epistemophiliac

I can’tstand it

just

aaagh

this show

this fandom, okay

There are some really fascinating things you can do with these characters.  There’s potential for complexity and depth that you wouldn’t expect from a show like this, from the way it presents itself as yet another teen paranormal romance.

You’ve got a male protagonist acting more like a female love interest (obsessed with their SO to the point of all decisions being focused on the SO, a frightening amount of dialogue being simply the SO’s name, etc.) while also dealing with the control and power issues granted to more typical “suddenly supernatural” protagonists, complicating both storylines; a supposed antagonist whose desire for vengeance turns out to be more based in guilt than bloodlust, whose secondary goal after the vengeance is to help people (to control their powers, to save themselves through gaining powers, by protecting them from others less scrupulous in their use of power); clear antagonists whose motivations are rooted firmly in family - doing things to honor their family, get justice for lost family, to do what their family would have wanted - but who walked so far into morally grey territory that they didn’t notice when it went completely dark; a group that claims they want to protect people from monsters, yet sees no hypocrisy in threatening and torturing anyone who complicates their mission; a purported comic relief sidekick who, rather than having no motivations beyond ‘help my friend because he’s the protagonist’, gets to have relationships with the rest of the cast, distinct from the protagonist’s, while also showing through his friendship with the protagonist why the protagonist is worth caring about; a love interest who rejects the yoke forced on her by family and the protagonist alike through their secrets, who seeks out answers to the show’s mysteries and creates for herself a third choice in the “your family or your boyfriend” question.

You’ve gotall that, as well as some really interesting characters more tangentially involved in the story.

all of that

and then every single fic I’ve found takes on an alternate, overly (in my mind) simplified characterization

which is close enough most of the time that I can read it and enjoy it

(and hey, it’s not called au for nothing)

up until the moment they do something that just completely goes against how I view the characters

even if it’s just meant as one of those jokey fanon bits that people know isn’t really how the characters act - but it’s how they wish the characters wouldact, sometimes, because that’s how they would act

I’m just like

no

no

okay yes you are allowed to think scott is a moron

I do too

and while stiles occasionally wonders how scott gets on without him

and thinks he’s a little too focused on his girlfriend

these comments are always made in a somewhat joking fashion

I doubt he would sincerely and honestly dismiss scott behind his back and call him a hopeless idiot

stiles is not that kind of human being, okay?

it’s not like he surrounds himself with morons to make himself feel smarter

he actually does like scott!

the reason may escape us, but trust that it exists?

.

and then there’s

well

other people have already made my ‘derek is not the hulk’ rant better than I could, so I won’t bother writing it out

but I get this awful mental twitch when I see it in fic

all’derek struggles with what his wolf knows he wants’

nope

I’m gone

that’s not how it works

you are taking the name derek and plugging it into a ready-made werewolf trope fic

…and that’s fine?

but it’s not the derek I want to read about