#cass spear

[katinacrisis]

currently thinking about how mary hatford did everything she could to keep neil alive but forgot to make sure he felt loved whereas cass spear did everything she could to make sure andrew felt loved but forgot she also had to keep him alive

[instigatorjosten]

ik ive ranted and cried like a baby already about Andrew viewing his self worth through what he can give others. but there’s also something about how for every good thing Andrew gets something terrible comes as a price immediately after.

got Cass, but got Drake. got Aaron, but got Tilda. killed Tilda, but lost Aaron. got Nicky, but got medicated. got Kevin/a future to live for, but got placed into the role if “Monster”. got Neil, lost him in Baltimore.

no wonder he sees everything as a two way deal and he’s just trying to not get scammed.

[iwriteonthisone]

Nothing just Andrew Minyard who loves so deeply he leaves deep indents in the things he holds. Andrew who claims that he cares for no one, needs no one. Andrew who withstood years of Drake's abuse just so he could have a loving mother figure. Andrew who refuses to talk about his feelings, but then Betsy Dobson makes him a cup of hot cocoa and gives him an attentive look. Andrew who loves no one. Andrew who is satisfied as being seen as controlling and heartless by his brother just so he could give him his idea of safety. Andrew who sees care from Nicky and tries to scare him away. Andrew who cares back. Andrew who learned that his teammate is a runaway and then made a deal to make him stay. Andrew Andrew Andrew

[teatimeisat4]

Early on in foster care, Andrew's caseworker tells him the phrase, "this too shall pass." Andrew doesn't think much of it until he's 7 years old and saying please wasn't enough to stop the man he should've been able to trust. From that point on, "this too shall pass" follows him from house to house. He thinks it waiting for a boring 50 minute period to pass in school, when a foster parent sends him to bed hungry, when the next family screams and yells even more than the last.

Then Cass Spear enters his life, bringing Drake Spear with her. The short phrase becomes his mantra because for Andrew, this too will pass. Andrew just had to wait for Drake's deployment and it would all be okay. Only, Drake doesn't leave and Andrew starts to lose faith in the words his caseworker had given him so many years prior. Against the odds, Andrew is reunited with Aaron and Nicky and Drake becomes a thing of the past. Now Andrew is at Palmetto and supposedly in control of his life.

For a while the phrase sits collecting dust, until he meets Neil. The strange boy with lying eyes and a lying mouth and for the first time he thinks "this too shall pass," and doesn't mean it as a source of comfort. Neils' shifty, always looking like he's ready to take off at a moments notice. Andrew attempts to dismiss Neil as temporary. Tries and fails even harder to move on from the boy. But Neil asks, Andrew obliges and suddenly he's in a bedroom and Drake is on top of him and Andrew, Andrew thinks "it didn't pass, it wasn't over."

Abruptly Drake is dead, and it has passed. The man is dead and dead men don't rise from their graves, (despite all his apocalypse talk Andrew doesn't actually believe in Zombies). Tentatively, Andrew considers this a sign to renew his faith in those words once more.

Andrew considers it ironic when meets Dr. Proust, so ironic he spends the first hour laughing. Andrew takes one last look at "this to shall pass," and disregards it entirely as a lie. Eventually Andrew is released and, somewhat to his surprise, Neil was still there, different, but there. Everything is fine, Neil keeps his hands to himself despite his attractive awful neck fetish, and Andrew might be okay.

Without warning Neil is gone. Vanished in a riot. After the panic, the blind fury that left a ring of bruises around Kevin's neck, a phrase appears unbidden in Andrew's mind. "He too shall pass," and Andrew is reminded of the thought he had when Neil first arrived. Andrew didn't want this one to leave. He curses the caseworker and her unhelpful phrases and when Neil finally reappears, scarred but stubbornly himself, Andrew discounts the phrase entirely. Leaving it once again to sit unused in the back of his mind.

(I had this thought in the shower I hope i'm making sense)

[ladystormverse]

“tell me, am i getting something mixed up, or did you promise me you’d talk to cass? you assured me i’d be the last of the foster kids, but if i’m not mistaken, after my release from the colony she took in six more. six, luther! now, i’m not exactly a math whiz, but even i know six is a lot more than zero. how many of them do you think were at home when drake came for a visit?”

just think about it: after andrew, there were six more kids in the spear family, damn it (and that’s not even counting the ones who came before andrew); innocent and later broken; those who were chewed up and spit out; children of the system, just like andrew. they didn’t know love. no one protected them. no one believed them. they were abandoned. their words meant nothing, even when they described truly horrific things. maybe some of them stayed silent, just like andrew, hoping to endure drake and his abuse. maybe some of them screamed for help with all their might, searching for support, but never found it.

(cass spear, you saw everything, admit it. it's impossible to just turn a blind eye to this. you just chose not to look)

when they didn’t fit the image of the ideal child, they were returned to the foster care system. no one saw how they fought with their last ounce of strength. no one heard them beg for mercy after they’d lost all hope. no one. noticed. a. thing. cuz they, the foster children, were only truly needed when they didn’t cause any inconvenience. to tell cass that her son, her own flesh and blood, was a complete scumbag who raped children meant, by definition, to cause that kind of fucking inconvenience.

it’s easier to say it was a misunderstanding. it’s easier to say they just imagined it. it’s easier to say, “no, that didn’t happen, they just dreamed it, or maybe it was just their imagination.” it’s easier to turn a blind eye to the fingerprints on the child’s neck. it’s easier to wash the bloodstained sheets, pretending that nothing terrible is happening. it’s easier to hear the screams but not react at all, and then ask how things are going at school; it’s easier to pretend that everything is going according to plan.

but “easier” doesn’t mean “right” at all.

[deadwingedangel]

i drew a younger andrew minyard and cass, didn’t quite turn out how i wanted it to but oh well.

[trulyaftg]

Italicised Oh

Cass climbed the stairs to Andrew's - her latest foster - room, only to fall short when the door was left open, unusual, since it was something the kid wasn't willing to trust them with yet.

She stepped in, to see his too-thin body shaking, lying beside the bed, wrapped in one of the spare blankets, with the rest of his bedding stripped hastily and shoved to the side. 

Expecting to comfort teenage typical self-harm, judging by the blood on the pillow cover that she almost tripped on, his newly-bought-but-now torn pajama pants also covered in them came to view. 

Oh. 

Oh.

Andrew's POV

[unfortunately-not-a-chip]

Currently thinking about Andrew Minyard and the word Love. Do you think Cass said it? Do you think he’d say it back? I understand Nora’s EC that he and Neil never say it and I wonder if it’s because the word never had meaning or if it’s because the word /did/ have meaning.

Then thinking of Aaron Minyard and Tilda in the same light, I assume she said it, that he said it, but I wonder how that tainted his ability to say it now?

Anyways just thoughts