patchwork-rambles

[patchwork-rambles]

No modern pokémon town/city can ever compare to gen 5's Village Bridge. The aesthetic, the music, the history/lore, the overwhelming sense that this is a very real community. Name one town in swsh or scarvi that has half the immersion, half the comfort.

#hell I can't name a single other town from gen 6 and onwards that has left the same impact on me as village bridge #and I like the modern games! I think gen 6 and 7 get shit on perhaps a bit too much. but. #can they 🎶oeaeauieoea🎶 ? I don't think so.

[patchwork-rambles]

I just finished the main three stories of pokémon scarlet/violet, and while I think I'll hold off on discussing my opinions on the overall story and the game mechanics until I've properly finished the post-game, I am currently in the middle of drafting my thoughts on its open world. Because I feel like the general consensus of the games is that the open world design was ruined by a lack of level scaling-- that if level scaling had been implemented, Paldea would've been the perfect region for exploration and adventure, and I... disagree. I think the construction of Paldea is fundamentally flawed, and so far I've attributed that to a few main points that I hope to discuss in depth later:

It has a variety of environments filled with pokémon and items such that it doesn't feel empty, but there is a distinct lack of notable landmarks.

The towns are largely lifeless and unappealing. While the lack of things to do in towns encourages exploration of the surrounding environments, it skews the balance that previous pokémon games have always sought to highlight-- Paldea does not feel like a world where people and pokémon live together, side-by-side. It hardly feels like a world people live in at all.

It generally feels very mechanics-oriented. The world feels built around the existence of numerous tera raid dens and mass outbreaks cluttering the map, where the environment is ideal for running around open space in search of items and pokémon. However, this comes at the cost of feeling like a living, breathing region with its own history spread throughout and a unique sense of character. It's an understandable creative decision but one that I feel does more harm than good because while recent changes have made the mechanics more interesting, pokémon's appeal has never truly been in its game mechanics.

I plan on elaborating more on each of these points and comparing Paldea to the regions of past games to point out exactly what I take issue with, which means I'd ideally like to play the previous games a bit more, so full analysis would take some time. But I'm hopeful that I can actually get this one done since I'm already in the process of outlining/drafting some shit, so I've got some momentum going right now.

#pokemon scarvi

[patchwork-rambles]

Past-me was so smart, but so cowardly to not actually post this. The red flags were always there.

#this is for real the last commentary I will provide on the finale #until I feel like an appropriate level of attention is being given to the Dweam Situation and I can discuss lore shit without #it running the risk if overshadowing it and muddying the waters. #i was just going through and cleaning my drafts and this slapped me in the face #tw abuse

[patchwork-rambles]

From what I've heard about the ending, there is. So much I could rip apart. I am foaming at the mouth at the complete lack of respect and mishandling of its subject matter as pertaining to abuse, and the existence of this ending for me completely reframes the canon events of the Exile Arc-- c!Tommy and c!Dream's interactions take on a new light (that I hate) knowing that this is where it was all going. And even beyond that, there are so many little things I've heard that just kind of piss me off.

But I am resisting the urge to dissect it. It doesn't deserve that level of attention.

For the time being, at least, this is all I will say on the matter. I don't want to overshadow the much more serious and much more important conversation around Dream's inappropriate actions, and I wouldn't want to critique the dsmp so much that outsiders would assume movements like #dropdream and all of the outcry against him is about anything other than his very real actions towards his very real victims.

That's not to say I think everyone should entirely shut up about the finale and anything dsmp, nor am I trying to apply some moral judgement to anyone who chooses to discuss/critique the dsmp at this time. This is just me expressing a personal boundary and at most encouraging others to simply be mindful of what they focus on-- don't let your frustration over the dsmp take the spotlight away from Dream's victims. Analyze and critique and comment as you will, but make sure to keep drawing attention to what Dream has done and be most vocal about that!

#dream situation

[patchwork-rambles]

Dream supporters are all like "The victims were fans of Dream who thought he was hot, so clearly they should all be discounted as overly parasocial. But also they were leaktwt so clearly they should be discounted as dream-antis. The dms were faked and proven false and clearly only about making Dream look bad. But also the dms weren't that bad and it was just dry-ass cringe flirting. But also also it doesn't even read like flirting at all and is just perfectly normal and appropriate conversation. No, I'm definitely not scrambling to throw every possible quippy argument, no matter how contradictory, against the victims I can in blind defense of this man. Anyway remember to stay neutral guys!"

