#how to fix nintendo breath of the wild

[daisy-daze17]

An aspect of totk that I've come to realise really bothers me is its tendancy to take bits and pieces of elements from lots of places and slap them into a game. Don't get me wrong- im aware the zelda games constantly include Easter eggs and call backs to reference older titles, and Totk is jam-packed with it. You search the depths to find a bunch of classic armours and shit from like every single game, the paragliding fabrics, and so much more.

But this game ALSO has a lot of story related or basic game structure that is tied to other zelda games.

1. Wind temple for example is practically oozing with reminants of wind waker-- you're climbing up to this MAGIC BOAT with the RITO (a prominent species in ww) by controlling and managing your wind powers all to make it to a boss with a name and theme song screaming out the most iconic parts of ww (God bless colgeras theme music we will never forget the music).

2. Lots of people found that the main aesthetics and storyline of this game was similar to skyward sword: you wake up on an ancient sky island that is the biggest one in hyrule before finding your way to the surface and descending down to start a search for zelda. I remember it was so similar some even started questioning if totk takes place before ss?? (I do not have the brain capacity to discuss that rn lol). Ganondorf looks extremely reminant of demise with his hair, main sacrifice of the game centres zelda giving up her body for a long long time so she can fight the evil that will come in a long long time, etc,etc.

3. As we all know, this game is a sequel to botw (omg rlly?? Who would have guessed) and it definaltly shows by the amount of game structure taken from botw to put in here. The four tutorial area shrines, the memories, the four main dilemmas for each reason, and ya know, the whole entire map. Totk makes changes to this map but essentially, it is a better version of the map we got in botw. Now it's obvious that nintendo would do this, but sometimes it feels like... they didn't have to?? The main one for this is the memories. The thing is, breath centred around our hero losing his memories and exploring unknown lands to receive bits and pieces that tell him what life could have been like pre-disaster. Totk, however, centres around zelda being in the past and showing link episodes of heavy plot driven cutscenes with every geoglyph he finds. Botw are little fragments of info that you can pieces together in any order to imagine what the main story was. Totk shoves a bunch of plot down your throat in any order because they don't give a shit if your spoil the story for yourself. Both games are non-linear. See where I'm getting at? One set of memories strengthen the nonlinearity of the game and rewards you for finding them. One... doesn't. There have been countless arguments made about this glaring issue that discuss it further, but my main point here is that maybe we didn't have to follow botw's structure to a tea if it doesn't work out for us sometimes.

Zelda games constantly reinvent themselves. Notice how no matter what nintendo does, some people always complaining about a new addition to the series while others love it? Wind wakers cartoonish artsyle, skywards motion controls, major's masks 3 day cycle, botw's open world gameplay? It seems like tears of the kingdom doesn't do that. I'd argue that its main purpose is taking breath of the wild and fixing major complaints made about the game, most of them usually about how untraditional to zelda botw was. That's why this game feels like a weird combination of the two. Nintendo tried to marry open world zelda with elements of older zelda games. It tries to have an episodic plot with major twists and emotion... but forgets that I'm allowed to watch each episode in any order I want and can end up screwing myself over. It tries to have traditional looking dungeons... but doesn't have any linearity to it and gets rid of the mechanics these used in botw, so it ends up being short aesthetically pleasing 4-part puzzles. It tries to have a LINEAR STORY in a NON-LINEAR GAME by making us constantly on our toes about finding zelda and understanding why she's trying to scare the locals shitless by commiting felonies like attacking the zora king, telling the gorons to do drugs, and appearing and disappearing every 5 seconds... but again, it forgets that I can spoil myself and know what the fuck is going on WAY before I'm supposed to.

This is turning into a little hater rant but. What I'm saying is, totk is trying to mix little parts of every game to make all of us happy, but it ends up becoming a confusing soup of unoriginality and "what the fuck in going on with this story". Its trying to make a traditional zelda game in an open world format. The most insulting part is that it tries to honour past games with taking all of their ideas,but totk's main purpose clashes with what those games are about (especially wind waker and botw) which is reinventing yourself to fit with the new generation and not holding onto the past/not obsessing over games that you got really big for (cough cough ocarina of time cough cough).

Anyway it's late and this is literally my first time trying to write out a critique about something on tumblr, so if this makes no sense pls tell me haha :)

[ashleyleygraves]

Every time I look at Tears of the Kingdom criticisms, they aren't even about actual criticisms, they just don't like the story. It's fine to not like the story. But when you criticize, you need to explain why and how you would've fixed the problem. (No, saying "I would've changed the whole story" is not the why and how.)

For example, I didn't like that there wasn't any explanation on where the Sheikah technology went until a developer basically panicked in an interview and said that it just vanished after the Calamity. I would've made it so that while Purah is explaining the Purah Towers and/or Purah Pad, she offhandedly commented that she got the parts from the guardians/shrines/Divine Beasts.

What really irks me is the "but the story doesn't line up to past Zelda games" that's right. Good job on understanding that. Ocarina of Time had 2 direct sequels: Majora's Mask and Wind Waker. Zelda 1 has a direct sequel: Link's Adventure. Wind Waker has a direct sequel: Phantom Hourglass. Breath of the Wild has a direct sequel: Tears of the Kingdom.

The only thing that was promised was that it was a sequel (and technically also prequel) to Breath of the Wild. People take the timeline way too seriously. Twilight Princess is technically after Majora's Mask, but we are only told that from the timeline. The Hero's Shade was hinted at being the Hero of Time, but just like the Bridge of Hylia existing in BotW/TotK those hints were just made as a reference.

The Zelda timeline doesn't make sense. Why did 4 Sword adventure take place in the Child timeline? How does a "the hero is killed" timeline exist if the hero canonically wins? Why is it only Ocarina of Time that had the timeline split when time travel is a common thing in many Zelda games?

Sure, you are allowed to not like the story, but stop blaming it on Nintendo not caring about the Zelda timeline. They were all meant to be a brand of games with the same name, we as a community just wanted a timeline, so Nintendo just made one and threw it at us.

If you want to argue that it has no connection to Breath of the Wild, please replay the game again and see how many things are connected:

If you've played BotW, your horses transfer over

Zelda has made monuments dedicated to the people that lost their lives to Calamity Ganon

People still remember him. I've seen arguments that people don't; so I will say: talk to the Zora, the people around Lookout Landing, Master Kohga, the Sheikah, some of the Rito, Riju and her right hand, and Yunobo.

If you've beaten the Champions' Balad DLC, you keep the picture of the Champions.

Anyway, I just needed to rant because I keep seeing "criticisms" that are just bitching at the story, which as I said before: if you don't like the story, that's your opinion, but don't think that's what a criticism is because it's not.

[karakulialiny]

As I learned from a TV show I watched recently, giving a golden turd to a person symbolizes wishing happy and lucky life in Japan. Knowing that Nintendo is Japanese game, it makes sence why Hestu gave Link such a ridiculous gift.

But I still think that such reward is too lame to be given for going around Hyrule for weeks to collect 900 koroks. So, I think it would be way better, if Link got broken Terrako as a gift from Hestu. Then, according to the game, we had to go to Robbie and Purah so that they could fix the little eggbot, after which, he will become our ally in battles, just like the pets in the Roblox game called World Zero. Then Link will go back to Hestu to thank him for giving a new friend, and they will have a little party.

You may ask, how did Terrako end up in the forest? Well, he went to find Link and Zelda, only to be killed by a larger guardian and lost in the middle of the forest. Then Hestu found him and hid under the Great Deku Tree. Of course, this would make sense if Nintendo had Age of Calamity on their mind while developing Breath of the Wild and decided to make it a part of canon.

{Previous drawing] [Next drawing}

[mooshs-crack-headcanons]

My go to plan as soon as I get totk:

Get through the tutorial area (probably in the sky then need to get back on to the surface)

Go to hateno. See if the zelink living in the hateno house together fanfics were real.

Check out something specific relating to the art book leak. (Not describing or sharing the leak so don't worry about spoilers from me! :)

Find a horse that at least looks like the one I had in breath of the wild, my beloved baby boy Romeo who can do and hasn't done nothing wrong ever in the entire 6 years of his life (he kicked me off a cliff four separate times):

Go to Gerudo desert because out of all regions it's the one I'm the most interested in seeing the state of post Ganondorf resurrection(?) murderous pissy fit.

I'm going to build me a big fuck off Zonai tractor.

Zelda. I need to know if she's alright, I would like to find out this earlier on but that's probably going to be found out through story and I really do want to take my time with it.

I need to see what the hell is happening with this korok with a backpack:

Speaking of the koroks, uhm... korok forest is gone. I definitely want to check that out. (Sorry this picture so so fucking blurry with how it's zoomed in but the forests gone)

I need to find out if I can glue two Royal claymores together (or an equivalent) to make a big fuck off abomination claymore that does double claymore damage that looks like this:

Go back to eventide. I wonder if they added something there. It seems like something thats a no brainer to do.

Check out what the fuck is going on with the labyrinths I can't find the screenshots now but I remember seeing some of them floating with the sky islands at some point.

If if I can find a sky island resembling at least a little bit of skyloft. I feel it in my bones that Nintendo would pull that type of shit. Or not because this is also Nintendo.

Documenting literally every even hint of a zelink moment in the entire game so I can make several posts gushing over it in the future.

Take lots of screenshots! I actually played breath of the wild on wii u and never on switch so of course I never really had that screenshot or recording capability so I finally can really go all out in this game.

The dragon that is 10000% a fucking Gleeok on the bridge of Hylia I've already determined is going to be the first overworld boss I fight. 🙂 I can't wait to fight it with only five or so hearts 🙂

Amd finally since amiibo support is confirmed and costumes are too - the artbook actually confirmed it but I don't really think that's a spoiler because it's a very obvious mechanic to bring back than just having them be used once only for the paraglider skins you get that was officially confirmed here below so I can't wait to get my ocarina of time and twilight princess gear back that I can wear for the whole game!

