"A heart can be broken, but it keeps beating just the same" -FGT
@emylilas
(She/her) and confused 24/7! 🌈 Current obsessions: Into the Woods, the Wheel of time 📓https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmyLilas/works 📽 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDiGbvLRnVPMeEo4koJnUhQ
Seasons of Drabbles - Spring Round: Signups and Nominations Still Open!
Posted by: littlefics
Signups are upon through the end of the week for Seasons of Drabbles, a quarterly exchange for drabbles and drabble variants! We are also still taking nominations.
Schedule:
Nominations open: Sunday, March 29 (will remain open through signups)
Signups open: Sunday, April 5
Signups close: Sunday, April 12 @ 11:59pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown)
Assignments out by: Wednesday, April 15
Assignments due: Saturday, April 25 @ 11:59pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown)
Collection opens: Saturday, May 2 @ 1:00pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown)
Authors revealed: Tuesday, May 5 @ 1:00pm Eastern Daylight time
Dreamwidth: seasonsofdrabbles | AO3 Collection | Tagset
comments
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Trying to convince my brain to come up with something coherent to say but I think all it wants to do is scream and make big vague frantic gestures. I absolutely ADORE that you went for a monochromatic gifset, it's so bright and gorgeous! The parallels between gif 1 and gif 3 are SO good! Stella and Luna in the background, like they're facing each other, the reversed position of the blended scenes, and the parallel of the quotes... the structure of the giset is so so pleasant to look at! The text in the foreground being what's said to keep up the appearances, the text in the background being what they truly feel, I LOVE IT SOOOOOO MUCH 😭
This is so perfectly painful! Thank you so much Anne, for all those three gifsets. I love them all, they're absolutely gorgeous, I'm in awe of your talent and genuinely touched by the care you put into each ones of them ❤️Thank you for those lovely gifts, you made another year of HEX truly special 😘
It's time 🥳 Happy first HEX @mari-thesapphic-lady !
I hope you'll enjoy this fic made just for you and that it'll live up to your expectations💜 And even more, I hope your first HEX has been an enjoyable experience, both in making a gift and receiving one 💛
Had she known where the grimoire would lead them, she would have left it to collect dust in the attic. Some secrets were best forgotten; that mysterious grimoire surely was one of them. But now was not the time for regrets, the two sisters had a world to save.
YOU USED THE QUOTE 🤩 And you made such a perfect gifset around it! I wasn't expecting the colours to look so good together but they absolutely do!! It's such another beautiful gifset, I love it SO SO MUCH! The quality is so good 😭 (<- those are very happy tears)
I must say the blending of the second one truly made me scream because it's gorgeous, and it truly shows the mutual tension between them! The background with Luna being the one who seems to have the upper hand in the confrontation, the foreground it's Farah, aaaaaah I love it so much! Definitely love how, by having only Luna's colours not being affected by the ambient pink and blue you still managed to also make Farah pop up! Your gifs are so well-balanced ❤️
I love in the first one how Luna dominates the gif in size but Farah dominates in number! All the gifs are so sharp, it really makes a gorgeous piece. And I don't know which font you used to write Farah but it's so pretty?!
I would have been perfectly happy with only the first gifset you made, but I'm SO glad you also made this one because it's such a gorgeous one! I wish I could print them in their animated form 😂
I can't wait to see what the last one will be like! Now, if anyone's looking for me I'll be starting at those two perfect gifsets you made for me 🥹 Thank you soooooo much ❤️
You really got me with that "humble fic" bullshit 😆 Thank you so much, Anne! It's gorgeous! And I can't believe there are two more parts to come? 👀 I am definitely excited to see what comes next, but for now on, I really need to scream about that FANTASTIC GIFSET YOU MADE 🤩
I don't know where to start! You went for pain!!! I love you for that! Gathering all the happy moments in one gif only to shatter all that happiness, how deliciously wicked of you! The triple blending in the first one is absolutely gorgeous and I can't imagine the time it took to make it look so perfect 🤩 I love all the moments you picked because it really shows the evolution of their dynamic (and what we lost 😭)
And then the second one is all pain and I love the shattering effect you went with to emphasize how broken it all is! Goes perfectly with the lyrics. I love that you chose to have Stella at Beatrix' grave rather than a moment from the scene when she's fighting with Beatrix, because it mirrors Beatrix' gif and isn't that when she said she had no one in the entire world? And then you have Stella at her grave because yes she did but now it's too late... The gif with Stella at the grave, I think the colouring really makes the sadness in her eyes pop up and kudos for that ❤️ I have to say, what immediately caught my eye was the top right corner with the pieces of Stella being slightly mismatched, for the middle part compared to the part with her head. It just makes it so catchy to the eye and makes the fragmentation so visually stunning!
