Ruby/Red Riding Hood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adventureswithlemurs) wrote2012-03-28 12:36 pm
adventureswithlemurs) wrote2012-03-28 12:36 pm
Entry tags:
[application] fractured reality
Player name: Emmy
Journal:longagotomorrow
AIM: lackofsatin
Email: halfthewaffles at gmail
Other characters: Amy Pond, Robb Stark, Sarah Walker
Character name: Red Riding Hood/Ruby
Age: 18
Canon: Once Upon A Time
Canon point: 1x15 "Red-Handed," the present-day storyline, the night after finding Kathryn's heart, before going back to the diner.
Totem: Her glass wolf figurine. During a fissure, it will be blue instead of red.
Weapons: None.
Abilities/powers: In this version of the story, Red Riding Hood is the Big Bad Wolf. In this case, lycanthropy is not a disease transmitted by biting: werewolf bites leave scars that ache around the full moon, but that's it. Rather, it's genetic. Red inherited her lycanthropy from her mother, who inherited it from her father/Red's grandfather. Granny says that Red's grandfather "turned" her, and that she is(/was - it fades with age) a werewolf as well, but how grandpa wolf turned her is never elaborated on.
Red has no control over her transformation, and after the fact she remembers neither the transformation itself nor anything she did while in wolf form. The transformation is triggered by the full moon, and she cannot transform during the day or at any other point during the month. The full moon, in this case, includes the nights before and after the full moon, so three nights per month. While in wolf form, Red does not recognize or respond to anyone she knows: she's 100% a wild animal, and an unusually vicious one at that. There is evidence to suggest that werewolves retain human-level intelligence in wolf form (grandpa wolf, while surrounded by hunters with spears, knew enough to attack the spears and break them) and at least some vague sense of their human life (wolf!Red apparently knows to return to Granny's house before sunrise). Red's wolf form looks just like a real wolf, only larger (here's wolf!Red with her human bf for a size comparison). When she transforms from human to wolf, her clothes magically disappear, and when she transforms from wolf to human, she magically has her clothes on.
In human form, Red has wolfish heightened senses:
- HEARING: Wolves can hear pitches roughly 60khz higher than humans can, and can hear sounds approximately 6mi away in confined areas (like the forest) and 10mi away in open areas. Since part of that is due to ear shape, in human form Red probably can't hear quite the same distance or with quite the same accuracy, but canon shows that her hearing is still significantly more acute than a human's, and it's likely she can still hear the higher frequencies that humans can't.
- SMELL: Wolves can smell things from up to 1.5mi away depending on atmospheric conditions, and their sense of smell is roughly 100x more powerful than a human's would be.
- The other senses are never specifically mentioned (and touch and taste are the same anyway).
The silver issue is briefly raised when Granny shoots wolf!Red with a silver-tipped arrow. Wolf!Red immediately falls, but as soon as she's human again, she seems fine. Red's mother was killed by hunters while in wolf form, so presumably normal weapons can kill werewolves. It's never made clear why being shot with an arrow doesn't hurt Red post-transformation or to what extent silver is more effective against werewolves than normal weapons. It's possible that the transformation involves some sort of healing process (reconfiguring your body so extremely would probably fuck it up pretty badly so there's a good chance healing during the transformation is a required secondary superpower).
Red is kept from changing by a magical cloak that Granny got for her. While she wears the cloak, the full moon has no effect on her, and draping her in it while she's in wolf form will revert her back to human form. In the real world, she doesn't change. She's recently gotten her heightened senses back.
So. IN LIMBO:
The longer she's in Limbo, the more the wolf will start to come out. For the first few lunar cycles, she'll have her heightened senses on the days before/after a full moon and won't change. Then maybe she'll start changing one night per lunar cycle, then she'll work her way up to changing every night of the full moon. I know the lunar cycles have the potential to be wonky in Limbo, so in terms of actually scheduling this... idk. I'd definitely like to play with the wolf thing eventually, but I'm good with leaving it up to the mods or playing it by ear or whatever.
As for limits:
- Her heightened senses will come and go unreliably while she has them.
- As to the silver thing and the healing thing, silver doesn't have any special effect on her in human form, and won't in Limbo. In wolf form, a silver weapon will incapacitate her instantly. And since it's hard to tell whether she's got any healing powers in canon, she won't in Limbo. All wounds will carry over from wolf form to human form and vice-versa.
- The transformation leaves her a bit disoriented for a few moments, and in Limbo that will be exacerbated, so she'll be disoriented, groggy, and really sore for an hour or two after transforming.
