with big long claws.
You can call me konako. Aspiring artist of many kinds. Devoted Ruby Lucas stan, traumatized Faberrian and prematurely old cat lady.
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I apologize for my scarce and disappointing ship collection to reference. I haven't properly submerged my head into a new universe in a while, so I'm lacking on that front. Still, let's try it...
The Attracted to Awkwardness element of Crossbow Canary (Birds of Prey, 2020), going both ways in Red Kansas. The dork beneath the danger, or the danger beneath the dork, pulling them in and keeping them there.
The Power Couple front of Clexa. Behind the scenes, the way one easily commands the other, despite their clear raw strength difference. The butting of heads that ultimately can't quiet the yearning.
Melanie's subtle efforts and Old Dolio's obliviousness, the sexual tension they can't deny, but struggle to address. (Kajillionaire, 2020)
The more pathetic tendencies of Stursia, (Pluribus, 2025~). For their more toxic traits remind me of Red Queen instead.
Despite not knowing anything about them in any significant way and having only adsorbed second-hand commentary about their dynamic, Kyoshi and Rangi strike me as Red Kansas-like, in the way a powerful Avatar seems to be pushed around by one apparently grumpy, strongly-opinionated woman.
Maybe after enough years of a domestic life (it's their 10th anniversary, I think they're there by now), I see the unbreakable, lovingly bickering bond of HaruMichi in them.
Now that I've tiptoed into anime territory, we can go ahead and say Ymir and Historia, if you rinse out all the awful, miserable tragedy of that world. Their chibi counterparts, maybe. (Shingeki no Kyojin)
Bubbline, almost completely. Wow. They line up pretty nicely, huh! (Adventure Time). No one tell Dorothy that she's Princess Bubblegum. She might not react well.
Maria and Carol (Captain Marvel, MCU), in the way they are, canonically, a pain in each other's asses, but they would give their life for the other in a heartbeat.
Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt (Parks and Rec). Hear me out! They're awkward idiots in their own ways, they get off to a bumpy start, they fight the attraction for as long as viable, and they risk a lot to be together. Their sex life is ridiculous, they're a perfect dorky match to each other, and one of them has a pseudo-sexual-romantic-homo-tragically-straight friend that they'd invite to their marital bed without question.
Werewolf that promises she won't bite down hard, all she wants is a gentle bite on your shoulder. Partner obliges, and quickly come to realize that they have vastly different scales of what a "gentle bite" means
Snow knows how "gentle" looks on Red. It's most of what she is, really. She expects nothing less... Though she expected more lips and less teeth. Mainly tongue, really. She's not exactly surprised when Red moans against her shoulder, when her canines dig in just a little bit more... She also knows how "hungry" looks on Red. When the beast is aching for something more. It's another part of what she is. Not as dominant, not as known. But it's there. And Snow sees it, and holds no judgement. It's Red still. And Red could never hurt her. The gasp that escapes her lips signal Red to go slow — go easy. Red adjusts the force accordingly, the gentle hands to her hips, as Snow's get lost in her long hair. It's Snow's turn to moan.
Regina has seen up close the damage those teeth can make. The amount of force that jaw can produce. Fortunately for her, it's easily tameable. A firm grip of her fingertips and a strong hold of her palm make for the perfect muzzle — to turn it malleable and eager. On her side at last, bending to her will. Not to bite unless ordered — or provoked. It's only when Ruby adds, "...gently?" through constrained lips that Regina agrees to let go of her face. And when the bite sinks in deeper, and a crimson drop rolls across her breast, Regina feels tricked. Fire and fury builds up, climbing to ignite her fingertips — but it quickly melts downwards, pulsing bellow her belly. The pain gives way to pleasure, and she doesn't have the mind to enact the punishment she had threatened. Her fingers are busy wrestling with Ruby's between her legs. And that jaw is free to do whatever it wants.
Belle knows she should feel secure in the clarification. Instead, she's frustrated. "Gentle", Ruby promises her, to counter Belle's breathless, urgent request. She turns to begging, but Ruby won't budge. She'll only ever be gentle with her — and that infuriates Belle. Legs wrapped around Ruby's waist and arms locked behind her neck, she tells her not to bother with gentle; that gentle should only come short of drawing blood, and even then, Belle would be fine with it. Ruby pushes no further, standing firmly at the torturous line between pressure and puncture. Belle wishes she had the raw strength to push Ruby over the edge, toppling into her animal's territory. But she can only hold on to her shoulders, and fall to pieces by her woman's mouth.
Mulan is convinced it will quench Ruby's urges, smothering the fire before it grows out of control; that it's the only way to stop the throbbing ache in Ruby's canines, and the one spreading over Mulan's flesh. A bite to satiate the wolf's needs, lest its soft request turns to a demand. Mulan knows Ruby well enough to relax her trained muscles; the girl would never take anything, do anything without proper consent — but she's unsure about the Wolf's manners. As she's pushed onto her back once more, she makes no attempt to break free. Her mind knows better than her guarded bones: Ruby is not a feral wolf, she just needs a little help. "I'll be gentle" Ruby whispers at last, crawling on top of her. Mulan has no reason to doubt it.
Dorothy got tired of waiting. A thousand kisses, all true, all loving... all gentle. She loves Ruby's lips more than anyone in any realm, she's been saved by them, in more ways than one. But she's tired of their unrelenting softness, caging the danger Dorothy is more than eager to taste. She makes her demand when she straddles Ruby, locking her in a position she could easily escape — the power freely given to her, always more intoxicating than any poison and any curse. "Gently", Ruby struggles through her answer, as nervous as she was the day they first kissed. Dorothy knows what she's asking of the gentle werewolf fate entrusted her. She knows of the feats of her restraint, she knows of the fears her regret. She knows the risks; she knows the rewards. She knows Ruby. Now, she wants to know more. "Don't you dare be gentle."
Back with another question about rewrite of the show, how would you write redbeauty into the plot
Oh my! I have the vaguest memories of my favourite fics of Back Then attempting to re-write (or wishful think into—) canon and make Red Beauty flourish instead of whatever we got over the course of S3 onward... You'll find some on this list.
I think maaaany of the general elements and feelings behind the creativity of the Red Beauty fandom of the time would make it into my headcanon. They had a great grasp of their dynamics, of the promises of the Beauty And The Beast tale, of their wonderful potential... I'd be borrowing from the collective passion to write something today.
To be brief, I'll give you a short list to summarize my Red Beauty dreams for a canon gone by.
Friends to Lovers — We watch their friendship steadily develop into a gentle, yet solid, romance. Their feelings grow from a stubborn crush and suppressed passions, and blossom into love; doing so despite Ruby's crippling insecurities, Belle's selfless reservations and the looming, threatening presence of Rumple.
Medium Burn — not too fast (Ruby has fears), not too slow (Belle has needs).
Ruby x Rumple — This, standing only as a contrast for Belle to reflect upon (to resent or admire). There is no cheating, there is no affair, there is no major jealousy storyline. There is, simply, a pair of Beasts in Belle's life, wrestling with their beastly side in different ways. One significantly more inviting than the other.
Rumbelle naturally faces their challenges, independent from Ruby's influence — the same bumpy course we observed in canon, only, this time, reaching a definitive, rupturing end. They collect failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment, telling themselves they should keep on struggling and hope there's something on the other side.
But it wears Belle down, and she recovers from each loss and defeat in Ruby's presence, learning that there are better, less destructive and selfish ways to cope with one's inner darkness. Having this refreshing point of reference for a "Beast In Rehabilitation", Belle is encouraged to give up on her fruitless, costly efforts to find the tiniest goodness left in Rumple. She leaves him. Not for Ruby. But she will find her eventually.
