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zoey was pretty eager to join huntr/x and live at celine's .... compound (?) after that incident

also mira's outfit is from a marie clarie Spain October 1987 mag cannot for the life of me find the designer (i'm leaning mugler?)

also this one may be the last for a hot minute i gotta lock in (this quarter-life-crisis aint gonna solve itself)

but yea appreciate yall my irl friends dont care for KPDH so whenever i post i feel like this:

so yea idk im just v happy if some of my art/ideas can give someone a laugh or smth

anywho what IF they made a HALLOWEEN special set after huntr/x turn the honmoon rainbow (?) which MEANS they have to deal with more SUPERNATURAL stuff spilling into the human realm and one NIGHT they are hunting what they think is a DEMON but they can't FIND it in the deep dark forest or w/e bc it's not acting like a regular demon it's all elusive and there's all those horror/ thriller tropes of group split up/ monster in the dark/ cant see the monster but it can see you etc AND TURNS OUT it is a GUMIHO that's way too OP (I like to think of the KPDH power scaling as demons →demon hunters→spirits) and so even tho they cant see it/ arent quite sure what it is YET they feel that instant blood curdling bone chilling terror etc but also a weird sense of thrilling anticipation. which gives them pause like "hey i dont think we're the hunters here"

anyway plot plot idk they end up tracking the Gumiho to a CLUB where everyone is wearing masks like an underground masquerade so Huntrx shows up in the outfits above

and they have to search and find out who is the demon/spirit/ whatever they're hunting they're still a bit in the dark (also gumiho shape shifts so there's that) and how do they know who is the REAL demon and who's just wearing masks etc and there's that dark rhythmic synth blasting and it's all chaotic w flashing neon strobes BUT THEN they for just a second see in the crowd a wildly beautiful woman WITHOUT a mask (bc the human form is already kind of the mask) looking right back at them and they get that same sense of danger and thrill then she melts back into the crowd:

so the gumiho looks like this (huntr/x for scale it's as big as a Clydesdale in fox form):

(for general vibes think Eres from that sinbad movie)

AND turns out THIS gumiho isn't evil it is a truly ANCIENT being like it was old in 200 bce and speaks like. idk the korean equivalent of shakespeare. AND is essentially an allegory/ personification of nature ie it's neutrality/ moral indifference, completely outside of humanity. and the Legends of gumiho bewitching men and killing them isnt entirely accurate bc the gumiho just mostly keeps to itself but HUMANS cannot mind their business and throughout history there are many examples of them trying to conquer/possess/control nature and it's beauty/power (beautiful things in general). and so in both fox and human form the gumiho is hunted by Man bc fox form=conquering nature like how people hunt elephants/ lions etc and human form= beautiful woman (i dont think i need to explain that one)

and so like people trying to "conquer" frontiers/ mountains they try to conquer the gumiho. but like nature the gumiho doesn't give a fuck abt morality or w/e and kills those who dont respect it. fuck around and find out, if you will.

so there's an ethical bind for huntr/x since the gumiho could have easily killed them 20 times over but didnt, and only kills for self-preservation, so it is only a threat to humans if humans try to impose their will on the gumiho. do you hunt/ imprison/ kill the gumiho in order to protect people from the consequences of their own actions? when if you were a gumiho to you'd likely do the same?

this bit of clunky dialogue is from a previous colour key post but it gets the general point across i thinK: (G:You are hunters, yet you cower in fear M: they say gumiho bewitch people, kill them, eat them G: child i have seen your kind throw themselves at mountains on high in the vain attempt to conquer the peak. each time they perished or were turned back, yet still they continued in their obsession. are you to tell me these mountains bewitched these humans? no, only your kind seem incapable of gazing upon wild beauty without desiring to control it M: So you don't kill? G: indeed i did, and you would too, were you I)

Also i find the gumiho to be Mira adjacent since if i go off the gumiho lore as mentioned above i think it ties in with the ideas around being the "visual" vis a vis body a commodity, self-determinism etc. and i like to think that the "lie she believes" is the whole "i'm aggressive, too blunt etc etc". but that's not really true, and she was only ever a "problem child" bc she wouldn't/ couldn't conform to the constraints/ expectations of her parents (i like to think of them as lowkey fkn unhinged, so there's no way she could have met their approval anyway, at least without losing her mind too.

