#bonus points if you tell me what scene/episode specifically you have in mind! I'll tell you guys my initial guess after the fact

[tora-the-cat]

Happy womans history month! everybody place your bets now: How long does it take Naruto to pass the Bechdel test?

I'm watching it until it does as soon as this poll ends so. we will see!! <3

(Also obligatory 'I know the bechdel test doesn't actually indicate or mean anything by itself and is literally a lesbian in joke that went viral' like. I'm just doing this for funsisesss)

[lastontheboatfics]

hello, if you're still doing director's commentary posts, could i get one on the spirit is willing (the flesh is weak) please? thank you! 🌿

OK SO

The first scene was the first thing I wrote once I gave in to the terribly compelling idea of Bill/Ginny fuck or die.

I remember noodling about the concept with @fluxweeed and saying something like "but what's the scenario? What forces them together?" Because I had the vibes, but I need Believable Motivation for my sibling incest stories, apparently. And as soon as the idea of a curse breaking misadventure and a sex spirit was proposed, my mind ran with it.

When I get excited about a story idea, it usually starts with a strong emotional inspiration. There's a moment that I can sort of see the shape of, and I want to get that feeling right. In this case, it was that moment of Bill trying to protect Ginny by giving in to the spirit's desires, and both of them thinking they need to hide what it means to them.

I have a superstition that if I write this scene before it's had a chance to marinate in my brain then I'll lose some essential, intangible element. What this means is that I start writing significantly earlier in the story, in order to help establish the baseline relationship and character arc starting points and all those other important things that will help reveal its true shape. It's a very "no dessert before your vegetables" attitude to writing. It's very frustrating!

However! Rather than feeling like a slog, starting with the opening scene energized me. It's the third time I've written a sex scene that's interrupted, and I love what it told me about Ginny in this fic—she's horny, adrift, and a bit messy. It made me want to figure out what Bill thought of her, beneath his laid back, amused outer shell.

I jumped around quite a bit after I finished that scene, working on whichever part I was interested in at any given moment. The whole plot element about the binding knives happened by accident—I was fumbling around, trying to figure out how to make the concept of "bill and ginny walk into a tomb" more interesting, when I remembered that I had made Bill toss a backpack onto Ginny in the opening scene. That made me wonder: what was in the backpack? Ginny was my proxy; I had no idea what she would find when she rooted through it.

In the bonus episode for The Bolthole, GallaPlacidia talks about how her plots emerge organically the more specific her writing becomes, because she just starts noticing patterns and connections and themes in the semi-random elements that she's introduced. That's what happened to me—I added a knife to the bag on a whim, because why not? Later, I realized that if Ginny had a knife, then Bill surely did too. Also, his knife could fail, which raised the stakes a bit. I now needed a reason that Ginny's knife wouldn't fail, which led me to the offerings and the stasis spell, and also provided a plausible motivation for Bill to get close to Ginny later when she's naked and vulnerable so he could slip her the knife (hurr hurr). All of that because I wanted something in the backpack that would take Ginny by surprise!

I do think the main setting suffers from Big Empty Room Syndrome. Like, it's this big hill they're inside, with a long tunnel entrance, and it's just... there's an altar? And offerings? And a plaque on the wall? One day I'll figure out how to actually describe environments in ways that make them sound interesting and believable.

The last thing that sticks out to me from the writing process is the scene where the spirit is torturing Ginny. My biggest difficulty there was my fear that I would undermine the mood for subsequent taboo sex. I don't find torture or pain particularly sexy (your mileage may vary), so choosing to tell a story where Bill is forced to take unthinkable action to stop Ginny from getting hurt was ambitious. I liked that she was exposing her desires to try and keep the spirit from hurting him, though; the symmetry makes my math brain happy.

