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I've accepted these meme redraws as my true calling

i do consider all of the solo zoey ones ie the escalator, the utube ones as genuinely canon to me like cryptid photos of her come up online every now and then with people being like tf is this girl doing. then all the comments being like isn't that zoey from huntr/x

I have to put the OG one for Mira here tho nothing can hold a candle to the legend that is lee lin chin

real ones know

I also put Mira in the OG tomb Raider outfit BC I CAN WHO'S GONNA STOP ME (I will unashamedly latch on to any character that has even the slightest hint of that classic lara croft je ne se quoi)

regarding stakes/ tone dissonance I talked abt in this post, I actually don't mind at all that the movie didn't lean into/ explore the darker implications of people's souls being eaten= dying BC on one level it kind of separates huntr/x from general humanity ie how idols/ celebrities are IRL etc stan culture etc (oh noo they died damn 😢 ok anyway back to practice. I know theyre like "for the fans!!!!" Which is so funny like if u dont like huntr/x u can get eaten by a demon lol)) AND there is something interesting abt saving people being the secondary motivator to protagonists ie Rumi talking a lot abt doing her/ their duty (what she was raised to do), Mira immediately checking out after the rumi-demon reveal etc (was there a moment like that for Zoey? I think she says yay let's save the world so I guess that's something ha 1/3 .they really were most hype abt their couch or the bathhouse lol.) BUT I mostly think it's funny when stories get away with morally/ethically dubious plot points/ implications by having the characters serve just that much cunt that it doesn't really matter ie the old tomb raider games (and angelina jolie's movies luv her), John Wick, Charlie's Angels, Sailor Moon, those hitman games etc etc

this may or may not make sense

chucking this up here to prove that i dont exclusively draw kpdh this one was after the met last year janelle monae never disappoints

the gojugaru was henceforth store-bought

EDIT: bonus (upon request):

"hey mira check out these sick moves. We should totally use these for our next choreo"

zoey's 14th time recreating Raygun's performance

rumi loves it

mira hates to be reminded of this affront to dance

"Brokedancing"

this doesnt have to make sense to anyone else but me

would be nice if the bolt of inspiration i am struck w/ every now and then would be for something other than these fuckass meme redraws

No idea what canon 3rd sunlight sister is supposed to be like but i find it funny if the dynamic was like this

me, the polygon lasso and vertical stroke texture brush against the world

Don't u hate it when ur finally getting over your (canonically almost world-ending) situationship so u try maybe kinda flirting with a man u meet at some fancy party (or w/e) only to find out later that he's the estranged brother of your best friend and u were attracted to him BECAUSE he reminds you of said best friend.

Tldr: rumi doesn't realise she's talking to miras brother (he really reminds her of mira ie same eyes, same speech pattern etc, but rumi doesnt quite realise it). Her brother knows who she is ofc and figures that he should probably keep his distance, but rumi reminds him of mira and he can't help but want to spend some time with, if not his sister then with his sister's new family. (Also the Japanese movies mentioned are her brothers fav that he showed her when they were younger, so he's taken a back when rumi mentions that mira watches them with r and z the way that she used to w him)

EDIT: I'm just now seeing the typo in the last text panel for rumi FCK (your not youre)

Also rumi is mocking the whole corporate jargon vocab at the end there

Also the lighting at the start on his face is supposed mirror miras bit in the golden mv (for in my head they are foils/mirrors or w/e). And their meeting is reminiscent of how rumi met mira too (I think I made a post abt that ages ago?)

You can pry my hc that mira and her brother are so alike (physically obvs but low key in many other ways too) from my cold dead hands. serving cunt is a hereditary trait. They come from a farming family (An aura farming family):

Also I think it would be funny if not everyone assumes that huntr/X killing demons on-stage is part of the act like her brother sees the whole boss battle w gwi ma on TV and is like "oh I guess they're mudang? Ok"

I Always envision an introduction of her brother on a balcony or rooftop etc, half in half out. Looking out to the open, (open sky) but still stuck in the building. U kno for the symbolism

Context/ plot list/ vibes under the cut

(Some of yall said you'd like to see some other stuff so here ye go)

so you get a couple of screen shots from a cgi animated sequence (animated=good since it pushes colour more than live action and cgi bc it describes forms more consistently that 2d) then you change the colours to make an opposite version of the tone/ vibe of the oG scene:

so the og one is on top, then i change the colours keeping the OG lighting, then for the final one i completely change the lighting as well.

I'm not precious abt the rendering bc the main focus of the exercise is colour I find these helpful since you can only consider colour as the main tool, not composition:

also it's good to check the studies in black and white to make sure the values are still readable:

so even w/o colour you can still see whats going on If youre in photoshop i recommend using View>proof set up since if you just use a desaturation/ B&W mask or filter it doesnt accurately translate the hue to the value as this method below does (select dot grain 20%):

so yeah idk maybe this is interesting for some of my fellow digital artists out there it can be a fun exercise

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: