Okay, so, I’m going to start by owning up to being a classical studies major which pretty much explains all of my characters to some extent or other.
Hera is probably the character I’ve had the longest relationship with, both as a character who I’ve played and in mythology. In the beginning, I had a really simplistic view and just… overlooked her completely, took the shallow reading of her as the shrew wife and was never all that interested in exploring any further. I still can’t quite remember what changed my mind or when it happened, but by the time my first myth based game rolled around, she was pretty much the goddess I’d studied the most extensively and had the most rapport with, I guess you could say. From me, she’s definitely got this pulled back, reserved demeanor and all the problems it brings; she’s icy and cold on one hand, locked into this role of a queen and the need to maintain her dignity while her husband is having these horribly public affairs and at some point, I just see her as having sacrificed everything else to keep her poise, to stay regal in the face of a court made up, largely, of her stepchildren and kind of forgot how to be anything else. Which isn’t to say she isn’t totally badass, too, but the side of her that bitchsmacks women and children is also very much part of me; I worked retail my first two years of uni, believe me, if I could have sent Lyssa out to torment people who fucked around in my store, I totally would have. Hell, I would’ve merrily bbq’d my bosses.
Erebos kind of came from out of nowhere which, now that I think about it, is sort of appropriate for him. There isn’t much that I share with him in terms of personality, like Hera, he’s a bear for his family and that’s a thread that runs through most of my characters. The people who are important to me are just that, important, and I go to bat for them under just about any circumstance; Erebos is pretty much this quiet, lowkey figure, who doesn’t take much room in mythology and who is just quietly, intensely devoted to his family. I think, though, that the big draw in playing him and what I love is getting to explore the mindset of the Greeks where everything starts in darkness, he’s it after Khaos, really. And coupled with this idea of the eyes beaming out light (yes, the Greeks were kooky, but the medical treatises written from the time about sight are fascinating) it kind of leads me to this idea of… external darkness, he’s everywhere, patient and lingering in every dip and every shadow and every obstruction in the world, not really acting, not really having to act but terrifying simply because he exists. Erebos isn’t fear of the dark, he’s the thing that people fear and I just sort of love playing around with that.
Melpomene wasn’t supposed to happen. But she did, and I blame my soft spot for Greek tragedy. Euripides pretty much owns my soul on a good day and when things suck, I’m curled up with Medea and a cup of tea and no plans to deal with the world. Mel’s really comfortable for me because of that. She is also the character least like me in almost every respect. She’s extroverted and always on the move and always pushing herself into these experiences and there isn’t really any stillness to her, which is fun to play because it is so against my type and I kind of have to work on balancing that with her low periods where everything does just stop and break down for her to mourn and be fully tragic!muse.
The rest will be coming when I have actually had a chance to sleep and consider this a little bit more.