acequeenking (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
acequeenking) wrote2020-10-25 11:43 pm
acequeenking) wrote2020-10-25 11:43 pm
Dear Yuletide Letter 2020
Dear Season's Greeter,
Thank you for writing for me!
Thank you for writing or drawing for me! I am looking forward to seeing whatever you create! Feel free to go where the spirit moves you. Whether it be something sad, scary, fun, or just plain weird, as long as it avoids my DNW I am always down to play. Added Dec 12: I just noticed that I forgot to add this in, but you do not need to put every character requested in a gift. I will be happy with a focus on one requested character, multiples, or more, and have tried to make prompts for each.
I consider all prompts as optional. If none of my prompts work for you or you’d rather just work with my likes list, please feel free to ignore my prompts entirely.
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, Yulebuilding, and Yuleporn.
What is it: A rogue-like videogame put out by Supergiant games. The game is primarily about Zagreus, a son of Hades whose relationship with his father is...it's complicated, but the short version is: not good. When Zagreus finds out from his foster mother Nyx that he has family outside the walls of the underworld, Zagreus pushes himself to walk through hell and find the rest of his family. And dies a lot in the pursuit of it. A lot, a lot.
Where can I find it: On Steam, on the Epic Game store, or on the Nintendo Switch.
[Return to Top of Letter]
This version of Hades to me is so interesting because you can tell that he is a product of abuse who has, in turn, become an abuser. He is the king of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and if you didn't know that was my catnip, well, now you do. I'm perfectly fine with him being portrayed as horrible as he often is, but I adore how Hades bcomes slowly humanized the further you get through the game and I would love to see some of that journey. I'd also love something set before the game because Hades' left seems a damn mess from the start, and I'd love to see his struggles either during the war with the Titans or in his early days as a father, suddenly alone.
Prompts:
• Hades during the war against the Titans! With any of the Olympians/Nyx/any others. What was he like, when he was on the surface? How did he handle the parking of the realms, and what he won? What are his feelings as regards his own father/mother/titans?
• Hades after he takes out Zagreus at the end of the first run. How does he feel about killing his own son, even if it is not permanent? How does he rationalize what he did? It's always stood out to me that Hades is never in the throne room when you come back from a run in this way which makes me suspect that he must need some time to collect himself.
• Crueltide: Hades is someone who feels in every way unable to break the cycles that have plagued his life. I would love to see a ficlet showing the hell that Hades finds himself in, wanting his son to love him but not quite able to turn off the sharp tongue; longing for vulnerability but never quite able to express such himself and being endlessly frustrated. What is it like for an abused kid to become the abuser, and realize he's becoming the abuser, but being wholly unable to stop himself?
• Yulebuilding: I feel like I just want so much worldbuilding on how Hades' position works. How did the titans' system of government work, and how did Hades' replace it? What was the underworld before he came, and how did he change it? Did everyone like the changes, or did he and Nyx have to vanquish foes? What are his job duties? How did he manage to balance ruling a realm and caring for his baby in those very early days alone?
[Return to Top of Letter]
I ADORE Nyx. She's such a complex character here, a master strategist who plays the long game as well as a truly kind, loving mother. She is exactly what Zagreus needs growing up and it is obvious that it is thanks to Nyx that Zagreus has a chance to turn out even remotely normally. I love how kind and wise she is portrayed as, how strong she is in advocating for Zagreus yet how delicately she handles Meg, Hades, Chaos, Thanatos, and Hypnos.
Prompts:
• I would love to see some of Nyx's early days: how did she handle the titan war? What did she think about Hades coming in toward the end? How did she handle her relationship with Chaos tapering off?
• I would love to find out more about how Nyx decided to reach out to the Olympians for Zagreus. It seems like such a large risk to make: what made her feel she had to go for it? And how did she find the Olympians, anyway? And how did she do all of it without Hades or anyone else (but Zag) realizing it?
• Crueltide: Nyx is taking an awful lot of risks as she introduces Zagreus to the Olympians. What would have happened had Zagreus opted to join the Olympians/trust the Olympians instead of searching for Persephone? Would the war that Hades feared actually happen? Would Nyx feel like she'd brought the underworld under Zeus' boot? What would happen to her? To Hades? To Zagreus?
• Yulebuilding: Nyx' role in the underworld is fascinating to me. How does it work?! Is she bound to the underworld, as Hades and Zagreus are? What exactly is her role in the underworld, now that Hades is the king of it? What work does she do? Does she mind how Hades has somewhat transformed the Underworld to reflect his image? What does it mean to be a child of chaos? How did she manage to resurrect Zagreus? How do her powers work entirely?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone in this version is so interesting to me because she is not played on-type as a placid maiden in distress. This Persephone seems to be a tough girl fleeing a bad situation: I'm fascinated by her relationship with Demeter, especially her choice to run away, and not rejoin her mother or Olympus after Zagreus died/her relationship with Hades died out. She seems like such an upbeat person despite some pretty extensive trauma in her background, and yet, like Hades, she seems to have an iron backbone that doesn't bend very easily. I'd really love to read any snippets about her life, honestly, from her childhood with her mortal father and goddess mother to her life with Hades and beyond.
Prompts:
• I would love to see Persephone's relationship with her mortal father. How does it feel to be half-god, half-human, and how does she feel about seeing that mortality in the body of her father? What was her relationship with her mother like? How did she begin to seek an escape, and how did she wind up using Zeus for such an escape?
• Persephone in her garden alone! Persephone seems to have been bounced from powerful god to powerful god for a lot of her life but in her time alone, she managed to make a magnificent little farm-house on the river. How did she build it? How long did it take her to build it? Why did she decide to make a little house there, and not move further afield than Greece? Is she aware of the Olympians looking for her?
• Crueltide: Persephone aks, at one point, for Zagreus to stay away from her. What would she have done if he listened? How does she feel about waiting alone, for centuries and centuries, for a visitor who never comes again? Does she ever go back to the underworld, or surrender herself to her mother/Olympus' care? If so, what becomes of her in such a hopeless situation?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to hear about Persephone's adjustment to becoming queen in the underworld. The underworld itself seems to respond to her when she asks it to open the doors - did she always have that power? Did she gain it somehow? How did she gain it? As someone who is half-mortal and half not, how does she feel in the company of other gods? What does being half-mortal do to her, as a character? How does godhood/mortality work in this universe?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Zagreus just broke my heart. The kid has so many issues and has come into the world with so much against him, and yet he never really stops believing in his goals and will stop at nothing to achieve them. You can tell he's very strong-willed (and he comes by it naturally), and you can tell it's exactly those traits that he shares with his father that in turn make things so sour between them -- and between Zagreus and other members of the realm. I'm fascinated by how Zagreus manages a dizzying variety of political relationships all while trying to escape his own home situation at the same time.
Prompts:
• Zagreus' life growing up. His father doesn't seem to be one to have played with him much, so he had to get his socializing in other places: Nyx, Hypnos, MEg, etc. all. What is it like growing up in the underworld? How did people handle the inevitable questions re: his looks (especially that green eye)? What was Zag like, growing up?
• Zagreus' realization that he really isn't ever going to be able to leave the underworld. How does he handle that realization? Is he sad about it?
• Crueltide: Zagreus doesn't want to be bound to the underworld, but he can't escape it for more than a few hours. Still, he keeps trying, over and over, and over, again. Assuming this Zagreus didn't eventually grow into his role in the underworld as canonical Zagreus does, how would this Zagreus manage to make peace with his fate? Where would he go with his very limited time up top? Would there be legends about a god who kept dying in public?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I have so many questions about Zagreus' resurrection and the lingering effects there-of. How did Nyx resurrect Zagreus? We know one of the problems with her resurrection was that Zagreus became bound to the underworld, the same as his father. What are the other side-effects? Does Zagreus having red blood have to do with his resurrection? If so, what does it signify?
[Return to Top of Letter]
I really am interested in these two as a couple because it really comes across less as kidnapper and kidnappee but two people who genuinely seem to have become close because their backgrounds were so similar. And yet despite those similar backgrounds, they clearly have some considerable difficulty, and considerably different outlooks, so there's a fair frisson of complication between them. How did they get into a relationship? How did it fizzle out? How did it blossom again?
Prompts:
• Hades and Persephone pregnancy fic while she is pregnant with Zagreus. I feel like with the sheer size/godliness disparity between the two, Hades and her must both have worried about Zagreus. How did they decide to continue the pregnancy despite the warnings from the fates?
• The first night after Persephone returns back to the Underworld, I feel, must be LOADED with conversations. What happened? How does Hades handle her coming back? How does he handle that first night? Do they take things slowly, or do they immediately jump back into an intimate relationship?
• Crueltide: I really want a fic about Hades and Persephone's relationship falling apart. While Zagreus' death is obviously a cause of it, I can't help but think there's more there, especially given Hades' total failure to be very emotionally supportive of Zagreus. How did their relationship break down? How long was it before Persephone left? Did she regret her decision at all?
• Yulebuilding: I really want to know how the marriage between gods in this world works. Hades and Persephone keep their marriage very secret from the gods on Olympus because of a potential war, but Persephone also immediately(?) becomes pregnant, and it is impossible to deny that Zagreus is Persephone's son. How does marriage work, especially one like this? Do they have responsibilities to one another in this world, like our own? Is Persephone being only half-god a stumbling block? Does her mortal half affect their relationship at all?
• Yuleporn: Honestly, what I really want here is size difference. Hades is so god damn much bigger than she is, a full-blooded god when she is only half and clearly takes after the mortal side in terms of height. How on earth do these two ever manage to fuck? I'd love to see Seph struggling with taking that thing in any way. How do they work up to having sex? I feel like inter-crural or handjobs are super underdone and would love to see those. Also, love to see the pre-work that comes with actually taking a large cock, and Seph going through the motions trying to find a way to fit that in. Is it ever worth it, or do they tend to prefer other ways of sating their needs?
[Return to Top of Letter]
I really like the relationship with Hade and Nyx, both as friends and potentially as a couple (or thrupple with Persephone). I feel like they have a really interesting working relationship where they both kind of have to rely on the other for what they are not so good at (Nyx being far better at the relationship juggling and Hades being better at organizational matters). It's interesting to me that they co-raised Zagreus without ever quite being a familial unit - or did they try to do such? How did they handle their co-parenting responsibilities?
Prompts:
• Hades and Nyx comforting one another over something -- Persephone's leaving? Raising Zagreus' and the difficulties thereof? Nyx's relationship with Chaos or her children? I'm really curious about what a moment of comfort would look like between them, as they both seem quite reserved.
• Hades and Nyx trying to figure out how to answer questions as regards Zagreus' origins, and managing an argument that neither of them is entirely satisfied by the resolution thereof.
• Crueltide: Nyx helps Zagreus make contact with the Olympians, but the risk she takes backfires when the Olympians truly do declare war on the underworld. Give me a sliver of this bleak AU, where Nyx and Hades are the last two at the end of the line, knowing that they will lose, and being unable to stop it, and being worried about what will happen to Zagreus when they are gone.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much to know what the early underworld was like, their first meetings, how things developed into the functional working relationship we see in the game itself. How do they divide their roles? Was there ever conflict between them in regard to those roles? Why did Nyx allow him to come in? Why did Hades keep around someone who could have easily used her role to shove the Olympian upstart out the door?
• Yuleporn: Honestly, I'd really love to see these two have comfort-sex, whether the comfort is for Hades or for Nyx or both doesn't matter. Do they wind up having sex while Zagreus is a young thing, both mourning the loss of Persephone? Is it later, trying to handle the stresses of Zagreus growing up and/or finding out the truth? How does the sex go? Does either of them regret it? Do they become a couple or is it purely meant for stress reduction/friends with benefits?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Hades and Zagreus are so similar to one another that I think it's very obvious that they are were doomed to butt heads. Hades is such a stubborn old man, and Zagreus has to remind him of either himself or his mother, neither of which is an appealing prospect. And for Hades, Hades has to frustrated with a son who is no more willing to trust in fate than he was at such an age, and given how little patience he has, it seems like a recipe doomed to failure. How did their relationship become so poor? Is it possible to repair it? I'm well aware that Hades' actions toward Zagreus can be abusive, but I think the post-game highlights a possible route forward for them. I don't want to see his abusive behavior justified or excused, but I don't think it's the only part of their relationship.
Prompts:
• Hades and baby!/young child! Zagreus. He doesn't seem to have almost any patience, and being a father is mostly about being patient. Hades mentions never wanting to have children, and finds
himself very shortly after Zagreus' rebirth a single father in circumstances he never imagined. How does he see Zagreus? How does he handle the pressures of single fatherhood? Does their relationship go wrong from the start, or does it slowly become wrong over time?
• Hades attempts to bond with Zagreus, either post-canon or pre-canon. How does he try to bond with his son? Does it work at all? If it goes badly, how does it all go downhill? If it goes well, how do they manage to make that change?
• Crueltide: Zagreus longs for his father's love, but he never receives it (or at least, not until WELL into adulthood). How do Hades' sharp words linger on in him? How does Zagreus feel about himself, after years and years and years of abusive words? Even after Hades attempts to make amends, what sort of scars do those words leave? Can Zagreus ever really forgive him for it?
• Yulebuilding: I would love all kinds of worldbuilding about Zagreus' role in the underworld. While he is undisputedly the prince, it's clear Hades keeps his son somewhat secret, for reasons that become obvious as you advance through the game. This makes me really curious about how Hades delineates the responsibilities of a prince of the realm. It's clear he wanted Zagreus to take a role in the administration of his realm, but what realistic role could he take where he'd never come under the notice of the Olympians? How has Hades managed to keep his child secret so long? Does Zagreus pick up on how Hades is sheltering him before Nyx makes it explicitly clear that he is, and if so, how does react to that?