I think that's it for the director's commentary! I am very fond of this fic, and it's the first one that I've recorded that I also wrote. Go ahead and give it a spin!

the spirit is willing (the flesh is weak)

Bill/Ginny, E, 15k

Read it :: Listen to it

[coping-via-clint-eastwood]

CSI Characters as Ancient/Medieval Fantasy Warriors (title is tentative)

I WROTE THIS ALL IN ONE SITTING!!!!!  CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???????

*ahem* This is speculation about what powers and skills the CSI characters would have if they were warriors in an ancient/medieval fantasy setting, amongst other things. This was probably inspired by my recent wallowing in medieval fantasy (specifically Songs of War {if you don't know what that is, it's okay}), and I thought, why not entertain the idea? And after writing it out, I can say that it was fun toying around with it. If this inspires anybody to add on anything, or write fanfiction, or whatever, by all means go ahead.

@addictedtostorytelling @bartramcat @buildinggsr @davesdude80 @dobbyofearth @fandomismymiddlename @originalpinkranger @panchostokes @space-helen @stokes-theorem

All the people written about here are humans with powers.

Gil:  He has enhanced eyesight, and is a sniper archer. If I may draw your attention to the ending scene of season 4 episode 2, All for Our Country:

Bonus shot because it reminds me of his Will Graham days:

He is canonically a deadeye. So, I am extending that to be a superhuman power. I'll put it this way: he can aim and shoot at the same target a contemporary sniper with a scope could; he does not require (or have, for that matter) a scope. Because he is not so able as his younger teammates, so he cannot be in the direct area of battle and fend off opponents. But he has excellent eyesight, so he hides up in a tree or on the edge of a cliff that overlooks the area or wherever is applicable, and shoots any targets he can.  He uses a crossbow, since not as much strength is needed to pull back the cord as compared to a bow.  He also has a light wooden staff which he uses to help him walk up inclinations. It's also his defensive staff; if an enemy manages to sneak up on him, he can point the staff at them and shoot a forcefield that will blast them back. But this is only effective at close range, hence why he has to use the crossbow for opponents further away. He wears a hooded cloak which is green on one side and a dusty brown on the other, so that he can camouflage himself, turning the cloak to whichever side he needs to match his surroundings.  He is not the only one to wear a cloak however; Catherine, Ecklie, Jim, DB and Finn wear cloaks (more details when I get to each) as well to show they are of higher ranking, but only Gil's is hooded for practical purposes.

Warrick: His power is that he can jump really high. He can jump over a small hill and land on the ground on the other side. He's the one who helps get Gil to his perches if needed; he puts him over his shoulder and jumps, holding him with one arm and his war hammer in his other hand. He is strong enough to carry Gil. And Gil trusts him and is comfortable enough to let himself be borne in such a way, never struggling or crying out in fear when he is suddenly brought off the ground at such a high rate. In tandem with being able to jump high, he can strike his hammer on the ground when he lands and cause a quake. His hammer's enchantment depends on how high he jumped. On the ground, he swings his hammer at an opponent and sends them flying back (at a much greater distance than Gil's forcefield).

Bobby Dawson: He's the archer who is in the direct area of battle. He uses a small hunting bow, and also has a gladius in case any opponents manage to get close to him. He has enhanced reflexes, so he is able to turn around, draw weapons, and load and shoot his bow faster than normal.

Catherine:  She is telekinetic.  She does not use weapons because she prefers to have her hands free to gesticulate and help her focus on moving the objects she is controlling.  Her cloak is a beautiful royal blue.

Heather:  Mind control + reading minds + telepathy.    And invisibility.  Aside from turning the team's opponents against each other, mind control is useful for helping friends escape from dangerous situations; sometimes, it's easier than telling them what to do.  She needs very strong concentration for her mind control, which is the ability she uses the most, so she makes herself invisible and keeps out of the way, but stays where she can see the person she is manipulating.  Like Gil, she has the defensive staff in case anyone finds her.

Nick and Sara: They are what I like to call the speedster twins. It is very satisfying to wash them nyoom about and quickly kill any opponent in the path of their run. Typically, they start out standing next to each other at the same point, and then run on one side of the battlefield each. So they take out the opponents on the skirting of the battlefield. Sara has a cutlass while Nick has twin daggers.

