#everything can be about nicolo di genova if i try hard enough

[theoldgvard]

would you fall in love with me again except instead of odysseus and penelope it’s nicky and joe in that nicky iron coffin AU

[astrabear]

I posted 810 times in 2022

That's 489 more posts than 2021!

363 posts created (45%)

447 posts reblogged (55%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@fruityculture

@raedear

@astrabear

@beepbeepsan

@ongreenergrasses

I tagged 684 of my posts in 2022

Only 16% of my posts had no tags

#ask game - 102 posts

#my fic - 100 posts

#the old guard - 96 posts

#the old guard fanfiction - 35 posts

#life of a writer - 31 posts

#nicolo di genova - 22 posts

#andromache the scythian - 19 posts

#yusuf al kaysani - 18 posts

#nile freeman - 18 posts

#quynh - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#obligatory clarification that i don't think there's anything inherently bad about putting on different accessories and making them kiss

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I really enjoyed Our Flag Means Death and I'm glad a second season has been confirmed, but as an Old Guard fan it has been hilarious to see the OFMD crowd acting like waiting an entire ten weeks for news of a sequel was torture. You are a child, an infant. Your impatience is thus infantile. Our fandom has forgotten more ways to yearn for updates than entire stan armies will ever learn.

218 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

#4

Thinking about “We all remember what it was like.” They all remember, even Nicky and Joe who came into immortality together. After almost a thousand years, Nicky still remembers the confusion and fear and alienation, enough that it makes finding this new immortal their most urgent task.

My favorite fic treatments of their first deaths really lean into this. Not just surprise or awe, but horror. Going a little bit out of their minds, begging to die and stay dead, because that’s what humans do, that’s how the world is supposed to work. I feel it viscerally, imagining the terror of finding yourself so profoundly apart from everything you’ve ever known to be true.

And the only other person who’s in it with you is the enemy you were trying to kill. This is the real impediment to replicating their dynamic in an AU. Anyone can run the enemies-to-lovers course. But enemies to “I still hate you and I don’t understand you but you are the only solid ground in this terrifying new reality and I think if we don’t hold onto each other we’ll lose everything” to lovers is pretty hard to capture in any other setting. 

282 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

#3

unofficial poll time

You are reading fanfic. The source property is set in the present day. The fic, maybe because it’s an AU or the canon just works that way, is set in a noticeably different historical period. Which of these answers most accurately reflects your feelings? (choose all that apply)

A. I like it when the writing style (both dialogue and narration) is period-appropriate, or at least a general approximation thereof.

B. I like the dialogue to be period-appropriate, but it’s fine (or even preferred) for the narration to feel more modern.

C. I don’t care either way, as long as there aren’t glaring anachronisms.

D. I prefer that both the dialogue and narration are similar to what I’m used to reading and seeing. So not modern slang or anything like that, but I don’t want it to be jarringly different.

E. I like it when the characters speak the way I’m used to them speaking, even if it’s not period-appropriate.

F. I simply don’t read fics set in past eras.

G. The only thing that matters is that it’s well written.

H. English is not my first language, so old-fashioned phrasing and vocabulary is more difficult for me to read.

I. I actively dislike attempts at period language unless the writer has done enough research to do it correctly.

J. I honestly couldn’t tell you in advance what kinds of things are likely to throw me out of the story, I just know that there’s a potential for it to happen.

K. I read fic because I like the characters and tropes. I don’t pay attention to writing style.

L. Other (in tags)

Please share and answer in the tags. This is very relevant to something I’m working on and I’d like to get some outside perspective.

315 notes - Posted June 13, 2022

#2

The violence at the end of the episode was upsetting, but I tell you, what has stuck with me in the days since I watched it was "Which one of you gonna fuck me?!" It haunts me. Deeply shocking, viscerally repulsive, absolutely heartbreaking... and just the tiniest bit funny. It's like a gut punch every time I think about it.

I think a very young Claudia is much better suited to a written format. A five or six year old actor can't give the kind of performance that's required... and some things just wouldn't be right to do with a child actor of any age. But a 19-year-old playing a character who's physically 14 opens up so many tragic, horrifying possibilities.

And Bailey Bass is so good. I can't get her face out of my head. "And after forty years... still little boys?" God, there's just so much going on. And you feel all of it.

