Congratulations, I’m CACKLING at this. Omg, the only way this could be better is if a ghost pops up and Nightingale has to deal with it and tour-guide!Peter is VERY suspicious/intrigued.
I’ll go you one better: it turns out that Nightingale is in fact the embodiment of that post about immortals who weren’t really paying attention to major historical events and the fact he corrected Peter on is the one thing he knows that Peter doesn’t.
Peter spends the next few months trying to interrogate him on various things and being told that Nightingale a) was in Sri Lanka b) remembers things but not the thing Peter wants to know and/or c) just wasn’t paying attention. Peter is only slightly mollified by being introduced to some of the older Rivers, because half of them weren’t paying attention either, especially to things that didn’t affect local hydrology.
(I am 90% sure this is true in actual canon but it’s even funnier if knowing historical facts about London is Peter’s job and not just his hobby)
#the thing about this that amuses me most#is that Ben Aaronovitch has been VERY clear#that Peter’s love of architecture and history#is literally just an excuse for him to sprinkle Interesting Facts into the books#and we’re all SORRY THIS IS HIS PERSONALITY NOW (tags via @sixth-light)
Okay never have I rejected a fact from an author more, omg. THIS IS ENTIRELY HIS PERSONALITY, TO THE POINT I AM NOW CONVINCED THAT ON DATE NIGHTS, BEVERLEY WILL PUT ON BAD HISTORICAL DRAMAS SIMPLY TO WIND PETER UP AND WATCH HIM GO. (Peter doesn’t even care that much about the Tudor era and yet whenever Bev puts on an episode of the Tudors he spends the entire episode breaking down all the million of ways it’s wrong, both factually and spiritually. Beverley has no idea how you can “spiritually” get the history wrong but Peter swears up and down that it’s a thing.)
Edit: now that I’ve derailed this post, I love the idea of Peter sitting rapt as one of the Rivers gleefully trash-talks some random historical figure while Nightingale sits there, bemused at how Peter is so into what amounts to gossip that is CENTURIES out of date.
I mean I agree it IS his personality now it just cracks me up that it wasn’t planned as an ~organic part~ of Peter as a character or w/e, it was just convenient for fact-dropping AND NOW THAT’S HOW IT IS, Peter is a giant history nerd and we love him for it.
All my money for Peter and, IDK, Lea exchanging John Maynard Keynes gossip while Nightingale knows “I was THERE and I didn’t know any of this and also why do you CARE”
“If you think he cares about this, you should see how he gets about the Tudors,” says Beverley.
oh god, peter as a history tour guide… now i can’t help but imagine an au where, for x reasons, still-functionally-immortal-nightingale is taking part on one of peter’s tours and accidentally ends up correcting peter on some historical tidbit about whichever building they’re at, so peter’s of course like, “that is very interesting, sir, how did you know that?” and nightingale just goes, “… not by being alive at the time, that’s for sure.”
Published
tora42's nonsensne 