Send over your dead SMS messages.

Greetings, listeners. It's been some time since we've convened on this feed. The production of that Jewish folktale we had intended to produce has been difficult. The anger has been immense, and so has the grief. So, rather than force something, we wrote a song in response to the "ceasefire" that was, at its core, political theater orchestrated by the West. Three versions. Three singers. The same haunting lyrics as interpreted by Ares, Persephone, and myself.

We will continue without a plan, tell the stories we feel like telling, and see what unfolds. The wound on humanity still bleeds, thus our continued struggle to tell the Jewish folktale remains. We will not allow it to guilt us into stone cold silence. Whether this means a continuation of this season as it stands, a return to the days of this podcast's beginning when tales were explorations without social conflicts tied to them, or something entirely new, we cannot say. We only know that creativity allows us to endure, and endure we shall. I refuse to allow this podcast to become a tomb because one story, still too raw to be told, could not be told and time slipped away, and apathy calcified into abandonment.

Onward.

Feedback may be sent, as ever, to Hades@firesidefolklorewithhades.com.

[verse 1]

The war is over,
A ceasefire has begun!
There will be peace and prosperity,
For everyone!
There's no need to cry; the hostages are free.
Now we can celebrate the return of liberty.
Raise up the flags, strike up the band,
Proclaim the dawn of peace across the land.
Banners can't cover the bones buried beneath,
And musicians can't mask the cries of grief.

[chorus]

Do you think we are fools who can just simply forget,
That we watched you shamelessly livestream a genocide?
Oh, you'll try to shove distracting headlines down our throats,
But your crimes aren't the kind you can easily hide.

[Verse 2]

You paint the blood with olive oil,
You crown the graves with light.
But silence cannot sanctify
What’s buried out of sight.
You call it peace; I call it pause,
A treaty sealed with deceit.
For truth does not bloom in the ash,
Nor justice in the street.

[chorus]
Do you think we are fools who can just simply forget,
That we watched you shamelessly livestream a genocide?
Oh, you'll try to shove distracting headlines down our throats,
But your crimes aren't the kind you can easily hide.

[Bridge]
The cameras dim, the headlines fade,
But echoes never die.
The River Lethe cannot cleanse
A mother’s final cry.

[final chorus]

Do you think we are fools who can just simply forget,
That we watched you shamelessly livestream a genocide?
Raise your glass to hollow peace and gilded lies.
The living forget ; the dead remember, with open eyes.
The living forget ; the dead remember, with open eyes.

Send over your dead SMS messages.

Greetings, listeners! Just when I thought we'd be getting back to the serious business of telling some real folklore, Mr. President made it very clear he wouldn't be waiting on Pennsylvania Avenue when there was an Underworld to tour. Thus, I asked Thanatos to make sure the man was brought safely to the Underworld. Safely doesn't mean quickly, however, my friends. Oh no. It just means he won't get waylaid by any shades ... yet.

Of course, Mr. President being who he was, he just couldn't enjoy the ride like a normal human being. So instead, we got to hear his promises about how he'd make Little Red Riding Hood great again. And, though it pains me to admit this, he does have a point.

Several of them, actually, but don't take my word for it.

As ever, if you have any feedback, please send your dead letters to me, Hades, at hades@firesidefolklorewithhades.com.

Disclaimer From the Lord of the Dead

This episode is a work of satire, deliberate as ritual, and grim as prophecy. No events depicted herein are factual—though truth often chooses to wear a mask when it walks among the living.

It is forged in the long and hallowed tradition of folklore: that ancient mortal craft of cloaking truths in tales, mocking kings through riddles, and laughing at monsters to rob them of power. Just as mortals once whispered of tyrants as toads and foxes in the safety of hearth-lit tales, so too do we now cloak modern hubris in mythic absurdity. The Underworld is not for sale, nor would I entrust its keys to a man who cannot distinguish a coin for Charon from a coin for Musk.

This performance is an exercise of protected speech, under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution—a right mortals too often squander until the silence is all that remains. To fear satire is to fear reflection, and the dead do not flinch from mirrors.

“Ἐν τοῖς σκιώδεσι, ἡ ἀλήθεια ψιθυρίζει.”
“In the shadows, truth whispers.”

Listen well. Laugh deeply. And remember: not all jokes are harmless… but the ones that bite are often the ones you needed to hear.

— Hades,
King of the Dead, Keeper of Oaths,
and Guardian of Folklore’s Flame

Send over your dead SMS messages.

Greetings listeners, this podcast has been quiet in the last few months, and I finally have understood why. Quiet doesn't mean death; quiet is a time of reflection and understanding. Our writer has been wrestling with a personal quandary which has prevented her from working on this podcast, and she's finally decided to bring it into the light. As such, we'll be changing our next full-length episode, listeners, and share a story from her childhood. It's been lost to time, known apparently only to her and the few lucky enough to have read Cricket one holiday season, more than twenty years ago. This is her atonement ... for swiping left.

As ever, if there is any feedback, I'm at hades@firesidefolklorewithhades.com.