#like he was so insanely effective when in a situation where he couldn't/shouldn't use his firebending that the reveal shocked me

[theorderofthetriad]

the thing about the ATLA episode The Blue Spirit that has been making me insane for years is that it really makes it so clear that being a firebender and thus expected to rely on firebending was holding zuko back, and that he was practically fucking unstoppable when outside of the expectations forced on him by the fire nation

[pulim-v]

what are the *checks notes* obamitsu/muzan vs yoriichi parallels. Be insane

OKAY SO. I MIGHT JUST BE CRAZY

SO IN DEMON SLAYER THERE'S THESE TWO CHARACTERS CALLED OBANAI AND MITSURI

And they are quite possibly my favorite shounen couple ever.

So to give a basic rundown of their stories, both are very accomplished demon slayers (titled "pillars" because they support the whole organization), and they got the job for VERY different reasons.

Obanai was abused by his family. Rich aristocrats, who got their wealth due to the atrocities committed by a demon, they usually sacrificed all the boys that were born to said demon, but Obanai's heterochromia caught her attention, and he was left to live until he was older. Eventually, an older Slayer saved him and killed the demon (in the process causing the deaths of several members of the family), but the experience heavily traumatized Obanai - he feels at fault due to a relative of him blaming him for their deaths, he is afraid of women due to the demon's abuse, and he cannot eat regularly due to the abuse he endured. He goes into the Corps as a form of repentance - he kills demons and saves people to compensate for his cursed blood.

Mitsuri's situation is very different. She had a family that supported her, but she was born different. Her muscles are incredibly dense, which makes her physical strength very impressive, and her need for food very high (which had the side effect of causing her hair to turn partially pink). Sadly, though, that caused her to be rejected from society - when she was about to get married, her fiancé rejected her, telling her that her strength, hair and appetite were disgusting, and only a beast would settle for her. She hid her strength, dyed her hair and didn't eat nearly enough, living half of a life so someone would accept her. Then the leader of the Corps told her to use her strength to help people, because she was a wonderful person and shouldn't waste her talents. She saves people and kills demons because she finally found a place for herself, and in this she wants to find a husband, someone who is stronger than her so her strength isn't seen as a curse.

I could go insane over the two as a couple in general, but I'll save that for later. For now, let's get into Muzan and Yoriichi

Muzan is the king of demons, and the original person to BE a demon. As a child, he was incredibly frail and sickly, and his doctors all warned him that he'd die before he became an adult. One doctor, though, gave him a medicine that fixed his issues, and made his body much stronger, but it seemed to have some weird side effects. His body craved human blood, though that wasn't a big issue; the really bad thing was the face that he couldn't walk in the sunlight anymore, so after killing his doctor he used his newly acquired immortality to search for the thing that could fix that and make him a truly godlike being

Meanwhile, since he was a child, Yoriichi seemed very different from other people. He always had a sort of pleasant aura around him, and could see the inner workings of things without any effort. One day, while his twin was practicing swordfighting, his teacher seemed curious to see how Yoriichi would fair. What followed was him being utterly destroyed, Yoriichi striking four times in a mere moment and making him unconscious. This made Yoriichi be celebrated by his family, but he truly didn't want this level of fame - he ran away, and found the Demon Slaying Corps. He joined them, and taught them the way of Breathing Techniques, though they could never be as strong as he was. He finally found a place where he belonged, though even then he was never like the others near him, and they eventually rejected him too when he failed to kill Muzan.

So we have a cursed child, sickly and weak, who is fated to die at a young age but is saved by others, who hates their nature and tries to go against it, and an incredibly kind, blessed soul, who is unlike everyone else in their life, but never managed to find a home. The difference, in these cases, is that Obanai was kind and Mitsuri found her people. It's that Obanai was grateful to his savior and the Slayers accepted Mitsuri.

@risingscorchingsuns bestie sorry for tagging you in this but you're the KNY literary analysis moot to me and I want to get your input on this akjshdaksjhdjkash

[sanstropfremir]

Same anon please do expand! When I tell you I CONSTANTLY think about what exo would've been if they hadn't gotten galactically popular and had more time to rest and do passion side projects. I think exo was at a weird middle groud of insanely popular (big money to fund good creative teams and producers) but also desperate to prove themselves (lawsuit line...situation...) that made them great performers but also stifled them because they couldn't branch away from exo to develops stylistically as individuals. Add in all the injuries those guys got from their insane work situation and like...idk. With some of the more introverted exos I also wonder if they're lowkey tired? I don't know how to describe it but like if things were so insane early on they just don't want to work more then they have to but when they do work they still give it 110%.

With kais dancing I always think about how much better he would be if his body wasn't held together with superglue but also maybe it's the dance equivalent of the yg vocal(tm) technique. Yg main vocalists are told to use a strained technique because it makes them stand out but it also destroys their voice in the long run which is why no one else does it. Kai is a good enough dancer to work around his injuries but there is probably some little tells that we notice. These stand out because the only way to get them is by overcompensating for something, which no one else is doing so it just makes him stand out more. Like the amount of good he has to be to work around injuries like that...God I wish I could peak into an alternate universe where that energy was being applied with a healthy body.

LAWSUIT LINE A;LSKDJF i don't know why that caught me so offguard because it shouldn't have.

i don't think the introverted exos are lowkey tired, i think they're highkey tired. kyungsoo came back, dropped a solo album with zero promotions and basically hasn't been seen since. not a clue what xiumin is doing other than being gay with leo on instagram and hadestown i think (please god i wanna see that SO BAD), sehun's got whatever minimal non-idol stuff he decides to do, and kai's been a walking shambles since probably 2019 with the limited amount of exo stuff but also his solo debut planning and superm (where he did get injured again); i'm not at all surprised it took him a year to get peaches off the ground, especially now that he's been doing some more variety stuff as well. it's my assumption as well that none of them actually want to work very much, and much like changmin they will absolutely put in the work when they need to, but they've all got enough money and reputation now that they can pick and choose what projects they do/if they want to do any at all. honestly i don't think we're likely to see any more any branded 'exo' content until at least suho and chen are back, so in the back half of next year. i'm horrible at math but i think sehun and kai have until the end of 2022, so it's very possible that sm will push for a summer exo comeback and maybe a short promo cycle before the maknaes are shipped off.

i never really clocked that with yg artists but i wonder if that's why i never really liked yg music on the whole. honestly i don't think it's something that a coach or teacher told him to do, because lapses in technique can be utilized for specific effects, but the way he holds his shoulders is actually like. bad. he's super scrunched up around his neck and if you don't have an injury that's keeping you like that, keeping your muscles tensed like that to maintain that posture is extremely hard on them. it would be like going for a jog while trying to keep your shoulders as tense as possible. also it like. doesn't look good? i know really only dancers + people very familiar with dance can tell but his form looks uncomfortable. rounding out your shoulders and neck all the time like that makes for really bad extensions and i really don't think any dance teacher worth their salt would tell him to do that on purpose. i'm also pretty sure that he knows that he's doing it, and i don't think that if given the choice he would chose to do it either, because it really is a subtle change for the negative and his form would look so much better without it. he's a good enough dancer from an early enough generation that he wouldn't have needed to do something to hinder himself like that on purpose. even though he does stand out obviously now, i still think he would have slipped easily into the same niche without it.