#I say lack of canon evidence because uh. he did let his boy become a child soldier.

[beanmaster-pika]

Despite lack of any canon evidence I think Jing Yuan is one of those mythical Chinese parents who is very externally supportive of their kid (still doesn’t outright say “I love you” to him. This man is still emotionally repressed) and has never tried to pressure him outside of pushing him during training. Unfortunately on account of his job and reputation the rest of the Luofu does that for him so even though all he wants for Yanqing is for him to grow up happy and healthy, Yanqing is being crushed under the weight of expectations from others and himself as the general’s disciple, retainer, and ward.

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 4

-attachment, orphanages, and yet more child psych: time to add yet another voice to the void-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION.

I'm going to be super biased, because my favorite portrayal of Tom Riddle is actually Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as eleven-year-old Tom Riddle, in HBP and I get to chat about child psych in this one, sooo here we go.

First of all, I’m just so impressed that a kid could bring that much depth to such a complex character.

This is the portrayal, I feel, that brings us closest to Tom’s character. Yes, Coulson’s brought us pretty close, but by fifth year, the mask was on.

We don't really get to see Tom looking afraid very often, but it's fear that rules his life, so it's really poignant in our first (chronologically) introduction, he looks absolutely terrified.

The void being the fandom's loud opinions on a certain headmaster. I wouldn't call myself pro-Dumbledore, but I'm certainly not anti-Dumbledore, either. (Agnostic-Dumbledore??)

Since I'm not of the anti-Dumbledore persuasion, I decided to poke around in the tags and see what the arguments were, so I don't make comments out of ignorance.

Most of the tag seems to be more directed towards his treatment of Harry and Sirius, but a few people mentioned that Dumbledore should have treated Tom with ‘exceptional kindness’ and tried to ‘rehabilitate’ him.

As I said in Parts 2 and 3, I am 100% in favor of helping a traumatized kid learn to cope, and I don’t think Tom Riddle was solidly on the Path to Evil (TM) at birth, or even at eleven. Not even at fifteen.

Could unconditional love and kindness have helped Tom Riddle enough for the rise of Lord Voldemort to never happen? Possibly, but...

Yes, I'm about to drag up that Carl Jung quote, again.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

The problem with this is that if you’re going to blame Dumbledore for this, you also have to blame every other adult in Tom’s life: his headmaster, Dippet, his Head of House, Slughorn, his ‘caretakers’ at the orphanage, Mrs. Cole and Martha, and possibly more. In fact, if we're going to blame any adult, let's blame Merope for r*ping and abusing Tom Riddle Senior, and having a kid she wasn't intending to take care of.

Furthermore, you cannot possibly hold anyone but Tom accountable for the murders he committed. (I should not have to sit here and explain why cold-blooded murder is wrong.) And if you like Tom Riddle's character, insinuating that his actions are completely at the whim of others is just a bit condescending towards him. He's not an automaton or a marionette, he's a very intelligent human being with a functioning brain, and at sixteen is fully capable of moral reasoning and critical analysis.

I've heard the theories about Dumbledore setting the Potters up to die, and I'm not going to discuss their validity right now; but he didn't put a wand in Tom's hand and force him to kill anyone. Tom did it all of his own accord.

And while yes, I have enormous sympathy for what happened to Tom as a child, at some point, he decided to murder Myrtle Warren, and that is where I lose my sympathy. Experiencing trauma does not give you the right to inflict harm on others. Yes, Tom was failed, but then, he spectacularly failed himself.

We also have no idea how Dumbledore treated Tom as a student.

In the movies, it’s Dumbledore who tells Tom he has to go back to the orphanage, but in the books, it’s Dippet. We know that Slughorn spent a lot of time around Tom at Slug Club and such, yet I don’t really see people clamoring for his head.

I regard the sentiment that Dumbledore turned Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort with a lot of skepticism.

But let's hear from the character himself -- his impression of eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.

“Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?” said Dumbledore. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his."

Now, assuming that Dumbledore's telling the truth, I'm not seeing something glaringly wrong with this. No, he hasn't pigeonholed Tom as evil, yes, I'd be intrigued, too, and it's a very good idea to keep an eye on Tom, for his own sake.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school."

Again, it seems like he's at least somewhat sympathetic towards Tom, and is willing to at least give him a chance.

More evidence (again, assuming Dumbledore is a reliable narrator):

Harry: “Didn’t you tell them [the other professors], sir, what he’d been like when you met him at the orphanage?” Dumbledore: “No, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before and was resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. I chose to give him that chance.”