• Yuleporn: I'm not sure how it would happen, but I'd be interested in seeing sex pollen for these two and the aftermath of it. I feel like both Hades and Zagreus would be super chagrinned by losing control, and they'd both have a lot of issues that might bubble to the surface during such a situation. And maybe solve some of their problems?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Nyx and Persephone's relationship is really, really devoted despite the two rarely interacting. Nyx was ready to do anything for Persephone, even shield her from Hades and all the Olympians, and I think that shows that the two have a pretty intense relationship. I ship it but also love gen interpretations, and would welcome either! How did Nyx and Persephone take to one another when Persephone first arrived in the underworld? How did Persephone take to Nyx? What is their reunion like when Persephone arrives back in the underworld?
Prompts:
• Nyx helps Persephone settle into the underworld. How does this go? Does Persephone find it overwhelming, or comforting? How does Nyx take to this new outsider in her realm, for the second time in forever? Does Nyx comfort her during her courtship with Hades - and what manner might that comfort take? It feels like everyone in the underworld is a little bit in love with Persephone -- is Nyx no less affected?
• Nyx comforting Persephone during her pregnancy. How does Nyx, a young mother herself, help Persephone with her trials? Does Nyx know about the prophecy the fates gave Hades about never having an heir? How does she feel about that? How does Persephone take to being pregnant with a non-Olympian child -- is her pregnancy any different for being half-mortal?
• Crueltide: I would love to see Nyx's reaction if Persephone's space on the surface had become exposed. Nyx can't seem to see her and takes it on faith that she will be there for Zagreus on the surface; what would have happened if Zagreus went to look for his mother and found only an abandoned hut, as Persephone had gone back to her mother? How would Nyx mourn her friend/lover's loss of autonomy? Would there a rescue that might fail? Would she simply have to live with never seeing her friend/lover again?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to see Nyx welcoming Persephone into her role in the underworld. How does Persephone feel about Nyx at first - does she see her as competition or does she see her as a friend? What sort of traditions might they have to coronate a queen? Does Nyx feel bittersweet at all about Persephone stepping into a role that (once) was hers, or has she already absolved herself of that when she gave Hades his role as king?
• Yuleporn: Persephone def seems like someone who has a fair amount of moxie, to say the least, and I would love to see her seducing the shit out of Nyx. How does she convince Nyx to go for it? How does Persephone seduce her? Is it a one-time thing or ongoing?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Nyx clearly is the most positive influence in Zagreus' life. It's very clear that Zag relies on her a lot for how he plans on escaping the underworld, and clear that he trusts her an awful lot. Nyx is clearly the person he trusts over anyone else, and yet the relationship undergoes a severe change when Zagreus discovers that Persephone is his mother, and not his Nyx. How does that relationship change over that reveal? They seem to handle it calmly in the game but you know that short conversation can't be all that there is to that moment. How do they process it? How does their relationship change through time?
Prompts:
• How did Nyx get into contact with the Olympians? How did she feel about it? Why did she make the decision to do so for Zagreus' sake? Did she try other ways to help him escape the underworld? Why not do what she did for Persephone?
• Nyx and Zagreus bonding when Zagreus or Nyx is feeling a little low. Maybe Zagreus brings his mom some flowers for her little alcove during a particularly tense time in the house, or Nyx gives Zagreus a little hug and encouragement after Hades/the trial through the underworld proves hard on
him?
• Crueltide: I would love to see Nyx's plan to introduce Zagreus to the Olympians backfiring: either Zagreus is just as disagreeable to them as his father is, or the Olympians take issue with his existence, or Hades' response is more swift and terrible than she imagined, or Persephone isn't out there, or such. How does Nyx handle comforting Zagreus for a hope that she put into his head that turned out not to exist? Is comfort even possible? How does she feel about the plan blowing up effectively in her face?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to see ALL the ficlets about Zagreus in Nyx's family. Nyx has a LARGE family but Zagreus seems to have been not much younger than Hypnos and Thanatos. How does Nyx raise Zagreus, and what is his place in that family? How do Nyx's other children feel about him? How do conflicts with regard to how Zagreus looks versus Hypnos and Thanatos get excused?
• Yuleporn: Nyx's comforting of Zagreus over his father's cruelty turns into a confused sexual form of comfort, and both of them aren't entirely sure they want to stop "comforting" one another in such a way.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone and Zagreus have to have a really interesting relationship I think, because they met so late in Zagreus' life. He's already grown up by the time he meets his biological mother, and Persephone had no idea that she had become a mother. How do you suddenly handle being mother and son after all this time? What is their relationship like? How do they get along? How do they find a way to bond to one another in the underworld?
Prompts:
• Persephone isn't sure how to celebrate Zagreus' birthday, particularly given all the heavy feelings that that date gives her (she has, after all, spent twenty-ish years mourning her dead child!). How does she handle that occasion? How does Zagreus?
• Zagreus and his mother bonding together over something small in the underworld: playing with Cerberus? Fishing? It's not always easy to see why bother of them might have decided to live in the underworld. What do they appreciate about life down there? How does it lead them to be closer?
• Crueltide: Persephone went back to the underworld for Zagreus, but the issues that drove her from it are still there and now she is both a) unhappy and b) feels stuck there, due to not wanting to abandon her son for a second time. Does Zagreus know that she is only staying because of him? How does he feel about that?
• Yulebuilding: I want to know a lot about what Persephone did to mourn Zagreus while she was hidden away in Greece! What did Persephone do in regards to her son? Did she ever talk to his spirit? Try to think of who he might have grown up to be? How does Zagreus actually compare to her imaged son?
• Yuleporn: People who find genetic relatives later in life are said to be at risk for finding them more attractive, and Zagreus and Hades seem to share certain tastes in women (namely: they both like women who are really aggressive). How would Persephone and Zagreus handle such feelings? If they gave it, would either regret it?
[Return to Top of Letter]
I am combining all my group-focused prompts here because I don't mind which combination you have! I love all of these characters and I honestly just love the "found family" trope in this where even though Zagreus knows all the characters, they all struggle with becoming a family for a wide variety of reasons. Hades says something interesting about the roles of abuse in families, and it would easy to make a gritty, dark game where these relationships don't have any value, but Hades offers that it is possible to break that cycle. So I would love to see any example of three (or more!) characters working out their issues together, just one little snippet of them learning to be comfortable together. Whether that's a romantic threesome or a gen group or a combination of the two, I'd really love to see it!
• Crueltide: Honestly, it feels to me like had one card on this house of cards just fallen the wrong way, then this would be a miserable deck. I'd love to see some focus on one of those cards: maybe Zagreus decides that instead of getting out of the underworld, he'll take it from Hades' fingers and toss pieces of his father into Tartarus? Persephone deciding to leave and live beyond Zagreus' ability to get to her? Hades' refusing to recognize Persephone as queen after she returns? Nyx refusing to make contact with Athena, or making a more calamitous choice of first contact diety?
• Yulebuilding: I just want SO MUCH information about how the world of Hades works, especially the regenerative properties of the gods. How did Zagreus get resurrected? What happens when Zagreus/Meg/Hades/etc. dies and goes back in through the Styx? They clearly remember those meetings, so do they remember their "rebirths"? Do they suffer any major issues for dying? What does death mean to the gods in such a place? Is it different between characters who are wholly gods (Hades) vs those who are only partially a god (Zagreus)?
• Yuleporn: Honestly would love to see a threesome or moresome here, though by no means would it be easy with a family with this many issues. I don't care who is involved, just so long as there are at least three of them, and their family issues do somewhat come up during the sexual experience.
[Return to Top of Letter]
What is it: A folk-jazz musical that re-tells the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in a semi-modern style, with a twist. 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: Well, pretty much nowhere right now, hopefully back on Broadway when the theater re-opens. You can listen to the OBCR of the latest version here; a couple other 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.)
I am also quite certain that if you search Hadestown on youtube, will find clips of the show, and perhaps more.
Note: I love all versions of the show so please don’t hesitate to use whatever version you like best.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Hades is fascinating to me because he is such a powerful king 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 drives away the woman who means everything to him. 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 left all alone? What sort of tasks does he do to fill his days? Does he have much connection with the mortal world at all? 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, 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? 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)?
• 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?
• Yulebuilding: I would love so much worldbuilding on Hades' role in building and overseeing Hadestown. Is Hadestown the only afterlife destination, or is it a special project and the traditional tiers of Hades are still operating in the background? How does Hades require workers for Hadestown? Are the workers alive or dead? What explains their echoing Hades' words with their words in Chant? Does he hold some power over them beyond being simply their leader?
[Return to Top of Letter]
It would have been 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 doing 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 but she’s also the one who offers the workers a brief moment of remembered happiness at her speakeasy. And yet, also, like Hades, she isn’t offering those brief memories of the upside for nothing. What role does she have in Hadestown, in or outside of the speakeasy? 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? 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 the humans under her charge notice her drinking/being drunk? 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. I'd love to see one moment where Persephone choose the drink over her friends/family/lover, and what the fallout was.
• Yulebuilding: Persephone's role in Hadestown! How does she feel about her role there? Hades seems to clearly expect her to be at his "Why do we Build the Wall" rally and her appearance is not optional. It seems clear to me that he has to rely on her somewhat to support him in hopes of his workers supporting him. How does she feel about that? What is the
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 their estrangement a very recent development? 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?
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. ! I just – I want to see them with a child, and I am not picky. 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 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? 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 time-loop where they keep making the same mistakes or, if things don’t reset post-canon, how these two manage, 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?
• 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, but being 100% unable to and unwilling to cut the thread and find another person (for good) because they are still in love, even if they are 100% wretched to one another.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much worldbuilding about how the time-loop works for them in that interpretation of the ending. Are Hades and Persephone aware of the loop at all? If so, why do they consent to go through what has to be a rather painful period in their lives, over and over again? If they don't remember the events of the previous cycle, do they ever get deju vu or the like they've been through this before? Are there symptoms they have of continually messing up time that they might realize/might not realize, and what might those symptoms be?
• Yuleporn: Honestly I want all kinds of explicit fic for these two. First-time sex where they’re both guarded and getting to know one another? Bad year sex where they use sex to avoid talking to one another? Post-Hadestown sex, where they both are 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 set somewhere between the dawn of time and Hadestown? All BIG yesses.
[Return to Top of Letter]
What is it: A poppy mid-aughts 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, all of whom are trying to overthrow him!
Where can I find it: Theater being on the outs means that you can't really catch it anywhere, right now. However, 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.)
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, whether you focus on one character or all of them.
• 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 the titans, and how do they feel about the matricide/patricide they must commit to do it? 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?
• 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? Do some gods suffer more in the winter? How do they handle it?
• Yulebuilding: I want so much information about what the Titanomachy looked like in this world. Despite the song covering it being really, really brutal ("they really fucking murdered them!"), we don't get a lot of information about how this informs the decisions of most of the cast. Zeus certainly seems to be haunted by his many children, but what about Hades? How does he feel about the prospect of having children and becoming a father, when his own father was so poor? Is Demeter's possessiveness over Persephone entirely the result of childhood trauma, or trauma with Zeus? How aware is Persephone of her parent's rather dark childhoods/pasts?
• Yuleporn: Given the risks as regards having children in this universe, how do any of the gods manage to handle impregnating one another to have children? How does sexuality work when it seems inevitable your children will wind up being a burden to you? Is homosexuality more common in this world because of the weighted problems with reproductive sexuality? If so, what might have happened if Aphrodite had mind-whammied Persephone to kiss her instead?
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 are based on 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, oh yeah, almost destroys the world, and then boy/uncle 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.
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.
Note: Please feel free to go wild with how you set the story: skin color, hair, eyes: go nuts! Whatever you want. Cultural changes in their backgrounds? Amazing. Trans or otherwise gender non-conforming versions of any characters? Sure! Bring it on! Want to change the story and tweak it into something yes? Hell yes. I love multiple versions and different takes so please change things to your heart’s desire.
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 he's 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 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 unaware of 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 frustrated that she doesn’t seem to enjoy the life he offers 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?
• Crueltide: Hades traps his wife in the underworld in a desperate bid to keep her, except 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.
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I want a lot of information on that pomegranate and how it works. Does Hades have a lot of produce, of which the pomegranate is but one? The pomegranate has a lot of significance as a marriage-fruit (hence, sacred to Hera) - did that symbolism have anything to do with why Hades offered it to her? Did Persephone know what he was offering? Does she feel any different after eating it? Is eating the pomegranate more a symbolic acceptance of marriage, or does it have magical/godly powers - and if so, what power might the pomegranate offer?
[Return to Top of Letter]
For a character that is so vitally important to the 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:
• 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 Persephone expected?
• How does she deal with living in the underworld for three months of the year? 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 about being stuck down there? How does she deal with her husband? Is she happy to see him, or is it a punishment she must suffer, year after year after year?
• Crueltide: Persephone changes, every year, between the goddess she is up top and the goddess she is down below. What might this change entail? Would it be painful? If it is painful, how so? How does she manage to go through it, twice every year?
• Yulebuilding: I would love more information about Persephone's dual-nature. Is she a different person up top and down below? How literal/figurative is that division? Does Persephone have different personalities with her two families? If so, does the side she isn't with ever see that other side? Eg does Hades ever come up to Olympus and see his wife's "summer" side with her mother, or does Demeter ever go to the underworld in winter and see her daughter's "winter" side?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Demeter is treated so poorly in this myth by Zeus and I would love to know how her thoughts on Olympus/the other gods are changed when Zeus gives away her daughter and no one else intercedes on her daughter's behalf. After the story ends, and Demeter wins 9 months of 12 with her daughter, how does she 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 Persephone in the underworld? Is there a strategy at play, or is this roving adventure just chief on her part?
