#twst ruby

Oh, you have excellent timing, I was hoping for the perfect moment to kickstart my character ramble series! Okay, so I will be using this ask to just ramble as much as I can about Ruby...

So a quick description for this series is that you guys can make requests on which OC of mine you want to hear more about, and I will let myself have free reins!

CHARACTER RAMBLE SERIES #01: Ruby Veritcrown

1| BASIC INFORMATION AND SUMMARY

Full Name: Ruby Lucielle Kilcroi-Veritcrown

Title/s: Princess of Hedgerow, Vice Housewarden of Coeurmaise

Dawn Owl Epithet: "The Pacifist Executioner"

Age: 16

Homeland: Queendom of Roses

Birthday: May 1 (Spring)

Year and Dorm: Freshman — Coeurmaise Dormitory

Unique Magic: "Remember Your Place" [Redacted upon Request]

MBTI: ISFP

Clubs: Journalism Club, Technicals and Media

Princess Ruby is the fifth and last full heir of the Duke Ivon Veritcrown III and Duchess Elalla Kilcroi-Veritcrown, the youngest sibling of four older brothers and of Rouge Conmore, her older half-sister. She is one of the heirs of the Hedgerow Duchy, whose background involves the finest education in academic, arcane, and behavioral fields.

Despite being a freshman, she was appointed Vice Housewarden of the law-centric Coeurmaise dorm by her sister Rouge, replacing Elsie Smoke. She is described by her peers and schoolmates as friendly, soft-spoken, and often gentle even in her use of power. However, some say she is passive-aggressive when challenged and easily made offenders uncomfortable, as if she is giving you 'a head start to run from some ultimate, cruel punishment'.

2| BACKSTORY

Ruby was the last attempt to save the failing political marriage between the Duke and the Duchess of Hedgerow, a union solely to produce heirs with combinations of their Unique Magic. The last straw that tore the spouses apart was the Duke's infidelity and conceiving Rouge with his first and true love, the noblewoman Nadia Dar Conmore from Scalding Sands.

As expected, her birth did nothing to salvage the union. When she was around two years old, her mother decided to run off with her and abandon her along the way as a final act of unapologetic revenge toward the Duke. She was intended to die of starvation or some other accident, but she was fortunately found three days after she was left behind on a countryside trail and returned to the duchy.

With the Duchess gone, she grew up in the duchy with her family, including Lady Nadia as her stepmother— the woman was a kind and domestic soul just like the Duke, compared to the Duchess, who was power-hungry and narcissistic. With so many older siblings, she ended up gaining a lot of patience and tolerance for sibling-related squabbles and shenanigans, and she loves Rouge as if she were the best big sister in the world. She personally requested that she be able to follow Rouge in DOC for high school.

3| TWIST: THE KING OF HEARTS (ALICE IN WONDERLAND)

I never watched the original Disney animated film of Alice in Wonderland and only have a vague understanding through YouTube clips, but I did read the novel it's based on (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll) and drew inspiration from there.

(Ramble: I wanted to explore the concept of the King of Hearts as a gentler foil that still held equal power compared to the Queen, even having enough authority to counter her decisions with his own way. Regardless of his milder appearance and seemingly inferior stature, he is still the king, the monarch.)

So, how does this show in Ruby's character?

4| THE PACIFIST EXECUTIONER

"I understand your need to know, yet Ruby wouldn't appreciate others unnecessarily fearing her, so she personally requested that her Unique Magic be redacted from the school database. Hmm, I cannot quickly recall the words either, since she has outgrown the use of them... but let's see... ah. 'There is an end to pardon, a limit to grace. So swallow your pride. Remember your Place.' Those were the words... and it was strong enough to end a life, if she willed it. Thank goodness she doesn't." ~ Rouge, when asked by Riddle to reveal her sister's Unique Magic

As expected of any child with noble blood—those with direct blood relations to the royal family— she was expected to emerge with Unique Magic exactly like her parents' or a variation of it, but hers turned out like her mother's: the total ability to manipulate and halt the movement in one's muscles.