- Since the wolf is a giant psycho that tears whole hunting parties to shreds, it probably needs some limits on it too. I'm thinking it'll be smaller and less intelligent than it is in Fairytale Land, more like a normal wolf.
Location: Granny's Bed & Breakfast. It's an old Tudor-style house hidden behind some extremely overgrown trees and shrubs. The lawn looks less than well-kept. On the stairs are several broken pots containing dead plants. Over the door is hung a painted sign that reads "Granny's Bed & Breakfast." The inside is a bit dingy, and nearly everything is covered in a thin layer of dust. The ground floor is crammed full of antique knickknacks. Immediately inside the door is a small desk, very cobwebby, behind which is a rack of intricate silver keys. There's also a wood-burning stove in one corner that's got a permanent fire going in it.
Upstairs, there's a rather different feel: the rooms are spacious, with big windows to let in plenty of light. The beds are soft and comfortable, there are nice wicker chairs and sofas in each room, plus more antique knickknacks. Each room also has an individual fireplace and mantle.
Personality: When we first meet her, Red is a sheltered young girl who's probably never even been out of her village. She wants to leave, but things like 'a source of income' and 'long-term plans' aren't really on her radar - it's her boyfriend, Peter, who mentions finding work elsewhere, Red simply seems desperate to get away, "anywhere." Despite not knowing what's out there, probably because she doesn't know what's out there, she's eager to go off and have adventures.
At home, she feels stifled by her overprotective grandmother, and her desire to leave stems partially from Granny's smothering attitude towards Red. She feels, as she puts it, "like a rat in a trap." Granny never allows Red to take any risks, try anything new, or do anything even mildly adventurous. She is vocally opposed to Red's relationship with Peter, and openly chastises Red in front of other people. Having been raised by Granny and subject to Granny's views her whole life, Red sort of thinks Granny might be right to treat her the way she does and to be so insanely overprotective. She's generally willing to tow the line and do as she's told, but only because she's afraid of getting into trouble. Left to her own devices, Red's not the quiet stay-at-home type. She's much more rebellious and outgoing, and sometimes that comes out even around Granny. She's inquisitive, refusing to take some of Granny's odder statements (like "red repels wolves") at face value, and is a bit of a mischievous tease towards Peter. She also talks back to Granny in front of a relative group of strangers, seemingly not caring what other people think of her. But one of her reasons for killing the wolf - "we'd be heroes" - suggests that maybe she does care, at least enough to fantasize about being viewed as a hero by the villagers. And she's got a streak of danger-loving recklessness. When told that a hunting party is going to try to kill the wolf, she instantly wants to join them, and is disappointed when Granny says no. When she and Snow White are discussing the wolf, Snow merely suggests that the wolf is the ultimate source of Granny's refusal to let Red spend time with Peter, and Red instantly jumps to the conclusion that she and Snow should kill the wolf themselves, attempting what countless trained hunters have been killed doing, and won't take no for an answer. Red's recklessness is tempered by a certain amount of common sense, at least: she suggests hunting the wolf during the day, when it should be sleeping.
Her attitude towards the wolf in general smacks of selfishness: she wants it dead because it's interfering with her love life and her desire to leave the village. Both her asking to join the hunting party and her decision to kill it herself come on the heels of a discussion about her relationship with Peter and how the wolf is preventing her from seeing him. She only takes matters into her own hands when she's personally affected. All this comes across as unthinking more than any sort of active dismissal of the villagers' suffering and losses - she's never hostile towards anyone but Granny, and she is visibly horrified by the carnage caused by the wolf.
All in all, Red is a sweet girl, kindhearted and exceptionally generous. She's more than willing to take in Snow White, even having just caught Snow stealing eggs from Granny's chicken coop. She worries for Granny, despite everything, and wants to help and take care of her. And she's a great friend, willing to trust, believe in, and help out anyone she cares about. She stands up for Peter to Granny, and when she thinks Peter's the wolf, she never for a second assumes that he's killing knowingly or willingly, and promises to stick by him no matter what. She also believes in True Love - not just in the sense that she seems to think she and Peter will be together forever and ever, she's also rooting for Snow and Prince Charming to get together and live happily ever after, and when Snow goes missing is more than happy to help Charming track her down.
When confronted with a new and scary situation (such as finding out the guy she loves is a horrifying killing machine, or that she herself is a horrifying killing machine), Red's initial reaction is to freak out and not know what to do. In both situations, she needs Snow White to calm her down and get her going. But once she's figured out her next step, Red is determined. She makes up her mind to do something and just does it, with no looking back once her mind is made up.
