Wren

I think I've read an AU like what you mentioned on Ao3 before (might not be the same but it's a very cool concept!)!

Honestly Wild has been one of the guys I've struggled the most with (tying with Time because I don't think I know enough about the guy to be confident in a insect yet) in terms of just thinking on *what insect could he be?*??

My main idea had been him and Flora as dragonflies, but I'm still bouncing back and forth between ideas. If I do decide on dragonfly though I feel like it would be a fun way to reference the dragons in BOTW/TOTK especially with a possible post-TOTK Flora design with her not only having her dragonfly features, but ALSO *literal* dragon features.

(This also makes me wonder if I should have all Links and Zeldas as the same insect or if only some should (Like Sky and Sun). Because Skyloft is a closed off community I think it makes sense for everyone to have the same insect of origin, which would lead to a really funny realization for Sky because he'd meet non-Skyloft fairies and realise "oh wait fairies can have other bug genes???" Also makes me wonder if Skyloft even has any normal moths - it'd be funny if they had no moths on the islands and Skyloftians were under the impression moth wings were exclusive to moth fairies and not found on any bugs; going down to the surface Skyloftians would NOT ONLY see birds (Which I imagine very much more often than not are aggressive towards fairies) that aren't Loftwings nor friendly, but also ACTUAL moths))

Saying all that maybe it'd make it easier if I just made it so fairy civilizations from different places have a local fairy species. So all characters in each game share the same insect genes, which might also make it more interesting when the chain just stands out even more by having fairies from 9 separate civilizations?

One of the comments I got on my first post for this AU spoke about a cockroach Wild (because cockroaches are notoriously hard to kill) which I honestly found really funny - I don't think I'd actually make him a cockroach but it's given me ideas for funny bits where Wild would just pretend to be a cockroach fairy (Which I don't think he'd even know if they existed)? and just blatantly lie about being a cockroach fairy for shits and giggles (maybe to avoid the Yiga as well?). I might find a way to incorporate some kind of incognito cape for Wild, kinda like what I did for Rulie with his moss cape!

Aside from Wild's insect, I'm debating on what I wanna do with his outfit as well. I think I do want to go with more nature-y stuff (like the Wildling AU you mentioned); Right now I'm figuring out Wind's design and I'm going through adding things such as coral to match with my idea of him as a ocean-based water strider. For Wild I was thinking about going down the same route but forest-related things, maybe take inspiration from the Korok? It might be interesting to look into more traditional elf-like character design for him.

What's the point of an AU of an AU if you don't spontaneously get a little silly with it at 5am (and insert your other interests)

Realized I have free will and don't have to draw terrible backgrounds for all my art so here's initial designs for Four and Sky in my Fairy AU.

(Up for changes in the future but we're chilling, I just chucked my ideas on a canvas and hoped for the best (and by this i mean I spent nearly a week just trying to get these guys to look somewhat alright get me out of this limbo))

Yapping stuff:

In this AU the characters are first and foremost fairies with primarily the same bodies, but their genes differ in that fairies have different appearances and functions that are related to various insects. (This includes not only antennae and wing appearance, but also inheriting things such as glowing for firefly fairies like Rulie and (not drawn yet) Wind being a fairy who, with water strider genetics, has a bunch of microscopic hairs on his body that allows him to repel and glide on water.)

I took inspiration from Luna moths for Sky near-exclusively so he could match with Sun as a Sun moth; originally he (and all Skyloftians) would have had twenty-plume moth inspired designs but I did NOT feel like drawing all that bro. (not to mention I feel like with how those moths look my AU wouldn't be as recognizable as a Fairy AU and end up being mixed up with the Winged AUs)

For Four I took inspiration from both jewel and golden stag beetles because I really enjoyed how colorful their elytra are, not to mention beetles leave a lot of inspiration for armor (I removed some armor from Four's design in this art but there's plans for it trust). This is just first ideas so honestly I'm not ruling out trying out a butterfly design for Four as well, but I don't want his design to just be a mish-mash of colors so I figured going for a toned-down design with a main color of gold would be a little better. (Ignore how sucky I am at drawing wings please) (also I gave him a minish tail cause I felt like it)

Another view of my Fairy AU designs for Rulie and Legend I made for fun (and probably last one of just these two for now so I can stop procrastinating the rest of the chain's designs).

First product of my LU Fairy AU that was born from a Discord prompt one or two weeks ago.