So Something I’ve Been Noticing Is How Everyone Has Been Taking Mathias Side And So Am I But Like Everyone

reblog this rat until staff gets involved

Okay I already replied on ao3 about this, but Im gonna repost my replay here cause I feel some people should see this.

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A few extra points about how it might have been the dread doctors who put the idea of killing Scott in Theo's head back in the first episode of season 5 we have belasko another chimera who tried to kill Scott and after he failed Theo then took up the job to me at least it shows how the dreads might have wanted Scott dead and after balesko failed passed on the job to theo later in the season we also have a scene with theo and malia where theo mentions that the dread doctors wanted everyone dead and that he convinced them to just kill Scott and that he did what he had to, to survive.

Next point is that I just don't think Theo really had free will like some people think he does, we see the dread doctors going around killing chimera's that they deem failures and at first we see it's cause their rejecting the transformation but as we see when Theo brings them back to life the dread doctors could have easily fixed that issue but they still killed them, then going back to balesko we see him at the end of the episode pleading "I can do it just give me a second chance", the dread doctors specifically say "no second chances" and kill him, the dreads also say that he needed to remove the obstacle(meaning Scott) and as we see later in the season the dread doctors say Theo is a partial sucuss but a failure none the less what all that says to me is that the dreads give the chimeras certain jobs like killing, manipulating, etc and if they fail or don't deliver they are then killed. So I think if Theo ever tried to leave or betray them they would instantly kill him. So honestly if I was Theo I would do the same.

So, to summarize we see that the dread doctors first gave the mission of killing Scott to belasko and when he failed they killed him and passed on the job to Theo, Theo even managed to convince them to only kill Scott instead of the whole pack, and if Theo ever failed or disobeyed they would have killed him I think that's why Theo killed Scott in such an emotional way cause his original plan failed and he didn't get scotts power but he still didnt deleiver what the dreads wanted thats why theo looked so angry and emotional its because he was afraid. Kinda like what he tells Liam in season 6 "you only feel one emotion at a time, that's why you get angry when your afraid" and all these points aren't taking into account all the grooming, abuse,and manipulation he went through with the dread doctors

I'm not saying that Theo is blameless cause their were certain situations where he could have handled it better but he was doing the best he could with what he knew and he was just a kid he shouldn't be in that situation in the first place that why I can't judge or blame him in my opinion it all falls on the dread doctors.

On Theo Raeken and Manipulation

Introduction:

The purpose of this is to explore what manipulation really does and the effects it can have on people – especially young children. And, as should be no surprise to anyone, it is also an ode to Theo Raeken. A defense of Theo Raeken, if you will. I’ll be referencing three scholarly articles, one Tumblr post, and the show Teen Wolf (obviously). But, I will admit, most of this is speculative. I’m going to try hard to keep it to canon, but I know my bias is going to be in there. But instead of stating it as fact, I’ll ask open-ended questions you can feel free to fight with me about. But this really isn’t the post I intended on making. I intended to write a pure essay on defending Theo Raeken, but that’s been done before no one listens. I thought I’d switch it up and put my Psychology degree to good use, finally. Okay, that’s enough introduction. Let’s roll.

Who is Theo Raeken?

If you don’t know, you should probably stop reading unless you really care about manipulation and its effects. I’m writing this assuming you know who Theo Raeken is and why he needs defended.

