#posts with a lot of characters and their consequences

[penny-anna]

classic who companion exit tier list

long ass post!! here u go:

TOP TIER:

Ian and Barbara: listen they have a very simple arc with a simple goal. they wanna go back to 1960s London. perhaps one of the most joyous moments in the entire show. they go home!! the world has moved on without them but that's a problem for tomorrow! they are home! hooray!

Sara Kingdom: i have a lot of opinions on this one oh boy! firstly: the ending of The Daleks' Master Plan is absolutely brutal n i love it. it's the kind of 'we defeated the daleks but at what cost' ending nuwho constantly teases but never commits to. The Doctor pulled the trigger on the Time Destructor and killed one of this friends in the progress and now he has to live with that forever.

secondly: Sara makes her entrance by murdering her own brother and while the text never really dwells on this it makes perfect sense to me that she's willing to do basically anything to defeat the daleks. if the daleks win then she killed her brother for nothing. I also love the horribly irony of her starting out so unable to question authority that she guns Bret down in cold blood & then dying bcos she disregarded the Doctor's instructions. love that.

Jamie & Zoe: yeah this one is a horrible suckerpunch of an ending and i love that for them. love to watch Jamie and Zoe learn and grow as people so so much over their time with the Doctor and then have it all ripped away. the execution is a little shaky but its conceptually so so good i can forgive it all its janky sins.

Adric: also absolutely gutting. his arc across Earthshock is so good. love him managing to resolve things w the Doctor and then dying right afterwards. love him trying to prove to himself & the Doctor that he can solve the logic gates but also his genuine desperation to save a planet that isn't even his home. 'but now I'll never know if I was right'. outstanding.

Tegan: the very rare 'companion abruptly leaves at the end of an adventure' that actually works. poor poor Tegan. 'it stopped being fun, Doctor'. 100% in character for her to just impulsively walk away and 100% in character for the Doctor to just let her go.

Turlough: I actually re-watched Planet of Fire the other night and I forgot how good it is. underrated frankly. full on deep dive into who Turlough is and where he came from. first name reveal. wonderful demonstration of Turlough's character growth since he came aboard.

Ace: arguably im cheating here as she doesn't have a TV exit but honestly I'm counting her. Ace affirming that the TARDIS is her home now and going off to have 1000 more adventures with the Doctor is the perfect ending for her. no notes.

PRETTY GOOD TIER:

Susan: so in theory I think this is the perfect ending for Susan. right from the start it's obvious that Earth is her adopted home world and she wants to stay there for good; staying behind to help them rebuild after the dalek invasion is a lovely way to bring her character full circle. and honestly I'm into the Doctor locking her out of the TARDIS. it's very in character all around. there's just something Off and vaguely sexist about the execution that knocks this one out of the top tier for me.

Katarina: im in favour of characters dying and on a certain level I love that they did this. it's just so exactly the kind of situation that Dr Who companions normally survive. uh oh Katarina's in danger! tune in next week and see how the Doctor will save her - oh. oh no. :( however this is a case where the ??? behind the scenes situations has me like honestly i don't think they should have done any of this. :/

Ben and Polly: as above I do think this was the right ending for them. they didn't leave home voluntarily and they get to go home. it also feels very apt that (unlike Ian and Barbara) they get sent back to the same day they left, making it kind of easier and also kind of harder to grapple with the consequences of what happened? just a real pity that the circumstances of the actors leaving the show made the execution so half-assed.

Jo: definitely the best of the 'companion leaves the doctor to get married' endings. far and away the most developed romance. love also that Jo made up her mind to quit travelling with the Doctor before even meeting Cliff. unfortunately: i just really fucking hate Cliff and I wish he was dead. :)

Harry Sullivan: honestly nothing wrong w this one. Harry had a good time and then he decided it wasn't for him and peaced out. fine from a character perspective i just think their reasoning for writing him out was kind of BS.

