Ruby Raleigh (DOTS: DR Character)

Ruby's arc 2 design, done and drawn by Mana

Ruby is the protagonist of of DOTS: DR. She starts off as a newly graduated fighter, who's passionate about professional tournament fighting.

She is the Red Paladin, and considered one of the strongest Paladins as a result.

Due to her new Paladin powers unlocking through her determination, she aims to use her determination for good rather than her own selfish causes. Ruby lives with Jacinthe as her roommate, and is the lead singer of her friends' band.

## Appearance

Ruby is a mildly tan Solarian with azure eyes and short, wild, light red hair.

She is mostly seen wearing various jackets, from leather jackets to collared jackets. Her fighting gear consists of a black jacket with red trim. While the length of her sleeves vary each arc, she often pairs it with dark red fingerless gloves, a red shirt, grayish indigo yoga pants, and a dark red belt with a golden buckle. Her boots are crimson with scarlet trim. She also wears a grayish red bandanna around her neck, which she wears around her arm during the Eris Arc.

Unlike Blaze and Rina, Ruby's build is not curvy or busty and is quite scrawny compared to most of the other Paladins. It is currently debatable if she's lanky or slightly muscular.

## Personality

Ruby is optimistic, passionate, and determined. She loves being free, both physically and mentally. Despite her fun teasing, she's very compassionate towards her friends. She's confident in her fighting skills and has a strong, but small sense of heroism and justice. She also has an intense love for the punk aesthetic and rock music.

However, Ruby occasionally struggles with anxiety such as witnessing friend drama and immediately panicking when seeing other people hurt. Despite having a strong sense of determination, she can be easily manipulated into using it for negative purposes, such as anger and selfishness. She's highly competitive, and can be selfish when it comes to what she wants.

## Abilities

### **Wind**

Unlike Cobalt's limited use of his wind element, Ruby uses it to help propel herself forward to help with speed.

### **Light**

As a Paladin, Ruby gains the general element of light. She can summon bursts of light (acting more like Plasma) at the enemy in order to harm them. She can also summon a large circle of red light as a shield, as well as red light-based wings in order to fly. Ruby can also burst into light to go at light speeds.

Due to being one of the most powerful Paladins, Ruby's light powers are more intense. She has the ability to boost her light attacks through her strong determination, as well as the ability to glow red as a power-up.

### **Support Elements**

Alongside her strong light abilities, Ruby has three support elements; maximum speed, flight, and a minor strength boost. While she's already the fastest Paladin, Ruby gains the ability to go light speed after unlocking her Paladin ability. She also gains better flight after unlocking light, as she's able to summon her light wings to fly.

As a Solarian, Ruby is able to summon a sword from her soul. After unlocking her Paladin abilities, her sword begins to shift into the sword of Rubra, the original Red Paladin, and appears made out of light. It also has Iris' logo on its hilt.

### **Physical Abilities**

Despite being able to summon a sword, Ruby is only mildly good at her sword fighting and prefers to fight with her fists and kicks. She also heavily relies on her fast speed to boost into enemies. She can be very agile and flexible.

Surprisingly, Ruby has the weakest psyche out of the Paladins, draining her defense system easily. However due to her light powers, she is able to recharge it if it's low through a large burst of determination.

## Trivia

* Ruby's main inspiration design-wise is Party Poison from My Chemical Romance's "The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys". In terms of personality and character arc, she is heavily based off of Sonic the Hedgehog, Jaden/Judai Yuki from YuGiOh GX, and possibly Son Goku from Dragon Ball Z.
	+ Ruby had always had short hair at some point, but it was redesigned for a large ponytail. When Mana had a better grasp on what she wanted for her character, Ruby was given short hair again that better resembled Party Poison.
	+ Ruby's speed and attacks were inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog.
	+ Her carefree, optimistic, and passionate attitude came from Sonic and Jaden, with her "cutesy stupidity" and apetite coming from Goku.
* Despite their arc as tournament rivals, Mana accidentally made Ruby and Cobalt's names into perfect "rival names", as Cobalt's last name "Zaffre" came from another language's word for "Sapphire", clashing perfectly with Ruby's first name.
* Ruby is one of Mana's original four OCs, being based off of Jade/Michael.
	+ Ruby has been the character with the most name changes, originating from Mana's first four OCs. Some names had been Jade, Yuki, Skylar, Rei, Michelle, Michael, Mikey, to Ruby Rose, then finally Ruby Raleigh.
		- Ruby's surname change was a result of a celebrity sharing the same name, as well as the RWBY character with the name Ruby Rose.
		- If Mana had to pick a more "humanoid" name for Ruby, it would be Hayley as it "has those punk rock vibes", as well as being inspired by Hayley Williams of Paramore.
* Ruby's surname inspired the story title change from DOTS: Danger Days to DOTS: Danger Rally, as Mana had joked around to herself that her surname would be mispronounced "Rally".
* Ruby's designs inspired Mana's DOTS: DR design rules of having character designs evolve slower throughout the arcs.
* It is canon that Ruby and Turquoise have roleplayed self insert characters in the past. Ruby's character was named "Velvet Venganza".
* If Mana had to choose, Ruby's main theme songs would be "Party Poison" from My Chemical Romance's "Danger Days" album, and "His World" from the Sonic 06 soundtrack.
	+ If she was able to make vocal tracks for the series, one of Ruby's theme songs would be called "Red-dy To Go".
* Due to Ruby being based off of the lead singer off of a rock band, Ruby inspired the idea of some of the Paladins making their rock band "Prism Prison" in high school.
	+ While Ruby was the lead singer, she is also talented in guitar playing and general music writing.
	+ In the present of DOTS: DR, Ruby is still implied to be a song writer. However, it is unknown if their band is still active.