Steter: a ship manifesto
Dec. 11th, 2018 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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thesteternetworkCrossposted from tumblr, complete with links to tumblr. I'm not sure if all of those pages will be available in the future, but the Wayback Machine won't let me archive them at this time. :/
Original post date: February 24, 2018
A couple of caveats before I start! This is my biased view on canon and not intended to convince people about the validity/superiority of the ship or my favorite interpretation. People can ship Steter any damn way they want, but this is what drew me to the pair and why I’m still interested.
Thank yougreen for posting your own thoughts on Steter and inviting other people to the conversation!
In 2012, I kept seeing Teen Wolf fics. I had no idea what Teen Wolf was about. All I knew were these facts:
At the time, I was incredibly absorbed in Game of Thrones and Hobbit fandoms, steeping myself in age difference filth and loving every moment. Then Sterek kept showing up on tumblr. Writers I followed for GoT or Hobbit also wrote for TW. I wound up reading Sterek and finding a lot of good fic. Some of it was exceptional, and yet. I found myself strangely wistful.
I knew myself. I wanted something more awful.
Before ever watching Season 1, I had spoiled myself. I knew about the ultimate moment: the parking garage. (You’ll tear The Bite is a Proposal meta away from my cold hands). When I finally gave in to Teen Wolf fandom, I was primed and ready to love Peter for being terrible.
The realization that Season 1 was a revenge arc excited me quite a lot. I love those kinds of stories. A man doesn’t live under the same sky as his enemy, so I accepted that Peter would need to break a few eggs to make his delicious vengeance omelet.
As the antagonist, I didn’t need Peter to be a good person or redeemable. I simply needed him to work against the protagonists and do some bad things—hopefully with style. I hoped for him to be villainous and frightening, for him to be the red-eyed monster. It was my dearest wish that I’d get to see him force the protags into desperate situations through a mixture of might and manipulation. (I also wished for him to be a competent plotter, but we can’t have everything).
Given my shipping history, I was fully prepared to welcome another age difference ship into my heart as a matter of course. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Mal will gravitate to the worst pairings in any given media property.
I didn’t expect to genuinely ship them above all others.
I wasn’t prepared for Peter’s clear interest in Stiles. You must be Stiles. Because you’re the clever one aren’t you? I like you, Stiles.
Defiance was no shock for this setup, but for Stiles to snark with and at Peter, someone who truly scared him, was delightful. They had remarkable chemistry in all of their scenes throughout the show. But the the way Peter touched Stiles? Somehow Peter touched Stiles with more intimacy than he’d mustered up for Melissa on their date, and for the show to focus on the sensuality of those scenes the way they did? Amazing.
It’s been done to death, so I won’t go into detail on the choreography of the lacrosse field or parking garage scenes. I won’t even cry about how Stiles was the only one given the opportunity (CW for blood) to say no to the bite. However, I will point out that Teen Wolf used many conventions and tropes of the horror genre. The sexual overtones of the werewolf bite are undeniable.
Steter is many things to many people—even to me. I’m happy to read and write Peter and Stiles in different dynamics and situations. Sometimes my Peter isn’t even that awful! But if we’re talking about canon, then it always returns to Season 1 and the building blocks of Steter: Desire. Awareness. Defiance. (And look, the acronym is DAD! How can I resist?)
Bad jokes aside, that’s a powerful combination for any interpersonal dynamics. Peter wanted Stiles, they noticed each other far more than necessary for narrative purposes, and Stiles? He refused to give in to Peter’s desires… and since I’m a shipper, I believe that he refused to give in to his own desires, too.
When you have a self-interested character and thwarted desire, there are so many places to go—so many terrible places to go, and I love exploring them all. Peter doesn’t need a redemption arc to pair him with Stiles. For me, their interest in each other is nothing soft or sweet. It’s a struggle for advantage. It’s sharp and dangerous and, almost definitely, not healthy. They are mutually assured destruction, and that’s why I ship Steter.
I’ll borrow Stephen Dunn’s excellent poem, “Mon Semblable”, to help me sum up my favorite type of Steter:
I like things my way
every chance I get.
A limit doesn’t exist
when it comes to that.
But please, don’t confuse
what I say with honesty.
Isn’t honesty the open yawn
the unimaginable love
more than truth?
Anonymous among strangers
I look for those
with hidden wings,
and for scars
that those who once had wings
can’t hide.
Though I know it’s unfair,
I reveal myself
one mask at a time.
Does this appeal to you,
such slow disclosures,
a lifetime perhaps
of almost knowing one another?
I would hope you, too,
would hold something back,
and that you’d always want
whatever unequal share
you had style enough to get.
Altruism is for those
who can’t endure their desires.
There’s a world
as ambiguous as a moan,
a pleasure moan
our earnest neighbors
might think a crime.
