PSA: YOU CAN TREAT ISAAC LIKE A NORMAL PERSON WITHOUT POKING FUN AT HIS ABUSE.
hahahaha going to the isaac lahey tag and seeing someone defending scott’s action as okay because isaac deserved it.
for— deciding to have feelings? like— for deciding somewhere down the line he liked allison and is now stuck between his emotions and his circumstance? oh yeah, he deserved it for checking in with scott. like… ‘are you sure you dont hate me (please, i dont want you to hate me)’ and like— isaac is not exactly the most tactful of people and his blunt honesty just??? he has a horrid brain to mouth filter and god, isnt that wonderful that he thinks he doesnt have to censor himself anymore because it won’t mean a night in a freezer? BUT NO. HE DESERVED IT FOR BEING TRUTHFUL TOO.
he doesn’t ‘deserve’ anything okay? he doesn’t deserve being made out like he’s attention seeking because of his abuse (milking it, really stiles??? i get it youre an asshole but really, writers? no one thought to make anyone of the other characters react like it was a shitty comment?), that he’s destroying the bro-code because fuck that right, bros before hoes? like the women are hoes????!?!?!??!
I GET THAT SCOTT’S ACTION REPRESENTS A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO FELT LIKE THEY WERE GOING THROUGH/HAVE GONE THROUGH THE SAME THING. BEING “BETRAYED” BY A FRIEND ABOUT LOVE— AND ITS PAINFUL. AND ON SOME LEVEL ITS UNDERSTANDABLE. People expect scott to feel something right? OR ELSE he’d be boring and too stereotypical and not human enough. that this is a form of self expression.
but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay. And certainly, the way its made fun off (anyone reminded of that Derek&Peter scene in 2x11 this was mimicking? the throwing against wall/bannister motif? Like— for people to make that connection, youre placing Isaac on the side of wrong— again, for what? having emotions??? Having feelings— HE HASNT EVEN DONE ANYTHING???) is definitely not okay. I get it, oh teenagers are not mature enough to handle this discussion, maybe Scott was just caught up in the heat of the moment. BUT YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THIS AND NOT DEFEND IT.
YOU DONT HAVE TO EXCUSE HIS BEHAVIOR. YOU CAN ACCEPT THAT THIS WAS SOMETHING NOT OKAY THAT HAPPENED. Isaac doesnt deserve anything for having feelings. And Scott doesn’t deserve this maelstorm of feelings for trying to be a good person. Hey, people fuck up in the process but handle moving on from it with grace.
And it’s shitty writing on Jeff’s part because he does not deal with consequences. He’s framed the scene to make it look like acceptable behavior, like it’s an everyday thing to just throw people around??? And that’s not cool because here we have people trying to defend it because the show has made it that way and then another group of people taking it very seriously and blaming the characters for it. IT’S NOT THE CHARACTERS, IT’S THE WRITERS. and that is the problem here. it reflects badly on them tbqh. Like— if this was them trying to ‘recover’ isaac trying to ‘normalize’ him trying to ‘make him better’ then its a pretty shitty way of doing it yknow?
I’m going to add my two cents to the 'Milking It' scene, specifically, because in all the great discussion about trauma and problematic behavior, I think one of the most destructive elements in this scene might be sliding by? Because the most repugnant element to the whole exchange was, for me, neither Isaac nor Stiles' behavior -- it was actually the reaction of everyone else seated at the table.
We already know Jeff Davis and his terrible track record at showing the ramifications, resolutions, or necessary apologies for events that happen in Teen Wolf. But in this scene he goes that step further, and uses body language and lack of dialogue amongst the other characters to belittle the seriousness of the issues, and ‘laugh off’ the confrontation with exasperation and ridicule (a ridicule which is, as I’ll hopefully illustrate, fundamentally different to the in-argument ridicule).
And if we take this body language and silence, and apply it to the issues as presented, what we essentially have is more wank on Jeff, but an in-narrative “...not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." scenario.
I’ll come back to this, but first let me break down the dialogue and why what Isaac and Stiles say isn’t as simple as it seems.
Context
i. Isaac and Stiles do not get along. Both feel threatened by the other regarding their place in the ‘pack’, in their circle of friends, and both compete for Scott’s time and attention. They both place an extraordinarily high value on being accepted in this context, because they both failed to achieve wider social inclusion before it, and both feel they’d be unable to achieve social inclusion without it.
ii. They have an established history of communication through confrontation, insults and threats. It is the expectation, not the exception, that replies will be caustic.
Dialogue
Isaac: "They're all locked up because they're insane."
Isaac’s glib jibe answers Allison’s question. On the one hand, this suggests that the comment is general; that he may be tactless, but he’s not insulting Stiles on purpose. However, the scope of the answer includes Stiles because he is both one of the “insane”, and more importantly, because Isaac purposefully turns to look right at him when he says this. Not Allison, to whom he is technically replying, not at Scott who is also losing his mind, but at Stiles.
Stiles: "Can you at least try and be helpful?"
It’s necessary to remember that at this very moment, antagonism has already begun. The tone is set. Isaac knows that this is getting bitchy, and he mentions his trauma after, not before, this. So he brings up his childhood in full knowledge that they are arguing. This is not a list of apologies, but I need you to bear with me in acknowledging that Stiles is actively: sleep deprived, shaken and irrational. He also has a canonical neurological condition which has caused him deep internalized feelings of self-blame and lack of self-worth.
He also currently, legitimately, feels like he is going insane.
These are all things of which Isaac is aware. No, it's not being locked in a freezer, but it is certainly a terrifying and traumatic list of events that Stiles is touchy about, and has every right to be touchy about.
Stiles legitimately takes offence because Isaac, who is not currently in their state of active suffering, makes an unkind joke about that suffering.
