#its been living in my head rent free so i must evict it!! alsdjfal

[arcanaaa]

Divination, Foretelling & Seeing the Future, and the side-effects that come with the gift of Sight.

Shoutout to @hellfrze because this came from screaming about Cana and Gray's dynamic but I need to talk about Cana's Visions. It's something that I've kinda kept purposefully vague over the years because at the time the series wasn't quite finished and I wasn't entirely sure how to implement her abilities in this blog's canon. However, I've had a lot of thought and discussion with various partners ( special shoutout also to my love @shinebrightlikealion for letting me also scream about Cana.............. ) about Cana's ability to see the future and so, in true Ceres (TM) fashion, I will word-vomit all my thoughts and feelings about this!

So, let's start at the beginning and also mention some distinguishing about future vision. We know that seeing the future is canonically possible, as we know that the only other person in FT canon who can see into the future is Carla, who is an exceed from Edolas. So it stands to reason that there are humans who also possess this ability and have likely passed this ability along for generations.

I believe that Cana's abilities were passed down from her mother's side of the family. Her mother's bloodline specifically is a mystery, so she can only guess that this was something that was passed on hereditarily from Cornelia. Whether Cornelia herself had the ability to see the future is anyone's guess. That being said, it's also understood in canon that Cana has high magical aptitude & power, a trait that she shares with one other person-- Gildarts Clive.

The combination of genetics with her future vision passed down from her mother and her inheritance of high magical power from her father brings a unique cocktail that manifests during the early stage of her childhood. Cana's visions manifest just shortly after her mother dies and she is forced to seek out her Gildarts at Fairy Tail. It is then that she begins to receive visions of the future at a young age-- and given that she is still grieving over her mother’s death, along with her disappointment and dismay to learn Gildarts having no knowledge of him having conceived a child, Cana is frightened over what’s happening to her. Her visions come to her in confusing, shattered fragments, like pieces of broken glass from a stained glass window. She can only see a piece of a whole picture, but the picture is something she does not recognize and she is left alone to make sense of what her visions give her.

How this would look to anyone observing Cana is that she will appear as if she is daydreaming; she'll be staring off into space, her body completely still yet you could easily knock her down or move her and she wouldn't even notice. She wouldn't realize anything was happening to her body because her visions had sundered her from her body. She would be severely disassociating and completely vulnerable to the happenings of her environment.

At the time Cana thought that she was sick, and went to Makarov in the hope that he could tell her if there was a treatment. However, the moment Cana described her symptoms, he informed her of what her abilities were and that there was unfortunately no cure. He suggested that if she felt that a vision was about to take her that she find a place that was somewhere quiet and safe. Unfortunately, the halls of the guild were no place for a child to remain safe in, and so she was forced to seek residency at the orphanage ran by the church. 

While Father Block was a dedicated man of the cloth, he was too busy to dedicate his time to providing Cana the proper attention that she needed, resulting in Cana having to learn and identify the signs of what triggered a vision and learn how to ground herself once the vision released its hold over her-- all by herself. Cana had to learn how to cope with this ability for several years until she found out through a happy accident that she could channel her abilities by using her tarot cards to ‘guide’ her visions and make sense of what they’re trying to tell her. Now granted Cana was only just beginning to learn how to interpret the mean of the Major and Minor Arcana, but the moment when a vision overtook her senses, the cards acted as a medium for her to interpret and understand just exactly what she saw. Over time she would eventually be able to interpret her visions without the assistance of her cards, but that would be further in the future during her adulthood when her magic develops and matures fully.

This is all well and good a little after she understands what’s happening to her. But as a child, Cana is frightened and scared of her abilities and it’s through trial and error that she ends up figuring out what the signs are of an impending ‘attack’, as it were. For the first year since she came to Fairy Tail, she had no one to help her or comfort her when she came back from a vision, so she couldn’t allow herself to expose how vulnerable and raw that a vision left behind of her. It isn’t until Gray shows up and that they become close that that changes.

