#How The Brain Works With Anger

[gingermintpepper]

For the longest time, the quintessential song describing Apollo's wrath and consequent murder of Coronis for me was Marah in the Mainsail's 'Your Work isn't Done'.

It's dark. It's seething. Its image of Fate pushing the scorned speaker to complete his foul, terrible work of killing the man who stole his lover away from him is particularly powerful and it's always evoked this gruesomely tragic evolution of a glassy eyed Apollo stumbling through the streets, weak-legged and trembling from the betrayal growning more and more wrathful 'til he can think of no other course than to aim his bow and shoot. The price of betraying his trust is death and Coronis betrayed so much more than just his trust by taking Ischys as her lover.

The song itself captures that sensation of building wrath so well too. From the lonely guitar and vocals at the beginning which evoke this lonely, stripped back but distant grief to the way the singer is practically screaming his refrain of "Your work here isn't done" by the end, accompanied by the full blasting of instruments and an omnious chorus at his side, everything about this song is centered around building stakes, building realisations, building tensions and it creates this feeling of the speaker growing closer and closer with each new verse and chorus that adds to his anger.

There's also the absolute treasure trove of lyrics that work so well for specifically this tale. A brief overview of some of my favourites include;

- There's a crow overhead singing "Oh, Death is my friend."

- And though you think your time has come, the wheels of Fate have spun. Death has declared your work here isn't done.

- There's a girl on my heart safe ashore in her lover's arms

There's just such a vivid image to be drawn here - of Apollo's emotions being swallowed by his rage, of his resolve to end everything the more he bears witness to Coronis' brazen affair. There's even a strong female voice in the first two verses which seem to egg the speaker on in his spiral - a perfect opening to include Artemis who wishes for her brother to hunt that which brought him such pain alongside her. An Artemis who reinforces just what Coronis has done, an Artemis who does not want her brother to repress his anger after such grave an insult just because love was once there.

To me, it was perfect. Apollo's killing of Coronis was a crime of passion, an execution he sometimes cannot even bring himself to commit according to who is telling the tale. It's a wretched situation, harrowing, suffocating and cruel but if not by Apollo's hands, Coronis would simply die by another's. She cannot live after what she has done. The gods simply would not allow it.

AND THEN MY BIAS WAS COMPLETELY WRECKED BY LORD HURON.

Now, let it be known, I am a huge Lord Huron fan. Strange Trails is perhaps the most Apollo-coded album I've ever heard and songs like Yawning Grave and The Balancer's Eye capture such a visceral, gorgeous portrait of cosmic grief and anger that they haven't really left my brain since I first listened to them. Still, 'Setting Sun' from their Lonesome Dream album completely flew under my radar. Maybe it's because the commercial version is so much snappier than the Alive from Whispering Pines recording, maybe it's because I just hadn't listened to Lord Huron's discography in a while but my god. My god.

This song has it all; a quiet menace in its music, a strong male singer who sounds only barely restrained, an absolute HOST of lyrics that are so wonderfully perfect for the scenario -- after getting over how wonderful the song itself is, I immediately dethroned Your Work isn't Done because ultimately, 'Setting Sun' has something in abundance that 'Your Work isn't Done' minimised in order to focus on the wrath driving the song forward.

And that's love.

Setting Sun is so powerful because it's not just a revenge ballad - it's a dirge, a breakup song, a lament, a regret manifesto. So many times during the song, the speaker wonders when his lover stopped loving him. He recounts intimate moments and wonders if his lover was thinking of the other man when she was enjoying herself, wonders if anything she'd said was even real. And I love that so, so much.

Ultimately, Apollo adored Coronis. As inevitable as her death was, he regretted every second of it. No matter how angry, no matter how betrayed, no matter how intensely he was shamed, he still loved her. He weeps for her when she dies, he screams and grieves and cries when he's faced with her corpse. In some tales, no matter the cocktail of emotion driving him, he simply cannot bring himself to kill her. He'd rather cry in Artemis' arms and take his anger out on his own servant than hurt her. His own father has to dispatch Ischys since Apollo can't even bring himself to hurt that which Coronis once loved. Of course, in this case, Apollo's going to kill someone but the point is, it's not a decision of pure anger so much as its this complicated, horrible mix of resolve and lost love.

And my god does Setting Sun capture this conflict, passion, grief and love so well. UGH, I'm vibrating just thinking about it -- there are so many points where I hear its lyrics and can vividly picture Apollo, jaw clenched looking Coronis in her eyes and quietly confronting her.

