#catching bullets

[acorrespondence]

@freekicks Oh man I have lots; so many that I’m making this a new post so I don’t clog up that poor person’s replies with 50 messages, haha! Basically, it’s an expansion on the idea that everyone has headcanons/canon details that are absolutely integral to their enjoyment of the story and any transformative works based on it (hard), and headcanons/canon details that they’re fond of but could still get pretty much unaltered enjoyment out of a fic that contradicts them (soft). Obviously all these are just opinions and what I get out of the story isn’t and shouldn’t have to be the same as what anyone else gets out of it.

One thing that sort of falls in the middle of the headcanon/canon divide is Raylan’s age when his mother died. The show contradicts itself on this point several times, and so it’s sort of fungible. I personally find the idea that Raylan’s mother died when he was very young, like younger than Loretta, while it may serve the parallels between them, to be much less compelling than the idea that she died later. It’s just so much more… boring for a character whose mother died when he was ten or so to have a gross misrepresentation of who she was as a person in his mental image of her. It’s much more compelling to me if he held onto that despite direct evidence to the contrary that he was old enough to understand. Of course he’d forget the hatchet story if it happened when he was eight. If it happened when he was eighteen, that opens up a much realer possibility that he just straight up repressed it, which is fascinating. Also, I don’t think it makes sense if he grew up with Helen in the house for the second half of his life there. To me that doesn’t really jive with their current relationship. (And on a less story-driven note, I am fascinated by the idea that, if Raylan’s mother died when he was thirty, he might not have attended her funeral. Because part of him knew it would challenge the version of her he had to remember in order to maintain his black and white perception of the world.)

Obviously, the mine and what it represents is a necessary component (though the time and place less so—my Old Guard au places them in the miners’ strikes of the 30s, and I’ve read a wonderful fic where the mine in question was on a different planet entirely. However, it does have to be placed in Harlan, or whatever approximation of Harlan fits the broader setting). The boys and their relationships with their daddies is another nonnegotiable for me. Specifically, the way they grew up; different times and causes of death for Bo and Arlo can work just as well. If Raylan and Boyd don’t meet until they’re established adults, that immediately kills my interest. Their rich history is so integral to why I’m drawn to the ship in the first place. It’s a hard sell for me to have Boyd leave or Raylan stay directly after the mine, but I’ve been known to make an exception if the story is compelling enough and doesn’t sacrifice characterization.

I think Boyd’s criminal history is important, though the nature of it less so. And even more important is the fact that Boyd never really makes it big as a criminal—making him some kind of fief lord of crime makes him much less interesting to me. His plans only succeed inasmuch as he always manages to survive their unraveling. I think it’s important that he’s spent time incarcerated. I’m not a huge fan of stories where they meet again outside of Harlan and never go back, it takes away the central tension between them and the place that made them that Raylan so struggles with and Boyd embraces so wholly, which for me is a really interesting part of their relationship, this dichotomy. I also don’t care for stories that give them a ton of good friends outside each other, or casual friends who actually know them and hang out with them—they’re too big of assholes for that. Of course, this doesn’t include the characters they’re close with in canon; I love Raylan and Rachel’s friendship, in particular, and their understanding of each other despite their vast superficial differences is fascinating. I guess I should say instead that I don’t buy either of them having typical friendships, period. They’re just too weird and fucked up for that. They trauma bonded at nineteen and it continues to be one of the most important relationships in either of their lives. Winona puts up with Raylan’s relational weirdness for love; no one is doing that for their drinking buddy. So they may have close friendships, but they don’t look the way you’d expect.

I’d never make their relationship uncomplicatedly sweet and unfraught, or sand down the kind of feral edges of it, and I don’t think they’d be much for traditional PDA—I just love the way in canon the physical (and otherwise) manifestations of their intimacy are so outside of what’s expected from buddies OR lovers. In the same vein, I don’t love it when Raylan goes crazy with the terms of endearment, because he doesn’t use them much with his love interests in canon. I have him use them with the girls in heavy heart more as verbal tics he picked up after spending too much time around Boyd, who LOVES to use them, plus I think he models at least some of his displays of parental affection after Helen, who canonically calls him “honey”. I’m fine with Boyd throwing endearments around liberally; I just don’t do it in my own fics because I love the way in canon he twists Raylan’s name itself into almost an endearment. He just can’t stop saying it every other sentence, so why would he give up the chance to say it by replacing it with another word? Plus, it fits in with how weird they are about each other in general.

