It took me days to write. Anyway!
So like Teen Wolf, right? It's a show that exists. Sterek, right? It's a ship in said show. Actually. The single most popular ship in the show. Actually. On ao3 it beats EVEN THE CHARACTER TAGS which is NOT a common thing. Like usually the top tag for a fandom is a character tag, but no, here it's THE SHIP STEREK.
Anyway- this is like this because like... I mean the evidence... let's just say it's understandable.
But the thing about this ship is that like- it is just so clearly queerbait, like they practically hand it to you on a silver platter, but for some reason the fandom is delusional and 100% convinced that it's totally queercoding.
Sterek is the slash ship between Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski. Derek Hale is a werewolf, Stiles is a regular degular guy. Both of their characters play off each other well since they contrast a little what with Stiles being an overcompensating know-it-all who uses sarcasm and humor to hide his insecurities and Derek being a stoic angry loner type who takes things a little too seriously. Because of this the characters were often paired for scenes and naturally the fandom started shipping them.
Then the show decided "hey... why don't we lean into this more."
So in season 2... wonderful, beautiful season 2... this lizard creature with the ability to paralyze people comes along. And... oh boy.
One scene worth pointing out is a scene where the lizard thing, called a Kanima, paralyzes both Derek and Stiles. In this scene, they JUST SO HAPPEN to fall ON TOP OF EACH OTHER, and it JUST SO HAPPENS that they fall in a particular manner in which Stiles is on top of Derek with his head on his shoulder and his chest on Derek's. They could've so easily had Stules fall NEXT TO Derek, or at least had him fall in a different position with less of a romantic connotation. But they didn't. And just to throw salt in the wound, the antagonist even says, when they demand that they no longer be on top of each other, that Derek and Stiles "make a pretty good pair"... I bet the writers room was fucking cackling.
Another very notable scene is one that's not played off as a joke unlike the first one. Derek is paralyzed, Stiles is not. The Kanima can't swim so there in the pool with it waiting outside, stalking them. Since Derek is paralyzed, Stiles has to be the one to keep him afloat in the pool so he doesn't drown. Derek mentions that Stiles is only keeping Derek alive out of necessity, basically saying that since Stiles is powerless he needs Derek to fight off the Kanima for him and that's the only reason he's keeping him afloat and not because he actually gives a shit. Stiles takes offense to this and so he leaves Derek and swims to shore to try to grab a phone to call for help. Stiles fails then goes back to save Derek from drowning. And... dude. He risked his life to prove to Derek that not only does he not need him to survive this, but also that he's not saving Derek out of any sort of necessity, no, he's saving Derek... because he actually fucking cares. And Derek has major trust issues so doing something like this, risking your life to prove you care, is like... dude. So obviously since this is an important character moment it's literally never brought up again and we move on from it and that's that. Sigh... of course.
Then in season 3, Stiles is now the antagonist. And up to this point Stiles and Derek's opinions on what to do with antagonists has been pretty much the same "why don't we just kill them" but now it's Stiles who's the antagonist and he's like "guys, if I lose myself completely, just kill me" because he's being possessed by the Nogitsune and isn't intentionally the antagonist ofc. But Derek, a man who has, up until this point, been pretty okay with murder, is suddenly like "guys no matter what, we can't kill Stiles"... what's with the switch up Derek... why are we changing opinions now? His change in behavior toward this is never addressed.
The other seasons continue with pretty much similar type shit. Derek and Stiles are often paired up for scenes. There are fleeting moments of mentioning how weird their relationship is, certain scenes that just seem so questionable that the directors and writers could've easily cut out or changed, and just thing after thing that is so clearly gay but also... not.
Then in the last season of the show, Stiles gets with Lydia Martin, a character he has been shown to be attracted to but up until now she hasn't really shown much reciprocation for these feelings except for fleeting moments. The relationship feels a little shoehorned in at the last season for fanservice. Then that was the end of it.
...until 2023 of course.
In 2023 they decided "hey guys why don't we do a movie" and everyone agreed except for the actor for Stiles. So the movie goes on without him. In the movie Stiles is clearly absent and this is explained in the movie by him being part of the FBI. This makes sense character wise and story wise.
We see in the movie that Derek now has a child. Who is the mother of said child? 🤷♀️. But I do know this. According to the casting director, the actor chosen for the child was chosen because he "reminded me of Stiles"... the actor for Derek's child... was picked because he reminded the casting director of Stiles... ha... haha...
Stiles's car is also in the movie. It's with Derek now. Yeah. And uh Derek is overprotective... of the car. One of the characters even states outwardly "that car meant a lot to Derek"... yeah... the car is what we're talking about here... sure.
This movie reads like fanfiction... and I don't think that's a coincidence.
We already know all the scenes and questionable choices that happened in the show, but to really make it clear why this is so queerbait we need to go behind the camera. Back to the Teen Wolf show.
During the Teen Choice Awards each show nominated was tasked with making a short video convincing teens to vote for them to win. Teen Wolf's video had... the actors for Stiles and Derek... sitting on a ship... practically all over each other... saying basically "vite for Teen Wolf and you might get to see our characters do more stuff like this"... 😰
I don't think I need to explain when I say that is just so clearly a queerbait move. Making an empty promise of queer rep in exchange for something that would get the creators of Teen Wolf more money... yeah that's literally queerbait. The definition of it actually.
Fast forward to the movie. Whenever it comes to Derek and Stiles the cast and crew and such always say things that are just bordering on gay, but never explicitly saying it. And this is in 2023. They're not gonna explode if they say the word gay on screen. But it's always avoidant of the topic it's always just shy of screaming gay, they can never quite say it. It's almost like... almost like they don't actually care and just want the money so they're giving the shippers crumbs while never giving them a full meal so they don't lose their homophobic audiences... but no that can't possible be... can it?
Yes it can. Yes it is. Sterek si the single most obvious clear as day representation of queerbait I have ever seen in my life and yet the random and shipper are either blissfully ignorant or just so so oblivious to the reality of the matter. Why do the creators always dance around the topic of Sterek? Why do the writers add unnecessary scenes that are a little odd to say the least only to then forget about those scenes and never bring them up again? Why do the directors shoot some scenes in specific questionable ways that are never directly addressed? Because it's all a big fat lie. A lie that everyone fell for, hook line and sinker.