The Lives We Lead | tmr/tw • tw/tmr |

Important Rant!

Teresa Rant: please read so that my story makes more sense!

As an author, I always hope my readers see the characters the way I do, but it is all up to them (you guys). There are three things that I feel people forget.

One, they were all just kids and they were being controlled by WICKED. Teresa in particular was kinda forced in between a rock and a hard place because she always believed in the greater good. She actually watched her mother go crazy with the Flare and her hope was to stop anyone else from having to go through that. She was not only forced into that position by WICKED but she was biased on WHAT the greater good was. She knew that WICKED was unethical, but she wanted a cure. It wasn't until near the end that she realized just how terrible they were and that was when she gave up on the cure and instead focused on saving the immune. In the end, she sacrificed herself to save Thomas and I thoroughly believe she would have done so regardless of if she knew the cure was in his blood or not because she cared about all of them. In the second book, she decided to trust WICKED and it was only afterwards that she realized they were manipulating her for the trials.

That is the second thing people seem to forget; she was also a test subject in the trials. WICKED threatened to kill Thomas if she didn't do their bidding and she was forced to turn traitor in a way. It wasn't the ideal solution and it made her someone that could not be trusted at all up until her sacrificing herself. Overall, Teresa was a girl full of good intentions and completely lacking in luck. Where Thomas was smart and had good instincts on what to do, Teresa only ever looked at the facts in front of her and it made her much easier to manipulate.

The third thing only applies to the books; Teresa wasn't the only traitor-so was Brenda. She was an immune whose whole job was to gain Thomas' trust. Eventually, she turned against WICKED and joined them in saving the immune. Honestly? I think she was always working for WICKED because I think she was there to be the backup plan. If WICKED couldn't get the cure, she was to take them to the safe haven. That is why she knew where to guide them while inside WICKED (for those of you who didn't read the books, the island in the end of the movie was set aside by WICKED and Brenda led them to a portal to it while the WICKED building was collapsing—Teresa pushed Thomas out of the way and was crushed by a piece of the ceiling while they were escaping). In the end, she made a comment about how they had about 200 people and they might be able to make it work, which sounded a lot like if WICKED gave her that mission. I'm getting sidetracked but the point is that both Brenda and Teresa joined and then turned away from WICKED; the difference was that they decided to trust Brenda while they barely tolerated Teresa. Thomas made it clear himself; he didn't trust Teresa until after she gave her life to save his.

Teresa wasn't exactly one of the good guys but I don't think she was ever meant to be a bad guy either. She got caught in the middle and had to decide between going with the others or going with WICKED. In the end, she went with WICKED because it meant helping the millions who had the Flare while also protecting the others whom WICKED threatened. She wasn't great, but I believe that she did the best she could with her good intentions.

I hope this gave you a little insight on how I characterize Teresa/Abigail. Does she seem to just be going through life instead of actually living it? Yes. Because she is struggling with all the guilt of her past life and remember; she lost 4 years and she doesn't exactly have much of a life to jump back into yet.

She seems blah because she is blah! But she won't be blah forever so just wait and see. I'm very excited to continue developing her character.

Remember: all she's got going for her is as follows:
•she feels guilty for her past choices
•she's an outcast
•her parents can't support her emotionally because they don't understand that it's all real; she has to pretend that it was all in her head
•school isn't challenging and she can't find anyone from the other earth
•she's struggling with PTSD*
•she absolutely loves Thomas (aka Stiles but she doesn't know that)
•she would do anything to right her wrongs
*PTSD is very serious and I hate to throw around mental illnesses without proper introduction and use; her PTSD is mild but it does consist of dreams and occasional flashbacks. As a result, she doesn't get much sleep (NOT insomnia) and she has a therapist.

Thank you for coming to my tEDTalk.

Also, thank you for 32.5k reads and 1.3k votes! I love you all!

Laine Abson

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