Over all I just really want to have fun in this game and really it looks like it's going to deliver. I can't wait to sink hundreds if not thousands of hours into and I REALLY REALLY hope it can at least fix a lot of it's predecessors issues, especially with how it executes it's story. I keep saying it, breath of the wild *had* the potential to be one of the best zelda stories ever but it was done so extremely poorly trying to tell it, majority of it is just ruined. I sincerely hope Nintendo has learned their lesson from that and actually let the Link/you the player actually play throughand experience the games narrative instead of just... having it exposition dumped onto you over and over in flashback cutscenes as stuff that's already happened and can't be changed. I went having this game with very low confidence it was first revealed in 2019, but the more and more I keep seeing it now the higher my optimism gets and I actually genuinely hope this game is really good.

I'm actually wishing the best for it and desperately hope it doesn't disappoint. We've all waited so long, and now we have only a little bit more to go.

[luckyladylily]

The weapon durability system in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is annoying. How annoying depends on the person, from very mild to game ruining annoying. It is a controversial system, but I think it can be pretty definitively stated that it is *not* a positive.

Now, there is a good reason for weapon durability to exist. Specifically, if your weapons break, then it allows for Nintendo to create a weapon scavenging system, which is a big positive. This brings us to two questions:

Is if the positive of weapon scavenging is worth the problem of weapon durability?

I think pretty definitively yes. Based on interviews I have read and design analysis, weapon scavenging is critical to the game's design and the game is far better for it, the game needs mini incentives for the player to constantly find all over the place, even if it comes with this problem.

And Tears of the Kingdom did manage to fix the problem a great deal with the fuse system. By making it so fusion materials are the critical element, where most of the weapon power comes from, you now are effectively carrying as many weapons as you have materials in your pockets. Your weapon limit is now how many weapons you are allowed to have ready at any given time. It is a small but critical difference. (They also significantly increased the durability of weapons when fused so they don't break as often.)

However, this feeds into the second question. If we have fusible disposable materials, do we really need disposable weapons as well? So here is the second question about the durability system:

2. Do we really need our weapons to break in order to have weapon scavenging? Could this question be looked at from a different angle to remove the annoying part while preserving the good part?

I think yes. And we can do this very easily using fusion materials. After all, if weapon bases are already plentiful, then why make us pick up a new one every few minutes? We have disposable materials, just let the material break and the base weapon stays around forever.

This would have three major advantages over the current system:

First, it simplifies the system without losing any depth - and in fact can allow for much greater depth. (We'll talk about it in a minute.)

Second, it removes what many people consider the major irritation of the durability system, the fear of running out of weapons combined with a very limited inventory. BOTW also had the problem of many people being very worried about using their best weapons, effectively shrinking their inventory size and causing rare item paralysis as they held onto powerful weapons. TOTK solves this by making the powerful thing not the rare base weapon, but the powerful materials that do not take up limited inventory space.

Third, this puts the mini incentive focus entirely on monster parts, allowing weapons to be a major incentive again. Consider how cool it is in these games when you find a new piece of armor. I recently picked up the Ganondorf set in TOTK. That's awesome! I also recently picked up the Biggoron's Sword. That is more frustrating than cool because I know if I actually use the sword the cool name and model will be replaced with some stupid horn on the end of a sharp stick. And then it will break.

I don't want my cool unique sword to break, but I also want to use it. Nintendo has created a system where we cannot have both. That's bad game design. (And I know I can replace it with some grinding, but that sucks and is boring.) Nintendo still treats unique weapon drops as major incentives but their impermanence really hurts that, and the need to fuse them to actually use them destroys it completely.

Also, I want to use my Biggoron's Sword, but if in order to use it I have to change it into something that doesn't look like the Biggoron's Sword then what is the point. It's just another weapon, maybe slightly better than a generic royal long sword.

I've come to the determination that the best thing to do with these weapons is break them as soon as possible so they get out of my inventory and it gets rid of the constant rare item paralysis problem. It's better mechanically to throw the biggoron's sword off a cliff than let it sit in my inventory and take up space. I know I'm not the only one who is bothered by this.

Even worse, because of all these facts, weapons, bows, and shields no longer can have narrative weight. Mipha's Trident is disposable trash in the best case, because if not it actively hurts the experience, no matter how much narrative significance it should have.

Nintendo has created a system where finding a cool new non generic weapon is a huge negative for many people. For BOTW and TOTK weapons, except for the master sword, have a hard cap on how interesting or cool they can be because of their impermanence. Trying to break that limit fails completely in the best case and causes a huge feel bad experience for many players.

So here is my purposed weapon system to fix this for a hypothetical BOTW 3:

We no longer have disposable weapons, bows, or shields. Instead, we get weapons and we enchant (or fuse or whatever, we can use any superficial flavor for this) them using disposable materials. Those enchantments wear off after a certain amount of use (like the master sword runs out of energy). A weapon can have it's enchantment overridden at any time. An enchantment does not change the appearance of the weapon.

Instead of weapons, we scavenge for materials. These are mainly monster materials, but can include things like enchantment consumables you can find in chests.

This allows us to have cool, unique weapons, bows, and shields again. It means finding these weapons can be a major incentive! A new weapon is an effective double upgrade, giving you a straight power upgrade compared to the weaker version, BUT it also gives you an effective second weapon slot to have readied with enchantments. Your old weapon doesn't just get thrown in the trash, it can be a backup weapon.

Imagine how cool it would be under this system to get something like Mipha's Spear, or Urbosa's shield? These extremely important game items could have narrative significance again! We could have mechanical progression explicitly tied to narrative progression and tangible, persistent rewards!

Now that is the minimum. That's fixing the problem, but we can do better. We can have depth! I purpose an enchanting system similar to the cooking system. Choose up to five enchanting materials. Every enchanting material has a different effect. This isn't limited to just damage - any special effect or modifier we see on weapons in the game could be an effect. More durability, fast shot with bows, elemental damage, etc. Very good materials could do more than one thing.

TOTK in my opinion made durability a not problem, but we could have it so much better than just the absence of shittiness.

[the-awakened-insomnis]

BOTW, AOC & TOTK

Warning! Opinions ahead, keep scrolling if you don't wanna read them.

Every time I play Age of Calamity, I get reminded of what could've been with Tears of The Kingdom. Specifically, the advancements in Sheikah technology, and with the sages. In AOC Sidon, Yunobo, Teba and Riju are all BUSTED in AOC. Obviously, a big part of that is because it's a HW type of game. But then TOTK dropped, and after beating the game I feel I can say this complete confidence.

Age of Calamity complimented and honored Breathe of The Wild better than Tears of The Kingdom ever will.

While yes, AOC is basically a fix-it fic of "what if they lived" with extra elements from BOTW. The stakes felt far higher, they was much more to lose, and when Calamity Ganon was defeated and sealed away? That victory felt more satisfying. We manage to save Hyrule, we prevented this kingdom from sharing the same fate in BOTW.

[Gaming conventions]

BOTW broke conventions of a typical Zelda game and it worked for the story BOTW was trying to tell. BOTW is about taking back what was stolen and avenging what was lost. AOC reminds us of that lost in BOTW, it's largely why the defeat of CG feels more rewarding in BOTW.

Another convention that desperately needs to break letting Zelda be playable, TOTK would have been the perfect game for this. There is 6 year gap between the games in-story. 6 years that we don't get to see, we could've seen what Zelda has become in between that time, we see she became a teacher, valuing the education of the next generation rather than restoring the monarchy at large. We see she clearly met the champion decedents, we know she was ready to explore and research.

Having Zelda be a companion would have been more groundbreaking than having her fly around as head-empty-no-thought-behind-the-eyes dragon. If anything, turning her into a goofy ass dragon is a spit in the face to her character. Zelda put herself front and center to save her kingdom in BOTW, this "sacrifice and potential eternal solitude" has already been done, there was no need to repeat this. If anything Nintendo took that and ruined it.

I can see dragon!Zelda as a final fight with Gandondorf, she swallows the stone she picked at the beginning of the game and turns into the light dragon so Link isn't fuckin falling to his demise whilst fighting Dragon!Ganon.

The side-quests were one of the best things about TOTK, I felt involved with the people more, doing that with Zelda by your side would've been more impactful. Seeing her interact with the people of Hyrule compared to how Link interacts with them would've been interesting.

The potential of what she could have brought onto the table is endless with possibilities, especially with the Zonai and all the research and mysteries surrounding this massive world. We will never get the chance to see Zelda interact with her the same way we did with Link.

They took what made BOTW great and served undercook BS in Tears of The Kingdom. The Concept art only strengthens my feelings about it.

[The Future?]

Nintendo got me feeling every type of way except the good one. EOW was pretty solid and the ending actually got to me. However, that doesn't really ease the bitterness TOTK left me.

I will mourn what The Kingdom could've been for a good long while.

Thank you for reading if you made this far.

[Random ass feelings]

This Zelda feels Green to me, whilst this Link feels Blue. Gandorf still feels red, but he hasn't been interesting since WW. IDK how to describe other than with words. Might draw that one day to properly convey that feeling.

If Zelda was a companion, she should get all the amino fits like Link did. Just for meme sake.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Nintendo-vember Level 4 (Part 2): Because this one had way too many pictures to make a point...

Continuation of the following post

Okay, so in addition to Dobson's own Link not really looking very familiar to the actual Nnintendo designs, I also decided to do the following. Getting a bit into hair sperging, I pulled out this little chart for hair color.

Now, to compare it with the Link designs predominant before OoT came out.

So we got Link from the first Zelda being somewhere between light blond and blond, Zelda 2 Link being dark blond and SNES and Gameboy era Link (who are the same and as such the favorite incarnation of Link gamewise according to Dobson) at Light Blond.

Where could dark brown haired Link come from?

Oh, right! The Douchebag of Time.

It is just weird to me, that the hair color is something Dobson has taken such a grief with when it comes to Link. Cause in all honesty, I am not certain how such a minor design detail can affect ones enjoyment of the Zelda games that much. Anyway, to the last point

?????

