#copley tog

[normal-thoughts-official]

Do find it interesting how Copley's entire character is based on denial. Especially when it comes to his involvement in the key plot points.

He's in denial about his wife. Even if he admits that she is dead, he refuses to move on. It's been two years, and he still wears the wedding band. Just in that very short scene of him in his office we see two pictures of her (one of their wedding on the shelf and one of her right in between his PC monitors, so she's always in his peripheral vision at least). Someone who wanted to move on would have kept the pictures somewhere to look at when they felt the need, not exactly where they were before, as a constant reminder of her passing. And they definitely wouldn't keep wearing the wedding band.

What I'm trying to say is that even though Copley, obviously, knows rationally that his wife is dead, subconsciously he is still in denial because he refuses to move on. And because he refuses to move on, he keeps trying to find a way to do something about it. He obsessively follows the immortals and Merrick (who is specifically looking into making cures for the type of disease that killed Copley's wife) looking for a way to help cure her illness, because it is the closest he can get to curing his wife. To making up for not being able to save her. To rewriting what happened to his family. (And if he ever got that, he'd have to face the fact that he can't bring his wife back and actually process his grief instead of trying to Do Something To Stop ALS as a means of putting off facing her death).

The entire plot wouldn't have happened if Copley hadn't been in denial about the fact that there is nothing left for him to do about his wife. If he hadn't refused to process his grief by choosing to obsess over finding a cure to ALS instead, he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, and wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick.

But it doesn't stop there. Even his small decisions are driven by denial. I always laugh at the "there was an unanticipated amount of carnage" because Copley. James. Babygirl. They are immortal mercenaries who have fought in more wars than most people learn of in school. We know that they're trying to do good and don't like killing, but we also know they're willing to. And with a secret this big at risk of being revealed, there is no way they'd have left anyone get out of that room alive.

Which someone as smart as Copley, who's ex-CIA, for crying out loud, should have predicted. The only way Copley could have possibly believed that his little trap wouldn't end in a bloodbath is if he was neck-deep in denial of the fact that his plan would kill innocents. Because again, Copley desperately needs to believe that he's doing good, that he's working for the sake of humanity, that he will save his wife people

And sure, he could have been lying about not anticipating it, but judging by: the fact that he doesn't need to because Merrick doesn't give a fuck; the fact that the carnage actually got in the way of his plans, because he couldn't get DNA samples; and his horrified look as he watched the footage, I really don't think that he was. I think he genuinely, truly did not expect that it would be (so) bloody. Or, more accurately, didn't want to believe it would, or maybe didn't even want to think about what the consequences of his trap would be beyond "I get the samples, ASL is cured". He was laser focused on his goal, and he didn't see anything else. If Copley hadn't been in denial about this, his trap would probably have been set up differently, at the very least.

And then, of course, the entire second half is a parade of Copley being in denial about the obvious, completely unmistakable fact that Merrick is a piece of shit who could not care less about helping people. Merrick isn't even trying to pretend otherwise. Yet Copley is surprised by his complete lack of ethics. The way he screams "Mr Merrick!" when Merrick starts stabbing Joe, like anyone in the world didn't see that coming; his "this is about science, not profits, or sadism" like he truly believed that's what it was for them; warning him that "this would be murder" like Merrick cared; the genuinely shocked "for... ever?"; the "no, this is not what we agreed" when this is exactly what they agreed on. The agreement was that he would bring Merrick the immortals and he would experiment on them to make medicine. He had to have known forced experimentation and potential murder was what was going to happen, especially because Merrick took 0 efforts to not make that obvious. But somehow Copley had convinced himself that they would get DNA samples and then leave them alone, which is an insane assumption to make after everything Merrick's done and said.

But Merrick's company was working on a cure for degenerative diseases. They could, very soon, cure ALS. So Copley needed it to be him, needed him to be interested in doing this ethically, needed to believe that, once again, his brilliant plan wasn't actually just hurting more innocents in a desperate quest to save a dead woman.

