#korina

Let me clear, I don't like Mors. In fact I probably hate him, but in Korina's Origin, I couldn't help but feel awful for him... and I could see why Mors turned out the way he did.

To start this off, I have to admit that I don't believe Thanatos was a good father to him. I know he loves Mors, that he only wanted the best for him and had the best intentions but...

Mors is an offspring of a Keres, a personfication of violent death. Vulture-like hags who rip and tear at those who die on the battlefield, to cruel diseases, and of course murder. Though these being cannot cause death, only able to scavenge and feast on the dead, they can still hurt you.

It's in Mors' very nature to be violent and cruel, to be vulture: clawing and ripping at the dead. That's not something you can change, and you can either work against it or with it.

Thanatos chose to work against it.

He chose to supress Mors, he chose to ground him everytime he hurt someone which would make sense for a normal child, but Mors was no ordinary child. He was a demon, a vulture in human form, whose nature is being violent.

Instead of giving Mors an outlet, maybe a place to let his anger out, like a rage room or a remote place where he could destroy things. He keeps Mors in his room and takes away the one person he genuinely cares about, Korina.

Korina is among the very, very few people that could probably keep Mors calm, and Thanatos just kept forbidding him from talking to her, from his first ever friend. Gave him no room, no where to express himself. If he left a hole in the wall, he was in trouble for it. He had nowhere.

Thanatos wanted to supress the Keres' blood inside of Mors, but all he did was surpress Mors. This supression left him with no outlet, nothing to support him, and thus caused Mors to have explosive outbursts of violence and cruelty. For example, when he burnt the ghosts' village for apparently no reason other than 'why not?'

Thanatos loves Mors, I know he does. But Mors deserved better than being supressed and afraid of himself. Mors thought himself a monster for who he was and it's Thanatos's own fault.

Sorry for this rant, I just wanted to get it off my chest. What are your thoughts on Mors? Do you agree, do you disagree with me? I'm curious. 🤍

1958 Gibson Flying V. NOT A REISSUE 😳

With Union Sound '24 (the guitar event of the summer season!) just around the corner, I thought I would look back at a pretty mind boggling guitar that showed up at the 2022 event. A real, no fooling, original, vintage Korina Flying V! This is by far the most valuable and rare guitar I have ever had the good fortune to be in the same room with!

Note that these are headcannons and my personal interpretations of these characters, and that it may not align with the original intent of the creators. I probably missed some things, and none of these things on their own would indicate neurodivergence, but in the context of everything else it does make you think about these sorts of things, you know?

Mors being neurodivergent, a thread:

As a young child, Mors didn’t like “waffles, vegetables, cereals, or other foods”. According to Thanatos, he would only eat green grapes specifically and eventually started trying out other foods when green grapes were put on them. Green grapes tend to have a consistent taste and texture, making them a fairly popular nd food. (KO Episode: What Now?)

Would play the “flying game” for hours on end as a child, much to the exasperation of others (The “flying game” involves the repetitive motion of flying around in circles, later changed to flying in a straight line from wall to wall.)

Continues to use flying as a grounding technique as an adult. (Tends to fly off and isolate himself for a bit after emotionally distressing situations.)

Has a tendency to move around a lot during conversation, most notably by circling people he’s talking to. (You could argue that this is just an MCRP thing to make watching the video more interesting or to add more expression and personality to the character, but Mors does this a lot more than the other characters.)

Oftentimes says things that others consider to be rude, and  he either doesn’t understand why others find it rude or doesn’t have enough emotional investment in the situation to care. (He does this a lot, but the biggest examples of this are the KO episodes Father’s Shadow and Empathy Training)

Overblown or Inappropriate emotional responses. The biggest examples would be his anger issues, but also him laughing at spirits’ deaths if he finds them ridiculous. (KO Episode: Father’s Shadow)

Honestly the entire Korina’s Origin episode of Father’s Shadow

Apparently has extremely keen hearing (KO Episode: Camp Oasis)

Instability in Relationships, Emotional Dysregulation and Anger Issues, Intrusive Thoughts, Impulsive Actions, etc...

As a young adult, Mors confides in Korina saying that he hates the monotony of Purgatory and that he can barely feel anything positive anymore. This has led him to performing high risk behaviors (such as sleeping around and hurting others) in a desperate attempt to feel anything. (KO Episode: I Don’t Forgive You)

Korina had a period of time where she believed that she shouldn’t be friends with Mors anymore due to the possibility of tarnishing his reputation. Mors responds to this by betting their friendship on a bottle of perfume that he gifted her. If she tried to get rid of it like she did with her other possessions, he would “know where she stood on their friendship” and got upset when she tried to return it to him. (KO Episode: Denied Love)

Intrusive thoughts, such as briefly wondering about burning his own bookshelf. (KO Episode: Abusive Love)

Impulsive actions. A lot. All the time. Every goddamn day. Impulse trips into the human world, trying to show off tricks mid-flight (one time ended with landing in the middle of a lake and getting completely soaked, the other ended with a broken wing), impulsively flying off to the village to pick a fight with an adult twice his size, trying to destroy the village on a whim, the list goes on.

Had a difficult relationship with his father, leading to a lot of mixed emotions including insecurities about never being able to live up to him. In Origins of Olympus, it leads to the belief that he is not even worthy enough to visit his father’s grave until he is avenged. (OoO Episode: In His Shadow) In Korina’s Origin, he also has insecurities about not being able to take over his father’s position and wants to figure out his purpose in life from the oracle itself. (KO Episodes: Father’s Shadow, Camp Counselor)

Feels nothing after killing someone, more distressed about not feeling anything in the aftermath than he is about the incident itself. (KO Episode: I Don’t Feel Anything)

Korina being neurodivergent, a thread:

Indulges in daydreaming and escapism a lot, such as when she created many long and complex stories involving her dolls and continued to play with them as a young adult.

Managed to create entire worlds in her dreamscape, some of which are actual places recreated entirely from memory, such as the lake. Some are created from scratch and based on the stories she made as a child.

Daydreams sometimes distract her to the point of dissociation, such as her daydream where Morpheus was actually an attentive father. (KO Episode: What If?)

While she doesn’t seem overly distressed by a sudden change in schedule, after Mors’ imprisonment, she uses her servant duties as a means to distract herself. These include simple and repetitive tasks such as cleaning dishes, dusting, sweeping, etc. (KO Episode: What Now?)

Oftentimes talks out loud to herself (Also probably just and MCRP thing but thought I’d add it in here)

Sometimes has difficulty understanding social cues and others’ intentions (Again, happens a lot but it’s quite prominent at the beginning of the KO Episode: Date?)

Korina herself is fairly straightforward and honest, sometimes to the point of bluntness, especially as a child.

A whole lot of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)

Believed that she would be kicked out/punished for breaking something as a kid (KO Episode: Just A Mistake)

When told that she could not be with Mors due to the other gods potentially ridiculing them for their difference in status, she goes into a downward spiral that lasts for several days.

After the party at Olympus where the gods said that she was wasting her life away by being a servant, she became insecure about only being able to do things like cook and clean and thought that she would be useless. It bordered on being a bit obsessive when she started pushing Thanatos away and began focusing on bettering her magic (as to not be “useless”) to the point of accidentally injuring herself. (KO Episodes: Nightmare, More Than A Servant)

Some links to DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for those who want to look into it a bit deeper