388 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The tough thing about boundaries is that it’s not enough to state them, you have to enforce them.

I think some folks see “setting boundaries” as a kind of magic talisman to influence other people’s behavior. “I’ll tell you what I need or can’t accept, and you will act accordingly.” And sometimes that’s what happens, and that’s great! But if the other person disregards your stated boundaries, it doesn’t mean setting boundaries didn’t work.

Because boundaries aren’t about others’ behavior, they’re about your own. If the other person’s behavior doesn’t change, then yours has to. “Please don’t discuss [x topic] with me” is a request. “If you continue to talk about [x topic] then I will end this conversation/hang up/leave” is a boundary, which you must then enact. The point is less about stopping the other person (although that’s ideal) and more about protecting yourself. And you have to be committed to protecting yourself, because no one else will be.

You have to be so committed that you’re willing to tolerate other people being hurt or angry or uncomfortable. You have to accept that some relationships might change. You have to hold onto the idea that it’s all right for them to change, because the way they were before was hurting you, and you deserve to not be hurt. You gave them a choice: maintain a relationship or keep doing the thing that hurts you, and they chose to keep hurting you, so if the situation is now awkward or unpleasant that was because of their choice. Enforcing boundaries means deciding that if someone is going to feel bad here, it need not be always and only you.

There is no magic formula that will make other people treat you kindly and respectfully. But you can learn to treat yourself with kindness and respect. That’s what enforcing a boundary is.

9,690 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[fangirlshrewt97]

The Old Guard Fanfic - 5,472,730,538 Possibilities

Author(s): Fangirlshrewt97

Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)

Pairing: Joe/Nicky, Nicky & Nile

Characters: Nile Freeman, Nicolo di Genova, Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Andromache of Scythia 

Rating: General 

Warnings: None 

Additional Tags:  Team as Family, Family Bonding, Brother-Sister Relationships, Fluff, Basically Nile is missing home, And Nicky is a cinnamon roll who finds a way to lessen the ache, and they find a new thing to bond over that does not involve blood, Sudoku

Summary: 

He reached for his pocket and pulled out a pen, tossing it to Nile. “Why not do it now?” “It doesn’t- It’s not the same.” Nile argued, biting her lip. “But you want to do it no? So do it.” Nicky said, gesturing to the paper. Was it really so easy? She put the pen to the paper but stopped. “Yeah no, it feels weird to do it alone.” Nicky hummed, sitting back up in his chair, leaning on his elbows in the table. “I’ll do it with you then.”

Basically, Nile comes across something that makes her think of home, Nicky sees this, and tries his best to help her not feel as lonely. And is also a little bit of a shit about it.

Link to A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553461

                                                     ///

They were in Malaysia, having finished an easy takedown of a small ring of human traffickers. They were due to fly out that night, so Nicky and Nile had been charged with buying the necessary supplies while Joe handled clean up at the scene, and Andy ensured the children would find good homes.

They had stopped at a bakery inside of a mall, Nicky insisting that they had some choice sweets that Andy loved. So Nile had been waiting outside the store while Nicky went to make his purchases when the small bookstore window display across the bakery caught her eye. Biting her lip, she peered to see Nicky was still busy perusing the wares, so she hefted her bags and made her way into the bookstore.

It was a small shop, barely large enough for four people at a time. There was a small kid looking at some comics and a bored cashier scrolling through his phone. Setting her bags down, Nile reached to grab what had caught her eye.

“What is that?” Nicky asked suddenly, startling Nile into dropping the book.

“Shit. Sorry.” Nile mumbled in the direction of the annoyed looking cashier. When she turned, she saw Nicky holding the book.

“101 Sudoku puzzles?” Nicky asked, brows furrowed.

Nile was thankful her skin color meant he couldn’t notice the embarrassed flush overtaking her.

“It is stupid!” Nile said as she snatched the book and put it back on the display, wincing as she realized it would have been more believable if she hadn’t acted like she had something to hide. Nicky had a raised eyebrow, clearly not buying her lie.

Nile sighed. “Seriously, Nicky. It is nothing, can we go? Are you done looking at the bread?”

Nicky gave her a once over, but thankfully let it go, holding up a bag that honestly smelled incredible. Feeling her stomach clench in hunger, she nodded.

