#Military Backstory

[kgreen200]

Background Check by KathyG.

Following the events of the first-season episode, "A Study in Pink", and my most recent Sherlock story, "Given Me Back My Life," Lestrade has to conduct a thorough background check on Dr. John Watson before he can allow him to help Sherlock solve crimes for New Scotland Yard. In the process, he has a discussion with one of John’s ex-army friends, and what he learns about the retired army doctor’s history is most enlightening!  (I've added a third chapter in between Chapter 1 and the chapter that consists of the author's notes, and so the author's notes has become Chapter 3.)

Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade shut down the computer monitor, removed his glasses, leaned back in his desk chair, and stretched his arms above his head. He had just been going over Dr. John Watson’s service record and re-reading his Internet blog, including the comments. In a minute, Dr. Watson’s former army nurse, ex-Sergeant Bill Murray, was going to arrive. He was going to fill Lestrade in on the details that the service record had left out. Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother who worked as a civil servant, was also going to send him all of the info that he had acquired on the retired army doctor.

The grey-haired detective inspector glanced at the half-full coffee mug that sat on his desk. Since little beads of perspiration had begun to form on his forehead, he got up to turn down the thermostat. Upon returning to his desk, Lestrade peered down at his watch. Murray should arrive any moment now. The heater’s soft hum switched off.

Dr. Watson was extremely put out when I told him that I was going to do this, and that Mycroft was going to help me out, Lestrade thought. He shook his head, remembering…

“I have to do this, Dr. Watson,” Lestrade had said patiently. “It’s the rules. I had to do a similar in-depth background check on Sherlock when he first started to work with me, and I had to be just as thorough in the process then as I’ll have to be now.”

John had sighed. “I suppose you do,” he had said. “I don’t like it, because I value my privacy. But I understand that Scotland Yard has its rules, and that you have to obey them.”

Lestrade had clasped John’s arm. “Yes, I do have to. And believe me, I do understand.”…

A knock on the door startled Lestrade out of his reverie. “Come in,” he said.

[brighteuphony]

I love Chiyo- and I kind of headcanon her as a Witch of the Woods (Sands???) archetype- a bitter old woman who has sacrificed too much, experienced and committed more atrocities than anyone can imagine, and who knows the truth about what lies in the hearts of men to live among the villages anymore.

In my AU she's got a pretty dark backstory. Back in time when Villages were just getting established, women weren't allowed to be shinobi in the same capacity as men. There was too much warring and death among the clans to risk women, so they were only ever allowed to serve as spies or medics. (Chiyo started off as a medic).

And like any military/fascist dictatorship, serving the state was more important than anything else- so women who were kunoichi were given missions to steal and return with powerful bloodlines. Even before villages, this was a common fear among clans (which is why so many of them have protective measures and inbreed/arrange matches very carefully).

Chiyo was one such woman, who took a X-rated mission in her youth because she was told it would 'serve her nation'. There was a powerful bloodline whose Kekkei Genkai could harden sand to something akin to Steel- something Suna very desperately wanted.

Chiyo succeeded in her mission, but despite the veneer of 'serving your nation', when she returned, she was considered, in her words, "Just another whore."

Then when her son didn't manifest the bloodline- it was worse, but Chiyo was happy because that meant her son was HERS. (This is when she met Enji, and he saved her son's life at great cost- so Chiyo owes him a blood/life debt.)

Then the war came, and they needed women to fight so now serving the nation meant something different, and Chiyo became a full fledged 'shinobi' and turned her healing towards poison and death- especially when she had to fight the Salamander.

Then she sealed Gaara and that was the atrocity straw that broke the camel's back and she dipped out Suna and retired to an oasis. She's still a healer, but adamantly refuses to serve shinobi.

Once again, thank you so much for these asks and all the support for this AU?

@youngpeacearbiter

[beelxebub]

i totally get why people make the captain a military man or ex-military in modern AUs because it makes sense but i personally believe he would simply be one of those middle aged autistic men whose special interest is wwii military vehicles

[essektheylyss]

I am once again knitting which means I'm back to the Nein rewatch and happened to be on Midnight Espionage, and truly INSANE episode. The egg dick, both break-ins, the Zauber Spire attack, and the first time a beacon is on screen in like four hours flat. Trent Ikithon is there. The episode ends with Liam and Marisha yelling, "TRUST THE PORN."