The Ghost of Peter — Non-negotiable for any and all Ruby's ships (except maybe Red Queen.... fight me). Ruby's greatest fear and the biggest, strongest hindrance in her (accidental) quest for love. Once the spark with Belle is fed, their flame begins to scare Ruby to a certain distance. It's not that she's been burnt before. It's that she's set fire to someone before; it's that she's stood in their ashes. She doesn't want Belle to me the same fate as Peter. And she repeats it to herself, at the same rate Belle tells her "it won't happen again".
Belle Meets The Wolf — A must. So that Ruby's fear will take a considerable hit, and she'll know that even tiny Belle can hold her own against the Big Shy Wolf. Also, a wolf ride, maybe.
Maurice's Disapproval (Not That Belle Needs It) — much like with Rumple before, Belle's father is strongly opposed to Belle's dangerous taste in partners. This time, it's made worse by the fact that Ruby is a werewolf. And a woman. Belle insists that she doesn't need his permission to be happy, and that she knows what's best for her own self in her own life. She tries telling Ruby the same, but it takes longer to stick. For a while, Ruby indeed tries to prove to Maurice that she's worthy of Belle's love (despite not fully believing that herself). She promises him she'll keep Belle safe, and she'll try her best to make her happy. Maurice can't be convinced (or can he?)
On the other end of that, we have...
Snow's Blessing (Not That Belle Was Super Eager To Have It...) — Once Snow learns of their relationship, she makes sure to tell Ruby she's happy and hopeful for their future; that she sees their immense potential, and that she knows Belle is the one for Ruby. Belle pretends not to be excited to have Snow's approval.
Rumple Is Watching — Is he the jealous type? Is he a danger to Ruby? Will he respect Belle's wishes for space and independence? Will Hook provoke and humiliate him until Rumple's wounded ego consumes his best attempt at Good, and he takes action to punish the "dog that stole Belle from him"? Unsure. Only time will tell. But he sure is menacing, standing in the shadowy corner there, watching them go on cute dates. Yikes....
Three Little Pigs — Another Ruby Centric Episode we were owed by law. Belle is there for that. Also by law.
The Lacey Problem — Hook comes to royally (pirately~) mess things up. Rumple tries to keep Belle from the ugliness of their feud, but it goes wrong, she gets pushed over the Town Line — and Lacey emerges. Now, Lacey is trusted to Ruby's care, but, oh... Ruby worries about the Ordinary World learning about supernatural creatures, her relationship with Snow is becoming unfamiliarly tense, and she's unsure how to reconcile those fears with Lacey's existence — and Belle's buried conscience. It's an awful time for their relationship and it suffers greatly. Mostly at Lacey's careless hands.
Maybe the time for some Rumple Relapse. Inversely to Belle's kindness, Lacey is drawn to Rumple's darkness, and they "re"connect over their common deviancy. Now Ruby watches powerlessly, deciding whether or not to intervene in their old/renewed toxic relationship. "What Would Belle Want?" is a question she relies on the most, but without Belle there to be sure, Ruby is trapped in her lonely conflict.
When she does tries to gently convince Lacey away from Rumple, she's met with a harsh, unforgiving bluntness that cuts to her core. Lacey weaponizes Belle's masterful interpersonal, emotional insight, with none of the tact or kindness, as she dresses Ruby down (maybe literally? 👀) to her most pathetic essentials. From then on, Ruby is too weak and scared to fight.
Shattered Sight — The Lacey "curse" is broken somehow (let's leave that open for now), and Ruby and Belle are picking up the pieces of their relationship. Belle is apologizing for Lacey's cruel words (and acts? 👀) and Ruby is apologizing for her cowardice.
They're still finding their footing as a couple once again, when The Ice Queen comes in (if we absolutely MUST have that Frozen Arc....). She brings along her Shattered Sight Spell, that forces the darkness out to the surface of everyone in town. For Snow and David, it means being a little bit bitchy and snarky. For Belle, it means some Lacey-like impulses. For Ruby, it means the Feral Beast she once was. This is then the time for Belle to fight for Ruby, and rescue from her a truly helpless darkness — and solidify her apology in the meantime.
They revisit their very first "argument", for a chance to prove their stances for good.
No Rest For The Werewolf — They're enjoying what feels like a Relationship Renaissance, in the height of their blissful reunion after so many prolonged periods of melancholy. But nothing lasts forever, and a new villain is coming to fuck shit up worse than Hook. Oh, look, it's Cruella, her gin, her hair, and her terribly inconvenient powers of animal persuasion — that happen to influence werewolves. As her special kind of magic is revealed, Ruby is forced to go in hiding for her own good.
We briefly enjoy a somewhat apprehensive, but stubbornly brave Red Beauty retreat in the woods, as they shelter in place and wait for the Cruella Circus to be over. Ruby once again apologizes for the horrors that come attached to her nature, and Belle insists there is nothing to apologize for.
Something goes wrong (again, leave that open; maybe blame Emma and Snow), and Ruby falls into Cruella's trap. She's made into her pet, and Belle has to, once again, fight to save her.
To Be Continued...
Honestly, it's what I've got so far! Where do we go after this alternate S5? I have yet to untangle the many storylines in my head. I'd love to see them in The Underworld, so that The Ghost of Peter can be addressed, and Belle can have the blessing of a Werewolf Supremacist (that is mildly annoyed that a princess wants to "rehabilitate" her daughter). There are many ways I want Belle's and Ruby's individual character arcs to develop and intertwine and aid and challenge each other, but that is a task for later.
To play with the wolf’s hunger a bit, we could imagine a world where Ruby can’t help it and must eat something every full moon or every time she transforms (to sustain the transformation / as an intrinsic part of her curse, idk), just to add a tiny bit more drama to her relationships.
Yes, anon! Yessssss!!! 🔥🔥🔥💥💥💥 Oh, hell yeah!! I love the way you're thinking!!! I love it so much, in fact, I went OFF THE RAILS. Again...
I apologize in advance, anon. This is probably not what you wanted. But your ask sparked something in me, and opportunity met energy and I had to take advantage of it. So.
Here, you'll find:
• The Bias — where I'm coming from
• The Math — what I'm taking from canon
• The Headcanon — how I'm taking it from canon (up the—)
First things first!
• THE BIAS
I personally believe that should be a non-negotiable part of the werewolf myth. Every werewolf story would be largely, greatly elevated if it leaned into the Hunger Element more.
I'm not saying to replace the primal rage component of the internal struggle completely, but... isn't hunger the most animalistic thing instead? Rage is still so human in its complexity, in its purpose — but hunger, true hunger? It's devoid of deeper intent, carries no prejudice, is moved by no judgement. Purely nature, purely instinct. It's survival, coded into the brain, the bones, the body. An aching, constant need that can't be ignored indefinitely, at the risk of full system collapse — death.
Anger can be reasoned into a different feeling, eased into a harmless state; It can be soothed and talked down, until any destructive impulse is quenched without violence. Hunger? The only way to quiet its presence is to satisfy it. There is no safe way to avoid it. Sooner or later, it will demand its pound of flesh. Or, well, a pound of flesh.
My personal take on the general werewolf lore is that hunger is the driving force of the monster within, and the greatest obstacle for the human mind that wrestles with the wolf's urges. It's the first and most powerful manifestation of the wolf and its raw impulses; it's the "reason" the beast demands control — but there is no "reason" to hunger, and that's the point: it simply is.
