—i was just too focused on the magic to see it

i was too focused on the magic to see anything. sideblog for witherward by hannah mathewson

[cassiasims]

by popular demand (not wanting to flood my main with witherwardposting), here is my brand new witherward sideblog. can’t promise that all my witherward posting will stay here, but i’ll sure try. hello and welcome

abt me:

-i am the original witherward stan. i stumbled across witherward in early 2021 (right after publication), decided to give it a whirl, and have been obsessed with it ever since. i nearly failed my first a level exam because it was the day after wayward released and i was so emotionally distraught after reading it that i couldn’t think about anything else and skipped my revision session. i love these books very much.

-speaking of wayward: as much as the marketing likes to claim that these are standalone novels i strongly disagree. wayward stuff will always be tagged as both witherward AND wayward. this blog will likely lean more towards wayward in terms of shitposting/shipping because the wayward cast lends itself better to it, but expect a healthy mix of both. basically: read wayward and come back later

-i like to post about this series as if it’s an established juggernaut in the ya genre and not just a tiny indie duology that nobody has heard of. this is for my sanity and also because i live in perpetual hope that one day this series will get popular and i’ll be able to sit on my ivory tower and tell you all that i told you so. don’t worry about it

-i have switched urls with my main blog—message me for the @

[cassiasims]

TO EVERYONE WHO FOLLOWED ME ON HERE BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THIS WAS MY MAIN: i did a temporary URL swap in order to throw off some irls from finding my main blog after a post breached containment. i’ve finally switched back, so you can find my main here: @eliotquillon

[cassiasims]

what if you were NINETEEN and accused of MURDER and had to rig an ELECTION because you were EXILED and when you finally came back you found out your EX was trying to FUCK YOUR BABY SISTER who picked up the HAUNTED DOLL you cursed in order to get back at said ex and also your other ex (the hot one) BLACKMAILED YOU into making her your secretary and throughout all of this you’re DEAF in ONE EAR!!

[cassiasims]

list of top 10 noncanon witherward universe ships as cooked up by tumblr user cee cassiasims:

1) eliot/ollivan. the og ‘wouldn’t it be funny’ rarepair. in an imaginary universe with witherward book 3 where they inevitably would’ve met (ollivan self-exiling to france and eliot daydreaming about visiting paris/mentioning how easy it is to dimension hop back to the witherward using portals in other countries is Not a coincidence) i would be so fucking insufferable about them. i am already insufferable about them. them having sex would make everyone’s lives worse including their own and i cannot help but root for it

2) ollivan/virgil/lev. far more problematic than ollivan/virgil (which will also appear on this list) for the sole reason of dragging lev into it. exists purely in my mind as a one off threesome that temporarily ruins ollivan’s friendship with them both and makes everything worse overall, much to lev’s disappointment. also virgil being the centre of a love triangle is just a really funny concept to me so

3) eliot/cassia. let’s just set aside the fact that cassia is a comphet lesbian for a moment. or maybe don’t! so many fun flavours for this one. hooking up all along while she’s with gedeon….right person wrong time….unrequited crush on eliot’s end that just leads to resentment….just walk with me for a moment. eliot/cassia is like the stem cell of witherward ships it can be anything you want it to be 💜

4) hester/alana. PROBLEMATIC AGE GAP YURI now cheer. ok yeah i guess alana could’ve had ollivan and cassia young and maybe the gap isn’t that big but still. i think they have messy hate sex and also i think hester is a stone top. came to me in a dream. technically they were in a room together that one time at fisk’s ball so it’s possible!!!

5) ollivan/virgil. really important to me that everyone knows this was canon TO ME given ollivan’s weird fucking resentment over virgil “abandoning” him to get a boyfriend but we’ll work with the letter of the law here. in my head this is a deliberate foil to the canon onesided jasper/ollivan with ollivan being in unrequited love with boybestie virgil. and also i think they fooled around a bit before virgil started seeing lev but neither of them deeped it that much. honestly this ship is like the foundation that enabled all my other non-canon insanity so we have a lot to thank it for

6) eliot/fowler. hatesex + the inherent eroticism of fucking your father’s murderer. makes so much sense it’s almost boring. next

7) ilsa/cassia. a bit weird since ilsa is famously the sister of cassia’s ex but that’s kind of a recurrent problem with the femslash ships in this series so i just ignore it. cassia canonically has a huge friendcrush on ilsa it isn’t hard to take it from there. see eliot/fowler on ‘makes so much sense it’s almost boring.’ next!

