Archive of Our Own ^beta

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ And thus it begins. Wind and Twilight having things in common here makes me v happy honestly, and is a unique thing that you actually rarely see in LU fanfic. This is an awesome level of brotherhood that those two boys share here in this peaceful moment by a pond. Also, Wind leaving when Twilight wants him to and not lingering around? Lovely subtle characterization. It isn't that Wind doesn't care about Twi or Wild, it's that he honestly respects the hurt that Twilight is experiencing. Based on his small actions from Claustrophobia, Wind here is probably the number one most emotionally aware of the links in the group, with Four("Swords") as a second place winner(at least as far as this AU goes). Four was the first, after all, to point out Wild's knowledge and feelings in Ch1 of Claustrophobia, and even phrased that concern in the same way that an empath would. Straight to the point, expressing concern at the core of the issue, which is Wild's memories and feelings, while the others are reeling with horror.

Wind, on the other hand, is doing his part here. He is empathetic to Twilight's roiling emotions. He was the one to discover it, so he could, presumably, be taking on the weight of guilt, but he is tending to all those around him. Twilight is obviously struggling, for reasons I'll save for a different note, and Warriors is doing okay, no one else is being overly useful, and none of them understand Wild and Twilight's dynamic except for Time. Time's long-term relationships rely on honesty in canon and right now honesty isn't really on the table, while they're wrangling this boy into coming along with them, so any truly meaningful connection he can make is going to be stunted. In other words, he, too, is feeling the effects of losing Wild, and the effects of Twilight's depression and frustration(because he's a father figure to Twilight). Wind is over here like OKAY time to hold everyone together, patch them as best I can, while I can. The two shortest are really over here pulling their weight.

So, through very large subtleties, Wind and Four are being amazing, and I think there is SO MUCH POTENTIAL in Tashi exploring that more obviously in future chapters. Everyone's having a hard time, and it's a very real thing for the kid to feel like they have to hold everyone together. Although Wind isn't a real kid, he has the emotional characteristics despite his mental experience. So yeah, as everyone's dealing with their problems, they're leaving problems for the kids to pick up(which is NOT a sustainable familial situation. Eventually there is going to be a break unless the others start healing, themselves. I think that the characters are doing that though, so I don't think a break will happen. So basically I predict that Wind is being a champ and that's the end of it. I'd love to see some more focus on Wind healing everyone tho/pushing everyone to heal(as a resident empath, that's what we do, we help others figure out that they need to solve their problems and push them in that direction).

There’s also the symbolism-riddled line about not scaring off the beautiful buck(a male) and keeping an eye out for its pack(family)(also it is so Twilight to call groups of animals “packs”… Twi, you’re letting your inner wolf show~). Symbolic allusion because Twilight was keeping an eye out for Wild OH MY GOSH I JUST REALIZED FKDJDHDBBDJC AND WHEN HE FOUND WILD HIS DREAMS WERE KILLED BECAUSE THE WILD HE FOUND WASNT THE ONE HE KNEW. THE “NEW” WILD HAD BUTCHERED THE BOY HE LOVED INTO SOME UNRECOGNIZABLE MOCK-UP OF “Wild” kdjfnnfgzxsd

Also also I have Thoughts about Wild killing the buck and his motivations with it but you’ll get those in the next note bc room and spacing and so much to say

The impact of the ending here is huuuuurtful aaaaa dkfljgkdslf So Good. I tried to nail the "butcher", but I still wish I could've hit it sliiiightly harder even. It's meant to hurt in the same way that Wild has hurt Twi. Also this is a very smooth shoutout, connecting the fics together, and is well-placed in this first chapter. Great placement. Also very smooth and nice imagery at the pond itself. Also also I'm v satisfied with the manner of my censorship at the beginning. Though my ["Okay, enough of that. I'm awake now."] was poorly delivered imo sorry rip :V ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Alright, so, as much as I mentioned that Twilight is understandably having a hard time, he isn't the only one. Let's think about Wild. Much of this stuff is wholly against his wishes. He knows he's being screwed with, and lied to, and dragged along by a ton of people who expect things of him that he cannot offer or give. They expect him to be someone, and he only has 2 weeks worth of memories. It causes him legitimate physical pain to reach back into his past(remember the headaches line?), and there is a lot of fear-of-self too because his ONLY defining memory is endless screaming. Like??? Hm. Now, with that said and sympathy given, he is still being cantankerous.

