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The lowdown, the lowdown, the lowdown... Blugh. Warning for spoilers and cursing. That is all. *microphone scream*

Phil: Yesssss. Well then. Let’s talk about this dork.

Okay, Phil’s first girlfriend? Kindergarten. They stayed together for a year before they fizzled out like any couple might, figured they weren’t really compatible, and parted ways. This is where the changes begin.

This Phil didn’t… Oh-ho. This Phil. Thiiiis Phil. Okay. God.

The years of hatred and anger and bitterness? Never happened. Kids all despising him? Never happened. Horrible rumors? Never happened. Girls harassing him? Never happened. Big Bob’s crap? Never happened. Expulsion? Never happened. Little Vinny? Never happened. Years of therapy? Never happened. Random bursts of doom and hyperventilation? Never happened. Teachers being annoyed as hell by him? Only happened a little, haha. Primarily his smartiness was praised, and he became, like—you know those horrible teacher pet types who are always jumping at the chance to help with anything and they’re always the one put in charge when the teacher leaves and reminding the teacher about quizzes? Yeah. Phil was that. To the extreme. Only even worse ‘cause he’s still got that sadism in him, that’s just a personality trait, not something developed—or at least not entirely. So imagine this little dork sitting at the front of the class smirking at you. Just imagine. It’s a hideous picture.

Zack’s control freak thing was a big part of why Phil had “YOU CAN’T CONTROL ME, I DO WHAT I WANT” issues. His and Josh’s fighting is what taught him about control and how to combat bullies, so this Phil, when the bullies came, wasn’t prepared. And Phil was a huge oversensitive scaredy baby so he cried. A lot. Especially since Bob wasn’t ever there to instill manliness into him, and the idea that boys should be a certain way and shouldn’t cry (which, whole other can of worms there—Bob’s only ever had good intentions, I swear), so Phil did a loooot of crying. Mostly on Helga, but also on Zack and Josh. This naturally pissed Josh off so he paid the kids a ‘visit,’ and low and behold, Phil was never bullied again. Such amaze. Much wow. Arnold and Helga did their share of talking, too, to smooth things over with kids’ parents after the Joshicane. Problem was this made Phil’s “privileged teacher’s pet” identity even more solidly ingrained in people’s heads than before, including his own. He became kind of untouchable, and thus a bit on the obnoxious side. So, though no one ever bothered him again, not a lot of people liked him very much. Some did, though. I imagine he was a cross between Helga and Arnold (how surprising) in that he had friends and he was generally thought of as okay, sometimes even cool, but there were also a lot of people secretly annoyed by him. There was a lot of fostered dislike. And some were a lot more open about it. Bard was one of them, still, but this Phil was actually afraid of Bard so he never made any snide comments to him one way or another—especially since he knew. Knew about that thing. That… thing.

Really, I think the worse tragedy of this AU is that Phil never called Archibald Silver Eyes so he never got the nickname Silver and he was stuck with being called Archibald his whole life. I shed a tear. Look at it fall. Oh, it’s so sad, I can’t, don’t look at me.

Anyway, Dolly’s infatuation with him still happened, but to a much lesser degree than in the fic because of… reasons. This Phil’s still got serious anger issues, too, but they are also a lot less pronounced. He’s mostly just frustrated a lot of the time. Like an angry Arnold, just running around the school nagging people like, “You’re doing something stupid again, aren’t you? Didn’t I tell you not to do something stupid?! Why the heck don’t you people listen to me, don’t you know how much smarter I am??!? YOU’RE GONNA KILL US ALL ONE DAY, YOU KNOW THAT? DO YOU KNOW THAT???? DO YOU????????” Don’t let my (partial) exaggeration fool you—his issues with being ignored and never taken seriously are still in place, but they are also less pronounced because Zack actually does listen to him more in this AU. Granted, Zack still has issues with zoning out ‘cause he’s got ADD or some shit and he does still have trouble taking Phil seriously, but he does make a real effort to placate Phil and it has had an effect. Because AU Zack doesn’t laugh off everything negative that ever happens, and could actually recognize that Phil did have genuine problems with him and Josh, a lot of that got resolved. Not entirely, but enough so that Phil’s less spazzy. Plus since Zack isn’t some epic legend that everyone’s in awe of anymore, Phil isn’t the least bit jealous, actually openly loves his siblings, and doesn’t feel an overwhelming need to prove himself, so, again, he’s not nearly so damn crazy. He’s still a big panicky worry-wart with a penchant to yell, though. Especially regarding Josh ‘cause he’s an idiot.

