#doctornerdington

[in-sufficientdata]

@doctornerdington replied to your post “The worst time in my life was when I was still in...”:

I’m here and I’m listening.

​Thank you, I truly appreciate that.

[ficwritersretreat]

FIC WRITERS' RETREAT 2024

Registration Now Open!

WE'RE BACK TO ANNUAL, EVERYONE!!! Seventh Ontario Fic Writers' Retreat, first held in 2016, coming once again in 2024.

To Register, Click Here

When: August 8-11 2024

Where: Blue Mountain Chalets, Collingwood, Ontario

What is it? Four days spent with other fic writers, at all levels of experience. There will be a mix of workshops (Topics TBA and open to suggestions), prompts and challenges, and plenty of independent writing time for your own personal projects. (This year there's also a hot tub and an optional trip to the beach!)

It’s also an opportunity to make connections with people who share your interests and passions, and where you can focus on your own goals and creativity.

Cost (in CANADIAN DOLLARS): $450.00 

(approximately $332 USD as of this posting)

Here’s what you get for it:

Food Costs (with all participants helping with prep and cleanup - see note below)

Accommodation (Shared rooms but NOT shared beds - sorry)

Use of a hot tub and sauna at this year's venue (New this year!)

Daily workshops and writing sessions (2+ per day)

Registration fee included in the price

Registration Process:

Click on the Registration Link, above.

Complete the form and submit it.

Select a payment option: a) e-transfer (Canadian residents only) or b) PayPal (link in registration form)

Make your deposit of $225 CAD (50% of total cost) to complete your registration

Second payment is due on July 9, 30 days before the retreat begins.

Space will be allocated on a first-come, first served basis. There are 24 spaces available, after which names will be placed on a waiting list (no payment will be required unless you are offered a spot).

Travel to Toronto is not included.

However, since several participants (and the organizer) live in the area, we have always been able to arrange ride-shares from the Toronto Airport to the various venues. These connections will be arranged after registration.

Contact me with any questions! Or see the FAQ Page

***A note regarding meals: They'll look a little different this year - we'll be making our own! The venue is a pair of summer chalet/cottage spaces with full kitchens. All participants will be asked to take part in making meals happen - either for planning, picking up groceries, preparation or clean-up. The cost of the food is included in the price.

Tags under the cut. Let me know if you want to be tagged in this. If you’re not tagged it’s because I didn’t know you were interested. (Or I used an old list and forgot, or I thought you'd asked to not be tagged - correct me if I was wrong!) It's not because we don't want you! Please come.

@totallysilvergirl @blogstandbygo @addictedstilltheaddict @onwallsjcfwrites @amindamazed @fearlessdiva930 @cirquedereve @antheiasilva @inevitably-johnlocked @pippn-frodo @stellacartography @muaddib-iswriting @keirgreeneyes @missdaviswrites @nautilicious @otter-von-bismarck @mydogwatson @pipmer @aquabelacqua @may-shepard @pippn-frodo @weneedtotalkaboutfilms-blog @shirleycarlton @daringlydomestic @quesarasara @laughing-at-the-darkness @ellipsical-elle @fluffbyday-smutbynight @kettykika78 @vulgarweed @hellonewsletter @atlinmerrick @podfixx @stellacartography @1-800-get-sherlocked @thegildedbee @letteredlettered @inexplicifics @storyshark2005 @tiger-in-the-flightdeck @seriouslymarythough @anyawen @topsyturvy-turtely @noadventureshere221b @gay-pirate-anime @simpledontmeanpeachy @helloliriels @hopipp @masked-alias @doctornerdington

[some-anonymity-preferred]

all the good takes about that arc

Because I need them, and maybe you do, too.

