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even-disco-baby · 1 year

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JUDIT MINOT — You open the door of the shack to find a very startled patrol officer standing on your doorstep, hand raised as if to knock.

PERCEPTION (Sight) — No, wait. She’s not here as a patrol officer. She isn’t in uniform, or even plainclothes bearing the RCM insignia. Just a simple white shirt and slacks.

COMPOSURE — She’s frozen, at a total loss for what to say now that she’s face to face with you.

HALF LIGHT — She’s bracing herself for an onslaught of anger.

EMPATHY — She feels that she deserves it.

Say nothing. Just walk calmly past her.

Slam the door right in her face.

“What are *you* doing here? Come to see if I kicked the bucket yet?”

“Go away. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You came back for me! I *knew* you would! You guys would never just abandon me!”

Stare back, equally lost.

“…Hi.”

JUDIT MINOT — “Hi…”

She swallows hard, eyes flitting from your cold-stung cheeks to your shadowed eyes, and then down to the sleeve of your blazer, where Isobel has done her best to repair the damage from you ripping off the halogen watermark. Her gaze lingers there for a moment, then returns to your eyes.

COMPOSURE — Strangely, she looks just a little more at ease.

JUDIT MINOT — “Harry, I…” Her voice trails off. She closes her eyes and takes a quiet breath.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“You mean back to the precinct?”

“You mean back to my place in Jamrock?”

JUDIT MINOT — She nods. “You weren’t there when I went to check on you, so I figured you must still be stuck here…”

DRAMA — She knew exactly where you would be, sire. It just made her feel less guilty to hope that you had made it back home on your own.

EMPATHY — She came back to try to make things right.

“Go to hell, Judit. I don’t need you or anybody else.”

“Don’t worry about me. Unlike back at the precinct, the people here actually *care* about me.”

“No. I want to stay here. I never want to go back to where I was before.”

“Yes, please, take me home. I don’t want to be lost anymore. I want to go home…”

“I know I have to go back eventually, but… I’m not ready yet.”

JUDIT MINOT — She nods slowly, her gaze falling to the creaking planks under her feet.

“Is there… anything you want me to bring you, then? Something from home? Or… anything?”

EMPATHY — She wants to do *something* for you. Whether for your sake or to assuage her guilt, who can say?

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“No, please, don’t bring me anything from home. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to remember…”

“I wouldn’t even know what to ask for. I can’t remember anything about home at all.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay, Jude.”

VOLITION — As you say the words, you’re surprised to find that you really mean them. You’re content and cared for here in Martinaise. You get the feeling that it’s been a long time since you felt this way.

+1 MORALE

JUDIT MINOT — “…Okay,” she says quietly. “I’m glad, Harry.”

EMPATHY — She means it, too.

JUDIT MINOT — With a pursed smile and a nod, she turns on her heel to leave.

REACTION SPEED — If you leave it at this, she’s not going to come back to bother you again.

Let her go.

“Hey, I was just about to go fishing. Do you want to come with me?”

JUDIT MINOT — She falters to a stop. “Fishing…?”

YOU — “Fishing. For tonight’s dinner. You could stay and eat with us, if you want.”

JUDIT MINOT — For a moment, she hesitates. Her expression is strange as she looks at you, both of you standing upon some kind of threshold.

EMPATHY — She’s afraid of something, but even she doesn’t know what. Some line she’s toeing, unsure of whether she can bring herself to cross it.

JUDIT MINOT — And then the moment passes. Judit nods briskly. “Sure. There are some… some things I’d like to talk with you about.”

“I’d rather not. Fishing is more of a contemplate-life-in-silence kind of pastime.”

“Sure. We can talk.”

JUDIT MINOT — She just nods again, her expression difficult to parse.

And then you are walking toward the shore together, side by side, in a way you’re certain you must have done before, but never quite like this.

Snow crunches softly under the worn work boots a dock worker passed down to you. You adjust the collar of your polar anorak, a precious secret between you and Martinaise. And Judit follows in silence, her eyes dark beneath her furrowed brow.

EMPATHY — She doesn’t know what to make of your unfamiliar shape.

VOLITION — That’s good. That means you’re changing.

JUDIT MINOT — “I resigned.”

The words come out sudden and ungraceful. She grimaces at herself, pulling her coat more tightly around her shoulders.

AUTHORITY — Resigned?! My god, man, what have you done? Not only have you ruined *your* career, but your subordinates’ careers, too!

VOLITION — Don’t be so self-absorbed. Let her tell her own story.

“…From the task force?”

“…From the RCM?”

JUDIT MINOT — She shakes her head slowly.

“I quit, Harry. I’m not with the RCM anymore.”

“Oh, god. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“Good. Fuck the police.”

“Hell yeah. Unemployment buddies.” [Hold your hand out for an Ace’s High.]

“Are you gonna be okay? What about your kids?”

“I don’t know what to say…”

JUDIT MINOT — “You don’t have to say anything. I’m… I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”

She looks down at her feet as she walks. She’s still wearing the same shoes she wore to work every day. “I’m sorry for leaving you here.”

PAIN THRESHOLD — A hard lump rises in your throat. It’s hard to breathe around it. It hurts just to think about that day— watching your world turn its back on you.

VOLITION — But then a new world opened its arms to you. You survived it.

EMPATHY — She was afraid that you *wouldn’t* survive. That she would open that shack door and find your corpse.

“Thank you for apologizing. It means a lot.”

“It’s fine. I don’t care anymore.”

“It’s okay. It actually kind of ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Keep your apologies. I don’t need them.”

