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Rumi x Jinu and the danger of sinking together

I’ve been thinking a lot about the dynamic between Jinu and Rumi in K-pop Demon Hunters. To me, their bond is so clearly rooted in mutual understanding — not just because of who they are, but because of what they share. As I wrote in this other post, I read the “patterns” in the film as a metaphor for mental health (though I know many other interpretations are just as valid and important).

So when I look at Jinu and Rumi, what I see is mirror dynamic based in unhealed trauma. They connect because they carry similar wounds. They speak the same language of shame. And when you’re hurting, having someone who gets it, who mirrors back your struggle, can feel like salvation. You’re no longer alone. You’re no longer broken alone.

This kind of connection can be a lifeline. But what happens when that person is your only anchor... and this person falls?

That’s what makes Jinu’s relapse so painful to watch. There’s this beautiful moment during Free when he says he can’t hear Gwi-ma anymore, as if Rumi’s presence has muted the voice that tells him he’s not enough. But the moment she’s gone, Gwi-ma comes back, the shame and issues come back.

And this time, Jinu doesn’t just fall : he pulls Rumi down with him. That betrayal at the award show isn’t just cruel. It’s self-sabotage. He weaponizes her vulnerabilities because he’s drowning in his own.

Their confrontation scene is devastating. Rumi begs him to believe they can heal, that they can still be free together. But Jinu, broken and spiraling, tells her it won’t work. That moment shatters her and she screams "it has to!".

Because if the one person who knows her patterns, who shares her shame, stops believing in the future, how is she supposed to hold on?

And sure, I love the trio dynamic with Mira and Zoey — but let’s be real. At that point in the story, they don’t understand her. They’re hurt by her lies. They fear what they can’t name. That’s something that happens too, with self-harm or mental health struggles. Even people who love you don’t always know how to show up. Sometimes they lash out. Sometimes they disappear. And that adds a second layer of loneliness to the whole thing.

After all that, Rumi is completely alone. That’s why the scene with Celine under the ancestral tree hits so hard. She’s not just asking for love. She’s confronting the silence, the control, the generational pain she inherited — and finally choosing to stop running from it (more on that scene here).

And what strikes me most is that, even at the end, Jinu and Rumi don’t save each other directly. Rumi doesn’t return to fix him. She returns because she’s faced herself and that’s what makes her steady again.

By standing there, vulnerable but grounded, she creates the space for Jinu to breathe again too. She doesn’t push him. She just exists in front of him, honestly. And that alone gives him a reason to move.

Maybe seeing her live with the patterns and still choose self-worth helps him believe he can do the same. And that’s why he makes the choice to sacrifice himself — not just for her, but because he finally recognizes that clinging to the same loop will destroy them both. It’s a painful but meaningful gesture. A rupture that breaks the toxic dependency and opens up the chance for something new.

So yes, I love their bond. And I ship them hard. But I’m also glad the film didn’t rush into a resolution. Because depending entirely on one person — especially someone carrying the same pain — doesn’t always heal you. Sometimes, it breaks you both.

A healthy Rumi x Jinu relationship might be possible someday — but only after they’ve rebuilt themselves on their own terms. After they’ve stopped trying to survive through each other.

I’d love to see how that’s explored if we get a sequel.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘ more kpop demon hunter ∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

If you’re curious about my post on K-pop Demon Hunters and mental health through the songs, it’s right here !

I also wrote about Celine and Rumi's relationship here.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘ more on mental health and love ∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

And if you're interested in a deeper exploration of this kind of bond — mental health, shame, love, and trying to climb out of darkness together — please read Seven Days in June. It’s an adult novel and beautifully written, though be warned: it deals with heavy themes. You can check my full review for content warnings.

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The Matriarch Isn’t the Villain. She’s the Mirror

I often hear a discourse where Celine in K-pop Demon Hunters, Alma in Encanto and Ming in Turning Red are seen as vilains. They’re the ones who restricted the younger generation, hurt them, and are ultimately responsible for their pain, trauma and self-doubt. They’re framed as the real villains of the story. But I’d like to differ.

These are stories of intergenerational trauma. They are women who survived, repressed, and tried to protect their families the only way they knew how: through control, perfectionism, and emotional suppression.

And yet, when the next generation begins to reclaim joy, freedom, softness — they become the obstacle. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re scarred. Their minds cling to survival strategies, unable to recognize that the environment has changed.

Alma is still stuck fleeing the colonizers.

Ming is still afraid of her true self.

Celine believes that fear and mistakes must be hidden.

It’s not about hating these characters. It’s about how unprocessed trauma twists love into control. How survival, unexamined, turns into rigidity. These women were never given space to process their own pain and they project it onto their daughters and granddaughters.

And here’s something we rarely say enough: intergenerational trauma can create toxic patterns but that doesn’t always mean there was abuse or conscious harm. Even when their love becomes suffocating or controlling, these women are not necessarily “abusive parents.” They are daughters of silence, fear, and sacrifice. And they were never taught another way. It’s important to make that distinction, especially in a world that often pushes a binary, punitive reading of family dynamics.