It's implied that Red isn't unused to death and other awful things. The sight of the slaughtered hunting party terrifies her, as does Granny's story about being attacked by a wolf when she was young. But every time, Red's quick to recover. She's also completely unafraid to talk to strangers, even a stranger who admits to being on the run from someone, and in fact seems eager to make friends with Snow White. Though traumatic events tend to leave her shaken for a while, she gets back to being her usual outgoing self pretty quickly.
Before discovering she's the wolf, Red tends to react rather than act: Granny tries to keep her close and she pushes back against that, she defends Peter rather than preemptively taking his side, she decides to kill the wolf after Snow says that Granny's using it as an excuse. Afterwards, she has to learn to take care of herself, to live on her own and be self-reliant, and she tends to take the lead more: she pushes Snow to ask about Prince Charming's wedding, she orders Charming to leave while she holds back the soldiers chasing them. While she's still friendly and caring, she's also much more self-confident and able to take charge. She even learns to use the wolf to her advantage, using the cape to control it and apparently living a relatively normal life rather than allowing the wolf to control her - another example of how resilient she can be to awful circumstances.
The Evil Queen's curse leaves Red - now Ruby - with most of her positive qualities intact. She's still friendly and outgoing. She's still a loyal friend, willing to cross even the terrifying Mr. Gold (Rumpelstiltskin) to help Ashley (Cinderella). But though she'll do anything to help a friend in need, she's less than adept at cheering her friends up or dealing with their purely emotional crises: when Ashley and Mary Margaret (Snow White) are unhappy on Valentine's Day, Ruby ends up ditching them because they're no fun. She definitely likes a good time, and doesn't seem to know how to handle someone who isn't having one.
She's eager to help out where she can - she assists with the rescue efforts when Dr. Hopper (Jiminy Cricket) and Henry are trapped in an abandoned mine, and literally leaps into action when Sheriff Swan hires her as an assistant ("I can answer phones, help out, um. Is there anything else you need done? Organize files, cleaning up? Please, I wanna be useful."). Her enthusiasm for work doesn't spill over to her real job: waiting tables at Granny's diner. Though she's always there, is perky and friendly towards the customers, and never complains, she's been known to clock in late and pitches a fit when Granny tries to give her more shifts and more responsibility. This has more to do with Granny than with Ruby's work ethic, though.
Ruby's relationship with Granny is fraught with bitterness and resentment, and she rebels every bit as much as she did as Red, if not moreso. Ruby's rebellions involve shouting matches, promiscuity, and dressing "like a drag queen at Fleet Week," as Granny puts it. She wears skimpy outfits, stays out all night, flirts with guys at bars, and does nothing to discourage Granny's apparent view of her as someone who wants to "sleep [her] way down the Eastern seaboard." She projects a much more cynical attitude towards love and relationships than she ever had as Red, and even encourages Ashley to cheat on Sean (Cinderella's Prince) because "he's not here and you're not married." But when Sean shows up and proposes to Ashley, Ruby is visibly excited and happy for her friend. Deep down, she's still Red with her starry-eyed idea of True Love. Because of this, it's unlikely she's as promiscuous as Granny seems to think she is - she's a naturally open, flirtatious person, and does enjoy hitting on guys in bars, but she's probably more interested in the emotional components of a relationship. She's certainly not into lecherous creeps like Dr. Whale, and is quick to rebuff his advances.
Ruby's still not afraid to pick fights with Granny in public, still seemingly unconcerned with what people think. The truth is, though, that Ruby's deeply insecure and is desperate for validation. Despite evidence to the contrary, she thinks she's not good at anything, and when someone points out something she is good at, she brushes it off as "oh that, that's nothing." She feels her self-esteem issues are encouraged by Granny, who is very hard on her and spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing her and, as Ruby sees it, punishing her for minor infractions. But more than anything, she wants some indication that Granny loves her, is proud of her, and wants her around. Ruby and Granny still love each other, just as much as they did in Fairytale Land, but neither of them is great at communicating their feelings. Ruby puts on a brave face and snarks rather than admit how scared she is of being forced to follow in Granny's footsteps - not because she doesn't want to, but because her lack of self-esteem makes her think that she's incapable of living up to the example Granny sets and the high expectations Granny has for her.
Carnage and bloodshed are as horrifying as ever to her. But while the discovery of a human heart in a box is traumatic, it's still nothing she can't bounce back from. Having her adventure with the sheriff helps her regain some of the self-confidence she had in Fairytale Land. All she really needed was someone to support her and push her to test her limits. Once it comes down to it, no matter how insecure and scared Ruby is, she'll do what needs doing. She's every bit as capable of being brave and determined as she was was in Fairytale Land, she's only just recently realized it.
