#i never feel like i'm saying much of anything w the seacasters beyond regurgitating quotes and snippets of plot summary

[scalpho]

bill wants fabian to be just like him, but the problem is that bill is aggressively self-centred, and fabian cannot emulate him (by prioritising himself) without putting bill's wishes on the backburner. and bill, being as self-centred as he is, can't stand the fact that him and his wants are not fabian's number 1 priority. family in flames gives us a great example of this: bill yells at fabian for not defending himself against bill's insults specifically because it's not how bill would react ("i would never let any man speak to me the way i’m speaking to you right now"), and in the same minute also yells at him for defending himself ("you'll raise your voice at me now, will you?"). fabian can't emulate bill without disrespecting him, but he's expected to figure out some impossible way to balance these two conflicting expectations!

the trick is that this contradiction doesn't exist as long as fabian's wants are synonymous with bill's, which is why shit only hits the fan after fabian starts spending time away from his family and discovers the magic of independent thinking. the cracks in the formula are still super easy to see early on, though - bill killed his own father, but threatens to kill fabian if he ever attempts the same move. kudos to him for managing to say something both hypocritical and, in hindsight, incredibly ironic