Ruby's was an amplified mutation; she can either control several targets at once in a general paralysis en masse, or fixate on a few and go deeper and stop internal organs entirely.

So, UM is a clean counter to Riddle's Off With Your Head.

(Ramble: I drew inspiration from the concept of 'Longsword of Light' and 'Light Reversal' from Mushoku Tensei (Jobless Reincarnation); wherein Longsword of Light is an inevitable and fatal sword attack reaching the speed of light, and the only means to counter it is Light Reversal; the opponent uses their own Longsword of Light to cut off the other's wrists.)

Riddle's UM is usually inevitable for those too slow to cast a counter or unable to use protective magic, but Ruby has a background similar to Leona's and thus also has a baseline of practiced protective magic, faster casting speed, and even wordless casting, but mainly her UM is a counter that figuratively 'cuts off the wrist' before Riddle could cast; he still needs to aim, to speak the words... she can deny him that in the first place.

This mutation of her mother's Unique Magic initially worried her family, given it would make her inevitably powerful if she desired domination or bloodshed. But this was not Ruby's character— she preferred her family's inclination to pacifism and believed total denial should only be a last resort once all gentler options were exhausted or when one is already beyond reason.

But this doesn't mean she is an enabler; she still harnesses a sense of authority that comes with knowing what she is capable of. She gives you a sense of 'I know exactly what I can do to you right now, so I will keep giving you a head start to settle things with your own capacity before I do it for you.'

In the current canon, she serves as both the mediator and the ultimate executioner in DOC; she usually tries to settle disputes punctually and fairly between all parties and declares the final verdict when you refuse to be reasonable or keep causing harm. Usually it's an enforced kneel and keeping offenders on the ground until she's gotten through to their heads.

5| DYNAMIC WITH RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS; FIRST CRUSH

(Ramble: I wanted to consider the fact that these two are not only still in their younger teens compared to the rest of the cast, but also have a shared context of growing up under intensive education, training, and responsibility. This won't make them suddenly immature or childish, but rather faced with a mix of matured processing and new social/personal experiences compared to the usual first-crush experience that often comes explosively.)

To Riddle: The first time Crowley mentioned that the DOC interns would include nobility from the Queendom of Roses, Riddle was initially alarmed and guarded enough. He was uptight and expected to maintain the utmost behavior and order everywhere to fit the incoming noblewomen's standards... but then there's Ruby, who literally just smiles and waves at him while Rouge is busy talking to Trey.

He is stammered and caught off guard, and definitely starts feeling a sense that later Ace clocks as 'Ohhh, I get what you're having. You're having a crush! >:D"

To Ruby: She caught wind of Riddle's competence, rise, and standards as the Housewarden and was at first intimidated enough to hope she would stay in his best graces during her time as an intern in Heartslabyul. She knew her responsibility as Vice Housewarden and the part of the first batch of interns sent by DOC, and each time she tried to interact and get along with him, he kept an uptight tone and was visibly tense (He is having a crush on her HAHAHAHA LET HIM BE). She thinks he doesn't like her and only tolerates her on a civil level TT Other interns tease her that he clearly likes her, and she gets flustered and shakes her head 'NO, HE CLEARLY DOESN'T TT' THE GIRL LITERALLY ALSO ADMIRES HIM AND SOME SEE SHE HAS A CRUSH FORMING FOR HIM, TOO BAD SHE KEEPS GETTING THE IMPRESSION THAT HE'S ANNOYED/IRRITATED OF HER

In general, this is one of my lighter pairings where Riddle is more centered in learning to accept having romantic interests and affection along with his responsibility and values, and Ruby also allows herself to explore having crushes... she crushes on Yuu instead, though, since she thinks Riddle doesn't like her. Youch.

