How I feel about this character: 

• Love him. He’s one of the most well rounded characters and has the most development of all of them. He goes from an complete asshole and near rapist to a loyal, loving, caring person I could respect, and did the transformation in an entirely convincing way. He is the redemption arc the writers wished the “anti-heroes” of the show had and yet they took no notes from it.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

• Bonnie: I think I ship him with her most right now. This is a ship I most ship due to fanfiction but fanfic is making me realize how compatible they would be. I already headcanon that they lost their virginity together, but there was a whole lot more they could have done with them. First they’re the only of their kind that’s a main character, they’re the only POC’S and as such they’re the worst treated characters, and they’re both very loyal and understand that the stakes are higher than Mystic Falls (Tyler moreso than Bonnie). They have so man parallels it’s ridiculous, I have a post in my drafts that notes them and when I’m finished I will post it. Secondly, this is more of a symptom of fanfic, but they’re so adorable together especially added with the fact that they’ve known each other they’re whole lives and it plays out so well in fanfic and would have played out really well in the show. And lastly, it’s one of those many, many ships that we were robbed of due to Plec’s racism, so not getting them makes me want them even more.
• Caroline: Despite the fact that Tyler gets paired with her because Plec didn’t want him with Bonnie, and despite the fact that she’s the reason he has his screen time cut, Forewood was quite cute together. 4×06 has soured a lot of my initial feelings about them together but in the long run they were cute together in the time they had. 
• Jeremy: I mildly ship this one, I do wish they wouldn’t have stopped their screen time together but something bothers about the idea that they only reason Jeremy cares about him is because he has a crush on him and vise versa. This one that I can’t quite separate the TVD writing with the ship because I know that’s exactly how Plec would play it out and then both characters would have ended up dead by the end of the season. But separating the ship from the writing it could have been great and added more depth to Tyler’s character, but I never felt he was missing much depth. He’s the character they unknowingly gave the most depth and then ignored. All in all it’s a solid ship for him.   

My non-romantic OTP for this character

• Matt: Face it, he was a good friend to Tyler despite Tyler not being the best friend back to him, which does change, and he’s the only one to show any emotions at his funeral. He’s also always there to make him feel better when he’s seriously down and Tyler gave him his house. I can’t discount aby of that, Matt is Tyler’s best friend. 
• Jeremy: He’s on here again, but I guess that’s because I like them more as friends. I like it when romance isn’t the driving factor for two characters to interact which is probably why I latched on to them more as friends when I watched the show before they completely dropped them all together
• Bonnie: I’m putting her on here again because with how much they have in common added with growing up together I find it ridiculous that they aren’t at the very least friends. She brought him back from the dead for Christ sake they should have definitely been on more friendly terms (and he should have at least thanked her for it).

My unpopular opinion about this character

• He is the worst treated male character on the show which doesn’t sound that unpopular, but most people think that Stefan is the worst treated because he lost Elena, or Matt because he’s against vampires, or Jeremy because he’s compelled to forget a lot. Tyler was the worst treated male and Bonnie was the worst treated female which isn’t surprising since they’re both POC’s. He’s shoved off screen for unnecessary amounts of time, has his major developments with his werewolfism??? developed off screen and is put through the most physical pain compared to not only the the other male characters, but as a werewolf. When you see the other werewolves turn they are never in as much pain as Tyler was. His treatment as a character almost completely mirrors Bonnie’s the only difference is that it’s to a much lesser degree and on some level it can be seen as retribution for his behavior in season 1 where Bonnie never did anything to deserve that. However that brings up another issue which is why is he the only one to have to pay and in such a violent manner, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole.
• He was more important to the plot than Caroline. That one actually is objectively an unpopular opinion especially with how beloved Caroline is. But I’ve pointed it out before, Caroline is a run of the mill vampire in a show filled with vampires and Tyler is the sole werewolf on a show that just kills them off like they’re nothing. He could have easily been who they explore werewolves and they’re lore through, but they brought on Hayley and chose to explore it on another show. Although note something: Tyler doesn’t spend that much time as a werewolf–he triggers it at the beginning of S2 and is a hybrid by the beginning of S3–and when he becomes a hybrid, he becomes one of many, losing what made him unique as a character making him just like everyone else because the Hybrids were mostly enhanced vampire in the way that vampires were just enhanced human. I could theorize that that was the first step in tearing down his character, but we don’t have that kind of time.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

• There are a lot of things I wish for this character but I guess if I’m going to narrow it down to one it would be for him to have never been a Hybrid. That’s when he completely loses his agency and becomes a slave to Klaus, that’s when the show started shoving him off screen more, but only to facilitate Klaroline, and that’s when his story stops being his own and he’s just lumped together with the rest of the MFG and is expected to follow along with them. If he’d have stayed a werewolf, I have no doubt that his screen time still would have been cut, but it would have given way to explore werewolves and the Lockwood’s more because much like Bonnie there’s a bit a mystery there with Tyler and how little was known about the curse. (But make it known thee’s A LOT MORE not known about the Bennett’s and more potential there.) Tyler staying a werewolf left a lot more potential for his character and would have screwed him over waay less just due to not being a slave alone, but in a lot more ways.