Now, I think Dumbledore is pretty awful with kids, but I don't think that's malicious. Yeah, it's a flaw, but perfect people don't exist, and perfect characters are dead boring. I am not saying that he definitely handled Tom's case well, I'm just saying that there's little evidence that Dumbledore, however shaken and scandalized, wrote him off as 'evil snake boy.'

It's also worth taking into account that it's 1938, and the attitudes towards mental health back then.

Why is Tom looking at Dumbledore like that, anyway? Why is he so scared? What has he possibly been threatened with or heard whispers of?

"'Professor'?" repeated Riddle. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course -- well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!

Tom keeps insisting he's not mad until Dumbledore finally manages to calm him down.

I'm really upset this wasn't in the movie, because it's important context. Instead we got these throwaway cutscenes of some knick-knacks relating to the Cave he's got lying around, but I just would have preferred to see him freaking out like he does in the book.

There was extreme stigma and prejudice towards mental illness.

'Lunatic asylums,' as they were called in Tom's time, were terrible places. In the 1930s and 40s, he could look forward to being 'treated' with induced convulsions, via metrazol, insulin, electroshock, and malaria injections. And if he stuck around long enough, he could even look forward to a lobotomy!

So, if you think Dumbledore was judgmental towards Tom, imagine how flat-out prejudiced whatever doctors or 'experts' Mrs. Cole might have gotten in to 'look at him' must have been!

Moving on to the next few shots, he is sitting down and hunched over as if expecting punishment or at least some kind of bad news, Dumbledore is mostly out of the frame. He’s trapped visually, by Dumbledore on one side, and a wall on the other, because he’s still very much afraid. uncomfortable, as he tells Dumbledore a secret that he fears could get him committed to an asylum (which were fucking horrible places, as I said).

It brings to the scene that miserable sense of isolation and loneliness to that has defined Tom’s entire life up to that point (and, partially due to his own bad choices, continues to define it).

And, when Dumbledore accepts it, his posture changes. he becomes more confident and more at ease, as he describes the... utilities of his magical abilities. 

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

I do think Harry, our narrator, is being a tad bit judgmental here. Magic is probably the only thing that brings Tom happiness in his grey, lonely world, and when I was Tom's age and being bullied, if I had magic powers, you'd better believe that I'd (a) be bloody ecstatic about it (b) use them. And, like Tom, I can't honestly say that I can't imagine getting a bit carried-away with it. Unfortunately, we can't all be as inherently good and kindhearted as Harry.

Reading HBP again, as a 'mature' person, it almost seems like the reader is being prompted to see Tom as evil just because he's got 'weird' facial expressions.

So... uh...

Nope, let's judge Tom on his actions, not looks of 'wild happiness.'

To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick. The wardrobe burst into flames. Riddle jumped to his feet; Harry could hardly blame him for howling in shock and rage; all his worldly possessions must be in there. But even as Riddle rounded on Dumbledore, the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Okay, one thing I dislike is Tom's lack of emotional affect when Dumbledore burned the wardrobe, in the books, he jumped up and started screaming, instead of looking passively (in shock, perhaps?) at the fire. Incidentally, I can't really tell if he's impressed or in shock, to be honest. I think they really tried to make Tom 'creepier' in the movie.

This is one of the incidents where Dumbledore's inability to deal with children crops up.

I think he was trying to teach Tom that magic can be dangerous, and he wouldn't like it to be used against him, but burning the wardrobe that contains everything he owns was a terrible move on Dumbledore's part. Tom already has very limited trust in other people, and now, he's not going to trust Dumbledore at all -- now, he's put Tom on the defensive/offensive for the rest of their interaction, and perhaps for the rest of their teacher-student relationship.

Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. "Where can I get one of them?"

"Where do you buy spellbooks?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon.

But I'm not surprised Tom is 'greedy.' He's grown up in an environment where if he wants something, whether that's affection, food, money, toys, he's got to take it. There's no one looking after his needs specifically. I'm not surprised that he's a thief and a hoarder, and I don't think that counts as a moral failing necessarily, and more of a maladaptive way of seeking comfort. It would be bizarre if he came out of Wool's Orphanage a complete saint.

Additionally, I think given that the Gaunt family has a history of 'mental instability,' Tom is a sensitive child, and the trauma of growing up institutionalized and possibly being treated badly due to his magical abilities or personality disorder deeply affected him.

And there are points where it seems that Dumbledore is quick to judge Tom.

"He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control."

