#i think the fact that he has a daughter in dalen's closet also helps

[your-turn-to-role]

so, was rewatching s1 of lovm, got to episode three again. and i'm thinking about percy's backstory. and also because of sylas briarwood, thinking about dalen's closet

and percy's got a real interesting relationship with the concept of drowning, huh

i mean first of all he's almost drowned (or actually drowned) three major times in the story. and all of those had similar themes, though different outcomes

so to explain what i mean, let's look at these in chronological order

1) the river. one of the worst days of his life, if not the actual worst. watching your entire family murdered, being locked up and tortured, your siblings bodies dumped in the cells next to you, just to rub it in. after weeks of this, you learn your youngest sister is alive, and she helps you escape, it's the first tiny bit of hope you've had. and then they kill her. you realise you're on your own all over again. you're hurt and you're lost and you don't know what to do, you run because you can't do anything else. and then you trip and before you know it you're in water and it's freezing and you can't breathe or move and you're so scared and so tired- and you don't remember much after that

when that fishing boat finds percy, he's basically in a fugue state, he has no idea what's going on and is barely responding to anything, his mind just couldn't take it anymore and left. and it doesn't get any better when he comes back to himself, because he survived, but for what. they're all gone. he couldn't do anything about it. he couldn't even save his sister like she saved him

and yes, they eventually save whitestone, and get cass back, but that experience stays with him

because then we get 2) duskmeadow.

percy's just learned that ripley bought up near industrial amounts of gunpowder, and he's terrified. he doesn't know what she's planning, but he knows what she will do with his weapons will change the world for the worse. it'll get countless people killed. and he made the decision to let her go, because at the time his personal revenge mattered more to him. he's feeling that "i survived for what" more than ever, because now not only did he survive when his family didn't, he didn't deserve to be the one that survived. none of the others would have caused destruction on this scale. he's not just alive for no reason, him being alive made things worse. (this is kinda explicitly his most suicidal point in the campaign, to the point of he literally wrote a goodbye letter that evening, and then just kept it on his person knowing vox machina would find it when his mistakes inevitably got him killed)

and so he goes to ask the raven queen for help. he's not yet reached the point where he's stopped trusting in gods (this meeting is about to be what sparks that), and he knows she's helped vax, so maybe she can help him, tell him how to fix this, he'll do anything

but there's only one way to talk to the raven queen. and that's to willingly let yourself drown in the communion pool.

and he tries, he tries so hard. he's putting every bit of trust he has in the raven queen right now, that this will be okay. but it's freezing and he can't breathe and he's so scared and so tired and all he can think about is how he survived and he shouldn't have, and then he has a panic attack. the only reason it eventually works is because he hits his head on the stone of the pool and then he's too confused and hurt to fight it

and when he finally talks to her, she tells him he can't fix it. that he was a broken person right from the start.

so far his two experiences with drowning have not only caused him lasting trauma around the whole experience, but continually affirmed that he's not only incapable of saving anyone he cares about, he actually makes the situation worse just by getting involved. and drowning honestly in itself makes a pretty good metaphor for how overwhelming and out of his control all of this is

but 3) dalen's closet. god, this was so good for percy and vex in so many ways, you can keep meta-ing about this episode for years. and in this case, sylas' attempt to murder vex and percy? chain them up and drop them from a cliff into the ocean

they're both drowning. there's no easy way out, and no one around who could rescue them

their attempts to free themselves, while clever, don't work

vex loses consciousness

it's just percy, alone, about to lose the person he loves most in the world, again. to a man who only knew vex even existed because percy got her involved

and percy doesn't panic

by all rights he should have, he's certainly got more than enough reason to. but he manages to stay calm enough to figure out a way to get his head above water, and to yell for help, because his fault or no he is not losing anyone else

and because of that, their friends can find them in time. he didn't get vex killed, he saved her

he's not helpless underwater anymore. and he's certainly not broken beyond repair. and it's only now that he's come far enough to realise that

[essayofthoughts]

So. I was having some Cassandra thoughts after writing despite everything for @romeoandjulietyouwish and I figured some people might be interested.

Cass and Percy’s trauma is very different, for all it comes from the same event. Percy was tortured and we see that he consistently has a very bad reaction to having his self-control taken from him in anyway - he locks up when he gets Hold Person’d, he has a panic attack when he’s blinded, losing his memories messes with him badly. But for him a lot of it seems to be that he takes comfort in physical freedom - the freedoom to move, to go unrestrained and, when needs be, to retaliate. He was tortured, and his primary fears reflect that.

Cass watched her family be tortured, but her trauma comes much more from the Briarwoods’ manipulation of her. As a vampire Sylas could Charm her easily enough, and gaslighting and emotional manipulation would be likely from Delilah. While Percy was very simply denied control of his body, most likely via restraints and blindfolds and being physically tortured, there was a physical reason his control of himself was taken away.

But for Cass, it’s all mental - it’s all internal.

Let’s take a left turn.

