sylviaplatypus

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my humble offering

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The Old Guard 2 (2025)

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Let’s talk about the lack of a kiss? Let’s. For me, it didn’t make a difference. I read some comments here and there like "Oh, they made them less queer, they seem only BESTFRIENDS.” But that’s just not true. NICKY SAID IN ITALIAN "TI AMO" (in Italy, we have two ways to say “I love you,” and this one is deeper—used only in a romantic context with a romantic partner)

We did get scenes that are clearly, undeniably those of a couple. And that scene with Nicky’s monologue "i know your heart and that is immortal", and Joe opening up and admitting he’s afraid- aah...

We see Joe vulnerable. (what i wanted, I needed this. Because The Old Guard is dear to me also for its absence of harmful stereotypes.) Joe, who’s usually sharp, charming, the badass of the group.

Seeing his fragility with Nicky? That’s pure gold!

I know we’re in an era where if there aren’t sex scenes, then the ship supposedly doesn’t count. But this is what I needed. So many directors forget the most powerful part of a couple: love shown through actions, not flashy ones//also through the little things, the promises, the looks, their hands...

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i did love nicky just fully bullying nile into getting into that cab with him to go chase joe. no discussion, he has an errand to run and nile will be there for company and as a witness

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last thought before bed is that the ending had me standing on a rooftop singing like the POTENTIAL the SET-UP of a dykey international romp situation featuring Andy and Quynh, ex-lovers betrayed by time and their own broken promises, finding themselves with a common goal and shared values again, working together to save their family, traveling together, fighting together, sleeping side-by-side, rebuilding trust, looking at each other yearningly, bickering and laughing like old times, being gay ... I'm just saying the reunion sex is gonna be INSANEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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honestly so rude of adult responsibilities to get in the way of me engaging with the escapism hyperfixation i’m using to cope with all that said responsibilities demand of me

like don’t they also hear the siren call of that 32k WIP i abandoned months ago?? is there no consideration for the fact that i’ve got Thoughts i need to shout into the void!?

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Nicky & Joe - The Old Guard 2

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i keep thinking about nicky and that goddamn single tear he swipes away after joe says that booker's been all alone

because so has nicky, in a way, and he's only just realized how much so through uncovering the truth about what joe was hiding. it was joe who pushed for a century of exile - because he was acting from a place of deep betrayal, his passion and wounded feelings getting the best of his judgement and logic. and nicky, who knows joe as well as he knows himself, must have been aware on some level that joe would grow to regret this decision once his temper cooled. his best hope was probably that when the weight of what they'd done inevitably came crashing down on joe, his beloved would turn to him so they could support each other through it. but instead joe chose to act on his sense of regret in secrecy, without looping in his partner and eternal teammate.

how many times over those months did joe dodge the topic of booker if nicky brought him up, potentially resulting in nicky believing joe wasn't ready to talk about it yet? how many times did nicky almost bring him up anyway, because booker was nicky's brother too and his absence was just as painful for him, but decided instead he could be patient for joe? (speaking as an old married myself, it can be of the loneliest feelings in the world to know you aren't quite on the same page as your person but not feel certain about why. especially if one or both of you is actively avoiding talking about it - many times because someone isn't ready yet or because one is making a misguided attempt to protect the other's feelings or because they assume they know how the other will react. which, to me at least, it feels like a little of each could have been motivating joe's actions.)

and then, after months of concealing the truth, joe tells nicky that booker is the one who's alone in this situation?

just look at nicky's expression when he takes off his sunglasses!! that man is hurt, and the cause of that hurt is the person dearest to his heart lying to him. and humans who feel hurt - even ones who are centuries old (just because we keep living doesn't mean we stop hurting) - have a tendency to lash out and externalize that hurt. blame it on someone else, on a different circumstance. something that doesn't feel as tender or vulnerable as what the realization "the person i trust most in the world betrayed that trust" touches.

you were screaming for his head. he made his choice.

all while every facial expression and gesture telegraphs a completely different message of but how can you not see how alone i've been too?

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Not much of an exile...if you're dropping in to deliver groceries.

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I keep seeing people saying they made Joe and Nicky "less gay" in the second movie and only the fact my friends haven't seen it and can't act as my sounding board is saving Tumblr from a rant about gender assumptions, gay men, and fandom that might start with "Based on your assumptions..." and end with "have you ever actually met men, or do you just rub one out over gifsets?".

But no. As a queer man I strongly disagree that they made Joe and Nicky in any way less gay in this. Them being laddish does not in any way invalidate the relationship.

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Are you gonna do what you do best and fight by my side? No. You will fight by my side.

THE OLD GUARD 2

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from what i can tell the reviews about this are mixed but tbh i was personally a huge fan of joe and nicky’s characterizations in this film. spoilery highlights after the cut

nicky basically “back in my day”ing nile for her question about whether the guard ever gets time off like the grandpa he is

the glimpses of how truly unhinged a millennia of being immortal has made them: laughing about booker getting his head blown off by a cannon, their shared amusement at joe’s funny guy bit with his severed thumb, the gleeful competitiveness over who drives which car, nicky teasing joe for not hot wiring his car as fast, playfully racing one another with their stolen vehicles. all while in the middle of a goddamn heist where bullets are flying everywhere lmaooo that’s deranged behavior and i love them for it.

speaking of the cars!! how even their driving is perfectly in sync!!!!!