(also my hc is that her brother is actually pretty similar to her but tried to appease their parents instead of rebelling against them and he's now a mess.ie a foil). like dont get me wrong she's definitely a direct, will not suffer fools type of personality but the anti-social behaviour she exhibited was just a fair reaction to her surroundings, so when she's allowed to be herself she's relatively chill like how she's presented in the movie. (but she's been gaslit to hell into believe the whole quick to anger aggressive thing). and maybe as a reaction to being told you get too wild she's like "oh i'll show you wild") So w the gumiho being like "ofc i killed those people they were gonna kill me or worse. how do you expect me to react" she's like huh u kno what fair enough. so parallels i guess. i mean i like to think there's way more to mira's relationship w her family but i've talked abt that on other posts and it's super long here anyway

(I guess she could sort a lot of this out in therapy but idk if Mira, who straight up growled at the healer guy for trying to read her or w/e would willingly step into a therapy session?? i do love how she was amused when the healer clocked rumi but as soon as it was directed at her she's like u wanna fkn fight mate. ~ imo narratives & character arcs require resolution through conflict so i only ever think characters should get therapy in stories to either show how ill-adjusted they are ie fleabag, successesion or as a framing device that doesn't have the desired outcome on irl therapy ie the sopranos. as in id rather see characters work out/ have realisations abt themselves throught plot etc etc no therapy speech in my little stories. headcanon w/e u want tho)

anyway i just love stories w girls can work through their justified anger and it's not all just like ooh let it go be the bigger person violence is not the answer bc i really dont think that kind of moral framework/resolution works the same as it does w male characters (katara i will forever love you)

anyway im not going to go on bc i feel like this:

general themes include adoration vs fetishization (where is the line), ancient clashing w the modern, amoral nature vs the human tendency to rationalise/moralise, power & control, the bias of history/ legends and who tells them, who controls the narrative, the horrors of being perceived and the entertainment industry writ large ie voyeurism, exploitation and its echoes throughout history etc etc

anyway there isn't any super thought out plot/ story here I just wanted to get those visuals out (my process is something like "oh this scene would look so cool" then i have to work backwards to find a story to match with the themes and vibes of the visual - so apologies to anyone hoping for a resolution/ coherent plot for any of the colour keys/ storyboards i've done in the past idk how to write anything properly D':) nothing here is that serious/coherent

I know it's supposed to be a serious scene or w/e but I love how rumi just yeah-nah's the takedown song SHE had the idea for the day before the performance without explanation. Valid crashout for Zoemira

Also forgot how fast the pacing was haha like you can just feel the studio interference in some cases like in the variety show bit there was a set up for them to play games and then they just didn't? Like I dead ass thought my netflix jumped a minute ahead haha so much must have been left on the cutting room floor

but in a weird way i think I think the Mach 5 pacing actually helped out a lot, since it kept things going pretty fast (I can see why they'd do that for a family animation) and also it didn't really give the audience time to question the disparity between the tone/stakes. ie u see people's souls getting sucked out and missing persons reports etc and that naturally raises the question of what does getting ur soul stolen actually mean? Like are they straight up dying? There's that shot of jinu looking at the soul light things going to gwi-ma and is like oooh I'm conflicted, but wait he's watching people die?? But the movie just blasts right along so it doesn't get bogged down in the implications. Like hey dw here's a great song chill

and i think it absolutely was the right decision not to include any super overt romance between rumi and jinu like secret dates or a kiss or w/e because if that was the case the idol awards betrayal would read soooooo terrible lmao there would have been nothing they could have done to get him a semblance of satisfactory atonement for me. (And isn't it better to have a what could have been as opposed to a love lost for a change.)

Also I think I saw a deleted scene where celine says she killed rumis parents??? That would have been soooooo lame lol glad they cut that cliche

Anyway I really do stand by the less is more adage, i'd rather have a super lean tight movie. like there wasn't a scene that i thought oh this could have been cut or what's the point of this it was all very cause and effect

a bit more rambling under the cut

tf did they put in these tonics

*narrator voice* It, in fact, was all about her insecurities

Ok first up I have no idea what the plot is for this don't think too much abt the references in the dialogue it's just set dressing

For a long time I'd wanted to do an inverse version of the train scene

And also I looooove when characters become what they hate (esp on a path to avoid it hello eodipus), also love it when family dynamics fuck a character up, since nothing gets underneath skin like family

So imagine something like mira being threatened/ pressured/ idk sucked back into the vortex of her parents influence one way or another there's a couple of versions that I can't be bothered writing out (it also makes me seem insane). Anyway so the more she's around them/ they're in her head the more she becomes like them, despite her desperately trying to escape. Ie father= relentless Machiavellian ends justify the means no matter how brutal type a guy. And her mother being able to read people really well and knowing exactly what to say to cut them deep. A generational hater.

