lastmafagafo
Last Mafagafo
"It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." (Lewis Carroll)
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Being 20-smth in a nutshell
Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn't know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad's connections. The 26 year old barista couldn't complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me
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The Wise Princess has become my Roman Empire for years now. One of the reasons (there are many) is because it reminds me of a song I used to listen as a child about someone asking around for "Lady Happiness" and getting the answer from an angel.
Mary de Morgan’s ‘The Wise Princess’: A Victorian Fairy Tale of Feminism and Self-Sacrifice
I’m endlessly fascinated by fairy tales, and what they can tell us about the times they were written in: people’s fears, hopes and ideals. So while I was browsing Project Gutenberg for interesting stories, I stumbled upon Mary de Morgan’s 1880 collection of fairy tales, The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde and Other Stories. The title story is wild and wonderful - about a princess who does not wish to marry, so turns her suitors into beads and strings them onto a necklace - and deserves a whole post to itself, but the one I want to talk about is the final story in the collection, ‘The Wise Princess’, which moved me to tears when reading it and has stuck with me ever since. (Illustration from the original publication below by Walter Crane.)
In this story, Princess Fernanda wishes to know everything. After she’s exausted her tutors ‘and learnt every language and every science’, she learns magic from a wizard until ‘she knew the languages of all animals. The fishes came from the deep at her call, and the birds from the trees. She could tell when the winds would rise, and when the sea would be still. She could have turned her enemies to stone, or given untold wealth to her friends. But for all that, when she smiled, her lips were very sad, and her eyes were always full of care.’
She asks the wizard how to be happy, but he does not know. She asks her maid, a lark and a dog the same question, but still does not receive a satisfactory answer. (Interestingly, she meets a woman with a baby who says that she is happy, but right at that moment she is anxious because her fisherman husband is late coming home; Princess Fernanda responds, ‘Then you could not teach me.’ I wonder if this is the author’s way of saying that true happiness cannot be dependent on another person, or specifically, that a woman’s happiness cannot be reliant upon a man.)
Then she comes across the body of a young man killed in war, laid out in a church with a smile on his lips. Death, appearing as a white angel, tells her that he taught the soldier how to be happy while the man was doing his duty. Fernanda leaves the church and goes to the beach, where she sees a boy drowning and rushes to save him. She brings him to safety, ‘but the waves were so strong that she could scarcely keep above them. As she tried to seize the rocks, she saw Death coming over the water towards her, and she turned to meet him gladly. “Now,” said he, clasping her in his arms, “I will teach you all you want to know;” and he drew her under the water, and she died.’ When her body is found, cold and beautiful, she too has a smile on her lips.
Mary de Morgan was a feminist and a suffragette - author Kate Forsyth has written a fascinating article about her, titled Suffragette Mary de Morgan: England’s First Feminist Fairy Tale Writer?. This comes through clearly in both this story and others, here with a headstrong princess who wishes - and is allowed - to dedicate herself to studying. This subject was very timely: in 1869, a group of women known as The Edinburgh Seven became the first matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university, having all studied medicine, but they weren’t allowed to graduate or practice as doctors. Their story caught the attention of the press and advocates for women’s education and, four years before the publication of The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde, the Medical Act 1876 was passed, allowing women to graduate as licensed doctors.
The message of self-sacrifice, too, is strongly Victorian. Stemming from Christian theology, the Victorian view of self-sacrifice as a good and noble act can be seen in the romanticisation of the soldier’s death, as it can be in Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park, London, where beautiful tiles - designed by and made by Mary de Morgan’s brother, William de Morgan - commemorate the lives, or rather deaths, of everyday people who died saving others. (If you’ve seen the movie Closer, you’ll know that Natalie Portman’s character takes her name, Alice Ayres, from a plaque here.)
The Victorian ideal of woman as ‘the angel in the house’ - a phrase from a poem by Coventry Patmore in which he describes his perfect wife - was subverted by the suffragettes themselves, who used religious imagery and words such as ‘crusade’ and ‘martyr’ to describe their cause. They often depicted themselves as Joan of Arc figures and portrayed Emily Wilding Davison, who was trampled to death by King George V’s horse in 1913, as an angel on the front cover of their journal.
Although this ideal clearly lasted beyond Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, we can also see the tide beginning to turn against it. Just as the idea that dying in war is a beautiful act was bitterly rebuked by Wilfrid Owen in his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, written during World War I, a resistance can be found in novels such as May Sinclair’s The Life and Death of Harriet Frean (1922), which shows the devastating consequences of the protagonist’s Victorian upbringing, with its emphasis on selflessness, or E.M. Delafield’s Consequences (1919), where life in a convent causes only more suffering. The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice was never finished, after its creator George Frederic Watts died in 1904 and his widow lost interest in it.
