#oumagami

Lazy doodle, I tried a new coloring technique.

Yay!! I'm glad you think about that one, because I liked playing with that concept a lot.

Kokichi being an absolute menace in the Underworld, as much as he can, is very fun. He's cut off from nature and growing things, when he's down there, so his actual godly power isn't kicking in as hard as it otherwise would. The smell of grass might emanate from him, but he can't get much (or maybe anything) to grow through the cement and brick and metal that's everywhere, in Hadestown. So his fits of temper are largely carried out via manual mischief (and are mirrored by changes in weather and stuff, aboveground).

I think one thing that can be true of Persephone!Kokichi is that he's averse to fire. Like, being a nature god, specifically associated with vegetation, fire is just something he viscerally hates. Which is an unfortunate feeling to have, when one lives half the year in Hadestown, surrounded by forges and foundries.

In the earliest years of Byakuya industrializing the Underworld, Kokichi would deliberately throw water on any fire in his sight, so now Byakuya has gotten rid of all the water in Hadestown. (I'd say there's no water past the River Styx, but I think the musical implies that the Wall is the River Styx. Which, I mean, still: No water past the River Styx.) And that contributed to Kokichi taking up drinking. Alcohol is very flammable (insert the specific science about which alcohol is very flammable), so of course Byakuya left it available. And of course Kokichi kinda saw that and went, "Okay, fine, let's see how you like me after I'm 10x drunker than a mortal could survive being and surrounded by empty glass bottles."

(As is true of Canon Persephone in Canon Hadestown, alcohol doesn't actually make Kokichi drunk in the human way. Like, he's not going to pass out. It just gives him the power to be meaner to his mean husband, lol. And he throws the bottles sometimes.)

your honor. they served

"Let's not talk about hard times. Pour the wine; it's summertime!"

Like Orpheus makes more sense thematically but Persephone gives such good Yandere opportunities with whoever ends up being cast as hades

I will say, first, that thinking along these lines on my own is how I went on the mental journey in this other post here, which I promptly confined to its own AU and then didn't elaborate on at all, lol.

BUT, taking the train of thought to an actual conclusion this time:

(I'm color-coding this blue for possible choices and orange for my actual choice.)

I have to start with Hades and Persephone, because I feel like most ships can do Orpheus and Eurydice, but not a lot of ships can REALLY do Hades and Persephone.

If I were looking at each of them individually and not with the specific intention of getting a powerful or coherent ship out of it, the character who I think best works for "capitalist who doesn't know how to show love in a way that their partner will appreciate and also can't bring themself to let go of power" would be Byakuya, and the character who I think best works for "free spirit who is more interested in human connections, who can be the life of the party while also being deeply demoralized and resigned to their fate" could be Sayaka, Hiro, Kokichi, Ibuki, or Akane. LAST MINUTE EDIT: Maki and Angie as Hades and Persephone would be really cute.

Honestly, I could REALLY see casting Byakuya as Hades, Kokichi as Persephone, and Nagito as Hermes. Like, imagining the scenes of Hermes exchanging knowing remarks with Persephone about her toxic relationship kind of works with this alignment, for me. Like, it's not what I'm going with, but just for a second let's imagine Kokichi bursting off a train like, "Well it's like he said: I'm an outdoor girl!" And Nagito sighing, "And you're late again." Imagine Kokichi complaining to Byakuya, "Why is it so hot down here?!"

The thing is, Hades and Persephone being gods in the context of everything else makes it feel unsatisfying if the ship placed in the role isn't also kind of a power team.

Obviously, Byakuya as Hades and Makoto as Persephone is fun for ship reasons and, like you said, yandere reasons. The issue is, as I see you've also guessed, that I have trouble putting Makoto into Persephone's role enough to have him essentially get Ultimate Hoped by someone else. And also him being a literal god is just kinda tough, character-wise? Though I do love to imagine Makoto's face, if Byakuya were to sing, "If you don't even want my love, I'll give it to someone who does."

