Hello, I'm kicking this rant book off with an issue that I don't think is addressed enough.

Okay, so I've always been someone who is against the whole thing where female characters are constantly made to be in competition with each other (for example, stydia vs stalia or scallison vs scira)

I don't see why women should be pit against each other like that - especially Lydia and Malia who, in my opinion, (along with the majority of the female characters on the show) are both fantastic, empowering characters who have both gone through some amazing development. I think that people should be able to ship what they want without having to bash on other people's ships. So this rant isn't anything hateful towards either of the ships, just merely my conflicting opinions about what's happened in season 5 and what's going to happen in season 6.

I'm going to be honest with you, I used to be a really huge Stiles and Lydia shipper. I wasn't a huge fan of stalia and a lot of the reason was because teen wolf for me, to begin with, was all about Stiles/Stydia. I loved everything Stiles and Stydia and because of it, I overlooked a lot of the other characters. So when there was the possible threat of Malia, I was so against it. But then I rewatched the show and realised that it wasn't all about Stiles and Lydia. There's so much more to all of the characters. A few quick examples:
Scott is our lead MoC character, yet he's not recognised as much as the likes of Stiles (I'll probably go onto a rant about this some other time because there's so much I can say about this.) Malia is actually a great character (okay, admittedly I still don't like season 4 Malia that much but season 5 Malia has stolen my heart) And whilst Lydia and Allison were the main females and are still great, Malia and Kira need to get some more love too. Kira and Malia were here in season 3 yet few people liked them and they were hated on, all because they became a males love interest. Liam Dunbar, who is essentially more problematic, came and was immediately accepted by the majority of the fandom. There's something wrong with that. And whilst I could go into more detail about that, I'm not going to because I'm straying off my main topic slightly.

After rewatching all the seasons of teen wolf for like the fifth time whilst we waited for season 5, I began to start really rooting for Stiles and Malia. Right the way up until Stiles didn't believe her about the dread doctors, at which point I realised that Malia deserved better than Stiles. I was sad when they broke up because they were cute but I was also quite relieved because Malia essentially came into the show as Stiles' love interest. I'm glad she's had season 5b to show that she doesn't have to be defined by a man and that she's a great, independent, powerful character. I also noticed that after her and Stiles broke up, a lot more people started to like Malia's character - which is infuriating because it really does show how being with our 'most loved' male character is what gets our female characters so much hate. 
So then season 5b came along and started to give us more Stydia. Now, a couple of years ago I would have been ecstatic over this. I would have been even more excited by the news that Stydia was going to be a focal point in season 6. But now, I'm not so sure.

I have been mostly really enjoying the way teen wolf has been going friendship and relationship wise. I liked the fact that Lydia wasn't really with anyone. I never really shipped Lyds and Parrish (soz) and it never necessarily advanced that much anyway. I got so used to Stiles and Malia being together, and then I got used to them both being single. It now, to me, kinda feels like they're shoving stydia down our throats again (and this is coming from someone who was a hardcore stydia shipper for years.) It just doesn't feel right anymore. If this had happened in say season 4 then maybe it would feel right but it just doesn't. And I feel incredibly weird because I really, really hella shipped the two of them but now it's just all fizzled out. I don't know if I'm the only one either like most people seem to like the fact that stydia is going to happen but I just think I prefer them much more as a platonic ship.

Of course, I still mildly ship both stydia and stalia but I'd just rather have both Malia and Lydia single (or together I mean malydia is fine with me tbh 😂) I think that they can both do a lot better than Stiles and female characters shouldn't have to be defined by a man anyway. Idk if I'm the only one that feels like this but if I'm not them hmu so I don't think I'm some weird, abnormal person in the teen wolf fandom.

I wasn't trying to hate on any of the characters because the majority of the characters on the show I love. I also wasn't trying to hate on any ships either. Everybody has different opinions on characters, ships etc and this is just mine. Feel free to comment your own opinions because I'd love to hear both similar and different points of views about this.

I'm sorry this probably went on forever, I tend to get very passionate about the things I rant about. I was actually going to make this a whole thing about ship competition/pitting female characters against each other in general, but I realised that would take forever as it's a really broad topic. So I did only made this exclusively(ish) about stydia and stalia (hence the lame title) but that doesn't at all mean that this is the only ship problem there is. There's loads that I could talk about for not only teen wolf but other tv shows too. Fair do's if you don't like a female character but make sure that your reason is something other than 'they're with my favourite male character' or 'they're ruining my favourite ship.' Don't forget, women being made to be in competition with each other is not only something we find in our beloved TV shows, books etc but also in real life too.

Thanks for reading. You can probably expect more ship war and other rants from me in the future - Molly.