Because Copley does believe in doing good. We know that because no one who doesn't actually, deeply care about humanity would go looking into what happened to all the people that the Guard saved. Just the fact that he researched that, tried to find out what happened to the victims, shows that he is a very compassionate person with a very humanized perspective on war and conflict. He went looking into generations of descendants of people saved by the Guard. I don't think most people would even bother to think of looking at what happened to them beyond being a footnote in the Guard's history, especially not anyone as obsessed with them as Copley was. But Copley did. He looked into every single person, and what happened to them.

Taking that into account, as well as the fact that Copley was genuinely fighting Merrick on his decisions, I think that Copley - unlike Merrick, Keane, and Kozak - does care about doing the whole thing ethically. The thing, of course, is that without their consent that is impossible, which Copley is too smart and compassionate not to know. But letting them go would mean facing that there won't be a miracle cure for his wife, and he cannot handle admitting that. So, he adds "trying to convince himself this could be in any way ethical and he can convince Merrick to do it that way" to the list of completely out of touch beliefs he's been holding because of denial.

The result is that even though he obviously knew that Merrick was a fucking piece of shit (just the fact that he added "or sadism" proves that), he didn't actually face that as a fact until the moment Nile confronted him and he said "they are in the lab, being tested" and then closed his eyes and went, "tortured". Again, denial made an appearance, but this time he made the conscious decision to take a deep breath and stop lying to himself. This is the first time he acknowledges what's actually going on there, and by proxy, his part in it. And all it took was being quite literally hit over the head with it, as well as possibly killing the single person who's made the most good in the history of humanity. But I digress.

It is also in that same confrontation with Nile that he finally admits the obvious - that he was trying to save someone who was gone. He says he wants to help humanity, but in the end he's only being truly honest about his motives when he says "she couldn't talk, my wife. In the end." This is also the first and only time we see him actually mourning his wife, because it is the first time he is in any way processing that her death was final. Up until then, he only talked about her detachedly, and kept all these mementos of her like she still lived in the house.

And that's why his confrontation with Nile is also the shift of his loyalties. Because it is the point in which he breaks his cycle of denial and admits that his wife is gone, he can't save her, and that in trying to do so he's hurt innocents and handed them over to a greedy asshole. And once he finally, finally faces that, he realizes he has to do something about it. Which is why he helps Nile and wants to storm the place with her, insists on it, admits that pharma CEO's are full of shit ("what kind of CEO walks around with his own personal army?" "these days? Most of them"), and agrees to help erase the Guard's footprints. And even though Copley was (or wanted to believe he was) good-intentioned, he wasn't able to do good until he stopped lying to himself.

So Copley's denial is what shaped the way the whole movie goes - if he weren't in denial he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, wouldn't have set them up the way he did, wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick specifically, and wouldn't have allowed Merrick to continue for as long as he did. And once he got over the denial, that was also a point that helped shape the resolution of the plot (I'm sure Nile would have found everyone anyway, but Copley's help did speed up the process). And I find it interesting how this one thread of how he chose to deal with his grief ended up not only defining his character, but the course of events in the movie - despite the fact that he's not a main character.

Which actually also ties off in a really interesting perspective where most of the things that happen over the course of the movie are dictated by the characters' refusal to try to get better. The whole movie would be heading towards a massive tragedy, Greek-style, if there weren't a character who is quite literally defined by her refusal to go with the tide - Nile. Unlike Andy, Booker, and Copley, who let their grief and self destruction take over their life, and Joe and Nicky (+Booker again), who let Andy make all the relevant family decisions, Nile refuses to let anyone or anything decide her fate for her. She doesn't defer to Andy just because Andy is the oldest and very clearly capable; she fights her at nearly every turn, even when it's impossible for her to win, because she is not willing to compromise her beliefs or let anyone dictate what she's going to do. She will do it if she believes in it, and only then. And Nile also isn't willing to listen to Copley's bullshit, which forces him to face what he's been trying to hide from himself.

