Every Single (Hermitcraft/etc.) AU Idea I Have Ever Had
This is... what it says on the tin. It is a long post. I do not expect it to get any traction. I am doing this for autism reasons. Some ideas are actually excluded because there is zero substance to them. Sorry I don't think anyone wants to hear my 1000 'what if Grian... was sad' ideas.
Many of these (most of them) were made in collaboration with @angeart which explains why they are so sad and also Mostly Scarian. It doesn't always say it's shipping but it usually is. We are Grian Girlies. Sorry.
If you want to hear more about ANY of the ideas listed here, feel free to shoot me an ask :) I LOVE RANTING ABOUT THESE IDEAS. There are even links to fics where they exist.
Each idea needs different warnings so any major CWs will be listed at the start of each summary so you can skip any one you want.
It begins... below the cut
COMMS AU
READ THE FIC HERE
WHAT THE HELL IS COMMS AU?
My main multichapter fic, ongoing and insane
A multiverse nonsense trip wrapped in an audio transcript format
Grumbo Apocalypse Monster AU
CW: minor character death, existential dread, gross / graphic imagery
Grian is a shapeshifting monster drawn into human life by the apocalypse, and Mumbo is a human who attempts to survive the horrors
Main characters: Grian & Mumbo (duh!)
Side characters: Pearl, Scar, Cub, Joe, Cleo, Xisuma, “Evil Xisuma”, Martyn
Tumblr Masterpost
READ THE FIC HERE
Vex Hunger Kidnapping Griangst AU
CW: discrimination, starvation, cannibalism (non-consensual), gore
Grian (avian) and Cub (vex) are kidnapped by scientists on their way back from MCC. They are kept in a cell where Cub is starved until he goes feral and starts attacking Grian out of Vex instincts.
Also eats Grian a lot. Don't worry, Grian can respawn, but he respawns back in the cell in a puddle of his own blood, only to be torn to pieces again.
They are rescued by the hermits. Now traumatised! Yippee!
Things get worse before they get better
Basically, Grian’s self-destructive trauma urges: the movie
Main characters: Grian, Cub, Scar, Mumbo
Side characters: Hermit ensemble
Evil Scar Corruption AU
CW: mind control, kidnapping, torture, amputation, manipulation / mindbreak
Scar gets corrupted by the Vex which take over his mind. His love for Grian is mutated into selfish obsession, and eventually he kidnaps and tortures him in an attempt to make him stay forever.
Cuts off his wings and everything. (they grow back)
Eventually the hermits find out and lock Scar up while trying to heal Grian - but Grian broke somewhere along the way and now thinks what Scar was doing was true love.
Scar comes back to his senses and the guilt hits him like a truck. Eventually he leaves the server and runs into his own Bad Relationship but don't worry about this.
Grian’s self-destructive urges: the sequel
Main characters: Scar, Grian
Side characters: Xisuma, Cub, Pearl, Mumbo, hermit ensemble
The Facility AU
CW: near-death experience
Xisuma runs a top secret facility dedicated to the safety and containment of supernatural/otherworldly beings and entities.
Kind of like SCP but nicer.
Field workers Scar, Grian, and Cub are continuously put through the wash while other facility employees (namely Etho and Bdubs) have quirky little romance arcs.
Grian nearly dies because of a swimming pool btw. There is so much to this fic I cannot possibly explain here.
Main characters Arc 1: Scar, Grian, Cub, Mumbo
Main characters Arc 2: Scar, Grian, BigB, Cub, Mumbo
Side characters Arc 1: Xisuma, Keralis, Zedaph, Joe, Cleo, Bdubs, Etho
Side characters Arc 2: Martyn, Scott, Ren, Tango, Impulse, Gem, Skizz, False
Superheroes and Villains AU
CW: not mentioned here but there is gore / surgery and alien mushrooms that kill people
In the city of Blackstone, vigilante HotGuy works alongside the Hero Bureau to catch villains and keep the city safe.
Between trying to save the person behind Mother Spore, and rebuilding his old friendship with Cub - now turned villain - HotGuy must look through the gaps of the Hero Bureau to see the corruption lurking within.
Main characters: Scar, Grian, Cub, Pearl, The Watchers
Side characters: Mumbo, Joe, Cleo, Gem, Ren, Doc, Keralis, Beef, Tango, various hermits
Hero AU 2
CW: discrimination
Grian and Scar live in a city where hybrids are second-class citizens
Grian is an activist who gets beaten up and arrested a lot
Scar is secretly the superhero HotGuy, who is controlled by the city's government - as HotGuy, he pretends to be human
Grian thinks HotGuy should use his power for good, and dislikes HotGuy because he upholds the human power structure - he does not know Scar is HotGuy
Main Characters: Scar, Grian
Side Characters: ?
