#but basically lydia goes through a shit ton of trauma

[conquerthenight]

Not me making myself sad by coming up with an AU (which would be an AU of this AU) where Lydia witnessed the murder of Rebecca.

[nyxelestia]

I'm caught between 5 different plotbunnies for the Teen Wolf Big Bang.

TL;DR version:

1.) Scott sleeps with Deucalion in exchange for Deucalion taking his memories of his loved ones (ab)using him. Pro: Emphasis on Scott's trauma and martyrdom. Con: Not a big fan of the ending and can't think of a better one. 2.) Turns out Rafael molested Scott, and everyone finds out because nogitusne. Scott still resents Rafael more for leaving him than for abusing him in the first place. Pro: Emphasis on Scott's tendency to put up with a ton of abuse from people as long as they don't leave him. Con: No satisfying ending. I know how to end it, plot-wise, but no idea how to end it emotionally. (Mixed feelings about combining #1 and #2.) 3.) Chris/Melissa/Sheriff fic about the three parents growing into and embracing their new reality, and each other along with it. Pro: Lots of fluff and emotional development. Con: Plot is shitty and cliched as all hell. 4.) Sheriff gets turned into a werewolf, but with alpha!Scott. Emphasis is on the Sheriff's changing relationship with Scott (father-figure-come-beta). Pro: Father-son-figure fluff, and the dark reality of the Sheriff trying to cope with lycanthropy. Con: No real plot or narrative beyond that. (Mixed feelings about combining #3 and #4.) 5.) Scott dies in 5A, everything goes to hell. After Beacon Hills becomes a corpse-ridden ghost town, Lydia and the Nemeton arranges for Allison, Scott, and Stiles (and/or herself) to wake up that first morning all the way back in the pilot/101, with all their memories up until their death. Pro: It's the ultimate fix-it fic, with a greater emphasis on the real cost and stakes of the supernatural drama (and the value in protecting them). Con: Like zero plot whatsoever, just an idea and some vague, disconnected scenes.

Detailed explanations below cut.

Idea #1: Dark Scott/Deucalion fic.

After Season 4, Scott starts sleeping with Deucalion in exchange for Deucalion taking some of his more traumatic memories involving his loved ones (i.e. Derek's assaults of him in the first two seasons, Chris' early mistreatment of him, nogitsune!Stiles stabbing him, etc).

Despite how exploitative it sounds, Deucalion does somewhat care for Scott (as a mentor/mentee thing). Scott ends up falling in love with him a little, but this is also happening in tandem with his relationships with Kira (and later, Malia). Main Appeal: The emphasis on Scott's trauma, and how his experiences leave him open to a certain type of exploitation and vulnerable in a certain way. He's not getting rid of all traumatic memories - just the ones of people who he cares about, but have hurt him, because it was getting difficult for him to spend time around his loved ones without being scared all the time. He lets people continue to hurt and use him because he'll be able to later pretend it never happened. Main Drawback: Not sure about the ending. Part of  the reason I'd abandoned it before is that I never came up with a good ending. I kinda like how Season 6B fits into this - that ultimately, Deucalion dies, and in the absence of another alpha willing to help Scott take a short-cut through is trauma, Scott finally has to confront his trauma and self-martyrdom. I'm not sure of an ending which is just the beginning of another story or process which I know I'll never write/the reader will never see.

Idea #2: Very Dark pedophile!Rafael fic

Original plot bunny has the nogitsune revealing to all and sundry that Stiles figured out Scott was "looking for his own kiddie porn" when he broke into Rafael's laptop for Kira. Things...devolve from there.

Allison lives for no discernible reason and she and Derek debate the merits of just killing Rafael, together. Chris is hurt that they didn't invite him. :P Stiles taps into the void the nogitsune left in him to put Rafael down for good. Main Appeal: I've seen fics where Rafael abused Stiles and I've always just been like - he's got his own kid right there and for some reason never touched him? I also really want to emphasize that much like the show, Scott resents his father abandoning him more than any abuse - including this sexual abuse. This plays into his current mental state, that he'll accept almost any level of use, abuse, and mistreatment if it means his friends and pack won't leave him. (Also, given how often stories like this involve the McCall family being subsumed by Stilinski drama, I like the idea of reversing that script.) Main Drawback: I feel like this would be a little OOC for Rafael (6B made me actually like him!). While I do not say this as a gesture of abuse erasure or apologism, I quite liked his arc in the show (and was upset to not see more of it), and I'm afraid I'd be shitting on that a little with molestor!Rafael. Also, no idea how to end it. Narratively, I have the idea that Derek tries to actually get Rafael arrested and tried and convicted, wanting Scott to see and experience how wrong Rafael's actions were...but Rafael's too good to be caught, and the pack/friends just work together to kill him. Great for "rallying around and protecting Scott" feels, but no real emotional development from Scott, who would probably resent them for this, and I don't know how to fix that. (Kinda tempted to combine with #1, but that might be rather cliched - Scott getting away from one sexual abuser only to fall hard for another? I know I get irritated by "everyone's trying to fuck him/rape him" fic when it comes to Stiles, and I'd have mixed feelings about subjecting Scott to that. I think it would be very true to his character, post-Rafael, to fall into that pattern of exploitation with Deucalion - but the Deucalion fic was a little more oriented to Scott's tendency to martyrdom, whereas this one is more about Scott putting up with (ab)use to keep people close to him.)

