#i'm new: nile freeman

[allxthingsxglxtter]

@lcnelylcves : For Booker

"Well, well, well. Look who decided to show up." Nile stepped into Booker's path with a smile, cocking her head at the other immortal. She'd heard he was here, and had decided to seek him out. And finding him out and about honestly delighted her, giving him a grin.

Despite everything that had happened before, Nile liked Booker, and had been sad to lose contact for 100 years even if she understood the why. Now there was a chance for second chances, and maybe getting to know everyone in less intense circumstances. "It's good to see you Booker."

[non-un-topo]

Wrong location

[raetttriestowrite]

Rating:Mature Archive Warning:Graphic Depictions Of Violence Fandoms: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Desmond Miles/Heights Characters: Desmond Miles, Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Additional Tags: Canon Typical Violence, Desmond has PTSD, Abstergo kidnapping, Mission Fic, Rescue Mission, panicking in the Assassin style, Travelling in the Assassin style, cheating via eagle vision, Bleeding Effect, Dreams, The Existential Horror of Clay Kaczmarek, the mating rituals of immortal soldiers, Devil's Advocate, Assassin Obsession with Heights, Desmond doing as Desmond Does, Storming the castle, Opinions on guns, Bombs, Stealth in the Assassin style, Stealth in the marine style, who leads?, White Clothes in the Assassin style, Restraints, Medical Restraints, Drug Use, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Joe is the real MVP, Identity Issues, Real Action Heroes Don't Look Back, Emails

Chapters: 1/1 Series: Part 10 of the Bless This Mess, This Mess Is Mine series Summary:

Booker's been kidnapped and, exiled or not, there's no way the team are leaving him there.

[creatingblackcharacters]

My favorite Black character is Nile Freeman from The Old Guard, which is a fantasy/superhero action movie*. Nile is an ex-marine who discovers that she is the newest member of a group of immortal warriors who have arisen throughout history. She's a fierce fighter when it's needed but otherwise prefers to lead with kindness. She approaches new situations with a healthy dose of skepticism and is an excellent tactician who is always the first to piece together the bigger picture of whatever is going on. Nile's family is her source of strength and drive, and she stays true to her own moral compass, no matter the cost. She's just all-around awesome, I love her a lot, and her journey of trying to find her place in the world while staying true to herself really resonates with me. *The movie was inspired by a comic series called The Old Guard, which I have not read. However, my understanding that the comic's storylines and art sometimes get pretty racist, so I would not recommend them, just the movie, which takes the characters and basic premise of the comics and creates something new out of them.

When I tell you, the only things I've ever heard about The Old Guard is of gay, usually white people (unless I'm thinking of the wrong fandom)... I've heard about Nile maybe once. If she happens to be a main character I simply would not know. I love her hair, very functional. Her style is cute too. I hope you make it a point to emphasize Nile in that space!

[runawaymarbles]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers! Spread the self-love 💞

<3 sorry this took so long, I'm on vacation and had to Ponder on it. And then couldn't access ao3.

These are not ranked in order because narrowing it down took long enough

What The Moon Was Saying - Supernatural Dean/Cas

Dean walks in[to the Empty] like Inanna, and out like Orpheus.

I kind of wish directors commentary on fics was still a thing because I have So Many Thoughts about basically every sentence of this. It started when I was listening to Hadestown and thought, Dean would look back. And then I figured out how to work Sumerian mythology in there, and anyone who's followed me for a while knows of my sometimes dormant but never extinct obsession with Sumerian mythology. Definitely don't have an Inanna back tattoo. What if Inanna's descent but instead of having to give up one of the mes at each gate, she had to give up a coping mechanism? What if I lay facedown in the mud and screamed about the wasted potential? What if we wasted away again in margaritaville searching for our lost shakers of salt?

The Ill-Made Knight - xmen - Charles/Erik

The United States Justice System, in its infinite mercy, allows Erik to choose his method of execution.

He chooses Charles Xavier.

