thoughts on pre-canon rumi????
also i fully believe rumi is the most confident of the girls in huntrix. like girlie is 95% confident in herself (the remaining 5% is overwhelming anxiety, despair, and self-loathing re: half-demon, but she’s getting better at that post-canon). not to say that zoey and mira lack confidence, but zoey is a big people-pleaser and also the most anxious throughout the movie, and mira truly does have major “i am so chill. so nonchalant. so unbothered. i am a confident person. nothing can hurt me unless i let it” daily affirmations that only half work energy
YOU'RE LITERALLY SO RIGHT I AGREE WITH YOU COMPLETELY!!!!!!!! i 100% believe that mira is standing in front of the mirror gripping the sink so hard it's cracking and she's gritting out "I Am So Brave. I Am SO Brave. I Am Not Insecure. Nothing Bothers Me. I Cannot Be Hurt. I Do The Hurting." and she's on the verge of tears the whole time
and pre-canon rumi...........god i love my pre-canon rumi and this is ALSO going to be long because i'm long-winded and a rambler at heart BAHSGDSHDGF
pre-canon rumi is so fun and interesting because i think we all collectively make her sad and pathetic and sopping wet . However , my favourite thing to do is just. go the total opposite direction with her because i think it's SO much more fun and actually makes literally everything worse. like so much worse. like So Much Worse
my pre-canon rumi is confident, bold, outgoing, cocky, kind of a dick, a little arrogant, charming, charismatic, generally well-liked, and she's a little insufferable BAHAHAHSGDF she's also a lot more selfish than she is in canon, but that's something she grows out of pretty quickly i think. she's playful and likes to tease and fuck around and doesn't really hide that part of herself. she KNOWS she's good, she KNOWS she's talented, and she's a total show-off more often than she's not
she still has Shame. she knows very well what her patterns mean for her, but she just doesn't….care as much. she has her duty, yeah, but it's just her and celine, and celine already knows, so who is she pretending for? rumi still covers up (mostly for celine) ((ignore how she doesn't like looking at them herself)) and trains as hard as she can because it's expected of her, but she really does genuinely want to do well and to get rid of her patterns so she can be free of that weight. she wants to seal the honmoon, wants to be the best hunter to do it. she feels like she has a Lot to prove and she doesn't want to fall behind even a little
still, rumi's kind of selfish and always has been. she's determined and stubborn and diligent, but she Wants Things. she's just focused on the honmoon and doesn't really have….anything else to want. but there's a feeling there somewhere inside of her and she knows that she Wants
and then there's mira and zoey
mira first, zoey later. mira makes her feel a Lot. rumi has never really been challenged her entire life (the only fights she used to get into had been with celine, and those were never Like This, and they stopped once rumi got older, because what was the point?) ((she also wishes celine liked her more or could act like it, so maybe if she's a little easier to deal with that'll be true)) and now there's another person in her house who is basically just setting it on fire for ?? Funsies ??
mira pisses her off SO fucking bad. mira has disrupted her entire life and is acting like it's HER fault somehow for all of it happening. it's the weirdest contrast in the world for rumi, because mira comes into her life battered and bruised and obviously fucked up, and rumi cares so much about her already, and mira's effectively spending all of her time trying to kill rumi BAHSGDHSDF they have an insane back-and-forth because neither of them can be normal, but i think rumi starts a lot of the fights . partially because mira genuinely makes her mad, partially because she Likes To Feel. It's Nice. she hasn't NOT been allowed to feel, but this is just…different, and she likes it
(slightly relevant because i think they're funny)
mira makes her Feel. mira makes her want to do Better. mira makes rumi realise that all she does is work and perform and make herself into something useful, and once mira stops being so angry at her for that (and starts being more sympathetic), it gets easier for them to coexist. mira offers up solutions: why Always listen to celine? what if i stole her car? come with me on a road trip? show me how to get to the top of the hanok? what if we just left for a night? why do you have to work so hard? (it can't just be about saving the world. you act like it's going to kill you if you screw up)
they still fight a lot. rumi has never had to really work With someone and mira is not the kind of person who's going to make it easy for her, and it hardly helps that mira's going through her own dozens of issues. she's angry and blunt and easily frustrated and can't be vulnerable or else she freaks out and makes everything worse. can't trust anyone out of fear they'll fuck her over. that makes it kind of difficult to establish, like….A Connection, especially with someone like rumi, who is so stubborn and unwilling to back down
but even when they fight Really Bad, they're still there. they don't know what happens if one of them leaves (there's three hunters, can you just choose to leave? neither of them wants to find out) but they still choose to stick around. time and time again they keep choosing each other and they keep choosing to stay, even if there's the cosmic peer pressure. maybe that's influencing them! maybe it's not! they're both so stupidly stubborn that they'll never admit to it maybe not fully being their own decision!
which means mira is Also staying. and suddenly this is someone rumi cares about (a lot) ((more than she should)) (((more than she Wants to))) and oh she Wants a lot now. her goals have gone from just "saving the world" to "keeping mira" and that means her patterns have to go, because if they don't, she can't Keep Mira, and that's almost more important than saving the world
rumi was always going to save the world, duh, but know she knows what it's like to want to save someone Specifically in the world. it's different. it's different, and it makes her scared, and she's Ashamed of being selfish, and suddenly she has a LOT more shame than she's ever had before. because what does it mean if she loves someone more than the world? what does it mean if she loves One Person more than the world? what does it mean if she's willing to do anything for that One Person, including only saving the world for them?