Respawn Enabled Hybrid Farms AU
CW: extreme dehumanisation, cannibalism, abuse of power
Global Moderators have passed cross-server laws denying the rights of hybrid players and placing most hybrids in farms to be butchered like cattle for food and resources.
Grian, born and raised on one of these farms, escapes to Hermitcraft where he learns how to be a person with agency and freedom (ahem. only to have it taken away again. and again...).
Main characters Arc 1: Grian, Mumbo, Ren, Scar
Main characters Arc 2: Grian, Pearl, Mumbo, Scar, Ren, Xisuma, Evil X, Keralis
Main characters Arc 3: Grian, Mumbo, Scar, Pearl, Gem, Ren, Impulse, Doc, Cub, Xisuma
Side Characters: hermit ensemble
Hybrid Farms (Worse Version)
CW: mentioned death, extreme discrimination, cannibalism
Hybrids are farmed as food but this time there is no respawn
More of a modern AU
READ IT HERE
Main characters: Mumbo & Grian
Side characters: Life series ensemble
'Introduction to Being a Person'
CW: human experimentation
In a desperate attempt to subdue the rebelling masses, a corrupt government begins experimenting on people to create war machines. In the dystopian wastes of civilization, escaped experiment Tango must grapple with his identity and newfound freedom, while turf wars and deception lie around every corner.
Main characters: Tango, Grian, Ren
Side characters: Experiment Army: Scar, Cub, Cleo, Joe, Gem, Pearl; Steel Wheels: False, Etho, Keralis; Helping Hands: Iskall, Stress, Xisuma; Connected Mankind: Mumbo; Last Stand: Doc, Bdubs; Unaffiliated: Impulse, Zedaph
Tomorrow AU
CW: death / existential themes, human experimentation / dehumanisation, torture
Based very loosely on World Of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt
Scar, co-CEO of ConCorp, buys a body that was grown in a lab with the intention of dissecting it
Despite the body being suspended in fluid all its life, it wakes up before Scar can do anything - it's alive, but doesn't know how to speak or move
Later, this lab-grown creature becomes Grian, learns how to speak and walk, and finds out about the impending heat death of the planet
Meanwhile, we have unethical treatment of prisoners, moon science, dogman and the existential existence of clones
Main characters: Scar, Grian, Bdubs, Doc, Ren, Pearl
Side characters: [The Prison Cube], Mumbo, Xisuma, Cleo, Etho, Cub
Secret Life Watcher AU
CW: none?
All the life series players find out Grian is a Watcher at the start of Secret Life and then they are mean to him.
Also Grian may become evil at some point. But he deserves to have a villain arc.
Main characters: guess
Elliot Smith AU
CW: major character death, self loathing, existential themes
Based on my Watcher Lore
READ THE FIC HERE
In which Grian is killed at the end of Evo and his code and memories are placed into a Watcher version of him, creating a Watcher-Vessel in a process called ‘Transfer’
Mostly about both the grief of Grian’s old friends as they discover what happened to him, and the ethical / philosophical debate Grian has with himself about who he is and why people are upset about it - he's the ship of theseus kind of
Called ‘Elliott Smith AU’ because each installment in the series has a different Elliott Smith song title as a title
Main characters: Grian(?), Pearl, Jimmy, Scar, Xisuma, Martyn
Side characters: Watchers, Listeners, BigB, Scott
Elliot Smith AU AU - a different timeline
CW: major character death, existential themes
Grian gets taken by the Watchers after Limited Life and they kill him & replace him with a perfect copy of himself. Moral, ethical, and emotional dilemmas unfurl. Offshoot from my main Watcher-Grian fic (Elliott Smith AU) of the same concept just with a different timeline as to make it way more evil.
