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norgbelulah · 7 months

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Listen you said as many as I wanted, you said that:

“Baby,” Boyd said, taking Raylan’s face in his hands. “We’re going to be fine.” He was talking true here, Raylan knew, but his expression changed and he didn’t look him in the eyes as he added, “It’s easy to start over with that kind of money. We wouldn’t even have to go nowhere--”

“And watch them rip apart the hills? Pollute your precious hollers?” Raylan hissed, pulling away. He couldn’t talk about it without getting pissed. His head hurt so fucking much.

“Raylan--”

“Later,” Raylan said, pulling out his phone. “I wish you’d’ve said something, really, because I have to call Art now. Her wanting the property puts me far enough in this shit that I can’t be a part of the detail. It’s a conflict of interest, no matter what we do now.”

“What we do?” Boyd asked quietly. “It’s still just your land, Raylan.”

“Fuck off, Boyd,” Raylan growled. “I’d have married you years ago if that was something we could do.”

Boyd leaned back in his chair, eyes wide, at that and Raylan wondered if that was something he shouldn’t have said when they were fake fighting like this.

They stared at each other for a solid minute at least and Raylan couldn’t hold it in anymore. He said, “I’m sorry I said, fuck off and then that, I--”

Boyd smiled and shook his head. “Go make your phone call, baby.” He didn’t even add anything about the fake argument. “Tell Art--”

Omggggg. I'm SO glad you picked this to ask about because just right before this part is one of my favorite exchanges I have ever written. It's basically what I now think of the thesis of this entire fic series. Boyd and Raylan could never have come this far together if not for Raylan letting Boyd live in his house and nest in his heart and refuse to leave. Okay??

This part:

“We can start over,” Boyd said. “We’re good at that.” Raylan looked at him like he was crazy. “No, we’re not.” They’d never started over at anything. The only reason any of this was happening was because of the house, that they needed, because they couldn’t make a change without a crutch. It was just built up and built up from everything that happened before and the house was the foundation.

And then Raylan spirals because he can't see a way out of this situation even though he knows Boyd is actively taking it in hand. (He's going to figure it out, Raylan!!) And part of Boyd's plan is to get this exact reaction from Raylan, because he needs to convince Carol Johnson he really is on her side and also make things difficult for her because Raylan is so adamantly opposed to selling. But! He doesn't expect Raylan to profess his unshakeable commitment to their relationship in that very moment!

Boyd in this fic, even up until now, does not think about the house in Harlan as theirs, per se. It's Raylan's house. Always has been. He thinks of their apartment in Lexington way more as something they share. But he spent so much time over the years working on the house, specifically FOR RAYLAN, that it's like really hard for him to take on any kind of ownership for himself until Raylan is like, yeah but we would be married by now???? If life was fair??? SO ITS YOUR HOUSE TOO BOYD.

I'm also like perpetually *kisses fingers* at myself for immediately having Raylan apologize. He's Just! So! Hungover! that he cannot control his mouth or his emotions and they are all over the place because he is so! pissed! off! at Carol Johnson! This "oh shit I really said that just now" moment for Raylan is so funny and sweet. I love them so muchhh.

AND THEN THEY GET INTERRUPTED.

Anyway this is a great little collection of scenes and writing about how good it is is actively making me want to rewatch through season 2 so I can try and fucking untangle what needs to happen to end this beautiful story! AND THEN I want to write several little short fics about parenting Loretta and getting married for real and and and

#justified #justie author commentary #boyd crowder #raylan givens #ask meme #answered #set fire to this house #is this too much?#i just love this scene a lot

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itookyoudown · 7 months

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From nothing but time (hard time)!

Tim thinks there's nothing to say about it. Conversation (and action) over with the night. He’d be wrong. Raylan’s head and now shirtless shoulders and naked arms pop up by the side of Tim’s bed. He’s peeled off his shirt and stands there looking at Tim with a smile in his eyes.

“Tim, you want a taste of Kentucky?”

Tim rolls his eyes. And then he closes them. There’s no potential threat in the question. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Raylan’s dick is hard again. Thus no way for the other man to weaponize it. Not yet. Tim’s still got another thirty to forty minutes before he might have to shove off an attempt for a second round.

“Think I’ve had my fill for the night,” Tim declines in a dry, disinterested tone. He knows now what the inside of Raylan’s mouth tastes like.

He hears something tinny open and close. Tim does peek to find out what that’s about. Raylan’s holding out the little box that he keeps his personal effects in. Letters. Snacks. Shit like that.

“They’re butter cake,” he whispers. Raylan is already holding out the tin for Tim to take one. As if he can’t imagine Tim saying no.

Tim squints at him. “You do know it’s candy you’re supposed to lure boys with if you’re looking to get your cock sucked. Cookies? Cakes? Now, this is what witches use as bait for kids they wanna cook up. Unless you're trying to eat me?”

A shit-eating grin stretches out Tim’s lips. God, he loves this. This is the kind of shit that gets him hard. Or it would have, if he hadn’t just shot off three minutes ago. “This is cultural appropriation, Raylan. You’re mixing up unseemly fornication with cannibalism.”

“Eat the fuckin’ cookie, Gutterson.”

Tim’s never had someone threaten him over baked goods before. He keeps his gaze pinned on Raylan’s face as he dips his fingers into the tin box that Raylan’s still holding out. Slow. Careful. He’s wary about this.

“Why you sharing your mama’s cookies?” he asks.

There’s no afterglow in prison, but apparently, there are cookies. Tim shouldn’t take the cookie. For much the same reason he shouldn’t call Raylan Raylan.

There are stories about Raylan. There are so many stories about Raylan. While Tim thought most of them were bullshit…the more he gets to know Raylan, the more he believes there's more truth to them than lie.

And one of those stories that might not be such a tall tale is that Raylan shanked a man for stealing one of the goodies his mother bought in on family day.

“I told her ‘bout you,” Raylan answers nice and easy and with absolute unbidden honesty, “and she told me to share.”

Un-fucking-believable. It’s true. Even murderers still love their mothers.

Ohh yo. Justie i’m glad you asked this one so I can ramble about it quite a bit. This fic’s popularity has always surprised me and I’m still floored by the folks that have reached out to tell me it was one of the fics that drew them into reading more Justified fanfiction or set sail the givenson ship for them.

This was written back in my early days of writing fanfiction for the very first time. I wanted to test out my comfort zone and also give back in some way to the fandom that had given me so much joy, so I hosted a mini prompt fest (Givensongiving) right here on tumblr and invited justies to send me prompts for givenson fics.

You can thank @sublightsleeper for prompting “involuntary arousal + prison sex, gimme that sweet sweet au sauce” and thus this fic was born.

It was hugely inspired by the prison scenes in Justified and other shows such as Oz, Orange is the New Black, and a lot of nonfiction books + documentaries I’ve read over the years about the USA prison system.

When I thought about how to put Raylan and Tim in a prison setting, I immediately went with the idea that they both ended up as inmates. I think I briefly considered the idea that they were both guards. Or even doing guard/inmate, but I didn’t really get any noncon or darkfic inspiration from the prompt. Besides, I did want to preserve the equal footing they have had on the show with each other and I was drawn to painting a friendly/comforting connection between them as they're locked up.

Once I knew I wanted to do inmate/inmate, there was zero question on HOW Raylan and Tim would end up in prison: they’d be there for murdering their fathers.

I can clearly remember thinking about how Raylan would have killed Arlo and had this thought: “what if Raylan killed Arlo with a baseball bat? That’d be hot…but also horrifying for him so let’s explore that”. It felt really fitting to me to have Raylan kill Arlo in such a “personal” way (close and personal and frantic and messy) and Tim to kill his father in an “impersonal” way (cold and distant with a gun and utilizing military tactics).

ANYWAYS. Sorry for all the background rambling onto rambling about this specific bit!

This whole exchange was really meant to highlight the different ways that Raylan and Tim have learned how to survive prison and the effect it’s had on their ability to make connections with others and how to navigate relationships.

Prison has hardened Tim. He’s closed himself off behind a very high wall to protect both his emotions and also physically safeguard himself. He’s always looking out for an angle that someone might use to hurt him. In this case, when Tim worries about Raylan trying to initiate more sex, this is Tim being painfully aware that his cellmate could regard his agreement with consenting to sex this time as consenting to sex always.

Earlier in this fic I implied that Tim is a survivor of incest & SA, so it was important to me that I circle around to that reveal again and have Tim anticipating this violence (and have him ready to defend himself)…but having him do it in a very Tim-like way. His casual acceptance of the possibility of it was really meant to highlight the horror of what’s happened to him in the past.

I also feel like the cold, factual, and slightly paranoid way that Tim reacts to Raylan in the immediate aftermath of their sexual encounter was a good contrast to Raylan’s more lighthearted approach as well. Tim hasn’t done as much time as Raylan and Tim got to live life a little before being locked up. And because of that I think Tim’s viewpoint of what they’ve done is more practical – he’s in prison and cut off from the outside world, he’s making due with what and who is available to him. He’s touch starved and knows it and so seeks friendly hands for a few minutes of respite without expecting anything beyond that.