So, you know - maybe this is the why Nile. Because she's young and strongheaded, and so she holds the hope and the possibility of doing things differently. Of choosing your potential future. And that's why she makes Andy realize that she's been doing a shit job of living, but she can do different.

Although this might be a different analysis altogether. My point with this one was - Copley's tendency towards denial was one of the most powerful forces shaping the course of events in the movie. And Nile's unwavering sense of morality and freedom of choice was the opposing force.

PS so there are no doubts about it: I'm not saying that what Copley did was justified or that you have to like him. This is a character analysis and nothing more, or less.

[negotiumcrucis]

Since we (kinda) got some news about tog2, I thought it was time for a new poll! 🥳

🔥Please do share this post to reach more people!🔥

[scimitar-and-longsword]

The Old Guard (2020)

Moving Movie Poster via @Skydance on Instagram, May 19 2020

TOG Promo Material (part 1/?)

[as-is-yours]

happy 2024 summer olympics!

some tog watching the olympics hcs for the soul because i love the olympics and i decided they do too:

andy competed in the ORIGINAL greek olympics. yes she did

with the guard being as competitive as they are, the olympics are a BIG deal in the safe house - it’s like the football world cup but all day every day for three weeks straight

it’s obviously too dangerous for the guard to attend the olympics these days with all of the cameras and media, so they hunker down in a safehouse and watch as much as they can on TV

they used to go most years though, nicky even told nile that he considered competing in olympic shooting back in the mid 1900s but it was too high profile to risk it

quynh was in the ocean when they brought back the olympic games as we know them today. her first olympics year back with the guard she asks andy why everyone is clothed and where the victors wreaths are

nile LOVES the olympics so she fits right into the dynamic when the first olympics of her time with the guard roll around

she was a little nervous about coming on too strong that first year, but when she saw how hard they roast each other and how much they goaded her into being just as competitive and aggressive as they were, she settled in easily

they would later regret unlocking that part of her once they realize how painful watching the olympics with an american is

nile keeps a scoreboard on the wall next to the TV where she updates the medal counts daily and reminds everyone who’s winning (the usa)

joe, quynh, and booker prefer the summer olympics while nile and andy prefer the winter olympics. nicky is just happy to make some money off of booker when france loses, no matter the season

“andy im getting us a peacock account to watch the olympics, they’re starting next week��� “peacock account? what the hell is peacock? like the bird??”

there’s ALWAYS a bet going on. for the full duration of the olympic games there is never not a bet going on

nile will be doing joe’s dishes for a month after kaylia nemour beat suni lee in the uneven bars final

booker owes nicky €300 after italy advanced out of the first round of the women’s doubles tennis tournament (france did not) and another €1000 for italy winning the gold medal

andy stays out of the betting for the most part, or just picks the best athlete rather than one representing her home nation

“andy, that’s cheating—” “the scythians were nomadic. i don’t even remember where i was born so i’ll pick whichever athlete i damn well please, and you—” “okay, fine! we get it!”

andy found quynh wandering in a desert, quynh doesn’t really remember where she’s from either so she picks her favorite athletes based on vibe and which countries were her favorites to travel around with andy

there aren’t nearly as many north african athletes as there are italian, french, and american so joe starts adopting the athletes with the most heartwarming comeback/underdog stories as his faves

i feel like nile LOVES usa gymnastics having been a teen watching gabby douglas and simone biles!