Ok you know that trope where Character A has done something illegal or wrong and they say to Character B, their love interest, "just kill me, because if someone's going to, I want it to be you" or something to that effect? Well. Ok first of all. I do enjoy this trope. Peak drama. But second. The psychological warfare behind it is something usually left unexplored. SO. Here are Erik and Charles, ideologically irreconcilable, very in love, emotionally manipulating each other in cruel ways to avoid admitting how deeply they care. I hate you you ruined my life and I want to die in your arms. You know. Normal stuff! They're horrible old men and I love them.

You drink light with your hands all winter - supernatural Dean/Cas

“I can’t keep doing this.” God says it like this as though it is is He, not Death, who is bound by the nature’s laws. He says it as though the world is not what He wants it to be.

He says it as though He means it.

“Please,” Death says. There’s a scythe heavy on his back, and a bundle of souls in the crook of his elbow. “Please, Sammy.”

Look I just enjoy this fucked up little whatever-it-is. What if Dean was death, Sam was God, and Cas was the empty? What if Dean kept getting Sam to make new angels and kill them immediately so he could go visit Cas? What if the world was trapped in an unbreakable cycle? What if that was a relief? What then.

every creeping thing - good omens - Crowley/Aziraphale

Crowley eats dust all the days of his life.

I literally spent 3 years writing this fic on and off. Yes it's 3k. Don't @ me. I had to review parts of the Nag Hammadi library. And then halfway through I was like "what if Crowley can't taste" and had to restructure the whole thing. Talk to me about Gnosticism. Please.

Stalefish - The Old Guard Nile/Andy

“Don’t look at it as a curse,” Joe had told her, a month earlier. “Think of it as an opportunity. What did you want to do that you were always too scared to try?”

I'm going to be eating glass about Nile Freeman until I die. If the second movie does her dirty I'm going to riot in the streets. Someone once commented that this fic made them want to go to a diner at 2am and think about their life choices and it's still one of my favorite comments ever.

[wilfriede]

Murderbot Podfics: FlipSpring's Murderbot Becomes Old Guard Immortal Series

My gifts for @mistbornhero for ITPE: the first three instalments of FlipSpring's series of crossover between Murderbot and The Old Guard.

@livisalibi helped me with the soundscaping and I'm so proud of how it all turned out.

[Podfic of] Unmade

Summary:

Yes. ART said, patiently. The patience felt a little condescending, but to be fair to ART I had barely been managing to output coherent strings until about thirty-three minutes ago, at which point the coherent strings had started coming a little easier. Approximately 33% of the organic parts of your brain had been destroyed. I have some of the remains stored in the lounge fridge. I mulled that over for a moment. How the fuck am I alive? I don’t know. But according to the med scanner your brain has grown back. Now, I may not know much in my current compromised state, but I’m pretty sure brains don’t do that. ~ Day: 0

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Body Horror Characters: Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Asshole Research Transport (Murderbot Diaries), dr. mensah says hi Length: ~38 minutes

[Podfic of] Cookies

Summary:

“You died again,” ART’s med-drone said. “But you got better. Again.” “How did this happen?” Iris asked, voice shaky, “You’re human?” Well, shit. ~ Day: 1

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Asshole Research Transport (Murderbot Diaries), misc ART crew in the background Length: 18:29

[Podfic of] The River Fate: Target Status Found

Summary:

Andro: «We should launch some fully equipped intel-strike teams into the probable CR locations of this newborn. For the non-corporate leads, we can just send pairs or solos, maybe with some mundane support. I’ll get back to you guys when I’ve figured out some logistics.» With that, Andro signed off. Nile opened a private channel with her, as the rest of the Old Guard continued to discuss in the shared feed. Nile: «I want to follow up the lead at the Pansystem University of Mihara and New Tideland.» ~ Day: 0 - 98

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Nile Freeman, Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), some assorted Old Guard Length: ~20 minutes

Listen to them all on AO3!

[paperstorm]

Hello! I love following your stories and your posts. You always have such an interesting take on things!

I have a question that maybe controversial (that's why I'm on anon), so feel free to ignore this if you don't feel upto it.

