#the skills

[liquidsao]

Despite everything it's still him...or not?

[katt1281]

Affirmations <3

[earlofbats]

ok hear me out you do westernized art of harrys skills but its just you giving them cowboy hats (for edc give each head its own hat)

Anon you are so right. My actual thought though was that normal Harry is so connected to the world via his interactions with and relationships to other people that all of his skills sorta are distinctly humanoid and vaguely reminiscent of the people he meets in the game (rather I think the way people look are reminiscent of the skills) But a cowboy is all about being a lone wolf and being connected to the land and nature as well as their tools and such. A cowboy is all about iconography so I was thinking of doing isolated objects and elements of nature integrated with maybe hands or organs and such.

can read the fic here.

[parasolemn]

[Image description: In the first image, Harry Du Bois, looking at Gaston Martin's sandwich, fails the check to ask if he can have it. Rhetoric says, "A man so principled about his sandwich calls for a principled approach. Time to get political." Harry, seeing his options, asks, "These options seem awfully fascist or communist - what if I don't wanna say them?" In the second image, Rhetoric takes Harry by the shoulders and tells him, "Say one of these communist or fascist things, or fuck off." Harry appears shocked. In the background, Volition raises a finger and says, "um". End ID.]

skilltober 3!! please forgive the mistakes (see: the fucked up text in the first image) my hands are sooo shaky lately so I'm blaming that. hyperfocusing on one spot without taking into consideration the rest of the image is also my specialty. i figured out why the lighting was weird in the last one though at least!!!

more rhetorics + my cat who decided to jump up and run away with my eraser in her mouth as soon as I had everything ready to take the photo

[ssweetiebop]

SLEEPWALKING HARRY DU BOIS.

EXCEPT WHEN HES SLEEPWALKING. THE SKILLS CONTROL HIM.

Kim waking up in the middle of the night like ‘Harry... It’s 4am. Why are you reorganizing your closet??’ And interfacing is just like ‘shhh Kim I wanted to do this forever.’

Kim waking up early in the morning to the smell of breakfast and Harry is standing in front of the stove sleepwalking while making them both breakfast, volition giving Kim a little wave ‘you’re awake, I made you guys breakfast.’ And Kim’s like ‘what.’ Before Harry immediately falls over as volition leaves and Harry jolts awake confused and disorientated

[stoneantler]

Of the skills, my favorite is half-light. Underneath all the macho bullshit it spews, half light is really the part of Harry that is scared like an animal. It's his fight or flight response and obviously Harry is set to fight. And I love how it's there, telling you to be afraid, telling you that you must protect yourself because you're in danger. To me, it's even more than fight or flight, half light is ptsd to me. The scene where you discover Cuno's dad is really the moment that illuminated that for me. The way half light keeps breaking into your stream of though, and your heart starts to pound and you start to sweat and it's a silly scene in some ways because your response is so wildly out of proportion to the reality. If Harry were more observant, he would have realized that Cuno's dad is no threat even before they entered the apartment, but for one thing, he's dumb as rocks in this playthrough, and for another, that's ptsd. It's not rational, it's not prortional, it's being scared like a wild animal and it's trying to protect yourself whatever harm you know is coming

[arttitude130]

larger individual pics of the skills (and harry + kim) from my big disco brain post!!!! i was worried blowing them up would mess with the quality but i think it's ok?

free to use with credit (insert disco emoji)

[disco-tic-wonderland]

Doing a yellow/red furies run, and when I found the ledger, Hand/Eye Coordination noted there’s a fuckton of notes. Kim comments on that approvingly.

Then upon inspecting it,

DAMAGED LEDGER—It’s *inornate.* Nearly illegible, yet marching in orderly lines.

PAIN THRESHOLD—Written in a rush. In pain. A race to beat your own heart’s pulse to some dark finish line.

INTERFACING—Your hand cramps up merely looking at the scribbles, drawn—as by some magnet—to the red chequered margins. Fast, but always *straight*…

YOU—Who is this person?

PAIN THRESHOLD—Wearing out. Nearly gone. Sometimes he forgets to keep the pen on the paper as he moves his hand and the lines vanish from underneath…

How heartbreaking and poetic and fascinating. Showing that even in these past few months, Harry was burning himself out with his workload to an extinguishing point. It speaks to his dedication, and see where it got him. It speaks to his utter fear of being left in the dust.

I think it’s sad that Kim approves of this evidence of being a good little cop doing your mountain of paperwork, when clearly it’s not just destructive—it’s like Mozart near the end of Amadeus where he’s in a mad dash to pen his own Requiem before he dies, in the process killing himself faster.

Kim could end up like that, with the right nudge, burning himself out on the work, and he doesn’t even see that that’s what he’s looking at in Harry’s notes.

[silanb]

Composure: Don’t ask about them [failed:]

You: “Hey Kim, what’s with the sick nasty disco piercings?”

Kim Kitsuragi: “Hm?” He tilts towards you but does not look away from his notes.

