Why are we all talking about Link when we're talking about romance?
TV Tropes is right. He is the fandom's "Little Black Dress." (Goes with everything).
What about LoZ's actual canon couples? Majora's Mask has Kafei x Anju... Twilight Princess has Rusl x Uli... Rusl and Uli have kids together, man!
(Great, now I'm tempted to write a story about their life and how they met and came to the village and stuff... but fanfic is the least thing I should be doing right now).
As for non-canon, Linkless couples... I think the idea of Renado x Telma is cute, even though Renado seems to not be warm to Telma...
As for Link couplings... I have my preferences.
I like ZeLink (Link x Zelda) for most games/scenarios. I've written fanfics that featured it, though none of my stories are particularly "mushy." I made this eventual couple for an "orignal" Link and Zelda in an original-era story. Princess and the hero who saves her is just the fairy-tale classic, so it has that charm.
For Twilight Princess, I've got it *bad* for Link x Midna. It has such a wonderful tragic vibe to it, considering the ending. (And, oh, so many fan artists and fanfic writers have sought to "fix" this ending, including me with a AU-ending story).
I once wrote a one shot story ("Desert Sunset Painted in Shades of Fire" for anyone interested in looking it up) in which Link married Ilia, pines for long lost Midna, and is very good friends/non-romantic with Zelda. He did geninunely love Ilia in the story, the pining for his old memories of Midna comes from the fact that in the story, he's dying.
However, with the exception of the ending of AoL (and I believe Miyamoto is on record as saying that Original Flavor Link married Zelda and became King of Hyrule there)... I prefer the romance to be unconfirmed. I like this because... as a crazy fanfic writer person, this leaves possibilties open. It also works for the whole "Link is the player/controlled by the player" thing, because, with stuff unconfirmed, the player can imagine him liking whomever they want him to like. For instance, although I'm a straight female, as Link's player, I *like* to imagine him as straight and liking certain females. Another fangirl may like to imagine him with Shad or Dark Link or something. It all works out because nothing's confirmed.
It's refreshing after my last fandom (Trigun anime and manga), wherein there wasn't much romance at all in the story (just gunslinging, superpowers, philosophy, blood and thunder)... but there were massive shipping wars. I got right sick of being called "homophobic" just because I preferred main character Vash with petite but firey Insurance Agent Meryl, rather than with his chainsmoking priest best friend, Wolfwood, or with Knives, his genocidal twin brother. And the thing is, EVERYBODY had *evidence.*
So, yeah, with Link, I like some ships, but I like them to be unconfirmed, because I've survived fandom shipwars and know that they suck. Having a malliable main character is great, it's just great.
) and Zelda her aspirations, Malon...I'm not too sure about, but Link ignores them all. Yeah, that definitely appeals to me a lot more.
