callioope

[callioope]

You are never letting a WIP rot. You are doing it a service. Your WIP is a sourdough starter and the five words you wrote that one day were all it needed to sustain itself. It will bubble and be ready when you are.

[callioope]

LOVE that laura reports travis let her help him design fjord's outfit for their wedding (both his outfit and jester's dress are already designed!) and she and max share a wedding planning pinterest board AND they are actually having a meeting to help hammer out who is on the wedding invite list. they are just. planning an actual wedding but for fictional characters at a live show

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impossible wish: the Syphilis Bandits voiced by the Dimension 20 cast

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Critical Role: EXU Calamity Dimension 20: The Ravening War Dimension 20: Burrow's End Critical Role: Wildemount Wildlings Dimension 20: On a Bus

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i feel like so many people misunderstand redemption arcs. they’re not about forgiving past actions. they’re not about softening previous behavior. redemption arcs are about realizing past behavior was heinous and resolving to be better, do better. that’s why so many redemption arcs fall apart upon close scrutiny.

[callioope]

I finished it! I took a couple of breaks, but here we are :)) Originally it was inspired by some Shadowgast week prompt, but hah that's a long time ago by now.

[callioope]

If you're a writer you're supposed to write a lot of bullshit. It's part of the gig. You have to write a lot of absolute garbage in order to get to the good bits. Every once in a while you'll be like "Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted all that time writing bullshit," but that's dumb. That's exactly the same as an Olympic runner being like "Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted all that time running all those practice laps"

[callioope]

the failure of the old guard 2 isn't that it's a bad movie, but rather that it's the less interesting story option.

the movie had a lot of good elements! everything about Quyhn and Andy in Italy was just. *chef's kiss* perfection. 10/10 breakup angst. i love everything about it. I think they also did something really interesting with Joe's newfound fears of him or Nicky suddenly being alone after always having each other, i think that's an absolutely fascinating thing for his anger in movie 1 to cool off into and sets up some really interesting character dynamics and new tension.

but like. a lot of the sequel was walking back the consequences of the first movie, and everything that was done well would've been done better had they committed to what they setup in the first movie.

the walk-back i personally hate the most is the ~last immortal~ shtick. tbf i'm already biased against prophecy storylines, but the worldbuilding of the first movie established that they don't know how or why they become immortal, and by the same nature, they don't know how or why or when they might suddenly lose their immortality. this plays so well into the story's central theme and premise of "what does your time on earth mean to you and what do you do with it?" all the immortals grapple with the traumas and struggles of finding purpose or connecting to the world that come with the immortality trope, but they also still have to deal with the possibility of death and the same unpredictability and randomness that everyone grapples with in life, and that looming "what if...?" hanging on the horizon only adds to the story. giving the characters any sort of control over it, much less a way to transfer immortality, the wish that haunted Booker specifically through all of movie one and every decade he's ever lived, flattens the world and narrative of the story.

the walk-back that ruined the most story potential though was definitely Quyhn's storyline being pushed to the backburner in favor of this ~first immortal~ introduction. i do think there's potential in this first immortal storyline, i think there is some interesting foiling and tension between the woman who stayed away her entire life to protect herself suddenly panicking that she's done nothing with it vs Andy who's gone through hell but has found peace and satisfaction in the life she's lived, it's just... not anywhere near as interesting as what could've gone down with Quyhn as the main bad, and certainly not with Andy's regained immortality.

the first immortal is just so... unnecessary. personally, i think it would've been way more interesting if someone randomly stumbled across Quyhn dredging the sea floor or something-- all the angst of Andy not finding Quyhn is still there, it could've been played as horror with Quyhn slaughtering everyone on the boat because she's terrified and traumatized and set the tone of the opponent she is. finding Booker because he's all alone would've pulled the group back together without the awkward clunkiness of Joe trying to sneak away to visit him, and there'd be enough screentime to actually deliver on the horror of a mad and furious Quyhn finding Booker alone that was promised in the credits scene of the first movie. honestly that alone would've been better suited for Booker's character, because we'd actually get to see him sacrificing himself to shield the others even while the other four could be worried about another betrayal.

and just. the Andy and Quyhn breakup angst especially. it would be so much jucier if Quyhn was riding on her feelings of betrayal and pain and promises to find a way to kill Andy, and then actually stab or cut Andy and realize Andy's mortality is gone. Quyhn's operating on the assumption that she has all the time in the world to hurt Andy the way she's been hurt and still have time to find closure through it or after it. facing Andy's mortality would completely joss her entire motivation, and how well she copes (or doesn't!) with that loss and ticking clock is so much more compelling than the first immortal's navel gazing watcher angst.

it's just. :( the old guard 2 isn't a bad movie. they wanted to reset some things in movie 1 and i think they did that well enough, or at least as well as any sort of walk-back can be handled because it's always better when a movie franchise commits. but they were juggling way too many balls in this movie, so nothing really got enough screentime to really go anywhere compelling in this movie's runtime, and it's frustrating because they had such a good setup for this sequel in the first movie that they never fulfilled.

it's just.