Remember what I told you Chapter 9 of Claustrophobia? Wild has a lot of fear and denial going on rn, though he's mostly just feuding with Twilight specifically. For people who don't know LU well, Twilight was nyoik'ed into BotW during Wild's post-Resurrection adventure, and fought alongside him to help him make it to Ganon. So that's why Twi is struggling. Wild is being brat though. He ABSOLUTELY knows how to work the slate(especially as you'll see in coming chapters). He is not in a good mental state right now, and that will NOT improve until he makes active decisions to fight against his poor health. He either has enormous amounts of not-caring or he is bottling. Both are very Not Good things. I know I'm using the "better left forgotten" phrase as a hallmark for this series, but things are, generally, NOT better left forgotten. From my understanding, real healing doesn't usually come from forgetting, it comes from working through what may have happened. You have to reach a mental state where you can learn coping, and then you can regain what was lost and process it. I do know that for some disabilities one of the steps to recovery is reclaiming memories, after all.

Admittedly, maybe you don't need 100 years of memories of claustrophobia isolation(even truncated memories because it's not like we remember every day we've lived thank to our brain's memory/focus filtering, which btw is SO interesting and a topic I could go on about for a whole A/N), I'm not a psychiatrist... but that trauma WILL have had a physical effect on the structure of your brain, and that means something(assuming real-world logic and biology). Though... we don't know what the Shrine heals and doesn't heal. Anatomical differences? Wounds? Cavities? Would it restructure an ADHD brain? Would it alter introversion and extroversion, which have physiological origins? In LU, it didn't cure him of scarring so I don't think it could/would alter his brain structure unless his brain was bashed in. In which case, I suppose it'd revert the damage, using his old whole body as a reference.

Wild coming into camp is meant to be just as heartbreaking as the end of Ch1, though I'm not set on how I nailed the lines. Wish I had done better, but I had tried multiple takes, so maybe it's just one of those moments I don't quite have the skill for. Remember what I had discussed last chapter, though? About the buck being symbolic of Wild himself? That makes the pain of holding up the leg that much worse(symbolically). It really is taunting with cruel intent, even if Wild didn't process the action fully in that manner. Walking into camp with a trophy was a conscious choice he made, one he either made purposefully because of Twilight or made despite knowing it would bother Twi. He either chose to be spiteful and hurt Twi by marching into camp gloriously, or he would have marched in gloriously either way but chose to, knowing it'd hurt Twi. Both options are actively ignoring empathy, just at different stages in the process(Spite+Idea=Decision or Natural Action+Ignoring Empathy=Decision).

With all that in mind, we connect back into [look what I did to the buck you admired!]. This is from Twilight's POV, so it is going to be tainted with bitterness(but my explanation about the choice concerning(heh) empathy still stands, which is why I explained it first). Twilight truly did admire and love Wild, and here this stranger comes bursts in, residing in the ruins of the boy he knew and walking around in his skin for weeks without end or improvement. I think Twilight still does love Wild, including this new one—you could formulate a powerful argument that love should be unconditional, but I would argue back that regardless, the potency and refined minutia of love are not—but he is struggling to reconcile that. At the moment, amidst his difficulties with this stranger, I think it can be safe to say that he loves the idea of Wild. He loves the man Wild could be, the man he was.