More broadly, I have never really enjoyed full aus (based on any story) that don’t try to approximate at least the broader beats of place and history from canon, but I really really love stories that manage it. I respect authors who can sort of map canon onto a completely different stage, like the space au mentioned above, so much. I hope that I manage that at least somewhat with catching bullets.

That’s all the big ones I can think of at the moment, though I’m sure there’s more I’ve forgotten (most of the rest fall more under ic-ness vs ooc-ness, which is harder to articulate; “what makes them themselves?” is a much more difficult question). Ultimately, I think probably a lot of these come across through cross-referencing both of my WIPs—basically, if it shows up in both, there’s a very good chance it’s a nonnegotiable for me, and if it changes between the two, then I can obviously live without it.

#blanket disclaimer that these are just my personal tastes and everyone is going to have different things they could take or leave abt canon! #justified #raylan/boyd #yeats freekicks #writing #catching bullets #heavy heart #long post #my fic #caveat to most of these is: without a very good reason that maintains the spirit of the law if not the letter #or is really well explained by the story in a way that acknowledges its importance #but makes the divergence necessary #sorry if this ruins anyone’s dreams of me one day righting a fic where they were never in the mines bc raylan was born to a loving father in #miami and only met boyd the wildly successful drug kingpin when he was assigned to kentucky and had to leave his 137 good friends #the existence and relevance of bowman winona and ava is also important to me #wrt fusion aus i’m just personally looking for ‘what would these elements to *this* story’ #not ‘what would these characters add to this other story’ #because for me pretty much all of who they are as characters is tied to their history so an honest au of this kind REQUIRES ooc-ness #at which point they’re not the same characters #and you’ve lost me completely lol

[somehow-a-human]

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Michael babygirl, I apologize now for the close-up screenshots of your mouth I am going to put on the internet. Call Neil if you have issues with it, it's his fault.

Honey, why are you chewing on a ball bearing? I was going to be lenient and say it's a glint off of some saliva but nah she's suckin on a damn pie weight. I didn't see her take a bite of any dippin dots, did you? Who let her near my stash of Buckyballs that I was hiding from the Consumer Product Safety Commission? Just because you are bbgurl doesn't mean you get to eat bbpellets.

#good omens #good omens 2 #michael sheen #aziraphale #good omens meta #crowley #david tennant #crowley x aziraphale #good omens theories #good omens clues #good omens theory #good omens fandom #ineffable idiots #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #anthony j crowley #good omens crowley #good omens kiss #i zoomed in and gurl its just so round #like perfectly round #they really did the bullet catch 2.0 didnt they

[azfellandco]

The thing about the "you said, trust me" "and you did" in the bullet catch is this: Aziraphale believes in Crowley. Aziraphale believes so surely and completely in Crowley that he stands in the fire and knows Crowley won't hurt Job's kids, believes in him so much that he'll stand in front of a gun because he knows that when he says "shoot past my ear" that Crowley won't miss. He's so sure Crowley won't hurt him, even as Crowley is unsure himself, even as his hands shake.

#begone thought #good omens #it's been weeks and i'm still not over this #what is god to someone's love #what is faith but devotion #the bullet catch

[melbatron5000]

The evidence stacks up

Oh my god. I just saw this yesterday. This.

THIS.

(Follow this for my fully fleshed out theory.)

Yes. Yes. They showed us how it's going to go.

And watch him palm the bullet out of his mouth.

I rest my case.

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #good omens analysis #good omens fan theory #final fifteen #good omens 1941 #it's a trick #bullet catch

[yourlocalabomination]

Song - The Ballad of Jane Doe from Ride The Cyclone: The Musical.

