#some recent totk rants are just

[ganondoodle]

zelda comic, totk rewrite, game stuff/pixelart, ocs are all fighting for attention in my head and i just end up sitting and staring blankly for hours aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

[the-east-art]

:0 tears of the kingdom rant? I’m interested

Helllll yeah. Nothing that hasn't been said before but IM saying it this time.

The biggest thing for me I think it that I wanted the story to surprise me AT ALL. Zelda being the dragon was kinda surprising, but like, that's like one part. I keep thinking 'oh Ganon will be good' 'oh maybe Mineru will backstab her brother' 'oh what if by swallowing the secret stone to become immortal Zelda became evil?' (I initially thought the dragon part of immortal dragon was metaphorical). 'Oh the mask controlled Yunobo, maybe the Sage masks are bad too!' Literally for them to do anything surprising with the story. Instead it was all really straightforward.

Many people have mentioned, but the constantly repeated cutscenes are so boring, it makes each region and the characters in them feel so copy and pasted. A bunch of new side characters are revealed with their own character profiles, and so they are ALL underutilized. I talk a lot about the story specifically because that's what I care the most about. And totk was SO disappointing

(more elaboration under the cut)

I mean okay, skyward sword isn't perfect, but as it was the most recent zelda to botw it provides a lot of good stuff to contrast. Yes there are more characters technically in totk and botw, but the few side characters there are in ss mean that they ALL have such depth. No npcs in SS are without unique designs, personalities, and roles - whether that is wives to customers, part of the plot (kukiels dad) for a piece of it, save them briefly, engage in their night market, a bunch of options! The skipper, the two gorons, they all are memorable and do unique things. and Totk and botw just couldn't get there.

None of the dungeons feel even kind of tight - they all feel like you're just fucking around until you manage to get it to work. I never felt like I was finding the right answer - I always felt like I was bullshitting it. And that CAN be satisfying, but I definitely prefer the tighness of the older games.

I already talked a little bit about how the areas themselves are underutilized. EAsily the biggest issue with TOTK is the fact that the things you do, don't effect anything anywhere. When you learn where Zelda is it can't conflict with any of the other plots, so they just don't even try. Saving one region doesn't effect other regions. It's so disappointing.

AND THE SKY ISLANDS. God there should have been shit to do up there, or at least hints at like some of the other sky islands in previous games - whether the oocaa or skyward sword or the cloud people from minish cap. Like PLEASE. Put one giant pumpkin that's all it would have takennnnnn

Uhhh if you have any questions about how I feel about specific moments drop me an ask!

[ghirahimbo]

i started replaying totk recently, i say replaying bc i did buy and play it when it was first released but dropped it after a couple days bc i was busy w stuff. and so i'm doing a lot of things now for the first time and obv i can't help comparing it to botw and it's genuinely got me so upset how link has been forgotten by so many people, all the people he helped in botw all the quests he did are just meaningless, all my registered horses were carried over but they couldn't keep the character interactions? all the champions are mentioned once with the exception of mipha there's no memories or divine beasts. the zora who had remembered link for 100 years had forgotten him since botw how is that possible. i had to make an ugly house near tarrey town to hang my weapons bc the hateno house was no longer mine 😭😭😭 somehow it made the game feel lonelier, even though botw was more empty there was much emotion in it.

it's not that i hated totk i liked exploring and finding new outfits, the dragons, rediscovering my favourite places etc but idk i was genuinely tearing up thinking about the champions being forgotten and all of link's previous sacrifices meaning nothing. sorry to send these random messages i don't follow anyone else who still blogs about zelda 😭😭

No, I know exactly what you mean! 😢 Honestly (lol can't remember if I've already said this before or not, so maybe I'm re-ranting here, but) my personal take is that totk shouldn't have been a sequel game, especially because Nintendo doesn't like to concern themselves with the continuity between games that a direct sequel like this just needs. With some tweaking/set up/rewriting, totk could have worked as a stand-alone story, and then they wouldn't have had to take away from what botw achieved in the name of making it more approachable to new players.

And yeah, I didn't hate it either! I liked the gameplay and the weapons system and the feeling of stakes whenever you entered a new town and saw how things had all gone to shit. Loved the wells. I just think it was too eager to pretend botw didn't exist while at the same time leaning on it so heavily that it would fall to pieces if you tried to extract the botw out of it :P

[themarydragon]

So my friend sent me this link to a youtube video about why the TotK lore isn't interesting. I couldn't get through it without a ten-screen discord rant (on my PC monitor, not my phone) so I thought I would put some thoughts here.

I don't delve too deep into TotK story but there are def some spoilery statements below, consume at your own risk.

The initial assumptions here seem to be that (1) BotW was more respectful of "The Lore" than TotK, and that (2) TotK made some unforgiveable sins that BotW absolutely avoided.

Both of these are completely false. And I am NOT saying that neither BotW nor TotK shat upon accepted lore. They did. There is no recovering the Hyrule Historia timeline, objectively. Instead I contend that the truth is the precise opposite: Nintendo has NEVER actually cared to try to make LoZ games have ANY amount of continuity.

Take the slide at the 5 minute mark of the video linked, above, in which we see the Master Sword was created specifically to be used against Ganon, and then the 7 sages set out to find somebody valiant enough to wield it (this is from the user manual of A Link to the Past, from the SNES, which also was about The Imprisoning War). Which, if you're playing the home game, you know got ret'conned TWELVE YEARS AGO by Skyward Sword. He's using the slide to explain why it was ridiculous that Ganondorf was able to shatter the Master Sword in the prologue to TotK, which tells me they didn't pay much attention to the mechanic in BotW in which the Master Sword "runs out of power" if you use it too much. If Ganon is an aspect of Demise (again from Skyward Sword, far more recent lore than the slide being used in the vid) then the secret stone he's wielding is amplifying DEMISE (WAY stronger than just some dude), which is why he's able to shatter the blade - but still isn't enough to destroy the sword. His entire complaint about the Sword being broken suggests to me he either didn't play Skyward Sword or has forgotten it existed, and has DEFINITELY forgotten the 'weapons breaking' mechanic started in BotW.

