Dear Crosscrafter 2023

[embraidery]

 ao3 username: embraidery 

 

Hello!! I am so excited to see what you create and I hope you're excited and inspired by what I have to suggest, but if you aren't, I trust you to come up with something all your own (that doesn't violate any DNWs).

 

Just a general note, you're more than welcome to combine 3 or more fandoms from one request into one work. 

 

I'd love to see characters from both/all canons in the fic you write and as much of a fusion between worlds as you want to do! For fics with groups of characters from different casts, I’m more interested in them always having existed in that world than in portal-style crossovers, except where there’s a canonical kind of portal, like in Narnia or Piranesi!

 

General Likes: playing with/cutting/washing/braiding hair, platonic intimacy, isolated settings like caves/underground/on a ship (dunno why), there was only one bed, friends to lovers, banter, new crush/relationship energy, f/f relationships, characters playing with gender, mythology and folk tales, fluff, gift-giving, cuddling, doing ordinary things together (studying, grocery shopping), canon-divergent AUs, missing scenes, sensory details that bring the scene to life, winter and autumn, distinct sense of place, chosen/found family, hand kisses

 

Opt-Ins: gender/sexuality headcanons, epistolary fic (letters/emails etc), 2nd person POV, nonlinear storytelling, minor character death (except where noted)

 

General DNWs: sexual content beyond implication (totally fine to say people sleep together, making out is also fine), graphic descriptions of violence/injury, non/dub-con, major character death (except where noted), incest

 

Bucket One - Strange Worlds

 

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke, Labyrinth (1986), Le città invisibili | Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino, Abarat Series - Clive Barker, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Adams, Monument Valley (Video Game), Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band (Song)

 

I love all these fascinating places. 

 

• Devil Went Down to Georgia/Anything - whether the devil is Southern American or more like the setting you put him in (an Abaratian devil? shivers), I’d love to see him making a deal with someone. Piranesi? Jareth? John Mischief? Zaphod Beeblebrox? Or what if he wanted to make a deal with someone in Monument Valley but couldn’t figure out how to get anywhere because of the architecture?
• Invisible Cities/Anything - I’d love to see how Marco Polo would describe any of the cities, islands, planets, architecture, etc from any of the other properties. 
• Piranesi finds a door from the House into the Labyrinth, or the Abarat, or one of the cities from Invisible Cities…or someone from a different canon finds their way into the House.
• If Candy Quackenbush ever found herself in the Labyrinth, she’d FUCK IT UP. Jareth wouldn’t know what hit him.
• Somehow Johnny (from Devil Went Down to Georgia) finds himself facing Christopher Carrion and just isn’t fazed. After all, he faced down the devil and won. 

 

But seriously, if you have an idea, run with it!

 

I have only read the first Abarat book; I don’t mind spoilers for later books, but I’d rather you focus on characters that appear in the first book (if using characters — I’m also happy to have the focus on an Hour!). 

 

DNW: Unless going with the Devil making some sort of bet with Jareth, I don’t want the focus on Jareth. Totally fine for him to kidnap babies and instigate the plot in some other way, and to appear and talk to the characters, but I don’t want him as a main character. DNW Sarah/Jareth, Candy Quackenbush/John Mischief. 

 

Bucket Two - Intrepid Kids

 

Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, The Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, The Penderwicks Series - Jeanne Birdsall, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)

I love these kids. 

• I’d love to see the casts interact! Maybe solve a mystery together a la Boxcar Children? 
  • Anne Shirley and Jane Penderwick bonding about writing?
  • Benny Alden and Greg from OtGW hanging out?
  • I’d love to see Skye Penderwick get her hands on a sword and fight someone, maybe Lucy and/or Edmund Pevensie?
  • Jessie Alden and Susan Pevensie bonding over being eldest sisters and getting to have some time for themselves for once
  • I haven’t read some of these books in a while, so I can’t confirm whether these ships would work, but if you get a hankering to write a cute lil teen romance I’d be down. Anne Shirley/Jessie Alden? Gilbert Blythe/Rosalind Penderwick? Any gender config is great, as are poly ships! No sibling ships please.

 

Whatever you write I bet will be great! I’d just prefer you keep the kids/teens roughly their canon ages (if they age a lot over the series, like Anne, probably a max age of 18). Basically I want stories about them as kids/teenagers. If, say, a story is about all the Pevensies or all The Penderwicks, please keep all of them as kids/teenagers; but if, for example, it just features Lucy, then it’s fine for her to be an older teen (putting her siblings in their 20s). 

DNW: Ships with more than 2 years age difference, Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe, character death (canonical is fine), Edmund Pevensie explicitly being into girls, Susan Pevensie explicitly being into boys

 

Bucket 3 - (Found) Family

The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver, Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers, All the Crooked Saints - Maggie Stiefvater

I just love the tender exploration of family in all of these — creating a family from scratch, navigating the family you’re born in, and all the diverse kinds of family in Wayfarers. Also the themes of doing the right thing, creating your own identity, personal growth, helping others even when it might put you at risk. I have fewer specific prompts for these but I just think it would be nice? 

Any canon ship welcomed!

I’ve only read the first two Wayfarers books so far, but I’m happy with characters/cultures from later books being included; I’m sure I’ll love them. 

DNW: If in the Wayfarers setting - characters of colour being alien species if white characters are human; feel free to have it be the reverse or both kinds of characters alien

 

Bucket 4 - Tough Teens

Arc of a Scythe Series - Neal Shusterman, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt, Song of the Lioness Series - Tamora Pierce

Teens in situations where a lot is demanded of them, whether or not they chose to be there….

• Boris Pavlikovsky and Theo Decker in a gang in Ketterdam? Or maybe George Cooper runs a Ketterdam gang, Alanna is a grisha and conflicted about it, and he tries to recruit her?
• Any of the Crows in a modern au accidentally getting involved in the criminal world the way Theo Decker does?
• I'd like to see some other character as a trainee Scythe: Inej would be fascinating as canonically she hates killing people, but maybe she’d see it as an exception? Or maybe she would still hate it, I don’t know!
• What if powerful Grisha magic could bring people back to life so that the Six of Crows universe had revival centres like in Scythe? Perhaps they’d only be for the wealthy? I imagine if they had a society of Scythes it would be pretty corrupt and perhaps mostly glean poor kids like the Crows…
• Scythes Faraday and Curie as knights teaching/mentoring pages and squires in Tortall

 

Favourite characters/ships: Faraday, Curie, Faraday/Curie (though I like Citra and Rowan as well!); Nina, Inej, Nina/Inej, Jesper; Hobie, Boris, Pippa, Boris & Pippa; Alanna, Jonathan, Alanna/Jonathan, Raoul, Alanna & any of the pages, Alanna&/Thayet&/Buri.

I’d also be interested in crossover ships if you think of any that tickle your fancy! Most of the characters from these books I’d be happy to read with someone of either or no gender. I think just about the only exception would be that I think of Theo Decker as gay. 

Note: I’ve only read Scythe and about half of Thundercloud; haven’t even touched the last book. No spoilers, please!

 

Opting in to major character death for this one, if that’s where the story takes you. I still don’t want to see graphic descriptions of violence/injury, though stating that someone stabs someone else or whatever is fine!

 

DNW: Kaz/Inej or Boris/Theo actually dating (pining is fine, as is whatever the fuck Boris and Theo had going on in Vegas!). George/Alanna. If any of the major characters die, please don't dwell on the physical act itself. (Emotional ramifications, on the other hand, are encouraged!) Ships with an adult (over 21) with a teenager (under 18).