(I don't rope her brother in with the negative influence so much since I like to think that he's suffered as much as mira but it's affected him differently, so even tho their relationship is definitely strained/ non existent at this point there is still a shared understanding of each other, and its not as antagonistic. also they were once each other's only person so there's that in the mix)

Anyway so maybe rumi never apologised specifically abt the whole "not everything is abt ur insecurities" to mira. And she's fine w it I'm guessing rumi made sweeping apologies etc.

But mira strikes me as a person who forgives but doesn't forget.

And maybe in this backstory miras parents can put up a decent facade. Seeming like ok people who maybe want to reconnect and reconcile. And rumi, having done so with celine, maybe hopes that Mira can do so too. Maybe saying that mira should try, maybe leaving mira alone w her family (despite mira clearly wanting/ needing her and zoey to stay). And zoey follows rumis lead (conflict avoidance and all that). So mira feels pretty betrayed. Since as soon as r and z leave the facade falls. And it feels like everyone thinks she's overreacting. (Problem child)

And so normally she'd talk it out ie high emotional iq etc etc. But her family is an Achilles heel if you will. Like she is usually well adjusted except when she's around her parents. Where she gets super defensive (paranoid??) And a bit crazy in general.

And so tension stress blah blah blah and rumi hits a nerve abt the whole chip on her shoulder, smth to prove etc. But instead of acknowledging it, the shields are up the sword is drawn (refer back to the scene in the tonic Guys office) and she throws back rumis own words. And in doing so becomes the spitting image of her mother, as it is exactly what her mother would have said (Physically already she strongly takes after her mother but the tone, the sneer etc sends it into an uncanny resemblance)

And is there anything worse than becoming your parents (not always but u know what I mean)

also in contrast to rumi, who maybe says things impulsively that she doesn't really mean, mira actually means it (in that moment/mindset anyway) like she thinks before she talks, which in this case is probably worse than rumis clumsy outburst. Instead of trying to walk it back she clenches her jaw and stares rumi down

With zoey forever being a child of divorce lol

Again this isn't anything really just wanted to get the callback bit out and overcommitted to fleshing out the setup ew.

Like the other one spite is the sole motivator in the end here lol.

Id just want to stress that if this seems out of character for mira it's the intention, since she's acting like her parents not herself.

Im sure they work it out in the end tho

No therapy for my characters they're fighting it out

Also below is the type of shit her mother constantly says unprompted out of left field.

rumi no baby let's not do that

i find it funny if after the events of the movie zoey & mira still didnt give a fuck abt Jinu dying like Yeah Rumi we're sad that you're sad but come on the guy was killing people :

also mira is wearing Sade's outfit from live aid:

also Zoey after coming up w the tonics idea:

i always get a kick out of holding space

also just a heads up there's a reference to suicide below it's not graphic or anything just a mention but i'd figure i'd mention just in case

long post warning here we go

thats their father btw. also gave up on drawing but see below i guess- this is after Mira leaves w/out saying a word to her father

everything in my head runs as a movie complete w specific camera movements so I can't translate ideas to prose but drawing everything out including subtle acting choices takes a billion years so this is the compromise (janky screenplay + equally janky thumbnails will have to do) rip keeping them on model no consistency here haha

i'm not attached to the brother's name i just needed something instead of MBro and the internet says that Baekhyeon means virtuous older brother and i love irony so here we are.

this convo is only related plot-wise to this post, but the general vibes can be taken throughout my other posts like the colour key sequel idea

i wanted to do something with the idea of them seeing eachother after like idk 8 years and trying to navigate that, obviously her brother has seen her grow via Huntr/x but she hasn't seen him since she bounced so she's taken aback by how much he's changed (see below for the before/after):

(i want him to be a physically impressive figure more on why under the cut, idk abt exact heights tho they are just tall)

i like to think whilst she Loathes her parents (rightly so) she doesn't hate her brother, is just really hurt and disappointed by him (major event regarding this is under the cut should anyone want to know more). but cares for him tho she wouldn't admit it, likewise he still loves her but has chosen to follow his parents (more under the cut on this too)

the tragedy of their relationship is that deep down they love each other, share interests (movies, history etc) and would be an incredibly effective unit together, but their parents manipulate them, driving them apart to maintain control/ power.