“Cool. Let’s go!” Nile said, leading them out of the bookshop into the sweltering Malaysian sun. She definitely did not run. She just… walked fast.

She forgot the incident soon after, Copley sent them on another mission hours after they reached their next safe house, sending them all the way to Brazil, where they had to take down a drug ring and free a brothel filled with women who were being forced to pay back their debts with their bodies.

She was reminded of the incident when something was placed next to her head where it was currently resting on a table’s edge at their São Paulo safe house. It was a small apartment, two bedroom and bathrooms, but it fit their needs. Andy was currently on the phone with Copley, and Joe had gone into the kitchen to make dinner.

When she looked up, she saw a newspaper, and Nicky’s hand covering part of the page. At her questioning look, he just smiled and moved his hand.

Sitting back slowly, she looked at the Sudoku in the newspaper. She raised her own eyebrows at Nicky. The man just smiled wider and sat down. “This is what you were looking at in the bookshop. In Malaysia. A book about these.”

“Um… yeah.” Nile said, surprised the man had remembered. But then again, Nicky seemed to remember everything when it came to stuff that caused his family to have any kind of reaction.

“What about it?” Nicky asked.

“What?”

“Your eyes, they became a little sad when you saw it. What about them makes you sad?” Nicky prodded gently. And Nile couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed at this man who was trying to hard.

She sighed. “It’s nothing.”

“If it was nothing, it wouldn’t make you sigh.”

And that was the thing wasn’t it. “It’s just. Jamal, my brother? We used to play with these.”

Nicky’s brows furrowed in confusion. For a 1000-year old man, he was remarkably expressive at times. “Play these?”

Nile hummed. She picked up the paper, and ran her fingers lightly on the puzzle. “After school, we would take the paper, copy out the puzzle into a notebook and then we would start the clock, seeing who could solve it faster.”

Nile felt a smile start to form on her own face at the thought. She had missed doing these, missed doing them with her brother. Her smile faded when she realized she’d never get to do their Sudoku races together again. Nile placed the paper back down.

When she looked up, Nicky was looking at her intensely. “What?”

Giving a big exhale, he leaned back in his own chair. He reached for his pocket and pulled out a pen, tossing it to Nile. “Why not do it now?”

“It doesn’t- It’s not the same.” Nile argued, biting her lip.

“But you want to do it no? So do it.” Nicky said, gesturing to the paper.

Was it really so easy? She put the pen to the paper but stopped. “Yeah no, it feels weird to do it alone.”

Nicky hummed, sitting back up in his chair, leaning on his elbows in the table. “I’ll do it with you then.”

Nile blinked, but twisted her mouth into a wry grin. “Sure. Ok, here is how you do it. You see how this divided into 9 boxes? The objective of the game is to fill all the boxes in such a way that each box, row, and column has 1 through 9 written on them, with no repeating in them. Like here for example,” she showed one box, “see these four 3’s? That means a 3 can only come here, because it is the only box where it won’t overlap. Got it?”

Nicky hummed concomitantly, his eyes amused. “Yes.”

“Alright, let’s do it then.” Nile said. She shifted her chair so she was next to Nicky, and the pair of them leaned over the puzzle to do it together, Nicky pointing out a few numbers as Nile finished it.

“That was fun.” Nicky said when they completed it. “We should do this again.”

And to Nile’s surprise, she found herself in agreement. She felt a pang of sadness at not doing it with Nicky, but it was still fun. “Yes we should.”

They got another job the next day and were whizzing off again, this time to South Africa. Their safe house in Cape Town was a beach front apartment, bought by Andy back in the 80’s. It was an old building, quiet and creaking, but served its purpose.

Andy was on cooking duty this time, and Nile was given first turn with the shower, when Joe and Nicky returned from their shopping trip for new clothes. Nile did not think she had ever bought this many clothes so quickly in her life, but honestly, she had also not had a habit of constantly getting shot and covering them in blood and bullet holes.

By the time Nile came out, Joe was sitting in front of the TV, flipping channels, probably trying to find a soccer match. Andy had a plate of food and was sitting beside him, more focused on her dinner than the match. When Nicky spotted Nile, he made a happy noise and gestured for her to join him at the dining table.

“I saw these on our way back, and thought that if you did not mind, we could continue that tradition you told me about?” he asked, eyes betraying his excitement, even as his voice remained steady.