(Animated version with the song available in a separate post- Tumblr doesn’t allow you to add videos into reblogs apparently)

#Listen the Max didn’t catch the bullet/Peter gets shot Au’s have gotten to me #peter spankoffski #pete spankoffski #ted spankoffski #theodore spankoffski #tinky #t’noy karaxis #richard lipschitz #richie lipschitz #ruth fleming #stephanie lauter #steph lauter #max jägerman #maxwell jägerman #npmd #npmd starkid #nerdy prudes must die #starkid nerdy prudes must die #starkid npmd #npmd fanart #nerdy prudes must die fanart #starkid #team starkid #starkid fanart #starkid productions #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #hatchetfield universe #fanart #my art

[bwlkins]

I think there's something in that.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 #aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #crowley #ineffable partners #ineffable lovers #good omens parallels #good omens analysis #good omens thoughts #aziracrow #bullet catch #good omens 1941 #the final fifteen #ineffable divorce #good omens kiss #good omens clues

[aduckwithears]

Haven't you fired a gun before?

Not as such...

Good Omens S2/Ep4

#hi i have the gif bug again yaaaay! #good omens #good omens s2 #good omens 2 #good omens gifs #gif set #goodomensgifs #goodomensedit #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #the magic show #the bullet catch #ok we are NOT going to talk about how Aziraphale's eyes drop to Crowley's mouth ONCE AGAIN #as he asks him about firing a gun #i just can't #the CHOICES #a duck gifs #1941 #1941 minisode

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil! Firstly, thank you for s2 I really enjoyed all the bits, even the painful ones as they show nuance within your characters. I did want to ask, while rewatching the series, during the riffle sequence where Crowley shot a gun for the first time at Aziraphale, I can see the bullet wasn't pre-planted and miracles were obviously blocked so was it put there by Crowley's imagination? We know it manifests itself outside of his mind like in season one when he kept his physical body and his car from melting driving through the M20 motorway, did he imagine that the bullet would show up in Aziraphale's mouth in the time it took for him to shoot the gun? Thanks and hope you're having a lovely existence!

Traditional bullet catches worked with trick guns. The 1941 bullet catch worked by firing past the head of the person performing the bullet catch while they appear to catch a (previously palmed and then placed in the mouth) bullet in their teeth. It was miracle free.

#go2 spoilers #bullet catch

[shoemakingandobstetrics]

on the Wikipedia page for “Bullet catch”, listed after like half a dozen other ways this trick was performed:

they deadass chose the stupidest fucking way to do this trick, risking Aziraphale’s destruction and casually traumatizing Crowley, all for the sake of the bit. what a vibe

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens 2 #bullet catch #dumbasses

[eviebane]

Trust Me - Aziraphale's Season 3 'Bullet Catch'

Fell the Marvellous has saved Crowley before, in 1941, with a perfectly timed sleight of hand. Now this time he must save everything, with his own death-defying 'bullet catch'.

Neil is up to something

#good omens #crowley #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #aziracrow #goodomens #good omens 2 #gomens #gomens 2 #ineffable divorce #good omens s3 #good omens season 3 #good omens edit #bullet catch #aziraphale's plan #good omens meta #good omens theory #good omens s2 #go2 #go3 #gomens 3

[acorrespondence]

Writing Pattern Game

Thanks for the tag @raylangivins ♥️

Rules: Share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns! (from most recent to least recent, starting from the top)

I only have two published works but I thought it might be interesting to see if there are any patterns in how I start a chapter! Every single chapter I’ve posted still only adds up to nine, haha, so it still fits!

i put this heavy heart in you: Miami (Part 1)— It’s hot as hell on the Miami rooftop where Raylan shoots Tommy Bucks, and with the sun in his eyes and the long stretch of water spread out before him, Raylan could almost believe he’s still in Nicaragua.

i put this heavy heart in you: Miami (Part 2) — Boyd plans, because he always plans, tries to get ahead of everything and coax it around in their favor.

i put this heavy heart in you: (The Road) — Fifteen minutes in, Raylan yanks on the wheel and pulls the van over.

i put this heavy heart in you: (The Motel Part 1) — Boyd’s elbow comes down hard on the soap ledge, with a crack fit to set the whole tub to juddering.

i put this heavy heart in you: (California) — Raylan’s phone rings at 12:38 on Lissy’s birthday, while he’s making lunch over the little hot plate on top of the fridge.

i put this heavy heart in you: (Harlan Part 1) — By the time Art comes around to check on them, Rachel and Raylan have been sitting crammed into a surveillance van masquerading as a carpet cleaning business for three days straight.

i put this heavy heart in you: (The Motel Part 2) — “Raylan,” Boyd mumbles from somewhere in the vicinity of his armpit. “Raylan, the door.”

catching bullets in our teeth: (Chapter 1) — The first time it happens, they’re in the mine, sent down beneath the hills to pull Harlan’s black teeth.

catching bullets in our teeth: (Chapter 2) — Boyd’s triumphant return is marred by the fact that the fighting’s already started.