8) sybella/lev/virgil. another ship that exists because i think it’d be funny to psychologically torture ollivan (lev and virgil finally open their relationship but to his EX and not him). but also there’s a vision here…ollivan did promise society secretary to lev and virgil and presumably they got the position when sybella got promoted to president after ollivan left. and they do search camden together as a group of 3 in wayward. i think virgil is honestly just lev-sexual but if he’s tolerating any third it’s sybella tbh they have complementary personalities. and also it’s funny

9) sybella/cassia: another ‘let’s give ollivan psychic damage’ ship, this time with his ex gf and his baby sister. but also there’s roots here…sybella and cassia genuinely do have a lot in common and sybella advocates for cassia a lot in wayward. and also i think cassia needs someone firm to shock her into her gay awakening. did i mention it’d kill ollivan

10) eliot/cassia/gedeon: maybe polyamory could’ve saved them. probably not but it’s fun to try. plus you can call them the zoo trio and that’s so cute. if this were going down a canon friendly slant it’d be eliot as cassia and gedeon’s third but idgaf. in my fantasy world gedeon waits hopefully outside cassia’s bedroom door in case she graciously allows him to be her and eliot’s third once in a blue moon. and that should be respected.

[cassiasims]

in my head and my heart cassia sims is a comphet esbian (and i don’t just mean this in a headcanon way, i think the evidence in wayward is strong enough to suggest that this was a potential storyline had there been another book deal) but . i am getting drawn in by the potential of eliot/cassia. the unfulfilled tension of being bound together by someone who makes everyone he speaks to feel special and knowing that the feeling can’t be quite real because you see him doing the same thing to someone else right in front of you. the matching depressive episodes and daddy issues and shyness that gets called out as being cynical or antisocial. always being everyone’s second choice but what if they were each other’s first. like come ON!

[cassiasims]

also something about how eliot is the no.1 suspect following gedeon’s disappearance but cassia is a close no.2. neither of them fully trusted by their adoptive family for no fault of their own. desperately wanting to connect to each other but holding off until the last second and by then it’s too late….yeah. there’s omething there i think.

[cassiasims]

don’t be alarmed by the fact that i posted this right after ilsa/cassia propaganda-ing. i promise i’m not going to go too crazy with the cassia multishipping

[cassiasims]

in my head and my heart cassia sims is a comphet esbian (and i don’t just mean this in a headcanon way, i think the evidence in wayward is strong enough to suggest that this was a potential storyline had there been another book deal) but . i am getting drawn in by the potential of eliot/cassia. the unfulfilled tension of being bound together by someone who makes everyone he speaks to feel special and knowing that the feeling can’t be quite real because you see him doing the same thing to someone else right in front of you. the matching depressive episodes and daddy issues and shyness that gets called out as being cynical or antisocial. always being everyone’s second choice but what if they were each other’s first. like come ON!

[cassiasims]

also something about how eliot is the no.1 suspect following gedeon’s disappearance but cassia is a close no.2. neither of them fully trusted by their adoptive family for no fault of their own. desperately wanting to connect to each other but holding off until the last second and by then it’s too late….yeah. there’s omething there i think.

[cassiasims]

cassia shooting ilsa is such a beautiful piece of toxic yuri….must do more with this….

[cassiasims]

eliot quillon not knowing how to love the father he inadvertently murdered 🤝 ollivan sims not knowing how to love the sister he wasn’t allowed to grow up with . is this anything

[cassiasims]

in my head and my heart cassia sims is a lesbian (and i don’t just mean this in a headcanon way, i think the evidence in wayward is strong enough to suggest that this was a potential storyline had there been another book deal) but . i am getting drawn in by the potential of eliot/cassia. the unfulfilled tension of being bound together by someone who makes everyone he speaks to feel special and knowing that the feeling can’t be quite real because you see him doing the same thing to someone else right in front of you. the matching depressive episodes and daddy issues and shyness that gets called out as being cynical or antisocial. always being everyone’s second choice but what if they were each other’s first. like come ON!

[cassiasims]

ollivan sims you will always and forever be the town bicycle as far as i’m concerned (jasper/ollivan, sybella/ollivan, virgil/ollivan, virgil/ollivan/lev throuple, canonically flirting with anything that moves) but i will admit that i have underrated eliot’s shipping potential. eliot/ilsa…eliot/gedeon…eliot/cassia…eliot/fowler…my forever guilty pleasure eliot/ollivan……..