He makes another complaint later about there not being an explanation for the disappearance of the Divine Beasts. Which, sure. I wondered what happened, and figured the 5ish years since then made it old news nobody was talking about it anymore. I get why that might have been a breaking point for somebody else. But it's not just a TotK problem; BotW didn't address it, either. We see the Divine Beasts being dug up by the Sheikah in Rhoam's flashback - how did they get buried? The towers shoot out of the ground, how did THEY get buried, after the last calamity? Who put the guardians underground? How? HOW, if nobody is allowed into the tunnels under Hyrule Castle? It didn't get explained for BotW, so why is that an unforgivable sin in TotK? They give more than a passing suggestion that Purah has repurposed the guardians - just LOOK at the Skyview Towers. The jumpscare for BotW players when you get grabbed in the Lookout Landing tower TELLS YOU where the guardians went.

There is a significant section in which video creator is quoting an interview I haven't seen (and don't give two shits about), and I think it needs to be said: what is in the game is canon. What is in the interviews from other people is, by definition, not game canon. If it was meant to be game canon it would be in the game. Neil Gaiman talks about this when people ask him for clarification of his stories, go check his FAQ if you want a really good delineation of canon from somebody with way more clout than me.

So let's just look at the lore he's defending from BotW. The map is wrong. Straight up wrong, from all the earlier Zelda games. Nintendo cannot decide where the Lost Woods should be, much less Spectacle Rock. The Temple of Time, which again is mentioned early on as a clear homage to the lore, is in the wrong damn spot. If this is the new Hyrule formed post-WindWaker (as indicated by the existance of Rito), the Temple of Time should have been destroyed. And why do the Rito and the Zora both exist? According to WindWaker, the Rito evolved from the Zora, who couldn't live in the salt of the sea. Which is a pretty big jump from the original game that had Zora in the ocean, and the two games following THAT in which they were straight-up monsters. I don't want to get into ALL the ways BotW breaks from the established lore, but there's a LOT. They don't mention the fucking Triforce ONCE, ffs, that's sort of a big damn deal.

I get there was a canon timeline published in Hyrule Historia. I bought that book for that exact reason. And, as someone who has loved this franchise since I got that first golden cartridge in 1987, I looked at that timeline once, laughed at it, and moved on with my life. BotW de-canonized that timeline already, in a LOT of ways.

So saying that TotK is evidence that Nintendo no longer cares about continuity or lore, and by NOT villifying BotW (or TP or SS) for the exact same problem is disingenuous at best. Saying that TotK is just nostalgia-baiting is ignoring the BotW map (Lake Saria, anyone? Ranch Ruins, anyone?) in general, as well as all the game-specific loot that had NO other reason to be there but straight-up nostalgia. The only reason for Zelda to mention the other heroes in the blessing we hear in the first memory is to (1) destroy the established timeline (skyward bound, adrift in time, or something about twilight, all in a world where Rito exist), or (2) prey on our nostalgia. TotK isn't any worse for putting the WW shirt and the Awakening armor into the game, in terms of wrecking the timeline or trying to feast on our nostalgia.

I'm not going to try to hypothesize what this person (or all his commenters) didn't like about the game, or why they're so willing to overlook all these problems in BotW to villify TotK. And everybody is welcome to like to dislike a game for whatever reason they want, IDGAF, you do you. What I AM saying is that for someone who's upset about the lore, he really doesn't seem to actually be aware of how inconsistent it's ALWAYS been. If TotK is the game that taught you that Nintendo isn't trying to follow their own lore, then I don't think you have been paying attention to the lore for a good long time.

tl;dr this is still my favorite series and if you hate that it breaks its own continuity then you've been asleep for the last 12 years of lore drops my good dude.

[kassymalone]

A Little Rant about Fun

Remember fun?

Remember when you could do things just because they were fun?

It keeps coming to mind recently, and it's starting to drive me nuts.

I've always done things with my hands - I used to do art before uni destroyed my love and confidence, I write things, I cross stitch, I make models, and I do these things because I enjoy them. Unfortunately I've come to hate talking to people about my hobbies because the almost always have the same response - 'what do you do with that?'

Do I sell on Etsy? No I fucking don't, this pattern took me 15 hours to finish, do you know how much I would have to charge for it?

Do I do freelance writing? No I fucking don't, why would I want a second soul-crushing job on top of my first soul-crushing job?

Why don't I actually get published instead of wasting my time with fanfiction so I can actually make some money off it? WHY DON'T YOU DO IT IF ITS SO FUCKING EASY

I've been thinking of making a quilt recently, with patches of all my favourite things, but I don't want to talk to anyone about it because I can already hear them asking 'and what are you going to do with it? Is this your practice one before you sell them? No, don't do it that way, that's the wrong way, no-one will like it!'

(Don't get me started on the 'you're doing it wrong' crowd, gatekeepers are a different rant.)

JUST LET ME DO THINGS. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO MAKE MONEY. I know we're in a cost of living crisis right now, but I've been hearing this shit since I was a teenager, twenty fucking years ago! I still remember being talked out of singing lessons when I had a little extra money because 'what would I do with it?' Well fuck, my fat ass was never going to be the next Adele, but maybe I could have just had fun doing something I enjoy, but better?!

ON A RELATED NOTE!

You know what disproportionately annoys me? When people call the Nintendo Switch a 'toy' as if it's a bad thing. Like... yes? It's a toy? I play games on it?

'But the frame rate!', 'But the graphics!', 'But it can't run XX game!' WHO FUCKING CARES.

Yes, the xbox and playstation can connect to netflix and play blue rays and cook you dinner and raise your children, but they also cost a months rent and have all these bells and whistles to distract you from the fact that they JUST FUCKING TOYS. There's nothing either of them can do that I can't do on my PC, better and cheaper, and not have to turn on five different peripherals to make it work.