#dream situation

[patchwork-rambles]

The thing about society acting like life ends at 30 is that it causes everyone to take up a perpetual state of midlife crisis at 15. I want to desperately shake my past self and all of my younger friends. Your life is not "half over" already! You can be here for both a good time and a long time!

[patchwork-rambles]

I am so tired of seeing "Why are you so harsh on Dream when Philza met Kristin via twitch? She was his fan!" as if it's some grand gotcha. So allow me to elaborate just a little:

These are just. Not the same things at all. Firstly, Phil and Kristen both met as fairly well-established adults-- they were both somewhere in the realm of 27-29 when they met in 2016. While the age gap between Dream and his victims was not extreme, the experience gap was much different. People develop quite a bit over the course of their late teens and early twenties. They experience many critical changes to their living and working situations and general brain development. When Phil and Kristin met, Kristin had an established career as a behavioral therapist. When Dream met his victims, he was one of the most successful ccs of recent years and they were still in high school.

Beyond age, Phil's status as a streamer was nowhere near the same level as Dream's. Phil met Kristin when his regular audience was but a handful of people. His audience was so small that when anyone new joined and asked him to, he could give them tours of his projects. When Phil streamed, the people who watched him was mainly comprised of a small group of friends, and when Kristin came into the picture they developed a bond playing games together and chatting. They interacted in more group-oriented settings and became friends before Phil ever asked her to hang out one-on-one.

Dream, even at the time of his interactions with Amanda, was one of the most popular and quickly growing ccs on the platform. While Phil's audience couldn't have filled a lecture hall and each person could easily be conceptualized as an individual, Dream's audience rivaled the size of some entire states' populations. He interacted with his victims primarily via snapchat sexting.

There is a critical difference in power dynamics and actions between Phil and Kristin's relationship and that of Dream and his victims. Namely, Phil and Kristin were basically on equal footing as two normal adults, and their relationship developed naturally first as friends and then as romantic partners. Dream, however, was a man with millions of subscribers, undergoing an extreme boom in popularity and expansion of influence, who sent dick pics to vulnerable teenage fans on snapchat.

They're not the same.

To imply otherwise betrays at best a willingness to rush to defend your fave cc over taking a handful of minutes to listen to Phil and Kristin talking about how their relationship blossomed to see if it actually backs up your point and a clear lack of investment in them as anything other than something you can use as some kind of clap back.

Don't compare Phil and Kristen's genuine romance to the shit that Dream's done.

#dream situation #tw grooming

[patchwork-rambles]

"Lol Amanda is really making things difficult for her lawyer!" Shut the fuck up. She's a victim struggling to handle a difficult situation even without factoring in that we're dealing with a popular cc and his toxic stans, and even in general it's. Just not fucking funny to make jokes about even potential victims having a hard time with our legal system, as if it isn't already hard enough for lawyers of victims in these cases.

You know what is funny and who would be making things difficult for his future potential lawyer though? Mr. Dream "I posted a long ass rambling twtlonger where I basically admitted that the dms where I gave an underage fan my private snapchat are real, continued to dm fans even after this all became public knowledge, and lurked and sent spies to social media groups discussing the allegations so I could present this all to an incredibly infamous drama-focused youtuber so we can all gang up on twitter teens" WasTaken. Sir, you are playing life and these particular accusations on Easy Mode. All of the odds are stacked in your favor. And yet, you cannot help yourself. Please keep it up. Make yourself look like an even bigger asshole and incriminate yourself beyond disbelief.

#dream situation

[patchwork-rambles]

Like, you can't really earnestly say "c!Wilbur abandoned c!Tommy to c!Dream" when c!Dream is basically a non-entity. He does not exist. He does not do shit anymore. c!Prime was dead even before cc!Dream proved that he can never be trusted to have a platform, and the other ccs should not be expected to figure out how to shoehorn in a Shrodinger's Dream version of their lore that can simultaneously function whether c!Dream actually does shit or not.