(her patterns start to spread)
the fighting with mira gets easier to deal with. everything gets even easier (and harder!) when zoey shows up! now there's TWO people rumi would do anything for, Two People she'd save the world for. Two People more important to her than saving the world
if mira teaches rumi how to Feel, zoey teaches her how to Love
not people really, just the world around her. like, zoey knows so much about everything and she's so excited and genuine and sincere about it all, so how couldn't rumi fall in love with all the things she's talking about? suddenly rumi loves turtles and anything in the ocean and the ocean itself and there's this little cafe in california she's never been to that she gets giddy just thinking about because it used to make zoey happy. she's gardened before with celine, but now she loves the plants and the flowers and Doing It because zoey has taught her how to actually do something with the emotions that mira has made her feel
zoey helps balance things out. zoey 100% still picks fights and gets angry and rumi gets to See her yell at mira a few times (and she's hardly free of it either) but it's less Fighting Just To Fight and Fighting To Make Them Fucking Stop. rumi and mira had just been so good at getting trapped in the cycle of Feeling that neither of them really bothered to figure out what it was they were specifically trying to feel, or why they were trying to chase it
zoey makes rumi realise a lot of things. like there's more to just working, there's more to fighting than to just do it. the feelings she has are real and they can mean more than she thinks. there are things that she Wants and doesn't know How To Express. and apparently it's fine to want those things. or something. weird. but zoey would know better than her, and rumi trusts her 100% without a doubt, so. whatever
zoey makes rumi fall in love with the world. makes her fall in love with a lot of different things. makes her fall in love just…..generally. with. two people in particular!
and now there are real life consequences for her actions. there always have been, but now they're in the form of the two people she loves more than anything, and the idea of losing them (the idea of them Hating Her) is too much to stand. suddenly, all of celine's lessons about duty and doing her part and Being A Good Hunter make infinitely more sense. like fuck if she doesn't get Really Good at everything immediately, she's going to lose EVERYTHING!!! LITERALLY EVERYTHING!!! they are her ENTIRE world!!! whatever fuck the actual world she doesn't care she just wants Them and she has to save the world for Them she'd do Anything For Them
rumi isn't nearly as confident in anything anymore. she knows that she's skilled and good at things. knows she's a good hunter and a good idol. she's focused and dead-set on fixing things, on fixing herself. she's not playful or snarky anymore. she Needs to get rid of her patterns to save the world and to trap all demons or else everything is going to fall apart. she always knew there were consequences, but she didn't think the consequences would be like This. it's like the weight of the world has hit her full force all at once and there's nothing she can do about it other than pray mira and zoey haven't noticed
mira teaches her how to feel, and rumi certainly feels a lot of shame these days. zoey teaches her how to fall in love, and rumi's fallen in love with the idea of being loved back
and so now, the Old Rumi is just…dormant. that's all. rumi just needs to get rid of her patterns and they can go back to how they used to be, but mira and zoey don't understand why their best friend is suddenly so…different. so much more distant and closed off and terrified. why is she acting like she's going to Die if she makes a mistake? if she misses a beat? what happened to the rumi they used to know, who used to be loud and charming and confident? rumi used to be outgoing and playful and she was the first to tease them for being too worried or nervous; she used to be convinced the world would just bend to her whim and that everything would work out just fine, so when did that change? when did She suddenly have the be the one doing the bending?
rumi Wants. she desperately, desperately Wants them to love her, and that means she has to get rid of her patterns. it's not really about saving the world; it's about mira and zoey and how she Wants them and how she Loves them and how she Wants them to Want her
rumi has always been selfish, and she's finally figured out what it is she Wants, and she's decided it's what she Needs. she needs them more than she's ever needed anything ever in her entire life, and she is Going To Get What She Wants
(she strips away all the traits mira and zoey fell in love with her for. gets rid of all that arrogance and confidence. stops being snarky. doesn't even realise that she's turned into a completely different person until it's too late and they're seeing the barest version of herself, patterns and all, and maybe it was easier to not Want at all with how everything has been thrown back in her face)
post-canon, rumi is a LOT more similar to how she used to be. she's less nervous and anxious and isn't a total or complete wreck. it takes a lot of time for her to unlearn the shame she started choking on when she was a teenager, but she's a lot closer to the person mira + zoey fell in love with all those years ago. she's arguably 10x worse because she USED to be confident and she misses the feeling of being playful and teasing and now that she gets to do that again? oh they are NEVER going to be free (especially now that she can teleport. jumpscares on demand)
she still has to deal with a lot of unlearning and has a ton of hang-ups; like...it's not like she can go from being On The Verge to being as confident and as playful as she used to be, but the shift isn't as hard as she expected it to be. honestly the newest thing she has to deal with is just how angry she is — at herself, at celine, at the world, at her parents, even at mira and zoey sometimes. but i think they work through that together pretty well, it just takes some time to figure out why that anger is actually resurfacing
anyways. all of this is just me saying that i Adore confident charming cocky playful arrogant ryu rumi and i've decided i've written enough of her being sopping wet. get ready for frat boy rumi.