Although I have conflicted feelings about message in ‘The Wise Princess’, it still moves me. Perhaps it’s because we still haven’t found the answer to ‘how to be happy’, or solved the struggle between caring for others and caring for ourselves.
What do you think about this story? I’d love to know if you have any more examples of fairy tales that reflect their times, examples of Victorian self-sacrifice, or works that rebelled against this ideal - please get in touch!
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How was your weekend?
Me: Nice 😊
My weekend:
youtube
#emma is brilliant#i desperately need friends#take me awaaaaay#pocketful of sunshine#easy a#emma stone#Youtube
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Happy Birthday, @skyland2703!!! I wish you happiness, love, money and a huge bday cake! Keep being kind, sensitive, a bit of a dreamer, and so, so smart! You are a gift to this world!
From your big soul sibling from another country :)
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You remind me of the baby...
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Why is the Doctor making Donna a cup of coffee so significant?
Well, he is trying to impress her, to get her to travel with him again – like he tried to do by using the TARDIS to make it snow at Christmas the first time he asked her to travel with him.
But he got that attempt wrong. Donna doesn't like Christmas, and the Doctor having the power to make it snow "scared her to death."
A cup of coffee, just how she likes it, is (on the surface of it) a smaller gesture to show that he remembered the little details about her. A cup of coffee is what brought them together all those years ago.
But it's what Donna told the Doctor about what Lance making her that cup of coffee meant to her that the Doctor really listened to and remembered.
"I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit posh, really. I'd spent the last two years at a double glazing firm. Well, I thought, I'm never going to fit in here. And then he made me a cup of coffee. I mean, that just doesn't happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee.
"And Lance, he's the Head of HR, he didn't need to bother with me. But he was nice, he was funny. And it turns out he thought everyone else was really snotty too. So, that's how it started, me and him. One cup of coffee, and that was it."
Donna fell in love with Lance because he made her a cup of coffee. So used to being unnoticed and uncared for, something as simple as an 'important' man taking the time to make her a cup of coffee meant everything to Donna.
She thought it was a sign that he was kind, that he was nice. She thought it was a sign he noticed and cared for her.
And the Doctor sees how it devastates her to learn the real reason why he was making her coffee was to drug her for his own ends. Despite their differences, he's gentle when he breaks it to her. And it connects her to him in a shared grief.
So when the Doctor makes her a cup of coffee after she regains her memories, he's not just telling her that he remembers the little details about her like how she likes her coffee, but the big things too.
He's showing that he sees her, that he cares about her thoughts and feelings, that he wants to care for her after all these years when he couldn't. That he knows how important this is to her.
But that's not all.
In the alternative timeline, Donna never meets Lance. And yet, when she is upset, and afraid, she asks Rose Tyler for a cup of coffee. Steam rises from her mug as they stand around the console inside the dying TARDIS, and have the most honest conversation they've had yet about the Doctor and their feelings towards him.
In the proper timeline, the person we see Donna drinking coffee with is Wilf. In moments of joy and moments of upset they bond over coffee. Before she finds the Doctor again, Donna brings Wilf a thermos to escape Sylvia's criticisms.
Wilf is the only person in Donna's life who she can be herself around, who has unconditionally cared for her, and who she takes joy in caring for back.
Even in the alternative timeline, Wilf has held onto not only the telescope but the exact same thermos Donna brings him coffee in when he's up on the hill.
For the Doctor to remember how she takes her coffee, we know they must have had moments together like this off-screen too.
So when the Doctor makes her a cup of coffee, just how she likes it, he is communicating he remembers not just the small details of her but that he remembers all these things that she associates with making someone a cup of coffee – kindness, acceptance, being noticed, caring for someone and being cared for, home, and family.
It's possible, for the Doctor, there's an apology in that cup of coffee too.
But wait, there's still more.
Did Donna spill the cup of coffee on the console on purpose?
The slight of hand was rather obvious. And it came at a time when Donna was trying to convince him not to leave her, to come back home to her, if only just for a visit.
He'd not said no, but she'd easily seen through him the first time he lied about coming inside to have dinner with her family that first Christmas, and likely saw through him again – the avoidance of eye contact, fiddling with the TARDIS, the wane "yeah, maybe."
She also rather clearly wanted to go on another trip with him (she never wanted to stop in the first place), and was only saying no because of her obligations to her family. It's possible she was buying time by spilling the cup of coffee – just one more than one last trip, without it being her "fault."
She had, after all, just dropped a cup of coffee on a computer and lost a job she'd probably hated, knowing Donna. And before things had gone really wrong, she'd definitely been enjoying herself.