Idea #3: Chris/Melissa/Sheriff fic (+Allison lived AU)

What it says on the tin, it's just the story of Chris, Melissa, and the Sheriff developing a relationship.

Original plot bunny was that after Season 4-ish events, Rafael is poking around, mistakes some post-supernatural circumstances for a threesome, and gets mad. Team Root Cellar initially just rolls with the farce to keep Rafael from finding out about the supernatural, but also to troll him, only for it to turn real.

But now I'm also inclined to something post-6B/show? Main Appeal: Lots of fluff, and lots of everyone starting to settle down into a new life and embracing their new reality for good. Part of that new reality is the whole "kids leaving the nest" thing (Scott, Allison, and Stiles going off to college or wherever, the trio having to build a life that isn't about/around parenting).

It’s also kind of embracing how far they've come from who they used to be (Chris going from hating werewolves to dating the True Alpha's mother and his Emissary's father, the Sheriff embracing the supernatural in terms of dating a Hunter and someone so heavily involved in werewolves, and Melissa growing as a more confident and self-assured person). Also, accidental baby is sort of a representation of a new future with these three once-disparate forces of Beacon Hills now united as one. Main Drawback: There isn't much of a plot to this. My current ideas, post-S4 or post-6B, are basically a series of interconnected one-shots. I also feel that in most ways, it would be a little cliched - older parents finding a new love life after their kids are gone, accidental baby feels cliche (even if what it's representing is not).

Idea #4: Turned!Sheriff with Alpha!Scott

Exactly what it says on the tin. At some nebulous point during or soon after the events of the show, somehow the Sheriff gets Bitten by a rogue alpha or something. He turns, but now has to deal with being a werewolf.

In particular, what I intend to be different about this AU is that the Sheriff doesn't magically cope well with the changes. While he is level-headed, he isn't the best at self-control, and does have a lot of issue that'll make full moons downright nasty. And while the enhanced strength and senses are nice (especially as Derek teaches him how to use them), the loss of alcohol/drinking is not. Main Appeal: I see so many fics that focus on the Melissa and Stiles relationship, I wanted to flip that on its head a bit, and focus on Scott and the Sheriff. Ironically, Stiles isn't actually in it all that much, with the focus being on the Sheriff's relationships with Scott (and somewhat, Derek). Scott has to be the Sheriff's alpha, despite also being like his second son. It's a hard transition for them both, for different reasons. And since I did love the Derek and Sheriff relationship, Derek teaches the Sheriff to use his senses to benefit his job. (Also, while Stiles isn't in it much, he is still in it - and he's there for the Sheriff's first Full Moon. It's exactly as horrifying as you'd expect. Main Drawback: Again, no real plot. I have a premise and I have some scenes in mind, but no overarching plot, and no real character arc beyond "Sheriff and Scott forging a new relationship in their new reality, while still maintaining a bit of the older paternalism". (...maybe I could combine this with the threesome fic...? Except that that fic was intended to be about all three parents, whereas this would make it overwhelmingly Sheriff-focused.)

Idea #5: Time Travel Fix-It fic.

Basically, Scott actually dies in the end of 5A and stays dead, and everything just goes straight to hell after that. After a lot of 6B-like tensions, bloodshed and carnage, and the Ghost Riders, Beacon Hills is a desolate Ghost Town with nothing left but corpses, and Lydia left wandering around in it.

She goes to the Nemeton and ~magic happens~ and her, Scott, Stiles, and Allison all wake up the very first morning from the pilot with all their memories of the future until they died. (And maybe not even Lydia, just the trio. Or, alternatively, only her, and she has to try to prevent everything.) Main Appeal: A huge re-focus back on Season 1, and how all of the insanity of later seasons holds up against that. The events of the later seasons make the Season 1 drama look so small - yet at the same time, the stakes are higher because of those consequences. Part of what I think was lost in later seasons was that there was less grief and shock in lost lives, so even as the body count rose, the stakes didn't feel like they were rising, too. But going back to Season 1 would put the focus back on that loss of life (with everyone alive and well, again - but all that darkness and evil just waiting for them).

