hello!
it's been a minute hasn't it? before i get any hopes up, i am not continuing this story. i've grown out of the rick and morty space recently but i still love cas and rick so i wanted to come here and say something to y'all. this little bonus chapter is just going to be a space for me to answer any unanswered questions and explain certain things i wish i expanded on in the story and comments from various point of the story. so... here you go!
first most common question i see is "why am i here" or "why am i reading this?" and really the most likely answer is ✨daddy issues✨ or any other form of authority figure/parental issues. and if you don't have those... then idk what you're doing here.
secondly, a brief thing on a comment i get sometimes, cas' name compared to castiel's. yeah, i actually did draw inspiration for castiel's name for cas' name. she was originally going to be aurora borealis pines, after the northern lights since her powers are electromagnetic and stuff. cause the northern lights happen cause of the earths magnetic field and stuff. but i started a rewatch of supernatural at the same time and changed her name very very very last minute to cassiopeia andromeda pines. also i don't think i ever mentioned this either but it was stanford that named cas during the short week he knew her as a baby. so yeah. that's all on cas' name lol.
thirdly, cas' confusing set of powers. in the early planning of this story, I had no intention of ever explaining cas' abilities and where they came from. i just wanted her to be born with them and that was it. however, as i developed her, i had some cool ideas and the one i settled on was actually a little similar to america chavez' and this was before i ever knew anything about her origin. i had the idea that cas' mother came from a planet where powers like that were common but not nearly as powerful as cas' was but because she was that species and human, it made her kind of even stronger. to bring it back to inspo from the mcu, kind of like ego in the guardians of the galaxy where all his attempts to create his power in a child failed until he mixed it with a human so.
i had a plan for later in the second book that never made it to fruition for all that to be revealed and it was gonna be kind of meta like when rick complains about "doing a star wars" in the finale of season 4. cas would make a similar comment about the marvel universe or something like that. i was gonna set up for cas' mother to come into play during that and taken the place of "ego" and she was gonna have the vibes of hela from the mcu. it was all super cool but ultimately, it just didn't work out and the cookie crumbled a different way.
going off her powers, the pointless arc of her glowing veins which i swear had a bigger purpose that was to be explored at some point. as mentioned, cas was kind of meant to be the most powerful of her "kind". so it was a way to set up something bigger as her powers are very much tied to her emotions and both times her powers did that were times of high stress. cas never knew just how powerful she was intended to be. the whole "very lightly controlling the thoughts of people using the electromagnetic pulses from their brain" that was in one chapter (the vindicators chapter i believe) and never mentioned again was also a part that was going down that route but it never came to fruition. to summarize, everything she does in this book was minuscule in the grand scheme of what i had planned for her to reach. think of it like with how scarlet witch started with just moving things around in a cell and then is now this insanely powerful being who has still barely scratched the surface of what she can do. i'm so upset i never got to the point of being able to show her potential. i got all her power ideas from a wiki page on how elecotrmagnetic and magnetic abilities like hers could work and i was so excited but alas, it didn't work out.
alright. an arch i lowkey regret. bill cipher in cas' head. we gotta do some background first though. it was touched on a bit that after her father disappeared, his former ally, bill, attached himself to cas after seeing her potential to join his side. for years, cas assumed he was an imaginary friend and as part of his manipulation, he played the part fantastically. cas was exceptionally powerful and he was a big component as to how she learned to control her abilities. it was going to be revealed that she let him in her head for the intent that he would help her control it all. around the age of her mid-teens (i think, it's been a while since i've revisited the chapters with bill because they are so shameful to me tbh), he disappeared and cas never saw him again until her cousins came to town. i had the idea that around the time he disappeared was around the time stan finally told her what truly happened to her father and told her everything he knew and showed her everything her father worked on. i think bill knew that cas was far too smart and far to powerful at this point to listen to his manipulation as she wasn't a child anymore and he had to abandon before she put the pieces together. at that point, subconsciously, she began to sort of put up a layer of defense and guard herself better despite her energetic exterior.
after bill's death and as cas' mental health was shaken by the slow decline of her and rick, i had the idea that it was weakening her mental resolve that previously blocked him out. it was always meant to be it was just her subconscious using a familiar face to communicate with her directly. he was never meant to be alive still, though i love the theories that he is. he was never going to return after cas had left rick, kind of as a way of saying she had grown that mental resolve back when confronting the root of the problem (rick's toxicity) instead of ignoring it.