Ruby also displays a certain savviness about powerful people and the way they operate. She understands that Mr. Gold effectively owns Storybrooke, and what that entails. She's clearly wary of him, and on the one occasion we see them meet, she stays silent and in the background, out of his business: probably a good model for how she'd generally act around scary, extremely powerful people. She also knows that Mayor Mills (the Evil Queen) is untrustworthy, and refuses to discuss certain things in front of Henry because "he's the Mayor's kid." Though she is friendly to strangers, she's slow to trust them. Learning that someone cares about someone Ruby cares about will go along way to making her trust them: it's Emma's insistence that she wants to help Ashley deal with Gold that gets Ruby to trust her, and after she sees how upset Henry is about Mary Margaret being imprisoned, she's seen bringing him hot cocoa and comforting him.
The curse didn't rob her of her desire to run off and have adventures, and anyone with exciting stories to tell will have her captivated. But her day with the sheriff helped her realize that her ultimate goal in life is doing something she loves, somewhere she loves. Adventures tend to make people miserable - a good day at the sheriff's station is finding out a woman is dead and having to inform her husband of the fact - and Ruby would rather not make people miserable for a living.
Because of the curse, Ruby's past is a "haze," and she has no concept of time passing or her past or anything like that. She doesn't remember how she met anyone in Storybrooke, and if asked how long she'd worked at Granny's diner, her response would be "forever." It's nothing she thinks about too hard - like Mary Margaret, she probably just thinks that not remembering things is normal.
History: Red Riding Hood, so called for the red cape that her Granny always made her wear, lived in a village that had, for as long as anybody could remember, been harassed by a huge wolf whenever there was a full moon. Her mother was dead and her father was otherwise out of the picture, so she lived with her widowed grandmother, who was extremely overprotective of her. Red's best friend was a boy named Peter, and as they grew up, they fell in love. They dreamed of running off together, having adventures and seeing the world, but Granny would never allow such a thing, so they had to sneak around behind her back.
One day, Red found Snow White, on the run from her wicked stepmother, hiding in the chicken coop. Together, Snow and Red plotted to kill the wolf themselves, but when they tracked it they found that the wolf prints turned into human footprints, and led right to Red's bedroom window. Convinced that the wolf must be Peter, Red went to him and explained the situation, and he agreed to be chained up during the full moon, and Red would wait with him until he became human again. But when Granny realized what Red and Peter were planning, she ran out to find them, explaining to Snow that Peter wasn't the wolf: Red was. The red cloak that Granny always insisted on Red wearing was magic, and prevented the transformation. Granny had never told Red this because she wanted to spare Red the horror of knowing the truth about herself.
Granny and Snow were too late to prevent Red from killing Peter. Once she realized what she was and what she had done, Red fled the village with Snow. While Snow was in exile, Red brought her food, and news of the goings-on in the kingdom, including that Snow White's love, Prince Charming, was marrying another woman. Snow left to break up the wedding, but it was Charming who later found Red. Red helped Charming track Snow down and held off his father's soldiers, who were trying to capture him, allowing him to escape and find Snow. After Snow married Charming and became Queen, Red and Granny moved into the castle with them.
Snow White's wicked stepmother, still determined to get her revenge on Snow, cast a curse on the whole of Fairytale Land. Everyone in Fairytale Land was transported to the real world: the town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town was locked in stasis, and nobody grew older and nothing ever changed, and if anybody tried to leave, horrible things would happen. It went on like this for twenty-eight years, until Emma Swan - daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, destined to break the curse - arrived.
The curse turned Red into Ruby, who worked as a waitress at Granny's diner and dreamed of running off and having adventures and seeing the world. She tried leaving town once, to drive down the coast, but Granny had a heart attack and Ruby stayed in town to care for her. When Granny started heaping more work on her, Ruby couldn't take it anymore, and quit her job. She ended up working with Emma, by then the sheriff, on a missing persons case. With her unique tracking skills, Ruby was able to discover a human heart in a box, buried in the ground. Horrified, she quit her new job and planned to go back to the diner the next day.
3rd person sample:
1st person sample: [A phone call, after recovering from a minor meltdown, made to what she believes is Emma's voicemail. She can't call Granny, 'cause she suspects Granny would just say it was her own fault for waking up on some random beach and she can't deal with that right now.]
Um. Here's the thing. I don't... know where I am. Not like 'woke up in the wrong bed on the other side of town' don't know where I am. There's a beach, and this city, and I don't even think I'm in Maine anymore. Unless I'm having the weirdest dream ever or somebody did a lot of redecorating in the middle of the night... I mean, I've always wanted to leave, but this is really, really not what I had in mind.
