Ok but the entire set-up of the scene was immaculate. The nervousness of Tommy coming to see Buck in person to apologise for him and Eddie having accidentally made Buck feel excluded. Buck apologizing for his behaviour. The soft way he says "I can get pretty jealous" that's filled with a hundred other things he wasn't saying and Tommy saying he was also jealous and Buck going oh? Them softly assuring each other's worth (Buck in Eddie's life and Tommy with the 118). Buck telling him he didn't call him to change careers but to get to know Tommy. The way Buck steps closer to make it more intimate. And Tommy really has no clue until Buck says he was trying to get his attention. And even then he looked nervous? Like, am I reading this wrong. But when Buck keeps talking he's like maybe not and takes a chance. And the kiss! The music?? The framing? The way Buck's hand came up to hold Tommy? The way they both had their eyes closed?? And then Tommy, still a bit nervous asking if it's okay? And Buck going yes and joking to break the tension a bit. Then, Tommy asked him on a date. And that line!! I am free.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect 😭😭😭.
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Obsessed with the POV choice in Imperial Radch as well, both because Leckie does some really wild stuff with how expansive the strict first-person is able to become due to the worldbuilding and who her narrator is, and because it's SO entangled with the central thematic concepts of identity. In the first book flashbacks when the narrator is still a warship, "I" can encompass so many things, and sometimes explicitly refers to different facets in the narration--is "I" Justice of Toren, or One Esk, or a specific segment, or Breq narrating from twenty years in the future? "I" isn't simple, isn't unified, and while this is most literal and obvious with Breq/One Esk/Justice of Toren and Anaander Mianaai's split factions it's true constantly throughout the work at every level of scope. Individual characters struggle with internal conflicts and hit their breaking points--what is it that makes someone decide they have to disobey orders and make a stand or they won't be themself anymore? How do you know who you are if you've been forcibly changed (Tisarwat) or if the world you knew has moved on and become unrecognizable (Seivarden)? How does a character on a colonized world navigate the split identity that comes from the pressure to assimilate to the dominant culture? And then there's the Radch writ large, all the Radchaai so deeply invested in the idea that there is only one true concept of Radchaai society, of civilization, but of course there isn't! It changes based on location and over time, and Breq muses that the Radchaai empire would be largely unrecognizable to the isolated sphere of the Radch itself. In these books, even if you aren't the last remnant of a destroyed spaceship and its legion of bodies, "I" is such a complicated concept and the narrative never lets you forget it.
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The X Files' iconic "I want to believe" line is generally about wanting to believe in the unknown -whether it be extraterrestrial life, god/faith, a reason- and keeping an open mind to possibilities
but when you remember the context those words were spoken in for the first time in the show by Mulder, it was him in a hypnotic therapy session saying he doesn't know if he believes, but wants to believe that his missing sister is still alive out there somewhere.
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Holy fuck, man. What a trip Fearne has been on, huh?
You tell her how grateful you are to have her in your life, you flatter her, you tell her you need her, that you have to do this together. You have her make a promise that has this woman, born of chaos and fey, agreeing through shaking hands and a trembling voice.
You make her deceive your friends; you make her follow where they cannot know; you make her help you into this contraption; you make her feed this thing into you despite the fact that you both have been warned extensively of the risks. You make her watch you crumble and splinter and shatter and fracture and burst and implode. You make her watch you die, over and over and over and over, for a minute in agonizing bullet time.
You make her do all these things, because when she tries to back out, when she tries to not be the one who let you do this—how could you do this—
you tell her, "YOU PROMISED."
Because if there's one thing you know, it's that the fey do not break a promise.
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