Coronis, returning home at twilight after spending the day with Ischys to Apollo stringing his bow, "Oh? Is he ready to die for you baby? No, but you know I would."

Coronis lying to him about who she's spent her time with and Apollo's soft, near pained, "Does it hurt when you lie to me? If you asked, I would set you free."

I even really love the image of a Coronis who runs away from Apollo upon realising what will soon happen, not to escape his arrows but to warn Ischys who does not know what will happen. Of Apollo getting into his stance, taking aim at them and gathering his strength as the final refrains rings out "I know I'll never reclaim your love and that's as hard as it gets, so I'll be taking a life when the sun sets."

Other favourite lines of mine include;

- Oh, is he ready to die for you baby, now that the deed is done?

- Tell me when did I lose your love? Was it him you were thinking of?

- And I could never betray your love, you had me heart and soul. You might never have known it girl, but I was all yours.

And ultimately, I just like this conflicted portrait of premeditated murder much more than the crime of passion 'Your Work isn't Done' paints. Crimes of passion - especially when Apollo is concerned - are tragic in their own right, but in Coronis' case, I think I prefer it so much more when there's no way for Apollo's action to be misconstrued for anything other than what it is, especially since he goes on to cut Asclepius from his mother's corpse then carry on with building her funeral pyre. I think there's something so much more impacting about Apollo being unable to hide away from Coronis' blood on his hands and him having to raise Asclepius with those selfsame hands.

Love of the mortal does not supercede the responsibility of the divine. If Coronis' sentence no matter what is death, who better to lead her gently to the knife than he who still loves her?

[miyanaxxi]

Corvus rolled over, blinking his eyes open. They adjusted rather slowly to the darkness of his room, and he blearily looked around, one hand coming up to rub his face. His body, unfortunately, registered the person asleep beside him before his brain did, and he snatched the dagger from beneath his pillow, clambering on top of the intruder and holding it to their throat, startling them awake.

"Corvus! Hold on, it's- is that a knife?! Whoa, I'm not gonna hurt you!" The voice sent him reeling back, throwing the dagger off the side of the bed where it bounced at least another two feet across the room. The person sat up, panting softly.

Corvus' whole body locked up, breath shaking. "What...why?!" He exclaimed in dismay. "Soren, I could've killed you!" He slid off Soren's waist and back onto the mattress, sitting cross-legged with his hands in his lap like a child.

"'Why do you- where did you even get that?" Soren gestured in the direction the dagger had been discarded.

Beside him, Corvus fiddled with a hem from the blanket. "Amaya..."

Soren wasn't even shocked anymore. There was so much more to that woman, but all of it was expected now. She could've given him a crossbow and still, no one would be surprised. "Amaya gave you a dagger to sleep with under your pillow?"

"She was worried about me joining the Crownguard." Corvus defended almost instinctually. He sounded hurt. "You can't blame her. I've been in the Battalion since I was fourteen and then I just suddenly joined the Crownguard, whose quarters are designated inside the Castle that gets attacked by assassins every second Tuesday." He drawled. It was mostly playful, the last bit, but there was a somberness in the way he spoke of assassins.

Even years later, he mourned Harrow. And he spoke of Katolis Castle as though it was still standing. Perhaps it was just a natural thing, for Corvus to respect the fallen. Well, he was half-raised by Amaya and Gren, how else would he approach the topic?

Soren opened his arms for a hug, and once Corvus understood what exactly he was doing, almost pounced on him, gripping the backs of his shoulders and burying his face in the crook of his neck. Soren felt the wet drops of tears against his skin, but honestly could not care less. He held Corvus through whatever was upsetting him, rocking him like he remembered Opeli did to him as a child.

"I've got you."

Corvus let out a choked sob, fingers clenching around Soren's nightshirt.

"I know."

[bugwolfsstuff]

Headcanoning Malcolm Pace as autistic is funny for me because like, did Athena when thinking him into existence just decide to think him with autism?????

Ooh, follow up Headcanon that Athena is an undiagnosed autistic (or in denial) and that's why all her kids are autistic, she just thinks that most people think like her. Apollo is waiting for her to realize. Dionysus and Ares are placing bets that get higher with every kid that gets diagnosed.

[ink-bunny2]

something something about autism masking and how it relates to Mystreet Garroth’s character development. something about how Mystreet Aphmau “Has Never Masked Her Chaotic Audhd Once In Her Life” McGee influences Garroth to crawl out of his posh boy shell and goof off and run wild

[uncannycookie]

OC-tober Day 18: Role Swap

Emri, Thief King of Nara-En: Emri wearing so much color is just wrong. Breaks my brain. Blacks greys and browns only for him! Dark blue if he feels really spicy.