They’re the product of a generation that was told to endure. But endurance without healing becomes its own kind of violence.

What’s powerful in these stories is that they don’t end in vengeance. They end in confrontation and transformation. The confrontation is necessary: the younger generation refuses the silence. Refuses the shame. Refuses to carry a burden that wasn’t theirs to begin with.

The house is destroyed in Encanto.

Mei accepts her full self.

So does Rumi.

And in the best cases, this confrontation allows the elder to soften too. Alma opens up. Ming listens. And I’m hoping in the sequel, Celine will open too.

Maybe that’s also why these stories speak so deeply to POC audiences. These aren’t stories about cutting ties. They’re stories about how hard it is to transform them, to protect ancestral bonds while refusing to perpetuate inherited pain. In many racialized families, collectivity, loyalty, and intergenerational duty are sacred... even when they come at the cost of personal boundaries.

And sometimes, Western individualist frameworks read these tensions as dysfunction or villainy. But for us, they’re just the difficult truth of growing up and trying to do better.

These women aren’t villains. That would be too easy. They embody the fragile, necessary work of bringing change without breaking the thread. These stories are about refusing to inherit their pain without reflection. Because love, without accountability, is not enough.

These stories show us that each generation has something to learn from the next. And the new generation must also break free from the chains they inherited while preserving what is meaningfull.

But it’s not just their story.

One day, we’ll be the older generation.

And we’ll need to be humble enough to learn from the ones after us.

So don’t be a fool.

We may be Mei, Rumi, or Mirabel today.

But tomorrow, we could be Ming, Celine, or Alma.

And when that time comes, we’ll realize how hard it is to unlearn what once kept us safe.

So let’s have compassion for all these characters.

Because these stories show us not just how the cycle of generations works, but how it can make us better, stronger, and more connected... if we’re all willing to go through the change.

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If you’re curious, I’ve written more on K-pop Demon Hunters:

A post on the mental health themes woven through the songs — right here.

A breakdown of Celine-Rumi in comparaison to Gothel–Rapunzel dynamic — here.

An analysis about Rumi, Jinu, and the danger of sinking together — here.

Some book recs for each of the K-pop Demon Hunters characters — here.

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Eheh

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This is a fucking great book but the cover makes it impossible to carry around in public

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Mira and Zoey's first thoughts when they see Rumi's patterns were pure horror and self-loathing. Because there's only two ways they know of that Rumi could have them. Either Rumi made a deal with Gwi-Ma before even attempting to open up about her needs to them, or she's a demon imposter who's infiltrated their group for who knows how long. If the first, Rumi has betrayed them in the worst possible way, and how had they failed so much as friends to let her get to that point? If the second, how had they not noticed? How long had the human Rumi been gone? Was she dead? Had she been gone since before they ever met her and their entire friendship a ruse? Had she been taken from them just weeks ago and they'd been so caught up in their own woes they had even noticed?

Celine had been clear; there were only two ways a demon was created. Birth, or choice. They were never victims. You don't just grow patterns one day. It doesn't happen by accident.

Yet the demon wearing Rumi's face came to them pleading. Came to them in the midst of a panic attack, acting for all the world as if she should still be considered friend by the two of them. She was crying. As if she were the victim here.

The way Rumi was talking about fixing things, the way she had never acted like Not-Rumi like, the secrets she'd obviously hiding for a while: it became clear which way Rumi had gained the patterns. She'd betrayed them for a deal with Gwi-Ma. Why? What had she possibly needed that they couldn't have helped her with? She really turned to their sworn enemy first? Before even telling them she was hurting?

Then she shouted and it was demonic and the honmoon rippled. So much work and effort instantly ruined as the honmoon weakened.

She had made her choice. She chose to betray them. Now they had to make theirs, and they had to choose humanity.

She left them first. She chose to become their enemy. Even if they were assuming wrong, and she was actually a demon imposter, she'd chosen to manipulate their emotions and lied over and over and wasn't their friend.

As much as Mira and Zoey wished otherwise, wished it was all a mistake, they didn't know of any possibilities that could make Rumi an innocent in this. So they guarded their broken hearts with their weapons and waited for the fight that never ended up coming.

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When Rumi came back singing and saving their lives, they had no clue what on earth was happening. But one thing was clear, Rumi was choosing them and to do good, despite her demons. She was letting them in for the first time in their lives, and they were going to trust that for now. Emotional and in-depth explanations could come later.

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Celine Hot Take

Okay so one thing I'm seeing a lot is the idea/headcanon that Celine hated Rumi because she was half-demon and thus didn't really care for her during her childhood? I can't help but passionately, vehemently disagree. Why?

Because of this.