Most transformations — in my world at least — are preceded by an all-consuming, and all consuming, hunger. The growling, rumbling prelude of the primal shift, from deep within. A growing, trembling warning. The kind of hunger that claws at the lining of one's entrails. And screams and cries and thrashes. The hunger that takes over one's mind, negating their best judgement, and overriding their usual reservations. So strong, it's no longer looking to satisfy a mere appetite, no longer a meek desire to eat, but a craving for anything that will fill the torturous emptiness and muffle the pain. It's a desperation to devour — anything.
All that said... What is the case with Ruby Lucas?
TL;DR: Calculating Red's approximate food intake in wolf form; the Peter Percentage; caloric needs; and... the implications.
First, let's take a generous look at CANON. And then, after CANON rudely lets go of our hand in the dark, let's be guided by our frenemy, MATH. After even MATH abandons us, we run for the hills.
Here, you can find some excerpts from the book. I've collected the passages where the narrative touches on the Wolf's ravenous appetite — or the lasting evidences of it. (Again, the book is only as canon as you'd like it to be. And I'd like it to be canon when it comes to that.)
You can note that the Wolf eats far more than a normal animal. Night after night, killing after killing. It eats and it eats, when it could have spent a night in hiding, slumbering, or simply running to spend the vast energy it's accumulated. But, no. The Wolf keeps on eating, despite the hunter activity that stalks it, despite the risk of drawing attention to itself, despite having eaten enough for a week.
Wolves can survive on 2.5 to 3.7 pounds of meat daily, but they require 5 to 7 pounds per day for successful reproduction. Yet wolves typically do not eat every day. Instead, they live a feast-or-famine lifestyle. They can go days or even weeks without eating—and after successfully hunting a large ungulate, a wolf can consume up to 20 pounds of food in a single meal.
[source]
Store that information in your heard for a bit, please. I promise, we'll see an end to it.
The book (and math*!) repeatedly states that this supernatural wolf, a Werewolf, is at least three times bigger than a normal wolf.
*SUMMARY: You could reasonably argue for three different sizes of the same wolf. One with an 8" wide paw (the largest size), one with a 8" long paw (the medium size), and one with a 8" paw in diameter (the smallest size), all calculated from expanding on the "eight inches across" description in three different ways. I'm personally content with the medium sized wolf — that stands at 142cm to the shoulder, and weighs 115kg — as that seems to be the one that most closely resembles my favourite CGI shots of the wolf.
Note that: even the biggest possible formal estimation ("Eight inches across") of the wolf's size was surpassed by loose empirical observation ("How big is this thing?"), as a wolf with an 8" wide paw would only be 228% bigger than an ordinary gray wolf (with a 3,5" wide paw), not near the experienced "three times bigger" proportion. Just one more example of inconsistency on OUAT's part, and why I'm relying on bitching numbers!! 📢 But, anyway, we'd be here all day—
Let's make some more-than-generous food intake predictions. This way, if canon fails to guide us anywhere, we can still rely on this plausible range.
Quite simply, let's triple those numbers, and expect them to apply to Red's beast: 5 to 7 pounds (2,26kg to 3,17kg) per day for a normal wolf is 15 to 21 pounds (6,8kg to 9,52kg) per day for a werewolf. And if a normal wolf can consume up to 20 pounds in a single meal, a werewolf can go up to 60 pounds (27kg) in a single meal.
That sounds fair, no? A wolf three times bigger than normal, eating three times more than normal. Fair!
And consider that carefully. "Up to 60 pounds", okay? "Up to". For a wolf we are assuming is securely 300% the size of a normal one. Up to 60lbs is for the Bigger Than The Biggest wolf — eating on a feast-or-famine system. Okay? Got it? We're good so far? Good.
Hold that close for a moment. Okay.
Stay with me here. Now it's time for some atrocious math...
• THE MATH
(Yeah, no.... Sorry, we hadn't even started yet...)
SKIP TO "THE HEADCANON" IF NUMBERS ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS.
The average weight of a sheep is 100 to 350 pounds (45 to 160 kg)—
Oof, starting off strong, I know. But trust me! We finally have some answers!
I'm not assuming the Wolf ate twelve whole sheep in one night, don't worry! Roughly 30% to 35% of a sheep's live weight is actually viable as meat, or proper food — a bit more if you consider a wolf's less... polished tastes, sure. Retail boneless cuts make up about 25% of that whole weight. A Wolf that big could turn those bones to bits and make good use of that calcium without waste, but let's assume the beast didn't spend much time chewing and sucking on a skeleton, and was content with mostly muscles, some fat and some guts... Let's settle on a chill 20%.
A fifth of a sheep's weight, consumed with each killing, for an average of 20 to 70lbs (9 to 32kg) of flesh devoured per sheep. Times twelve, it's 240 to 840lbs (108 to 381kg) for that entire meal...
Nope! That's insane.
Even if you take into account the financial state of Red's village, and assume their livestock would most likely be on the thinner end of the scale, that's still 240lbs (108kg) of meat in one single night, in one single meal. That's almost as much as the entire body weight of the largest size estimation of the Wolf (330lbs/150kg).
No. 20% of each sheep is too much. It's not hunger, it's gluttony. It's a human's greedy, spiteful appetite, eating far past fullness signals. We're dealing with an animal (albeit a huge one) that eats with the simplest intent to satisfy a physical need, nothing more.
And, more practically: it's way too long laying around, hanging about, leisurely picking meat off of every body. Even for a creature that big, eating all the meat from a sheep, twelve times in a row, would take too long. Recklessly long! The hunters wouldn't have let the beast take its sweet time savoring every carcass, licking their bones clean. No. For the sake of some remaining internal logic in the story, let's say the Wolf moved faster than that. It had no time to eat a full fifth of a dozen sheep—
Occam's Razor to that! shhhh 🔪
Let's say the Wolf simply tore their throats, swallowed that large bite, and moved on to the next one and the next one, stopped either by growing heavy and tired, or being chased off by the villagers. (However unlikely that last one is...)
Ummm. So! ☝🤓
Neck meat makes up 10% of the carcass weight of a sheep. 48%~ of a whole sheep carcass is boneless meat, so that 10% neck becomes 4%~ of that edible neck meat from a carcass. 52% of a sheep's live weight is carcass, so that 4% of dead weight becomes ~2% of a live sheep's weight: 2% of a sheep's weight to account for the boneless, edible meat around the neck.
For example: A neck fillet, boneless, clean and nicely cut is just 1.44% of that carcass, or 0,7% of the live weight. (Other neck cuts, bones included, represent up to 8%~ of the dead weight, but we're trying to be reasonable here~). Meaning: if you were to eat exclusively the necks fillets of a dozen (mostly small, mostly thin) sheep in one sitting, as a human, you would be eating about 8,4lbs (3,8kg), or 8.740 calories of meat for one meal. (Not to spoil anything, but... It's actually... a real possibility for Ruby's diet, considering her caloric needs, but that's for later... 📌 )
A werewolf ripping out more rudimentary cuts with a large bite is likely to consume 2lbs (0,9kg) of meat per sheep. From a dozen sheep, it's a total of 24lbs (10,8kg) in a single meal.
Surprisingly (or not?), it almost lines up with the initial estimation of 15 to 21 pounds (6,8kg to 9,52kg) of food per day for a werewolf. Sure, it's a bit above the predicted range, but maybe she was specially hungry that day...
Again: that's assuming a werewolf — that could range from 203lbs (92,3kg) to 330lbs (150kg) in weight — is limiting herself to only consuming boneless, 2lbs bites per kill. Once more, that's the conservative estimation.
On the other end of it, still justifiable within canon's bounds, is the other extreme we've landed on at first — the excessive feeding: multiple consecutive full feasts.
Both would hold up in a court of law, yes.