But if he wants to be taken seriously in Gil's time and society, accessories and colorful clothing are kind of a must. This is as understated as he could go in his position.

How does he become Thief King? No idea, but definitely not on purpose. Also he's just plain bad at it. The city we're trying to save is doomed, sorry. Emri couldn't uncover a conspiracy if it gave him a lap dance.

Gilfaeth, Post-Apocalyptic Plague Doctor: I can live with the white hair, but I draw the line at Gil without his piercings. He will find some gold to put in his ears if it kills him.

Gil living through Emri's trauma though... that, uh, that's gonna go poorly. He does not have Emri's near infinite capacity for forgiveness. Emri has some pent-up anger, sure - but Gil is fucking furious. He will tear down the system that betrayed him with his teeth if he has to, and fuck anyone who gets in his way.

In his own story, he lived a hard but overall good life, made plenty of connections, had so many people he cared about, so many things to hold on to. He has none of that here, and it destroys him. 

[misspermitted]

“Look for the strengths in yourself” this. “Your trauma doesn’t define you or make you inherently wrong” that. Do it out of spite. Value yourself out of spite.

What? Those douchebags told you that you weren’t worth anything? Fuck them! Treat yourself like you’re worth something! Get back at those fuckers!

Those assholes conditioned you into thinking you were terrible by treating you like shit? Condition yourself back! Keep valuing yourself and doing self care over and over until you drown them out. Until they’re as stupid and small in your brain as they are in real life.

Fucking win the emotional manipulation game! Win it! Draw something shit because it makes you feel happy! What, you can’t say no to people because you’re not worth as much as them? Fuck that! Say no all the time! Treat yourself like the most important person in the universe because they would hate it!

[codacheetah]

Why do people write things for fun I feel like Prometheus but the eagle isn't even metaphorically the process of writing it's the Thought of writing

[shepcdr]

thinking again about how easily moulded shepard can be esp if you catch him pre-mass effect 1.. thinks about how good he is at surviving and Enduring more than anything else... the complete irrationality and extreme limits he will go to when it comes to those he has handed his loyalty over to (for better or for worse). Finding friendship and faith in the Normandy crew and to people like Anderson made his story and narrative a good one and kept him in line but this was all coincidence. it could've easily been a miserable and horrific story

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Updated lemon's stuff and added amy to artfight with an insane added bonus of snagging a screenshot of the very front page of the site with amy's icon visible

[localyattafan]

I think we might be Bassie kin help

[idiotsonlyevent]

i've seen a lot of people mention how dorohedoro explores class through its magic system, but i really think dorohedoro could be interpreted as a very thorough exploration of capitalism and how it affects basically every single aspect of society. (spoilers through the end of the manga under the cut.)

in dorohedoro, capitalism is artificially created through chidaruma's meddling. in creating the sorcerers and allowing them to mistreat humans, chidaruma creates 'capitalism' (aka class inequality, leading to class struggle) in dorohedoro's world. this eventually leads to the creation of hole as an entity, representing the personification of class struggle.

smoke, defined by personality and determining someone's abilities, is a form of capital, both a type of currency and a status symbol. not only is a sorcerer's position determined by how much smoke they can create, but the actual function and 'usefulness' (aka 'power') of the smoke is important as well. those without smoke - both humans and weak sorcerers - are opressed.

there are also powerful sorcerers w certain 'unique' abilities like risu and natsuki who cannot conform to these normative expectations due to the nature of their magic, showing that regardless of how 'powerful' an individual actually is, their performance and adherence to norms is what's considered most important; since they cannot conform, then they are considered failures.

en represents success in capitalism; he is a powerful sorcerer, with a useful ability at a high level of mastery, and he can produce a ton of smoke. not only that, but he literally runs a mega corporation! there are jokes throughout the manga of en's unethical and exploitative practices.

but just because he himself is successful and runs a successful business, doesn't mean that any of 'his family' - and by extension en himself - are 'safe' from the dangers of capitalism; he is simply in less immediate danger than everyone else!

