#tog comics version

[mer1099]

Nicolò di Genova, crusades era & circa 1200

[shatterthefragments]

Thank you @ongreenergrasses for the tag!!

RULES: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

(I am literally making this list rn in my notes app bc I uh. Don’t always have wip lists 🤷🏻)

-Nazareth trans allegory comic [sleep token]

-Mermaid for merMay! (Needs ink+colour!)

-Comic version of creating awl together [tog]

-Sequel to/next part of creating awl together [tog]

-Food [tog] (I have a draft!) I am still thinking of this and you @shadowen !!

-Portrait I owe 爸爸

-Quilt ideas!

-I guess something about tentacles?

-The Magnum Opus of all my feelings ( and it’s much more reasonable component of:

-> “hey Shatters, maybe just record ONE song first before committing to a multiphase project spanning your life) (chances are I’ll just either take snippets I’ve written and actually FINISH a song or rewrite idk yet like. I like to think I’m maybe a better writer than I was in middle and high school)

Tagging: @hookedhobbies @a-s-levynn @thejawsoffate @bubacorn @eepymonstrr @huntingteeth @xticklemeemox @ghxstly-death @undekaying if you want to :) and of course anybody who sees this and wants to play too ✨

[gaal-dornick]

Yeah, the kids angle is very important, and that movie filmed back in 2021, so it's def been a while (but at the same time i'm like... TOG is a movie about immortals who can't age; they need to hurry up with this lmao)... one thing I noticed when looking up The Mothership, is that it only had a budget of like $30-40 million -- if Italian media's reporting is correct, TOG 2's budget was over $100 million. so, idk at what point they're just going to cut their losses. :/

oh age doesn't matter much for adult actors in my opinion, i can suspend my disbelief while they do their work. we gotta remember we don't even have a third part of the comics to this day, so unless they wanna depart from it completely (would you write two completely different versions of the same thing greg?), we're very far off from even thinking about a third. TOG's budget is alleged so far, but yeah, it's pretty higher than this other movie's. let's see, netflix sinks a lot of money into stuff no one watches, maybe the reasons for this move were more practical than anything else ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[lostpirateinwonderland]

Hello and Welcome to the Tea Party! ☕️🫖

As stated in the mini bio, I’m 1/2 American, 1/2 Italian (si, parlo tutte due lingue ☺️). I’m also a huge Disney and Marvel fan. I used to be a huge super fan of Star Wars, but I left the fandom after Disney bought it. I still love most of it and celebrate May 4th, I’m just not active in it. I’m a big history buff, preferring to stay in the 1600-1790’s, mainly the Golden Age of Piracy and the American Revolution. I LOVE dragons (kind of an unhealthy obsession at this point, but you can never have enough dragons in my opinion) and am a big fan of the Eragon series. Recently, I’ve started to get more into book fandoms such as ACOTAR, TOG, FBAA, Fourth Wing, etc., so you might see me lurking over in those areas. However, I tend to bounce back and forth between different fandoms depending on my mood. I am over 21, but I would prefer not to disclose my age.

To clarify, I’m not a fanfic writer, but I am an avid fanfic reader. Please do not expect me to post stuff, I’m mostly using this account to be able to connect better with the fandoms that I am a part of.

As mean as it sounds, I will block people who have nothing more than a profile pic because of the scary amount of bots there are on this platform. It’s nothing personal, I’m just watching out for my own safety. Hence why I’m posting this; to let authors know that I am real and I unfortunately do exist in the real world (please send me to a different universe, I beg you 🙏🏽).