Ways to Read the Arc that I Can Possibly Get Behind, Some Day

@areyoudoingthis on joining ed in valuing his own arc far more than he does izzy's

@forpiratereasons on how the arc is about the crew, not izzy

@asneakyfox explaining just how izzy's homophobia was stored in that rotten leg

@areyoudoingthis @medievill @appleteeth @maeglinthebold and @bookshelfdreams on Stede's effect on everyone, including Izzy, and Buttons flying over Izzy with the leg the crew gave him

@asneakyfox on how Izzy enjoying the behaviors he threatened Ed's life over is a means by which the narrative addresses his actions

@notfromcold on changed behavior being the best apology

@asneakyfox on how hbo's cut from 10 episodes to 8 negatively affects Izzy's arc, even if it's working for you

@doctornerdington on how ofmd's writing always asks you to read the subtext (even if I can hardly stand to look directly at this arc)

@zo1nkss with the pettiest take and I love it--Izzy doesn't deserve confrontation with Ed, let the lack of it be part of his suffering

Which is Not to Say We Aren't Suffering

@tfemteach wishing for just one line of apology and bringing all the discussion in the notes

@suffersinfandom on differential treatment of Ed's wrongs and Izzy's wrongs

Fix-Its

@asneakyfox with vision for ep 5.5, wee john, and ned lowe

@blackbonnetblog looking for a similar ep 5.5

@naranjapetrificada on izzy hungering for flesh

Mine: death without resolution is at least a rich source for fic development

Helpful Tangents

@ourflagmeansgayrights @zo1nkss and @lostakasha unapologetically appreciating Ed Teach as vehicle for revenge fantasies

@batsarebetterthanpeople on how the narrative makes it clear Izzy is one of Ed's abusers

@areyoudoingthis with a tangent that i needed, about ned lowe and ofmd still punishing racists, just complicating the aftermath

Mine (w/ debt to @naranjapetrificada): retribution vs rehabilitation vs atonement

The Very Best For Last

[saltwaterandstars]

I while ago I saw @doctornerdington recommend the book Body Work by Melissa Febos. I recently bought it and I'm about halfway through reading it. So far I think it's excellent and I'm finding it helpful, but it's stirring up lots of thoughts and feelings and so I've decided to write some notes about that to keep a record of how I'm responding to it. So, under the cut it a personal essay of sorts. It's not a statement about what I think anyone else is experiencing or should do, it's just a record of my own experiences, thoughts and feelings about which are being evoked as I read this book. If you do read what I've written and want to comment, I'd welcome that, but it is quite long and I'm imagining not many people will read it. If you are going to have a read though, please note the content warning tags. I wasn't sure really what it needed tagging for, so if you do read it, let me know if you think it should be tagged differently.

Body Work is a series of essays by Melissa Febos. On one level it’s a book about writing memoirs—writing about personal experience. But the book is about much more than that. She talks a lot about the scripts we have taken in from society, from the patriarchy, scripts that we unconsciously write from, but also the same scripts that we shape our selves and our lives around. I’ve just finished the essay Mind Fuck, which is ostensibly about writing sex scenes. But in exploring what goes on when go to write about sex, especially when that we includes people disenfranchised and brutalised by the patriarchy, she’s really exploring what it is to be an embodied person; what it is to understand our physical and sexual realities, to live them, to make conscious choices in relation to them, and to write about them. She talks about the importance of identifying and getting beyond the narrative threads that were previously sewn into me by sources of varying nefariousness or innocuity.

I’m finding reading the book personally very helpful but, of course, it’s only helpful to the extent that it’s disturbing me, that it’s leading me to bump into and acknowledge the scripts—body-related, sexual, and otherwise—that I’m still living in accordance with. It’s interesting that this process feels to me so desperately uncomfortable, terrifyingly unsettling, actually, and yet, at the same time, it also feels like such a compassionate thing to be doing for myself.

I’m a white woman in my late 50s. I come from a poor, working class background, but through education and profession I am clearly middle-class now (and class is still a big deal in the UK, even if it’s not as explicit as it used to be). I look and sound middle-class and have the privileges that come with that. I’m bisexual but have been in a monogamous relationship with a man for 25 years, so pretty much everyone who knows me or interacts with me sees me as straight. To a very large extent, for the first four decades of my life, I tried very hard to live within the straitjacket placed on me by the patriarchy, especially in relation to my body. I spent many years trying not to gain weight, trying to be conventionally, heteronormatively attractive and so on. And like many women, I was fully aware of where those scripts, those rules, were coming from and the harm they were doing me, but I was just too scared to even attempt to let go of them in any kind of meaningful way.

There were ways in which I did live beyond the patriarchy’s imposed limitations. For example, I had a successful career in a male-dominated profession. But in my 20s and 30s especially, I attempted to do that while still trying to be seen as attractive and well-behaved and unthreatening (which would be hilarious if it wasn’t so heart-breaking—I was threatening just by existing in those spaces—I couldn’t be there and be successful and not be a threat.)