But when their closure develops and they get into a relationship (Riddle confesses?! GO GET HER BOI) its a dynamic where they respect and even each other out authority-wise while being a soft first-time relationship :)

6 | OTHER DETAILS ABOUT RUBY + RIDDLExRUBY RAMBLES

Ruby is capable of tolerating and calmly withstanding the boys and their chaos, since she and Rouge grew up with four older brothers. But this only means she's used to domestic/playful encounters with guys... but, romantic-wise (flirts, compliments, advances), she is TOTALLY UNUSED TO IT AND IS QUICK TO BLUESCREEN.

Dynamic with Rouge: She and Rouge work in a 'two sides of a coin' duo, with Rouge handling the external affairs— the diplomatic and interdorm concerns— while Ruby handles internal affairs— handling the girls within Coeurmaise and also the boys in Heartslabyul. She loves Rouge to the end of the world and is protective of her, but Rouge is doubtful that Ruby could ever be truly free of malice against her. She loves Ruby and is deeply protective of her, but worries that she is taking away attention and opportunity.

Dynamic with Elsie: She sees Elsie as the mom friend and always seeks her input as the former Vice Housewarden, and often asks Elsie in helping her choose her casual outfits. Elsie is very fond of her and just adores her, kinda like a practice child.

Dynamic with the Rabbit Twins (Maisie + Mollie): She is eager to know their life experiences as kids who grew up in the countryside of Queendom of Roses, and they can often be found talking in the lounge about daily meals, snacks, even childhood games. They taught her how to play Leapfrog, tag, hopscotch, and jump rope.

Her best friend is Phoebe.

She likes NRC's freshman lineup and is fond of complimenting/ encouraging Deuce. She lets Ace show magic tricks and is always eager to know what they're up to.

After joining DOC's Journalism Club, she realized she has a passion for writing articles and columns as well as being the newscaster. She initially joined upon Elsie's suggestion.

Ruby instantly gets along with the hedgehogs and flamingoes in Heartslabyul due to her specialty in Animal Linguistics as well as a natural love for animals (BTW, they don't have animals in Coeurmaise). She had already learned their names, chatted with them on free time, and they started to come closer when she was around. (This is one of her qualities that gets to Riddle even more)

Riddle and Ruby would go long-term, and she would excitedly introduce him to her parents and brothers (though Riddle won't have a great time with her brothers because it's like having the Tweels twice over).

Post-graduation, she and Rouge are interested in having normal civilian lives since their brothers are more than enough to keep the duchy running (and their parents are willing to let them do so if they ask). While Riddle would be in law/medicine, Ruby would be a veterinarian while also writing articles as a local journalist.

Finally! I've finally got to work on all the Overblot Overhaul designs!

For a refresher, my 400 follower raffle was to pick 4 folks to have an OC of theirs Monster-Blot-ified (They are both the mage AND phantom of their overblot). They are all sketched and moderately rendered (per what I had time for/thought appropriate)

To kick off Spooky Season, Here they are!!

@kimikitti 's 'Obi' Oberon! Cycle after cycle. Page after page. One chapter after the next. Am I only here to document other characters? The pen is in my hand; I think some revisions are in order. (Neat little tidbit: the zalgofied text is an excerpt from Midsummer Night's Dream ;D )

@transriddlerosehearts 's Ruby It's difficult to heal a broken heart, especially one so thoroughly shattered. The thought of you still lingers in the wreckage that is their ribcage. After such betrayal, it's only natural that one might put up defenses to ensure such pain never happens again. Anemones only allow The Right One to get close enough to what nests inside.

@althea-and-alcestris 's Alcestris Rage may be blind, but tis rage nonetheless. Let it not be a surprise when the Garden's snake comes to aggress.

@the-rini-rush 's Ryuuni (I hope I got it across the ♾ symbolism in the tethers. As well, the one hand is actually grabbing their string to take control back ;D) Over and over I fuck myself over And under and under I do it again Morning and evening I felt I was grieving Until I said fuck you And never again - Rio Romero "Over and Over"

And Lastly: Albert.

