ruby @ ataraxion

[kinetic]

P L A Y E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: tiffany
OOC Journal: kinetic
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: over 18, 23
Email + IM: live.infamy [at] gmail.com / to boldly trek
Characters Played at Ataraxion: emma swan, malia tate

C H A R A C T E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Ruby
Canon: Supernatural
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: 3x16, while trapped in Bobby's basement after Dean steals her knife, before Lilith steals her body.
Number: 066

Setting:

Supernatural takes place on 21st century Earth, but it features a slew of supernatural beasts and concepts such as vampires, demons, werewolves, witches, etc., and hunters that pursue them. In the universe of Supenratural, angels and demons are both required to possess a host in order to walk on Earth—however, angels must get permission to do so, whereas demons hijack unwilling hosts on the regular. Demons themselves are human souls that were tortured beyond recognition for decades or more in Hell.

History:

Sometime in the 14th century, Ruby (or whatever she was called then) was a witch. She cut a deal with the demon Tammi, selling her soul in exchange for power. Her time came due, and Tammi dragged her to Hell, where she suffered for an undefined period of time, and eventually turned into a demon herself.

Lilith recruited Ruby into her cause with promises of the Apocalypse and the freedom of their mythical lord and leader, Lucifer. The mission was kept secret from all of the other demons of Hell, designed to be the perfect con: Ruby would play the part of the black sheep, win the trust of Sam Winchester, and lead him down the road of the ritual required to break the seal on the cage entrapping Lucifer.

When Ruby meets Sam Winchester, after Azazel's death has opened the way to Lilith's plan, she helps him slaughter the Seven Deadly Sins—each powerful demons in their own right—with her demon-killing knife. She's the first person he ever witnesses kill a demon, and that makes her valuable. She knows this. Rather than introduce herself, she strings him along, swooping in to act as the mysterious stranger who knows an awful lot about him, his family, and his psychic abilities. She sets him on the trail of discovering what happened to the friends of his late mother.

After discovering all of them dead, he demands the truth, and Ruby obliges. This, after all, has to be his choice. She declares herself a balm, a disaffected demon who wants to help him. While Sam doesn't appear eager to accept her help in saving Dean from the deal that will take him to Hell before the year is out, she persists in giving it, showing up at Bobby's to help them repair the demon-slaying antique Colt gun.

When Sam and his brother arrive in a town where Tammi is working a witch coven, Ruby tries desperately to warn them off. The persist anyway, and she shows up later to rescue them from Tammi, first curing Dean of poison and earning his begrudging respect in the process, then later killing the demon who had dragged her to Hell in the first place to save Sam's life, earning his trust. She tells Dean that she does not have a way of saving him from Hell, but asks for his help preparing Sam for a future without Dean in it.

Sam and Dean answer a call for help from a small-town police station being swarmed by a horde of demons, and Ruby appears to warn them about the rise of Lilith, a demon who has stepped up since Azazel's death to lead the armies of Hell—trying to kill Sam. She proposes a spell to kill the demons, but admits it requires a sacrifice: the heart of the virgin secretary of the police station. Sam and Dean refuse, and though it appears they escape, they find out on the news later that the demons slaughtered everyone in the station in an explosion. Ruby appears, chiming in that her plan would have saved all those lives (with the exception of one), suggesting they listen to her from now on.

With the clock winding down, the Winchesters get desperate. While Dean persists in not asking for help from Ruby, Sam surreptitiously (and predictably) summons her to the barn at Bobby's. Dean tricks her into a devil's trap after a scuffle, stealing her knife and leaving her below while the boys try to storm Lilith's stronghold on a suburban neighborhood where she's possessing a child.

Personality:

The first thing to understand about Ruby is that she's only interested in looking out for herself. Cutthroat and ruthless, Ruby never hesitates or even bats an eyelash in cutting down her own kind to buy herself favor and trust from the Winchesters. What's more, she's perfectly willing to let Dean die to pave the way for cleaner access to Sam, even while selling both of them some pretty lie about trying to save Dean's life.

Goal-oriented and calculating, Ruby thrives on her ability to manipulate others. She succeeds with her manipulation of Sam because she's open to changing her tactics and trying whatever works. She builds herself into whatever she needs to be to get the job done: when she meets Sam, she is aggressive, hard-hitting, and results-oriented because he's in a panicked place where he needs a solution, but he also needs that firm confidence. Later, after Dean goes to Hell, Ruby softens her approach. She's supportive, emotionally open—even domestic. She even lets him rescue her when she feels like he needs the boost.

All of these facets that Ruby shows, every edge of personality that she emphasizes, only work as well as they do because they are all parts of her. When she expresses empathy towards Dean, she admits that she wouldn't wish Hell on even her worst enemy when she has no reason to deceive him. Dean is besides the point. Dean, dying shortly, is a non-issue. She has the compassion and gentleness that she shows Sam throughout season four, that she intermittently relents towards in season three, but she uses it as a tool. Similarly, she is perfectly able to put that aside and coldly get the job done because she values results, and she puts a lot of stock in being able to get the job done. We know these things about her because she so often uses honesty as a weapon when manipulating people.

In some ways, though evil, Ruby can be considered self-righteous. Whenever she discusses her fellow demons, she carries herself with a confidence that really borders to belligerent arrogance, genuinely believing herself better than them (but not for the reasons she pretends). While she leads Sam and Dean to believe that this pertains to her somehow superior morality to a degree, the truth is that she considers herself better because she's the better liar, because she has purpose. Ruby, like most denizes of Hell, hates other demons and has no desire to categorize herself with them.