Sarah Jane: very mixed feelings on this one. I do get what they were going for and part of me really enjoys it. i just think Sarah could have had a better ending? honestly i don't know how I'd have ended this one.

K9: i don't really care about K9 but i think it's cute that the Doctor gave Romana the dog :3

OKAY TIER:

Vicki: I mean this one could have been a lot worse. the romance is very rushed but legitimately sweet. love her hugging the TARDIS goodbye. just sucks that they fired the actress. deserved a better ending.

Victoria: I think Victoria being like 'this isn't working for me, I just want to go back to a normal life' is the correct & proper ending for her. it's just one of those companion endings that's kind of abrupt and arbitrary and i don't love it.

Romana II: I think Romana heading off to be a solo adventurer in her own universe is the exact right ending for her & also love her being like 'tee hee the time lords can't make me go home if I hide in this pocket dimension :)'. however does unfortunately feel a arbitrary. wish they'd given her more of a send off.

Nyssa: feel similarly about this to above? like Nyssa choosing a new home for herself & her leaving to do medical research is on point. just feel like Terminus isn't a great send off for the character. would have liked more oomph.

Mel: yes this one is a bit perplexing but honestly in character of Mel to just breeze out of the Doctor's life like that and the whole scene is very cute. I'm into it.

BAD TIER:

Steven: look they just didn't write Steven an ending. of all the 'companion just kind of leaves at the end of an otherwise normal serial' i think this might be the worst. deserved massively better.

Dodo: perhaps the worst?? perhaps the very worst? vanishes without even saying goodbye. Dodo went to live on a farm with lots of space to run around w the other Dodos. :) she's fine don't worry about it.

Liz: character removed for sexist BS reasons. vanishes between seasons. i will give it 1 point for Liz's stated motivation of not wanting to be the Doctor's lab assistant being an actually decent reason for her to have left. just wish we could have seen the conversation. ):<

Leela: perhaps tied w Steven for stupidest 'companion just leaves' ending w an extra helping of sexism. do she and Andred even talk to each other?? do they talk ever?? what the fuck was this. fucking bullshit.

Romana I: honestly a hard one to classify as obvs she and Romana II are the same character but like really sucks that they didn't bring Mary Tamm back to film an actual regen and the bafflingly nature of the regeneration scene just kind of adds insult to injury. and then i think the producers lied about why she left? what?? awful.

Kamelion: look im just gonna say it everything about Kamelion was a mistake, including his ending. non-character.

Peri: what the fuck even was this. frankly if they'd stuck with the original ending i would have still put it in bad tier (and as seen above i like when companions get exploded & die) bcos it's just over the line nasty. attempting to walk it back by having her marry Brian Blessed was absolutely baffling. this was just a fucking mess.

[just-your-average-dragon]

My thoughts on Mira

Spoilers for kpop demon Hunters below

I actually liked Mira a lot more in the movie than I thought I would. I think me (and others) were kinda put off by her more aggressive nature in terms of the demon slaying, but after watching the movie it makes much more sense.

One thing I think people keep forgetting is that Mira is the black sheep of her family. So it would make sense that while Celene was training the girls, Mira may have gotten attached to her. Especially if she saw the mother-daughter dynamic between Celene and Rumi.

Finally finding a place to belong would make her more desperate to keep it and she would've adopted Celene's hatred for demons as a consequence. Which would explain why when Rumi started to falter, Mira pressed even harder into the hating demon thing. It was her fail safe.

Her insecurities in their group also shine through when Rumi begins acting weird. Mira is the one that questions Rumi. While it could come across as accusatory or attacking in some way, I saw it more as Mira trying to protect the little family she had built.

Rumi is the rock, the big sister, and the one whose voice they rely on to fix the Honmoon. If she falters, their whole group could collapse. Mira would see this (and she did) and try and fix it.