I also had a sex life where, at least some of the time, I experienced myself as having agency and freedom. But I lived that part of my life pretty much secretly. I wasn’t ashamed of my sexual behaviour; I just didn’t trust that society—including many of the people in my day-to-day life—would value and respect me if I allowed myself as a sexual being to be more fully seen. So I hid myself from view—not an uncommon coping strategy for me.

In my 20s to 40s, I was frequently fearful and anxious. Whenever I did something that challenged the scripts, the rules, I was very scared. I am not a feisty, up-for-a-fight kind of person. I find breaking rules difficult, and being a ‘difficult person,’ challenging other people, even just disagreeing with other people, feels disturbing to me (this can’t possibly have its roots in my childhood—surely not?!) So when I did do political things, feminist things, when I stood up for colleagues, said no to unreasonable demands, just disagreed with people, even, I felt real, like I had acted authentically and in accordance with my values, but I also frequently felt like the world was about to end. At the very least, I was often just waiting to be punished and expelled from the pack. It’s a hard way to live.

My 50s have brought me—through the menopause and the development of a life-changing chronic illness, and the death of people I love—some dreadful challenges, but also, through the exact same experiences, a real increase in freedom. For one thing, I am no longer attractive in a stereotypical heteronormative way. I’m just not. My body just can’t be that anymore. And while I’ve had grief and fear around that, I do also have an ever-increasing sense of freedom because of these changes, too. And because I’ve been so ill and my poor body has had (and continues to have) such a difficult time, my whole way of relating to myself as an embodied person has had to change. I’ve had to cultivate great oceans of kindness and patience to be in this struggling body, and it turns out, kindness and patience with my body are also antidotes to the poison of the patriarchal rules I swallowed in when I was young. Who knew?!

And I have to say, the less invested I am in being seen as attractive and pleasant and reasonable, the more my fears around the imagined consequences of being authentically myself subside. In the last couple of years in work before I retired, for example, I was pretty much immune to the attempts by my (mostly younger male) colleagues to pressure or bulldoze or embarrass or emotionally blackmail me into doing what they wanted. I wouldn’t say I became fearless because I didn’t, but alongside the fear was a kind of gleeful, arms folded across my chest sense of oh this is going to be interesting.

The death of loved ones has been an immensely painful experience, but it has also functioned as rocket fuel to help launch me out of my state of fear-based inertia. I’m not going to go into details, but basically everyone else in my immediate family died young, so I’m a chronically ill woman approaching old age with a truly awful genetic inheritance in terms of family longevity. I hope I live till I’m 90, but maybe I won’t. Maybe if there are changes I need to make to be more alive and present and free in my life, I might want to get on with that. So the questions I’ve asked myself again and again in different forms over the last few years are: How many more years am I going to spend living by these shitty rules? How many more years am I going to waste not allowing myself to explore who I actually am? To be who I am? Oh, and when I die, do I want them to put something like She was always so well-behaved—on my headstone? Is that how I want to live the rest of my life? Et cetera, et cetera.

Over the last few years, in ways small and large, I’ve managed to shrug off bits of the straitjacket. The biggest change is that I’ve completely stepped away from a pretty successful but personally damaging career. I’ve also allowed myself to finally get to know my pagan self and to be that self more publicly. And regularly in day-to-day situations I’m managing to catch myself about to act in accordance with Febos’ narrative threads that were previously sewn into me. Sometimes I manage to step out of automatic pilot and to make a conscious choice to do something different, to be more authentically myself in that moment, even when that feels scary and exposing.

Which all sounds great—and it is! But if that was the end of the story, then reading Body Work would not be proving so unsettling for me. Turns out, the really difficult explorations and changes I’ve already made were actually the easier stuff. Could it be that I’ve managed to avoid the extremely difficult work by focussing on the really difficult work?! As I’m reading the book, it’s becoming clear that what still remains to be examined and unpicked is the tough stuff. So here I am again today, asking myself the questions:

Who is it serving to keep myself, my needs, my wants, my interests, my values, hidden from view and not enacted in the world?

And how is doing all that serving me, too?

And how many more of my precious remaining years do I intend to spend in this understandable but deeply unsatisfying holding pattern?

[doctornerdington]

I posted an OFMD fic! A little missing scene for anyone who ever wondered who arranged Ed's hair for the party ship in 1.5. Join me in obsessing about Ed's hair for 4000 words.