That being said, here are the fandoms that I am a part of with the characters that I will read fanfics for (most of them being character x reader format because I apparently have no self control 🤷🏽‍♀️):

Marvel

Bucky Barnes/Winter Solider

Namor (both comic and MCU versions)

Loki Laufeyson/Odinson

Warren Worthington III/Angel

Piotr Rasputin/Colossus

Pirates of the Caribbean

Commodore James Norrington

Lieutenant Theodore Groves

Lieutenant Andrew Gillette (yes, I’m using that version of his name, because I prefer it)

Turn: Washington’s Spies

Major Ben Tallmadge

Major John Andre

Once Upon A Time

Jefferson/Mad Hatter

A Court of Thorns and Roses

Lucien Vanserra

Azriel

Eris Vanserra

Here are movies, fandoms, and characters that I absolutely love, but don’t read fanfics for:

Disney

Treasure Planet

Robin Hood

Peter Pan—Captain Hook is one of my absolute favorites

Alice in Wonderland—The Mad Hatter being my favorite, but the Mad Tea Party scene is my absolute favorite 💙🫖☕️

Hercules

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Zorro—The Guy Williams version is my absolute favorite. I always love seeing fellow Italians (in this case, fellow Ito-Americans) on the silver screen. 💚🤍❤️

Others

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang—I will not accept critiques about this beautiful and uplifting masterpiece. Grandpa Potts is my favorite 🤣

James Bond—I’m here for Q. Desmond Llewyn was absolutely brilliant (fun fact, he was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as well); I totally don’t recite the line about the grenade pen all the time. Ben Whishaw is at a very close second.

Austenland—Fantastic. I watch this every time I need a good laugh.

The Eragon Book Series—I refuse to watch the movie, as this is my all time favorite book and book series and I don’t want to ruin it for myself. Favorite characters being Angela, Murtagh, Sapphira, Solembum, Eragon, and Brom. I will occasionally read Murtagh x reader fanfics, but there are so few of them, that I read most of them years ago.

Harry Potter Series—Both books and movies. I also like the Fantastic Beast series. I’m going to be blatantly honest; I’m here for the dragons and Charlie Weasley. Don’t get me wrong, I love the stories and what not, but I have a giant fangirl moment every time he’s mentioned, in the stories, and/or I see dragons. I’m kind of like Lampie from Pete’s Dragon, except I get super excited about dragons, as they are my absolute favorites. 🐉

Hook—As stated with Peter Pan, one of my favorite characters of all time is Captain Hook. Dustin Hoffman was absolutely brilliant in this and I love the idea of Captain Hook facing an adult version of Peter. One of my favorite adaptations of the classic story. 🥹

The American Revolution—Not any film or story in particular, but I do love learning anything I can about the conflict and love the period. The exception to this is the TURN: Washington’s Spies series; I LOVE this series. Definitely my favorite TV series of all time. Hamilton the musical is fine, however I don’t care for Hamilton as a person, so it’s weird for me watching an entire production about him (he was pretty nasty in real life). King George was the only thing I really liked about it. Banastre Tarleton and the Culper Spy Ring are the two big things that I will devour information about the most as they are the most fascinating for me. If it weren’t for the fact that I am broke and don’t have time, I would absolutely join the re-enacting community for this time period.

The Golden Age of Piracy—As stated, I am a big fan of this time period. It spans a pretty long time time (most sources put it between 1690-1720, but there are many events that led to this giant boom and they started long before then), but I my favorite pirate/privateer out of all of them is Benjamin Hornigold. He was such a fascinating person and out of all of the pirates that are most famous, I would argue that he stuck to his moral code the most. Otherwise, same as American Rev; besides Pirates of the Caribbean, I don’t have any stories or films in particular. Black Sails is ok and Our Flag Means Death is hilarious, but I have a problem where I start screaming at the screen about how inaccurate it is (mostly with Black Sails. Out of all the things you could mess up, it shouldn’t be that hard to not mess up one of the biggest things in history that is associated with the start of the rise of piracy in the Caribbean, but apparently I’ve been proved incorrectly) 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Thank you for reading my long, extensive bio about myself. Feel free to tag me in any of the works listed above, I am pretty good at reading it, liking it, and placing a comment within a timely manner.

In the mean time, I hope you enjoyed your tea! 🫖☕️ Please pass me the McVities before you leave. 🍪

[etrnl-blu-news]

TOG Graphic Novel: Amendment!

What is up my cats and other creatures alike, I'm back with my silly little graphic novel update following the release of the storefront! Theres a LOT more to cover than I was initally expecting, so I'll group content by the seperate tiers available for purchase.