Especially during the bathhouse fight scene when Rumi runs off to chase Jinu. You can hear both Zoey and Mira yelling about how their overwhelmed by the water demons, but Mira is the one that shouts that they NEED Rumi. Rumi showed up of course but the aftermath shows that they took a serious beating. Something that doesn't even happen during the plane fight when they drop from the sky.

Of course she did the natural things first, like reassure Rumi her voice would be okay and encouraged Zoey to use all 57 of her solutions. But once its clear something else is bothering Rumi and she could potentially be backing out of their mission, thats when Mira gets defensive and starts calling her out (train situation).

When Rumi revealed herself, Mira is most put off by that fact that Rumi lied to her for so long. Then, when Rumi tries to defend herself, Mira looks to Zoey (its subtle) as if considering how Zoey will react. And when Zoey reacts poorly, Mira stands by her. She even say "I knew it was took good to be true". As in she doesn't believe that the girls could all really love each other.

Its only when Rumi uses her demon voice that Mira choose to raise her weapon. Raise, not use, and you can see it shaking. She doesn't want to fight her, but her years of demon propaganda have made her recognize Rumi as a threat. To her and Zoey.

Her insecurities about her family also make her reaction to Rumi's demon reveal that much more grounded. Her demon tells her that "you thought you found a family? You don't deserve one. you never have" Its mocking her for believing that Huntrix was a real family and that they all loved each other.

Also Mira is under the demon spell when she rejects Zoey's concerns. Otherwise there's no way she'd push her away that bluntly. Mira has always matched Zoey's energy throughout the film.

During their make up song, Mira's first lines are about her own jagged edges and keeping them away from the light. I am no lyricist but this could imply that she kept her worst parts, or that parts that pushed her family away, from huntrix in order to ensure that they would accept her.

This is also in response to Rumi's direct apology for not trusting them to stand by her. Which was Mira's biggest problem during the reveal.

Post everything we can see all three girls are more relaxed. And when Zoey says she's glad Rumi didn't die Mira agrees very quickly, showing that she has become reassured in their family and Rumi and her places in them.

Thats all my thoughts on Mira for now. But I love her. So much. and I need people to understand her character. <3

[greafest]

Artistic references in squid game. There were a lot of them within season 1, more subtle homages than whatnot. Here were the ones with less discussion around them that I wanted to talk about, and that I wanted to try and tie to the characters of our series.

Visual references such as René Magritte’s Empire of Light often pop up in the backdrops of Squid Game. Interestingly enough, although the paintings are often interpreted as visual illusions meant to challenge our perception, Magritte himself rejected a single fixed meaning. Some believe the paintings are meant to depict wealth inequality. Which we know as a whole represents the entirety of Squid Game, and aligns with its most prominent theme— the centering around human contradiction, especially in how it places familiar elements in unfamiliar contexts solely to evoke a sense of disorientation amongst the players. Paired with the fact that the games are created as entertainment for the uber wealthy (a whole other potential post in itself about how the games are essentially a wager on class wars)— the use of these backdrops for philosophical value are definitely intentional. It’s not just for aesthetic value or to nod at Inho’s art obsession. All of this has probably been noticed before, albeit it’s still a very nice reference to talk about.

A scene which is shown further in the season displays a crowbar with blood on the handle. It didn’t immediately strike me as an artistic expression until I watched an analysis video by yogvampowerment via tiktok (love them). It had me thinking about René Magritte’s The Survivor and how it encompasses the psychology of characters such as Gihun and Inho well. Especially in both their roles as the protagonist and antagonist. The idea of an involuntary sacrifice and its consequences, though not solely onto the victim but perpetrator as well; a role most wouldn’t immediately jump to think also has its own mental consequences. The painting depicts a gun with a visible bloodstain on the butt, set against a seemingly domestic and peaceful background. The elements of the painting are meant to convey survivor’s guilt, and the different people who are affected in times of crisis. Squid Game is all about survival despite human conditioning. Even outside the games, the real world creates its own kind of crisis— one where people are pushed into desperate choices. Which is what shaped both Gihun and Inho in the first place. As we all know, Gihun becomes a changed person after the games. He ends up carrying an extreme amount of survivor’s guilt, even though he doesn’t directly kill anyone by the end of Season 1. He’s a shell of his former self, though more socially nuanced and aware which came at a cost. Inho has his own form of compartmentalization (an interesting mirror to Sangwoo). The drinking to aid his seemingly strong detachment when watching the games, his own self corruption that he wishes to pass onto Gihun in the name of nihilism, which is a belief he continually doubles down on so strongly likely because of his lingering shame over going down that path in the first place. To me, both character origins and the unexpected consequences they face as a result parallel the meaning of the painting. It also just reinforces to me the idea that Gihun and Inho were direct (and purposeful) counterparts to each other. Both of them are marked by their participation in systems of violence, even if their roles differ.