Yeah okay, I admit I am not quite certain what the last panel is even supposed to be about. I think Dobson wants to criticize the fact that now multiple Links exist, instead of the Legend of Zelda series being kinda like Mario. You know, one character all the time fighting the same villain over and over, instead of there being different incarnation of the character (and others such as Zelda and Ganondorf). I should admit, that aside of the OoT/Majora’s Mask Link, I kinda assumed actually till the release of Four Swords/Wind Waker, that the Game Boy and the SNES games followed only one Link. Which even nowadays in the branched timeline continuity they still do

Which btw proves my point from earlier, that it was only post OoT the execs kinda screwed the timeline up in such a manner, we would need the TVA to fix it. Anyway, till Four Swords came out, I thought Link was really just going to be the same hero in all games, just with a different design each depending on whatever console’s technical abilities. Then the multiple incarnatins and timeline thing became the norm and… well, I don’t get what is bad about multiple Links or making it that the games are kinda their own thing/continuity in a certain manner.

For example, I can still play Wind Waker also as something of a solo game if I take the backstory of how Hyrule ended up under the sea just as a backstory on its own, instead of thinking about its context in a bigger narrative. Plus it allows programmers and people in the story development department to kinda go crazy/creative with designs for characters and locations, because they aren’t “bond” to capture the style of a previous game to the point that even slight variations would feel out of place. Like imagine doing Breath of the Wild style Ritos in Wind Waker or adapting the 2D Zelda environment of A Link to the Past without much variety into 3D. Plus I think that if we only followed one Link time and time again, his adventures would pretty much become less special over time, because him fighting Ganon then becomes more of an average Tuesday chore.

So…That was Dobson’s comic venting about what he hates about OoT. And I have to say, a lot of these complains (as I tried to explain here) are arbitrary as hell to me. Dobson essentially complaind about aesthetical choices the game made, that all things considered were kinda necessary for this franchise to make the jump not only into the 3D era of gaming, but also in the storydriven era of gaming itself.

See, I like the Zelda series, but as a fantasy series up to this point, I wouldn’t really call it the most “challenging” game storywise. Defeat an evil pig demon, save the princess, explore dungeons. That was it and kinda is still the base line appeal of those games. But even just compared to some stories we got by comparison for example on the SNES (Breath of the Wild 2, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6) Zelda was not really that deep. This game may not have even been the first Zelda game with a bit more “depth” to it (Link’s Awakening was that for me with the island being revealed to cease exisisting once the Widfish awoke), but it certainly was one that fleshed the world of Hyrule out a lot and in doing so introduced multiple technical, story relevant and aesthetical aspects to the franchise, that went beyond what A Link to the Past already had done in 1991. And that game in my opinion, while great, mostly just improved on the aesthetical aspects by assuring the game looked better in 16-bits than anything on the 8-bit NES.  

To be fair though, I may also just be a bit biased here, because Ocarina of Time was an important game in my childhood I have very fond memories of. Both in context of the game, but also outside of it. But considering I am not the only one who likes it, I think it is safe to say that it is a good game. Is it the best Zelda game ever? Well, we have Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom now, so likely no. But it is certainly within the top four Zelda games and will likely stay there even the next few decades. And acting like it is total shit and its fans are “lesser” being for enjoying it, is not just contrarian, it is outright insulting. So in that regard: Fuck you Andy. May Octorocks ejaculate upon you, while the rest of the world finds enjoyment in that game.

And on that note... Happy anniversary to the Ocarina of Time. The best wishes from me for Impa, Ruto, Darunia, the Twinorvas, Ganondorf, Epona, Sheik, Zelda, Link, Navi, Sarina and all the other characters and the people behind Ocarina of Time for giving us one of the best games on the N64 and within one of the most beloved Nintendo game series ever.

May your melody be heard for 25 more years at least.

[omamervt]

I still see bizarre critiques of Scarlet/Violet that betray a lack of understanding about the nature of gamedev so I wanna set a few things straight.

Now because this is the internet, I'm gonna get this out of the way. This is not a defense of GameFreak. They scaled too big considering they had a locked-in deadline beyond their control and a development pipeline that spreads decision-making way too thin between 3-4 separate entities. And this is certainly not a defense of The Pokemon Company International as a whole. They'd happily stop publishing games entirely if they thought they could sell plushies and figurines of brand-new Pokemon without them, and I frankly won't be shocked if they eventually try that.

Now first and foremost, as I'm sure many of you know, the Switch's hardware lags SO far behind its competitors. There are several reasons for this and I honestly can't fault Nintendo for some of them but that's the simple truth - from a modern standpoint, the hardware sucks. They basically just packed Wii-U hardware into a mobile device, and the Wii-U was just an Xbox 360 with a significantly worse video card.

But why is it that some games like Tears of the Kingdom run perfectly with no issues ever under any circumstances, and even other Pokemon games released the same year manage significantly better performance?

Well, long story short, those three games all decided to do the exact same thing, ran into the exact same problem, and came up with three different solutions.

Starting with Tears of the Kingdom, a massive open-world action RPG/Puzzle game, they saw the limits of the hardware, knew there was only so many assets (items, environment art, NPCs, enemies, etc) they could keep onscreen without compromising the beauty and immersion of the world, and decided they were only going to have a handful of enemies on screen at a time. Usually groups of 10 or less. There are a handful of challenges with significantly more enemies, and the game performs noticeably worse in those areas. They also had fixed spawn locations. Enemies would always appear in the exact same spot, every time you go to that area. If you've killed the enemies in that area already, they won't come back until the Blood Moon resets all encounters on the map. The reset happens periodically to prevent a memory overload from crashing the game.

In this way, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were very expertly designed around some luxuries that a Pokemon game doesn't have. Pokemon games need to be able to populate an area with Pokemon. Pokemon need to respawn in that area more than once every 3 hours. Once again, though, an elegant decision was reached. First, they split the map up into 5 Areas, each about as big as the main Wild Area in Pokemon Sword/Shield. Then, they tied Pokemon spawns to a random seed. You know how Minecraft uses "seeds" to generate a new world, and putting in a custom seed affects how the world is generated? Yeah, it's the same concept but with Pokemon spawns. Then, they created a 24-minute Day/Night cycle. Every 6 minutes, the time of day would change. At the end of a full cycle, the seed would be regenerated, giving you a new set of pokemon in the area. You could prevent the generation of a new seed by "Sleeping" at camp, which would return you to an earlier point in the day, potentially allowing one seed to last significantly longer, and thereby reduce the amount of data stored in short-term memory when the seed is regenerated. Returning to Jubilife Village would dump leftover data from the previous seed(s), and generate new seeds for all 5 areas. Because of the seed, the game only needed to generate new pokemon while the scene was loading, which, if you spend less than an hour in a specific area at a time, took significantly less effort. And by creating some, quite frankly, bland environments with LOTS of big clearings where most of the Pokemon appear, they were able to have loads of Pokemon on screen at a time. Also, because the Pokemon are fixed to the seed, the exact same pokemon will spawn in if you walk far enough away from them to make them despawn. Nothing is decided in the moment, so no room for hiccups!

For Scarlet and Violet, GameFreak flew too close to the sun and got burned. Rather than use the smart system they came up with for Legends: Arceus, they wanted one big open world that'd be heavily populated with Pokemon, those pokemon would have minor interactions programmed in, and the player was given access to the whole map as soon as they finished the tutorial! And... oof, you can't put that on a seed anymore, it's too many moving parts over too big of an area! With virtually no areas to load into, you can't load the Pokemon from the next area all at once. You also don't have anywhere to hide a memory dump. The only two areas that aren't part of the same big open world are the city of Mesagoza, and Area Zero. So, pokemon spawn and despawn based purely on proximity to the player and the area the player is standing in. If the player leaves the pokemon's proximity, it's gone forever, and a brand-new pokemon is generated on the spot in its place. Even though it keeps the amount of assets on screen low, it's still a lot more ongoing work that the system has to do. And to trade off for that, they cut down on the amount of environment assets even further. EVERYWHERE in Paldea is a big open field. This game doesn't even have a proper forest, and no, Tagtree Thicket doesn't count. The trees are so sparse that you can't even properly call it a Thicket. It's an embarrassment to Thickets everywhere. And even with that compromise, there were STILL massive areas of the game that simply couldn't handle the amount of work that was needed to keep up with making these big, empty fields look populated.

Look, the point is, Scarlet and Violet don't suck because of corporate greed preventing them from getting a proper development cycle. Another year in the oven might have helped, but frankly it wouldn't have fixed this mess. The core issue at the heart of Scarlet and Violet is that GameFreak had a specific experience they wanted to deliver, they made massive compromises to deliver it, and in the end, those compromises weren't enough to provide a smooth experience. They should have split the map up the same way they did Legends: Arceus, with the school and Mesagoza as the hub area you'd return to after an expedition. It's perfectly set up for it, they just chose not to for some reason. If they had, they could have copied the setup they used to make Legends: Arceus work, and the game would have likely had significantly fewer performance issues.

But even so, I find it hard to fault them for trying. They did it because it's been clear this is the experience they've been building to ever since the series went 3D. Scarlet and Violet are the games they've wanted to make for a long time, and it's evident everywhere you look that a LOT of love went into building it. This game had possibly the best supporting cast of any Pokemon game ever, a story that focused on those characters rather than the world's lore, and an absolutely killer finale. Despite its technical flaws, it's a delight to play, and even after it's been out for months, I still can't put it down, and if the people making it didn't love what they were doing, I don't think that would be the case.

[game-boy-pocket]

And so, after 295 hours, I decided to finally challenge the final boss of Tears of the Kingdom today, and now the credits are rolling. I didn't finish every side quest yet or get every collectible, but I will do that overtime. I just wanted to be free from the shackles of worrying about seeing a spoiler. I'm afraid the final boss actually was somewhat spoiled for me, but it's something I could have easily seen coming. I won't be spoiling anything major here. If I do feel like something constitutes a major spoiler, I will put up a warning.