TIER 1:

Tier 1 just includes a hardcover copy of the book, with no bonus content. But, I'll include all the general information about the book here!

The book will be around 112 pages! So, pretty decently sized, I'd say. The Spiritbox Eternal Blue graphic novel is 144 pages, for reference. (I was wrong about it being bigger than Eternal Blue T-T) So I'd predict maybe about 1-2 hours of reading for someone who reads at an average speed (but a lot slower if you stare at the pictures for a long time like me...)

The book won't ship out until the week of November 20th, 2024. Sumerian Comics is an American-based company: So for our UK/European friends, I'd imagine that books begin to arrive from November 26th - November 30th. Maybe a little earlier. For the US, I'd predict anywhere from November 23rd - November 26th. As for Australia and the rest of the world, I'm not to familiar with those systems, but hopefully they'll arrive pretty soon and/or close to Euro/UK!

Last thing of note: This book is fucking big as hell. For those who don't know, or aren't familiar with metric, 7.25x11 inch page size is pretty big. That's just under a standard letter-size paper in terms of width. And that means the actual cover of the book is going to be even bigger. What this book lacks in page numbers, it will probably make up for in the amount of panels on each page.

There's no synopsis of the book available at this time, but we'll get to the story aspect in later tiers...

TIER 2:

Tier 2 comes with the book, a slipcase (meant to protect the book from dust and other things), an art print, and a download card for a PDF digital version of the book.

The Slipcase: The slipcase features specifically an image of a dagger, potentially a sacrifical one based on how ornate it is. It looks like there might be some TMBTE script on the handle, but due to the overall quality of the image I can't quite tell. This will probably be a key item within the whole of the story.

The Print: This print seems to be a lot of Eden's vegetation, in the shape of another deer. This one seems to look a little different from the other one from the cover. One thing I did notice is that the flower in the middle of it's head was the same one from the inital preview given to us on the TOG page. Not sure how it connects yet, but an important thing to note nonetheless.

HQ Download: Cartoon Vessel sleep token coming your way this november, get excited

TIER 3:

Tier 3 was limited to 350 Units and contained the book, the slipcase, 2 additinal art prints, the PDF download, an ADDITIONAL screenplay book, and TOG "Surface Team" Notebook.

Surface Team Notes: I believe the "surface team" may just be the soldiers from the preview! For whatever reason, they seem to be exploring the area of Eden and trying thier best to understand exactly what this place is... (also based off the file, which I'll get more into in a bit.)

The Screenplay book: IN ADDITION to the graphic novel, there's also a SCREENPLAY ADAPTATION!!! Movie nerds unite... I'm so excited. The website also doesn't list who adapted the book into screenplay format... I have a sneaking suspicion it may be a guy whose name rhyme with Dessel. After all, At least some of this story probably had to be his idea. Also on the cover, there's some soldier (presumably surrounded by followers of Sleep) being... ritualistically transformed. Or killed. Not quite clear yet. But another sneak peek, nonetheless...

TIER 4:

Tier 4 contains the book, a slipcase variant, 3 art prints, a digital PDF download, The screenplay book, The surface team notes, a "challenge coin", a temporary tattoo, and "notes from the director".

The temporary tattoo and the challenge coin are kinda nothingburgers right now. I'll come back to those at a later day if they for some reason become relevant. I doubt they will.

Notes From The Director: This is by far one of the most intriguing and detailed pieces of media that's been revealed from the collection so far. What we know for sure, is that this file is created by someone called "The Director." most likely whoever has sent out the surface team out to Eden. the date says it was created 15-370 days "post-cataclysm". A cataclysm is defined as "a large-scale and violent event in the natural world." So whatever the surface team is evaluating has definently caused a lot of trouble in the real world.

