#<- my own tag in case i wanna revisit this later in even MORE detail

[drop-dead-dropout]

TOO BAD I'M DOING IT ANYWAYS but under the cut cause it's gonna take a while

okay bear with me cause I wasn't lying about the hydrocodone lol. so instead of the int/psy/phys/mot split Kim's skills are divided into three categories: The Self, The Other, and The World. also a lot of this symbolism leans heavily into my own personal hc that where lungs are for love in elysium, the heart is like your soul, your representation of yourself if that makes sense. (also I AM planning on making fancier descriptions for them like the ones in-game but I only have a few done so far & I just really wanted to show y'all these lol)

THE SELF — look within. understand your heart, your lungs, the makings of you.

THE OTHER — look around. connect with people and things outside of yourself.

THE WORLD — look beyond. ruminate on places and ideas that are much bigger than you.

each category only has 5 skills so 15 total cause uhhhhhh 24 is a lot and I'm not that smart sorry o.o here they are:

MIRROR VIEW

look into your heart of hearts. dissect your thoughts and beliefs with professional detachment.

common in: old people, introspectors, those with too much time on their hands

so in the practical sense mirror view is like inland empire, but significantly less Harryish. it chimes in with Kim's internal processes, helps him dissect his thoughts and beliefs as though he were performing an autopsy— sterile gloves, his observations impersonal and detached.

OFFICER

stay composed and professional. never find yourself on the wrong end of an interrogation. keep one hand on your gun.

common in: cops (duh)

I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory

MACHINIST

put things together and take them apart. carry out every movement with practiced ease.

common in: torque dorks, those good with their hands, the effortlessly cool

alr so full disclosure I did totally steal this one from another author on ao3 but I put my own lil spin on it sooooo don't yell at me 🙏(ao3 appears to not be working but I'll come back and add a link to the fic/author once it starts working again!!!) (I'M BACK here's the link to the fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598530 by ao3 user theonlytwin) this one's also pretty self-explanatory but I merged it with that author's other Kim skill called ace because to me I think they both come from a similar place. basically he uses it to be self-sufficient and COOL

SPEEDFREAK

step on the gas. feel the wind in your hair. drown out the world in beautiful, cacophonous noise.

common in: adrenaline junkies, former delinquents, those experiencing a midlife crisis

I feel like this is another one I don't need to explain much. I mean. it's speedfreak. I hope I don't sound too repetitive my brain is only half working rn.

JUSTE FUREUR (just fury)

shout until your lungs give out. protect you and yours from injury and insult. your beliefs are righteous.

common in: idealogues, young people, those who have been hurt

okay I LIMITED the amount of french I let myself use on these skills bc it's just google translate & I'm terrified it'll fuck something up and make me seem stupid but this is the first of a few exceptions I allowed myself. juste fureur is like this violent protective rage when you see something happening you know is wrong. god I can't wait till I'm done with all the fancier descriptions I'm writing they're so much better than these 😭

CAREFUL DANCE

one foot here, one foot there, eyes forward. mind where you put your hands. do not draw attention to yourself.

common in: control freaks, closeted homo-sexuals, racial minorities, those who know acceptance is conditional

this is basically Kim's fear of social rejection given voice. sometimes it gets a little nasty and criticizes other people, but mostly it just tells Kim he's doing everything wrong and he's gonna get beat up for being a faggot (childhood trauma lmaoooo) (I'm gonna regret doing this while high later)

FAMILIAR HEART

recognition of the familiar other. look into the eyes of a stranger and know that they are the same as you.

common in: bleeding hearts, homo-sexuals, community-builders

this one is almost the opposite of careful dance— it's like, Kim's ability to connect with other minorities, or when extrapolated just anyone who's going through something he understands. it brings him sadness, like when it helps him see the thinning hair and sallow skin of malnutrition in the local delinquent teens, but it can also bring him joy, too, especially when it comes to finding community in other queer people.

FICELLE ROUGE (red string)

a well-used notebook and pen sit in your pocket. notice everything, forget nothing. you are a detective.

common in: overthinkers, the highly curious, detectives (which you are)

this one's pretty obvious of course. the reason why officer is categorized as "the self" and this "the other" is because officer is very much about a standard Kim holds himself to, whereas ficelle rouge is more about the actual work of solving mysteries than his own self-image.

11-99

seize the moment before it ends forever. do not close your eyes. stay alive, by any means necessary.

common in: high-strung survivalists, cops under fire, those with trauma-and-stressor disorder

this is basically his half-light, but spoken as a voice through a police radio. 11-99 is the california police radio code for "officer in immediate danger/officer needs help". fun fact, in the fic I'm writing where all of these skills introduce themselves to Kim, it's discovered that a lot of them have the voices of people he's met in the past (I'll add those at the end), and this one is voiced by Eyes.