Breath of the Wild was always going to be in my top 3 Zelda lists temporarily. I could see that even before I beat the game. It was clearly the blue print for the future of Zelda, and the next game would dethrone it in that top 3 very easily...

Well, was I right about that?

I didn't have many problems with Breath of the Wild. It was pretty close to my idea of a perfect Zelda game. I just wanted more variety in the enemies, caves, and more unique looking dungeons. I also wanted better bosses, including the final boss, and a bit more backstory to the final boss. These were the bare minimum of what I was asking for. All of them were addressed for the most part. The common enemies from the last game are still the most common enemies in TOTK. But they have new tricks, and there are enough other enemies, and the less common enemies in BOTW are now more common, so I'd say the problem was fixed well enough for me.... I still want more enemies in the next game though. Caves were not game changers, but they broke up the overworld exploration and every one of them had at least one collectible in it, so that was worth something. I still haven't found a good chunk of caves in the game.

The dungeons are now themed. And there is one in particular that is super reminiscent of Ocarina of Time. I don't think these dungeons will make believers out of classic Zelda fans that dislike BOTW, even though they're taking out of the OOT playbook pretty closely... I just think classic Zelda fans choose to be difficult. It's not enough that you can make a hammer, it has to be the megaton hammer, it's not enough that you're making your way to a switch that unlocks the path to the dungeon boss, there has to be small keys in treasure chests, it's not enough that you gain a new ability before the dungeon that you need to reach the dungeon, and progress through the dungeon, and defeat the dungeon boss, it has to be a gadget you find in a treasure chest half way through the dungeon... I'm sorry to classic Zelda fans, but this is just so much better to me. .......all the shrines still look the same though, which sucks, but at least they're not as ugly as the BOTW Shrines. Just because it has irl historical inspiration does not make it good.

The bosses are better. Three of them are great, very classic Zelda. One of them sucks. And another one is more like a Donkey Kong 64 boss, but I still thought it was cool... the Final Bosses were great. Slight spoiler alert, but they do not explain anything regarding Calamity Ganon and his connection to Ganondorf, if there even is a connection. I guess the theorists are gonna have to do the leg work unless Nintendo has another expensive book to sell... The backstory for Ganondorf in this game kind of sucks and makes no sense. They're kind of retreading old ground here but not in a fanservicy way. But it doesn't bring my opinion of the game down.

As for the more common complaints other people tended to have with BOTW... I really didn't have issues with durability, in my opinion, people who do have an issue either have a skill issue, or a hoarding issue. So I didn't need that addressed. If anything, I actually don't care for how TotK addressed this "issue"... like, I kind of like the concept, but not the execution... not because it made a new problem or anything... it just made the weapons all look ugly... I also don't play Zelda for story. If anything, I prefer story to be more subdued and not break up the pace of the game like Skyward Sword. So weather the story was good or bad, the fact that it didn't get in the way of the game itself makes it a non issue for me. However, I cannot enjoy the story of this game if it's meant to take place in the same universe as the other Legend of Zelda games. There is too much revisionist crap that doesn't make sense and even retroactively sours all the easter egg in BOTW for me... however, if I treat BOTW and TOTK as a reboot with no connections to the past games, I think I quite like the story. But the easter eggs from BOTW are still gonna bother me. So in other words, TOTK has a good story, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of the series. I don't care how often this series does time travel... what's even more disappointing is that Ganondorf's first words in the game is a real "oh shit" moment for me, because I thought this was going to be a game that was very meaningfully connected to the past... but no, it turns out, they just re-used an old Zelda character's name for a new one, and he has no connection whatsoever to that old character. Just a funny coincidence.

Anyway... my favorite part of the Zelda series besides exploring vast worlds is also the combat, and almost all of Link's tricks from BOTW return. I already felt like the combat in BOTW was pretty great as long as you didn't just hammer the melee button and do nothing else. But TOTK adds a lot of options. Many new ways to alter your melee weapons, your bows, a lot of items an be thrown with varying effects, even your shields could be used in combat, and you could even build devices that can assist you in battle.

The building mechanic is kind of optional, but is too fun not to experiment with. You can make devices that will help you traverse the terrain more easily, gain altitude, assist in battle, just straight up make attack robots or turrets or attack vehicles, it's great. I do think some people can't be bothered to mess with it though, which is a shame. I don't like to fast travel unless it's absolutely necessary, so I was constantly building little scooters, ATVs, and even a small aircraft... I do kind of miss having the Master Cycle Zero though. Nothing I built quite matched it in ease of use and mobility. But being able to mount laser canons on the front made up for it.

I replayed BOTW immediately before this game. And I was pretty amazed at how fresh the exploration felt. So much of Hyrule is just not recognizable at all. There's still easily recognizable landmarks like the Dueling Peaks, but things really got shaken up...

I know saying this would cause me to end up like that meme with the cat having all those swords pointed at it, but I truly would not be mad if they made this a trilogy of games and reused this map one more time, as long as it was shaken up even more, and they gave us at least one more new landmass to explore...

...oh yes. That's right. This game had islands in the sky, and an entire Hyrule Sized map underground that is kind of like the Dark World from a Link to the Past, except once the novelty wears off, it's not really that amazing, it's mostly a place to gather a few resources, re-fight bosses, and you will occasionally encounter a curiosity or find a cool treasure chest... the game brings back Poes, but not really... they're not little ghost monsters you have to defeat for their souls, they're just little blue flames you can pickup and spend for currency. A little disappointing. But at least the things you can buy with them are kind of cool. Useful for replacing some of those easter egg weapons people will be too afraid to use for fear of breaking. The side quests in this game are much better than in BOTW, especially with the addition of the new "Side Adventures" which are generally a bit larger in scale... the rewards still tend to suck... not as much as in BOTW because a lot of of the useless junk that you'd just sell in BOTW now has a secondary use in TOTK. But much like BOTW, I don't care if the rewards suck... for me, the journey is the reward. I just like playing around in Hyrule, fighting monsters, and now, exploring caves and building vehicles and flying through the sky.

I might go more in depth in my thoughts at another time, I have so many of them, but this game is just too big for me to cover in one big tumblr post, it is made up of so many parts, this is one of Nintendo's biggest games to date, and it is also one of the most fun games i've played, probably since Breath of the Wild. This easily bodies anything they've released between then and now, for me personally speaking.

If you have anything you'd like me to talk about further, my inbox is open, and of course i'm happy to talk Zelda that isn't related to TOTK, or just talking in general. Have at me.

On a side note... one thing I wished was different from BOTW was that you could unlock the classic green tunic earlier rather than making it an end game reward... you can find it immediately since it' just in a chest somewhere... I am embarassed how long it took me to find all three pieces. I found the tunic... but the trousers and cap eluded me for many days while I scoured the game, but if I actually thought about where I found the tunic, and applied my knowledge of BOTW, I could have easily deduced the location of the other two chests. Oh well... also... the actual end game reward really sucks, but once again.... journey is the reward. I'm just happy I got my green tunic back.

[boyfridged]

oh man your tamagotchi thing is reminding me of this one wip I had bouncing around in my head of a version of the "fix-it" story

where 1. if you line up how old jay is vs where the timeline is now in modern day, and then do a tiny bit of fudging, he died either the year before or like a month after legend of zelda: breath of the wild came out (2017) 2. bats are nerds, bats would probably enjoy the zelda franchise 3. via this timeline in (1), ""current"" jay could plausibly be getting to the "I may actually potentially like existing, a bit" stage 4. the legend of zelda: tears of the kingdom, the sequel to botw, has just came out 5. something something video games as a stand-in/analogy for the enjoyment of life's simple joys and for the concept of a reconnection with one's youth

sorry this is only tangentially related I just wanted to share with the class lol

i've seen similar ideas circulating around and one of my favourite fics has a sort of a running theme of jay wanting to get himself a nintendo ds while going on a cross-country murder trip... it's such a light-hearted but also a bit mournful of an idea because it reminds you just how young he still is but also how much of that youth he has lost! but beyond that, jay just allowing himself to enjoy something so simple is a win.

i admire the carefully constructed zelda timeline btw. i tend to think that jay would gravitate toward more "cosy" games just because they feel like escapism from his otherwise violent life (as robin too, i'm not talking necessarily about the red hood era even) and botw especially falls into this category.

[giriduck]

So, looking up Omega Force (the studio that made Age of Calamity), as far as I can tell, they established the Dynasty Warriors franchise (and arguably the battlefield hack-and-slash genre) in 1997. Since then, they’ve expanded from the annual Dynasty Warriors game, to about 4 titles a year, with 3 of those games developed with/for other intellectual properties (Gundam, One Piece, Dragon Quest, etc.).

I would love to learn more about the development of the Hyrule Warriors games, particularly Age of Calamity, since it extends Breath of the Wild so remarkably well. Did they pull in a few artists and narrative folks from Nintendo after BotW shipped, to ensure brand management, artistic continuity, and alignment to the narrative design story bible? Is Age of Calamity running in a version of the BotW game engine, or is their engine extensible enough to capture vastly different art and rendering styles (I’m assuming the latter, given how they’ve made a whole business model of reskinning Dynasty Warriors for other anime and games)? How long did it take to make AoC? How much of the story came from Nintendo vs from Omega Force (because it feels like a BotW fix-it fic)? What does the approval process when working as a 3rd party developer on one of Nintendo’s most long-running, lucrative, iconic franchises even look like?

[fulgursmediaanalysisdrama]

After collecting more side quests and items that seemed like side quests but weren't I finished Ikana Castle and moved on to Stone Tower

There's no place for me to progress though, not even using the bunny mask for longer jumps. On the third floor I'm just stuck, I can reach only two platforms neither of which have any buttons or anything to interact with except for one hookshot pillar used to traverse between said platforms. It clearly is the only place to progress though, as the game had the rare instance of directly stating where to progress. And like, you generally being locked out of story relevant areas completely unless you have the tools to advance, and I don't think there be another tool I need other than the song.