[hedwig-dordt]

Tagged! Reading edition

I was tagged by @doctornerdington to list current, recent, and future reads. Thank you!

Current: De Kat Die Bleef (English version: The Goodbye Cat*), by Hiro Arikawa; Het Achtste Leven (English version: The Eight Life), by Nino Haratischwili; King's Dragon, by Kate Elliott. Yes, that's three books. *weirdly, the Dutch translation is The Cat Who Stayed??

Recent: The Wise Virgins, by Leonard Woolf (who would be the first to agree his wife is the better writer); If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, by Noor Naga was an amazing book and you all should read it, especially if you're interested in fiction with footnotes and/or in-book discussion of the book. And of course I'm on the Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi bandwagon. That was fun.

Future: I'm horrible at planning my reading, but my bookclub has To the Lighthouse scheduled for discussion early February. For @readnburied reading challenge I have tentatively put down Claire Heywood's Daughters of Sparta as my book about princesses. I've also heard that Sofia Samatar and Nisi Shawl have books coming out this year!

Please consider yourself tagged if you want to play, whether I've tagged you or not. I am very interested to see the responses from @warm-tea-and-apple-pie @wyomingnot @stardustmorozov @chibi-blue-scapula @lovelorn-virtuoso @batik96 @incredifishface @sigmastolen @lyriumwolf @pati79 bonus tag @maltypass

[tiltedsyllogism]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers.

It has been a truly embarrassing number of weeks since I got this, but better late than never, right? Here are my 5, in chronological order:

"All Our Gifts at Once, or, the Young Sea-Man," BBC Sherlock, 48k. A Victorian-era realist retelling of The Little Mermaid. John, an illiterate shipwright, gives up his home and his voice for a chance to work alongside Sherlock Holmes, the famous London botanist. My first long fic (still my longest to date!) and monstrously ambitious; to this day I can't quite believe I pulled it off. But this is a self-rec post, so I'm gonna say it: I really did.

"A Case-by-Case Basis," BBC Sherlock, 5,2k. A comic, highly tropy getting-together fic. Which is really not usually my thing at all! I wrote this for an exchange, and I managed to honor the prompt while still making it very much my own, and I remain proud that I managed both those things at the same time.

"Every Day's Most Quiet Need," Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, 22.5k. Canon-compliant Mac-PoV fic about Mac's longstanding (if buried) feelings for Phryne and her growing friendship with Jack Robinson and the tensions between these things. This one really stretched me, as did working with @havingbeenbreathedout (who also prompted the fic) as a beta.

"Voskresenie," For All Mankind, 8k. An immediately-post-s3 fic set in Moscow about mourning in the face of catastrophic loss, from the PoV of the character you're thinking of if you have watched the show (which I do not want to spoil for anyone who hasn't!!!) This was, in its own way, a very ambitious fic (which uhhh seems to be a theme among my favorites) but I think I got to something very real and raw and universal while also keeping the specificity of the character and the setting.

"No Real Reason to be Lonely," For All Mankind, 3.5k. Post S2 fic. Ed's had a shitty day, but at least he's got Molly looking out for him, and she knows just the thing to cheer him up. Ed and Molly's friendship is one of my favorite things about this show, and I feel like I got the full dimensionality of it here.

I am too inept lazy to do this askbox-wise, so I will instead tag: @midnight-els , @moocowmoocow , @doctornerdington , @peachpulpeuse , and @trickybonmot . And anyone else who wants to do it -- please tag me if you do! I love these things.

[silverdragonreads]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom, James Bond (Craig Movies) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James Bond/Q Characters: James Bond, Q (Bond - Craig movies) Additional Tags: First Kiss, First Time, Art History, Fluff and Smut, Remix Summary:

A depressed Bond returns to London following his "death" in Istanbul. His first meeting with his new quartermaster proves entirely surprising.

[poorshadowspaintedqueens]

Ten First Lines

In honour of having reached a Tumblr milestone of 5000 likes (or so I hear), I’m swiping this from @doctornerdington.

