Yuletide Letter 2019

[acequeenking]

Dear Season's Greeter,

Thank you for writing  for me!

I am looking forward to seeing whatever you create! I consider all prompts as optional, but I added some ideas below in case you might find them helpful. Some are longer than others, but all are things I would love to receive! If none of my prompts work for you or you’d rather just work with a likes list, please feel free to use my general likes as something you can base your fic/art on, and ignore my prompts entirely.Like candy, there's really no wrong shape or flavor for any of these requests. In fact, feel free to be creative and create what you want as long as it doesn’t cross my DNW. I love everything from G-rated gen fic to E-rated smut-bangs, so feel free to go where the spirit moves you. If you are wondering if you can twist prompts/take them in different directions/etc. the answer is always an enthusiastic yes. Whether it be something sad, scary, fun, or just plain weird, as long as it avoids my DNW I am always down to play.

 As far as characters without defined attributes (mainly mythology sources here): please feel free to go wild with how you want them to look: skin color, hair, eyes: go nuts! Whatever you want. Cultural change in their backgrounds? Amazing, I live for alternate cultural takes on my faves. Trans or otherwise gender non-conforming? Sure! Bring it on! Want to change the story to be a feminist fairy tale? Hell yes, sister-girl. I love multiple versions and different takes so please change things to your heart’s desire: I am here for it. Stick with whatever idea makes your story/art best, and I promise I will enjoy it.

I love both really deep, soul-suckingly sad/bleak dark!fic, and fuzzy, baby-blanket smooth fluff!fic. I am easy to please, I hope, so please have fun. :)

I've divided up my letter into several sections: general likes and do not wants, then a brief intro/details about each fandom, a brief overview of why I like this character/combination of characters, and then several prompts, including a few for optional yuletide challenges Crueltide, Interactive Fiction for Yuletide, and Yuleporn. While the prompts in those sections are tailored for those challenges, if you want to participate in any of those optional challenges, but want to use a different prompt (or no prompt at all!), please feel free. And I tend to write long letters, so please only read what you feel is relevant, and if you want to throw away my prompts and do your own thing - go for it. :) I really won't mind! I just hope you have fun. Happy Yuletide!

Likes:

+Genre/Narrative Likes:

• 5 Times/Five Things
• Canon-Divergent AUs e.g. "What if Character A went left instead of right?"
• Darkfic, including bad-guys-win and character death
• Epistolary/Found Documents Fic
• In-World (fiction or nonfiction) articles/stories
• First time(s)/ Last Time(s)
• Hurt/ Comfort
• Metafiction/ Interactive Fiction
• Past Third, Present Third, Second or First Person Perspective(s)
• Third Person Narration/ "Different Points of View" (e.g. Char A observes Char B & Char C)

+ Favorite Kinks and Tropes:

• Arranged Marriage
• Bad guys win / Villain Victorious
• Body horror
• Came Back Wrong/resurrection tropes
• Changing Sides
• Characters who say "I love you" in their actions without actually saying/being able to say "I Love you" in their words
• Complicated Relationships
• Conflicted Loyalties
• Desperate kisses and embraces
• Domestic scenes
• Doomed relationships
• Dystopias
• Eldritch/Eerie things
• Experienced/Inexperienced partnerships
• Fake Marriage/dating
• Fluff/moments of happiness
• Forbidden/Star-Crossed Relationships
• Gender fluidity/experimentation
• Generational Divide/complications in May/December relationships
• Ghosts or other spooky/supernatural occurrences
• Gods being inhuman/unusual
• Grey Morality
• Hurt/Comfort in pretty much any form
• Irreconcilable differences leading to conflict between lovers (but not an absence of love)
• Jealousy
• Lovers caught on opposite sides of a conflict
• Loyalty Kink
• Lust/UST/Pining
• Mindfuckery - the more twisted the better
• Mission/Case fic
• Misunderstandings
• Myths/legends/cultural traditions
• Non-Canon exploration of Character's Gender
• Non-Penetrative sex
• Non-verbal communication and quiet intimacy
• Outsider POV
• Penetrative Sex
• Pyrrhic victories
• Physical recovery from injury
• Playing with danger, e.g. a character being able to hurt another but not doing so (despite them both knowing they could);I also love this being subverted (e.g. known bad-ass A has to be rescued by not-so-badass B)
• Politics
• Possessiveness
• Power differences
• Power play
• Pregnancy, including alien/unusual pregnancy
• Protectiveness
• Redemption being complicated and not easy
• Rule 63/Gender swapping from M to F for one or more requested characters
• Relationships bringing out the worst in one another
• Shows of trust and intimacy
• Snippets of long-term relationships at different points in the relationship
• Trapped in a snowstorm/earthquake/etc
• Trust kink
• Unhappy and/or complicated endings
• Unhealthy Relationships and/or Codependency
• Unreliable narrator
• World-building

+ Smut-Specific Likes:

