Stella/Stolas
Figured it would be best to start with some of my favorite redesigns! Welcome back Worst Married Couple In Hell!!!
For Stella I wanted to really focus on her lack of agency in her own life down to her outfit, dressing her in her husbands purple/blue shades with her own pink/purple shades being just an accent. I also imagine this Stella being unable to read beyond very basic stuff, corset training from a young age, and has a heavy focus during her upbringing on her looks. Taught how to balance books on her head rather than understand them. One of my biggest gripes with Stella in the show is how she is primarily there to make Stolas a more perfect victim, she acts to make us as the viewer feel bad for Stolas. Viv, I feel, forgot that she wrote both of them into an arranged marriage where they were forced to have kid. Another thing I wanted to explore with Stella moving forward was her abuse of Octavia, rather than her being a Disney villain I think her being neglectful as Stolas is would be interesting. Where Stolas is holding onto a younger, less angsty version of his daughter, Stella never wanted anything to do with her. It's not from a place of hate as it is pain, Octavia being a walking reminder that she is trapped here with this man who can do whatever he pleases. Coming around to Stolas I wanted to lean a touch into a more manipulative vision for him. Well meaning for sure but definitely with a victim complex. This lends into his own neglect of Octavia, trying to force a relationship that just is not there and hasn't since she was a child. Stolas at his core wants to be a good person but as a young man, or really as a young boy he didn't know the proper way to parent or be a partner to Stella in that way. This of course leaves Octavia isolated, which I'll go more into later. In my vision, Stolas does realize much too late that he does love Blitzo but it's much less glossed over with his fetishization and disrespect to Imps. His primary confusion is not that it happened but rather that he doesn't realize his impact on others, which is his main throughline in his relationships.
I will probably have more to say laterer but for now this'll do as a jumping off point for the rest of the story/concept.