I consider Yasuke and Junko as Hades and Persephone. Now, that could be FUN, whichever way you slice it. Maybe Makoto as Orpheus and Sayaka as Eurydice. I like Junko singing "Hey Little Songbird" to tempt Sayaka away from Makoto, and I like Junko saying to Makoto, "Young man, got to hand it to ya. Guess you don't scare easy, do ya?" and that whole spiel, while doing her typical personality hijinks. Which I suppose is me putting Yasuke in the Persephone role, which is a tough sell. The other way around makes more vibe-sense, but it also makes Yasuke the one singing "Hey Little Songbird" to Sayaka, and I simply feel nothing about that. ...Okay, not nothing. It's still kinda cool. It could also be cool to swap Makoto and Sayaka so Makoto is Eurydice and Sayaka is Orpheus, partially because I can see Sayaka losing herself in her dreams and her music so much that Makoto is like, "Hey, do you notice that we're starving to death?", and partially because I'd love for Junko or Yasuke to sing "Hey Little Songbird" to Makoto.

(Bringing this up now, because I don't think it's going to go anywhere, but Akane is, like, genuinely kinda perfect for the part of Eurydice. She's a hungry young girl. She's no stranger to the wind. If someone actually got her to let her guard down and trust that they would make things better for her, and then things weren't? I'm just saying, you see the vision.)

There's almost something to the idea of Hajizuru being Persephone, and when he's underground he's Izuru and when he's aboveground he's Hajime, and his Hades fell in love with Hajime, but the simple act of bringing him Underground turns him into Izuru. An issue there is that Hajime isn't much of a Persephone-level party guy, but that can be explained away as just, after this long in this no-win situation, he's unadulterated crash-out Hajime, and crash-out Hajime gets drunk and parties. Idk, it doesn't really work on a character level, but playing with the idea of the abduction/marriage of Persephone as the Kamukura Project just really feels like there's something there. Hades, in this case, could be Junko, Yasuke, or Nagito. Maybe Fuyuhiko.

I think I'm unwilling to let go of some of these branches, even though they're not my final answer.

What we end up with is:

Immortals AU. The one I already kind of had. This one is divorced from its Hadestown origins; it's just an AU where the Ultimates are gods and Byakuya and Kyoko fall in love with mortal Makoto and basically kidnap him.

Antags Hadestown AU. This one is partially Hadestown. Byakuya and Kokichi are our dysfunctional Hades and Persephone, Nagito is Hermes. There isn't really a straight-up Orpheus and Eurydice. Instead, Makoto is a mortal who Kokichi flirts with (and maybe more) when he's topside. Makoto is mostly just a regular guy trying to work and provide for his little sister. Byakuya tries to tempt Makoto into working in Hadestown (to spite Kokichi), but Makoto says no, so instead he tempts Komaru into it. Nagito, who is already close to Makoto, grudgingly helps Makoto sneak into Hadestown to save his sister. Maybe Makoto convinces Byakuya to free Komaru at the cost of keeping Makoto underground. (Beauty and the Beast style.) Byakuya falls in love with Makoto (if he wasn't already). Now it's a situation where both Kokichi and Byakuya are in love with Makoto and still fighting over all the stuff they were already fighting about, and while Makoto is trapped in the middle of their tumultuous marriage and lowkey revolutionizing the Underground, Nagito is just hanging out with him and serving as a means for him to sneak food and money to Komaru, aboveground.

Normal Hadestown AU. Okay, so the most accurate direct Danganronpa-Hadestown translation I can think of is as follows: Ibuki is Persephone. Ultimate Imposter is Hades. In Hadestown, he's in the role of Byakuya; he loses that guise when he gives in during Epic III. Nagito is still Hermes. Either Junko is all three Fates, or Junko, Mukuro, and Mikan are the Fates. Makoto is Orpheus. Eurydice is tough, because the narrative kind of demands that Eurydice be humbled, and the main person I want that for is Byakuya, lol. I'm going to say Eurydice is Sayaka again.

And it occurs to me that Persephone's verse in Chant Reprise no longer exists, but I'm somewhat imagining the NYTW version of Hadestown, where Persephone gets to interact with Eurydice in her "When I was a young girl, like you..." verse in Chant II. Mainly because I like the idea of Ibuki pulling Sayaka aside to talk about how much Hadestown sucks.