What would suck is if I need to call back the plaforms I used to reach the third floor in a specific order in order to build a bridge to the fourth floor

The reason this would suck is that no matter where you fall from on the first or second floor you get send back to the entrance, but now I did get send back to the third floor after being knocked off the hookshot pillar (by something I couldn't see, but I was standing on top of it and all enemies are generally out of reach? There's only a few bats that don't even spot you), so I'd assume that I can always continue on from floor 3. Unless it wants me to manually go back to floor 1, as I can't reach floor 2 from 3.

Unrelated, but I do have sidequests left over that I'm 100% aware of. They have the usual problem of unclear objectives huge time waste by waiting or both. There's a lot of redoing in this, some of which is sped up, but I thought the appeal of this game was resetting cycles and doing things differently to achieve different things.

Not redoing the same things in the same way, with it not even speeding up and getting repetitive/boring (especially since most "challenges" are just annoying, in the sonic locking the player out of having control way, and don't provide any meaningful challenge to interact with in a way that can really be practiced. Everything that can be practiced is boringly trivial once you figure out how the mechanics work, if it wasn't spelled out to you), a number of times only to then time skip/wait and do one or two things before resetting and redoing again.

Sure at some point you have done everything and there's not that many things you need to redo any given thing for but in fact it's really annoying. Like at least make rechallenging the bosses worth something and keep the swamp healthy, the mountain thawed (you'd still get a reward upon replaying if you finish the temple quickly and gain the gold dust, since you don't need the sword for the dungeon), etc etc.

Shit like making me recollect the Zora Eggs because I didn't want to recollect the fairies is garbage btw, but at least more understandable. Now I just wish I had done the band side quest before the dungeon as the new wave bossa nova is permanent at least. What pains me still is that this is a remake and they fixed none of the errors of the first version, the quality of life changes that do exist hurt the immersion more than anything I have listed in this post of my big thread imo.

They were lazy quality of life changes too, bare minimum effort. But this is the way of this company, remakes as nintended. Money good, putting effort for money bad.

It's even more shocking as good remakes are 100% possible (ie a link between worlds), and what I'm asking is in the realm of a remaster. This is a remaster, I shouldn't have been calling it a remake my bad.

Anyways: tears of the kingdom is just a breath of the wild remaster and neither game is particularly good, botw is excusable as an interesting experiment that had good ideas with often poor execution. No one but Nintendo fans was impressed by this open world title, and no one should have been. Totk is an insult and should make it clear that botw wasn't bad because of lack of experience or anything but because of a lack of effort and care. The same bad designs got repeated uncritically even in the face of criticism, the reasons why botw was popular and sold well weren't examined and no growth took place, no improvements were made.

[sunnidaydreamer]

Zelda Rant

The more I think about Tears of the Kingdom, the more disappointed I am.

I miss Breath of the Wild.

Yeah it had it’s problems, what game doesn’t? No game is perfect.

But it was a hell of a lot more coherent.

The world was supposed to feel empty, because the world was still recovering from a traumatic world-ending event, that was still happening!

The settlements were small and far apart because they had lost THOUSANDS of lives!

Towns, small villages, the CENTER OF HYRULE ITSELF, all destroyed.

If the game wasn’t Nintendo and had the rating it did we’d be seeing Fallout levels of skeletons, blood stains and remains around.

(that’d be kinda cool ngl)

What about all the incredible technology?

The Sheikah! They were intelligent, they created it long ago, and what we see in the game is just the remnants of what they used to have.

Why was it gone? Because a jerkass king thought the Sheikah were a threat, and made them destroy or bury it.

Why do we have the Yiga? Because not every Sheikah was alright with this. The royal family made their own enemy.

Why are the shrines there, doing what they do? Because a Calamity had already happened once, and they knew it would happen again, so they made them and put the puzzles and monks in them to prepare the new Hero.

We learn about the Calamity that happened one hundred years ago, the Champions, things like that over the course of the game proper.

The memories system worked because Link had no memories, and the locations were acting as a trigger for these memories he’d lost.

He didn’t regain all of his memories either. Just the important one tied to that location.

We have the chance to read diaries that give insight as well.

We learn more about the characters writing them, and others as well.

We learn more about Zelda and how hard things have been for her since the death of her mother, and the prophecy being told.

How she feels like the lowest of the low, a true and utter failure.

But we also learn about Link.

It’s through Zelda’s diary that we learn why Link is always silent and expressionless.

We learn through Mipha’s diary in the dlc about her friendship with Link, how she feels, etc.

And the environmental storytelling as well.

The abandoned and destroyed remains of towns, the ranch, the castle itself.

I can’t remember where it’s said exactly but I remember learning that Bolson’s company uses wood because all the stonemasons and resources teaching about building with stone, the equipment, etc were gone.

And yes, the Zonai ruins, that we only know are called Zonai because of the map.

It had mysteries, some of which were even found out/theorized by fans before even the first teaser trailer for the squeal!

Like that the Calamity's source had to be beneath Hyrule Castle, since that’s where it emerged from.

You can’t have Ganon without Ganondorf, so people said that he must be sealed down there.

And they were right!

A mystery that had a logical answer, an answer that made sense.

But there were mysteries that a lot of us… really didn’t want answered.

Who was the Hero of the Calamity of 10,000 years ago? Who were the Zonai people? What are the dragons?

These were fun mysteries with as many answers as stars in the sky, and a lot of the fun came from making up our own answers.

And like I said, the game isn’t perfect by a long shot.

The rain mechanic having no way to combat it. If it rains while you are climbing you better hope you’re close to the top or be prepared to wait it out for however long it rains, which can be a long time.

The weapons breaking also have nothing you can do about it. Have a unique weapon, perhaps an amiibo drop?

Welp, enjoy it while it lasts, or get the house and mount it on the wall to never be touched.

The only weapons you can break and ‘fix’ are the Champions weapons, and those are pricey materialwise.

Then there’s the Gerudo's… everything.

They are still objectified, in game they are fetishized, with multiple Hylian men trying to find a way in so they can find girlfriends/wives/sex.

There’s at least one man always outside of the city, implicitly waiting for women to leave so he can try to flirt and score dates. He even has a quest he deems impossible ready to more or less trap a woman into spending time with him in the hopes she’ll fall in love with him.

He admits as much when you dress as a vai and talk to him about the quests, saying the Eighth Heroine was an urban legend and he wanted an excuse to get close to Link.

There’s the matter of the quest to get into the city. While many enjoy the Gerudo Vai set, many people have pointed out the transphobic elements in the quest, especially regarding the person you get the set from.

Are they a transwoman? Are they a man who dresses as a woman to sneak into the female only town for some reason? Are they some kind of pervert? The game leans more toward them being a man, but that leaves the question of why they dress in Gerudo Vai clothes.

Gerudo Town also brings up the issue of how would they treat a transwoman? Is she a woman in their eyes, even if she looks more masculine? Or would they not allow her in, as she was born and is biologically a male?

Or is it as some have theorized, and as long as you seem to identify as a woman by dressing in feminine clothing you are a woman to them?

The laws of Gerudo Town around men don’t help. While it’s understandable that they would have issues due to Ganondorf, in BotW and TotK they treat men as both horrible creatures and the ultimate life goal.

We learn in Tears that at a certain age any Gerudo child outside of Gerudo Town is taken from their parents to be raised in Gerudo Town. We see a group of these girls, at least three I believe, seemingly under the care of what I can only call a governess.

They break up families, and the father is not allowed to see them until they are considered adults.

In Tears we see what happens if he tries: a man hears about the trouble at Gerudo Town, where his wife and daughter currently are, and sneaks in to make sure they’re alright.

He’s caught, and locked in a dungeon with no comment on when, or if, they plan to let him out. And his family isn’t allowed to see him, if they even know he’s there. The guards very well might not have even told his wife that he was there.

When you enter in Tears you don’t need a disguise, because the town is in shambles. The creepy shoe guy is even waiting on the top of the City walls looking for women, and if I recall right he never leaves even when it’s fixed.

In Tears when Link initially talks to one of the girls she covers her face and looks away, as young girls are forbidden to look at men as it’s bad luck or something. The girl had to get permission to talk and look at you. Later an older Gerudo warns you about behaving, like you’re some pervert waiting to strike.

The Zora also have issues, mainly concerning aging.

Mipha and Link are childhood friends, with Mipha even commenting on how young Link was when they met and how incredibly powerful he was even at four years old.

But it never states how old Mipha was. In fact we never learn how old she was at all.

Link is most likely seventeen, and Zelda turns seventeen the day the Calamity hits.

But we don’t know how old Mipha, Link’s other implied love interest, was.

And with what we know of Zora’s and how they age this has led to… potential problems for some people.

Not helping is the quest where, in English, you deliver a love letter from a young Zora(who has the model of a child) to a grown Hylian man.

From what people have found, in other translations the letter is a pen pal letter not a love letter.

It doesn’t help that they kept her child model in Tears, her saying something like that she hasn’t hit her growth spurt or something.

But she’s supposed to be an adult.

It bugs people to the point where I’ve seen fics where Link has a child and refuses to take them to Zora’s Domain so as to prevent a Zora from falling in love with them while they’re a child.

It’s poorly explained how they age. You could have just said that the Zora live longer, but the game implies they age faster? How much faster? Body and mind? Just mind? How does it work?

There’s also some confusion with Gorons.

Yunobo is Daruk’s descendant. But Gorons are born from the earth.

So how is Yunobo Daruk’s grandson? How did he inherit Daruk’s power, if Gorons don’t have things like bloodlines? Does it have to do with where a Goron is born? Like in a certain area makes you family? If so, why is it only Yunobo who inherited Daruk’s ability? Surely others would be born from that area too.

The Yiga are also… not that great, you could say, and I KNOW that’s gonna ruffle some feathers.

They’re a joke, in essence, especially Kohga.