I'm a cis, straight woman of relative economic privilege in a very traditional, conservative country. Which is to say, all of my interactions with and information about the LGBTQ+ community are from the internet. This sometimes is an issue because I end up learning the wrong things, where I think I'm being an ally but I'm just thinking things that are problematic in different ways.

I write a bit of fanfiction for other fandoms and I really enjoy watching 9-1-1LS. I have story ideas for Tarlos, but I'm not sure about the ethics of someone like me writing about a queer couple. Is it okay for me to do that? Or is it more respectful to just read and listen and learn? In case it's fine to write it, never having actually witnessed a queer couple's relationship, how do I write realistically without perpetuating problematic tropes that I've seen in Hollywood/TV/other fics?

(This might get long, I’m sorry followers, one day I’ll learn to shut up but not today and not about this)

I want to start by saying that ‘own voices’ started out as a good thing. It started with the purpose of allowing marginalized communities the space to tell their own stories, rather than prioritizing a white man pretending he knows what racism feels like when he doesn’t. It had really good intentions, and it’s still important to amplify the voices of people who are speaking from direct experience.

But because social media spaces are literally never capable of nuance, it pretty quickly turned into ‘you aren’t allowed to write or talk about things that you don’t have direct experience with’ and this is where it became a really harmful mentality. It has led to things like celebrities being forcibly outed (off the top of my head – Lee Pace, Kit Connor, Casey McQuiston, and Jameela Jamil, but I’m positive there are others) because the internet mob said ‘you can’t portray/write about queer characters if you aren’t queer! Publicly perform your sexuality for us or ELSE!’. On a much smaller scale, it led to me not including characters of colour in my stories for years, because tumblr and twitter told me I wasn’t allowed to.

These are not positive things. I saw a post once, years ago, that said something like ‘yes it’s important for POC to get to see characters who look like them as the hero of the story, but it’s equally important for people to see characters who don’t look like them as the hero of the story, because that’s how you learn empathy for people who are different than you’ and that has really stuck with me. It was not good that a teenager was forced to come out before he was ready a few months ago because twitter told him he was queerbaiting by just existing and living his life. It was not good that I went years excluding characters of colour from my stories. It was not good that I never tried to get into the headspace of someone like Sam Wilson or Nile Freeman or Yusuf al-Kaysani or Carlos Reyes or Marjan Marwani. We develop intense empathy for people who have vastly different experiences than us when we care about their lives and their stories and their struggles.

I showed this ask to my best friend who is also queer and he made a lot of good points in a series of very passionate texts but among them are these:

I would rather someone be open and wanting to explore a new community, perhaps occasionally stumbling over the wrong thing, but learning rather then sitting on the sideline like some kid outside of a candy store window.

I’m not interested in allies who are silent. Who haven’t put themselves in my shoes. Who don’t adore the parts of our community the way I do. I don’t give a FUCK about people who are just going to sit there and say “it’s not my place to speak/participate.” I want my allies in the thick of it. I want them saying I stand with you, vocally and I’ll only sit when you sit.

Quit making people treat marginalized groups like exclusive clubs. Everyone is welcome in my gay house

I know my family loves me because they are my family and I am of them. I need to know the rest of the world is going to let me in, too. I need to know that some successful author who has absolutely no stake in the game ALSO sees value in a queer voice in their story. I need to know I have a place in the world BEYOND the people who are accepting of me because they are like me.

So. All of this is a very long-winded way of saying please please PLEASE write and love and care about queer characters even if you, yourself are not queer. If you’re worried about getting something wrong or unintentionally writing something that is offensive, ask a queer person if they would be a sensitivity reader for your story before you post it. And be willing to accept the criticism if a person comes to you after and says ‘hey this was offensive’ (while also understanding that one queer person or one POC does not speak for the entire community, and that the concept of offense gets incredibly complicated sometimes). But write it. It is a wonderful, necessary thing when people care about communities that they are not a part of. In the immortal words of Mr. Bernie Sanders, when then question “Are you willing to fight for someone you don’t know?” is asked, the world gets infinitely better when the answer is yes.