A great deal of this sense of superiority comes from her sense of loyalty and purpose, drawn from her mission to release Lucifer. While generally rational, logical, and pragmatic, Ruby becomes a blindly loyal, faith-driven follower where Lucifer is concerned. There is no evidence to indicate that she had any idea that Lucifer's endgame included the loathing of all demons and their subsequent destruction: she's never met him, after all. None of the demons had, and demon lore painted him as their savior. She bought into it—hook, line and sinker—in a particularly foolish bid, given her own skill as a liar. She dedicates her life to his cause, literally dying for it with no apparent regrets beyond not being able to see him. Her love for him knows no bounds because she expects that he will love her (and the rest of his demon children).

Over the course of seasons three and four, Ruby develops a similar sense of loyalty to Sam. Her loyalty to him is initially born out of his necessity to her cause: she needs him, ergo she needs to prioritize him. That's the mission she was assigned to. Over the course of season four, however, she appears to develop a more personal bond with him, expecting his gratitude and understanding when the seal does finally break, indicating a belief that he really might rise to some power in Hell's hierarchy once Lucifer was released, as Azazel hinted, and Ruby indicated with her "boy king" commentary throughout season three. At her selected canon point for AX, she is slowly making this transition from viewing him as a tool to viewing him as a partner.

On a surface level, Ruby is aggressive, and full of zippy one-liners. She has a witty rejoinder for any circumstance, usually accompanied by a pop culture reference, and she prides herself on being abrasive and brusque. She presents a front of competence so strong that she doesn't have patience to put up with idiots.

But it's precisely that: a front. Ruby is deceptively patient, taking her time with Sam and truly grooming him into the boy king that she believes he can be. She spends the whole year of Dean's contract popping in and laying the groundwork for her manipulation, then brings it into full form once Dean is down. While Dean is dead (six weeks), she continues to worm under Sam's skin, cutting stubbornly through his dramatic, grieving rebuffs and persisting until he allows her to help him develop his abilities, using a combination of the seductive lure of both physical intimacy and power.

She lets Sam grow into his own, and that patience is actually what affords opportunity for her downfall, but also what allows her to be so successful. Had she pushed, Sam would have pushed back, or had reason to give more credence to Dean's warnings. She played the (relatively) innocent flower, and let Sam walk himself into the mouth of the beast.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

As a demon, Ruby possess the associated abilities of the Supernatural universe, even though she generally plays them down as a part of her ruse, trying to keep Sam from thinking too hard about what he's getting in bed with.

Demons possess host bodies called vessels, and are able to move in a cloud of smoke from one to another at any time; strong enough wills can force a demon out of their living body, but for the most part, this ability must be trained. This vessel heals at an accelerated rate, fixing the body, but not reviving the person it belonged to. She can use a moderate level of telekinesis (demonstrated in Lucifer Rising, and by other demons). Similarly, Ruby and other demons show some capacity for teleportation, usually accompanied by flickering lights. (As limitations go, she obviously cannot possess NPCs or access plot-locked areas using telekinesis, but otherwise she's probably fine.)

Weaknesses associated with demons include: being burned by holy water and holy symbols, burned and warded off by salt lines/circles, flinching at the word Christo, being able to be trapped in a Devil's Trap, and being warded off by hexbags.

In addition to the standard demon powers, Ruby demonstrates some aptitude with witchcraft, including the construction of hexbags, scrying, and warding: a hold-over from her time pre-Hell.

Inventory:

01 black leather jacket

01 dark grey shirt

01 pair dark wash jeans

01 pair boots

01 set underwear

01 set of handy-dandy witch stuff (spell materials, scrying, etc.)

02 hexbags worth of ingredients (baby bones, etc.)

Appearance:

While in her first vessel of the show, Ruby is blonde, fairly petite, and white. She has blue eyes, usually straightens her hair, and dresses in rough-and-tough biker style gear, all boots and leather jackets. She wants to look the part of the hunter, frequenter of roadhouses and truckstops. As a demon, her eyes are occasionally all-black (cornea included), particularly when in pain.

Age: roughly 650, appears more like 25

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:

She hates being confined.

Looking around the ship, all she sees is one, shiny metal devil's trap, holding her in here like a caged animal. Makes a girl wanna claw at the walls. Instead, she's twitchy, pacing, restless. Takes it upon herself to do her own sweeps, just a floor behind one of the security personnel to stay out of their way.

Most notably, this isn't part of the plan. With no Winchesters, she's off track in a bad way. God only knows what Lilith's doing to them while she dicks around in the final frontier. She grimaces—for Dean, even. Sam's gonna get away clean. Has to. But Dean ... Poor, stupid Dean. Just had to try being the hero.

Well. He can't say she never warned him that he'd only be making it worse on himself. Maybe somewhere in this futuristic world, he's rocking some black eyes all his own. More importantly, she won't be able to pick up the pieces while Sam grieves if she's shipped out into deep space.

She needs a way back, and there are plenty of people here with a better idea of how to do that than she's got.

Smiling sweetly, she approaches the security station she's encountered.

"Sorry," she picks up a bumbling affectation easily, shoulders hunching. "I think I got turned around. This isn't medical, is it?" Just gotta find the right good Samaritan to get her on her way.

Comms Sample:

For as worked up as everybody gets about :) being out to get us, it kinda seems like hair-pulling to me. Keep it up, and I'm gonna start thinking it likes us.

So what the hell does it want? Give me your crackpot theories; at least then we'll be doing something instead of sitting around with our thumbs up our asses.