Criticizing the design of an adult woman showing a bit of skin in an T rated game but for some reason nobody seems to care about the gerudo children wearing high-heels bikinis and makeup in an E rated game and how every gamerbro sexualizes Riju and tries to claim she's an adult (despite being smaller than everyone including Link still and having several plushies which in media is usually to communicate the character is a child) due to the outfit they put her in

If you want to talk about misogyny and over-sexualization in Zelda, let's talk about that.

While this is true, it's a bit of a misconception. "M" is just the blanket rating for anything from E10+ to Teen in Australia. They don't have as many separate categories. MA15+ is their actual mature rating equivalent. But I do agree some of the content and implications in the game are questionable for a younger audience, and things like the gloom spawn even scare grown adults as you point out lol.

Criticizing the design of an adult woman showing a bit of skin in an T rated game but for some reason nobody seems to care about the gerudo children wearing high-heels bikinis and makeup in an E rated game and how every gamerbro sexualizes Riju and tries to claim she's an adult (despite being smaller than everyone including Link still and having several plushies which in media is usually to communicate the character is a child) due to the outfit they put her in

If you want to talk about misogyny and over-sexualization in Zelda, let's talk about that.

Criticizing the design of an adult woman showing a bit of skin in an T rated game but for some reason nobody seems to care about the gerudo children wearing high-heels bikinis and makeup in an E rated game and how every gamerbro sexualizes Riju and tries to claim she's an adult (despite being smaller than everyone including Link still and having several plushies which in media is usually to communicate the character is a child) due to the outfit they put her in

If you want to talk about misogyny and over-sexualization in Zelda, let's talk about that.

zelink art in the zora armor or other ship art with him wearing the royal guard uniform/champion's leathers feels so very wrong or off to me

>Fanbase hornily hypes up other people as Link's love interest instead of Princess Zelda.

>I am willing to believe them in some games because I'm really not attached to every version of zelink and can see that it doesn't need to happen every time.

>I actually play the games and do my own research instead of following what influencers say.

>"engagement" thrust upon him to get a necessary magic rock, things framed as a cheap anime joke that doesn't go any further, barely any interaction, this npc has a relationship with someone else hinted at or is literally married, etc.

>Marin is a figment of his imagination that turns into a bird and that version of Link is implied to marry Zelda later by the sequels and manga.

>Midna who is for once actually completely legit disappears back to her dimension forever, Link walks away from Ordon, Smash Bros frames TP Zelink the same as Mario and Peach (which is kind of werid for the most platonic zelink but that is indeed a real thing they did).

>old 80's/90's media pushes zelink.

>old advertisements push zelink including the rap cosplay one.

>old interviews push zelink.

>Cia and Lana accept their feelings are unrequited and all but say Link has a tendency to choose Zelda.

>Zelda always has at least one child and Link is the only actually logical option at least three times.

Fanon lied to me. Those "in every lifetime" zelink shippers everyone bullies are actually closer to the facts and people just hate the hero and princess trope so they ignore everything

According to certain oh so smart and wise american zelda fans, the game needed:

-Link having a harem of everyone but Zelda because she's a meanie and blonde

-Zelda kissing a redeemed Ganondorf in the past for some reason

-One million timeline references and exposition dumps and tie-ins (that way we can engagement farm on youtube as a career)

-Random old school dungeons in the overworld just for the sake of it

-Everyone constantly saying "hero link who defeated calamity ganon!" and kissing his feet ad nauseam

-breaking da cycle (even though the cycle is just the in-universe explanation for using the same premise for decades)

-everyone turning to the camera to denounce monarchies (that aren't fish people, it's suddenly not a problem when it's fish people) and then sign the declaration of independence

-The divine beasts taking up data just because while having no gameplay purpose

-Zelda staying a dragon forever just for the edge because happy endings are uncool and not like, subversive

So a trashy fanfic. You're mad the Nintendo game isn't your trashy middle school fanfic.

I cannot emphasize enough how werid and entitled it is to act like a couple dressing up is "defiling" the characters for you. Those are real people. They aren't literally the characters...

