Family Stellaires

The Family

• Even before there was an arts academy, there was first the family.

• The Stellaires were an ancient family of French nobility, holders of titles, lands, properties, and a fortune built over generations.

• The history of the Stellaires didn't begin in 1788 — they had years of power — but something important happened that year.

• Lucius Stellaires was supposed to be the next to take on the position of patriarch of the family, the next to have the final word in meetings, the one who would truly hold all the family's power. However, his lack of commitment and his many expenditures on parties and courtesans made the family decide he was no longer a good option to be the successor. Because of this, the family began to move to remove Lucius from the line of succession, thereby stripping him of the Stellaires name along with his family.

• But Lucius ended up receiving this information, and together with the bourgeoisie of the time — who were beginning to plan the French Revolution — he devised a strategy to steal all the family's coffers and hand over extremely important information about the nobility. Even before the nobility died on the guillotines, Lucius fled along with his wife and their two children — Vivian and Oliver.

The Family in America.

• Being the only surviving Stellaires of the French Revolution, they were welcomed with open arms by nobles in the United States, even though the following year (1789) the American nobility would also lose their power.

• They settled in a huge house with a vast empty plot of land, which would be filled by teenagers centuries later. Because of the theft of the coffers, the family went on to live well and comfortably, but Lucian never stopped being a man who subverted ethics for his own benefit, ending up involved many times with people as wrong as he was.

• Lucius ended up being killed two years after the move. They killed Lucius after he got involved with the wife of someone he shouldn't have. The family was shaken after his death, and a year later his wife killed herself — not out of sadness, but out of an inability to take care of two children alone.

• Vivian was only 16 years old, while Oliver had just turned 18.

Founder of the Academy (Vivian Stellaires)

• Even before all the confusion in 1788, Vivian was just another girl of that era, but there was something different about her — Vivian knew how to read and write. Many saw it as a harmless hobby, something that would be an advantage to perhaps marry the next emperor of France, so the family let her know how to read, write, and paint. She was much better at everything than any man.

• In the US, she began to focus more on drawing, since she spent all her time at home — there was nothing nearby except beautiful landscapes, so it was the only thing she did all day: read books under the trees and paint canvases near the lake.

• After her parents' death, Vivian entered a darker phase — after all, she was the one who found her mother's body hanging from the tree. Oliver tried to be the support his sister needed, was as loving and understanding as possible — even though others tried to convince him to take Vivian to an asylum, he never accepted that, because they were the only Stellaires left and they needed to stay together. Once Vivian got better, Oliver's stance changed — the young man married a merchant's daughter and left his sister alone with the servants. Oliver never abandoned Vivian; he always visited his sister, bringing new dresses and more canvases. He never forced her into a marriage, which is why she never married.

The Arts Boarding School for Girls.

• The academy started in a simple way — an arts school, a boarding school where nobles dumped their daughters. They would learn only arts and things of obedient wives. That's what Vivian said, but in practice she taught the girls to read and write.

• Vivian founded the Arts Boarding School for Girls after teaching one of her personal servants to read. She realized how fascinating the girl had found reading words and seeing meaning in letters, and that was her greatest incentive — the other was the fact that she was alone in that enormous house.

• That's how, at 22 years old, Vivian Stellaires founded the first school for girls, though to society it had another face. Her main investor was Oliver, who had brought his wife as one of the first students — even though she was older — then brought other girls, and thus the school began to be spread among the circles of American high society. Suddenly, the daughters of the elite were being thrown there, with a sum of money deposited each month and a letter promising to take them out of there as soon as the parents found suitors for their daughters.

Vivian's Death.

• Vivian died at 31 after a simple flu that dragged on too long, leaving her body weak and making her a home for every kind of virus. Her death shook the future of the boarding school, but her last request to Oliver was that it be a place where girls could feel safe, far from the patriarchal world and with no men around. So, after Vivian's death, the one who took over was Oliver's wife, Sienna.

• Vivian died without descendants, having never married, but never marrying didn't mean never having been with anyone. There were records of romantic and intimate letters to a single person who used the codename Kae Blakely. Oliver tried to find this person, but after so much searching he supposed it was just a false name. Some people say Kae was a woman — that's why she used a codename, that's why they never married. The family erases any possibility of that. The truth? Vivian loved a woman she could never have loved, and perhaps in another life she hoped to find her again and live out that romance.

After Vivian.

• Sienna, Oliver's wife, took over the academy after Vivian's death, even though Oliver, by right, was the owner of the properties and the one who should take on responsibility for the academy — but at his own sister's request, the next woman of the Stellaires family would take on the leadership.

• And so a tradition was established that would last for a few generations:
  The academy should remain led by the women of the family, and it should be a place for women only.

• For a few generations the academy continued to be administered by the Stellaires women. From Sierra it went to her daughter, Amália; from Amália it went to her daughter, Cecília — and it was with Cecília that things began to change.