But as I was saying before I got sidetracked, Dolly still liked him, but the thing that happened in San Lorenzo that triggered her mauling of him never happened so she kept it bottled a lot longer. It wasn’t until Phil heard about the family curse that anything happened. Because, rather than freaking out upon hearing about it like in the fic, AU Phil was actually intrigued. He told Grandpa that he didn’t have any bullies, though, so he couldn’t be cursed. Grandpa Phil asked him if he was sure, if he didn’t have any girls that pushed him around and hung around him perpetually and were passionate and kinda rough-and-tumble, and Phil thought about it, and he realized he did have a girl like that in his life. He was shocked to realize it, and very uncomfortable. That discomfort didn’t dissipate, but he tried to warm up the idea since it was looking like he was going to end up married to the girl. As a result of all this, he never joined drama club, and he didn’t get all hyper fascinated with acting or movies or plays. Granted, this Phil still enjoys movies and plays, but it’s more of a general interest than a raging passion. And since Sara and Phil never became friends, Sara wasn’t influenced by him and she didn’t go on to do… any of the things she went on to do. Phil stayed in bed that morning rather than ranting on the roof, so Sara was reduced to that horrible campfire lass who woke up the entire house that one morning. She got a bunch of stuff thrown at her and was run off. Of course, Sara and Phil still met, but Phil just thought her standoffishness was weird and Sara didn’t care to talk to him.

Phil talked to Zack about his girl-curse issue once, and initially, Zack told him there was no such thing as curses and he was being dumb, which – obviously – Phil didn’t react well to. Phil said that all the elements were in place, so maybe it was just that it could only happen to one member of the family each generation. Zack laughed at that but tried to choke it down when Phil got upset. Zack knew that Phil wasn’t going to let it go and it would be basically impossible to convince him he was wrong, so he finally just asked Phil if marrying the girl would be so bad, since they were already friends and all. Phil was hesitant, because he wasn’t really opposed to it, but he’d just never thought about it before so it was strange. Zack left him like that, so when Phil turned nine-years-old, he did that thing kids do where they take cupcakes to school around their bday or whatever. Phil was awkward about it, and still not used to the idea, but he bit the bullet and offered Dolly an extra cupcake and stepped a little closer to her, then after a hesitant moment, experimentally took her hand. Dolly got very stiff for a long ten seconds (wherein Phil silently panicked that he’d ruined their friendship) before shouting that Phil was her boyfriend now and all other bitches betta recognize. The bitches did recognize, with their mouths full of cupcake, and Dolly celebrated by throwing her cupcake oN THE GROUND and kissing Phil flat on the mouth. Phil was horrified, not only because holy crap girl germs, but also ‘cause it felt like he’d just gotten married to his friend and that was pretty terrifying. And embarrassing because everyone snorted cupcake out and choked on frosting in shock and laughter. Amanda later said it was a huge waste of baked goods when she heard and Brainy was disapproving and Dolly smug as hell and Phil just really confused by the entire thing.