“They’re butter cake,” he whispers. Raylan is already holding out the tin for Tim to take one. As if he can’t imagine Tim saying no.

You have no idea how long I spent researching “traditional kentucky desserts” and “popular kentucky desserts” before I settled on butter cake cookies lol. I really wanted it to be something simple but distinct, something that Frances would actually bake and she’d be able to take into prison for Raylan.

This was also, once again, Tim making implications about his past and being purposefully offensive about it because he likes to tell his little jokes as his primary coping mechanism.

Compared to Tim, it was my goal to make Raylan…I don’t want to call him soft, even though his behavior is obviously softer when you compare it to Tim’s. Raylan is still a very violent and angry man in this fic. His murder of Arlo sent him to prison and him assaulting and murdering other inmates has ensured he’ll be a lifer. He’s also still a smooth talker and likes to tell others what to do (hence him telling Tim to eat the fucking cookie).

However, I did want to draw attention to the fact that Raylan has spent more of his life inside of prison than outside of it. He went in while he was still a teenager. He’s never known the outside world in an adult way, so there’s absolutely a childish edge to him and a degree of innocence in the way he tries to grow closer to Tim.

And I did want to make it clear that despite Raylan’s charm and the fact that he’s over 40 years old in this, he’s emotionally underdeveloped and has a much more rosy view. He is very much experiencing A Big Crush on his new cellmate (and is over the moon that the newest boy on the block likes him best) and is treating their time together as if they’re “dating”. He’s also obeying his mama’s advice on how to treat Tim because yes this is also sneaky Raylan is a mama’s boy propaganda fic.

As an aside, I loved including Frances even if she’s in the background. It felt so good to write at least one AU where Frances survived Arlo even if that meant she lost Raylan to prison. She got to live!!

(author commentary ask game)

#tooks.txt #ask games #author commentary #justie games #itookyoudown #justie author commentary #givenson

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acorrespondence · 7 months

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From "i put this heavy heart in you":

“Hello?” says a voice over the line.

“Shit. You ain’t Raylan,” Boyd says. He steps out onto the porch and closes the door behind him.

“Ah... no. Look, this line isn’t really for personal calls—“

“Well,” says Boyd, “I happen to have some information as pertains to the two enterprisin individuals busted out of Big Sandy this very night.”

There’s a pause. “All right,” the voice says eventually. It’s a slow drawl, professional enough, though something about it strikes Boyd as bored, maybe even sarcastic. Although he supposes he’d be aggravated himself, having to answer another man’s phone half past four in the morning. “What is your information?”

Boyd looks out at the headlights flashing by, the roads here never quiet, even in the small hours before dawn. “Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens was ten, fifteen minutes out of Parisville on the Mountain Parkway towards Big Sandy as of 9:20 this evenin. However, if you were to contact the prison, I fear you might find that Raylan Givens never made it back to survey the livin quarters of the escapees, as he was intended to do. I believe he encountered a gas station he saw as suspicious—and I have an inkling his suspicions may’ve proved founded.”

“And… how do you know this?” asks the voice slowly. Suspiciously. Boyd supposes it must sound like an awful lot of detail, to someone who hasn’t spent the last three hours turning every facet over in his head like seaglass, holding each one up to the light, waiting for something to shine through.

Boyd sees no cause to lie. He smiles into the mouthpiece, the one that shows every tooth in his head. “Well, Deputy, I was on the phone with him when he happened upon the very service station in question.”

The deputy on the phone makes a skeptical noise. “And you think this has somethin to do with the escaped convicts?”

“I do believe that to be the likely case, yes,” says Boyd. His hand flexes around the phone, a movement only half-conscious. He only notices when the plastic case creaks. “And if it ain’t, then, when you find him, you tell that fucker to answer his goddamn cell phone.”

The deputy snorts. “All right. Thank you for your information. And what is your name and loca—“

Ah, the phone call. As we know from later on in this chapter, the guy who answers the phone is Tim (and I do hope I did a good enough job characterizing him that this was clear even before he confirms it in the car on the way to Shirley’s later). He is going to be so bummed when he finds out that Raylan came out to Rachel first, after he laid such nice groundwork for such a confidence, but boy is just too subtle for his own good. Of course, this was a large part of the point of this scene: much of this fic deals with being closeted, how and when to come out, the fact that queer people often have to come out over and over again, and the fact that they can be out in some places or to some people but not others; if coming out should ever be necessary and the ramifications of that decision; etc. So, this is the first instance of anyone having cause to question whether or not Raylan is straight. Since Tim in this fic (and in canon, let’s be honest now) is gay, I gave that honor to him. He’s the one most likely to draw the correct conclusion.

I’m so glad you picked this bit, I was very proud of my Tim voice here; plus, it’s the first instance where we hear Boyd talking to someone he doesn’t live with, so I got to really stretch my vocabulist muscles. I know I’ve talked about it before, though I can’t remember where—possibly DMs with @boydcrowdr?—but based on my extensive rewatching of canon I came to the conclusion that Boyd’s language isn’t quite as elevated with the people he’s closest with, including Raylan. I’ve incorporated this quirk of character into my fic, and so while he always has a big vocabulary and likes to throw some impressive words in at random, I’ve written his everyday dialogue more casually so far. He’s at his most verbose when he’s a) defensive or b) trying to get someone (or a group of someones, as it were) to do something. Here, he’s stressed, at a disadvantage, and trying to convince someone of something, so it was fun to let loose on the eloquence front. The hope is that, upon close inspection, the fic hints at Boyd’s state of mind, as well as his intentions, in accordance with how pedantic he’s being.

I think Boyd’s feelings are pretty clear through the narration, but as for Tim, I think he starts the conversation annoyed and confused, but then gets intrigued, and by the time he hangs up he’s feeling pretty amused and obviously curious, which leads him to go fishing the next day, when he has Raylan as a lone captive audience. Prior to this call, he was stuck in the office doing boring shit in the middle of the night because of this prison break bullshit, his new colleague is out doing all the legwork Tim would much prefer to be doing right now, so this ends up being a pretty interesting event to cut through the boredom. Ultimately, he doesn’t regret picking up Raylan’s desk phone; his night would have felt a lot more pointless and monotonous if he hadn’t. Plus, you know. It’s nice not to be the only one.

So, after California, we now have all the most important players from the Marshals’ office at three different places when it comes to their knowledge of Raylan being queer: Rachel, who he told outright; Tim, who guessed correctly; and Art, who’s still in the dark. This, of course, adds several delicious layers of tension that are very fun to work with. And the one of the three who has the most reasonable argument to claim that he should know is the only guy who doesn’t.

(Ask game here)

#ask game #heavy heart #willow universewoman star-shine #my fic #justified #tim gutterson #boyd crowder #writing #long post #i hope this lives up to the spirit of the game!#i didn’t really talk about what i was thinking about while writing it because. well #i’m mostly just thinking about what i’m going to write haha #i basically have the scene playing out in my head so i can add details #thanks justie i’m so glad i got a bite for this one :)#justie2justie communication #also sorry for the lack of puns i love puns but couldn’t fit any in :(#justie author commentary

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skelingtonsderek · 7 months

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*rolls up days later* anyway from remembrance for the DVD commentary

Three days later, Raylan comes home for the weekend, presses his grimed lips to Boyd’s ear while he shaves ginger for a pot of chicken soup to start the chilling Autumn weather on, and lays a worn paperback on the counter at Boyd’s elbow. On the cover, a red headed swords-person, exploding skulls. Curiously, he peels back the cover page with careful, ginger covered, fingers, to find Tim’s messy scrawl.

Don’t read too much into it,

Tim

The next day, Boyd sends Raylan to work with a thick copy of Legitimate Dangers in which he has writ,

Read into it,

Mrs. B Givens-Crowder

“Am I going to need to start buying audiobooks so as to decode your two’s cryptic messages again?” 

Boyd, chest aching, lungs swelling to burst, pulls Raylan back in, presses his lips and hands and chest and belly against Raylan, mining deep within his eager mouth for that sticky sweet noise he makes when surprised. The book drops heavy and loud to the floor as he repurposes his hands to hold on tight to Boyd.

“Thank you, Raylan Givens.”

“What? For being your delivery boy?”

“For having faith in me— in us.”

Raylan hums, voice rasping deep in his throat as he replies, “How grateful are you?”

“Let me show you, baby.”

Smiling, eyes glittering, Raylan allows Boyd to lead him to the kitchen table where they sup for the second time together that morning. Though, this time not on eggs and toast but a more substantive, filling thing.

More?? I get more? Thank you! I'm actually really attached to this part. I think I'm getting better at these things maybe. Let's see how I do and thank you!!

For the DVD commentary meme

From Remembrance.