• Aftercare
• Anal sex
• Bathing
• Body worship
• BDSM
• Blowjob(s)
• Breathplay/Chokeplay
• Cunnilingus
• Dubcon
• First Time/Losing Virginity
• fail!sex or humorous sex
• Fem-Dom
• M!Dom
• Pegging
• Porn with plot/porn as a character exploration
• PiV sex
• Pregnancy/Impregnation kink
• Quickies/Sex in Public Places/Situations
• Ritual(istic) Sex
• Rough sex
• Sex Pollen
• Sex on tables/desks/chairs/other furniture
• Switching/Reversal of top/bottom dynamic
• Shows of total trust
• Size kink
• Slow and tender sex
• Tending to another's scars/cuts/etc
• Voyeurism
• xeno or other kinds of "unusual" sexual organs (I am up for anything here: tentacles, burrs, cloacae, whatever)

+ Do Not Want:

• A/B/O
• High School/College/Coffee Shop/Mundane AU
• Prepubescent Characters in Sexual Situations
• Non-Con (Dub-con, even Extreme Dubcon is fine, I just want some sense of consent!)
• Scat/Urine/Vomitplay




Fandoms:




Hadestown Overview:



What is it: A folk-jazz musical that re-tells the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in a semi-modern style, with a twist. Departs heavily from classical mythology in that Hades and Persephone (and Eurydice) are given much stronger characterizations in this than they are in the original version of these stories. In this version, Hades and Persephone are a very long-term couple whose marriage is on the rocks, with world-wide consequences spilling out from it, not least of which is climate change!

Where can I find it: On Broadway, in New York at the moment! You can listen to the OBCR of the latest version here; a couple of the versions of the show have also been released, with minor differences: there’s a concept CD here, and the New York Theater Workshop version had a (truncated, but still good) OCR you can find here. (I’ve listed the YouTube versions since not everyone has access to Apple Music/Spotify/Google Play, but it should be available on pretty much every platform.)

Generally the main plot stays the same between versions, but I think there are some inferences that change: the concept album seems to indicate that Hades and Persephone’s relationship is more dead than alive, for example, and the NYTW version very heavily implies that Hades has an affair with Eurydice, while the Broadway version leaves it much more ambivalent. I love all versions of the show so please don’t hesitate to use whatever version you like best.

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Single Character Focused Prompts:





Hades:




Hades is fascinating to me because he is such a powerful man (almighty Mr. Hades, the King of the Mines) and yet he is so obviously very insecure about everything that matters most to him. Hades tries to draw power to himself, but in doing so, he only manages to make himself look more weak and pathetic, and he doesn’t think his wife knows but – brother, she knows. He’s so obviously unable to communicate well, but he goes to crazy lengths to try to recapture his wife’s attention – even trying to make his realm look more like his wife’s up-top world, but what he replicates is so obviously what she hates. I’d love to see something that really gets in deep in Hades’ psyche; I don’t have problems if what’s in there is particularly ugly, either, given that it’s pretty obvious in the show that Hades has a lot of issues.

Prompts:

• Hades handling the summer while Persephone isn’t there, pre-canon. What does he do when he’s down below, and she’s up above? Do they have any kind of communication at all, or is he suffering alone? What sort of tasks does he do to fill his days? Does he have much connection with the mortal world at all? What downstairs calls his attention, if anything? Does his behavior during the time she isn’t there change post-Hadestown development? What puts the idea of Hadestown underground in his head, and how does he go about building it?

• How does Hades’ relationship with his realm (and/or other people) change, post-Hadestown? He seems to be a changed man, but is it only for a moment, or does he actually respect the commitments he has made? Given that Hades “wins” the end of the musical (Orpheus fails, trust is not enough to see him to the top of Hades), does he decide that nothing matters, and grabs his wife early so he can at least have her by his side, keeping the cycle going all over again? Or does Hades see it as a failure for Orpheus, perhaps, but try to improve his own lot, by waiting? And in either case, post-Rebellion, what does he do with the workers? Does he “send them to the great beyond” as he threatened to do with Orpheus, or does he try to work with them to make their existence in Hadestown more bearable? Or does he simply tear the whole place down? Or is the musical is a straight reboot at the end, with Hades and Persephone forgetting their love as soon as they’ve been reminded of it, without a chance to so much as try (and if so, who is constantly rearranging this loop)?

• One aspect of Hades' character that I am eternally fascinated by is how he casts himself into a fatherly role with his workers, who he calls his children. Does Hades long to be a father? Is he one, through Persephone or someone else? Why does he choose to be referred to as a father, and his workers as his children? If he found a child, would he wind up wanting to adopt it – and what would raising a human child be like for a God? Would that help his marriage, or harm it? Can he or Persephone not have children biologically? Or is his making himself a father figure all just a manipulation game, a way to try to take advantage of people who might want a father figure so badly they’d lean into his desires? How does any of this reflect upon his own relationship with his father (whether you go by an original Hadestown version or the straight mythological version, both are good!)?