[vigilskeep]

theres a shadow dragon elf rook also in my brain now but i am shooing him away as fast as i can

[scrimblyscrorblo]

Had an idea for a Poe drawing, since he’s canonically a military grade sniper I wondered when he would’ve entered the military.

Its implied his Guild arc is mostly spent writing his book, and his early twenties were spent with detective work as seen in the flashback to the detective competition.

Thus, he was in the army presumably in his teen years, 15 and up.

And ofc my doodle of it as a little Polaroid with a Kate Bush reference. He couldn’t have his eyes covered and therefore had shorter bangs

Also, bsd takes place 2013 esk and Poe is 28, he would’ve been 15 in the year 2000 and born 1985.

[babblingbonnabel]

🪡 + 🔨 | more yapping!!

NOTE: because so many bigger members of the Avarice Battalion are from the Omega clan, a big portion go to The Garden to celebrate the Omega Tree every Spring (a large symbol of longevity and legacy for the clan...before they burned down lmaooo!!!).

[nostalgia-tblr]

there's something incredibly revealing about fandom's assigning of alternate jobs in AUs and how rarely this leads to Blue Collar Loki as opposed to Blue Collar Thor.

[brookiidookiii]

Brick is so mischaracterized it’s obnoxious. Anytime I see a headcanon where he’s forced against his will to go to military school it’s soooo,,. How can you say that. This man LOVES the army. He is obsessed with the military like a little boy is obsessed with joining the military. This man has a tank nightlight, he loves military shit. It is his proudest accomplishment. The first thing he does when he gets on the island is brag about his medals, and all he talks about in his biography is the military. His best memory from childhood is going to boot camp for fucks sake. He can like fashion AND the military lmao. Why chose one

[3-2-whump]

The Box

A Thomas Costa Backstory, as told by himself. Indented part indicates a flash back. Set during the Key Game era, though I don't know if any of the other flash backs will have any concrete place on the timeline.

Full collection of Thomas Costa Backstories here

TW/CW: slave whump, intimate whumper, blood, whumpee turned whumper (more like whumper, former whumpee), divorce, neglect, death of minor characters mentioned

Khaled had found his box. He wasn’t supposed to go anywhere near the file box that held the physical remains of the man he used to be, but Thomas had caught him red-handed, sitting on his bed with his dog tags, his paperwork, and several old photos of him spread out across the bed. Khaled paled, visibly scooting up the bed and away from the contents of the box as he realized he’d been caught.

In hindsight, Thomas was not proud of his initial reaction. He couldn’t just beat the boy without reason, no matter how much he deserved it for directly disobeying him. He was owed an explanation, at least. Once he had calmed down enough, and once the wound from Khaled’s scalp had stopped cascading blood down his face, he decided to try a different approach.

“You know I told you not to go through that box, boy,” he said.

Khaled lowered the moist washcloth from where it was compressed against his head. What used to be a white washcloth was now dyed a splotchy pinkish-red.

“Why did you go through my box?” he asked. He caught Khaled’s face in his hand before the young man could turn his head away. “Why?” he repeated.

“I… thought it was where you were hiding the key, Master.” Khaled’s confession hardly rose above a whisper. He crossed his legs self-consciously in front of him. “I-I just wanted it off, I’m sorry,” he apologized.

Thomas shook his head. “Just for that, I’ll keep you in that thing a week longer. I will take if off when I am ready, not when you are,” he grumbled. He took the box in hand and started sweeping the stuff on the bed back into the box.

He paused as he was about to collect a certain picture. It was him, his squad –Callahan, Trémeaux, Robinson, Martinez, Kruger, and Kościelsky –and more importantly, his brother Tony’s team, standing around a crude edifice of water and sand and any bits of refuse they could find to fill in the finer details. In the sand in front of the group someone had scratched ‘Merry Xmas 2002.’

Khaled didn’t miss the involuntary smile on his lips as he remembered the sandman. “What is it, Master?” The unspoken request ‘can I see?’ bubbled just beneath Khaled’s inquisitive eyes.