It won't let me post the transcription, but there are a few available on here as well as reddit and a few other social media sites. The transcriptions are all a bit different due to the quality but you should be able to get the main gist of it. Ok so basically chat this alone resets basically our entire understanding and grasp on the Sleep Token lore. this is absolute insanity. What the hell is going on. I take back what I said earlier about this book probably not giving us major lore pieces. Because if you really start thinking about it the book isnt even out yet and we already have ALL of this information. Vessel sleep token I applaud you Anyway, solid thories i have so far;

the "lunar anomaly" is probably MOST DEFINENTLY the moon from the TMBTE cover art. Which means the alien planet they're navigating is probably Eden.

So Eden is indeed a physical place and not just a dream world. That being said, a place that has been terrorizing earth for about a year in-universe. And I have a sneaking suspicion Sleep has everything to do with it.

Sleep's followers mostly reside on Eden, based on the cover for the screenplay book. And Imagine Vessel is the leader of them, (with II, III, and IV being his right hand men) seeing as he directly communicates with Sleep

Following the events of TMBTE he is probably still not a very willing leader

I haven't a damn clue how the music connects to all of this, beyond that btw

TMBTE characters... curious to see how they come into play.

All of this and more will probably be answered come November. For now, I'm gonna do a total reevaluation of the Sleep Token content we have. Bye guys

[wingodex]

i really like the scene where booker reveals his reasons for the betrayal and how heartbreaking it is and the way that andy looks at him with so much empathy and understanding, and it really speaks to the depth of their connection and relationship but there's just something so funny to me about andy and booker in the middle of the desert, yelling at each other and shooting each other with handguns. the sheer dumbassery of it all

[inheritorofmemories-archive]

So I went and checked the tv tropes page for the old guard and this is the first thing I see

[avelera]

Headcanon: Why exactly do the The Old Guard go by such American versions of their original names?

So I’ve been thinking about a Watsonian explanation for why Joe, Nicky, Andy, and Booker go by English-nicknames and not just English but such American versions of their names. I mean, seriously, calling the French guy whose name is Le Livre Booker? That’s some American dumbassery right there, an English person would have come up with about a 1,000 different insults to toss at a French guy other than just mischievously translating his name. 

(The Doylist explanation for all this is, obviously, the writer and director are Americans. ANYWAY.)

But I finally figured it out! They must have picked up those versions of their names during the American Civil War, where we see them prominently pictured in the photo on Copley’s desk.

See, while “The Old Guard” wonderfully, blessedly ignores the U.S. entirely for most of the story (other than it being where Nile is from and the military she served with), the OG Old Guard members clearly have some experience there, the first thing they say to Copley is that a company man for the CIA would usually be American, not a Brit, showing some understanding of the inner workings of the American intelligence apparatus. 

"Sure, Avelera,” you might say. “Clearly they’re familiar with the US, they’re mercenaries, but they seem familiar with everywhere on Earth. That doesn’t explain the Americanization of their names.” Aha! But this brings me to another theory, which requires a slight digression: 

The immortality of the Old Guard is very interesting, it’s pretty much only fast healing, which arrests them at the age they died. There’s no super strength, no accelerated metabolism (they’re effected by knock-out gas just as much and for just as long as anyone else), they still need to eat and sleep, and most importantly there’s no improved memory. This is really key because it means that for all their bragging about how Nile and Booker are babies, the older Old Guard like Andy, Joe, and Nicky still experience time the way normal people do, complete with forgetting things because they’ve lived through so goddamn much. 

This is pretty huge because it means, unlike some supernatural immortals in fiction, if they spend a century somewhere they’re going to feel it. And in my opinion, this is the Watsonian rationale for why they don’t really have very distinct accents for their original languages and they’re comfortable with changing up their names, you would too if every decade actually felt like a decade and you had over 100 of them.

But back to the Civil War. If Booker died in 1812 fighting for Napoleon, and his son died in his 40s that means (ding ding ding!) that shot of the Old Guard in the Civil War in the 1860s would have been soon after the last of Booker’s family died, perhaps immediately after depending on how old his sons were when he died or if they were fathered after he became immortal. Perhaps the Old Guard didn’t just go to America to fight in this war for kicks or for a good cause (if they were on the Union side). Rather, they might have been trying to give Booker a change of scenery after the trauma he’d been through, maybe to the point of staying away from Europe for an extended period of time. 

