Marissa didn't know who the Lunar Heir was going to end up being until she was done writting the drafts for Scarlet and Cress!
She said herself that Cinder Scarlet and Cress were all a choice to be the Lunar Heir, and that it it took her a while to figure out who was going to become it.
So, Cinder wasn't initially going to be *necessarily* the Lunar Heir, that is just WILD to me.
(for proof this is a fragment of one of the descriptions of the early drafts of TLC Marissa posted on her official blog almost ten years ago!)
Could you imagine if Cress was the lunar heir? Or even worse, SCARLET?? Tffff
I just realized… in The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress have all shot their love interest at least once. Like, Cinder shot Kai with a tranq dart when she kidnapped him, Scarlet shot Wolf in the arm to stop him from killing Ran (the first time), and Cress shot off two of Thorne’s fingers to save Cinder. And yet they’re all so cute together 😅
Headcanon that when Jacin has to go No Thoughts Head Empty Mode for being an on duty guard, the “Blonde Boys Doing What Blonde Boys Do” song just plays on loop in his mind to stop anything else from entering his brain
how do you think tlc couples react to seeing their SO with kids? just in general do you think they'd be good with children? Jacin after learning to let his gaurd down a bit would probably be good w kids
Cinder doesn't mind kids but she's not very confident in knowing how to speak to them. Kai, having been raised to talk to anyone is comfortable with kids and finds it endearing to see Cinder struggle. She does improve over time, but it isn't until she has her own that she learns that kids just need to be treated like a person and you'll figure out the rest as you go.
She worries about her ability to be a mother as she had no good examples in her life, so her heart warms when she sees Kai so adept at interacting with kids. It assures her that he'll be there to help her when they have their own.
Cress and Thorne like kids, and kids like them, but they also don't really know what to do with them. Whenever they babysit for their friends and the baby starts crying, they both stare at each other like 'what did we do wrong??' So if they watch each other totally fumble a conversation with a kid, they'll try to help, usually unsuccessfully. Peony teaches them a lot about what a kid actually needs, because if they do something wrong, she'll tell them loud and clear.
Wolf is cautious of children because they are cautious of his big teeth and clawed nails. He doesn't want to scare them. One day he notices some little heads peeking over the fence as he's feeding the chickens. As soon as he looks their way, they duck out of sight. This happens again the next day, and the next, and eventually Wolf works up the courage to go over and ask the three boys if they want to help him. The children quiver with fear, slowly backing away from the big bad wolf. After five seconds, they run.
Dejected, Wolf tells Scarlet of his failed attempt. She reassures him that they just need to get to know him. How can they get to know him if they won't get near him? The following day, Wolf is about to feed the chickens when his hears three sets of footsteps scraping up the driveway. Startled, he leaves the chicken feed bucket by the pen and hides. Inside the chicken coop. The boys survey their surroundings--checking for any stray wolves--and head over, tossing the feed to the chicks. "Did they lay any eggs?" wonders one of the boys, who peers into the coop and finds two bright green eyes cloaked in the darkness. The boys scream.
"Wait!" Wolf calls as the first one swings the bucket frantically as a weapon. He rushes to get out, banging his head on the awning, causing him to trip on the chicken ramp and splat face first on the ground.
Everyone is silent. Even the chickens seem to follow the memo. But, one after the other, the boys start laughing, the chickens cluck along, and Wolf begins to laugh too. Big scary neighbour wolf-man is not actually scary, the boys find, and Scarlet loves to see him so warm and open. Wolf enjoys seeing her telling the kiddos off for treading on her petunias with no doubt in his mind that she will be as loving as his mother had been to him.
Jacin is wary of children at first. But he has to learn to be nice to children in his job, and after a while, it does really rub off on him. Kids can be loud and annoying but also hilarious. Kids are incredibly blunt, and he is too, so he finds he doesn't mind their company.
But he has a distance from his patients. When his friends have kids however...Jacin loves them. Kaider's child is technically his relative and so he takes the Uncle designation very seriously. Also being kaider's child means they are very sassy. Sure, he can insult someone, but it hurts way more coming from a kid, and he finds Peony's roasts hilarious. He teaches them facts about the human body and they have the skeletal and muscular system memorised by age 6. And when they're babies, it's a challenge for Kai and Cinder to get their own child back if Jacin is holding them. It warms Winter's heart so much because it reminds her of a younger, carefree Jacin and proves he's still in there underneath the gruffness.
Winter is naturally perfect with children as she is with everything, and seeing her with them stirs Jacin's conscience. He's so in the habit of reprimanding himself for dreaming of a future with Winter that it takes a long time for him to embrace it as feasible. However Winter stills struggles mentally, and as perfect as she is with children when she's well, he knows that she will too fragile for a long time for them to commit to having their own. It takes many, many years before he feels that wariness slough away until it eventually doesn't cross his mind at all.