that girl was SAT for every gymnastics event cheering on team usa like it was her job

andy has broken her neck attempting to pull off the stunts she sees in olympic snowboarding, gymnastics, skateboarding, figure skating, etc…. but sometimes she nails them. and it’s sick as fuck

nile is from the midwest i know she’s an ice hockey enjoyer. she pregames the winter olympics by making the guard watch miracle (2004) (nicky cries)

booker makes a drinking game for watching the games. he prints out the rules and pins them up next to nile’s medal count. take a sip when an announcer starts yelling, a shot when a random celebrity is shown on the broadcast, and finish your drink when a medalist cries

whenever great britan places below one of the guard’s countries, copley receives a very vulgar and unsportsmanlike text from them

no, quynh does not watch swimming events. thank you for asking

the couch is NOT a safe space. anything goes during the olympics. anyone who gets too mean (or whose athlete loses) can and will be pushed off the couch and exiled to the armchair

i will surely update this as the olympics continue and my friends and i get up to more hijinks. stay tuned and enjoy the greatest sporting event ever conceived

[nnicky]

I lowkey hope Joe and Nicky's introduction in TOG 2 is chaotic. Like, Nile and Andy are meeting with an important associate of Copley's and they burst in fresh from a mission/stakeout. Neither of them have slept in three days, their eyes are bloodshot, they definitely need a shower, and they are so overtired to the point of being delirious. They can barely stand up. When Andy introduces them and she's poised as ever, Nicky definitely checks out the guy and he's like "oooh oooh oooh". Andy dismisses them right after that obviously.

[stark-park]

Iconic

remember when copley saw an image of a random french soldier chugging an entire bottle of wine and just wrote "booker?" on it

[cantteachanoldguardnewquotes]

Hi I feel like your blog might be a good place to showcase this to reach more fans than mine-

I have been looking for this fic for YEARS. It has been living rent free in my memory for YEARS. It was one of the first fics I read, before I had an account or bookmarks. I have gone on many, dedicated, varied searches, combing through results in search of it. I thought it was lost forever. It is my white whale. IT IS FOUND!

Like, this is the fic that made me fall in love with fan fiction in general. I cannot believe I found it I am losing my mind right now.

Anyways, if anyone wants to go give it some love, here is an amazing TOG fic recommendation:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505430/chapters/69847608

Hi! Ahhh I'm so happy you found it!! 🎉 and I'm always happy to show a fic a little love 😁

The House in Sicily by shadowen

Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genoa Characters: Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia, James Copley, Original Characters Additional Tags: frame story, Found Family, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Autistic Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Demisexual Joe, aro/ace Nile, Platonic Cuddling, References to Depression, Nile wants to hear a story, Joe and Nicky have a lot of stories, Established Relationship, the MOST established of relationships, POV Outsider, Recreational Drug Use, Story within a Story Series: Part 2 of All Stories Have Monsters Summary:

If Nile had to picture what she thought Joe and Nicky’s dream home would look like, the house in Sicily would be it, and then some.

[normal-thoughts-official]

love the way booker and copley keep making Dramatic Eye Contact At Each Other and copley's little "you haven't aged a day booker" like the fucking silliness of it all. these two are literally betraying the group of deadliest people on earth and the whole time they're like "teehee we have a little secret we are doing some mischief >:)" about it

[aniron48]

Let’s play a game. Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story

is it a low hanging fruit? yes. sometimes low hanging fruit is delicious.

bond's secret to his talent for resurrection is... resurrection. he has been dying his hair increasingly grey to look older over the years. he Does Not examine any similarities between M and Andromache. he is Not Going To fall in love with a mortal again, green eyes and adorable laugh be damned.

@dude-watchin-with-the-brontes hello friend! thank you for the AU ask! Oooh, "The Old Guard" AU for James Bond, let's do this! 😁

Well, first of all, in this AU, Vesper is the one who gets put into the Iron Maiden and dropped in the ocean Oh wait, this was supposed to be fun facts! Right! haha... ::sweats nervously and starts over::

The relationship between The Old Guard and MI6 is a special one. In this AU, one of Booker's children lived long enough to have children of his own, and Booker's identity became a family secret that was passed down through the generations. The last in the chain? Dench!M. (This at least partially explains her exasperated fondness for blond, broody alcoholics who don't follow the rules.)