Definitions of Manipulation

All of this comes from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344540018_PSYCHOLOGICAL_ASPECTS_OF_MANIPULATION_WITHIN_AN_INTERPERSONAL_INTERACTION_MANIPULATIONS_AND_MANIPULATORS. They refer to different types of manipulation, and use other terms for it occasionally. They start by defining “influence during interaction” – a subtype of manipulation – from psychological dictionaries as “a process when an individual is changing the behavior of another person as well as his/her attitudes, intentions, ideas, as a result of the person’s activity.” Cause and effect changes occur in the person’s mind, such as psychological characteristics of the individual*, group norms, public opinion, et cetera. Psychological impact can be explicit or implicit, depending on whether the goals of the manipulator are communicated in advance and not hidden. This is clearly the case in season 5 – Theo knows all about the Dread Doctors’ plan – but whose to say it was always like this? You can assume perhaps it was, if he knew what he was doing it for when he took Tara’s heart. But just because they told him one thing doesn’t mean they told him everything – did he know of their master plan when he was 8/9/10 (I wish canon gave us an actual age)? We have no way of knowing this, so for the sake of this article we’re going with the assumption both occurred at different stages. But implicit (covert) psychological influence emphasizes its destructive characteristics. Meaning, manipulation, at its core, can be positive or negative, depending on what the person is being manipulated to do. But obviously Theo wasn’t selected to do benevolent things, so we can get a sense of implicit manipulation here.

There is a latent impact in manipulation that can make the victim susceptible to pursuing various goals and intentions of the initiator. I talked to Des (the wonderful @bendystrah) about this particular point. Once again, what we know about Theo’s childhood is very limited. We don’t know what all he did for the ten-ish years he was with them. We don’t know what all they did to him. We don’t know a lot. But this point is saying the victim can be persuaded into doing what the perpetrator wants, even if they’re not their own goals or intentions. I bring up this point for a reason. We all know in season 5 he was acting on his own free will most of the time (does he even have free will still? Or has it been totally warped and convoluted?), but we know little about what happened with Tara. We know how she died, and why she died, and who is responsible for her death (well, I’m about to refute that one actually). What we don’t know is if Theo woke up one morning and went, “Huh, I kinda want Tara’s heart actually.” You can hate Theo and claim he did, but again, we have zero evidence that points to the fact Theo was already an evil child. We all know he was being visited by the Dread Doctors before Tara’s death, so I think it’s pretty obvious they were the ones who wanted Tara’s heart to make Theo a genetic chimera. Why her heart? Why them? We don’t know that, but we do know their goals and intentions – to make Theo a genetic chimera – and they get Theo to do the dirty work for them for whatever reason. So, in this point, I am claiming it’s possible Theo was completely manipulated into doing this and didn’t have any intentions of ever doing it until he was visited by the Dread Doctors. I mean, this is literally laid out in 5x16, so I’m just talking to talk. If you aren’t insane like me and don’t remember every Theo scene in an episode by just its number, it’s where he’s talking to Stiles in the sewers.

STILES: The guy who murdered his own sister when he was nine?

THEO: Yeah, I was nine years old. I also believed a guy in a red suit came down the chimney to deliver presents. So when three people in leather masks showed up and said that my sister wanted me to have her heart, I believed them, too.

So we know what the goals and intentions of the Dread Doctors are. It’s not hard to assume Theo is telling the truth in this scene (for a number of different reasons, including why lie and it lines up nicely with our theory), and, if he is, it goes to show he was psychologically influenced into doing this.

Furthermore, manipulation is always negative. Even if the goals were altruistic – which they are clearly not here – the process of manipulation is a negative one. This doesn’t really tie into our thesis here, but it is important to note.

The object of manipulation is viewed “as a means of achieving one’s own goals . . . without taking into account the interests, will, desire of the other side.” Meaning: the Dread Doctors didn’t care what Theo wanted. He was not their equal. They didn’t sit around a table and gently ask Theo what his interests, will, and desire was. We’ll never know Theo’s true interests, will, and desire before it was warped* into something else.