"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too. In fact, his ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination."

"I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless?..."

And while this is all empirically true, these are (a) a product of Tom's harsh environment, and (b) do not necessarily make him evil. But the point remains that child psych didn't exist as a field of its own, and psychology as a proper science was in its infancy, so I'd be shocked if Dumbledore was insightful about Tom's situation.

But I've gone a ton of paragraphs without citing anything, so I've got to rectify that.

Let's talk about Harry Harlow's monkey experiments in the 1950-70s.

If you're not a fan of animal research, since I know some people are uncomfortable with it, feel free to scroll past.

Here's the TL;DR: Children need to be hugged and shown affection too, not just fed and clothed, please don't leave babies to 'cry out' and ignore their needs because it's backwards and fucking inhumane. HUG AND COMFORT AND CODDLE CHILDREN AND SPOIL THEM WITH AFFECTION!

I will put more red writing when the section is over.

This is still an interesting experiment to have in mind while we explore the whole 'no one taught Tom Riddle how to love' thing and whether or not it's actually a good argument.

Andddd let's go all the way back to the initial 1958 experiment, featured in Harlow's paper, the Nature of Love. (If you're familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, him and Harlow actually collaborated for a time).

To give you an idea of our starting point, until Harlow's experiment, which happened twenty years after Dumbledore meets Tom for the first time, no one in science had really been interested in studying love and affection.

"Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence."

I'm going to link some videos of Harry Harlow showing the actual experiment, which animal rights activists would probably consider 'horrifying.' It's nothing gory or anything, but if you are particularly soft-hearted (and I do not mean that as an insult), be warned. It's mostly just baby monkeys being very upset and Harlow discussing it in a callous manner. Yes, today it would be considered unethical, but it's still incredibly important work and if you think you can handle it, I would recommend watching at least the first one to get an idea of how dramatic this effect is.

Dependency when frightened

The full experiment

The TL;DW:

This experiment was conducted with rhesus macaques; they're still used in psychology/neuroscience research when you want very human-like subjects, because they are very intelligent (unnervingly so, actually). I'd say that adult ones remind me of a three-year old child.

Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers, and cared for their physical needs. They had ample nutrition, bedding, warmth, et cetera. However, the researchers noticed that the monkeys:

(a) were absolutely miserable. And not just that, but although all their physical needs were taken care of, they weren't surviving well past the first few days of life. (This has also been documented in human babies, and it's called failure to thrive and I'll talk about it a bit later).

(b) showed a strong attachment to the gauze pads used to cover the floor, and decided to investigate.

So, they decided to provide a surrogate 'mother.' Two, actually. Mother #1 was basically a heated fuzzy doll that was nice for the monkeys to cuddle with. Mother #2 was the same, but not fuzzy and made of wire. Both provided milk. The result? The monkeys spent all their time cuddling and feeding from the fuzzy 'mother.' Perhaps not surprising.

What Harlow decided next, is that one of the hallmarks being attached to your caregiver is seeking hugs and reassurance from them when frightened. So, when the monkeys were presented with something scary, they'd go straight to the cloth mother and ignore the wire one. Not only that, but when placed in an unfamiliar environment, if the cloth mother was present, the monkeys would be much calmer.

In a follow-up experiment, Harlow decided to see if there was some sort of sensitive period by introducing both 'mothers' to monkeys who had been raised in isolation for 250 days. Guess what?

The initial reaction of the monkeys to the alterations was one of extreme disturbance. All the infants screamed violently and made repeated attempts to escape the cage whenever the door was opened. They kept a maximum distance from the mother surrogates and exhibited a considerable amount of rocking and crouching behavior, indicative of emotionality.

Yikes. So, at first Harlow thought that they'd passed some kind of sensitive period for socialization. But after a day or two they calmed down and started chilling out with the cloth mother like the other monkeys did. But here's a weird thing:

That the control monkeys develop affection or love for the cloth mother when she is introduced into the cage at 250 days of age cannot be questioned. There is every reason to believe, however, that this interval of delay depresses the intensity of the affectional response below that of the infant monkeys that were surrogate-mothered from birth onward

All these things... attachment, affection, love, seeking comfort ... are mostly learned behaviours.

Over.

Orphanages, institutionalized childcare, and why affection is a need, not an extra.

His face is lit the exact same was as Coulson’s was in COS (half-light, half-dark), and I said I was going to talk about this in Part 3. I think perhaps it's intended to make Fiennes-Tiffin look more evil or menacing, but I'm going to quite deliberately misinterpret it.