The start of this section is so important to me as someone who believes that Raylan Givens would drag home any old shit like a cat bringing you squirrel guts. So he comes in all gross from work and just plops this down but Boyd over here is making ginger chicken soup which is a food (as far as I'm concerned) of healing. It's filling, nutritious and ginger is a very clearing food. Very good to have when you're sick and in a sense Boyd Has been so he's making this here and it's going to Clear The Air so to speak.

Now the book. THE BOOK. We all know Tim reads like high fantasy shit. Like he has absolutely read like The Queen's Sword and knows Ursula K Le Guin by heart. It was very important that the book be about a sort of hopeless romantic who is more brawn than brains, preferably queer... So Tim hands Gideon the Ninth to Raylan Givens and says, "Please give this to your husband," like ex-squeeeeeeeze me.

This is him simply reaching out though. Saying, Yes I'll be your friend. Yes I know we're going to be Weird about it. Yes I am hopelessly in love with you but don't worry I would literally kill everyone and then myself for you

The next day, Boyd sends Raylan to work with a thick copy of Legitimate Dangers in which he has writ, Read into it, Mrs. B Givens-Crowder

And Boyd does what Boyd would: be incredibly difficult and convoluted about it. He sends Raylan back with an incredibly thick collection of modern american poetry. Boyd's answer is not direct or simple or easy but he isn't and he thinks Tim will appreciate that about him.

“I see you two have mended your electric fences,” Raylan remarks, reading the note. There’s a twist to the smile on his face, a glitter in his eyes as he automatically leans in to receive a kiss upon his cheek. “Am I going to need to start buying audiobooks so as to decode your two’s cryptic messages again?”

This is me, standing in front of you, saying out loud for the world to hear: I fully believe that if Tim and Boyd were BFF's like they are here they would both find great joy directly and explicitly tormenting Raylan.

At this point, Boyd has been living with an intense anxiety that if Raylan found out what Boyd had done before he lost his memory that he wouldn't accept Boyd any longer. Yeah, they had that fight in the mountains and this is after a goodly chunk has been resolved that will be but that doesn't mean that Boyd thought perhaps there wouldn't be somewhere in which he would suffer for how he feels he has wronged Raylan. Considering what happened with Winona (now that Boyd knows it) considering how heart sick Raylan gets over everything and how LONG he persisted, Boyd is grateful.

It's more than that, though. The other things: they were big gestures and promises- things Boyd knows can be broken or taken or faked- but this, the small things, the quiet stuff that Raylan excels at so much... Hard to fake. Taking up reading the weird shit Tim and Boyd would read together just so he can be part of the conversation... To Boyd that means everything.

Raylan hums, voice rasping deep in his throat as he replies, “How grateful are you?” “Let me show you, baby.” Smiling, eyes glittering, Raylan allows Boyd to lead him to the kitchen table where they sup for the second time together that morning. Though, this time not on eggs and toast but a more substantive, filling thing.

I felt it very important to show the difference between how difficult, laborious, their affections for each other were and them finding a way back to the domesticity and mundane that they would have had before The Incident.

The casualness and the ease... the lack of fraught emotions and struggle... The story needs it. This is the real pay-off; being able to see them easy and happy and familiar with each other again.

They spent this entire time re-earning the privilege of loving each other and the reader had to spend that whole time there as well, mired in that confusion and pain and anxiety... the both needed a chance for that comfort of normalcy. Which I had hoped to provide with this whole passage from start to finish.

This is a hero's journey where the hero has managed to return home, changed, yes, but the fields of home while he was away have also changed, have grown and been left fallow in order to better grow with him on his return. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and the fields grow richer and in this case the two are one and the same.

That's why the end of it is calling their fucking on the kitchen table a "more substantive, filling thing" because it is.

#unhinged monster answers publicly #gaylanrivens #ask meme #justie author commentary #justie2justie communication #raylan x boyd #justified fx

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willowmckinley · 7 months

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I decided this ask game would be the perfect time to take you up on your recommendation and read “leaving the candle behind.” Would love to get the director’s commentary on this bit:

“This place’ll kill me.”

“The mines?” Boyd asks. His voice sounds hollow and tinny. Raylan can’t tell if he’s had as rough of a go as Raylan has, or if the rumbling from the collapse is still in his ears, vibrating the sound to wrong.

“All of it,” Raylan answers. “All of it. I can’t. I can’t die here, Boyd.”

“I see,” Boyd says.

Raylan locks his fingers into the soft fabric of Boyd’s flannel. He weeps into Boyd’s neck, now that the shock no longer protects him from the hideous goddamn truth that he’s about to lose Boyd. That he’s going to leave his heart in Harlan of all places. He can’t do it. He doesn’t have the strength to do it.

“I have to leave you,” Raylan says with a sob, because he is going to anyway.

Boyd freezes underneath him. Raylan takes in a shaky breath. He feels Boyd’s hands on his shoulders. “You’re leaving me?” he asks. He sounds wrong. Nothing has ever been right for long. His mama’s lullabies had turned into haunting dirges. Aunt Helen’s soft blankets had turned to a bag of cash and instruction to get out. And now Boyd’s steady tenor is distorted to this hollow echo.

Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you read "leaving the candle behind"! That was so quick! Love you love you love you!

So, context, I wrote this scene to inform Boyd and Raylan's reunion in "swiped the fire in you for myself," and what misunderstandings would occur that would need to be resolved for them to have a happier meeting.

In this scene, this is the beginning of them talking cross purposes, with Boyd think Raylan is cursing him, and Raylan thinks Boyd is making their parting easier. Boyd says the mines, and Raylan says "all of it," and Boyd includes himself in "all." Raylan doesn't think Boyd could possibly fit in "all," because he's Boyd and he is the only thing that could make the all of it bearable at all.

Boyd's "I see" is devastated, and Raylan can't even hear it yet, still so wrapped in his own head, in the devastation that he can't stay with the man he loves, that he has to leave his whole world behind (Boyd, Helen, the home he grew up in, Boyd again) just so he doesn't become a man like Arlo.

Raylan's "I have to leave you" is reflective of that, the "have to" meaning he doesn't want to, meaning he feels his hand's been forced, because he wouldn't otherwise, but now the pain has already jarred Boyd to missing the point. Boyd thinks he's part of "all of it," so he focuses on the "leaving you" part, and how Raylan must have wanted this all along or how Raylan must think "I have to leave you, or I won't like myself/this place/my life," when Raylan feels so strongly otherwise.

Raylan says, "leaving you" as in, I'm going to a place where you aren't, and Boyd hears "leaving you" as in, I'm dumping your fucking ass.

And this moment, when Boyd responds, is the first Raylan hears Boyd's pain as well, but he thinks Boyd's pain is the same as his own, in the direct simplicity of parting, while Boyd's whole world view is being shaken, that the man he loves so desperately wants to dump him so badly, that the one constant he thought he had, his and Raylan's mutual love, is being rocked so badly. I hope this causes more pain than even before, justie.

#justie games #leaving the candle behind #justie author commentary

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buckisbi · 7 months

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Would love to hear the director’s commentary on this excerpt from “sent you a bag of candy dicks:”

"Have you told your mom?"

"About my fear of spiders? I think she knows." It's Tim's turn to level her with a look. She sighs. "No. I don't know how I'm gonna tell her. She really liked Joe."

"Well, I'm here for you or whatever."

"Thanks." Rachel says dryly and Tim grins at her.

Both their attention is pulled to the window when a car speeds by playing music too loud to be distinguished.

Tim glances at his watch and sighs.

"We gotta be at the office soon."

Rachel groans and waves down their waitress.

It's a rare tender moment when they part, to go cups of shitty diner coffee in hand. Tim walks with Rachel to her car and she pulls him into a hug.

"Thanks for meeting me here. I appreciate it." She says.

"Of course." He says, rubbing her back before pulling away. "And I do mean it, I'm here for you. You're my best friend, you know that?" He'll blame the sincerity on the late hour.

"I know. And you're mine." She nods and then she's opening the driver's door and climbing in. "See you at the office."

Tim watches her drive off with a wave before walking to his truck. There's a lot of things he likes about his job but the fact it's brought him Rachel might be his favorite.

Aaah thank you justie!

This was a fun one to write bc I really lobe the idea of Rachel tim wlw mlm solidarity bestieism a lot

A fun little bts fast is the reason it jumps from topic to topic a lot is i could not figure out how to segue any of them together ❤ but I felt like it was still fitting bc tbis is a late night conversation between a person who has just woken up from an intense nightmare and someone who probably never went to sleep in the first place.

Something I think is important in depicting their friendship is they definitely both strike me as people allergic to sincerity under normal circumstances. And even now tim can't go full sincerity.

This is also a fic where I tried to lean more into atmosphere hence the car outside.

This is for sure the first time they've hugged. Second at the most. Just like with the sincerity they aren't touchy feely. I think even casual touch isn't something they do a lot of.

It being late at night with little to no sleep under their belts really is the only way they would say that to each other.

And also the way tim feels the need to reiterate without his veneer of sarcasm and aloofness that he's there for Rachel. To tell her she's his best friend. That was definitely hard for him to say so straightforward.