Greg: He can talk to nearby spirits and ask them to help his team in the fight. With the power of this necklace that he has, he can conjure a protective invisible dome-shaped barrier around himself, which is invulnerable to any and every form of attack. Except if somebody were to dig their way up from below him of course. However, he has to stay in the same spot when he is inside this barrier, and has to deactivate it if he wants to walk (or run or whatever) somewhere else. The spirit of the person who gave him the necklace follows him everywhere, and stays by his side on the battlefield to protect him from any opponents who manage to get close.  Greg has a curved cleaver in case he needs to fight.

Al:  Aside from being a healer, he can freeze time.  Sort of. He can freeze the movement of anybody who is coming at him, no matter how many there are. He does not wield weapons. He has wooden legs (which are enchanted to be completely painless for him) and a staff, but without the power that Gil's and Heather's have. To heal someone, he just has to touch them, for as long as it takes for the wounds to completely heal. **I was thinking about making him have something to do with necromancy, but I thought that that's too much like Greg's power.

David:  He is the other healer, and is the one who kills the people that Al freezes. He just makes them fade out of existence. It is completely painless, and that way they don't have any bodies lying around the healers' area. Also, while Al heals physical injuries, David actually cures illnesses. So he has to touch his patient for as long as it takes to eradicate the infection.

The two healers typically stay in one spot, ready to head out into the battlefield if any of their teammates are injured.

Archie: He is the cryokinetic guardian of Henry, Wendy, Mandy, and Hodges, who are not combatants. He does not use weapons.

Henry:  He is a blacksmith, in charge of repairing the people's weapons, and making new ones if necessary. He also makes the arrows for Gil and Bobby.

Wendy: She is an enchanter who imbues weapons with offensive powers, such as the quake and blast effect on Warrick's hammer, or the enhanced sharpness of the speedster twins' blades.

Mandy: She enchants weapons with defensive powers, such as Greg's necklace, or Gil's and Heather's staves. She is also the one who made Al's wooden legs painless.

Hodges: While Al and David are physical healers, and while Wendy enchants weapons, Hodges is the one who restores the powers of other people. He is not really drained when he does it, but it is better for him to stay still and rest while other people fight. It works exactly how Al's and David's healing does.

These five people typically stay near the healers.

Jim:  He can control the weather.  That also means he can summon lightning.  And hailstones.  And rain (creatures that are made of fire or lava are susceptible to rain).  Like Catherine, he has his hands free to focus whatever he's bringing down from the sky onto wherever his target is.  His cloak is pitch black in colour.

Conrad: He can clone himself; up to five clones of himself can exist at a time.  It's alright if they are hurt or killed; so long as he is still alive.  He wields a scythe.  His cloak is a really dark grey, almost black, but not really.

Morgan:  She can fly. This is not a power which requires restoration. Since she does not use wings, she can fly in rain. She uses twin swords.

Sofia:  She is a shapeshifter.  But she can not only turn into other creatures; she can turn into objects like a boulder or something. In such forms, she is invulnerable to like, say, a fist striking her, but if someone were to try and blow her up, she would have to turn into something else and run away. You know those fire creatures I mentioned? If she turns into one of them, she can harness their powers. Basically, she takes on the abilities of anything she turns into.

Riley: She can turn into any of her opponents, whether she has killed them herself of if they are standing right in front of her. Heather would be aware that this in fact Riley (telepathy yo), and Riley will work together with the person Heather is controlling. Unlike Sofia, while she becomes the mirror image of someone, she cannot have the skill level of the person she turns into. She herself is proficient with a club; if she turns into someone who was a swordsman, she would be wield a blade as well as them, and will continue to use her own weapon. If she turns into one of those fire creatures, she might be able to use their fire, but she doesn't have as fluent control over it as the original person. In fact, it is much safer for her to not turn into such creatures.