“Tradition?” Nile asked.

Nicky nodded and reached for a small brown bag she hadn’t noticed. He pulled out two identical books and a packet of pens, and slid one of each to Nile. Nile bit her lip at the time. 400 Sudoku Puzzles.

“Nicky…” Nile whispered, even as she clutched the book in a white-knuckled grip.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to Nile.” Nicky assured her when he saw her tear up, worry coloring his expression.

And oh, Nile could not stand to see that concern when all this man had tried to do was give her a piece of home back to her.

“No. Thank you. I had fun last time.” she said, giving him a watery smile. He responded in kind. “Are you sure about races though?”

His eyes took on a wicked glint. “Absolutely. It is tradition no?”

Nile chuckled. “Yes.”

“Joe!” Nicky called out, and Joe turned to see him, getting up to come to them when Nicky beckoned. He pressed a quick kiss to Nicky’s hair when he was within reach. “I need you to time us.”

“Time you?”

“Nicky and I are going to complete Sudoku’s and we are going to see who can finish faster.”

For some reason that made Joe bark a laugh. “You and Nicky?”

Nile frowned. “Yes? Why, you have a problem?”

“No, no, dearest Nile, I would be honored to keep time.” he said as he continued to wear a wide grin, pulling up his phone.

Nile squinted at him before turning to Nicky. “Should we just do the first puzzle?”

“Seems logical.” Nicky said as he flipped to the appropriate page.

Both of them uncapped their pens and got ready before glancing at Joe. Andy had turned around in the sofa, watching the two of them instead of the TV.

“Are you ready?” Joe asked, and their nods, “1, 2, 3, GO!”

Nile focused on the puzzle, going by each square methodically, crossing off the possibilities mentally in her head. It was an easy puzzle, so she did not have to write down all the potential numbers. And yet, she was startled when Nicky slammed his book down with a “Done!” when she was only halfway through hers

“Wait what?” Nile asked, reaching to grab the older man’s book while Joe leaned back in his chair, laughing.

“1 minute 15 seconds Nicky! Good job!”

Nile gaped as she looked at the puzzled solved perfectly. She placed the book down and glared at the Italian man, who now at least had the wherewithal to look sheepish. “Explain.”

It wasn’t quite a growl but close enough.

Nicky blushed, and Joe answered for him. “Nile, uhkt sageera, Nicky and I have lived for a thousand years now. Not to mention that Nicky has been doing the New York Times crossword puzzle since it was first published, in what? 1940? 1945? He tended to do the other puzzles too. I believe the first Sudoku puzzle was in the UK? I remember him being excited about it.”

Nile stared at him, jaw open while Andy started to cackle in the background. She spun in her seat, half furious, half indignant. “You cheater!”

Nicky put up both hands in surrender. “I didn’t exactly cheat Nile!”

“I thought you had never done Sudokus before! I thought you were humoring me!”

“Well-”

“Oh my god, I explained how to solve a Sudoku to you in São Paulo, why didn’t you say anything?”

“You seemed very passionate…”

“Nicky…” she growled only to sit back heavily in her chair, definitely not pouting, no matter how fond Joe looked at her.

Nicky’s own sheepish look was slowly transforming into a playful grin and she rolled her eyes in exasperation before laughing. “Alright, fine, this was on me.”

“I had a lot of fun Nile. I would enjoy doing this again.”

Nile groaned, tilting her head back and covering her face, exaggerating the dramatics because it drew more laughs from her family, and she was coming to treasure these laughs as much as those of her mother and brother.

She sat back when the laughter died down, taking the Sudoku book in hand. “I would like that too Nicky. Guess there is another aspect of the tradition we are going to be repeating too now though.”

When Nicky looked at her confused, her wry look transformed into a fond grin. “I am fated to always lose at Sudoku races to my big brother apparently.”

“Nile…” Nicky breathed her voice as though it was something delicate. Precious. And then he got up and came around the table to pull her into a hug she returned with all her strength. “Non riesco a immaginare un onore più grande dell'essere tuo fratello, sorellina.”

Even if she didn’t understand the words, she understood the meaning, and a small part of the hole created by her family was filled in.

“I love you too, Nicky.”

