#me; a known sucker for mentor figures and mentor-pupil friendships: gets invested in these two

[philcoulsonismyhero]

I Should be sleeping, but unfortunately I finished relistening to Moon Over Soho again earlier after I finished Amongst Our Weapons again the other day and decided to just loop back around, and I continue to be Deeply not normal about Thomas Nightingale.

2396 names of wizards who died in WWII and he personally carved every single one of them into the remembrance wall at Casterbrook. 3 out of 5 of every military aged wizard in Britain died and the rest of them gave up the craft due to injury and/or trauma, but he persisted, alone. He started aging backwards in his 70s but stopped at the approximate age he was during the war. He still remembers how and where all of his friends died. "Some days, it seems so long ago, and some days..."

I keep thinking of the DS9 pilot and the Prophets bringing Sisko back to his wife's death over and over again because "you exist here". Nightingale still exists in the war. And then Peter comes along and drags him into the 21st century and refuses to let him stay wallowing in his grief and spots Exactly all the ways in which he's broken and needs someone to keep the cracks from widening. Peter’s mum says what would one more killing be to a man with blood on his hands, and Peter thinks of the strain he's seen in Nightingale and decides no, no more, there's Always Another Way. For moral and ethical reasons, but also because Nightingale has been damaged enough. And it started when he put his foot down over the jazz vampires and threw 'what did all your friends die for?' in Nightingale's face.

I am. So very Not Normal about them in general and about that conversation in particular

#rivers of london #moon over soho #amongst our weapons #thomas nightingale #peter grant #personal stuff #me; a known sucker for mentor figures and mentor-pupil friendships: gets invested in these two #absolutely no one: is surprised