And you know what those nicknames of theirs sound like? The kind of nicknames that the dumbass American soldiers they met while they were there would give them. Yusuf becomes “Joe”, Nicolò becomes “Nicky”, Andromache pretends to be a particularly clean-shaven, stunningly attractive man and becomes “Andy” and Sebastian LeLivre becomes “Booker”. Now add a few more decades onto that of kicking around in the U.S., then have English become the most common second language in the world in the 20th c., and suddenly those names become comfortable and hey, maybe in 100 years you’ll pick up a new version of your name to match the times, just to keep things fresh. 

[mer1099]

They come back to us in April and I can't wait to see my comics boys again!

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[snipergirl21]

It’s Dec 31, 2021 for me already, and I wanted to wish everyone reading this a very Happy New Year ahead. Here’s hoping that 2022 will be the best year ever (and for those of us in The Old Guard fandom, it already is, since they’ll be working on the sequel!). I hope you’ll join me and my favourite TOG couple Joe and Nicky in a toast to the future! 🥂

(I commissioned this beautiful piece of art from the beautiful Mer, who draws the softest comicsverse Joe and Nicky ever. Please go show her some love! Thank you, Mer, for gracing us with our short king and his ginger tree, and for making me see the comics versions in a whole new light!)

[hachinana87]

Are you selling a TOG doujinshi? If yes, where can I get it?

1. My dojinshi online store is here

2. These are only Japanese books

3. If you are not in japan, you should use buyee or tenso.com service

4. Tog dojinshi is only one title left, and all comics are already on tumblr (i just put it together in print…and its Japanese version!)

[maghrib-genova]

Re reading the comic and trying to find out who is taller between Joe and Nicky with Andrew and Jacopo version.

Exhibit A (only when they stand side by side because sitting is tricky to guess who is taller 😬). In this panel it looks like Nicky was slightly taller 🤔

Exhibit B, In this one when they were dancing in the moonlight. It looks like Joe was the taller one, especially counting that he has his legs further apart imagine if he stand straight, he could be much taller than Nicky 🤔 I can't make up my mind. 🤣

And then height inspection turn to something else. I saw Nicky's leg, he has one of his leg up when they were dancing 🤣 so cute. And it reminds me of the art in the Cover.

Turn out Jacopo had hinted about this dancing scene on the cover! The art in the background with two men dancing on the wall behind where Joe x Nicky sat.

Mr Jacopo literally subtly telling us what to look forward to in the comic. The freaking dance under the moonlight. I love this little Easter egg when re reading the comic again.

And we pretty much already saw Lulu too. Didn't think she would be an important character in the story. She was not just some background singer to make the cover look nice 😅 I can appreciate the cover even more after reading the comic and know the context.

There she was Lulu (though she didn't have her mole under her eye in the cover but there was no mistaken that it was her based on the overall style)

She is so badass .

I bet she is around 60 y.o already (or older? 65?) in this one because when she met Joe x Nicky she look so young here (If she was 20 y.o in this one then Lulu already 65. Because 45 years have passed since their first encounter. Pick your guess.)

She is so precious. I wonder who could play this role if they include lulu in tog 2. 60+ years old badass transwoman 👏🏾👏🏾

[wickedpact]

i really really hope they didn't introduce yitzhak simply to compete w this (which sounds kinda like a dudebro version of TOG, tbh): twitter[.]com/CultureCrave/status/1445480936972292102 (at least comic yitzhak seems somft...)

x

no but joking aside im like.. 98.5% sure that the whole reason yitzhak was added to the franchise is just bc greg wanted a jewish immortal

[akimbokimono]

Less than one week til Tales Through Time #2! Like a lot of us, I really don’t like Leandro Fernandez’s art, particularly when it comes to Nicky and Joe, so instead of the cover for #2, I’m using the John Gallagher variant cover for TTT #1 here.


