#WEMBM

[becauseplot]

thinking abt dsmp x qsmp x botw crossover again. im still working through what exactly i want to do about the Kakariko- and Yiga-equivalent regions/groups in this au. and the Shiekah-equivalent as well, which i suppose would belong to the Kakariko-equivalent.

under the cut: me just walking through some ideas about my au, WEMBM. very rambly. mostly just me posting for safekeeping and to help me work through thoughts and because hitting the post button makes brain release happy chemical. can totally be ignored /gen :thumbsup: writing in tumblr drafts just makes the ideas come easier idk lmao. might private this later just because *shrug*

as of right now, the idea of doing some sort of dsmp-eggpire/qsmp-watchers fusion for the Yiga-equivalent is very tempting. the original au was just eggpire, but now of course im tossing qsmp into the mix. sure, the federation is a decent enough candidate for the role, being an Evil Organization and all, but i feel like the watchers embody that element of suffering, chaos, carnality, and twisted righteousness. while the feds have their dark sides, the overall aesthetic of the federation is too clinical and organized for the cult of armageddon-worshippers. the federation is fairly reserved and mysterious, whereas the watchers (and the Watcher itself) are very blunt and up-front about their goals: make the "sinners" pay. that fits the yiga-role best, in my opinion.

so, eggpire-watcher fusion. i've got a few directions i can go with this. if i remember correctly, the original idea for the Eggpire in this au was that Bad (Kohga-equivalent character; tell me that cBad DOESN'T fit this role perfectly i dare you), as a young member of the dwindling yiga clan post-calamity, once made the journey into hyrule castle to see for himself what remained of the Dark Lord*, and what he saw in the Sanctum was that big old fleshy cocoon- or 'egg'-looking thing where Calamity Dreamon was being held back by Prince Tubbo. Dreamon's consciousness was able to reach out to him, beckon him forward, tell him of the way that he has been wrongfully sealed, that greatness awaits those who embrace the Darkness, that he, Bad, could spearhead the revival of the Dark Lord and join him in his absolute rule over hyrule, if he could keep that blasted Knight from sealing him away for good...

and thus, Bad emerged from hyrule castle with a mission he would dedicate his life to: kill the Knight that wields the sword that seals the darkness so that his Dark Lord may regain his strength and hatch from his 'egg', reborn.

*fhdjsk this was how the yiga referred to ganon in the game right or am i crazy?? it's been so long since i played botw hhhough.

now, watcher elements that can be tossed into the mix? well, they get their name "watchers" because of the way they've scattered themselves across hyrule, watching for any sign or hint that the Knight may have returned. they're great with stealth when needs must, but when it comes to combat, they are ruthless. they fight hard, fight dirty. they seek to kill anyone who may oppose the way of the Dark Lord. im gonna make them a biiiiiit darker than they are in botw bc it's my au and i get to choose the vibe, but i promise i won't sacrifice all of the silly. the balance of goofy/lighthearted/fun and serious/grim/dark is integral to both LoZ games and MCRP series.

im thinking i'll reserve the "sinners" title for any watcher members who defect or show any sort of sympathy for outsiders. fun fact: WEMBM!cellbit is a sinner!! he was abducted by the watchers at age ten and made to forget his childhood through ritual magic and trained to be the perfect soldier for Master Bad and the Dark Lord. he was sharp as a tack and quick with a sword, and once he was old enough, he would have made a perfect addition to Bad's elite rank of watcher footmen.

until he defected. until he became a sinner.

he lives in Quesadilla (Hateno-equivalent) now. he's got a husband who he loves and friends in town that care for him deeply and an estranged twin sister living in Enderian Town that he swaps letters with, on occasion. he keeps his head down, he enjoys his quiet life of freedom, and he's totally not secretly aiding an anti-watchers organization called the Ordo from afar.

(did i make cellbit extremely backstoried in this au? you bet your ass i did. tbf qcellbit is also very backstoried and qcellbit lives rent free in my brain so sorry not sorry lol. also mentor-mentee hg duo makes me RGHRHRGHRGHGRRR.)

anyway, i'm thinking of having the kakariko village equivalent be called Essempi. eret will take impa's role, having been prince tubbo's advisor, one of his guards, and a close friend. who else lives in Essempi is uhh, to be decided. i think i should start making a list of characters who i already know the residence of (eg, Cellbit is in Quesadilla, Eret is in Essempi, Schlatt is on the Plateau...) so i can place other characters in locations.

one major issue im running into is my discomfort with assigning qsmp/dsmp characters---who are largely white/non-Japanese---as "Sheikah." feels like appropriation of some share or form. which means i'm going to have Essempi be just another Hylian town---unless i come up with another humanoid race. hmm, could do something with bad, tina, and mouse's shared demon-ness in qsmp. eret could definitely land in this category as well. (and while im still hesitant to put qforever into any sort of au because of. well. let's not get into that here. but if i put him somewhere, i'd put him in this group.) they probably wouldn't be called Demons, though. i'll think of something. either way, they'd have a connection to the "Sheikah" technology and would be close with the royal family, just like the original Sheikah of botw. (huh. i guess this makes tazercraft sheikah-equivalent. or well ig they don't have to be. my au my rules.)