en is revived - allowing the rest of the family to survive - because of fujita, ebisu, and sho: the three family members most frequently deemed 'weak' or 'useless.' sho's magic enables fujita to retrieve en's devil tumor for revival, and sho saves the rest of the family from being dissolved by hole. fujita's 'meek loser' demeanor is what allows him to effectively spy on the cross-eyes, retrieve the devil tumor, and negotiate with tetsujo. ebisu's relationship w kikurage and quick thinking allows her to to enlist dokuga's help to transport en's corpse, completing the revival plotline. and this is not to diminish everyone else's contributions, but to note that especially fujita and ebisu are able to help save the family because of the skills they have developed outisde of magic to survive in a world that does not value them. en's, the family's, and capitalism's survival is reliant on those they deem 'useless'; capitalism's survival is reliant on the labor of marginalized and exploited workers.

dorohedoro's cast is filled with characters who are outcasts and don't 'fit in' with societal expectations, and as the story continues, relationships between humans, sorcerers, and those 'in-between' become even more prominent. despite everything - the hardships, the resentment, the difficult histories everyone has - dorohedoro goes out of its way to consistently affirm friendship and solidarity between sorcerers and humans, regardless of the expectations that society has for them and the roles they're 'expected' to play.

dorohedoro does not have an ending that 'solves inequality' - massive social change can't happen overnight. dorehedoro DOES have a hopeful ending, though. it reaffirms that progress is possible. that in a chaotic, unpredictable, unfair world, there is still peace, friendship, and gyoza - we just need to find it and work for it together.

[orcelito]

And what irritates me the most out of it all is that I bet my ex doesn't dream about me because she has her wonderful "love of her life" (I wonder how That's working out for her) that she broke up with me over fucking Text for after ghosting me for 2 whole days. So SHE doesn't have to worry about shitty dating apps and shitty dreams bc she's sooOoOoooOoOOo set with this random person she decided she was in love with after just 3 days.

UGH.

[t-tomuras]

^ me at my fucking self

[todays-just-a-daydream]

Beyond all the noise about chart battles, sibling rivalry and Cool Britannia, the Oasis narrative was such a powerful one because it pointed to how a valuable new form of “oceanic feeling” – Sigmund Freud’s term for an all-embracing mass consciousness – might emerge in Britain in the dying days of the 20th century. For all its broadness and frequent crudeness, the collective mood that Oasis inspired was at heart an inclusive one, based on the desire to advocate a more demotic, more democratic way of national being, rooted in the lived reality of working-class experience.

Indeed, it is class more than anything else that shaped who Oasis were and what they meant to the wider public. While they were nothing like a definitive summary of working-class culture in its entirety (how could they have been?), Oasis summarised and celebrated a specific modern British working-class culture based on traditions of collectivity and uncovering the extraordinary in the everyday. The best early Oasis songs (Rock ’n’ Roll Star, Cigarettes & Alcohol, Don’t Look Back in Anger, Champagne Supernova) channelled the sense of communitarian empowerment that had been embodied in the best working-class pop music of post-60s Britain: the jukebox idealism of glam rock, the expressive howl of punk, the “chase the sun” euphoria of rave and, yes, the melodic humanism and collective scope of the Beatles.

But the Oasis sound and identity was also provoked into being by more antagonistic influences. Living in south Manchester in the Thatcherite 80s, the teenage Gallagher brothers would build up a deep store of anger at the savagely anti-working-class policies of a Conservative government intent on dismantling the welfare state and restoring the power of British elites who had been disenfranchised in the postwar years. Hence the angry, accusatory tone in so many of the best early Oasis songs, from the raging “outcast” and “underclass” of Bring It on Down to the “they” who will never see the things “we” see in Live Forever. This more melancholic, oppositional form of commonality is embodied in Noel Gallagher’s recollection that the Thatcher years were defined by the image of everyone he knew going to the dole office with their dads. Gallagher’s response, as Oasis biographer Paolo Hewitt once put it, was to create the sound of a council estate singing its heart out.

The great genius – some might say the great fortune – of Oasis was that they were able, in the heady, possibility-filled mid-90s, to take this combined experience of working-class pride and rage and suggest that it might become the dominant cultural influence in British society. Though the band are often shoehorned into discussions of Britpop (with an image of Noel Gallagher’s rarely used union jack guitar as convenient illustration), we should be clear that the kind of Britishness they embodied was – before the cliches and the branding took over – very much an alternative or outsider variation. This was a sensibility based mainly on loathing for the Tory establishment, a love of football and pop music, and, crucially, the fact that the Gallagher brothers were the children of immigrants and felt themselves to be Irish in any case.

[lesbianpegbar]

i’m like if a girl just couldn’t do it anymore