dost thou want to live fergaliciously?

hallariel told fabian at the start of fhsy that bill had tremendous night terrors during which he would start attacking things with his sword in his sleep and fabian said "i dream of having nightmares at the level of papa's". and then in leviathan fabian has a tremendous night terror during which he attacks his motorbike with his sword in his sleep. congratulations fabian you got exactly what you wanted. are you happy about it

Crab? King.

Van? Boat.

Night? Yorb.

hey. yeah your boyfriend got pneumonia and an unshakable level of exhaustion. no yeah his dad’s cult leaders thought he was a wimp for not killing him correctly. that’s not how he got it though, a mind flayer actually almost killed him and actually killed a bunch of the cult. yeah and the remaining members hunted your boyfriend down and one said he was gonna shit in his mouth. oh yeah and when he fleed from the crows keep he couldn’t grab onto any ropes so he just fell that whole time. his friends found him which is good, but when he slept he dreamt abt one of their dads and his yogurt. and turns out the dream made him stab his motorcycle in real life and jump into the ocean. yeah.

underrated d20 live moment: lou rolling a nat 1 intelligence check in the middle of fabian’s breakdown and siobhan responding by taking his dice and fucking dunking them in lou’s own water cup and ally declaring them baptised

rewatched this ep again and a hot follow up for the fact that lou also gets ally to baptise their own dice and spends at least one or two rounds rolling IN the glass of water because both him and ally are stunned for a full nine rounds of combat or something insane. truly underrated moment.

there’s something so heartbreaking about the way that d20, especially fantasy high and the seven, talks about fatherhood. some of the lesser mentioned ones are just as heartbreaking as the characters who have it as their whole thing. like fig and fabian hit but

ostentatia and her dad and how he would give anything for her no matter how much it hurts him and her and how he refuses to let anyone do anything for him bc he’s the dad and the one who should be taking care of her.

katja and her dad and how he thought he was doing what was best for her by working all the time, thinking that was better than him being around when really all she wanted was to spend time with him.

riz and his dad and how he idolises him and works through that moment of doubting his father and gets that time with him and it’s so sweet despite how much it hurts them both because seeing him can only be temporary.

liam and his dad and being an afterthought to a father who has so much more to consider than a kid who wasn’t anything like what he thought he would be.

jet and ruby with amethar being a king who has even more to consider but never stopped loving and caring for them for a second and always wanted them to have the carefree and happy childhood he had as someone who never should have gotten the throne.

saccharina and amethar being a father who has so much regret piled on his shoulders but can’t do anything to heal the pain he brought to his daughter except by trying to show how much he loves her and is proud of her.

adaine and a father who didn’t care and jawbone, a father who does, who recognises the rage and pain and anxiety in adaine and never for a second shames her for any of it.

kristen and a father who loves what he wants her to be and can’t accept what she is.

kugrash trying to redeem himself for gabriella but more for his sons and the joy he feels when wally forgives him and the sorrow he feels when he reads davids letters and confronts even further the pain he caused.

kingston and the absolute dream of having langston after years of denying himself in the name of the rest of new york only to understand that happiness for him doesn’t mean no happiness for everyone else.

fathers and all the pain they can bring and all the care they can have and all that they experience too.

my guy i hope u know this was me holding back

Don’t. Don’t hold back. Make me cry

okay well, firstly, there's fig and fabian, who are massive characters for this, but i wanted to focus on other characters.

so, with fig we have the issue of gilear: at the start of the series, we only see the breakdown in the relationship between him and fig. we see fig’s understanding of fatherhood as something about origins and blood and biology, a desperate attempt to understand more about both herself and the world around her, neither of which make sense to her at this point. she buries herself in rebellion, reinventing herself and rejecting everything that she thought she had been beforehand, including gilear. but he never stops wanting to be her father. we see him try and talk to her, wanting her to live with him, trying to take care of her despite everything that has happened. we see him choose fatherhood over and over and over. he does everything for fig: takes demeaning jobs and puts himself in awful positions because he wants to spend time with her. yes, it's funny, but at the root of it all the comedy is still coming from the choices and features of a character, and gilear's in-character motives are always centred around fig.