[patchwork-rambles]

You know, I'm generally not a fan of the c!Wilbur finale. I think it's got a lot of flaws in its execution. But one aspect of it that I've seen criticized that I kind of understand but just cannot bring myself to jive with is "omg c!Wilbur abandoned c!Tommy to his inevitable torment at c!Dream's hands!" Because like. Okay yeah. Speaking purely on an in-universe level, that is a bit screwy, and I do think it's a fair point to criticize...

But also, like. Come on. We know why it was the way it was. cc!Wilbur rushed that ending because of his concerns of getting shit done before "dsmp season/volume/chapter 2 chain of birth by 358:2 days remix," which at the time was believed to be something that would happen "soon." That's why the stream in general feels so clunky. And at that point, he had no idea who was planning what-- he didn't know if cc!Dream was actually gonna do shit in terms of c!Primeboys before the reboot, and given cc!Dream's history of dragging his feet/inaction both in the past and currently...

Yeah, I wouldn't have bet money that anything would've happened with c!Prime before the "reboot." I wouldn't have wanted to waste time trying to figure out how c!Prime would be affected by whatever I want to do with my character, not when I don't have a clue whether there's actually going to be more c!Prime. I wouldn't care about c!Prime. My focus would be on wrapping up my character. Having been in multiple rps that have died, I've been in similar positions where sometimes on an in-universe level weird shit with weird implications happens just because you're desperately trying to give your character some sort of closure before the server explodes. I get it.

Do I think that completely nullifies any critique that can be made? Of course not! Again, I'm not a fan of the finale. I've talked some shit about it, even though I know the reasons behind its flaws. I think it's very reasonable to point out the implications of c!Wilbur leaving c!Tommy when c!Dream. Is there. But I've also seen a lot of people act like that aspect of the stream was some deliberate narrative choice that held weight rather than another consequence of rushing the story and simply not thinking it through.

You can criticize the implications, but I think it's disingenuous to imply that "c!Wilbur chose to leave c!Tommy in a hostile environment where he could be further abused/doesn't care about c!Tommy" as if that choice has the same kind of narrative weight as some of c!Wilbur's other choices that were actually explored in the narrative in some kind of depth.

[patchwork-rambles]

To everyone who has ever said "She couldn't have been groomed! She was 18+! She was an adult! Stop diluting what 'grooming' means!" Please. I'm begging y'all to take three seconds to google "adult grooming."

#tw grooming #dream situation #also in the dream situation she was 17 but the point is. even if we pretend everything happened when she wad an aDuLt. #adult grooming is a thing.

[patchwork-rambles]

Something I think a lot of people don't realize is that deplatforming a public figure when they're accused of abusing their platform isn't a punishment. When we call for public figures to be deplatformed, it's not us calling for retribution or striking back, it's not even any commentary as to whether or not that person is definitively "guilty" or "innocent." So even if you want to pussyfoot around and "wait for the facts" or play "neutral," you should see the value in deplatforming.

Deplatforming is not about hurting a public figure or "ruining their career" for what they may or may not have done, it's about protecting potential victims. When a figure's ability to use their platform responsibly and not harm others with it is called into serious question, we call for them to be deplatformed in case they have abused their power. To protect others.

If we allow a questionable figure to have a platform and we turn out to be wrong, what we're risking are the lives and wellbeings of the people that figure could influence. Whereas if we deplatform a questionable figure and turn out to be wrong, all that's at stake is that figure's platform. They would still be able to find work elsewhere. They would still have whatever wealth they'd accumulated in the past. They would still be able to survive. They would not be "ruined." They just would no longer have the same reach.