Literary odes to the book The Catcher in the Rye, another one of the many books on Inho’s desk featured in Season 1 that stood out to me. The book is about two siblings and holds a heavy emphasis on innocence and criticism of the “adult” world from the perspective of an adolescent. Holden, the adolescent mentioned, has his own loss of innocence and tries to shield that of other children from the harsh realities he was forced to face. Holden’s brother becomes a screenwriter for a theater which Holden dislikes—as he believes that his brother has prostituted himself by writing for the commercial entertainment industry. There are subtle parallels between Holden, his brother, and a certain pair of brothers within our series. More clearly, the relationship between Holden and his brother directly reminds me of Junho and Inho. Specifically how Junho potentially feels about the fact that Inho has become an “overseer” of such games. Inho is someone who (in Junho’s eyes) has sold himself to the rich and now profits from exploiting the very people he once swore to protect. The story as a whole also calls me back to the “innocence” of the games, and how there is a manufactured effort (on Inho’s part) to mix the world of finer art and philosophy with the softer life of the South Korean child. It wouldn't surprise me if Catcher in the Rye was placed on Inho's desk as a deliberate source of inspiration, perhaps reflecting his desire to find that same sense of lost innocence in himself and in others (which ties into the dynamic of 457 and Gihun— but once again, a discussion for another post). I’m hoping this speculation finds its way to Season 3 and will help in shaping some aspects of the dynamic. I would love to see Inho still being obsessively focused on the innocence in philosophy and morale Gihun continues to hold onto.

[avery-braindump]

Giving tgaa characters dnd classes time

Barok - oath of the crown paladin

Herlock - alchemist artificer. Maybe with one single level in bard (he can play the violin and also I need him to have vicious mockery)

Ryunosuke - college of eloquence bard

Kazuma - samurai fighter. However he also has warlock vibes for reasons I cannot and will not explain. Idk what patron I'd give him tho.

Gina - thief rogue

Susato - I'm thinking a monk of some description (way of mercy perhaps?) Or aberrant mind sorc (miktobas are psychics)

Iris - artillerist artificer. Partially bc I want her to have the same main class as sholmes, partially because she does invent that smoke gun, and partially just because I think a 10 y/o artillerist would be funny

Stronghart - Clockwork soul sorcerer

Klint - oath of vengeance paladin

[vigilskeep]

the thing that interests me about kidquisitor is that if you have like a 12 year old fantasy protagonist that’s kind of normal but if you have two installments of dark fantasy about adults and then you open up the third installment with a 12 year old then you know shit is fucked even if the characters themselves, both the 12 year old and those around them, do not necessarily know or want to recognise that they are in the wrong genre for this

[meglosthegreat]

Let's talk about "cozy" stories for a second, and while I am in particular talking about Veilguard here, this also applies to a lot of other media this phenomenon has been cropping up in. Because I think a lot of the defensiveness from the direction of Veilguard fans is coming from a place of what a "cozy" story really is, and how that actually manifests in a piece of media.