And same for Rachel! She does not stick around lmao

They definitely have a deep heartfelt friendship they just would rather shoot themselves or each other before admitting it in the light of day. But in the middle of the night all bets are off babyyyyyyy

I really do want to continue this verse in the future I really love their dynamic

#aaaah hope this lives up to expectationnnnn #answered #fanfiction #justie author commentary

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empathieves · 7 months

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(for justie author commentary! sending you two asks because i cannot help myself dfkjdk)

Raylan whistles. The man standing behind him chuckles. It raises goosebumps on his skin. He raises a pale hand and wraps it around Tim’s throat. His breath catches. He’s still not scared. His danger sense has fallen silent, has given up on him completely, and all he can feel instead is anticipation. He’s on the knife edge. He’s on the tip of a razor blade. He’s impaled on Raylan’s hook.

“You want me to fight you for it? I can, if that’s what you like.”

Raylan’s eyes are dark and shiny in the bright lights from the bar sign. He looks at Tim, flicks his eyes over Tim’s shoulder. Has a wordless conversation with whoever’s back there. He wonders how long they’ve been doing this, to be able to talk without talking like that. He wonders how outclassed he is, how fucked he’d be if he gave a damn about things like personal safety.

(you’re so valid omg)

Oh man. So I really wanted to convey here that yes, Tim has a danger kink, but it wasn’t always there. He’s just had it beaten out of him through a lifetime of constantly surging adrenaline and now his brain is kind of broken. And mostly what’s left behind is curiosity, a heightened pain threshold, and the desire to have an older man’s hands on him in an appreciative way - even if that way isn’t safe.

Also used knife edge and tip of a razor to show ‘on the edge of danger’ and then you get ‘impaled’ - the realisation that no he’s very much in danger already. Also, given that Raylan is the lure in this game, Raylan’s ‘hook’ would actually be Boyd. :)

“You want me to fight you for it? I can, if that’s what you like.”

Oh Tim. Your need for approval should not be centring on these guys, but hey, at least it sounds flirty.

I wanted to give this idea of Raylan as a very literal predator. The line about his eyes is referencing the eye shine coyotes and other large animals get in darkness. Also, Raylan is so confident here that he takes his eyes off Tim. And Tim is such a good little victim that he just stays put while he thinks about how screwed he is and how much he likes it.

#fic is bring your black cloud to bed #author commentary meme

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

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THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES- From The Douay-Rheims Bible - Latin Vulgate

Chapter 8

INTRODUCTION

This Book is called Ecclesiastes, or the preacher, (in Hebrew, Coheleth) because in it Solomon, as an excellent preacher, setteth forth the vanity of the things of this world, to withdraw the hearts and affections of men from such empty toys. Ch. --- Coheleth is a feminine noun, to indicate the elegance of the discourse. It is very difficult to discriminate the objections of free-thinkers from the real sentiments of the author. It is most generally supposed that Solomon wrote this after his repentance; but this is very uncertain. S. Jerom (in C. xii. 12.) informs us that the collectors of the sacred books had some scruple about admitting this; and Luther speaks of it with great disrespect: (Coll. conviv.) but the Church has always maintained its authority. See Conc. v. Act. 4. Philast. 132. C. --- It refutes the false notions of worldlings, concerning felicity; and shews that it consists in the service of God and fruition. W.

The additional Notes in this Edition of the New Testament will be marked with the letter A. Such as are taken from various Interpreters and Commentators, will be marked as in the Old Testament. B. Bristow, C. Calmet, Ch. Challoner, D. Du Hamel, E. Estius, J. Jansenius, M. Menochius, Po. Polus, P. Pastorini, T. Tirinus, V. Bible de Vence, W. Worthington, Wi. Witham. — The names of other authors, who may be occasionally consulted, will be given at full length.

Verses are in English and Latin. HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY

This Catholic commentary on the Old Testament, following the Douay-Rheims Bible text, was originally compiled by Catholic priest and biblical scholar Rev. George Leo Haydock (1774-1849). This transcription is based on Haydock's notes as they appear in the 1859 edition of Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary printed by Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Changes made to the original text for this transcription include the following:

Greek letters. The original text sometimes includes Greek expressions spelled out in Greek letters. In this transcription, those expressions have been transliterated from Greek letters to English letters, put in italics, and underlined. The following substitution scheme has been used: A for Alpha; B for Beta; G for Gamma; D for Delta; E for Epsilon; Z for Zeta; E for Eta; Th for Theta; I for Iota; K for Kappa; L for Lamda; M for Mu; N for Nu; X for Xi; O for Omicron; P for Pi; R for Rho; S for Sigma; T for Tau; U for Upsilon; Ph for Phi; Ch for Chi; Ps for Psi; O for Omega. For example, where the name, Jesus, is spelled out in the original text in Greek letters, Iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma, it is transliterated in this transcription as, Iesous. Greek diacritical marks have not been represented in this transcription.

Footnotes. The original text indicates footnotes with special characters, including the astrisk (*) and printers' marks, such as the dagger mark, the double dagger mark, the section mark, the parallels mark, and the paragraph mark. In this transcription all these special characters have been replaced by numbers in square brackets, such as [1], [2], [3], etc.

Accent marks. The original text contains some English letters represented with accent marks. In this transcription, those letters have been rendered in this transcription without their accent marks.

Other special characters.

Solid horizontal lines of various lengths that appear in the original text have been represented as a series of consecutive hyphens of approximately the same length, such as ---.

Ligatures, single characters containing two letters united, in the original text in some Latin expressions have been represented in this transcription as separate letters. The ligature formed by uniting A and E is represented as Ae, that of a and e as ae, that of O and E as Oe, and that of o and e as oe.

Monetary sums in the original text represented with a preceding British pound sterling symbol (a stylized L, transected by a short horizontal line) are represented in this transcription with a following pound symbol, l.

The half symbol (1/2) and three-quarters symbol (3/4) in the original text have been represented in this transcription with their decimal equivalent, (.5) and (.75) respectively.

Unreadable text. Places where the transcriber's copy of the original text is unreadable have been indicated in this transcription by an empty set of square brackets, [].

Chapter 8

True wisdom is to observe God's commandments. The ways of God are unsearchable.

[1] The wisdom of a man shineth in his countenance, and the most mighty will change his face.

Sapientia hominis lucet in vultu ejus, et potentissimus faciem illius commutabit.

[2] I observe the mouth of the king, and the commandments of the oath of God.

Ego os regis observo, et praecepta juramenti Dei.

[3] Be not hasty to depart from his face, and do not continue in an evil work: for he will do all that pleaseth him:

Ne festines recedere a facie ejus, neque permaneas in opere malo : quia omne quod voluerit faciet.

[4] And his word is full of power: neither can any man say to him: Why dost thou so?

Et sermo illius potestate plenus est, nec dicere ei quisquam potest : Quare ita facis?

[5] He that keepeth the commandments shall find no evil. The heart of a wise man understandeth time and answer.

Qui custodit praeceptum non experietur quidquam mali. Tempus et responsionem cor sapientis intelligit.

[6] There is a time and opportunity for every business, and great affliction for man:

Omni negotio tempus est, et opportunitas : et multa hominis afflictio,

[7] Because he is ignorant of things past, and things to come he cannot know by any messenger.

quia ignorat praeterita, et futura nullo scire potest nuntio.

[8] It is not in man's power to stop the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death, neither is he suffered to rest when war is at hand, neither shall wickedness save the wicked.

Non est in hominis potestate prohibere spiritum, nec habet potestatem in die mortis : nec sinitur quiescere ingruente bello, neque salvabit impietas impium.

[9] All these things I have considered, and applied my heart to all the works that are done under the sun. Sometimes one man ruleth over another to his own hurt.

Omnia haec consideravi, et dedi cor meum in cunctis operibus quae fiunt sub sole. Interdum dominatur homo homini in malum suum.

[10] I saw the wicked buried: who also when they were yet living were in the holy place, and were praised in the city as men of just works: but this also is vanity.

Vidi impios sepultos, qui etiam cum adhuc viverent in loco sancto erant, et laudabantur in civitate quasi justorum operum. Sed et hoc vanitas est.

[11] For because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the children of men commit evils without any fear.

Etenim quia non profertur cito contra malos sententia, absque timore ullo filii hominum perpetrant mala.

[12] But though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and by patience be borne withal, I know from thence that it shall be well with them that fear God, who dread his face.

Attamen peccator ex eo quod centies facit malum, et per patientiam sustentatur; ego cognovi quod erit bonum timentibus Deum, qui verentur faciem ejus.

[13] But let it not be well with the wicked, neither let his days be prolonged, but as a shadow let them pass away that fear not the face of the Lord.

Non sit bonum impio, nec prolongentur dies ejus, sed quasi umbra transeant qui non timent faciem Domini.