So I dunno if there's an official sheriff procedure here, but, uh, help would be nice. [She laughs halfheartedly, in that way where you can tell that if she didn't laugh she'd start crying.] White horse and shining armor strictly optional.
Journal:
longagotomorrowAIM: lackofsatin
Email: halfthewaffles at gmail
Other characters: Amy Pond, Robb Stark, Sarah Walker
Character name: Red Riding Hood/Ruby
Age: 18
Canon: Once Upon A Time
Canon point: 1x15 "Red-Handed," the present-day storyline, the night after finding Kathryn's heart, before going back to the diner.
Totem: Her glass wolf figurine. During a fissure, it will be blue instead of red.
Weapons: None.
Abilities/powers: In this version of the story, Red Riding Hood is the Big Bad Wolf. In this case, lycanthropy is not a disease transmitted by biting: werewolf bites leave scars that ache around the full moon, but that's it. Rather, it's genetic. Red inherited her lycanthropy from her mother, who inherited it from her father/Red's grandfather. Granny says that Red's grandfather "turned" her, and that she is(/was - it fades with age) a werewolf as well, but how grandpa wolf turned her is never elaborated on.
Red has no control over her transformation, and after the fact she remembers neither the transformation itself nor anything she did while in wolf form. The transformation is triggered by the full moon, and she cannot transform during the day or at any other point during the month. The full moon, in this case, includes the nights before and after the full moon, so three nights per month. While in wolf form, Red does not recognize or respond to anyone she knows: she's 100% a wild animal, and an unusually vicious one at that. There is evidence to suggest that werewolves retain human-level intelligence in wolf form (grandpa wolf, while surrounded by hunters with spears, knew enough to attack the spears and break them) and at least some vague sense of their human life (wolf!Red apparently knows to return to Granny's house before sunrise). Red's wolf form looks just like a real wolf, only larger (here's wolf!Red with her human bf for a size comparison). When she transforms from human to wolf, her clothes magically disappear, and when she transforms from wolf to human, she magically has her clothes on.
In human form, Red has wolfish heightened senses:
- HEARING: Wolves can hear pitches roughly 60khz higher than humans can, and can hear sounds approximately 6mi away in confined areas (like the forest) and 10mi away in open areas. Since part of that is due to ear shape, in human form Red probably can't hear quite the same distance or with quite the same accuracy, but canon shows that her hearing is still significantly more acute than a human's, and it's likely she can still hear the higher frequencies that humans can't.
- SMELL: Wolves can smell things from up to 1.5mi away depending on atmospheric conditions, and their sense of smell is roughly 100x more powerful than a human's would be.
- The other senses are never specifically mentioned (and touch and taste are the same anyway).
The silver issue is briefly raised when Granny shoots wolf!Red with a silver-tipped arrow. Wolf!Red immediately falls, but as soon as she's human again, she seems fine. Red's mother was killed by hunters while in wolf form, so presumably normal weapons can kill werewolves. It's never made clear why being shot with an arrow doesn't hurt Red post-transformation or to what extent silver is more effective against werewolves than normal weapons. It's possible that the transformation involves some sort of healing process (reconfiguring your body so extremely would probably fuck it up pretty badly so there's a good chance healing during the transformation is a required secondary superpower).
Red is kept from changing by a magical cloak that Granny got for her. While she wears the cloak, the full moon has no effect on her, and draping her in it while she's in wolf form will revert her back to human form. In the real world, she doesn't change. She's recently gotten her heightened senses back.
So. IN LIMBO:
The longer she's in Limbo, the more the wolf will start to come out. For the first few lunar cycles, she'll have her heightened senses on the days before/after a full moon and won't change. Then maybe she'll start changing one night per lunar cycle, then she'll work her way up to changing every night of the full moon. I know the lunar cycles have the potential to be wonky in Limbo, so in terms of actually scheduling this... idk. I'd definitely like to play with the wolf thing eventually, but I'm good with leaving it up to the mods or playing it by ear or whatever.
As for limits:
- Her heightened senses will come and go unreliably while she has them.
- As to the silver thing and the healing thing, silver doesn't have any special effect on her in human form, and won't in Limbo. In wolf form, a silver weapon will incapacitate her instantly. And since it's hard to tell whether she's got any healing powers in canon, she won't in Limbo. All wounds will carry over from wolf form to human form and vice-versa.
- The transformation leaves her a bit disoriented for a few moments, and in Limbo that will be exacerbated, so she'll be disoriented, groggy, and really sore for an hour or two after transforming.
- Since the wolf is a giant psycho that tears whole hunting parties to shreds, it probably needs some limits on it too. I'm thinking it'll be smaller and less intelligent than it is in Fairytale Land, more like a normal wolf.