Thomas passed the photo to Khaled. “We were having a slow day on the base, so some of the boys got together to make a snow man. There wasn’t any snow where we were, of course, so we worked with the next best thing!” He proudly poked at the picture with his index finger. “See the lit cigarette sticking out of his mouth? That was my idea,” he boasted.

Khaled hummed, studying the picture a bit more. He poked at the soldier whose arm was slung around the snowman’s shoulder. “Is that you?” he asked.

“Yeah. Nothing gets past you, huh?” Not that it was hard to tell; Thomas hadn’t changed his physical appearance too drastically over the last twenty years. “Think you can find my brother?”

The corners of Khaled’s eyes scrunched up as he concentrated on the old photo in front of him. It took him about three tries until he gave up. Thomas pointed to a skinny brunette leaning on Ferguson’s back. “That’s him. I know, we look nothing alike,” he said, answering Khaled (and everyone else’s) unasked question. “We had different dads, same mom.”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, Master.”

He looked up from the picture to see Khaled’s frown. “Sorry? What do you mean?”

“Did your dad die, like mine?” Khaled asked hesitantly.

“What- Oh, no, Khaled, my dad is alive!” Well, last he checked, anyway. “My parents are just divorced is all. Same goes for Tony’s dad, he divorced and left us too.”

“Fuck your horse races, fuck your little bastard, and fuck you! Fuck this entire family! I am done, Maria, done!” Those were the last words that Thomas’ stepfather uttered before he never saw him again. In the violent deluge of a summer rain, the man he considered his father wrenched off his wedding ring and threw it at his mother’s feet. He then turned his back on her –on him, on Young Tony (Thomas’ brother and the man’s biological son) –turning away from them as if it were nothing to leave his own blood in the hands of ‘a piss-poor excuse of a mother and a self-absorbed monster without a conscience’. The sound of pounding rain muted his retreating steps.

“Oh…” Khaled’s voice trailed off.

“It’s okay,” Thomas lied. He gently pried the photo out of his hand and stuck it in the box, finally closing the lid as he rose from the bed to put it back underneath them. He redirected his thoughts from his absent father to the old photo. Only five people in that Christmas photo were still alive now, and none of them were his squad or Tony. Maybe one day he would be willing to tell Khaled about the blast. Maybe he would even be willing to tell him about his overreaction that would send him back stateside, right back into the brood of vipers he had sworn to leave behind. But until then, like every other uncomfortable thing about his past, it was just easier for Thomas to put it in a box, shove it under the bed, and forget about it.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

[ka-freaking-boom]

Worship At My Altar

Deity Soap x Retired vet Ghost AU

Warnings: Implied suicide attempts, Depression, References to Ghost's backstory.

___

Ghost trudged through the quaint convenience store that he'd grown somewhat fond of, filling the worn basket that he’d grabbed on the way in with nonperishable foods that he could carry with him on his motorcycle. He’d been getting low on funds, so if he wanted to have enough to get a decent offering for the temple, he couldn’t afford to be as picky as he normally would be while shopping and instead settled for items like canned ravioli and spam for himself.

He’d used the majority of the cash that he had on hand, since cards were easy to trace, and got as far away from the overwhelming bustle of cities as possible, eventually crashing at a rundown motel in some small town in the middle of nowhere.

He adjusted his duffel on his shoulder, his scowl deepening as he tried to tell himself that the extra heft to the bag was all in his head. That the medal –that he’d since taken out of its protective glass case and wrapped up in an old sweatshirt that he’d had since his days as a fresh-faced recruit– buried in the depths of the duffel couldn’t logically be what was weighing him down.

It was just a stupid chunk of metal that indicated that he was a hero in the eyes of the public, giving justification for all the years he spent doing unspeakable acts for his country, for all the civilians caught in the crossfire, and all the good men he’d led into the depths of hell only for Ghost himself to come out the sole survivor.

He had given up on ever having a life outside of war and violence, he’d given up on having a family or a legacy extending past his reputation as an omen of death. It had left him with scars –mental and physical alike– scattered across the entirety of his person as a constant reminder of his service, and all he had to show for all that he’d sacrificed in the end was some fucking chest candy. It made Ghost want to kill something, preferably slowly... with his bare hands.

