Love teen wolf's approach to werewolf mythology just being everything is true don't question it. Lycan was probably real and hanging with celtic druids, so was the beast of gevaudan, you need to bitten by an alpha to be turned but you can also drink rain water out of a wolf's print, also its hereditary, there is a guilt based eye color system, you need to kill an alpha (or inherent after their death) to become an alpha except sometimes the universe decides someone is a good enough person that they should just get to be one anyway, sometimes getting turned by a werewolf will turn you into a completely different creature because "who you are represents the form you take" but there is no formula for this, werewolves can look like humans with glowing eyes and fangs and they can look like actual wolves, and they can look like large monstrous beasts, the full moon can kinda do whatever we need it to, calling a werewolves christian name will cure them but not of werewolfisim just of evil mind control transformations, etc.
EXCEPT for silver bullets. Thats a mistranslation, the silver family kills werewolves. However silver does inexplicably kill oni
i thought whether you'd look like humans with fangs and glowing eyes, actual wolves, or monstrous large beings was governed by the same "who you are represents your form" rule. i thought the more human you are (kill less people, on the good side, kind) the more like a human you'd look and the more you lost your humanity, the further you moved from that. at first it made absolute sense to me, because scott and derek and isaac all looked like humans while peter looked like a monster only back when he'd lost his mind completely in the first season, and as he got better eventually he also started looking more like a human.
also determination of how good, innocent or guilty you are, might work the same way as the eye system. i thought theo not looking like a monster, and being able to look like a human or a wolf at will worked the same way it worked with his eyes, he had control over his feelings and how he perceived himself and how much he justified what he did in his head.
like how peter knew he was a monster (it wasn't that he thought he was justified the way theo did) and thought there was no point in not killing innocents if it made you powerless. during the time he looked like a complete monster, he even killed his own cousin and was very much aware of the fact. in short yes, the same way the eye system worked.
and yeah they DO get worse the more they lose control over their humanity and human thoughts (transforming starts with your eyes and fangs and you only slowly grow hair on your face and stuff when you start losing control and become more animalistic). maybe derek evolving also had something to do with him gaining control over how he felt better. i don't know. plus i don't know how it worked for malia. yeah by season 5 it stopped making complete sense to me too so i'm not really sure if it's true.