Okay, this next point is a bit complicated and is giving me a little bit of a headache (and I’m also a little high, which is so fun to admit to in an essay). But basically, “the manipulative impact focused on personality structures is characterized by the actualization of an interpersonal conflict, when the recipient of the manipulation is held responsible for the choice made through suffering in doubt.” So let’s break that down. That’s basically saying, there’s an impact of manipulation in which the victim is held responsible for what they did while being manipulated and thus feels interpersonal conflict. And obviously Theo is. No one ever argues the point that he killed his sister. And I’m not claiming otherwise, so don’t come at me yet, but this definition is claiming the victim of the manipulation is not at fault for their actions, but the person manipulating them is. And, as a result of this, the victim has interpersonal conflict. I mean, do I even need to say it? Theo’s entire Hell is this interpersonal conflict. To continue, it is claimed that “this type of manipulation the exploitation of the personality, because here . . . the desire [is] to shift the responsibility for the committed actions to the recipient, while the manipulator gets the win.” Once again, this claims the victim is not responsible for their actions, but the perpetrator(s) of the manipulation is. Now is where it gets tricky, and starts to give me a headache. It is said in these cases “it is extremely important for the manipular to create an illusion of choice for the agent of influence” and “when a person is sure that he/she is acting of his/her own free will, he/she will do much more than when he/she knows that he/she is fulfilling someone else’s decisions imposed on him/her.” Okay. I took a break (finally) and now I’m back. Knuckles cracked and everything. So, what this is talking about is when the manipulator wants something but, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to do it themselves and thus use the victim as a conduit to carry out their crime. They make it feel like the victim’s idea, because this makes the victim more likely to do it. I talked to Des about this one too, and what conclusion I came to was how this could possibly – possibly, still no coming at me yet – be the case with Theo’s desire to kill Scott. We know Theo wants Scott dead for his powers. But do the Dread Doctors also want him dead? That, here, is the key question. Me and Des think yes, as having Scott out of the way would make their work easier. But they don’t care so much that they’ll do it themselves. But what if they, really, want Theo to kill Scott? We don’t know if they do or don’t, so we can’t say for sure either way. I’ve done a little research on this but can’t seem to find any solid conclusions on the matter (trust me when I say I looked). So this one isn’t really sturdy, but it’s an interesting theory that the Dread Doctors allowed Theo to feel like he was making his own choices when really he was just helping the Dread Doctors carry out their plans. Maybe they, too, wanted the chaos and discord within the Pack. Now, obviously bringing the Chimeras back wasn’t their goal – hello, why kill them, then? – but I believe they also could’ve stopped Theo had they wanted to. They could’ve stopped Theo from doing anything if they had wanted to. The fact that they didn’t doesn’t point to them being nice and chill and just letting Theo do what he wants. To me, this is more likely stemming from the fact that, somehow, this all fit into their master plan – or, at least, didn’t interfere with it. But, like I said, if they wanted to stop Theo from doing any of this, they could’ve. Which makes me wonder if Theo’s free will wasn’t as free as it appears.

This article also mentions how authority is a particularly sound influence, but I will also explore a similar topic later on so I won’t bother with it now.

*This definition refers to the fact manipulation can cause changes in the psychological characteristics. Now, as a later source mentions, we will never know the full story of Theo’s childhood. All we know is what the show tells us, which isn’t a lot. But we can assume he wasn’t, like, one of those “evil children” who were just “born that way.” Because Scott or Stiles would’ve mentioned that, if he’d gone around killing animals or something. You can argue they didn’t know, but we also have literally zero evidence that he did do anything like that, so it’s a weird assumption to make. He had asthma, and played Little League, and no one ever mentions anything blaringly wrong with his early childhood. What I’m getting at here is a change in psychological characteristics. Maybe Theo was evil before, and that’s why the Dread Doctors targeted him. Or maybe he wasn’t, and went through actual psychological changes in his characteristics which caused him to act differently than he ever would have had he not been put on this path.

*In season 5, his interests, will, and desire are having a Pack and having power. These are his intentions and goals. First of all, I want to note that none of his goals are “murder.” Does murder fall into his plan? Absolutely. He’s clearly very much okay with it. But it’s not like his motivations are as shallow as “killing is fun!” He has reasons to kill Tracy and Josh, and reasons for wanting Scott dead. You can argue what he did to Scott was the worst thing he did, because he killed him out of emotion, not gaining anything from it. I know I’m basically saying premeditated murder is better, but that’s not what I mean. I just mean it isn’t like he originally set out to kill people for a good time. Killing people just happened to be the way to get what he wanted. Furthermore, who knows what his intentions would’ve been had he not lived the life he did? His intentions were formed as reactions. Wanting a Pack was a response to, well, not having one. And wanting power was a response to having none. If he’d been able to live a normal life, there’s no reason to assume he would’ve ever had aspirations like that.

