The Old Guard

The Old Guard is 2020 film, based on a comic book series of the same name. The Old Guard follows a group of immortal mercenaries, as they struggle to maintain their anonymity in the modern world. 
The film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 81% Certified Fresh. It became one of Netflix's "most viewed original films, and director Gina Prince-Bythewood made history as the first Black woman to helm a major comic book film." Netflix's The Old Guard director reveals how the movie made history 
The sequel directed by Victoria Mahoney was officially reported on August 26, 2021 on Netflix's Twitter official account.
==Canon==
Led by a warrior named Andy, a covert group of tight-knit mercenaries with a mysterious inability to die have fought to protect the mortal world for centuries. But when the team is recruited to take on an emergency mission and their extraordinary abilities are suddenly exposed, it's up to Andy and Nile, the newest soldier to join their ranks, to help the group eliminate the threat of those who seek to replicate and monetize their power by any means necessary.
===Immortal Characters===
* Andy (Andromache of Scythia)
* Nile Freeman 
* Joe (Yusuf Al-Kaysani)
* Nicky (Nicolo di Genova) 
* Booker (Sebastien le Livre) 
* Quynh (Noriko)
* Lykon
===Non-Immortal Characters===
* James Copley, a former CIA agent born in Boston whose family moved to London when he was four years old, resulting in him having a strong English accent. The team worked with him previously.
* Dizzy Ali, a soldier in Nile's company
* Jordan "Jay" Worley (?), a soldier in Nile's company
* Steven Merrick, CEO of Merrick Pharmaceuticals
* Dr. Meta Kozak, lead scientist for Merrick Pharmaceuticals
* Keane, head of security for Steven Merrick
* Celeste, the clerk in the pharmacy
===Differences Between Comic and Film ===
Spoiler warning: 5 major differences between 'The Old Guard' movie and comics
==Fandom==
The fandom exploded in popularity following the release of the Netflix film adaptation on July 10, 2020. While the comic series had a small handful of works on AO3 prior to that date, the number grew quickly in the weeks following. By August 2, the fandom tag hit 1000 works. By August 24, there were 2017 works in the tag. By August 27, there were 2156 works in the tag. 
In addition, some works are being published only on certain platforms, such as Tumblr, and not reposted elsewhere. Discord servers and channels on multiple other servers added to the growing list of outlets for fannish production and discussion.
Many fans reported being initially drawn in by the promotional trailers and images of Charlize Theron wielding an axe, continuing her recent trend of starring in intense action-oriented films. However, a common reaction seemed to be genuine surprise at the diversity of the cast, the emotional depth of the relationships, and the subversion of tropes like Bury Your Gays.
The dominant pairing in this fandom is the canon slash pairing of Joe/Nicky. Femslash works pairing Andy/Quynh and Andy/Nile Freeman also appear. Other pairings/relationships include Nile/Joe/Nicky, Nile/Booker, and various permutations of the team with each other as well as or with original characters.
As what commonly happens in fandoms with deep historical ties, an explosion of history references, sources, and debate have been shared and explored. See the #Fandom Practices.
===Common Tropes & Storylines===
* Pre-canon/Backstory works
** Meet Cute or Meet Ugly stories: precisely how Joe and Nicky met, especially Enemies to Lovers, with a small number of works focusing on how Joe and Nicky met Andy, Quynh, and/or Lykon
** Immortal characters as muses for Renaissance artists
** What Happened in Malta
* Post-canon works/Futurefic
* Found Family
* Non-Immortal AUs
* Band AUs, based on a line Nile says in the trailer: "An army of five? Shit, let's start a band."
* High school AUs/College AUs
* Gratuitous Foreign Language
* Dream mechanics - how and why the Old Guard members dream of each other. In a small number of works this can extend to shared dreams.
===The Old Guard AU===
The Old Guard has also inspired fusion fanworks. An Old Guard fusion is an AU that takes characters from a different source material and makes them immortal. In some cases, the canonical death of a character is a jumping off point, with the character resurrected and discovering their immortality. In this way, some Old Guard AU works resemble fix-it fics. However, not all of these works use canonically dead characters as their inspiration.
* Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion works on AO3
===Shipping===
The fandom's shipping practices overwhelmingly focus on the canon couple: Joe/Nicky. 
As of 12 September 2020, the pairing tag accounted for about 2050 works out of a total of about 2700 (although some overlap between movie and comics fandom makes this count somewhat inaccurate.)
Other pairings include: 
* Andy/Quynh: 288 uses, often as a side or background pairing;
* Booker/Joe/Nicky: 105 uses
* Andy/Nile Freeman: 65 uses, also often as background to Joe/Nicky (see Pair the Spares)
* Nile/Booker: 268 uses, also called Book of Nile
===Fandom Practices=== 
Some fannish activity of note has taken place around the creation of collaborative resource documents. According to its creator's post, the stated intent of The Old Guard Resource Hub (accessed August 24, 2020) (archive link) is to provide access to fannish analysis of the characters, or to link to online or print resources which could help fans with historical context. The Resource Hub Google Doc was created by with-my-murder-flute on August 13, 2020, and by August 18th had expanded from 7 pages to 17 , with collaborative write-ups under way for each of the principal characters. The document also had a section, arranged chronologically, for contributors to provide resources around historical events mentioned in canon. As of September 2020, the document was still being added to and circulated on Tumblr periodically. Additionally, sufficient fans had heard of the Resource Hub to recommend it to other users newer to the fandom, many of whom were looking for resources about character backstories or the timeline of key events the Guard had been involved in, extrapolated from screenshots of Copley's board in the film. 
