HWC-Hyperfixation

Think about their backstory, what shaped them into who they are? What do they believe in? And, most importantly, what pushes them to get out of bed every morning and keep going? These characters aren’t simple good or bad. They’re caught in the middle, in that murky, complicated space between black and white. That’s where they get interesting because they’re constantly wrestling with themselves, trying to figure out the right choice, or if the “right” choice even exists for them.

You need to show this internal battle. Imagine your character being torn between what they believe is morally right and what they actually want. This is where the real drama comes in, it’s like watching them juggle their principles with their desires in real-time. They’ll mess up, and they’ll make decisions that are sometimes questionable, but that’s what makes them human and relatable. One way to really highlight their complexity is by putting them in situations where there’s no clear answer. You know, those moments in life where everything’s kind of a mess, and you’re stuck trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do? Your character should face situations like that. These gray areas create tension because readers won’t know which direction the character will go, and honestly, your character might not know either.

And don’t forget, growth is a huge part of writing a morally gray character. People aren’t static, they change based on what happens to them, and your character should too. Maybe they start off with a strong sense of morality but, over time, that starts to shift. Or maybe they start with shaky ethics and slowly become a better person as they learn from their mistakes. Growth can also go the other way, they could spiral downward, giving in to darker impulses. Either way, they need to evolve, just like people do in real life. That’s what keeps the story fresh and unpredictable. The last thing you want is a character that stays the same the whole way through.

Also, please, no stereotypes. A morally gray character doesn’t have to be a brooding anti-hero with a tragic past (unless that’s your vibe, but even then, switch it up). Give them quirks that make them unique. Maybe they have unexpected motivations, like they’re doing something shady for a cause they genuinely believe in, or they’ve got a weird sense of humor that throws people off. Whatever it is, make sure they feel like an individual, not just a copy-paste character we’ve all seen a million times.

Even when your character makes decisions that aren’t exactly clean-cut or heroic, the reader still needs to understand why. Show their vulnerabilities, why they doubt themselves, why they hesitate, and why they ultimately make the choices they do. It’s all about making them relatable, even when they’re walking that fine line between right and wrong. People might not always agree with them, but they should at least be able to see where they’re coming from.

And remember, every choice your character makes should have consequences. They don’t exist in a bubble. Their decisions should ripple out and affect not only them but the people around them. Maybe they make a selfish decision, and it ends up hurting someone they care about, or they try to do the right thing, and it blows up in their face. One last thing, just because your character lives in that gray area doesn’t mean they don’t have any sense of right or wrong. They might have their own personal code they follow, even if it doesn’t line up with society’s morals. Maybe they justify their actions in a way that makes sense to them, even if other people wouldn’t agree. It’s all about exploring that space where they’re not totally good, but not totally bad either. That’s where things get really interesting.

theo has spent his entire life being almost good enough that he surely must've internalised a lot of that perspective. as a chimera he's only half of anything, only kind of almost a complete supernatural and only kind of almost a human being. he's a science experiment that was one step off and with liam he was almost the right guy.

There's a lot in that season about the natural balance of the supernatural world. Your either born or bitten, no one is made. Until Theo. And then Corey, Hayden, Josh, and Tracey. Wouldn't that just give a werewolf the Herbie jeebies? Any supernatural creature really, because they exist outside the natural order. Who's to say what they are capable of, mountain ash doesn't effect them. What else can they bypass?

for @kirayukimuraappreciation day 2, favorite romantic ship

Amen.

They trauma bond, most definitely, over the fact that they both feel as if they’re monsters in human form, in which Theo thinks he’s hurt too many people to be forgiven, and Alec thinks he’s going to hurt everyone that comes near him.

Over time, they heal each other’s wounds like found family, one pulling bandages out of the cabinets and the other rustling through the drawers for some ointment or vaseline.

Theo teaches Alec how to be a proper werewolf, how to not hurt the people he holds dear. And Alec teaches him how to be a brother, one that acknowledges his own wrongdoings and accepts that he is no longer the person he was before.

