Mistakenly Female Trans Link

KAZY/Twitter

Twitter declares this ‘mistakenly’ female Link a trans icon

She's a sapphic take on The Legend of Zelda.

Photo of Ana Valens 

Ana Valens

Internet Culture

Posted on Apr 3, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 3:44 pm CDT

Fun fact: The Legend of Zelda’s main character is Link, not Zelda. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you aren’t a gamer. But while most players remember the series for its boy-saves-girl plot, one Japanese magazine from the 1980s didn’t get the message.

Last week, a Japanese ’80s aesthetic blogger named KAZY shared a series of illustrations for a female Link from a 1986 magazine called Shonen Captain. It’s unclear why the publication depicted Link as a woman. Some chalked it up to a faulty interpretation of Link’s sprite in the original 1986 NES version of The Legend of Zelda, while others wondered if the magazine was purposefully throwing a female character into Link cosplay.

Either way, the artwork fascinated gamers as a relic from another time. KAZY’s post blew up, gaining over 4,700 retweets and 10,000 likes within a week.

https://twitter.com/kazzykazycom/status/1111592131951378432

After gaming website GoNintendo ran a story on KAZY’s post, Shonen Captain’s Link reached the English-speaking gaming community and went viral. By Wednesday morning, GoNintendo scored over 2,600 retweets and 11,000 likes from their news story’s tweet.

Twitter quickly fell in love.

Thanks to female Link’s genderswap, trans Twitter began claiming her as their own.

https://twitter.com/andreareventon/status/1113130532483854336

https://twitter.com/LouisatheLast/status/1113443804906913793

https://twitter.com/chargertier/status/1113128801213575169

Some even called for the ’86 Link to become the new Bowsette.

Twitter’s obsession with female Link may seem peculiar. But it’s not surprising. Genderbending, or changing a character’s canon gender in fanwork, has long been popular in geekdom. Queer fans in particular love playing around with gender to create a sense of representation and visibility. Many classic gaming stories are highly gendered, reinforcing heteronormative damsel-in-distress stories about men rescuing women: Mario saves a princess in Super Mario Bros., Ghosts ‘n Goblins features a knight in shining armor, even Sonic CD features Sonic the Hedgehog saving Amy Rose. So when fannish work turns the damel-in-distress trope into a girl-saves-girl story, genderswaps become sapphic. That’s pretty hot if you’re a queer girl that’s horny on main for that kind of thing.

Then there’s the humor in it all. Only a gaming magazine from the pre-internet, 8-bit era could take one look at Link’s NES sprite, decide the main character is actually a woman, and draft up a ton of art of her as such. It doesn’t hurt either that Shonen Captain’s Link is adorable. Just look at her big eyes, her gorgeous red hair, and how she wears her adventuring outfit. How can you get enough of her? I definitely can’t. I just changed my Slack profile to her because I love her aesthetic.

Link Slack
Ana Valens

Sure, Nintendo may be hesitant to make a female Link for a main Legend of Zelda installment. But fans can dream about what she would look like as a cute trans lesbian adventurer, regardless of what canon has to say. So bring on femme Link. The world could use more of her.

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*First Published: Apr 3, 2019, 10:37 am CDT

Ana Valens

Ana Valens is a reporter specializing in online queer communities, marginalized identities, and adult content creation. She is a former Daily Dot staff writer. Her work has appeared at Vice, Vox, Truthout, Bitch Media, Kill Screen, Rolling Stone, and the Toast. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and spends her free time developing queer adult games.

Ana Valens