• Crueltide: Hades can’t break the cycle, but he sure does try. What leads to him giving in and grabbing Persephone early again? How disappointed is she? Can/does he ever mess up to the point where the key players in the cycle decide he’s not worth/impossible to save?

• IF: For all Hadestown requests, I'd love to see some exploration of the time-reset idea, where the play resets at the end to essentially replay the beginning, with only Hermes and the Fates really remembering what has happened. How do these resets happen? How does Hades deal with them? Can he break the cycle, and if so, how? I'd love to see some exploration of this repeating-of-a-story, especially if there's any deja vu, or explorations of why they feel the need to take the steps they do.

• Yuleporn: Hades and his office and the things that happen behind closed doors.

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Persephone:



I love Persephone and really admire how much thought Amber Gray puts into portraying her. It would be easy to have Persephone as a background character given the conflict between Hades, Orpheus, and Eurydice (indeed, many versions of this myth write Persephone out!) – Hadestown shows why that would be a mistake. Persephone is, I think, the real heart and soul of the show: she’s sympathetic to every character, but she is a complex woman in her own right, and while she might not be happy in her marriage, she’s never a victim. I’m deeply in love with Persephone’s seemingly endless capacity for kindness – interceding on Eurydice’s behalf, after her husband has just taunted her with the girl is a kindness beyond kind – but that capacity is one that’s mixed with her very sharp tongue, and one that she doesn’t hesitate to unleash on people she loves. She’s a woman full of contradictions, basically, is what I’m saying, but what else would she be, goddess of both life and death itself?

Prompts:

•Persephone’s role in Hadestown! How did her husband try to get her involved in his mad idea? She clearly hates it (she calls it a “neon necropolis”), but she’s also the one who offers the workers a brief salvo for their sins in her speakeasy. And yet, also, like Hades, she isn’t offering those brief moments of the upside for nothing: she asks the workers/Hermes worship her (“brother, what’s my name?”) and its very clear that if Hades thinks of himself like their father, she thinks of herself as a Goddess and even thumbs her nose at other pantheons (“Ask me, brother, and you shall receive”). What role does she have in Hadestown? How does she like it or did she ever? Is this role something Hades insists upon her doing, or is it a creation all her own?

•Persephone’s gone half the year, and we know Hades suffers for it, but does Persephone? Does she have a hard time adjusting to living (it) up on top, or is that where she prefers to be? Does Persephone only put up with the Underworld for her husband? Or does she/did she, at some point, truly love it, as Orpheus says in Epic I (The lady loved him and the kingdom they shared)? What does she prefer about either place – and does she ever want to stop traveling between them, or is she perfectly happy to do so for eternity, regardless of her husband’s grousing?

•Honestly, I’d love to see an examination of Persephone’s alcoholism. I feel like there’s such a story to be told there: how did it start? How did people in her life notice it? How did they take it? Do they approve/disapprove/neutral? Has there been an intervention? Do the humans under her charge notice her drinking/being drunk, and does being drunk frequently change her powers/abilities at all? Why does she drink? What does she get out of it? Does she ever try to kick the habit, and if so, does she have support? And how does that go?

• Crueltide: Persephone loves her mom/hades/Hermes, but she might love the bottle more, and her reliance on chemicals has disastrous effects on her personal life.

• IF: For all Hadestown requests, I'd love to see some exploration of the time-reset idea, where the play resets at the end to essentially replay the beginning, with only Hermes and the Fates really remembering what has happened. How do these resets happen? How does Persephone deal with them? Can she break the cycle, and if so, how? I'd love to see some exploration of this repeating-of-a-story, especially if there's any deja vu, or explorations of why they feel the need to take the steps they do.

• Yuleporn: Persephone seduces the shit out of someone just to prove she can, despite their potential reticence.

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Multiple Character Focused:




Hades & Persephone:



Oh lawd. I love them, but these two are so complicated. I want basically anything and everything pre-canon: How did they fall in love? How did that love wither? Are they constantly going in cycles of in love/not in love or is it a very recent development, all the kinks that are knocking their relationship out of tune? How does a relationship evolve when Hades and Persephone have known one another for the vast majority of, if not the entirety of their lives, and those lives span millenniums? I’m also fascinated by the idea of what happens post-canon. The ending is nebulous: with Orpheus' failure, do the Gods make it? I like to think they love one another always, even in their darkest moments, because its more interesting, I think, when love is so heavily mixed with the real dark emotions these two have: Hades, desperately anxious and drunk on a mix of despair and possession; Persephone, blotting out the pain with alcohol as much as she can and still feeling it anyway. The fact that they're Gods whose relationship has spanned literal hundreds of thousands of years gives them more and more time to know each other intimately - which is great, and when it works out between them there is no higher form of love than theirs...but also means no one knows better all their fears and how to twist the knife the best.

