#hallariel offers absolutely no contribution to her son's upbringing. bill never does anything about the active neglect of his darling boy

[scalpho]

bill seacaster loves perfect idealistic versions of both his son and his wife - the difference is that with hallariel, the ideal is treated as reality, whereas with fabian, it's treated as an expectation. his love for hallariel is unconditional, almost to the point of delusion; for fabian, it's conditional, and the conditions are nigh impossible to consistently fulfill. hallariel is never criticised and blame is constantly shifted away from her, while fabian is met constantly with both plus threats of physical violence. sometimes he's even baited into being criticised!

to bill, hallariel is perfect, and therefore is incapable of doing anything wrong. fabian should be perfect, and therefore is not allowed to do anything wrong

of course, being lauded as an ideal rather than a normal, flawed human (elven?) person is not good or healthy for anyone - hallariel has a severe alcohol abuse problem and bill does absolutely fuck all about it. newsflash: that's bad! but i feel like there's a difference between harming someone by enabling their bad habits vs causing active, frequent and often intentional harm to someone by imposing yourself on them. there's only one person in seacaster manor getting death threatened by their parents on the regular and it sure isn't hallariel