22 y/o 🦋 she/they/it 🦋 This blog is for multifandom nonsense, but I'm currently fixated on Kpop Demon Hunters so expect to see a lot of that 🦋 Writer and artist sometimes... if I'm extra lucky.
Hellooo, call me Moth! I'm 22, and I go by she/they. This blog is dedicated to whatever random fandom nonsense I'm engaged with at the moment. Currently vibing the most with:
Kpop Demon Hunters
Baldur's Gate 3
FNAF
You may also see:
Inscryption
Undertale/ Deltarune
Various TTRPG stuff
Feel free to talk to me about any of that stuff. Or anything really, idm
All my original posts are tagged '#moth fluttering' if you wanna filter out the ridiculous quantity of reblogs I am responsible for.
The thing about animation as a medium is that, with the exception of TV shows that need to put out a lot of episodes every season and can get rushed, nothing is accidental. Every frame is intentional, every little movement and facial expression planned and carefully executed. If there are time constraints and they need to stick to a specific runtime, the animators can do a lot with very little by putting extra detail into the time they do have.
And there's a LOT going on with Celine in her longest scene. The directors had to cut a decent amount of story in order to keep Kpop Demon Hunters to 90 minutes, so they put a lot of work into her facial expressions and body language in order to tell us as much as they can about her character very quickly. And my god, do they deliver.
What little we see of Celine up until Rumi confronts her paints her as very stoic and even-keeled. Even when she's comforting Rumi in the flashback, she's extremely calm. We also get insight from Mira and Zoey when they quote Celine's "Our faults and fears must never be seen" spiel and unanimously agree that they absolutely cannot tell her that Rumi's voice is in trouble. What we end up with is a clear picture of a stern (but not necessarily unkind) mentor who's extremely goal-focused and whose belief that Rumi needs to hide a part of herself isn't just about her demon marks; all flaws must be covered up.
That all shifts when we see Celine at the tree following the Idol Awards. She's all business when she turns around with her sickle pointed at the perceived threat; she's everything we know her to be, until she sees that it's Rumi.
And suddenly that image of Celine as the stoic and calm teacher is completely upended, in no small part due to Yunjim Kim's performance. Her voice wavers, her eyes go wide and watery, her lips tremble throughout the scene as she tries to wrap her head around what's happening, what Rumi is asking her to do.
When she pushes Rumi's sword to the side and refuses to "fix her mistake", she's heartbroken. The facade is gone. Her eyes are filled with pure grief and pain.
Even if they aren't related by blood, Rumi is her family, the last reminder of her best friend, but seeing her look more demonic than she ever has makes her stop in her tracks when she's trying to be physically affectionate.
She holds Rumi's arms as she helps her stand, but falters when she goes to stroke her face, even though comforting Rumi was clearly Celine's first instinct. Her voice breaks and her hand freezes as she's face to face with angry patterns and a demonic yellow eye.
And then she starts smiling as her voice shakes, desperation obvious as she tries so, so hard to put everything back the way it was. Because she doesn't know any other way, her belief system is too rigid.
She tries and fails spectacularly to reassure Rumi, telling her that they can fix things, hide her marks again, that nothing needs to change, but her voice and wide eyes and pinched brow tell us that even she doesn't really believe what she's saying at this point.
She's just desperate.
She can't hide how she's about to start sobbing even as she refuses to look at Rumi. And she can't hide how guilty she feels when Rumi begs Celine to look at her, because she can't.
When Rumi asks why she couldn't love her, Celine's screamed response of, "I do!" is gut-wrenching. And then finally, when Rumi vanishes after declaring that she's glad to see the Honmoon destroyed, Celine can only stand there in shock. Not fear or anger, but guilt and grief and "What have I done." She didn't just fail to protect the Honmoon, she failed Rumi. She failed Mi-yeong's daughter.
In under three minutes, the movie completely subverts everything we thought we knew about Celine. We see that she's more than just the stock archetype of the wise old master. She loves Rumi, just not the way she needs. And when she's confronted with the result of her mistakes, everything that she's been repressing all comes out at once, and it breaks her.
In conclusion: 1. What the animators and actors managed to do in this one scene is incredible, considering their time limitations. The line delivery! The micro-expressions! They fucking cooked. And 2. If you watched this scene and came away from it thinking, "Celine only sees Rumi as a means to an end and doesn't love her at all", I don't know what to tell you.
That's not fear or anger at the Honmoon being broken, that's despair. Why would she feel so deeply emotional over someone she doesn't care about? We don't get a lot of time with Celine, but what we do get tells us a hell of a lot, and none of what we're told implies that she thinks of Rumi with anything but care and love. And that's what makes her failure to love all of Rumi so devastating.
What if there was a Hunter whose weapon of choice was just a gun lol
It was really fun to sketch this! idk if any kpdh fans have played Othercide or Control, but I really like the designs in those games where parts of the weapon are just floating.
Now I'm thinking about a character who would use these. Maybe one of the successors to Huntrix? She'd definitely duel wield them, and probably do that thing where she throws her guns away and gets new ones instead of reloading. but ofc they don't need ammo because they shoot bolts of Honmoon energy, so she just does it to look cool
you need to understand that i have two sets of headcanons. there's the set of realistic headcanons based on my genuine reading of the show, and then there's me playing pretend with my dolls.
it's so wild to me that you absolutely cannot force a hyperfixation to happen. like you'll watch the most perfectly tailor-made-for-you content that everyone says you'll love and feel absolutely nothing, and then the thing you watch on a whim to fill time will reach through the screen and put its damn fingers in your brain and start rearranging the neurons right in front of you and every single time you're like THIS??? THIS??????? and this happens like every 6-12 months forever