I also like the idea of characters getting to see each other at different stages of development - Allison getting to see the the awesome alpha and badass banshee Scott and Lydia came to be, Scott coming to admire her powers (since she didn't learn how to use them outside of death knells until 5B), and a lot of wary respect of the kind of capable yet dark person Stiles ultimately became without Scott (or Allison) to temper him. Main Drawback: This idea has the least plot out of all my ideas. You can probably tell by the fact I'm not even 100% sure who I'd want effectively going back in time to fix things. Even if they do - I'm not sure of the ripple effects and consequences, what I want to happen, etc. I have a vague idea that they kind of...speed up the rate of attacks (basically, instead of pacing over several years, all the villains pop up almost at once), and the heroes ultimately using that to their advantage by turning/using all these villains against each other, somehow.

But I have no concrete plans for any of this, just a cool idea and a lot of individual scenes in my head.

[septemberpoems]

Stiles, ravens and World of Warcraft

aka I think I know what the hell a Stiles is

I’m a huge subscriber to the idea that there is a trio of things to be in the supernatural world of teen wolf; essentially hunters, shifters and emissaries, for lack of a better word. I’ve explained it before, but basically:

-a human with human weapons, such as the hunters, noah and melissa -a shifter that themself is the supernatural weapon, such as werecoyotes, werewolves and kitsune  -a human with the ability to wield a supernatural weapon of some kind, like lydia, deaton or jennifer.

all three contain different variations on a theme. and stiles belongs to the third. I think most of us can agree that it looks like he’s part of the third category, but how?

the first clue, really, hit me way later than it should have, and that’s the remark about him playing an online game that battles mythical creatures. with how quick he was to take everything in, never doubting the facts in front of him, I believe that game was WoW. it’s also the most popular one, so in all likelyhood, that’s it. if jeff davis has known all along what stiles is, I think this was a small nod. but let’s talk about the other clues.

his name.  jeff talked about stiles and his humanity way back around season 2 (note! the season of the WoW comment) and said he was more like perseus with his sword. long story short perseus was given preternatural weapons to fight medusa. mieczyslaw means sword and glory, and I think that’s a nod to that inspiration. that also fits the emissary category.

his nickname. a stiles is a set of steps or a ladder or something that helps people cross over walls and fences without letting livestock or whatever might be inside the fence out. 

jeff has said very early on that stiles and lydia are two sides of the same coin. he’s been drawn to her from the beginning, and I have an idea why. it’s has less to do with a romantic relationship and more to do with bonds, which I’ll clear up later, but basically I believe her banshee status and what stiles really is is very closely connected. it’s also why she was chosen as his anchor, and why she keeps bringing him back.

stiles heals faster than humans should, especially from things like kanima poison. when him and derek were paralyzed on the sheriff station floor and derek stared at him after the “dude, I can move my toes” I don’t think it was because derek was healing slow. I think it was because stiles was healing fast. he was also the only one in the right place to affect the mountain ash to let tracy out from the clinic, because she couldn’t have broken the barrier herself. if she had, it wouldn’t have broken the way it did. he had no way of defending himself against her talons though, so instead of getting up, he feigned paralyzation and let her out. he also seemed to recuperate faster from being drugged during lydia’s party.

in fact, derek may be one of the only ones who’s truly figured out what stiles is- this because of the spark conversation with one of the twins (can’t remember which one), stiles kinetically affecting the mountain ash and repeatedly waking up those who should be dead or unwakeable. 

stiles keeps talking to people who shouldn’t be able to communicate. punching poisoned derek back to life, talking to jackson while he’s OD’d on ketamine, isaac he only goes under when stiles grabs his legs, he’ll only focus when stiles is holding them and when isaac stands up, he talks to stiles directly. it should be noted that immediately after he’s awake and the weather outside stops, deaton and stiles both say things related to thunder (stiles uses the word thunderdome instead of arena, deaton says “storm in there”), but we’ll get to that later. he brings back cora and derek from the brink of death again despite it being supernaturally induced by jennifer and just recently he woke people up in the train station that he didn’t have emotional connections to.

sparks. so many sparks. stiles got fucking electrocuted at the same time as kira to the point where his bat was magnetic and he still walked out of there. he connects lydia over a radio, there are lights flickering when he’s angry and when the nogitsune takes over.

stiles has died three times. the ice baths, the car crash and the nogitsune slicing his stomach open. 

