Bug autism Rumi is so wildly important to me.
Yes she loves learning and collecting information and everyone thinks she just thinks bugs are cute. The joke? She doesnt. Shes actually a little scared of them. But as a young child a mantis and her almost killed each other and she realized they are just as scared as her. Worse, probably, because she can kill them and what could they do back? Sting her maybe?
No, rumi loves bugs because she feels extremely connected to them. People like the pretty ones but even those get harmed if they fly too close. She looks at the utter disgust pointed towards them and can only think ‘that will be me someday’ and so it goes. She has threatened random staff for trying to smash spiders. She begs Mira to collect anything that makes it into the penthouse and put it on her plants outside. She cried once so pathetically zoey joined in because there was a dead dragonfly trapped in the shower in some random hotel.
Rumi smiles and fake laughs and plays along with all the jokes about her bug obsession when she cant even be the one to catch spiders that come inside. The girls get her a pet millipede, mostly because they think she needs something to pay attention to that isnt her email inbox. It takes her Months to actually pick it up the first time and suddenly shes realizing that maybe her phobia was more self imposed than anything else.
Rumi vs self accusation but she only hits that point because some random twitter user says her pet millipede (whos named Haru) should be killed and she gets banned from the internet for three weeks because she tweets back his ip address. Rumi being forced to realize that shes so emotionally attached to bugs as a whole because she viewed herself as that trapped dragonfly that died terrified in a random shower. Rumi trying to explain this to the girls who only tease her a little bit and otherwise cuddle her despite mira asking if she needs to get cupped (which becomes the default way to ask if shes anxious)
Anyway someone take her millipede away because shes got the poor thing in her pocket AGAIN