in sophomore year, they’re at the point when gilear is an awful choice to come with them but fig insists on not sending him back. fig is literally showing that, with all the diamonds for revivify, she refuses to put a price on having a father with her. she’d give anything for it. season one and two also happen while she's forging a relationship with gorthalax and then also dealing with the pain of being forced to betray him. still, gilear is the perfect emotional tie for fig through a lot of the series, a link to someone she used to be, a link to something that she keeps trying to get rid of and embrace this new persona, but a link to something that matters for her character. as we see in the forest, fig has so much doubt about herself and the persona she puts forward. she tries so hard to be this badass awesome person that she truly is but that she doubts all the same. and then the person who saves her is gilear in the pride armour. he has pride in being her father and that’s it. he embraces his shame about most of his character so consistently that this is a comedic moment but honestly it makes a lot of sense for both of their characters too. gilear would do anything for his daughter but is so rarely able to. fig has so much doubt about her ability to be this great funny person and thinks the real her isn’t worth it. gilear saves her and for him it’s a moment of finally being enough to help her and for her it’s a moment of showing that she doesn’t have to worry about being enough for herself, because the way that the people she loves see her is true to them and true to the world and being her persona isn’t the same as being enough. gilear chooses over and over to be her dad and fig chooses over and over to be his daughter.

then there’s bill and fabian. the way fabian introduces himself all the time is funny, yes, but it’s also him consistently stressing his link to his father. he paints everything he does as an extension of his dad, of his papa and that’s what he wants! he wants to be like his dad, to measure up to the legacy. bill is a dad who never shuts up about loving his son but also, accidentally, creates so many conditions for fabian to not feel good enough. he tells him that he’s bribed a place on the blood rush team for fabian despite him being insanely athletic and honestly capable of getting on there himself. he makes fabian feels like he has to be a leader when, honestly, that would be disastrous for the bad kids because the whole point is that they work together perfectly because they all have different strengths. that’s the point of a party but not the point of a crew. bill is a pirate through and through and fabian isn’t. fabian is an adventurer, part of a team, and he plays that part perfectly but that isn’t enough to him. not once he kills his dad, taking on the continuing of his legacy for him. suddenly, it’s not just that everything he does is an extension of bill but it’s also that everything he does has to honour him as well, has to paint fabian as a worthy successor to his fame instead of a disappointment.

and then fabian tries to lead his dad’s warlocks, literally taking his father’s place, and he fails. and fabian doesn’t know what to do with failure. his dad never told him how to handle that, because to bill, fabian could never be a failure. but not to fabian. chungledown tells fabian he’s not a real pirate and a disappointment to his father and it’s exactly what would make fabian break. losing to james and failing his dad pushes him over the edge in this place full of his father’s legacy. and then fabian ends up in the water. a pirate, drowning, with no one to help him. no crew, no party, no father. and then fabian spends the whole fight with james stunned and how shameful. he has his friends there, his party, but he is so beaten down that he can’t stand up for it, can’t face james and the shame and the realisation that he isn’t his father. that being fabian isn’t being bill. that he can’t be an extension. and it isn’t just the pressure of it — fabian loves his father! so much! that’s why he’s never wanted to be anything more than the next bill. and then they go to fallinel and suddenly fabian doesn’t have to be his father. suddenly there’s another option, another tradition, another aspect of himself to explore, and, mechanically, not only does it help his character arc but it also literally helps him support his friends better ! he’s able to give bardic inspiration to literally mechanically help his party just by being there and being himself and understanding his new side to himself. this is an understanding that he doesn’t have to be a pirate, that he doesn’t have to be a leader. he can play either a support or leading role for whatever works best and it works because it’s him and his friends and they’ll be whatever they need to be for themselves and for each other. and, as we see when they go to hell, bill couldn’t be prouder! and fabian isn’t surprised by that because bill loves him but now he understands that he doesn’t need to repay that love by being him. bill loves his own darling boy who is also his own man and fabian is still his papa’s darling boy as well as his own man and it hits because it’s how so many people grow into their adulthood or their adolescence. an understanding that you are as much your own person as you are a product.

there's still more in d20, especially when you consider relationships like pete with his dad and the contrast of his relationship with Kingston, but this is getting long.

Adaine Abernant is truly the most character of all time. She’s a survivor. She’s a warrior wizard. She’s a fucking nerd. She is the only sensible member of the bad kids. She killed a woman on her first day of school. She punched her dad so hard he died instantly. She got adopted by werewolves. She met a centuries-old wizardess and immediately befriended her. She comforted her abusive sister, even though she couldn’t remember it mere minutes later, and it saved her life. She has a cool jacket. She “I’m literally neurodivergent and a minor”ed a dragon. She loves her friends so much that her worst fear is being without them when they need her most. She has a magic frog that wears a backpack. She has a backpack to hold said magic frog while it wears its backpack. She is graceful. She is disgusting. She swallowed so much poison that she became toxic. She didn’t know she had a panic attack disorder for 15 years. She never stopped fighting her parents’ abuse, even though it never helped and probably just made it worse. She is kind despite that. She is a huge bitch. She’s the Elven Oracle. She’s Everyone’s Oracle.

She’s just a baby.

sword adaine !!!