• 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: Demeter got her daughter's body back, but not her spirit. Every year, Persephone slowly comes back each time being a little bit more like him, and a little bit less like her. The longer it goes on, the more Demeter despairs over the girl she is slowly losing.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much more detail about Demeter's relation to Hades. How well does she know her brother? Did they grow up together? How come she becomes so sorrowful when she learns that it is her brother who took her daughter - is there something she knows that we do not about Hades or his proclivities? Or is it simply that he is so far away? Or is it the pain of a brother being the one who hurt her by betraying her trust? How does their relationship work? Do they ever really meet one another for work at all? While their fields are very inter-related, they have opposite specialties.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Like Hades, Zeus' role introduces so many questions into this tale. Why did he give away his daughter to Hades -- and why, specifically, this daughter? Why did he not even tell Persephone of the deal he struck, let alone Demeter? Did he know about the storm that Demeter would bring upon his door? If so, why go through with all the trouble with Persephone in the first place? If not, who does he blame for the troubles? Does he have political challenges due to the way he's handling the Persephone situation?
Prompts:
• Zeus' dealing with the ramifications of his decision. One thing that really stands out to me about Zeus' position is just how much it is often in danger, and how often he has to throw his strength around. Surely there is no situation more a threat to his rule than a total freeze on food sources, for mortals as well as gods. How does Zeus decide to deal with it? Are his actions justified, at least to himself?
• How does Zeus feel about how he's basically screwed over Demeter? He seems to have loved her once. How does he feel about basically selling their daughter down to the underworld? How does Demeter's relationship with him change between the before and the after? Does Zeus regret what he did -- or is this all going according to plan?
• Crueltide: I would be fascinated in seeing a version of the end of this event where Zeus winds up losing his power (whether to Demeter or someone else) over Demeter having effectively starved the gods for months and months and months over something Zeus was at least half at fault for (and Hades being the other half at fault). How would Zeus feel about being deposed, and being deposed over something he wasn't directly involved in, in that? would he go quietly? Would he wind up in Tartarus? What would be his ultimate fate, and who would he hold accountable for it?
• Yulebuilding: I really want to see how the power struggle with this group shakes out after the decision is made. Who wins? who losses? How does this affect the other gods? After all, there never was a winter before this one - what do the other gods do, in the midwest of this terrible new season, that's now permanent? Do they take it up with Zeus? If so, what does Zeus do?
[Return to Top of Letter]
I would love to know what their relationship was like before Hades abducted Persephone. 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 doesn't seem to have a single story about (besides this one), 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 being 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 already 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?
• Crueltide: Persephone goes missing, and Hades and Demeter spend far too long blaming/snipping at one another, hampering rescue efforts.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much more detail about Demeter's relation to Hades. How well does she know her brother? Did they grow up together? How come she becomes so sorrowful when she learns that it is her brother who took her daughter - is there something she knows that we do not know about Hades or his proclivities? Or is it simply that he is so far away? Or is it the pain of a brother being the one who hurt her by betraying her trust? How does their relationship work? Do they ever really meet one another for work at all? While their fields are very inter-related, they have opposite specialties.
• Yuleporn: Demeter knows her brother has certain...urges (BDSM? Breathplay? Really violent sex?). Urges she doesn't want her daughter to experience. Demeter offers to let him take out those urges. She's still surprised when Hades accepts.
[Return to Top of Letter]
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? 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 a 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? 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?
• 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.
• Yulebuilding: I would love to know more about how Demeter and Persephone's relationship looks hundreds/thousands of years down the line. It's all good to hang out with your mom when you're 18, but how does Persephone feel as time goes by and she's still forced to spend half a year at her mom's side? Does she still feel blessed to spend time with her mom? Does she chafe at still having a parental unit still attached at the hip, all those years later? Does Demeter give her more free reign? How much time do they spend together later? How does their role with humanity change as farming goes from individualized small arms to fiefdoms to big ag?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Wooph, this is a relationship we really don't get much information about and I've always been curious about how it started (and ended). Were these two actually married pre-Hera? Were they going around behind their sister's back? Do they continue a romantic relationship after Persephone has been born, or do they break up, their daughter being the sole reminder that they were ever once together? Is this painful, or a relief? How do they handle co-parenting their daughter? How does their relationship change after Persephone's abduction?
Prompts:
• I'd love a story about how they got together. Was it a messy, torrid love affair that took them both by surprise? A calculated plot to try to guarantee a child of some standing in the world? Or something in-between? How did this courting go - or was it a courting at all? What sort of role did Zeus take when Persephone was smaller? Does Demeter resent him for ultimately marrying Hera, for continuing to seek women -- or does she just find this part of his nature?
• Honestly would love to see how their relationship changes during wintertime. What does Demeter feel for him, when her daughter is bound cold in the ground three months of every twelve? Does Zeus ever try to offer her some comfort for the terrible burden that he's put upon their daughter? Does she ever forgive him for his matrimony shenanigans? Has the center of power shifted, between them?
• Crueltide: I just want Demeter's wraith in all her full, furious glory when she is confronting Zeus about Persephone's fate. Please just let Demeter wreck this man in her words (or worse!); I just want to know how much Demeter has fury, and what she could do with that fury in the confines of the Olympian system. Does Zeus lose power over her confrontation? Or does Zeus try to put her in her place, and if he tries - is he at all successful?
• Yulebuilding: I want to know how Zeus and Demeter's relationship affected their other relationships. Not just Persephone, who obviously has been very affected by her mother's relationship with her father, but what's the fallout with their siblings. Do people choose sides when they break up? Which side do people choose?
• Yuleporn: Honestly curious here about the mix of politics and sex in this coupling: Was Zeus king of the gods when Persephone was conceived? Did Demeter know that? Was she ever a candidate, or was it assumed it would all go to her brothers? Who has the power/who seduces who in this sort of situation? If it happens behind Hera's back, how do either of them rationalize that?
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 sadly by his side and him desperately promising her his power to her. It feels like a lot passes in that time between abduction and engagement, and I’m very interested in the growth of their relationship (or failure to grow). 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 after the reveal of this treachery?
Prompts:
• 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 handle a marriage with such a difficult beginning? 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, and she tries to accept it. Despite her struggles, she can’t quite manage to love him. They’re both unhappy, and three months is a very long amount of time. How do they handle it?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I just want to know about that Seph's role in the underworld after they got married. What role does she play in running things? Is it a role she came to willingly, or is it one her husband has forced upon her? If the latter, are there petty vengeance she has? If the former, how does she do the job? Being someone from Olympus/earth, does she struggle with chthonic duties or take them in stride?
• 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?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Of all the relationships in this tale, Hades and Zeus is perhaps the most in shadow: mentioned only briefly, all we know about the relationship between the two brothers is that Zeus granted his brother permission to marry/abduct his daughter. How did this meet-up happen? Do Hades and Zeus have a close relationship? Who suggested the marriage with Persephone? Did either of them predict the devastation Demeter would wreck as a result of this? What is their relationship like after Zeus dictates that Persephone will remain with her mother three months out of twelve? Does Hades feel betrayed?
Prompts:
• Honestly I'm very curious about what their relationship is like as a baseline. Zeus is the youngest brother but inherits both the crown of the heavens and has by far the most romantic success among the brothers. Poseidon does not seem content with his share in other tales; was Hades? Why did Hades wait so long to marry, and how has he taken Zeus' relationship with other women? Who chose Persephone as a potential bride for Hades, and who initiated the decision to go forth with this marriage, and furthermore frame it as an abduction?
• I would love to see Hades and Zeus talking together after Persephone is back with her mother. Does Hades feel like his brother has stiffed him? Does Zeus feel like Hades has caused him too much trouble? Or is their meeting more amicable than perhaps thought? How do they handle the conflict here, where there was never going to be one winner but clearly many losers?
• Crueltide: Honestly would love something where Zeus realizes that he's set something in motion Hades has no intention of stopping, despite Zeus needing the breaks pumped NOW as Demeter is on the warpath. Does Hades know that this is leading his brother to a desperate situation? Does he care? When he offers Persephone the seeds, is that his own revolt against Olympus, or is he just desperate to hold onto a woman he fancies?
• Yulebuilding: How does bartering for a bride work among ancient greek gods? Does Hades get to ask for his choice of the litter or does Zeus dictate who the bride will be? Was there any price for Persephone, or was their meeting to agree about Hades' marriage merely one to ensure there were no hurt feelings when Hades abducted her? I imagine godly marriages tend not to be a spur of the moment things given how they live forever, and I'm really curious how the negotiation for a marriage would work out in this world.
• Yuleporn: Honestly could see those having a "sex to prove dominance" thing going on. Who tops? Who bottoms? Is it a big deal? Is this part of Zeus' price for Persephone's hand? Or his desire to have Hades make it up to him after the pomegranate move he pulled? Or is this something Hades requires to deal with the nine-month separation Zeus inflicted on him?
[Return to Top of Letter]
The relationship between Persephone and Zeus is absent in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in other retellings ranges from total absence to completely horrifying (thanks, Orphics). What sort of relationship exists between father and daughter? Is that relationship at all changed by the relationship that develops between Hades and Persephone? Do they ever interact, outside of the inevitable spats between Hades and Demeter?
Prompts:
• I would love to see Zeus' relationship with Persephone in short bits through the years. Does he have any relationship with her? Does he see himself in her at all? Does he find her a copy of her mother, or is there something more to her? Why did he allow her to be sold down to the underworld? Was there something in her spirit that led him to decide to send her there, or was he simply thinking that she was so minor that politically, she was a good match for a brother he didn't want to get too powerful? Or was there another reason entirely?
• I would love to see how Zeus' relationship with Persephone changes after the abduction. Persephone calls off for her father and not only does he not come, but it is later revealed that he is working with her abductor. When she rejoins her mother, is she more distant with Zeus? Does he ever see Hades and Persephone together? Does he find himself reassured by his decision, or does he come to regret it?
• Crueltide: I would love to see something from Persephone's standpoint where she feels deeply betrayed by her father. She called for him, he did not come, and later she finds he's aligned himself with her captor all along. She might forgive him for this if her marriage works out with Hades (and I like both versions, where they fall in love and where they do not), but I doubt she forgets. Does Seph ever get her revenge on her father? What form might that revenge take? Does Zeus suspect such, or is such a total surprise to him?
• Yulebuilding: I'd love to know how Zeus feels about his daughter becoming Hades wife. Politically, is this a way to boost a troubled alliance for him? Or to cement a great one? Does he have much choice in who he chose as a bride? Why would he choose Persephone, if so - or why would Hades insist upon her, if not?
• Yuleporn: There are several Orphic stories where Zeus sleeps with Persephone, either in the form of a sea serpent (!) or impersonating her husband (!!!). While the first would be somewhat in odds in the world of the Homeric Hymn, I could easily see Zeus taking on Hades' form to have Persephone while she is up top. Does Persephone ever realize that the god visiting her is not her husband? How does Zeus convince her to sleep with him, in Hades' form? How does he feel about the fact that the person he is having sex with is in fact his daughter and/or his brother's wife?
[Return to Top of Letter]
What I want here is simply how these four manage their family lives, years down the line. Hades and Demeter effectively split custody of Persephone, which casts them as adversaries and an eternal bellyache for Zeus: for every day one shares with Persephone, the other gets less, and I imagine as the years go by they are constantly arguing for more time for themselves and less for the other. How on earth do they all manage this? How do they deal with things like holidays, birthdays? Does Persephone ever resent being the person in the middle?
Prompts:
• I'd love to see how these four 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 Zeus, Persephone, Hades, and Demeter change through the centuries? Does their relationship have any major changes, and if so, what happens?
• If Hades and Persephone cannot have or choose not to have children, how does Demeter handle this? How does Zeus? 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, and have pressure from her father with whatever side is favorable at the moment. 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 parents? Do they even notice?
• Yulebuilding: I'd love to see something about Persephone's place in the Olympian court. As the daughter of her mother or as the bride of Hades, what is her position in Zeus' court? Does her status change after her marriage? How does the marriage change how others view her? How does Zeus feel about her status? Does he ever regret marrying her off the way he did? Does he ever wish he'd arranged a different match?
• Yuleporn: I'd honestly be curious how a threesome/moresome would work with this set of characters. Clearly Hades, Demeter, Persephone, and Zeus all have their issues, but in the world of Greek mythology, incest isn't really one. Who initiates the threesome/moresome? Is there resistance to the idea, or do the characters quickly fall in line? Does it lead anyone in the group to being happy, or do they all feel frustrated due to their own issues at the end of it?
[Return to Top of Letter]
What is it: A webcomic retelling of the story of Persephone. Not really an abduction in this version, but rather an inventive and quite different tale where the gods live on a modern paradise on mount Olympus, in contrast to the still-ancient-Greece mortal world (where the gods also interact with their followers).
Where can I find it: Webtoons, here. The whole series as far as my requests go is free.
I really like Lore Olympus' bright colors but dark subject matter. While Persephone's plot has been front and center for most of the plot, I'd really love to see some focus on Hades, especially some of the darker things in his background. How did he feel about Zeus marrying Hera, given his previous dalliances with her (or did it not start until after they were married)? What about his scars from his father -- and Minthe throwing it in his face? How does he feel about his reputation as a bit of a miser? How well does he get along with his brothers? What was his role during the war?
Hades is obviously a popular character in Lore Olympus, being half of the principal couple, but because this is more Persephone's story, the character of Hades really doesn't get as much development and I'm really curious about his story. He absolutely seems to have a lot of trauma from his relationship with his parents but also seems close to other titans (Nyx, Hecate). He also seems to have had some relationship trauma: his relationships with Hera and Minthe show, at the very least, bonds formed at rather high-stress parts of his life. I also feel like Hades gets curiously little push back on Persephone's age, despite other characters confirming such to be a big deal in this world - and Hades certainly freaks out for quite a while about it himself. Why is there such a stigma for Hades? How does he handle his attraction to her with the fact that he thinks it's wrong? I don't think his headspace is necessarily a good space and honestly, I'd just love to find out a bit more about what makes him tick.
Prompts:
• Hades is one of the three leaders of the world and it seems clear from the bits we get of Poseidon and Zeus' life, he's the last to settle down and really quite lonely; compare the people who surround Zeus and Hera and Poseidon and Amphitrite versus Hades, whose house is only shared by his many, many dogs. How does Hades enjoy this silence? How come he has so many dogs? Why does he live alone so long? What does he prioritize in life, at least pre-Persephone?
