cassiawinters

[cassiawinters]

every social interaction i initiate feels like i’ve violated like 15 untold rules

[cassiawinters]

[cassiawinters]

KAT MCNAMARA // have you seen CASSIA WINTERS around the crash site? we’re trying to make sure they’re still alive after the crash! according to the manifesto SHE/THEY is a TWENTY SEVEN year old NON BINARY**. i hear they’re known being a HACKER. CASSIA is also known to be ALTRUISTIC yet also AVOIDANT at times. we have a couple questions for CASSIA when we find HER, we heard something about a secret they might have? such as THEY WERE RESPONSIBLE IN PART FOR A CAR CRASH THAT KILLED TWO PEOPLE! (dev, 31, gmt, they/she***)

TW: Car Crash, Death, Awful parents, Addiction, Cass' personality in general

Cassia was taught from a very young age to hate herself and everything different about her. That she was wrong, a monster, and that she would only bring death and pain in her wake. Something she still believes to this day, it’s not something you just simply decide to stop believing when everyone you’ve ever loved died as a result of something you couldn’t stop. She has failed to protect everyone, and that, in her mind, just proves her father right in that regard. She has a lot of self loathing and self hatred.

But she is not her father. And she refuses to be associated with him. she doesn’t believe in his work either. She’s pro a lot of things that she was ‘made’ with the intention of eradicating and being used against. And while she’s not a people person, while the very thought terrifies her, she has no problem standing up and being in the way when it counts.

She’s a selfless person with an extremely altruistic nature. She sees nothing wrong in hurting in the place of others. Especially those more deserving of living and of being pain free. That isn’t limited to people she knows either. She would put her life in danger for a perfect stranger without even thinking twice about it. The nature to protect others, is very prominent in her. No matter how much she tries to play it off or act like its the same as anyone else would do.

She cares about people, and while she can’t really say it, she can definitely show it and she does in both subtle and not subtle ways. She doesn’t let anyone she cares about not know it, whether that’s through touch, looks, concern, or just constantly checking on them. Or even just using a softer voice with them, or listening to them more than she would a normal person. She’ll never walk away from anyone she loves. And make no mistake she does know what love is. And she is one of the people who loves deeply and without remorse over it. Both platonic and romantic. She rarely makes the distinction because to her they are both equally as important to her. One isn’t less than the other.

Part of her resistance to let the words be out there, to really throw her cards on the table, to even consider a relationship or lasting friendships, or anything else of permanence, is that she has a huge fear of abandonment. of being left again, of not being enough. She’s suffered so many losses, so many setbacks, messed up so many things, and hurt people, that she doesn’t think she ever can be good enough for any of that. Never mind deserve it.

She’s been broken and remade in the name of one man’s mad vengeance quest, and then broken again through even more tragedy and loss. But she clawed herself back up and rebuilt herself. She’s made of iron and steel. That’s the one thing people forget when they set out to break someone. To strip them down to nothing for their own purpose. They forget that the person knows what it’s like to be at rock bottom. To have nothing, they know what it’s like to go through the worst in life, and survive. And that’s cassia at her core. She’s a survivor. She will walk through hell and come out of the other side. No matter what you throw at her, no matter what you do to her, she’ll survive, she’ll push herself back up from the ground. Because she’s endured worse and survived. So she knows she can. And god help anyone who pushes her to that extreme.

She’s not hard to get along with or speak to, she’s a good person at her core, and as much as social situations make her uncomfortable, she won’t be rude about it, unless the other person is too. She tries her best, even though she's awkward and that’s all she can do. But if people start unnecessary drama, she’s out, she’s gone, she will climb out the window and down the drain pipe if she has to. That sets her anxiety right off and she doesn’t know how to deal with that. And she doesn’t think she should have to anyway. She has social anxiety, so she’s not the best at making friends. But she does try to keep the friends she has. Even if she can’t really handle a lot of attention.

Cass has a penchant for trouble. She has a sarcastic sense of humour which doesn’t help and she will make jokes to ease situations, or just because she thinks it’s funny. Even if it might not be the best time or place. Her mischievous nature probably doesn’t win her any points either. Another thing that probably doesn’t win her any favours with some people is that she won’t hesitate to call someone out on their bullshit.