It’s just Alec and Theo, found brothers that learn to love who they are, and maybe even then some.

now when it comes to theo helping liam with control, well, theo's widely regarded as a terrible alpha when he was leading the chimera pack. but theo's always been controlled with fear, so he believed fear was how people were best controlled. that's how he led bc that's how he was taught. but another reminder, theo's only sixteen/seventeen, too. the difference when it comes to handling liam, imo, is their pasts and how they were introduced to the supernatural. theo only had the doctors and no support system to help him through it; scott had the terror of being turned by peter, but had more support throughout his transition and adaptation. so when it comes to liam, i think theo's less afraid to be rough with him when he needs it, which is helpful when managing his episodes.

scott's personality matches liam's so well, which is why he makes a great mentor for him most of the time. however, theo having a more violent introduction into the supernatural world helps him connect with liam's more aggressive side that scott doesn't really know how to handle.

thinking of pack-leading styles only, scott and theo are like yin and yang, but liam benefits from the guidance and support of both (whether he admits it or not). but ultimately...

chimera pack (hayden, corey, josh, & tracy) - die on this hill

PART I - Introduction & Theo Before the Dread Doctors

A little while ago I received an anon asking about my theories involving the level of Theo’s compliance and involvement in Tara’s death so I’ve done a longer post on it. If you have questions or requests for meta posts you can always send them to my Ask.  :-)

For the purposes of this post I am going to refer to Theo’s mental issues generically as “pathology” and “lack of empathy”. My reasons for doing this I explained here.

When constructing this, I’ve considered both the intent of the writers as well as the performance and opinion of the actors because unlike novels - television production is a very collaborative art. Actors read into the script and Writers/Show Runners are often inspired to delve deeper into some areas of their own writing based off how an actor is delivering.

There is no definite answer to the question “Did Theo Kill Tara?” but there’s a lot to speculate about. I have written Theo with several variations of backstory, and every time I start a new fic or RP I have a set of questions that I need to answer for myself to make sure the verse makes sense.

So let’s start with what we do know:

1) The Dread Doctors were in Theo’s life before he killed Tara, and he couldn’t have been much older than 9-10 at the most.

We know what grade Theo was in when he left Beacon Hills because 4th grade is the last time Theo and Scott saw one another. In America children in 4th grade are between the ages of 9 and 10. Tara died in Beacon Hills so Theo could be, at most, 10 years old, but could easily have been younger.

2) He watched her drown in the river and didn’t help her.

We can be pretty certain this happened because it came from two independent sources: Lydia’s vision, as well as through the flashbacks Theo has while in hell.

3) Theo feels some form of guilt and responsibility for her death.

We know this because Theo’s personal hell is a repetitive guilt-ridden hallucination. This does not prove that Theo was completely responsible, however it certainly shows that he feels responsible.

4) Theo did not have a heart problem, and Tara did not need to die for Theo to become a chimera.

This is the really interesting part. To be a genetic chimera, Theo could have had something as little as a skin graft. Tara’s death was entirely unnecessary to the Dread Doctors on a physical level, and we know they were still experimenting to create the “perfect evil” so the motivation behind giving Theo Tara’s heart was most likely to achieve some sort of psychological end with Theo.

Because these are the canon facts we have to work with, all of our theories must work within these parameters.

Additionally we should note that since Theo’s story is highly tangled with the Dread Doctors, their characterization and actions play a large part in answering these questions. All strong theories about Theo’s backstory need to be consistent with Dread Doctors motivations and MOs.

How innocent was Theo before the Dread Doctors entered his life?

Theory #1 -  Theo was completely corrupt before the Dread Doctors

Although there are scenes that made me speculate in this direction, I think it is pretty unlikely.

For someone as young as Theo to have been a killer before the Dread Doctors were in his life, there’d have to be some severe biological or developmental issues. We’ve heard nothing from Theo (or from any of the Teen Wolf writers) about Theo having a disturbed life (i.e. abuse or traumatic experiences) prior to the Dread Doctors, and a biological cause for Theo’s deviance isn’t likely because he overcomes his challenges in later seasons with no biological aid or medication.

Specifically the fact that Theo is able to develop a sense of empathy later on in life (after he is free from the Dread Doctors) makes this theory less viable.

One of the major signs of a young person with innately homicidal tendencies and low empathy is cruelty to animals and insects. In 6A we’re given a scene that shows Theo responding warmly and emotionally to finding a spider in his truck.

Because Theo is alone in this scene, he cannot be performing or acting to trick others. This is an authentic and genuine expression of his own unguarded emotions. Definitely not the behavior of someone that can’t feel empathy.

Additionally, the writers make a point in showing that Theo can’t take Mason’s pain because he “doesn’t care” and then, a few episodes later, we see Theo take Gabe’s pain as he is dying.

The reason the writers gave us the scene with Mason was very deliberately to setup the fact that Theo can’t just take pain because he wants to - in order to take pain it has to come from a place of genuine compassion. He couldn’t help Mason to get himself out of danger or prove his trustworthiness. But he is able to care about Gabe: a kid that had wandered down the wrong path and was suffering. He’s able to empathize with Gabe because Gabe is like him.