[14] There is also another vanity, which is done upon the earth. There are just men to whom evils happen, as though they had done the works of the wicked: and there are wicked men, who are as secure, as though they had the deeds of the just: but this also I judge most vain.

Est et alia vanitas quae fit super terram : sunt justi quibus mala proveniunt quasi opera egerint impiorum : et sunt impii qui ita securi sunt quasi justorum facta habeant. Sed et hoc vanissimum judico.

[15] Therefore I commended mirth, because there was no good for a man under the sun, but to eat, and drink, and be merry, and that he should take nothing else with him of his labour in the days of his life, which God hath given him under the sun.

Laudavi igitur laetitiam; quod non esset homini bonum sub sole, nisi quod comederet, et biberet, atque gauderet, et hoc solum secum auferret de labore suo, in diebus vitae suae quos dedit ei Deus sub sole.

[16] And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes.

Et apposui cor meum ut scirem sapientiam, et intelligerem distentionem quae versatur in terra. Est homo qui diebus et noctibus somnum non capit oculis.

[17] And I understood that man can find no reason of all those works of God that are done under the sun: and the more he shall labour to seek, so much the less shall he find: yea, though the wise man shall say, that he knoweth it, he shall not be able to find it.

Et intellexi quod omnium operum Dei nullam possit homo invenire rationem eorum quae fiunt sub sole; et quanto plus laboraverit ad quaerendum, tanto minus inveniat : etiam si dixerit sapiens se nosse, non poterit reperire.

Commentary:

Ver. 1. Most. Sept. "he whose face is impudent, shall be hated." The truly wise and virtuous man is always polite and affable. C. --- As we may form a probable conjecture of a person's disposition from his countenance, so we may judge of man's virtue by their actions. They are right and meritorious when the intention is good, (W.) and the works themselves blameless.

Ver. 2. I. Prot. add, "counsel thee, to keep, &c. "Obey the king and God." H. 1 Pet. ii. 17. --- Solomon proposes his own example, or speaks in the name of the just. --- God. The law of Moses, confirmed with an oath, or the engagement to be faithful to the king. 2 K. v. 3. 1 Par. xxix. 24.

Ver. 3. Face. This courtiers observe, while many Christians neglect God. --- Work. Defend not what has been said or done amiss.

Ver. 4. So? The eastern kings rule with absolute sway. Prov. xvi. 14.

Ver. 5. Answer. Heb. "judgment." He knows when to reprove even kings with effect; like Nathan, Elias, or S. Ambrose. 2 K. xii. 1. and 3 K. xviii. 17.

Ver. 6. Man. Solomon often reminds him of his misery. Sept. and Theod. "man is possessed of much knowledge," as they read dahth for rahth. C.

Ver. 7. Past. Prot. and Sept. "that shall be." H.

Ver. 8. Spirit from leaving the body, or the wind from blowing. There is no quarter given by death; so the wicked cannot escape vengeance.

Ver. 9. Hurt. Those who are despised in elevated situations, might have been happy in obscurity.

Ver. 10. Works. In life and death hypocrites are mixed with the unjust; and this excites indignation.

Ver. 11. Fear. Thus they abuse the patience of God, and grow worse, because he is good. His time will come. Apoc. xvi. 15 Eccli. v. 4. 2 Pet. iii. 10.

Ver. 12. Face. If God shew such clemency to the wicked, will he disregard his servants? Greek interpreters have read in a different meaning. C. --- Sept. "the sinner has done evil from that time, and for a long while," (T.) &c. See S. Jer. H.

Ver. 13. Let. Or, Heb. "it shall not," &c. Prot. H. --- Faith evinces that the wicked will be punished. --- But. Heb. "like a shadow." Sept. "under the shade," in prosperity.

Ver. 14. Vain, or afflicting. Hence some have denied Providence. Jer. xii. 1. C.

Ver. 15. No good for a man, &c. Some commentators think the wise man here speaks in the person of the libertine, representing the objections of these men against divine Providence, and the inferences they draw from thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of worldlings, their attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving into the unsearchable ways of divine providence. Ch. C. ii. 24. and iii. 12. Eccli. xv. C. --- Felicity is not attached to temporal prosperity, nor are the afflicted always miserable. W.

Ver. 16. Distraction of politicians, (Grot.) and of all human affairs.

Ver. 17. Reason. We know in general that God does all for his own glory, and for the welfare of his elect. But we cannot account for his treatment of mankind in particular cases. Rom. xi. 33. S. Jer. C. - Say. Sept. "speak what thing soever, that he may know he," &c. H.

#the book of ecclesiastes

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opedguy · 5 years

Text

Manafort Sentenced to 47 Months

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), March 8, 2019.--Sentenced to 47 months in federal prison, 69-year-old former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III thumbed his nose at Special Counsel Robert Muller, urging the independently-minded federal judge to give him 19-24 years in prison. Critics of President Donald Trump expressed outrage at the relatively light sentence for income tax evasion, bank and wire fraud for work Manafort performed for Ukraine’s former Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukoych in 2006, 10 years before Manafort worked for only six months for the Trump campaign. Harvard Preofeesor Lawrence Tribe expressed disgust over the light sentence, knowing that Manafort was not charged with conspiracy with the Russian government to help Trump win the 2016 election. Mueller was appointed Special Counsel May 17, 2017 by Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein with the mandate of probing Russian meddling and alleged Trump collusion.

Trump was “saddened” watching Manafort arrive for sentencing wearing a green jumpsuit in a wheel chair due to severe gout and other medical problems. Whatever Manafort’s medical condition, Ellis based his sentence on the fact Mueller prosecuted Manafort for white collar crimes associated with his work 10 years before the 2016 campaign. Manafort’s attorney argued for leniency based on the fact Manafort had no criminal record before Mueller put him under the microscope, completely unrelated to the 2016 campaign, but, more importantly, to the Special Counsel’s mandate to investigate Russian meddling or alleged Trump collusion with the Kremlin. With Mueller’s final report to the Atty. Gen Bill Barr due soon, there’s no indication that the Special Counsel has found anything that connects Trump or his campaign to coordinating with Moscow to win the 2016 presidential election. Yet Mueller wanted Manafort to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Fined $50,000 and given nine months of time served, Manafort will spend 36 months in federal prison unless U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson requires his March 15 sentencing in D.C. federal court to run consecutively. Berman-Jackson isn’t likely to require Manafort to serve more time, recognizing that the once elite political consultants, dating back to the Nixon days, has been punished enough. To the anti-Trump press, Manafort’s sentence was taken personally, believing he should pay extra time for what Mueller couldn’t find with Trump when it comes to Russian collusion. Democrats and their friends in the liberal press couldn’t stomach the fact that Mueller should have never prosecuted Manafort, whether he committed any crimes or not. Manafort’s sentence raises the possibility of a presidential pardon, something Trump has not ruled out. Given that Manfort’s prosecution fits Trump “witch hunt” definition, a pardon would surprise no one.

Getting 36 months in prison actually exceds average sentencing guidelines for income tax evasion, running about 12 months. Mueller’s contention that Manafort should get the maximum sentence under federal guidelines speaks volumes about the political nature to Manafort’s prosecution. Pushing for a longer sentence, Mueller’s legal team antagonized Ellis, recognizing the political nature of the prosecution. “To say I have been humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement,” Manafort told the court. Yet Mueller’s prosecutors insist Manafort never accepted responsibility for his actions, demanding an outright apology. Ellis slapped Mueller saying Manafort has “been a good friend to others, a generous person.” Adding insult to injury to Mueller, Ellis said, “he has lived an otherwise blameless life,” before delivering his 47-month sentence, minus nine moths for ttme served. No what the sentence, it wouldn’t have been enough.

Whether admitted to or not, Manafort should not have been put in the pucrosshairs by Mueller for anything outside his work for Trump. Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation prosecuting Trump campaign officials for technical “perjury traps,” like Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen. Mueller got Cohen on perjury for telling Congress he concluded discussions about Trump Tower Moscow in Dec. 2016 when in fact talks didn’t end until June 2017. When it came to former Atty Gen. Jeff Sessions or Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Mueller got them for not recalling they talked with former Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak, as if that were a crime. Ellis recognized that Muller’s team showed too much zealotry trying to put Manafort away for life, for a garden-variety tax evasion case. Democrats and the anti-Trump press are getting worried that Mueller’s final report won’t give them impeachable offenses to remove Trump from office.

Ellis realized that he was sucked into the political maelstrom that’s swept Washington attempting, beyond anything else, to get rid of Trump. House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) made clear he wants to create a record with more subpoenas and testimony to begin impeachment proceedings, regardless of whether he committed high-crimes-and-misdemeanors, the Constitutional standard. “It’s very sad what happened to Paul,” Trump said. “I have not offered any pardon. I’m not taking anything of the table,” Trump said last year. When you consider all the politics at play, it’s difficult for federal judges like Ellis and Berman to figure out how to mete out justice. Giving the ailing Manafort 36 months to rot in federal prison is no slap on the writs, especially given his medical problems. Watching Mueller’s team try to throw the book at Manafort tells the whole story. It’s not about justie, it’s about scoring points in what’s looking more like a failed investigation.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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norgbelulah · 7 months

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Wait, can I do two? If I can, then from "to know me as hardly golden is to know me all wrong":

When he can’t stand her anymore, Boyd joins him in the bar and she pouts and tries to touch him until Raylan shoves her away. Boyd meets her eyes for half a second and she recoils from his look more than she does from Raylan’s rejection.