Since in Phil’s mind they were married then, he took it all very seriously. A lot of couches got hid behind and beds hid underneath initially, granted, but that’s just because he took it so serious. Over the past years, behind Phil’s back, Dolly had been scaring off any other girls that took an interest in him, so Phil had few other crushes and little experience past his first relationship in kindergarten, which was quite some time ago and didn’t end very well. It was scary, but again, Phil tried to warm up to it. It eventually came to light that the curse only affects every other generation, and Phil wasn’t actually destined to marry anyone, but that wasn’t for a few weeks yet. By then, Phil knew just how much Dolly liked him and he felt trapped. Really, he did like and care about her, and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he felt their relationship was very unbalanced. Since Dolly didn’t seem to have an issue with that, he never said anything—and the truth was, he was afraid of her. Her potions and voodoo dolls brought all kinds of images to his mind of what might happen if he ever tried, so he didn’t. At least not for a while.

Of course, Helga had had her whole Brainy experience and she told Phil about it, and Arnold and Zack talked to him many times, saying he shouldn’t be leading her on, and it got to the point the guilt and discontent of the whole thing ate at him until he just exploded on Dolly and told her he wanted to break up. By this point, Dolly felt that she had… won something, and more than anything, she wasn’t willing to give that – or him – up. She got all wheezy and intense on him and backed him into a corner, while Phil shrunk in on himself and sweated like crazy, and told him very simply that it was okay, they could make it work, she could make him feel the same, bla bla bla. And Phil by nature is very gullible and easy to influence if he wants to be, so he believed her. And they did make it work, technically, until puberty. That’s when it all went to hell, but I’m not going into that mess here. Not only because of spoilers, but because it’s a little too dark to write out. And, uh, because… certain things didn’t happen, Dolly here is a lot more aggressive and, ahm… unhinged.

On the matter of Bob and the Phillip Feud in general, ahem. Grandpa still has it set so that Phil inherits the boarding house, but AU Phil’s much cooler with it. In fact, he’s actually really happy and smug about it. And as for Bob, well… This is a murky point for me since Phil’s story is still being written—I have a strong idea of how this takes place, but how it may inevitably get written out may be different. Everything’s always different when you write it out for real, so I’m just gonna leave it at Didn’t Happen. Because nothing went wrong in this AU.

Olga still came down for his birthday and a month-long visit, and Phil was still kinda wary and weirded out by her, but the thing that made Olga and Phil close in the fic was that they went through almost the exact same situation. In the AU, Phil and Olga have a regular, embarrassing, aunt-nephew relationship. She did still get the poetry book, and Phil was pleased to get it and shared a knowing “hell yeah, screw being stereotypically manly” look with Zack, gave her a hug and rushed off right after. He’d never had to live in her shadow, so he wasn’t all that interested in observing her or questioning anyone else about her. He knew she was smart, but he didn’t really give a shit. It was an irrelevant factoid. And he didn’t avoid her for the first week or whatever of her visit, so they got to spend more time together, but it was… a lot less meaningful to them both. Like I said: regular, embarrassing, aunt-nephew relationship.

So, parting notes: He plays a lot more sports. The Shortmans in general are a much more sports-oriented family in this AU, ‘cause both Josh and Zack are serious players, so many days get spent under a hot sun. Hence the permanent hat fixture. He doesn’t have touch issues either, so he hugs people all the time. And he’s not vindictive or sneaky.

There are so many points in Phil’s life that I haven’t written yet. His first, true best friend hasn’t even been introduced, but he never meets him here, which is personally upsetting to me. Really upsetting, actually, ‘cause I’ve been cackling about it for months. It’s also sad ‘cause Phil has an extremely positive influence on his life, ironically because of his girl hating. So much for that.

There’s also another girl he meets through… someone, and helps out sometime when he’s a teenager. That doesn’t happen now either… and that means nothing to you guys ‘cause you know nothing about it. Aheh.

And he never meets Vinny, which—bummer! Serious bummer. Agggghhhhglgglgl,a.,fmjaf… I mean, okay, it’s not a bummer for him, but it is for me ‘cause so many Godfather jokes get lost, lol.

I don’t even wanna think about how Helen reacts to AU Phil.

Again, I have to say it: only one thing got changed here. One detail was taken out, and suddenly all this. One. Thing... guh. I'm outta here. Peace.