When I think of "cozy" media my mind tends to jump to things like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley or whatever: games designed to be unchallengingly fun, that have soft and cute graphics; that steer away from any intense subject matter. And those games have their place! I'm not out to get any of that stuff, because sometimes what you do need is to turn your brain off for a minute.

But here's the thing: I wouldn't call Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley stories. They have story elements, to be sure, but the story isn't really the point. They serve the same sort of function as like, crocheting - something relaxing and semi-mindless and often social. When we engage with a story, on the other hand, we're doing something completely different.

Why do we tell stories? What purpose do they serve?

In broad strokes, we tell stories to experience things that we can't or don't want to experience in life. They provide a framework; a space, if you will, in which it is safe to experience things might otherwise hurt us. And yeah, humans are so good at using stories to contextualize life in this was that sometimes we do it a little too well, and that's why things like content and trigger warnings exist.

Stories are safe spaces. So what does that make "cozy" stories, in particular? A safe space inside a safe space, where not even the idea of something harmful can reach you? What purpose, exactly, does that serve?

Back to Dragon Age, which was never conceived of as the fantasy video game equivalent of crochet. Dragon Age told a story, with themes and messages and complicated emotions. By putting these things (albeit imperfectly) in the context of a fantasy world with fictional characters, we, the audience, are given a place to explore these ideas without bringing harm upon ourselves. And to take this story, with Veilguard, and wrap it up in layers of soft, unchallenging mindlessness is not only to insult the legacy of the series but also to go against the entire purpose of telling a story at all.

A "cozy story", then, does not truly exist. Because what we have come to know as "cozy" - unchallenging, mindless, digestible - is antithetical to the very concept of stories themselves. You can either spend time doing something relaxing and semi-mindless, or you can engage with a story. You can't do both, and this is what Veilguard failed to understand.

[northern-passage]

clementine

[riggedbones]

ok now that chapter 2 of my fic is out I can finally share nearly everything consequence related I've been drawing over the last two months. so let's start with my design process!

it's probably pretty obvious, but I wanted consequence's design to pretty closely mirror loop's. I don't want to go into all of the reasoning behind what I decided to keep similar and what I decided should be distinct (some of it is spoilers for my fic), but generally I kept a lot of the more general design elements that seem to be a result of whatever the fuck wish craft did to make loop Like That. loop is naked? consequence is naked. loop has an objecthead? consequence has an objecthead. loop has a shape on their chest? consequence has a shape on its chest.

this all being said, I did also want to make sure that consequence was distinct. of course. my initial focus was pretty resolutely on the objecthead, as you can see in my first page of concept sketches, but I did explore some other elements early on as well!

you can also see my first concept sketch for odile's death screen, and just a smidge for the looping animation that is something i might also animate for a chapter, who knows.

more drawings and discussion under the cut, i'm realizing this is getting a bit long.

i had the node object head concept on that first page, but it was definitely something that needed iteration. which is where this page came in. i settled on the diamond shaped geode at around this point too, but was still struggling a tad on what to do with the general body texture. this was also, clearly, WAY too many squares. my beta kris told me as much.

i may be an animator but by god i love making my designs as animation unfriendly as possible sometimes. still wouldn't call consequence animation friendly at all, but i've done a lot since to cut back on the sheer volume of squares.

this was my second pass in an attempt to cut down on the complexity, still way too many squares, but this is when i started drawing the head as a foreground later of nodes with a more abstract cloud of squares behind. for the most part, just shading behind the foreground layer is still how i draw the head traditionally.

aaand then i started playing around digitally and i realized i did not like how that looked digitally. these are both doodles i did via mouse (for the second one i traced an odile sprite to help with proportions), so they're a bit looser in general, but this exercise generally let me know that i needed to slightly rethink how i was going to express the idea digitally.

because this, the final talksprite design i landed on, looks more complicated, but between the smaller amount of foreground squares and the fact that the ones in the background were just made with the rectangle tool, it's honestly not that bad. a pain to replicate? sure! but id5 reused loop's head shape for all of their art in the game, so i can do that too.

i think i solidified the idea of its body having strata before the talksprite (not sure which doodles that would be), but doing the talksprite really helped solidify the idea of a gradient in my mind, and also is where i decided on the textural element. i also decided to look at a reference image for the geode. that helped a Lot.

