M3 Gentleman Hades

            The myth of Persephone stands out as a point where a god has the opportunity and even the motive to rape a woman, but chooses not to. Yes, he—technically—kidnaps Core, but this is mostly due to Zeus waffling over an answer. Hades did the right thing in going to Zeus and asking for permission to marry Core. This is unheard of in mythology.

F3 Copyright Infringement

            I sat on the cloud, perusing the menus of a couple of restaurants. I wanted breakfast, and it was hard finding a place that still served breakfast at one in the afternoon in Nebraska. Apparently, they thought it was breaking a law of nature.

Surprisingly, the data connection zipped right along, despite Anna-Marie and Jack trying to zap Natalie. Jack and Anna-Marie had come from Europe for the day to hang out since the weather there was pretty calm, and the Pyros had managed not to blow up Iceland this week.

Nat zigged and zagged on her cloud board, but the field of positive ions did more to keep the lightning from her than anything. That was a new trick she had figured out, and she naturally wanted to push the limits.

M3 Zeus's Smarts

            Zeus, king of the gods, is very hands-off when it comes to the whole situation with Core, Demeter, and Hades. In fact, he makes an appeal to a higher power in order for any movement to be made. He realizes that he will be unable to get either Demeter or Hades to budge. A mother will not be without her daughter, and Hades is smitten with love.

            Yes, smitten.

            So with two forces that refuse to move and make headway, Zeus takes the only rational course of action. He tells on them.

F3 Boring Detective Work

            Mrs. Cavanaugh gave me some good information with her descriptions of both the kids and the car, but I didn’t exactly have access to police databases. I had to canvass the neighborhood and go on stakeouts. Fortunately, the neighborhood was on my side to find out who was responsible. I just had to do the legwork. I was able to narrow it down to—”

M3 To Eat or Not to Eat

While staying as Hades’s guest, Core fasts. She refuses to eat for 10 days. At this next bit the myth changes based on who is telling it. Some myths say that she broke down eating 7 pomegranate seeds. Others say 6, still others say 3. One myth even says that she didn’t eat any seeds, but that Hades’s gardener swore that she did. This is important as it becomes part of the deal for her release. See, technically, eating something from the underworld makes her part of the underworld.

F3 A Simple Case

            “Mrs. Cavanaugh,” I asked the octogenarian, “What can you tell me about what happened?”

            Despite her advanced years and blue hair, she didn’t need glasses, and her mind was surprisingly agile. “Well, young man, it’s like I told Reverend Michaels. I was finishing up the books from the collection, settling the budget for our Christmas Program in a few days when I heard some noise outside.”

            “What kind of noise?”

Cutting Back

            These Wednesday posts of just random updates and thoughts on my life are seeming kind of stretched, and I’m doing more writing of articles for other sites, so I think I’m going to cut back the blog to just Monday and Friday. If I still have a random something to say, I’ll say it in a Wednesday post, but I’m not going to force the three day a week schedule any more. I think two will be enough.

M3 Hades's Domain

            So, Zeus can’t work Demeter over. He simply has no way to leverage her. She has all the power when it comes to crops, so Zeus has no choice but to work on hades. But the thing is he’s also stonewalled as he doesn’t “want to offend Hades.”

F3 Where to Begin

            Nikki leaned back in her chair, regarding me with the lazy eyes of a cat. She crossed her legs, spent a moment arranging the skirt of her dress, and then folder he hands in her lap expectantly.

            Jessie had pulled up a chair to the side of my desk, practically bouncing with excitement.

            I still stood with the red and white Santa hat in my hands. I sat down and rubbed my chin.

            “Do not try and weasel out of this one, Matthew,” Nikki said tersely. “You promised an explanation.”

What's Old is New Again

            Over last summer, I got a ton of writing and other work done, but I didn’t have a whole lot to show for it. I wasn’t writing one of my fiction books. I was working on mythology posts and flash fiction for here, and working on a proposal for a mythology book. So it felt like my summer was wasted time, but after I started totaling up the words written, did I realize that I had a very productive summer.

            And then I promptly forgot as the semester started.

M3 Demeter's Loss

            Welcome to a new year where we’re going to begin off M³ with a bang and tackle the myth of Persephone. Buckle up, this one’s intense.

            Our story begins with Hades, who’s a lonely kind of guy, and has his eye on Core (who will become Persephone, later). Instead of behaving like all the other Greek gods and simply ravaging her, Hades approaches and asks Zeus for permission to marry her. Seeking out dad’s permission is very old-school, and classy on Hades’s part, even if she is Hades’s niece at the same time (Yes, it’s incest, but it’s the Greeks. What are you going to do?).