#sorry for turning ur ask into a thesis ro. i blacked out and all these words were in front of me

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YOU GET IT!!!! sbi as literal family didnt make sense at all in and it shouldn't because they aren't actually a family. Phil for example is some old guy Tommy feels safety with because well he's wilburs dad!!! but to Phil Tommy is just some kid running around and its SUCH an dynamic to look into because their views of each other is not reciprocal and thats what makes it interesting!!!!!! why make phil tommys dad when he can literally just be some guy tommy attached himself to

THIS IS LITERALLY EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN YOU GET ME SO BAD!!!!! like. canon angelduo is so gut-wrenchingly sad and unsatisfactory in a GOOD way when you think about it for more than two seconds BECAUSE of that lack of reciprocation of care!!!!!

of course tommy seeks phil out for advice and sees him as someone who can Protect him because yeah, that's will's dad! (there's obviously complications with the whole "tommy watched phil murder wilbur right in front of him" situation but like. baseline, i think we can agree that post-revival phil is a source of safety and security for tommy, because this is consistently and explicitly shown to the audience. tommy goes to phil's house and asks him for advice. as dream chases him, he sees techno's house in the distance, and it's when he realizes phil will be there that he starts crying for help. there's undoubtedly a paternal draw that pulls tommy closer to phil is what i'm getting at

but from phil's side? there's NONE of that! there's a lot to be said about phil's rp style but something i honestly love is this ability he has to simultaneously offer comfort to tommy while also maintaining such a drastic emotional distance from him. it's not for lack of caring! phil absolutely cares for tommy--the way, really, anyone who's had an emotionally precarious teenage son before would care for the local traumatized kid running around getting into scraps. phil knows how to calm him down, knows how to keep up with his antics the way a lot of other adults on the server don't have the patience for. phil cares for tommy. he just doesn't care about tommy the way fanon loves to think he does?? when tommy shows up at phil's house screaming and crying that dream was chasing him, there's no way phil believes him outright. the forest is empty and there's nobody else around. phil tells tommy outright that he helped dream escape and defends his own actions to tommy's face even as tommy sits in the corner, cowering with his shield up and axe drawn away from phil because up until now this was somebody he thought would be safe. and it's only AFTER tommy tells phil the whole story about dream finding him in logstedshire that phil gets overtly mad and says anything about getting back at dream, and his reasoning for it? he's angry that dream would get out of prison and immediately "torment a child". not tommy specifically! A CHILD.

anyway tldr tommy's attachment to phil is out of necessity for a beacon of safety, and by contrast phil's care for tommy is deeply impersonal because tommy's not his kid. thanks for watching