It’s SO funny to me when I see movie fans writing alex as this daddy dom, himbo guy because Alex is so!!!
If you scream at him a little too loudly he’ll probably cry, just not in front of you. He falls in love really hard and deeply but it takes him so long to accept that he can also be loved hard and deeply! He has the highest grades ever 1) because he’s smart and 2) because he bases his self worth on making others proud, on being useful. He overworks himself, he runs to clear his head until his feet bleed, his coffee is bitter but so are his thoughts. He’s a softie, who writes his bf love letters and who probably giggles and kicks his feet while reading what henry writes back to him. He can absolutely destroy you in a debate, don’t even try to argue with him he’ll win each time. He talks a lot but he has never been listened to. His rivalry with Henry started with a bad meeting and also with constant comparison, because everyone compared them both, and it was just a constant reminder than Alex will never be enough. Henry was born on the spotlight, Alex wasn’t. Henry was white, Alex wasn’t. Henry had everyone’s support, Alex didn’t. *He is a jester and a devoted knight. He knows hundreds of fun facts and will tell you. He loves Texas despite the bad memories of his childhood and teen years it brings. He feels guilty for making his sister worry so much. He loves his mother despite everything, and she loves him too, but they have an unusual, almost unhealthy relationship. He needs to prove himself every minute of the day. He works as a distraction. He puts on a façade around everyone, golden boy, America’s heartthrob, no one sees his house key, his glasses, the hundreds of papers hidden under the windowsill, the pills stolen from Liam. Someone teach this man healthy coping mechanisms. He is a child of divorce, and this affects him more than he lets on. He is actually a huge nerd. He grew up poor. He was in denial about his sexuality for years. He definitely has abandonment issues. He might be impulsive sometimes (storming Kensington palace after being ghosted by Henry) but he usually thinks things through, and is very reasonable. He makes lists, tons of them. He has undiagnosed adhd and this has shaped him as a person in a way I can’t even describe. Before Henry, bea, and Pez, he didn’t have any friends aside from Nora and his sister. He grew up catholic. He is a romantic. And a dork. He is just as passionate about history as Henry is. But Nora makes friends, and Alex ends up with acquaintances who think they know him because they’ve read his profile in New York Magazine, and perfectly fine people with perfectly fine bodies who want to take him home from the bar. None of it is satisfying—it never has been, not really, but it never mattered as much as it does now that there’s the sharp counterpoint of Henry, who knows him. Henry who’s seen him in glasses and tolerates him at his most annoying and still kissed him like he wanted him, singularly, not the idea of him.
Always the talker, never the heard. Always good, never enough. Always ogled, never seen. Always the first son, never Alex.
I think people should just acknowledge the movie's character is a different character than the book one. Simple as. They have some superficial similarities but when it comes down to the core characterisation and dynamic the book's relationship and characters are entirely different people.
The movie fans do have an image of Alex which is a sauve playboy/alpha dom macho male which can be jarring because the character in the book is nothing like that. Alex is as a chaotic bi disaster and the aspects of his characterisation like his feistiness, naïvety, combativeness, intensity, hyperactiveness, etc these are what make him him.
While the movie fans see him as a hypermasculine macho alpha male. I feel the same w Henry, the way he was in the book and the way movie fans talk about him is like I don't even recognise which character they're talking about. Like 'Henry played it casual' when that man was in love since the moment he saw Alex and was just taking what he could, he even suggested going to dinner before their first hookup and the whole point of Alex's apology was that he was the one playing it casual. But the movie just takes the basic premise and then does whatever tf they want they dgaf abt who these characters as people are, why they act the way they do, etc
It's best to acknowledge the two characters are different people and people use different tags for the two.
If people write based on the movie they can use the movie tag and the fics based on the book can use the book tag. That would make the experience so much better for everyone.