Ray:  He has enhanced strength, which enables him to rotate his huge double-headed battle axe about his wrist above his head.  And by "huge", I mean that the stick is almost as long as him, and the blades are bigger than his head. The stick is also quite thick; it has to withstand the weight of the blades, and the impact with which it is struck. By "rotate", I mean Ray is able to hold the handle at the very base, and pivot it perfectly around.

DB:  Teleportation.  This son of a bitch randomly popping up out of nowhere?  Yeah.  His weapon is a really small but especially sharp dagger, easy to conceal, and a quick and effective killer.  He appears, quickly pokes his opponent, and then teleports to the next one.  He can teleport anywhere within his viewing distance; he has to be able to see where he is teleporting to to go there. His cloak is silver in colour.

Finn:  She is pyrokinetic.  Her cloak is typically orange, yellow or red, but it can change colours to whatever fire she is wielding, which includes green, blue, purple, white, and even black fire.  She does not use weapons.

Additional idea: Gil and Sara are soulmates. But they were not fated from birth; rather, their soulmate bond formed when their connection deepened. Before they met, their soulmates could have been anyone else, or they could have gone without a soulmate for the rest of their lives. Even when they met and fell in love at first sight (I'm one of those who hc that they did; ymmv), they were not yet soulmates. It was when they really got to know and understand each other implicitly and became unbreakably steadfast in their connection, of their own accord, that their soulmate bond formed. The physical manifestation of it was when their soul marks appeared; Gil has a butterfly on the right side of his neck, close to the back of his neck, and Sara has a rhinoceros beetle on the underside of her left wrist. Being soulmates, they can heal each other and restore each other's powers. The most soothing times for them to do it is when they can lie down somewhere private and hold each other close.

When their marks first appeared, everyone kept congratulating them; there was a lot of friendly teasing from Warrick, Nick, Greg and Hodges. As for themselves, they remained passive until they were in the privacy of their bedroom.  They sat down on the edge of the bed, embracing and leaning their foreheads on each other's, uncontainable smiles on their faces as they had a little heart-to-heart.  They did not really have to vocalise much; they had always been able to understand each other with just a few words.  Then, they leant back from each other, but remained close.  Sara lowered her head and slowly, reverently kissed all over Gil's mark; he closed his eyes and let her do it, enjoying how it felt, moving his head to one side so that his skin on the right of his neck was stretched flat and easier to kiss.  When Sara was done, they leant back again.  Gil lifted Sara's wrist to his mouth and kissed all over her mark, with as much care and adoration as she had done his.

[badapricot]

Coming to your anonymous with a quite long ask to discuss lw and the last episode further. 🙋‍♀️

At first I will say 100% agreement with the collective feelings of everyone about the way they chose to handle the ep. It's that it's not bad, it's just missing a lot that's up in the air for the viewer to go through and try to make out a full picture. (I tried and i'll explain what I got, it's what I want to discuss).

The thing about lw that I see now after it's finished is that it yes, does commentary about the bl industry but just doesn't flash out carry that burden into its entire identity. They are trying to start that discussion in a smart way while not taking itself too seriously because after all we have a romcom in our hands! I think somehow they don't want to go for a higher weight than they could carry because it's a still fresh try at it.

Now to the episode and how my effort to understand what happened went (I'll only speak about some points regarding the reconciliation):

1- the four months were actually more of waiting for gene to wear down and fully embrace his "need" of nubsib in his life? -> the more I think about the scenes, we just don't get anything to understand from them except the gene is just still, waiting, worn out and both professionally and personally is in need of nubsib to show up in front of him. nubsib on the other hand isn't even a focus 😂 (the biggest flow if I might say of the series is that we just never have his point of view, we see him from gene's eyes and nothing more) nubsib as their argument went wanted gene but he saw how he was distressed so he played along I guess? If gene can't say out loud that he can be with him those four months away from the public eye so I'll do both things myself 😂 have gene be by himself till he loses every last bit of defense against me and i'll go by his wish till my contract is over. (THEY COULD JUST TELL US THS)