“Stay gone,” Boyd says and sits down beside him.

She flees the bar as Raylan turns to him. Elbows on the bartop, Raylan leans into Boyd, brushing his forehead and nose across his cheekbone, to the sweet spot beneath his ear. He stills there and breathes while Boyd eyes everyone else until they look away.

“I ain’t sorry,” Raylan tells him.

“I don’t care,” Boyd replies.

Raylan laughs, but it’s hard and broken. Boyd kisses his cheek. “You done now?”

“Fuck you.”

Boyd smiles and they go home and do it for hours.

I think what I love most about this bit of this fic is that it's an illustration that like, everything that criminal!Boyd and Raylan do is a performance. Like, in canon, so much of what Boyd has to do to be a successful crime boss etc etc is put on a show. So in this fic, when Raylan is mad at Boyd--when their entire life and relationship is a performance for all of Harlan County--he fuckin tells everyone by flagrantly carrying on with some girl he doesn't care about. It's a performance of public infidelity and private frustration but also a way to show people he's still...a man, too I guess? Like, see everyone? I have no trouble getting a woman, I'll get one when I'm pissed off at my boyfriend who I CHOOSE to be with, and we can still fuck you up etc etc

A lot of my headcanons/interpretations of Boyd/Raylan just generally have to do with carving out specifically how bisexual Raylan Givens is, like how he operates and also performs his bisexuality. Like, because of his clear attraction to and gift for seducing beautiful women, I find it hard to make a case that he's specifically gay in fic unless it's a comp het style situation (which is a thing I did not know existed when I wrote this fic).

Boyd, for the most part (since so much of what he does is a performance canonically and I think that could be argued extends to his relationships) I have no problem writing as gay. Often I like to think of him as kind of demisexual, as we only see him really fall in canon for someone he's known all his life, who's been close to him. So in fic, when you add in a lifelong love of his coal-mining buddy, like, it's not hard to make that leap.

Also also, I think when I was writing this I wanted to use this scene to make clear that like, Boyd knows Raylan is staying in Harlan, doing all these terrible things, because he loves Boyd so there isn't very much Raylan could do or anything he could ask for that Boyd wouldn't forgive or give to him. Boyd has the life he wants at Raylan's sufferance. He's got to be flexible or he might lose him.

This answer feels all over the place. Anyway, these boys are working through some stuff and I love them because they are tiny babies who barely know what they are up to. I'm not sure I thought about them that way when I wrote this, but I am older now and so that's how I feel about it these days. They're trying so hard and they're having a rough time, but they're gonna make it because of the power of true love!

#justified #raylan givens #bisexuality #boyd crowder #criminals #ask meme #answered #justie author commentary

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itookyoudown · 7 months

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From "I pray the lord my memory to keep":

Cowboy takes him by the arm. Come say hello to everyone, Boyd will be upset if you don’t show your face.

I’m not an invalid, Tim protests, I only got amnesia. But he doesn’t jerk away from Cowboy. Something about the touch feels familiar. Cowboy touches him like he’s touched Tim a thousand times before. He probably has, Tim reasons to himself. They’re supposed to be boyfriends, after all.

Should we hold hands?

That ain’t something you do, Cowboy says with a sad smile. Tim wonders if maybe it could be something they do now, but he doesn’t say it. He tries to keep it in his head. He hopes the thought will stick in his mind like a pinpoint instead of slipping through the crack where his memories went. Cowboy takes him around the side of the house and into the heart of the party.

Oh hell yeah my cult and amnesia fic for chocolate box!

This whole fic was an experimental piece with the ultimate goal of making it feel dreamy and off-putting and maybe even a little confusing at times because the prose itself was meant to mirror Tim’s loss / isolation and his disconcertment of where he is and what happened to him. I also wanted to leave a lot of fuzz around the edges to all the dialogue and action so nothing is ever clearly implied.

Tossing dialogue tags out of the window was inspired by Some Brokeback Thing by mystivy. I still to this day consider it the most technically masterful fic I’ve read in Justified.

The way Tim favors Raylan (Cowboy) yet Raylan reacts fairly cold to him while Tim is wary of Preacher (Boyd) but Boyd reacts overly warm with Tim was one trick I used to sow doubt about the situation. Raylan’s touch being familiar was a detail I added in because I want it to spin questions in the reader’s head about WHY Tim thinks that Raylan’s touch is familiar.

Is it only because he and Raylan used to work together? Because they were dating before they ran away? Because Tim really was in a polyamory mess with Raylan and Boyd?

Likewise Raylan’s response (That ain’t something you do) is meant to offer various spins on it too. Does Raylan know because Tim rejected him in the past? Or because they were together and on the downlow?

I never wanted the "true" pairing in this to be crystal clear.

Really most lines in this fic were written so they could be taken in different ways. In reading the reader is supposed to tell themselves a story within the story.

(author commentary ask game)

#tooks.txt #justie author commentary #ask games #itookyoudown #boyd/raylan/tim

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itookyoudown · 7 months

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I know it’s been a while since you wrote it, but I’d love to get the directors’ commentary on this excerpt from “and i would be the one (to hold you down):”

Tim’s ordained badge hangs from a chain around his neck. It rests like a shield over his heart though Tim’s not so sure if it’s protecting him from Boyd or Boyd from him. Usually, the weight of the star was light. Like a pat of reassurance. Now, it wears heavy. Like a collar.

He supposes dog-like feelings are appropriate for him. In the army, they’d made a big whoop about the differences between sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. An easy way to divvy up the world’s people into tidy designations. War may be chaos, but the military is orderly. Civilians, the good guys, and the bad guys. Tim’s a sheepdog. By default that makes him one of the good guys, though sometimes he has doubts on whether the world is that simple and clean.

It doesn’t feel particularly good to point his weapon at Boyd.

There’s a big difference between doing something because you like doing it and doing something because you’re good at doing it. Tim doesn’t like shooting people...but he does like being good at it. Taking aim at Boyd doesn’t feel good per se, but it feels familiar and that makes it easy.

In his heart, Tim’s still a soldier. Boyd’s not. He may have served, but he’s no longer one of the sheepdogs. Maybe he never really was. That’s the difference between them right there. Tim has the skills to shoot and the willingness to pull, but not without an order to do it. Boyd doesn’t take orders from anyone. He makes his own decisions now. Without input from anyone or consideration for others.

Tim can see the irrefutable evidence of Boyd’s most recent decisions. After all, Boyd’s wearing them. They’ve stained his hands and the front of his clothes. He’s already pulled first on someone and literally taken the clothes off their back. The local sheriff, Tim assumes, from the brown and beige star-smacked look that Boyd is wearing.

Boyd’s a wolf dressed up as a sheepdog.

There are no sheep left in the building.

Oh thank you! I'm actually really happy you asked about this even if I have to really dig into my memory bank.

and i would be the one (to hold you down). It was my first fanfic ever so I'm very fond of it, even if looking back I realize it's still raw in a few places and could have used some more baking. But I love the world I created for this and I pulled off the vibe & grappled with the themes I set out to explore in this piece.

So, this whole passage really was to acknowledge that while Boyd and Tim have commonalities (they're veterans they're southern boys they're soldiers they come from abusive homes etc etc) they are fundamentally very different people and they do NOT share moral values. There is zero overlap there, they're vehemently opposed in this regard. No same coin, opposite sides imagery happening here. They aren't even in the same piggybank together lol.

(I stressed the importance of this because it was intended to amplify the real horror at the end of Tim losing his morality when Boyd forcibly turns him into a vampire -- Boyd doesn't just take Tim's life, he does something even more sinister and destroys Tim's moral center).

I have so many feelings about the symbolism behind the badge of the US marshals. It's so distinctive and evocative that this bit was really just stopping to ponder what that badge means and how it is used and to show that Tim's relationship with his own job as a LEO isn't without nuance.

This whole bit about wolves VS sheepdogs is an old analogy (hi jesus as a shepherd imagery). But you'll also see it tossed around in veteran circles a lot -- shows up in military memes constantly lol. There's controversy about the dude and the essay/lecture/book it stems from, but I won't get into all that. Simply put, this analogy is one that Tim would be familiar with and I think as a young man who was sent off to war it really cemented into his mind. That pretty sounding and crystal clear separation between innocents, protectors, and predators is one that has helped Tim grapple with his moral injuries.

Though he doesn't fully buy into it. Tim is a product and weapon of the USA military propaganda machine, but Tim's service has left him questioning everything he was taught and told. Tim has remarkable self-awareness and I wanted to show that while Tim uses this mindset to help guide himself through the complications of life, he doesn't entirely fall prey to the us VS them mentality.