It’s where we could live.
I’ll say I love you,
which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid
poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone ever has.
Original post date: February 24, 2018
A couple of caveats before I start! This is my biased view on canon and not intended to convince people about the validity/superiority of the ship or my favorite interpretation. People can ship Steter any damn way they want, but this is what drew me to the pair and why I’m still interested.
Thank you
green for posting your own thoughts on Steter and inviting other people to the conversation! In 2012, I kept seeing Teen Wolf fics. I had no idea what Teen Wolf was about. All I knew were these facts:
- It was a mostly unrelated adaptation of the film.
- Sterek was inescapable.
At the time, I was incredibly absorbed in Game of Thrones and Hobbit fandoms, steeping myself in age difference filth and loving every moment. Then Sterek kept showing up on tumblr. Writers I followed for GoT or Hobbit also wrote for TW. I wound up reading Sterek and finding a lot of good fic. Some of it was exceptional, and yet. I found myself strangely wistful.
I knew myself. I wanted something more awful.
Before ever watching Season 1, I had spoiled myself. I knew about the ultimate moment: the parking garage. (You’ll tear The Bite is a Proposal meta away from my cold hands). When I finally gave in to Teen Wolf fandom, I was primed and ready to love Peter for being terrible.
The realization that Season 1 was a revenge arc excited me quite a lot. I love those kinds of stories. A man doesn’t live under the same sky as his enemy, so I accepted that Peter would need to break a few eggs to make his delicious vengeance omelet.
As the antagonist, I didn’t need Peter to be a good person or redeemable. I simply needed him to work against the protagonists and do some bad things—hopefully with style. I hoped for him to be villainous and frightening, for him to be the red-eyed monster. It was my dearest wish that I’d get to see him force the protags into desperate situations through a mixture of might and manipulation. (I also wished for him to be a competent plotter, but we can’t have everything).
Given my shipping history, I was fully prepared to welcome another age difference ship into my heart as a matter of course. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Mal will gravitate to the worst pairings in any given media property.
I didn’t expect to genuinely ship them above all others.
I wasn’t prepared for Peter’s clear interest in Stiles. You must be Stiles. Because you’re the clever one aren’t you? I like you, Stiles.
Defiance was no shock for this setup, but for Stiles to snark with and at Peter, someone who truly scared him, was delightful. They had remarkable chemistry in all of their scenes throughout the show. But the the way Peter touched Stiles? Somehow Peter touched Stiles with more intimacy than he’d mustered up for Melissa on their date, and for the show to focus on the sensuality of those scenes the way they did? Amazing.
It’s been done to death, so I won’t go into detail on the choreography of the lacrosse field or parking garage scenes. I won’t even cry about how Stiles was the only one given the opportunity (CW for blood) to say no to the bite. However, I will point out that Teen Wolf used many conventions and tropes of the horror genre. The sexual overtones of the werewolf bite are undeniable.
Steter is many things to many people—even to me. I’m happy to read and write Peter and Stiles in different dynamics and situations. Sometimes my Peter isn’t even that awful! But if we’re talking about canon, then it always returns to Season 1 and the building blocks of Steter: Desire. Awareness. Defiance. (And look, the acronym is DAD! How can I resist?)
Bad jokes aside, that’s a powerful combination for any interpersonal dynamics. Peter wanted Stiles, they noticed each other far more than necessary for narrative purposes, and Stiles? He refused to give in to Peter’s desires… and since I’m a shipper, I believe that he refused to give in to his own desires, too.
When you have a self-interested character and thwarted desire, there are so many places to go—so many terrible places to go, and I love exploring them all. Peter doesn’t need a redemption arc to pair him with Stiles. For me, their interest in each other is nothing soft or sweet. It’s a struggle for advantage. It’s sharp and dangerous and, almost definitely, not healthy. They are mutually assured destruction, and that’s why I ship Steter.
I’ll borrow Stephen Dunn’s excellent poem, “Mon Semblable”, to help me sum up my favorite type of Steter:
I like things my way
every chance I get.
A limit doesn’t exist
when it comes to that.
But please, don’t confuse
what I say with honesty.
Isn’t honesty the open yawn
the unimaginable love
more than truth?
Anonymous among strangers
I look for those
with hidden wings,
and for scars
that those who once had wings
can’t hide.
Though I know it’s unfair,
I reveal myself
one mask at a time.
Does this appeal to you,
such slow disclosures,
a lifetime perhaps
of almost knowing one another?
I would hope you, too,
would hold something back,
and that you’d always want
whatever unequal share
you had style enough to get.
Altruism is for those
who can’t endure their desires.
There’s a world
as ambiguous as a moan,
a pleasure moan
our earnest neighbors
might think a crime.
It’s where we could live.
I’ll say I love you,
which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid
poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone ever has.