2. When Bond dies for the first time (Moneypenny still shoots him off a bridge because in this AU I will give the people what we want--it's me, I'm people), the connection between Andromache's band of immortals and MI6 grows stronger, if more complicated. Andromache is the one to fish Bond out of that river in Turkey, and to bring him back to London when MI6 is under attack. When she does, Andromache and M eventually reach an uneasy truce whereby Bond can remain under M's command...for now.

3. Smart Blood trackers won't work on Bond--every time he dies they go offline and don't come back up. Bond has been known to use this fact to his advantage a time or two (shocking, I know). Q is going to figure it out eventually.

4. Meanwhile, over in the U.S., Copley has roped Felix into helping him find suitable missions for TOG. The first time Felix and Bond, unbeknownst to each other, show up at the same meeting after Bond's initial resurrection, it's like that meme of the Spidermen (Spidermans?) pointing at each other.

5. Once Q becomes immortal, too (because he's going to, obviously, I do what I want), the band gives Bond advice that is varying degrees of useful about how he should finally get his shit together and woo Q for the long term. Nicky suggests cooking a meal (goose fat cassoulet anyone?). Joe offers to help with a poem. Andy's suggestion of repeated mortal combat and mutual murder is greeted with some skepticism until everyone remembers how Joe and Nicky got together. Nile's all set to curate a romantic playlist until they get derailed by Bond's love for Celine Dion (I *will* die on this hill). Booker suggests drinks and everyone winces uh, flowers?

Sometimes low-hanging fruit IS delicious! What are your other fun facts for this AU? (Bond dying his hair grey at the temples absolutely sends me, btw.) I would love to hear them! 💜

[nevermindirah]

upon further reflection and with wise counsel from @xenokattz @gaal-dornick and @regina-del-cielo I present to you the most likely scenario:

Copley knows where they are. "Great," Nile says. "Let's get on the road. You're driving."

They're nearly to the car when she realizes.

"Actually, um, do you have a pair of socks I could… borrow?"

Copley gives her an extremely polite, extremely uncomfortable, extremely British smile before disappearing back into his house. A few minutes later he reemerges and hands her a pair of really nice socks. They're thick and so soft and probably super expensive.

"They're yours to keep. I'll, ah, give you a moment to…"

Guess he wasn't trained for field work, Nile thinks to herself as she uses her old socks to wipe the blood and, well, chunks of her former toes out of her boot.

do y'all ever wonder about how uncomfortable it would be for Nile to run all through the Merrick fight with the stump of her shot-off toe taking up space in her boot alongside her regrown toe? there's not a whole lot of room in the toe box of those things. she's got adhd, do y'all understand how distracting discomforts like bunched up toes can be for my kind?? she managed to save them all under this diress??

or she could've taken her boot off and shaken out the toe chunk, yeah that's probably what happened

[goldheartedsky]

everyone wants to roast Marvel for shitty CGI, when we SHOULD be roasting the TOG costume/makeup department for whatever in the Party City hell was going on with Booker's beard in the Copley board pics

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #61: The Old Guard, but make it Stargate

One of the very few things I dislike about the 2020 TOG movie is how little forethought the escape from Merrick's headquarters appears to show. We see dozens of samples taken... and as far as I can tell, all those samples and the doctor who took them survived the firefight. And if her results were being pushed to the cloud? That's one big problem left unresolved. Not to mention a firefight in the middle of London's business district - inside a business that does dealings with the US military at that - is bound to be thoroughly investigated regardless of the strings Copley pulls to cover it up.

All of which came together in my head to ask: What if, six months post-Merrick, The Old Guard gets picked up by Stargate Command?

Just imagine it:

One of the things I love best the Stargate universe is that it takes place so very definitively in the 90s. It's settled in its time period, not some hopeful, impossible future. But for that sake of this AU let's push everything forward 20 years make it so the events of SG1 S4's "The Curse" happen in the same week as the escape from Merrick.

