#careless fire from other arguments being insulted for things over which I have no control

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

are people who are combative assholes constantly trying to assert dominance on everyone around them having a good time?

[loveinclined-archive]

headcanons : misc.

RE: MORE IMPORTANT/HEAVIER HEADCANONS RELATING TO CASSANDRA

alright so, since capella fell into a civil war when cassandra was 11, that’s kind of when she stopped going to school. ioavis was such a volatile time in her life as well- and forte and theon didn’t know shit about teaching a kid (beyond their respective professions). thea helped cassandra a little bit, but cassandra’s training as an augur came first.

it was only after cassandra had landed on pyrrah and met keandra again that she resumed any type formal education. while trying to read capellan texts on her inclination, cassandra realized just how poor her reading skills were. keandra tutored cassandra- honestly, he was the only one she would trust to help her. cassandra hates more than anything feeling st*pid, and would only let keandra see her that vulnerable.

cassandra learned enough math and science to maintain and fly her ship, and studied the history of many different planets- she only has a shallow knowledge of each one, since she was aiming to learn about as many as possible. cassandra also seriously resumed her studies in astrography that her grandmother had gotten her started on.

now cassandra has an above average reading level in capellan, and average reading levels in standard and english, and a very basic reading level in french.

alright so- at about age..14 or 15, cassandra stopped crying. cassandra’s time on ioavis was marked by constant high levels of stress, and for about ten years, when faced with something tragic or something that would make her cry, instead she would just shut down. in addition to just high stress, theon was…kind of an asshole. forte and theon both were. you know that one scene in “a league of their own” where tom hanks’ character yells at one of the players and says “there’s no crying in baseball!” yeah, theon and cassandra had a similar encounter. this idea of crying being a weakness was something theon instilled in her.

cassandra did not cry after forte’s death, instead she just went numb. she didn’t speak, she didn’t eat- once she started feeling again, she turned all that grief into anger, and that’s pretty much what got her through the rest of her time on ioavis- just running off anger.

after leaving ioavis, cassandra went to train with thea, and it could not have come at a better time. thea helped cassandra work through her issues- she still struggles with depression, along with enormous amounts of survivors guilt, but thea helped her learn how to cope with it all.

but cassandra didn’t really break down and cry until she saw keandra again. cassandra was overfilled with joy and relief- she wasn’t the last capellan! she wasn’t all alone in the universe. cassandra and keandra both cried for a good twenty minutes, and that’s kind of the turning point for cassandra. when she needs to, she cries. she tends to be an angrier crier.

see, cassandra might seem like she’s careless with fire- when she’s around people who know about her, she does use it pretty freely. but…she’s got an insane amount of control over it. the fact that she is able to use her powers so nonchalantly is a testament to how many hours she’s put into honing her inclination. she never starts a fire she can’t put out or one that will hurt someone unintentionally.

cassandra, in general, cultivates this reputation of being carefree and just…chill but almost in a bad way. she also acts kinda…airheaded at times too.  like, oh she’s so flippant and clueless, she can’t possibly be dangerous. she wants her enemies to underestimate her.

…but when a friend calls into question her control or competence, cassandra gets very hurt. she is more than she appears to be, and she has put in so much time and energy honing her inclination and her clairvoyance- to have that insulted, however mildly, gets cassandra very upset.

after the fall of capella, cassandra couldn’t stand how silent her ship was- which seemed huge and sterile to a traumatized twelve year old. so she turned to music to fill that void. now…capellans have a slightly different view of music that humans simply because music is just…talking? or at the very least, instrumental music can be used to convey ideas and emotions. so it was less…music music and more of just background chatter.

when atlas was destroyed and dulcie died, cassandra was completely overwhelmed by the silence, both in her head, since she had gotten so used to atlas’ presence, and…in her life. paola was still there but nothing was the same. so, again, cassandra turned to music. now that her perception of music has changed from simply talking to this emotional outlet, it meant more i think?

when cassandra gets to earth, she’s that neighbor that always has her music too loud and while she always apologizes…she rarely changes it for long. it’s a huge coping mechanism but she’s rarely comfortable enough with someone to actually say that.

this is why cassandra takes immense joy in how loud her family is. she isn’t bothered in the slightest and will?? never police them on their volume. her fear of silence does start to lessen, but it never goes away. and she’s honestly just developed a love?? of noise because of it.

cassandra very rarely loses her temper honestly?? she’s not the yelling and screaming type unless it’s with someone she cares deeply about - the two obvious (and mostly likely) ones paola and splinter. when cassandra gets angry, she’s far more prone to storming away and sulking than yelling, so that she can recollect herself and not say something that she’ll regret.

when does lose her temper and gets extremely angry, she starts crying. but she hates this, and if you back down because she’s crying, it’ll only make her angrier.

and in an argument, she’s far more likely to wear a poker face and map out the conversation via her clairvoyance. again, only paola and splinter really see her get worked up in the moment and just keep barreling through the argument whilst angry.

okay so, because earth’s gravity is so much weaker than capella’s, cassandra will wake up some nights, usually disoriented by her visions, and feel almost completely weightless- like she’s just going to fly off the surface of the earth. this is a terrifying experience for cassandra- despite the fact that she loves floating in her ship’s gravity chamber, the feeling like she’s going to fly right off the earth is so scary because she has no control over it.

if she’s sleeping alone, she’ll grab the edges of the mattress, as if trying to keep herself from flying away. if she’s with splinter, she’ll usually accidentally wake him up when she wakes up, and ask him to either hold her or lay on her. the feeling of his arms holding her tightly or the weight of his body on top of her makes her feel grounded. he’ll usually whisper affirmations to her (”you’re safe, you’re alright, this is real, i’m here, nothing’s going to harm you”) until she relaxes enough to fall back asleep.

