#pathmagethoughts

[spicypathmage]

The hardest part of being a polytrix fan is still the persistent yearning to have what they have too. I've got two hands and so much love to give, where are my cosmically bonded sapphic soulmates?

[spicypathmage]

Listening to the demo version of What It Sounds Like from EJAE's interview with Daniel Wall and holy shit. Don't get me wrong, I like the final cut, but this version is so good! Legit, I think I like these lyrics better; the rawness of having Rumi just confess to her fear of being hated for who she really is and how much she hated having to hide it is just so good, and the reprise of Free (a song about which I have thoughts) into the song she sings with Zoey and Mira at the end? Fuck yes! I will die on the hill that What It Sounds Like is the real romantic ballad of KPop Demon Hunters, and given how What It Sounds Like plays out over the cinematic sequence with the girls literally joining hands to defeat Gwi-ma? This version really does seem to drive that idea home even more explicitly than the final cut for the movie.

Not gonna lie, I'd love to hear the girls do a polished version of this demo version of the song and that would be my favourite by far.

[spicypathmage]

Me: "I love KPDH, but it's frustrating that the movie seemingly relegated anything queer to subtext or background detail while only openly and explicitly portraying heterosexual attraction; which it frequently does in a way that is slapstick to the point of feeling obnoxiously jarring and makes it feel like it's meant to loudly deflect from any interpretation of the main characters' incredible chemistry as indicating a sapphic relationship or them experiencing sapphic attraction to each other."

Random: "Queer women can be attracted to men too!"

Me: Bashes head into a wall.

[spicypathmage]

So apparently KPDH 2 has been announced with a projected 2029 release. I have a few thoughts about this.

First, I still don't really want it. Not once in the nine times that I've watched KPDH did I feel like I needed another movie, or that there were loose plot threads I wanted to see tied up. My criticisms of the film's relationship with its own queerness notwithstanding, I think it's a really solid film that stands perfectly fine on its own and I think that's why a lot of the most popular fanfiction isn't post-canon but rather AU; the story wraps up very nicely and building on it in a way that makes for compelling narratives is hard (I should know, I'm trying to write a longfic that's exactly that!).

Second, I'm reluctant to get my hopes up or excited about it. As mentioned above and elaborated on elsewhere, I think the movie fails in the particular area of embracing its queerness. I don't just say this as a resolute Polytrix fan, but because the film's themes are so plainly queer (IIRC Kang even called it a coming out story at one point) and there is a mountain of subtext (see my post about how Zoey looks at Mira exactly the same way as Mystery, or how my friend on first watching thought Polytrix was just a canon thing based on Huntrix's chemistry). KPDH leaves things open enough to be able to work around this in fan works, but bluntly I don't trust a Sony production to let a sequel embrace it in a way that KPDH seemingly was prevented from doing. If anything I fear they'll double down, and I don't need to see that happen.

Third, despite all this 2029 is a long way away and I'm kind of thankful for that fact. I don't know where I'll be or what I'll be doing in 2029, and I don't know if I'll still be thinking about KPDH at all by then. Maybe 2029 will roll around and I'll be reminded of this time and check it out. Maybe I'll see a trailer and just feel like my fears were validated and let it go because I hadn't thought about KPDH in years by that point. It's far enough in the future that I really don't need to think about it, though tbh if anyone has links to interviews or news or whatever that might assuage my concerns in the meantime I'm absolutely open to it.

[spicypathmage]

The biggest challenge for me so far as a writer of fanfic has been trying to balance my desire to keep characters true to their characterisation in the source material with the understanding that I am my own writer and my interpretation of a character will necessarily be my own and not a perfect emulation of the original writer's intentions.

[spicypathmage]

Another retail Christmas over for me, and the existential stress has eased off a bit too. Once my brain is no longer mush I want to get back into writing Promise Ring and Trying To Be Normal, though I worry a little that getting the passion (or at least enthusiasm) back will be easier said than done after the rough month I've just had. I want to feel excited about Polytrix again, and I'm not sure how to do that.

[spicypathmage]

I saw that post about how Rumi's patterns are visible on her wrist for a moment while she's swinging around during the Golden performance at the Idol Awards and it gave me an idea for a one-shot. Once my brain recovers from working over Christmas week I'm going to write it as a little break from the long fics to get some creative flow going again.

[spicypathmage]

Just gonna vent into the void a bit here but after nine times, I'm starting to wonder whether I want to watch KPDH again. I adore Huntrix as characters and love polytrix as a ship, and maybe it's just fatigue or something because I have had a long day, but the more time passes the more the movie's weaknesses seem glaring to me. I'm annoyed by the queerbaiting, I'm even more frustrated by the straitbaiting, and I hate both the way the movie tends to sanitise the villain's actual villainy to sell the latter and the way a worrying amount of the fandom has lapped it up. I want to love this movie with all my heart, like I did early on, but lately it seems that every time I get close it breaks my heart instead. I'd love to feel the same way I did back in July, watching it like once a week, but it's become much harder to see the things that first stirred my passion.

I do think I see why so many AUs that put the girls in wholly new contexts are so popular though. The girls, both in themselves and as a throuple, are by far the best part of KPDH.