Riding the emotional de Rolo-coaster

DAY 5 - DISABILITY / TRUST / MAGIC - SPELLS

Kaylie and Cass have always been one of my fav rarepairs! Glad I'm getting a chance to post them!

like she doesn’t even know for sure that Ripley is the one who shot her until Delilah confirms it a second later, this is her remembering every time that Ripley coming through the door of her and Percy’s cell meant that she was about to be in pain like she’d never imagined and she’s just oh holy fuck no not again

“she hasn't noticed me yet, if she can’t see me she can’t hurt me”

meanwhile Ripley: [gives so little of a fuck that she doesn’t even register that Cass is conscious and reacting to her]

like those theoretically could have been one panel, or relegated to that one part of the background, but no, it's important that there's emphasis on Cass taking her hand

and funny you should mention the romantic framing, because this is more or less exactly the image that introduces Delilah and Sylas as a couple in the stream:

Cassandra, framed between two masks on the wall. Cassandra, desperate to live up to the expectations of those who trust her—while being ambiguous about just who she’s talking about.

Which one is the mask? Which one is the act? She's Cassandra de Rolo, the Kestrel, the captive princess, the last hope of Whitestone; she's Cassandra Briarwood, the dutiful daughter, the vampiric thrall, the eternal heir to Whitestone.

And the answer is that she starts out thinking the first is the truth and the second is a lie and before she knows it it's been flipped on its head thanks to the Briarwoods' manipulation—but the true answer is that both of them are real. Both of them are fake. They’re stories she tells, they’re stories people tell through her, and truth is less important than which she needs to embody to survive in the moment. So people see what they want to see in her, because she makes herself into what they need to see in her. She's the inverse of her mythological namesake: she's cursed so that her lies are always believed.

What's not a mask at all is the girl bleeding out in the snow wishing her big brother would come back and help her. What’s not an act is the moment of transition between the two roles, here, where no one is looking at her and she doesn’t have to perform, where Cass allows herself to feel the crushing guilt of the betrayal she’s carrying out against Whitestone before the Briarwoods arrive and she slips seamlessly back into Daughter Mode—silently crying out in despair for someone, anyone, to truly care about her for her own sake and not just for the use she has as a symbol.

[Reblogs and comments, plz comment, are very appreciated 🥰🥰🥰]

Lord and the Ladies De Rolo out on the town for New year’s! Being grossly in love with each other and getting Cass a girlfriend like they were all meant too, just having a good time together. First art of the new year is perc'ahlia and I am okay with that.

there's such a difference in the way they look at each other. percy's shocked, pleading even. he desperately wants to hear about her and what happened and everything. he's so worried about her.

and cass... cass doesn't. she's... wary, dare i say. hesitant. "i thought you'd come back to check"- she is still hurt by being left behind (which is also part of the de Rolo sibling Tragedy: you cant blame percy for running away nor can you blame cass for hoping he'd come back and make sure because they were both children and incredibly traumatized newly orphaned children at that) and that hurt is very present.

also the added Layers that reveal themselves when you look back! you know cass has been told to betray percy and vm and everything she does has a different meaning now, and you can see the little ways she wants so desperately for it to end differently. you can get hints of how she wants for it to all be real

her response to percy's "we don't need to anymore. we're together" is an excellent example of that. she knows it's going to go badly and you can tell she's trying to work herself up for it. she knows how this story is meant to end- percy will die and she'll make it happen. she can't believe him. it's not an expression of tiredness like we might think at first. it's tired, pained resignation and dread, maybe with a dash of fanciful hope.

(bonus- he's immediately jumped back into the big brother role and is protectively standing behind her with his arm on the back of the chair and cass is visibly fully realizing what she's got to do on top of her recent death and good god she looks fucking miserable)