I love this chapter of Lay Me Down. This was such a funny chapter and it had so many of the little career like Rocky style training montage vibes that I was really looking forward to for a while.
I noticed you seem to have left an open loop around Celine in that Rumi was expecting to see her and have more interaction with her. And at the same time she didn't get that interaction but Project Rumi exists and she's singled out with everyone else paying attention to her. So what an interesting little open loop.
I don't know if you'll actually close it or not, or if that was just something that was going to stay open, but it's got my mind running off into the ways that, you know, the mirror of Rumi feeling a little bit unmoored is that Celine still has her grief about, well, why didn't Miyeong ever tell her that she was going to have a demon daughter? And then now she doesn't necessarily know what to do with the girl. But, you know, she's sweet and she's nice and she's hardworking. And Celine's charmed. So the other side of that open loop.
Ah yeah, I don't know if you'll go this way or not, but my brain is running away with wholesome little moments of the two of them. Like maybe they have workaholic lunches. Rumi writes her a letter about the absences and then they start having lunches, but they don't really know what to say to each other, so it becomes workaholic group strategy sessions.
Or maybe Rumi gets upset or really stubborn or really determined and like it just goes off into the deep end and Celine recognizes it as something Miyeong did tok and her first response is, well, if it was Miyeong, she would have dangled a sweeat treat in front of her, so she might try something similar. Then its - what did Rumi like again?
Or maybe they bond during some sort of meeting that Celine actually finds important enough to go to. And Celine says something and everyone's either confused or shocked or something. And Rumi remembers Mira's advice of, well, when they look a little confused, just smile as if it's a joke. And she kind of laughs even though that Celine doesn't make jokes. But, you know, why not try Mira's advice out? What do you know - the energy of the room changes.
If you have any thoughts or teasers, Id be excited to hear you share, but no pressure. I don't expect you to even really address this very much.
The open loop between Rumi and Celine is definitely intentional, but was also very much unplanned. My plans for Celine were for the POV chapter we got, and some stuff that's not going to come up until the very end of the story. But what I'm doing right now is very much vibes based.
Celine isn't really going to be a major presence in the story in any case. It's just not her story the way it is the girls'. The thing about Celine is that she's kind of living her epilogue right now--or at least trying to. I touched on it a bit in her chapter, but it really fucked her up that she couldn't find the third Hunter. That was supposed to be the last piece, the last thing she had to do before she could more officially withdraw. I don't think she would have disappeared the way her own mentor did--lowkey that probably fucked the SLS up--but Celine did want to be able to move on. And then she just couldn't.
Rumi's unmoored right now, but Celine is too. For Rumi, her time in Jeju was restful. For Celine, it pulled up a whole bunch of stuff she didn't want to think about anymore. Things she wanted to move past. Which isn't the best way to handle it (we've got some twin unresolved grief in those two), but that's just how Celine constructed her life. Rumi's appearance meant she had to rearrange things in ways she wasn't really ready for.
So if Jeju was Rumi's rest, this particular moment in time in Celine's, where she's trying to get back to an equilibrium. For better or worse, equilibrium for Celine is also isolation.
The purpose of why Project Rumi is a thing will eventually be explained. Here's your teaser: It has to do with Rumi's name. If she didn't get a family name from her father, then what should it be? And if she claims the family name she has a right too, is Celine prepared to hear that name over and over again?