Location: Granny's Bed & Breakfast. It's an old Tudor-style house hidden behind some extremely overgrown trees and shrubs. The lawn looks less than well-kept. On the stairs are several broken pots containing dead plants. Over the door is hung a painted sign that reads "Granny's Bed & Breakfast." The inside is a bit dingy, and nearly everything is covered in a thin layer of dust. The ground floor is crammed full of antique knickknacks. Immediately inside the door is a small desk, very cobwebby, behind which is a rack of intricate silver keys. There's also a wood-burning stove in one corner that's got a permanent fire going in it.
Upstairs, there's a rather different feel: the rooms are spacious, with big windows to let in plenty of light. The beds are soft and comfortable, there are nice wicker chairs and sofas in each room, plus more antique knickknacks. Each room also has an individual fireplace and mantle.
Personality: When we first meet her, Red is a sheltered young girl who's probably never even been out of her village. She wants to leave, but things like 'a source of income' and 'long-term plans' aren't really on her radar - it's her boyfriend, Peter, who mentions finding work elsewhere, Red simply seems desperate to get away, "anywhere." Despite not knowing what's out there, probably because she doesn't know what's out there, she's eager to go off and have adventures.
At home, she feels stifled by her overprotective grandmother, and her desire to leave stems partially from Granny's smothering attitude towards Red. She feels, as she puts it, "like a rat in a trap." Granny never allows Red to take any risks, try anything new, or do anything even mildly adventurous. She is vocally opposed to Red's relationship with Peter, and openly chastises Red in front of other people. Having been raised by Granny and subject to Granny's views her whole life, Red sort of thinks Granny might be right to treat her the way she does and to be so insanely overprotective. She's generally willing to tow the line and do as she's told, but only because she's afraid of getting into trouble. Left to her own devices, Red's not the quiet stay-at-home type. She's much more rebellious and outgoing, and sometimes that comes out even around Granny. She's inquisitive, refusing to take some of Granny's odder statements (like "red repels wolves") at face value, and is a bit of a mischievous tease towards Peter. She also talks back to Granny in front of a relative group of strangers, seemingly not caring what other people think of her. But one of her reasons for killing the wolf - "we'd be heroes" - suggests that maybe she does care, at least enough to fantasize about being viewed as a hero by the villagers. And she's got a streak of danger-loving recklessness. When told that a hunting party is going to try to kill the wolf, she instantly wants to join them, and is disappointed when Granny says no. When she and Snow White are discussing the wolf, Snow merely suggests that the wolf is the ultimate source of Granny's refusal to let Red spend time with Peter, and Red instantly jumps to the conclusion that she and Snow should kill the wolf themselves, attempting what countless trained hunters have been killed doing, and won't take no for an answer. Red's recklessness is tempered by a certain amount of common sense, at least: she suggests hunting the wolf during the day, when it should be sleeping.
Her attitude towards the wolf in general smacks of selfishness: she wants it dead because it's interfering with her love life and her desire to leave the village. Both her asking to join the hunting party and her decision to kill it herself come on the heels of a discussion about her relationship with Peter and how the wolf is preventing her from seeing him. She only takes matters into her own hands when she's personally affected. All this comes across as unthinking more than any sort of active dismissal of the villagers' suffering and losses - she's never hostile towards anyone but Granny, and she is visibly horrified by the carnage caused by the wolf.
All in all, Red is a sweet girl, kindhearted and exceptionally generous. She's more than willing to take in Snow White, even having just caught Snow stealing eggs from Granny's chicken coop. She worries for Granny, despite everything, and wants to help and take care of her. And she's a great friend, willing to trust, believe in, and help out anyone she cares about. She stands up for Peter to Granny, and when she thinks Peter's the wolf, she never for a second assumes that he's killing knowingly or willingly, and promises to stick by him no matter what. She also believes in True Love - not just in the sense that she seems to think she and Peter will be together forever and ever, she's also rooting for Snow and Prince Charming to get together and live happily ever after, and when Snow goes missing is more than happy to help Charming track her down.
When confronted with a new and scary situation (such as finding out the guy she loves is a horrifying killing machine, or that she herself is a horrifying killing machine), Red's initial reaction is to freak out and not know what to do. In both situations, she needs Snow White to calm her down and get her going. But once she's figured out her next step, Red is determined. She makes up her mind to do something and just does it, with no looking back once her mind is made up.
It's implied that Red isn't unused to death and other awful things. The sight of the slaughtered hunting party terrifies her, as does Granny's story about being attacked by a wolf when she was young. But every time, Red's quick to recover. She's also completely unafraid to talk to strangers, even a stranger who admits to being on the run from someone, and in fact seems eager to make friends with Snow White. Though traumatic events tend to leave her shaken for a while, she gets back to being her usual outgoing self pretty quickly.