Percy names the first of his children for one of his deceased siblings, but not the others. And- well, you’d think starting with naming his first child and daughter after his eldest sister, and the words of the players in the Campaign Wrap-Up regarding the Perc’ahlia quarter-elves would indicate an intent to name Percy and Vex’s children after Percy’s lost siblings - and yet, as we see, he didn’t. Some are clearly named after other relatives - Wolfe and Melanie are de Rolo names, and of course Vax’ildan for Vex’s brother - and some are named after other loved ones - Pike, Zahra - but where did the names of Percy’s other siblings go?

We don’t know a huge amount about Cass’ life after the Campaign - we see a little of her in Dalen’s Closet, we know Percy and Vex try to help her when they see her struggling with all that happened, but despite the fact she’s a leading figure of Whitestone neither version of the Tal’Dorei Campaign Guide tell us much about her. The Doylist reason is simple: as an NPC character she’s not going to sell the books as well as the Player Characters. The Watsonian? After everything she’s been through she is likely astoundingly private.

There’s also the fact that if there’s anyone’s sake for which Percy would forgo naming his children for his siblings, it’s his last remaining sibling.

We don’t know if Cassandra has a partner or children. She could be asexual or aromantic or both - she could be too traumatised to consider it, but given the hope of Percy’s conclusion I’d find it a bit of a let down if, even with Percy and Vex seeking to help her, Cassandra didn’t get that hope too.

And Percy only names one of his children for his siblings. For whom else would he forgo naming all of them for those he lost?

Given Cassandra’s specific trauma, having her sense of reality uprooted, having her control of herself destroyed or warped due to mental control, being at once trapped in and a stranger to her own body if indeed she was fed on by Sylas - I have to wonder if she wouldn’t find the prospect of pregnancy incredibly retraumatising. Nine months of one’s body changing in ways one cannot control, in ways which permanently changes one and which can cause death for oneself or the foetus or both-

Yeah, given everything, I think Cassandra would find the prospect horrifying and terrifying and traumatising.

But she is a de Rolo. And we already know how Percy, the least involved with the family’s political and diplomatic affairs, still places such weight on legacy. I would be surprised if Cassandra didn’t feel the weight of it too. If she didn’t want to contribute to the family legacy too.

And so, the crux of the matter:

I find it quite likely that, not all that long after Vesper Elaina de Rolo was born and named, Cassandra and Percy had a talk.

Whether Cassandra was in a place to consider familial legacy before the Campaign’s end is a question we may never know the answer to. She was ~18, newly freed of her long-term abusers, finally given half a chance to grieve her family before being saddled with the weight of a city by her elder brother and then by refugees as the whole continent was wracked by dragon attacks. I suspect, not unlike Percy, she was only really able to process after the events of Vecna’s rise. I suspect too that she only really started to consider the idea of rebuilding the de Rolo family after Percy and Vex had (somewhat accidentally) already begun the process.

And- I think it’s perfectly likely she adores her niece. After all, their family had been destroyed by the Briarwoods: now it is being rebuilt. There are not only two de Rolos left - Vex has married into the family, Vesper has been born to the family. The idea is there.

But I do think that Cassandra would not, after all of her experiences, be one to rush into romance or any kind of relationship, let alone children. As already stated, I think she’d find the prospect of pregnancy retraumatising.

But. We know just how stubborn Percy is. We know too that Cass got her way in fetching their mother’s armour and joining Percy against the Briarwoods. We know that Percy calls Cassandra a brat, seemingly due to pre-Briarwoods interactions. I suspect, if anyone can out-stubborn Percy, it’s Cassandra. She would just need a reason to.

Hence: I think that, shortly after Vesper was born, Cassandra and Percy had a conversation - about their losses, about the family names that they’re the only ones with a right to pass on. About how many names there are, and which they would like to pass on.

Both de Rolos feel guilty about what happened during the massacre and occupation. I do not struggle to believe that Percy would willingly cede the right to their siblings’ names to Cassandra. Their mother’s name -  that is already in Cassandra’s hold given that it’s her middle name. Their father’s name is partially in Percy’s, as namesake of his middle name.

And besides, Percy has friends and loved ones to name children for too. There would have been other relatives who were lost in the attack. There would have been relatives and ancestors whose histories Percy found fascinating and perhaps had considered as names he might give any children he had, if he were ever to marry. In a way, Cassandra asking to take charge of their siblings’ names gives him leeway to name his children for relatives we know he found interesting enough to memorise the stories of - such as Melanie and Wolfe, given that was a story Percy recounted on-stream.

I don’t think Cassandra would rush into anything. We do not know enough about Cass’ life, post-stream, to really know if she would ever have the inclination or desire to have children.

But we do know that, though Percy has other siblings he could have named his children for, he named only one child directly for his lost family, gave one other child a name partially of his middle name and also his father’s name - a name he already had right to.

But he didn’t name any others.

If there was anyone else Percy would agree had right to those names, it would be Cassandra. I do not think it unlikely that, in far off good time, the rest of their siblings’ names lived again.