In fairness, here is another scale, similar to the one used to argue for the Wolf's Size. These, like the one before it, are based off the same line of dialogue, extrapolated in different ways: "The wolf took out a dozen last night"
MONSTROUS HUNGER — A FIFTH OF A DOZEN SHEEP
20% of each sheep's body weight, devoured meticulously. For a total of 240lbs (108kg) for a single meal.
RESTRAINED HUNGER — TORN THROATS AND A DOZEN BITES
2% of each sheep's body weight, killed swiftly in a single bite. For a total of 24lbs (10,8kg) for a single meal.
That's a good range for you, both supported by canon! From 108kg to 10,8kg of food in a single meal. Pick a number between them, build your headcanon, and have fun!
Nothing else to see here!
...........................
But, see...... That's sheep.
And that's assuming they're small sheep. If we're talking big, grown, healthy sheep, that scale changes to 840lbs (381kg) — 84lbs (38kg). Yikes.
And that was Day One of the one Wolfstime we saw the Wolf roam and eat freely.
That was one meal, for one night.
The night that followed it, the beast had something else to eat.
But, see, no, that one is different. You see that too, don't you?
This killing, as brutal as it is, was purely reactionary. Their weapons tossed to the sides, their bits still within reach; ripped off lower limbs and relatively minor blood loss... their bodies left mostly whole. Likely killed as swiftly as the sheep, if marginally more angrily...
The Wolf, of course, was defending herself. They were hunters. They were hunting her. They were looking for a fight! It was either them, or the Wolf. This was self-defense, not a proper feeding!
This was, at last, primal rage and retaliation, killing the men that tried to kill her. This, undoubtedly, counts towards Red's tragic body count, yes, but shouldn't be taken as evidence of the Wolf's hunger.
This was an animal, forced into violence by fear — a survival instinct.
What should be considered in regards to Red's hunger, however...
The Killing of Peter.
Even more tragic, I know. Isn't it wonderful? To know that Peter wasn't killed because he posed a threat to the Wolf's safety — he was chained to a tree, he was helpless and vulnerable. He wouldn't have been a threat to an ordinary human standing before him, lost and scared, he wasn't a threat to the creature that, just the night before, had killed at least four hunters. Peter couldn't have touched that beast.
He was one man, trapped and unarmed. He wasn't a hunter, he wasn't a predator. He was a human, thrashing and screaming, seemingly pulsing with life, of warm blood and healthy limbs... He was a meal. Served up in chains. Unable to escape, unable to fight back. Ready for the taking.
The Wolf wasn't angry. It had nothing to retaliate, no violence to match, no struggle to survive. It was simply... hungry.
From what you can see in this shot and the next,
The Wolf ate everything but a couple limbs.
And, if I may risk a dangerous internet search for this calculation...
Peter had a weight of approximately 169lbs (77kg). From a human's live weight, one brave redditor estimated 60% of that is carcass — or """"viable meat"""". Idk, ask Shauna Shipman if that sounds right.
I'd argue, for a werewolf, more could be the case.
If you account for the removal of the skeleton, which makes up from 12%—15% of the body weight, that's still up to 85% of """"edible bits"""". That's about 143lbs (64kg) of blood, guts, skin, fat and muscles to be consumed per 169lbs man. Sure, if you want to discard the blood and the organs and stick only to meat (um, I mean, skeletal muscle), that's about 40%—50% of the human body weight — and let's say Peter had built some muscle from his blacksmithing job, leaving him at the higher percentage. Even that reduction still leaves us with 84,5lbs (38kg) of pure muscle eaten in a single meal. ← That's our Restrained Estimation
HOWEVER! In the shots above, you can't really locate the bones. Or the organs. Or most of the blood. You can reasonably assume, then, the ~115kg animal has devoured most of the boy with no prejudice. In which case, we're back to working with the entire 169lbs of human. Removing the feet, which make up 1.43% of the body weight each for a male. That's 2,86% (4.83lbs/2,1kg) to be deducted from the final weight... and considering there's a part of a leg unattended there — let's say half a leg, so 2,37% of the body weight — one could estimate.... 94% of Peter was devoured. That's 158lbs (71kg) of meat. ← That's our Blunt Estimation
And, sure, let's say we do locate, at the very least, the bones, and we make the (much less terrifying) argument that the Wolf hasn't gotten to the hard bits yet... No bones devoured. Only soft flesh. (We discount the brain too while we're at it, as it's stored in a skull tupperware, and the wolf doesn't have thumbs, so that's -2%), That's still ~77% of his body, eaten. That's 130lbs (59kg). ← That's our Diplomatic Estimation.
The final range: 50%—94%; 84,5lbs (38kg) —158lbs (71kg) of human.
EATEN.
BY ONE WOLF.
IN A SINGLE NIGHT.
IN A SINGLE KILL.
Holy fuckin—
Remember that "up to 60lbs in a single meal" prediction at the start? How small and adorable was that... So, so wrong...
Yeah, that's horrifying.
Oh, not bad enough? Get this, the icing on the top:
THE WOLF HAD EATEN THE TWO NIGHTS BEFORE.
It wasn't starving. It wasn't weak and malnourished and famished and desperate to consume like a merciless force of nature.
It was... ordinarily.... hungry.
And it still could stomach up to 71kg of flesh.
Okay.... Deep breath out. That's it for the numbers now. We can relax. You're safe now, they can't hurt you anymore. Shhhhh.
Now, for the real thing. Now, aided by MATH!!
• THE HEADCANON
So, I pulled a muscle doing all these gorey exercises, and now what? We put it to practice, damn it!
Let's start with some foundational headcanons: The transformation takes a toll on her body.
Evidenced by the change in her breathing every time she returns to her human form.
Some exertion takes places. Whether the transformation is purely magic, partially physical, or a convenient combination of both, it requires energy, takes up energy, is a surge of energy.
Hinted at here in her preparation for the change, in her purposeful inhale.
She's changing from the body of an "ordinary" human woman, into the form of a gigantic, 253lbs wolf. (The medium estimation I'm okay with, actually). That's a change from a body size of 138lbs (63kg) to 253lbs (115kg). That's 114lbs (52kg) difference, out of seemingly nothing. Is that allowed? What accounts for that discrepancy? Must it even be?
That could be: 1) a very dense human form (not unlikely; she can be quite the idiot sometimes...), 2) a surprisingly light huge wolf that, despite its size, continued to weigh 63kgs, or 3) an insanely high amount of potential energy in storage. Kinetic, thermal, idk. (also plausible; she sure is hot!)
2) is honestly depressing, if not deeply concerning; 3) would technically turn Ruby into a fucking billion atomic bombs, and 1) is the most badass.
Rule of Cool it is! 😎✨
Let's say she's dense — and also heavy. Let's say she only looks like an ordinary 172cm, 63kg woman on the outside, but in reality she's walking around with the potential body weight of a 115kg wolf, all compressed into her frame, stored in her muscles, her bones, her fibers. Literally, inside her.
Naturally, she has to eat accordingly. Yes, even in human form!
I'm sorry I tricked you. There are still some numbers left. Look the other way...
First, we need a rough BMR for her.
Using normal human math to determine the requirements to merely maintain an ordinary 172cm/115kg/female body, we can start off with some useful numbers.
Assuming her metabolism is extremely high* to keep up with the demands of her supernatural attributes (i.e. strength, speed, senses, healing, pun storage...), we can reach for the furthest end and estimate a caloric daily need of 3.684kcal/day just to exist. More than that, if she's exercising in any way. And she is.
*For example, "at rest" for her is a normal human's "very, very, very intense exercise".
To butcher some more numbers, let's take that 3.684kcal/day need and set it as her BMR (the minimum she needs for her body to function) — And, with some crude proportion calculations, arrive at what her metabolic needs would be for a "daily exercise" lifestyle.
So. Yup. That's 5.709kcal/day to maintain her body weight with moderate daily exercise.
It's impressively close to the caloric needs of a 115kg wolf (using dog math), whose system requires 5.632 kcal/day to simply maintain its body weight.
Between those two numbers, it's an average daily need of 5.670 calories to function normally and maintain her weight.
What does that look like in diet terms, for the human? I'll leave that meal plan up to you. Just know that she's a terrible cook, and the syrup goes on top of the pancakes—
(the sheer amount of sugar she must consume a day just as a shortcut to meet her caloric needs, my god....)
She might snack a loooot throughout the day, she might prefer bigger meals in steady (or erratic!) intervals. However she organizes (or is organized by!) her eating habits, you just know that appetite is notable. A 5.000+ calorie diet is the kind of stuff elite, competitive powerlifters and bodybuilders can justify during their preparation phases and heavy bulking. It's for extreme cases of ultra-high performance by the human body. It's that out of the ordinary.
And, again, that's assuming she walks around in human form as a deceivingly, dangerously compact 115kg lean mass monster with the dormant power of a murder machine.
If you decide to ease off the pedal on Option Number 1) Dense Dork, we can always have some fun exploring the limits of our suspension of disbelief, and combine it with Option Number 3) The Walking Nuclear Reactor. ← This one explains away those ~52kg of mass difference as stored, potential energy currently in the form of "harmless" thermal activity. Or, if that's too complicated, we join the two and say she's partially dense, partially a power plant, idk. A 89kg beast in a 63kg-looking frame, carrying around the remaining 26kg in pure potential energy....
See, that's when we start to lose grasp of Mother Math's hand.
But, better late than fucking never: let's accept that the limitations of our scientific reality can't account for the more magical, fantastical elements that make up OUAT's lore, and werewolf lore in general; and let's agree that not all her physical capabilities (her raw strength, for example) can be soundly explained by cold, cynical math.
We can only go so far following the humble number trail canon left behind. After that, we have to employ some whimsy~ and some imagination~
That's the case now.
At last, for our main point: how much she needs to eat 1) to transform, and 2) to maintain that transformation.
2) To maintain the transformation, under a full moon*, she doesn't require an exceeding amount of energy, outside of the Wolf body's usual needs. Enough energy to properly function at rest (5.632kcal/day), and some more energy to move about, hunt, run, fight or exercise. (using the human equivalent as rough reference, it'd be a 54% increase on that base number, so: 8.721kcal/day) 📌100g of lamb neck fillet are 230 calories. See? That 3,8kgs feast was scarily correct!
In fact, the struggle is the opposite — it's to resist the change, hence the cloak's magical aid. Under a full moon, the transformation is compulsive and, mostly, unavoidable. We could make a case that greatly experienced werewolves with masterful control over their power can change at will despite the strength of the moon's pull — but that doesn't seem to be the case with Ruby just yet.
During Wolfstime, changing into the wolf form is just the natural way of her condition, the current she can't swim against for too long. During a New Moon, however, the case is reversed again. Then, you could argue, maintaining herself in wolf form is vastly more exhausting, costing much more of her energy — as it goes against the wolf's natural impulse. (Yes, there are loopholes. Yes, don't worry, I won't go there here).
Oh, and by the way: 100g of human is 130 calories. 38kg of Peter is 49.400 calories. Clearly, the Wolf was bulking up.
Finally.
1) How much she needs to eat to transform.
That is the thing we have no real solid ground to build upon. No real reference to be found in canon, beyond her general exhaustion following her return to the human form. We can assume it's tiring and energy-expensive, but how much and why.....? Now it's up to our bullshittin' abilities.
She already eats enough to power up a werewolf's body normally. Her signs of fatigue after a transformation hint that the process itself is specially consuming. Seemingly, more arduous than maintaining the wolf form.
More energy is spent changing forms, than remaining in those forms.
I mean, it makes sense. Inertia, right? And her cousin, Irene. Just think of the energy required to move a stationary object, or to stop a moving body, or to burn something, melt something, ignite something, convert something — gestate something.
It takes 50.000* extra calories over the course of 9 months to create a tiny, squishy baby. To nearly instantly produce a fully grown 115kg creature, human or wolf—Fuck! How much would that be?! If I had any passable grasp of thermodynamics, and if I hadn't spent my 50k daily words on this post, I would attempt that calculation, but.... alas!
*But, now that we've paused on it... 50.000 calories, huh? Suddenly, that 49.400 calorie Peter meal doesn't sound so absurd. She wasn't bulking up, she was filling back up. The transformation must leave her famished.
In the end, what do we have?
A notably exhausted, freshly transformed woman.
And a horrifyingly hungry wolf.
And what do I make of this?
• CONCLUSION
The act of transformation consumes so much energy, the body needs to exceed its normal food intake to replenish the base calories.
If an ordinary werewolf, in wolf form, could survive on 6,8kg to 9.5kg of food per day, and up to 27kg in a single meal, and Red's feral wolf, at the peak of Wolfstime, was gorging on a minimal of 10,8kg a day, and 38kg in a single meal, that deviation illustrates the colossal force of this hunger.
Her uncontrolled feasting, that merely instinctively sought to regain the energy lost to her transformation, could have been avoided, had the human prepared in advance.
Meaning: for the wolf to not surface in destructive, chaotic famine, the human must either control it appropriately, or eat accordingly in preparation, shouldering the burden of preemptively feeding the incoming hunger.
For Red, that would mean eating beyond the 5.600+ daily calories required for her human body. It would mean stocking up on enough food to satisfy an active, healthy 115kg wolf (~8.721 calories — or a dozen lamb neck fillets......), so that the animal wouldn't feel the slightest urge to eat — to kill.
Effectively, she would have to eat like a beast, to prevent reverting to one.
What would u do with Reds character in s5 instead of what we got
Wait, what did we get in S5? Dark Swan and Underworld, right? So.... I can't do that? Because, look, I wouldn't mind seeing what a decent adventure in the Underworld could have in store for Red; Mainly Peter and Anita, and a bit of ~Consolation Cruella~
In fact, this is how I would rewrite Ruby Slippers, turning it from a cramped and rushed ⅓ of an episode, into a THREE-EPISODE STORYARC, actually.
↑ And that's me being conservative, cautious and restrained, okay? If the Powers That Be were to give me the reigns (and the budget), I would make the whole half of that season be about Ruby Lucas, and there would be NOTHING ANYONE COULD DO STOP ME— 🔪
I would actually build up to that three-episode arc with a two-episode Red Warrior-focused quest. (See? That five episode thing I hinted at!) And I would make it all about Ruby's and Mulan's past trauma and how it presently affects them and their ability to form intimate, lasting bonds, as the thing that stands between them and a meaningful, initially platonic, possibly romantic (but tragically not—) relationship.
I would tackle Mulan's emotionally avoidant vices and get to the bottom of her Aurora Heartbreak and the scars she's carrying from it, turning her inside out until all that armor, literal and figurative, is rendered useless; And I would FINALLY start to unpack the abominable implications of Ruby's time as the DunBroch Witch's personal pet and guard dog. That would be addressed, with no reservations! It would get reaaaal deep, reaaaal dark, reaaaal honest. And you wouldn't be able to look away!
But, okay, that's me working to expand on the season we did get. That's me working within its bounds, still.
And this was me bitching about how S2 could have been better.....
And this was me pitching the Three Little Pigs tale to stuff somewhere in S2 or S3....... And this was me adding a whole Red Snow Crisis Throughline to S4......
