My TotK AU that I'm calling "Bloom"
This post contains spoilers for the ending of Tears of the Kingdom!
Really I got started writing this because I love what @lilacstarvix has been doing with her Resurrection AU, which can be found here on Ao3. The tldr is that due to Zonai Stuff, Rauru and Sonia get brought back to life (Sonia as a Zonai) part way through the events of Tears of the Kingdom. This cuts off Rauru's connection to his arm which is attached to Link, which makes the arm start hijacking his body and turning him into a Zonai as well. Along the way, Link meets with Rauru and Sonia, and has some Genderous Revelations about herself.
I'm super into this. I love transfem stories, I love characters with nonconventional identities and body plans, and Link is really fun to write as being transfem.
My concept is similar, though doesn't have the actual Resurrection. In my AU, the arm that Link receives (from the start of the game's events) does a similar thing: fur spreads, his body changes, but he doesn't have anyone around him to help process it. He still has to go through the events of the game.
Rather than dealing with his feelings about what's happened to him and risk embarrassment of anyone finding out, Link goes through all of the events of TotK wearing heavy layers of cloth to hide what he looks like. The game's events proceed normally, until the ending, where he's still wearing those heavy layers of cloth (as opposed to being just in his underwear). He catches Zelda, who still has some of her dragon features left, and they eventually retire back to their house in Hateno Village.
Cut to a couple months later, Zelda overhears a hunter from the village mentioning he saw a Zonai while out on an expedition. She of course wants to go and investigate and brings Link along. Stuff Happens, and Zelda finds out what happened to Link.
Link also happens to be a girl after that whole Zonaification process finished.
They eventually decide so that Link doesn't have to hide any more, that the two of them can go back to Hateno together and they'll pretend Link is a different close friend of Zelda's, who goes by the name Marin.
I'm mostly done with writing it, I really only have a chapter left and then an editing pass, then I plan on posting it online.
This is by far the longest thing I've written, admittedly though I haven't been writing for all that long! Can't wait to actually show it :3 if there's any questions y'all have, feel free to shoot me a message here! It's been like the thing I've been trying really hard not to talk everyone's ear off about for the past several weeks :D
EDIT: Oh I forgot, I do actually have a 500ish word thing up on Ao3 in this AU already, which you can find here. Pure romantic fluff after Marin has a nightmare.
Chapter 1 of Bloom is up! You can find the link here. The current plan is to post one or two chapters a week, though I'm not fully decided on what the schedule will be like yet.