...i still do like drawing a more simplified consequence though. the key in my eyes is to just get the general shape of the head down, make sure you get a few of the squares floating in the air, and emphasize the nodes around its eyes. also make sure the eyes are offset vertically, it REALLY helps with the character of the design, sometimes i'll doodle a connie quence and think it looks a bit mid, move the eye on its left up, and then boom it's fine.

or you can just not do that because you drew it 2 crumbs big lol

[taravangians-storming-balls]

btw have we all talked about how kaladin was in the middle of having a panic attack and then adolin walks in and kaladin is immediately checking out his outfit and how nice his hair is

[ingihasextra]

toby fox and co youve done it again

[quatregats]

I've been thinking about how to push Hornblower to his breaking point recently and I think the best way to do it would be to put his compassion and his duty in conflict in a way where he could either be a good person and put his naval career in jeopardy, or be a tyrant but maintain his position. I think that these often come into conflict in the narrative, but he always finds some sort of loophole and manages to worm through without having to sacrifice either ideal. I think that it would be really fun to push him into a corner and make him choose, though. I can see both scenarios leading to interesting results.

[incesthemes]

"their relationship is romantic" "their relationship is familial" "their relationship is platonic" you're thinking too narrow. their relationship goes beyond labels. the family is inherently queer. their platonic love is romantic. the erotic is familial. each one is the other and the other is them

[savage-rhi]

...some other pink variant but within the magenta category

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Out of curiosity: why do you think Philip hates Alex specifically? (cakegate aside) Do you think he'd just be okay with Henry dating some upper-class English guy?

Why I think he hates Alex

He has no been kind to him once in the book. Also Alex ruined his wedding cake. Not a great first impression.

I don’t think there’s more to it tbh. Alex hasn’t been kind to him either, and Philip sees Alex being so “open” with the public, having fun with it, his public persona completely different to their (Philip, Bea, and Henry’s) public persona, and just being the compete opposite to what monarchy considers proper, so he doesn’t like him, let alone want him dating Henry.

Answering your second question,

I think it’s not based on Alex not being an upper-class English guy, but more based on how Alex is as a person, as in his personality. And also the fact than he’s the son of the president of the states.

“I don’t care if you’re gay,” Philip says, dropping that big fat if like Henry hasn’t already specifically told him. “I care that you’ve made this choice, with him”—he cuts his eyes sharply to Alex as if he finally exists in the same room as this conversation—“someone with a fucking target on his back, to be so stupid and naive and selfish as to think it wouldn’t completely fuck us all.”

Alex is, since the start of the book, very different to Henry. Interests and family aside, Alex kind of enjoys being in the public eye. At least at the start of the book. He likes being in front of a crowd, make them scream. Is true than Alex is probably the most private one out of the White House trio, but just because he doesn’t share his private life to the public, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t get along with them. One of the first scenes of him we have is him talking about how he and Nora like creating rumours and being in magazines and all.

I have a point I swear, just wait.

Monarchy (Philip, Henry, Bea), is the complete opposite to this. They stay out of directly interacting with the public, they don’t have fun with it like Alex does. Not because is a personal choice (which that too) but because they can’t, because they have a reputation to uphold. And isn’t everything about monarchy based on reputation?

Alex, Nora, and June, also have reputations, but theirs are handmade, you could say, while Philip, Henry, and Bea’s and premade, they had no choice on them, they are just something they have to do, something the have to look like.

Alex, Nora and June chose their own reputations, they decided how they wanted people to see them. They had control over that.

All three of them—himself, June, and Nora—have their roles.

Nora is the cool brainy one, the one who makes inappropriate jokes on Twitter about whatever sci-fi show everyone’s watching, a bar trivia team ringer.