I made it sound kinda bad there, but this isn't a thing to condemn him for. I ran out of room again, so this will continue in the next chapter ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Continuation from last chapter's analysis: I made it sound kinda bad there, but this isn't a thing to condemn him for. In my own experience with mental illness, for example, I was very much "myself" for all my life, until I started college. Thanks to things, over the next 4 years I gradually—and then dramatically—started falling apart at the seams and I was no longer "me". I was "RuneLore", obviously, but I wasn't the RuneLore my family knew because dysfunction had gotten lodged in the way and everything was filtering through its lens. In a way, I was unrecognizable compared to who I was, which is who I am. When I got better, the "old" me returned. It was empowering to be myself again, a myself I hadn't known I'd lost because I was living it and couldn't see the change. So no, it isn't a bad thing for Twilight to recognize that Wild is no longer the person he was, that his personality is being filtered through a lens of trauma and what's left isn't much of a person(Wild hadn't wanted to know his own name). It's the situation, and Twilight is trying to love the boy he knows Wild is and the remains of what he is right now.

So, now we've discussed how Wild has been a brat and how/why Twilight is hurting so much(Tl;dr—lol—because he loves Wild and is hurting that Wild has lost himself to trauma), let's talk about other aspects of what's going on.

Wild is swarmed with apathy(I don't think the apathy is forced, but I'm not sure) about people, his past, and his direction in life. He has nothing and, at the time he met Twilight, he didn't want to have anything, not really. He's been roped into this pseudo-family that everyone knows is fake. The saving grace is that Wild doesn't know what parts are lies and not, since they kind of act like family. They act like something greater than friends or a party. He doesn't know where he fits in though, and until he remembers who he is, he can't find the place he fits into. He was a round peg in a round hole, but now he's a brand-new square peg and he isn't sanded down to fit that space anymore(Run away!!! RuneLore pulled out the horrible metaphors again!!). He's actively avoiding taking the initiative to find his footing. Why stand and walk when you can float along? Because of muscle atrophy, that's why. The things that are good for you during periods of disorder are often pains to do and require active "fighting against your illness"(when I'm at points in my life when I need it, I ask myself "Am I fighting against my illness right now?").

He also has "known" Twilight the longest, and Twilight is the one who is semi-unintentionally expecting the most out of Wild. Twilight, who clearly loves who he was, and maybe who he is(from Wild's POV, the audience knows that Twilight does love Wild as he is now bc we have the context for knowing). Twilight, who he fights with. Twilight, who wants him to be his old self(for good reason in this case, as I've explained). Twilight, who wants Wild to remember goodness when all Wild can remember is bone-chilling screaming and fear. Wild doesn't know what to do about Twilight, clearly, because Wild is still locked into inaction by his fear and apprehension, and probably still will be for awhile yet too. This apprehension isn't new to Wild, either.

Remember Claustrophobia? When Twilight reflected on Wild's past fears regarding remembering? Here, I'll share:

[A few months back, Wild confessed to Twilight that he wasn't sure if he wanted his memories back. According to Wild, the Link from a hundred years ago was a totally different person. That Link was so quiet, people thought of him as mute. That Link was so dedicated to his job as knight, he basically lost all sense of self.

"If I get my memories back," Wild said to him. "Will I become that person? Will I shut down again? It didn't sound like I was happy back then."]

This fear isn't a new thing. He hadn't overcome it before, had never made it that far with his recovery, so he doesn't have a precedent. Even if he can't remember not setting a precedent, the audience can. Personally, I think that Wild WANTS to make Twilight proud, even though Twilight is a stranger to him because he can see how much Twilight cares. Twilight is the opposite of apathetic right now, and all that feeling has already proven capable of breaking through Wild's own apathy, his rampant defense mechanism of not-caring. Remember them going to blows in Claustrophobia, and even in this chapter, how Wild snipes remarks back? Those are moments where the apathy isn't fully there. Twilight is that catalyst. He's afraid and frustrated with Twilight in general, but he wants to make him proud(you can be more than one at the same time lol).