And finally the text! While making gifs it's personally the part I tend to struggle the most so I'm absolutely in awe at how good it looks here! From the font to the placement, and even more so the colours? You used the same colours as the gifs yet it doesn't lose itself in the images, it really pops so beautifully!
I love it soooo much! I can't wait to see the rest (I genuinely can't believe there are two more parts coming!) and then to know how you came with your ideas and which one was the first you had, and more importantly I hope you had fun while making it! I love this one so much, I hope you can tell ❤️
Dear Em Lila, stop procrastinating on your HEX! Or would you like me to get the stick out? Think about that somewhere out there there's your own HEX gifter who procrastinates every time you do. You want this? I don't think so.
And yes, you're getting a fanfic, my dear, only a humble one I'm afraid. Hope you'll enjoy it once it's out anyway! (It'd be a lie if I say I'm not worried about the reveal at all.)
I guess I have no more questions for you to ask but do you have any questions for me, maybe?
Lots of love, Anonymous
Hellooooo! I listened to your advice and stopped procrastinating!
Let's start with this, please don't be worried! I'm sure I will love what you've made. You've taken time to know what I loved, what I imagined, and to make something just for me, how could I not love it?! ❤️
I did have questions for you, but since I figured it would give too much away...
First, WHO ARE YOU? did you have an idea of what you'd be making early on or did it come later? What was the most difficult thing for you? What did you enjoy the most? Is it a fic that changes from what you would usually write? Is it okay for me to bother you with questions about your fic once I've read it (like what parts did you enjoy writing the most, which part did you struggle most with, how you came up with the idea, and so many other things...)? Please say yes 🥺
I cannot wait for the reveal! I've really loved the questions you've asked, thanks for giving me all those opportunities to ramble my heart out about those silly characters! I hope I didn't scare you away with my loooooooooooong answers!
bonjour madame em!!!!!! came back to tell we're a great team. have you heard of the 80-20 rule? it turned out you've answered 80℅ of my asks and i've written 20℅ of your gift at this point. i haven't in fact considered putting saundreas in the fic but since you keep mentioning them, i cannot but to ask your thoughts on them! go girl it's your time to shine with a wordy-wordy respond 💔
Congratulations on reaching 20% 🥳 I hope it’s been a peaceful (can a HEX gift be made with tranquility of mind…) ride so far, and not a beautiful bundle of panic, frustration and despair 😂
So it is a fanfic 👀
(I feel like I should blame you for this opportunity to HEX procrastinate some more 😝)
I love Saundreas, but more as that background ship that appears from time to time in a season and they’re interesting but they’re not the main focus of the show. They have so much angst potential, I could not not love them! Especially if you throw Sebastian in the mix, because we can so why not?
I think you know by now that I’m an indecisive person, and Saundreas doesn’t make an exception. Was there mutual romantic love? Was it one-sided? Was Andreas always as delightful as we’ve seen him in that flashback in S1 or did he get worse with the war/Rosalind? Where does Sky’s mother fit in all of this? Why was Sky left with Saul and not his mother? Why does Sky never mention his mother? Because the writers were lazy.
But right now, I’m in the mood for Saul liked Andreas much more than Andreas did, but Andreas knew and liked the attention. And then Sebastian arrives and looks at Saul like he could hang the moon, and Saul doesn’t realise because he’s that dumb blind, and they become closer, Saul is gentler with Sebastian, and Sebastian actually is nice to hang out with. Andreas gets a bit angry because Saul’s attention is no longer on him, not as much as it used to, at least. Now, is he only missing being someone’s special person, or is he missing being Saul’s special person…?
