nuapriori

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jean is a reddit moderator

modern day kim harry:

Harry gets addicted to vapes

Kim has to look up what gooning is for a crossword puzzle.

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(I'll have some critical thoughts about this in a minute let me just flip my shit rq)

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Anne Carney Raines (American, 1990) - Acid Wash II (2023)

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Title: Out, damned spot!

Word count: 7.3k (complete)

Characters:

Kim Kitsuragi

Eyes (Disco Elysium)

Relationship

Kim Kitsuragi/Eyes

Additional Tags:

Pre-Canon

Angst

Emotional Hurt/Comfort

domestic intimacy

Slow Burn

Late Night Conversations

Non-Sexual Intimacy

Tragedy/Comedy

Crochet as a coping mechanism

Symbolism

So much symbolism

The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known

((Hey guys [tworls my hair and falls down] I couldn't let sleeping dogs lie. So I dug them up and beat them with a pipe. Enjoy 🥀))

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modern day kim harry:

Harry gets addicted to vapes

Kim has to look up what gooning is for a crossword puzzle.

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the human mind is prone to catastrophizing when left unoccupied. And that’s why it’s important to always have a little Blorbo to rotate in your head. It acts as a protective charm of sorts to redirect your imagination away from harmful spirals

thoughts without Blorbo: oh my god I was so cringe in seventh grade why did I do that

thoughts with Blorbo: I haven’t considered the interactions with bleebus; I must rectify this immediately

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I need to talk abt Out, damned spot! (Eyes/Kim fic i just posted, and further ch 10/11 of sbrm) super quick cause I can't get it out of my head. THINK PIECE INCOMING.

“Just Be My Eyes”: Kim Kitsuragi’s Failure of Intimacy and the Death That Made Him an Unwilling Martyr

This is about guilt. Not abstract, noble guilt. Gut-rotting, skin-under-your-nails, “I’ll never be clean again” guilt. The kind that comes from denying intimacy until it kills someone. When you deny yourself closeness, when you deny others access to you, it doesn't just hurt you. It causes ripples. When your self-restraint is iron, the right person will blast it with a fucking welding torch. And it will feel bad. It will feel like coming undone. It will feel like you dont have control.

Kim wanted to be seen bad, but he didn't know what that looked like, so when it happened, he got defensive. Scared. Angry. It's easy for it to get this bad when you have zero safety net. If all you have to rely on is yourself, then someone out there really seeing you threatens that delicate balance–especially when said person is well adjusted, "normal", "wouldn't get it."

Kim was more afraid of closeness than he was of potential life-threatening danger, because at least one he has the illusion of control over. Because at least it wasn't another traffic stop assignment.

And what’s worse, what really fucks you up once you start noticing it, is how Kim uses flirtation like armour. When he calls Harry a “diligent boy,” or says he “likes getting thrashed like a schoolboy,” he’s not being dominant. He’s being deflective. These are not power plays; they’re pre-scripted roles. Safe, canned intimacy. A little sharp, a little flirtatious, but ultimately hollow and controlled, especially because he says them in public. In front of Joyce. In front of the Communards. It's not desire. It's theatre. It's the mask of competence worn so tightly it looks like confidence. Kim says those things so no one will ask what he’s really feeling.

Dom wanted to be close with him. He loved this geek. He calls Kim silly names to get his attention when he's distracted. Purposefully calls things the wrong name to make Kim correct him. Is both a grounding force and a cause for Kims butterflies.

Dom "puts up" with it.

Kim will look at him in the eye, but he won't mean it. Kim will play chess with him (only if he phrases it as a challenge re: "You're only scared I'll win.") but not to play--Kim plays to win. (re: DE when you play suzerainty with him)

What really fucks me is that Dom had signed them up for the botched operation, and he wouldn't have, if Kim allowed him anything else. Allowed himself to say something real. Allowed someone to get close to him. Instead, it was the last resort by Dom.

Kim's bored with traffic stops. It's a waste of a badge, he says. Me too. I know something dangerous we can do.

And Kim. Says. Yes.

Kim never says yes. But he did this time.

So at the end of Out! When Kim has finally been cracked open enough, sitting on Dom's couch, learning to crochet, sitting with the fact that they have feelings for each other, the phone rings before anything else can occur.

Who's on the phone?

Who knows.

Kim can hear the tone.

Official.

The op has moved to tonight.

Perfect. This gives Kim more time to avoid... whatever this is.

Dom, finally able to not beat around the bush, implores Kim, we should not go. In fact, we should quit the RCM right now and work at my family's shop. You don't have to deal with all the bullshit, all the hate crimes, all the piss and shit and blood and bureaucracy

And Kim, already detaching from himself, from his partner, pushes back, "it was your idea."

To pin it back on Dom.

Meanwhile, Dom would have never brought it up if it didn't feel like his only option at the time.

Everything was saying "don't go."

Kim just immolated his rotten uniform He hadn't finished eating He hadn't finished his beer He hadn't finished his crochet It was raining like flood And even the door was stuck.

Dom said "I'm calling it. We don't go".

And Kim, wanting to escape intimacy at any costs, breaks both of their hearts and says, "Just be my eyes."

Don't be my partner. Don't be my lover. Don't even be my friend. Just be a tool. Be a tool, like me.

And Dom had the audacity to sacrifice his own life for Kim, after being told "Just be my eyes." Maybe not the audacity. But the foresight. He became a tool, like Kim said. Was his eyes. Was his shield.

Fuck me dude. Idk. Id never be able to wash my hands clean again. Ever. Not with that hanging over me.

Because at least Dom never made Kim pretend to be someone else. Dom didn't ask for the mask. He just asked for Kim. But when the only kind of closeness Kim can handle now is a joke told loud enough for the room to hear, you realize... he never really got better. He just got better at hiding.

What also messes me up is we, as players of the game, only know of a past partner. There is zero mention of Kim's current partner. He may not even have one. He might have been on special detail while he grieved, which makes sense- so either he himself or the 57th sent him out to Martinaise. Get some fresher air. Solve a hanging dripping with politics. It would be a good distraction.

They were losing their best officer either way, by way of being adopted by Harry, essentially, or Kim never really recovering from the loss (and further, the failure) and eventually quitting.

Makes more sense why Kim seems to have this "I'm keeping Harry alive, at any cost" instinct (while still informed by passivity). It's not suicidal or martyrdom or anything like that.

Its extreme survivors guilt, it's a trauma bond.

It's "I'm above this" as in, "i really like this guy and he only sees what I show him. That's safe. I have power, here. And when he sees more, it is only a little uncomfortable, because I know what I'm doing. Because he is brain damaged. I have a blueprint now. I'm not letting this one go."

"It's not him... But it may as well be."

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in an M 17+ fandom populated by real actual seventeen year olds </333

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you're cute and it's tuesday

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some of u aren’t carrying a constant yearning for love that consumes u and that must be nice

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Four twenties. 80. [Bubbling noises]

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If you dont love kim as a failed revolutionary, as a self tokenizing cop, as an enabler, as a victim of the system who decided being the boot was his only option for survival, as a man who never experiences respect let alone love from the country he calls home, as a man who uses his status of cop to exercise power, as a man who has lost his dreams of a decent life....... then do you even love him

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love love love when ppl doodle kim kitsuragi like this

bc like, somehow that's still identifiably kim. you broke him down to his bare essentials