Who is Manipulated?

Everything in this section comes from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8905186/. This article, actually, does not explore the heading at all. It explores radicalization in a religious sense in prisoners who were manipulated. But, the data in the article made it worth using for our purposes here. Starting with the fact “that the process of radicalization follows several phases, during which the recruiters indoctrinate and prepare young people for the use of violence.” And that sentence is what this section is really about: youth. This section will demonstrate how crucial of a factor age is, and what that says about Theo.

“According to this model, recruiters identify their targets in vulnerable contexts.” What this means is that the victim is usually already vulnerable in the eyes of the manipulator. Now, we don’t know why the Dread Doctors chose Theo. We know, like, three things about his early childhood, and none of those three things are even his age. But one of the three things is that he had asthma. Okay, you say, so did Scott. Well, maybe the Dread Doctors were looking for someone who had asthma and also a sibling. That sounds unlikely, but I’m simply illustrating the point that it is a possible weakness he had in his health, making him potentially already vulnerable. Or maybe he had shitty parents. Or maybe he had great parents. We don’t know anything else about his childhood. So we can’t really confirm this point, but what’s important is that we can also not deny it.

Next, “the first phase is psychological submission (emotional radicalization), whereby the young person loses their autonomy and becomes dependent.” Well, this is pretty obvious. The Dread Doctors took Theo away from his parents, and thus he became entirely dependent on them. What else is an 8/9/10 year old supposed to do? He has to depend on them, he has no other options. He can’t just depend on himself, because how is an 8/9/10 year old supposed to have or make money? How’s he supposed to eat? Where is he supposed to sleep? So, yeah, he’s dependent. But, this is also “achieved by using persuasive and aggressive communication strategies, such as social isolation and inducing confusion between reality and fantasy.” We definitely can check the social isolation. Now’s where one of the Tumblr articles comes in. In this post (https://demonzdust.tumblr.com/post/178486817906/part-i-introduction-theo-before-the-dread) the author states that, “We know that the Dread Doctors kidnap and experiment on people while they are still conscious. We also know that they are capable of inducing hallucinations. They can do all of this unbeknownst to others. That leaves them with a lot of tools to shape a young Theo into what they wanted.” I reference this post because it says what I wanted to say better and more succinctly than I could. Especially the part regarding the hallucinations, and how that ties into the article’s point about inducing confusion between reality and fantasy. Like we’ve said, we don’t know what all the Dread Doctors did to Theo. But it’s entirely possible they confused his reality and fantasy, at least for a period of time.

Now we get more into the actual article, which is about religious radicalization. But we’re going to spin this into a Theo context. “Finally, in the third phase of violent disinhibition and legitimization (violent radicalization), the recruit validates the use of violence by associating with the mistreatment and oppression allegedly suffered by their new group, identifies the enemy, and shifts responsibility by making an attack essential to improving their situation.” Okay, that was a lot of words. Let’s break it down. In short, for there to be violent radicalization, setting a clear enemy and making the victim feel like attacking that enemy is the only way to improve their situation must be present. This goes back to my earlier point about the Dread Doctors and possibly wanting Scott dead/chaos and discord in the Pack. Did the Dread Doctors convince him this Pack consisting of his old friends was the enemy? Did they make him think they needed to be disbanded for Theo to get his own Pack and the power he’s craving? We don’t know. We can’t say yes, but we also can’t say no.

