Yessss get ALL the Amber Grey icons. Honestly, her face is just gorgeous, honestly, and I love how expressive she is. (Sorry it took me so long to get back to writing a reply to this! Thinking about your thoughts I have been grinning like a mad idiot, if its any consolation. :D )
The messiness is really the key draw for me. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have gotten into Hadestown to such a large extent if I'd heard the younger couple's arc first. Fortunately, I got here crash-landing through Spotify and hit Way Down, Hadestown and then Chant. I do agree that the failings in their relationship are quite human; they always have failings, but its how they handle them that matters, and during canon they're...clearly not handling them very well. I don't see them ever having it honestly easy; its easier to backslide than to actually acquire skills permanently...but I think if they keep trying and putting in the effort, they'll get there. Eventually. I don't think the Orpheus is like, a magic switch in their relationship, but I think its a sign that they both want to be better, and will put in the effort. But I don't think to put in the effort = automatically always peaches and cream.
And having kids, I think, would be a strain. Especially with one of them having to go so often, and one of them having to be alone; I think Hades would have an even harder time if he lost his entire family every spring, in addition to his wife.
If they had kids pre-canon I do agree with Hades. His relationship with his father is something I find eternally fascinating and would read entire books on, tbh? He's got a terrible father example and then he winds up in charge of taking care of his father for basically the rest of his immortal life, and I'd love to know what sort of relationship they wind up having, and how that informs his relationship with his kids. (Or what like, he thinks of Persephone in light of what happened to Chronos and Rhea? Like wow, neither of these damn two have a happy love story pretty much anywhere in their history.) I think pre-canon Hades would really struggle to show his emotions, thanks to a lovely cocktail of bad family history, discomfort with emotion/anxiety, and toxic masculinity. I didn't think of him really think of Orpheus in a sort of angsty-guilty-but-ultimately-positive way and that relating to his kid, but thinking of that, I think you're right. I feel like his emotions with Orpheus will always be more complicated than Persephone's, but I do think he'd ultimately have those kind of positive feelings. (And their poor kid, I think will have no choice but to be passionate. Not gonna be an easy-going baby, no chance of that in that DNA. Lord help Hades if that kid wants to become a musician, because he's gonna go into a full-body shudder.)
I think custody would be a big issue for them, honestly. AT best, I think they'd do a sort of split custody where she has them for some of the summertime, and he has him the rest of the year. I do think Seph, especially pre-canon is the type of parent who...yeah, is not the most responsible, and probably would need Hermes and/or Demeter to help her with parental responsibilities...which would piss Hades off, I think, honestly. And the tension there would be...blizzard levels. Hope that kid/those kids like playing in the snow. I think that honestly would piss him off more than anything else, that she would abandon their kids.
LISTEN ALSO PLEASE WRITE THAT MAKARIA FIC. I would love to see how they're doing further along! And find out what the kid dresses like, because the bit about her having straw clothes or cloth-of-gold still kills me I really wonder how she'd deal with their seasonal arrangement, and dealing with Hadestown since it's very much this (fascinating!) metropolis underground with all these modern bits-and-pieces of bric-a-brac...shoved into the afterlife and unlike her parents, she didn't see that gradual build up so I imagine her perceptions of the world up top/world under the ground would be really different than her parents.
Growing up pre-canon...oh boy. I can see it being kind of fraught and honestly I can only see that kid either being 100% anxiety, 100% of the time with control/abandonment issues to rival, well, dad's, or nihilistic "nothing matters" proto-millennial child whose only needed accessories are a middle finger firmly raised and ennui. Either way, Hermes is probably the stable uncle figure?
I HATE the trump thing. I don't think Hades is meant to be an autocrat in general, and there's some good meta on Tumblr that points out that he could just as easily be a Lenin analog, a more corrupted form of Orpheus' idealized socialism. I wish we'd get more on the character dynamics, as well. At least the Trump thing is better than the one review that called Amber a "hoochie momma" - and had to print a retraction about it.
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The messiness is really the key draw for me. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have gotten into Hadestown to such a large extent if I'd heard the younger couple's arc first. Fortunately, I got here crash-landing through Spotify and hit Way Down, Hadestown and then Chant. I do agree that the failings in their relationship are quite human; they always have failings, but its how they handle them that matters, and during canon they're...clearly not handling them very well. I don't see them ever having it honestly easy; its easier to backslide than to actually acquire skills permanently...but I think if they keep trying and putting in the effort, they'll get there. Eventually. I don't think the Orpheus is like, a magic switch in their relationship, but I think its a sign that they both want to be better, and will put in the effort. But I don't think to put in the effort = automatically always peaches and cream.
And having kids, I think, would be a strain. Especially with one of them having to go so often, and one of them having to be alone; I think Hades would have an even harder time if he lost his entire family every spring, in addition to his wife.
If they had kids pre-canon I do agree with Hades. His relationship with his father is something I find eternally fascinating and would read entire books on, tbh? He's got a terrible father example and then he winds up in charge of taking care of his father for basically the rest of his immortal life, and I'd love to know what sort of relationship they wind up having, and how that informs his relationship with his kids. (Or what like, he thinks of Persephone in light of what happened to Chronos and Rhea? Like wow, neither of these damn two have a happy love story pretty much anywhere in their history.) I think pre-canon Hades would really struggle to show his emotions, thanks to a lovely cocktail of bad family history, discomfort with emotion/anxiety, and toxic masculinity. I didn't think of him really think of Orpheus in a sort of angsty-guilty-but-ultimately-positive way and that relating to his kid, but thinking of that, I think you're right. I feel like his emotions with Orpheus will always be more complicated than Persephone's, but I do think he'd ultimately have those kind of positive feelings. (And their poor kid, I think will have no choice but to be passionate. Not gonna be an easy-going baby, no chance of that in that DNA. Lord help Hades if that kid wants to become a musician, because he's gonna go into a full-body shudder.)
I think custody would be a big issue for them, honestly. AT best, I think they'd do a sort of split custody where she has them for some of the summertime, and he has him the rest of the year. I do think Seph, especially pre-canon is the type of parent who...yeah, is not the most responsible, and probably would need Hermes and/or Demeter to help her with parental responsibilities...which would piss Hades off, I think, honestly. And the tension there would be...blizzard levels. Hope that kid/those kids like playing in the snow. I think that honestly would piss him off more than anything else, that she would abandon their kids.
LISTEN ALSO PLEASE WRITE THAT MAKARIA FIC. I would love to see how they're doing further along!
And find out what the kid dresses like, because the bit about her having straw clothes or cloth-of-gold still kills meI really wonder how she'd deal with their seasonal arrangement, and dealing with Hadestown since it's very much this (fascinating!) metropolis underground with all these modern bits-and-pieces of bric-a-brac...shoved into the afterlife and unlike her parents, she didn't see that gradual build up so I imagine her perceptions of the world up top/world under the ground would be really different than her parents.Growing up pre-canon...oh boy. I can see it being kind of fraught and honestly I can only see that kid either being 100% anxiety, 100% of the time with control/abandonment issues to rival, well, dad's, or nihilistic "nothing matters" proto-millennial child whose only needed accessories are a middle finger firmly raised and ennui. Either way, Hermes is probably the stable uncle figure?
I HATE the trump thing. I don't think Hades is meant to be an autocrat in general, and there's some good meta on Tumblr that points out that he could just as easily be a Lenin analog, a more corrupted form of Orpheus' idealized socialism. I wish we'd get more on the character dynamics, as well. At least the Trump thing is better than the one review that called Amber a "hoochie momma" - and had to print a retraction about it.