I’m going to make an assumption for the last one, but it’s not a far reach: the nogitsune changes appearance and power, right? with rhys it has shiny teeth, with the yakuza boss it had white eyes and several rows of teeth and with stiles it had.. nothing, really. I believe it takes the strongest being, the one it can use the most. the bandaged nogitsune in stiles’ mind was a mix between the yakuza boss and rhys’ burnt body, given the teeth and the bandage. so whatever the nogitsune did in stiles’ body, stiles was already capable of. and when it sliced stiles open it did so knowing what a threefold death would do to stiles’ powers. as did noshiko, which is why she was so terrified. 

  now, let’s talk norse mytholgy, and parallels with teen wolf that you should know of.

the norns. the norns were called urd (what once was), verdandi (what’s coming to be) and skuld (what shall be). they lived under yggdrasil, the world tree, in a well, matching allison, stiles and scott sacrificing themselves in water to the nemeton. I think allison was what was, stiles was what was becoming and scott what would become later on.  around the beginnings of stiles’ nogitsune problem there were speculations that allison got out relatively free because her main fear, becoming kate, was something she’d already dealt with. she almost fell into it while hunting boyd and erica as while she grieved her mother, but she got out of it and she survived. there was also talk about scott never really dealing with his fear of becoming a monster alpha, something we saw shine through later on when he both dreamt of killing liam and when he shifted more fully during the fight with the assassin team. 

the three sacrifices and self-sacrifice to the world tree: odin is closely tied to sacrifice, partially for hanging himself for a couple of days to gain knowledge. the threefold death has been presented in a lot of ways; sometimes it’s through water and fire, other times being stoned, pierced by a stake and drowning, both in relation to merlin, but it’s also very present in old norse texts. the theme of stabbing, drowning and blunt force trauma is present in those, too. remember how stiles’ three deaths are different from those jennifer performed? drowning, blunt force trauma, slicing himself open.

odin has a shit-ton of names. I can’t even begin to list them all. stiles, mieczyslaw, mischief, stilinski, bilinski... yeah.

odin speaks with the dead. here’s a parallel to the ghost riders, actually, because odin gets to the underworld by riding sleipnir, which is a horse, as some of you might already know. it’s very heavily emphasized that this is something only odin and possibly sorceresses can do.

odin gets much of his knowledge through hugin and munin, two ravens that sit on his shoulders and tell him what they’ve discovered when they’ve flown around the world. this has sometimes been interpreted as the farseeing part of shamanism, and sometimes depicted as two actual birds, but they’re a part of odin that has been present for a very long time. 

odin practiced seid, a type of sorcery he was taught by freya. this is very, very female coded (most likely because of related fertility rites and the sexual components of them), and even if there were a small amount of male seid practitioners it was heavily frowned upon. stiles is one of the few younger male  characters on the show that hasn’t been presented as manly eyecandy in one way or another, and on top of that his queerness has been hinted at for years. odin being queer in one way or another tends to go untouched by media using him, but he was. 

 there are other norse parallels, like peter and the ones he’s turned paralleling loki and loki’s children:

-hel, ruler of the realm of (most of) the dead. peter bit lydia and she became a banshee.

-j��rmungandr, the serpent. it has also been in the shape of a cat. remember when we talked about how scaly kate looked like, before the werejaguar thing was confirmed? (it’s also an ouroboros.)

-fenrir, the wolf. I think you can guess the parallel here.

peter’s also very close to loki in behaviour and consequence. usually when something’s up, it’s loki’s doing, but even when it’s not he’s called in to deal with the results of whatever’s going on. 

I also believe that lydia is largely drawn from freya, and that this is where the “two sides of the same coin” comes in for her and stiles. not only is freya a goddess of fertility and sorcery but she’s also a goddess of war and death. when you die in battle, you either go to freya or to odin.

so how does world of warcraft fit in, then? one of the most written about characters in wow is thrall, one of the most powerful shaman to ever have lived, whose parents died when he was young and whose birthname we didn’t know for years.

I believe stiles is a shaman, by it’s norse definition, and that this inspiration comes largely from odin himself. 

and herein lies the biggest kicker- I think stiles is what will not only defeat the wild hunt, but also mr alpha nazi. because if anyone can control a hound of the hunt, it would be odin. whip or no.

and I think that the gang will all either walk out the way lydia walked in, or they’ll defeat the riders and leave through the portal on their horses. and if I’m right, stiles and lydia will be the only ones left unscathed.