One thing I particularly love about this pairing is that Saul had sixteen years to grieve Andreas, but he didn’t really grieve, did he? He sacralised Andreas. He told Sky stories of his dad’s heroic actions, and they probably were rooted in truth, but time and loss definitely can twist our perception of the one we’re mourning. He kept the ghost Andreas alive between him and Sky, and he did that by creating a version of Andreas that would be easier for Sky to accept, and much harder for him to grieve. He made his punishment worse by mourning the version of someone who was probably long gone, if not his own creation at least partly. So now, when Andreas is very much alive, and very much himself, just like Sky has to come to terms with the fact his biological dad is not the hero Saul made him out to be, Saul is confronted with the truth of who Andreas was. Maybe at first, passed the confusion that is, Saul was relieved that he didn’t murder his friend/lover, glad to see him alive and well. And then he has to deal with the fact that he loved him more as a ghost, and this made up version of Andreas will never be for him to love again because Andreas, real living Andreas, destroyed it.
And then Andreas has the audacity to die again, being a fragment of the man Saul spent sixteen years mourning. Now Saul’s left alone, without his best friends, and dealing with a grief he already went through, but it’s not exactly the same this time because it was tainted by Andreas himself, but Andreas’ last moment leaves him wondering if there were ever a chance for the Andreas he remembered to resurface, free of Rosalind’s influence. And now he’ll never know.
I wish I could ramble about them much more, but I still haven’t finished my HEX project and I fear if I don’t reply to yours right now, I might never do 😂
(You’ve made me reopen my notes because, be it first week back to work, or HEX last sprint, my brain is apparently empty now.)
did i say "honest" last time? that should've been "dishonest". or may be i am indeed a video maker. a gif maker? that's smart to connect both, i like your way of thinking.
what do gif makers usually ask then? do you want a one long set or a few small ones? 😂
what are your favorite quotes from fate or not for both of your ships (lunatrix & stellarah) ?????!!!!!!!!!!
Happy new year, you who’s an expert at messing with my head 😜 I hope it’ll bring you many moments of joy!
I must tell you I saw your ask when I woke up in the middle of the night with the oh so delicate sound of the snowplow, and half-awake (and a bit mad because, I understand the snow needs to go, but why does it have to be between 3am and 4am, and why is my entire room shaking?) my first reaction was to actually consider lunatrix and stellarah, in this well that’s weird but why not, kind of way 😂
See, I would have thought the colours questions were either for fanarts or gifs! To me, that would be a long set! I mean, it doesn’t have to be long long, but I love a coherent piece!
So, my favourite quotes for lunatrix and stellarah… (this needs to go in the unhinged section of the server, but there’s something there 😂) lunrah and stellatrix!
For Lunrah, the first ones DEFINITELY are “you serve at my leisure, Farah, and moods can change” and the entire exchange of “Despite what anyone says matters in this world, appearance is everything. You know that better than anyone, Farah.”/ “Yes, we’ve both done a great deal to preserve Solaria’s reputation.” Like, sure Aster Dell, Stella’s incident with Ricky, but those were the lines that turned on the neon lights of CHARGED HISTORY in my little brain, and they’ve been on ever since.
I also loved Saul saying “the queen would scan its memories if you asked”, because I chose to take it as the highlight of how both of them are proud and stubborn, and Farah would rather complicate things for herself than having to ask Luna a favour, and Luna would rather have Farah beg her for help than doing what should be doing for the security of her realm (and considering how much emphasises she puts on appearances and keeping Solaria at its best, that says a lot).
(Big big stretch, and kind of unrelated, but when Stella said about Farah that “she took an oath to the Queen of Solaria”, I loved the idea that Farah didn’t exactly take an oath to the Queen, but to Luna specifically and then regretted it three minutes after because Luna’s definitely abusing the situation)
For Stellatrix, “I have no one, Stella, no one in the entire world.” and Stella saying “you had me”, must be one of my favourites, because, that might have been true from your perspective, Stella, but you didn’t actually give Beatrix a reason to believe that. Even though Stella did care about Beatrix, and they were getting closer, there was always a distance from Stella that Beatrix tried to cross but she didn’t let her (shame, uncertainty, fear, friends’ pressures…). And apart from when she was genuinely scared about her, Stella often came to Beatrix when she needed something from here (Beatrix, who’s been used as a tool in Rosalind’s quest for Bloom her entire life).