The one DNW I have with Hades and Persephone is that while I am 100% A-OK with them hurting one another, eating one another’s hearts and stomping out the door, I absolutely don’t want to see them totally betraying one another (ex: Persephone teaming up with the workers to kill Hades or Hades successfully poisoning her to death). They might not agree, they might deeply hurt one another, they might even want to kill one another, and they might even hate one another at times, but I think they’re ride or die, in the end.

Prompts:

• Give them a baby. Pre-canon, post-canon, somehow during canon; adopted little child or Persephone (or, hell, Hades) getting knocked up and winding up having a baby or child or even surly teen to take care of while still dealing with their thousands of issues: yes. Yes yes yes yes yes! I just – I want to see them with a child, and I am not picky. Whatever the gender: Boy, girl, trans/intersex; all good! Any background, from any culture. I just want to see what happens to Hades and Persephone when they have to put a new person ahead of all their bullshit (and they have a lot of bullshit to sort through), and how they’d struggle with that. Maybe Hades winds up getting a child/young teen sent down to Hadestown in hopes of a better life and doesn’t have the heart to put the kid on the line (or Persephone stops him)? Persephone finds a literal baby in a cabbage patch and takes it as a sign? Persephone and Hades have unprotected sex and Persephone realizes, one summer day, that she’s pregnant? (And if so, oh lord, how does she tell him? Does she tell him?) What’s her pregnancy like, are either of them happy about this baby, does Persephone’s alcoholism form a problem? Does one of their many siblings have a child who winds up asking if maybe they can stay with Hades and Persephone instead because mom and dad just don’t, like, get them, and Auntie Persephone/Uncle Hades don’t have kids so obviously they wouldn’t mind adopting? Did a muse run away (as you know how those muses are) and leave a baby that needs a home and one of them realizes oh shit it’s our home this baby needs? Just...give them a baby. No matter what scenario you make around it, I swear I will 1000% be into it.

• Persephone and Hades’ pre-canon relationship during the winter; what is it like between them through time, especially during that winter we see the tail end of at the beginning of Hadestown? Hermes notes that she is always late: does Hades ask her to stay with him longer, or does Persephone stay because she knows that he loves when she stays? How do they wind up playing games together? Does Hades spend all his time with Persephone when she’s there, or does he wind up working himself to the bone at Hadestown and spending time with her rarely if at all? What’s their home life like? Are there moments of tenderness between them, or is it always an uneasy winter between them?

• Post canon, I’d love to read something about how they try to work things out, whether it’s another go-around in a loop and they just have some inkling that maybe they shouldn’t lash out at one another (and perhaps do so anyway, because it might not be a good idea but they want to hurt one another) or if things don’t reset post-canon and these two are left with picking up the pieces of their fragile love and trying to fall in love again. How do they act around one another? Do things change? If so, what things? Do they ever fall back on their sniping and if so, how do they feel – is there a sense it’s inevitable, or is one or the other deeply hurt the other has backslid? Do they get therapy? What does that look like for Gods? If they don’t how do they try to take a step forward together, and what does that look like?

• Crueltide: Even when its bad, its better than being alone. Or Hades and Persephone sniping and grousing and generally being really awful about one another.

• IF: their first meeting, and various ways it might have ended, with Hades and his hat in his hands.

• Yuleporn: Honestly I want all kinds of explicit fic for these two. First-time sex where they’re both fumbling and getting to know one another? Bad year sex where they use sex to avoid talking to one another, and it's really bad (or is it still good?)? Post-Hadestown sex, where they both are getting used to relearning one another's bodies? Persephone domming the shit out of him, or him doing that to her? Messing around on the train? Historical clothes porn? All BIG yes.

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Mythic! Overview:



What is it: A poppy mid-aughts (think Avril, Fall Out Boy, and Adele) musical that re-tells the “Rape of Persephone” in an Ancient Greece circa Anytown 2009. Persephone becomes friends with Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, who winds up hooking up her friend inadvertently with the bad boy of the Underworld – who, after being love mind-whammied and kind of accidentally maybe sorta kinda kidnapping a girl, has to confront just how much his past demons have complicated his life. Meanwhile, Demeter searches for her daughter and Zeus tries to hold onto his throne, despite having forty children who are all trying to overthrow him!

Where can I find it: Until the end of November, in Montreal! However, if you are not in Montreal, you can listen to the OCR from the London cast here. (I’ve listed the YouTube versions since not everyone has access to Apple Music/Spotify/Google Play, but it should be available on pretty much every platform.)



Mythic! is a super cute retelling of the Persephone myth, and I really love how it uses this very mid-aughts aesthetic to retell this super old story. I honestly really love some of the changes it makes to the story; particularly with the wider worldbuilding beyond the marriage of Hades and Persephone. Aphrodite's jealousy over Athena and Zeus' thoughts on his children suggests a heavily political environment where the Gods are constantly in conflict and squabbling with one another over control; Hades' comments on the marks his father left on him and Demeter's skittishness show that it isn't just Persephone and Aphrodite's generation that are struck in these powers squabbles, and I'm fascinated by how even Gods wind up with a sort of PTSD when it comes to dealing with one another, where everyone is as likely a threat as a friend, and blood is no barrier to pain: as seen by Zeus, who casually plans to set his daughter up to be murdered by Demeter.

