which is mostly conflicted for two reasons: 1. most of his canon stuff is tainted with the patented Jeff Davis Veneer of Misogyny (like the way his whole arc with Lydia is basically coded as a sexualized assault, and the way he manipulates Melissa to get closer to Scott); and 2. this godforsaken fandom and how they slap a pair of leather pants on any white guy with a sob story, just… to quote Victor Henriksen: "Life sucks, get a helmet. Because everybody's got a sob story, but not everyone becomes a killer."
So, in season one, I appreciated Peter as a villain but didn't really like him, even in that way that I usually like villains. This was pushed right over into revulsion territory during season two because of his arc with Lydia and how godawful and disgusting it is, and especially considering the leather pants-ing he gets from fandom, I spent most of the hiatus between season two and season three going, "seriously, fuck that guy, and fuck the people who like him because most of them just think of him as ~*Sassy Uncle Peter*~ when excuse you, he murdered Laura for power and abused Lydia for rebirth, and fuck literally everything about him." …but he's really been growing on me in season three.
Part of it, I suspect, is that he's in the situation of being the Token Evil Teammate right now, which is a scenario that I really enjoy watching-like, a big reason why I enjoyed Meg's character development post-season five is that she sort of became the Token Evil Teammate of Team Free Will, and they were all reluctant to work together, but tolerating each other for their own reasons, and it was all complicated and great. Another part of it is that unfortunately, Ian Bohen is really quite charismatic on his own and he plays Serial Killer Charisma really well-he delivers all his lines really well, he makes the most of the screen-time he's given almost to the point of being a spotlight-stealer, and well, I used to fantasize about running away with Hannibal Lecter (and like, Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lecter, not Gaspard Ulliel Hannibal Lecter or Mads Mikkelsen Hannibal Lecter-not that I wouldn't gladly run away with either of them too, but the object of my fantasizing was always Anthony Hopkins's Lecter), and Peter really is the Hannibal Lecter of Beacon Hills, so.
But anyway, "Visionary" was a really great episode for Peter on so many levels. For one thing, it confirmed what I've been saying about Peter for months now: the fire is not a fucking excuse for anything that Peter did-it's not even an excuse for his personality because he was manipulative, glib, self-centered, and had all the makings of a serial killer before the fire pushed him over the edge. For another thing, it showed us pretty clearly that Peter is still ridiculously untrustworthy, not least because he's a manipulative, self-centered narcissist, but also because his perspective on shit is so warped that he actually thinks ickle!Derek was anything at all like Scott based on the surface-level similarity, "well, they both fell in love with human girls and some trouble ensued because of these tragic, doomed love affairs." This post describes and discusses the whole business better than I can.
For still another thing, I refuse to believe the absolute drivel that's going around about how it was actually Peter falling in love with Paige and killing her, but he was trying to blame Derek for it for some ~*inscrutable Peter reason*~ or whatever-it makes absolutely no sense, okay? Yes, Stiles and Cora heard a slanted version of the truth from Peter (just like how Scott and Allison heard a slanted version of the truth from Gerard), but the flashback sequences deliberately contradicted both Peter and Gerard on more than one occasion, so… there's no good reason for us not to trust the veracity of the flashbacks.
Also, there's this point that someone on tumblr brought up, and… I agree with that. It's really telling, to me, that the majority of the Teen Wolf fandom (ie, the Sterek fandom) will slap leather pants on Derek and Peter while villainizing Scott (and/or being really ableist towards Scott), villainizing Allison or dismissing her as a "crazy bitch" (because as we all know, abuse excuses everything if you're a guy, but if you're a girl, it doesn't matter how much you've been abused and manipulated or how much you've been through, it's all your fault and you're "crazy" to boot), and otherwise being really shitty to all of the characters who, if you ask me, deserve some degree of sympathy in these discussions.