• Cecília had three children: Duarte, the eldest; Tristan, the middle one; and Laverne, the youngest. Cecília had all three children precisely so that a girl would come along to be the next in the administrative position of the academy. Duarte would inherit everything, would be the next patriarch of the family, would take care of the entire fortune, and Laverne would take care of the academy. Tristan would have nothing beyond the surname and an allowance. It was in that lack of purpose that envy arose.

The First Man, the Second Traitor.

• The academy was already sustaining itself, was beginning to turn a profit, there were more and more girls in the hallways, and the source of money was beginning to attract vultures.

• Tristan was 25 when Cecília had died tragically from some disease of the time. The academy closed for a month out of respect for mourning and to change the administration. It was in that meantime that Tristan acted — he poisoned his own sister, in the most cowardly way possible, using Laverne's innocence, offering a poisoned tea and placing the blame on the personal maid, thus eliminating two problems at once.

• Duarte should have been the one to choose the next woman, probably his wife, but Tristan manipulated him, thus becoming the first man to take over the academy.

• The first changes Tristan made to the academy were to transform the boarding school, which had previously been for girls only, into a boarding school for both genders. He completely modified the academy's structure, making other spaces for the male dormitories. He modified the curriculum — girls began to learn etiquette and how to be a good wife, while men learned to read, write, and normal school subjects.

• The academy became more recognized, however the cost of that was breaking the tradition and everything Vivian had fought to build — the cost was erasing all the women just to put a man at the top.

The Family

• The Stellaires family is quite traditional. Even though women have commanded the family in current times, there are still certain conflicts about certain subjects within the family. Not all members of the family are conservative — a good portion of members are already open-minded.

• The family erases all crimes ever recorded by previous Stellaires — not the criminal record, not the record of lack of character, there is nothing but a clean record of revolutionary people in the academic world.

• The academy only became a university after the Cold War. Before that, the academy had gone through a terrible period of lack of students and resources, but it had returned to being administered by a woman, since all the men of the family had been drafted for the war. It was during the female administration that the boarding school changed into an Academy and became the academy of current times, focused on being a university of arts.

Stellaires Legacy.

• The family's legacy consists not only of wealth, properties, and titles. It represents the responsibility of protecting and preserving the academy and the family's history — although much of what the family has done was erased from records. The way they "preserve" history is the way that is favorable to the family.

• The person who leads the family receives the title of Matriarch/Patriarch Stellaires. Normally, whoever holds the title has the right to command the academy or to pass command to another member of the family; therefore, not every Stellaires who commands the academy is the one who commands the family.

• Historically, the academy and the family were two different parts of the Stellaires, but starting with Tristan, that was when the two became one.

• The Stellaires are divided into two parts: the heirs, who are the closest to actually commanding the family and/or the academy. Normally, there is more than one heir, and they are chosen by each branch of the family, but in the end the main branch — the one of the Matriarch/Patriarch — is the one who chooses the next to take on command of the family and the academy.

Current Matriarch

• Evelyn Stellaires is the current Matriarch of the Stellaires family.

• Her word holds enormous authority within the family. As Matriarch, her decisions are treated as orders by the more traditional members of the Stellaires — few are those who went against her orders and remained in the family.

• Evelyn was one of the few members of the family who supported Margot Montclair when she took over as director of the Academy, and it was because of her that Margot took over the academy, since it was Evelyn who handed over command to Margot.

• Evelyn recognizes Margot's administrative capability and believes the Academy needs someone capable of protecting it, even if that means breaking with old family traditions. Despite this, Evelyn also understands the importance of Stellaires blood in the succession.

Lucien Stellaires.

• Lucien was the heir destined to take on the leadership of the family and, eventually, the responsibility over the Academy.

• For much of his life, Lucien was prepared to take on the Stellaires legacy. However, he never fully identified with the role that had been imposed on him.

• When Éléonore was still a teenager, Lucien abandoned his position as heir. He renounced the rights to the family inheritance, divorced Margot, completely withdrew from the administration of the academy, and left behind much of the privileges that accompanied his surname.

• Lucien didn't abandon the academy because he hated it. He believed he wouldn't be able to live the life his family had chosen for him. After abandoning the legacy, he left Los Angeles and went to live far from the academy and the family.

Margot Montclair.

• Margot Montclair was born into a powerful British family of magnates.

• Before taking over as director of the academy, Margot was CEO of companies belonging to her family and had great experience in the corporate world. She was known for her financial intelligence and for having an almost instinctive skill for business and investments.

• The marriage between Margot and Lucien was arranged by the Montclair and Stellaires families. Despite the origin of the marriage, Margot loved Lucien and, above all, loves her daughter Éléonore unconditionally. When Lucien abandoned the Stellaires legacy, Margot decided to take over the direction of the academy.

• To protect the institution and ensure that Éléonore wouldn't be left without a family structure, Margot abandoned her position as CEO and left the companies under third-party administration.

• Margot became Director of the academy and began to dedicate a great part of her life to preserving the institution. Furthermore, she was the one who revived Vivian's memory. Before Margot, Vivian was just the founder, but after taking control of the academy, Vivian became someone historic — a goddess within the academy, a woman who was capable of building something in a world where women could build nothing.