Next is where we get into the youth aspect of this section. Youth is noted as “a particularly relevant stage in the radicalization process.” We know Theo is young. As young as 8 when this started, and around 18 during season 5. This article talks about 20-28 being young, so Theo would fall into the category of being extremely young. If youth is a relevant age in radicalizing 20-28 year olds, what exactly does it do to someone who might be 8 years old? The article continues by stating, “Age could be considered a risk factor for radicalization.” Which just means that Theo had a risk factor already before ever being visited by the Dread Doctors. Why? Why is being young more of a risk factor? Well, I’m glad you asked, because I have answers. 

The experience of more extreme and variable emotions

Greater threat/stress sensitivity

Commitment with violence

Basically, young people experience more extreme and variable emotions due to “deficits in both emotional regulation and emotion reactivity (sensitivity).” This also applies to the second point, and why threat/stress sensitivity is greater. Now, the last part is more for adolescents than a child. But it states that the youth are more likely to engage in risky behaviors and commit more violence than other age groups. Now, these are not reasons Theo is the way he is. Everyone is a child/adolescent at some point. But these are risk factors, and they could have played a role in making Theo more susceptible to manipulation and violence.

Barely Even Human

Yeah, I know it was cruel to name this section that. But it fits. Everything in this section comes from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-manipulation/. This article defines manipulation as “radical programming or reprogramming of all or most of an agent’s beliefs, desires, and other mental states.” The thought is that “that manipulative influences bypass the target’s capacity for rational deliberation.” This is implying that the Dread Doctors and their manipulation of Theo could’ve bypassed his ability to really think about the choices he was making. This has long-lasting implications. If we believe this to be true, it is possible that the Theo we see simply doesn’t have a “capacity for rational deliberation.” Meaning, he acts in irrational ways, or ways that look irrational to others but seem rational to  him because he lacks the ability to purposefully and calculatingly make decisions. Instead, he acts in a way that meets his most basic survival needs. And what does a wolf need? A Pack. And what does someone who has been manipulated for a decade need? Power. He needs a Pack and power, and thus those are his goals. Are they rationally deliberated goals? We don’t know, but this article suggests the possibility that the answer is no.

“Manipulation is commonly used aggressively, as a way to harm the manipulator’s target, or at least to benefit the manipulator at the target’s expense.” This point doesn’t have a lot to do with the points I’m making in this essay, but it does make me sad for Theo.

“Another natural way to account for the wrongness of manipulation would be to claim that it violates, undermines, or is otherwise antithetical to the target’s personal autonomy.” This is, more or less, what we talked about earlier. That Theo may never have made any of the decisions he made if not for the Dread Doctors. This implies none of this was done out of his own personal desire to do so, and that it may very well be things he never would have done otherwise. The article goes onto further state that, “It is natural to regard [manipulation] as interfering with autonomous decision-making. The idea that manipulation is wrong because it undermines autonomous choice is implicit in discussions of manipulation as a potential invalidator of consent.” Meaning, Theo’s consent wasn’t important during the time he spent with the Dread Doctors. The Dread Doctors didn’t take it into consideration. This doesn’t mean he actively did things he didn’t consent to doing, but it does bring up the possibility for further discussion.

Lastly, this article states that, “In this view, manipulation involves treating the target as a device to be operated rather than an agent to be reasoned with.” We already know the Dread Doctors viewed Theo as an object. Whether he could be a success or a failure. They never cared about him as a person, merely as a tool to do things they couldn’t/didn’t want to do. If you view Theo this way – as a device to be operated – it takes away some of the blame placed upon him for his actions. He was wound up and made to go, simply put.

Conclusions

TL;DR: Manipulation is bad. Don’t do it. Theo was manipulated, and primed to be so because of his status as a youth. In this essay, we explored his actions and the possibilities behind why they occurred. Our conclusions are that it’s entirely possible he was completely manipulated by the Dread Doctors and thus acted as a puppet whilst they pulled the strings.

If you disagree with anything I said, let me know. But not just in a “screw you you’re stupid” way. Let’s have an actual conversation.