Before discovering she's the wolf, Red tends to react rather than act: Granny tries to keep her close and she pushes back against that, she defends Peter rather than preemptively taking his side, she decides to kill the wolf after Snow says that Granny's using it as an excuse. Afterwards, she has to learn to take care of herself, to live on her own and be self-reliant, and she tends to take the lead more: she pushes Snow to ask about Prince Charming's wedding, she orders Charming to leave while she holds back the soldiers chasing them. While she's still friendly and caring, she's also much more self-confident and able to take charge. She even learns to use the wolf to her advantage, using the cape to control it and apparently living a relatively normal life rather than allowing the wolf to control her - another example of how resilient she can be to awful circumstances.
The Evil Queen's curse leaves Red - now Ruby - with most of her positive qualities intact. She's still friendly and outgoing. She's still a loyal friend, willing to cross even the terrifying Mr. Gold (Rumpelstiltskin) to help Ashley (Cinderella). But though she'll do anything to help a friend in need, she's less than adept at cheering her friends up or dealing with their purely emotional crises: when Ashley and Mary Margaret (Snow White) are unhappy on Valentine's Day, Ruby ends up ditching them because they're no fun. She definitely likes a good time, and doesn't seem to know how to handle someone who isn't having one.
She's eager to help out where she can - she assists with the rescue efforts when Dr. Hopper (Jiminy Cricket) and Henry are trapped in an abandoned mine, and literally leaps into action when Sheriff Swan hires her as an assistant ("I can answer phones, help out, um. Is there anything else you need done? Organize files, cleaning up? Please, I wanna be useful."). Her enthusiasm for work doesn't spill over to her real job: waiting tables at Granny's diner. Though she's always there, is perky and friendly towards the customers, and never complains, she's been known to clock in late and pitches a fit when Granny tries to give her more shifts and more responsibility. This has more to do with Granny than with Ruby's work ethic, though.
Ruby's relationship with Granny is fraught with bitterness and resentment, and she rebels every bit as much as she did as Red, if not moreso. Ruby's rebellions involve shouting matches, promiscuity, and dressing "like a drag queen at Fleet Week," as Granny puts it. She wears skimpy outfits, stays out all night, flirts with guys at bars, and does nothing to discourage Granny's apparent view of her as someone who wants to "sleep [her] way down the Eastern seaboard." She projects a much more cynical attitude towards love and relationships than she ever had as Red, and even encourages Ashley to cheat on Sean (Cinderella's Prince) because "he's not here and you're not married." But when Sean shows up and proposes to Ashley, Ruby is visibly excited and happy for her friend. Deep down, she's still Red with her starry-eyed idea of True Love. Because of this, it's unlikely she's as promiscuous as Granny seems to think she is - she's a naturally open, flirtatious person, and does enjoy hitting on guys in bars, but she's probably more interested in the emotional components of a relationship. She's certainly not into lecherous creeps like Dr. Whale, and is quick to rebuff his advances.
Ruby's still not afraid to pick fights with Granny in public, still seemingly unconcerned with what people think. The truth is, though, that Ruby's deeply insecure and is desperate for validation. Despite evidence to the contrary, she thinks she's not good at anything, and when someone points out something she is good at, she brushes it off as "oh that, that's nothing." She feels her self-esteem issues are encouraged by Granny, who is very hard on her and spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing her and, as Ruby sees it, punishing her for minor infractions. But more than anything, she wants some indication that Granny loves her, is proud of her, and wants her around. Ruby and Granny still love each other, just as much as they did in Fairytale Land, but neither of them is great at communicating their feelings. Ruby puts on a brave face and snarks rather than admit how scared she is of being forced to follow in Granny's footsteps - not because she doesn't want to, but because her lack of self-esteem makes her think that she's incapable of living up to the example Granny sets and the high expectations Granny has for her.
Carnage and bloodshed are as horrifying as ever to her. But while the discovery of a human heart in a box is traumatic, it's still nothing she can't bounce back from. Having her adventure with the sheriff helps her regain some of the self-confidence she had in Fairytale Land. All she really needed was someone to support her and push her to test her limits. Once it comes down to it, no matter how insecure and scared Ruby is, she'll do what needs doing. She's every bit as capable of being brave and determined as she was was in Fairytale Land, she's only just recently realized it.