HEY ARNOLD! © Craig Bartlett
Life with the Shortmans © SuprSingr

Description
The lowdown, the lowdown, the lowdown... Blugh. Warning for spoilers and cursing. That is all. *microphone scream*

Phil: Yesssss. Well then. Let’s talk about this dork.

Okay, Phil’s first girlfriend? Kindergarten. They stayed together for a year before they fizzled out like any couple might, figured they weren’t really compatible, and parted ways. This is where the changes begin.

This Phil didn’t… Oh-ho. This Phil. Thiiiis Phil. Okay. God.

The years of hatred and anger and bitterness? Never happened. Kids all despising him? Never happened. Horrible rumors? Never happened. Girls harassing him? Never happened. Big Bob’s crap? Never happened. Expulsion? Never happened. Little Vinny? Never happened. Years of therapy? Never happened. Random bursts of doom and hyperventilation? Never happened. Teachers being annoyed as hell by him? Only happened a little, haha. Primarily his smartiness was praised, and he became, like—you know those horrible teacher pet types who are always jumping at the chance to help with anything and they’re always the one put in charge when the teacher leaves and reminding the teacher about quizzes? Yeah. Phil was that. To the extreme. Only even worse ‘cause he’s still got that sadism in him, that’s just a personality trait, not something developed—or at least not entirely. So imagine this little dork sitting at the front of the class smirking at you. Just imagine. It’s a hideous picture.

Zack’s control freak thing was a big part of why Phil had “YOU CAN’T CONTROL ME, I DO WHAT I WANT” issues. His and Josh’s fighting is what taught him about control and how to combat bullies, so this Phil, when the bullies came, wasn’t prepared. And Phil was a huge oversensitive scaredy baby so he cried. A lot. Especially since Bob wasn’t ever there to instill manliness into him, and the idea that boys should be a certain way and shouldn’t cry (which, whole other can of worms there—Bob’s only ever had good intentions, I swear), so Phil did a loooot of crying. Mostly on Helga, but also on Zack and Josh. This naturally pissed Josh off so he paid the kids a ‘visit,’ and low and behold, Phil was never bullied again. Such amaze. Much wow. Arnold and Helga did their share of talking, too, to smooth things over with kids’ parents after the Joshicane. Problem was this made Phil’s “privileged teacher’s pet” identity even more solidly ingrained in people’s heads than before, including his own. He became kind of untouchable, and thus a bit on the obnoxious side. So, though no one ever bothered him again, not a lot of people liked him very much. Some did, though. I imagine he was a cross between Helga and Arnold (how surprising) in that he had friends and he was generally thought of as okay, sometimes even cool, but there were also a lot of people secretly annoyed by him. There was a lot of fostered dislike. And some were a lot more open about it. Bard was one of them, still, but this Phil was actually afraid of Bard so he never made any snide comments to him one way or another—especially since he knew. Knew about that thing. That… thing.

Really, I think the worse tragedy of this AU is that Phil never called Archibald Silver Eyes so he never got the nickname Silver and he was stuck with being called Archibald his whole life. I shed a tear. Look at it fall. Oh, it’s so sad, I can’t, don’t look at me.

Anyway, Dolly’s infatuation with him still happened, but to a much lesser degree than in the fic because of… reasons. This Phil’s still got serious anger issues, too, but they are also a lot less pronounced. He’s mostly just frustrated a lot of the time. Like an angry Arnold, just running around the school nagging people like, “You’re doing something stupid again, aren’t you? Didn’t I tell you not to do something stupid?! Why the heck don’t you people listen to me, don’t you know how much smarter I am??!? YOU’RE GONNA KILL US ALL ONE DAY, YOU KNOW THAT? DO YOU KNOW THAT???? DO YOU????????” Don’t let my (partial) exaggeration fool you—his issues with being ignored and never taken seriously are still in place, but they are also less pronounced because Zack actually does listen to him more in this AU. Granted, Zack still has issues with zoning out ‘cause he’s got ADD or some shit and he does still have trouble taking Phil seriously, but he does make a real effort to placate Phil and it has had an effect. Because AU Zack doesn’t laugh off everything negative that ever happens, and could actually recognize that Phil did have genuine problems with him and Josh, a lot of that got resolved. Not entirely, but enough so that Phil’s less spazzy. Plus since Zack isn’t some epic legend that everyone’s in awe of anymore, Phil isn’t the least bit jealous, actually openly loves his siblings, and doesn’t feel an overwhelming need to prove himself, so, again, he’s not nearly so damn crazy. He’s still a big panicky worry-wart with a penchant to yell, though. Especially regarding Josh ‘cause he’s an idiot.