And yet, in this world, there's also a deep kindness to many of the characters. Persephone finds herself befriended not only by Aphrodite, but falls in love with Hades (and the underworld in general, which is something I really love about this retelling) and reaffirms her love for her mother. Aphrodite risks death, destruction, and yucky things (the biggest sacrifice) to run down to the underworld to save her new-found friend. Hades opens up his heart despite centuries of being caught in a cycle of pain and damage. Demeter risks life, limb, and trees in order to rescue her little girl, despite everyone telling her it’s basically a lost cause, and that she cannot do it. The mix between those two contrasts: how every relationship seems a risk, but often despite their damages, the characters reach out to one another, is absolutely my favorite thing about this musical and I'd love to see a focus on this.

I honestly love every character that's been nominated for this, and I would be thrilled with a fic that focused on any of them (or any combination thereof). As such, I’m not doing prompts for every character, because I’d honestly be interested in any character, but mostly what I want is world-building.



Worldbuilding Prompts:


• I would love to hear about how the Titanomachy/Gigantomachy occurred in the Mythic! Version of these events. How did Zeus, Hades, Demeter, etc. all take over for Cronus? Are they all siblings in this version, or do Demeter and/or Hades have different parents? What sort of scars do they have? Were their children (Persephone, Aphrodite, etc.) involved in either war, and if so, did that change how they grew up? If not, what sort of second-hand scars do they have from their parents?

• There’s a lot of conflict between parents and children in this version of the story. How do those cracks develop between the celestials, and just how do they sort things out? While we get to see Persephone’s relationship healing between her and Demeter, we don’t really get a lot of development on it, beyond that she splits her time between her mom and her husband. Does Demeter really accept her daughter’s choice, even when she’s left alone for six months? Or what about Zeus and Aphrodite: Zeus left his girl to die, and that’s something that I think Aphrodite is fully clever enough to figure out. How does their relationship change through time? What about Hades, who seems to still be battling his relationship with his father, even so many years past he became an adult? How might Hades and Persephone take on their children’s sure-to-come rebellion – or would they never see it? Or would they simply refrain from having children because of these seemingly inherent issues?

• Demeter does a lot of damage to the world during “Look to the Sky”, and Persephone’s choice to stay half the year in the underworld at the end ensures that the endless summer well and truly is dead. How do the gods react to this new season? Is Persephone comfortable with her role in bringing this season to bear? How does she feel about her role in this? How do Hades and Demeter take it? How is Zeus feeling about his endless summer being well and truly gone? DO any of his children find a weakness in him for doing such? Is Aphrodite one of those children? Does she enjoy the new season, or is she mad that she can’t wear her newest, cutest outfit?

• Crueltide: honestly would love to see some angst as regards the gods dealing with winter. It’s a new season, and some flourish better than others. Who adapts well, and whose struggling? Is anyone losing followers?

• IF: The pomegranate, and choices someone (Persephone or not!) may have made about it.

• Yuleporn: Given the risks as regards having children in this universe, how do any of the gods loosen up enough to have sex?

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Homeric Hymn to Demeter Overview:



Art from Scholastic Storyworks, by Abigail Dela Cruz

What is it: The oldest extant version of the story of the Rape of Persephone that we currently have, so far as I am aware. Most versions of the Persephone stories will be based on it; if you’ve heard at least one version of this story, the odds are very high that it is this version, or a summary of it. It’s...not exactly your typical romance. Boy sees girl, boy asks father for girl’s hand in marriage, boy kidnaps girl – is it at this point that I should say boy is girl’s uncle? – girl’s mother goes into morning and wanders the world, makes a baby immortal (well, kinda, an attempt was made, anyway) and watches a dirty joke, and, oh yeah, almost destroys the world, and then boy feeds girl a pomegranate seed that she may or may not know is trapping her in his house forever – well, for a third of the year anyway. It’s the story with the pomegranate, and the ancient Greek reason for the seasons.

Where can I find it: Because this is a super old story, it’s also free! On the internet! I’m fond of the Nagy translation here, but there’s a host of them on the internet, and go with whichever translation you think best.