Isaac: "For half of my childhood, I was locked in a freezer. So being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."
Now here is the place where it really gets murky, because there are two elements inherent in Isaac’s reply, both equally -- and possibly simultaneously -- in/valid.
i. Isaac points out, bluntly and honestly, his familiarity with prolonged psychological suffering. If he is being tactless, if he is being glib and blunt, it’s because it’s the way he dealt with it, and no-one was tactful to him about it, so yeah, sorry, but he won’t be making you cocoa. It doesn’t mean he’s not taking this seriously, though, because he cares about Scott, and he cares about Allison, so fuck you he’s here isn’t he. (You deserve to be mocked if you missed that memo.)
ii. Isaac is implying that his trauma is worse than their (or at least, Stiles') current trauma; that he should not be held responsible for his irreverent remarks, even if they do belittle or undermine that trauma (whether intentionally or accidentally). It is the “victims cannot also be abusers” fallacy.
NOW I’m not going to get involved in whether Isaac meant one or the other, or one more so than the other, or something else entirely. The point is that both are valid and reasonable interpretations of what he says, and he doesn't attempt to clarify.
I think there's sufficient evidence to say Stiles reads interpretation #2, and this is fairly understandable, coming after a prolonged period of loss (Heather, Tara, (almost) his father) followed by his own death, and now a prolonged period of psychological duress. He's quick to feel aggrieved, whether out of resentment, jealousy, or genuine indignation.
But the point is (and this is relevant to both of them, as well as to all and sundry) no-one’s trauma ever invalidates, or has the right to belittle, anyone else’s trauma, no matter how horrific that trauma was.
Stiles: "Are we still milking that?"
It’s not just Isaac’s life story, but also his insinuation, that Stiles reacts to with such problematic and reprehensible vitriol. Is his response problematic? Absolutely. Is it nasty? Without question. Is it an example of acceptable behavior? No, by God, it is not. But from Stiles’ perspective, Isaac’s trauma is old, and his is Right Now. Isaac went through hideous psychological abuse; Stiles, Scott, and Allison are going through psychological abuse at the moment, and Isaac is joking about it. Moreover, he may be suggesting that he has the right to do so, because of his own history.
There has been extensive meta on why you should never, ever shut down, or ridicule, someone’s attempt to talk about their trauma, and I won’t rehash it here. No-one’s arguing that these lines, arguably this whole conversation, is deeply problematic and out of line.
But I'm going to argue that, for the reasons above, I don't actually hold these two in the highest contempt here. And that's because nastiness is not as insidious as erasure.
I said at the start that Jeff Davis’ most problematic choice was ‘laughing off’ this confrontation, and I invite you to go back and look specifically for the reaction of the other characters in this scene, cueing us on how to 'read' it and react to it.
Scott buries his head in his arms, refusing to comment on or be witness to the exchange.
Allison pulls her head back and rolls her eyes, exasperated.
Lydia physically moves away from the table, distancing it from any business of hers.
They all disconnect from, reject, and / or ridicule the confrontation.
Both sides of it.
Whatever side you fall on, whether you think one character was far more out of line than the other, I think we can agree that what’s really being argued here is neither “exasperating” nor “funny”. And the thing is, neither Isaac nor Stiles dismiss it like it is.
I actually disagree with “Are you still milking that?” as an example of exasperation or dismissal within this context (though it is an example of an unacceptable shut-down) based on two things:
i. Stiles is perpetuating the confrontation, which in this instance IS the dialogue, by suggesting that Isaac's abused his trauma as an excuse -- taking into consideration the fact that Isaac initially brought up his abuse as an excuse, in a self-aware and arguably facetious manner. Stiles is not refusing to acknowledge Isaac's abuse by redirecting the conversation or ignoring the statement entirely, whatever other problematic elements his response should answer for.
ii. Isaac and Stiles, as I’ve said, have an established, antagonistic mode of communication. Anything Isaac says to Stiles, or Stiles says to Isaac, is not the same as something Scott, for instance, might say to either of them. Isaac started the confrontation, and he brought up his own abuse, owning both.
Hence he retaliates, unashamedly:
“Yeah, I’m still milking that.”
These are two caustic, immature people, and neither of them should get Hall Passes for half the shit they do.
But as far as I'm concerned, the problem in this scene was not actually with Isaac or Stiles, but with the portrayal of their confrontation as deserving of eye-rolling, silence and ultimately erasure, signaled to us by the on-screen 'audience'. The silence of their friends was worse by far and engineered, I expect, so that Jeff can continue to avoid the ramifications and consequences of both helpful and hurtful actions within his script.
I can't be the only person who finds this deeply, psychologically, creepy, right?
I mean, emotional -- and physical representation of -- substitution, presented in the framework of the traditional romantic relationship?
Sure, most likely this precise instance is entirely innocent. But substitution and transference of emotional and / or sexual needs, and the framing they appear in, is the basic psychological building block in the vast majority of incestuous abuse -- not maliciousness, transference.
But we're all taught to go "awwww", to blinker ourselves so we only see the good instances, even if it means ignoring the unhealthy and problematic logic behind the action -- or the massive benefit to breaking it down and saying wait a second, hold up.
42: What is one random object you’ve used to masturbate?
My hand.
77: What was your reaction the first time you saw a penis/vagina?
Are you expecting some sort of hilarious story? I think my reaction was, “Oh, so that’s what that looks like.”
78: If you had a penis/vagina for a day, what are five things you would do?
1) Continue having a penis/vagina combination despite being really weirded out by what happened to my usual penis-sans-vagina. 2) Do my grocery shopping. 3) Wash my car. 4) Order pizza. 5) Punch you in the face.
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