this rose has thorns

Just like the rumors say, she's beautiful as flower. Do you think the Lord of Wei will like her?

✨And now, I give it to you✨

(jinu is alive guys i know it, i've seen noragami i know how this works)

Story board art for This is What it Sounds like!

Credit to tinyfortress on Instagram

This helps disprove some theories and approve others

1. Gwi-Ma is not Rumis father. He appears to be a similar species to the Saja Boys

2. Rumi is not a rape baby. Many theorize Miyeong was raped by Rumis dad but this shows it was mutual love

3. This confirms Rumis dad was a specific type of demon and that the love was mutual between her parents

In fact, it makes me so insane I’m gonna meta analyse the entire song right now:

The Pop Industry Commentary

Let us begin with the base level analysis that we shall build off for the stuff that my shipper heart goes feral for:

So naturally the entire point of this song, which is why it’s such a good villain song, is to straight up just tell everyone watching that they’re planning to kill them and the audience not giving a fuck because of the power of celebrities. But what makes this song extra awesome is that it’s also essentially explaining about how teach member’s k-pop trope has manipulated the audience.

Abby and Escapism

Like you got Abs McGee going:

“Keeping you in check

Keeping you obsessed

Play me on repeat kkeuteobsi (endlessly) in your head”

Which is SO COOL because it totally fits with what we’ve seen from Abs. Which is that both Mira and Zoey get repeatedly distracted by him and stare at him (“keeping them obsessed, playing endlessly in their head.”) And one of his only lines is “I know they would (follow us in here), that one keeps looking at me” ie. keeping them in check.

Then his next line:

“Anytime it hurts

Play another verse

I can be your sanctuary”

Really clearly explains how him being, literally, eye candy distracts from things being serious. And further, a meta commentary on using media and simping over pretty abs to escape from life and things that do matter.

Romance and Parasocial Relationships

Then you’ve got Romance’s lines are:

Yeah you gave me your heart

Now I’m here for your soul

Now we don’t see much of Romance but what we do see is really interesting, and very much expands on my interpretation of him. Which is mainly his interactions with Mira (namely, staring) which the movies actual audience went crazy about as cute and romantic.

And that’s really funny because that’s totally what Romance supposed to be. He’s supposed to be the soft sweet one who people transfer onto and trust “Look at him looking at her, surely he’ll get a redemption arc” (he doesn’t)

Making me think this audience reaction was 100% intentional is Romance’s next lines:

Nae hwangholui chwihae (intoxicated with my ecstasy) you can’t look away

Don’t you know I’m here to save you

God the fun meta commentary on K-pop and fandom culture in this song and movie is so awesome. Like Romance being a whole satire on the one band member that has a relationship and gains peoples trust by sharing their personal life. This movie is so good!!

Mystery and Making Celebrities Superhuman

I won’t fully go into Mystery because I’m only analysing the movie song and not the full song which gives him more lines, but my reading of his small amount:

No I’m the only one right now

I will love you more when it all burns down

More than power, more than gold

Is that he’s about the celebrities that are put on a pedestal and have to remain carefully mysterious to stay there, whose fans do literally anything to try to impress them. I could go into how him being Zoey, the established people pleaser’s favourite is a really interesting exploration of who the act of “pedastal”-ing celebrities appeals to, but that. Is. Not. The. Point.

The point is that, in this song, the Saja boys are taking to the audience about, essentially, how they manipulated the hell out of them.

The only exception to this rule is Jinu, and this is because he isn’t a satire of K-pop bands. Jinu’s character is a narrative foil for Rumi.

Jinu’s Lines as Directed Towards Rumi

Now the counter argument to Jinu actually singing to Rumi is that he’s “just singing his master’s song/on behalf of Gwi-Ma). And at some points this is true, especially in the latter half of the song, ie.

I will set you free

When you’re all apart of me

Where “me” is clearly Gwi-Ma. (You may notice the “free” mention here. We shall address the little jabs at Rumi throughout this song in p2).

However there are other parts, particularly the first half, where Jinu is clearly not singing for Gwi-Ma because his tone is wildly different. At least in my opinion.

I saw a comment that really succinctly summed up the tone of Your Idol as someone who has already gotten what they wanted. They’re not asking for the audience’s adoration, they’ve already got it. They’re literally just bragging about it. And you’ll see that’s congruent with my interpretation of the other Saja boys who are just explaining how they’ve gotten such control.