Now, for some context, Dumbledore has just (kind of) burned his wardrobe, ratted out his stealing habit, and (in the books only, they really took a pair of scissors to this scene) told him he needs to go apologize and return everything and Dumbledore will know if he doesn't, and, well, Tom's not exactly a happy bugger about it.

But interestingly, in the books, this is when we start to see Tom's 'persona,' aka his mask, start to come into play. Whereas before, he was screaming, howling, and generally freaking out, here, he starts to hide his emotions -- in essence, obscure his true self under a shadow. So this scene is really the reverse of Coulson's in COS.

And perhaps I'm reading wayyy too much into this, but I can't help but notice that Coulson's hair is parted opposite to Fiennes-Tiffin's, and the opposite sides of their faces are shadowed, too.

Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Riddle did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, "Yes, sir."

Here's an article from The Atlantic on Romanian orphanages in the 1980s, when the dictator, Ceausescu, basically forced people to have as many children as possible and funnel them into institutionalized 'childcare', and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

There's not a whole lot of information out there on British orphanages in the 30s' and 40s', but given that people back then thought you just had to keep children on a strict schedule and feed them, it wouldn't have a whole lot better.

The only thing I've found is this, and it's not super promising.

The most important study informing the criteria for contemporary nosologies, was a study by Barbara Tizard and her colleagues of young children being raised in residential nurseries in London (Tizard, 1977). These nurseries had lower child to caregiver ratios than many previous studies of institutionalized children. Also, the children were raised in mixed aged groups and had adequate books and toys available. Nevertheless, caregivers were explicitly discouraged from forming attachments to the children in their care.

Here's a fairly recent paper that I think gives a good summary: Link

Here, they describe the responses to the Strange Situation test (which tests a child's attachment to their caregiver).

We found that 100% of the community sample received a score of “5,” indicating fully formed attachments, whereas only 3% of the infants living in institutions demonstrated fully formed attachments. The remaining 97% showed absent, incomplete, or odd and abnormal attachment behaviors.

Bowlby and Ainsworth, who did the initial study, thought that children would always attach to their caregivers, regardless of neglect or abuse. But some infants don't attach (discussed along with RAD in Part 2).

Here's a really good review paper on attachment disorders in currently or formerly institutionalized children : Link

Core features of RAD in young children include the absence of focused attachment behaviors directed towards a preferred caregiver, failure to seek and respond to comforting when distressed, reduced social and emotional reciprocity, and disturbances of emotion regulation, including reduced positive affect and unexplained fearfulness or irritability.

Which all sounds a lot like Tom in this scene. The paper also discusses neurological effects, like atypical EEG power distribution (aka brain waves), which can correlate with 'indiscriminate' behavior and poor inhibitory control; which makes sense for a kid who, oh, I don't know, hung another kid's rabbit because they were angry.

Furthermore...

...those children with more prolonged institutional rearing showed reduced amygdala discrimination and more indiscriminate behavior.

This again, makes a ton of sense for Tom's psychological profile, because the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system, which regulates emotions) plays a major role in fear, anger, anxiety, and aggression, especially with respect to learning, motivation and memory.

So, I agree completely that Tom needed a lot of help, especially given the fact that he spent eleven years in an orphanage (longer than the Bucharest study I was referring to), and Dumbledore wasn't exactly understanding of his situation, and probably didn't realise what a dramatic effect the orphanage had on Tom, and given the way he talks to Tom, probably treated him as if he were a kid who grew up in a healthy environment.

In case you are still unconvinced that hugging is that important, there's a famous 1944 study conducted on 40 newborn human infants to see what would happen if their physical needs (fed, bathed, diapers changed) were provided for with no affection. The study had to be stopped because half the babies died after four months. Affection leads to the production of hormones and boosts the immune system, which increases survival, and that is why we hug children and babies should not be in orphanages. They are supposed to be hugged, all the time. I can't find the citation right now, I'll add it later if I find it.

But I think it's vastly unrealistic to say that Dumbledore, who grew up during the Victorian Era, would have any grasp of this and I don't think he was actively malicious towards Tom.

Was Tom Riddle failed by institutional childcare? Absolutely.

Were the adults in his life oblivious to his situation? Probably.

Do the shitty things that happened to Tom excuse the murders he committed, and are they anyone's fault but his own? No. At the end of the day, Tom made all the wrong choices.

And, for what it's worth, I think (film) Dumbledore (although he expresses the same sentiment in more words in the books) wishes he could go back in time and have helped Tom.