Heaven forbid cis people dare cosplay or wear a costume in your presence, I guess? They can't magically change their appearances or identities just because you are really werid about straight people simply being in the same room as you? They don't have to perform for you specifically

thoughts on transfem nonbinary botw/totk link… he and zelda can create zelink sapphic realness…

they are sooo gender that you can’t even tell who’s trans

Some Zelink shippers are annoying but anti-zelinkers even more so because aint no way people are trying to say themes of destiny in a hero's journey story are problematic now and, once again, trying to paint their male blorbo as a poor victim of Zelda and complaining about the female heroine often relegated to a damsel in distress role previously in the series having more agency than him

Trying to paint what you see as your cis male self insert man as a victim is truly pathetic

"Link can get anyone in Hyrule lol"

That's besides the point? Still cruel to Zelda

How you gonna call yourself a zelink or Princess Zelda fan but want her to be heartbroken lmao?

and just say you're addicted to harem p_rn...

no problem with men collecting women like objects to fuel their ego but “zelink shipper” lol sure...

Wanting the most developed Princess Zelda yet to not get her happy ending or be with the person she loves, just be married off to some random nobody so there can be another Princess Zelda later (because there will be, because there will be another game), is objectively a shitter ending than zelink ending up together. I do not care.

In that exact same interview aonuma also said when asked about that "the developers put what they wanted to convey in the game" and what is in the game? A fuckton of subtext stronger than pretty much any other game in the series. What they are trying to "convey" or tell the player is obvious

I'm simply not an idiot who comes up with massive reaches to deny the obvious, especially when some text explicitly uses the word love in a romantic context about them, etc. Like the Kass song, which you can't reject, which the developers admit themselves to putting in things like that to convey something to the player. There is literally no other way to interpret it unless you want to deny the meaning of words.

He wouldn't even be "royalty" in botw/totk. Zelda herself evidently doesn't even want to be Queen but a school teacher. A non-existent "problem" there...

"platonic zelink is just so much better 🙄" just sounds like "ugh romance is so icky and gross and cliche" to me

They aren't "just childhood best friends uwu" when the art director literally called them lovers, there is literally a track and advertisements from Nintendo themselves calling them "romantic" straight-up. Insane reaching to deny skyward sword zelink...

This post was about zelink, not the other aspects of the game which I do play the game for. I'm just confused why people complain so much about "cliche tropes" in the story when that's the point. And no, some stories do focus on the connection between the characters??? That's what almost all the botw memories and it's ending are about, and the entirety of the plot of totk is a desperate search for Zelda with shit like Ganondorf and the Yiga cosplaying as her to lure Link. The developers even said the theme of totk was hands and connections between people.

And no, I'm not "overstating" it when previously the developers made statements like this:

"platonic zelink is just so much better 🙄" just sounds like "ugh romance is so icky and gross and cliche" to me

"princess and hero romance is objectively cliché and people are also allowed to dislike it lmao." Then why the fuck are you playing the princess and hero video game, lmao? The series doesn't exactly hide that it's using those old fairytale tropes? The Master Sword is even still called "Excalibur" in the french version, which is what it essentially is. If you dislike these old tropes that much, again, then why are you even playing something you are just going to hate? The cliches are literally the point. It's meant to be like an old story from a book. An old fairytale. An old legend. People complaining about this is like ordering a bowl of soup and then complaining that soup was brought to your table. Why the fuck did you order it, then? Especially when Nintendo has made it pretty clear that there will always be a princess and hero and they probably won't change things up too much. Wow, I sure hope this game that is literally named after the princess doesn't have a princess and hero in it!

Also, yeah, but those are those games? Each game is different, exactly. So arguing that they are all platonic is just as asinine. We already have versions that make actual sense as platonic, like Twilight Princess, so why erase the only actually good romantic ones? The ones that have an actual development arc to the romance and aren't just giving the hero a kiss on the cheek at the end? That's just lame to me, and frankly, some takes do give me impression that it is simply because "all romance bad" now, apparently.

"platonic zelink is just so much better 🙄" just sounds like "ugh romance is so icky and gross and cliche" to me

If I follow you for zelink art/fics and that's what your brand mostly is and then you suddenly shove Link with another woman in my face I am going to block you

This has happened several times and I'm over it

"platonic zelink is just so much better 🙄" just sounds like "ugh romance is so icky and gross and cliche" to me