:(

[callioope]

The saddest part about the Old Guard 2 is there’s a spectacular movie in there. Quynh, driven mad, angry at the world, desperate for revenge. The Old Guard, betrayed, trying to come to terms with the loss of one of their own (Booker) and the return of another (Quynh). But also refusing to allow Booker to be harmed by Quynh (despite refusing to acknowledge his alcoholism and depression for centuries). Niall coming to terms with her faith and struggling with her family aging without her - Booker in exile the only one who understands her grief. Quynh’s return showing that Andromache isn’t just benevolent - “I was worshipped as a god once” implies violence as much as peace, and what thousands of years alone would do to someone. Quynh furious but grieving Andromache’s mortality. Yusuf and Nicolo’s own relationship with Quynh, which hasn’t yet been explored, and their relationship with each other (“we met in the crusades”). The family still struggling with their part in the world, because seeing that your work has impact doesn’t lessen the suffering they experience every time they die. The second movie was perfectly set up, and Netflix trying to turn this into a cheap blockbuster ruined it. I can only hope that the third movie brings back the original director and writer, and returns to the heart of the story.

[callioope]

The Old Guard 2 - Reaction (Spoilers!)

So, I watched The Old Guard 2 last night, and after mulling it over for a day, I'm still... not sure how much I actually liked it?

Don't get me wrong, it's a decent movie, I watched the whole thing and didn't feel the urge to ragequit at all until the end, they did some interesting things, but perhaps it's because it's coming on the heels of a movie I rate incredibly highly, it was just... underwhelming.

So, I'm going to try and pinpoint exactly what didn't work.

Spoilers under the cut.

First thing!

Nile as the Last Immortal

This immediately hit wrong. I might have appreciated the... symmetry, if they'd kept Andy as the first/oldest immortal. That Nile arrives and that's when Andy loses her immortality because it's finally The Beginning of The End? There's a certain poignancy to that. A certain 'oh, I can rest now' to Andy losing her immortality.

Buuut they- they did not do that. And that just left me with 'Why?' Why is now suddenly the moment that there will be 'no more immortals'? How does anyone know that when no one knows where immortals come from in the first place? What is so goddamn special about Y2K that something that's been happening to humanity for 7000 years ends now?

And if the answer is 'they figured it out because Andy lost her immortality'... well, I'll be getting to that later.

Introducing Discord and Tuah

There is no way, going by the lore established in the first movie, that the others should be unaware of other Immortals. Nicky, Joe, Booker, and Nile should all have been dreaming about Tuah the same way Nile dreamt about them, and then kept dreaming about Quynh after she met the others. That? That was a beautiful bit of lore, that had so many implications to it that the first movie did the correct thing by not explaining. The interconnectedness of all the immortals, the hint that there's some bigger thing to it all than a simple accident of fate, the notion that something is pushing them together for a purpose.

That's not to say I didn't like Tuah, as a character. I even could see my way to liking the idea of expanding the cast of immortals, if they'd gone about it in a way that explained why no one was dreaming about the others, why Nile hadn't asked about them in the first movie. (I could get behind an explanation as simple as Nile asking 'why am I having weirdly repetitive dreams about a library/whatever?' and Andy saying 'I guess it's time to introduce you to the others'). I know we did get the tidbit that Nile was dreaming about the others, but that was specifically Discord attacking Tuah. Why was she not dreaming about them before?

That said, I really don't like Discord as a character? If you're going to take the mantle of 'Oldest Known Immortal' away from Andy, you have to do better than that! 'Discord'? Really? My issue with that incredibly juvenile nickname aside, she's introduced as some kind of foil to Andy? Her 'non-intervention' vs Andy's compulsion to help even when she's losing hope of making a difference? Could have been really interesting if they actually did anything with it? But the climax of the film had nothing to do with whether humanity is worth helping or not.

If you ask me, Quynh should have been the villain of this movie. We should have opened with a dream sequence of that scene we left off on in the first movie, and then cut to Nile waking up and being like 'Andy, Andy, I think Quynh's out, she's free' and then we could have had them try to find her while she (with Booker in tow, willingly or not) ran from them and left a bloodbath in her wake everywhere she went because she's gone mad and just wants to hurt the people who hurt her, and that includes Andy for not coming for her, and she's leaving these scenes of slaughter for Andy to find specifically because she knows it will hurt her.