"Draco. Years ago, I knew a boy, who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you."

[the-cookie-of-doom]

“B-b-b-but interacting with Scoot McSchmuck made Derek improve and grow as a person! Derek is a better person because of Scoot McSchmuck, really!!!!”

https://princeescaluswords.tumblr.com/post/185677939080/its-funny-that-its-explicitly-canon-that

RUSSIANSPACEGECKOSEXPARTY: It’s funny that it’s explicitly canon that interacting with Scott McCall was what ultimately made Derek improve and grow as a person. But fanon interpretation has it be Manic Pixie Dream Boy!Stiles who helps the emotionally constipated but Good Alpha grow. Ignoring that Stiles just doesn’t have that kind of relationship with Derek, no he didn’t spend summer Sculder and Mullying with him, no he wasn’t a shoulder to cry on for him. Scott worked with Derek and had his trust eventually

PRINCEESCALUSWORDS:

Shhhhh. You’re getting in the way of the fantasy!

I began to comprehend a lot more of the impetus behind Sterek when I realized that Stiles as a character is much more relatable as a power fantasy than Scott will ever be for a lot of the fandom and the source of much of their dissatisfaction with the plot. Stiles is a power fantasy – the idea that you can be liked, loved even, without having to practice or develop empathy or maturity. From season one to season five, the hallmarks of Stiles’ behavior is always a sense of entitlement to other people’s affections and, more sinisterly, their obedience.

Stiles loves people – that’s undeniable – but with him that devotion always crosses into possession. With his father, with Scott, with Lydia, and with Malia; from the first episode (”Have you been listening to my phone calls?” “Not the boring ones!”) to the last episode (“Okay, not too close. Watch the, uh… Watch the hands. Okay. Okay, all right, let’s just break that up.”), Stiles represents the fantasy that love means never having to check your worst impulses. Stiles can lie to, manipulate, emotionally lash out at, and physically assault the people he loves and they just keep on coming back for more!

This is why in many Sterek writings, Stiles is nearly unidentifiable except for the name. Gone is the Stiles who was willing to let the Argents kill Derek and Peter so long as Scott (and his father, and Lydia) was safe in Formality. Gone is the Stiles who urged Allison to shoot Derek in the head in Venomous. Gone is the Stiles who didn’t give two shits that Derek was dead in Frayed. Gone is the Stiles who noted that Derek was losing his powers in Orphaned and did nothing about it.

Of course, the question is why wouldn’t the production make Derek one of Stiles’ loved ones? The answer, of course, is that Derek wouldn’t tolerate Stiles’ possession of him. It wasn’t banter when Derek bounced Stiles’ head off the steering wheel – Stiles crossed his boundaries and Derek wasn’t having it. “You know what you did!”

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a friendship between them. There was. But it wasn’t going to be the relationship that encouraged Derek to change and grow, because Stiles’ behavior was exactly comprised of his worst impulse, which Derek had grown to expect. It was Scott’s faith in other people’s ability to change, his acting on that belief without being a pushover, that showed Derek he too could learn to trust people. It’s why Derek – much to many fan’s chagrin – came back for Scott.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“a sense of entitlement to other people’s affections and, more sinisterly, their obedience… represents the power fantasy that you can be liked, loved even, without having to practice or develop empathy or maturity and that love and devotion that love means possession… can lie to, manipulate, emotionally lash out at, and physically assault the people he loves and demand they keep on coming back for more” That’s literally canon Scott McCall in a nutshell, PEW!

But then again, apparently antis despise canon Scott McCall so fucking much that they feel the need to transplant Scott’s canon characterization, hypocrisy, opportunism, and black-and-white mentality onto other characters now, because take a look at this brand new delusion right here https://princeescaluswords.tumblr.com/post/185653894015/stans-harp-on-black-and-white-mentality-yet

RUSSIANSPACEGECKOSEXPARTY: Stans harp on “black and white mentality” yet… that has never been Scott. Not really? He has an amazing capacity to forgive. But if you wanna get technical, Stiles himself fills the “black and white mentality” more but we know that “the world is gray” folks just want Stiles to freely get away with murder and such. But had Scott ever killed someone like Stiles suggested, he’d be crucified

PEW: Thank you for bringing up with this is very illustrative point! “Black-and-white thinking” or “splitting” is defined as when you see everything in terms of labels. According to Andi Chrisman’s article “Splitting is the inability to see the dichotomy of both positive and negative aspects of our thoughts, usually associated with how we think about people. Everything is either all good or all bad – there is no middle ground. All of my thoughts are polarized. My life is either absolutely terrible or completely amazing, but nowhere in between… “