Jinu is the only one who actually asks the audience to do something. And it doesn’t actually make sense that he does:

Listen cause I’m preaching to the choir

Can I get the mic a little higher?

Give me your desire

I can be the star you rely on

Why is he asking the already enamoured audience to listen? Why is he asking them to give him their desire when they clearly already have? Why is he saying that he “could” be their idol when he already is? It’s a completely different tone from the others’: “You gave me your heart” and “You can’t look away” and “I’m here to save you”

Also the phrase “listen cause I’m preaching to the choir” really doesn’t seem like something you’d say to the choir. Just saying.

Let’s Just Assume Because it’s Fun

In all fairness, no matter how much I try to justify it, I can’t actually prove that he’s singing to Rumi But let’s just head canon it because then we get to have some fun.

So Jinu’s first chorus is:

I’m the only one who’ll love your sins

Feel the way my voice gets underneath your skin

Listen cause I’m preaching to the choir

Can I get the mic a little higher

Give me your desire

I can be the star you rely on

Yeah I’m all you need imma be your idol

Now what I love about this is firstly, Jesus Christ the “I’m the only one who’ll love your sins” is so close to “I understand what it’s like to have patterns, I’m the only one who will.” Which is crazy shit. But also so clear in how shame is isolating and Jinu purposefully uses that tactic against Rumi to isolate her while also believing it himself.

Like before that first interaction with Rumi Jinu tells Gwi-Ma he’ll use Rumi’s shame to isolate her from her friends. And his “I’m the only one who understands” is absolutely the first step in doing that. And it works. She questions her order and feels isolated as hell.

But that tactic slowly morphes into something that actually makes Rumi and Jinu healthier, love and acceptance. While Gwi-Ma’s whole thing is seeing your sins and guilting you, Jinu sees Rumi’s patterns and accepts her. And in Free, which Jinu sings like right before writing this one, it gets explicitly stated that Rumi felt like the only time she’s felt like she could breath and like she could be more than her sins is with Jinu.

Jinu’s lyrics here is such an interesting response to “Free” in that he is saying, from this reading: “We can’t fix our sins, but I love you for them.” And, especially with him exposing her in front of her friends, “I’m the only one who will love your sins.”

In fact, it could be said that the entire of his chorus is him saying that Rumi is worshipping a false idol as a hunter. That she is a demon not a hunter. That he can be the code she follows, “the star you rely on.” That what Rumi desires, to “fix” them both, is wrong. Which, though incredibly concerning, is also not wrong. Rumi does realise that the hunter code is wrong, that the thing she is protecting is wrong. That she doesn’t need to be fixed. To a certain extent, Jinu’s points about Rumi and him always being demons, that she can’t fix it, is correct.

I love that if you read the lyrics in this way, you can hear the frustration in some of his lines. Like “Give me your desire” and “No one is coming to save you!” Taken in the context of his lines in Free, where he says that no one sees him the way she does, that it feels right to let her in, that he wants to be free with her, but doesn’t sing along to her chorus about healing what is broken and fixing him. And their later argument where he says that they can’t be fixed.

Why would he be singing to her?

What is also interesting is that Jinu clearly doesn’t expect Rumi to be there. When he hears her voice you see panic flick over his face. So why would he be singing to her?

I think this really gives a bit of insight into Jinu’s character as someone who is way more comfortable singing his feelings then saying them. And someone who is so scared of rejection. Almost every time him and Rumi have a conversation she gets the last word and he is usually quite frustrated with himself about it.

But he doesn’t want to be vulnerable with anyone. Even if he could communicate his feelings he’s incredibly hesitant to because he has been told for 400 years that he’s a terrible person and is both certain and terrified or rejection.

So when Rumi gets mad at him, like in their third meeting or in the argument before this, he leaves before she can say anything else. And probably cries like the boy failure he is. But the entire point of Your Idol is to counteract Huntrix’s influence so he can say what he wants to. About how he doesn’t like the hunters code, about how he wants Rumi to join him. And it’s actually incredibly useful song wise.

I also keep in mind with this headcanon that Jinu wrote this song after Free. Incredibly internally conflicted.