Main characters: Grian(?), Scar, Mumbo, Pearl
Side characters: hermit ensemble
Elliot Smith AU AU - a worse outcome
CW: major character death, existential themes
An offshoot of the Elliott Smith AU where the hermits (or some of them) are much more aware of what a Watcher is and are much more afraid when Grian is found out
Grian is put in a code prison while the hermits figure out what to do with him (delete his code entirely, ban him, let him stay)
Many conflicting opinions. Many horrible things said and done
Main characters: Grian, Xisuma, Pearl, Scar, Mumbo, Joe Hills somehow
Side characters: Hermit ensemble
Elliott Smith AU: Continuation 1 - BigB
CW: major character death, existential themes
BigB is a Listener - he went through a process called 'Hollowing' which is similar to Grian’s ‘Transfer’ (death and copying) except (as far as BigB is aware) it did not kill him, simply re-made him
Grian doesn’t agree that BigB didn’t die
A lot of philosophical debates here
Main characters: BigB, Grian
Side characters: Martyn, Pearl, Joel, Jimmy, Listeners, Scar
Elliott Smith AU: Continuation 2 - Scar
CW: discussions of major character death, existential themes, betrayal
After winning Secret Life, Scar is taken by the Watchers and nearly turned into one before Grian, Martyn, BigB and the Listeners intervene
However Scar’s code is damaged and decaying, and Grian needs answers to fix it before Scar is lost forever
He seeks out the Watchers and is told to bring Martyn to them in exchange for Scar’s life being saved
Grian does this, like the sad little bastard he is
Queue Martyn escaping the Watchers anyway and now everything is awful and no one likes anything that has happened
Main characters: Scar, Grian, Martyn
Side characters: BigB, Pearl, Xisuma
Zombie Apoc AU
CW: death, zombies, I think you get the idea
Zombie apocalypse but Grian and Scar just moved in together (gay intent).
Scar gets turned, Grian keeps him in the basement and lures survivors in to keep Scar fed, despite Scar asking Grian to kill him before he turned.
Mumbo shows up and everything goes wrong. And maybe some things go right.
Main characters: Grian, Scar, Mumbo (are you tired of seeing their names yet?)
Side characters: Cleo, Etho, Bdubs; Zedaph, Cub
Zombie Apoc AU 2: this time it's sadder
CW: zombies, death, suicidal thoughts
Long story short is that Grian gets bitten
Scar and Grian live in an abandoned apartment block called ‘Desert View Apartments’ (though they move to Jimmy's farm before Grian gets bit)
Ren, Martyn, Impulse and Skizz hunkered down in the ‘King’s Court Shopping Centre’
Cleo, Bdubs, and Etho are taking refuge in an old castle-turned-museum
Jimmy, Scott, and Tango live on a farm together
Joel, Lizzie and BigB live in the woods and use plants to stave off the disease
Gem is a travelling mercenary with a pet reindeer who believes the only way to save society is to eradicate all zombies and infected people
Pearl is a nomad with a pack of stray dogs
Mumbo is some guy I'm sure he has a role somewhere
Main characters: Scar and Grian
Side characters: the rest of these idiots
Space Age AU
CW: space colonisation, slavery, death, military stuff
Humans have colonised a large chunk of the galaxy
Grian comes from a group of humans who were against the human empire - said group was attacked, slaughtered, and disbanded
Scar used to be a part of the empire’s militia (though he is an alien, not human) but is no longer part of it
Mumbo does not know whether he is an android or not - androids are a slave class / killed on sight since their war with humans, and humans need to carry ID to prove they are human. Mumbo has an ID, but the tests for humans vs. androids are basically meaningless and inaccurate
Pearl was part of the same group as Grian, was captured and sold into servitude
Scar stows away on Grian’s spaceship (stolen) - Grian freaks out but they become somewhat friends
Scar and Grian go to a planet notorious for hating humans, because Scar wants a job there and Grian wants to get rid of him - Grian gets caught and thrown in prison
Scar meets Mumbo, a member of the planet’s court, and they work together to break Grian out and the three of them escape
They journey through space, meeting up with folks like Tango - eventually the gang find a ship run by Watchers (a powerful alien race) and they discover Pearl on board
Main Characters: Grian, Scar, Mumbo, Pearl
Side Characters: Tango, Ren, Jimmy, Scott, Martyn, Gem
Hunger Games AU (Based on Floor 6, a now-deleted Lunch Club AU)
CW: hunger games, unnamed character death, cannibalism, trauma x 10000
Hunger Games universe but the winners all live in a big tower apartment complex with each floor being a new decade of winners
Grian is the most recent winner!
Yes I put him in district 9 for a bread joke.
Scar is my favourite victor because he ate people.
Main characters: Tango (70; 3 - electronics), Ren (71; 2 - weapons), Pearl (72; 10 - animal farming), Scott (73; 4 - fishing), Martyn (74; 4 - fishing), Scar (75; 10 - animal farming), Gem (76; 7 - lumber), Grian (77; 9 - grain), Joel (78; 2 - weapons); BigB (79; 9 - grain), Mumbo (avox, 9 - grain)
Grian Chrysalis AU
CW: insect stuff, body horror
Note I am autistic about this one.
