ruby’s someone who loves very intensely. she won’t hesitate to show that love as best she can, be it familial or platonic --- but romantic love can be a little tricky. it’s difficult enough to open herself up to the natural love that flows between family and friends, and in a lot of ways, it’s something that’s sort of unavoidable. but there’s a certain amount of ‘accountability’ with falling in love, and considering everything that’s going on in her life right now, it feels irresponsible. it feels downright reckless. it feels like she’s opening herself up to a whole world of hurt that might actually rip her in two if things go wrong --- or if anything happens to them. and although she’s drawn to elements of romance, particularly in the chivalric sense, she’s never had much of a preoccupation with finding love for herself.
but something she’s learned pretty recently is that it doesn’t really ask if you’re ready or not --- it just sort of happens. and once it happens, once it’s out there, her preoccupations will shift from trying to tiptoe around it to conveying it as best she can --- moreso with actions than words. she’ll get even more fiercely protective, go the extra mile in any and all things, and just in general do what she can to open herself up to that vulnerability --- to be someone to lean on, but also do some leaning of her own.
she doesn’t handle her stress well, that’s pretty obvious. one thing i feature often in threads but don’t think i’ve ever flat-out stated, though, is she most definitely uses food as a coping mechanism. it’s a habit she’s carried over from childhood, as are most of her bad habits. she’ll eat or drink excessively as a means to keep her mouth occupied --- whether it’s out of boredom or, say, in an anxiety-inducing social situation to make her look too busy to partake.
when she’s going through a depression slump, it can have a bit of the opposite effect. she’ll eat less, whether out of forgetfulness or lacking the urge to, and the things she does eat... well, they’re called ‘depression meals’ for a reason. they seriously lack description, and generally feature chocolate milk. ad nauseum.
all in all, she has a real problem with overeating that intensifies whenever she’s stressed. a lot of it’s compulsive and subconscious, but much like bouncing your leg, it’s difficult to stop even when it’s pointed out to her.
ruby is very, very homesick. she hasn’t been home in two years --- and when she was home, it was only because of what happened to beacon. she didn’t miss it so much when she was at the academy, or at least the homesickness she occasionally felt then was nothing compared to what she feels from kingdoms away --- and now an entire dimension away. she misses the familiar smells, she misses her dad’s cooking, she misses helping out with the gardening --- particularly on her down days... she just misses that sense of home, you know ?
that being said, she’s made a bit of a ‘home’ for herself here. blake, sun, neptune --- they’re all part of her daily routines that make her feel comfortable and safe, ease the homesickness a bit. which just makes her all the more worried about what could go wrong just around the corner...
honestly ? ever since summer left, ruby’s never not been angry. she’s always had difficulty keeping her emotions in check --- she’s just good at venting them towards productive things. her venting strategies are as follows:
she’s matured since she first came to beacon, sure. but even on her nights off while training at atlas, she and yang both chose to use that time to take out more grimm --- and looked damn happy to be doing it. every time ruby’s in a fight, she feels like she can truly let that pent-up anger go --- because they’re grimm, and it’s okay if someone gets hurt. when it’s people, her worst habit is venting her anger through words; she’s surprisingly good at picking and choosing the right words to seriously hurt people, even if she doesn’t put much thought behind the words she uses in the moment.
in general, ruby has a tendency to look like she’s exploding --- like she’s going from 0 to 100 real fast --- but she’s not. she’s just always at 99.
i also have a personal headcanon that she’d always go out looking for grimm as an outlet whenever she went to talk to summer’s grave, because it would be a shame to chalk the red trailer up to just ‘the sole purpose of looking cool’ when every other trailer clearly had a reason--- i’m rambling. fandom’s annoying. my point is ! part of the reason ruby seems so prodigal and exceptional for her age isn’t necessarily because of silver eyes, or even entirely because of crescent rose ( although that is a big part of it in volume 1 ) --- it’s because she’s a very angry kid that’s been venting that anger in the only way she knows how. when she was younger, sure, she used other methods; but still, from a very early age ? you bet your ass it was grimm.
