#and stiles thinks scott has full knowledge of what happened) ON PURPOSE. and that is why they fight. and it’s GOOD. and i actually think it

[dunsbar]

the season 5 sciles angst was bad tv to YOU. to me it was incredible and ardently romantic.

[the-cookie-of-doom]

Saudade

Saudade (Portugese): It is a longing for a possibility, a love for something or someone that remains even if that something, or someone is already gone.

So, when Scott and Allison were together, someone needed to run interference with her dad so that they could spend some uninterrupted time together. Let’s say that person is Stiles. It starts out innocent enough, Stiles bumbling his way through the extreme intimidation that is Chris. Chris is pretty much just rolling his eyes at Stiles every other breath, but Stiles is persistent. 

So Stiles swings by whenever Allison and Scott are intending to go meet up. After the first couple times, he gains his footing, and starts actually coming by with a purpose. Asking everything he can about the lore for various supernatural things, trying to learn everything about everything, and Chris doesn’t really have anything better to do since they’re not hunting anymore, so he decides why not. And hell, the kid is dead set on being involved, so he may as well make sure Stiles is prepared with the knowledge he’ll need to defend himself. He’ll be Giles to Stiles’ Willow. (Stiles is pleased when Chris get’s the reference. Chris rolls his eyes because really, Stiles, that was his time). 

After that, it gradually goes from Stiles only being there as a distraction, to Stiles coming by once or twice a week just to hang out, talk, learn. Chris gets accustomed to his new barnacle, even sometimes looks forward to his visits. (He totally knows what Stiles is doing, but that’s okay, because Stiles is a good distraction form things other than his daughter’s questionable taste in guys). He even goes so far as to get ahold of books that he thinks Stiles would be interested in. Goes so far as to translate the ones he can’t get in English.

After a few weeks, Stiles finally asks Chris to train him to fight. Chris agrees immediately, having been waiting for him to ask, but not wanting to bring it up first, make it seem like he thinks Stiles is weak. Nevertheless, he’s relieved to know Stiles will have all the tools he needs to survive, once he’s done with him. 

Now skip forward a few months. When Stiles stops visiting, Chris isn’t too concerned. Or that's what he tells himself, at least. Never mind that Stiles spent most of his free time with him now. But hey, he probably has just moved on to another hyper fixation, or gotten bored, or learned everything he wanted to know. It’s okay, teens do that. Their passion burns hot and fast, and burns out even faster.

Then the next time Chris sees Stiles, he knows something is wrong. That’s not the overeager kid that’s been a fixture in his home for half a year. And he doesn’t want to kill his friend/protégé/maybe-something-more, but he doesn’t know how to save him, and he likes to think he knows Stiles well enough to know he wouldn’t want anyone to allow the creature wearing his skin to go around killing everyone he loves. 

But the pack comes through and they save Stiles (they think, at least, until suddenly now there’s two, and can they really be sure which one is the real Stiles?) and Chris is relieve that he didn’t have to give the poor kid a fatal case of lead poisoning. 

And then Not-Stiles kills Allison. And Chris was there with everyone else, of course, trying to protect Stiles and everyone else. He sees it happen. And he shouldn’t blame Stiles. Not when he watched the Oni kill her. Not when it wasn’t that Thing that gave the order. Logically, he knows he shouldn’t. But emotions don’t care about logic. He may not blame Stiles directly, but it’s so hard to look at him afterwards. He can’t even talk to him, almost breaks down when Stiles just can’t stop saying I‘m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s my fault, I’m so sorry Chris- 

He just leaves, Stiles looking heartbroken and wretched and like he actually had been the one to plunge that sword into Allison’s stomach. He can’t even manage to say a quick “It’s not your fault” or “I don’t blame you” before he goes. He hates himself a little bit for that, knowing how self-destructive Stiles can get, knowing how much guilt he carries about things that he can’t control.

Chris stays long enough to have a funeral for Allison, to let her friends say goodbye. It would be cruel not to, to take Allison away from the people who love her. He sees Stiles there, of course, silent support for Lydia and Scott, even if they shy away from his touch, don’t let him try to comfort them. He looks miserable. But he only tries to look at Chris once, like a kicked puppy that’s been left out in the rain. Stiles stays as far away from Chris as he can, never once tries to come over to talk to him, even though he looks like he wants to. Chris it grateful for that. And full of self-loathing for it.

A week later Chris is on a plane to France. Stiles doesn’t find out until he works up the courage to go try to speak to him, only to find an empty apartment. It’s the landlord who tells him Chris has been gone for over a month. 

Stiles doesn’t cry, at least not where anyone can see. He doesn’t mourn the loss of something that wasn’t ever anything, but could have been, if it hadn’t been ripped away by forces outside of his control. The nogitsune was gone, and yet it was still managing to take the people he loved away from him. Scott and Lydia, who could barely look at him, their eyes hollow and haunted when they did. Isaac who didn’t even try. His father who seemed to question sometimes if it was really him, like he couldn’t be sure. 