And she did, this man who was willing to die for her, to kill to protect her.

Even if it meant an eternity losing Sudoku races to him.

[rotzaprachim]

6.  dunde ne vegnì duve l'è ch'ané - from the ficlet collection here 

G, 952 words, Nicky backstory 

He doesn’t talk much, as a child. In fact, he barely talks at all for the first few years of his life, and it takes him several more lifetimes to find the words that need saying. Most people, he learns, never do. Tra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo il mare., he’ll learn in the language eight hundred years out from being a gangly, chronically hungry child in the streets of Genova, but between talking and speaking is also a sea even wider than the one that is his home land just as much as the city, and between speaking and listening- the world. And who, ever, really, truly, understands? Nicolo doesn’t, and he’s been working on it for centuries.

This is what Nico does understand - the world has many languages. The language of his fingers running along the cold dappled stones of the base of houses as he chases his brothers and is chased. The language of water drawn up in buckets from the well, the cold against his fingers sharp and stabbing like birdsong, loud, or, worse, summer water, warm and slow, sluggish like the dogs curled at the steps of their building. The interconnected dialects of his mother’s kitchen, where he spends most of the earlier years of his life, trailing after her and grabbing at the soft cloth of her skirts, watches her hands move over the daily tasks until he can copy most of them without her telling him too. Scooping dried peas out from the bag to soak overnight in the cold clay bowl, pealing the garlic and most of all, watching the fire, pulling it up alive again every morning from where the embers sleep at night, cozy under a thick blanket of ash, feeding the hungry flames during the day and watching them to make sure they remain level with the cooking pot, banking them down under the ashes before he goes to sleep. He likes the cooking fire, which, if you listen closely enough, speaks, tells you of wood that’s been cured and dried or wood that’s still damp and will sputter and spark, like the fire that contains the world in its flickering flames curling into endless different shapes.

There’s a day when the sparks are slow to catch on the fresh kindling, lazy like his older brothers on a Sunday, and he says in the same angry, disapproving voice his mother has used on them a thousand times, “svegliati. Per favore,” svegliati.” The words seem right, all the svv sv sounds like smoke, t t t like crackling sparks, and fire wakes up and lives. and at night before he banks the coals and washes his face at his turn with the basin and says his prayers and smoothes down his corner of the bed he shares with four of his siblings, he whispers, the shape of words themselves odd in his mouth, “buona notte.” Thinks: you’d better say your prayers, or the Devil will come.

And maybe the fire didn’t say their prayers, because he’s six when a big storm rolls up off the water and into the city, bigger than any he’s ever known in his life, and the board their doors and pile bags of sand in the entryways and wedge rags into all the seams of windows and still the water rushes in, making everything cold and damp. Dark. Hiding from the sound of thunder with his siblings, blanket pulled over their heads, he thinks- i cannot wake the fire today. where will the fire be without me? but the fire lived before you spoke, and will be fine.

When the storm sputters itself out and they all come out blinking like newborn kittens into the light and everyone is trying to make sure everyone else is alive and how much it will be to fix the roof, Nico rushes to the fire, already feeling some part of his heart what he already knows to be true. The ashes have been utterly drenched, soaked all the way to the brick floor, water everywhere. Not a trace of warmth left no matter how hard he looks. Dead. Dead. That’s the only word he can reach for. Gone, like two of the older siblings he never knew, gone like the nonna he can barely remember. Something inside him breaks, and his tears are soon soaking the ashes too.

His father looks surprised more than angry. He’s gone long days out on the water with the older boys, has expressed his concern, a few times, that a boy who prefers watching the hearth to grappling in the street will not learn to stand as a man, but mostly doesn’t seem to know him much at all. But he sees him there and sits down next to him.

“We never forget what it looks like the first time we look Death in the face,” his father tells him. “And then we carry Death with us all our lives, until we meet him again, as all things do. It is about learning to live in our time so that we may be happy when we do.”

Nico nods. He should not feel sad, morning the ashes, not when he has been to so many funerals in his life, usually of people he does not know how should know, but he still wants to send them off. Ashes to ashes, he thinks, like a proper priest. But what if you have always been ashes? He laughs at that. His father looks even more puzzled.

“When the waters have calmed” he says “I will take you out on the boat with me, so you can learn the trade. We will see how you meet the sea.”