From the outside looking in, there's a lot about the Old Guards' flavor of immortality that looks like having a goa'uld symbiote. This means when the SGC goes looking for other possible goa'uld on Earth after Osiris' escape, they think they find five in the shape of the immortals, with Nile possibly being the latest host for the symbiote that Quỳnh once carried.

The more the SGC looks, however, the less clear it becomes. Daniel is able to recreate most of Copley's research and then some, stretching as far back as written records will allow. Their next thought is tok'ra, but those haven't been around long enough to account for Andy. Maybe she's the queen of a similar group that's been stuck on Earth for a long time and the others are her surviving offspring? There are records of a god matching her description on the Western Steppes in ages past...

With that assumption in mind, six months post-Merrick SG-1 is sent to make contact with the guard, hoping to gain more allies against Apophis.

The meeting itself is both extremely tense and a comedy of errors. Both groups are on completely different pages as to why they're meeting and what's at stake, and it very nearly ends in a firefight before Daniel goes into an impassioned speech (at gunpoint) as to why the guard should help humanity fight the goa'uld... to which Andy goes what the fuck are you talking about?

Once every gets on the same page and assurances are made that there will be no human experimentation whatsoever, the guard end up joining the SGC as independent contractors. Officially they are SG-21, assigned to search and rescue/covert ops, but mostly they continue to fight for what we think is right, just on a galactic scale. They nominally check in every few weeks, but are largely left to their own devices. This makes the rare occasions any of them are in the Mountain memorable.

A selection of those memorable visits include: 1) Daniel being hogtied, left in a closet, and not found for 15 hours after asking Andy one too many questions about ancient cultures; 2) Sam stumbling upon Joe and Nicky having a deep conversation in a patois of languages in the middle of the cafeteria about how much the Earth and their place in it has changed in their lifetimes, from Jerusalem being the center of ancient world maps to an ever expanding galaxy inhabited by people just like them. It should take vaguely the same tone as Sagan's Cosmos before being completely derailed by one of them asking so, do you think endlessly asphyxiating in the vacuum of space is better or worse than endlessly drowning at the bottom of the ocean? This too should be discussed at macabre length, possibly going into their personal ten worst ways to die lists - but in mostly English, throughly disturbing their fellow diners; and 3) Nile encountering someone she once knew in the Marines for the first time during the events of "Heroes" and having to do the say, I can get killed but don't stay dead speech for the first time herself after dying midway through the mission and coming back to save the day.

Once again, that's all I really have - just lots of scenes of the characters of both fandoms interacting but very little change to the plot lines of either.

Bonuses include: 1) The guard initially being offered commissions in the US Marines for their work at the SGC. These are turned down for a variety of reasons, the last one jokingly being that Joe and Nicky have never gone longer than a week without saying something unbearably romantic to each other and it'll save them the trouble of having to immediately cashier them both out. Extra bonus points if this leads Nicky on overwatch to send a warning shot past the speaker's ear before anyone can bring up the DADT repeal. 2) Booker having been grounded rather than exiled. This should be paired with Nile occasionally slipping into an exasperated yes, Mom whenever Joe and Nicky get overprotective, leading to much confusion as to the guards' family dynamics when they first join the SGC. Some Marines convinced for years that the immortals are, in fact, like the tok'ra and that one of the men is the host for their queen; and 3) The base quartermaster having absolutely no fear of any of them and publicly chewing them out on multiple occasions for the sheer amount of clothes they go through.

Honestly, I have tons of little scenes of this crossover in my head and no coherent storyline to it all, so it may end up as a drabble collection if the bunny stays around long enough. Otherwise, feel free to adopt this bun. As always, link back if you do anything with it.