We do not see this in Scott’s emotions or Scott’s behavior. Scott is noted for his optimism, his ability to see the good in people, and his dedication to saving people’s lives. Yet, every season, he recognizes the gray areas that he exists in. Yes, he recognizes that being bitten by a werewolf lets him play first line and helped him win a relationship with Allison, but he also recognizes the dangers of its bloodlust and its susceptibility to domination by the alpha. Yes, he recognizes that asshole Jackson is killing people, but he sees the situation that created this behavior and that Jackson isn’t a willing participant. He’s able to see the potential for good in his enemies (like Derek in Formality, Chris Argent in Fireflies, Ethan in The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Deucalion in Lunar Ellipse, Kincaid in Echo House, Sean in Muted, Peter! in Parasomnia, etc.) He’s able to foresee his own plans failing and be able to bend or even break the rules in the service of a greater cause (in Chaos Rising, in Master Plan, in Lunatic, in Illuminated, in Orphaned).

None of these exhibit black-and-white thinking. Holding people to a standard is not black-and-white thinking, especially when he’s willing to give people second chances if they mess up.

Then why do people think he does? Because a white villain told them so! The only mention of black-and-white thinking as a character flaw for Scott is mentioned in Fireflies by that paragon of not-trying-to-manipulate-anyone-by-my-words, Peter Hale, when he’s busy trying to convince Derek to let Boyd and Cora murder people or to kill them himself. Peter said it, and it became neo-Biblical truth to a large part of the fandom! Which leads back to my point that I repeatedly strike – the actions and opinions of white characters are always going to be given more weight and validity than characters of color (until the community does something about it). The fandom knows that Peter will say or do anything to get what he wants. The production had scene after scene of Peter manipulating people that way; look at that scene in Alpha Pact, where Peter becomes the Iago-est Iago to ever manipulate Derek.

What they really mean when the fandom complains about Scott being a ‘black and white thinker’ is that he resisted resorting to killing as an expedient solution. He never rejected the possible necessity of killing (as seen in Code Breaker, Master Plan, Lunar Ellipse, Orphaned, Monstrous, and Apotheosis, etc.) but he refused to employ it for the sake of efficiency, and he refused to consider it for people who had been changed against their will (the chimeras, Boyd and Cora, Jackson). Yet this refusal isn’t greeted as evidence of compassion and principle, but stubbornness and stupidity. Why? I’m loathe to think that people want to see blood, but I feel it’s more likely that the characters pushing him to do so – Peter, Derek, Stiles, Deucalion, and Theo – have something in common.

****************************** “Splitting is the inability to see the dichotomy of both positive and negative aspects of our thoughts, usually associated with how we think about people. Everything is either all good or all bad – there is no middle ground. All of my thoughts are polarized. My life is either absolutely terrible or completely amazing, but nowhere in between… “ Again, this description fits canon Scott McCall just perfectly. Escalus is definitely right about one thing though: holding people to a specific standard you set for them and demanding they obey it while refusing to hold yourself to that same standard is not black-and-white thinking. It’s entitlement and dictatorship.

Also, I think it’s hilarious that so-called canon purist PEW would claim that Scott refuses to employ killing for the sake of efficiency and refuses to consider it for people who had been changed against their will when actual canon literally showed us that Scott’s more than willing to kill as long as he doesn’t lose his precious “True Alpha” status and only if it benefits him and only him; I also think it’s funny that PEW would try to use Josh and Tracy as evidence of Scott’s nonexistent principles and compassion despite the fact that Scott actively plotted and conspired with the likes of Deucalion (aka Boyd and Erica’s murderer) behind everyone’s back just to murder a bunch of scared, traumatized, mutilated chimera kids he had referred to as “innocent victims” in the previous episodes.

But of course delusionals would try to justify Scott’s own canonical shitty actions, hypocrisy, opportunism, and black-and-white mentality by screeching that Peter Hale is a villain therefore Peter having a vulgarly low opinion of Scott and actively mocking Scott for his lack of intelligence and black-and-white thinking throughout the whole show doesn’t really count [remember when they said that Scott’s totes an academically gifted student with perfect grades pre-bite and that Gerard’s just a lying liar who lies even though Gerard had Scott’s school records at hand?], or by blabbering that it was all someone else’s (usually Derek, Stiles and Peter’s ‘cause delusionals’ pathological jealousy and butthurt is transparent like that) fault for pushing/wanting poor little dumb as a box of Scotts Scoot to kill as an expedient solution, or some other self-fabricated blame shifting~victim blaming bullshit with no basis in canon like that, lol!