They’re obsessed with bananas, and with Kohga.

Kohga, who is admittedly strong, but is characterized as a lazy, overweight dumbass with a fluffed up ego.

His boss fight is centered around you making him hit himself, so that he is stuck in the sand with his ass sticking out so you can hit him.

You don’t even finish him off, he gets thrown down the pit by his own technique.

And somehow survives.

(I call bullshit)

His questline in Tears is also one of the most annoying as it’s you chasing him around the depths before he, once again, takes himself out with his own technique.

I saw someone theorize that they’re portrayed the way they are as Japan has a cult problem, and that portraying them as competent and cool etc would risk glorifying cults there.

I truly hope that’s why, and I can understand it.

But they’re a little too much of a joke for my tastes.

And I still can’t understand their motives.

They want to support the Calamity, and in Tears Ganondorf, and end the world.

Like, they know the world is going to be destroyed, and that includes them, right?

In Tears Kohga even admits as such.

So why are they supporting the Calamity? They must have an amazing pr strategy since in BotW someone states that the reason only Paya and the two girls are the only young Sheikah around is that all of the others ran off to join the Yiga clan.

(In Age of Calamity, which has a dubious relationship with canonicity, they’re portrayed as wanting revenge on the Royal family, but also that they care enough about each other that when Kohga finds Astor sacrificing his peoples souls to fuel the Calamity the whole clan turns against it and joins the rest of Hyrule fighting the Calamity. I enjoyed this portrayal way more than in BotW/Tears, but that’s just me.)

Also, personal nitpick/opinion: Bolson construction and continued into Hudson construction is a fucking cult. You have to swear to name your child a certain way when you marry, and Rhondson was not told this either, and is kinda bullied/gaslit into agreeing to it when she marries Hudson. Grante has to add ‘son’ to his name before they’ll give him a job. It’s a cult.

Tears has so many issues story wise it makes peoples heads spin.

Where is all the Sheikah tech?

You’re telling me in the time between BotW and Tears they went to every corner of Hyrule and, what? Dismantled everything?

They tore down the towers? Took apart the Guardians? All of them?

The gigantic Divine Beasts, the fucking graves of the Champions? Just gone?

Not a trace of Sheikah tech is left, not even the slate.

These things, this tech, that was vital to the first game is just… gone? Save for a lone decayed Guardian on top of the Hateno Tech Lab?

And as far as I’ve seen, there is no explanation in game for it.

It might as well have never existed.

The time travel also makes no sense.

From what we are made to understand it’s a closed loop. We know this because Ganondorf knows who Zelda is and deduces who Link is the moment he wakes.

So Zelda would have had to have already gone to the past from this point, as we see her do.

But that raises some problems.

The Master Sword is broken, and Link sends it back in time to Zelda, who becomes a dragon to soak it in her sacred power to restore it.

So… how is it available for the Hero of the original Calamity? How is it available for Link to find at twelve? Why was it in the pedestal in Korok Forest if it should be with Zelda and getting restored?

How are the geoglyphs only visible after the Upheaval?

Did Zelda know Link would lose his arm and have it replaced by Rauru’s? Yes she saw his arm hurt, but she had no way of knowing it would need to be replaced.

So why is everything reliant on Rauru’s arm? Kohga can’t access autobuild because he doesn’t have it, this is made clear every time we pursue Kohga during his quest, there is no other explanation given.

Link needs it for the temples, he needs it when he finds the door leading to Mineru’s head for her construct.

Was the plan to always replace Link’s arm? Even if it wasn’t damaged beyond repair?

He even needs it to see the dragon tears, as recall is what triggers them.

Without Rauru’s arm, Link wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Why is Zelda’s power changed to time instead of light? So that Rauru can remain the Sage of Light?

Yes, in OoT she’s(unofficially they never say it in game as far as I know) the Sage of Time, but in BotW it’s established her sacred power is light. Unless you’re implying that she was using her power over time to seal Ganon for that 100 years.

I highly doubt Nintendo thought that far ahead.

So it had to have been changed to keep the reference to Rauru being the Sage of Light.

And it makes no sense.

It’s obvious that Zelda’s power being changed to time was not only to keep Rauru as the Sage of Light, but to get Zelda out of the way.

By sending her irreversibly back in time there’s no way for her to contribute to the main story except through the memories.

A system they should not have brought back.

It worked in BotW because Link had no memories and was rediscovering them.

Here, it comes across as a cheap way to give story without real effort.

And the memories shown have such wild time differences between them that we only get fractions of story. As well as how easy it is to get them out of order, and thus spoil everything for yourself.

And when you do get them all, doing so before the mission at Hyrule Castle or even any of the temples, takes away from the story because you know that the person you’re seeing isn’t Zelda.

A fact which Link apparently keeps to himself, letting everyone worry endlessly over where Zelda is.

If Zelda had to be sent back in time, why not make it to where when we find a dragon tear we switch to playing as her for a little while? Let us experience the story as Zelda as it happens. Let us interact with the npcs ourselves.

We would care more about them, learn more about them.

Instead we’re given scraps of information that need to be slightly supplemented by an optional side quest telling us that Zelda was totally having the time of her life, she made so many friends, if only you could see.

So let us see!

Why does Ganondorf want to cover the world in darkness? He was a human, Gerudo, not a demon or anything. So why does he hate the light? Why does he value strength so much? Where did his survival of the fittest mentality come from?

When he became the Demon King, what happened to his Gerudo followers? Did he abandon them? Were they turned into monsters?

How did he kill Sonia? He had no weapon, we see no blood.

Did he break her spine? Punch her soul out of her body?

The way it plays out getting bit by a mosquito would have taken this woman out. A gust of wind would have blown her very soul away.

You went out of your way to show us Ganondorf as a weapons master, even in the Gerudo Assault memory showing several Gerudo behind him holding his weapons.

At no point is he ever implied to do hand-to-hand, so why does he have megaton punches?

Just have him stab her from behind with his spear, her hair could block the wound and blood.

Did the Gerudo Sage follow him once, like Nabooru? Or was she always against him?

How convenient is it that all of the original Sages are the ancestors of the new Sages?

We’ve already talked about the issue with Goron lineage and how that makes no sense, so how is it possible that not only are all of the modern, and apparently the original, Sages leaders of their people(except Tulin) in some way(Sidon is king, Riju is Chief, Yunobo by way of being in charge of Yunobo corp which the Gorons rely on), but that their lines stay in power over potentially 20,000 years or more.

And we know they were in charge because they had the power to swear their entire races into the royal families service. And their people just go with it.

Also just how long ago is the Imprisoning war?

I throw out 20,000 years because the last Calamity was 10,000 years before BotW, so maybe that one was 10,000 years after the Imprisoning War(maybe the malice needs that long to collect and make Ganon).

(and no I don’t give a shit that it’s called ‘gloom’ in Tears. That shit is malice to me.)

So how long has it been between the Imprisoning War and the Calamity of 10,000 years ago?

Why is everything suddenly related to the Zonai, despite our only ever hint to the Zonai being their ruins in Faron, which apparently aren’t even their ruins, but ruins made by Hylians to honor them?

Why are they suddenly the God rulers who descended from the heavens who established Hyrule?

Then mysteriously died off/disappeared leaving only Rauru and Mineru as full-blooded Zonai?

How is the Hero of 10,000 years ago suddenly(supposedly) part Zonai, if they were all gone?

Wouldn’t that make him a descendant of Rauru and Sonia? We know they must have had at least one child, as Sonia senses a blood connection between her, Zelda and Rauru. It’s never so much as implied that Mineru is even married let alone that she has a child.

(I refuse to believe that the Hero is part Zonai. He looks nothing like a Zonai. That is a Frankenstein monster of some kind. I prefer the theory that he’s from the people shown in the statues in the Depths.)

Also were the Sheikah inspired by the Zonai tech? Or was at least some of the Zonai tech inspired by the Sheikah tech via the Purah Pad?

How were the sky islands raised? How were they kept in the sky? How were they hidden? And in such a way that it took the Light Dragon breaking through said barrier to reveal them?

In BotW it is shown that there is a barrier if you follow the dragons long enough. You’ll eventually see them ascend into a hole or portal of some kind in the clouds.

Can any of the dragons break this barrier? If so why wasn’t it broken before the Upheaval?

With the reveal that swallowing a Secret Stone turns you into a dragon, the mystery of the dragons is thrown out the window. What else are we to assume except that they are people(most likely Zonai) that swallowed a Stone for some reason?

This kills any sort of fun/mystery associated with them.

They’re all called servants of the sacred springs, named after the Three Golden Goddesses(the only reference anywhere in BotW/Tears to them), leading to so many theories.

Were they the Goddesses themselves? Were they created by them to guard the springs?

Nope. They are(most likely) just Zonai who swallowed a Stone for some reason. Zonai who probably just happened to have names referencing the Goddesses.

Since, ya know. For some reason by the era of the Wild only Hylia exists, despite not being mentioned(timeline wise) since Skyward Sword.

Also, really playing up the Skyward Sword refs in this game aren’t they?

The sky islands, the reforging of the Master Sword, Ganondorf’s Demon King form basically being Demise.

Throw in Ghirahim and the refs will be complete!

(speaking of I am really surprised there’s no ref to Ghirahim. Like at all. Not a weapon, not a clothes item. He’s one of the most popular Zelda villains, where’s his rep Nintendo?)

Ganondorf is also just… evil to be evil. Because the iconic villain of Zelda is apparently not allowed to be deeper than evil for evils sake.

After so long out of the spotlight this man is still just evil because he can.

Lame.

Sonia and Rauru are little better, we know next to nothing about them.

All things that would have been made better by making the dragon tears playable segments where we could interact with them.

I don’t care enough about Mineru to be affected by her heartfelt farewell in the true end.

We don’t know anything about her aside from her and Zelda having being nerds in common. Apparently they were good friends, but we don’t get to see that.

Zelda is so sad when she moves on to the afterlife and I’m eating a snack as I wait for the rest of the credits.