[becauseplot]

more about the dsmp x qsmp x botw au, which i should clarify is called Well, Excuuuuuuuse Me, Big Man (WEMBM) (there are exactly 7 u's in the "Excuse")

im still working on it, but i think im going to make the in-world equivalent of koroks the eggs. im torn between making them plant-like eggs with legs (like how the koroks are plantlike, just now in egg form) or i could make them allays.

they'll be mischievous little guys who, instead of korok seeds, they give Tommy (Link-role in the au) these little squishy...beans? blobs? they're semi-solid and smell kind of funny. turns out they're little bits and pieces of Slime (Hestu-role), a humanoid glob of moss, mold, and tree sap that gained sentience from the magic of the Lost Woods. the eggs/allays stole pieces of him and hid away with them across Hyrule---a common game that they play to pass the time.

as a reward for returning the little jelly bean things to Slime, Slime will use his special goopy forest magic to make Tommy's magic "bottomless" satchel even bigger, capable of carrying more things. how it goes is that Slime REALLY wants the beans back because he wants to "win" the game---he always loses, taking too long to find everyone---but Tommy's like, "okay, but what's in it for me, big man?" and thus a deal is struck.

[becauseplot]

dont mind me tripping and falling in here again. but i would also love to hear about botw au. legend of zelda au's my absolute beloved they have me running circles around my room. adrenaline shot straight to the heart nothing digs its claws in me quite like loz and i am so so interested to hear about it!! clingyduo doomed to save the world in every universe,,,, i'm invested already

thank you so much for humoring me, i love botw aus so much theyre aaaa!! aaAAAAAaaAaaAAa!!!!

so yeah this originally started bc an old friend of mine and i were talking and i forget who suggested it but we were like "hey wouldn't tommyinnit as link be so funny? because tommyinnit is like the exact opposite kind of feral-energy of botw link. loud and swears and uncontrollable and headstrong. hylia's most annoying hero." and things just devolved from there. it's fully a Crack Treated Seriously situation because i spent actual months working out lore n worldbuilding and whatnot fhdjskhfdk.

the fic is officially called Well, Excuuuuuuuse Me, Big Man: The BotW AU No One Asked For (or WEMBM for short)

basic layout (as far as i went with it anyway):

tommy more-or-less follows the order of what you're "supposed" to do to to beat the game: plateau->kakariko->hateno->kakariko again->four main regions->master sword->ganon. of course there are a lot of detours and back-tracking and skipping around for hyjinx

main regions/inhabitants are replaced: Zora->Axols (axolotl "hybrids"), Gorons->Piglins, Rito->Elytrians, Gerudo->Enderians

each of the above races have their own cultures that are loosely based off of the game's original counterparts and some mcrp fanon + personal headcanons thrown in. they're customized to incorporate some (mild) minecraft elements!!

old champions: Mipha->Niki, Daruk->Technoblade, Rivali->Philza, Urbosa->Ran (based loosely off of tftsmp Ran, effectively an oc lmao????)

new champions: Sidon->Foolish (Niki's younger brother) and Jack (Niki's best friend), Yunobo->Drista, Teba->Wilbur, Riju->Ranboo

all of their personalities more-or-less remain intact (which is why the fact that i put The Old Man / King Rhoam as Schlatt so fucking funny)

divine beasts keep their names but the creatures change!! Ruta is a glow squid, Rudania is a blaze, Medoh is still a bird (LMAO i might change this because...), Naboris is a phantom

some scattered details

wilbur is both the "new" champion role AND kass' role!! he and tommy meet early on in his journey (at his first visit to Hateno) but tommy doesn't learn about wilbur's heritage (Philza was his great great great grandfather) until MUCH later. they run into each other a lot during their travels.