More Terrible Fic Ideas

[yusufstits]

One last reminder! I am hosting a TOG rewatch party tomorrow, Saturday, April 15, 10 pm UTC! (12 am CEST/11 pm BST/6 pm EDT/3 pm PT)

I am planning to use hyperbeam to host and I will post the link here about 10 minutes before it starts! (you shouldn't need an account to join, just click the link)

[ID: A poster for The Old Guard showing Andy, Nile, Copley, Booker, Joe, and Nicky, with the text The Old Guard Rewatch Party! /End ID]

[nevermindirah]

I have a hard to answer question how does one handle in a fanfic tog not going after shitler with Jewish!booker on the team without them coming off like assholes in regards to the human cost as well as the personal cost to booker, cause I'm drawing a blank

hi anon!

this is a super duper big large heavy question, and it's also one that might, depending on the context of your fic, have a very simple answer: the immortals are, other than their immortality, human, and therefore they can each only be in a single place at once.

they don't have superhuman strength or speed, they don't have magic, they don't have access to time-travel technology. I'm not an expert in ww2 military strategy but I'm sure allied governments looked into assassinating Hitler, and nobody managed to do it until the shitstain killed himself. the immortals are highly skilled and well-connected but not at the level of for example the agency that would go on to become the CIA, so who's to say they'd be successful in this assassination if they tried.

there's also the matter of when and for what reason the immortals might decide that killing this particular shitstain should go at the top of their to-do list. it's so easy for us to say in hindsight that a catastrophic volume of suffering could've been averted with this one person's death 10-15 years earlier than what happened in our timeline, but even with the strategic benefit of that hindsight, none of us can predict exactly what would've happened after a successful assassination in 1939, 1932, or even earlier. killing one leader doesn't ensure the movement he leads will stop with his death; someone even worse could have stepped in under the banner of a martyr.

things had gotten bad for Jews in a lot of places many times before things started getting real bad again in Germany. again, I'm not an expert, so I don't know when anyone outside of Nazi senior leadership knew anything about plans for the Holocaust — but would any of the immortals have learned about it sooner than international news media did? would they have known about it early enough that it was possible for a group of four immortals to stop? would they have believed such horrific plans if they'd seen them on paper? there's historical evidence that US officials didn't believe early reports could possibly be true.

there are photos on Copley's wall showing the immortals in Europe at several points during ww2 and there's that one panel from one of the comics of some of the boys being involved in liberating one of the camps. but we don't know details beyond that, and we don't know what the immortals were up to in the 1930s. they may have been very, very busy doing what they could to protect people from Japan's horrific war crimes of the same era, which started several years earlier than the Third Reich.

none of that is to say it would be easy for the immortals to know that the Holocaust was happening and not stop it. I'm sure it was devastating for all of them, who'd already seen so much needless painful death in their long lives, to see the ruthless mechanized efficiency of Nazi mass murder. it would be especially devastating for Booker, even without the Jewish Booker headcanon, bc his children died hating him bc he could not save them no matter how much they begged and no matter how hard he tried.

so my hope for the fic you're working on is that you'll show at least a little bit how their inability to stop these horrors weighs on the immortals. show the personal cost to Booker. do the others get why such horrors happening to his people, who are specifically being targeted because they are Jews, hurts him so badly? or does Andy make dark jokes about how God really must not exist or what did Booker do to piss him off.

does Andy make dark jokes like that bc she sees Quynh's face in every woman they rescue from the Japanese army's rape campaigns? it would have been just as impossible for the immortals alone to save every one of them as it would've been to stop the Holocaust. might their personal connections to victims thousands of miles apart in a war causing overwhelming suffering across most of the planet wear on the immortals' relationships with each other? they can only do but so much. how the hell do they choose which people to try to save?

now that I've thought about it, writing a fic where they do kill Hitler might actually be easier. you can just handwave the deeply frustrating logistical realities and make it so that conveniently killing the nightmare in charge happens to cause the whole house of nightmares to fall apart. (you can also handwave that in your new timeline non-Jews across Europe welcomed their Jewish neighbors home with open arms, when very often the opposite happened irl.)