anyway back to the script, Mira, obvs w the history she has w her family, is Very guarded and initially thinks that their parents sent him to get her, but turns out he sought her out himself (he tried to go through bobby/ normal channels but was rebuffed, couldn't work that into the scene naturally tho). so she becomes a bit more receptive since he went to a fair amount of trouble for her benefit

the smoking is an attempt to share a moment/ bond/ connect, though he is so engrained in his parent's world (CHaebol i guess but also super horrible people) that the only way he can think of is by offering literal poison ie a cigarette (smoking is like one of the only bonding activity his parents shared w him so he doesn't have great examples)

references to greek mythology/ chucking in some french is my clunky way to allude to their elite education (maybe spending a year at fancy swiss boarding schools idc). An interesting idea to me is Mira being born into the elite and can code switch. Like she doesn't believe in it but it's her background she shares w her brother. something something class is something you're born into etc money can't buy everything so even tho Rumi and Zoey are probably richer than some of the Mira's Family's associates they still aren't part that world. (I've been watching some Vice Docs recently).

i had the uncle kill himself instead of something like cancer since he was a figure from their childhoods that was kind, playful ie shadow puppets = whimsy, creativity, qualities that cannot survive in her family's world. also to use this premise to show via subtext (at least i try lol) that a) brother has changed/ is desensitised to something as horrific as this and b) that the staff called him to help instead of the father or head of security or smth, indicating to Mira that the staff (lower on the power hierarchy) trust her brother to help them out ie he is not the same as their father. Also indicates that their father is someone you can't go to for help.

so she's trying to figure out who this man is, but both are keeping cards close to their chest (given their parents, this is not surprising)

I wanted to give them a nice moment of levity to show a glimpse of what their relationship could be like under better circumstances ie "why you thicc now". Though it's cut off when mira says he plays the part of their Parents' son eerily well. She didn't mean too much of it but For her brother this is a pretty big gut punch because deep down he knows his parents are bad people (again under the cut)/ are part of a horrible system and having Mira, who never lies, say he fits in well is pretty damning. Mira can sense that he is really Not OK and, being who she is, can't leave it alone and continues to question him. And she's right, her brother is not Well at all underneath the facade, but acknowledging it is too much for him (see under the cut) so he doesn't want to go there, telling her to drop it. As like, "I can;t deal w it, especially alone, which is what i'll be once you leave". which to be fair is what Mira would have done had she not picked up that he's struggling. But Mira interprets this "you'll leave" response as a jab/ insult at her. like as her leaving her family was her fault/ a selfish choice which she obvs takes offence to. So hackles are raised, and she references a critical moment in their past when he let her down So Badly (under the cut). She expects a fight but he is in fact so guilty abt that (one of the biggest regrets he has), and sometimes it's not easy to apologise but the shame/ pain is written on his face clear for her to see.

And Wow would you look at that the problem shows up at the end - speak of the devil and he shall appear

all of this to then have it thrown back at her on a talk show a week later being like "ooh ur BF is so handsome". a) they look horrifically related and b) it's fairly obvs they're not having a Good Time

anyway below is a bunch of notes on the brother character (and parent characterisation) + designs. these were on an earlier post but are relevant here so. there's extra bits but is broadly the same so if you've seen the previous post regarding the brother lore i wouldn't bother it's largely the same AND SUPER LONG be warned

found the first sketches i did of KPDH from last year

(never intended for posting but i'd thought it'd be a fun way to mark 500 followers wtfffffffffff i'd hi five each and everyone of u including the bots i could do it i'm so strong)

once rumi gets over the whole must hide my physical form thing you best believe she takes every opportunity to whip out the gun show

one day mira catches rumi looking at herself all weird and sad in the mirror whilst changing in the dance studio (after Zoey has done sooooo much positive affirmation training) so fuck it she blasts Megan thee stallion (Bodyodyodyodyodyodyody) and forces an impromptu dance party until rumi smiles again

"Please mira let me get my pants"

"My studio my rules u better start throwin ass Right Now"

also not kpdh related but portfolio update since this is turning out way better than i thought im proud of it so far woooooo