"I know exactly what the time is I do not need no fucking clocks I hear the footsteps of death behind me They sound like ticking, they never stop Every second I am not working I feel I’m wasting my finite time The clocks are ticking, the clocks are talking I almost hear them in my mind" -Tardigrade Inferno "Tick Tock"

TAGLIST:

Regarding the lore of your characters, which is very interesting btw. Are there any other girls beside Naila who overblotted? If yes, for what reason and how did it manifest?

At least in the officialized DOC canon, no. Naila is the only one in Dawn Owl College to Overblot, and it's considered a shame to the whole school, as it shattered their reputation of never having dealt with such a phenomenon.

It's the reason Naila was disgraced, removed from her station as Housewarden of Zaharis, and sent to S.T.Y.X. That single Overblot scenario is extremely confidential among DOC students and has never been reported to the higher education departments. Yasmin had to appeal and insist on keeping Naila as her Vice Housewarden as a mercy.

However, in earlier drafts of the girls' creation, I had scenarios in which the other girls would've also Overblotted after entering NRC. (Crowley I think your campus is cursed at this point—) Here were the other girls that would've had entire OB plotlines;

[Ruby]

In earlier drafts, Ruby would've overblotted in Heartslabyul and nearly k!lled Rouge by accident.

Ruby was never the resentful, neglected princess that Rouge fears she is, given that Rouge is openly given attention and affection by their parents and Fowler, despite only being an illegitimate daughter born of the Duke's (their father's) affair. In fact, Ruby openly loves Rouge as if they were full sisters, choosing to be a gentle and patient authority despite having the fatal UM. She even hides the truth about her UM (hence why it's redacted) so that people will openly trust and approach her.

However, entering Heartslabyul involves Ruby being underestimated by its resident students. They didn't see a dangerous girl who still chose to be pacifist and lenient; they saw a weak authority they could disobey. Given that Riddle was someone they could not cross, and neither could they actually disobey Trey without consequences, she was perceived as the supposed Vice Housewarden/intern they could push around to relieve their egos.

For a while, she handles them well and gives them enough passive-aggressive warnings, but they crossed a line where they openly dishonored Rouge. Here, Ruby no longer makes room for grace and decides to drop her verdict upon them, objective and unapologetically cruel. Her long-buried UM finally comes out; physical paralysis of the muscle itself. It can be either a simple kneel, or a full-blown stopping of the organs, depending on the amount of force she uses.

"There is an end to pardon, a limit to grace. So swallow your pride, Remember Your Place."

Ruby holds the students in stiff kneels on the grass, unable to move at all. When Yuu and the others crash out and tell her she is going out of hand, she snaps back at them and snarls that she will no longer obstruct justice, which startles them (especially Rouge). People try to take her down and stop her, but she ends up paralyzing them and forcing them into the ground repeatedly, and ultimately causes overuse and for her to Overblot. Her phantom fatally injures Rouge in the fight, which helps distract and startle Ruby long enough for Yuu to snap her out of it.

Both similar to and different from Riddle, Ruby deeply cares for order/rules, but not authority. She just deeply resents the abuse of grace (she believes that order can be achieved without cruelty, that sometimes the painful punishment can be spared. But cruelty in response to kindness will have to lead to the punishment being laid out in full, painfully, if needed.)

[Miah]

In my first draft of Miah's character, she would've followed the Zira plotline. In my former LeonaxMiah fanfic on AO3, Miah was originally recruited as Savanaclaw's official Vice Housewarden and reunited with Leona. She would be forcibly transferred to DOC because Fowler wanted an Aridmane Housewarden and couldn't stand the idea of Crowley putting Miah among 'hooligans and delinquents'. Miah would have gone mad with lovesickness and desperation, promising to screw DOC over in honor of Leona (she knew of his hopelessness and wanted to establish that at least, somewhere, revenge and usurpation were happening for him).

In this plotline, she schemed to overthrow her fellow Housewardens. The younger ones (Noa, Mazzy aka Nuka, and Vitani) were her allies, but she had gone mad enough to go as far as planning to unalive them using her UM. Kleo (Kovu twst) couldn't stand by, so she went to secretly expose the plan to Leona and have them infiltrate DOC in time to stop her... but by that time, Miah was too far gone and Overblotted from eagerness to cause damage in the name of love.