But to conclude this on a happier note: like I said above, the Peter/Stiles feels were strong with this episode. I just want them to run away together on a cross-country crime spree that ends in Peter's violent death and most everyone believing that Stiles was an abused, manipulated victim who can't be held accountable for his actions when actually, he went along with all of this because he wanted to, because he wanted to feel powerful for once instead of being a chronic butt-monkey and because he really believed that he and Peter loved each other. - Since I mentioned going, "what the fuck?" at a few things in this episode, let's talk about those, now: for one thing, what in the hell are Druids doing in an ancient Greek myth? Like, the Classical Greeks and the Celts did not have contact with each other; contact between mainland Europe and the British Isles wasn't established until the time of the Roman Empire, so what the Hell are you trying to sell us on with this historically bullshit backstory, Teen Wolf? Like, I find the whole Emissaries thing really interesting-and because Benjamin Sisko from DS9 is also called the Emissary, I want to write crossover/AU fusion fic where he's the Emissary to a ragtag group of werewolves (probably with Nerys as the new Alpha following Kai Opaka's death)-and I find the link between the Emissaries and the Druids interesting, considering the darach… but seriously, was this whole thing just Gerard being a manipulative bastard, or was it for real? Because if it's for real, someone really should've pulled Jeff Davis aside and gone, "look, this doesn't actually work out with historical fact, Jeff."
On a similar note: the explanations for the bright blue eyes. Like, okay, it makes sense enough for Derek and Peter-Derek killed Paige and Peter killed Laura; they both killed innocents, that clears everything right up-but it doesn't really make sense with Jackson? Like, yes, Jackson killed people as the Kanima, but technically, none of them were innocents because of their complicity in Matt's drowning (unless we're going with, "no but really Matt was unhinged and aside from Isaac's dad, these twenty-somethings were innocent, not least because they were drunk," which would be fair enough) and on top of that, Jackson wasn't in control of himself as the Kanima. Jackson was explicitly controlled by Matt and then Gerard; he had no ability to stop himself, so blaming him for these people's deaths is really sketchy, to me. Unless we're going with some kind of explanation like, "well, he was still traumatized by his stint as the Kanima, Peter's an unreliable narrator and what really changes someone's beta eyes from yellow to blue is any kind of major trauma that involves death or something."
My last "what the fuck" note is pretty simple by comparison: …why the Hell am I supposed to feel any sympathy for Derek when he literally killed Paige because he tried to get her Bitten, then turned around and gave the Bite to Jackson, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd without checking anything beyond, "hey kids, you want to join my werewolf pack" (ostensibly not having learned anything from Paige's death at all), which led to Jackson becoming an unstoppable killing machine and Erica and Boyd getting killed? Oh, and let's remember that Derek only did this to build up his pack and, in so doing, build up his own power? And I'm supposed to feel sympathy for him… why exactly? He's kind of a terrible person and his actions prove it and I would really just like this to be more widely acknowledged by the narrative and the fandom both. Like, at this point, I need some, "Gul Dukat from 'Waltz' forward"-level acknowledgement by the narrative that Derek is pretty fucking awful.
Oh, actually, one other last "what the fuck" note: …young!Peter is cute and all, and he plays the manipulative, glib, self-centered jackass role as well as Ian Bohen does… but at the same time, how did he go from young!Peter to Ian Bohen by the time the fire happens? like, is being Derek's best friend really that stressful? this is almost as bad as SPN expecting us to believe that John and Mary went from Matt Cohen and Amy Gumenick to JDM and Samantha Smith in the space of four years. (which… seriously, guys, was Dean really that stressful of a kid?) - So, despite what I said above about perpetually needing a fix of Scott McCall, Teen Werewolf Jesus… I would probably watch an entire episode just of Stiles and Peter riffing off each other. Which is really weird for me to realize because I'm, at best, casually ambivalent towards Stiles-I don't hate him, I just don't really like him either, and I find his ubiquitousness in fandom (and the way that fandom tends to characterize him) really annoying, but I still don't hate Stiles himself-and the way in which I like Peter doesn't really mesh with the way that most of fandom seems to like Peter. And I really didn't want to ship the thing. I feel like a terrible person for shipping the thing… but man, I would watch an entire episode of them being belligerent and snarky at each other. I'm comforted somewhat by the fact that I would also watch an entire episode of Scott and Isaac cuddling, though.
- I feel like I really haven't squeed about Talia Hale enough, so by way of wrapping this up: TALIA HALE TALIA HALE OH MY GOD TALIA HALE. I LOVE HER SO MUCH, SHE HITS ME RIGHT IN THE FEMDOM KINK AND I JUST WANT TO GET ON MY KNEES AND BEG AT HER, YES MISTRESS, PLEASE MISTRESS, OH MY GOD TALIA HALE. …I'm literally just counting down the minutes until she joins Laura and Cora and Lydia on the roster of, "characters who, according to Teen Wolf/Sterek's fandom, only exist to somehow get Stiles and Derek to hook up, or maybe to be somehow villainized for not wanting Stiles and Derek to hook up, or for ignoring Stiles's unwanted romantic advances, but are never actually allowed to exist as their own persons outside of Sterek." I mean, I could try trusting that fandom won't do this to Talia Hale, but considering how they treat Lydia, Cora, and Laura, I'd just end up disappointed by letting myself hope that fandom won't be misogynistic and gross at Talia.