this topic is so rich for all kinds of exploration in fic. you could end up with a long and plotty meditation on how painful it is for the immortals to have to choose between so many people who need their help. you might have only been asking for the sake of some references to this era of the past in a fic set during or after the movie where the historical timeline is set in stone, in which case I hope what I've shared here leads you to writing those passages with appropriate seriousness and care, even if it's ultimately a small part of a story mainly focused on other things.

this was hard to answer, but not intellectually, this kind of analysis is how my brain works. it just hurts my heart to think about how much my people have lost, how much pain so many people have suffered, and how much suffering is happening right now that there's so little I can do to stop. if I were immortal right now how the hell would I choose between Palestinians and Massalit people and Uyghurs and Rohingya and the multitude of Latin Americans suffering at the US border, all the Black Americans suffering systematically in US prisons, all the other people whose catastrophic suffering I don't even know about?

but I'm glad you asked bc this is such an under-considered element of TOG that's very worth the spotlight. I hope my thoughts here help you, and maybe others will see this and think about it as well.

[non-un-topo]

idk I thought you might have fun with this but like? TOG characters in a marching band? what do they play? idk - are they good at it? yuh.

Hello!! <3 This is a wild coincidence because I was just talking about this with a few pals the other day! Starting with Nile, because I think she's the best suited for it. Something about her says Band Kid.

Nile: Trombone! A very important part of the marching band! I can see her playing this from the time she was little. Maybe her dad used to play! Maybe she practiced with his old instrument. Also, I just love the sound for her!

Andy: I want to say the tuba! Also a very essential component to the whole marching band. And it's bloody huge and I think she could easily carry it for hours. (Upon a bit more research, I think the instrument I might be thinking of is a sousaphone).

Joe: Saxophone, baby! Or perhaps a flute. The range of sound and the whimsical sound of the flute just match Joe's artistic/poetic nature to me. Or he can just be a hopeless romantic and play some smooth jazz.

Nicky: Can I say... piccolo Nicolo? sdfghf. No but for real I feel like he would carry a heavier instrument than a piccolo, like maybe a trumpet. Trumpets sort of make me think of his voice.

Booker: Maybe it has something to do with the way I picture him in my head -- the Napoleonic foot soldier --- but I think Booker would absolutely play drums. One of those small ones that hangs at your front that you tippity-tap with two sticks. Little drummer boy.

Quynh: Cymbals. She reeks of chaos. Like you know that kid in School of Rock who got put on cymbals because he's a little hyperactive? Yeah, that could be Quynh. OR, wind. I would give her a nice little flute or a clarinet.

Lykon: I'd put Lykon on flute too, actually! We don't see much of him but we know his choice weapon is a spear. I guess my brain is going spear = long and skinny = flute.

Bonus! Copley: That one giant drum. Or do marching bands still have a triangle guy? I feel like Copley would get stuck with the instrument no one else wants to play dfgfds I can't explain it, it's just his luck.

[phatburd]

👖🌝

👖— Plantser. In the case of all three of my longer fics, I had a definite beginning, middle, and end planned, but I had to connect the dots to get there. And sometimes, those dots would change as it suits the plot and characters.

For example, in Counting Up, Counting Down, I did have another chapter of Nile where she hears about contact being established with the colony at Yavanna. I threw it out because I felt it was bogging the overall momentum down, and better served by referencing it in a different way.

🌝— Uh, there’s like only three TOG characters I haven’t written at this time? Kozak, Merrick, and Copley. A future AU Keane pops up in Death After Life, even.

I suppose one I would like to write would be Nicky. I tried, plopping him into climate-apocalypse theocratic autocracy Houston in a wet-bulb mass casualty event. (I can’t believe I just fucking wrote that sentence.). That got way darker than I liked, and it’s sitting somewhere at the bottom of my WIPs.

Non-TOG characters? I’d like to write about my Star Trek OCs someday. Maybe.