Tim's capable of self-reflection and in order to do that you need to have the ability to doubt yourself.

It doesn’t feel particularly good to point his weapon at Boyd.

I really wanted to make it clear to readers that Tim has little ill will toward Boyd. That his confrontation with Boyd is Tim acting professionally and that he's adhering to the vow he took when he took up office as a US deputy marshal. It doesn't matter that Boyd has been a pain in the ass to our lawmen for six seasons or that Tim is tired of Boyd and Raylan's personal bullshit or even that Tim and Raylan are implied to have a romantic relationship + the later insinuated that Raylan has been feeding on Tim.

Tim doesn't hate Boyd in this story. There's no rage or jealousy or hatred when he draws his weapon because this is Tim, as a LEO, reacting to an active shooting in a hospital.

In his heart, Tim’s still a soldier. Boyd’s not. He may have served, but he’s no longer one of the sheepdogs. Maybe he never really was.

Deep breath. I just love season 6 Boyd so much. He's awful and it's horrible to watch him unravel and go full-throttle with his cruelty and anger, but I think it's such a fitting end for him when you look back at all of his choices throughout the story. Tragic, in a certain light, but Boyd went from antagonist to full-fledged villain of his own accord and I love that for him. Go outlaw man go!

I loved including this bit because I think it harkens back nicely to all the lies Boyd tells and the masks he wears and Boyd never quite being who he says he is.

They’ve stained his hands and the front of his clothes. He’s already pulled first on someone and literally taken the clothes off their back. The local sheriff, Tim assumes, from the brown and beige star-smacked look that Boyd is wearing.

Nah we, as readers, know that'd be Carl, but this is told from Tim's POV and he wouldn't know about that. I did really like this bit though because we see Tim in LEO mode even in the heat of the moment -- he's making assumptions and trying to piece together clues but he's not stating facts. Because we're shown once again that Tim isn't acting from an emotional place.

Boyd’s a wolf dressed up as a sheepdog. There are no sheep left in the building.

Ominous sentences OMNIOUS. Here is kinda where I started to slip in the horror. And also on a practical level to explain Tim's alone with Boyd. The gunshots have cleared out the hospital. There is no one to come to Tim's rescue or help him.

And to go on a ramble for a moment here: when the horror does rise in the following paragraphs...the wolf, sheepdog, and sheep analogy actually entirely falls apart and is no longer applicable in any way. Because Boyd isn't human at all. He's not even a wolf. He's so far beyond Tim's understanding or ability to comprehend what Boyd is! Because vampires :)

That's also why this is the last time I use the wolf/dog/sheep imagery in this fic.

Thanks again for sending this ask! This was a fun trip down memory lane.

(author commentary ask game)

#tooks.txt #itookyoudown #justie author commentary #justie games

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norgbelulah · 7 months

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Another from "What We're Building Could Be Anything":

“Now,” he said, still maintaining less of a familiarity than Raylan was used to, “I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to do your job, Raylan. But I’d be glad to help you out a little here, show you where someone might hide some kind of explosives.”

“‘Cause you’re the powderman,” Raylan said, testing.

“That is what I am, Raylan,” Boyd affirmed.

“And a hero,” he added.

“So they’re telling me,” Boyd replied.

“You’re wearing a suit,” Raylan said.

Boyd smiled. “I am.”

“You never wear a suit.” Literally, Raylan had never seen Boyd wear a suit. Not like that, with a jacket and a tie and the shirt. The furthest he had ever gone was the dark vest and almost matching pants he’d worn to Arlo’s funeral and his community college graduation. “You don’t own one.”

Boyd’s smile stretched wide and he said, “Ms. Johnson footed the bill on today’s sartorial choices.” He glanced over at the woman, who was quietly pretending not to listen to their conversation. “Do you think she likes it?” Boyd asked conspiratorially.

Raylan wanted to push him but Reardon’s bench was in the way. He wanted to do a couple other things, too. Instead, he looked Boyd right in the eyes and made no attempt to hide what he was thinking.

Boyd took a loud indrawn breath in response and said quietly, almost pleading, “Now, don’t do that to me, baby, I got things to do today.”

Raylan’s lips crooked a bit. “Bet you Reardon would give us his chambers. He owes me.”

“I am sorely tempted, Raylan, but I am trying to maintain a bit of professionalism, here.”

Raylan scoffed at him and Boyd winked and turned away, saying, “It looks as though my good marshal needs no assistance at this juncture, Ms. Johnson.”

She smiled, knowingly, and replied, “Well I am sure glad you spent all that time discussin’ his needs, Boyd. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

I love this scene. I love this scene in canon and I was fucking rabid to rewrite it for this AU. Carol Johnson CALLS IT A LOVE STORY. They are clearly flirting! In canon! About explosives! Raylan is clearly having such a hard time processing Boyd being anywhere near his regular place of work in an official capacity! He's wearing a suit!!!

I took special care to ensure that Raylan thought so much about that suit and how it's like, both really attractive but also SO WEIRD for him and how that's complicated by the fact that Carol Johnson BOUGHT THAT SUIT FOR BOYD. It makes me insane.

Please please at some point ask me for my Carol Johnson feels. I wrote a bunch of fics that feature her and they do not get much love.

But I digress. I also really love turning canon on its head here in the way that in this AU, Boyd is NOT a stranger to this office. Until recently, he lived in Lexington most of the time, with Raylan, and came to the office like at least once a week. I love that later he's like, in the office with Carol and is like forcing the entire Marshal's bullpen to basically be in on his con of this mine company woman! Boyd's gonna Boyd!!

I also never turn down an opportunity to use the word sartorial. It is one of my headcanon Boyd's favorite words.

#justified #justie author commentary #raylan givens #boyd crowder #carol johnson #ask meme #answered #i'm insane about this scene #my apologies

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itookyoudown · 7 months

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"killing strangers" (you know me):

Boyd flicks the cigarette stub to the ground. The cherry survives the fall and glows on brightly. As he steps forward, Boyd crushes it underneath the toe of his work boot. He picks up the duffel bag at his feet, slinging the strap over his shoulder. Their supplies are a familiar weight against his back. He flexes his fingers to work the cold out of them. Raylan's played his part with great aplomb. Now, Boyd's got to do his.

Raylan’s the lure in the water. Boyd’s the boning knife in the dark.

And tonight’s boy is the fish.

I DO KNOW YOU WILLOW. I'm not surprised you picked this one at all.

I will be honest...while I know exactly where I meant to go with this fic (and how it's going to end) I can't quite remember what I was thinking while writing it lol.

However, I wrote this for the dark fic flavor for the chocolate box event, so I went full lizard brain for this one. I just wanted to write a fucked up indulgent lil fic!

Boyd flicks the cigarette stub to the ground. The cherry survives the fall and glows on brightly. As he steps forward, Boyd crushes it underneath the toe of his work boot.

This was meant to be a small taste of symbolic violence before the actual violence and demonstrate the future threat of Boyd's quickness to cruelty right off the bat.

He picks up the duffel bag at his feet, slinging the strap over his shoulder. Their supplies are a familiar weight against his back. He flexes his fingers to work the cold out of them. Raylan's played his part with great aplomb. Now, Boyd's got to do his.

Great aplomb is a shameless Deadwood reference. No regrets! The rest of this was just demonstrating how calculated and planned out their kills are. It's not something they do spur of the moment. They're doing teamwork.

Raylan’s the lure in the water. Boyd’s the boning knife in the dark. And tonight’s boy is the fish.

This was really the cinching line that tied the whole fic together. I also think it might have been the very first thing I wrote for it.

There was this stellar Hannibal meta I read a long time ago about serial killers that talked about the difference between being a hunter VS fisher style when it comes to victim selection, so that was in my mind when I was thinking about what Raylan and Boyd would be like as team killers.

I went with the decision that they'd be fishers (though lbr if Raylan was solo he'd be a hunter) because if they've been killing since they were young, then they obviously would have utilized Raylan's good looks to lure men into a vulnerable state. Because, sorry Boyd, as great a talker as he is...I just think in their youth and early years they would have found Raylan's beauty made him the most appealing bait to their victims.

Raylan being the sweet talker and the false safety and the charmer while Boyd is the one waiting lurking in the shadows to strike out and break the illusion with the first act of violence is their modus operandi.

(author commentary ask game)

#tooks.txt #justie games #justie author commentary #boyd/raylan/tim #crowgivenson

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skelingtonsderek · 7 months

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Also 65 and 80 :)

For the ask game for fanfic writers

65. what is your favourite title for a fic you’ve written?

ooooooooooh... That's a hard one. yknow I think I would have to go with Rinse Cycle or Remembrance. I think what I enjoy most about those titles is that I can't think of a single title that might be capable of replacing them and having the same feel and meaning behind them. That's very appealing. Like. The title is part of the fic and it matters a lot but sometimes a story can have a bunch of titles and it wouldn't diminish it but these two.... I couldn't even try to change the names.