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Hades:



I’m always fascinated by Hades in the Homeric Hymn, who is a figure more shadowy than anyone else save, perhaps, Persephone. Why does he decide to take himself a bride? Why Persephone? Had they ever interacted to that point or did Zeus just push him toward her? If hes the antagonist here, and holding her against her will, why? Does he expect her to have trouble adjusting to the underworld? Does he expect her to reject him? Why does he offer her so much power? Many stories cast Hades as the villain; others, as the hero. I am perfectly fine with either interpretation, though my favorite is something in-between.
Prompts:

• I would love something pre-canon that explains just why Hades decided to abduct Persephone. He seems to have gone through a lot of planning for this: he has a chariot, okay, that could be a spur-of-the-moment thing, but he goes through the trouble of asking Zeus for her hand, and asking his grandmother to help make a flower to lure her to him. Why does he go through all this trouble? Have they ever met? Does he even know her, or does Zeus “gently” suggest that he marry this particular daughter? What were his expectations for how this abduction would go? Does what happens match what he wanted to happen?

• I would love to see his perspective as to Persephone in the underworld. When Hermes arrives, the narrator describes Persephone as being “much under duress, yearning for her mother...” and I can’t imagine that Hades wouldn’t be unmoved by this display. How does he react? Is he mad that she mourns her old life, not allowing herself to eat and take her role as his wife? Is he sad that she doesn’t seem to enjoy the life he wants for her? Is he embarrassed by her maudlin behavior? Does he try to comfort her, or does he give her a rather stern “buck up” sort of attitude? Do some of his subjects (shades or other gods) become moved by Persephone’s sadness, and try to bargain with him? How does he react to how others perceive his inability to make her happy?

• Hades as ruler of the underworld during the Homeric Hymn. Demeter is sending a lot of people down to the world below; how does he take the incoming storm, especially given that he must know what the source is? Does he tell Persephone that the deluge is from her mother’s wrath, or does he attempt to keep it a secret from her? Are the people who come to him angry at their new King for forcing the conflict that led to their deaths, or are they accepting of it? What do they think of his new bride, who hasn’t been around dead people so often – and how does Hades feel about their interaction?

• Crueltide: Hades willingly traps his wife in the underworld and she doesn’t forgive him for it. Still he doesn’t regret it, because three unwilling months with her are better than twelve alone...Even if she hates his guts.

• IF: Hades attempts to offer his captive/guest a gift.

• Yuleporn: Hades first time is...not what he expected. What happens? And how does he learn from it?

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Persephone:



For a character that is so vitally important to the story – this is her story – we don’t get to hear a lot from Persephone herself. She gets abducted, and then she becomes a queen. What’s going on from her perspective? Does she know anything about the Underworld? How does she come to view Hades? Is she tricked or does she choose? How does she deal with her weird realm-crossing responsibilities? Does she ever get tired of it?

Prompts:

• How did Persephone feel about her life, pre-kidnapping? What sort of future did she ever envision for herself? Did she have friends or paramours up top? When she gets sent to the underworld, does she mourn the potential life she lost? Is Hades at all what she imagined having, as a husband? Is having a husband at all part of her plans? I would love to see how Persephone might take her wedding, or (for the more smut-focused), her wedding night: what is a wedding between gods like, and is their wedding at all similar to what is expected of this idea, or is it something of an aberration? If the latter, why so? Either way, does she regret this wedding?

• How did Persephone find the underworld itself? Is she sad because she dislikes it, or only because she misses her mother? If it is because she dislikes the Underworld, how does she deal with living there for a third of the year? If it is because she misses her mother, how does she deal with that for the three months where she is entirely without her?

• How does Persephone’s marriage change her life? Do the other gods treat her with respect after her marriage, or do they make fun of her for marrying someone such as Hades, who seems to be rather on the fringes of the political atmosphere? Given that her marriage may or may not have been her choice (and truly, your choice which way you go – I like it both ways!), how does she feel when people bring it up? How does she feel about the three months with her husband? Is she happy to see him, or is it a punishment she must suffer, year after year after year?

• Crueltide: Persephone didn’t choose to go down to Hades, but those three months quickly become a haven when the other gods spurn her due to her new association with death.

• IF: Persephone and those pomegranate seeds, and choices she didn’t make.

• Yuleporn: Persephone’s first time, whether with Hades or with someone else. Is it good? Bad? How does she find it?

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Demeter:



Demeter is treated so poorly in this by Zeus and I would love to know how her thoughts on Olympus/the other gods are changed hen Zeus gives away her daughter and no one else intercedes on her daughters behalf. How does Demeter’s approach to life change? Does she become more restrictive with her daughter? Less? Does whether her daughter chose to go with Hades or not change her opinion? How do the other Gods see Demeter after she’s nearly ground the world under her heel?

Prompts:

• I’m very curious why Demeter’s first response to Persephone being in Hades’ realm is an overflowing of grief toward her daughter, anger at Zeus...and a wandering of the world. She doesn’t attempt to break into Hades and rescue her daughter, and doesn’t think of the scheme that will ultimately prove successful by starving the world to force Zeus’ hand; instead, she wanders the world, meets the royal family at Eleusis, kind-of- adopts/cares for a young child...why? Why does Demeter basically abandon all hope of recovering her daughter for so long? Does she think of her there? And is so, why?