I hope you enjoyed this at least a little bit, or learned something from this. This is Kay, signing off (for now . . . ).

xoxo, kay

I was going through the thiam tag to find a fic and I found one just called “I hate Scott McCall” and the tags and things they wrote were just hating on Scott I decided to skim through it and they don’t have any actual reason to hate Scott they just make shit up to give them a reason to or they say they don’t agree with his morals which I was always like what morals not wanting to kill people like they sound so dumb like Scott’s a teenager who’s had to put his life on the line multiple times of course he’s gonna make a few mistakes and he’s not the only one yet they focus on him only

the popularity of the "bad friend scott mccall" tag even before season 5 is insane to me because uhhhh did we all forget motel california or smth?

This may be a unpopular opinion but I believe everything he did including season 5 was done because he wanted to stay alive not saying it excuses everything he (tho I can definitely make a point for some stuff) but I genuinely believe all his actions came from a sense of survival

if theo truly is rotten, he’d have killed everyone the moment he came back from hell instead of trying his hardest to stay alive. this is a hill i’d die on

It’s not even over cause then he ends up being forced to work for the McCall pack then he’s homeless and then he gets kidnapped and toured again then arrested again and then forced to help fight a war and still after all that he’s still homeless at least he might get a boyfriend after everything

the fact that theo hasn't had the chance to just EXIST in like a decade really gets me. he was abducted, abused, and controlled for years and now that he can actually live – not serve a purpose, just live – it must be pretty fucking daunting. he spent over half his life being puppeted by mad scientists who only saw him as a means to an end, so like. now what? where do you even start?

He apologized get over it 🙄

agreed except I also view Nolan as ace I read one fanfic with it and now i headcanon it

how I perceive the puppy packs sexuality’s

if you agree or disagree, I’d love to hear your own thoughts or your own headcanons!

yes I like to consider Gwen in the puppy pack, i hc that her and Hayden got together. I also wanted to include Brett & Lori so bad because I like to pretend they didn’t dieeee

Okay that’s your interpretation I guess and I do see how you can see that in some scenes. Buts that completely ignoring a few episodes ago where mason says you can’t take pain unless you care meaning Theo wouldn’t have been physically able to take Gabe’s pain unless he felt some type of empathy for Gabe in the scene showing a moment of growth. And while you could say Theo just decided not to take masons pain. wouldn’t that have been better cause he gets points with mason for helping him and also would get points with Liam for helping his best friend. Then theirs the fact that Theo didn’t have to help the pack anymore, they didn’t have anything on him to control him, they had broken the sword. He was helping cause he wanted to and while you could say it was manipulation if he truly was still evil he wouldn’t have put himself at risk cause he ultimately would put himself first he wouldn’t drag Liam’s unconscious body cause, that would have been too risky for him or with the ghost riders he would have done what he said and just have left Liam to be captured and get out of town but he still helped and put himself at risk. Also in season 5 he was shown to try to corrupt the pack to try and get them to be darker like him which is why he got stiles to kill Donovan, yet in season 6 he actively stops Liam from killing twice and even gives him advice on his anger, and unlike stiles where it’s in self defense with Liam they would have been full on murder yet he stops him.

Ultimately Theo’s character is kinda ambiguous cause they barely give us anything of his past and what they do give us can interpreted in different ways. This is why a lot of people have different views on Theo so you can’t just say everybody else but you is wrong when theirs things in the show to explicitly show his redemption. But you can still see it as manipulation cause of how his character his. But that’s more to the person but most including I see it as him growing and becoming better.