[sweetwithheatwriting]

People you would like to get to know better tag game

I'ma straight up nab this from @possumwoodpie because it looks fun and I wanted to do this. 😘

3 ships: Pretty much any combo of poly!TOG (and especially Nile/Booker/Nicky/Joe and/or Nile/Andy/Quynh), Stede Bonnet/Izzy Hands/Edward Teach, Derek/Stiles, and just a whole mishmash of MCU related ships.

1st ship: Much like Possum, I'm pretty sure it was something from Inyusha, but boy did I go HARD for the ideas of the fellas in the animated Saiyuki Reload series going for it or the same thing for the three main protagonists in Samurai Champloo. (This is really starting to make me realize poly ships have been in my heart for a WHILE.)

Last song: "Young, Gifted, Black, In Leather" by Special Interest. (It's fantastic and I dearly want to write some BAMF Nile Freeman based on it.❤ )

Last movie: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Mutant Mayhem. (Can not recommend watching this enough, and it's got some absolutely beautiful art work and hilarious moments stuffed in there.)

Currently watching: Insatiable. (I'm feelin' a little Eh about it, but I've been yearning for a little more Debby Ryan since Night Teeth came out.)

Currently consuming: Water, some almost excessively sour cranberry juice and some of the leftover pasta and new spice mix that I used last night. (Holy Duck's Typhoon Shelter Sum Sum Seasoning will absolutely change your life if you're interested in getting your hands on it, and their chili oils also look bomb as fuck with some of the best looking packaging that I've ever seen.)

Currently craving: To watch the very funny Joy Ride again and like a peanut butter-y type of tiramisu dessert. Honestly, peanut butter on a very crisp stalk of celery or peanut butter and kaya spread on toast would probably also do it.

Tag you're it @aimmyarrowshigh @flamingo-queen-writes @sindirimba @nevermindirah or anyone else who's in a sharing mood. (No pressure, of course.)

[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 →

[kpg-1126]

A little while ago @thatonesquintern13 posted about comfort characters, and tagged me. I was thinking about it at the time, and I don't really have *individual* comfort characters, but I'm very comforted by certain pairings I've been obsessed with, and if I need to randomly calm myself, will definitely revisit any of these (TV edition).

I've left Pattison off this because I kinda post about them all the time (understatement), but they are now up there with these folks, which is top-tier status. But these five pairings definitely contributed to the kcfh fanfic, sometimes in really overt ways. 🤡

Mulder & Scully 5x05 The X-Files

The only one of these pairings where I've dressed up as one of the characters for Halloween (but honestly every time I wear a suit I'm pretending I'm Scully--it's the only benefit).

Lois & Clark - 9x02 - Smallville

My advice - don't watch the whole show, just watch the episodes with Lois. (Kidding a little, because there's soooo much bizarre context, but still...) Bonus points that a lot of these eps (season 8+) also have Cassidy Freeman being ambiguously villainous.

My OG Lois & Clark - 1x01 - Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

These two are probably my original couple crush. It's a bisexual's dream ...😏😍 (so are Mulder & Scully and Elizabeth & Darcy (1995), to me, anyway.)

Daphne & Niles - 4x06 - Frasier

Probably my original long-running will they / won't they obsession. David Hyde Pierce is so good at pining (see above). Jane Leeves is adorably oblivious (while also hot) (see above).

Elizabeth Bennet & Fitzwilliam Darcy - Ep. 2/6 - Pride & Prejudice (1995)

This will always be my Elizabeth and Darcy - I saw them first right after I read the book. But keep making adaptations, please, I will watch them all.

[allxthingsxglxtter]

@totouchthcstars

.｡.:*☆ Louie blinked, not sure how he should react to something like this. Usually, he was the demanding one. Who would just stare other people down until they would get out of the way, basically. But, something told him to better not mess with this young woman, for whatever reason. “Uh….” He just said before finally finding his voice and posture again. Because, no, Louie didn’t wanted the other to think he was a dumb idiot, after all. “Sure. You need help with that box, though? Like, you know, I could carry it inside for you, if you want.”