And there’s the whole exchange “We can trust her, you know?” / “She’s Beatrix.” / “You trust Rosalind.” and Aisha’s “you both have terrible judgment” (girl really didn’t see the boyfriend’s a bloodwitch thing coming).
Now, if you mean quotes that aren’t in the show… warning, I suck at this!
Okay, for Lunrah (it also works for Saundreas), there’s this French song called La tendresse, by Lémofil and those are the lyrics
On a gardé de la tendresse /We hid tenderness
Qu'on a cachée sous la haine /beneath hatred
Pour que ça fasse un peu moins mal /so it would hurt a little less
De ne plus se dire je t'aime /that we no longer say “I love you”
For Stellatrix, in Mebourne Blues, by Eleni Drake:
We don't know
What it means to be happy
Keep on searching for the wrong things
And lose what we should keep
For Lunrah again, Secrets and Lies, by Ruelle:
You got a cold, cold heart
You build a house of cards
I know all your secrets
I know all your lies
I know where you keep 'em
Buried deep inside
No, you can't hide your secrets and lies
For Stellatrix, Hold on to me, by Valerie Broussard:
You've been walking alone for so long
And you've been building a wall around your heart
But I promise there is a light at the end of this long ride,
This time I know you'll be alright
'Cause I'm standing at your side,
For Lunrah, To be loved, by Aurora:
I'm the half of a whole
And it's making me feel so alone
Waking up
Thinking of what it is to be loved
I tell myself I have to build defenses
'Cause once you are in love, you are defenseless
Everything was easy when it meant less
But once you are in love, you are defenseless
Hey. Your Top Secret Santa. In your inbox. Again. I have returned.
Still curious who I am? I was honest in the very first anon when I said I'm a video maker. Yet you didn't ask for a video to be your gift as I was sure you did! So I had to go with something else...
If I say I'm working on a fanfic would you prefer to have an open or a closed ending? Do you have preferences with a fic being a sexy one shot or a hot multi-chapter?
And if it's actually an art or a gifset I'm making will you kindly tell me what colours you prefer or associate with your fav characters or ships or dynamics
Merry Christmas and may the odds be ever in your favor!
Hey! If you celebrate, I hope you had a lovely Christmas, and if you don’t, I still hope you had a nice time 😊 And yes, I am still wondering who you might be… you say you’re a video maker, but you must have offered other medium to be paired up with me (unless I did put video edit and I forgot? 🤔), but then, in a previous ask, you did say that of the three things I asked (fic, gifs, art), you could only make one. Maybe gifs, since it isn’t too far from video editing? Anyway, I’m very excited to discover who you are, and what you’re making! I hope you're having fun coming up with whatever it is, and that it wasn't/isn't too much of a struggle!
For the questions about fanfics, you’re going to hate my answer but I don’t really have a preference for either of your questions. Sometimes an open ending works best with the story, other times, a closed one would be better. If I were being held at gunpoint and asked to pick one, I think I’d go with an open ending, but they can be frustrating at times… My answer is the same for one-shot or multi-chapters, I’d say whatever suits the needs of the fic best! Now, what I can tell you is that I often don’t like it when a multi-chapter fic has very short chapters, because I don’t see the point of having one scene being a whole chapter.
Now, for art or gifset… beware, it’s random.
For Lunrah - pink, yellow and blue
For Luna - pink and yellow
For Farah - blue and purple
For Rosalind - red
For Luna-Farah-Rosalind - red and black
For Stellatrix - purple and yellow
For Saundreas - different shades of green
For Terra - yellow
For Beatrix - orange/red
For Luna and Stella - faded colours (yellow and pink maybe?), or yellow and shades of grey?
