Crystal Beptism

dam…….. that website “you feel like shit” (it’s like a questionnaire / troubleshooting guide for when you feel like shit) really works………………….. im not even all the way thru it and i even half-assed a lot of the suggestions and i already feel loads better

On my last Witch Hat Atelier fanart, someone commented saying the swirling design reminded them of Van Gogh's Starry Night, so I thought, why not go all out for the look?

I spent some time updating my Paint Tool SAI to the latest version and created some new Impressionist brushes. I'm super happy with these new brushes and look forward to painting lots of landscapes and skies with them~

The full hours long video recording, PSD File, and HD image will be DMed on Patreon.com/Yuumei on Dec 5th!

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

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Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

DON'T GET DISTRACTED, PIERRE!

Reblog art guys. Seriously.

♦️DOWN MEMORY LANE. Part. 1.♦️

Ah screw it, I'm compiling them all in one post instead. It's just more convenient. :V

This is part 1. More to come eventually.

Caleb let Evelyn go into his mind to show her he's totally fine!

I love you tragedy I love you corruption arcs I love you doomed relationships I love you character succumbing to their fatal flaw I love you codependency I love you characters doomed to die from the start I love you road to hell paved with good intentions

“some people don’t deserve redemption” redemption isn’t something that’s deserved, it’s something someone does. it’s making the choice to change the way you live your life, to be better, to do good things instead of bad things and try to make up for the bad things. and everyone can and should do that, at any time, no matter what they’ve done. we can’t change the past, but we can choose what kind of person to be now and in the future. we have the responsibility to do so. it is so completely not about “deserving.”

Look man, I don't know. There are a lot of fascist fuckwits trying their best to ruin everything for everyone right now. There have often been a lot of fascist fuckwits trying to ruin everything for everyone. Not to downplay the pain and trauma we're all feeling at having to struggle through this particular go-round when the future looks especially dark, but it's not exactly a new thing in human history. Alas.

There are still many, many people telling the fascist fuckwits to eat shit. There are still long green spring evenings and slow golden summer afternoons and winter nights and autumn leaves. There are still coffee shops and weird little bookstores and small businesses on sidewalks lined with flowered trees. There are still sunrises and sunsets and blue skies and ocean shores and mountains. Oh yes, there are still mountains, which I have an especial fondness for. High up there in thin air, you can see forever.

There are still Gay People In Your Phone and texts and in-jokes. There are your blorbos. There is still fic and fanart. There are still books and music and games and art. There is a lot of art. Even with the AI beast trying to gobble and commercialize everything, there's still art! There are still people who think using your own brain to do things is important! There are still universities and publishing houses and other places where it's our job to think about things that matter!

There is still work that feels fulfilling to do. There are still constant little moments of quiet and beauty and rest. There are still jaw-dropping pictures of nebulae and galaxies and the great immensity of space, as we continue to learn things we never knew before. And amid all those stars, there is still a tiny, beautiful, and vulnerable blue planet which we only get to live on for a very short time, and there are still kids who are counting on us to make sure they get to inherit it in some kind of recognizable form. There is still the weird fact that when you give someone a hug and sit with them for a while and tell them over and over that it will be okay, it actually feels like it might be okay. I think that all means something.

Doomerism is really easy right now. I get it. I honestly 100% do. But I also don't see any point whatsoever in throwing up our hands and letting said fascist fuckwits gleefully terrify us into submission and make us live in fear and act like they're the Actual Meaning of the World (they are not). They suck so incredibly hard, but they're also so small and so stupid and so ultimately insignificant. They will not define this particular moment if we don't let them, and if we stick around to make sure they don't. Fuck 'em. I believe in you.

Courage, etc.

Harley Sawyer character analysis (part 1: Youth/Teenagerhood)

This part of character's backstory is unfairly overlooked while I find it the most interesting aspect in building up Sawyer's personality.

So I will provide documents in chronological order analysing and theorising regarding them.

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First document concerns Young Geniuses Program run by Elliot Ludwig. One of Playtime employees (or even Elliot himself) writes his observations regarding teenage Harley Sawyer

"Harley Sawyer

This boy is a curiosity among these young minds. He cares little for friendship in the way each of the others seem to, nor does he care to treat his work or his scientific processes as anything other than serious. In this boy, I believe I sense a drive unlike any I've seen, and he has the smarts to match. If I might just be a tad selfish here, he is EXACTLY who I hoped this program would attract.

But despite not caring for his comrades' company or the fun of our project, he DID take an immediate and very noticeable interest in me. The boy hardly smiles, save for when the two of us work on an invention, locked in the throes of another grand experiment. I've tried to ask him questions— get a sense for who he is. And while he doesn't say much, from how he talks about home, I get a sense he doesn't miss it. A mind such as his can be quick to isolate himself from his peers, and if not surrounded by kindness, that mind can twist. The way he spoke almost made me feel sorry for him.

But this, doing what we're doing here, with me, he told me it was ALL he ever wanted.

I've taken a liking to the boy, and I confess, I hope to keep him around. He's sharp, intelligent, curious, and fiercely determined. I think we've got something special in him. If I'm right, I think he might just be who leads science into the future."

Line "If I might just be a tad selfish here, he is EXACTLY who I hoped this program would attract." hints that Ludwig is the one writing it

It seems like Harley was neurodivergent from birth and never before Playtime's program felt understood by others, including his family. I guess it's implied that his family is toxic or even abusive but there are multiple options: Abuse has different types, less or more severe, may come from one or both parents...

