He warned me he was going to do something like this, but -- no offense, I wasn't expecting to get a message from you.
[His impression of Quentin's impression of him is: suspicious and overattached to Bill Cipher. He knows Quentin is decent enough to sit with him in a crisis and calm him down and share research with him, but out of decency, not out of any particular respect for Ford.]
That- doesn't surprise me either exactly. I'm not effusive. I don't always succeed in conveying-
[He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts.]
I admire you. I admire your work and I think highly of the way you stand up to people. I'm sometimes uncomfortable with seeing in you the mistakes I've made- I think you know I killed a fuckton of people that one time trying to make an end run around the admiral because I didn't trust him and so the idea of getting drawn into even thinking about what you seem to spend a lot of time thinking about feels psychologically like a slippery slope and begging for another demotion, which sometimes makes me keep my distance-
But you're pretty- you seem pretty good, all around. And I hope you feel better soon.
[No, he hadn't been told that. None of this is anything Ford's expected to hear, and it makes him think.
The way Ford reads this is, Quentin is afraid to think too hard about where the system is failing, because if he gets pulled in, he'll risk permanent death for himself (disappearance as an inmate) or cause a lot of suffering on the Barge through making another mistake, or both. Quentin's not just choosing his own comfort, he's choosing to avoid something he knows poses danger. It gives a humanizing dimension to an attitude Ford's broadly categorized as complacency and willingness to be complicit with the things it does to inmates poorly suited to the ship. He gets it better, in Quentin's case.
He keeps these thoughts to himself, partly because he's extremely hesitant, at this point, to assume he understands anything about anyone at all and could be completely off, and partly because it would be extremely rude to say.]
I understand your -- hesitation. But thank you for telling me. It really means something to hear you say so.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voice: private
[His impression of Quentin's impression of him is: suspicious and overattached to Bill Cipher. He knows Quentin is decent enough to sit with him in a crisis and calm him down and share research with him, but out of decency, not out of any particular respect for Ford.]
Re: voice: private
[He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts.]
I admire you. I admire your work and I think highly of the way you stand up to people. I'm sometimes uncomfortable with seeing in you the mistakes I've made- I think you know I killed a fuckton of people that one time trying to make an end run around the admiral because I didn't trust him and so the idea of getting drawn into even thinking about what you seem to spend a lot of time thinking about feels psychologically like a slippery slope and begging for another demotion, which sometimes makes me keep my distance-
But you're pretty- you seem pretty good, all around. And I hope you feel better soon.
Re: voice: private
[No, he hadn't been told that. None of this is anything Ford's expected to hear, and it makes him think.
The way Ford reads this is, Quentin is afraid to think too hard about where the system is failing, because if he gets pulled in, he'll risk permanent death for himself (disappearance as an inmate) or cause a lot of suffering on the Barge through making another mistake, or both. Quentin's not just choosing his own comfort, he's choosing to avoid something he knows poses danger. It gives a humanizing dimension to an attitude Ford's broadly categorized as complacency and willingness to be complicit with the things it does to inmates poorly suited to the ship. He gets it better, in Quentin's case.
He keeps these thoughts to himself, partly because he's extremely hesitant, at this point, to assume he understands anything about anyone at all and could be completely off, and partly because it would be extremely rude to say.]
I understand your -- hesitation. But thank you for telling me. It really means something to hear you say so.
voice: private
[Theology and employment negotiations may be off the table as topics of discussion for him, but there's still many wide worlds out there.]
voice: private