Nile smiled as the other's pause, meaning to sound somewhat kidding but now concerned she'd actually freaked him out until he did finally talk again. "That's nice of you! I mean, yeah, if you don't mind? Or just grab the door? It's a cake, so I'm slightly concerned about dropping it."

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Still very VERY committed to the idea that once Andy has to take more of a backseat for Bullets Will Kill Her reasons, Nile gets instantly promoted to "I go first."

[rotzaprachim]

What I really want from movie two of the old guard costuming is Nile wearing some earrings or a neckace or a piece of clothing that’s clearly either a) a vintage reproduction piece from a museum gift store or b) an original piece worth extreme amounts of money she dug up from under the Sword Basket in one of the team’s hideouts. Like WW1 RAF flying jacket? Sure. Original 1930′s silk scarf? Ok. Baroque italian pendant with the massive rubies? Everyone just figures it’s a reproduction anyway. But it’s when she shows up to meet Copley wearing one of these bad boys 

that he just loses it 

[nevermindirah]

nile isn't a kid being manipulated by recruiters though she's literally someone who saw that their father was killed in the armed forces and was like "i'm going to do that so i can get a degree" despite knowing what it meant and what could most likely happen. she had more insight and knowledge about what the armed forces do than 99% of the poor fucks being lured in by recruiters, so how can you even possible compare them?

Hi, anon. I'm going to assume you're asking this in good faith because even if you're not then others reading my response might get something out of it. If your message was just to vent your frustration because you or your close people have been targeted by the US military, your need to vent is valid and my response about understanding the reasons why good people join a terrible war machine might be triggering for you, so take care. If you're not personally affected by this and just trying to get a rise out of me, please consider that that's a rude thing to do.

For others following along, I'm guessing this is in response to this post about the power of propaganda and you might want to read that post first.

First of all, while yes, recruiters do often downplay the realities of military service to recruits who aren't already familiar, as detailed in this policy paper from the American Public Health Association, this is a population recruiters are having less and less success with over recent decades. I can compare fictional character Nile Freeman to the real-life people discussed in that post because having significant knowledge of the military through having a family member who served makes young people in the US more likely to join.

There's a stark military-civilian gap in the US: as Pew put it in 2011, "During the past decade, as the military has been engaged in the longest period of sustained conflict in the nation’s history, just one-half of one percent of American adults has served on active duty at any given time." Veterans and their family members are more likely to recommend a career in the military than those without a personal or family history of service.

Here's a NYT piece from 2020 showing that trend has only grown. (The piece focuses on the Army, not the US military as a whole; the Army is the largest branch and I had a hard time finding stats specific to the USMC, which is the second-smallest branch.)

More and more, new recruits are the children of old recruits. In 2019, 79 percent of Army recruits reported having a family member who served. For nearly 30 percent, it was a parent — a striking point in a nation where less than 1 percent of the population serves in the military.

And while it might feel intuitive from the outside that losing a parent to a war would be a good reason not to enlist, research shows the opposite is true. Another 2011 Pew study found post-9/11 veterans who were exposed to casualties during their service were much more likely to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting.

So that's some factual context to get us started. Now let's think about all this from Nile's perspective.

We don't know for sure when she enlisted, but a corporal is an E4 and the USMC typically advances a Marine to the next rank every year (or discharges those who underperform) so we can guess she's been in for about 4 years, meaning she enlisted when she was around 21. That's an adult, absolutely, but a young one. Cognitive development extends well into one's twenties and young adults are much more likely to make impulsive, risky decisions without the level of consideration for long-term consequences that fully mature brains are capable of. Going back to that APHA paper, military recruiters take advantage of this and focus intensely on youth; recruiting adults over age 21 is seen by the US military as an area for potential growth that requires different tactics.

Nile was born in 1994, which puts her at 6 or 7 years old on 9/11. Her dad was killed when she was 11, so probably 2005. And then she enlisted around 2015. She'd been soaking in post-9/11 propaganda for almost the entirety of her living memory. If you weren't living in the US in this era I don't know that I have the words to describe the intensity of the propaganda. The post this ask was probably reacting to is about the effects of post-9/11 propaganda on US-Americans who didn't have family in the military, but for Nile, it all would've been so much more intense. For her it wasn't just the propaganda we all got. It was lionizing her father for his sacrifice. Mourning the fallen hero and honoring his memory.

