‘Shiptober: Will ‘Teen Wolf’ season 5 pair Stiles with Malia, Lydia, or someone else?

Throughout our ‘Shiptober series here at CarterMatt, we’re looking at the future for a variety of TV couples and characters, and few other shows have the popularity or the pairing possibilities of this one. “Teen Wolf” has more ‘ships than some countries have in a Navy, and we imagine that we will have many articles in this particular series all about the MTV alone.

For the sake of this particular article, let’s focus on someone who has definitely been ‘shipped with almost everyone under the sun in Stiles. We’ve seen him long to be with Lydia, have a relationship with Malia, and explore the light and dark sides of his personality. He’s been through the wringer, and with the nature of this show being what it is, it does not look like there will anything changing for him in the near future.

So where does he stand at the moment with some of these characters? There is a little bit of flux, but for now, we have to consider Malia to be his present romantic partner … but anything can change when season 5 starts airing early next year.

The case for Malia – There is already the history there for this to continue, even if Malia has spent most of season 5 so far having to deal with Theo, and in part the Desert Wolf mythology that is going to come more and more to light. She’s a powerful person, someone who can care for Stiles in a way that no one else can. Not only that, but she is someone who has shown him love. While there may be times it is easy to ‘ship him with other people, you want to see him happy. There’s no guarantee that the feelings for someone else are going to change. She’s already been there for him, and if they can survive this season, there is still hope for a future.

The case for Lydia – We know that this has been a dream for many fans for years, and maybe at some point earlier in the run we assumed that this is where the story was going. We’re not so sure about that anymore, but we know that Stiles has had those sort of romantic feelings for her. We’re just not entirely sure that they have ever been properly reciprocated. They did have that kiss back in season 3, but you can still look back at Lydia’s motives for it (stopping a panic attack) as evidence that maybe she did not realize completely all of the implications behind what she was doing.

The case for someone else – Scott and Kira do have a fun dynamic, even though she is tied more to Scott. We also don’t want to ignore the Stiles / Derek or Stiles / Scott fans out there; while the sexuality of the characters on the show makes it near-impossible something would happen, you should acknowledge anytime that a pair of characters generates such a strong reaction that it makes people intrigued enough to ‘ship them. In ignoring that, are basically conveying that the opinions of some fans do not matter.