• What was Demeter’s relationship to the other gods like before the whole Persephone affair, and how did it change after? It seems clear that Demeter has the power to bring all the other gods to bear when she ceases to provide the world its grain and its glory. How does Demeter’s power play make her seen on Olympus? Do people give her tribute? Are they happy for her or do they fear her? Is she capable of overthrowing Zeus – and is she tempted to? What changes and what, if anything, stays the same? Does she ever regret starving the world for her baby, or is she glad that she did it regardless of what might happen in regards to her standing with the other Gods?

• I would love to see Demeter’s reaction to any potential Hades and Persephone grandchildren in the Homeric Hymn. Because their time together is so short, it seems inevitable that Persephone would spend the vast majority of her pregnancy with her mother, and Demeter would be forced to confront the lingering ghost of Hades’ touch on her daughter. How would she deal with that? Would it cause tension in her relationship with Persephone? With Hades? How would she treat the child?

• Crueltide: Every year, Persephone comes back a little bit more like him, and a little bit less like her. The longer it goes on, the more Demeter despairs in looking for her little girl.

• IF: Places Demeter did (or didn’t) look for her daughter, and what she found.

• Yuleporn: Demeter is a fecundity goddess, and she isnt above seeking her relief for her sadness in wintertime in a little sexual action. Who does she go with, and why?

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Multiple Character Focused:




Demeter & Hades:



I would love to know what their relationship was like before Hades abducted Persephone. They’re the only two of Chronus' children to take after mom in being Earth gods, and their roles seem to have some overlap: death flows from life, after all, and life from death. And yet, Hades is the only brother that Demeter hasn’t slept with, and her sadness when Helios tells her that Hades has taken her daughter is a profound grief...and anger, but not at Hades (more so for Zeus). What was their relationship like? And after the nuclear bomb that is the abduction of Persephone, how does their relationship change? Does it only strain their relationship or does it break it entirely? How do they handle one another?

Prompts:

• Hades and Demeter having a chat while Persephone is still a child. Why would they be talking to one another, and what about? Would there be troubling signs of Hades' interest? Would Demeter notice anything? Is the relationship between them strained, even pre-Persephone? Or were they once, long ago, quite close?

• Demeter has to go to the Underworld to ask her brother a favor, but no one can get anything out of the wily king of the dead for free. What does she offer him? Does he accept the parameters? If Persephone is with him, how does Demeter see her daughter in her underworld Queen garb? If she isn't, how does she find Hades alone?

• Demeter and Hades post-Persephone and Hades marriage meet at a party on Olympus. How do they act around one another? Do the other gods expect a fight? Do they give it to them?

• Crueltide: Persephone goes missing, and Hades and Demeter spend far too long blaming/snipping at one another, hampering rescue efforts.

• IF: Demeter and Hades have to team up to repel a threat from another god. How does this happen? Do they win?

• Yuleporn: Demeter knows her brothers, and knows them all too well. She offers herself to Hades in hopes he’ll avoid hurting Persephone with his appetites; to her surprise, he accepts.

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Demneter & Persephone:



Persephone and Demeter seem to have a deep relationship as daughter and mother, but we never really get to see them together much, either before or after her marriage. What sort of plans did Demeter and Persephone make for the future when Persephone was younger? How does their relationship change through time? How does Persephone’s marriage change it? If Persephone has children, does Demeter’s relationship with her daughter change once those children are born? Are there ever points where they argue? Demeter would do anything for her daughter – is Persephone thankful for that, or does she find it a bit much to handle? Does Demeter have any emotional scars from her childhood that Persephone picks up on?

Prompts:

• I would love to see fic where Demeter has a younger Persephone and is just learning about being a mom and teaching her daughter. Is Zeus really part of Persephone’s life at all, and if not, how does Demeter feel about basically being a single mother? If he is in Persephone’s life, how does Demeter manage to handle her relationship with the father of her child, who is also the king of the gods? What is Demeter’s place in the pantheon, and does Persephone pick up on it? What sort of lessons does young Demeter pass along to her little girl?

• I would love to see an epistolary fic with Demeter and her daughter exchanging letters while Persephone is in the underworld. What sort of things might they write about? If set during Persephone’s abduction, would Hades even allow her the letter or would Persephone need to find her own way to communicate with her mother (or would Hermes manage to sneak it to her)? What kind of advice might she impart? If set after Persephone’s marriage, what might they write about during that three month period in the underworld? Would those letters bring tension to Hades and Persephone’s relationship? Would they help Persephone get through three months under the ground?

• I’m always curious about how Persephone and Demeter’s relationship might change over the years. We know that when the story happens, these two are very happy to see each other after Persephone has been held underground. But, they have nothing but time and will live forever – what does Persephone’s relationship with her mum look like hundreds of years later? Honestly, I am into any time period and any place: Where are Demeter and Persephone during a world war? Modern-day? The 1800s? 1040? What’s their relationship like?