But as I was saying before I got sidetracked, Dolly still liked him, but the thing that happened in San Lorenzo that triggered her mauling of him never happened so she kept it bottled a lot longer. It wasn’t until Phil heard about the family curse that anything happened. Because, rather than freaking out upon hearing about it like in the fic, AU Phil was actually intrigued. He told Grandpa that he didn’t have any bullies, though, so he couldn’t be cursed. Grandpa Phil asked him if he was sure, if he didn’t have any girls that pushed him around and hung around him perpetually and were passionate and kinda rough-and-tumble, and Phil thought about it, and he realized he did have a girl like that in his life. He was shocked to realize it, and very uncomfortable. That discomfort didn’t dissipate, but he tried to warm up the idea since it was looking like he was going to end up married to the girl. As a result of all this, he never joined drama club, and he didn’t get all hyper fascinated with acting or movies or plays. Granted, this Phil still enjoys movies and plays, but it’s more of a general interest than a raging passion. And since Sara and Phil never became friends, Sara wasn’t influenced by him and she didn’t go on to do… any of the things she went on to do. Phil stayed in bed that morning rather than ranting on the roof, so Sara was reduced to that horrible campfire lass who woke up the entire house that one morning. She got a bunch of stuff thrown at her and was run off. Of course, Sara and Phil still met, but Phil just thought her standoffishness was weird and Sara didn’t care to talk to him.

Phil talked to Zack about his girl-curse issue once, and initially, Zack told him there was no such thing as curses and he was being dumb, which – obviously – Phil didn’t react well to. Phil said that all the elements were in place, so maybe it was just that it could only happen to one member of the family each generation. Zack laughed at that but tried to choke it down when Phil got upset. Zack knew that Phil wasn’t going to let it go and it would be basically impossible to convince him he was wrong, so he finally just asked Phil if marrying the girl would be so bad, since they were already friends and all. Phil was hesitant, because he wasn’t really opposed to it, but he’d just never thought about it before so it was strange. Zack left him like that, so when Phil turned nine-years-old, he did that thing kids do where they take cupcakes to school around their bday or whatever. Phil was awkward about it, and still not used to the idea, but he bit the bullet and offered Dolly an extra cupcake and stepped a little closer to her, then after a hesitant moment, experimentally took her hand. Dolly got very stiff for a long ten seconds (wherein Phil silently panicked that he’d ruined their friendship) before shouting that Phil was her boyfriend now and all other bitches betta recognize. The bitches did recognize, with their mouths full of cupcake, and Dolly celebrated by throwing her cupcake oN THE GROUND and kissing Phil flat on the mouth. Phil was horrified, not only because holy crap girl germs, but also ‘cause it felt like he’d just gotten married to his friend and that was pretty terrifying. And embarrassing because everyone snorted cupcake out and choked on frosting in shock and laughter. Amanda later said it was a huge waste of baked goods when she heard and Brainy was disapproving and Dolly smug as hell and Phil just really confused by the entire thing.