It's also possible she's still quite angry with the Doctor, but unable to fully verbalise this yet.
He connects the cup of coffee to remembering every detail of her. She has not been able to remember any detail of her life with him. The last time they were standing around the console together, he took her memories against her will. He says it killed him; but she – or that version of herself, the one she actually liked – was arguably the one who was killed.
And she might be remembering Lance, another man she truly loved and trusted, and how a cup of coffee seemed like a kindness but was in fact a lie, a violation.
The Doctor quite possibly also suspects something like this is what might have happened, given his level of anger at her.
Despite the fact that this Doctor is more able to admit his feelings, we don't see what happened between them when he took her memories ever properly resolved in words.
Instead, there are a series of proxy arguments that stand in for it – Donna's anger that she gave away all her money because of him, that he sees taking the slow path, living a life day after day as such agony when he made her do it, his anger at her faith that he will know how to defeat the Toy Maker.
And their most emotional proxy argument of all – who is at fault for stranding them at the edge of the universe? Is it Donna, who spilt the cup of coffee, or the Doctor, who she couldn't stop from wandering off?
Thematically, however, there is some resolution. The Doctor lets Donna decide to regain her memories, even if it means she'll die. The Doctor knows Donna enough to save her from being left to die alone, even if it is at the very last moment. The Doctor admits he used to think he knew everything, but now he knows he doesn't.
Donna gets to tell him it's not all about him saving her, gets him to stop, finally gets him to come home with her.
And in their last scene, it's the Doctor who is having the cup of coffee.
#doctor who#catherine tate#fourteen x donna#fourteenth doctor#ten x donna#david tennant#doctor x donna#donna noble#tatennant#tenth doctor#perfection#and brilliant
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Finally the world is how it was supposed to be.
DoctorDonna and the Tardis. Together. Forever.
#donna noble#dw#doctor who#tenth doctor#doctor donna#60th anniversary#doctor who 60th anniversary#fourteenth doctor
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I feel like RTD has been reading DoctorDonna fanfics on AO3 and here for the past 15 years. I'm not complaining.
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I missed Wilf ❤
I'm gonna cry
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I totally forgot how Doctor Who can scary the sh*t out of me sometimes.
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DW is back with the specials, and for the first time that wasn’t the Doctor who travelled back to the past, it was me. Suddenly I was younger, watching the Doctor and Donna being brilliant together. That’s the greatest gift a fan could ever receive. Welcome back!
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Do you hold grudges?
Me:
#my good opinion once lost is lost forever#i'm mr darcy#that person i cant stand#pride and prejudice#my zodiac sign is cancer#what could you expect?
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I have this fix-it headcanon that Donna will die, but her time-lady part makes her regenerate as a 100% human Donna. So her brain will be "fixed" in the end. The reason she won’t follow the 14th Doctor this time will be because she has a family to take care now.
I trully hope RTD had the same idea. Because if he kills Donna for real this time (or erases her memories again)... I will be forever traumatized.
😭😭😭
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Here is where DoctorDonna meets Dimeshipping.
Mount Vesuvius 🌋Pompeii
#donna noble#tenth doctor#doctor who#dw#magica de spell#scrooge mcduck#doctor donna#dimeshipping#tatetennant
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@henrigailshipper9803
Let's do it!
1.One-shots
2.Both
3.Usually, I come up with the plot and a few crucial moments, then I start writing the "fillers", so everything will get at least a bit cohesive. Then I come back reviewing to make sure the charecters are being consistent and the story makes sense. Then I post chapter by chapter.
4.I think I just obsess too much about a character, that they start living their own adventures in my mind.
5.Yes and no. My ego hurts, but I know it’s for the best.
6.Nope. I would love to, though.
7.Usually, I always write in third person. I just do first person, when I feel the story calls for it. For example, when the main character is the Reader (so I can avoid Y/N), or when I’m following a style (noir movies, epistolary novels).
8.Beggining and middle. I can’t do endings well.
9.If I read a story to the end, I always comment on it. If I don’t, I leave a kudo/like.
10.Skip
11.Also skip
12.Nowadays, it doesn't. I write mostly for myself. If other people read and like it too, it’s a very welcomed bonus.
13.Show, don't tell (at least I try).
14.I try to think as the character, and figure how they would react to certain situation.
15.I don’t do smut. It’s hard for me to find the balance between realistic and corny.
16.So many fics perpetually in progress! I couldn’t count.
17.I leave it unfinished on my computer and hope some day I'll come back to it.
18.After. There is no rule to it.
19.Fluff, I guess
20.Also fluff, with sweet moments and open endings.