“You’re not the one who should have to take responsibility…”

JUDIT MINOT — “No! No, that’s not why I— I mean, it *is,* but not like— Oh, hell…” The former patrol officer pinches the bridge of her nose, letting out a crystalline sigh. “It’s not just about that, Harry…”

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — *No one* was going to take responsibility for what was done to you. No one was *expected* to. She doesn’t have the heart to explain this.

JUDIT MINOT — “I didn’t do it to take a fall for you or Jean, or… anything like that. I just…”

Her eyes are glassy and sunken as she stares out at the sea.

HALF LIGHT — Like those of a corpse.

JUDIT MINOT — “I think I hate myself,” she says flatly. “I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — Looking away as Joseph Mills made yet another “joke” about the women in their custody. Looking away from hands making exchanges under the table. Looking away with little more than weary sighs and toothless protests. Turning her children’s eyes shamefully away from herself and her peers.

Looking away from Lieutenant Kitsuragi’s anger in the hospital. Looking away from you, bleeding in the cold.

JUDIT MINOT — “I took responsibility for myself, and only myself. That’s all.”

“That’s all anyone can do.”

“It’s too late for that. For either of us.”

“Still, I’m sorry. I know I really made a mess of things…”

JUDIT MINOT — “It’s okay, Harry.” She smiles awkwardly and reaches out to pat your arm. “I know you didn’t mean for things to turn out like this.”

AUTHORITY — Is that… *condescension,* I hear?

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — You can’t be blamed, she thinks. Not entirely, anyway. You’re not well. You need help.

“Thanks, Judit.”

“No. I *did* mean for this to happen.”

JUDIT MINOT — Her mouth parts in surprise. “Excuse me…?”

“This was all part of the plan. You can’t even *comprehend* the plan. I’m fifty steps ahead of you and everybody else. Everything is *totally* under control.”

“I’m a jackass who wanted to blow my life to smithereens and get anyone dumb enough to be close to me caught in the crossfire. I may not remember, but I can put two and two together.”

“I *wanted* to be left behind to die. That’s why I pushed you guys out of Martinaise in the first place, isn’t it? I wanted to feel miserable and alone enough to finally just kill myself.”

JUDIT MINOT — Her face twists with grief and discomfort for just a moment. “Harry…”

YOU — “Don’t treat me like a child, Jude. The choices I’ve made are mine, and I can take responsibility for them, too. Or even be okay with them.”

JUDIT MINOT — Her mouth flattens into a thin line. Her eyes fall back to her boots. Snow dusts her hair and the shocks of white make her look older.

EMPATHY — It’s less of a struggle for her when she thinks of you as hapless. Easier to *forgive* you. But harder, perhaps, to see you as a peer. She has never realized this before.

She does not like herself any better from this perspective, looking in from a newly discovered outside. But she swallows her pride.

JUDIT MINOT — “…You’re right,” she says quietly. “Sorry.”

YOU — “…It’s okay.”

FISHING VILLAGE — A more comfortable silence falls over the two of you as you trudge onward toward the shore. Shafts of pale sunlight occasionally pierce through the clouds, glinting off the snow and dazzling your eyes.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — Sunrise, Parabellum.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — Your great big lives start today.

#disco elysium #harry du bois #judit minot #suicide mention #thinking abt judit’s paternalistic and condescending moments #and how institutionalization is incarceration #and cops and ableism. etc #i do think judit could potentially quit like she does here #but. then what. u know? she’s got a lot of work ahead of her #EDIT I FUCKED UP THE FORMATTING. this is why u don’t post things at 1 am. bye.#edit 2 i actually ducked up the formatting in multiple places. fuck this gay earth

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mamawasatesttube · 10 months

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I feel like we as a society don’t talk enough about Kon and how he’s so much like Clark in of himself, and how that should rightfully give him a bit of a crisis. There should be more more moments where he looks at Clark and goes “Just like you. Am I just like you?”

SO true. where's the in-universe moment when kon realizes that kon-el is just an anagram of clone but with a k!!!

they genuinely are very similar though. the parallels are SO there. in a way kon's admiration of clark and desire to emulate him both stems from and feeds back into this tbh, like yeah buddy you sure do wanna be superman one day don't you. don't you?

that deep-seated kindness and desire to help everyone. that's the Biggest one i think. it runs so deeply through the core of both of their characters. clark is much more mellow than Kon at first, bc early kon is young and brash and hotheaded and SO full of a zest for life. but post-death kon really mellows out, too. ofc there's always things to be said about writers making him more like clark in the post geoff era, but it does still feel like a compelling narrative arc.

on the one hand it def would i think give him a bit of a crisis, especially later on in life, to think that he's had so much of his own life and experiences and yet he's still so much like clark - does his own individuality not matter? - but it's something so clearly tied to his own expectations of himself bc everyone else can plainly see both the similarities AND all the differences.

on the other hand, i so deeply also would love a story in which kon's universal kindness and refusal to accept cruelty or wrongdoing ends up inspiring people the same exact way clark does. and kon himself doesn't even see it. but we do.

#i am once again thinking about kon and nova (the wonderful baby boy duck and i have created) (our newest oc)#tldr of it is that nova is a clone of someone who expected to live a very short life and die as a tool for others #but kon is like hey FUCK that! you're a person you deserve to be treated with kindness and compassion #and it is so inspiring and gives nova hope for himself for the first time in his life #and that's why he names himself nova. after supernova the hero who saved him and taught him to live #there's a lot more to this story but that's the bare bones and the parts relevant here #bc that's. that's the Exact kind of radical kindness and inspiration and warmth clark has #and kon doesn't even know he's doing it too <3 #kon #answers

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