Another document was created earlier on July 23, 2020 and titled The Old Guard master doc (accessed August 24, 2020); contributors suggested changes in the document, and the document was mediated directly by its creator himbojoenicky (formerly brucewaynery). The document as of August 24, 2020 gave character profiles based on their presentation in canon, as well as a general timeline of key events in the Old Guards' history.
Other fannish practices included the hosting of events such as Fests or Challenges. Additionally, an interest form for a fanzine circulated on Tumblr starting on September 15th, with a close date of September 30th 2020. The organizer requested information related to possible contributors of writing and art, as well as logistics around the zine such as price point. The Zine opened for artist and writer applications in October with a close date of October 31, 2020 noted in the application form. On February 1st, 2021, a Kickstarter launched to support the printing of Epoch: An Historical Old Guard Fan Zine.
====Events and Challenges====
* Nile Freeman Week 
* The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight
* The Old Guard Big Bang 2021
* The Old Guard Mini Bang
* The Old Guard Gift Exchange
* Andromaquynh Secret Santa
* The Old Guard Fic Exchange (Feb-April 2021) & The Old Guard Reverse Bang (June-Oct 2021) hosted by The Old Guard Events
==Discussions and Controversies==
A number of meta issues are being explored and debated in the Old Guard fandom, especially around the themes of race and ethnicity, religion and misogyny. In some cases, fans are trying to counteract inaccurate and/or harmful elements which exist in the comics canon. 
Examples include: 
* The lgbtmazight "racefaking" scandal, in which a prominent meta writer (some of whose writings were included in the following meta recap and should therefore be taken with caution) was accused of misrepresenting her ethnicity, as well as her background/social class, in order to give legitimacy to her posts. 
* The historical (in)accuracies of fanworks: 
** Inclusion of stereotypical Crusader imagery or derogatory ethnic terms in fanworks set in medieval times by sixthlight on Tumblr A historical overview of the term Saracen and its implications: a primer for the TOG fandom by figure8/lgbtmazight 
** Depiction of homophobia and sexual politics 
* Issues relating to Joe's race, ethnicity, name and religion, often in the context of the perceived preferred fanon dynamics of the Joe/Nicky relationshipSome Points by ElephantOfAfrica 
* The fandom's (typical) focus on the slash pairing over works centering the female characters
* The fandom's (typical) tendancy to try and focus on/sympathize with/redeem the (ostensibly straight) white "villain" character in the person of Booker 
* The lack of critical analysis in canon and fanon re:Nile's past as a US Marine deployed in Afghanistan 
* The differences between criticism of fanworks and fandom policing, as evidenced through a summary of discourse provided by mewbotz with additions by shadowhannibad and lazaefair . This conversation was notable in that some of the users who were involved in a discourse thread took time to clarify their points of view with each other and defuse a conflict.
* Fandom tendencies to treat POC opinions as monolithic, although why this is considered problematic depends on the individual 
* Concerns that some fans are using discourse or imbroglios within the fandom as an excuse to label fannish creations “problematic” for containing a trope, rather than on the basis of actual content in or attributes of the work See also Top!Joe (trope).
* Differences in readings of canon or word of god statements from the creators
==Example Fanworks==
===Fanart===
* The Old Guard and the New, by christacarpenter
* the old guard crack #847294, by ifprocrastinationwasaperson, based on a post of the same title by rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars
===Fanvids===
* the old guard: a gays only event by samson
===Meta===
* by sixthlight
* meta discussion between neverdancewithforks, lyricfulloflight and fuckyeahisawthat
* by hiskissstillthrillsme
* by Solovei
* Fandom Stats: descriptive statistics of "The Old Guard" works on AO3 by Garonne, created August 17, 2020 with updates added August 20, 2020. This work has 7 chapters: An introduction; growth of the fandom over time; creators' usage of different categories, ratings, and warnings; creators' usage of different characters, pairings, and other freeform tags; reader interaction with different categories and ratings; other fun stuff; and notes.
===Fanfiction===
* Kidnapping for Dummies by Amiril (Joe/Nicky, podfic by XPods)
* Family Dinner by Dadvans (Joe/Nicky)
* in the deep deep down by zoicite (Andy/Quynh)
* so many signs (no compasses) by liadan14 (Joe/Nicky, Joe/Nicky/Booker)
* The god of my idolatry by Petra (Andy/Nile, podfic by ofjustimagine)
* If Never Again, If Every Day by gallifreyburning and takiki16 - a notable ongoing Joe/Nicky fanfic where the authors are playing fic tennis
===Podfic===
* stand up in my holy terrain by growlery (Joe/Nicky, Nile & Nicky)
* Who wins the joy of love by Chani (Joe/Nicky)
* Messengers by greedy_dancer (Joe/Nicky)
* a holy war in the living room by sallysparrow017 (Joe/Nicky)
===Other===
* , an edit by alexmanes
==Archives & Communities==
* The Old Guard Discord
* The Old Guard (comics) works on Ao3
*The Old Guard (movies) works on Ao3
* The Old Guard Resources Collection on AO3 for non-fiction fandom works
*The Old Guard Fic Recs on Tumblr
*The Old Guard Kink Meme on Dreamwidth
*The Old Guard Community on Dreamwidth
==References==
*