Composure: God damnit, Harry

[phospadparadscha]

Disco Universe Pale thoughts-

Instead of being the physical manifestation (de-manifestation?) of entropy, maybe the Pale is instead a phenomenon that causes rapid erosion. Gems without adequate protection are basically getting hit by the world's shittiest sandblaster. The effects are similar to canon Pale exposure, with the added bonus of visible damage. The Paledriver has nicks and scratches across her gem, while Joyce uses some sort of clear coating to obscure hers.

Of course, those lost bits of gem don't just evaporate, they join the rest of the dust making up the Pale. The Pale is mostly inert rock, but there's still a significant amount of gem dust in there. With enough exposure, a Gem can get so worn down they can no longer hold a form and are functionally indistinguishable from shattered gems. I.e., they're fuckin dead.

Harry's druzy damage is rare, because those colors are didn't come from nowhere; they're deposits from other Gems, and the conditions under which they formed wpild normally be lethal. It's why the Skills aren't really whole people; they're miniscule fragments of other Gems, joined together. Almost like the Cluster on a very small scale.

I really really really like this Blue. FIRST of all let me thank you for being so involved in this crossover with me and giving me the enthusiasm to keep illustrating and theorizing for it, it means a lot that you and others as into this as I am because I LOVE both of these medias so just a quick thank you lol. More of my answer below so I don't flood people's dashboards:

I was wracking my brain on how to incorporate the skills into this AU and what to do with the Pale, and for a while I had a vague sense of the pale being a cosmic phenomenon rather than limited to one planet like Elysium in the game. I go into some detail about that and the failed rebellion here.

I agree with you that the pale would be something that causes rapid erosion, and that gems need to prepare physically to protect themselves (like buffing or coating). However I disagree that the Pale wouldn't be psychological in origin still. Steven Universe is a very emotional and interpersonal exploration of characters and I do think that the entropy and psychological horror of the Pale and of fragmented gems can coexist very well in this crossover.

Gems develop listlessness in their stagnating and deteriorating society in Steven Universe and the depleting resources causing physical deformities in gems like peridot and amethyst requiring limb enhancers to accommodate them. I think this idea- of a government failing its people contributing to a miasma of hopelessness and deteriorating sense of self in and outside of the Pale- works very well within the context of both the game and the show, and is part of why I think this AU can work the way it does despite the show and game being wildly different in world building and tone.

Gems like Volleyball for example are what I think the result of Pale damage would be. Volleyball's eye is cracked on her projection. This is a result of the psychological damage to her gem from Pink Diamond's abuse. It cannot be repaired like other cracked gems- it is deeply embedded in her gem and the data that projects her. And when sufficiently stressed, it can even spread. I think this aspect of the Pale damage and rapid erosion you mention would work similarly. The Pale is psychological deterioration and torture. It erodes the sense of self, and the gems themselves in a very permanent way. It is a lot like a sandblaster, but not just for the gem- also for the gem's minds as well, a bit like Houseki no Kuni where if the gem loses its inclusions their memories are lost as well.

What I love MOST about this ask is the way you incorporate the gems as particle dust into Harry's Skills, or furies, or voices. They dust over Harry's gem and erode his own at the same time, in a way that removes a large chunk of his data (his memory and gem coloration / density / powers) and dusts it with the shattered remains of past gems as well. The only issue I see with this theory though is that Harry's skills have been with him since before his wipeout in Martinaise, and are part of why Dora left him and why he was known as a can-opener. So perhaps Harry has always been able to hear these voices on the wind somehow, and only after Martinaise did they nearly over write his own gem. This is one aspect of the theory that I am not sure how to proceed but I think definitely that the drusy formations on his gem being particles of gems lost in the Pale manifesting as his Skills makes a great deal of sense.

Anyways I'm sorry for the long ass response lol I just love this crossover and I'm really glad that it caught your attention Blue because you've brought so much to the table!!! If you ever have art requests or anything at all please let me know and feel free to spam me with ideas and messages bc I'm always on that damn phone lol.

[unkandboazinthecavesofmercury]

The Skills + @wordswithimages

(explanations for some of them under the cut)

INTELLECT

PSYCHE

PHYSIQUE

MOTORICS

all i really have to answer for are EDC and shivers, which are the usual suspects when having difficulties with the skills. the best i could find for EDC was editing an image, and i think it turned out alright; i was going to just take a screenshot of an ask wordswithimages got about "city-dweller memes" or some shit like that but they deleted it, so i had to use the subpar choice i did.

[potter-solomons]

power.

bonus:

[katt1281]

i like to think they play poker when Harry's asleep

this is based on a scene in my casefic! its not published yet but...thats something to look foreward too! :3

[delanterne]

💔 portland row’s doors are always open

[parasolemn]

[Image description: Harry du Bois, holding the bottle of medicinal spirit, looking at it with an inquisitive eyebrow raised. Logic is lecturing him: "If you drink this, then you will die. That's a fact. And that's why we're going to save you from yourself and store this as a SELLABLE item. Go sell it at the pawnshop for a profit." End ID.]

sooo I accidentally made a full list of quotes slash scenes I would want to do if I participated in skilltober. i Promise at least a few of them aren't shitposts. let's see how long it takes me to get overwhelmed by everything 😏

i'll also compile other times i've drawn the skills. there is a 90% chance most of them will have like zero but it's ok. I forgive myself.