katherine may | welcome to hell

This is PTSD.

Yes, the flashbacks were induced by Wanda’s mind control, however it took Natasha so long to recover, there’s definitely more to it. Even Tony, although he was anxious, he wasn’t shaken and dissociated hours later like Natasha was. Laura pointed out “Nat seems really shaken,” Natasha, specifically. Natasha was leaning against Clint and he had his arm around her, supporting her while they were walking. She wasn’t injured. The distant, hollow look in her eyes, the extra time it took to process and put on a smile when talking to the kids. After the mind control was over, she just sat down shaking, unable to move or speak, and couldn’t even register that Clint was talking to her.

A De Rolo family vacation to the beaches of Marquet. They have a property out there, one right on the water with fans made of wood and big glass doors that let the ocean breeze in.

They take at least one trip a year. Vex, Percy, Vesper Trinket, Cassandra, even Keyleth comes. (She'll always be Vex's sister in law, even if she never technically married Vax, and it's good for her to get out of the house.) This time, Vesper is five years old.

She loves playing in the water, building sand castles, jumping over the waves and off of small cliffs nearby. She's SUCH a good swimmer, she doesn't even need her floaties anymore. She spends most of her days playing with Cassandra while Vex and Percy relax and watch from afar. She eats all the fresh fruit she wants. She runs around and plays until she's too tired to keep her eyes open and an adult carries her to her bed and tucks her in tight. It's a little paradise.

But after she goes to bed is when the real fun begins.

I... think she's a little jealous of Percy, sometimes.

Sure, those five years must have been hell on him, too. And they both suffered so much, in different ways... but sometimes she must wonder, surely, what life would have been like if she'd been able to escape. If she got to make a terrible, terrible thing that kept her safe. He had the freedom to go wherever he wanted and he chose to come back and get his vengeance - Cassandra never had a choice. She haunted the halls where her family's blood had seeped into the floorboards, Delilah's hand on her throat and Sylas' teeth to it. Percy had friends, for at least some of those years. He had safety of a sort.

And even once he's back, he keeps fucking off to save the world while she's still mostly chained to the castle. It's for a good cause, sure, but... it must sting, just a little, in ways she'd hate to think about.

Worst part is, we don't know if that disparity between them would ever really get better.

If she has a partner in come 25 years later, come Tal'Dorei Reborn time, they certainly aren't mentioned. She'd definitely have made up for the difference in friendships by then and then some, but we never hear of anyone she's especially close to, romantically or not. By that point Percy has five - count them, five - kids. His best friends are a famous author and adventurer, and the Voice of the Tempest. His wife is the coolest person in the world.

Does Cass have anyone? Did she try, only to not find the same fairy tale romance her brother did? Does she have a best friend who isn't just someone who would pick her brother over her every time? She's head of the Chamber, sure, but he saved the world. Cassandra? Cassandra was just a hostage one last time.

As happy as she is for Percy and Vex, and her gaggle of nieces and nephews, I can't imagine she does not envy the happy ending Percy got, even if only in guilty little moments. Even if she's mostly happy with her own ending, I can't imagine her not wondering why she's a sidenote in his story and hating the thought as soon as it occurs.

What makes that extra unsettling is that unlike the vague timeframe of the preceding Ripley comic, this comic wants you to know exactly how long it takes. From when Cass first properly wakes up and is able to get on her feet through to the end, the length of timeskips are specifically enumerated.

The longest single timeskip is a month. The total length of time they add up to is two months and four days. Add on estimates for the length of time between the massacre and the escape attempt (“weeks”) and the vague amount of time Cass was bedridden after the escape and you come to the conclusion that it has not even been half a year since the massacre by the time this comic ends.

Cass at the end has her present-day outfit and haircut, but she and Delilah still have their flashback height difference—she is still thirteen years old all the way through the comic.

Two months and four days. They had her for five years.

Throughout the comic, Delilah and Sylas are in full lovebombing mode: they’re bombarding her with positive reinforcement as they brush aside her every attempt to call out the bullshit narratives they’re feeding her, lavishing her with praise as they enable her desires (look how much better and more supportive we are than your old family!), smoothing down her cognitive dissonance with vampiric suggestion—and not even her dreams are safe from them.

Narratively, it is fully framed as a gothic seduction, in which the role they’re seducing her into is that of their daughter.

The final page shows Delilah and Sylas smirking at each other behind Cassandra’s back because they know now that she’s been fully entangled, now that she feels complicit in their exploitation of Whitestone and has internalized the framework of them as her family who are the only people in the world who “care” about her…they don’t have to keep up the relentless charm offensive anymore. They know that from now on they can make her do anything they want and do anything they want to her, and she’ll find a way to justify it no matter how sick it makes her feel.

And we know where that's led five years later.

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)

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.