• I'd really like to see Hades getting seduced. It's interesting to me that Hades seems to exclusively date women who are somewhere between "plucky" and "ball-buster" in personality: How did he wind up with Minthe? With Hera? With Persephone? With someone else? Did he wind up making the first move, or did the woman? When seduced, how does he handle not being in a powerful position, despite being a king? Is he turned on by it, or does he become anxious? Does he try to take control?
• Crueltide: Honestly I just want more about Hades no good, very bad headspace. He seems to be a rather tortured soul and I want to see more of his mental breaks with Nyx, more of his torture as regards his father, more of his struggles with his mental health. How on earth does he manage to hold it together so well? What happens when he doesn't? Has Hades even been pushed so hard that he winds up in threat of being pushed out himself?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I would love to know more about the six's rebellion! How did the war start? How did it go? What was Hades' role in it? Did his resemblance his father cause problems among his own allies? How did they decide the realm division?
• Yuleporn: Honestly would love to see some subby! Hades. This Hades, more than most, seems a very strong runner for "heaviest crown" and I would love to see that weight get relieved a little bit and let Hades take control. There's certainly no end of bossy women (or men!) to help him relieve his stress, and Hades is kind of my male little black dress of this fandom: I love to see him with Persephone, Minthe, Hekate, and pretty much anyone else!
[Return to Top of Letter]
What is it: Rome is Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones was Game of Thrones; brutal, enchanting, and epic, in turn, Rome is the story of the rise and fall of Julius Caesar and the beginnings of the Roman Republic, leading into the reign of Octavian/defeat of Mark Anthony. It's chock full of characters with at best grey morality, gorgeous settings and outfit designs (and this show is Expensive in a Capital E sort of way), and more than enough power to squabble over.
Where can I find it: HBOmax, pretty much.
Rome is one of those shows that is such a spectacle and it's basically a gigantic soup of everything I love: sexy ladies, sexy dudes, sexy politics, and the sexy brutality of ancient roman life. Rome is ugly in a lot of ways, and beautiful in others, but what I love the best are the characters, all of whom are both ugly and beautiful in their own ways. I particularly love the political players in this game: Marc Anthony, the man in the wings who never lies about his ambitions but lies aplenty to achieve them; Atia, a woman after Anthony's own bed but who winds up playing with political fire; Cleopatra, who gets two roman consuls into her bed; and Servilia, cast off for political gain and out to kill those who spurned her. All of these characters have a lot of high-risk politicking that could get them killed, and I've love to see more of that for any of them: please show me some scheming, some plotting, and/or some politicking, please!
[Return to Top of Letter]
Mark Anthony is honestly my favorite character to watch. I don't know what he's going to do, but I know he's probably going to be a dick, and I know I'm probably going to enjoy the chaos that spews forth in his wake. Mark really has a fascinating journey as he goes from rising from Ceasar's death into the power-holder in Rome to losing it, abruptly, to Octavian, and losing further and further ground in Rome even as he goes afield. I'm very curious about how his relationships tie into his ambitions: Mark Anthony seems to be unique in that his romances are VERY much fostered in his desire for control and power. How does that inform his sexuality? Does that differ in his relationships with women versus men? (Side note: while I ran out of room for characters, I'm def down for Mark Anthony with a male character in the series and find roman homosexuality as part of politics as interesting as I find the het version so please feel free to explore him with Ceasar/Octavian/Lucius Vorenus/etc.) I'd also love to see something that ties into his identity as a roman, particularly late in Season 2: How does Mark Anthony feel about his roman identity, especially when he is stuck in Egypt, with Octavian undisputed in his power in Rome?
Prompts:
• Mark Anthony's ascent: when did he learn how to ply power with seduction? How does he handle his (many!) romances? What is more important to him: power, money, or love? Would he rather be well-liked or powerful as hell? Would that choice be difficult for him? How did he wind up seducing Atia/Cleo/etc? It's always fascinating to me that his romances (save Octavia) wind up primarily off-screen?
• Mark Anthony's focus on his Roman identity while in Egypt. At first, he seems to have gotten himself fully immersed in Egyptian culture, but as that section of the storyline develops, it becomes clear that Mark Anthony is bothered by his roman ideals, particularly the choice of wanting to "die" as a Roman citizen. (A choice Cleopatra then subverts into being a lesson about being Egyptian to their children.) How does Mark Anthony really feel about Egypt? Is it only ever a momentary diversion in hopes of capturing Rome, or does he really care for it? Does he really care for Cleo? What hopes does he have for the afterlife, given that he's shown worshipping both Egyptian and Roman deities?
• Crueltide: Honestly, I just want more of Mark Anthony's slow slide into realizing that he's totally lost at the end of Season 2. His torment about how his army is just basically a glorified Harem is such a huge turn for the character, and I honestly felt sorry for him. His suicide is interesting, and I'd really love to see how he came to that decision, beyond pride that he didn't want Octavian to take him out and his grief over Cleopatra.
• Yulebuilding: Honestly would love to see more of the missing scenes between Mark Anthony leaving Rome and enchanting Cleo in Egypt. How did they get together? Who was the instigator? Did he feel any guilt about leaving behind Atia or Octavia? How does his role grow as he becomes Cleo's clear favorite?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Cleopatra is such a force of nature and dizzying in how fast we see her climb. She looks vapid on the surface but is in fact both vicious and smart, and she doesn't' care how many bodies fall in her wake as long as she gets what she wants. In short, Cleo is one of my favorite characters on the show and I cheer every time I see her. I would love to see further adventures with her, especially in her romantic adventures, as it's interesting to me that she, like Mark Anthony, often seduces people based more on power than on personal attraction. She also comes across as a bit of a libertine in general (sex + drugs being heavily present in her court) and I really would love to know more about her experiments in risk-taking, and where that behavior began, and how it changed how Cleopatra developed through time.
Prompts:
• Cleo's relationship with her children. I know we get to see brief moments of their relationships with Ceasar and Anthony, but we rarely get to stay very long with them. Cleo seems to have taken a very firm hand in guiding Caesarian in his ideals, if not babysitting him every day, and clearly seems to love her twins with Mark Anthony - how does she feel about her children? How often does she really see them, given that they have so many servants? Why is it so important to press these ideals into her children, even using Mark Anthony's death as a "teachable moment"?
• Cleo's relationship with power/lust. Like Mark Anthony, I think Cleo is a bit of a libertine but also deeply into power and the pursuit of it, both outside of and inside the bedroom. How does Cleo learn to associate pleasure with power? Does she prefer being the dominant person in the bedroom, or is she willing to seek power through submission? There's a wide variety of sexual acts show in Cleopatra's court - how many of them have Cleopatra done, and does she do so in public for power -- or are such things meant to be concealed?
• Crueltide: Honestly, I'd love to see what might have happened had Cleo taken Octavian's offer to go to Rome? What would find her there? Would she wind up dead quickly there, alone without friends? Would she live like Atia and Octavia, effectively deposed royals? What would happen to her children, besides Cesarian(who presumably would still be sent with Vorenus)?
• Yulebuilding: I want ALL the information on Cleo's early life in the Rome-centric universe. How did she become so very obsessed with power? What was her life like in her father's court? What was it like during her brother's? He clearly seems terrified of her. If you want to keep to history or deviate from it - either way, it's sure to be a treat!
[Return to Top of Letter]
Atia is such a great, complex character and I really love how we see how she grows through the series. The contrast between her more petty wars with Servilia and encouraging her children to play along, versus her realization on how raising her children, has directly led to Octavian being a total monster? Oh god, it's so good. That Atia never quite repents for her behavior, and instead is just as strong at the end, despite being humiliated by her son and his wife. Honestly, I just want more of Atia's amoral adventures, whether it's her continual spite with Servilia, or her ongoing conflicts during Octavian's reign, or the like. How did Atia take her bold "take or be taken from" methodology? Does she ever have regrets about so many of her plans not working out? How does she keep her head held high when so many of her plans crumble underneath her?
Prompts:
• Atia's politicking during parties. Honestly, I feel like Atia is such an under-rated political player, especially later in the series when the conflict between her son and her love becomes the biggest power struggle in Rome. What does it sound like to have the full power of the Julii on display? What would it be like to be a minor player in Rome at Atia's mercy? How do people survive that household?
• Atia's world post-Octavian's coronation. Octavia and her seem to at least still be alive, if still distant with Octavian after the end of the series. What does Atia do? She clearly expresses that she won't put herself second with Octavian's wife -- does that cause distress later? How does she handle being simultaneously a member of one of the most famous families, the mother of the emperor, and yet so unpopular within her own house?
• Crueltide: Honestly I want something about how Atia feels haunted by Servilia's curse. It really seems to have worked quite effectively when you think about how Atia is so humiliated - by her own child! - after Servilia devotes herself to the underworld. How does she feel about Servilia, years down the line? Does Atia blame her for her own misfortunes, or is there something darker at play?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I'd love to see more on Atia's role in Roman society. Atia is relatively rare in that she is an unmarried noblewoman without family (past a certain point) to act as her chaperone. How is she seen in Roman society? What limits are there on her behavior? Does she resent them, or embrace them? How did she learn to run a house? How does she keep the Julii going?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Servilia is such a fascinating character in her own right, who seems to excel well in the grey-morality world of Rome. Brutus' mother, Ceasar's lover -- Servillia seems to be a lighter choice than Atia, who is rather devious, with a true love with Ceasar, and a supportive role as Brutus' mother. But by the time the relationship between Ceasar and Servilia ends, Servilia is revealed as no better than her rival, and at times, worse: Servilia prays to the gods of the underworld to aid her attempts to kill and humiliate Atia's family, seduces her daughter just to have one over on Atia, and manipulates her son into events he clearly isn't comfortable with, all in order to have one over on the julii. Servilia is so blinded by this hatred that she even takes her own life to curse Atia's -- a curse that mostly seems to wind up coming true. How does she fall to such depths? Do the people closest to her notice her fall down into this pit of despair? What would her life have been like, had she only lived to crawl out of it?
Prompts:
• I would love to see more of Servilia's use of dark magic. Such was really uncommon at the time and it's interesting that Servilia falls to such despite being such a powerful woman, with presumably more of the state at her beck and call. Why did she go for dark magic? Was this the first time she prayed for curses instead of blessings? How does she come up with the idea to take her own life to curse Atia's, and what gives her the courage to go through with it? If she makes it to an afterlife, is it what she expected? Or does becoming nothingness at least give her some peace?
• Servilia's relationship with Octavia is pretty interesting, and I'm curious about if Servilia had relationships with women outside of this one relationship. Has Servilia been a friend of Sappho for much of her life? Was her relationship with Ceasar more about power than love, after all? If so, who introduced her to such? Does Atia know?
• Crueltide: I would love to see more information about Servilia's decision in Season 2 to take her own life. What convinced her that this was the way she had to go? Why did she spend her time cursing Atia, rather than Octavian/Mark Anthony/etc.? What was she thinking when she was chanting outside of Atia's house? If she becomes any sort of ghost/shade with an awareness of the world above in her afterlife, is she happy for how things turned out for Atia? Or does she still wish it could be worse?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to see more about Servilia's role as a woman of a certain age, a mistress openly in the eyes of everyone but perhaps her son. Is her role as mistress to Ceasar something notable to people beyond Atia? Are there those that look down on her for it? How did she come to become Ceasar's companion, and why is she so embittered by the way he leaves her?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Honestly, I love all these characters and I'm just writing one prompt for any combination of them because what I want is: POLITICS and POWER STRUGGLES. Listen, I just want to see these beautiful people screwing one another over (literally or figuratively). I love every couple (or potential couple) in Rome so feel free to involve anyone as long as it has one of the nominated characters, and feel free to make it gen, f/f, m/m, multi, m/f, etc - I am down for them all. How is the game of politics played in Rome? Where do the players take their opportunities? What roads might the show have gone down if a different alliance (sexual or not) had been chosen?
Prompts:
• Politics in a day-to-day life scenario. Rome has a really appealing sort of lived-in atmosphere where you can see how people go from place to place in their daily lives. If one were looking to start up an alliance with someone else, where would they go? How would they bring up a topic with them? Would they retire out of a public place to make deals, or is a public place the best place to set up (covert?) dealings?
• I'm always fascinated by the relationship between sex and power in Rome and honestly just want to see more about the intersection of the two. Which is the true allure in Rome? Is this true for everyone, or just the upper classes? At what point does sexuality become just another tool in the toolbox for gaining power? How do characters live with the risks that come from romance in the ancient era?
• Crueltide: Honestly, the canon is already pretty cruel to these characters, but I would still love to see how some of their lowest moments affect them all. If events had changed a little bit, how would characters fortunes had changed? If Brutus' forces had won the day, how would it have changed circumstances for the characters selected? if Mark Anthony won against Octavian? But for want of a nail, who rises, who falls?
• Yulebuilding: I just want so much more on the daily lives of these characters. How does romance play out in the ancient roman world? What were the rules? Did they differ between the characters selected? How much could one get away with? How did one navigate things we might take for granted today, like birth control?
• Yuleporn: Honestly I'd be interested in a coupling from ANY of these characters. Mark Anthony with any of the women (or multiples of the women!) - always super intriguing and I'd love to see how he could convince Atia to share a bed with Cleo or Servilia. Servilia and Cleo uniting to take down the Julii? GORGEOUS. Hate sex with Atia and Servilia? Perfection. Mark and Servilia sneaking around on Ceasar/rubbing it in Ceasar/Brutus' face? Great. I'm down for romance in any direction here, and really interested in seeing how their quest for power conflicts with their desires for love.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Thank you for writing for me!
Thank you for writing or drawing for me! I am looking forward to seeing whatever you create! Feel free to go where the spirit moves you. Whether it be something sad, scary, fun, or just plain weird, as long as it avoids my DNW I am always down to play. Added Dec 12: I just noticed that I forgot to add this in, but you do not need to put every character requested in a gift. I will be happy with a focus on one requested character, multiples, or more, and have tried to make prompts for each.