He set the can of soup that he’d been examining into his basket with a little more force than necessary, adding to his meager collection of food before moving on to the next aisle. He was considering the various cups of cheap ramen noodles, wondering if it even mattered since it all tasted like shit regardless, when someone rushed past him.

His gaze darted away from the display and toward the flash of movement, his hand twitching toward a sidearm that he no longer carried as he located who it was that had passed him. 

The tension that had coiled in his frame relaxed slightly when he realized that it was just an energetic kid, the small boy staring excitedly at the display of candy that was further down the aisle.

Ghost watched as the child began wringing his little fingers together as his wide eyes roamed over the large variety of candy that the store offered instead of just grabbing everything in sight, which was a surprising display of restraint from someone so young.

Ghost resisted the urge to flinch when the boy finally made his selection, one of his small hands abruptly darting out to snatch a bag of gummy bears off the rack before pivoting in order to walk back the way he had come, the kid pausing when he finally noticed that he had an audience.

He looked uncertain for a moment, probably unsure of how to feel about Ghost’s masked face and intimidating stature, before he seemed to shake himself out of his reservations and smiled up at Ghost, revealing the fact that he was missing one of his front teeth. 

He squeezed past Ghost’s large form with a giggle, Ghost following him with his eyes until the kid reached the end of the aisle and moved out of view. Ghost took a few controlled breaths, trying to ignore how the parts of his body where the kid involuntarily brushed up against him crawled uncomfortably, reminding him of claustrophobic boxes and the sharp pain of a scorpion's sting. 

Ghost forced his feet to start moving, intent on going to the checkout since he wanted to visit the temple before it was closed to the public, but he hesitated in front of the same display of candy that had entranced the child, blinking at the colorful packaging. 

His dark eyes scanned over the various sugary treats, debating whether or not to buy some with his already scant funds, before he caved with a sigh and reached out in order to grab a bag of chocolate, tossing it into the basket before he could talk himself out of it. 

Thankfully, the teenage cashier that scanned his things didn’t seem too bothered by his intimidating appearance, the girl too focused on getting Ghost checked out as fast as possible so that she could go back to boredly sketching on the piece of blank receipt paper that she had sitting next to the register to stare at the scarring on his face that wasn’t covered by the mask he was wearing, like most civilians that he encountered in public did.

He climbed onto his bike and pulled his black helmet over his head, feeling the uncomfortable tightness in his chest ease now that his face was hidden behind the tinted visor, before he took his groceries out of the cheap, plastic bags that the store used and began meticulously packing them away in his saddle bags, separating them based on whether it was for him or for his offering. 

Once he was finished, he started the bike with a loud rumble, the engine revving as he reversed out of the parking space and floored it out of the lot, he would have to speed if he wanted to get to his destination in time to set up. 

_____

Ghost wasted no time parking the bike and climbing off, impatiently yanking his helmet off and collecting the things he needed before he trotted up the stone staircase and into the looming temple, quickly passing the various priests and lingering townspeople without so much as a second glance in his haste to reach the altar. 

A wave of familiar warmth greeted him the moment that he stepped into the room, Ghost taking note of the subtle changes that had been made to the décor in the altar room since his last visit, the red and gold color scheme making the space feel welcoming and cozy. 

He carefully lowered himself to his knees in front of the marble platform that the statue sat atop of, Ghost setting his bag of offerings next to him before looking up at the deity that he’d been introduced to shortly after arriving to the small town. It had been immediately obvious to Ghost -even at his very first visit- that the statue had clearly been made with the utmost care, every cut reverent, every curve and divot of muscle lovingly sculpted.

Even the drape of the cloth over the statue’s hips was so flawlessly crafted that, if he reached out and touched it, he was almost convinced that he would feel soft cloth underneath his fingers instead of cool marble.

Ghost allowed his eyes to take in the bulge of muscle, the v of the man’s hips that disappeared beneath the flowing fabric that was wrapped artfully around him. His hands twitched with the urge to trace the veins that crawled across thick biceps and calloused hands, to rake through the thick line of hair at the top of the man’s head, to brush a thumb across his knowing, smug grin. 