The idea that you need to be able to “care” to take pain is obviously a retcon in the Teen Wolf lore, because in earlier seasons we’ve seen people take pain in order to absorb their power. Much like the Teen Wolf timeline (don’t get me started on all the writing holes there!) world lore consistency took a backseat to the story that the creators wanted to tell about Theo.

The reason they include this new information about taking pain in the scene with Mason is to make it clear to the audience that when Theo takes Gabe’s pain in the finale, it comes from a place of genuine compassion.

Reaching back to season five, when Theo and Scott attempt to rescue Mason from the Doctors, the Surgeon tells Theo that he was a failure because he wasn’t a “true evil”. If Theo was cold enough on his own to murder his sister when he was only nine, could he really not be considered “truly evil”? Honestly how much more evil can you get?

It’s unlikely that that version of Theo would then be able to develop empathy to the level that he does when he’s eighteen.

Finally, Cody Christian has said in interviews that Theo was the Dread Doctor’s victim, which wouldn’t make sense if he was 100% evil from the start.

Theory #2 - Theo was just an innocent child that was abused and twisted by the Dread Doctors

This is a compelling theory with little to directly refute it. However it does leave us with a major unanswered question: Why did the Dread Doctors target Theo?

Was Theo more isolated than other children? Did he have a hatred for his sister? Was Tara really awful to him? Were his parents extremely unaware/neglectful? Would that be enough to make him a target?

Any potential answer I can construct would be based entirely off whims and speculation. There’s no hints in the canon for why they might have targeted him if he was a relatively healthy and reasonably well-adjusted kid. Why wouldn’t the Dread Doctors pick someone that showed an early propensity for pathological behavior instead?

Also, remember that they didn’t just grab any teenager in Beacon Hills and turn them into chimeras, they looked for teens that already had two sets of genetics (something Theo didn’t become until after Tara’s death). So it would much better fit their MO if they looked for a candidate that displayed more malleable traits.

Could there have been another reason they selected Theo? Yes. Absolutely. I’ve come up with all sorts of reasons in my fics and RPs, but there are none that the canon really points to.

A scene that it’s important to think about when considering the Innocent theory is (again) the scene in Season 5 where the Surgeon tells Theo that he couldn’t become a “true evil” because he wasn’t “truly good” to begin with. This hints that Theo may not have been all the perfect before their meddling.

Arguably, the Surgeon could have meant that they’d corrupted Theo before turning him into a chimera and that’s why it didn’t work. They spoiled the materials before their the real experiment. This is further backed by the fact that as the scene plays out, it seems important that Mason is corrupted during the procedure to become the Beast.

If that is true, than it would also support the third theory…

Theory #3 - Theo showed early signs of low empathy and/or other problematic behaviors, the Dread Doctor’s saw he was vulnerable and took advantage of it, thus shaping his development into what he became.

Just because someone has the potential to develop pathological traits doesn’t mean that they necessarily do. However, stressors can push someone with a predisposition (a vulnerability) to develop in that direction.

Popular psychology postulates that children begin developing empathy around ages 5-6, so a lack of empathy could have been apparent to the Doctors (or others) by ages 6-7. If the Doctors were looking for a child to influence, they could have picked him out for this reason and then worked on shaping his development from ages 8-9. Theo watches Tara die around age 9-10 so that timeline works.

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.

One of the scenes that got me theorizing in this direction is the when Theo reads Donovan’s psychological evaluation, and puts on a highly theatrical performance. A farse play of a mental health professional telling someone that there is something abnormal going on with them.

Combined with Theo’s propensity to force others to re-enact scenes of his own corruption (you can read more about that in my other meta post here), it got me wondering: is Theo drawing on an experience he might have had as a child with a mental health authority figure?

Before anyone shouts that Stiles would have found records if Theo was ever treated for mental health issues – remember that Theo (with the help of the Dread Doctors) has falsified records in the past. It’s entirely possible that he was treated at some point, and those records were destroyed.

This is my favorite theory because:

It leaves the smallest amount questions unanswered

The timeline of events makes sense

It fits the Dread Doctors’ MO of selecting a subject that already has something going in the direction they need

It casts Theo as a victim of the Dread Doctors (which concurs with Cody Christian’s interviews) without removing all of his responsibility for his actions (which would rob the narrative and Theo of a very edgy quality).

PART II - The Dread Doctor’s Influence (coming soon)

And by interesting, I meant downright hypocritical .

Because sure, we can’t kill or plot against people, but hey! Let’s also have the main characters constantly work with adults who did in fact hurt them, torture them, and even murdered them! Let’s have other murderers running around teenagers without problem. Or have them date almost murderers and actual murderers. We’ll even hand out second chances and thirds like candy on halloween!