I'll actually talk about this chapter in the next note lol ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Now let's actually talk about Chapter 3 and then we'll talk Chapter 4! We have more cantankerous Wild(even bratty in how he eats), and his fair reaction, as a stranger, to the dynamic. It's like in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers when Milly is faced with being everyone's live-in maid. If you've never seen it though, the film was choreographed by my favorite choreographer, the INCREDIBLE Michael Kidd, and you should 100% check out the iconic and amazing barn-raising dance!!! Fun fact: I'm a certified ballroom dancer.

As a family, Wild cooking for everyone out of the goodness of helping his bros makes perfect sense and isn't a problem, but as a stranger joining the dynamic? Yeah it's sucky and makes him look like the doormat. It's setting up expectations of him having to take care of everyone, and the false thought that they want him around so he can cook for them, not because he's loved. Theoretically, this could be why he is in a cycle of lashing-out-and-not at Twilight, who made it clear from their first meeting that he cares about being there for Wild, specifically. Twilight obviously loves and cares for Wild, so Wild could possibly be taking out his anxieties on Twi because he views Twi as different than the others. Maybe. Regardless of this possibly connecting to Twi, Wild CLEARLY, and fairly, isn't pleased with being the line cook for a bunch of grown men.

Wild's discontent is furthered by his questions being met with non-answers, a scary-mad Time, and Twilight coercing him into deferring. Not the nicest dynamic for a stranger who has no emotional connection to any of these clearly-lying people. I think it's likely Wild might run off again and need to have a real heart-to-heart with someone. This could be Twi, in a fatherly-love way, but so far their dynamic doesn't lend to that, it lends more to, uh, violence, or it can be Time, who entered a world he didn't know after 7 years lost with no choice(which is honestly kinda traumatizing??!!). Wind would be very interesting and could probably have that heart-to-heart properly, since he's a neutral Link(heh) in these matters.

Chapter 4 is Wild's first acknowledgement of there being a fractured relationship between him and Twi. Wild does want something with Twilight, some connection, despite all the avoidance and fighting he's been up to. Twi is struggling at night with frustration, loss, and worry for his kid. He is, after weeks of this, starting to feel the grieving process kick in—his hygiene and attitude are falling to the wayside (Bby, nuuu :( bbyyy~~). At the beginning I mentioned olive branches? Well this is Wild's. He made Twi's coffee just the way he likes it and planned out giving the gift. Who knows what this means for Wild's wants in regards to his memory loss but... it is Something and it Means Something(I'm honestly analyzing on the fly here).

Oh! Remember the saltiness and skepticism about being their cook? Here, he is choosing to prepare something for someone who isn't himself, and that means something. Old Wild cooked because he loves his brothers and WANTED to serve them. In this moment, Wild is doing the same thing. He doesn't remember and probably can't parse why he would be everyone's on-call cook, and if the love factor was explained lol he totally wouldn't accept that(I mean, who would? You know these guys are shady, coercive, and lying to you, who KNOWS what's really going on, because they sure won't tell you and you have no memory). He did this because he cares and he WANTED to do it. Remember, he hasn't wanted ANYTHING until now. He didn't want a name, any memories, a companion, to rescue people, to fight, to cook, to anything. He's been drowning in apathy and fear-fueled frustration, but that isn't a sustainable mental state. Something is changing, and it is changing here.

What I want out of this story going forwards is Twilight acknowledging and feeling his loss but also finding a way to feel love for this new Wild, as he is. I either want Wild recovering small bits of memory and saying "This is what we're doing, isn't it?" Wild and Twilight hugging v emotionally. Wild trusting Twilight. Wild admiring deer/the soft beauty of life. Wild helping Twilight sleep without Twi knowing and his own love for Twi growing in the process(like while he's on watch duty), his empathy finally being unleashed in the process, alongside emotional flashbacks of his and Twi being there for each other during the calamity. Progression through the unique and lovely trauma introduced in the prequel to this work. I dunno. I want :3, y'know? I think this really can be something great, like Claustrophobia is~ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