80. do you try to put themes, motifs, messages, morals, etc in your writing? if so, how do you go about it?

Yes absolutely every time. Way back when I first learned to write I learned it through the medium of essays and the idea that all art is trying to convince you of something really stuck with me. Not always is it something grand and impressive or meditative or whatever. It could be something simple like, "Isn't this character kinda funny? Wouldn't this be interesting?" or it could be something more difficult like, "actually you don't need to earn love. people can just... love you as you are and that's pretty OK."

I tend to use a lot of little motifs and themes like certain sense descriptions for certain characters, different topics they might think or act on... Like some characters come with these sort of things built in. Boyd and his constant identity crisis or Raylan and control. The way they both use clothing as costumes and build layer on layer of symbolism and meaning and bullshit into their appearances at all points. This one is definitely in that part from The House Carpenter I already talked about earlier but it's certainly in Remembrance. again between the gloves and the rings and the rest of the clothes in the closet.

Rinse Cycle conversely uses motifs of nature and animal life, weather and sound, the tempos of conversation between people and of course color schemes from person to person....

but why are you sooo nice thank you for asking!!!! :')

#unhinged monster answers publicly #acorrespondence #teen wolf #justified fx #justie author commentary #justie2justie communication #ask game

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acorrespondence · 7 months

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Miami, Part 2:

Boyd comes back when the kitchen’s quiet to find Lissy scowling and kicking at the closest leg on the kitchen table, the shoes Raylan already bullied her into leaving scuffs on the paint. He raises his arms and fixes her with a look. “What is goin on with you, girl?”

“Nothing.”

Her brows are drawn down, shadowing her eyes like storm clouds. Threatening rain, if he’s reading the sky right. Raylan got like this sometimes, as a child, and there was just no moving him. Boyd crouches in front of her. “I ain’t mad, baby,” he says. He takes her head in his hands, strokes her baby-fine hair, the strands slipping through his fingers when she shakes her head. “I just want you to talk to me. I can’t help you feel better ‘less I know what’s wrong.”

She looks away, toward the battered white refrigerator. Boyd tries not to look at it, sitting bare where once it was covered over in so many family photos and baby pictures and bizarre elementary school art projects you couldn’t tell the color of it. “I don’t wanna leave Bumblebee,” she mumbles.

Boyd pauses. He breathes in. She’s a lot like Raylan, and he knows that cost her something to say. “Oh, honey, no. We’re takin Bumblebee with us.”

She looks at him. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says, hands still smoothing down her hair. “She’s comin too.”

“Oh.” She tugs at the hammer loop on her overalls, looks down as she fusses with it, just as loath to show embarrassment as she was to show the sadness come before. She drags her toe over the linoleum, leaving scuffs there, too, little marks for the house to remember her by. Whatever transplant Raylan’s boss lines up to lease the house will see those lines and know the place has already been laid claim to, a truth writ in these little signs of a life that’s forever tied to its furniture, its floors—its very foundations.

Boyd tugs gently on a lock of her hair. When she looks up, her eyes are solemn and a little glassy, still, the remnants of tears shining in the light that spills through the window over the sink. “What put that notion in your head?”

“Alex Rivera had to give his dog away.”

“Did he?”

She nods, looks down again. “When he moved.”

“Well, that is a shame.” Boyd untangles her fingers from the hammer loop and takes her little hand in his. “I can assure you, we will not leave our sweet Bumblebee behind.”

“You promise?” she asks, one corner of her mouth pinched in. It looks like Raylan’s, when he can’t quite figure the lay of the land. It makes Boyd smile.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says, grinning at her until her mouth tugs up in response. “Might leave your daddy behind, though.”

She gives him a weird look. Boyd laughs, tugs her head forward into a kiss at the crown. Hands on his knees, he pushes himself upright and drops a gentle hand on her head.

I’m really glad you picked this scene, because it’s a pretty good encapsulation of the way I write kids. I think one of the most important things to remember writing children is that their goals and priorities very often don’t match up with those of the adults. While it might seem at first glance that they share the same concerns as their parents, the reasons for their reactions are often very different. So what are the kids’ priorities? Pemberley is very watchful of her parents, but she has no real investment in any of their specific concerns; what she cares about is how their worries and the state of their relationship will affect her. She doesn’t care about Raylan’s job, but she cares that it means she’s going to have to move to a school where she doesn’t know anyone; that it means she has to move from the house she loves to a place where she doesn’t even remember living. Meanwhile, Felicity’s concerns are even more immediate than that. I think she’s at an age where she has issues even conceptualizing a place she has no reference for, and so it becomes less about what might be waiting for her in Kentucky and more about what she’s being made to leave behind.

She knows that she’ll be leaving the house and yard behind, which makes her sad and mad but not worried, really, and she knows that her sister and parents will be coming with her. So what worry could she have that might get lost or go unnoticed in the pile of other worries that everyone else is bringing to the table? What’s a possible point of uncertainty that feels immediate, conceivable, and relevant to her life? The specific worry I alighted upon was inspired by a childhood friend of mine who had to move into an apartment that didn’t allow pets, and so had to give her dog away. I remember being deeply empathetic because I had a cat myself, and I think Lissy would have felt similarly disturbed by this notion even if she didn’t at the time think of it as a possibility for herself, so it made sense that she might get this idea into her head.

I was pretty proud of this metaphor; comparing anger/upset feelings to storm clouds is a very cliche thing, but I like to sometimes take a really obvious metaphor and sort of tilt it around to try and find some untapped facets of it. So I went from anger like storm clouds >> rural tendency to be more tapped into nature >> reading the sky, and then through that kind of tie into something that comes up later in the fic (taken from canon) about Raylan reading Arlo’s moods. A lot of this fic is about inheritance in an abstract sense, what these men pass onto their kids both with and without realizing it. Arlo compares his father to a thunderstorm and Raylan compares Arlo to a tornado, so this metaphor being used for Lissy implies that she inherited their tempers.

I’ve talked about this before, I think mostly with you in the comments, but I think that Boyd’s most lasting damage from Bo’s abuse comes not from the violence itself but from the fact that he didn’t even try to understand Boyd and didn’t trust him to be able to comprehend the reason behind Bo’s instructions and expectations. He wanted Bo to a) endeavor to find out why he was acting the way he was, b) acknowledge the validity of those reasons, and c) clue Boyd in to why different behavior was expected. Because these were all things he wanted but never got from his father, he takes great pains to offer them to his children.

I just think Boyd is the kind of guy to clip a million things to the refrigerator. I think when he was growing up the kitchen was very much his mother’s domain, and therefore a place he remembers fondly. Though he likely expected Boyd’s mother to manage their interior design, Bo was probably very strict about what was allowed to be displayed throughout most of their house, because the image that was being put forth mattered a lot to him. However, I think the kitchen, because he considered it a woman’s space, would have been subject to less policing by Bo, and so I think Boyd’s mother plastered the fridge with photos of and art by her boys, and Boyd chooses to emulate this. I think Raylan appreciates it—even if outwardly he complains about things getting knocked off of it every five seconds—because he likes having tangible proof that his children are happy and safe and cared for: that his influence on them isn’t doing irreparable damage.

While Boyd would have jumped to explain himself in this way to his daddy, he knows that Raylan has trouble ceding emotional ground—admitting something is bothering him is exposing an exploitable weakness—and sees the same trait in their daughter. Also like Raylan, she feels this way about basically every emotion except anger, so her embarrassment to have worried over nothing is just as important to hide as the worry in the first place: it serves as further damning evidence that the worry was there in the first place, because losing Bumblebee would have hurt her, and she doesn’t want to acknowledge that vulnerability.

This is a recurring motif that comes up a lot in this story, the idea of certain kinds of wear and tear to a house or room being physical evidence of love, contrasted with other kinds of damage that come from neglect.

Lissy tugging at the hammer loop on the hip of her overalls is kind of a callback to the way Raylan is always resting one hand on his holster, or flipping back his jacket to show off his holster, etc. Both Raylan and Boyd are fidgety assholes, so both of their kids are too. But Boyd’s usually comes from a spillover of excess emotion, whereas Raylan’s is used to distract from his emotions long enough to repress them. Boyd taking her hand here is an indication that he sees how she feels and wants her to share it with him instead of hiding it.

She’s not feeling her most trusting at the moment, when her parents just turned her life so fully upside-down, so she doesn’t know if she should trust Boyd’s answer. And then he tired to reassure her and cut the tension with a joke, and the very idea that her parents might willingly separate is so baffling that it works. She doesn’t even think for a second to add this to her list of worries, and it implies that Boyd wouldn’t leave the cat any more than he’d leave Raylan, which is a more binding promise than the words alone could ever be.

#ask game #justified #heavy heart #my fic #justie2justie communication #long post #writing #i feel like there were a few things i wanted to mention here but missed oh well #justie author commentary #willow universewoman star-shine #thanks so much for the ask!

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