Since in Phil’s mind they were married then, he took it all very seriously. A lot of couches got hid behind and beds hid underneath initially, granted, but that’s just because he took it so serious. Over the past years, behind Phil’s back, Dolly had been scaring off any other girls that took an interest in him, so Phil had few other crushes and little experience past his first relationship in kindergarten, which was quite some time ago and didn’t end very well. It was scary, but again, Phil tried to warm up to it. It eventually came to light that the curse only affects every other generation, and Phil wasn’t actually destined to marry anyone, but that wasn’t for a few weeks yet. By then, Phil knew just how much Dolly liked him and he felt trapped. Really, he did like and care about her, and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he felt their relationship was very unbalanced. Since Dolly didn’t seem to have an issue with that, he never said anything—and the truth was, he was afraid of her. Her potions and voodoo dolls brought all kinds of images to his mind of what might happen if he ever tried, so he didn’t. At least not for a while.

Of course, Helga had had her whole Brainy experience and she told Phil about it, and Arnold and Zack talked to him many times, saying he shouldn’t be leading her on, and it got to the point the guilt and discontent of the whole thing ate at him until he just exploded on Dolly and told her he wanted to break up. By this point, Dolly felt that she had… won something, and more than anything, she wasn’t willing to give that – or him – up. She got all wheezy and intense on him and backed him into a corner, while Phil shrunk in on himself and sweated like crazy, and told him very simply that it was okay, they could make it work, she could make him feel the same, bla bla bla. And Phil by nature is very gullible and easy to influence if he wants to be, so he believed her. And they did make it work, technically, until puberty. That’s when it all went to hell, but I’m not going into that mess here. Not only because of spoilers, but because it’s a little too dark to write out. And, uh, because… certain things didn’t happen, Dolly here is a lot more aggressive and, ahm… unhinged.

On the matter of Bob and the Phillip Feud in general, ahem. Grandpa still has it set so that Phil inherits the boarding house, but AU Phil’s much cooler with it. In fact, he’s actually really happy and smug about it. And as for Bob, well… This is a murky point for me since Phil’s story is still being written—I have a strong idea of how this takes place, but how it may inevitably get written out may be different. Everything’s always different when you write it out for real, so I’m just gonna leave it at Didn’t Happen. Because nothing went wrong in this AU.

Olga still came down for his birthday and a month-long visit, and Phil was still kinda wary and weirded out by her, but the thing that made Olga and Phil close in the fic was that they went through almost the exact same situation. In the AU, Phil and Olga have a regular, embarrassing, aunt-nephew relationship. She did still get the poetry book, and Phil was pleased to get it and shared a knowing “hell yeah, screw being stereotypically manly” look with Zack, gave her a hug and rushed off right after. He’d never had to live in her shadow, so he wasn’t all that interested in observing her or questioning anyone else about her. He knew she was smart, but he didn’t really give a shit. It was an irrelevant factoid. And he didn’t avoid her for the first week or whatever of her visit, so they got to spend more time together, but it was… a lot less meaningful to them both. Like I said: regular, embarrassing, aunt-nephew relationship.

So, parting notes: He plays a lot more sports. The Shortmans in general are a much more sports-oriented family in this AU, ‘cause both Josh and Zack are serious players, so many days get spent under a hot sun. Hence the permanent hat fixture. He doesn’t have touch issues either, so he hugs people all the time. And he’s not vindictive or sneaky.

There are so many points in Phil’s life that I haven’t written yet. His first, true best friend hasn’t even been introduced, but he never meets him here, which is personally upsetting to me. Really upsetting, actually, ‘cause I’ve been cackling about it for months. It’s also sad ‘cause Phil has an extremely positive influence on his life, ironically because of his girl hating. So much for that.

There’s also another girl he meets through… someone, and helps out sometime when he’s a teenager. That doesn’t happen now either… and that means nothing to you guys ‘cause you know nothing about it. Aheh.

And he never meets Vinny, which—bummer! Serious bummer. Agggghhhhglgglgl,a.,fmjaf… I mean, okay, it’s not a bummer for him, but it is for me ‘cause so many Godfather jokes get lost, lol.

I don’t even wanna think about how Helen reacts to AU Phil.

Again, I have to say it: only one thing got changed here. One detail was taken out, and suddenly all this. One. Thing... guh. I'm outta here. Peace.

HEY ARNOLD! © Craig Bartlett
Life with the Shortmans © SuprSingr