- …actually, wait, I'm not done yet, because I just have to air a very wanky grievance first: …I'm, frankly, shocked and appalled by how much negativity I've seen toward this season in a lot of fan circles. Like, most of the people I talk Teen Wolf with have had Issues with some things-like the racism, and the misogyny, and all the reasons why Jeff Davis is not a gift-but have predominantly been enjoying things, barring a few people I'd class as exceptions. But I've seen a lot of negativity about this season from Sterek fans, and I can't help but wonder if they're just feeling so negative toward this season because it's jossing all of their precious fanon over and over and over again. Like, hey, Stiles doesn't care that Derek ostensibly died; he only cared that Scott was injured and not getting better. And hey, Derek's hooking up with Jennifer instead of Stiles and this is presented as a good thing, not least because it heals Derek's injuries. And hey, Derek is actually an abusive fuck-bishop who regularly makes terrible decisions and not a poor, misunderstood woobie made of manpain and the best Alpha to ever Alpha. And hey, fuck you all, Scott is a True Alpha because he is literally just that fucking good, and you missed out on all of his amazing character development because you were too busy imagining sexual tension where there literally isn't any.
**: And no, I don't consider the fact that Stiles has helped save Derek's life particularly shippy fodder. I consider it an indication that, despite the fact that Stiles seems to resort to, "let's just kill it" at the drop of a hat, and despite the fact that Stiles displays total Nice GuyTM levels of bullshit with regard to Lydia (especially sickening is how he's perfectly willing to get hot and heavy with her while she's so drugged up that she mistakes her stuffed animal for a mountain lion and only stops when she calls him Jackson), and despite the fact that he only really seems to care about other people's lives when those people are Scott and the Sheriff, Stiles is enough of a decent human being to not just let Derek die. I really see nothing shippy about preserving someone's life and I find the whole, "well he could've let Derek die but he didn't, clearly it's true love!!" narrative that permeates the Sterek fandom fucked up and deeply disturbing. And borderline character-bashing, at that. And I'm not even particularly invested in Stiles.
Likewise, I don't consider it particularly ship-fodder-ish for Derek to swoop in and save Stiles from Peter in "Wolf's Bane" because, again? This doesn't really prove anything, let alone that Derek has ~*secret romantic feelings*~ for Stiles; it just proves that Derek has enough of a shred of decency in him to not just let Stiles die. Good for him, I guess. He can do the bare minimum of personal decency, here Derek have a medal.
***: Which isn't to say that Anakin didn't grow on me, though. I mean, like I said re: Deucalion, I love Start of Darkness stories, and I actually really like the prequel movies and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker because it's a huge Start of Darkness story about the man who was my husband for literally years. Possibly TMI alert, but Revenge of the Sith is better for me than porn, even given all the overwrought ~*emotional drama!!*~ which is all well and good if you're into that, but… really, I'm just there to watch Anakin go properly Dark Side and kill a bunch of people.
…I realize that this isn't really a healthy desire or whatever, just like how my whole process of going, "I feel sad today, I think I'll watch Magic Bullet because Derek is really hot when he's sick and dying and his pain makes me feel better" isn't exactly healthy. I've actually navel-gazed extensively about why I'm like this-inspired on some pop psychology that I gleaned from this one episode of Criminal Minds about serial killer fangirls (season four, episode two, "The Angel Maker")-and I've mostly just concluded that there probably isn't a good reason for why I'm like this and why things like this get me off. Maybe it's something to do with wanting power and agency in a world where I don't have a lot of it, maybe it's because I have an emotionally abusive mother, maybe its because a lot of reasons.
But… I can't really tell what the cause is, and the fact that it's literally gone on since I was five years old makes me inclined to just say, "fuck it" and accept the fact that I love characters who are terrible (as long as they're acknowledged by their respective narratives as being terrible) and I like watching them do bad things like kill and manipulate people. On which note, this has been fun, but I need to go run to the grocery store and to Target.