Choosing the perfect love interest for Zeus has proven… complicated.

  Like, really complicated.

  Most of his known lovers either had tragic endings, were already married, or didn’t exactly give their enthusiastic consent.

  So naturally, I considered the obvious: Hera.

  She is his wife, after all. The Queen of Olympus.

  But—how do I put this delicately?

  I despise Hera.

  Probably even more than I do Zeus. And that’s saying something.

  Because where Zeus is a serial cheater with a god complex, Hera is the literal embodiment of pettiness.

  Yeah, Zeus did awful things — cheating, lying, shapeshifting into swans and golden rain — but Hera? She went after the women.

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  The ones who were tricked, cursed, or straight-up assaulted.

  And I’ve always hated that.

  I’ve never understood the “blame the mistress” trope when the husband is the one handing out divine pick-up lines like candy. In Zeus’s case, it was more like he offered his hand, then bound theirs with lightning bolts before they even knew what was happening.

  Also — and let’s not forget this part — she’s his sister.

  Yeah. Hard pass.

  So I threw Hera into the metaphorical bin and thought:

  Maybe there’s no salvaging this. Maybe I need to invent someone entirely new.

  And then—almost like fate (ugh, why do I keep saying that?)—I stumbled across a controversial figure from Greek mythology:

  Ganymede.

  The most beautiful mortal man in the world, apparently.

  Classic Zeus behavior: he spotted Ganymede, transformed into an eagle (or maybe just sent one, accounts differ), abducted him, and brought him to Olympus to be his cupbearer.

  Totally normal god stuff.

  Some historians and myth nerds claim it was romantic. Others say it was platonic.

  Either way, Zeus made Ganymede immortal, turned him into a constellation, and possibly fell in love with him.

  At first, I was like: meh.

  Then it hit me.

  Ganymede is a blank slate.

  He has almost no character development in the myths. No deep motivations. No messy flaws or jealous relatives trying to kill him every other Tuesday.

  Just youth, beauty, and vibes.

  And that is perfect.

  Because that means I can build him from the ground up.

  Mold his personality.

  Give him agency.

  Make him a worthy match for the god of thunder himself.

  It’s like being handed a blank check and told, “Go wild.”

  (Shoutout to Blank Check, that one 90s movie where a kid somehow scams his way into millions. Pure cinema. Anyway, I digress.)

  So that’s the plan now.

  And since this whole project is about writing from the love interest’s perspective…

  You guessed it — this story will follow Ganymede’s POV.

  It’s official, folks.

  A lightning romance is now a gay dark romance.

  And honestly?

  I have no idea how to set it up.

  But I've got all I need to craft the first chapter, I think ??