I think I should be the one telling you may the odds be ever in your favour! ;p
Your anon has never left you and always been eargerly waiting for any sort of a reply! Should they ask you now to elaborate on the mother- daughter relationship between the Queen and the Princess of Solaria? Are you enjoying our Q&A sessions so far? Cause I do yet the mods told me to prepare a gift for you anyway... Out of three things you listed (fic, gifset, art) your Santa can fortunately do all of them except for like two things 🙂 stay tuned to find out which one you're gonna get!
I NEVER GOT THE NOTIFICATION 😭😭😭 I’m so sorry I’ve left you hanging for so long, again… I definitely am enjoying this Q&A session ❤️ I just assumed you were busy with life and/or HEX, should have not trusted Tumblr and checked the inbox anyway 🙃 I am so curious to find out who you are because I am as clueless as ever!
So! Before jumping specifically into the dynamic between Luna and Stella, there are a few points about Luna’s journey with motherhood I wanted to name. The thing though is that I am quite indecisive… Whether we have Luna wanting to have a child, Luna knowing she has to have an heir, or Luna never wanting to be a mother, they all have interesting implications.
I think I’d love it even more if becoming a mother was something she viewed as important to her own fulfillment, not simply out of duty, something she genuinely wanted to experience and yet, when she actually got the baby, she had to deal with the realisation that she was not a natural at being a mother. Post-partum depression probably hit Luna hard, and if her husband was more comfortable becoming a father, combined with the fact she had to maintain the appearance of a happy family, well, safe to say it must have been a very complicated situation, making it hard to bond with her daughter. Maybe she hated Stella’s father for being good with the baby when she couldn’t, maybe she hated herself for failing miserably at what is supposed to come naturally (and in my very own headcanon, her mother would never fail to remind Luna of how much she’s failing at something so trivial as being a mother, being a disappointment to the family…), and maybe when Stella becomes a little bit older, she resents Stella for bonding with her father but never with her.
See, I think if she never wanted a child, or knew she had to have an heir, it would mean Luna could (unfairly) resent Stella for having to be born, OR, and I’d love that too, she’d blame herself for resenting a baby who didn’t ask to be born and was simply the product of social pressures she was too weak not to fold to.
I also think that Luna’s journey with motherhood could have started even before Stella, with pregnancies that didn’t make it to term. There’s often a lot of guilt and shame around miscarriages, and in Luna’s position, I think it might be exacerbated - both because she’s a public figure, so her “failure” is public, and because I don’t see her as having a great support system at home to overcome the guilty “what is wrong with me?” thoughts. To be honest, I think those thoughts would be strengthened by Luna’s family, at least her mother (I don’t have much thoughts on her father, because I follow the Fate mantra: one parent’s enough to deal with, so the best Luna’s father can do is having tupperwares of his own), maybe her brother, and eventually, depending on what kind of man her consort would be, maybe by him as well.
Now, with Stella, if there were previous pregnancies that didn’t come to term, Luna might be terrified to lose this baby too, and it would probably be hard to form a bond with the soon-to-be newborn. I think she’d live her pregnancy as being a walking ticking bomb that might explode at any time. If at some point of the pregnancy people around her start being emotionally invested in that baby, it might anger her because that’s a luxury she doesn’t have - she can’t afford to care about a baby she might end up ruining. And maybe when Stella’s finally here, healthy and real, she’s terrified of the moment it will turn out Stella isn’t as healthy as she appears, because why would this pregnancy work out well? There wouldn’t be many opportunities to bond with her newborn if she kept waiting for something bad to happen (or if she thought it was probably for the best she let her husband take care of their daughter more, because she is the one who breaks things, and she can’t risk breaking that baby).
Okay, now we’re going on a slight tangent but I had a family member who struggled a lot with being a mum to her kids before they turned around 8. Ever since they became old enough for them to share more things together, she’s managed to bond with the little fellas and to truly step into motherhood in a way that works for all of them. And it’s been beautiful to see, really. End of the tangent, back to Luna and Stella, I think Luna would eventually give up on bonding with her baby/toddler and hope that when she’s a little older, they can finally form a real mother/daughter relationship, except it doesn’t happen because Stella already has a parent she loves and she’s learnt not to expect a lot from a mother who was mostly distant.
