"What OTPs in the fandom do you just Not Get?"
From @cyclebound
Salty Ask LIst
I have never, ever, liked zelink.
I have never actively hated it but I have never liked it.
I can't easily articulate why other than it's just been a vibe check/ personal preference thing. I do think there's some deeper story implications that I want to resist but mostly it's a matter of taste.
One, it's not the type of ship I go for. I have always liked villain/hero, rival, antagonist ships. I mean for fuck sakes my top three OTPs are: Zelgan, Reylo, and Zutara. I simply have a style and that style is a.... strong, powerful woman with the guy she beat up? Yeah, I won't lie, watching Katara beat the crap out of Zuko in the Season 1 finale of AtlA then watching Rey beat the shit out of Kylo Ren in TFA, probably shaped my brain as a teenager. Just did things to me.
You know what, this is completely off topic, but I want to rant about Reylo for a bit and why the hate it receives drives me up the wall because you guys don't get it.
Okay, so first of all this scene is actually perfect. From the chemistry between Ridley and Driver, to the framing and cinematography, to the dialogue. I didn't care for their relationship before this scene. Afterwards I was fully, and completely, invested.
I think people take this ship at its face value. They see Kylo Ren as this cool, bad boy villain, dark knight, and Rey as the perfect good girl, could do no wrong. And if you do that, and you look at people who ship them, you don't understand it. You just don't understand why you would want these characters together; you only see this dynamic as abusive and manipulative. But you also completely miss why we do like it and it's fundamentally because of the interrogation scene.
Kylo Ren is a loser, he is supposed to be a loser, and that's why I fucking love his character, he sucks. Because sometimes characters have to absolutely fucking suck so you can see their growth. If you're establishing a character that fucking sucks so you can see growth, TFA did a great job. How the rest of his arc was handled is another essay, but TFA did it's job.
On the other side is Rey who is not good boy, himbo, Luke Skywalker. Rey walks into TFA with a lot of personal baggage, which makes her difficult, stubborn, and chaotic neutral at best. She has aspirations of good but she's driven by her abandonment complex. When she gets mad, she gets pissed. It's actually fascinating how the movie treats Rey's anger vs. Kylo Ren's. Kylo Ren's anger is a joke (because it's forced, farcical) and Rey's anger is a weapon (because it's genuine). Kylo Ren is a character who, for various reasons, has ended up on the dark side when he belongs on the light, and Rey, for various reasons, has ended up on the light side when she belongs in the dark. What I'm saying is that there is a very dangerous edge to Rey that the fandom can completely miss. Like, lmao, this is not Rey's first time around the block.
TFA never wants the audience to actually think Kylo Ren is cool. Sure, he's introduced as the Darth Vader expy but the movie then spends the next two hours picking him apart to reveal him as a whiny, loser boy who has lost his way underneath. (Because he's a deconstruction of Anakin/ Darth Vader but I digress). He's powerful, he's capable, and he's dangerous, but at the end of the day he's just a young man trying to fill shoes much bigger than his own feet. (Which is intriguingly played with in TLJ I might add, but that's a different essay). However, you really get to see this switch from the presentation as "cool villain" to "whiny loser" in the interrogation scene.
Because there's a way you expect this scene to go. We saw it with Poe.
Kylo Ren is going to approach the poor helpless heroine, crack open her brain like a walnut, and get what he wants, and she'll be rescued by Finn and Han in a couple scenes. Poor baby Rey, perfect cinnamon roll never did any wrong.
But by some miracle, the writers do not suck in this scene.
Instead, Kylo Ren, using all the mighty power of Skywalker digs into Rey's brain, uses what he finds against her, and starts to push his thumbs into the cracks of her weaknesses. Then, the scene shifts, it's this turn and twist in your expectations as we see Rey fight back. Kylo's hand starts the scene pushing into her space, by the end he's holding on. Rey isn't just fighting back, she's winning. Until she strikes back with that vicious revealing of his own personal fears. Kylo Ren leaves the interrogation room like a dog whipped, tail between his legs. For the rest of the movie his mask pretty much stays off and you're stuck with Adam Driver's pitiful puppy face. Rey gets out of her restraints herself.
You're left with the distinct and tantalizing sense that these two characters are equals.
A lot of people bitch and moan about how Reylo is abuse and all that. It is not, these are two characters on opposite sides of a war and they treat each other accordingly. (I mean God they're not even remotely friends until about the mid-part of the next movie). At the end of the movie Rey wounds Kylo Ren, and he spends the rest of the series with a scar on his face. They are constantly pushing and pulling, and fighting, and jostling with each other. TLJ is a brilliant showing that they can get along in the right circumstances, that these two people are not so different after all, and yet still maintains Rey's morals and boundaries. Reylo is the textbook enemy-to-lovers (the absolute shit show that was RoS aside) and yet for some bizarre reason fandom can't be normal about it.
I don't think most people want enemies-to-lovers. I mean real enemies-to-lovers. Because they assume that just because these characters are fighting, hurting each other, and acting like, well, enemies, that must be abuse! But the point of enemies-to-lovers is not just redemption arcs but forgiveness. If you don't think forgiveness is possible, even in very extreme cases, then enemies-to-lovers is not for you. For some reason people claim they love enemies-to-lovers and yet act like clowns when characters, lmao, actually act like enemies.
Critically, at the same time, is the power balance. Enemies-to-lovers does not happen in a power imbalance, or not one that lasts. So, Zutara only works because by the end of the first season, Katara demonstrates that she can 100% kick Zuko's ass. It's the same thing with Reylo, but the end of TFA, Rey can kick Kylo Ren's ass. These are not characters that are helpless cinnamon rolls who are being taken advantage of. They're competent characters with agency and both Rey and Katara strike boundaries when they're bad boy boyfriends act up. It's honestly more insulting when people act like Rey and Katara are victims instead of, say, you know, competent characters with agency. What I'm saying is that abuse occurs in: an established, personal, intimate relationship with a power imbalance. Enemies-to-lovers is fundamentally not that. Reylo is not that, Zutara is not that, Zelgan is not that.
And that's why I like Zelgan over Zelink.
To me, a big part of the fun of shipping is playing with the power balance. I want characters that will push and pull at each other, argue over things of substances (personal beliefs, experiences, philosophy), and be willing to stand up for what they believe in. At the same time, have that constant dynamic growth of redemption and forgiveness. It is not just the 'bad guy' who changes but also the 'good guy.' To me, it's about these two characters who believe they are fundamentally opposites realizing that they are not. A good guy sees their shadow, a bad guy sees their light. It scares the shit out of both of them.
All of which Zelgan offers in spades, if done right.
That's the key thing, done right. Lots of writers like enemies-to-lovers and dark romances with villains but do not understand how key the power balance is. At no point do I want to feel like the 'hero' (usually female) is a weak idiot, they have to have something as a leverage point. Because those 'interrogation scenes' where the power balances switches are brilliant, like stand out of your seat and cheer, and weep for joy, brilliant.
The problem I have always had with Zelink, however, in fact is the power balance. Because the dynamic, both in fanon has always hinged on the day that Link will do anything, go anywhere, be anything, just to save Zelda. He's the Knight in Shinning Armor, with all the sexist chivalry baggage that comes along with it. He's the one who saves Zelda. Even if games like OoT, ST, TP, etc., don't lean into that dynamic at all, recent once definitely have, and lmao, I hate it. Because it makes Zelda an object, passive, someone who needs to be saved, and helped.
The only time I have ever liked Zelink is in ST. That's the one game that really convinced me that they're not only friends but also trust each other and are on equal terms as partners.
Otherwise, it's too vanilla.
