#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.

[scimitar-and-longsword]

The Old Guard (2020)

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

TOG Promo Material (part 1/?)

[notablogtobefollowedunless]

so, the job guys...

[gaal-dornick]

mom jeans, polo shirt, 90s choker

[sheafrotherdon]

It was only when Netflix announced there would be more (great!) actors joining 2O2G that I realized my secret hope had been that the entire movie would be two hours of TOG and Copley sitting around a table and eating sandwiches, with breaks for Joe and Nicky to make out.

[celia-bracali]

"The Old Guard" fic recommendation:

"Live By The Sword" by Kaerith

Summary:

Nicky feels like he’s the only true human being in the room; he’s the only one shifting with discomfort and wrinkling his nose and feeling so sick at watching what’s going on. “Hey,” he says to the scientists, “Can’t you knock him out while you do that?”

“Why should we? We don’t have the budget for sedatives or pain killers.” One of the scientists says blandly, and that makes Nicky feel like he’s been shoved over an abyss. There should be empathy, or professional courtesy, or common decency, but there’s just a blank look of slight annoyance.

Instead of killing the doctor like he really wants to, Nicky pulls his silenced handgun from a pocket and shoots the victim in the head. “They’re immortal and I don’t get off on watching people writhe in pain. Even if drugs aren’t in the budget you can bet bullets are."

[bewires]

39 and 69 please?? any ship you like

39 - Survival/Wilderness Fic + 69 - Flirting Under Fire

oof okay so I just watched Yellowjackets and am immediately thinking about Taissa/Van, but that's literally just the plot of the show.

I think this would be a good combo for Booker/Copley or Nile/Celeste, anything featuring one immortal partner and one mortal partner, because it offers so much potential for conflict over who gets to do what part of the survival stuff. Also competence kink. Like, Booker can for sure hunt down something for them to eat, but he'll probably get a severe injury along the way and feel justified about getting it because Copley could *literally die* doing it....whereas Copley is just like. "Gimme the rifle" and then instantly able to shoot a bird out of the sky from like three miles away.

On the other hand for Nileste, something cozier with Celeste teaching Nile to cook French food and having in-depth talks about literature in the cozy cabin they found in the wilderness, Celeste the pacifist being angry at herself for how into it she is when Nile perceives a threat and orders her around...

[raedear]

okay so if I were to write a The Old Guard/The X Files crossover (absurdly easy concept, they'd be a cracking monster of the week) then it would be your standard "Scully, you'll never believe this—" opening with Mulder showing Scully Nile's story and eventually them hunting down the team a la Copley only to have this be the reason Scully learns about her own (canonical, this show is fuckin wild i love it so much) immortality and end with Mulder stuck wondering how he could possibly try and find immortality for himself, and does he even want to? While Scully wonders the same but also the reverse, how can she get rid of hers? Does she have to look death in the face too? Should she find the team again and tell them that's how it worked for her, as best she can remember?

(I don't think the TOG immortality works the same way Scully's does.)

The meat of the mystery would be Mulder suggesting army experiments in black oil vaccines and/or super soldiers resulted in Nile the Immortal Marine while Scully says, no, you dumbass, field medicine in a war zone is just wild sometimes.

Scully then ends up distracted stitching one of Andy's wounds while Mulder witnesses a compound fracture in Joe's leg fix itself and two of Nicky's fingers grow back. Nile is conspicuously absent but we see her sometimes in the background of public shots eating ice-cream and wearing ridiculously big sunglasses and hats, even at night. She's hanging out with Quynh. Mulder makes a badly thought out Crusades joke about Joe and Nicky and does his panic face 🫥 when Joe and Nicky turn in unison to stare at him with thousand-year-old-murder-face

It would be a funny episode along the lines of Bad Blood.

[normal-thoughts-official]

[ID: A The Old Guard meme based on headlines about celebrity quotes. The headlines are: "Sebastien le Livre: 'I'll do anything. I'm a bit of a slut that way'"; "James Copley says he goes to gay bars to avoid fights at straight venues"; "Quỳnh: 'I've thought about murder many times'"; and "Nicolò di Genova: 'I'm a medieval knight, of course I've had gay sex'". End ID]

This is not what Andy meant when she told them to lay low

[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.

[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! 💜

[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

[sheafrotherdon]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, James Copley Summary:

In which Nicky and Copley have a conversation.

[celia-bracali]

"The Old Guard" fic recommendation:

"The Gift of Guilt" by FightFireWithFire

Summary:

‘ “Nicky and I met during the crusades,” Joe started, “and when we did, we killed each other - many times,” he echoed the words she’d first heard spoken by Nicky. With his gentle, lilting tone, she was reminded of her father reading fairytales to her and almost expected a ‘once upon a time’ to pass through his lips, “For seven days and seven nights we crossed blades. By day seven our swords were essentially useless - we were grappling and trying to kill one another with our barehands when-,” his eyes met hers briefly then darted away, “-when my hands found a rock hidden just beneath the sand.” ‘

—

Joe should have known it was took good to be true when Nicky sprang up so quickly after Keane put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. They’d never been that lucky before.

[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.

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