#might make a longer post about this stuff. might not. #I'm just tired of seing people act like they're being Rational And Neutral And Just Waiting For The Facts #while also. still supporting someone accused of serious misconduct. still giving him views and money. #I have my issues with the concept of Neutrality as this morally superior ultra rational thing #and the way it's used in cases like dweam. but. #even if you're trying to be neutral you should want to deplatform him. as long as there is a question as to whether he abused his power #or can use his power responsibly. he shouldn't have it. simple as that. #if you're still supporting him even then. then you're not being Rational And Unbiased. you're being Uninterested. Dismissive. #you're not looking at bOtH SiDes. you just want to go back to your usual status quo of consuming content without thinking about it. #you're just looking for justification to not change what you're doing. #dream situation #but also I tried to keep the post itself general

[patchwork-rambles]

He's a poor little meow meow. He has a dog motif in the narrative. He's an asshole who would tap tap tap fine china off the edge of the counter. He just wants someone to give him pets and play fetch. He purrs. He barks. He's smart in a dumb way and dumb in a smart way. He lazes and basks and indulges, but he can't stop moving and he can't stop talking and he can't stop. He hates that he needs, but he needs. He hisses and bristles when he is loved but whimpers and comes crawling back when he is kicked. He tries to play his own love off as incidental, but he obviously wears his heart on his sleeve. He is a wet cat. He is a beaten dog. He figure-eights between the legs but flashes claw if you step out of line. He bites the hand that feeds but flashes guilty, teary eyes. He is too good a dog to be a good cat, and he is too good a cat to be a good dog. An oddity among felines, an outcast of the pack, straddling the edge between eccentric and perverse. A freak. He knows it. He laughs about it. It terrifies him. Cats bad at being cats and dogs bad at being dogs have one thing in common, after all. They're put down.

#i love it when my blorbo is both a catboy and a dogboy at the same time

[patchwork-rambles]

"If I was isekai'd into my blorbo's world, I would befriend them and try to help them with their trauma!" If I was isekai'd into my blorbo's world, we would hate each other immediately and I would kill them with my bare hands and it would only be slightly homoerotic.

[patchwork-rambles]

I've recently come to the realization that the fumbles of the dsmp have significantly changed how I view media. I used to be a huge proponent of "as long as your characters are fleshed out and well-written, they'll be able to carry any story regardless of the strength of the premise or plot," and while I certainly do still believe that strong characters to some degree can carry or otherwise salvage a meandering story... I have way less tolerance for a lack of forward momentum in fiction now.

I've noticed myself dropping a lot of fics that I previously would've enjoyed purely on the basis that I felt the character-to-plot focus ratio was off or the pace was too slow or the characters didn't feel like they were doing much. I'm not even saying all those stories were bad, it's just that what I personally value in a story has shifted quite a bit simply because of the way the dsmp has handled its characters and plots. I have finely-crafted, methodical character studies in my bookmarks that I know I've loved and I know are good, but my tolerance for the speed of plot progression has completely changed the lens through which I view them.

#I've always been pretty picky about stories that I think move too fast but I've never been this picky about stories that move too slow #or stories that favor character over plot

[patchwork-rambles]

I decided to stop consuming Succession solely through fandom content and actually started watching the show and. Wow, how boring do you have to be to look at that show and focus on Tomgreg. Tom is perhaps a little fun and wacky, but Greg has all of the character of a generic, flavorless Reader Insert in a mid-tier fanfic. Together they are the uncanny valley of mediocrity to me. Anyway, please leave me alone with my new purse dog who has every disease, Roman, so I can shove him in the guts of my piano and play Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 to knock him around like a little cartoon mouse.

#sorry not sorry but all of those fucked up siblings have way more interesting shit going for them than #the main dudes i saw floating around in fandom #maybe my expectations were too high. or maybe this is my bias for fucked up sibling relationships #and weirdo little freaks that would make a geiger counter screech #but yes. as always I went into a piece of media expecting to enjoy the most popular thing about it #and walked out with a new piece of shattered porcelain for my meow meow collection. this time it's a porcelain dick.

[patchwork-rambles]

Hey. Hey. Psst. Tumblr's value did not tank because of the content of our posts. Nobody is mucking through all of our shit, analyzing what we're saying, and assigning it a market value. It's become a funny meme, but that's not actually why it happened. Shocking I know. Tumblr's value plummeted because people left in droves during the Porn Ban.

So if you want to stick it to Elongated Muskrat and the wealth ghouls. If you want to "pull a Tumblr" on Twitter. They're not going to care if you tweet a bunch of quirky, freaky nonsense. They're going to care if you just fucking leave.