What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.
so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.
Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:
She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent
Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married
She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came
She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays
She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home
Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)
She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words
the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.
She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)
Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues
She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)
She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).
She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)
She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.
She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food
(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:
She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it
seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)
slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)
(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))
However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.
Subsequent conclusions about her personality:
Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).
Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:
Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.
Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?
Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:
It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:
Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.
We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.
It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.
It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.
"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).
And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?
Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?
I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:
copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.
It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.
But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.
What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."
Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.
All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)
There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.
but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.
(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)
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Ah fuck it whatever
There's something I love about the new Consequences AU and how it compares to the AUs and music it's come from.
Where things like Roxy's old kingdom being destroyed and her being almost drowned as a baby are metaphorical, there's a lot of things that strangely aren't. Roxy specifically denying the gods and the powers that be is something she does in most of my interpretations of her. The gods in most situations, isn't a spooky green rabbit, it's the people in the Fazbear boardroom making the world's worst decisions ever. To the animatronics, they are the gods. There's no higher authority than them, and they can have them destroyed without ever having met them, at just a moment's notice, for seemingly no reason.
Bonnie once believing in the gods and turning against them works like it does for most of the animatronics too. Even just questioning Fazbear isn't something many of them have been able to do, but all of them will eventually learn to. The more they learn through Roxy, despite what they might have known before, the more they realise what kind of company they've been forced to be a part of.
And Roxy's attitude towards these gods is always the same. She won't pretend to be nice to people she knows don't care about her. She won't put any extra effort into maintaining social etiquette if there's no point, if there's nothing for her to gain from it. Fazbear CEOs and board members have hurt her so much already, she doesn't give a flying shit about them, she's not wasting her time on them unless she absolutely has to. In this universe, the same can be said about the gods. She doesn't care for them and they don't care about her, so why bother? They've told like six people to assassinate her already, why would she choose to listen to them?
Roxy's relationship with the Minis and DJ? That's the same as it is across the board with most of the AUs I have. The attempt on Roxy's life when she's barely been born is shown differently in the new AU, but is still the same concept. Some things have been shifted around, such as the specific motivations, but not by a lot. I suppose Bonnie's dad in this fills the roll of Vanessa if Vanessa was also actually Mimic? He doesn't have an exact match here in terms of scale, but the comparisons are there.
The whole kingdom being destroyed, Roxy finding out that that's where she originally came from, that she was the newborn prince with a wholeass family she's never known, all lines up so well with everything else too. The pizzeria, scrapped storage, the old attractions there before her racetrack, it's all gone and she knew nothing about it. She's once again found out the truth in possibly the worst way imagineable, and she doesn't know what to do with this information, but honestly, who would?
The biggest difference there is that in this new AU, Roxy has the choice of what to do. In what's basically canon to the game, Roxy doesn't have that choice and likely never will. Where she's had to sacrifice her Raceway and Salon, sacrifice the vast majority of her life and her purpose for the safety of everyone around her, in this universe, she can choose not to. She sacrifices certainty this time, something she can regain as time goes on but in any other universe, there is never any certainty to get back. There will always be a Mimic threat and she can't get any of her old life back until it's dead and gone. She has to pay a price to keep Mimic contained, and while the Afton/Glitchtrap gods scramble to convince her otherwise, the Roxy in this new AU does have the choice whether she pays it or not.
But she will always still have to deal with the consequences of those with power. Every single time. And every single time so far, her entire existence is the consequence for them. Her life overall has not been the result of her own choices, but rather, the choices of people that never cared about her to begin with...
At least in this new universe she has a good childhood to fall back on and a cool ass horsie. And can actually do something about this shit. She can't normally do that :(
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Ok but the idea of Steve and Chrissy dating since season 1 is so agdudbd. Like, what if Patrick dies during that party (you know, instead of Barb) and is literally the same drama all over again, because Patrick was a very close friend of hers.
And in that context there's no damn need to let Nancy in the known, right? Is not! But she stills helps Jonathan after Steve breaks his camera and she somehow gets involved because yk journalist instincts and all that. AND JASON gets involved too, because Patrick was his best friend bitch and he heard around that Jonathan have shit about that on his camera and wants to learn the truth and somehow these three become a trio and investigate idk I haven't watched Stranger Things the idea is that a lot of people somehow get involved only because Steve is dating another girl in season 1. (And thank God Jason went straight to Jonathan before he started a manhunt on Harrington for killing his bestie agehjdjs)
Anyway, I want to believe half of the basketball team finds out about the Upside Down by the time season 4 comes; Lucas being on the team doesn't help AT ALL, he and Jason are shit at keeping a secret Andy called bullshit on them so many times.
And yk we can either have Robin who still told Steve she's a lesbian and they are besties now OR HAVE ROBIN GOING TO EDDIE TO BUY DRUGS AND GETS KILLED BY VECNA- actually no fuck off she still gets involved in season 3 and is Steve's bestie but yk putting the idea out there.
Is there going to be nearly no damn plot in season 4 because 1) Jason knows about the Upside Down, 2) Eddie doesn't get involved because Chrissy does have a good boyfriend and doesn't feel like drugs is the only way and 3) There's a big ass group ready to kick Vecna's ass? Yeah man, probably, but Chrissy is alive and Eddie's alive and everybody is alive!
Except Barb cuz someone needs to die in Patrick's place we can't save everyone now sorry no sorry.
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