sorry but this has to be said because i?? can't understand how some people can't seem to fucking grasp that theo taking gabe's pain was NOT character development, and consequently don't understand that therefore it was also NOT genuine??? theo has NEVER fucking shown an ounce of authentic care that was not driven by his own self-interest/desire. he would both do AND say anything to get closer to scott, even AFTER killing him. if given the opportunity, he would do it AGAIN. you think theo wasn't fully aware of the opportunity that presented itself in that situation? WHO did he have the easiest access to that looked up to and trusted scott the most? LIAM. if theo could have a display of "growth" in front of liam, that literally EQUATES to building credibility and trust with SCOTT. word gets around, no one in beacon hills shuts the fuck up about the things they witness. you can't tell me liam wouldn't relay this information to scott, that theo didn't absolutely KNOW that everyone in a thousand mile radius would know how "he'd changed/grown/whatever the fuck." and i don't know how much louder i can say this, BUT THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE IN THIS LIFE THAT CANNOT BE REDEEMED, BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT REDEMPTION. theo is inherently INCAPABLE of being saved. there's no amount of love, of communication, and no amount of trust that will alter his chemical make up. theo's environment has NEVER be one of safety, and he has NEVER been driven morally to do the right thing. he doesn't CARE when he does the wrong thing as long as it gains him POWER. how many times did he willingly show he did not have any regard for anyone he hurt when it actually came down to it? how many times did he LIE? how many times did he lead people to think he cared WHEN HE DIDN'T? how FAR was he willing to go and how CALLOUS was he when people finally realized what he was doing? and the sheer amount of posts saying "i'm so proud of theo," and "look how much he's grown" make me CRINGE because it's so apparent the blatant lack of understanding of his character. i absolutely PRAY that none of you have encountered or will encounter someone like theo in your life, because those are the type of people who destroy EVERY BIT of you who are, remove you from yourself, strip you of all your prior beliefs, and ruin EVERYTHING they touch. STOP MISTAKING WELL-EXECUTED AND CONTINUED MANIPULTION FOR GROWTH.

I think the reason he could do it is cause he's part coyote and Jeff Davis has stated that for werecoyotes it's a lot easier to gain a full shift cause unlike werewolves who have to evolve to gain the full shift werecoyotes already have the ability it's not a special thing for coyotes like how it is for werewolves

Something that frustrates me is that Theo can full transform into a wolf and it’s never talked about. Like how is it a big enlightenment thing for the Hales and then the evil 17 year old test tube were-creature can just do it casually and he doesn’t even USE IT FOR ANYTHING

lol fucking theo.

okay.

here we go.

i can understand how this would be frustrating and yeah it kind of is but the thing about theo is that narratively he's a derek mirror.

especially for scott and stiles.

read more because i had thoughts on this subject.

for the two of them, derek has always been there. it started with the three of them and for the type of shit they dealt with on a regular basis derek being there was comforting. even when they were actively being deeply annoyed by him because derek was safe to them in so many ways that i think that like a lot of teenagers they took for granted that he'd always be around because it's derek.

than he wasn't.

and argent left too.

it's the moment where the paradigm shifts and says "you're on your own kids".

it really pulled a rug out from under the two of them.

derek's departure at the end of season 4 in smoke and mirrors was so significant but also understated. i think people really do dismiss the amount of growth that occurred in the derek and scott relationship. fandom gets so hung up on their antagonism in seasons 1 and 2 they don't look much deeper for why they were like that and sort of ignore that season 3 spends a lot of time showing them moving away from that.

stiles and derek are more difficult to parse for some. their relationship whether you ship it or not is mostly in subtext. stiles is fucking attached by season 4.

stiles fears change. it's a huge part of his season 5 and 6a arcs. it terrifies him to lose people he cares about or have his relationship with them change.

i think it's important to remember that in smoke and mirrors, derek is all but dying in front of stiles. he's bleeding out. it doesn't look good. no one knows the dumbass is gonna evolve or whatever werewolf magic he pulled out his ass. he is dying and his last words to stiles are to go save scott.

this is after a season of where derek's been messed with magically by kate, where he's been losing his werewolf powers and lydia predicted his death.

when derek's lying there bleeding out stiles hesitates. twice.

he gets more focus than peter or braeden does in this moment. the focus is derek and stiles. we get like six close up shots of stiles being deeply affected by this and by affected i mean fucked up.