Plus her Sage ability is near useless. If she kept what you attached to her it’d be fine, but they break so fast that I don’t even bother.

Most of the Sage abilities are not great.

Sidon is, to me, useless except against the Muktorok.

Yunobo you can at least use for mining and breaking rocks.

Riju is OK I guess.

Tulin too.

But chasing their asses down just to activate them…

I don’t bother.

And then you activate them when you don’t mean to, so you lose stuff or get damaged or something.

Hate it. 0/10.

I also have issues with the way Zelda is returned to being human.

A huge deal is made about how swallowing a Stone will irreversibly turn you into a mindless dragon, there is no turning back.

….Unless you know and matter enough to the ghosts of Rauru and Sonia, in which case they magically have the ability to reverse the process.

I know that there was no way they’d keep her as a dragon, but that was such a cop out.

Also, wasn’t Link’s arm ‘beyond saving’? Did we just rewind his arms removal and destruction while we were at it?

If someone lost their head, could they just rewind them to a point where it was attached?

We could have had a whole quest dedicated to finding out how to return her to human form! Impa mentions looking into it.

But all we get is someone pressing the rewind button and everything is fixed! Hurrah!

Consequences don’t matter if you’re Link and Zelda!

Alright, I’m ending this here I’ve gone on too long.

[mooshs-crack-headcanons]

...you know something else extremely fucked I just thought of?

So what we've seen in tears of the kingdom so far, the malice pouring out of Death Mountain and the big fuck off cyclone in the Hebra region specifically, these of course are going to very much effect/be a hindrance to the Goron and Rito and going off this I'd safely assume that same things of those magnitudes happening in the Lanayru and regions as well effecting the Zora and Gerudo as well; like something dealing with the water in Zora's domain and... you know how in ocarina of time Twinrova brainwashed Nabooru to fight as an Iron Knuckle? ...wouldn't it hypothetically be something if we *somehow* got Iron Knuckles back? I'm just saying I'm pretty sure out of all the races besides Hylians that the Gerudo would be the one that Ganondorf is going to be the most pissed at. I mean... at one given time they were his people, and now they're just allies with Hyrule? One of its chieftains close enough to get a high military position and closely befriend a previous Queen and current princess? I don't think he's going to take to it very kindly to me point were I'm sort of sure they're going to get the worst. How worse? Brainwashing the current people into mini bosses. It'd be extremely fucked and I doubt with modern day Nintendo it'd happen but it'd 100% fit Ganon's MO if it did and besides with what he said in the last trailer he doesn't care about ruling Hyrule anymore - he wants it destroyed and I can guarantee he's taken down his own past group of people with him.

Going off that, you want to hear something that makes what said above even more tragic? So age of Calamity, I have... feelings on it but what if something like this happens:

So you know how Terrako the egg guardian goes back in time and eventually bring the "new champions" Sidon, Teba, Yunobo, and Riju (and Patricia) back in time as well? From the breath of the wild stand point, when does this exactly happen? Right after? 🤔 Hear me out - what if it starts shortly before totk, and they're gone for awhile (depending on how timeflow in the main timeline works but stay with me) Now I know the community would throw an absolute uproar over the suggestion but... what if while all the shit that is happening in tears of the kingdom and all Hyrule's races are suffering, what if they're gone the whole game until the very end because they've been sucked into the age of calamity timeline by Terrako to fix all the shit there meanwhile everything that could go wrong is going wrong in the main timeline. Like a fucked up equalizer to timelines except one gets a happy ending and the other already awful tragic one becomes even more awful and tragic.

I highly doubt any of it but like. In a twisted way I'd really want this to be the case, like yay in the age of calamity timeline it's a golden route yay fix it fanfiction but in consequence of successfully thriving back the Calamity in that timeline the main timeline is 4x times weaker with them going leaving Link and Zelda moreso alone to deal with all this shit. It's extremely fucked but like 😤 I love the potential angst to it. 😤

[so-litudinal]

Pai took a rest in my hand for a while and now my palm is all warm and smells like her. by the time I finish writing this — if I do — my palm'll be cool again and the smell will be gone. that's a little sad. can't help but make you think about "the last time it'll ever happen." she's starting to moult again, it hasn't even been that long since last time. poor thing, it's going to be uncomfortable for her. she's barely even started to lose feathers but she's been acting restless for a while already. I hope this one doesn't last too long.

I love her, I love her a lot, my little bird. developing a bond with a bird's somewhat different from any other pet I've had so far, cats and dogs (and my chickens but that's also not the same). and I get anxious thinking things like "does she know I love her?" and then I realise just how silly and human that sounds. I think she's at least in some way aware that she's taken care of (though I could do an even better at that, it'll come), and that, you know, I'm a distinct presence in her eyes. that's enough.

the other day when I went inside the garage to put the chickens' feeder away for the night, my mother's scooter looked like it had been moved (possible that I was just imagining things). she hasn't used it in a long time, personally not mad about it since I never got over the fear of something happening to her on the road (I mean, that thing makes you ridiculously vulnerable). but yeah, since then I've been daydreaming of using it myself. not likely to happen, and I think I'm mostly just fixated on the fact that it'd made me look cool lol.

mh yeah, whatever, I'd first have to get my eyesight checked and fixed anyway.

also probably because of ykk.

I mean, of course I'd wanna be more like Alpha.

speaking of which, I really, really love Kokone, for several reasons. she's my favourite ykk character, probably one of my favourite characters altogether. it's very much a case of "she's so like me" + "I wanna be more like her" + "I wanna be with her" hah... ///

I wanna start playing ocarina of time again. it would be my third or fourth time starting over, am I ever gonna complete it who knows (this is a theme) (or as losers might call it, a pattern of behaviour). I've been watching playthroughs by this youtuber I like but I'm spoiling the story for myself.

same thing with his series of breath of the wild videos, that I stopped watching for now because I wanna play it myself first but after all these years, the game still costs 70 euros, even now that totk has been released, like wtf nintendo.....

ah, I just accidentally almost quit the page without saving. that's the real tumblr experience right there.

but I'm still way too attached to my own words to let that happen (unreasonable)

[mj-skyair-star]

█🕹️👾🎮Chapter 1: Toxic Friends░▒▓█

⚠️WARNING!⚠️ - Bullying: Intense verbal bullying, transphobia and genderfluidphobia (You are very warned)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

March 28th, 2036, Friday, 10:55 p.m. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An hour later.

Mum and Arrow returned home from the hospital at 10:55 p.m.

I heard them talking as they were coming up the stairs. Mum was telling Arrow something about diets.

“So there was something up with Arrow! I hope he's ok…” I waited a little longer under my bed sheet cover so mum could conduct a 'patrol check'.

Five minutes later, the result of mum checking on me if I was 'sleeping' turned out to be a no. It's highly possible that she was tired and didn't feel like doing what she usually does before bed, perfect!

The reason why she does that every night is that the three of us are sometimes a bit too addicted to playing on our devices, whether it's 3DS, Nintendo Switch, a Gameboy or our phones- mainly, it's our phones. In the event that she finds one of us playing on our devices (or all of us), she will take it and return it to us tomorrow after we/one of us completes the chores that we/one of us do not like as a consequence. I understand why she does that. She would want us to have a healthy sleep pattern.

Because she won't be checking on me or my other two siblings tonight, I had plenty of time to stuff all of my pillows under my blue blanket, to make it look like someone is 'sleeping'. (This is in case she wakes up and checks on Arrow, Ava, and me (if she ever changes her mind).

After that is all done, I’m ready to leave.

Heading up to my door and turning the knob very silently with my house keys in hand, I opened it carefully.

I stepped outside in the same clothes I'm wearing, my eyes were fixed on closing the door and on alert of anyone coming where I am.

The coast is clear.

The tricky part is tiptoeing down the stairs.

As I stepped down, I was vigilant trying not to cause the staircase to squeak as loudly as the roar of a mighty lion... Parts of this staircase are pretty squeaky which will lead one of my family members to wake up from that sound in the middle of the night since some are light sleepers.

The staircase did make a bit of a creek, but it wasn't too bad, at least.

As soon as I got down to the bottom, I headed to the front door. My shoes were already on so I proceeded to unlock the door.

I looked back at the area of my two-story house for a second.

There is still no sign of anyone.

Taking a deep breath, my feet stepped over and landed on the 'Welcome home' mat and...

I left home.

***

“What was dad even talking about? It's just cold and dark outside!” At night, the stars are beautiful despite how creepy the area is surrounding me.

On the street, walking along the footpath; the only light source is the light poles. I guess the moon and stars count as lighting. My hazel eyes can adjust to the dark anyway.

Nothing has happened so far. No kidnappers, attackers or murderers were in sight, and I managed to arrive at Sophia's house safely. Dad was wrong. When I got there, I noticed the colourful lighting had been replaced with normal lighting... The party ended abruptly? Bruh, already??? I would assume everyone had left but the party was so wild and a lot of people. How could Sophia manage to get many people to leave? Maybe there was a noise complaint from one of the neighbours after all.

Heading up to the front door once again, I knocked on the wooden door.

Knock, knock, knock.

For about three minutes the door opened to reveal Sophia's face peeking out behind it.

This time it's different.

Unexpectedly, she looked deeply freaked for some reason...

"A-Airis!? What a coincidence!?" Her voice sounded high, suspiciously. As someone who can notice something off, I know she isn't the type to do anything that involves getting into trouble. Unless it's about what happened two hours ago. "What are you doing here at 11 p.m? It’s late," she asked.

“You’re up late too,” I stared at her, a tiny bit strange, yet more awkward.

"Hey, um... I'm here because... I left my phone here by accident..." I explained. "And hope no one stole it," All Soph did was give me a look of uneasiness, I know why. "My dad parked his car a bit further from the street. He's... a bit mad at me," I lied.

I have to! I really don't have a choice! And somehow she's buying it.

"Oh, ok..."

"So have you seen my phone?"