I consider all prompts as optional. If none of my prompts work for you or you’d rather just work with my likes list, please feel free to ignore my prompts entirely.
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, Yulebuilding, and Yuleporn.
- 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)
- 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
- 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)
- 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
Likes:
+Genre/Narrative Likes:
+ Favorite Kinks and Tropes:
+ Smut-Specific Likes:
+Do Not Want:
Fandoms:
Hades (overview)
What is it: A rogue-like videogame put out by Supergiant games. The game is primarily about Zagreus, a son of Hades whose relationship with his father is...it's complicated, but the short version is: not good. When Zagreus finds out from his foster mother Nyx that he has family outside the walls of the underworld, Zagreus pushes himself to walk through hell and find the rest of his family. And dies a lot in the pursuit of it. A lot, a lot.
Where can I find it: On Steam, on the Epic Game store, or on the Nintendo Switch.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Single Character Focused Prompts:
Hades:
This version of Hades to me is so interesting because you can tell that he is a product of abuse who has, in turn, become an abuser. He is the king of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and if you didn't know that was my catnip, well, now you do. I'm perfectly fine with him being portrayed as horrible as he often is, but I adore how Hades bcomes slowly humanized the further you get through the game and I would love to see some of that journey. I'd also love something set before the game because Hades' left seems a damn mess from the start, and I'd love to see his struggles either during the war with the Titans or in his early days as a father, suddenly alone.
Prompts:
• Hades during the war against the Titans! With any of the Olympians/Nyx/any others. What was he like, when he was on the surface? How did he handle the parking of the realms, and what he won? What are his feelings as regards his own father/mother/titans?
• Hades after he takes out Zagreus at the end of the first run. How does he feel about killing his own son, even if it is not permanent? How does he rationalize what he did? It's always stood out to me that Hades is never in the throne room when you come back from a run in this way which makes me suspect that he must need some time to collect himself.
• Crueltide: Hades is someone who feels in every way unable to break the cycles that have plagued his life. I would love to see a ficlet showing the hell that Hades finds himself in, wanting his son to love him but not quite able to turn off the sharp tongue; longing for vulnerability but never quite able to express such himself and being endlessly frustrated. What is it like for an abused kid to become the abuser, and realize he's becoming the abuser, but being wholly unable to stop himself?
• Yulebuilding: I feel like I just want so much worldbuilding on how Hades' position works. How did the titans' system of government work, and how did Hades' replace it? What was the underworld before he came, and how did he change it? Did everyone like the changes, or did he and Nyx have to vanquish foes? What are his job duties? How did he manage to balance ruling a realm and caring for his baby in those very early days alone?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Nyx
I ADORE Nyx. She's such a complex character here, a master strategist who plays the long game as well as a truly kind, loving mother. She is exactly what Zagreus needs growing up and it is obvious that it is thanks to Nyx that Zagreus has a chance to turn out even remotely normally. I love how kind and wise she is portrayed as, how strong she is in advocating for Zagreus yet how delicately she handles Meg, Hades, Chaos, Thanatos, and Hypnos.
Prompts:
• I would love to see some of Nyx's early days: how did she handle the titan war? What did she think about Hades coming in toward the end? How did she handle her relationship with Chaos tapering off?
• I would love to find out more about how Nyx decided to reach out to the Olympians for Zagreus. It seems like such a large risk to make: what made her feel she had to go for it? And how did she find the Olympians, anyway? And how did she do all of it without Hades or anyone else (but Zag) realizing it?
• Crueltide: Nyx is taking an awful lot of risks as she introduces Zagreus to the Olympians. What would have happened had Zagreus opted to join the Olympians/trust the Olympians instead of searching for Persephone? Would the war that Hades feared actually happen? Would Nyx feel like she'd brought the underworld under Zeus' boot? What would happen to her? To Hades? To Zagreus?
• Yulebuilding: Nyx' role in the underworld is fascinating to me. How does it work?! Is she bound to the underworld, as Hades and Zagreus are? What exactly is her role in the underworld, now that Hades is the king of it? What work does she do? Does she mind how Hades has somewhat transformed the Underworld to reflect his image? What does it mean to be a child of chaos? How did she manage to resurrect Zagreus? How do her powers work entirely?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone
Persephone in this version is so interesting to me because she is not played on-type as a placid maiden in distress. This Persephone seems to be a tough girl fleeing a bad situation: I'm fascinated by her relationship with Demeter, especially her choice to run away, and not rejoin her mother or Olympus after Zagreus died/her relationship with Hades died out. She seems like such an upbeat person despite some pretty extensive trauma in her background, and yet, like Hades, she seems to have an iron backbone that doesn't bend very easily. I'd really love to read any snippets about her life, honestly, from her childhood with her mortal father and goddess mother to her life with Hades and beyond.
Prompts:
• I would love to see Persephone's relationship with her mortal father. How does it feel to be half-god, half-human, and how does she feel about seeing that mortality in the body of her father? What was her relationship with her mother like? How did she begin to seek an escape, and how did she wind up using Zeus for such an escape?
• Persephone in her garden alone! Persephone seems to have been bounced from powerful god to powerful god for a lot of her life but in her time alone, she managed to make a magnificent little farm-house on the river. How did she build it? How long did it take her to build it? Why did she decide to make a little house there, and not move further afield than Greece? Is she aware of the Olympians looking for her?
• Crueltide: Persephone aks, at one point, for Zagreus to stay away from her. What would she have done if he listened? How does she feel about waiting alone, for centuries and centuries, for a visitor who never comes again? Does she ever go back to the underworld, or surrender herself to her mother/Olympus' care? If so, what becomes of her in such a hopeless situation?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to hear about Persephone's adjustment to becoming queen in the underworld. The underworld itself seems to respond to her when she asks it to open the doors - did she always have that power? Did she gain it somehow? How did she gain it? As someone who is half-mortal and half not, how does she feel in the company of other gods? What does being half-mortal do to her, as a character? How does godhood/mortality work in this universe?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Zagreus
Zagreus just broke my heart. The kid has so many issues and has come into the world with so much against him, and yet he never really stops believing in his goals and will stop at nothing to achieve them. You can tell he's very strong-willed (and he comes by it naturally), and you can tell it's exactly those traits that he shares with his father that in turn make things so sour between them -- and between Zagreus and other members of the realm. I'm fascinated by how Zagreus manages a dizzying variety of political relationships all while trying to escape his own home situation at the same time.
Prompts:
• Zagreus' life growing up. His father doesn't seem to be one to have played with him much, so he had to get his socializing in other places: Nyx, Hypnos, MEg, etc. all. What is it like growing up in the underworld? How did people handle the inevitable questions re: his looks (especially that green eye)? What was Zag like, growing up?
• Zagreus' realization that he really isn't ever going to be able to leave the underworld. How does he handle that realization? Is he sad about it?
• Crueltide: Zagreus doesn't want to be bound to the underworld, but he can't escape it for more than a few hours. Still, he keeps trying, over and over, and over, again. Assuming this Zagreus didn't eventually grow into his role in the underworld as canonical Zagreus does, how would this Zagreus manage to make peace with his fate? Where would he go with his very limited time up top? Would there be legends about a god who kept dying in public?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I have so many questions about Zagreus' resurrection and the lingering effects there-of. How did Nyx resurrect Zagreus? We know one of the problems with her resurrection was that Zagreus became bound to the underworld, the same as his father. What are the other side-effects? Does Zagreus having red blood have to do with his resurrection? If so, what does it signify?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Multiple-Character Focused Prompts:
Hades and Persephone
I really am interested in these two as a couple because it really comes across less as kidnapper and kidnappee but two people who genuinely seem to have become close because their backgrounds were so similar. And yet despite those similar backgrounds, they clearly have some considerable difficulty, and considerably different outlooks, so there's a fair frisson of complication between them. How did they get into a relationship? How did it fizzle out? How did it blossom again?
Prompts:
• Hades and Persephone pregnancy fic while she is pregnant with Zagreus. I feel like with the sheer size/godliness disparity between the two, Hades and her must both have worried about Zagreus. How did they decide to continue the pregnancy despite the warnings from the fates?
• The first night after Persephone returns back to the Underworld, I feel, must be LOADED with conversations. What happened? How does Hades handle her coming back? How does he handle that first night? Do they take things slowly, or do they immediately jump back into an intimate relationship?
• Crueltide: I really want a fic about Hades and Persephone's relationship falling apart. While Zagreus' death is obviously a cause of it, I can't help but think there's more there, especially given Hades' total failure to be very emotionally supportive of Zagreus. How did their relationship break down? How long was it before Persephone left? Did she regret her decision at all?
• Yulebuilding: I really want to know how the marriage between gods in this world works. Hades and Persephone keep their marriage very secret from the gods on Olympus because of a potential war, but Persephone also immediately(?) becomes pregnant, and it is impossible to deny that Zagreus is Persephone's son. How does marriage work, especially one like this? Do they have responsibilities to one another in this world, like our own? Is Persephone being only half-god a stumbling block? Does her mortal half affect their relationship at all?
• Yuleporn: Honestly, what I really want here is size difference. Hades is so god damn much bigger than she is, a full-blooded god when she is only half and clearly takes after the mortal side in terms of height. How on earth do these two ever manage to fuck? I'd love to see Seph struggling with taking that thing in any way. How do they work up to having sex? I feel like inter-crural or handjobs are super underdone and would love to see those. Also, love to see the pre-work that comes with actually taking a large cock, and Seph going through the motions trying to find a way to fit that in. Is it ever worth it, or do they tend to prefer other ways of sating their needs?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Hades and Nyx
I really like the relationship with Hade and Nyx, both as friends and potentially as a couple (or thrupple with Persephone). I feel like they have a really interesting working relationship where they both kind of have to rely on the other for what they are not so good at (Nyx being far better at the relationship juggling and Hades being better at organizational matters). It's interesting to me that they co-raised Zagreus without ever quite being a familial unit - or did they try to do such? How did they handle their co-parenting responsibilities?
Prompts:
• Hades and Nyx comforting one another over something -- Persephone's leaving? Raising Zagreus' and the difficulties thereof? Nyx's relationship with Chaos or her children? I'm really curious about what a moment of comfort would look like between them, as they both seem quite reserved.
• Hades and Nyx trying to figure out how to answer questions as regards Zagreus' origins, and managing an argument that neither of them is entirely satisfied by the resolution thereof.
• Crueltide: Nyx helps Zagreus make contact with the Olympians, but the risk she takes backfires when the Olympians truly do declare war on the underworld. Give me a sliver of this bleak AU, where Nyx and Hades are the last two at the end of the line, knowing that they will lose, and being unable to stop it, and being worried about what will happen to Zagreus when they are gone.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much to know what the early underworld was like, their first meetings, how things developed into the functional working relationship we see in the game itself. How do they divide their roles? Was there ever conflict between them in regard to those roles? Why did Nyx allow him to come in? Why did Hades keep around someone who could have easily used her role to shove the Olympian upstart out the door?
• Yuleporn: Honestly, I'd really love to see these two have comfort-sex, whether the comfort is for Hades or for Nyx or both doesn't matter. Do they wind up having sex while Zagreus is a young thing, both mourning the loss of Persephone? Is it later, trying to handle the stresses of Zagreus growing up and/or finding out the truth? How does the sex go? Does either of them regret it? Do they become a couple or is it purely meant for stress reduction/friends with benefits?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Hades and Zagreus
Hades and Zagreus are so similar to one another that I think it's very obvious that they are were doomed to butt heads. Hades is such a stubborn old man, and Zagreus has to remind him of either himself or his mother, neither of which is an appealing prospect. And for Hades, Hades has to frustrated with a son who is no more willing to trust in fate than he was at such an age, and given how little patience he has, it seems like a recipe doomed to failure. How did their relationship become so poor? Is it possible to repair it? I'm well aware that Hades' actions toward Zagreus can be abusive, but I think the post-game highlights a possible route forward for them. I don't want to see his abusive behavior justified or excused, but I don't think it's the only part of their relationship.
Prompts:
• Hades and baby!/young child! Zagreus. He doesn't seem to have almost any patience, and being a father is mostly about being patient. Hades mentions never wanting to have children, and finds
himself very shortly after Zagreus' rebirth a single father in circumstances he never imagined. How does he see Zagreus? How does he handle the pressures of single fatherhood? Does their relationship go wrong from the start, or does it slowly become wrong over time?
• Hades attempts to bond with Zagreus, either post-canon or pre-canon. How does he try to bond with his son? Does it work at all? If it goes badly, how does it all go downhill? If it goes well, how do they manage to make that change?
• Crueltide: Zagreus longs for his father's love, but he never receives it (or at least, not until WELL into adulthood). How do Hades' sharp words linger on in him? How does Zagreus feel about himself, after years and years and years of abusive words? Even after Hades attempts to make amends, what sort of scars do those words leave? Can Zagreus ever really forgive him for it?
• Yulebuilding: I would love all kinds of worldbuilding about Zagreus' role in the underworld. While he is undisputedly the prince, it's clear Hades keeps his son somewhat secret, for reasons that become obvious as you advance through the game. This makes me really curious about how Hades delineates the responsibilities of a prince of the realm. It's clear he wanted Zagreus to take a role in the administration of his realm, but what realistic role could he take where he'd never come under the notice of the Olympians? How has Hades managed to keep his child secret so long? Does Zagreus pick up on how Hades is sheltering him before Nyx makes it explicitly clear that he is, and if so, how does react to that?
• Yuleporn: I'm not sure how it would happen, but I'd be interested in seeing sex pollen for these two and the aftermath of it. I feel like both Hades and Zagreus would be super chagrinned by losing control, and they'd both have a lot of issues that might bubble to the surface during such a situation. And maybe solve some of their problems?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Nyx and Persephone
Nyx and Persephone's relationship is really, really devoted despite the two rarely interacting. Nyx was ready to do anything for Persephone, even shield her from Hades and all the Olympians, and I think that shows that the two have a pretty intense relationship. I ship it but also love gen interpretations, and would welcome either! How did Nyx and Persephone take to one another when Persephone first arrived in the underworld? How did Persephone take to Nyx? What is their reunion like when Persephone arrives back in the underworld?