He looks at June—ahead of him now, caramel highlights in her swinging ponytail catching the midday sun—and he knows her place too. The intrepid Washington Post columnist, the fashion trendsetter everyone wants to have at their wine-and-cheese night.

But Alex is the golden boy. The heartthrob, the handsome rogue with a heart of gold. The guy who moves through life effortlessly, who makes everyone laugh. Highest approval ratings of the entire First Family. The whole point of him is that his appeal is as universal as possible.

For example Alex is not his public personal (aside from heart of gold). That’s something he created. The whole point of him is than his appeal is as universal as possible.

Stopping myself here because if I don’t I’ll go on yet another rant about Alex (I love my boy so much).

But basically in the book there’s a deep contrast between Alex’s family and Henry’s family, one is warm the other is cold. Alex has, and has always had, a choice. Sure, being on the public eye was not something he chose, it just happened because his mother wanted to be president, but he could choose everything else. His public persona, his decisions, who to date and who to not date. They didn’t even stop him from dating Henry. Just told him than he has to know what he wanted, to choose. But they didn’t stop him.

Henry is the opposite. He can’t choose how to present himself, how the world sees him. He can’t even wear ties with patterns.

Patterns are considered a “statement.” Royals aren’t supposed to make statements with what we wear.

They aren’t supposed to make statements.

The Royal Family are, as a rule, expected to stay out of politics, and refrain from giving their personal opinion on certain topics, so as to remain impartial.

Dating Alex, son of a political leader, is a statement. Is saying “I support this and I do not support that”.

And, Alex wants to be involved in politics, he talks about how he wants to make a change, how he genuinely cares, and the fastest way to make a change is making it while being on positions of power, somewhere people can hear you.

Alex’s whole reason for wanting to go into politics, when he knows so many past presidential sons and daughters have run away screaming the minute they turned eighteen, is he genuinely cares about people.

He has a very visible political position. People know what he supports and what he doesn’t, what he wants to do and what he doesn’t. And since he likes being on positions of power, because that gives him the possibly to make a change (even if at the end the change he did was unrelated to politics but about who he was as a person), he doesn’t get out of it. He continues being on it, he doesn’t mind attention on him, as long as they see what he wants them to see.

Philip sees Alex always on the public eye for one reason or another, a photo shoot, a new rumour, etc, and sees how his public persona is different to theirs, “wilder”, not so formal.

And, conservatives hate Alex. He is everything they stand against, even before knowing he was bi. He’s a grandchild of immigrants, he’s mixed race, he’s brown, he’s outspoken about his views (which are opposite to theirs), he’s the son of the first president who’s a woman, and who is also a democrat, he comes from a mixed race family, etc etc. Monarchy is supposed to be neutral. Alex is the opposite from neutral.

Philip’s main problem with Henry being gay is than he wanted to come out. Henry’s gay? Ok but he can’t come out. And that’s not based on homophobia (no matter if it sounds like it), is deeper, Henry coming out would challenge everything. First, he wouldn’t be neutral anymore. Monarchy is built upon manipulation upon privilege upon capitalism, etc. Henry coming out would threaten everything, all the rules, all the stuff would have to change, people would be asking why he didn’t come out before, and if Henry said the truth, their reputation would be dammed. And many many people would stop liking them. Some would not like them for being homophobic, other wouldn’t like them because Henry is gay. People from both sides would be against them. Their reputation (as mentioned as repeatedly through the book as repeatedly as I’m mentioning it now) is something that must be perfect. They can’t make statements, they’re perfect, formal, they’ll continue the bloodline, etc. If Henry is gay and people know, it no longer affects him, but all of them.

And many people see queerness and something political. Again, Henry wouldn’t be neutral.