'But 4K!', 'But you can see the character follicles in this new game!', 'But the horses testicles react to the weather!'

Are you not having fun? Are you not enjoying playing your game? Never once have I been in the middle of a game and thought 'I'd be enjoying this more if it had more pixels.' I'm not even against other consoles, use whatever you prefer - if you like modern real-to life graphics then more power to you, but the amount of people who act like it actually matters somehow is concerning...

Yes, the switch hardware is behind what the xbox and playstation can do... but its a toy. Nintendo has never forgotten that it makes toys, and that's why I like it. It sits on my table, connects to my other monitor. I listen to long form youtube videos while I play TOTK. If I'm feeling sassy, I play it handheld.

My niece has one. We play Pokémon together and I let her win battles because the point is to be fun.

WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO MY POINT!

FUCK the grindset 'but how can I monetise every possible second?' bullshit, FUCK the 'taking this thing that should be fun way too seriously' bullshit.

LET PEOPLE DO THINGS JUST BECUASE THEY'RE FUN.

LET THINGS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUN BE FUN.

And now I've used the word 'fun' so much it's lost all meaning.

Much like fun itself.

[eiochevart]

I love Hebra region so much. It reminds me a lot of my country, especially where we have our cabin! As if the atmosphere in BOTW and TOTK wasn’t immaculate enough, Hebra mountain and Rito village is just… mindblowing.

I remember visiting for the first time during Christmas or winter break, having purposefully saved the region for when I myself would also be in the snowy mountains. And it did not disappoint!

Rito village feels like a January afternoon, the air is cold and crisp, the sun shines and casts everything in gold. Blue skies, some dirt peaking out from the melting snow in the ditch, dewy leaves and branches from the recently thawed snow. You can hear the birds chirp again after the long winter, sound is no longer muffled by thick bodies of snow.

And then, you get closer to the mountain ridge and the air is thick with frost and snow, you wear your most practical gear but are still slowed down by the terrain. You may stumble across a lodge or cabin, perhaps they even invite you inside for a cup of hot milk in front of the fireplace. You eventually reach the peak of Hebra mountain and realize that, despite your altitude, the skies aren’t clear and thick mist obscures your view. It’s like the weather is embracing you, muffling everything else in an oddly comforting way. Here, you’re only in charge of yourself.

Okay that was a rant but bottom line is. I fucking love Hebra

[saltynsassy31]

hey girl… i know nothing about Zelda but you never told me about the sword that was like. her own character???…… idk how to say it but, spill

Okay it's so great you asked this cuz it's legit the whole premise of the game I got recently for Christmas (skyward sword)

So, this is Fi

She is the sword

This is her before she...merged? I think? Yeah, before she merged with the sword (I haven't finished the game and I'm tryna go spoiler free but I'm pretty sure that's the case considering she communicates with Zelda in BotW/TotK but doesn't manifest in any other game besides SS)

SS happens before ANY of the zelda games, sorta of a prequel for it all, it explains how the reincarnation of Zelda, Link and Ganondorf started

Fi was sent by the Goddess Hylia to aid the hero in his quest to fulfill his duty and destiny

I absolutely love her, if I could send more than one video of her I would, but here, have her first introduction (I was gonna show her dancing but I didn't record that one cjdjjaa), it says a,l you gotta know about her XD

She is so sassy and so lovable, I am going to be said to have to say goodbye to her eventually but I also can't wait to read fanfictions involving her cuz she got great big sis energy to fulfil ngl

Even if she's emotionless and basically just an AI, you know danm well that can be easily broken cough cough detroit become human cough cough

Anyways, I'd gladly just rant about her all day but I think I've tortured myself enough trying to make tumblr let me edit this post and it's 1:30am

I also admittedly do not know much about her yet and how she might change as a character so you'll probably see a rant from me some time soon after I finish the game lol

All I know is that all those times she's shown to be present in botw and totk is about to become a lot more emotionally demaging after this XD

(Again, could go hours explaining as to why and I'd love to...in another post, this one has been the baines of my existence already fkskak stupid tumblr)

[rain-nap-write]

I’m gonna set this idea here and maybe come back to it, maybe not. I don’t know how to make it short, so it would probably be long and I don’t know how motivated I am for that LMAO, I am still working on that Claude one! Anyhow, here’s an idea for a totk link x reader! (It’s kind of long). I like to come up with scenarios in my head when I listen to music, and this was one :)

Ok so,

In the events (early) of breath of the wild, you’re part of the yiga clan, but you’ve been having doubts because most of the continent is afraid of you. Trouble is, you’ve been there your whole life, you’re one of their important fighters, and the blood moon resets nature.

You were technically involved with the recent events between the yiga and shieka, but you and (can’t remember his name but the guy in kakariko who has two kids and left the yiga) we’re in kahoots, and you did everything you could to protect his wife. She knew that, and urged you to stay quiet to protect yourself. This was another thing driving you away from the yiga. But how were you supposed to abandon everything, where would you even go? You loved these folks and you didn’t think the shieka would accept that you had a change of heart, even if (the dude’s name) vouched for you. That might even get him in trouble!

So for now, you’ll stick it out.

When link first gets off the Great Plateau, he has an encounter with you. You beat him and he’s not really fighting you back, so when you’re over him and hoisting a weapon to lodge in his throat, your hesitancy that has built through the battle finally takes hold. You’re kinda like, “Wtf?? Why aren’t you fighting back??” He answer back like a, “I want to help people, not hurt them.”

After that, you can’t really find it in your heart to kill him. You even give him some healing potions and take him to dueling peaks stable (in disguise) and point him towards kakariko. Tbh you’re kind of worried about him.

The next time you’re sent to fight him, he’s on his way to zoras domain to take on the divine beast and you pop out of the sky. You didn’t now it was him, since you were just sent after a guy sparking some Link rumors among the yiga. You also didn’t know that you popped up between him and a battle between a monster encampment. Taken off guard, you were struck from behind, but you fended them off the best you could, given that you are on the verge of a blackout. Link helps you and gives you some healing stuff this time. He asks you if you’re going to hurt him (he recognizes a mark on your mask) and stares at you, waiting for an answer. After thinking about what to do, you answer no.