2- the remembering the past and then the count to 10 then kiss is an analogy directed at their younger selves, how gene used to count and close his eyes for sib to kiss his cheek as a mean of making up after a problem. I specifically think the hazy dream-like atmosphere of the entire sequence is not necessarily how it happened? but more like the feel of it? also with how it started and ended with jap being there before with gene alone and after with both of them. (we know how jap was the one that helped nubsib everytime before to get closer to gene)

Despite how I can totally explain this point I just think it was possible for them to flash it out more. I know that conveying this message in scenes and conversations would take long but they could have also chosen other direction with the characters?

The some thing I appreciate so much about this is the connection to the beginning from gene's view. we have nubsib telling him that he took his time to understand his feelings as a child but gene didn't. I actually kinda found it strange when I was watching how when hin asked him to go home? he went to his family's house? and when jap talked about the inspiration and gene said his own story he went down the memory lane of the childhood instead of his present with nubsib? what would you think is the message there? Is it that he needed to layer his feelings down to the young gene and see how actually did like sib then also? Or it's his subconscious thinking back to how he left sib in their hiding place and he kept waiting for him while he was actually leaving? Was it that he was going back to that young sib waiting for him?

I think it's an interesting idea but not within enough time frame to get us to undertones the point. It just depended solely on gene and his inner feelings that we also didn't hear. 😂 while sib was waiting on the side lines or let's say gene kept him waiting beside him till he counted the magical ten? 😂

3- this point is just me thinking how the extra cut thing despite providing new content for us is for them and for the plot kinda not that important because they can't put important plot point in it and be deleted from the actual broadcast on the channel. so it's not like us saying they could've used the extra time for better can help. with that said I really loved the fairytale settings. It was so cute and fun.

WHEW THAT WAS LONG😅....

I'm sorry, I'm at the end of a long ask answering binge so I might not be able to match everything you wrote because I don't have the energy, but lemme see if I can get to everything:

I totally agree that Lovely Writer left too much up to interpretation because Tee thinks that viewers can read his mind despite the fact that he's producing a TV show which is a visual and audible medium. Characters need to say or at least imply things for us to understand them. Things should not need to be explained in the BTS for fans to understand what happened when you have over an hour of airtime. That's bad writing.

I don't think Nubsib was purposefully breaking Gene down. I think he stayed away from Gene to show that he could be mature because he saw that there was no way out of the mess he had made and if he tried to solve it in immature ways, Gene wouldn't have forgiven him. Gene didn't want him to solve it by quitting or with money, like a spoiled brat. He wanted him to fulfill his obligations. Because Nubsib was patient, he got his reward. But I agree with your assessment that the break was about making Gene realize how much he needed Nubsib. I just don't think Nubsib was intentionally torturing him or anything. Of course, none of these things were communicated to the viewer cause Tee thinks we're mind readers.

Same deal for the scene where Gene is wandering around his house hallucinating. It was a hazy dream sequence with lots of vague meaning that viewers need to infer. I don't think that's how it exactly happened because I don't think Gene is actually schizophrenic. It was all dreams and metaphors. I don't know what Gene was thinking or how Sib got there. On your question about interpreting why Gene thought of young Sib and not grown up Nubsib I think it's because that's when he first loved Nubsib, even when it wasn't romantic. We can see him struggle with this when he instinctively tries to baby grown up Nubsib after the big reveal, and he struggles with the idea that this buff hunk is also his cute little neighbour. I don't think they were indicating that Gene reciprocated that young and didn't understand his feelings but it's up to interpretation. In the book I think Gene did reciprocate because he told Nubsib he'd be his bride to comfort him, or something like that.

I agree that they could have cut the fairytale scenes or included them as bonus footage in exchange for clearer writing and explanations. The fairytale scenes are cute but not that important. Plot is more important than a dream sequence.