And it felt... weirdly repetitive? We already had the 'Ancient Immortal Disillusioned with Humanity' arc in the first movie, it was Andy's, and the resolution of her arc was beautiful and poignant. It was Andy standing up and going first despite no longer being immortal because it's not about how long you live, it's about what you do with the life you have, and Andy remembers that she wants to help.

Discord... her motivations actually have nothing to do with her non-intervention, let humanity burn attitude. She's turned mortal and wants her immortality back? What for? Like, good fucking god, a huge theme in the first movie was the weight of years and tragedies on Andy and Booker, and Booker even says, in the text, that Joe and Nicky at least have a purpose in each other, but he and Andy don't have that. (Which, the amatonormativity inherent in that sentiment is sus, but I digress...)

Discord is older than Andy, and yet, we get... the only time I ever really get the sense that this is weighing on her at all is in the flashback to her just... standing there watching as they take Quynh away? She wants to keep living, but we never actually get to see why? Like, I could buy that even if she doesn't have a particular purpose or drive to keep living, she's terrified of death, but... she never acts afraid? The ending would have hit so much harder if Discord had run from Andy. An absolute refusal to engage in a head-on fight with someone who could kill her would have been a much better reveal for 'you just want your immortality back' than what we got. Especially after they spent the whole film building up the fake 'I want you to kill us all' thing to Nile.

WHICH IS ANOTHER THING!

Nile Can Take People's Immortality Away

What? No, really. What?!

It wasn't the wound that Nile gave her that was the first wound Andy got that didn't heal!

Nile stabbed her, and we get a whole half an hour of the movie and at least one if not two days of elapsed time in the movie before Andy gets the wound that doesn't heal. There's one moment, where everyone else is asleep and Andy looks at her shaking hand, that might, potentially be construed as a 'hint' that the wound Nile gave her isn't healing, but given that later, we get a pretty definitive scene of Andy noticing the stab wound she got in the church fight not healing and her panicking about it, I'm going to say that is the first injury to not heal.

They directly contradicted their own lore with this and it just... it made me feel like I was watching well-funded fanfiction, and not an actual sequel?

If it had been fanfiction, I might've found the idea interesting? Retcon which injury it was, and play with the 'what if', but this is the canon sequel! And, frankly, it would have been much more compelling if the reason Andy lost her immortality was because she... lost her will to fight, or even have it be because of Nile, and she is 'passing on the mantle' somehow.

Andy Gets Her Immortality Back

Did I like the plot of Andy getting her immortality back? Well, yes, I'm an Andy fangirl, I want her to live forever. Did I like the idea of a plot where Booker gets to give his immortality to Andy as a combination of repaying her for his betrayal and getting what he wanted in the end? Also yes. Did I like the way they handled it? Uh, no.

One: There is no universe in which Sebastian 'I had to watch my children die while being unable to save them' le Livre wouldn't have a complete fucking meltdown on learning that, actually, there is a way to give his immortality to someone else. Where was the pale-faced horror? The resurgeance of grief? The futile, helpless wishing? Hell, give me a scene where he screams at Nile for being born too late to save his son! Give me something!

Two: If they're going to give Andy her immortality back in secret, and leave us, the audience, in suspense as to whether it worked or not, we should have at least gotten a scene where she died in front of everyone. We should have gotten that breathless horror, the grief from the team, we should have been left in suspense for long enough to wonder 'oh, god, what if it hasn't worked?'

Ideally, it would be at a point in the film where there's only half an hour or so left so that we're left wondering if the final fight is going to be avenging Andy, if she's really gone. Or, hell, have it be in the final fight. Have Quynh be the one to kill her. Let's have that terrible, dawning realisation from Quynh that this is permanent, that she's killed the love of her immortal life, and the grief revealing to her that no matter how angry and hurt she was, she doesn't actually want to live in a world without Andy in it.

Then have Andy wake up. Let that be the climactic resolution to the final battle scene, because.

The Fight Scenes

One of the things I loved most about the first movie was the sheer, emotional weight to every fight scene. The introduction, with the stealth infiltration, where we get to see just how competent the team is, and then the ensuing bloodbath, which displays a different type of competence as well as hitting us with the full impact of 'they're immortal' and what that means in terms of having them as an enemy.