I guess the pattern here is that my opening sentences tend to be fairly short, matter-of-fact statements. A lot of them include orienting details like a specific location, date, time, or a quick summary of recent events. I don’t have much patience for exposition, so I try to get the essential pieces of information into that first sentence to move things along. The exceptions are Miami Part 2 and The Motel Part 2, the first of which is a character note and the second of which is some dialogue, in an attempt to give the moment a sense of urgency that the others don’t have.

I’m going to keep my tagging bare bones because I’m trying to catch up on these, so if I missed you and you want to give this a try, just imagine your handle in the following list: @esteefee @bringmefoxgloves @tallsinspace @norgbelulah @toli-a @willowmckinley @skelingtonsderek

#justified #writing #heavy heart #catching bullets #my fic #justie2justie communication #tag game

[somehow-a-human]

The Bullet Catch and the Final 15

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Okay, this started as a completely different post. I was writing something else and I had to abandon it because I realized I needed to be writing this instead. It was like a lightbulb moment, or rather, a headlight moment (see what I did there?)

"Banana, Fish, Gorilla, Shoelace, with a dash of Nutmeg." Clearly adversarial forces are capable of seeing what Crowley and Aziraphale are talking about within the bookshop from across the street. It's confirmed the zombies have gotten The Marvellous Mr. Fell's strange magic words correct at the end of the 1941 minisode. Is this foreshadowing the clear observation of the final conversation Aziraphale and Crowley share directly in front of the bookshop window, by the Metatron?

"Aim for my mouth, shoot past my ear". Well if this isn't that damn kiss I don't know what is. And the bullet, the bullet hiding in his mouth. Magicians historically have had keys passed to them through their mouths via a kiss. Crowley sure did aim for that mouth...

"You have formed a de-facto partnership with the demon Crowley." It's a threat, plain and simple. It's the same thing as Furfur showing up in the dressing room with a photograph of the two of them. And what does Aziraphale do both times? He pulls the same fearful face, is terrified for Crowley, and immediately figures out something to quash the threat. Aziraphale is so smart and so fearful for Crowley's safety, he will do whatever it takes, above his own interests to keep him safe.

"Trust me". The bullet catch. God, the stress of this trick, this insane show of trust and love. "You said trust me", "and you did". I have watched season two an unknowable number of times now, and this is still difficult to see on screen, but it's there. Aziraphale mouths, "trust me" and Crowley catches it, and more importantly, trusts him.

This angel knows he's being watched, the love of his life has been threatened, he knows he has no options and he needs to perform a massive trick to save Crowley. Good thing, he always gets it right the time it matters.

Honorable mention: I am an "Aziraphale was trying to signal for a time stop/help to Crowley" truther, here, when it looks like maybe he mimes 'timeout' and "help". I think either Crowley was too blinded by his newfound plan to confess his undying love for Aziraphale to pick up on his "something's wrong voice" or clear non-verbal communication, which we've established this season they are very good at (see Aziraphale asking Crowley to freeze Dalrymple in Edinburgh). OR he did catch the signals and he is LISTENING.

If you haven't read this post by @noneorother about the parallels between The Tales of Hoffmann and GO season 2, you need to. But to snag a small quote of theirs to highlight this one specific point:

"Stella [Aziraphale] arrives in the tavern looking for Hoffmann [Crowley], ready to run away, but now accompanied by Lindoff [Metatron] (dressed as an angelic figure) who followed her. She looks to Hoffmann to save her, but he's too blinded by the fact that he doesn't think she loves him back to pick up on the signal. He gives up, and she goes back up the stairs guided by Lindoff." - @noneorother

Okay but seriously make sure you go read that whole post.

If that isn't what happens in the final 15, what is?

