embraidery

embraidery on ao3 and dreamwidth

The Crossing (Shaun Tan), Le Città Invisibili | Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino, The Islanders - Christopher Priest

I'm opting into the mini challenges Wrapping Paper (receiving art), YUMADRIN (receiving drabbles), and Yulebuilding (receiving worldbuilding). 

Hello!! I’m really excited to see what you create, and I’m sure that if you write about something you love, I will love it too! However, if you want some more guidance, feel free to look below.

General Likes -- some of these won't really apply as I'm mostly prompting for worldbuilding, but just to give you an idea/if you end up going with some of my more character-based prompts!

+platonic (or romantic!) intimacy such as playing with/cutting hair, sharing a bed, bathing/washing, taking care of each other, giving gifts, hand kisses

+isolated settings like beaches, caves, on a ship (super duper applies for anything The Islanders!)

+relationship tropes like mutual/unrequited pining, (enemies to) friends to lovers, chosen/found family, exciting new crush/relationship energy, identity shenanigans

+misc: banter, embracing the beauty in everyday things, fluff, sensory details that bring the scene to life, winter and autumn, distinct sense of place, canon-divergent AUs, missing scenes

stylistic: unique forms of story including in-universe documents, epistolary, nonlinear storytelling, more than one timeline woven together, 2nd person POV, mythology and folk tales, unusual sentence/paragraph structure, poetry. One thing I really appreciate about nonlinear storytelling that works just as well in linear storytelling, if you prefer that route, is the way that information is uncovered one piece at a time, with your perspective on the secret/event/person etc changing with every bit of information revealed.

 
Worldbuilding Likes

+In-universe documents, new places and cultures, elaboration on existing places and cultures

+Especially for The Islanders and Invisible Cities, I'm interested in places/cities that are shrouded in mystery. Do they even really exist? Maybe they exist more at certain times than others? 

+Similarities and differences between cities/islands, and most cities/islands are all the same, really. 

+Geography having a big impact on culture

+Mythology and folklore

+A sense that the author has built more of a world than is seen on the page/worldbuilding in this story connects to worldbuilding elsewhere in that world


 

General DNWs

-Setting change AUs (see fandoms for more detailed explanations)

-Sexual content (kissing allowed for characters older than 15!)

-Death of requested characters, major focus on death of any character, terminal illness

-Explicit descriptions of violence/gore, cannibalism

-Heavy religious themes

-Drug use other than alcohol, cigarettes, weed

-Incest

-romantic/sexual relationships between anyone under 18 and anyone over 18, romantic/sexual relationships with anyone under 25 and anyone over 35

-Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, fatphobia directed at an individual or a small group (totally fine on a societal level, but please no more than is canonical)

Crossing - Shaun Tan

Cat, People on the Cat’s Head

(find it here! https://beinart.org/products/shaun-tan-crossing-limited-edition-print-of-300-48-3x33cm-19x13)

There’s also a lot of possibility in this fandom! I’m down for a story about this specific cat and the specific people on its head; I’m also definitely here for a more zoomed-out, worldbuild-y type fic.

+Is the cat really big, or are the people really small? Or are there standard-sized people for whom the cat is small and then there are even smaller, Stuart Little-sized people that can ride on the cat?

+What is the cat swimming away from, or swimming to?

+Who made the decision to take the journey? Maybe the cat kidnapped the people, or the people asked the cat to take them, or it was a mutual journey. Did they know each other before the Crossing?

+Can the cat talk?

+Are there lots of giant cats? How did they come to be? Misfired spell, or intentional spell, or that’s just the way cats are?

+Is “cat taking people across a body of water” a common thing in this world, exceptionally rare, or somewhere in between?

+Did the people have to pay for this service, whether with money, favours, or something weirder?

+How dangerous is the journey? What dangerous monsters lurk under the surface of the water? Will the journey continue past arriving at land?

Le Città Invisibili | Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

Worldbuilding

(Read for free here: https://booksvooks.com/nonscrolablepdf/invisible-cities-pdf-italo-calvino.html)

My favourite cities are Zaira (city where past events are written into physical objects), Isaura (city of wells), Zoe (city where all activities can be done anywhere so there is nothing to distinguish any building from another), Zenobia (city on stilts), Euphemia (city where stories are traded by traveling merchants), Octavia (city hanging over a void), Ersilia (city where strings between houses symbolise relationships), Baucis (city on stilts; inhabitants observe the earth through telescopes), Melania (city with a dialogue always the same played by different actors), Clarice (city that reuses funerary urns as plant pots etc), Olinda (city that grows a new city from its centre that pushes the old parts of the city outwards), and Perinthia (city built to reflect the heavens; astronomers are wrong or the heavens are monstrous).