And Chris who moved a whole world away just to escape the horrors he had caused, all because he wasn’t strong enough. Not that Stiles could blame him, when his friends had destroyed his entire family. 

“A thousand moments that I had just taken for granted - mostly because I had assumed there would be a thousand more.” -Morgan Matson

[baddyxangel]

Hey sorry for reviving this so late buuuuut let me just put in a few points.Ok, so when I watched 5a, I was having a hell of a time, considering i adore stiles and his personality, and seeing stiles do bad things makes me so happy. After the Donovan situation and then when he was in a car with Theo, saying he felt good about killing him, I really believed they could have developed so much from that story, but after 5b, it's almost like they forgot about it. He had one heartfelt conversation with his father about losing something and never being able to get it back, but that's it. I was wondering, did this annoy you as much as me? Considering they never developed the fact that Stiles LIKED killing Donovan?

It's really complex, I did a lot of talking about this on tumblr, so I learned my way around it like a pro Stiles was glad in that instant because the threat was gone, he was safe, but it was quickly replaced by guilt. People overlook it, but he tried to help Donovan when he was on the spear. And it wore down on him because he couldn't tell anyone but in 5b something very interesting happens, he gets very good at pretending to be s1 stiles, he's suddenly clumsy, his brain to mouth filter is gone again, he goes from sleeping in a foetal position (in s4 with malia) to sprawled out on the couch in the sheriff's office which presents a few options

he bangs his head A LOT in s5a and a lot of the things that are obvious do fit concussion symptoms, clumsiness, sleeping at irregular times etc

he has gotten over it (hahahahaha)

he's faking it

being knee deep in the meta on tumblr (same username) I've been through a lot of the eps 2 or 3 times looking for hints, clues etc, and it's come down to brain damage which is cured medically with trepanning (opening him up to magic and revealing his otherness) OR he's faking because he wants to fit in again my own gut says b, he's faking it because he wants everything to run smoothly. There are hints that he and Scott are still broken up, but Stiles is pretending because BH needs it, and he's biding his time until he leaves. I'm going with this until further knowledge but with the suggestions in 6 that he's missing it will be interesting that with Kira gone if Scott cares.

tumblr user sublimeglass (or was it cupidsbower, definitely one of the two) pointed out there is often a huge difference between what characters on teen wolf SAY and what they DO look at Stiles, he spends five seasons advocating violence and death, to the point he suggested "chloroforming the little bastard and throwing him in the lake" [about Liam] but he's actually the least violent member of the pack. He is known as the liar but he's a terrible liar and very rarely breaks the truth. Peter is seen as being hideously lying and he uses the truth cleverly but it is the truth. It uses a specific narrative viewpoint and that viewpoint is often wrong, characters (and us) assume and when we assume we're usually, 99 times out of a hundred, wrong. Go through season 5b and ask yourself when does Stiles turn to Scott, he confides in Lydia and his dad, he goes to Scott in regards the attack because he needs power in his corner. Scott didn't talk to him about Duke (that wasn't new for Scott) but Stiles wasn't wounded like he's been before. We have Stiles who broke up with Malia, Lydia is in Eichen, Scott broke up with him - and he wants to help, he wants to be useful which Scott implied (accidentally or not) that if Stiles had killed (remember it was an accident and Scott still doesn't know the details, he still thinks Stiles smashed Theo's head in) he was cast out of the pack - which means he can't help. So why not suppress who he is and act like they expect him to be so they don't drive him away. It certainly fits his character. It's that it was SO obvious that makes me question it. Combined with his line at the end of season 5, about everyone falling where they need to be (I can't remember the quote off hand) instead of his plan to keep everyone together at the start - that's a huge shift and it certainly fits 5a stiles better than 5b but the foetal thing - he couldn't sleep until he was the little spoon, which is the foetal thing, but people like being the little spoon because it makes them feel safe. The same reason they sleep in the foetal position, which makes them small. "This stance, favoured by worriers, is said to show the sleeper is seeking to return to their comfort zone after a stressful day. Foetal sleepers are conscientious, ordered and like things in their place, according to the study, but are also in danger of over-thinking problems and worrying unnecessarily." from a study done by Premier Inn he can't "sleep without his pillow" which suggests (from the same study) ften clutching their pillow, they can appearing to be “holding on for dear life” in what is thought to be the most uncomfortable sleeping position for adults. Those who adopt it can feel as if life “happens around them” and they are just “hanging on for the ride”, believing they lack control over what will happen the next day. now before he seemed to be either a starfish or a frog, the frog is lying on their stomach with their ass in the air (often because placed on their front as a baby, the frog was recommended for a while) but the starfish Starfish The Starfish Position was the least popular amongst those with a preference, with only five per cent of those surveyed choosing it as their favourite. Starfish sleepers lie on their backs with legs sprawled and arms stretched up near the head, and were reported to make friendship a priority. They dislike being the centre of attention, instead offering to listen to the problems of others and go out of their way to offer assistance to those in need. which sounds very like s1 stiles the details in teen wolf are amazing! sometimes the big story details are a huge mess, but the tiny details - spot on every time. so him swapping from sleeping on his side curled up (if not full foetal) to sprawled on the sofa with one leg over the back is odd. His body language seems a lot tighter as well, which is why I think he's faking it. Even you questioned how far he'd gone.

