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Can I just say that I fucking love, adore, it's my reason for smiling everyday, the why I keep going, like it A LOT when people draw Susie as this BIG bulky actual monster towering over all the other characters? Everyone has their style, it's pixelart so we can all take plenty of liberties with it, sure, sure. But big bulky butch purple monster lady though.

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A thing that really frustrates me about bookish spaces, especially those where talk about the fantasy genre are frequent, is people putting worldbuilding (meaning, inspired by European fantasy standards) into this pedestal of perfection and treating themselves as intellectuals for it. They don't know a single word outside of English, but they know elfish languages. They don't know a single costume of any tradition outside of the USA or UK, but they know all about how Hobbits live. They can't be bothered to pronnounce the name of a person from a non English speaking country, but they know all about the war between elves and dwarves. They don't know the name of a single author not from the USA or UK, but god, do they love to talk about Tolkien and how everyone else fails to be like Tolkien and how everyone wants to be like Tolkien and they can't because there is only one Tolkien. They are utterly and completely uncurious about the cultures and diversity of people that already exist in this world, have never once questioned the cultures they grew up in and the place those occupy in the rest of the world. Like, try to tell any of these people that their version of the USA is fundamentally different than the USA than Native people live with. But sure, they are intellectuals because they know Tolkien lore.

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The significance of Honmun for Korean Spiritualism in KPOP DEMON HUNTERS

Previously, I wrote how this movie did an homage to the history of Korean music/pop when they were narrating the history of the demon hunters here. In this post I wanted to talk about an important plot element from this movie, the 혼문 (honmoon). For the record this term is NOT an actual thing in Korean spiritualism/shamanism/folklore, but it definitely was made with some aspects of that in mind.

FYI: Some stuff I might propose is pure speculation based on my own knowledge of Korean culture, and not something anyone in the KDH crew has said officially, so take it with a grain of salt. If there is any official interviews/info that do come out later down the line, the post will be updated. Also possible mild movie spoilers

First the word 혼문 itself is significant. It seems to be a mix of two different words: 영혼 (yeonghon) which is the word for soul/spirit, and 문 (moon) which is commonly the word for door (sometimes can be used to mean gate). So the literal meaning of honmoon is the "Soul door/gate." And it works, because the hunters sing to emotionally connect with their audience's/fans' souls, creating a mystical barrier to shut out the demons.

Using the 무당 (mudang) trio to demonstrate the early instances of making this honmoon with the hunters, as mentioned in my prev post, is not just coincidence. Mudang were important figures in Korean shamanism (Muism) and performed various rituals/rites for all kinds of people, many serving as spiritual guardians in their villages/community. The rites are called 굿 (gut) and the purpose of them range widely (there are also regional differences).

A common theme with the gut is that these are never PERMANENT. A good example is the 도당굿 (Dodang-gut), usually an annual/semiannual rite to ensure a village or a community continues to maintain its well-being and prosperity. This is no different from how each generation of demon hunters must perform to maintain the honmoon, otherwise their purpose would have been fulfilled by the first generation and ended there.

Speaking of how there are multiple generations of demon hunters, even that seems to be covered in the movie too. A woman can be a mudang via two ways: inheriting the business by bloodline aka 강신무 (Kangshinmu), or being initiated into it aka 세습무 (Seseummu). In the current generation of demon hunters we see today, Rumi is a reference to the Kangshinmu (her mother was the prev demon hunter) while Zoey and Mira are referring to Seseummu (recruited/trained by Celine). But the mudang today don't really differentiate themselves by what type they are so its a fun little detail.

Going back to the honmoon, the movie seems to have a general set of colors to represent the honmoon's condition. By default it's blue, gold at the height of its power/function, and purple/red when weakened. I am not sure if the colors have much significance other than simple association (i.e. weakness is depicted in purple/reds since Gwi-ma and the demon underworld is that color) outside of gold, which associated with high status (but that's not just a Korea thing tbh). The one thing that is neat is at the end of the movie, the coveted "gold" color that Rumi and the girls wanted to achieve to reinforce the honmoon is not present at all. It is a wholly different iridescent color.

This too is significant since their performances, which are like big musical gut to help their world from demons, is breaking away from the usual tradition of hiding their insecurities and identities for duty. Hilariously enough muism thrive on building new traditions too. Mudang and muism are not like other organized religion in that there is no central leadership or clergy, and there is a lot of different variations on how a gut is performed. So a dodang-gut performed in the Chosun era would not be the same as a dodang-gut that is performed Korean village today, which would still have their own regional differences.

So whether on purpose or not, Kpop Demon Hunters really feel like a homage to not just kpop but aspects of Korean culture that is not as well liked (throughout history Muism has been shunned by other popular religions like Christianity and even by the government, which does affect how it is percieved publically) or known. Hope you enjoyed this post and let me know what else you might want, or point out any errors in my writing!

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pretty!

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i love leather i love queers i love leatherfags and leatherdykes i love kinksters and freaks

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The start of the mutual pining 🥹

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a man who YEARNS

hector valentino airnesto condicionado i need YOU

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animated the "It's okay not to smile" scene from chapter 4

youtube link

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Hectorrrrrrrrr condicionadoooooooo (shotgun your ac unit now)

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The perfect plan doesn't exist

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"Did you know people are masturbating to your smut fics-- 🤢" I hope they get twice as wet as I did writing it, mind your fucking business.

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GUYS I'M SO FUCKING SORRY! 😭

SATAN KNOWS I TRIED TO AVOID SHIPPING LIKE DEATH!! BUT THAT STUPID RADIOAPPLE FANARTS GOT ME! THEN I STARTED READING FANFICTIONS AND NOW I'M SOOO FUUUUUUUCKED 😭😭😭🍎🦌

HELP

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what you learn from hobbies:

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

wow everything is so expensive