Hope Springs Eternal (fanfic)

A Disney's Hercules fan-sequel in which Hades' kingdom is in danger, an immortal witch wants control, the Fates predict a miracle & Hades falls flaming-head-over-smoking-heels in love. The usual stuff of myth.

A brilliant take on the classic myth of Hades and Persephone by the very talented Quantum Witch. Persephone is chafing under her mother's control, evil no longer excites Hades, and Cupid's got it in his head to set these two up. Throw in some bumbling minions, a witch queen determined to get revenge on Hades, and Hades' dead first wife and you've got one hell of a tale.

Also illustrated by Quantum Witch, which you can read here.

Tropes used in Hope Springs Eternal (fanfic) include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Apollo for Persephone
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: One of the things that draws Persephone to Hades is how "dangerous" he is.
• Anachronism Stew
• Babies Ever After: The end of the story has a reveal that Persephone is pregnant.
• Batman Gambit: Hecate's plan after Hades falls for Persephone is to convince the other gods that he kidnapped and raped her, so they'll be so angry they'll kill Hades, thus allowing her to take up his position.
  • Hades later pulls one of his own in the climax... realizing his influence over fire, he allows Hecate's demon-hounds to rip him apart and eat him, so he can regenerate first into fire and then to his normal form, thus killing them.
• Big Damn Heroes: Twice.
  • Hades does this for Persephone when she's about to drink a potion that will make her mortal and free her from her mother's and the other gods' influences.
  • Rhea, mother of the six main gods, does this a chapter later, convincing Zeus and the others to let Hades and Persephone be happy and to reveal they're related more than they thought.
• Body Language: Rhodope, Persephone's water-nymph best friend, can only communicate with squeaks and squeals, but Persephone can understand her by reading her body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.
• Brain Bleach: Hermes needs some after walking in on Hades and Persephone being intimate.
• The Chessmaster: Hades has still got it, but so does Hecate.
• Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: Subverted in that when Hades finally steeples his fingers, he's doing this before his revelation that he and Persephone are legally married, not because he's lying.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: Aphrodite's thought on Hades and Persephone's relationship.

"Okay, so it's kind of a May/December-Romance-thing," she announced, (thinking silently it really looked more like a Lolita Complex, though that was centuries ahead of their time)...

• Cruel Mercy: Hades and Persephone decide not to kill Hecate, but instead take away her immortality, demon-servants and most of her magic. They then send her away, telling her she can redeem herself to get it back if she wants to.
• Dark Is Not Evil
• Even Evil Has Standards:He's not evil anymore, but Hades says that even when he was, he would never have forced himself on anyone. (It's why he never tried anything with Megara, and part of why he's horrified to hear that the gods think he raped Persephone.)
• Evil Is Sexy: Hecate
• Explicit Content: Though the sex-scenes aren't written horribly explicitly, they're actually quite tasteful.
• Fertile Feet: Persephone, notably when in the Elysian Fields.
• Genre Savvy
• Green Thumb: Persephone most notably, but of course so is Demeter.
• Happily Married: Hades and Persephone, but for longer than they thought...
• Hell Hound: Hecate's demon-dogs, Mayhem and Havoc.
• Anti-Heroic BSOD: Hades goes through a few, most comically when he realizes Persephone is his neice.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs/Oh My Gods
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Hecate makes everyone think Hades did this towards Persephone, as part of her Batman Gambit.
• Incest Is Relative: It's Greek mythology.
• Love At First Sight
• May-December Romance: Hades is physically and mentally 50, Persephone is just shy of 16. (But it's okay, because the gods made the age of consent 14.)
• Musical Fic
• My Beloved Smother: Demeter to Persephone.
• Oh Crap: Several--notably when Hades finds out Zeus knows he arranged Hercules's kidnapping, and Hecate upon being stripped of her magic and immortality.
• Pet the Dog: Hades tends to do this in the story.
• Precision F-Strike/Cluster F-Bomb: Hades.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: ' "I...am...a GODDESS!"
• Second Love: Persephone was the second girl Hades fell in love with. The first was a tree-nymph named Leuke, who was killed when her tree was knocked down during a storm, then chopped into pieces.
• Shout-Out
• Shown Their Work: The author spent years doing research on Greek mythos (and more!) to prepare for this story. She does admit to changing a few details for creativity's sake, though.
• Squick: The gods' reaction (but mostly Hera's) upon discovering they're all related.
• Time Skip: The final chapter.
• Vain Sorceress: Hecate
• Values Dissonance: In-universe example; both the fact that Hades has fallen for his neice and their significant age-gap are brushed off by Persephone and Leuke, who say that they're gods, not mortals, therefore the same rules don't apply.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Pain and Panic, natch