(I give options, I hate choosing)
I can’t tell whether Luna keeps trying and every attempt to become a mum to her little girl is a big failure, and she gets angry at herself for failing, and angry at Stella for not trying to meet her halfway (always very sane to blame your kid for your own issues - Luna’s parenting book did not become a bestseller for a reason), or if she simply stops trying and convinces herself it’s a waste of her time because her kid is spoiled by her father and it’s everyone but her’s fault. I think a mix of both is great, keeps trying, but denying she does, because it stinks a little less when it keeps failing, and it’s easier to blame others, but god is it hard to not see how she’s to blame sometimes, but definitely not her fault, and not even trying anyway so no real failure, right?
I want to believe that, at some point, Luna and Stella found a way to connect, because it makes it so much painful if they both had a taste of this mother/daughter relationship they could have had, but it couldn’t last. Maybe it’s before Luna starts tutoring Stella. I don’t know how or why, but if a certain trust started to grow between the two, and that’s why Luna decided to tutor Stella, or even better, that’s why Stella went to her mother for help, and then, it’s the very thing that tears them apart for good, it’s deliciously painful!
There’s so much there is to say, I hate to think I’m going to forget things! This is very frustrating 😂
It starts going downhill because Stella’s not perfect by Luna’s standards (standards she holds herself to as well and fails to meet but it doesn’t stop her from ruining another person’s sense of worth, the more the miserablier), so Luna’s disappointed, and she pushes Stella too much, she scares her, hurts her emotionally and probably physically at times because if I keep my headcanon Luna’s been trained by an equally abusive mother and dear sweet Rosalind and Luna is so good at repeating patterns, even especially the ones that hurt her. Stella is both the “extension of [Solaria] strength”, and the extension of Luna’s as a mother. I also love the idea of Luna’s mother making it worse by reinforcing Luna’s belief that if Stella struggles it’s because of her own failing, and making Stella’s difficulties seem much bigger than they actually are, which would lead to Luna being even harder on Stella, and Stella struggling even more.
But in all of this, I love to imagine that Luna really tried to prepare her daughter for what was coming for her, and that it was her own way of showing that she loved her. It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t what Stella needed, but Luna knows how hard it is to be the heir, to grow up with those crushing expectations, to learn how to mourn your own dreams and desires because as the heir you’re partly instrumental, and that’s brutal, and it hurt her, and she doesn’t want her daughter to hurt in the same way she did. She wants Stella to be fully prepared where Luna wasn’t. She wants to protect her daughter and doesn’t realise how much Stella would actually need to be protected from her. I also love the idea that to some extent, Luna does realise she’s burning all bridges with her daughter but if it means she’s ready to face what’s coming, she’ll take it. She will willingly sacrifice her relationship with her daughter if she thinks it’s for Stella’s best interest. And sure, it is partly rooted in Luna’s desire to be perfect and to be in control, but it also comes from love, in the only way she knows how to show it.
Then Luna has to go to Farah to ask for her help (that must have hurt, admitting her own limitations to Farah? You just know Luna considered every single other available option before resorting to that one). And when Farah succeeds where Luna failed,(and when Farah is better than Luna again), it’s impossible to ignore that the problem was never Stella, it was Luna. It still doesn’t mean Luna can’t twist this in a way that works for her narrative - it’s not her fault, if Stella never tried to be diligent with her lessons and decided to obey Dowling simply as a way to get back at her mother.
Now, the best part! The more Stella spends time with her friends, the more she becomes her own person, the more she slips from Luna’s fingers; and that’s when Stella becomes a mirror to Luna, of her own weaknesses, fears and regrets. Stella isn’t scared to be her own person, she stops giving too much importance to her mother’s approval because she’s realised she’d never get it, while Luna, even now as a well respected and apparently well loved queen is still in desperate need of validation (from her people, at least, her own family, Rosalind and Farah). And I think, if before that point Luna was hard on Stella, she wasn’t necessarily actively resenting her, but from the moment Stella shows how much braver she is than Luna, it’s hard to look away.