Celine wasn't raising HUNTR/X and projecting some sort of hatred of Rumi's demonhood onto their training, Celine is consistently in denial and on copium about the idea of Rumi being half-demon. Girl has been on copium for all of her screentime in the movie, so much that I don't doubt that's where her retirement funds go to. She refuses to believe that Rumi is a demon and instead chooses to lean into the idea that Rumi is a hunter, like Ryu, and that she just has demon patterns that will go away when the fabled Golden Honmoon is conjured. She rationalizes Rumi's demon half as, "it's not that she is a demon, she just has demon patterns."

Forgive the analogy, but it's exactly like "it's not that he is homosexual, he just has homosexual urges". Having something is ultimately easier than being something, because having something means that it is possible to no longer have something. Celine sees Rumi not as a half-human half-demon, but a full Hunter who just has demon patterns, because it's ultimately easier to digest something when you know that that something can and will go away.

That's why Celine is able to pass the Hunter's mindset onto HUNTR/X and why they are able to do what they do-- it's not that she's projecting her hatred of Rumi onto them, she just refuses to believe that Rumi is one of the demons she hates. And how could she not hate them, when her tenure as a Hunter has probably given her enough reasons to hate them that they could make a book longer than any historical archive? Those things she taught the girls about demons doesn't apply to Rumi, of course not! She's not a demon guys trust me she's not a de--

This entire rationalization of Rumi's patterns is the reason why Celine insists that Rumi can't tell Mira and Zoey about her patterns. Patterns = demon, but Rumi I guess is an exception because she is full Hunter but has patterns, and they're actively choosing to ignore the implications of having patterns (patterns = demon). This line of thinking is so goddamn fragile that the only way to not poke through this wet tissue paper of a mindset is to simply not acknowledge the big, gaping flaw in it, which Mira would probably be most wont to do.

And which Jinu does.

Fr tho that conversation would be so goddamn awkward like "oh yeah so I have patterns because my dad was a demon but I'm not a demon I swear I just have patterns they'll go away when the Golden Honmoon is formed okay I swear trust me they'll go away they're not who I am they're just something I have that will go away trust m"

But anyway back to my thesis here, Celine doesn't hate Rumi because she sees that Rumi is half-demon. Celine loves Rumi because she refuses to believe that Rumi is half-demon, because making that realization would force her to rethink I'm guessing 30-something years of her time as a Hunter, 30 years of fighting and hating demons, and however-old-Rumi-is years of "I pretend to not see"-ing her patterns.

Her being unable to look at Rumi? That's because she is clinging onto that tissue paper mindset she's made to cope with Rumi's nature. She is holding onto that mindset for dear life, because she hates demons, and she can't bear the thought that Rumi, her best friend's daughter, this kindhearted soul, is of that race of demons that she's hated for so long that she probably can't remember a time where she didn't. She doesn't want to hate her daughter, but her demon origin makes it so goddamn hard. She can't bring herself to hate her daughter, who is a demon.

And this bit here? Yeah Celine kinda has a right to think that, because every time Rumi snaps and her demon form comes out, the Honmoon ripples red. Who knows what that could actually mean, but the Hunters believe red = weak spot in the Honmoon, so that's how everyone in the room believes that, and that's how Celine interprets it.

But she's torn. She's not saying this coldly as a matter of fact. She is scared. She is desperate. She is scrambling to find a solution to this massive problem, but as she said, everything she was taught told her how to handle the problem (kill the demon), but she can't because everything she was taught told her that one cannot simply accept, even though acceptance is the exact solution she's looking for.

Celine probably had the biggest crashout under the tree, because in this moment, she's seeing all the years she spent raising Rumi crumbling apart. She's finally registered that the tissue paper is disintegrated in her hands, and to her that can only mean one thing: that she was wrong to cling so desperately to Ryu's memory, to hold onto the one thing she had left from her. To raise this half-demon to adulthood, when she couldn't even bring herself to put her down.

And then the Honmoon comes back a few minutes later and she goes from having an apocalyptic crashout to having an apocalyptic crashout confusedly haha--

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John Brosio, State of the Union, 2011, oil on canvas

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tiktok is such an awful app, it's almost designed to feed you misinformation and expose you to insane discourse. unlike beloved tumblr, the app that feeds me misinformation and exposes me to insane discourse

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Hey, just so anyone whose mind isn't rotted by video essayists knows: The anti-LGBT film Lady Ballers produced by the Daily Wire was supposed to be a documentary. The original plan behind the film was that they were going to actually get a bunch of men to dress in drag and enter into women's sports, then record the results.

However, the barrier of entry for trans women to qualify for admission into women's sports proved to be prohibitively high, and they couldn't find any men willing to go the extra mile in undergoing hormone therapy and transitioning to the point they met the criteria for admission.

The Daily Wire accidentally disproved and discredited the entire concept of "men in women's sports", and were forced to turn the film into a shitty piece of comedy fiction instead.

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it's such a sadness to me that kids eventually lose that 'no filter' thing when they grow up. my niece asked what 9/11 is and someone explained it to her and her unfiltered conclusion was "bro. is that it"

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crazy how every time a female character gets cliche misogynistic writing we have to explain to people again that fictional characters are not real and do not choose things for themselves.