Allison. Chris Argent. Peter Hale. Aiden. Ethan. Deucalion. Hell, half the McCall Pack at this point.

But hey, we draw the line at Theo fucking Raeken.

Let’s start with Theo’s vague childhood and the events leading up to his the Dread Doctors taking him. The story itself is so nonsensical that it’s a wonder we never actually got the whole true story.

1. We know there must’ve been something wrong with Theo’s health from a young age. No child would believe his sister wanted to give him her heart unless that child has a potentially soon-to-be fatal heart disease.

2. Teen Theo is very different from baby Theo. Enough that Stiles was able to guess that teen Theo wanted something from them. If baby Theo was a burgeoning psychopath or sociopath, Stiles would have mentioned it. He didn’t; baby Theo must’ve been a normal little kid before the Dread Doctors got their hands on him

3. Tara’s death. This happened around 4th grade. We know he was nine. Valack insisted that he was ten, but Theo himself admitted the Doctors were already manipulating him by the age of nine. We don’t know how long it was before that they started whispering in his ears.

4. Theo’s parents must’ve been quite absent. All the other Chimaera subjects were kids that were taken because no one would notice them gone for long periods of time. A nine year old going missing is a lot more obvious than a bunch of 15-16 year olds. So they must’ve manipulated him either during sleep time, or after school. Either way: where the heck were his parents?

Theo might be a good liar, but I don’t believe for a second he killed Tara because he wanted to. Or of his own free will. The Dread Doctors got into his head and manipulated him into doing it by focusing on his desperation to live.

A nine year old boy is abducted and tortured into a living science lab experiment. He spends the next 8 or so years being their only success. He’s exposed constantly to death and blood and torture. He’s raised to be the perfect spy, and was probably tortured into mastering his tells. Remember: at 17, Theo had more control over his shift and powers than even most adults. He was able to hide and manipulate his chemosignals. He was able to keep his heart steady despite lying constantly. Body language, eyes, tone—all manipulated to such a degree even Malia was fooled.

That is not a talent that comes naturally. That is not something a teenager should be able to do, not to mention do it so well he was able to manipulate so many shifters at once. That is something you could be trained and tortured into doing, though.

So you get a traumatized, brainwashed baby spy with murderous tendencies, who is self-serving to a detriment because he spent nearly a decade under the thumb of murderous scientists who could kill him anytime they deemed him no longer necessary. I’m not surprised Theo ended up the way he did: no one lives true that without accepting the need to do the worst possible things to survive.

What I don’t understand is what makes Theo so different from all the other antagonists/anti-heroes/villains that the McCall Pack considers him irredeemable and thus deserving of death.

They forgave Allison for Boyd and Erica and Isaac.

They accepted Chris Argent and his history of spilling innocent blood.

They let Peter live and worked with him after his return in S2. After S4.

Meredith Blake literally got people killed via a deadpool.

Deucalion was healed and allowed to go free despite the carnage he wrought in his revenge.

Nobody hunted down Gerard after needing his help in S5. Or made sure he was indisposed.

Aiden and Ethan were allowed to walk free.

So why Theo?

Kira sent him to hell. The entire McCall Pack stood there and did nothing while he was killed, even when he begged for help. Malia constantly threatens to kill him without remorse or care. Scott told Liam to put him back underground, essentially killing him again.

Oh, but this is the same pack that hands out second chances like candy! Who refuse to take lives or even consider it a possibility. Who works with murderers and killers without issue as long as it’s needed, with far less protest than they did Theo in 6A.

Or is because Theo’s the only one that succeeded, and they can’t accept they lost? This miraculous, spunky, rag-tag pack of teenagers who somehow survived against all odds…lost miserably to a teenager their age.

Even the adults showed more disgust and disdain towards Theo than, again, the literal adults who’ve hurt and killed kids before. You never saw Stilinski threaten anyone the way he did Theo, did you?

Or is it because unlike everyone else, Theo couldn’t really be manipulated? No loved ones or best friends or exes and lovers; no parents or sister alive to be used against him. He had no bridges to be burned, was already operating like a dead man walking.

I NEED POINT HOW I JUST SAW THE “blond gay x brunnete gqy “ FIT SO WELL RN THAT IM ABT TO POST IT!!! LMAO

Liam and Theo testing how long it takes for different strengths of hickey bites to heal because they're freaks like that.

Had to look up Cody's back for this one to see if he had any moles on his back. Suffice to say, he does smack dab in the center of his back, top of his spine (take notes guys)

As per usual, bonus comic for you guys :9 Vv