She finds it almost impossible to trust people. It would probably be easier to win the lottery than it would be to earn her undoubting trust. She’ll always have that thought in the back of her mind that it’s a trick, that she’s going to end up betrayed all over again. Though she’s not intentionally cruel, she’s actually quite shy. But after her father all but tortured her, she finds it hard to accept kindness, her lashing out with words, and sometimes physically is just her way of trying to protect herself. It’s an unhealthy way to think but she knows no different

Though while she’s bad with trusting people, she does build up affection for people in her life and she’s naturally softer with them both emotionally and humour wise, without noticing. Her loyalty can be earned, if you can put up with her. And to those people she’s extremely protective of. There isn’t anything that she wouldn’t do for them. Legal and very much illegal wise. She would legitimately die for those she cared for. And while she can’t trust other people, she does help people if she can. Whether that be with giving them a roof over their head for a few nights or hurting someone who has hurt them. She’s a giving person deep down. and she knows what it’s like to suffer, and she doesn’t want anyone else to have to.

She doesn’t really advertise she’s a hacker to unknown people. She has circles she travels in that get her steady business, and if she feels like it she can hack into a huge business and siphon off some cash without them ever being able to trace it back to her. Though she’s only done that twice before, and neither was for her own benefit. It was for the benefit of people who needed and deserved much more than money from the companies that had fucked them over.

She was always a bit of a computer genius and hacks into anything no real questions asked, for money. It’s not her dream job, but it lets her feel like she has control. Control that she’d been missing all her life. and that’s a huge thing for her, to have control for once, It’s why she can freak out if she loses control of a situation. She never learned that not being in control isn’t always a bad thing.

Nobody’s perfect and i can see people not liking her at all. She’s insubordinate, reckless, impulsive, sarcastic. All that fun stuff that makes her not the most easiest person in the world to like. She might be a pacifist to some degree, in the regard that she doesn’t want to hurt or kill anyone, and she probably couldn’t take any more blood on her hands, but if she has to step on a few toes, or break the law. It’s worth it to her to protect those she loves.

Cassia never attended any sort of school or college, she never had a mainstream education. Though she was taught the basics in the program she was confined to. But there was something about that, that, when she was able to, she taught herself more than she needed to know. It was like she was trying to make up for things she had lost by proving to herself that she could hide scars and faults and damage under intelligence. And she is intelligent, she has a big iq, and she studies things for fun, even to this day.

People could say that Cassia has a high pain tolerance, but, with her, it’s not that she doesn’t feel pain, or cry out after a point. It’s that she’s just used to pain and torture. And as a recovering addict, she knows she can't take any sort of pain relief anyway, so she just got even more used to pain.

It’s true that she’d most likely have more of a reaction to emotional pain than physical pain, something that she was trained to be used to. She could get injured and not even notice she was bleeding. Because it’s something she was so used to that it doesn’t even register in her mind to check on herself. It just happens. She’s also stitched herself up more than once.

Cassia has trouble with doing nothing. She can’t really stay still, she always has to be doing something, Always has to be on top of things and stimulating her brain. She gets restless super easy and part of it is that she’s not good at thinking things through. She acts on impulse. She doesn’t wait she leaps into things head first with no safety net. Which is both a blessing and a curse. She’s always been impulsive.

She has a heavy heart, and she feels things intensely, especially negative things like guilt and remorse. She will forever carry the guilt of things she’s done and caused, of the people she couldn’t save. she’s hard on herself and she doesn’t let herself forgive herself. She doesn’t seek out forgiveness either. Doesn’t think she deserves it or ever will.

She’s the type of person to face her fears head on when challenged with them. Deep down she knows the only way to overcome something is to stand and face it. She spent years running from her problems, from everything she fears and it only ends in disaster. People get hurt, she gets hurt. But sometimes she forgets that she’s just a human being, that she can hurt and feel and fail. That she can feel fear and have things she’s scared of losing. Just like she has things she’s scared of.

Her own emotions are often strangled and pushed to the back burner, in aid of helping someone else, or in aid of not feeling them and their effects. She hasn’t cried in several years for example. And she knows she struggles with putting herself first, with dealing with her own emotions. But she’s a master at compartmentalising and acting like nothing is ever wrong or gets to her

On the fear front, Cassia is a nervous flyer, she hates being in small, cramped spaces. She loathes elevators, refuses to even get in them. It’s a fear dating back to where she lived most of her life in confinement. Forcing her into a situation like that is a guaranteed breaking point. She also has a fear of birds.