Then we have the end of 1941 pt.2, wine in the backroom, and the reveal of the photograph. Crowley realizes Aziraphale saved him, he realizes how much he can trust him, and if my observed light bulb headlight moment is anything, it happened after the final 15 too. He knows. It's still devastating, it's still heartbreaking, and it doesn't invalidate all the feelings and love they couldn't quite come out and communicate right then. They are living under an Orwellian regime, this isn't really a job they can quit or even run away from. They were angels created for a purpose. Sure gabriel and Beelzebub left, but how long until someone tries to hunt them down? Plus, what's the point if Crowley and Aziraphale abandon Earth and just let armageddon part two happen? That's a pretty shit thing of them to do. They want to live on Earth, they want to protect the humans, and they want to do it together.

They didn't eat the apple, the humans did. Maybe at the end of season 3, they'll get their chance.

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #crowley x aziraphale #good omens meta #michael sheen #david tennant #good omens 2 #good omens clues #good omens theories #good omens theory #good omens 1941 #good omens bullet catch

[imaybe5tupid]

How I like to imagine their father assigned the retainers 😂

#toshiro nakamoto #the difference in personalities between toshiro and his middle younger brother are so funny lmfaooo #Like you get the sense he just says whatever comes into his mind no filter at all extremely brash dgaf abt being polite. #I just know Toshiro was catching stray bullets all the time😭 #my comics #shuro dungeon meshi

[thequibblingking13]

OK REAL GENUINE THEORY TIME bc i've been watching the finished KHUX dub after the KHML trailer.

What if the reason that the Player is able to retain their form/age when reincarnating in KHML is because there was already a body waiting for them upon reentry into the living world. Let me explain.

In the ending of KHUX, Luxu enters the Ark room with a body in tow, placing it into the lifeboat so that it may find it's way to the future, calling it "The True Dandelion".

Initially many (including myself) believed that this was Strelitzia and her white coat, sending her off potentially to quadratum for KH4 plot reasons. But, when we last see Strelitzia in KHUX, she is following a man in a black coat out of the scene.

I believe that the person escorting Strelitzia out is the MoM, as they both appear in quadratum, While the figure Luxu is loading into the lifeboat is a vessel for the player to take shape in Missing Link. This would explain why the player falls out of the sky, and ends up washed up onto the beach much like Kairi when she first arrived on the destiny islands via Ark travel

I dont know exactly what this means or why Luxu would rig the player's trajectory to land in Scala, but i believe he has some kind of plan and that we are very critical to it.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts missing link #KHML #KHML SPOILERS #missing link #kingdom hearts: missing link #kingdom hearts missing link spoilers #KH #bee speaks #watching back the finale i have never been more sure of something In My Life. It just clicked and felt so obvious to me during the scene #basically i am insinuating that luxu fired that body into the future like a bullet betting that it would catch the player's heart on entry #and he was right on the money

[glassiskies]

oh my god we call it the apology dance but it’s not even the apology dance. it’s the "I was wrong" dance. like we knew this already but it’s just another way to move past any real issues as swiftly and with as little communication as possible. they are sooooooooo helpless

no no. because have they ever really apologized to each other, ever? I can’t think of many instances where they actually say the words on screen (s1 e4 where crowley is begging aziraphale to run away with him, and in s1 e5 where crowley tells aziraphale the bookshop burned down) they usually just move past it because it’s simply been long enough or they use the "I was wrong" dance.

goes crazy. goes insane

#like literally the whole holy water debacle #goes like #argue in 1867 > dont talk until 1941 > bullet catch for funsies > gives crowley holy water in 1967 and immediately leaves #NO CONVERSATIONS EVERRRRRR #they have so much to learn #love it #not art #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands

[queenofthearchipelago]

WAIT

WHAT IF THE BULLET CONTAINS AZIRAPHALES MEMORY OF THEIR KISS IN 1941???

AND THATS WHY AZIRAPHALE SAYS I FORGIVE YOU

BECAUSE HOW DARE YOU TAKE THIS FROM ME

AND CROWLEY SAYS DONT BOTHER BECAUSE IT WAS TOO DANGEROUS FOR AZIRAPHALE TO REMEMBER IT BACK THEN

WHAT IF CROWLEY GAVE AZIRAPHALE HIS MEMORIES BACK

WHAT IF CROWLEY PASSED AZIRAPHALE THE SAME EXACT BULLET FROM THE 1941 BULLET CATCH

#good omens #good omens meta #the bullet catch #good omens 1941 #the final fifteen #good omens kiss