[Lia]

(This is a can-be scenario, me saying 'it can totally happen, but I won't make it happen.') Lia may be dorky and goofy little Lia, but she is first and foremost sworn to be her father's successor. Her UM and Kore blood wards off ghosts... preventing her from accessing several parts of NRC for the sake of the ghosts working there, along with the ghost residents in Ramshackle. Like she always has to order food or cook in Ignihyde because she's prohibited from the cafeteria. She's totally fine with this, but there's a possibility for the ghosts to still fear and ostracize her, stirring up fear among the students, and it dominoes into exaggerated murmurs that make them want her to get out.

This crosses Lia's boundaries; she is honestly chill with ghosts and will just turn a blind eye if they're more good than harm, but if they're willingly causing negative circumstances, she's trained with the instinct and obligation to take them down. Yuu and the others try to make her calm down and not exorcise NRC... but she, already deeply offended and hurt by the murmurs, misinterprets this as them taking the ghosts' side and urging her to turn her back on the role she was born into. That she has to allow the ghosts to trample on her and turn the people she cares about against her.

Feeling deeply betrayed by the living and further enraged toward the dead, Lia snaps and decides on exorcising NRC for good and to punish both sides... causing her to Overblot.

[Chion]

This was a can-be scenario I will least likely put into canon, but I originally intended for Chion to be the first one to ultimately die to Overblot. As stated in older lore drops regarding Chion and her history, she is the 5th-generation descendant of Nival draconic fae, the natives of the region where Harveston now stands, but were massacred by the early humans so that they could convert it into their settlement. Her ancestors barely escaped and settled into the lower Shaftlands, where they adapted over millennia to live invisibly as if they were any other ordinary person. This history is why Chion has a deep-seated inferiority complex and is scared to openly like Malleus.

Chion's Overblot is triggered by an NRC historical expo event; some displays feature civilization and colonization spreading across Twisted Wonderland. It included bones and maimed remains of the Nival draconic fae, the creatures described as 'savage beasts that needed to be eliminated for the establishment of human settlements, such as Harveston. Their bones prove the successful determination of the human race to build community and persevere amidst treacherous predation.'

Of course, most of the people accepted this as it is, though of course Yuu and some of the twst cast found this rather insensitive on behalf of the fae. Diasomnia was, of course, disgusted by this, but Chion was... quiet. Deeply ashamed. She couldn't bring herself to speak up and demand respect for her ancestors, and she knew even her own living family would stay silent in embarrassment. She admits even her own father was a curator at a museum back in the Shaftlands with the same displays and the same narratives. He endured the shame, and so will she.

Malleus tries to get to her, thinking this was the most urgent time to comfort her and assure her that he believes the truth. She reluctantly believes him and seeks to accept his comfort, but suddenly rejects him again. This time, he finally asks why she resents him so much, why she keeps avoiding him when he openly wishes for closure and to know her, and she admits that she doesn't resent him.

He presses further as a result, and she finally blurts out that she does want him back... but she knew her place in relation to him; millennia late, irrelevant, and obscure. She was a mere drop of outflowing sewage in the grand scheme of history, someone who shouldn't even be existing and daring to love the Briar Valley's Crown Prince of the modern day when her blood is long considered dead. She snaps in despair and ache, finally deciding to put herself in place; in history.

She returns to the expo site and crashes out, destroying the plaques of false narratives... leading to her Overblot. But instead of the pursuit of power, it was to shatter the expo and send it crumbling into the ground, to properly bury the remnants of her people in the rubble and out of the humiliating sight of humans and other races... and be taken underground with them. To finally stop living a life that shouldn't have even existed.

She would glance at them: Yuu, everyone, Lacey, the twins... and Malleus, knowing they would all be left behind to live on without her. Her last thoughts, as she and her phantom are crushed by NRC's stone walls, are that everything is back in order; the present is in the present, the past is in the past.