You even decide to help him. While you’re not ready to drop everything and join him (yet) you will make him a charmed necklace. You make it, and let him know that it will ward off the tracking of the yiga, honing that knowledge, and if he’s in danger or not, to you alone so you can come when he needs. (He’s gotta hide it, so that if the yiga in disguise catch him, they won’t catch on).

He finds out after he reaches the Zoe as domain, that if he thinks about you really hard, you’ll be summoned. You think he’s in danger, so you get kind of annoyed when he does this (he does it a lot on his way to the next divine beast, he is lonely and sad. Plus, you’re kind to him. Even though you get super annoyed bc you never know if you’re about to get hit or watch him roll around in the grass or smth).

At some point before the second divine beast, he stops in a field of dandelions and thinks about you really hard, wanting you to enjoy it too :) Of course, you pop up and start your little half hearted annoyed rant, but you stop when you notice him. He’s just been looking at you with the sweetest smile on his face, even though you’ve been kind of upset (not really, you love when he calls and he is very smug about knowing this). It literally makes your heart ache.

You tell him that you want to join him, and leave the yiga (but if he goes to kakariko, you’ll be at dueling peaks (until you eventually reconcile) shaking in your boots). Link is so happy, you think you’re going to have a heart attack. You tell him you’ll be back by night, you’ve gotta get your belongings and make sure it’s untraceable, maybe fake your death. He’s got a smile from ear to ear and he’s excited to have you along, nearly tearing up as you teleport away.

Little did you know you would not have to try faking your death, as you’re getting jumped by the yiga as soon as your sigils show up. Everyone is acting weird and so you decide sooner rather than later, and grab your stuff because your spider senses are tingling. At that point, you notice something’s about to go down and you’re sprinting for the entrance. You don’t want to fight these folks, they’re your family. Or, they once were, years ago. Anyhow, you’re dodging left and right until you’re in the lil canyon spot and get confronted by kohga and a bunch of blade masters. You take them on, but you’re pretty wounded bc a bunch of more advanced foot soldiers had also caught up.

You do your best to get their unconscious selves next to a fire in the canyon because the sun is going down, and you can name these people (you don’t want them hurt). You drag yourself to the bazaar and they help you heal up, a few of them saw the fight and were grateful (not knowing the story) and you return to Link.

Link was taking down a lynel, trying to build back up his skills after struggling with the polymus one. He spots your sigils and gets a little freaked out because of the situation you’re all about to be in (even more freaked out when he catches the state you’re in). You help him out a little, as best you can, and he’s making sure you don’t take more damage (while being careful himself. he only earned a scratch, which you fixed up).

You share a heart to heart, and it’s kinda romancy. You share a bunch of those throughout the botw events, and heartwarming moments. Also several “oh no! One bed!” Moments. But you don’t get together until after Zelda is safe. Link is a sap but he’s got goals (I say as he was romancing you the whole way).

ANYHOW, TEARS OF THE KINGDOM! SO,

Y’all are adventuring the castle, and the Gannon event starts happening. You’re sprinting for Zelda and grab her hand, but you’re both shoved off by Gannon attacking Link. As you’re falling you squeeze Zelda close to you and are getting ready to pull out a glider or teleport, when y’all are pulled back in time.

You’re kind of there protecting Zelda (in link’s place instead of beside him 😔). The day the memory happens where Sonia is got by gannondorf, you happen to catch him just before he gets there. You’re strong and skilled, but you’re no triforce wielder, and you don’t have the sword. But, he sees potential in your strength, and sees the magic that you possess (yiga stuffs), so he’s holding you by the throat and goes to the spot behind Sonia. You can’t even brush your feet on the floor, and you’re helpless as it happens. Zelda is trying to figure out what to do, because you’re held hostage, but Sonia needs immediate assistance. You’re waving at her to shoo her away, signaling that you’re ok (not true lmao). So, when rauru comes, they make their escape. (POV: Link watching in absolute horror)

Gannondorf drags you to wherever the chasm is and figures he can use you as an amplifying power source (like a horcrux prism or smth). He uses the tear on you to kind of make you suspended in his malice in an everlasting state of giving and taking power from you. You are where most of the never ending malice comes from, even while he’s sapped dry, for him and the other gannons. (It’s kind of like when aang is in that water monster thing, but gone completely wrong). But because of this, you are able to be mindless through eons of time (took inspiration from the Zelda dragon).

On his way to the second or third sage, Link is exploring a chasm from a well in some ruins (pretty close to the korok forest maybe?) and comes across a being of malice chained to the floor. It had been shunned by the light for all of these years, stuck in the darkness far underground. It put him on the verge of tears to look at it, but he wasn’t fully sure why. Maybe a part of him knows that this is where you ended up. The dark to contrast Zelda’s light.

As he’s fighting you in malice and chains, he’s created an opening. It is one that the malice flowing out of you is quickly trying to cover, but not quick enough. Link got you out of the being that was suspending you. a cord of the malice was still attached, and with watery eyes, he quickly separates it from you using the sword of light. With bated breath, the hero checks for signs of you being alive, and upon confirmation begins sobbing. The tears that had welled up were cascading freely down his cheeks as he cradled you close to him. Much of the malice surrounding y’all (along with your malice suit) and in the chasm, and some in the overworld, is gone now.

All these months, he felt he had been staving off insanity. He went from living a mostly normal life, surrounded by the love of friends and of you, to being completely alone, fighting for ghosts of the past and the future in the blink of an eye. He had seen you through Zelda’s memory, watching as you and the others no longer partook in those, one by one. He longed to see the both of you again. Link begged to embrace you in his arms night after night.

Finally, here you were.

Link stopped everything when he felt a hand on his cheek, softly brushing the tears away. He looked down at you, and only began to cry harder. You were crying too now, as you fully embrace him.