WEST HARBOR PUBLIC LIBRARY

memorize facts and figures. understand the conversations taking place around you by understanding the world itself.

common in: trivia lovers, binoclards, former bored orphans

I just made up a name for a library Kim might've visited as a kid and used that as the encyclopedia skill haha. I tried to find a physical map of elysium to see if I could figure out if it should say east harbor or west harbor, but I couldn't so in the end I went with west harbor bc I like the way it sounds. if you paid more attention than me lmk if that's wrong lol

TRUE VACHOLIERE

breathe the air of your home. the city lives inside your lungs; you will always love La Revacholiere, and you hope she loves you the same.

common in: patriots, older generations, the horribly sentimental

I really loved the moment in-game where Harry calls Kim a true vacholiere, so I thought it only fair that I give him a skill named after that moment!!! like shivers, la revacholiere herself can occasionally speak to him through this skill, but it happens less often as Kim's "connection" is weaker. this is also my copout reason for giving him less skills than Harry lol

LA DERNIÈRE VRAIE CROYANCE (the last true belief)

fix the world with your own two hands. you know it is necessary, and you truly believe it can be done.

common in: idealists, cops, the incurably optimistic

this is the one I'm probably most attached to/proud of, other than maybe familiar heart or juste fureur. it's Kim's faint but absolutely present hope, the reason he became an officer of the RCM, the last true belief after every other belief has come into question. he wants to help so badly. something can be done, something can always be done, and if he has the means by god he will be the one to do it.

THE PALE

stand at the precipice of nothing. the death of the universe is not nearly as terrifying as the death of your memories, your heart, yourself.

common in: those who fear the unknown

ok I know I just said I'm the most proud of the last one but this one too!!! this skill is so very quintessentially Kim to me. in a literal sense it's his fear of the end of the universe, of the pale (of course), of the supernatural (because he IS afraid of it— why else would he deny it so fervently?) etc etc. but it's also, in an ironic way, his fear of feeling— emotions are bigger than him, they are impossible to understand, and they feel like the end of the universe.

VOLTA DO MAR

control your thoughts and impulses. stay vigilant in the face of want. find your way home.

common in: those who fear themselves

here we are! the last skill, and (I believe) the only one we know that Kim canonically has. I tried really hard to make every skill of equal value and merit— they are all parts of him, after all, they're not just "good" or "bad". but if I had to describe any particular ones as the most harmful, I would say careful dance, 11-99, and this one, if only because Kim has simply invested too much in them. volta do mar is, to me, the one that has him on the tightest leash.

okay also as promised I was going to explain the voices and where each came from. unlike Harry, Kim's skills each have different voices, though I haven't decided yet if I want ALL of them to be specific people he remembers, or if I want some of them to stay ambiguous. as it stands, here are all the skills I have decided on specific voices for, and where they supposedly came from:

OFFICER — Oliver Brown, a new recruit who joined around the time Kim got promoted (canadian/vaguely transatlantic accent). Kim's whole precinct treated him like a joke, but this stuttering kid with curly orange hair was the first person to ever look him in the eyes, give him a salute, and call him “sir” with the same respect he gave every other Lieutenant, despite how the other officers-in-training heckled him for it. to Kim, he was the embodiment of everything a cop should be— respectful, efficient, focused on the job.

MACHINIST— Anthony Price, a mechanic Kim met at the spare parts shop a couple decades ago with an accent Kim had never even heard before (mild australian accent, meant to be from a disco elysium equivalent to australia which I don't think there is one in canon). he was absolutely gorgeous, but mostly he was just so fucking cool. his hair, dirty blonde, went down to his chin. he was smoking outside by the time Kim left— probably the reason he picked it up at all, honestly. Kim was maybe definitely a lot into him.

JUSTE FUREUR— this teenage girl Kim saw at the convenience store a few years ago (informal/northern british accent). an older Mesque woman had been attacked by some racist, and before Kim could do anything this kid, no older than 16 at best, jumped in and kicked his ass with a vigour Kim was genuinely stunned by. later, after arresting the attacker, he found out the girl's name was Julia Ferrera and she was the adopted daughter of the woman who'd been attacked. everyone else was disgusted and assumed the mother corrupted the girl— seeing her as a victim because she was a white child forced to live with one of "them". but Kim (silently, in his head) held nothing but respect for them both.

CAREFUL DANCE— Kim's first foster mother, Joanna Williams (posh/londoner accent). not a terrible woman by any means, but very high-strung. she required many things of him, and everything from what he wore to how he spoke was under scrutiny. Kim quickly learned that in order to keep this new life he'd been given, he would need to adapt to this level of self-monitoring in her house. and he soon learned he needed to keep it up outside her house as well, or else… well, like I said earlier, childhood trauma :p

FAMILIAR HEART— Amélie Toussaint, a petite woman from Sur-la-Clef with a heavy accent (meant to be french) who worked at a cafe right outside the school Kim went to growing up. she saw the bags under his eyes, and she saw the way the other boys would beat him, and she saw him taking a back route through her kitchen window, and she knew. when she offered Kim a free meal and a place to study in the back of her cafe, she did not ask him why they treated him that way, because she knew— she looked at him and she saw her own son, with the same hunched shoulders and heart full of shame. but for a moment, everything was okay again. because she knew.