The man was undeniably beautiful.

Ghost managed to pry his gaze off of the statue in favor of silently pulling the things he’d brought with him out of his bag in order to set them onto the packed stone platform at the man’s bare feet, placing his own offering among the flowers, jewelry, money, candles and bottles of expensive amber liquor that others had left during their own visit.

Ghost meticulously put down ten candles, one for each member of the 141, and the last four for his family. He pulled out a lighter and brought the flame down to the wicks one at a time, mentally recalling the names and faces of those he cared for as he lit the corresponding candle for each person until he had reached the last one.

He took a moment to stare at the flickering flames before forcefully shaking himself out of his daze and setting a bottle of his favorite bourbon in the center of the circle of candles as well as two pretty blue glass bowls that he’d found while at the thrift shop the other day since they were the same shade that the deity’s eyes were.

Or at least what color he believed they were. During his last visit, a painting that someone had left on the altar as an offering in an impressive display of artistic skill had caught his attention, the artist having decided to depict the man with eyes that were such a vibrant blue that they looked like they were glowing, which Ghost thought was befitting of the deity.

He filled the larger bowl with a couple things that he had collected with the intent to bring to the altar. Like the smooth stone that he’d taken from the lake earlier that week, when he had contemplated wading into the crystalline water until it swallowed him up but ultimately decided against it, or the little wooden penguin figurine that he’d spent the week carving, having picked up the habit of whittling a new animal to give the statue every visit.

He then dropped a black skull keychain that he’d spotted at a gas station a few towns over, the bleached skull of a small bird, and the inspirational quote that his therapist had him write on a notecard into the big bowl before propping up the letter that he got from Roach -which mentioned how he was getting sent on a mission with Gaz and Price- behind the bowl in order to ask for protection for the mad cunts.

Ghost finished off the offering by fussing with the small bowl’s placement until he was satisfied before taking the bag of chocolate he’d bought earlier and ripping it open in order to dump the contents into the bowl. He ran a hand over the individually wrapped candies until the pile looked a little less messy before pulling his hand away and letting it rest against his thigh.

He’d come a long way since the first time he’d stopped by the temple, that initial visit having been fueled by a mix of sleep deprivation, desperation and alcohol. The only offering that he had brought with him that time had been the bullet that he’d loaded and unloaded from his firearm so many times since being discharged from the military that the motion was now practically muscle memory.

He’d wanted to get rid of the bullet and the weakness that it represented and figured that the altar of a God he didn’t believe in would be the perfect solution, though he couldn’t have accounted for how the calm atmosphere of the altar room and the kind eyes of the statue staring down at him with a soft, inviting smile kept him coming back for more, chasing that feeling of peace he only got from being in the room.

“I-” Ghost paused, internally wincing at how loud his rough voice seemed in the otherwise silent room, swallowing hard as he ignored how stupid he felt talking to a fucking statue, and continued. “I know it’s not anything extravagant, I don’t have a lot to offer…”

Ghost licked his chapped lips as he trailed off, finally glancing up from the flickering candles enveloping his small pile of gifts to gaze up at the man towering over him, unable to shake the feeling that the statue was looking directly at him despite the fact that it had been carved specifically to look down at it’s devout worshipers. The amused eyes of the man felt like encouragement, the statue's playful gaze easing Ghost's insecurities and helping the tense line of his shoulders relax.

“But you’re already far too spoiled considering the fact that you do fuck all, so I think that you’ll be okay.” Ghost finished with a wide grin that pulled at the various scars on his face, the bite taken out of his words by the soft chuckle that followed the quip as he reached out to condescendingly pat an unoccupied portion of the stone altar, his hand lingering for a moment longer than strictly necessary before he pulled away and pushed to his feet with a grunt, various old aches and pains making themselves known after kneeling for so long.

Ghost picked up his bag and made for the archway leading out of the room, sparing one last glance back at the benevolent statue before finally turning away and moving through the threshold and out of view, oblivious to the subtle sound of shifting stone as the statue’s smile seemed to briefly widen, lips parting to show a flash of perfectly straight teeth.