The two of you then go on the adventure to save Zelda again :) it would def have bits of romance, but I fear writing it would be repetitive (only because it’s me. If someone else did it, it would probably be fine. I think maybe I would have to make it after he has the sages, then he gains you and fights Gannon. Maybe even after he saves Zelda!)

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

sorry i haven’t been around recently or replied to messages! i definitely will at some point, i’m just not sure when. i’ve been pretty exhausted recently and unfortunately it’s likely to get worse, so i’ll come back once i’ve played enough totk to heal me

(long version under the cut)

i don’t think i’ve had a worse pride month in a very long time. my family trying to peer pressure me into getting married is nothing new, but it’s been on another level lately. even saying “okay yes fine, i will, just not right now because i’m busy at work” isn’t enough, it has to be SOON and i have to be ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR SOMEONE, and it’s stressing me out so much. even worse, my grandparents are arriving from india later today and they’ll be staying for some months, and the last time i saw my grandma in person she told me that “if people don’t want to get married, you have to force them” which scared the life out of me, especially coming from someone who’s usually very chill and content to let me do what i want. (in her very next sentence she immediately started complaining about how two of her friends were getting divorced and wondering why on earth that would happen, which was deliciously ironic. like idk, maybe if you force people to get married when they don’t want to then they’ll get divorced?? come on...)

my mum also told me that i have to tell my grandparents that i’m actively searching and i have to be enthusiastic about it whenever they bring it up, or otherwise they’ll think she’s a bad mother and it’ll all come down on her. i did not want this extra pressure! does no one else find this whole thing so warped? apparently pressuring your queer kid into marriage until they cave in is “good parenting” while letting them make their own life choices because they’re twenty-fucking-six and can decide for themself is “bad”? and my parents KNOW i’m not straight, i’ve been telling them for like a decade already and they kept choosing not to believe me and just assume i’ll grow out of it -- well look, i clearly haven’t, so how about just accepting it instead? this culture (or more like cult) of amatonormativity is strangling me. am i... am i going mad? all my relatives aside from my brother (who is the best brother in the world, bless him) seem to see nothing wrong with all this, am i really the only one? sometimes i wonder if i’m just being selfish but... how is it selfish of me to just, idk, not want to get married or be in a relationship? i’m not telling anyone else not to do it! i show plenty of genuine enthusiasm when my other relatives get married! isn’t it more selfish to force other people to make the same life choices you did even though they’re completely separate from you and what they do has no bearing on you? i’m not even interested in men! you’re asking the impossible of me!

okay i’m going to stop ranting now but i really do feel like i’m going mad, like i’m doing something wrong for existing wrong. i’m so stressed and it keeps getting worse. i do plan on leaving home soon and working in a different country but it probably won’t be for some months yet and i have no idea how i’m going to cope until then when they keep shoving this down my throat all the time. i will come back online at some point, i just... need to not talk to people for some time.

[doubleddenden]

I know the comparison is tired, bit after playing ToTK and after experiencing how glitchy and... well let's face it, kinda ugly Scarlet and Violet can be, I really hope I don't hear about the dlc for a while. Like I do want it, but I also don't, you dig?

I have sort of a rant below lol

Totk had six years of development plus 300 something staff members. SV had maybe 2 and a half years and around 180 or so. Game Freak is aiming way too close to the sun on wings made of Elmer's glue and brittle leaves. They need to stop splitting their staff so much between all of these projects (btw reminder that they started working on Project Bloom, another IP due out in 3 years on pokemon's 30th anniversary lol) and up dev time to 5 years minimum for each project.

I'm just saying, the worst glitches in ToTK are usually player triggered and do not end up messing with their game. The worst glitches in SV can corrupt save data with barely a way to fix it. If it only happens to 100 people out of millions world wide, that's still 100 too many.

So what I want is this:

Do not release Teal Mask until a MASSIVE update rolls out to fix things. In theory, November will be a year since release, and maybe then most of the issues will be fixed, but I'm seriously doubting it since we're 6 months out and the slow downs keep happening. Ideally, fix things by November, release Teal Mask- delay Indigo Disk until March or so instead of winter this year, give both plenty of time to bake.

After that?

Just let Pokémon nap for a bit. Seriously. I don't want to hear about a Let's Go Johto at all. I don't want to hear about BW Remakes (least of all from ILCA). I don't wanna hear about gen 10. Not until it's good and God damn ready.

Here's the thing, folks: the gaming industry copies everything from Zelda now. Open world with climbing and gliding ESPECIALLY jumped up since BoTW, and SV is no exception. ToTK added new layers to its world and added physics, engineering- what pokemon really, REALLY needs to take away from Zelda is this: time, focus, and effort to refine a product. ToTK was actually finished a year before release, but Aonuma delayed it and kept playing the game to completion 10 times over so they could polish it to hell and back. That kind of dedication is what I'd kill for in Pokemon game development.

I already hear some of you.

1. They're entirely different games! It's not fair to compare!

It actually is. Here's the thing: both are Nintendo products- yes pokemon isn't quite first party, but you're not seeing it on the ps4, and Nintendo does have partial ownership, so it is a Nintendo product. Both are running on the Switch, so it isn't so much a hardware issue so much that it's Game Freak and the lack of optimization or shooting themselves in the foot with cut corners, less staff, and less dev time. ToTK has WAY MORE going on compared to Pokémon in terms of mechanics, animation, and programming. Pokemon has been recycling and reglossing the same mechanics, models, animations, and gameplay since XY. Yes, there's new textures, there's a few new models, there's some new animations- but the majority is so recycled that you can find items and data in the code that's leftover carry over from bw2 of all things. And yes, ToTK does have an advantage of being built on top of BoTW, but let's be real, there's way more going on by having to program bullet time, fuse an arrow, and then programming the effects of said fused arrow as it attacks a fully autonomous enemy that has its own set of programming to kill you. This, vs updating the same turn based battle Mechanics that is literally pick a move, X Pokémon does animation, damage calculation, enemy randomly selects pre programmed set of moves, animation, damage calculation.

