What is something totally reasonable that authors in your fandom do in their fics that personally pisses you off?
This is a random rant but I've felt it for a while so I thought I'd share.
I'm 100% for writing what you want and I'll never criticize an author for their story choices, but internally there is one tendency I see in my fandom (Botw/Totk) that really grinds my gears.
And that's people who insist on making Link tall.
I know it's not really a big deal, but for some reason I just get irrationally upset when I see this in fics. I think it's partly because there seems to be this existing stigma irl that "short=undesireable." Men, for example, are often ridiculed and overlooked for being short. There is the stereotype that women prefer men who are 6', etc. And media tends to further this by portraying "heroic male characters" as tall and strapping, etc.
This is one reason I love Link (especially botw/totk iteration of him). He's short. Like, quite short. When standing next to Zelda he looks possibly a few inches shorter than her, and Zelda isn't super tall. Some npcs even tease link for his appearance, not believing he can possibly be the legendary swordsman because he's so small. And part of the satisfaction as the player is knowing you ARE the legendary swordsman, regardless of what they think. He is also not overly muscly, he's slim and compact. Yet in some fandom spaces I've seen people arguing every which way to try and "prove" that Link isn't shorter than Zelda in the game, by insisting the camera angles are confusing or if feet aren't visible in a scene, Zelda must be standing on higher ground, etc. This is despite users having pulled the character models from the game and comparing them to show that no, Link was in fact, programmed to be shorter than almost all other non-child/non-elderly npcs.
I see this in fics a lot too. Where Link and Zelda hug or kiss and it's described as Zelda having to "look up" at Link. Or worse, when it's an "in the future" fic where they are a little older and Link is described as "growing up," complete with how he now has muscles and he's shot up "a full seven inches," (despite the fact that he's estimated to be appx 23-24 in totk and he looks exactly the same as he did in botw, that is to say, just as short.) I think this bothers me because the indicated increase in height is often directly paralleled to how much more handsome or "sexy" he is now, as if he wouldn't be suddenly so studly without the added inches.
And that just...irks me. Height has nothing to do with handsomeness. Someone can be drop dead gorgeous and not be 6'+. Why do some people seem to absolutely cling to the idea that a "hero" (or anyone really) has to be "tall and muscly" to be "attractive"? Wild-era Link is short, slim, basically androgynous, AND he's the hero of hyrule. All of these things can be true!! There are so few heroic figures in media that dare to subvert some of these sexist stereotypes like men having to be tall and muscular in order to be "sexy" or "desirable," so why can't we leave our canonically short kings alone?
I know there is nothing actually wrong with anyone wanting to write Link as a tall masculine dude. And I'm not trying to say you're a bad person if you do or anything like that. If that's how you prefer your version of Link, knock yourself out. I get that making your own version of the story is the meaning of fanfics. So I realize this is just my opinion and only that. I'm not telling authors what to do at all. You do you and all that. But, personally, whenever I see this (in fics, in fanart, etc) I get internally heated. Because I don't understand this stereotype at all. Why do men (or anyone) need to be forced into a certain height in order to be portrayed as "handsome?" Why can't we enjoy short characters (and people) for how they are without insinuating that their height needs to change in order to suddenly be "more desirable?"
Does anyone else have personal heated feelings about something common in your fandom that technically isn't wrong?