Help Me Get a Service Dog to Live a Better Life!!!
I have been waiting for years for and an opportunity like what I have just been given. I have been researching service dogs extensively for years, and now I have an opportunity to get a prospect for one…… but in 2 WEEKS! I need help funding the cost of the puppy as well as the flight ($2500 approx) to get across the country. While this has been on short notice please know that this has not been a rash impulse choice, this all has been in the making for sometime now, and there is already a dog picked out that is perfect for my needs. My community is ready and willing to support me through this process of training a service dog and think it could be one of the best things for my health.
Having a service dog would allow me to work a traditional job again, would allow me to have more freedom and autonomy, this is going to change my life in a very impactful way. I want to be able to leave my home without fear of passing out and falling, I want to be able to work again, I want to be able to get out and be a human being again, to finally have the ability to do things by and for myself!\ For the first time in a while I have hope for my future, hope that my quality of life can improve, hope to feel like me again.
Please if you can share and donate! This is vital to my health, my quality of life and future.
$2,600 GOAL!!!!!!!
CA: $sleepyhen
VN: wildwotko
Dm for Paypl
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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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hi... one of these posts again.
ill give you the short of it, we still owe 380 dollars for rent in december, haven't been able to pay for january, february, or march in full at all.
each months rent comes out to around 1395, so we're behind around 4500 dollars
our landlord has thankfully been very patient but i think hes going to be closing the book on us soon. at this point i dont blame him, but i think he's only being so patient because we've kept up with everything else
every little bit that hasnt gone to food has gone to bills and were still behind
i hate doing this. i fucking hate it. but because were struggling so fucking badly still i really dont have much of a choice. im sorry.
especially considering i made one not even a month ago
pypl / vnmo
0/1000
frankly speaking, this wont pull us out of the chasm we are currently in, but it would probably at least appease our landlord
if you cannot do anything, i understand. PLEASE do not feel like you have to. i just ask that perhaps you give it a reblog if you cant.
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hi, correct me if i'm wrong but i seem to remember you saying that you're majoring in illustration! i'm currently in the process of applying to colleges and i plan on majoring in illustration as well, so i was wondering if you had any advice for portfolios. I could really use some tips on the presentation aspect specifically, bc I'm a little lost when it comes to stuff like the arrangement/organization of pieces, how I should crop my pictures, etc. any advice you can give me is greatly appreciated!!
hi yes i can totally help you out with this! i like to think my college portfolio was pretty good bc i got accepted to every school i sent it to lol :) the main pieces of advice that i was given when building it were this:
studies and pieces that show off your technical skill are great, but limit them to around a third of your portfolio at most. art schools DO want to see that you're technically skilled and can like, draw a charcoal still life or a self-portrait, because those ARE important skills to have, but ESPECIALLY if you're applying to a school that's more known for contemporary fields like animation or illustration, it's much more likely that they want to see your creative mind at work. the single best thing you can put in your portfolio is a BODY OF WORK, and specifically a body of work that shows off your own ideas and your own take on whatever you're producing. this means 3+ pieces that are interconnected or related to the same central theme. my portfoilo, for example, consisted of 2 or 3ish traditional, technical pieces which showed that I had a certain level of technical skill, and the ENTIRE rest of it was devoted to a series of original interconnected narrative comics I'd written and drawn. Every reviewer I met with told me that this was what made my portfolio stand out to them--it showed that I was not only technically skilled, but that i had something i wanted to DO with that skill, that I had direction and drive with my art and was able to produce work that reflected that. If you're maybe (definitely) not quite as ambitious as me, something like a series of 3-5 interconnected illustrations or a short comic if you're into that might do the same thing.
as a side note, if you DO have a body of work as the central focus of your portfolio, a lot of colleges will be interested in your process as well! for example with my comic portfolio, i used one slot to demonstrate my process, because I penciled every page traditionally before digitalizing it and i had extensive character and worldbuilding sketches. I wouldn't devote more than one slot to it, but if you have a body of work where the process is important to you it could be worth throwing in!
arrangement is tricky, but the advice I generally heard was "put your best stuff first." whatever you're most excited about, whatever is going to grab someone's attention the fastest, that's what you want to have in your first slot. (I actually don't think I followed this advice on my applications LOL but it's what i was TOLD to do and i think it's solid advice.)
in terms of editing, assuming we're talking about traditional pieces being photographed, you want to make sure your pieces are 1. well-lit, (DO NOT TAKE YOUR PHOTOS WITH OVERHEAD LIGHTING. wait for an overcast day and take them outside trust me) 2. legible, (no weird shadows obscuring parts of the piece, high-quality enough that no details are lost due to digital pixelation, etc) and 3. as color-accurate to real life as you can make them. most of this is just about getting a decent-quality camera (a newer iphone should be fine) and a good location. (outside and overcast, as previously mentioned) you may want to throw your pics into photoshop and play with the balance slightly, but I wouldn't do anything too drastic, try to get the most accurate photo possible without any editing. (if your pieces are small and flat, scanning them in may work better. most public and school libraries have scanners you can use for free.)
finally, cropping. the general rule that I was taught is to crop the piece, not the photograph. if you've got a piece on paper and you're not sure you like how the actual drawing is oriented on the paper, crop the PAPER down to size, and THEN photograph it. your photos should aim to show the ENTIRE piece from edge to edge (unless it's a detail shot obv) and I even like to include a little bit of extra "breathing room" around the piece so that it's clear exactly where the dimensions of it end. here's a piece I used for my college portfolios for reference:
i lowkey do not like this piece now but that's not the point. this is what i mean by breathing room--a few extra inches of space around the actual canvas so it's clear that this isn't a closeup and you can see where the canvas actually ends. the same is true for digital pieces. if it's a full bleed illustration (something with full color all the way to the edges of the canvas) just make sure you like the composition cropped the way it is and submit the full piece as-is. if it's a floating spot or something similar without hard edges, leave a bit of white or transparent breathing room around the edge of your image.
hope this helps! if you have any more specific questions lmk :)
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