About that Links Winter AU
Fairies are dying. Sky still dreams. Legend has the family he always wanted. Warriors doesn’t. The Heroes of the Four Sword merge again, for the first time in years. At Lon Lon Ranch, Malon gets unexpected visitors, while Time wakes up in a snowscape, surrounded by nine other heroes.
This is a story about families, about a past that comes back to haunt them, and about a world forgotten by the goddesses.
————
The fourth chapter of Out of Time, the main story for the Links Winter AU, is now available on Ao3!
————
Hi there,
Since there's a few of you here, I figured I'd do a bit of an intro-and-overview of the Links Winter AU, and introduce myself.
Who am I? Here, I go by Kalh (she/her, fae/faer). I’m 23. I buy too many books and read too few of them. Pasta and reindeer stew are comfort foods (the stew just takes too long to prepare). So is carrot cake (the cheese cream is important). I’ve published a peer-reviewed academic article (it was on Tolkien’s works, one of my great loves), and have a Master’s Degree in modern literature. I do freelance work and am on the production team for an indigenous festival in Norway. I love and adore mossy old trees and funky rocks. Fungi are cool too.
So what’s the Links Winter AU? It's one of those the-Links-meet AUs, but set in your nearly-local Winter Wonderland. They’re trapped, and magic and technology stop working for most of them. Meanwhile, their family members are called to go on a rescue mission.
What format is it in? It’s a fanfic being published on my Ao3 account! I also sometimes post snippets here, to go with illustrations (snippets posted so far: from Ch. 5), or just stand-alones.
What is it inspired by? Oh boy. Legend of Zelda is the obvious one, but there's so many fanworks that have fed into it since I started concocting this. The most important influence is probably Jojo’s Linked Universe AU.
Originally, my only plan was to put the LU-boys in winter clothes and call it a day, but then I started wondering what it would look like if I added queerness, and the ones closest to them had to go out there as well.
I also wanted to age the boys up, do more of a family theme, have some cool female characters, and include some healthy relationships between women — both platonic and romantic.
Because of some of the ships (specifically those derived from the FSA Manga), I ended up divorcing the entire concept from LU, though if you look at some of my illustrations and read some of the texts, you may notice that some of the characters still are similar to the LU-boys. Because I started this before I'd familiarised myself with the majority of the LoZ games, I’ve kept the LU-method of distinguishing the characters (both Links and Zeldas).
In the beginning I was all right with this being tagged as LU (as long as Jojo's wishes were respected), but the more I've worked on it, the more I've started to feel like it's its own thing. I'd therefore be very grateful if you used the Links Winter AU tags (see further down) when reblogging or posting about it.
Another inspiration worth mentioning is Meowmix's Linked-verse Journey, specifically Part 18: “BBR - Kids”.
So which characters are important to the story? Well, there's the ten Links (there may or may not be an eleventh waiting for them at the end, but I'm still playing with the idea and reading up on sources, so it's not set in stone), and, as a rule-of-thumb, there's one sibling/friend/lover for each Link — except Legend, who gets a bonus (see info related to Ravio further down) because of the story I want to tell through him.
Anything else that's important to share about the characters and story? Yes. The main story (Out of Time) is currently a Mature work. There will be strong language, there will be intimate scenes (though, as a current rule of thumb, I don't write explicit sexual content), and there will be content warnings highlighted in each chapter (the ones I've noted so far for future chapters are panic attacks, alcoholism, depression, and internalised homophobia). There will, however, be no major or permanent character deaths, and I aim for a happy and satisfactory ending. Hurt/Comfort and Found Family are important themes, and I do enjoy sprinkling in a healthy dose of Angst every once in a while.
The characters have been aged as follows (links to character info added when I complete the character illustration):
The Links: Time (?); Sky (26); Legend (25); Warriors (25); Four + Red, Green, Blue, and Vio (24); Twilight (23); Hyrule (21); Wild (19/119); Wind (18); Spirit (16).
The Families: Sidon (100+); Malon (?); Linkle (28); Sun (26); Ravio (25); Aurora (25); Shadow (24); Ilia (21); Phantom (16); Aryll (13).
There's also an OC, Mitchi (5), in the Family Party. He probably won't have any POV sections, but is around to emphasise the difference between the Links (soldiers/warriors with a mission) and the Families (family-oriented characters working together to help each other). Of course, having a child running around and maybe getting lost can also cause all sorts of issues for the parents, which will be fun to unravel.
How do you portray Four and the Colours? I have a lot of thoughts about these guys, but for for sake of brevity: as separate individuals who are biologically unrelated (due to the elemental magic of the Four Sword).
What about the Links who have mirror characters, like Legend and Ravio? I consider them to be a separate individuals, from different worlds. Yes, this means they are biologically unrelated to each other.
Four and Shadow, then? Also separate individuals, biologically unrelated.
And, finally, what about ships? Boy, do I love ships! If you've been around for a bit, you may know that I've got a number. The ones that will be directly visible in the AU are: Vio/Shadow (Vidow); Red /Blue; Malon/Time (Malink); Ravio/Legend (Ravioli); Sidon/Wild (Sidlink); Sky/Sun (Zelink); and Spirit/Phantom (Zelink).
The more subtle one is: Red/Blue/Green (RGB? Is that the unofficial name?).
The siblings are: Wind and Aryll; and Linkle and Warriors.
Mitchi is Ravio and Legend's son (rumour has it that it took Ravio wanting to adopt Mitchi for Legend to finally admit to having feelings, but Legend will neither deny nor confirm this).
I'm conflicted about what to do with Twilight and Ilia. I think, for the purpose of this AU, I've more or less settled on “mutual crush that drifted apart and turned bitter”, and after refreshing my TP knowledge and reading up on Ilia, I may have fallen a little bit in love with her.
Same goes for Linkle. The general idea is that she and Warriors were both born into a noble family (with Linkle being the eldest by three years, because Warriors being a little brother is a delightful concept, and Linkle being a badass big sister is something I need on a spiritual level).
You can read more about Warriors and Linkle in this ask I answered.
.
So. This is the run-down of a few months of thinking, writing, and drawing. A few post scripts:
This is a safe and respectful space. Ship what you like, headcanon what you like, and be respectful of other people’s differing thoughts, ideas, and opinions. We don’t all have to view a character the same way. The general tag is #links winter au, and the character tags are #liwiau [character name]. (That said, please don’t use these tag for ships that include sibling characters and/or underage characters.)
This is a long-term pet-project. I'm a full-time student, and I'll be looking for a full-time job (in addition to freelancing) to pay rent and bills when the summer holiday comes around. This project is going to take time, and updates are going to be at least one month apart, if not more.
Meanwhile, I'm happy to answer questions anyone might have!
Last updated: 30th August 2022
