You know what really speaks volumes about Mason as a character, a person, a friend, a pack member?
Mason was the only one Lydia’s told, in canon, about her family’s financial problems. And instead of pitying her or making fun of her or running away from the situation, he calmed her down, helped her, and stayed with her as she had what we can basically surmise to be a panic attack. And then, later, at the end of season four, he was the one who stayed with Lydia as she was left behind (again) while the rest of the pack went to New Mexico. Mason, human, fragile, breakable Mason, stayed with Lydia and fought a Berserker with her.
Mason paid attention to Kira, but not as if she’s a spectacle to be gawked at, but rather as a wonderful and curious supernatural person who deserves respect. Kira, who’s known isolation and loneliness, who’s still fumbling with her powers, received respect from someone who at the time barely knew her. And then Mason was the one to reach out to Kira in the beginnings of her dark!kitsune arc, when she was trying to read and comprehend the Dread Doctor’s book in confusion. And he gave her sound, intelligent advice.
Mason remembered everything Liam told him and saved Scott when he was having an asthma attack. He was also by Scott’s side when Scott was, for all intents and purposes, killed - by Mason’s best friend, no less - and when Melissa brought him back to life. No other pack member was there with them at that time.
Mason has been a loving, loyal, steady, and constant best friend to Liam. He’s never once run away from him, or hit him, or yelled at him, or took out jealousy or frustration on him. He’s never mocked him for his mental illness. He never once abandoned him for anyone else. He’s always been Liam’s rock and guide through suffering and difficulty. Before Scott, before Hayden, before the pack, Mason was there for Liam.
And, even in the Dread Doctor’s words, “true evil can only be borne out of something good being corrupted”. They took Mason, the purest, kindest, most faultless person probably in the entire pack, and corrupted him into the Beast. Unfairly. Against his knowledge or will. They brutalized him. And I can guarantee you something: if the pack isn’t able to save him, then not only will Liam lose his best friend, Kira and Lydia and Scott lose a friend, his father a son; the pack will lose their purest member, who offered enthusiasm and sharp intelligence and untainted kindness to the pack, and the entirety of Beacon Hills will lose something special.