Up until now, the only person Cana had ever told anyone about her abilities was Master Makarov; so it is understandably alarming and distressing for another child to witness her vision ‘taking’ over Cana-- for some, it would appear as if Cana is possessed (and they wouldn’t be wrong in a sense), but luckily the vision lasts only a moment, less than a minute or two before Cana is ‘release’. It’s here that she explains reluctantly that sometimes she ‘goes away’ until her episode is done, and then she ‘comes back’. When pressed on whether this was hurting Cana, she explains that the only danger she feels is when a vision takes her before she can prepare herself, meaning she can get somewhere safe so that no one can take advantage of her defenseless state.

I imagine Gray in this instance taking it upon himself to being her shield and protector, to be someone for her to rely on, and eventually he would be able to catch an ‘attack’ early enough to guide Cana to somewhere quiet or to provide a distraction so that she has a moment to prepare herself before her Sight takes her. These episodes are fairly light and normally last about thirty seconds to a minute. However, there are some extreme instances where there is no warning and it’s then that it would be considered an attack that leaves a visceral reaction behind. 

The difference between being ‘taken’ and an ‘attack’ is the level of awareness Cana feels in the aftermath and how quickly she recovers from the images that flood her mind. In most cases, Cana can only see fleeting scenes that are very brief and while confusing as a whole, she can place the time and make a distinction of when these events will occur. However, when an attack happens, she is left severely disorientated and overstimulated that she is often collapses from the overload to her senses. Cana copes by grounding herself by using her surroundings and senses to stabilize herself until she calms down, and Gray (perhaps more often than not) is a huge comfort for her when this occurs.

As Cana becomes older, the frequency of being ‘taken’ by her Sight is reduced by a large margin, yet the caveat to this is that the rate of severity and frequency of being ‘attacked’ fluctuates. These attacks proceeds along the timeline of canonically events before Lucy joins Fairy Tail, and it isn’t until Loke joins Fairy Tail that the ‘attacks’ spike, leading to several tragic events that Cana predicts and is unable to prevent.

After Lucy joins Fairy Tail, the ‘attacks’ become few and far between, but unpredictable and leave her in a vulnerable state of uncertainty. The only aid that seems to help manage they symptoms of her ‘attacks’ is from drinking alcohol, which up until this point Cana only participated in drinking under casual circumstances. When she discovers that alcohol numbs her senses to the point that she doesn’t sick or distressed from the ‘attacks’, Cana wastes no time in indulging in this vice whenever the occasion called.

It’s a delicate balancing act for the Seer, and it isn’t by any means a perfect (or healthy) way to cope with the symptoms of her abilities, but it’s all she knows given her current support system and what she goes through mentally while trying to pass her S-Class nomination trials for several years in a row. Could she have let more people know how much she was struggling to cope with her visions? Yes. Would they have helped her? Possibly. Was she willing to open herself up and allow herself to be vulnerable enough to let others know? Nope~! Because to admit that she could see the future would invite questions and scrutiny and doubts, as well as a slew of expectations that Cana would have had no frame of reference to meet, let alone any desire to fulfill. Not to mention, there are days when her ‘attacks’ are so bad that she sometimes can’t distinguish what the difference between ‘reality’ and her vision. The lines blur that they overlap and often she ends up having panic attacks that cripple her, preventing her from even performing everyday tasks let alone her duties as a mage. 

And while her visions are treated with a level of respect and reverence, like modern day today, it is very much an invisible disability that a lot of people misunderstand and fail to truly realize how much living with such an ability affects Cana’s everyday life. The only ones that would truly understand what she goes through is Gray, Loke and Mirajane. All three have an unspoken understanding over what Cana goes through and do their best to support her and help her, but more than anything, they give her space to deal with her symptoms without infantilizing her.

Cana is a independent, proud and headstrong but stubborn woman who would never put herself in a position to ask for help, even from the ones she loves. Nevertheless, she desperately needs their support, even if it’s to talk her through an ‘attack’, to guard her when she’s in a dangerous situation, or even just to hold her-- Cana appreciates the help immensely.

Eventually Cana will feel comfortable enough to ask for help when handling her symptoms alone overwhelms her. But until that time, expect her to carry on with a grin and laugh-- just don’t pay too close attention to her complexion, how her pallor is much paler than before, or how her skin shines with sweat, or see the tremors that constantly shiver through her body.

It’s alright-- nothing to see here.