Dear Rarewomen Author 2013....

[betony]

First off, Rarewomen author, thank you so much for agreeing to write for one of these women! Honestly, having any fic centering around them is a treat, so I'm sure I'll adore whatever you write. I hope my requests aren't too confusing, and that you find something you'd enjoy writing in them!

To start off with general things I like in fic: humor/snark, long plotty fic, canon pairings, female-centric gen, complicated friendships between women, retellings or resonance with myth/folklore/etc., worldbuilding, idealism, playing with or twisting tropes, AUs with subtle callbacks to canon, women being awesome in multiple (not just Strong Female Character, to quote Kate Beaton) ways.
As for things I'd rather you avoid: explicit sex/violence (anything up to M on AO3 should be fine, but nothing higher, please), consent issues, fics that hinge solely on hurt/comfort. And--as much as I love AUs (as mentioned above), I think that there's so little fic for most of these women that I'd prefer no really bizarre AUs (i.e., modern-day, space western, etc.) for this exchange only; canon divergence AUs, on the other hand, are not only totally okay, but I ramble on below about possible ones you might like to do, so er, feel free?

Moving on to specific requests:

Greek and Roman Mythology, Psyche Goodness, I feel like I've been searching for good Psyche!fic for ages! That is, I feel like most of what I've stumbled across so far simply focuses on her being ~so in love~ with Eros, to the point where in the first half in the secret palace, she's oblivious of everything but him, and in the second half, her anguish is emphasized; her personality, as shown, is usually generically sweet. (I'm sure I've missed some good retellings/fics, though, so if anyone knows of any, feel free to let me know!) I've always wanted a retelling that extrapolated from her curiosity and her determination (she was after all, not only the only woman to make it into the underworld and back, but the only one-hundred-percent mortal--plus, since my headcanon [see below] has her contemporary with Andromeda, that would make her the first one to manage it), to have a clever, observant, strong-minded heroine. Something that expands on the Eros/Psyche relationship to be more than "she's pretty"/"he seems nice" would be great, too: do they have any conversations in the dark, and if so, what about? Put another way, fanfic often reinvents the Hades/Persephone myth to give Persephone a lot more agency than she does originally; I'd really like to see something similar done for Psyche!

I've also been curious about what exactly a goddess of the soul does, and how difficult and disorienting it must be go from being a mortal worshipper to an immortal goddess yourself. So, if you'd like, tell me about the first human supplicant Psyche had to help as an immortal goddess and how it went? Is she nervous? Does it go well?

Finally, in the spirit of optional details are optional, part of my headcanon has always been that Psyche and Andromeda were friends and that Perseus and Andromeda's love-at-first-sight romance was Psyche and Eros looking out for her BFF. Something dealing with this, the similarity in their stories, the difficulties of a long distance friendship between Sicily and Aethiopia, would be delightful! Or, of course, you could mash any combination of these prompts up as you choose. Essentially, Psyche being awesome is exactly what I'd like from this prompt!

Mask of Zorro (1998), Elena Montero I always have to wonder why the creators never spend much time, in either this movie or the sequel, on the character who arguably undergoes the most upheavals during the running time. How in the world does Elena react to finding out that her father isn't really her father, the random servant she's been talking to actually is her biological father, the man who's been courting her is a peasant instead of a nobleman (and also, y'know, Zorro.) More intriguingly, she also gets a chance to reevaluate her impression of her mother--what does she find out about Esperanza? How do any or all of these affect her? Judging from the sequel, it seems Alejandro was the one to inherit the de la Vega title; how, why, and how does Elena feel about that?

If you're up for plotty adventure fic, Alejandro implies in the sequel that she joined him on his exploits as Zorro, and certainly her behavior implies she's no stranger to self-defense, so Elena being heroic and awesome, either with Zorro or on her own?

If you like AUs, a story where Diego isn't identified/imprisoned, Esperanza lives, and Elena (either with or without her parents' blessing) takes up the masked fight for justice, maybe crossing paths along the way with a horse bandit named Alejandro Murrieta? (I think Elena/Alejandro also needs a fair bit of development, in both canon and AUs, to get us to where they are in Legend of Zorro , so dealing with that is also something I'd be interested in).

The Mummy series, Evelyn Carnahan, Nefertiri, Anck-su-namun So, unsurprisingly, this is another huge revelation whose ramifications basically get glossed over. So, if you'd like, tell me more about Nefertiri and Anck-su-namun, back in ancient times--unlike the implication of sheer uncomplicated hate that we're supposed to get, I'd like to see a more complex relationship there. Otherwise, what is the difference between Evelyn and Nefertiri, and Anck-su-namun and Meela? The former pair interests me somewhat more than the latter; Anck-su-namun and Meela are implied to be similar (...or are they?) in the second movie, but the contrast between librarian/scholar and pampered warrior princess is rather difficult to process. Something exploring that in canon would be fascinating.

Again, if you like AUs, what about Meela/modern day Anck-su-namun and Evelyn being acquainted (...in boarding school, or perhaps in Cairo?) from the start, and how their past lives affect their present ones, or having both timelines told in parallel. Do Evelyn's dorky, brilliant earnestness and Meela's cool unruffled nature clash? Do, oh, I dunno, they start off as friends but gradually have their relationship disintegrate due to Meela's growing involvement with the criminal underworld (...or whatever else it is she does before she appears in TMR)? Or do they remain friends and this means the plot of that movie goes significantly differently? In the sprit of full disclosure, I think Evy/Rick (&Jonathan) are adorable but don't much care about Imhotep (though think Imhotep/Anck-su-namun was a significant--but not the sole--motivation for her actions in ancient Egypt), so I'd prefer not to dwell too much on him. And I'd also mention that I pretend that the third movie didn't happen, but I suspect that's not an uncommon opinion.
Again, thank you so much, and hopefully one of these suggestions inspires you!