"UH, no I haven't! I haven't seen your phone so by-"

"Sophie! Who's at the front door?" A voice shouts out of nowhere.

I was perplexed by the second voice, it was oddly different... and it's definitely not her mum...

"...That sounds just like Jessica..." Sophia was then pushed aside to reveal, indeed, Jessica.

… I was right…

As soon as she saw me, she began acting strangely like Sophia... What the hell is going on?

"Oh heyyy, I didn't think you would be here!" She smiled.

Jessica's smile is obviously fake, however, I am not wasting time on this crap so I ignored it.

"Hi, Jess... I dropped by to see if my phone was there. Have you seen it?" I asked, feeling unsettled again.

Jessica shook her head swiftly and was about to close the door in my face- Bruh!

"Nope, never saw one, by-"

"Who is it, guys!?"

"Quinn's here too!?" The loud girl pushed both the dirty blonde and light brown hair girls out of the way so she could reveal herself.

Now I'm even more confused! They were all wearing PJs?-

And Quinn had my phone in her clutch! I was so thrilled to see it again!

"Quinn! You found my phone! Thank you so much!" I grabbed my precious phone off of her hand and hugged it like a plushie before placing it in the front pocket of my jeans.

"... No problem?"

"So why are you guys in PJs?" Stupid question, I know.

I'm clueless about what's happening here.

Sophia looked down at her toes, Quinn looked away to whistle, and Jessica started laughing like I was telling an unfunny joke.

After Jessica’s laughter died down, things... got sour.

"You're utterly in the dark, aren't you?" Her response caused me to raise an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Ugh! We're having a sleepover, idiot,"

"Sleep... over? What??"

"You guys were having a sleepover... without me?" I looked back at Sophia once again. In my hazel eyes, I felt hurt. All she did was just rub her arm nervously. "Soph... Why didn't you tell me you were hosting a sleepover as well?"

"Because no losers allowed, dumbass," without Sophia giving me an answer Jessica harshly answered ‘for’ her.

Like any other person, I was getting upset.

"What's gotten into you, Jess? I have never done anything wrong-"

"Bub, bub, bub. I- we just don't like you," ... Those words just... make ZERO SENSE! So for the last five months, everything has been true! EVERYTHING THAT CLIFTON TOLD ME! SOPHIA DOESN'T LIKE ME!? This isn't who Sophia is! Even though I still don't want to believe what Clifton told me, but...

"W-Why?" I stammered, knowing things are going to go to dumpster island.

"Because you're a tomboy, everything about you is mostly boyish stuff,"

"... ARE YOU FOR REAL!?" Honestly, I don't know what else shocks me more than that.

"Like you play video games all day with your family or on your own? What a couch potato," she laughed mockingly.

The more this continues, the madder I am at her 'reasons.'

"First off, why the hell would you hate me for some 'boyish stuff' that I like? Playing video games isn't 'boyish'. It's for everyone to play! We're in the 21st century! Everyone is moving on from gender norms now! And secondly, me and my family are not couch potatoes! We do stuff off-screen in our spare time as well! You don't know me, my family, or what our lifestyle really is. Plus my dad works for a game company so we're pretty much loaded," after pointing out my disagreement, all she did was let out a fake yarn and roll her devious blue eyes.

She also made her hand into a mouth to mimic my talking. Indicating that she couldn't care less about what I was saying. She stopped shortly after I finished defending.

"Pff. Whatever. You also do lame skateboarding stuff. Are you undergoing a transgender or genderfluid phase, Little Wantwit?" She gave me a disgusted look while I stared at her like I'm ready to quit working at McDonald's.

And what's transgender and genderfluid? I had never heard those words before. I guess I'll research that later or at least ask my parents or Arrow. Even though those words are unfamiliar to me, something tells me that she is against them in a way that is discriminatory.

I'm one of those people who doesn't like to hear shitty statements, especially discrimination.

"I- Why do you have a problem with that!? I do girlish things... sometimes, and no, I'm not going through this transgender or gender-fluid 'phase'," as a girl, I enjoy both girly and boyish combinations.

I even allow Ava to do make-up on my face with our mum for Christ's sake! Honestly, make-up kinda makes me feel pretty, though I'm still not a huge fan, but liked it.

I can't believe Jessica would even assume that I'm not female at all…

The moment I first met her (last year) she was kind, but now she's become a complete bitch towards me all of a sudden... Unless she was pretending to be the perfect, sweet little angel the whole time!

A bit the same for Quinn and Sophia, except they're not as heinous as her. Sophia is the only one I've known longer than those two. It just doesn't make any sense why Sophia, my own best friend, was like this...

"You don't even buy clothes or make-up, you just buy some shitty hag dolls or a shit pile of video games from EB Games,"

Oh. My. God!

"WHAT YEAR IS SHE STUCK IN!? THE 1960s!? THAT'S LONG FOR A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD WHO WAS BORN IN 2024!!" This is ridiculous! This is all just about the things I like that seem 'boyish' and what I do/act is 'boyish'- loads of bullshit reasoning and SO WHAT!?

"Yeah, I do! I do buy clothing! Why would you- Am I a homeless person to you!? And I'm allowed to purchase things I like! Nothing wrong with that! And they're not shit! I don't get any of this!" The girls were slightly shocked that I swore for the first time.

Although, Jessica seemed to like pissing me off! She seriously needs to be very wary of what she's messing with.

"Oh, I see. It's getting a bit judgmental here. Let's move on to something else, shall we?" Wow, even her 'dream Barbie doll smile' is fake. She's terrible at it. Jessica moved on to smirk indignantly as she took a step forward while I took a step back, she's only a few inches taller than me which is a bit scary. "You are such a sensitive, vulnerable slut that couldn't stand up for yourself or even walk up to the counter when you want to buy something. You wantwit," ... those words slapped me across the face. Although, I am technically standing up for myself right now, surprisingly. I felt weak and very damaged at the same time. What I felt most painfully was my heart shattering into pieces. My own best friend didn't even stand up for me; she just stood there watching us... My social anxiety and fear of believing anyone shouting at me are to blame. I began to have negative thoughts about myself, something that no one should really know. I was soon snapped out by feeling a sudden push against my shoulder. "Ha-ha! You can't do anything about it, stupid bitch! Just die already! You already have plenty of time!" Quinn then came and stood next to Jessica.

"Yeah! Might as well give us your password to your phone before you do," my eyebrow twitched furiously- that sets me off.

"What? YOU want my password to my phone?" I laughed in my low irritation while the blonde bitch girl looked pretty upset mixed with annoyance.

Quinn really isn't that smart. Which is why Jessica would insult her intelligence, or anything really, I felt sorry for her. How is this girl still friends with that bitchy witch?

Jessica turned her head to give Quinn daggers.

"Quinn, you dumbass! How was I friends with someone who has the brain of a walnut-"

"You guys were trying to hack into my PHONE!? FOR WHAT!?" I yelled while Jessica replied with her complete bitchy, rotten attitude as always.

"Like you want to know-" I don't want to hear another damn word from that blonde-haired bitch! So I grabbed her collar tightly and pulled her close to my face, showing her how serious my rage is.

I screamed in her face like I have never screamed in my life.

"NO ONE GOES THROUGH MY PRIVACY! I AM SICK OF YOU GUYS BULLYING ME! I KNOW YOU GUYS ARE THE 'UNKNOWN GROUP' THAT SENDS ME HORRIBLE MESSAGES AND MADE UP RUMOURS ABOUT ME! CLIFTON WAS FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT YOU! AND YOU!- I turned my head so I could glare at Sophia with a fiery gaze- "MY OWN BEST FRIEND BETRAYED ME BY ABANDONING ME FOR THE 'COOL POPULAR BITCHES!' LIKE, WHAT THE HELL- OH WAIT! SINCE THIS SKINNY ASS BITCH DOESN'T SEEM TO BE A FAN OF 'MIXED GENDER ROLES' I'M SICK AND TIRED OF HER YANKING BULLSHIT!"- Back to Jess.- "DO YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK OF YOU JESSICA ZIPKIN!? I THINK YOU'RE AN ABOMINABLE, SOPHISTICATED, BITCH ASS WITCH OF ALL REVOLTING PEOPLE THAT DOESN'T CARE FOR ANYONE BUT HERSELF! YOU DON'T DESERVE ALL OF MY RESPECT OR SUPPORT! GO TO FUCKING HELL, ZIPKIN!" My teeth were clenched that could break at any moment, my raging eyes never left Jessica's sight, and my anger stayed as it was.

Everyone else was white as snow, too stunned and speechless...

I soon realised what I’d done.

“Shit…” I took a couple of steps back after letting go of Jess.

Taking deep breaths...

… I have never been this fuming in my life!.. I... My body was shaking.

Jessica, Sophia, Quinn and I were in dismay. Although Sophia looked more like she'd been seeing ghosts floating around her front yard, Quinn's head must have been fried.

Even though I was happy that I stood up and told Jessica what I thought of her... The result made me feel apprehensive.

The thought crossed my mind that I'm an awful person.

I regret it already.

I fled while crying.

***

You might be expecting me to run back home... Well... I ended up running to the park which is forty minutes away from home... I must admit, when my dad said it's too dangerous to walk to your so-called 'best friend's' house at night, I was too naive to believe that it wasn't too dangerous at all... I should've listened. I don't even know why I was thinking of heading to the park in the middle of the night in the first place...

I sat down on a park bench crying continuously while trying to calm myself down so I could think properly.

Three minutes passed.

The wind became Arctic, causing me to shiver. I rubbed my cold arms to keep myself warm. It didn't work. The cold takes over easily.

"I should’ve worn a warmer jacket... I need to go home," getting up, I began walking home... For some reason, I suddenly felt like I was being watched too carefully. I stopped to look around. There are no footsteps on the dirt, rocky footpath, and I don't see anyone. It might be my imagination. "There's nothing here, Airis. You only hear the crickets-"

WHOOSH! SMASH!

"AH!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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