2. But there's 1000 pokemon they have to model now!

Incorrect and you're purposely spouting misinformation by balooning the numbers. They only put in around >500 pokemon at launch, only 400 of which were available until recently when the Home Update finally let us access the others from LA that were in the code. At most there's 230 more coming. While that's still a lot, consider that ToTK has hundreds of models of NPCs, entities, weapons and weapon combos with their own mechanics and interactions, and enemies on the map, each with vastly more complex dynamics, modeling details, animations, etc than your standard pokemon npc that just stands there, or your standard pokemon that just walks around with walking programming from SM's data. I'm not asking for all pokemon back (although I do find it real fucking suspicious that a fucking 3ds can have 800+ pokemon in it, plus megas, plus forms, plus z moves, plus all sorts of other transformations PLUS shinies PLUS more shirts and pants and apparently gf thinks the Switch can't handle it, and said 3ds only really chugged with more than 1 pokemon on the field lol). What I am asking for is that since they themselves have stated that the reason for dex cuts was to improve things, they actually put their multi billionaire money where their mouth is and actually show it.

3. But people freaked out over Home not being available at launch!

As they should be. ILCA develops Home, not GF. They should have had it ready to go day fucking 1, lets be real. Yes its never been day 1 (it was for ORAS but i digress) but there's really no reason for it not to be- and no, they don't care about team metas or whatever because players will get the pokemon they want regardless. If they cared, they'd leave out Landorus and Kyogre.

SV were rushed out the door covered in glue and tape holding it together, but the far simpler side products get to take their sweet time? GF should have waited for ILCA to be done and taken time to polish, or they should have had the home update out the door by February at the latest by working alongside developers to get it working asap.

Even then, that's just Home. Home is not the entire game. Even if fans snarl and foam at the mouth for GF to release an unfinished product, ESPECIALLY if FINANCIAL PARTNERS scream and throw tantrums about wanting their money now; pokemon, Nintendo, and GF need to tell those people to fuck off until it's done and not falling apart.

There's a difference between what's essentially a save editor app and a full functioning game.

4. But the anime! The merch! Everything else! They have to keep schedule! Pokémon isn't just a gaming franchise anymore!

I really, really am tired of this argument and quite frankly I do not give a flying fuck anymore, even if i have made the same argument myself in the past. Pokémon IS a game first and foremost, even if everyone wants you to think otherwise. There is NOTHING without the games, and it's time we give the games the proper respect.

For plushies, merch, trading cards, etc: why don't we try changing how things are marketed?

Game Freak can still develop the games- they take their time doing it this time though. What should change is the order in which the public sees things.

GF basically spear heads the operations of all commercial grade goods because they're the ones that decide regional location basis, and most importantly, design the new Pokémon.

Why do we need the games to come first in that regard?

Here's a consideration: back in the early days of Pokémon, they would tease new Pokémon before the games they originate from ever come out. Ho Oh, Togepi, Donphan, Marill, Snubbull, Elekid, Bellossom, Hoothoot- all teased in the anime and movies before gen 2. Keckleon, Wailmer, Duskull, Wynaut, Blaziken- all before gen 3. Gen 4 was REALLY hype af because we'd get Munchlax super early in the gen 3 anime, Bonsly as playable in XD, Lucario got his own movie- you get the idea.

What if instead of forcing a team that clearly needs more time to not fuck things up to work faster, they just make merch for new Pokémon ahead of time to hype people up?

Imagine if Wooloo was a plushie before gen 8 released. If Corviknight, Centiskorch, Drednaw, Dragapult, and Toxtricity were in the tcg before launch? What if we had Horizons tease Ceruledge, the Paldean starters, and more a whole year before launch? Shit, that's what they're doing for Terapagos right now, and it's working!

Now imagine all of this teasing. You want these guys on a team. You want to see their stats so bad, don't you? Imagine the payoff when you finally get it. That's how it was when I was a kid, believe it or not. Hell, that's how it was when I was 18 and saw Noivern and Mewtwo Y in the BW anime and movie before XY dropped. That's how it was seeing Charizard X in Origins, too.

Instead of relying on the games to lead the way, let the Pokémon designs do it. Let the games be completed and polished in the background while they tease the dex in the gap time. And then they can have more surprises hidden in the game at launch!

Idk, have Liko and Roy catch a gen 10 pokemon and evolve it. Have some movies based off of some gen 10 mythicals or mascot pokemon before gen 10 comes out. Have a couple of new characters drop to Masters with new Pokémon. In a SIDE game like the theoretical Colosseum 3 I keep BEGGING for made by a different company- have a few gen 10 pokemon be teased and have them be able to be rented to battle with, like Bonsly.

All of this edging for a few years- when gen 10 is finally announced, you sit there clutching your ultra cute mon pkushies that you want to befriend. You sit there hyped as fuck clenching your cards and holding your figurine of your cool new bird or dragon mon bro. Fuck it, you got your waifu pillow of your furry bait at the ready. Gen 10 finally is teased, you see your babies and bros in the game for real now- AND NOW THERE'S MORE! And then you finally get the games and you're so fucking hyped to have your new favorite pokemon that you've been teased at for so long. ALL from a game that took its time to release, so you get the added satisfaction of playing a game you can be proud to own.

You get your new Pokémon. TPC gets billions in merch, and then tpc, gf, and Nintendo rake in the billions they're gonna make anyway from the games, and most importantly WE get a game that has had more dev time.

Make sense? There's options that they can and *should* explore rather than whipping the poor hamster to keep running on the broken hamster wheel until one or both break.

"B-but the leaks! But but! I don't want to be spoiled!"

Okay, that's on you. I'm basing this off of how things USED to work and what worked very well in the past. That's on you to avoid all of this.

Besides that, for leaks, I really don't care anymore. SM leaked all the final starter evolutions before Mallow was revealed- its going to happen. We know this. It literally always does via 4chan, Discord, or Twitter. Who even cares anymore? What matters is the finished product! Use it as part of marketing!