i’ve seen a few posts saying that it was obvious nicky knew something was up with joe after he deflected nicky’s question about the mysterious text, and i totally agree, but i think he knew way sooner. that look he gives joe after nile asks if they think booker is doing okay is very Telling (citation: i’ve been with my spouse for a decade and can tell right away when something’s off with them, imagine that compounded by a literal thousand years!! i wouldn’t be surprised if nicky’s been suspicious of something since the moment joe made contact with booker)

the fact that joe crashed their goddamn car because he was looking at nicky instead of the road. relatable. 

the old married couple energy being so strong it almost blew me off my couch!!! bickering about snoring and sleep talking before going to bed at the same time, i’m weak

nicky’s loaded “huh, okay” to joe’s announcement that he needs some time alone. kudos to luca marinelli for being able to imbue a couple of filler words with such meaning. that meaning ofc being that nicky knows his man too well to believe he’s telling the truth about wanting to be alone. 

nicky’s little whispered “te amo” when he and joe part ways, sobbb

“we’re following him” / “what?” genuinely made me laugh out loud 

fully believe nicky would have been fine with joe going his separate way for a bit if he truly did need a little time and space. but i love that he follows him (and forces nile into a Situation in the process lol) because at this point he’s probably known for months that something’s been off with joe, and now he’s lying??? about needing something nicky would be willing to give him if joe were only telling the truth?? ofc that’s the tipping point for nicky.

not really a character development choice, but i am genuinely curious about why joe is bringing booker lemons. is there reason to be concerned about booker’s citrus intake?

the conflict is delicious to me!! love to see my favorite fictional ships argue because those moments reveal a lot about who people are, individually and as a unit. and joe and nicky fight like the old marrieds they are, like two people who are unflappable in the certainty that their foundation is too solid to crack under the pressure of a prolonged disagreement like this. it reminds me a lot of one of my favorite quotes from the haunting of hill house: “you fight with love. you're on the same team even in the middle of a fight. during the fight, you're forgiven. there's no fear. there's no danger. you're safe. it's a beautiful way to be.”

speaking of the Argument, my personal old married take is that it wasn’t joe being in contact with booker that upset nicky as much as it was the extended lie of omission joe told by not letting nicky in on this fact sooner. nicky has spent six months believing they were on the same page, that they’d both agreed to the terms of this painful exile - painful not only for booker, but for them as well because it meant losing a brother. nicky sat in that pain alone for months without realizing it, all because, as nicky pointed out, joe assumed he knew how nicky would react instead of talking with him. they’re supposed to be a team, and joe left him in the dark on this one! so it feels like it's not so much about his anger that joe is talking to booker again and more about joe shutting nicky out of his very understandable struggle with their decision to cut ties with him. 

yusuf went to see him! yusuf!!! (cue hilary duff’s this is what dreams are made of)

truly unwell over the cliffs of moher backstory and how beautifully it sums up their characters, their relationship, and the nature of this conflict arc. the game was playful and competitive like they've been shown to be, but when it came down to following through, nicky was too stubborn, steadfast, and consistent to give up first - just like he couldn’t move past what booker did as easily as joe, just like he waited until joe came to him to put a punctuation mark on the argument and finally tell nicky what’s really been bothering him. 

“talk to me,” nicky says and nothing else - and when joe does, he meets him with understanding but also objective facts. it’s a beautiful counterpoint to joe’s romantic monologue in the first film. no flowery prose, because nicky isn’t a poet like joe, but still just as moving in its simple truths (things end, and so will we eventually. but this thing that i feel for you because i know your heart isn’t an arbitrary happenstance. it’s a deliberate choice made countless times over countless years. and everything that’s a product of that love will ripple outward through eternity). 

 every battle couple moment. every single one of them.

joe kicking the guard onto nicky’s sword was definitely a precursor to the make up sex they need to have and i’m so glad that, if nothing else, we can all agree on this.

[sylviaplatypus]

got like ten thousand tog2 thoughts and emotions flying around on the heels of my initial watch that i need to sort through before i try to write out any, but for now i'm just gonna stay haunted by whether or not charlize theron made the intentional acting choice to twitch her left eye when andy responds she's been this way for centuries to nile's comment that she's never seen andy like this.......... only a few scenes after copley called that out as andy's tell

bc genius if true

[sylviaplatypus]

to me one of the most thematically delicious aspects of the old guard is how even though merrick is technically the Big Bad of the film, it does a lot to reinforce that the actual evil of this immortal family's overall narrative is the expansionist mindset of (particularly) white western european colonialism.

things like the final showdown being set in england, where andy and quynh were captured, tortured, and eventually separated because of the puritan witch trials.

or the decision to have a black character from chicago's southside with the last name freeman get chewed up and spat out by the american military industrial complex in a similar way to her father

or the repeated attempts to commodify marginalized bodies through experimentation that's justified as serving the "greater good" (what would the military have done with whatever information they discovered about nile? and who would have had the easiest access to any medical developments put on the market by merrick and big pharma at the expense of joe and nicky? hint: probably not those who'd need it most).

or the fact that booker, a white western european man with a "traditional" family, is the one who has the hardest time adjusting to immortality - which seems to be in part because, of all the immortals, he had the least experience pre-first death with being Othered.

or the way it's directly shown through copley (a black man with one foot in both worlds) that the guard has been a largely unacknowledged and uncredited driving force behind some of the most pivotal moments in history

or the line "a fine justification. i've heard it so many times before" being given to nicky, a literal product of the christian crusades, the cultural effects of which we're still feeling today.

or the shot of merrick holding an ancient weapon of divine feminine rage and looking like a kid with a toy he doesn't know how to use

among others!!

anyway i just think it's neat and wanted to get out these thoughts before the new discourse starts flooding in tomorrow. in the meantime just keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that such a juicy theme isn't pushed to the side in the sequel