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

1. The news from Harrenhal arrived the day after they came to Dragonstone. (The heart is an organ of fire)

2. Alicent Hightower did not believe in ghosts. (The very witching time of night)

3. Harwin found his father slumped over his desk in the Tower of the Hand. (This Palpable Device)

4. Rhaenyra would always remember her fourth name-day. (Dragon’s Heart Wrapt in Woman’s Hide)

5. My Dear Alana--I write to inform you of my safe arrival in Lithuania. (Denn die Tödten reiten schnell)

6. Five minutes after Anafiel Delaunay crossed the threshold of Valerian House, Melisande Shahrizai knew. (Poisons Fair and Foul)

7. Within the great red walls, the dead outnumber the living. (The (several) lives of Balerion the Cat)

8. You could say I killed my first man at the age of nine. (The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb)

9. Genna knew where she would find her brother after the feast. (The Lioness Still Has Claws)

10. They said her mother was the most beautiful woman in the known world, a vision with silver-gilt hair and eyes blue as the Summer Sea. (Erring Star)

[northernbookworm]

"Tagged" by @doctornerdington. List 8 tv shows to get to know me better. These were off the top of my head and my list may look different tomorrow.

1. Corner Gas

2. Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

3. Schitt's Creek

4. North of 60

5. Coronation Street

6. Better Call Saul

7. Anne with an E

8. Trailer Park Boys

You’re all tagged!

[aprillikesthings]

@doctornerdington and @olor-et-luna and @thetimemoves

Yeah that’s the consensus I seem to be getting!

Honestly the number of average days of rain that time of year isn’t far off from Portland. So water-resistant comfy shoes and a light jacket and an umbrella and I should be fine.

[thesuburbanerd]

🎶✨️When you get this you have to put 5 songs you actually listen to, publish, then send this ask to 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) ✨️🎶

I was tagged by @northernbookworm

These have been coming up on my playlist recently. I’ve included the lyrics that stick with me.

And just reviewing these songs, it’s entirely possible that I may be going through some stuff.

“Time” - Pink Floyd

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

“A Better Son/Daughter” - Rilo Kiley

And sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on

And your friends they sing along and they love you

But the lows are so extreme, that the good seems fucking cheap

And it teases you for weeks in its absence

“The Guillotine” - The Coup

They got the TV, we got the truth

They own the judges and we got the proof

We got hella people, they got helicopters

They got the bombs and we got the, we got the

We got the guillotine

“Alternative Ulster” - Stiff Little Fingers

Take a look where you're livin'

You got the army on the street

And the R-U-C dog of repression

Is barking at your feet

Is this the kind of place you want to live?

Is this where you want to be?

“We Are Fucking Fucked” - Muse

We're at death's door

Another world war

Wildfires and earthquakes I foresaw

A life in crisis

Mutated virus

Tsunamis of hate are gonna drown us

Ah

We are fucking fucked

Tagging @zesty-mordant @virginiagentlenerd @veradune @gnjoneswriter @fuckyeah-nerdery @quasi-normalcy @localareamom @unreconstructedfangirl @doctornerdington @tea-and-liminality 😃

[drgrlfriend]

Summer Fic Reading Bingo: Fic #5

A fic written by someone who follows you:

A Dark and Hollow Thing by doctornerdington

Drinking with Calico Jack is always a hazard.

[doctornerdington]

Oh boy, I tiktok’d!

[cacchieressa]

Thank you! I’m really happy with them.

[tiltedsyllogism]

Rules: List 8 tv shows to get to know me better.

Okay so I have thought about this an embarrassing amount since @naturaliseme tagged me last week, and I ultimately concluded that I need *two* lists: one for show that currently structure my perception and thinking, and one for shows that have played that role at some earlier point in my life but don’t anymore. (Some of the formerly-rotating-in-my-brain shows are ones I still love or thing are great, others I can’t bear to watch anymore.)

Currently/still rotating:

1) For All Mankind

2) Midnight Mass

3) Friday Night Lights

4) She-Ra (Netflix reboot)

5) the Walking Dead

6) Black Sails

7) Steven Universe

8) Battlestar Galactica

Erstwhile rotators:

1) the X-Files

2) the West Wing

3) House, MD

4) Community

5) Sherlock (BBC)

6) Criminal Minds

7) Orange is the New Black

8) Jessica Jones

I think I still only get to tag eight people, though? I am tagging @trickybonmot @masked-alias @doctornerdington @tomato-greens @moocowmoocow @chelsieheartstriker @tafkarfanfic @tinyboatbigshark and @vulgarweed .