Or if it's just Harley being that unreliable narrator who made his family sound toxic and way worse than they really are? Though telling that to his mentor sincerely, from his genuine point of view, because it's how he sees the world through his irregular mind. Maybe Sawyer's family doesn't understand him and tries to "fix" him without being outright abusive or toxic but still not giving Harley that type of treatment which will work for him. And Harley, being egotistical, doesn't listen to them or change. Something similar to how Elliot Ludwig will try to instill the care for humanity in him during YGP, but eventually making Harley only worse.          

Although if his family was indeed nice, they would have taken their kid to psychologist, did something not to let him grow into that monster🤔 + I guess this option is not what the game creators really meant, so it's just "but still a possibility" ramble. 

“A mind such as his can be quick to isolate himself from his peers, and if not surrounded by kindness, that mind can twist. The way he spoke almost made me feel sorry for him.” — what a foreshadowing. It’s interesting how creators straightly stated through Ludwig the reason behind Doctor’s insanity.

Harley seemingly had daddy issues, he found a father figure in Ludwig and looked up to him: “But despite not caring for his comrades' company or the fun of our project, he DID take an immediate and very noticeable interest in me.” 

Sounds like science was Harley’s special interest dismissed by his parents&peers and he never before had an opportunity to fulfill himself in what he truly desired: “The boy hardly smiles, save for when the two of us work on an invention, locked in the throes of another grand experiment.”

“But this, doing what we're doing here, with me, he told me it was ALL he ever wanted.” — isn’t it a heartfelt confession? Harley definitely saw more than just a mentor in Ludwig.

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Eventually Elliot removed Sawyer from the program and wrote a letter to the boy explaining why:

I guess the more they bonded, the more comfortable it became for Harley to be sincere with Ludwig and show his true self. Eventually his “dark” side began to show:   “You finally lashed out at me one evening and stormed out of the lab. "Don't be soft, Elliot." you said. "Progress doesn't care for how anyone feels about it." 

I don’t know when and how exactly Ludwig was rejected (if you have a theory tell me please!) but his motivation is pretty interesting: “I was reminded of what ultimately changed me. Of what gave me the perspective I needed. It was seeing the world and people again, bouncing back from rejection and hardship through connection. In thinking about those days, I'm reminded that rejection can sometimes be the best thing for us.”

“So I challenge you to head for home, Harley, and to look at the people around you.” — I think such teachings sounded even offencive to Harley…I agree with Ludwig's philosophy but to deliver it in such a way to an obstinate person who apparently doesn't like people and lives in a toxic environment while depriving them of their dream job…meh, it sounds nearly as mocking...

“One day, I hope you'll understand. Maybe you'll even thank me. But even still, I'm sorry.” — if only Ludwig knew…In this case rejection made things only worse.

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After receiving the letter about his removal from Ludwig, Harley was taken aback and reacted hysterically. Also there are multiple stains on paper, probably Harley cried while letting out his emotions by writing (or it’s any another type of dirt)

“He took EVERYTHING

I thought you CARED

NOBODY CARES

NOBODY UNDERSTANDS

ELLIOT LUDWIG IS A SOFT, PATHETIC, SMALL-MINDED BACKSTABBER. NOTHING MORE.”

This confirms even more than Harley saw sort of father figure in Ludwig. He took the removal so personally. And seems Harley really doesn’t comprehend he did anything wrong, thinking that it’s just that “nobody understands”. 

“ELLIOT LUDWIG IS A SOFT, PATHETIC, SMALL-MINDED BACKSTABBER” — we heard similar lines in chapter 4, isn’t it?

And we can find Ludwig’s “removal letter”(intact and undamaged!) in the office behind Doctor’s lair:

It means Harley never got over this “betrayal”, remembering the rejection again and again, getting mad at a long-dead man…Infantile side of our “Big bad doctor”.

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The note addressing rat and poppy gel on Ludwig’s table…Who have written it? Who performed the experiment? 

Visualization of the experiment in Doctor’s trailer

Since images seen there are his flashbacks then Harley was present during the performance. We still can’t know whose idea it was but what if Harley was the originator of the whole poppy substance thing? “He took EVERYTHING” — may it have more straight meaning?

Also Doctor’s spite towards Poppy…He knew she was reincarnation of Ludwig’s daughter? Then Ludwig opened up to Harley very much and they were close in work. Or Leith Pierre knew and told him? Or if the Doctor doesn’t know who Poppy really is but when experimenting on her he saw the poppy gel used and was bitter about Ludwig using his invention?

Not long before his demise the Doctor rants to the player: “It was going to be mine…It was ALL going to be MINE! MY discovery! MY recognition! I was the one who paved the golden path! ” — supports the theory that Harley was the one who came up with the idea of reincarnation using a poppy flower. 

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I absolutely love the Doctor’s backstory. Creators let us in some way understand his inner motivation without making us feel bad for him(says person who feels a bit🥴) or think he was right…that good villain backstory without straightforward drama or tragedy. There is a tragedy though a pretty mundane one? Like, lots of people face domestic abuse or struggle to find human connection with neurodiversity and some of such minds really twist if not receiving proper help…but not even half of such minds would do those awful and inhumane things Harley did. 

There’s something poetical in the fact that the main villain who tormented so many innocent children forcing them to become monsters, was once a lost kid who never got proper help…and then will be welcomed to bring the ideas of his twisted mind to life, becoming a monster but in human guise(till one incident🤭) 

And I welcome your comments/theories/remarks! I have spent like 3 weeks? writing this but still may have missed something^) Hope this wasn’t too boring cause you know, I’m a bit pedantic when it comes to analysis (just like Harley, lol🌝)