wilbur also has a hardcore crush on an axol warrior named sally, which tommy teases and embarrasses him relentlessly for

tubbo (zelda-role) keeps zelda's arc of not being able to develop powers. the key difference is that tommy and tubbo are friends before the calamity business starts to get serious, and tubbo's frustration drives a wedge between them

(angst time: clingy duo has a Big Fight during that one sheikah slate Memory on the palace tower bridge, and they never get the chance to apologize to each other before it all goes to shit and tommy dies sacrificing himself to save tubbo.)

techno and phil are old friends from when they'd do colosseum fights together. they haven't talked much for a few years before becoming champions, both too busy with their respective duties at home, but the moment they realize they've both been recruited well, they're inseparable

windbombing, bullet-time bouncing, and shield clipping are canon. don't question it.

champion ran is a dick (think revali) and the only one there they respect is niki because they underestimated her and then she proceeded to floor them during a sparring session (and she didn't even threaten them with a water based attack, it was all skill)

awesamdude (most people call him "sam", he's ranboo's personal guard) has a half brother named awesamnook (most people call him "nook" or "samnook"). he's the Beedle-role and he talks in all caps like an npc ("HELLO TRAVELER." "Why are you shouting---" "HAVE A LOOK AT MY WARES." "Okay---")

bad runs the yiga-equivalent egg cult that, instead of disguising themselves as travelers, simply uses sprouts of blood-red flowers with a toxic pollen to mind-control bystanders into attacking tommy (yikes)

have some highlights from the few chapters i've written of tommy on the great plateau (yes, the entire google doc is written in comic sans)

tommy immediately sassing tubbo's disembodied voice:

tommy is 7 feet from the cave and is shoving things in his mouth:

(I should also mention he has a pet beetle in his pocket named Sir Legs)

tommy has a grudge against the sheikah pedestals, it's a whole arc on the plateau as he slowly comes to love and appreciate the pedestals and what they do for him:

old man J vs tommy's unwavering optimism(bullheadedness):

tommy vs disembodied voices:

tommy vs the first shrine:

tommy meets a monk:

pulling a direct line from philza's botw playthrough for this one:

me when i fast travel:

The loading screen says: "Leaving Comments: Leaving comments on a fic is a great way to make a writer go :D and give them the motivation they need to continue their bullshittery."

also some chapter titles:

[becauseplot]

well it’s official. i’m brainrotting my dsmp x qsmp x botw au.

i think a lot of the qsmp characters will live in the in-world equivalent of Hateno, a little town called Quesadilla. so far i have Tazercraft as the scientists living up on the hill—because they’re scientists you see—and Fit owns the farm up on the foothills. he chats with Pac e Mike every time they head into town for groceries and dubious building materials. i might make Mike a co-owner of the dye shop / hair salon, but idk who the other co-owner would be. Felps, maybe?

anyway Jaiden and Roier own that first shop you run into when you enter town, and they’ve owned it for years, even before Roier married Cellbit. they live together in a house down the street from the store. while Cellbit does help them with the shop, he mostly does inventory work after hours. Jaiden and Roier do most of the customer service stuff during the day while Cellbit either sleeps or works on projects in the office in the upstairs of the shop. (sometimes he’s asleep at home tho.)

right now i have Jaiden as Elytrian, Roier as Hylian, and Cellbit as Enderian (or part-Enderian). im tempted to make one of the morning crew a Piglin, and the obvious answer would be Fit, but ooooough i love human!FitMC soooo much in qsmp that it feels weird to make him anything but human in any au. he’s Just Some Guy, you know? he’s Just Some Guy who’s been through some shit. but, with the tight-knit warrior culture of the Piglins in this au, having him living alone in Quasadilla…Backstory™️ potential >:)) there’s a lot for me to work with here

[becauseplot]

in other news, last night when i couldn't sleep and i was thinking about poa!philza, i had the craziest fucking idea to try to revamp my old botw x dsmp crossover but instead replace all the characters i didn't want to write anymore with qsmp characters. i'd be replacing characters like the Hermits from Hermitcraft---who i don't rly watch anymore and were mostly just there for filler roles---and uh, you know. coughdteamcough. (ugh sorry got some shit stuck in my throat. no idea what that was about. anyway,) i'd be making a behemoth of a crossover: dsmp x qsmp x botw. the original concept was already crack-y enough, and now im chucking in another mcrp server. what could go wrong?

if i genuinely want to do this though im gonna need a college-lecture-room-sized whiteboard three different colored markers and several hours because fitting everyone into spots and adjusting the lore and worldbuilding to accommodate them all without losing the hallmarks that make these characters them is a tall order, ya know? really i just miss my botw crossover :(( the sillies :((((