When Andy says, "You come from warriors," Nile responds, "Yeah. I do." She sounds proud.

It's possible to acknowledge that your parent died on the wrong side of a war that should never have happened, but it takes extraordinary cognitive and emotional skill to do that, especially in an environment where your mom and your church and your teachers and people on the news and just about every adult you meet is telling you that your father was a hero who gave his life to protect us all, especially when you're only eleven years old. It's possible to start unlearning that by age 21, but again, it's very difficult. The costs of failing to unlearn that are very high, of course, for the people of Afghanistan Nile and her real-life counterparts went on to point guns at. It doesn't make US imperialism ok. It does make individuals' choices in this fucked-up system understandable.

The point of the original post was that we don't stop imperialism by shaming people who fall for its propaganda. We stop it by understanding how structural forces make it harder for individuals to make more moral choices. We change structures so that the next eleven year old will hear less propaganda and get more support so that they won't have to fight tooth and nail through extremely difficult cognitive and emotional work at a tender age in order to make non-imperialist career choices.

And if you're not from the US you might not know about another of our propaganda machines that's referenced but not really explained by OP. It's drilled into our heads from elementary school that if you don't get a college degree your only job prospect will be flipping burgers for minimum wage. That's not exactly true of course, but it is much more difficult to make enough money to afford decent housing and healthcare without a college degree here than it might be in other countries. Vocational education is an underfunded mess that varies not just by state but by school district and the few vocational trades that do still pay living wages can be very difficult to enter. One of the few ways to ensure your financial future in the US without a college degree (or a combination of being exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally talented in performing arts, and exceptionally lucky) is— pause for dramatic reveal— the military.

So why join the military to pay for college instead of paying for college a different way? Here's a short but comprehensive explainer about the student debt crisis. Bottom line, the costs of a college degree have skyrocketed while wages have barely grown at all in decades, leaving millions of us on the hook for 20+ years of impossibly high monthly student loan repayments on top of ever-rising rent and insurance premiums for our broken healthcare system and everything else that's an economic nightmare for people who make under $50k (bump that up to $80k if you live in a big city, or like $150k if, God forbid, you make the enormously expensive life decision that is having children). Oh and of course student debt, like nearly all social problems in the US, hits Black people even harder.

This sucks. It all sucks really bad. You don't have to like it. I certainly don't like it. But I can see how Nile, a fictional character written by a white man who to my knowledge never served in the military, as well as real people I've known in my real life would find it a lot easier to get up in the morning if they let themselves keep believing the lies of post-9/11 US imperialist propaganda instead of sitting with the full truth of just how fucked the system is and how few and difficult the avenues are to live even somewhat comfortably without making profoundly immoral choices.

For anyone who'd rather experience these ideas in fanfiction than in this research paper that fell out of me tonight, I wrote exactly such a thing in 2020. It's called I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore.

eta: this post now has a follow-up here about the benefits and costs of shaming people for their harmful choices

[olderthannetfic]

Thank you for your explanation for the skin-color-as-food-description thing! (also I apologize to all olives for assuming them mostly green ;) ) Are there any good resources/tips on writing a diverse cast without falling into the old stereotypes/food-descriptors/more-yikes-words-that-are-yikes? I guess there are probably a lot more pitfalls to this I really want to avoid in the future.

--

I accept your groveling, olive besmircher! ;P

There are guides...

As a white American, I have found it useful to at least peruse them to familiarize myself with things I might not have realized are cliches and red flags. And the reason I have found them useful is that I am a white American, the typical target audience of such guides.

Writingwithcolor, on tumblr, is a classic example of guides produced by fandom.

The thing is, a lot of fans who are from outside of a US context find these guides really... err... misguided. They feel they center the experiences of diaspora in a few countries (like the US, UK, and Canada) over the experiences of people in the home country. They feel they're too One Right Way or too obviously aimed at white people. Many people find them too enmeshed in a US-centric POC framework for dividing identities into categories as opposed to how identity would be seen in even Europe or Australia or New Zealand, never mind various parts of Asia or Africa.