I haven’t really seen this discussed so I wanted to drop it here. For folks who don’t regularly read comic books, I can’t stress enough what a BFD it is to get Kelly Sue DeConnick, Matt Fraction, and Brian Michael Bendis for this project. DeConnick was responsible for the DCU version of Captain Marvel that made to the big screen and the amazing (I highly recommend it) Bitch Planet. Netflix’s Jessica Jones was based on Bendis’s series Alias. Matt Fraction has written for X-Men, Hawkeye, and Iron Man for Marvel and created well-received indie titles like Sex Criminals (not what it sounds like, I promise) and ODY-C. (He also happens to be married to Kelly Sue.)


As an aside, Valentine DeLandro, the artist illustrating DeConnick’s story for TTT#2, co-created Bitch Planet with DeConnick and has worked with all of the big names in comics: Marvel, DC, IDW, Dark Horse. I like his illustration style; I have confidence he’ll do justice to our crew.


Greg Rucka is well known, too. His series prior to TOG, Lazarus, did well. But I’d say DeConnick, Fraction, and Bendis are all even bigger names in the industry. I guarantee you that their involvement on this project has not gone unnoticed by Netflix in terms of solidifying the perceived marketability of TOG sequels and possibly a series.

[isabellehemlock]

🏆

Thanks Bee for sending me a reader ask 😍

🏆 "What do you wish more authors in your fandom would write about?"

This is such a loaded question that could go multiple ways lol . . . But I think the reader asks are looking for subject matter, so let's head there 😅

Though before I do, allow me to say, that though there are some tropes that I enjoy, or fics I'll blog about because I really resonated with something, I don't think my personal opinion should really sway any author in any way. It's one thing to share resource posts about a subject matter, and another to inadvertently imply my personal opinion is like the standard to aim for.

Also, this got way longer, and heavier than I ever thought it would so quick cw warning for themes of religious LGBT+ character representation and (non descriptive references to) spiritual abuse mentioned below.

Okay all that being said . . . Honestly? I, and many other faithful people (of any religion, not just Christians) are on a spectrum that is not heteronormative. It can feel like a fairly niche group to toe the line between two very specific identities and some of my greatest joys have been to write and read about characters like me (I know, I know, self projection to the extreme). If you ever wanted to read a post that spoke to me on a core level about how exhausting it can feel to navigate those two things (though it ends on a hopeful note), please check out this one that I keep on my phone.

I've been truly blessed to have had opportunities of discussions with other people of faiths in this fandom about LGBT+ issues, but some of us would love to see more representation for both religious and LGBT+ affirming, because it can feel so miniscule. But we exist, and even the smallest possibility to see that in fandom spaces and across platforms - where it can echo our real life experiences - just yeah, it really does mean something to see it.

You weren't there last November, Bee, but @mostlyimmortal commissioned the header in my blog for me for my birthday - it's Joe and Nicky in the helicopter scene, praying together and holding prayer beads of their respective faiths. I literally started crying when I saw it and recorded a video I shared bc my hands were too shaky to type it all out. I was a blubbering mess trying to express my thanks because I was seeing something so deeply personal that spoke to a younger version of myself. It felt both healing and like a relief. I love that picture.

Of course the other half of all of this is the very real and hard truth that religious trauma exists - in fact I've personally experienced spiritual abuse in relation to my sexuality as well - and the last thing I would ever want someone to do is to read something that involves a religious LGBT+ character and have a triggering response - it's why I over tag my fics. And I definitly don't mean to come across as suggesting anyone should make themselves push through a discomfort and write something that would bring pain (writing should bring joy, or healing, but never pain). Same goes for reading, I would never want anyone to pressure themselves to read my fics and experience anything but either joy, or healing, or both.

And really, the fact is within this fandom, we have no concrete evidence that any of the characters are religious (maybe Nicky with the script leak and some visual comic references but again maybe) and gosh, my brain is tired, I forgot about Nile and her cross and her "not my God" line (thanks Bee). So frankly a fic where they are not religious, or used to be but now hate all things religious is no less valid of a take. Just want to be super clear about that.

So long it's tagged accordingly so each reader can make an informed decision about whether to read it or not, I'll admit I'd love to see more of the TOG characters as religious LGBT+, and I know I'm not the only one 😊