the thing about adjusting to earth’s climate is that everything that’s different from capella was a million times worse on pyrrah.

it was so much hotter on pyrrah than it is on earth, and definitely than it was on capella. so cassandra eventually got used to that.

as for culture…cassandra lived in france for the first…two years? i think it was? maybe three- on earth, and cassandra had done a lot of research on earth in general, but especially on france, in the two months it took her to get there. i haven’t really thought much about her time in france- that’s something i need to work on tbh

cassandra doesn’t understand american politics at all. on capella there was lot more involvement in politics and everyone was critical of it- especially because of the ‘capellan cycle’, where a government would exist on capella for a few centuries before being overthrown and replaced for a few more centuries. so especially for cassandra, who was the daughter of a political thinker and revolutionary, and a capellan who grew up at the end of the current government’s cycle, she grew up very critical of authority and very aware of what was going on in the government. so the way americans know they’re unhappy with their government, but always know exactly what’s wrong with it or how to fix it, and are at times unwilling to put in the effort to change it…doesn’t make sense to cassandra

another thing cassandra doesn’t understand is like…consumerism. like this culture of constantly buying more, or espECIALLY things being made to be broken and replaced. for most of capella’s history resources were scarce, so shit had to be built to last for a LONG time. and this mindset never went away, even when capella began trading with other planets. so cassandra’s just ???? at how everything on earth is made to be replaced.

cassandra always gets very solemn and quiet on the day capella fell, lost in her own thoughts and guilt, and she usually reaches out to keandra (and to a lesser extent, brooklyn) on that day because they’re all in bad places on that day.

also consider- everyone knowing this is a bad day for cassandra and doing their best to make her smile in their own ways. everyone gives her 100x more hugs and makes sure she knows that they love her

it should be noted that before getting to pyrrah, with the exception of her time without her ship on ioavis, cassandra pretty much lived off of the food stored in her capellan caravel. usually these foods are dehydrated to make them last longer, and while they’re not…especially tasty, there was enough on the ship for 50+ people to live on for one year. so cassandra really had no need for money, since capellan ships don’t use fuel like earth ships do, and there were uniforms on board for clothing.

however, most of the clothing was far too big for cassandra, who was very short by capellan standards when she was a child, and this was the primary reason she learned how to sew- so she could make adjustments so she wasn’t tripping over her pants at the very least.

when on pyrrah, cassandra began an apprenticeship under a ship mechanic, and after a year cassandra was offered a job there. at the time, she was living with the royal family, so again…she pretty got whatever she needed, and all the money she made was saved up.

later on, after leaving pyrrah and parting ways with keandra, cassandra began to take up work as a translator, working with countless universities and libraries across the galaxy and translating thousands of audio files, all recorded in capellan.

while it is possible to understand capellan without knowing the meaning of the way it’s sung, a lot of subtle details are lost that way. so cassandra’s knowledge of the capellan language was sought after by many, especially since she’s thought to be one of the last two capellans left.

working as a translator also allowed cassandra to work while still traveling- having any and all files that needed translation sent to her ship.

on cassandra’s ship there’s a bunch of pictures on this shelf of

paola, cassandra and keandra

cassandra and dulcie

cassandra’s family photo

cassandra and brooklyn

cassandra, brooklyn, jayjay and owl

cassandra, brooklyn, keandra, and dulcie

cassandra, keandra, paola & the royal family of pyrrah

cassandra,oriel, nikola, theon, and forte

honestly the worst thing about work is that she can’t just say “i have a family emergency” because no one knows she has a family. so a lot of people think she’s flaky and unreliable when really, she’s just a good mom trying to help her sons take on an alien invasion.

this is somewhat resolved by the end of season one, because josie becomes the new fire chief (something that might have gone to cassandra had she not had to leave work so frequently), and josie knows that cassandra is an alien and that she’s protecting…someone. josie doesn’t know about the turtles completely just yet.

by season three, josie knows everything, and will cut cassandra slack when she says she has an emergency, which helps ease cassandra’s mind a lot once the city is back in order.

fireproof clothing is the norm on capella and it’s easy to find throughout the galaxy simply because there are so many races that can create/manipulate fire or are fireproof themselves, but before cassandra got her hands on a good amount of fireproof clothes, she frequently burned off the sleeves of her shirts by accident. her fire generally starts behind her shoulders and is pushed down her arms, and then out. so eventually cassandra had…no sleeves on her shirts.

now, however, most of her wardrobe is fireproof so she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.

cassandra undergoes her final inclination shift near the end of ‘winter in the woods.’ the emotions that cassandra has used to power/anchor her inclination are, in this order; rage, guilt, wonder, and love.

after dulcie’s death, her inclination fizzles out for about six months. she feels numb, and therefore has nothing to power her inclination with. when she gets to earth, it’s a little better, but she doesn’t have that strong emotional core that she used to, so she’s relying on passing emotions.

if anything, her powers are loosely tied to her pride, since every time she uses her powers to a greater extent, she’s trying to show off. but she has no…real core to rely on here. and because she’s falling in love with this family, it’d make sense for her to connect her powers to that love.

in later chapters of “winter in the woods,” she uses her powers more and more, and it’s out of a desire to protect, because of that love she has. and once the main plot of witw is over, it’d make so much sense that’d it happen almost subconsciously.

cassandra admits to being afraid to her loved ones fairly easily. she only puts up a tough facade if she’s face to face with an enemy. she’ll admits she is/was scared, then reassure her loved ones that it’s okay if they were scared too. and this is something she got from her mothers- cammilyn would freely admit when she was nervous before a speech, and evelyn was always honest when she was afraid. knowing someone else is scared can help one feel better- knowing that their fears are nothing to be ashamed of, and that even if they’re scared, they can still move forward, and make everything turn out okay