and explaining the connection to gravity falls. cas was always planned to be stanford pines' daughter. and i believe i stated it many times but i feel to bears repeating cause honestly i don't feel i explained it correctly. in stanford's research, he would come across cas' mother, who's origin was mentioned above. the idea was she agreed to let him study her if he taught her about life on earth. they would fall in love and like some people who fall in love, they would do the deed and thus, cassiopeia pines was born. cas' mother, who i never actually gave a name, would abruptly leave after finding out she was pregnant and she wouldn't tell stanford. he would have no knowledge that he had a child and missed cas' mother dearly. however, a few short weeks after cas' birth, cas would be left on the doorstep of stanford's home. stanford would still go missing as shown in gravity falls about a week after she was left with him.
it would leave stanley, to juggle raising a child with powers like cas' and trying to bring back his brother. despite him raising her entirely, he would make sure she stayed aware that he was not her father. she would grow up on stories of her real father and would always refer to stanley as her uncle. she would attempt to help stanley with his goal of rescuing her father once she was in her teenage years and also help him with the mystery shack. she was in the late half of being 29 years old during the events of the show, gravity falls. and she is 30 by the time she meets rick sanchez. and that's the timeline of cas before the events of fun in space.
lastly, for the big million dollar question, what happens after cas leaves? yeah. when writing for the second book that made it all of a week of being published before being taken down (props if you remember it tbh), i wanted it to be more cas centric. i had a plan for the first few chapters to not even have rick in it. in all variations of it, cas did the same three things. first, she returned to gravity falls for a short time and relived a bit of her childhood, meeting up with wendy at greasy's diner, soos showing her what he'd done with the mystery shack while leaving her room completely intact, etc. i even had a whole chapter that never came out with cas reuniting with her uncle and her father. the plan was that she revealed she was seeing bill and she got into a heavy argument with her father before being comforted by her uncle. later, she would finally patch things up with her father enough to be on good terms and with plans to contact each other often. i even had idea to plant seeds from the origin of cas' powers in it with him telling her all he knew about her mother (which wasn't a lot). but, writing ford the way i did always hurt cause he's one of my favorites but that's just the way story telling works. i always justified in my head saying i would write a chapter between them that did have them mend their relationship. but that chapter never happened.
secondly, she was always planned to travel around the country before being forcibly picked up by president/evil morty. seeds to his endgame would be planted and cas was supposed to be a big part of it all. i even had a line where cas basically said "there's no point trying to get anything out of me. you and i were always meant to be sidekicks and i may not be with rick anymore but i'm certainly never going to betray him" or something like that. she would be there a few days before being tracked and saved by unity and their population after being tipped off by our morty that cas wasn't with them anymore, as he was worried for cas' safety. cas would spend time developing and creating a planet with unity before rick would show up.
thirdly, rick would show up on his own and portal them to the infamous greasy's diner in gravity falls where they would talk about everything that happened and while cas wouldn't agree to being with him romantically again right away, she was open to attempting to sort of fix things and build to where they once were. that's about as far as i got for a stable story line. after that it was a bunch of ideas that never got to be fleshed out (because i really didn't enjoy season 5 all that much). but as stated before, cas will always love rick and they will always have feelings for each other. i believe that they would get back together and they would eventually sort out their problems though. however, it's entirely up to you, the reader. i know that's not always a satisfying answer but honestly, i never had a full decision as to whether or not they would get back together. they weren't always a healthy relationship and some "epic loves" don't always pan out. but anyways,
those are the biggest things i can think about for now. however, this is the place to ask any other questions you want. i check comments on this story often so i will do my best any answer any questions to make up for the lack of answers that would have came with a second book.
i do have one last thing to say though. thank you. again, i truly never expected this story to blow up like it did. the support has meant the world to me and it kills me that i can't give you all the second book you deserve. i've tossed the idea of doing an epilogue or something but i just couldn't get past the block my mind has around this book. i am happy that i was able to provide you guys with this so that at least you have some answers. again, thank you so much for everything. this will be the last official 'update' to this book.
so from me and cas, thank you and farewell.