Then we get the fight scene between Andy and Nile on the plane, which is a testing back-and-forth, where every move is a conversation between them, Nile's desperation and denial, Andy's slow-growing joy at her tenacity, her almost playful responses, acting as a mentor, Nile learning from her despite her unwillingness to be there at all.

I don't think I need to get into the myriad purposes the fight in the church is put to. Andy's sheer skill, her ruthlessnes, her injury, her complete calm in contrast to Nile's panic. (And the juxtaposition of this happening in a church, her hiding behind an angel statue at the beginning, the Fear of God she puts into Copley and the other guy, the symbolism, ugh, my heart!)

And then, of course, the final fight scene, which, I'm not actually going to through and rant about everything they packed into it, because it's a long-ass sequence and that's an essay in its own right.

Which is such a contrast to the fights in the second movie. I think I'd have to watch it again to be able to tell you how many there were (unlike the first movie, where I could have named all four right off the bat), but the very first fight scene set the tone of wasting my time. They weren't telling us anything new with this scene? In fact, they were actually making me feel like the Old Guard were incompetent, with how long it was taking them to get the goddamn job done. Contrast with the fight in the church, which from Andy jumping in to killing the last guy inside took about twenty seconds.

I will grant, however, that the fight between Andy and Quynh was quite good. Could have been better. I wanted a fight between the two of them to hurt me, okay? I wanted to feel Andy's anguish. Or, even just to ache at the contrast of old friendly spars that echo into a fight where one of them is actively trying to hurt the other. But on the whole, I was engaged the entire fight, and it did feel like a conversation between the two of them, instead of a chance for the stunt coordinators to show off.

And the last fight scene? Andy is immortal, and has spent her entire 6000+ years of life as a mercenary. Discord might be older, but most of what we've seen of her has been avoiding fights and stockpiling weapons, and we find out that she's mortal.

I do not buy that Andy couldn't kill her.

One of the great things about the first movie was that we were shown repeatedly that these guys might be really good fighters, but they're not super-human good. They get shot, they get hurt, they get killed. The thing that makes them terrifying enemies is that they always get back up again.

But Andy couldn't touch Discord. And Discord was so fucking nonchalant about that fight? I just... don't buy that as the reaction of an ancient immortal who's recently found out she's no longer immortal.

Which brings me to...

The Ending

Fuck off. That wasn't an ending. That was a bullshit cliffhanger and they did not do half the work it takes to make a cliffhanger like that work. (Across the Spider-Verse did it right, and more insightful people than me have done essays about how they did it right, so I won't go into it here.) They didn't resolve... any of the plot threads in the movie except perhaps Quynh, and even that was only part of her storyline.

Also, having Andy get her immortality back just for Quynh to lose hers? Fuck off! That felt so cheap. 'Wait, we've given Andy back her immortality, quick! Gotta make Quynh mortal for that Angsty Tragedy!' There are a dozen better ways of playing on the tragedy of Andy and Quynh without burying your gays.

. . .

Conclusion

Well, I've figured out why I didn't like it. And I'm actually going to revise my assessment and say it's not a decent movie. It is, in fact, a Bad movie. It Does Not Make Sense. And the only reason it feels like a decent movie is because it doesn't have any blatant flaws until the end and it's riding on the coattails of the first movie.

If anyone wants to have a polite debate about this, I'd love that, but just remember that being an asshole about it is only going to make me double down.

[callioope]

Joe totally knew that Nicky was following him in Paris. Nicky and Nile got into a taxi that was one whole car away from Joe's and pulled out immediately after him. these guys spent a millenia finely tuned to each other and also avoiding surveillance, there is no way Joe was not aware he had a tail. man was dyyying inside from keeping smthg from Nicky and had to do the most obvious lie and let himself be followed so he could go oh no 🥺🥺🥺🥺 I've been found out now I have no other choice but to come clean to my love 😔😔😔 however could this have happened

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THE OLD GUARD 2 || dir. by Victoria Mahoney

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THE OLD GUARD 2 || Andy "walking back in time" to Quynh

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THE OLD GUARD 2 || Andy & Quynh

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Nicky & Joe - The Old Guard 2

[callioope]

The English sub for the Vietnamese at this part is completely wrong. She 100% did not say "I curse you for all your lifetimes." That also has absolutely no emotional impact between them.

Instead what Quỳnh actually said was specifically a callback to their conversation earlier. At around 43 min mark, Quỳnh said, "You once told me the only thing you fear is being alone."

In the scene above, Quỳnh said, "Traitor. You will die alone and in darkness!" AND THE ENGLISH SUB COMPLETELY ELIMINATED THE INTRICACY OF HER DIALOGUE!

[callioope]

The Old Guard 2 [2025]