sure, derek doesn't end up actually dying but he leaves with braeden. we have no idea if they've really spoken all that much in the in-between.

stiles's face as they watch derek and argent leave does not give the vibe that he has had closure.

derek being unable to give stiles a proper goodbye is a whole other post.

it's really significant that derek leaving unmoors stiles emotionally even months later and that scott recognizes it. we are shown stiles getting sentimental and gooey over the initials d.h for a reason in creatures of the night. he misses derek.

why all this background when this post is about theo? it's because derek's absence in season 5 is glaring and tangible. it's an unsaid thing that theo is able to take advantage of.

it's a compare and contrast but sort of in opposite directions for stiles and scott.

both derek and theo grew up in beacon hills but left for a period of time before returning.

derek is immediately recognized by stiles and theo is recognized by scott.

both are accused of killing their sister. derek didn't kill laura but theo did kill tara.

derek is a born werewolf who earns his full shift which is an inherited rare gift whereas theo is a chimera artificially created by the dread doctors.

derek rejects the influence of peter and duecalion whereas theo is a tool of the dread doctors.

derek's desperation in building a pack and losing them versus theo's desperation to build a pack and killing them himself using deucalion's teachings about taking power.

derek wanting to kill lydia because he thought she was the kanima versus theo wanting lydia because he wanted her knowledge and she was the key to the hellhound

scott wanting to trust theo is an obvious course correction of how he mistrusted derek in the beginning and how he misses the connection he had with derek.

scott's just desperate for something to work out.

stiles's mistrust of theo is in contrast of how he trusted derek despite scott's insistence that derek wasn't trust worthy.

it also highlights that stiles's is on edge. he cannot afford to trust someone. not again. he cannot let another person close.

which brings us to parasomnia and the benefit of a doubt conversation.

there's a lot happening with stiles and scott during season 5. there's nogitsune fall out, them growing up and the pain that comes with it but also how stiles's behavior is increasingly paranoid and irritable. it's why theo is able to take such advantage.

but i think on some level scott misunderstands that stiles never really distrusted derek the same way he did.

stiles: "yes. okay? we followed him out here. what do you want me to say? that i'm a stalker? huh? that i'm crazy? totally paranoid? none of this is new information!" scott: "now you're gonna try to at least give him the benefit of the doubt?" stiles: "i give people benefit of the doubt! i've given a lot of benefit to a lot of people." scott: "like derek? ...kira? ...liam?"

i can not post scott's face when he's about to bring up derek to stiles.

scott may not know all the details, he may not understand them but what he does understand is derek leaving has stiles fucked up and bringing him up is going to poke at sore spot. bringing up derek was his entire point. adding kira and liam weren't the important part of this segment of conversation. i don't even think stiles ever mistrusted kira prior to when she begins to lose control of her fox.

scott is trying to appeal to stiles's derek feels and stiles just ends up super mad about it.

so to me in the end, a lot of scott and stiles's whole theo issue was really about derek.

(here's how i can make everything about derek hale lol).

theo being able to shift really was only to compare him to derek lol and who knows if he can even still accomplish this after he was returned from hell. he kind of went back to factory settings. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tl;dr season 5 theo is derek-lite.

There’s also an episode where after a few episodes of the couples being grouped together they break them all apart like for a few episodes Scalia and money are all grouped together as well as Liam and Theo and then when they break the couples up they also break apart thiam having Liam go with Scott and Theo with mason every other time thiam is together but suddenly when all ships are separated so is thiam

Coincidence I think not!!!!

Thinking about the fact that in the last ep of TW when Monroe was defeated, all the canon couples were seen together.

We saw every single one:

-Morey in the hospital

-Stydia and Scalia in the library

-even Jackson and Ethan in the locker room.

So it’s interesting to me that the directors and writers really decided to show Theo and Liam together too, when they could’ve easily shown Liam by himself talking into the radio.

Why show Theo standing behind him?

It’s just more proof that they were meant to a canon couple idc what anyone says.