I love to think resentment and jealousy are mixed with pride and admiration, even if those feelings might not be as big as the negative ones. But if her daughter is strong enough to stand up to the big authority figures in her life, and to dare considering renouncing the throne, it’s that she didn’t fully mess her up. Not thanks to her, even though maybe Luna would want to claim some credits here… but more in spite of her. It means Luna does not ruin everything she touches, and if that’s the belief she’s had since the beginning of her motherhood journey, and waiting for things to inevitably go wrong with Stella, must be a relief. And, putting aside the fact her daughter is threatening to abandon her duty, seeing Stella being so confident in herself means she is ready.
But Luna’s probably mad as hell and fucking terrified that Stella might want to relinquish the throne because that would be quite the big failure on her part (time to make kid number 2, Lulu).
And she’s probably mad as hell because why didn’t she think about it when it was her who was the heir? I think when she might have thought about it, younger, she kept it to herself in the “foolish dreams” category of her brain. Stella shows her it was a real possibility, that saying no to things she didn’t agree with was something she could have done. Stella holds a mirror to her face and tells her that if she’s so miserable it’s because she never tried to fight it and made all the wrong choices. And now her relationship with Stella is more than broken, Farah and Andreas are dead, her old friends hate her, she might even have caused the end of the Solarian monarchy, and for what? It was all so pointless, and she’s so alone.
And now, a little from Stella’s perspective because I’ve already written too much so what’s a little more (and also, at least this way I’m making it up to you for the wait). I think in S2 Stella broke free from her belief that if her mother doesn’t love her like she needs her to, it’s her own fault. I want to believe Stella knows her mother loves her in her own twisted way, and that the way she loves her is the best she could ever give her, and not because Stella wasn’t enough (what she seems to believe in S1), but because Luna is broken. I like to imagine this realisation happens somewhere between S1 and 2, or early S2, because it also allows Stella to see what waits for her if she doesn’t break the cycle. She doesn’t want to be broken, not by her mother, not by her duty. Maybe early S2, with Beatrix. They both have a lot of healing to do thanks to their loving parents (I mean, Andreas loved Beatrix a lot, but he also raised his daughter as instrumental to Rosalind’s plan…) While in S1 we see her still fight for her mother’s approval.
I wonder what would make her stop chasing it. The realisation that no matter how hard she tries, she’ll never get it, so why even try? Or something happening that makes her realise her mother’s approval is not something she should be seeking? The former is resignation, the latter is rejection, and I could see both making sense. Especially considering Luna did play a part in Farah’s disappearance and Farah was an important part of Stella’s growth.
Suddenly remembered there’s the gem in S2, and it doesn’t scream I love you sweet daughter… I have two options for the gem. Either it really comes from Luna’s desire to remind Stella who’s in control, or it comes from a twisted desire to protect Stella (don’t get yourself in trouble, Rosalind is not Farah, and I know you and your friends attract trouble so this is the one thing I can do to protect you, even if you will hate me for it, and even if I will be disgusted at myself for it).
I think I want Stella to be able to take a step back and look at her mother as partly the product of her own upbringing, partly of her own questionable morals and decisions. I feel like it would help Stella to understand her mother better so she can heal from her own heals and break the cycle. To understand, not necessarily to forgive, and not even to justify. Just looking at where it comes from, and how it doesn’t come from Stella.
How it could evolve from S2… I wouldn’t want Luna sacrificing herself for her daughter and then sending Stella into a spiral of regrets of what might have been if they had tried to rebuild their relationship. Also, that would be painful for Stella so why not. I don’t think Luna should necessarily get a full redemption arc either, because she still did some pretty messy stuff that can only be blamed on her, own your mistakes, girl. So either staying in the grey, or going full mad at Stella after she said she’d give up the throne. Maybe more conflict, Stella wanting to make her mother fall (but I think that would make Stella give too much importance to Luna); Luna trying to have Stella murdered because it’s an easier story to give the people of Solaria than having to admit her own daughter is one big mistake… Stella killing Luna could be interesting, but I haven’t thought much about it yet so I’m just dropping this here.
I’m sorry again for the delay, I’ll check my inbox now 🙃
I hope you’re doing well ❤️