Or, all of this to say, there's another way to go about this:

Radio

Silence

TOTK went radio silent for years. Then it just fucking drops trailers months before release. Now look at it! It's selling POKÉMON levels at launch!

Just go silent for a few years on the new gen. Idk, hire other companies to port older games to the Switch. Focus on side games. They would make BILLIONS with a an Explorers remake. With Colosseum and XD remakes. With a Colo 3 that does nothing but make a new game with existing pokemon. A Battle Revolution type game that exclusively uses pokemon in your Home Account. We don't need any of that, but it's perfect keys to dangle in front of your frothing man baby businessmen or poketubers that demand their content to milk.

I just want a game that is COMPLETE AT LAUNCH. I want pokemon to finally make a game every other game in the industry copies. I want Pokémon to finally make a GoTY contender. I'm tired of always playing and saying "oh this is a good start- oh this is kinda bad now BUT THERE'S POTENTIAL-" I want to see them FUCKING NAIL IT for once. I want to see 9 and 10 out of 10s from critics and fans alike.

Pokemon used to be a gaming Titan and now it's a laughing stock. I want to be proud to be a fan again. We all agree there's a TON OF GOOD going on in LA and SV, literally some of the best ideas the entire franchise over- but don't you want a glimpse of the timeline where they took their time? Where they were polished? I know I do. I know we can have it.

And before you say "guh you just outgrew the franchise" kindly stop licking TPC's boots and sweaty ballsacks and listen. Gen 8 sucked until DLC. BDSP sucked, but LA was fun. Even with the flaws SV has, it's still vastly more fun than SwSh and LGPE were. I didn't complete Colosseum or XD until AFTER I beat SwSh. This argument is done- I am a fan and have been for a long time. There's a difference between me wanting a COMPLETE AND POLISHED $60 AAA TITLE AT LAUNCH and some man baby that thinks all of gen 5 sucks because of ice cream pokemon.

This is the last point: pokemon games are going to get more expensive. ToTK gave Nintendo the greenlight to charge $70 for their games now- granted, its one of the few games i have ever played that feels close to that price. They're going to start doing it for everything else soon, and Pokémon is going to be SHOVING for the chance to charge you $70 a game.

Do you want to pay $70 for another Scarlet and Violet? PLUS tax? Plus $35 for dlc? Plus $15 a year for Home? Plus $20 to $30 a year for Nintendo Online?- which will probably become more expensive on the Switch's successor, which IS coming, and Pokémon WILL be on it. Don't forget to add in shipping fees or any other regional expenses- it'll probably be $80 in some countries.

$150 for the full experience. Do you want to drop that on bugs and glitches again? I certainly don't. And Nintendo games do not drop more than a few pennies in price either, especially pokemon games, so that $70 Pokémon game, 10 years from now, will be $68.99. Are you going to drop that hard earned money on another incomplete game?

It is time to start demanding better of the richest franchise in history. No, actually the time was 2018 when LGPE thought they could get away with its awful catching mechanics and its Kanto elitism, and it was definitely 2019 when SwSh dropped its awful story and characters in an awful wild area. Stop ass kissing and defending and DEMAND more.

Start demanding Pokemon: Tears of the Kingdom NOW while things are still in the early stages of development.

[bugcatcherwill]

Sorry this took so long I was visiting family over the weekend. Anyway HOLY SHIT LORE AND DRAMA DROP EVERYTHING WE ARE BACK

I’m not gonna lie for the past few chapters of constant dialogue I’ve been kinda running out of things to talk about except “I like it” but this chapter has broken the streak and I can proudly say this is now one of my favorite chapters. It’s up there with when Rezek nuked all of Wizzrobe kind, Kobb and Ganondorf playing chess in the Malice, and when Lettie and Hoz destroyed racism.

Also I guess we now know how you’re gonna do TOTK, so from what I can assume, Ganondorf has slight control over the Calamity and can use its power for whatever the fuck he wants but it’s constantly trying to pull him back in and it eventually will which will be the cause of the Upheaval and whatever tomfuckery the Calamity wants to do with Ganondorfs body.

Also rip to Dinju she a real one

Jokes aside I love how you used the Gibdos story and connection to Riju as a way to set up the racism arc that’s inevitably coming in the future. (I hope to god you do it better than SVTFOE season 3 and 4) I mean we know the asshole Zora elders aren’t gonna forgive the monsters, and probably most of the Gerudo soldiers considering Riju doesn’t even forgive Keene and she didn’t even fight Dinju. And since the only things Hylians are good at is being racist I think we know what their decision on forgiving the monsters is gonna be.

All around an amazing chapter and a breath of fresh air from the never ending walls dialogue of the recent chapters.

(P.S. when I say constant dialogue I don’t mean that as an offense or criticism I mean that as in a way of me saying that I didn’t have much to talk about in the breakdowns)

Omg thank you as always :3

And we'll see! Definitely set up some things for ToTK but I don't wanna spoil tooooooo much about what I plan to do...

I have a plan for it, and it'll be one I honestly don't think anyone will expect, but it's always fun to see speculation on the little crumbs I'm setting up hehehehe

And oh, yeah, I haven't seen SVTFOE or heard much about it, but I'm aware of how badly a LOT of series fumble at themes of racism or discrimination. I don't wanna flame the writers too hardly because I'm fairly certain there's a lotta corporate meddling that goes behind the scenes to push this "it's not the status quo that needs to change, it's just a few bad apples so please don't think about the system being corrupt by design :D"

Rest assured, you're not getting status quo bullshit here LMAO

I've been doing my best trying not to fall into all the stereotypical pitfalls authors can do when writing about topics like that (especially when they don't research it lol).

Honestly one of my prime reasons I even started writing this fic in the first placed was because I HATED how so many fantasy series treats goblins/orcs/trolls/etc. Like even with DnD we've seen them thankfully backpedal on the idea of "evil" races like the Drow and Orc/Half-Orc....but then they still pull the "oh yeah but all goblins are still evil so don't feel bad about slaughtering them by the dozens lol".