Prompts:
• Nyx helps Persephone settle into the underworld. How does this go? Does Persephone find it overwhelming, or comforting? How does Nyx take to this new outsider in her realm, for the second time in forever? Does Nyx comfort her during her courtship with Hades - and what manner might that comfort take? It feels like everyone in the underworld is a little bit in love with Persephone -- is Nyx no less affected?
• Nyx comforting Persephone during her pregnancy. How does Nyx, a young mother herself, help Persephone with her trials? Does Nyx know about the prophecy the fates gave Hades about never having an heir? How does she feel about that? How does Persephone take to being pregnant with a non-Olympian child -- is her pregnancy any different for being half-mortal?
• Crueltide: I would love to see Nyx's reaction if Persephone's space on the surface had become exposed. Nyx can't seem to see her and takes it on faith that she will be there for Zagreus on the surface; what would have happened if Zagreus went to look for his mother and found only an abandoned hut, as Persephone had gone back to her mother? How would Nyx mourn her friend/lover's loss of autonomy? Would there a rescue that might fail? Would she simply have to live with never seeing her friend/lover again?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to see Nyx welcoming Persephone into her role in the underworld. How does Persephone feel about Nyx at first - does she see her as competition or does she see her as a friend? What sort of traditions might they have to coronate a queen? Does Nyx feel bittersweet at all about Persephone stepping into a role that (once) was hers, or has she already absolved herself of that when she gave Hades his role as king?
• Yuleporn: Persephone def seems like someone who has a fair amount of moxie, to say the least, and I would love to see her seducing the shit out of Nyx. How does she convince Nyx to go for it? How does Persephone seduce her? Is it a one-time thing or ongoing?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Nyx and Zagreus
Nyx clearly is the most positive influence in Zagreus' life. It's very clear that Zag relies on her a lot for how he plans on escaping the underworld, and clear that he trusts her an awful lot. Nyx is clearly the person he trusts over anyone else, and yet the relationship undergoes a severe change when Zagreus discovers that Persephone is his mother, and not his Nyx. How does that relationship change over that reveal? They seem to handle it calmly in the game but you know that short conversation can't be all that there is to that moment. How do they process it? How does their relationship change through time?
Prompts:
• How did Nyx get into contact with the Olympians? How did she feel about it? Why did she make the decision to do so for Zagreus' sake? Did she try other ways to help him escape the underworld? Why not do what she did for Persephone?
• Nyx and Zagreus bonding when Zagreus or Nyx is feeling a little low. Maybe Zagreus brings his mom some flowers for her little alcove during a particularly tense time in the house, or Nyx gives Zagreus a little hug and encouragement after Hades/the trial through the underworld proves hard on
him?
• Crueltide: I would love to see Nyx's plan to introduce Zagreus to the Olympians backfiring: either Zagreus is just as disagreeable to them as his father is, or the Olympians take issue with his existence, or Hades' response is more swift and terrible than she imagined, or Persephone isn't out there, or such. How does Nyx handle comforting Zagreus for a hope that she put into his head that turned out not to exist? Is comfort even possible? How does she feel about the plan blowing up effectively in her face?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to see ALL the ficlets about Zagreus in Nyx's family. Nyx has a LARGE family but Zagreus seems to have been not much younger than Hypnos and Thanatos. How does Nyx raise Zagreus, and what is his place in that family? How do Nyx's other children feel about him? How do conflicts with regard to how Zagreus looks versus Hypnos and Thanatos get excused?
• Yuleporn: Nyx's comforting of Zagreus over his father's cruelty turns into a confused sexual form of comfort, and both of them aren't entirely sure they want to stop "comforting" one another in such a way.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone and Zagreus
Persephone and Zagreus have to have a really interesting relationship I think, because they met so late in Zagreus' life. He's already grown up by the time he meets his biological mother, and Persephone had no idea that she had become a mother. How do you suddenly handle being mother and son after all this time? What is their relationship like? How do they get along? How do they find a way to bond to one another in the underworld?
Prompts:
• Persephone isn't sure how to celebrate Zagreus' birthday, particularly given all the heavy feelings that that date gives her (she has, after all, spent twenty-ish years mourning her dead child!). How does she handle that occasion? How does Zagreus?
• Zagreus and his mother bonding together over something small in the underworld: playing with Cerberus? Fishing? It's not always easy to see why bother of them might have decided to live in the underworld. What do they appreciate about life down there? How does it lead them to be closer?
• Crueltide: Persephone went back to the underworld for Zagreus, but the issues that drove her from it are still there and now she is both a) unhappy and b) feels stuck there, due to not wanting to abandon her son for a second time. Does Zagreus know that she is only staying because of him? How does he feel about that?
• Yulebuilding: I want to know a lot about what Persephone did to mourn Zagreus while she was hidden away in Greece! What did Persephone do in regards to her son? Did she ever talk to his spirit? Try to think of who he might have grown up to be? How does Zagreus actually compare to her imaged son?
• Yuleporn: People who find genetic relatives later in life are said to be at risk for finding them more attractive, and Zagreus and Hades seem to share certain tastes in women (namely: they both like women who are really aggressive). How would Persephone and Zagreus handle such feelings? If they gave it, would either regret it?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Group Focused Prompts:
I am combining all my group-focused prompts here because I don't mind which combination you have! I love all of these characters and I honestly just love the "found family" trope in this where even though Zagreus knows all the characters, they all struggle with becoming a family for a wide variety of reasons. Hades says something interesting about the roles of abuse in families, and it would easy to make a gritty, dark game where these relationships don't have any value, but Hades offers that it is possible to break that cycle. So I would love to see any example of three (or more!) characters working out their issues together, just one little snippet of them learning to be comfortable together. Whether that's a romantic threesome or a gen group or a combination of the two, I'd really love to see it!
• Crueltide: Honestly, it feels to me like had one card on this house of cards just fallen the wrong way, then this would be a miserable deck. I'd love to see some focus on one of those cards: maybe Zagreus decides that instead of getting out of the underworld, he'll take it from Hades' fingers and toss pieces of his father into Tartarus? Persephone deciding to leave and live beyond Zagreus' ability to get to her? Hades' refusing to recognize Persephone as queen after she returns? Nyx refusing to make contact with Athena, or making a more calamitous choice of first contact diety?
• Yulebuilding: I just want SO MUCH information about how the world of Hades works, especially the regenerative properties of the gods. How did Zagreus get resurrected? What happens when Zagreus/Meg/Hades/etc. dies and goes back in through the Styx? They clearly remember those meetings, so do they remember their "rebirths"? Do they suffer any major issues for dying? What does death mean to the gods in such a place? Is it different between characters who are wholly gods (Hades) vs those who are only partially a god (Zagreus)?
• Yuleporn: Honestly would love to see a threesome or moresome here, though by no means would it be easy with a family with this many issues. I don't care who is involved, just so long as there are at least three of them, and their family issues do somewhat come up during the sexual experience.
[Return to Top of Letter]
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. 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: Well, pretty much nowhere right now, hopefully back on Broadway when the theater re-opens. You can listen to the OBCR of the latest version here; a couple other 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.)
I am also quite certain that if you search Hadestown on youtube, will find clips of the show, and perhaps more.
Note: I love all versions of the show so please don’t hesitate to use whatever version you like best.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Single Character Focused Prompts:
Hades:
Hades is fascinating to me because he is such a powerful king 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 drives away the woman who means everything to him. 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 left all alone? What sort of tasks does he do to fill his days? Does he have much connection with the mortal world at all? 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, 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? 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)?
• 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?
• Yulebuilding: I would love so much worldbuilding on Hades' role in building and overseeing Hadestown. Is Hadestown the only afterlife destination, or is it a special project and the traditional tiers of Hades are still operating in the background? How does Hades require workers for Hadestown? Are the workers alive or dead? What explains their echoing Hades' words with their words in Chant? Does he hold some power over them beyond being simply their leader?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone:
It would have been 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 doing 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 but she’s also the one who offers the workers a brief moment of remembered happiness at her speakeasy. And yet, also, like Hades, she isn’t offering those brief memories of the upside for nothing. What role does she have in Hadestown, in or outside of the speakeasy? 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? 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 the humans under her charge notice her drinking/being drunk? 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. I'd love to see one moment where Persephone choose the drink over her friends/family/lover, and what the fallout was.
• Yulebuilding: Persephone's role in Hadestown! How does she feel about her role there? Hades seems to clearly expect her to be at his "Why do we Build the Wall" rally and her appearance is not optional. It seems clear to me that he has to rely on her somewhat to support him in hopes of his workers supporting him. How does she feel about that? What is the
[Return to Top of Letter]
Multiple Character Focused:
Hades & Persephone:
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 their estrangement a very recent development? 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?
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. ! I just – I want to see them with a child, and I am not picky. 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 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? 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 time-loop where they keep making the same mistakes or, if things don’t reset post-canon, how these two manage, 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?
• 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, but being 100% unable to and unwilling to cut the thread and find another person (for good) because they are still in love, even if they are 100% wretched to one another.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much worldbuilding about how the time-loop works for them in that interpretation of the ending. Are Hades and Persephone aware of the loop at all? If so, why do they consent to go through what has to be a rather painful period in their lives, over and over again? If they don't remember the events of the previous cycle, do they ever get deju vu or the like they've been through this before? Are there symptoms they have of continually messing up time that they might realize/might not realize, and what might those symptoms be?
• Yuleporn: Honestly I want all kinds of explicit fic for these two. First-time sex where they’re both guarded and getting to know one another? Bad year sex where they use sex to avoid talking to one another? Post-Hadestown sex, where they both are 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 set somewhere between the dawn of time and Hadestown? All BIG yesses.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Mythic! Overview:
What is it: A poppy mid-aughts 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, all of whom are trying to overthrow him!
Where can I find it: Theater being on the outs means that you can't really catch it anywhere, right now. However, 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.)
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, whether you focus on one character or all of them.
Mythic! 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 the titans, and how do they feel about the matricide/patricide they must commit to do it? 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?
• 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? Do some gods suffer more in the winter? How do they handle it?
• Yulebuilding: I want so much information about what the Titanomachy looked like in this world. Despite the song covering it being really, really brutal ("they really fucking murdered them!"), we don't get a lot of information about how this informs the decisions of most of the cast. Zeus certainly seems to be haunted by his many children, but what about Hades? How does he feel about the prospect of having children and becoming a father, when his own father was so poor? Is Demeter's possessiveness over Persephone entirely the result of childhood trauma, or trauma with Zeus? How aware is Persephone of her parent's rather dark childhoods/pasts?
• Yuleporn: Given the risks as regards having children in this universe, how do any of the gods manage to handle impregnating one another to have children? How does sexuality work when it seems inevitable your children will wind up being a burden to you? Is homosexuality more common in this world because of the weighted problems with reproductive sexuality? If so, what might have happened if Aphrodite had mind-whammied Persephone to kiss her instead?
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 are based on 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, oh yeah, almost destroys the world, and then boy/uncle 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.
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.
Note: Please feel free to go wild with how you set the story: skin color, hair, eyes: go nuts! Whatever you want. Cultural changes in their backgrounds? Amazing. Trans or otherwise gender non-conforming versions of any characters? Sure! Bring it on! Want to change the story and tweak it into something yes? Hell yes. I love multiple versions and different takes so please change things to your heart’s desire.
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 he's 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 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 unaware of 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 frustrated that she doesn’t seem to enjoy the life he offers 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?
• Crueltide: Hades traps his wife in the underworld in a desperate bid to keep her, except 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.
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I want a lot of information on that pomegranate and how it works. Does Hades have a lot of produce, of which the pomegranate is but one? The pomegranate has a lot of significance as a marriage-fruit (hence, sacred to Hera) - did that symbolism have anything to do with why Hades offered it to her? Did Persephone know what he was offering? Does she feel any different after eating it? Is eating the pomegranate more a symbolic acceptance of marriage, or does it have magical/godly powers - and if so, what power might the pomegranate offer?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone:
For a character that is so vitally important to the 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:
• 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 Persephone expected?
• How does she deal with living in the underworld for three months of the year? 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 about being stuck down there? How does she deal with her husband? Is she happy to see him, or is it a punishment she must suffer, year after year after year?
• Crueltide: Persephone changes, every year, between the goddess she is up top and the goddess she is down below. What might this change entail? Would it be painful? If it is painful, how so? How does she manage to go through it, twice every year?
• Yulebuilding: I would love more information about Persephone's dual-nature. Is she a different person up top and down below? How literal/figurative is that division? Does Persephone have different personalities with her two families? If so, does the side she isn't with ever see that other side? Eg does Hades ever come up to Olympus and see his wife's "summer" side with her mother, or does Demeter ever go to the underworld in winter and see her daughter's "winter" side?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Demeter:
Demeter is treated so poorly in this myth by Zeus and I would love to know how her thoughts on Olympus/the other gods are changed when Zeus gives away her daughter and no one else intercedes on her daughter's behalf. After the story ends, and Demeter wins 9 months of 12 with her daughter, how does she 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 Persephone in the underworld? Is there a strategy at play, or is this roving adventure just chief on her part?
• 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: Demeter got her daughter's body back, but not her spirit. Every year, Persephone slowly comes back each time being a little bit more like him, and a little bit less like her. The longer it goes on, the more Demeter despairs over the girl she is slowly losing.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much more detail about Demeter's relation to Hades. How well does she know her brother? Did they grow up together? How come she becomes so sorrowful when she learns that it is her brother who took her daughter - is there something she knows that we do not about Hades or his proclivities? Or is it simply that he is so far away? Or is it the pain of a brother being the one who hurt her by betraying her trust? How does their relationship work? Do they ever really meet one another for work at all? While their fields are very inter-related, they have opposite specialties.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Zeus:
Like Hades, Zeus' role introduces so many questions into this tale. Why did he give away his daughter to Hades -- and why, specifically, this daughter? Why did he not even tell Persephone of the deal he struck, let alone Demeter? Did he know about the storm that Demeter would bring upon his door? If so, why go through with all the trouble with Persephone in the first place? If not, who does he blame for the troubles? Does he have political challenges due to the way he's handling the Persephone situation?
