#sb rambles

It’s even worse when you used to be human, because then you remember how it used to be. You wish you could go back, because even at your most desperate, you still had autonomy. You once lived your whole life in charge of your own soul and you never knew how good you had it until it stopped being yours. You’re not human anymore and the human realm isn’t your home— the Hunters will kill you, the humans will scream and rat you out to the Hunters, you have no life there anymore. It’s gone. This is all you are now, another soldier for Gwi-Ma’s war.

If you refuse to work for him, what will it do? You’ll die, he’ll get another demon to take your place, and you’ll have died for nothing. Nobody will care. You won’t be a martyr because as far as Hunters are concerned, you should die. You will have deserved to die, as all demons should. They want to cut you off from the world and trap you in literal hell to suffer forever, to be eventually killed and consumed by the king you never wanted, and you’re supposed to what, die quietly? How is that fair?

The answer is that it’s not. It’ll never be fair again. So you can either die in hell, have this be the end of the road and have no idea what happens to your corrupted soul when you’re dead, or you can do whatever it takes to survive, because if nobody is going to help you, you have to help yourself. Damn everyone else, why should you care about them if they don’t care about you? If they don’t see you as a person, just a monster that deserves suffering?

There isn’t a single demon still alive that hasn’t killed before. There are no perfect victims, because the perfect victims are already dead and nobody cared about them. Nobody remembers them when they’re gone.

And I love that. Because so often, when there are victims, people who are suffering, you want to absolve them, say they have never done anything wrong so therefore, their suffering is so tragic and ‘Pure’, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was true that they killed people and caused harm AND they were victims of a horribly inhuman environment? If you put people in a terrible environment where they have to do horrible things to survive, you’re gonna get people who have done horrible things to survive, because no one else survives otherwise. And it makes the morals messier, because things stop being so black and white.

In the movie, you can see the demons be visibly terrified of Gwi-Ma and warily watch as the flight attendant demon shakily walks to her death. Gwi-Ma kills her in front of everyone and they watch her die screaming. They cower (and one of them cries) when he yells at them. They’re desperate to make their king happy— when the first souls come into the demon realm, there’s a demon who sounds excited about it, even though Gwi-Ma seems to take all the souls for himself. They know souls mean Gwi-Ma’s mood will be better, so he’ll be less likely to rage, to kill, to make them all miserable in the process.

Even Jinu, who is able to approach Gwi-Ma with a mocking song in the beginning, still shows a lot of fear and apprehension the second he realizes that Gwi-Ma knows he tried to escape, and immediately gets punished very publicly for it, once again being told this is all he is and he can never escape it.

Which is all a big reason why I love the idea of redemption in KPDH for demons specifically. Because while you have done a lot of wrong in the world, you had little to no autonomy. So what if you did? What choices would you make if you had a choice? If you were given a second chance, if you were suddenly shown kindness and humanity that you had been denied, what would you do then?

ANONNNN THIS IS A FIRE IDEA YESSS

Figuring out they’re the only eight aware of the time loop is the easy part. Both bands woke up, discovered the rest of their team remembered but nobody else, and put new plans into motion. Both groups seeing the other act weirdly immediately sets off alarms. Discovering they all remember is child’s play. Actually working together? That’s harder.

While neither Rumi nor Jinu want to fight, the other six are highly distrusting of each other and a fight breaks out. At least one of the Saja Boys dies in the process, causing an uproar. Eventually they all have to escape from the fight, albeit pissed off with one another, but night falls. They all feel tired— the Saja Boys all abruptly feel a need to sleep, even Jinu who shouldn’t need to recharge as badly as the others due to not doing much fighting.

They all fall asleep. They all wake up at the beginning of the movie, including whoever died. They’re all exasperated by this.

Take two isn’t the most friendly but they’re not outright killing each other. Jinu knows Gwi-Ma is gonna be a big issue so he relays as much as he can before Gwi-Ma pulls him down to punish him for his treachery. It’s enough for him to get killed over, resetting the loop once again. This time the girls know what they need to know so they can all play along and not alert Gwi-Ma to what’s going on. They also have some revelations about what it’s like to have a guy like Gwi-Ma in your head.

Rumi and Jinu still have their meetings. The others all question this but steadily start to realize they’re using it as a chance to continue to get to know each other even better and talk. They can’t talk about some of the things they want to talk about yet but they’re making the most of their new opportunities to spend time together.

Little things keep going wrong for the Saja Boys that warrant a loop reset. It becomes increasingly clear that at the very least, keeping the demons alive is part of the ‘Win’ condition.

They get further in the loop in one of them, almost to the Idol Awards, but one of the girls gets hurt badly on their usual train fight. Badly enough to cause the loop to reset again.

