On Scott McCall (and why I wish Teen Wolf would stop making me hate him)

verstehen1:

Okay, see, here’s the inherent flaw with pretty much all modern (and some classic even) heroic narratives: the hero only becomes the hero at the expense of other people. In short: the hero is rewarded for taking action, regardless of what those actions are or the consequences of those actions. All the other characters, even characters cast in roles of support to the hero end up punished for taking actions but especially actions taken in defense of themselves or others. This tendency gets especially problematic when it comes to female characters, whom often experience sexualized narratives, especially sexualized violence, in response to taking action. 

Scott continually takes actions — good, dumb, heroic, devious, a mix of all of these — but those actions always have consequences for the people around him. For example, if Derek had succeeded in killing Jackson/the kanima, how many lives might that have saved? So, while arguably fighting to “save” Jackson is the heroic action, Scott’s insistence on doing so directly leads to letting Matt continue to rampage throughout the town. Other people pay the consequences, Scott does not. Scott’s actions with Allison continually paint Allison as the, hrm, not necessarily “bad guy” but often “hysterical,” or “misguided,” or just a “bitch” (fandom’s term following the season 2 ending, not mine). The audience obviously knows a lot more information about what’s going on than Allison ever does throughout the entire show, from when she “stupidly” breaks up with Scott for lying to her and putting her in danger and standing her up and being an all-around creep, or when she hunts and studies  dangerous werewolves with the one person who actually tries to tell her stuff that she needs to know about her family, her friends, and her boyfriend, or loses it following the completely unjustified death of her mother caused by one of those very dangerous werewolves… all stuff that could have gone so very differently if, you know, the men in her life — Scott in particular — had just talked to her. Scott’s actions in hiding the various truths from Allison — about himself, about her family — create consequences for Allison, really serious consequences for her mental, physical, and emotional health (not to mention the loss of her mother, the loss of her beloved aunt, the loss of likely any trust she had in her parents or family)… and Scott’s consequences boil down to being sad that he’s not dating Allison anymore and going back to where he started before he was bitten. There’s already a 700-odd something note post that describes my feelings about Scott’s actions regarding Derek so, yeah, we’re not going to go there because this will likely loose coherency and descend into rabid rants about agency narratives and how I kind of want to stab everyone in the TW writers’ room when I actually sit and think about it. 

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Also, speaking of the suppression of those who most need representation—holy crap, DANNY. I think it’s covered pretty well here how Allison and Lydia’s stories are overshadowed by Scott, but it makes me really angry that the writers aren’t willing to stop at using women’s relationships as a plot device. We know (from spoilers) the Danny, a gay PoC, is going to be in a relationship with one of the Alphas this coming season. I see this going basically one of two ways: either Danny gets the whole wolfy scoop, or he is kept in the dark. If he finds out the truth, I will be angry because WOW, why couldn’t Lydia or Allison have gotten that same treatment? If he is kept in the dark, I’ll be angry because Danny will be in a similar place to Allison and Lydia in season 2. Neither option is exactly a win.

fictionmist:

this post is in general appreciation of osric’s entire twitter feed right now

welcome to season one

GPOY.

My last final is at 8 tomorrow morning, then I’m free for the summer! This neuro exam is going down. 

letterstoatticus:

In Latin we don’t say “I love you,” we say “Pedicabo ego vos” which means “You are the image of my heart.”

I just think this is really beautiful.