#lmaoo I love it! imagining Theo coming back from hell and being like ‘damn. I was wildin a little bit huh😳’

[attempted--eloquence]

sorry to the anon who sent me a super well thought out Sceo question and somehow my answer got fucking chopped, screwed, and deleted after posting lmao. Reposting here for posterity:

Ask:

yes i completely agree that theo’s feelings towards scott were.. complicated to say the least lol.

i feel like most people agree that it’s kind of a uncertain mix between i want you and i want to be you and theo himself isn’t really sure which he feels more but i also think despite everything he always saw scott as safety?

we don’t know much about theos childhood other than he was sickly and clearly was vulnerable for some reason (theos conversation with stiles about his sister in s5 where he describes her as always looking out for him) and from what we know about the dread doctors victims they all had troubled or unstable home lives. theo talks about his sister as someone who looked out for him but there’s still resentment when he talks about her and he compares her to stiles who he clearly doesn’t get along with (my theory is that their parents were probably neglectful in some way but tara was probably the favored child and she was probably mean to him in the way siblings are mean even if (at the time) she was the person who loved him most and looked out for him most)

scott i think theo always saw as someone above it all and a purely good person who cared about him and who theo felt safe with. i thought it was interesting that the th ing theo held on to all these years was a memory of scott helping him through an asthma attack and how that clearly had an effect on him and i think that informed a lot of how theo felt about scott.

theos resentment towards scott is also inevitable since they started off in the exact same place, both weak and somewhat sick, and theo sees him as everything he could have and should have been so he literally wants to become him and before hell he thinks the only reason he isn’t scott or can’t be him is because he’s not a real werewolf.

theo seeing scott primarily as someone he feels safe with even after everything is most obvious with how he immediately asks scott for help when getting dragged by the skin walkers. i think his whole life when he thought about someone who cared about his well being for no ulterior reason he thought of scott, and even when he gets attacked by the spider-anukite thing his instinct is to call scott but post hell clarity now makes him feel shameful of asking him for help. (and the hunters kidnap him but again the first thing he does when he gets free is use the two werewolf’s to have an excuse to go to scott).

i think theo has a mix of infatuation hero worship and resentment towards scott (and probably was in love with him in a twisted way for a while) but i also think it’s interesting that his relationship (in s6) with scott also reminds me of how liam and scott’s relationship briefly was right after liam almost killed scott (so like a estranged and strained relationship between a parent and child where the child knows they were in the wrong and needs the parent back)

i don’t know if any of this made any sense but i guess what i’m getting at is that scott filled a lot of roles for theo in a way i think and kid!theo imprinted on him in a way and saw him as someone safe and a source of love but that was at constant war with the part of him that thought he should be scott.

i know this is super long but one last thing is that do you think scott is aware of theo’s “being in love with him at some point”? because then that makes me think of post he’ll post s6 scott knowing that theo and liam are falling for each other and scott being concerned because he knows what theo did to the last person he was in love with and scott and theo talking about theos old feelings for scott and how he feels about liam

Answer:

Ooooooh the childhood connection is such a good point 🥲 also makes me think that the asthma attack story is so telling. Like, Theo as a child having a very scary thing happening to his body beyond his control and then having Scott there to help him through it. Flash forward to his time with the DDs. Still a child. Probably a lot of scary things happening to his body beyond his control. He’s alone to go through it. It’s not hard to believe that memory would be a point of fixation for him.*

and I sooo agree that a large part of Theo’s resentment absolutely has to do with the fact that Scott could’ve been him/he could’ve been Scott. (I always think about this in the context of what Peter said to Stiles in s1, how Stiles could’ve easily been the one that was bitten instead of Scott; on a similar note, I always wonder what would’ve happened had Theo never gotten wrapped up with the DDs as a kid)

I think to Theo, Scott was coincidentally in the wrong place at the wrong time (or the right place at the right time??) and ended up a true alpha. Meanwhile Theo’s entry into the supernatural world was handcrafted to make him the Beast and he still fell short of that glory. Got his childhood taken away from him, suffered to be where he is, so it should be him that has the power, the adoration, the pack devoted to him. (Cue DD’s “you have the entitlement and narcissism typical of your generation” speech) In his eyes maybe Scott got to have his cake and eat it too.

I LOVE that you mentioned the spider thing bc I think that’s another “scary thing happening to my body” moment, and he immediately considers going to Scott about it AH.

Hmmm. I can’t say I that I would automatically think Theo’s feelings are something Scott was aware of. ALTHOUGH I really like where you’ve gone with that idea and I’ve never considered it that way!!👀 I do think, if Scott were privy to the potentially romantic nature of Liam and Theo’s relationship, that he would have reservations based on Theo’s past alone.

Tysm for sending this! I hope it was…coherent? I have now been consumed by s5 Sceo brainrot, thx <3

*bonus points if you headcanon scott as a guardian angel kinda figure for him during his early years w the DDs. And it works for a while until it doesn’t or until Theo has been hardened/conditioned enough to see only weakness in that memory. Couple years down the line he hears about Scott being an alpha, a true one at that, and ohhhh how that fond memory corrodes into fucking jealousy and loathing 😵‍💫 he comes back and knows what he’s gonna do. Plans on hating Scott. But Scott’s the same. Scott is a true alpha but he’s still the same good guy he was when they were kids and that makes it a little harder to hate him, but his power makes it a lot easier to resent him. Butttt Theo doesn’t want just Scott’s power, he wants to take his place entirely (hence his insistence to stiles that he wants Scott’s pack, minus Scott) and I think that goes beyond supernatural ability, and translates over into the disparate lives they lived as well. And I wonder if there’s something to be said about what Theo thinks he’d gain by taking Scott’s place (besides the obvious). Would he finally feel he’s grown out of being that scared kid having the asthma attack? Is he his own hero? Etc etc

**which obviously doesn’t acknowledge the shit Scott went through to become a true alpha. But I don’t think Theo would care nor emphasize with that struggle at that point.