• Crueltide: Persephone is slowly changing into an eldritch chthonic goddess; Demeter helps her during her difficult transformation, but there isn’t much comfort she can give to a very painful process. Worse, Persephone has to go through it every winter.

• IF: Persephone and her mother, and ways that first reunion after the first winter might have gone.
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Hades & Persephone:



For a relationship that is so very much central to the story, we know almost nothing of how their relationship develops. In one scene, he pulls her down into the dark; in the next, we see her sitting hesitantly by his side and him desperately promising her his power, his glory, his realm, whatever he can to get her to stay, and her response at this is to jump for joy. It feels like a lot passes in that time between abduction and engagement, when we are with Demeter, and I’m very interested in the growth of their relationship. I'm also deeply interested in everything that seems to go almost unspoken during Hades proposal: does Persephone know why he wants her to eat the seeds? If so, how does she handle seeing her mother again, and why does she say it was by force? If not, how does she handle seeing her husband, who gained her hand through sheer trickery?

Prompts:

• I would love to see Hades and Persephone’s courtship. Did they ever meet before the abduction? If so, did Persephone have any inkling this was coming? If not, how does Hades explain himself to her? Is their relationship at first antagonistic, or is Persephone more of a passive/wily victim, biding her time and waiting for rescue? When did things turn romantic, if at any point?

• One of the things I’m most curious about is how Persephone and Hades managed the year after Persephone’s abduction/their marriage. Given that Hades may have tricked her into it (or at least that Persephone is willing to present to the public that he tricked her into it), how one earth do they go from a couple on that kind of unsteady ground to the more rock-steady couple seen in later-set myths (Orpheus and Eurydice, Hercules in the Underworld, the Iliad/Odyssey, etc)? What helps them move on, if anything?

• I would love to see something about how their relationship works despite Persephone being gone so much of the year. Can he visit her up top? Does he just not get to see her for nine months? How do they make it work?

• Crueltide: Persephone knows they’re married, but struggles and can’t quite manage to love him, though she does try and he does try to make it up to her. They’re both unhappy, and three months is a very long amount of time. How do they handle it?

• IF: I would love to see an interaction fiction scene about Hades offering her the seeds, and different outcomes that might have occurred had he done something else/had she responded differently.

• Yuleporn: Their first time! Was it good for either of them? How exactly did they win up having sex – and how did they wind up having sex?

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Demeter, Hades, & Persephone:



Art from Scholastic Storyworks, by Abigail Dela Cruz
What I want here is simply how these three manage their family lives, years down the line. Hades and Demeter effectively split custody of Persephone, which casts them as adversaries: for every day one shares with Persephone, the other gets less. And yet, the person they both love more than anything needs to spend time with the other person, too. How on earth do they manage it? How do they deal with things like holidays, birthdays? Do any of then get sick/injured/busy and require changes to the schedule? Does Persephone ever resent being the person in the middle? Does she ever not want to leave one of her homes to the other? What happens if she stays put for a year?

Prompts:

• How does their relationship evolve over the years? I’d particularly love to see what/how these three are interacting with one another not just in the immediate aftermath of the Homeric Hymn, but what does their relationship look like hundreds if not thousands of years down the line? How do Persephone, Hades, and Demeter change through the centuries? Does their relationship have any major changes, and if so, what happens?

• If Demeter has to go to the underworld, how does she take being under Hades' house? Is her daughter comfortable with them being in the same place, or is this difficult for her? What about Hades? Does he do anything special for his sister/mother-in-law’s visit? If Hades comes to visit Persephone during the summer, how does Persephone react to his visit? How does Demeter? Is he comfortable at all, or does he just want to go home?

• If Hades and Persephone cannot have or choose not to have children, how does Demeter handle this? How do Hades and Persephone handle it?

• Crueltide: Honestly, I’d love to see something where poor Persephone has to deal with the fact that no matter which way she chooses on any sort of Olympian event, she’s inevitably going to either irritate her husband or her mother. If they’re still constantly sniping against down the line, how does it hurt their relationships with Persephone? Is she just doomed to have an awful time at every party? Does this alienate her from her husband and her mother? Do they even notice?

• IF: I would love to see an IFF from one of their perspective where the three are all at a party or meeting and are forced to interact with one another. How do they choose to do so? What changes depending on how they act?

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Comments

[sonofgodzilla]

*walks around your letter in a hi-vis jacket and hard hat, consulting a clipboard and checking that health and safety standards are being adhered to on the construction site*

[acequeenking]

*sweats nervously*

I think - I think you'll find everything is in order, sir. Please don't look too long at that janky html in the corner, i assure you it's up to OSHA standards.

[sonofgodzilla]

Hahah! This is the kind of quality comment I signed up to Dreamwidth for!

[mnemehoshiko]

*takes a deep breath*
smells like procrastination

[acequeenking]

Why u call me out like dis (GET IT LIKE DIS HAHAHAHAHA)

it's done now. I think. I hope. I pray.