[olberic]

for better or for worse origins and da2 let you make your political choices and stick to it. inquisition is so offensively milquetoast centrist liberal (derogatory) that its frustrating to play. even when u side with the mages ppl are pro-templar. its like 60% of the templars are running around taking red lyrium so they can kill more mages more violently and 20% joined the centrist ass inquisition bc it still gave them a position of power and the remaining 20% are still fucking oppressing mages that somehow want to be in the circle. theres no way to play a pro mage character and stick to your choices. you can be playing a mage and half the dialogue options about mages are about how magic is evil and dangerous something i THOUGHT we addressed in the first two games already. but no lets make one of the mages anti-mage lets make the elven mage anti-dalish (and the other elf anti-elf too) and lets make the third mage the son of a goddamn magister. because heaven forbid ANY CHARACTER have sympathy and want justice for a marginalized group of people that’s been hunted down and locked up for the crime of existing for most of the world’s known history.

and like when all the npcs like “yayyy the inquisition is great its making the real changes around here” but the inquisition is a military force that spends much of its time and manpower killing random ppl and literally taking over huge swathes of the countryside. and influences foreign politics. the chantry condemns the inquisition for being too friendly with mages while cassandra and cullen are functionally templars. and forces an elven mage to become an andrastian figurehead. like make it make sense. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

[royaibrainrot]

I’m reading an awesome eruri fic and found a pleasant surprise in one of the authors notes haha

[quillfeather21]

I deleted my funny post about Jiaoqiu because I have discovered more about him thanks to leaks.

Honkai Star Rail: hi here’s our new character. He’s a foxian dude who likes to cook!

Me: aww what a cutie! His tail is so fluffy

Honkai Star Rail: here’s his backstory!

Me, slightly less enthusiastic: oh wow thanks! You gave him DEPRESSION AND PTSD.

[agirlinthegalaxy]

It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

[rotzaprachim]

digging my teeth into the really dark fascinating fucked-upness of helnik. they’re fascinating in being a wartime love story about an intentional victim of genocidal violence and an unintentional fuck-around-and-find-out victim of “collateral damage,” both of which are different forms of wartime violence. 

nina is targeted as a grisha, she’s almost killed by the druskelle and fjerda in the books not for being a ravkan spy or agent but simply for being grisha. they will kill her for being grisha. and how will they kill her? they will burn her. and it’s fascinating when she tells matthias in a very justified moment of rage (i mean. they’re looking at the dying burned corpses of her people whom jesper, also a grisha, had to physically shoot) and says i want your family to burn i want them all to be burnt in the way my people were. and matthias says, they already have been. they already burned. and how that changes the entire dynamic between them, everything leading up to that, becuase FUCK. yeah. his whole family has already been burnt. he’s a lone survivor of something in much the same way she is, and his family was burnt not on purpose for being grisha but as a “justified accident,” the casual civilian side-damage of war. and it was her people. unlike the intentional, systemic violence that destroyed her people and left nina a shaken, traumatised survivor of a purposeful genocide, we have matthias as this destroyed survivor of one of those little sorts of accidents that’s swallowed and justified by the shape of the war and what Must Be Done to succeed. (also he serves as like, one of the only times i think it’s really faced that the first army is, you known, a national army that does national-army-during-a-war things.) one does not cancel out the other. 

their relationship is difficult and fucked and that’s why it’s fascinating and has so much potential to explore. it’s so much more complicated than the tiktok “enemies to lovers” trope because they dig right at the base of what it is to be an enemy to someone else. from the ship nina is an almost-lone survivor of the damage his people did. from his village being burnt by inferni matthias is a lone survivor of the damage her people did. from the consequences of war on his people and violent prejudice against her own, nina is raised a child soldier and in many ways reduced to weaponry, something that absolutely is a form of child abuse. from the consequences of war on her people matthias is inducted into a cult and subjected to spiritual abuse. they’ve been hurt by each other’s nations, but also by their own. there’s something so brutal but also tender in the way they knock each other off the orbits they’ve been living in and force them out of the home that is burning. love may make you free, but not without drowning first.