CLEARLY, I HAVE THOUGHTS.
You want me to toss S5 in the trash and start from scratch — this time, with more Ruby? Sure! I've got some ideas in my binder....
Okay, so. Starting again. Look into the light stick thingy. Forget everything. No Red Warrior Meet Cute, no Red Kansas TLK Snowingification~ Rewind, rewind, rewind.
PITCH ONE, fuck it. Redo some of S4, while we're at it. Keep Cruella alive. Make it so that she avoids punishment at the hands of an enraged Emma, who, despite her righteous rage and reasonable reservations, decides to spare her life and offer her a chance at redemption. Sounds familiar? Infuriatingly so!
(In fact, that Red Snow Crisis thing will be a wonderful foundation for this story, so, perfect! It's meant to be!)
Cruella is shown mercy. She gets to live, much to everyone's (mostly animals and shapeshifters' terror). Behind bars, stripped of her status and awaiting Storybrooke's version of a "fair trial", but... sure, alive! Cursing and sobering up in miserable fashion, but... alive.
Thing is, she's well connected. Or she's smart and slimy and sneaky and impossibly lucky. Somehow, she escapes. Don't worry about the details now. It's brainstormin' time. She's out. Like The Evil Queen before. Oh, noooo~
At first, it seems concerning, but, upon a calmer look, the "authorities" decide it's no cause for great alarm. Oh, yeah. Emma, Snow and David think they're safe from her, — again, like The Evil Queen before — they think she poses no tangible danger outside of some occasional DUIs. Nothing they can't deal with.They think they've neutralized her in all the meaningful ways. "Cruella can't kill anyone", they remind themselves. "She has no allies left and no money to resort to," they think. "How can she possibly still be a threat?"
Boom, hard cut to Ruby Lucas, minding her own damn business somewhere in town, forgotten and isolated. (Oh yeah, she's in town. Since 5x09 doesn't take place, we don't get the flashback explaining that she's left Storybrooke around S3 to return to the EF to look for werewolves. So, hey, it didn't happen! And she's still in town. Ready for the taking.) And she is first on Cruella's list of affairs. BOOM again. Cruella as Ruby's Main Villain Arc, locked and ready to go.
PITCH TWO, if Ruby won't go to EF to find her new gay buddy, let the gay buddy come to her. (It's Mulan. I'm talking about Mulan.) Let us all do the world a favor and BRING MULAN OVER TO STORYBROOKE so we can have her in modern clothes. Yes, yes yes!
(yes, babe, you are)
Think of a reason she's there. Maybe she's been carried over with the Second Dark Curse this time. Any reason will do. Hold that in your mind. Now hold my hand. Walk with me....
Some doses of a fish-out-of-water storyline for Mulan on the side. Belle steps up to help. It's her way of paying forward, doing for an old friend what Ruby did for her. Oh, hey, Ruby could help again! And Belle has a suspicion she and Mulan would get along. Belle introduces the two to each other. Indeed, they get along. Endearingly, excitedly well.
We have the cute Sidelined Trio of Support: Mulan, Ruby and Belle, hanging out, having fun. They're our B-plot for a bit, to decompress, to smile, to chill with, after each episode's main drama is resolved. Gradually, they build up some serious tone, taking up space and importance in the narrative.
We finally take a look at how Ruby and Belle's friendship is holding up after the Lacey Earthquake (they're doing well, shh, nothing to see here), and we see Mulan slowly stepping out of her warrior shell in this new realm. And, most pressingly: we sense the impending crash that will shatter their good, peaceful vibes: Aurora is somewhere in town. Pregnant still? With a newborn? Idk. In any case, it's Philip's, it's complicated, and it's awkward for Mulan. She doesn't NOT want to run into them. Ruby picks up on that. Belle does too. They examine how to best approach this, together.
I'm guessing the trio needs something substantial to do, right? Can't just drink, party and be gay all season? Ugh. We need a conflict. Um. Aurora is one. The always-present Rumple tension is another. And Ruby has... the absence of a loved someone to stress about. The ghost of Peter, haunting her growing feelings for Mulan. There, that's something to move them along.
Now, for a supernatural threat, hmmmm? [breaks emergency glass] There, a Blood Moon! Or [breaks other glass slightly to the left] an Eclipse! There, there. Now Belle has something to study on, Ruby has something to worry about, and Mulan has something to fight for. Yayyy!
PITCH THREE, Red Queen.
waitwait wait wait wait!! Put the fork down! Hear me out!!
Look. As harmless as Outlaw Queen is, we can do better. Regina deserves better. She doesn't deserve a man that smells like a forest, bathes in a river and uses pine cones for money. She deserves a woman that does all that.
And, see? Ruby is perfect.
But we don't have to take the full speed, fanon bullet train to that ship. No! We take our time. We walk to it, we enjoy the scenery. We camp here and there. We savor it.
We do it the slow burn way. Red Queen work best when they burn painfully slowly, despite being actively on fire the entire time.
How we do it? Easy. We kill Robin, as planned. It's sad and it's a noble sacrifice. But Regina is crushed and all alone. The difference is: this time, Ruby is around. And she offers Regina some genuinely comforting company. She can't help it. She sees Regina's pain, and she has to help, even if she risks her dignity for it — she's heard all of Regina's best dog jokes by now, she can take them.
And the manner of their proximity wouldn't be a stretch. We've seen glimpses of them in the other's orbit, circling their gravitational pull, stubbornly fighting the natural attraction.
We've seen Ruby taking a keen notice of Regina's emotional state, arguably faster than Snow.
And we've seen Regina invite or, at the very least, welcome Ruby's presence to soothe her loneliness.
Their parallels make their pairing not only possible, but powerful.
And what's best? They're vaguely familiar with each other. They're aware of each other's greatest moments, deepest lows and most egregious flaws. They've been enemies for long enough, and awkward allies for some other amount of time. Striking up a conversation wouldn't be hard. And they wouldn't be intimidated by each other, nor easily repelled by any accidental (or intentional) rudeness. They're sturdy, they've developed a resilient dynamic by now, and they can navigate the initial discomfort of their new kind of relationship without breaking apart.
But, shhhh, I'm getting caught up on my Red Queen rant. The point is!!! They could happen. Slowly, over the course of S5, growing from weird allies into weird friends, into sort of hot-for-each-other, but in the weird and non-murderous way.
And that tension could carry both of their character's development even further, aiding their individual journeys. Regina's redemption, Ruby's healing. Their combined recovery from their pain, anger and loss. And maybe, when they finally take that visit to the Underworld, they agree to face the people they've killed (or whose death they were directly responsible for) together.
The larger conflict to frame their progression into a couple? Let's see....... What is one element that could most naturally combine both of their stories into one? Can we somehow bring Graham back from the dead to cause some Evil Queen/Werewolf drama? If not, can we do something in that Wish Realm, or that Evil/Good Mirror Reality? If anything, the Peter/Daniel parallel is begging to be addressed.
Hm. Something about Regina wanting to go back in time and prevent Daniel's death, and that being the catalyst for some horrible, horrible events that she will have to reverse — thus having to accept that some tragedies are unavoidable, and they shape us into who we are. A lesson that Ruby, too, will learn in her own way. Or, well, together.
you need to check out The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon and Magic of the Lost series by C.L. Clark. please please please check them out 🙏🥺 that is, if you like sapphic fantasy
esses vários ships me trouxeram memórias... por algum motivo eu tinha muita facilidade de encontrar fanfics com ruby e hook (?) no nyah. sei que ele apela muito a héteros mas isso me surpreende até hoje. tinha uma que trazia uma dinâmica de casal proibido e trazia vários novos lobisomens e tensões. tempo doido
Aaaah, eu lembro desse momento no fandom! E eu lembro de Nyah!. RIP. Se tornou algo irreconhecível... Pois é, né...
