this is a "maybe" for me because rudbeckia is a character who isn't really a "good person" but i don't think it serves her narrative in any way to try and redeem her. she is the way she is because she's spent her whole life being abused and playing submissive to get by, giving herself away in exchange for safety. she has a lot of anxiety about feeling that she was born bad and wrong and unlovable, and that she'll be abandoned by anyone who sees her true self because she's just an awful, twisted monster pretending to be sweet.
she's not a bad person, but she'll never be a kind or selfless one even at her best, and imo reassurance that she doesn't need to be "good" to deserve love makes for a better arc than encouraging her to be "better" at all.
if it's her partner that's being redeemed, i've got no problems! being the way she is, ruby won't make any efforts towards redeeming someone else – if someone loves her, she couldn't care less whether they're good or evil, and if they don't love her then she'd be too afraid to interfere in the first place. but having someone redeemed as part of an overarching psl narrative, or by developing feelings for a helpless and timid person like her, all that kind of stuff is a-okay!!
► DOMESTICITY.
as mentioned above, i'm not a big fan of slice of life, so this is just more of the same. threading out occasional moments of fluffy domesticity is fun! but i do need some turmoil to sink my teeth into as well, whether it's internal or external.
broadly, ruby is also not suited to traditional domesticity. she'll never be a wholesome uwu sweet wife unless it's a performance she's putting on to please someone – so if you want toothless domesticity out of her, it will always be fake, and she'll always be thinking about it as a transaction. i'm 100% willing to play out that kind of domesticity, but it's a tense and unhappy scenario for her even if she falls in love. the real ruby is sullen and mean and prefers the company of monsters over people; domesticity has to be a little bit twisted to suit her.
► PARENTAL INCEST.
i'm so-so on this and pickier about dynamics than i would be for sibling incest. strong preference for pseudo-incest here! i'd definitely be up for trying something like the dynamic in post-possession damage control, for example, where the FL's relationship with her adoptive father has always been distant and he doesn't view her as a daughter, but that underlying toxic dynamic of control and ownership and authority remains.
► PREGNANCY & PARENTHOOD.
even in scenarios where characters might be expected to have a child, e.g. arranged marriages, i will never be open to playing out the actual pregnancy itself or the aftermath in which the characters are parents. first of all, i personally just plain don't like playing out parenthood, it's uninteresting to me in any circumstances.
but secondly, ruby is NOT a character suited to being a parent, and she wouldn't be a happy mother. this goes double for arranged marriages, where the pregnancy is essentially taking place under duress and is yet another way in which ruby has control of her body taken away from her. in any situation where a relationship with ruby involves the expectation of children, the only happy ending possible is doing away with that expectation entirely for ruby's sake.
SHIPPING—
she's not a bad person, but she'll never be a kind or selfless one even at her best, and imo reassurance that she doesn't need to be "good" to deserve love makes for a better arc than encouraging her to be "better" at all.
if it's her partner that's being redeemed, i've got no problems! being the way she is, ruby won't make any efforts towards redeeming someone else – if someone loves her, she couldn't care less whether they're good or evil, and if they don't love her then she'd be too afraid to interfere in the first place. but having someone redeemed as part of an overarching psl narrative, or by developing feelings for a helpless and timid person like her, all that kind of stuff is a-okay!!
broadly, ruby is also not suited to traditional domesticity. she'll never be a wholesome uwu sweet wife unless it's a performance she's putting on to please someone – so if you want toothless domesticity out of her, it will always be fake, and she'll always be thinking about it as a transaction. i'm 100% willing to play out that kind of domesticity, but it's a tense and unhappy scenario for her even if she falls in love. the real ruby is sullen and mean and prefers the company of monsters over people; domesticity has to be a little bit twisted to suit her.
but secondly, ruby is NOT a character suited to being a parent, and she wouldn't be a happy mother. this goes double for arranged marriages, where the pregnancy is essentially taking place under duress and is yet another way in which ruby has control of her body taken away from her. in any situation where a relationship with ruby involves the expectation of children, the only happy ending possible is doing away with that expectation entirely for ruby's sake.