I think than if Henry married a woman (hopefully a beard, someone who knows he’s gay and doesn’t care to cover for him) and had affairs with men, and Philip knew (than he was gay), he wouldn’t mind. He did what he had to do. Henry’s reputation is good, their reputation is good, they’ll continue the bloodline, etc. Because Philip, like Henry, was taught to leave their wants aside, and focus more on monarchy and what’s good for it.

The thing with Philip is, he isn’t evil. And many seem to forget that. He did bad things, and I’m holding him accountable for them, but at the end of the day, he was just brainwashed by Mary, specially after Arthur’s death. He was vulnerable after his father died, his mother wasn’t there mentally, he felt like he had to step up, be the “man of the house”, and he clung to his grandmother (the only adult in his immediate family who was physically and mentally there for him), and Mary took this opportunity to make him into the version of him monarchy wanted him to be (rule follower, defends their reputation no matter what, cares more about monarchy and what people think of them than what he wants to do.), which is just what Mary tried to make Henry to be too.

But he was on about Martha, and land holdings, and the hypothetical heirs they have to start working on, even though Philip hates children, and suddenly it was as if . . . as if everything you said last night came back to me. I thought, God, that’s it, isn’t it? Just following the plan. And it’s not that he’s unhappy. He’s fine. It’s all very deeply fine. A whole lifetime of fine.”

She probably tried with Bea, but Bea saw the manipulation right away and it didn’t work, or she didn’t get to try because with Arthur alive, that man would have never let her do that to his children, and with Arthur gone, Bea was like Catherine, mentally somewhere else. After rehab, she was still mourning, but she had Henry, she didn’t need her like Philip did. Because I think Henry and Bea were closer than Philip and Henry/Bea even before Arthur died, after it and Mary’s manipulation, they just drifted more apart.

If Casey wanted us to believe Philip was bad he would have made him be bad until the end, made him not change. Philip did change. Henry is even trying to make amends with him. Maybe he hasn’t fully forgiven him, which makes absolute sense and just because Philip was a victim it doesn’t he mean he was a victim inside their relationship, than he couldn’t continue the cycle of abuse. But Philip realized the cycle of abuse, realized he was continuing all this time. And tried to stop. That’s growth. Maybe not forgivable, not after everything, but he’s trying.

Philip came to Kensington two weeks ago to apologize to both Henry and Bea for the years since their father’s death, the harsh words, the domineeringness, the intense scrutiny. For basically growing from an uptight people- pleaser into an abusive, self-righteous twat under the pressure of his position and the manipulation of the queen. “He’s fallen out with Gran,” Henry had told Alex over the phone. “That’s the only reason I actually believe anything he says.”

Mary isn’t trying, Mary didn’t decide to support Henry at the end, didn’t try to do better. No one forgives her, and we are not supposed to see than she’s trying to be better, because she isn’t. “Isn’t Mary also a victim of this cycle of abuse, wasn’t she like Philip, brainwashed by her own parents probably (and her parents by their parents and so on), and continued the cycle?” Yes, but she doesn’t actively try to be better, doesn’t realize that, doesn’t even feel bad about it, different to Philip.

Answering again with shorter answers.

Why does Philip hate Alex specifically?

Because Alex is the whole opposite to what they stand for, he’s a walking statement, and he’s so himself, different to monarchy with their perfect flawless formal public personas.

Would Philip be fine with Henry dating some upper-class English guy (before coming out and everything than happened after he did)?

As long as he kept it secret, Henry could date whoever he wanted as long as he didn’t want to make it public, as long as he planned on marrying a woman and following his duty, as long as that someone was responsible, and didn’t have a “target on his back”, and Philip says Alex has.

Again, holding Philip accountable for everything he did, just explaining the reason why he did it.

Does this make sense? Because in my head it does but I don’t know if it does when I write it down

[codycodybobody]

late night/early morning thought is that there are many things i dislike about fanon obi wan, but the biggest thing people seem to miss is that uh. he's a kind of a jerk.

[skrunksthatwunk]

miraculous world: new york asks the bold question: what if batman and superman were lesbian married with children