Grian is a weird little guy who has to form a chrysalis and turn into goo before reforming
He needs to do this every few years to keep himself alive, as he is a unique cross between Watcher and player - except no one on Hermitcraft knows this about him, and Grian may have gotten distracted building for so long he forgot to take a vacation away from the server in time to go Bug Mode
So all they know is Grian is missing, and Xisuma is getting corrupted life signals from inside a mysterious chrysalis that has appeared - so they cut open the chrysalis while Grian is still reforming in there
He's goopy (body horror intent)
Main characters: Grian, Scar, Mumbo, Xisuma
Side characters: Hermit ensemble
The Crafting Dead (vine boom sound)
CW: medical torture, zombie apocalypse, captivity
Hermitcraft gets attacked (Watchers?) and lots of hermits are sent off to their own personal hells, with no memories of Hermitcraft
Xisuma has to go find them and bring them home and help them heal and re-introduce them to Hermitcraft and hopefully get their memories back
Scar is our main focus here - he’s stuck in the zombie apocalypse world of The Crafting Dead, where he spent his childhood and teen years before being rescued by Xisuma - now in his 30s, he thinks he’s been stuck there his whole life
Grian is having a bad time being fledged into a proper Watcher, forced to Watch, since he never escaped
Mumbo's in a cult and might be evil (it's fine. He's fine.) (Lie)
Pearl is roaming the forests with a ghostly wolf, her enemies blood long gone but still fresh on her hands as resources dwindle in a tiny world (Double Life)
Tango is chained like a beast in an underground fighting ring, labelled with a nickname that isn't his and placed in a betting pool with odds stacked highly in his favour (he always wins) (he has to win) (there is no respawn here)
Impulse has been freshly captured and put in the same lineup, odds stacked quite tremendously against him (they don't know what he is) (he could end them all with a snap of his fingers) (don't corner a demon)
Doc is huddled in the corner of a lab he never left, scientist-turned-experiment, taken apart and put back together again different, wrong, as more additions pile onto his growing list of hybridities (they've given him wings, and taken his eye)
Main characters: Scar, Xisuma, Grian, Pearl, Mumbo, Tango, Impulse, Doc
Side characters: Hermit ensemble
Pirate Boatem But Evil And Mean
CW: major character death, cannibalism, ghost stuff
READ THE FIC HERE
Pirate crew Boatem get kicked off their ship and put on a desert island by Captain Scar
Survival cannibalism
Magic / curse ending
Ghost Grian
They go hunt down Scar at the end
Main characters: Impulse, Grian, Mumbo, Pearl, Scar
Side characters: SKIZZ !!!!
I can be your angel….. Or yuor devil….
CW: religious implications?, also death mentions, body horror
Scar is some guy obsessed with the occult who is part of a ghost hunting team with Impulse Gem and Skizz
He finds Grian, a “fallen angel” and decides to take care of him
Grian is actually a demon sent from the void to find a human and bring it to his masters (the Watchers) for harvesting
Grian used to be human maybe
Grian is blindfolded - he claims it is so he doesn't taint his purity with the image of the imperfect world but it is really there because his masters don't want him to see the world and fall in love with it. The void is all he knows
Scar teaches Grian self-worth while Grian slowly turns into an eldritch horror beyond comprehension
Main characters: Grian & Scar
Side characters: Impulse, Skizz, Gem, the Watchers
Monster-Pet AU
CW: dehumanisation, discrimination, medical abuse
Hybrids seen as either free labourers or pets depending on how rare they are
Grian is a Watcher, a very rare type of wild hybrid
He’s been a pet for a long time - taken from his flock and completely changed mentally
They de-clawed my boy, they took his sharp teeth away
One day he wanders away from his owners house by accident and stumbles into Hermitcraft (a free, hybrid-run town)
Healing arc but he struggles very hard to understand he isn't a pet
Pearl, former flockmate-turned-feral Watcher, attacks him when she finds him, reduced to believing any weak flockmate will lead to them being captured again
Main characters: Grian, Scar, Pearl
Side characters: hermit ensemble
Solaris AU
CW: major character death, existential themes, spoilers for Solaris (1972)
Solaris (1972) AU
But with my own added flavour and twists
Scar is Kris Kelvin, Cub and Mumbo are the other two scientists, Grian is the dead wife
Philosophical.
