i've noticed that most of the hades/persephone stories i've read can fall into one or more of the following categories: (WARNING, may be offensive, it's spoofy)

a. the Beauty and the Beast story. Hades is a dark, gloomy, depressing, lonely god who kidnaps an innocent little girl barely out of puberty. she manages to stay awfully pale (lily or alabaster colored to be exact) for someone who runs around in the sun so much. of course, she ends up falling in love with him because what could be more romantic than being snatched away from your mother when you're barely weaned!

b. the Lolita wanna be. Hades is way old. the author proudly reveals that he looks around mid 30's, even though he's an immortal god. Persephone is jailbait. anywhere from 13-17, generally not older than 17 for some reason. the writer emphasizes that Persephone is still a little girl in a woman's body but she matures at an unrealistic rate, conveniently before the author throws in a sex scene.

c. the Disney fairy tale. Persephone comes willingly. she generally has sex with Hades, who is way too talented in bed for someone who was until recently a 40,000 year old virgin.

d. the Mary Sue fic. in these stories, Persephone is a bitch who is too shallow to understand or accept Hades' love for her but fortunately, a strong female character comes into Hades' life. these are written by the authors who cannot emphasize in any way with Persephone's character and are so moved by their misogynist contempt for the goddess that they can't summon any artistic license to fix up her personality. Hades is the one who comes off as the victim while Persephone is just so blind and stupid to not give into Stockholm Syndrome.

e. the uber Mary Sue fic. Persephone somehow ends up in a modern public high school with no recollection of her past or true identity. you can always tell that the author happens to be a public high school student by the amatuerish writing style and the cliche plot.

f. the angst wagons. these stories are generally one shots, riddled with despair and hopelessness. depressing as tartarus but somehow poetic. i usually hate them because they make me want to die. some of these are a little more romantic, Persephone falls for Hades after he has apparently raped her. way to Take Back The Night!

g. the alternative reality fic. these stories tend to be written by authors who still can't get over incest in the pantheon and/or are simply too sexually active to even write about such a virginal heroine. they don't like original retellings and have a lot of spare time so they use up a lot of brain cells spending too much time on a story that no one really reads or likes.

please note, this does not mean that i dislike stories that fall into any of these categories. a lot of them are very well written, you'll even find some in my favorites list.

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