[cassiasims]

in my head and my heart cassia sims is a comphet lesbian (and i don’t just mean this in a headcanon way, i think the evidence in wayward is strong enough to suggest that this was a potential storyline had there been another book deal) but . i am getting drawn in by the potential of eliot/cassia. the unfulfilled tension of being bound together by someone who makes everyone he speaks to feel special and knowing that the feeling can’t be quite real because you see him doing the same thing to someone else right in front of you. the matching depressive episodes and daddy issues and shyness that gets called out as being cynical or antisocial. always being everyone’s second choice but what if they were each other’s first. like come ON!

[cassiasims]

well i just think that sometimes a found family can be a father-killer in a 3 year long depressive episode and a comphet lesbian with a terrible case of third culture syndrome and a 30 year old paraplegic chainsmoker with an opioid addiction and a washed-up 80 year old spymaster disguised as a twink and a former human trafficking victim and a closeted 15 year old mad scientist and their teenage hereditary absolute monarch who kidnapped an omniscient 12 year old nonbinary prophet from a doomsday cult. and that should be valid.

[cassiasims]

but i draw the line at teenage assassin with a gambling problem. step too far

[cassiasims]

well i just think that sometimes a found family can be a father-killer in a 3 year long depressive episode and a comphet lesbian with a terrible case of third culture syndrome and a 30 year old paraplegic chainsmoker with an opioid addiction and a washed-up 80 year old spymaster disguised as a twink and a former human trafficking victim and a closeted 15 year old mad scientist and their teenage hereditary absolute monarch who kidnapped an omniscient 12 year old nonbinary prophet from a doomsday cult. and that should be valid.

[cassiasims]

the real pressing question is what the fuck were sybella lev and virgil getting up to while ollivan and cassia were having family drama on the tram in whitechapel. in my heart of hearts i know sybella was probably yelling at them but i do think it’d be really funny if they were just skipping off into the sunrise together having a great time

[cassiasims]

cassia’s ‘i’m so tired of wanting to be a changeling’ exchange with hester in wayward punches me in the gut every fucking time because like. Do you think hannah mathewson Knows how deeply that resounds with the lesbian experience. that desperate bone-aching desire to be something you’re not and knowing that just because you can’t change yourself doesn’t mean you’ll stop wanting it. like i fully maintain that a) cassia is coded as a lesbian with comphet and b) it was probably accidental but my GOD….

[cassiasims]

*remembers that i’m supposed to be shitposting on here* do you think one of the reasons why cassia has so much beef with ollivan is because he’s openly bi and she has internalised homophobia

[cassiasims]

cassia’s ‘i’m so tired of wanting to be a changeling’ exchange with hester in wayward punches me in the gut every fucking time because like. Do you think hannah mathewson Knows how deeply that resounds with the lesbian experience. that desperate bone-aching desire to be something you’re not and knowing that just because you can’t change yourself doesn’t mean you’ll stop wanting it. like i fully maintain that a) cassia is coded as a lesbian with comphet and b) it was probably accidental but my GOD….

[cassiasims]

cassia being the one to insist on looking for ilsa out in the otherworld is just. Gah. because while it isn’t stated outright the implication is very much that cassia was the only one who believed that ilsa could be out there in the otherworld. she outright says that if there was even a chance at ilsa being alive then she had to take it. such a devastating parallel to ollivan being stuck in the otherworld for a year and deliberately staying in plain sight + yet nobody bothering to come look for him. i’m ill

[cassiasims]

it’s crazy how so much of cassia’s behaviour in this book can be chalked up to her INSISTENCE that she won’t let what happened between her and ollivan happen between ilsa and gedeon. she goes out of her way to stop ilsa from feeling the way she did even when ilsa is actively hostile towards her. with an autism diagnosis and family therapy she would be fucking unstoppable GOD i love her

[cassiasims]

cassia being the one to insist on looking for ilsa out in the otherworld is just. Gah. because while it isn’t stated outright the implication is very much that cassia was the only one who believed that ilsa could be out there in the otherworld. she outright says that if there was even a chance at ilsa being alive then she had to take it. such a devastating parallel to ollivan being stuck in the otherworld for a year and deliberately staying in plain sight + yet nobody bothering to come look for him. i’m ill