Main characters: Scar, Grian, Mumbo, Cub
Fantasy AU (Kingdoms AU)
MASTERPOST
READ THE FIC HERE
Monster Hunter AU
CW: vampires & blood drinking, unnamed character deaths (many), discrimination
Grian and Mumbo are vampire hunters, part of the Hunter's Guild, dedicated to killing monsters
Dramatic backstory time: Grian's home village was slaughtered by vampires, leaving only orphaned children behind - he has a lot of vampire related trauma and has channeled that into becoming one of the best hunters around
Problem: Mumbo is secretly a vampire
Problem 2: Grian is about to find out
Angst 🙂 lots of it
There are humans, vampires, were(wolves, etc), fair-folk, demons/gorgons/devils, and potionmakers
Main characters: Grian, Mumbo
Side characters: Scar, Cub, Etho, Cleo, Bdubs
Popstar Grian / Ari AU
A SUMMARY POST COMING SOON
Disaster Rescue Team AU
CW: survival cannibalism, systemic discrimination, torture, medical abuse
Scar, Pearl, Skizz, Impulse, Bdubs, Tango, Etho, Cub, and Mumbo are a disaster rescue team who specialise in helping hybrids
Grian is an avian living on a remote island that is destroyed by a storm, and he is trapped there for years until he's the only survivor left, the mainland government ignoring the situation
He's forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, then he's rescued
Scar is the therapist of the group who spends time working with Grian to rehabilitate him
Sadly most of his clients end up in bad situations, going missing, or in prison because the mainland is incredibly discriminatory
There is a government conspiracy happening where hybrids are being taken away after leaving the rescue facility and used for medical or scientific experimentation
Bad things happen to the gang.
Main characters: Scar, Pearl, Skizz, Impulse, Bdubs, Tango, Etho, Mumbo, Cub, Grian
Side characters: Ren :)
The ones who walk away from Omelas AU
CW: torture and abuse, like, a lot of it
Based on the story 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' but with my own changes, for fun. This is actually one of my faves.
In the city of Omelas, life is perfect - there is no crime, no homelessness, no suffering. It is a Utopia
This Utopia comes at a cost, a single citizen, chosen randomly, must bear the suffering of all others, kept alone, starved and entirely isolated, underground, their whole life
The children of Omelas are shown this suffering early, to get them used to the idea. When they are horrified, they are told about the greater good of this sacrifice.
When Scar is a child, he sees the suffering scapegoat, at the time around his own age, and vows to rescue him one day
Twenty years later, he makes good on that promise
Main characters: Scar, Grian
Side characters: Joel, Impulse, Skizz
City Blues AU
CW: organ harvesting, gang violence, references to drugs
Architect Grian gets fired from his job, and has to move to the bad part of the city for the first time ever. There he is very quickly noted and attacked, but a cunning drug dealer saves him.
He's given a place to stay by the salesman, Scar, but he owes the man. He has to work as an errand boy for a while to earn his freedom.
I mean, how hard could it be?
(it's considerably more difficult when he develops a crush)
(and because everyone in this place wants to get their hands on his kidneys)
Main characters: Scar, Grian
Side characters: Mumbo, Cub, Stress, Iskall, Cleo
Convexian Serial Killers AU
CW: murder, no seriously our protagonists are killers and they get away with it, no moralising here they are just evil little freaks for fun, also cannibalism
Scar and Cub are serial killers who kill while their housemate, Grian, is out working for days on end
Grian happens to come home early one time and finds them mid-kill
After a series of breakdowns and a lot of throwing up, Grian gets kind of into it tbh
He watches the kills (and enjoys taunting the victims) and acts as friendly, harmless bait for other victims
Scar and Cub also introduce him to cannibalism, and he gets a little bit obsessed with trying to hunt down other avians to kill
Scar and Cub are human, while Grian is an avian, and though Scar expresses his love with violent fantasies, they would never hurt Grian
Grian's friends: Mumbo, Jimmy and Pearl, may have a little to say about this when they find out ^-^
Main characters: I just listed them
Side characters: Gem yayyyyy
AAAND THATS IT. I missed quite a few shorter / less dense AU ideas and possibly some bigger ones I have forgotten. Oops if so.
Remember, if you wanna know more about any of these, please send an ask, and specify which AU youre asking about obviously! If you read this far I am honestly shocked at your ability to put up with That Many scarian ideas.
Also feel free to riff on any of these if one stands out to you as interesting. I love hearing / seeing other people's interpretations of my stuff :D
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