So, not just the Saja Boys then. Both bands now know to go through the motions and make it to the end while still remaining on guard. However when they do get to the Idol Awards and when Huntrix wins at last and shifts their Honmoon to be more iridescent/Rainbow, Gwi-Ma punishes the Saja Boys for their failure by pulling them back down before they can be safely sealed off from him. Which makes the loop reset and causes new issues.

They spend another loop talking with each other as much as they can about what to do and how to break it before Gwi-Ma once again recalls and punishes them for betraying him. Huntrix realizes they need to figure out a way to get the Saja Boys out of Gwi-Ma’s control if they want to stop the looping, which is… Difficult.

In the new loop, they try something different. Huntrix pretends they have no idea the Saja Boys are demons and invite them out to friendly outings so they have reasons to talk in peace without alerting Gwi-Ma that something is up. The Saja Boys make up the excuse that they’re just gathering intel and gaining their trust to cut them down later. Though maybe… It’s a little fun talking with them and hanging out.

It takes a few loops to get anywhere but they all start to actually get to know each other and become… Friends? It’s confusing to all of them, except for Rumi and Jinu who are so happy to see their groups merging like they are. Rumi wants to recreate what she was able to do for Jinu when they sang together but both on a larger scale and for a longer period of time. Maybe all of them bonding and having Mira and Zoey on her side can do that? She has real hope for it.

The longer the time loops go on, the more casual they all become with one another. The more it feels like a play/musical they keep improvising with. They’ll get it right one of these times but in the mean time… These boba flavors aren’t gonna try themselves.

(Sometime after the time loops are over, Jinu makes the joke of “Maybe the real time loop was the friends we made along the way!” And then gets boo-ed for it by everyone else.)

EXTREMELY fun idea, seriously. Group time loops in general is such a good concept. Even if you’re trapped in time loop hell, at least you’re not totally alone.

Vampires SMP Episode 5 Meme (Spoilers!)

Bobby is originally a natural born demon from the demon realm, sent AGES ago to infiltrate and gather information on the Hunters, probably a previous generation before even the Sunlight Sisters were a thing. He was the best at flying under the radar so he seemed like the perfect choice at the time.

At first he’s both nervously trying to complete the mission and blend in but he gets really into the Hunter’s music and slowly learns that while he’s having fun… He can’t actually hear Gwi-Ma as much. And the more he gets into it, the quieter his voice gets. It takes him a while to rid himself of his shame but once he does, Gwi-Ma can’t touch him anymore. And it freaks him out a bit but Bobby isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth so he runs, abandoning his previous mission.

Gwi-Ma tries looking for him but he’s always been good at blending in with humans. He gives up after a while and Bobby steadily builds a life for himself. He gets really into music and learns how the industry works. By the time he becomes a pretty well known manager, he learns of a group called Huntrix needing a manager.

He knows immediately that they’re Hunters. But they’re good people and their music is fantastic and maybe it’s dangerous to hide in plain sight but… If they’re fighting Gwi-Ma, Bobby is all for it. He’ll help out any way he can. The more he convinces the rest of the crew that the Hunters’ strange happenings on stage are just special effects, the more they believe it. He can cover for them. It’s the least he can do.

I just think it could open some very interesting dynamics! Does Bobby know about the Golden Honmoon and how it might banish him with it, or is he hoping being disconnected from Gwi-Ma will keep him safe? Is he ever nervous that the girls might react badly if they find out? Has he considered telling them but backed out at the last second? Is he ever nervous that other demons might realize who he is and tell either Gwi-Ma and/or the girls?

Other potential scenarios include:

Demon!Bobby learns about Rumi’s patterns earlier and immediately goes ‘!?!?!?!? A half demon Hunter is possible??’ and maybe comes clean about himself to make Rumi feel better so she knows not all demons have to be bad.

Gwi-Ma finally finds him at the idol awards and briefly puts him back under his control when the Honmoon breaks. Maybe he makes him drop his human disguise and the girls see him. Angst ensues.

AU where Rumi DOES succeed in making the Golden Honmoon but it drags both her and Demon!Bobby down to the demon realm and Bobby is trying very hard to calm her down and comfort her in the process. The two of them navigating the demon realm would be interesting.

Demon!Bobby takes one look at the Saja Boys, knows they’re demons, and is like, “I can treat them like the supportive mentor figure they never had and steal them from Gwi-Ma” and it WORKS.

The girls talking with Demon!Bobby after they’ve (accidentally?) learned his secret and gaining a new perspective on demons mayhaps… This includes one of them realizing he doesn’t need to eat human food and Bobby being like, “No but it’s one of the joys of the human realm so why would I pass up on that? Have you SEEN food in the demon realm?? It’s bad. Like, horrendously bad.”

Demon!Bobby being older than all of the Saja Boys and they’re all a little intimidated by this fact.

And so on.