As much as I've been loving Baldur's Gate 3, almost all of the dialogue revolving around goblins is..........yea............

Anyways sorry for my own rant I just like to talk about this stuff and I hope that makes y'all excited for where I'm taking my fic lmao

[buckbytes]

Resource Management F*cking Sucks

You'll have to excuse the sloppy writing but you have to understand, dear reader, that this post comes from a place of deep hatred. Let me explain.

Now I play games for the same reason I believe most people do, which is to enjoy themselves; even if that involves frantically running about an abandoned insane asylum being chased by unimaginable horrors. But the one consistency that has continued to annoy the hell out of me across seemingly every genre is resource management.

Of course I understand why it's such an integral part of so many developer's game design. After all, I don't think so many horror games would be nearly as terrifying if the player was granted an unlimited number of big 'fuck-off' grenades as they liked to ward off The Big Bad, but still, so many games seem to utilise this feature wrong, or they make it a chore to maintain to the point that the player is put off by the actually fun parts of the game.

I highly doubt any player's favourite aspect of any game is the fact that they have to constantly scrounge for supplies because the only reason we do this is so that we can be adequately prepared for, y'know, the actually fun parts like shooting or breaking stuff or even just having the tools to mess with an intuitive open world (BOTW/TOTK especially).

So you can see that my absolute hatred for this topic comes from those many moments when you'll be deeply immersed in perhaps a combat scenario where you're fighting off dozens off enemies using the many weapons that the game has, up til now, freely let you experiment with, only to force you along a much more linear and dull line of just using whatever basic weapons the enemies around you drop. This is why I love Doom Eternal's balance between combat and resource management, it gives you the full ability to use whichever weapons you feel best with while also having some enemies be weaker to particular choices, and the only downside is when the carnage has to die down a little so you can chainsaw a single enemy who (for some reason) drops all the ammo you may need so that you can almost seamlessly delve back into the dopamine factory that is its combat.

Compare this to so many more games like those that lean much more into horror. For example, I recently replayed my way through Alan Wake Remastered, and although I was thoroughly engrossed in so many aspects of it, there were a couple odd moments when I realised that I simply wasn't having fun because I was seemingly forced into just running through segments of levels due to my complete lack of resources to fight back. It didn't feel like I was surviving a close call, more like I had just cheated the game. Admittedly this could be chalked up to me playing on a slightly increased difficulty level (yes that's a boast bc I'm a pro gamer), but shouldn't you always at least be able to win, instead of slowly being dragged into a losing state because you chose to use one too many of whatever feature was freely at your disposal a moment ago?

Lastly, I just want to have one final rant about cozy games, because even they can irritate me with this. They're not exactly fast-paced games which is why I tend to play them, to slow down and unwind, but I feel like that gets ruined slightly when that one thing you need is on the other side of town because 'you weren't watching your supplies', and the game punishes you with a long, snail's-pace walk across a beautifully crafted town that you can't even explore right now because the shop closes at 5. I've nothing more to add to this bit, I just wanted to talk about Stardew Valley. :)

[that-one-loz-nerd]

Okay so here's my very basic notes on the au!

- The Queen Zelda recently went missing, leaving the king (idk what his name should be yet) in charge while the rescue effort continues - Princess Zelda is in this au so I'm just gonna called the queen Zelda and the princess Zel :)

- The king immediately cuts off trade with the Gerudo and threatens their city if they attempt to try to trade through Hyrule

- This is extremely out of character for the King because he often used to be the peacekeeper when meetings got heated

- Drea is Link's twin sister - He was kidnapped and their parents killed when they were 11 by the Yiga because they found out Link had the triforce of courage and was a threat to the Demon King

- Drea was looked after by Impa when she was younger - her family lived in Kakariko + her mother was Sheikah

- The triforce of courage appeared on Drea's hand a few months after Link's disappearance, leading her to believe he died

- She leaves Kakariko village when she's 17 in order to pursue her "duty" as the hero - Impa refused to let her leave earlier

- The king finds out about her being the hero and basically manipulates her into serving him as a knight (not officially but yeah)

- He sends her to Gerudo Town as an ambassador to "make peace" - he wants her to kill Ganondorf

- Ganondorf is actually a good leader to his people and knows about the curse and actively tries to fight it

- I have an idea of him losing control and attacking some guards when he was younger which is when he vowed never to become the Demon King he was prophesied to be

- I have a lot of ideas for the Gerudo + the settlements in the desert so I might rant about that at some point lol

- Drea arrives and is greeted with a lot of love by the Gerudo - they can't believe the king would send someone so young (I've got a cute scene idea with Drea + the daughter of a jewellery maker)

- Drea meets Ganondorf and when all their official stuff is done he invites her for a walk around the town - she realises at this point that he's not as bad as the king made him out and she decides she can't go through with killing him

- This causes her to question everything the King told her + his intentions

- Ganondorf finds out about the plot and orders his guards to put her in a cell until a small legion of knights sent by the King arrive

- They arrive and accuse both Ganondorf and Drea of treason and attempt to arrest them both

- The Gerudo aid Ganondorf in getting out of the town and he takes Drea with him - doesn't really like her but their both fugitives so hey they don't have much of a choice

- They end out becoming very close and stick together because they both understand the pressure of being a 'chosen one'

- Maybe it turns out he knew her family + Link when he was a child so that's why he's helping her (idk on this one I need to think about it)

- Have to run from both the Hylian guards and the Yiga, who worship Ganondorf but dislike the fact he is not the Demon King they want him to be

- I do know who the "big bad" is gonna be in this au but I'll leave that a secret for now ;)

I'm not sure where this would occur in the timeline I'm thinking botw/totk Hyrule but it's not botw or totk lol so I'm not gonna bother with timeline stuff.

Sooo I may or may not have a Zelda AU idea if anyone wants to hear 👀