You know Sterek has been frequently 'cancelled' and attacked for basically being the most popular ship in the TW world, right?
Because of the age gap between them, right?
Well, I have to complain about it, because it really pisses me off that they're discarding the beautiful, slow-burning love story that exists between Stiles and Derek in CANON.
Because damn it, they liked each other.
It bothers me that they tarnish Sterek's image for things like being a "pedo" ship when NO, they're not. They're trying to lump us all into a "sick shipper" category.
If we're being honest, Sterek has probably been the story with the most backstory, where we've seen how each season has seen the closeness between Stiles and Derek grow, where they've gone from 'hating each other and having to deal with each other because of Scott' to genuinely caring for each other to the point where Derek would take a bullet for Stiles or Stiles would go against the entire FBI to protect and get Derek out of whatever mess he was in.
They care deeply and genuinely for each other, so much so that Derek preserved and fixed Stiles' Jeep, keeping it in his garage as a sort of memento or anchor for him.
It bothers me so much that they talk shit about Sterek when this couple exists:
sorry but parrish/lydia was a canon pairing between a teenager and an ADULT and if that wasn't enough, an adult from the sheriff's department.
Why aren't people talking about this more? Why are they attacking Sterek instead?
Sterek: a couple that wasn't canon during the show's run, and we only got confirmation of feelings for each other through the actors and through obvious hints in the show. But directly, it was never a canon couple between a teenager and an adult guy. They were together.
I put the adult that way because Derek's age was never confirmed as such. At the beginning of the series, Stiles says Derek is only a couple of years older than him and Scott. So at the beginning of the series, Derek was between 18 and 19 years old. But later on, they address the fire, so they change the age again, but they never say exactly how old he is, so canonically Derek could be 2 to 5 years older than Stiles. You choose what age gap to give them.
While Lydia, about 17, and Jordan Parish, over 20, are a CANON couple.
Anyway, hypocrisy and homophobia, right?
But there is a VERY important theme between the Derek/Stiles relationship, which if you ask me made the possibility of a relationship between the two of them impossible while Stiles was still a high school student and perhaps only when Stiles was older could something exist between them.
The existence of this damn bitch and what she did to Derek.
I hate her as much as you do, and it disgusts me to have to watch Teenage Derek with her.
But it's important to what I wanted to say; it's why I think Derek repressed his feelings for Stiles.
According to the Teen Wolf book, Kate was Derek's substitute swim teacher, who used certain hormones and scents to attract the teenage Derek to her.
YES, that was not only a relationship rife with manipulation, power imbalances, and pedophilia, but she also ended up orchestrating the murder of Derek's family at a moment of vulnerability for Derek because Paige's death hadn't happened long before.
We all know Derek blames himself for the death of his family, and he hates Kate. He knows what she did to him. He knows he was manipulated by an older woman and that he fell for her.
Derek has serious trust and self-confidence issues.
He doesn't believe he's worthy of love or peace.
His anchor until Season 2 was anger because his life was infested with anger/hate/rage.
So he sees himself as something bad, something that hurts, someone who destroys what he loves.
He's a victim of sexual abuse, even though he doesn't admit it.
But Stiles became that little glimmer of light annoying, but a light in his dark life filled with negative things.
Stiles earned his trust. Stiles fought every step of the way and broke down that wall Derek built around himself to keep people away from him, because trust means giving someone the power to hurt you. Oh well, Derek's mind worked that way.
Unbeknownst to him, Stiles earned that trust.
And that's where we have this scene.
This is where Derek lets us see how important Stiles has become to him, Stiles became his anchor.
At this point, it's undeniable that Derek already has feelings for Stiles. He trusts Stiles blindly. But then, why didn't Derek do anything to have Stiles?
Because Derek is a victim of sexual abuse by a woman who took advantage of him in high school. And Derek never dealt with that trauma, or we were never shown to have it that way.
Derek dates women, of course—Jennifer (who also manipulated him), Braeden, etc.—whose relationships didn't end well or were never serious.
But not with Stiles, because Stiles is like that extremely important thing where he can't ruin that connection they have, he can't taint or sully this relationship he has with Stiles. It's too important to Derek. Plus, the untreated traumas surrounding his abuser are a clear impediment to starting something real, something serious. And everything seems to indicate that Stiles is THAT person his unconscious heart has chosen.
That is, to start any romantic relationship with Stiles, Derek has to face all of his demons, all of his traumas first, in order to give Stiles what he believes Stiles deserves.
Kate ruined Derek's heart and mind a lot, plus Derek already had a wounded and bleeding heart since Paige.
So, a relationship as such didn't exist in the series between S/D, and it was quite unlikely that it would, but the feelings were always there.
That's why I don't understand why they keep attacking a couple who has SO MUCH backstory, and who if they ever dated, it was definitely when they were already adults and able to deal with their own issues.
The sheriff's line about the jeep and Derek always makes me think that the sheriff was always aware and noticed everything. He never disapproved; on the contrary, he supported them, because he knows there's no one who deserves each other more than those two.
It was also a clear confirmation that Derek always had feelings for Stiles, complicated feelings he didn't know how to address, but whose feelings led him to treasure and fix Stiles's jeep.
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