Of the conversations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, I love the idea that neither of them know whether their conversations are real or only imagined, and that they may not even be in the Khan’s garden at all, but imagining that space between fighting or trading. I also like the ideas that seeing other cities is the only way to learn about your own city; “cities too probable to be real,” and the idea of a city whose desires destroy it vs a city whose desires are destroyed by the city itself.

+Write some sort of essay about cities and/or communication and/or storytelling? Or write something that makes it unclear whether Polo and/or Khan are “really” in the garden or not. 

+Write about one of the cities! My favourites are above, but I’m willing to be swayed by your interest in a different city. In general I found some of the more conceptual/cerebral cities a little confusing to understand (the ones that made some sweeping statement about human nature), so you might have to simplify it a little for me :P

I’m here for zoomed-out type writing (I’m addicted to this phrase apparently, sorry) about the city in general or what the neighbouring cities think of it, but also here for stories about one or more inhabitants/visitors and what their daily life is like. Series of vignettes is totally fine. 

Also totally cool to invent one or more original cities. Write a travel guide to them, or write about them in the style of the novel, or write about their inhabitants! Go wild! I’d be particularly interested in a city located underwater, underground, or in space (the International Space Station except it’s a city?!).

Note on the setting change DNW—I’m happy for you to invent new cities etc, but don’t change the setting by adding the supernatural beyond what’s hinted at, or soulmate tattoos, or moving the entire thing to space.

The Islanders — Christopher Priest

(no characters nominated)

(Read for free here: https://booksvooks.com/fullbook/the-islanders-pdf-christopher-priest.html?page=1)

I’m so fascinated by the world of The Islanders, and there are so many great places you could take it. This would be a great canon for in-universe documents, if you’re so inclined!

+create a new island and/or famous person and write documents about them!

+winds on the island of Aay -- how did they get their names? Write me the myths! (Some of the wind names are The Combiner, The Poisoner, The Mantrap, The Gargler, and The Abyss.)

+Life on Mesterline -- the spell of the island’s water; people revelling in the rain showers; life in a house built against a sheer cliff; the joy and anger of the people tearing down/exploding the water bottling plant.

+Jordenn Yo -- I’m super interested in her art, both in an abstract, zoomed-out kind of way (talking about its effect on the islands, or what people think about it), but also in a closer, more personal way -- I love the chapter where she’s involved with Oy and how singing along with the mountain relieves her deep-seated anger. Bonus: Has life grown in the tunnels of Manlayl or any other island with Yo tunnels -- plants, animals, birds?

+Speaking of which, Oy -- I quite like him! I think his art is interesting. Love the fake sand dune, the upside-down staircase, filling the cottages with concrete...write an in-universe thinkpiece on his art, or invent another art piece for him to make?

+I would love an in-universe example of the “theoretical, analytical, and academic papers attempting to unravel the enigmas perceived in the paintings” of Dryd Bathurst. Go nuts!

+If you’re familiar with Invisible Cities | Le Citta Invisibili, I’d love a take on the islands that incorporates the philosophy of Invisible Cities! See the chapter about Piqay or Siff especially for the passages that inspired this request, or the foreword about how you can’t trust maps and you can only experience or imagine reality. 

+Something about Caurer and Chaster -- their few days together, or she sees his ghost in his room at the funeral and they actually get to reunite (and he doesn’t cough blood on her, lmao)

+I’d enjoy something about Dant Willer and Caurer -- their friendship (or maybe romance?) and their quiet life in their secluded school.

+I’m curious about the creepy fear towers! What’s going on with them? I’m less interested in Alvasund’s story and more in the history of the towers—how and by whom were they built? What are the snaky things? What was it like when people tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) to pull them down? I am totally down for an exploration of the tower changing Torm’s psyche and what it’s like when Alvasund comes back and finds that he’s rebuilt it. I don’t really want anyone permanently injured or killed by the towers, though it’s fine for people to be scared and see scary visions. It’s also totally fine to discuss legends of people being permanently injured or killed in the past—I just don’t want to be an eyewitness to it, if that makes sense!

Fandom-specific DNWs: suicide/murder/execution (even if canonical). Please avoid stories about Kerith Sington, Commis, and Chaster’s involvement in that storyline, and the tragic end of Kal Kapes and his wife. In general I don’t want stories about Dryd Bathurst’s sexcapades, though it’s fine to talk in generalities about his reputation if you’re writing a paper about one of his paintings. Also, I DNW stories about the military presences on the island and the characters involved, like Lorna, Tomak, or the story of Winho.

Note re: setting change AUs—happy for you to invent new islands etc, but don’t change the setting by adding the supernatural beyond what’s hinted at (spooky towers anyone?) or soulmate tattoos or moving the entire thing to space.