So I'm not saying don't read them. Absolutely. If you want a guide, go read all of the many posts on writingwithcolor. Go find other guides.

But you're not going to find a magic bullet that fixes this.

I would personally focus more on not being an asshat in your own context than on pleasing the nitpicking Americans who might find your fanfic and find it problematique for stupid reasons. What ethnic minorities exist where you are? What do they think about writing cliches? And not just the loudest bloggers: what do people you run into in your actual life think? What do writers from your location think?

There's really no substitute for having a varied friend group and talking to them, but life experience and reading widely are helpful too.

There's no substitute for specificity either. Are you writing Sam Wilson or are you writing BTS? Are you writing something completely original? Is it set in the real world or is it fantasy?

If you want to write African Americans or some specific group not near you, go explore the rich history of literature from this group. Maybe for some groups, there isn't much to find, but black people in the US have produced a fuckton of art about their own experiences, and so have many other groups. Go consume it if you're interested.

Recognize that a very specific niche of highly online people who share the same politics isn't going to give you a robust view of an entire group. Sam Wilson is probably considerably more conservative and traditional than a lot of black bloggers in fandom and considerably less concerned with minutia of word choice given that he's a military guy who has made it through a whole career of other military guys. That doesn't mean he agrees with white US conservatives though or even that he's what we might call conservative overall. Ditto Nile Freeman from The Old Guard. Meanwhile, Peter Grant from Rivers of London is likely going to have far more leftist economic views, less of a connection to Christianity, and certainly a far stronger connection to an immigrant experience.

It's more important to learn enough to write something you know isn't offensive drivel than it is to listen to each and every hater you encounter. Those queer teenagers wailing about "the q slur" have equivalents in any demographic. Beware giving too much weight to this sort of person's views.

But that said, I don't think you need to wallow in research until the end of time. It is far more important to try in good faith than to fear getting something wrong.

Someone might yell at you, and that sucks, but if you're more afraid of that than of making boring art about only one kind of character, you're focused on the wrong thing. If you have basic confidence in your own intentions and general knowledge, you can shrug off the most mean-spirited or petty critiques and are better able to listen to the more relevant ones.

If you just want a list of words that are slurs, that's relatively easy. Writing something that sensitively and properly represents any group is harder, even if you're a group member yourself, and a lot of it comes down to writing skill.

There is no magic bullet.

[thundergrace]

I do wish people found more to say about Nile than that she was "a badass".

Black women are still too often written as very aggressive, angry or hard and if you see one in an action film you'd certainly expect to find this character build there but for fucking once we didn't get that and dammit that deserves acknowledgement.

Nile was a marine and then she became an immortal but what she was not at any point was violent. She wasn't even at peace with killing the man who killed her. She didn't think Andy was cool or "badass" for killing the entire strike team at the hideout, she thought she was damaged somewhere in her soul for that, that scared her and she said she didn't want to do that or became that.

She's only 26. Like Andy said, she's a baby. She's the most vulnerable. She needs guidance. She's learning to trust these new people. She loses her family. She's the person whose life is completely turned upside down. She's scared and confused. But she does become a warrior. She becomes the savior by the climax of the film, SHE'S the hero who barges in solo after the team and even the one to kill Merrick. Not that killing makes her a warrior, I think the message of the film is that surviving makes you a warrior. And accepting the responsibility of taking some people out of history and protecting others makes these people heroes.

Nile Freeman is a multilayered character and I hope to see some deeper thoughts on her at some point. Everyone is acknowledging the importance of a black female co-lead in the movie but it's like... did y'all actually pay attention to her? She really has most of the major beats in the film next to Andy. It's a real leading role. It's important.

I promise I only have like 16 more Old Guard posts then I'm done!

Note: This post is from like two days after the movie came out. While there were already many think pieces and meta on all other characters, there were few thoughts on Nile. I'm happy to say that has since changed. @staff PLEASE TIMESTAMP POSTS!