#ch: cassia amaquelin

[starklore]

Cassia Amaquelin & Maximus Boltagon

“Don’t you want to know what you’re truly capable of?” Maximus asks softly. “Here, you’re barely more than a human. On Earth? With their vast oceans? You would be a Goddess, Cassia. You could be a Queen.”

He doesn’t say what they both know he’s thinking: “You could be my Queen.” The words hang in the air between them, unspoken, as almost as heavy as the choice she now has to make.

[starklore]

YOOOO TELL US MORE ABOUT CASSIA PLEASE

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT

remember when i said i wanted to use amber-heard-as-mera as an inhumans OC with water-based powers? well…i am now using amber-heard-as-mera as an inhumans OC with water-based powers (i know she has blonde hair in those edits but i couldn’t manage to get the red hair to look realistic, I think her hair might be a mix of blonde and red like how crystal’s hair has that weird black streak. Not exactly like that, her hair doesn’t have like a direct stripe of red, it’s more just like…her hair just comes out an even mix of blonde and red naturally, that’s just her hair.)

anyways!!!

So Cassia is the sister of Crystal and Medusa, she’s either the middle child or the oldest. Her power is basically controlling water, but only like…live water (like from natural water sources–oceans, rivers, etc). She might also have some other water based abilities. She can like, kind of control other water, but it’s pretty weak and she’s not great at it.

Unfortunately, in Attilan, they don’t have a lot of water and I think what they do have isn’t really natural (it’s like the result of colonization from a long time ago; it’s very possible that they’re running out of their resources, I think Maximus actually mentioned that when he was pitching his “lets go to Earth” idea in the pilot.) So her abilities in practice are very weak.

So she’s like Maximus in that if she wasn’t connected to the royal family she would be working in the mines. It’s possible she actually did spend some time in the mines before Medusa married Black Bolt; I’m still ironing out the timeline.

Because of that, she feels distant from her sisters, who both have powerful gifts, and there’s this kind of subtle feeling of betrayal that Medusa and Crystal have completely rejected their parents’ anti-caste politics, because they know that she’d be miserable and poor and hungry if Medusa hadn’t happened to marry Black Bolt. And she has that feeling of like…not belonging in the royal family, she hasn’t really adjusted to the label of princess and people haven’t completely accepted her as one anyway. She doesn’t have it as bad as Maximus, who has no abilities at all, but there’s definitely this kind of imposter syndrome going on.

So she and Maximus are kind of kindred spirits; neither of them really fit in and they both know they’re a stone’s throw away from being essentially slaves (or indentured servants if you’re feeling charitable.)

Maximus is a lot more vocal about that, and I think Cassia admires that about him. She’s pretty shy and introverted, she mostly keeps her head down and her thoughts to herself, and she would never dream of actually criticizing the political system, which probably is in part due to the fact that her parents were exiled for their trying to change the system. Medusa has tried to get away from her parents’ legacy out of bitterness; Cassia does it out of fear.

So seeing Maximus openly point out the flaws in the system, suggesting solutions, and even passive aggressively undermining Black Bolt by speaking to the miners about a totally hypothetical concept of going to Earth and like…not having to be miners, wouldn’t that be wild haha…I think Cassia really admires and envies that kind of chutzpah.   

Cassia and Maximus are shipped together (obviously) but they’ve kind of had this thing between them for awhile before the story starts, where they both kinda know the other person is interested but they haven’t acted on it. Possibly because it might be frowned upon since they’re technically in-laws, partly out of insecurity (not feeling like they deserve it & not being 100% about the other person’s feelings, especially after having been repeatedly rejected–sometimes subtly, sometimes not–by the people who were supposed to care about them throughout their lives), and also on Maximus’s side, partly because I think he’s just been more focused on his political endeavors than he has been on romance (or maybe that’s just what he tells himself lmfao.)

So the story doesn’t really have them developing feelings for each other, it just kind of brings that tension to a head. Ofc a big obstacle is Cassia having to choose whether to betray her sisters or not. Her relationships with them are strained (especially with Medusa; I think she feels less animosity towards Crystal just because she’s younger) but she does love them and doesn’t want to hurt them. Her siding with the coup has less to do with her relationship with Maximus than it does with the actual politics of the situation; she genuinely does believe that Max is a better leader and his ideas are important.

(Note that in this story, Medusa/Maximus isn’t a thing. Honestly i felt like that was such a lazy writing choice. Them being friends as kids could have been interesting if they ever followed up on it, but Max having feelings for her just felt…sloppy. Like “oh of course he hates his brother, he got the girl” when his backstory (being a human among inhumans, being a prince who got passed over for king, the caste system that puts people like him into indentured servitude which his brother doesn’t seem to have a problem with) is already sufficient motivation for his actions.)

I think her presence actually boosts his claim to the throne, too. Maximus wanted Crystal’s support because he knew people would more readily accept him as king with her endorsement, and I think Cassia serves that purpose too. Not to the same extent (Crystal’s a lot more well-liked among the genetic counsel and the court, because of her stronger abilities and extroverted nature) but it does help.

I think Cassia officially makes her decision when Crystal decides to leave; I think she’s been deliberating for awhile, has been leaning towards Maximus’s side if she has to but has been trying to figure out a way that she doesn’t have to choose sides, that she can stay neutral, and then Crystal defects without warning her, and Cassia hesitates, and Crystal’s “come on hurry” speech includes the phrase “he’s just a human”

And that’s about when Cassia makes her choice and decides that she’s staying. It’s a really emotionally charged moment and I think at first Max kinda fucks it up because he’s like still in politics mode so he’s just like “good job you made the right choice you won’t regret it they don’t deserve you etc etc” when she’s having a nervous breakdown and she snaps at him. Later he goes back and apologizes and is a little more sensitive about it.

That’s basically all I know rn but I wanna note that this kinda comes off as villain apologism and you know what, in this case it 1000% is. I actually do think that Maximus is in the right in the larger conflict of the series, his methods are sometimes fucked (and that’s gonna be dealt with and will probably cause conflict between him and Cassia) but honestly like…he’s right, politically he’s on the right side and that’s what I think. I’m sure the show is gonna have him be gloriously defeated by the good guys but that’s not what happens here.

Basically Maximus is an anti-hero in this story, not an antagonist, but to achieve that the only real change I’m making is the framing of the story. (Ofc we’re only a couple eps in so we’ll see where his character goes but that’s just my general plan for right now.)

Also I might make Cassia a part of LBL that we meet in Jez’s inhumans arc in book three instead of giving her a separate story, that’s what I’m leaning towards but I’m not totally sure yet. (I also kinda have to rework Jez’s entire inhumans arc bc originally Jez was gonna be manipulated into supporting the coup before deciding it’s bad, but as it turns out the coup is like…entirely justified, so I gotta figure out how to navigate that.)

But yeah that’s Cassia ty for asking!!!!