11-99— as mentioned earlier, this is Eyes. I don't believe Eyes has a canon name or ethnicity or really anything, so I'll have to brainstorm what I want that to be (or maybe just steal it from another fic/fanart lol.)

TRUE VACHOLIERE— Kim's old history teacher, a Kedran man named Nozar Bahrami who moved to Revachol out of necessity when he was a young child and loved it more than anything. Kim still remembers his passionate lectures and the bowl of mints outside his classroom door. little note here, I've heard since coming up with this one that Kedra is meant to be india specifically? but for the sake of clarity, Nozar is an iranian name and named after my iranian grandfather, who is himself an immigrant ❤️ (the last name is not his actual last name though of course)

also, lastly, please please please if any of this french is badly translated or cringe lmk!!! genuinely morning would embarrass me more than writing a whole fic and the french names were shitty and wrong bc my dumb american ass had to use GOOGLE TRANSLATE I did my best to double check everything but I don't know any french at all so at a certain point I just had to hope it was fine 😭

ok I just got my wisdom teeth out yesterday and I'm loopy on hydrocodone do y'all wanna hear me explain my custom kim skills

[thespacehairandthespaceidiot]

I'm so excited you reblogged mattex fic!! I love mattex so much omg. Do you have any favorite fics?? I want to read more!!

Ok first off, I’m sorry it took me a couple days to respond to this. I’ve had things going on and then I had to ruminate on my answer for a bit. 

Trust me, no one is more excited than me that I got the chance to reblog mattex fic again. I’ve got tons of favorites, but unfortunately, lots of them(not all) have been taken down and thus aren’t ones I can rec. I don’t know if you’re new to the scene or if you’ve been around forever, but unless you haven’t read much of anything at all yet, I probably can’t rec you much you aren’t familiar with. But I’ll do my best to share some of my favorites that ARE still up. (I’d say about half of these require being logged onto Ao3, so if you don’t have an account yet, I’d highly suggest opening one so you can read all the things. I don’t think the wait period to be accepted is long at all these days.) 

Get Ready To Play by tisziny is an AU where Matt is the host of a children’s tv show who Alex starts seeing. I don’t really wanna go into more detail for fear of spoiling anything, but it’s an old favorite and it even has a very enjoyable sequel. 

Every Hour Thy Heart Runs Wild by space-and-thyme is a haunted house AU where Matt is basically a ghost haunting Alex’s newly-purchased abandoned manor home. The beginning especially is pretty creepy, and though that certainly lightens up as the fic goes on, I wouldn’t recommend reading late at night. I did beta read the later half or so of this as it was being published, just to lay my cards on the table.

The waves have come to take you away by Amie33 (no tumblr, as far as I know) is a little random in that it involves Alex receiving news that Matt has died and has lots of feels angst, particularly in the first half. But needless to say, it doesn’t stay awful and depressing and it’s another I’ve always been fond of. 

I’m just realizing now that all three of these fics are rated M and I don’t know if that’s your thing or not, but I’m really not the best person to ask if you’re looking to avoid smut altogether. In any case, I’m switching now from individual fics to writers, because the next few people are ones who just write all-around great mattex and who I can’t possibly come up with just one favorite for. So check these people out if you haven’t already and just go through all the things. (I’m linking directly to the mattex tags their on Ao3 profiles, but they all have doctor/river fics on there that are just as wonderful too).

hihoplastic (amillionmillionvoices here on tumblr) is the one who wrote the ficlets I reblogged which inspired this message you sent. She also just finished up a very old fic with a final four very satisfying chapters and has a number of other great fics I’m gonna be revisiting soon myself.

spoilersweetie (she used to have the same name on here, but it looks like she’s deleted her account???) has plenty of fabulousness to distract yourself with for a while. A few different fics of hers come up as most popular in the tag on ao3 and they really are. I was just saying recently I need to go back and reread some. 

riversdamsel (same on here) has several really fabulous AUs, including an angels and demons fic, one where Matt stars alongside Alex in Moll Flanders, and a medieval-esque royalty/blacksmith fic, along with several oneshots I really need to revisit sometime. 

And then, loathe as I am to be THAT PERSON, especially if you’re not a newbie to the mattexfic scene, in which case this is extra ridiculous, I’ve written a fair amount of mattex that’s been reasonably popular and you can find that, if you’re interested, under my same name on Ao3: TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot. I’ve got one long amnesia fic and a bunch of shorter fics, thought plenty aren’t actually all that short at all, just less chapters. I’m going to resist complaining about my own writing, because I know I’ll just get messages and texts yelling at me for it tomorrow, but with so many of the fandom greats having taken their works down, I figured I should at least mention my own ::shrug::