Dear Chocolatier 2021....

[betony]

 Thank you so much for writing for me, and/or presumably sharing fannish love for these fandoms! As ever, my chief request is that you have fun with whatever you create; I've found that honestly leads to the best fics. On the other hand, if you'd like a bit more guidance, feel free to read on:

General likes: humor/snark, plotty fic, ALL THE AUs, and women being awesome in multiple (not just Strong Female Character, to quote Kate Beaton) ways. I also adore backstory or behind-the-scenes fic, and will always, always love outsider POVs and unreliable narrators. I'm a quick reader, so long fic is totally fine, should the question come up, and I have no particular preferences for POV or tense. 

General dislikes: E-rated sex/violence/gore (M or milder is fine), consent issues, fics that hinge solely on hurt/comfort or angst/hopelessness. 

(Of note, I've reused many of these prompts, often because the authors who wrote using them in the past created such wonderful fics for them that I hope that they were helpful and useful!)

Ancient Greek Religion and Lore
Odysseus/Penelope
Andromache/Hektor

I really love all the fic retellings of Greek myth authors produce, and in past exchanges, the authors I've been lucky enough to have write something for me have usually produced works more amazing than anything I could think to request, so first off, if there is an idea that calls to you, please go for it! If you'd like more direction, though, some notes: what I really crave this year is getting-together fic, preferably with a side of snark or political intrigue. Whether you want to have an unexpected meeting when courting Helen (badly)--or a long-standing childhood snarky sweetheart romance, adaptations--when they mention it at all--are inconsistent when it comes to the circumstances that led to Odysseus famously trading the Oath of the Horse for Tyndareus' support of his marriage. Which of course leaves the door open for anything from plotty adventure to pure fluff, and I'D LOVE TO SEE IT ALL. The Spartan princesses having adventures -- or trying to rescue Helen from Theseus, perhaps--and running into a young Odysseus! Odysseus attempting to win over Penelope's cousins/sisters, even scarier than getting Ikarios's blessings! The couple bonding over stealth-mockery of every other guest of Tyndareus--the possibilities are endless!
On the other hand, with our other couple: I'd love to see light-hearted with them; there's no rule saying Hektor, Tamer of Horses, can't have a sense of humor:) Or, alternatively, consider a wacky AU—Hogwarts? Soulmark? Drift-compatibility? All or more of the above?

Arang and the Magistrate
Arang/Kim Eun-oh
I would LOVE post-canon fic about Arang and Eun-Oh; my heart initially sank when I saw where things were heading in the finale, but Arang, as always, lifted my spirits once she started chewing Eun-Oh out again. So tell me the story of Arang following Eun-Oh around, earnestly and terrifyingly bent on filling him in on all that he's missed ( Or, tell me the story of him trolling her for YEARS on end, with his pretend amnesia!) How the heck do his parents react when he tells them who he wants to marry? Or fill in the plot hole of when she would have been able to tell him not to drink the water of forgetfulness in the first place - apparently both of them must have met up at some point during the time skip which happened off screen, but was there more to that than just a simple conversation? Was there even a grand adventure in heaven that we never got to see?

Cruel Beauty-Rosamund Hodge
Marcus Valerius Lux/Nyx Triskelion 

I confess to being skeptical when picking this book up, but in the end I couldn’t resist a dark Cupid and Psyche retelling. That said, I still don’t feel as though I have a very clear idea of what changes came about in the altered universe of the ending, or even where Shade/Ignifex and Nyx go from here, so anything either exploring how history was changed, or what happens next would be great. Otherwise, how do you recover from doubled-memories, or a life spent tormenting others? Are there any other pseudo-Greek-myth stories that exist and make up the worldbuilding of this universe? Finally, outsider POV from the perspective of a future canon next-gen trying to piece together the past, or their parents’ relationship is a trope I enjoy, so feel free to use that as a prompt!

Georgian History RPF
David Soslan/Tamar Queen of Georgia

(Please note no knowledge exceeding the Wikipedia article is necessary for this prompt! I have a great deal to learn myself.)I can't help but think that Queen Tamar was awesome, omigosh, but I must admit that there is still a great deal I could stand to learn about her, so anything you want to teach me about her would be great! I find her relationship with David Soslan really interesting too, particularly as compared with her relationship with her first husband; unlike Yuri, David was notable for his complete support of her (he seems to be satisfied with the status of prince consort), and what's more, he was apparently a student of Tamar's Aunt Rusudan, which means it's possible for them to have known each other when younger. So something dealing with their relationship would be neat--but I must admit Tamar fascinates me far more, so if you want to focus more on her, I will absolutely not complain. 

(Because my brain has this bizarre tendency to cross fandoms, a simpler way to explain this might be as follows: I sometimes find myself thinking of Tamar as a rather nicer Irene of Attolia, with David as her Attolis--with the rocky road to queenship and the backstabbing, antagonistic nobles, and even the disastrous first marriage! Er, not that I see Tamar and David as having the same sort of ah, history or relationship, but a version of their story with the same sort of feel would be really great. But if you're not familiar with the Queen's Thief series, feel free to ignore this! That said, if you're not and you like cleverly written novels of intrigue, do check them out for your own enjoyment!)

The Mask of Zorro (1998)
Alejandro Murrieta/Elena de la Vega

I would really like something Elena-centric; 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!)

In conclusion, dear chocolatier , I hope at least some of these prompts manage to fire your imagination (and also that your eyes haven’t glazed over reading this awfully long letter. Sorry again about that!), and also that you have a wonderful time in this exchange as well! Thank you once again for having the impeccable taste to sign up for one of these fandoms, and I look forward to being able to squee about them together after reveals!