If canon erasure were an Olympicc sport, princeescaluswords & Scott McCall defense squad colleagues would win the gold medal. That’s for sure

Cookie: PEW definitely missed the ball with this one, yikes. “But fanon interpretation has it be Manic Pixie Dream Boy!Stiles who helps the emotionally constipated but Good Alpha grow.” I don’t like pulling this card, but hm, referring to the neurodivergent character as a “Manic Pixie Dream Boy” sure does leave a bad taste in my mouth. 

Anyway. 

PEW: From season one to season five, the hallmarks of Stiles’ behavior is always a sense of entitlement to other people’s affections and, more sinisterly, their obedience. 

Hey PEW, you misspelled Scott McCall. When has Stiles EVER been entitled to someone’s affections? Was it when he hallucinated his girlfriend making out with another guy as his worst fear? Was it when he stalked her? Was it when he harassed her with pictures of them together after they had broken up, and then refused to accept that it was wrong when she was forced to leave class crying? 

OHHHH, I”M SORRY. That wasn’t Stiles at all, my mistake. Yeah, no, Stiles has never been entitled to anyone’s affections, even when rightfully he should have been. (Scott practically abandoning him everytime he gets a new girlfriend, anyway?) If anything, he is afraid to accept it, and only does when he is in extremely emotional or distressing situations. (After his nightmare, when Melissa finds him sleepwalking, after they get the Nogitsune out of him, when he goes to the hospital because he has no idea what’s wrong with him.) 

And obedience? Stiles has never been entitled to anyone’s obedience. You know who has, though? Scott! How about season 2, Derek is trying to build a pack for himself since Scott rejected him. (Y’know, that time Derek moved on and Scott couldn’t handle it, and neither could the stans, because everything has to be about him?) Scott tried to keep Boyd from accepting the bite. He didn’t know Boyd, sure as hell didn’t care about him; he was only trying to keep Derek from building a pack, and once he found out Boyd had already accepted the bite, bam, back to not caring. But okay, that was early in the show. He was still a stupid teenager. How about season 4, when he kidnapped a teenage boy, tied him up, and left him in the bathtub? How about when he shunned Stiles over Donovan instead of trying to talk to him and get his side of the story? How about when he forced Derek to bite Gerard, violating his agency for the sake of an Argent for the second time in his life? How about all those times he lied to Kira where her Kitsune was becoming stronger and uncontrollable, trying to make her listen to him without explaining to her what was happening, because her unconditional loyalty was more important than her wellbeing? What’s a better way to prove your love and loyalty than blind trust, after all. Oh, and perhaps the best one of all, now that I think about it: how about what he did to Isaac? You know, where he repeatedly throws Isaac into the wall for daring to want to be with Allison, who Scott has absolutely no claim over. But how dare his beta want to go after what Scott sees as his property. 

Stiles doesn’t care about obedience. He wants people to do what he says, yes. When he comes up with a plan, when he’s trying to keep his friends safe, he wants them to do what they’re told so they don’t all get killed. But when things don’t go according to plan, when people exercise their free will, Stiles works around it. He doesn’t get irrationally angry for it. Because all Stiles cares about is keeping all of them together. First and foremost, he doesn’t want to lose his friends, his says as much in the first episode of season 5. And that is a hell of a lot different than believing he is entitled to anyone’s obedience. 

PEW: Stiles loves people – that’s undeniable – but with him that devotion always crosses into possession. […] Stiles can lie to, manipulate, emotionally lash out at, and physically assault the people he loves and they just keep on coming back for more! 

You’ve misspelled Scott again. Since I pretty much just covered this already: Allison, stalked, lied to, consistently tried to keep Isaac from being with her even after they broke up, refused to accept them breaking up when SHE was the one who did it, ignored her when she told him not to wait because she DIDN’T WANT HIM TO PUT THOSE EXPECTATIONS ON HER, I could honestly go on. Everything he did with Allison was disgusting. Kira: lied to, manipulated, endangered her and others because of his lack of ability to tell the truth. Stiles: lies to, manipulates, casts him aside when it’s convenient for him, but doesn’t hesitate to call when he needs him to fix one of Scott’s messes. 