21.Not, really. I can’t compromise, and I hate to let peple down. So I preffer writing alone.
22.Smut
23 Just write. You can always come back and make your idea better later.
24.No idea.
25.All? I’m not a big name in any fandom that I’m in.
26.None? Never done anything too crazy.
27.Most: filler dialogues between my characters. They are fun to write. Least: endings. I'm terrible at it.
28.Depends on the day. I can do a whole chapter or a line. There is no in between.
29.I just come back reading when I finish the story and trust a lot on the grammar check tool of Google Docs.
30.I usually wait till it’s finished
31.Plot AND characters. I don’t do OCs, so characters are already done by someone else.
32.I don’t have favorites.
33.Maybe, if I write something original
34.Still writing fics, as I already do
35.The villain always thinks he is right. No matter their motives (or the lack of motive), the villain is always right in their own eyes.
36.Just like a korean drama author, I take my time with the kissing. Go for the tension!
37.When it feels right.
38.No. I can barely keep up with my own prompts…
39.Skip
40.Oh… I don’t know… I think I would be happy with any fanart based on my fics.
41.I do!
42.Hum… I don’t remember.
43.I like my character brooding.
44.I don’t have a beta.
45.Both. Both is good.
46.Character or emotion driven. I'm not someone of action.
47.A lot! And still make mistakes.
48.Free time and liking the characters I write about
49.Not many rude comments. I tend go with "If that’s your opinion, ok. You be you". I don’t have time, nor intention, to engage on fandom wars for a fic, even if it’s mine.
50.30 something chapters
51.No idea
52.Always! I don’t receive much comments, so if someone took their time to write me something, the least I could do is answer.
53. Split? Maybe a bit more of a reader
54.Reviewing after ending it all. I tend to forget what I wrote
55.I love them all equally. I do have a type, tho. I always write the two idiots sharing one braincel.
56. My writing style is simple
57.I usually wait. But when I lose inspiration, then come back months later, I end up reviewing what I already have written before writing more.
58.The brilliant idea that comes to my mind that I’m never able to put on paper
59.Everyone I care about.
60.Yep… I felt pretty great
61.Because I like writing, and sometimes I can’t find a fic with an specific idea I had, so I do it myself
62.Hate them when the fic wasn’t finished. Love when I know they will continue writing
63.Clichés
64.Feelings
65.No idea
66.I don’t deal well with deadlines. That’s why I usually post a fic that’s already finished. They one I didn’t do it, is still there to update😬
67.Independent ideas
68.Nothing
69.Oh my! My Phantom of the Opera fic… a bit toxic. But I’m rewriting it.
70.Enthusiastic. There is nothing to be ashamed of.
71.I don’t think I do
72.Cronological. But sometimes I must write a chapter out of order, so I won’t forget the idea
73.I don’t
74.My writing style, as a whole, might give indications. Like words I use or lenght of the periods and chapters. Or not.
75.Skip
76.So many…
77.Skip
Get to know your fic writer!
Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?
Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?
Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic
Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?
Do you like constructive criticism?
Do you have your work beta'd? How important is this to your process?
How do you choose which POV to write from?
Do you prefer the beginning, middle, or end of a story?
Do you comment on stories you read?
Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up
Link your three favorite fics right now
how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?
what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?
how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?
How do you write smut scenes? Do you get very visual or detailed? How important is it to be realistic?
How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?
What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)
Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?
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Best writing advice for other writers?
Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?
What fic do you wish you got more of a response on?
Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?
What is your most and least favorite part of writing?
On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?
What’s your revision or editing process like?
Do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished?
Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?
Name three of your favorite fanfic writers.
Do you want to be published some day?
Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?
What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?
How do you write kissing scenes?
How do you choose where to end a chapter?
Would you ever write commissions?
Share a snippet from a WIP
If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?
Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?
What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?
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What mistakes do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?
Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?
How would you describe your style? (Character/emotion/action-driven, etc)
How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
What do you look for in a beta?
Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?
How long is your longest fic?
What’s your total AO3 word count?
Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?
What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?
Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?
What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?
Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it’s finished?
What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? (Brainstorming, outlining, writing, editing, etc)
Does anyone in your personal life know you write fic? if not, would you tell anyone?
Have you had a writer you admire comment on your fic? What was that like?
Why do you continue writing fics?
Thoughts on cliffhangers?
Something you hate to see in smut.
Something you love to see in smut.
Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project
How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?
Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?
What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?
What work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?
When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?
When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?
What order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?
What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?
You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?
What scene in [Fanfic Name] took the longest to write? What was difficult about it?
Did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of [Fanfic Name]?
Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from [Fanfic Name] story/chapter?
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