Prompts:
• Zeus' dealing with the ramifications of his decision. One thing that really stands out to me about Zeus' position is just how much it is often in danger, and how often he has to throw his strength around. Surely there is no situation more a threat to his rule than a total freeze on food sources, for mortals as well as gods. How does Zeus decide to deal with it? Are his actions justified, at least to himself?
• How does Zeus feel about how he's basically screwed over Demeter? He seems to have loved her once. How does he feel about basically selling their daughter down to the underworld? How does Demeter's relationship with him change between the before and the after? Does Zeus regret what he did -- or is this all going according to plan?
• Crueltide: I would be fascinated in seeing a version of the end of this event where Zeus winds up losing his power (whether to Demeter or someone else) over Demeter having effectively starved the gods for months and months and months over something Zeus was at least half at fault for (and Hades being the other half at fault). How would Zeus feel about being deposed, and being deposed over something he wasn't directly involved in, in that? would he go quietly? Would he wind up in Tartarus? What would be his ultimate fate, and who would he hold accountable for it?
• Yulebuilding: I really want to see how the power struggle with this group shakes out after the decision is made. Who wins? who losses? How does this affect the other gods? After all, there never was a winter before this one - what do the other gods do, in the midwest of this terrible new season, that's now permanent? Do they take it up with Zeus? If so, what does Zeus do?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Multiple Character Focused:
Demeter & Hades:
I would love to know what their relationship was like before Hades abducted Persephone. 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 doesn't seem to have a single story about (besides this one), 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 being 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 already 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?
• Crueltide: Persephone goes missing, and Hades and Demeter spend far too long blaming/snipping at one another, hampering rescue efforts.
• Yulebuilding: I want so much more detail about Demeter's relation to Hades. How well does she know her brother? Did they grow up together? How come she becomes so sorrowful when she learns that it is her brother who took her daughter - is there something she knows that we do not know about Hades or his proclivities? Or is it simply that he is so far away? Or is it the pain of a brother being the one who hurt her by betraying her trust? How does their relationship work? Do they ever really meet one another for work at all? While their fields are very inter-related, they have opposite specialties.
• Yuleporn: Demeter knows her brother has certain...urges (BDSM? Breathplay? Really violent sex?). Urges she doesn't want her daughter to experience. Demeter offers to let him take out those urges. She's still surprised when Hades accepts.
[Return to Top of Letter]
Demeter & 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? 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 a 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? 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?
• 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.
• Yulebuilding: I would love to know more about how Demeter and Persephone's relationship looks hundreds/thousands of years down the line. It's all good to hang out with your mom when you're 18, but how does Persephone feel as time goes by and she's still forced to spend half a year at her mom's side? Does she still feel blessed to spend time with her mom? Does she chafe at still having a parental unit still attached at the hip, all those years later? Does Demeter give her more free reign? How much time do they spend together later? How does their role with humanity change as farming goes from individualized small arms to fiefdoms to big ag?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Demeter and Zeus:
Wooph, this is a relationship we really don't get much information about and I've always been curious about how it started (and ended). Were these two actually married pre-Hera? Were they going around behind their sister's back? Do they continue a romantic relationship after Persephone has been born, or do they break up, their daughter being the sole reminder that they were ever once together? Is this painful, or a relief? How do they handle co-parenting their daughter? How does their relationship change after Persephone's abduction?
Prompts:
• I'd love a story about how they got together. Was it a messy, torrid love affair that took them both by surprise? A calculated plot to try to guarantee a child of some standing in the world? Or something in-between? How did this courting go - or was it a courting at all? What sort of role did Zeus take when Persephone was smaller? Does Demeter resent him for ultimately marrying Hera, for continuing to seek women -- or does she just find this part of his nature?
• Honestly would love to see how their relationship changes during wintertime. What does Demeter feel for him, when her daughter is bound cold in the ground three months of every twelve? Does Zeus ever try to offer her some comfort for the terrible burden that he's put upon their daughter? Does she ever forgive him for his matrimony shenanigans? Has the center of power shifted, between them?
• Crueltide: I just want Demeter's wraith in all her full, furious glory when she is confronting Zeus about Persephone's fate. Please just let Demeter wreck this man in her words (or worse!); I just want to know how much Demeter has fury, and what she could do with that fury in the confines of the Olympian system. Does Zeus lose power over her confrontation? Or does Zeus try to put her in her place, and if he tries - is he at all successful?
• Yulebuilding: I want to know how Zeus and Demeter's relationship affected their other relationships. Not just Persephone, who obviously has been very affected by her mother's relationship with her father, but what's the fallout with their siblings. Do people choose sides when they break up? Which side do people choose?
• Yuleporn: Honestly curious here about the mix of politics and sex in this coupling: Was Zeus king of the gods when Persephone was conceived? Did Demeter know that? Was she ever a candidate, or was it assumed it would all go to her brothers? Who has the power/who seduces who in this sort of situation? If it happens behind Hera's back, how do either of them rationalize that?
[Return to Top of Letter]
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 sadly by his side and him desperately promising her his power to her. It feels like a lot passes in that time between abduction and engagement, and I’m very interested in the growth of their relationship (or failure to grow). 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 after the reveal of this treachery?
Prompts:
• 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 handle a marriage with such a difficult beginning? 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, and she tries to accept it. Despite her struggles, she can’t quite manage to love him. They’re both unhappy, and three months is a very long amount of time. How do they handle it?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I just want to know about that Seph's role in the underworld after they got married. What role does she play in running things? Is it a role she came to willingly, or is it one her husband has forced upon her? If the latter, are there petty vengeance she has? If the former, how does she do the job? Being someone from Olympus/earth, does she struggle with chthonic duties or take them in stride?
• 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?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Hades & Zeus:
Of all the relationships in this tale, Hades and Zeus is perhaps the most in shadow: mentioned only briefly, all we know about the relationship between the two brothers is that Zeus granted his brother permission to marry/abduct his daughter. How did this meet-up happen? Do Hades and Zeus have a close relationship? Who suggested the marriage with Persephone? Did either of them predict the devastation Demeter would wreck as a result of this? What is their relationship like after Zeus dictates that Persephone will remain with her mother three months out of twelve? Does Hades feel betrayed?
Prompts:
• Honestly I'm very curious about what their relationship is like as a baseline. Zeus is the youngest brother but inherits both the crown of the heavens and has by far the most romantic success among the brothers. Poseidon does not seem content with his share in other tales; was Hades? Why did Hades wait so long to marry, and how has he taken Zeus' relationship with other women? Who chose Persephone as a potential bride for Hades, and who initiated the decision to go forth with this marriage, and furthermore frame it as an abduction?
• I would love to see Hades and Zeus talking together after Persephone is back with her mother. Does Hades feel like his brother has stiffed him? Does Zeus feel like Hades has caused him too much trouble? Or is their meeting more amicable than perhaps thought? How do they handle the conflict here, where there was never going to be one winner but clearly many losers?
• Crueltide: Honestly would love something where Zeus realizes that he's set something in motion Hades has no intention of stopping, despite Zeus needing the breaks pumped NOW as Demeter is on the warpath. Does Hades know that this is leading his brother to a desperate situation? Does he care? When he offers Persephone the seeds, is that his own revolt against Olympus, or is he just desperate to hold onto a woman he fancies?
• Yulebuilding: How does bartering for a bride work among ancient greek gods? Does Hades get to ask for his choice of the litter or does Zeus dictate who the bride will be? Was there any price for Persephone, or was their meeting to agree about Hades' marriage merely one to ensure there were no hurt feelings when Hades abducted her? I imagine godly marriages tend not to be a spur of the moment things given how they live forever, and I'm really curious how the negotiation for a marriage would work out in this world.
• Yuleporn: Honestly could see those having a "sex to prove dominance" thing going on. Who tops? Who bottoms? Is it a big deal? Is this part of Zeus' price for Persephone's hand? Or his desire to have Hades make it up to him after the pomegranate move he pulled? Or is this something Hades requires to deal with the nine-month separation Zeus inflicted on him?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Persephone and Zeus
The relationship between Persephone and Zeus is absent in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in other retellings ranges from total absence to completely horrifying (thanks, Orphics). What sort of relationship exists between father and daughter? Is that relationship at all changed by the relationship that develops between Hades and Persephone? Do they ever interact, outside of the inevitable spats between Hades and Demeter?
Prompts:
• I would love to see Zeus' relationship with Persephone in short bits through the years. Does he have any relationship with her? Does he see himself in her at all? Does he find her a copy of her mother, or is there something more to her? Why did he allow her to be sold down to the underworld? Was there something in her spirit that led him to decide to send her there, or was he simply thinking that she was so minor that politically, she was a good match for a brother he didn't want to get too powerful? Or was there another reason entirely?
• I would love to see how Zeus' relationship with Persephone changes after the abduction. Persephone calls off for her father and not only does he not come, but it is later revealed that he is working with her abductor. When she rejoins her mother, is she more distant with Zeus? Does he ever see Hades and Persephone together? Does he find himself reassured by his decision, or does he come to regret it?
• Crueltide: I would love to see something from Persephone's standpoint where she feels deeply betrayed by her father. She called for him, he did not come, and later she finds he's aligned himself with her captor all along. She might forgive him for this if her marriage works out with Hades (and I like both versions, where they fall in love and where they do not), but I doubt she forgets. Does Seph ever get her revenge on her father? What form might that revenge take? Does Zeus suspect such, or is such a total surprise to him?
• Yulebuilding: I'd love to know how Zeus feels about his daughter becoming Hades wife. Politically, is this a way to boost a troubled alliance for him? Or to cement a great one? Does he have much choice in who he chose as a bride? Why would he choose Persephone, if so - or why would Hades insist upon her, if not?
• Yuleporn: There are several Orphic stories where Zeus sleeps with Persephone, either in the form of a sea serpent (!) or impersonating her husband (!!!). While the first would be somewhat in odds in the world of the Homeric Hymn, I could easily see Zeus taking on Hades' form to have Persephone while she is up top. Does Persephone ever realize that the god visiting her is not her husband? How does Zeus convince her to sleep with him, in Hades' form? How does he feel about the fact that the person he is having sex with is in fact his daughter and/or his brother's wife?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Group Prompts:
What I want here is simply how these four manage their family lives, years down the line. Hades and Demeter effectively split custody of Persephone, which casts them as adversaries and an eternal bellyache for Zeus: for every day one shares with Persephone, the other gets less, and I imagine as the years go by they are constantly arguing for more time for themselves and less for the other. How on earth do they all manage this? How do they deal with things like holidays, birthdays? Does Persephone ever resent being the person in the middle?
Prompts:
• I'd love to see how these four 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 Zeus, Persephone, Hades, and Demeter change through the centuries? Does their relationship have any major changes, and if so, what happens?
• If Hades and Persephone cannot have or choose not to have children, how does Demeter handle this? How does Zeus? 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, and have pressure from her father with whatever side is favorable at the moment. 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 parents? Do they even notice?
• Yulebuilding: I'd love to see something about Persephone's place in the Olympian court. As the daughter of her mother or as the bride of Hades, what is her position in Zeus' court? Does her status change after her marriage? How does the marriage change how others view her? How does Zeus feel about her status? Does he ever regret marrying her off the way he did? Does he ever wish he'd arranged a different match?
• Yuleporn: I'd honestly be curious how a threesome/moresome would work with this set of characters. Clearly Hades, Demeter, Persephone, and Zeus all have their issues, but in the world of Greek mythology, incest isn't really one. Who initiates the threesome/moresome? Is there resistance to the idea, or do the characters quickly fall in line? Does it lead anyone in the group to being happy, or do they all feel frustrated due to their own issues at the end of it?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Lore Olympus Overview:
What is it: A webcomic retelling of the story of Persephone. Not really an abduction in this version, but rather an inventive and quite different tale where the gods live on a modern paradise on mount Olympus, in contrast to the still-ancient-Greece mortal world (where the gods also interact with their followers).
Where can I find it: Webtoons, here. The whole series as far as my requests go is free.
I really like Lore Olympus' bright colors but dark subject matter. While Persephone's plot has been front and center for most of the plot, I'd really love to see some focus on Hades, especially some of the darker things in his background. How did he feel about Zeus marrying Hera, given his previous dalliances with her (or did it not start until after they were married)? What about his scars from his father -- and Minthe throwing it in his face? How does he feel about his reputation as a bit of a miser? How well does he get along with his brothers? What was his role during the war?
Hades
Hades is obviously a popular character in Lore Olympus, being half of the principal couple, but because this is more Persephone's story, the character of Hades really doesn't get as much development and I'm really curious about his story. He absolutely seems to have a lot of trauma from his relationship with his parents but also seems close to other titans (Nyx, Hecate). He also seems to have had some relationship trauma: his relationships with Hera and Minthe show, at the very least, bonds formed at rather high-stress parts of his life. I also feel like Hades gets curiously little push back on Persephone's age, despite other characters confirming such to be a big deal in this world - and Hades certainly freaks out for quite a while about it himself. Why is there such a stigma for Hades? How does he handle his attraction to her with the fact that he thinks it's wrong? I don't think his headspace is necessarily a good space and honestly, I'd just love to find out a bit more about what makes him tick.
Prompts:
• Hades is one of the three leaders of the world and it seems clear from the bits we get of Poseidon and Zeus' life, he's the last to settle down and really quite lonely; compare the people who surround Zeus and Hera and Poseidon and Amphitrite versus Hades, whose house is only shared by his many, many dogs. How does Hades enjoy this silence? How come he has so many dogs? Why does he live alone so long? What does he prioritize in life, at least pre-Persephone?