I'm kinda "eh" about it. The situation was really dubious from the beginning. A fool would know the difference between murder and accidental killing, of all things. I felt Stiles acted out of character when initially dealing with it, by not telling anyone...yet at the same time, it's totally understandable why he feels the way he does about it. Maybe it was in the right vein, but much too extreme. It would've been so much better if he had actually struck the killing blow on purpose, establishing to Scott that sometimes killing is necessary, due to the simple fact that Stiles is human and isn't given a choice. If that had happened, so much of what happened later would have felt more natural and believable. There would've been some good moments between the two. As for how it was dealt with, I agree it was interesting. It was like when he was talking to Malia on the full moon, about how he liked the power and control from the Nogitsune. That was a surprise, yet it makes complete sense why he'd feel that way, and it's understandable why he'd never bring it up that much. Same goes for feeling good about Donovan's death. Stiles is pragmatic. He serves as a small foil to Scott, who is stuck being an idealist. I believe Scott will eventually have to kill someone. But, he would never admit to liking it. Stiles ultimately follows Scott's ideals, but as we've seen, if it came down to it, he would be glad they were dead. He felt pretty shitty about it, too, but still. The talk with his father felt like tying up loose ends. The sheriff gave him a little perspective, and it was nice. Scott missed the point entirely. As a character Scott is selfish and a bit self centred, but he's not narcissistic. He has a tendency to assume he knows what he's doing and that everyone agrees with him. In his apology he never once said sorry. He said I thought it was going to be either me or Malia, but as the sheriff pointed out Stiles didn't kill him. He talked to the Sheriff honestly. but he felt he couldn't go to them, his dad because he was the sheriff and he thought he'd covered up a crime and his dad would drive him away - because in our heads the voices of our loved ones are much meaner than they are in real life. And he believed he couldn't tell Scott because Scott would reject him, and at that point it was likely he would have, but Theo stirred the pot and made it much worse, much more likely. The show tells us Scott's a great guy, but if you get past that to actually look at him he's really not. He's fantastically written, but he's not a good guy, he's judgemental, and actually displays a lot of really dangerous behaviours. In a meta on tumblr actually I found he fit 15 of 17 key behaviours recognised in cult leaders. And that phrase "the cult of Scott McCall" coined by Superhappygenki (on tumblr) is spot on, the characters, Deaton leading them to a large extent, sell Scott as the wunderkid, and because Scott is good at saying the right things and appearing at the right time (often not to do much) we believe him, right up until he does something that makes you go - ummm no and then like an onion the layers fall away. In his paranoia over what happened Stiles believed the worst of Scott so he shut down what happened, stuffed it down and tried to make amends, and when Scott faced him down he did exactly what Stiles feared, he not only drove him away but in such a way that he seemed to throw him out of the pack. Had Stiles not been shut down when he tried to tell Scott outside Eichen House - he could have tried to be objective, by the time he was able to talk about it - on the drive to Mexico, it had it's claws in him.

Hey sorry for reviving this so late buuuuut let me just put in a few points. Stiles loves to be in control. He likes to feel powerful, and he's always had an inkling of that. He really, I mean really, cements that fact after his possession. He tells Malia he likes feeling powerful - and he gets it. And, putting aside the fact that he never implied he liked killing Donovan. He just likes that Donovan has died - which is totally different in the whole "murder scale" I qualified for this post. But putting all that aside, I mean, who wouldn't feel good that a threat to them and the people they care about is gone? Even if it was accidental. I love dark!Stiles too. I mean, he's got so much potential to be an anti-hero. He reminds me of deadpool a lot. Not the point though. I guess, what I'm trying to say... Stiles might finally be coming back round to himself? You know? He (and the writers) just pushed aside the whole Nogitsune possession thing. So, it would make a lot of sense that the first death he actually caused while he was in full capacity mentally would hit him extremely hard. And there's the whole extreme emotional distance between him and literally every other person on the show - the fact that instead of talking about his problems, he talks around them and just lets his friends infer what he might mean. He's kind of really fucked up & secretive about it! I'd love to see him (them/thewriters/whatever) explore this shit more explicitly in canon.