Primeiramente, quando o Hook surgiu, eu até gostava dele enquanto personagem selvagem e individual. Ele era um elemento imprevisível estranhamente cativante. Ele tinha um swag (um termo para datar bem a época) e uma estética interessante para o meio. Mas daí começaram a forçar Captain Swan, e lentamente (ou não) transformar o Hook em outro personagem, como se o obrigando a assumir os deveres de um Charming 2.0 - The Emo Remix. Se ele tivesse permanecido um womanizer com coração de mel, humor problemático e lealdades questionáveis, eu até teria torcido por ele por algum tempo... A Charmificação não funciona para todos... (Para a Ruby funciona, licença)
Agora, Hook e Ruby? Romanticamente? Curioso. Não posso dizer que cheguei a considerar isso. Uma amizade diferente, talvez — uma afinidade em comum por couro e acessórios em peso —, mas um romance? Com a Ruby, pós Maldição? Huh. Snow certamente teria algo a dizer sobre.
Who would you say is Reds best love intrest between canon/fanon options
Aaaaaaah, come on! You're setting me up for another Red Snow Rant!
I can't be held responsible for this now, it's all on you. Anons da minha pátria, blame Ghost.
No, but for real... Not to be a slimy goblin evading a decisive answer once again but....... It's not as objective as it might seem.....! It really depends on what I'm craving at the moment, on what kind of itch I need to scratch, on what kind of mood I'm looking to indulge—
I have AUs to fill a wide, wiiiiiiiide variety of voids. I have pocket verses and brain farts for every genre. I have versions of Ruby Lucas so removed from canon and so reworked from her primal pieces that you wouldn't recognize her immediately. All this to say... There is no such thing as "best" in this case. Only... "more appropriate". To what? Well, that's the crucial condition! That's the variable that changes the result!
I mean, yeah, sure, I'd take a fleshed out, detailed, possibly tragic, definitely romantic canon Red Snow journey anytime, anyway, anywhere, riding any beast— But that's for a specific flavor of ship, isn't? Red Snow is sweet and kind and reassuring. (When it's not at the hands of @lovecanbesostrange at 4am) It's simultaneously innocent and wise love, it's enduring loyalty and the incredibly bravery in caring for another person, despite the risk inherit in the feeling...
Red Snow is home. Red Snow is safe, it's secure, it's known. It's the healing retreat, the cabin in the woods at the end of a long adventure. To regroup, recover, recharge...
Each possible romantic interest brings out a different side of Ruby, tints her a different shade of red. To pick one would be to pick my favorite Ruby, and I love her completely, comprehensibly, every which way!! Don't make me do this!!! IT'S TORTURE!!!!
But, anyway~
Let's go down a short list, shall we?
Red Snow is easy. You see it. It's the force that kept Red alive, to put it simply. Without Snow, Red wouldn't have survived the horrors of her life. And, arguably, without Red, Snow wouldn't have survived.... at all! They are who they are, happy and living, and living happily, because they've crossed paths and greatly impacted each other's lives. They're indelible from each other's stories. There is no Red without Snow — not as we know her. And the same is true for Snow. That's it.
Red Beauty is... well, the beauty that could have been, suspended in time and pulse, just out of reach. It's a refreshing breath that was never exhaled. It's a fascinating picture to be build from individually precious pieces now abandoned separately, never to connect; a breathtaking sequence formed from a intricate maze of dominoes that would never tumble—It's the goddamn transcendentally brilliant, perfectly and poetically constructed masterpiece, trapped before its potential. They're so flowery and annoyingly romantic, Adele wrote a song about them.
Agh. You know who they are! They are the WLW Beauty and The Beast story that would have won OUAT awards today. They are the definite narrative that we should have gotten in the show. Rumple, meh, Rumple would have sufficed as A Beast That Slowly Downgraded Into a Gaston. And the two of them would have become immensely better characters for it. It would be the perfect fit for Ruby, in yet another brilliant twist for her tale; and a mature, respectful take on Belle's wisdom, elevating her masterful emotional intelligence, instead of her tragic commitment to lackluster romance...
Red Queen is my crappy, cranky child that has never done anything wrong in their life, and I know this and I love them. It's messy and dubious and possibly toxic and decidedly complicated. They follow no straight path, there is blood and bruises and broken bones in their wake, and they're headed nowhere particularly grand or gorgeous, but their love is brute, crude, cruel and powerful. That's their word. Power. They're powerful together. They're powerful apart. Their power is dangerous to themselves and to each other, and somehow they find a way to be tame and harmless to each other (after all the harm is done and healed from...)
Red Queen, as I dream it, would have never been allowed in a show like OUAT, and that's why we have fanfic. (Some 500k+ words of it~). From these grounds, Red Queen can be whatever I want. And, around the same witching hours, it can be whatever Kat wants to torture me with. I'm forever in their submission, at their mercy— and they have exchanged no more than five lines of dialogue in the entire series. That's how powerful they are.
Red Warrior was taken from us. It would have been a Red Beauty, a bit of spice, double the butch, don't hold on the cheese. They would have been unexpectedly cute, reforming each other's more troubling flaws and healing each other's straight-girl-related-gay-trauma. They would have been each other's second chances at love (much like the tragic poetry of Red Queen, but don't let me return to that). Ruby would have brought out Mulan's more sensitive side, and Mulan would have dealt with Ruby's unruly insecurities with some of her discipline. Ruby would have made Mulan laugh. And Mulan would have made Ruby blush. And they would have made each other happy. And I'm SO MAD THEY DIDN'T— No, okay. Technically, they did. As friends. Mulan became Ruby's new travel buddy, and Ruby became Mulan's first gay friend. That's huge. And their Spin-Off potential can't be negated, even if they're forced to be platonic about it. Sure. It's all in service of—
—Red Kansas, the clumsy child we had no choice over. It's the feral cat that chose us in the distribution system, followed us home and claimed the best side of the bed. It's adorable, it needs love, and it deserves a warm, caring home. We will feed it and nurture it and watch it grow into a full feral beast. Could it ever be domesticated? I don't know. Ask heartsways. The ship as it is (it happened so fast, what is it, concretely?) could use some work, but I can appreciate the kind of romantic interest that is Dorothy Gale. Brutish and rude and scared of intimacy. She's, accidentally, the perfect opposite to Ruby's personality; and not what I would have personally come up with, as her final True Love pick. But you know what? I dig it. Dorothy's cavewoman ways pair up nicely with Ruby's debilitating niceness, and they bring out interesting parts of each other, to be in conflict and in contrast. With Dorothy, Ruby becomes someone unafraid to stand her ground and use some force when needed. And, with Ruby, Dorothy allows herself some vulnerability and heart, knowing that she's in safe, gentle hands. They work, despite how hurriedly they were put together.
Those are the major five for me. Now for a lighting round:
Red Devil is Red Queen on steroids, crack, cocaine, gin and every sex drug known to mankind. It's best appreciated behind a curtain, with sound-proof walls. Don't worry about it.
Red Swan is Red Warrior with a pinch of Red Snow drama. I honestly can't entertain it too far, because I have trouble disowning my "Red As Emma's Godmother" headcanon to make room for the sexual tension. I can appreciate them within the confines of the First Dark Curse and maybe some fucked up Wish Realm or something... But canon compliant Red Swan doesn't spark something in me. Apologies.
Frozen Wolf would have been the most heart-achingly adorable pairing to fill me with enough cuteness aggression to end wars. It would be brief, though. They would be each other's summer fling. Winter fling? They would hook up, exchange Monster Complexes and say their goodbyes. Maybe they would keep in touch, if Anna and Belle decided to start seeing each other more often, and they needed bodyguards.