• I'd really like to see Hades getting seduced. It's interesting to me that Hades seems to exclusively date women who are somewhere between "plucky" and "ball-buster" in personality: How did he wind up with Minthe? With Hera? With Persephone? With someone else? Did he wind up making the first move, or did the woman? When seduced, how does he handle not being in a powerful position, despite being a king? Is he turned on by it, or does he become anxious? Does he try to take control?
• Crueltide: Honestly I just want more about Hades no good, very bad headspace. He seems to be a rather tortured soul and I want to see more of his mental breaks with Nyx, more of his torture as regards his father, more of his struggles with his mental health. How on earth does he manage to hold it together so well? What happens when he doesn't? Has Hades even been pushed so hard that he winds up in threat of being pushed out himself?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I would love to know more about the six's rebellion! How did the war start? How did it go? What was Hades' role in it? Did his resemblance his father cause problems among his own allies? How did they decide the realm division?
• Yuleporn: Honestly would love to see some subby! Hades. This Hades, more than most, seems a very strong runner for "heaviest crown" and I would love to see that weight get relieved a little bit and let Hades take control. There's certainly no end of bossy women (or men!) to help him relieve his stress, and Hades is kind of my male little black dress of this fandom: I love to see him with Persephone, Minthe, Hekate, and pretty much anyone else!
[Return to Top of Letter]
Rome Overview:
What is it: Rome is Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones was Game of Thrones; brutal, enchanting, and epic, in turn, Rome is the story of the rise and fall of Julius Caesar and the beginnings of the Roman Republic, leading into the reign of Octavian/defeat of Mark Anthony. It's chock full of characters with at best grey morality, gorgeous settings and outfit designs (and this show is Expensive in a Capital E sort of way), and more than enough power to squabble over.
Where can I find it: HBOmax, pretty much.
Rome is one of those shows that is such a spectacle and it's basically a gigantic soup of everything I love: sexy ladies, sexy dudes, sexy politics, and the sexy brutality of ancient roman life. Rome is ugly in a lot of ways, and beautiful in others, but what I love the best are the characters, all of whom are both ugly and beautiful in their own ways. I particularly love the political players in this game: Marc Anthony, the man in the wings who never lies about his ambitions but lies aplenty to achieve them; Atia, a woman after Anthony's own bed but who winds up playing with political fire; Cleopatra, who gets two roman consuls into her bed; and Servilia, cast off for political gain and out to kill those who spurned her. All of these characters have a lot of high-risk politicking that could get them killed, and I've love to see more of that for any of them: please show me some scheming, some plotting, and/or some politicking, please!
[Return to Top of Letter]
Mark Anthony
Mark Anthony is honestly my favorite character to watch. I don't know what he's going to do, but I know he's probably going to be a dick, and I know I'm probably going to enjoy the chaos that spews forth in his wake. Mark really has a fascinating journey as he goes from rising from Ceasar's death into the power-holder in Rome to losing it, abruptly, to Octavian, and losing further and further ground in Rome even as he goes afield. I'm very curious about how his relationships tie into his ambitions: Mark Anthony seems to be unique in that his romances are VERY much fostered in his desire for control and power. How does that inform his sexuality? Does that differ in his relationships with women versus men? (Side note: while I ran out of room for characters, I'm def down for Mark Anthony with a male character in the series and find roman homosexuality as part of politics as interesting as I find the het version so please feel free to explore him with Ceasar/Octavian/Lucius Vorenus/etc.) I'd also love to see something that ties into his identity as a roman, particularly late in Season 2: How does Mark Anthony feel about his roman identity, especially when he is stuck in Egypt, with Octavian undisputed in his power in Rome?
Prompts:
• Mark Anthony's ascent: when did he learn how to ply power with seduction? How does he handle his (many!) romances? What is more important to him: power, money, or love? Would he rather be well-liked or powerful as hell? Would that choice be difficult for him? How did he wind up seducing Atia/Cleo/etc? It's always fascinating to me that his romances (save Octavia) wind up primarily off-screen?
• Mark Anthony's focus on his Roman identity while in Egypt. At first, he seems to have gotten himself fully immersed in Egyptian culture, but as that section of the storyline develops, it becomes clear that Mark Anthony is bothered by his roman ideals, particularly the choice of wanting to "die" as a Roman citizen. (A choice Cleopatra then subverts into being a lesson about being Egyptian to their children.) How does Mark Anthony really feel about Egypt? Is it only ever a momentary diversion in hopes of capturing Rome, or does he really care for it? Does he really care for Cleo? What hopes does he have for the afterlife, given that he's shown worshipping both Egyptian and Roman deities?
• Crueltide: Honestly, I just want more of Mark Anthony's slow slide into realizing that he's totally lost at the end of Season 2. His torment about how his army is just basically a glorified Harem is such a huge turn for the character, and I honestly felt sorry for him. His suicide is interesting, and I'd really love to see how he came to that decision, beyond pride that he didn't want Octavian to take him out and his grief over Cleopatra.
• Yulebuilding: Honestly would love to see more of the missing scenes between Mark Anthony leaving Rome and enchanting Cleo in Egypt. How did they get together? Who was the instigator? Did he feel any guilt about leaving behind Atia or Octavia? How does his role grow as he becomes Cleo's clear favorite?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Cleopatra VII of Egypt
Cleopatra is such a force of nature and dizzying in how fast we see her climb. She looks vapid on the surface but is in fact both vicious and smart, and she doesn't' care how many bodies fall in her wake as long as she gets what she wants. In short, Cleo is one of my favorite characters on the show and I cheer every time I see her. I would love to see further adventures with her, especially in her romantic adventures, as it's interesting to me that she, like Mark Anthony, often seduces people based more on power than on personal attraction. She also comes across as a bit of a libertine in general (sex + drugs being heavily present in her court) and I really would love to know more about her experiments in risk-taking, and where that behavior began, and how it changed how Cleopatra developed through time.
Prompts:
• Cleo's relationship with her children. I know we get to see brief moments of their relationships with Ceasar and Anthony, but we rarely get to stay very long with them. Cleo seems to have taken a very firm hand in guiding Caesarian in his ideals, if not babysitting him every day, and clearly seems to love her twins with Mark Anthony - how does she feel about her children? How often does she really see them, given that they have so many servants? Why is it so important to press these ideals into her children, even using Mark Anthony's death as a "teachable moment"?
• Cleo's relationship with power/lust. Like Mark Anthony, I think Cleo is a bit of a libertine but also deeply into power and the pursuit of it, both outside of and inside the bedroom. How does Cleo learn to associate pleasure with power? Does she prefer being the dominant person in the bedroom, or is she willing to seek power through submission? There's a wide variety of sexual acts show in Cleopatra's court - how many of them have Cleopatra done, and does she do so in public for power -- or are such things meant to be concealed?
• Crueltide: Honestly, I'd love to see what might have happened had Cleo taken Octavian's offer to go to Rome? What would find her there? Would she wind up dead quickly there, alone without friends? Would she live like Atia and Octavia, effectively deposed royals? What would happen to her children, besides Cesarian(who presumably would still be sent with Vorenus)?
• Yulebuilding: I want ALL the information on Cleo's early life in the Rome-centric universe. How did she become so very obsessed with power? What was her life like in her father's court? What was it like during her brother's? He clearly seems terrified of her. If you want to keep to history or deviate from it - either way, it's sure to be a treat!
[Return to Top of Letter]
Atia of the Julii
Atia is such a great, complex character and I really love how we see how she grows through the series. The contrast between her more petty wars with Servilia and encouraging her children to play along, versus her realization on how raising her children, has directly led to Octavian being a total monster? Oh god, it's so good. That Atia never quite repents for her behavior, and instead is just as strong at the end, despite being humiliated by her son and his wife. Honestly, I just want more of Atia's amoral adventures, whether it's her continual spite with Servilia, or her ongoing conflicts during Octavian's reign, or the like. How did Atia take her bold "take or be taken from" methodology? Does she ever have regrets about so many of her plans not working out? How does she keep her head held high when so many of her plans crumble underneath her?
Prompts:
• Atia's politicking during parties. Honestly, I feel like Atia is such an under-rated political player, especially later in the series when the conflict between her son and her love becomes the biggest power struggle in Rome. What does it sound like to have the full power of the Julii on display? What would it be like to be a minor player in Rome at Atia's mercy? How do people survive that household?
• Atia's world post-Octavian's coronation. Octavia and her seem to at least still be alive, if still distant with Octavian after the end of the series. What does Atia do? She clearly expresses that she won't put herself second with Octavian's wife -- does that cause distress later? How does she handle being simultaneously a member of one of the most famous families, the mother of the emperor, and yet so unpopular within her own house?
• Crueltide: Honestly I want something about how Atia feels haunted by Servilia's curse. It really seems to have worked quite effectively when you think about how Atia is so humiliated - by her own child! - after Servilia devotes herself to the underworld. How does she feel about Servilia, years down the line? Does Atia blame her for her own misfortunes, or is there something darker at play?
• Yulebuilding: Honestly I'd love to see more on Atia's role in Roman society. Atia is relatively rare in that she is an unmarried noblewoman without family (past a certain point) to act as her chaperone. How is she seen in Roman society? What limits are there on her behavior? Does she resent them, or embrace them? How did she learn to run a house? How does she keep the Julii going?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Servilia of the Junii
Servilia is such a fascinating character in her own right, who seems to excel well in the grey-morality world of Rome. Brutus' mother, Ceasar's lover -- Servillia seems to be a lighter choice than Atia, who is rather devious, with a true love with Ceasar, and a supportive role as Brutus' mother. But by the time the relationship between Ceasar and Servilia ends, Servilia is revealed as no better than her rival, and at times, worse: Servilia prays to the gods of the underworld to aid her attempts to kill and humiliate Atia's family, seduces her daughter just to have one over on Atia, and manipulates her son into events he clearly isn't comfortable with, all in order to have one over on the julii. Servilia is so blinded by this hatred that she even takes her own life to curse Atia's -- a curse that mostly seems to wind up coming true. How does she fall to such depths? Do the people closest to her notice her fall down into this pit of despair? What would her life have been like, had she only lived to crawl out of it?
Prompts:
• I would love to see more of Servilia's use of dark magic. Such was really uncommon at the time and it's interesting that Servilia falls to such despite being such a powerful woman, with presumably more of the state at her beck and call. Why did she go for dark magic? Was this the first time she prayed for curses instead of blessings? How does she come up with the idea to take her own life to curse Atia's, and what gives her the courage to go through with it? If she makes it to an afterlife, is it what she expected? Or does becoming nothingness at least give her some peace?
• Servilia's relationship with Octavia is pretty interesting, and I'm curious about if Servilia had relationships with women outside of this one relationship. Has Servilia been a friend of Sappho for much of her life? Was her relationship with Ceasar more about power than love, after all? If so, who introduced her to such? Does Atia know?
• Crueltide: I would love to see more information about Servilia's decision in Season 2 to take her own life. What convinced her that this was the way she had to go? Why did she spend her time cursing Atia, rather than Octavian/Mark Anthony/etc.? What was she thinking when she was chanting outside of Atia's house? If she becomes any sort of ghost/shade with an awareness of the world above in her afterlife, is she happy for how things turned out for Atia? Or does she still wish it could be worse?
• Yulebuilding: I would love to see more about Servilia's role as a woman of a certain age, a mistress openly in the eyes of everyone but perhaps her son. Is her role as mistress to Ceasar something notable to people beyond Atia? Are there those that look down on her for it? How did she come to become Ceasar's companion, and why is she so embittered by the way he leaves her?
[Return to Top of Letter]
Multiple Character Prompts
Honestly, I love all these characters and I'm just writing one prompt for any combination of them because what I want is: POLITICS and POWER STRUGGLES. Listen, I just want to see these beautiful people screwing one another over (literally or figuratively). I love every couple (or potential couple) in Rome so feel free to involve anyone as long as it has one of the nominated characters, and feel free to make it gen, f/f, m/m, multi, m/f, etc - I am down for them all. How is the game of politics played in Rome? Where do the players take their opportunities? What roads might the show have gone down if a different alliance (sexual or not) had been chosen?
Prompts:
• Politics in a day-to-day life scenario. Rome has a really appealing sort of lived-in atmosphere where you can see how people go from place to place in their daily lives. If one were looking to start up an alliance with someone else, where would they go? How would they bring up a topic with them? Would they retire out of a public place to make deals, or is a public place the best place to set up (covert?) dealings?
• I'm always fascinated by the relationship between sex and power in Rome and honestly just want to see more about the intersection of the two. Which is the true allure in Rome? Is this true for everyone, or just the upper classes? At what point does sexuality become just another tool in the toolbox for gaining power? How do characters live with the risks that come from romance in the ancient era?
• Crueltide: Honestly, the canon is already pretty cruel to these characters, but I would still love to see how some of their lowest moments affect them all. If events had changed a little bit, how would characters fortunes had changed? If Brutus' forces had won the day, how would it have changed circumstances for the characters selected? if Mark Anthony won against Octavian? But for want of a nail, who rises, who falls?
• Yulebuilding: I just want so much more on the daily lives of these characters. How does romance play out in the ancient roman world? What were the rules? Did they differ between the characters selected? How much could one get away with? How did one navigate things we might take for granted today, like birth control?
• Yuleporn: Honestly I'd be interested in a coupling from ANY of these characters. Mark Anthony with any of the women (or multiples of the women!) - always super intriguing and I'd love to see how he could convince Atia to share a bed with Cleo or Servilia. Servilia and Cleo uniting to take down the Julii? GORGEOUS. Hate sex with Atia and Servilia? Perfection. Mark and Servilia sneaking around on Ceasar/rubbing it in Ceasar/Brutus' face? Great. I'm down for romance in any direction here, and really interested in seeing how their quest for power conflicts with their desires for love.
[Return to Top of Letter]