PEW is confusing Stiles’ well-founded issues with abandonement (His mother died, his father is a workaholic, and Scott drops him at the first sign of a short skirt) with posession. Stiles doesn’t want to possess people. He clings to them. He doesn’t want to be ALONE. But he does not try to possess people; that implies a level of control he does not have or want. 

Oh, and Stiles listening to his dad’s phone calls? I’m sorry, 1, how is that possessive? His father is the sheriff of the town, listening in on his calls is the equivalent of listening to a police scanner, and Stiles is a stupid teenager. 2, even if he is posessive of his dad, literally so what? That is his DAD, I promise he’s not suffering from the situation, considering Stiles doesn’t try to control his schedule, keep him from dating, or ruin interpersonal relationships. (You know, that thing that ACTUALLY possessive people do.) Instead all we see is Stiles just trying to take care of his dad, because Stiles doesn’t want to lose him too. 

PEW Gone is the Stiles who was willing to let the Argents kill Derek and Peter so long as Scott (and his father, and Lydia) was safe in Formality. Gone is the Stiles who urged Allison to shoot Derek in the head in Venomous. Gone is the Stiles who didn’t give two shits that Derek was dead in Frayed. Gone is the Stiles who noted that Derek was losing his powers in Orphaned and did nothing about it. 

And where is the Scott that was willing to violate Derek’s agency so that he could be with Allison? Where is the Scott that replaced a cancer patient’s medicine with placebos, knowing that it would kill him wither way? Where is the Scott that lied to the police and told them Derek was the one who killed the janitor, instead of keeping his mouth shut? Where is the Scott that told Derek his family might have deserved to die horribly by burning to death? Where is the Scott that noticed Kira was losing control fo her powers, and neglected to tell her? (And instead talked to Theo about it, y’know, the random kid that just showed up out of nowhere.) 

I completely forgot this part in my amazement of PEWS ability to project Scott’s bad behavior onto Stiles. “Ignoring that Stiles just doesn’t have that kind of relationship with Derek, […], no he wasn’t a shoulder to cry on for him.” And Scott was? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. Of course Scott wasn’t. He had the emotional range of a teaspoon, and no empathy to speak of. 

Meanwhile it was Stiles saving Derek’s life when he got shot, it was Stiles staying to comfort Derek when he was forced to kill Boyd (the only one, mind. And then Scott went to team up with Deucalion because he never cared about Boyd in the first place, so why would his death mean anything?), it was Stiles who Derek dreamed about when he needed guidance, do you see the recurring pattern here? Scott was not there for Derek during emotional moments. Stiles was. Scott was the Action Hero, and Stiles was the empathetic sidekick trying to comfort people whenever he could. 

(God this is exhaustively long and I’m only halfway through, PEW needs to learn to be more concise.) 

PEW: We do not see this in Scott’s emotions.

Lol we would have if Poesy could actually act. 

PEW:  He’s able to foresee his own plans failing and be able to bend or even break the rules in the service of a greater cause .

First off, Scott is blind as a bat and can’t foresee shit, which is why he always has to call Stiles when one of his ‘plans’ doesn’t work out. Second of all: so Scott is allowed to break the rules in service of a “greater [usually his own] cause” but Stiles isn’t? 

PEW: None of these exhibit black-and-white thinking.

I can tell you exactly where the black-and-white thinking with Scott is right here: When Scott does it, good! When anyone else does it, baaaad. 

PEW: I’m loathe to think that people want to see blood, but I feel it’s more likely that the characters pushing him to do so – Peter, Derek, Stiles, Deucalion, and Theo – have something in common. 

Yup, the thing they have in common is that they’re all compelling characters portrayed by great actors! 

Hoenstly, I would give more credence to PEWs hardon for imaginary racism in the fandom if he put as much effort into the other characters. Where is the outrage over Boyd being criminally underused and then killed off for Derek’s mainpain? What about for Kira being horribly sterotyped as a Japanese ninja when fighting, but a horrible Klutz everywhere else like she came right of a harem anime? Or Mason being LITERALLY turned into a monster, because there is nothing at all problematic about that.

Of ocurse, I’m SURE PEW would just say that they don’t matter because they’re just SIDE CHARACTERS, not the main. To which I say: either their is racism or their isn’t, the size of the role doesn’t matter. 

As we all know, PEW doesn’t actually care about racism, or sexism, or any other -ism or -phobia that may or may not be present in fandom. (I personally have yet to see any of these on a fandom-wide scale) All he cares about is that his personal fave isn’t liked enough. And I have to say, his ranting and raving sure doesn’t make anyone like him more.