Brave Wolf is........... I can't say what it is currently, as it's been forever corrupted by a CERTAIN AU in a CERTAIN CORNER OF DISCORD. But it originally was a whimsy indulgence. A silly broship that could eventually blossom into a romance. It was nothing serious, until it became R-RATED SERIOUS.
I have never considered Ruby/Ariel for long enough to think of their ship name, but I can appreciate the amazing potential in their animal motifs. Wet Dog, anyone?
Frankenwolf irks me.
Red Dragon (Am I talking about Lily? Am I talking about Maleficent? Am I talking about a Red/Regina/Mal threesome? I couldn't find the gifs, clearly...) is badass and could be mined for glorious angst, but, curiously, I see them working better in their beastly forms, rather than their human personalities. Ruby could learn from Maleficent's temper and she could relate to Lily's struggles, but my imagination does not yet go this far... Sadly.
Red Wolf (Red Huntsman? boo, that's weak!) works in my head. Honestly, they do. Provided I GET TO DECIDE HOW AND WHEN AND WHY. But, more honestly? They're better as weird siblings joined by fate.
Red Charming.... ROMANTICALLY? Abomination. Somehow more incestuous than Red Swan. A bigger betrayal to Snow. They're the perfect BroShip, though. Now, Red Snowing? Now we're talking. They need Snow in the middle there. You get it.
And that's it for the ships and how they cause my brain fire around. Does it help in anyway with finding an answer? I don't think so.
Still, in the spirit of fairness, I shall try........... to pick............. a """""""best""""""" one.
What do you think happens if Red falls under cruelly control and how do you think Red (if at all) could signal that shes not in control of herself anymore
I need to come up with a tag for my Cruella As Ruby's Main Villain Headcanons (let's call it RvC HC), so that I know where to look for all these bits and pieces later... We almost have enough for a full picture! ✨
Though I doubt I could ever settle on one final vision for that arc... It lives and pulses within the boundless fountain of infinite potential as long as we don't give it a limiting form, so I won't dare to disturb that dormant power. I will only tap into it every once in a while and gaze at the many multiverses open before us—
In summary: if we don't settle on a definite Cruella Arc, we can always expand on it and make it more interesting (and painful!) later. It has worked wonderfully so far with our discord verses!
All that being said...
We have looked at two options here. ← These explore the possibilities and consequences of depicting Ruby's consciousness — or lack thereof — while under Cruella's supernatural control.
One presents Ruby as a helpless, powerless passenger in her own hijacked (did someone say jacked—) body, present for all the atrocities her wolf form is responsible for, but robbed of the ability to affect or stop any of it;
The other erases Ruby's consciousness completely, suppressing the entirety of her human mind for the duration of the spell, and effectively returning her to the state of her feral, black-out days (.mp3) from before she learned proper self-control.
That's for the WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO RUBY'S MIND WHILE UNDER CRUELLA'S INFLUENCE? question. The simple one.
And that's assuming Cruella's power can only affect a shapeshifter's beastly form. Which happens to be canon!
If we want to look at how Ruby, the person, — the woman, the girl, the waitress, the dork — would act while under Cruella's control, we would have to test, tempt and stretch the bounds of canon, and prepare the grounds for a context or condition in which Cruella's power has expanded to the point of being able to assume control of a shapeshifter's human form.
And that would be a different question: HOW WOULD RUBY BEHAVE WHILE CRUELLA IS IN CONTROL?
Would she be Ruby Lucas, But Evil?
Would she be Ruby Lucas, But More Like a Dark One?
Would she simply be a meat puppet in Cruella's hands (ew)? Speaking with Ruby's voice, but in Cruella's words? Would she just be Cruella De Vil, in a Ruby Lucas skin? Eerie, love that.
However this corruption will surface and run its course, it will collide with a solid, unmovable obstacle: The Red Snow Bond.
At least one person in Storybrooke would know something is wrong with Ruby. Cruella's influence wouldn't stay undiscovered for long. Once detected, Snow would mobilize her family's arsenal to help free Red, and that's unquestionable. Whatever Cruella's plan is, it certainly won't be unopposed.
And even if Cruella was smart enough to try and avoid Snow White's expert gaze and remain undetected for as long as she possibly can, it's not like she can trust Ruby's natural lying abilities....
She couldn't give Ruby the clean command to "act normal and avoid suspicion".
........Girl can't.
Cruella would have to code and install into Ruby's OS a whole new skill set, just to barely fly under the radar — and THAT would be highly suspicious on its own!
If, out of the blue, Ruby started being able to gracefully avoid interrogation and act smooth, chill and collected under pressure, people would rightfully start to wonder if someone else is in charge of her brain.
An alternative Cruella could try — and that's me giving Cruella De Vil advice into torturing Ruby — is to let Ruby "loose", and only call upon her when needed. Keeping Ruby constantly under her influence, but on "auto-pilot", hands-off mode; not in a way that would impact Ruby's normal functioning, but would secure Ruby's """"loyalty""""" to Cruella, when relevant.
That brings us to the HOW WOULD SHE SIGNAL THAT SOMETHING IS OFF? part of the question. And that's a smart one, working from a perfect place! In a case such as the above, Ruby would undoubtedly try to signal to her true allies that she's compromised, and she can't presently be trusted, as Cruella is in control of her being. She would try to warn people, so they would be safe from— well, I'll just let her say it:
She would do whatever is in her little power to keep herself from hurting people. And, yes, suicide is on the table. (It's always on the table. Someone should do something about this table...) She would go to all the lengths.
That brings us back to the Red Snow issue: Snow Would Know. Red wouldn't have to tell her, signal to her, warn her. Snow would sense that Red is acting out her ~spectrum of ordinary~ and inspect the reasons for it, until she arrived at an explanation.
Meaning: In order for her plan to be successful, Cruella would have to neutralize Snow.
Because the sad reality is...... ↑ that moment there? And this moment here? ↓
...wouldn't have happened with anyone else.
No one else* would notice Ruby's sudden absence in a crowded room or hostile environment and go out of their way to look for her.
*Belle? Who knows if they're even friends! If they are, well, great! Belle poses a similar threat to Cruella's plan, and she would have to be dealt with, just like Snow. But other then those two...?
Ruby's distant behavior would be accepted without further questions. She already reacts like an outsider.
She already has a complicated time of the time during which she pulls away and becomes particularly anti-social.
People would accept it as just another extension of Ruby's... usual oddity. And Cruella's influence wouldn't be tested — wouldn't be detected.
Ruby would be used as Cruella's tool, and there wouldn't be anyone to stand in her way.
Not a question, just wanted to pop in and say I really appreciate your rants! I'm a new once fan, and a fan of Ruby & I can't tell you how much fun it's been to read through your posts & metas. Hope you're doing well.
Awwwnn! Thank you so much!!! I'm so happy to know that!
I'd be ranting to the winds if I didn't have a blog mostly dedicated to stanning Ruby Lucas, I love her that much. But it's wonderful to know a few people can stand to read all this frantic writing!! Thank you~! I hope you're well, too!
I hope you enjoy OUAT and its surviving fandom! It truly is a product of its time, from back when there was still hope left in the world. It's good to return to it once in a while and be reminded of good things <3
The fandom has seen more action, but you can still find a beating heart here and there. The SwanQueen crowd never rests, so don't worry there. The Ruby Fans get by on scraps, really, but we're chill and cool and very normal about liking her character, don't worry......
If you need a place to hang out and think about Ruby on the clock, the discord server welcomes you!
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