Ruby also displays a certain savviness about powerful people and the way they operate. She understands that Mr. Gold effectively owns Storybrooke, and what that entails. She's clearly wary of him, and on the one occasion we see them meet, she stays silent and in the background, out of his business: probably a good model for how she'd generally act around scary, extremely powerful people. She also knows that Mayor Mills (the Evil Queen) is untrustworthy, and refuses to discuss certain things in front of Henry because "he's the Mayor's kid." Though she is friendly to strangers, she's slow to trust them. Learning that someone cares about someone Ruby cares about will go along way to making her trust them: it's Emma's insistence that she wants to help Ashley deal with Gold that gets Ruby to trust her, and after she sees how upset Henry is about Mary Margaret being imprisoned, she's seen bringing him hot cocoa and comforting him.
The curse didn't rob her of her desire to run off and have adventures, and anyone with exciting stories to tell will have her captivated. But her day with the sheriff helped her realize that her ultimate goal in life is doing something she loves, somewhere she loves. Adventures tend to make people miserable - a good day at the sheriff's station is finding out a woman is dead and having to inform her husband of the fact - and Ruby would rather not make people miserable for a living.
Because of the curse, Ruby's past is a "haze," and she has no concept of time passing or her past or anything like that. She doesn't remember how she met anyone in Storybrooke, and if asked how long she'd worked at Granny's diner, her response would be "forever." It's nothing she thinks about too hard - like Mary Margaret, she probably just thinks that not remembering things is normal.
History: Red Riding Hood, so called for the red cape that her Granny always made her wear, lived in a village that had, for as long as anybody could remember, been harassed by a huge wolf whenever there was a full moon. Her mother was dead and her father was otherwise out of the picture, so she lived with her widowed grandmother, who was extremely overprotective of her. Red's best friend was a boy named Peter, and as they grew up, they fell in love. They dreamed of running off together, having adventures and seeing the world, but Granny would never allow such a thing, so they had to sneak around behind her back.
One day, Red found Snow White, on the run from her wicked stepmother, hiding in the chicken coop. Together, Snow and Red plotted to kill the wolf themselves, but when they tracked it they found that the wolf prints turned into human footprints, and led right to Red's bedroom window. Convinced that the wolf must be Peter, Red went to him and explained the situation, and he agreed to be chained up during the full moon, and Red would wait with him until he became human again. But when Granny realized what Red and Peter were planning, she ran out to find them, explaining to Snow that Peter wasn't the wolf: Red was. The red cloak that Granny always insisted on Red wearing was magic, and prevented the transformation. Granny had never told Red this because she wanted to spare Red the horror of knowing the truth about herself.
Granny and Snow were too late to prevent Red from killing Peter. Once she realized what she was and what she had done, Red fled the village with Snow. While Snow was in exile, Red brought her food, and news of the goings-on in the kingdom, including that Snow White's love, Prince Charming, was marrying another woman. Snow left to break up the wedding, but it was Charming who later found Red. Red helped Charming track Snow down and held off his father's soldiers, who were trying to capture him, allowing him to escape and find Snow. After Snow married Charming and became Queen, Red and Granny moved into the castle with them.
Snow White's wicked stepmother, still determined to get her revenge on Snow, cast a curse on the whole of Fairytale Land. Everyone in Fairytale Land was transported to the real world: the town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town was locked in stasis, and nobody grew older and nothing ever changed, and if anybody tried to leave, horrible things would happen. It went on like this for twenty-eight years, until Emma Swan - daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, destined to break the curse - arrived.
The curse turned Red into Ruby, who worked as a waitress at Granny's diner and dreamed of running off and having adventures and seeing the world. She tried leaving town once, to drive down the coast, but Granny had a heart attack and Ruby stayed in town to care for her. When Granny started heaping more work on her, Ruby couldn't take it anymore, and quit her job. She ended up working with Emma, by then the sheriff, on a missing persons case. With her unique tracking skills, Ruby was able to discover a human heart in a box, buried in the ground. Horrified, she quit her new job and planned to go back to the diner the next day.
3rd person sample:
1st person sample: [A phone call, after recovering from a minor meltdown, made to what she believes is Emma's voicemail. She can't call Granny, 'cause she suspects Granny would just say it was her own fault for waking up on some random beach and she can't deal with that right now.]
Um. Here's the thing. I don't... know where I am. Not like 'woke up in the wrong bed on the other side of town' don't know where I am. There's a beach, and this city, and I don't even think I'm in Maine anymore. Unless I'm having the weirdest dream ever or somebody did a lot of redecorating in the middle of the night... I mean, I've always wanted to leave, but this is really, really not what I had in mind.
So I dunno if there's an official sheriff procedure here, but, uh, help would be nice. [She laughs halfheartedly, in that way where you can tell that if she didn't laugh she'd start crying.] White horse and shining armor strictly optional.