RYSLIG; application

[isawallflower]

UPDATED AS OF AUGUST 2023 REAPP

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Ashley
Contact: kabunevermind
Are You Over 18?: Yes!
Other Characters: Max Mayfield

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Riley Williams
Age: 17 20, after her two and a half years in Ryslig.
Canon: We Are The Tigers
Canon Point: Start of Act 2 End of Act 2
Character Information: Here’s a handy dandy wikipedia link for the basics, but it’s not really...adequate, probably, so here’s a little summary, using show info and some supplemental material from the creator!

Riley grew up with two parents who barely acknowledge her and an older brother they are much fonder of. She had a horrible stutter when she was younger, which persisted into her elementary school years. Her only real friend was another girl, Cairo, who saw potential in her and took her under her wing in fourth grade. They’ve been best friends ever since. As they got to high school, Riley got onto the cheer team, the Tigers, her freshman year, while Cairo didn’t. (Cairo claims she begged the other girls to let Riley on, because she knew how bad Riley wanted it.) They started to drift a bit, as Riley became more dedicated to the team and Cairo grew more standoffish their sophomore year, starting fights and largely enjoying the social side of high school. Unbeknownst to both of them, Riley repaid Cairo’s favor by arguing for the girls on the team to give her a chance when they were unsure of letting her join. Eventually, they caved.

It’s implied Riley doesn’t have a good time in high school outside of the team. Fighting parents, failing classes, little luck with boyfriends... The team is her escape. The thing is, the Tigers aren’t exactly...good. Teamwork isn’t in their lexicon. It only got worse when in their junior year, a failed stunt wherein one girl (Chess) tripped and dropped another girl (Farrah) went viral on YouTube. So, the Tigers became the laughingstock of the town. Yay!

Riley pinned all her hopes and dreams on the squad, so she ran for captain, when no one else did. Now, pre-semester (August or something), Riley’s running the annual sleepover, trying to bring the girls together. ...Or, that’s what it appears, because she has the very very sloppy Plan B of killing Chess and Farrah to eliminate the problems, because Riley is severely fucked up! More on that in personality. While she tries very desperately to keep everything together, when the girls all start fighting and everyone tries to compose themselves, Riley takes a kitchen knife and kills the isolated Chess. After the new freshman (Mattie) gets drunk, Riley kills Farrah as well, with none of the other girls being any the wiser.

Everything starts to spiral (more) out of control when the mascot (Reese) accidentally kills one of the other girl’s boyfriends, who had sneaked in to see her, thinking he was the one who killed Farrah. The other girls do not learn this and Reese lets them think the same person killed all three. Panicked, Riley tries to go to the police, because……..she had no REAL plan, let’s be honest— but Cairo steps in, saying that the murderer is probably gone and if they call the police, they’ll investigate them, leading to a year in a murder investigation and even more reason for them to be looked down on by the town. What Cairo settles on is framing Mattie, who is passed out from the alcohol and has some blood on her from hitting her head. Yikes! The rest of the girls, traumatized and afraid, all agree, with Riley last. They get some blood from the victims on one of Riley’s knives, plant it on Mattie, and the rest is history.

...And by history I mean the freshman is put in juvie and the rest of the girls go through a semester of everyone whispering behind their backs anyway. Riley continues to live in her house, despite the whole murder thing, and she keeps the fact that she was the real killer (for two of the victims at least) a secret, by completely and totally avoiding Cairo, the only person who could possibly figure her out. To try and fill out the already dwindling team, Riley promotes Reese (who’d been trying to get on the team since their freshman year) and recruits Eva Sanchez, highest rated flyer (the girl who gets launched into the air) in the state. By going through the school board, she’s able to get Eva a scholarship to their school! To symbolize her team’s rebirth, she even tries to get the board to change the school mascot to the phoenix. (They said no, much to her displeasure.)

Come January, she calls another sleepover for the new semester, to try and get everyone on the same page, to get her teammates to move on. She’s scheduled it, invited everyone...

That’s where Ryslig comes in.

Personality:
If you look up the word driven in the dictionary, you will find a note saying no, Riley Williams, we cannot put a picture of you here, please stop emailing us, but she will not, ever, because Riley Williams is driven. This girl has goals! She has dreams! She won’t compromise for- okay, she’ll maybe try and compromise, a little, because she may be driven but she isn’t blind, she knows, say, first place in Regionals isn’t possible, but maybe everyone’s respect back? Maybe building something no one else could? Maybe creating the ideal environment to foster growth in the cheerleading community? Problem is, when Riley gets so focused, so set on something, she loses the forest for the trees, and by that I mean she can get a little wrapped up in herself and her ideas and oops! People have died! That’s not to say this is a bad quality entirely; if she wasn’t so utterly determined, she would’ve probably crashed a long time ago. If only her coping mechanisms were better than, well…

Is something making you upset? Is something wrong, something bad? Are there people laughing at you, or mocking you, or whispering behind your back because three people died at your house before school started? Well, you know what WE say? NEVER MIND ALL THAT! (Seriously, she’d fit in so well in Gravity Falls.) This can be seen in big things, like, you know, the murder, and how gee, Riley, maybe you should talk to your friends, like your best friend, who suggested you frame the Freshman and has been trying to talk to you? For the last? Four and a half months? Or in (respectively) little things, like bringing up to all the girls that they have to acknowledge and think about how they are more privileged than Eva (new member, on scholarship).......and then never talk about it ever. Like, if no one TALKS about the bad things, then CLEARLY nothing bad will happen, right? If we all pretend we’re fine, we’ll get through this!

...But, like, say what you will about Riley “well if it means we go to Regionals” Williams, but she’s...really likable, actually? Even though her chirpy, school-teacher sing-song is irritating, even though she’s clearly trying TOO HARD, even though she’s an overbearing mess? There’s something about her that’s so upbeat and cheerful. You might be a little uncomfortable with it, but she makes you smile. She’s got all this vibrant energy and she’s so excited about putting it to use. It’s why her best friend Cairo stuck around for eight years, even as they grew up, different and apart and not talking about any of the hurt feelings or resentment between them. Riley’s a bright, eager girl who sticks by your side if she really loves you. She stayed in the hospital all night when Cairo got appendicitis. She fought for Cairo to be given a chance at the team when they were sophomores, and heck, the older girls listened! And in spite of all the rumors, all the vitriol, she is the only one who doesn’t get accusations raised against her when the surviving members of the team are trying to figure out who killed Chess and Farrah. It just didn’t seem likely that Riley, sunshine-and-rainbows Riley, could do this, even if they didn’t like her. Riley just has that quality about her.

And yet she’s still a fucking mess. This is going to be perfect, right? Riley asks, for the twelfth time. She tries very hard to see all the angles but, oh gosh, she’s just not very good at it? Like god, she tries. She REALLY tries. But in trying to keep that sunny, positive attitude she overlooks (intentionally or otherwise) personal conflicts that could cause trouble. That attitude makes her prepare and prep but it also drives her to the edge, if something does go wrong. Not just one thing, though, she’s...well, she’s good at improvising. But if one thing then another then another then another… It’s too much for her. It’d sure be nice if she asked for help sometime, before Everything Goes Bad but that’s not Riley’s style. She’s Captain, to be depended on, to lead the way. She’s going to prove herself and save the team. At least, that’s what drives her.

There’s no easy way around it, Riley is severely mentally unstable. Maybe it’s from being bullied when she was young and shy. Maybe it’s a mental illness she’s covered up for years because she’s fine, right? Maybe it’s parental neglect (implied) or general societal expectations, maybe it’s a horrific fucked up cocktail of all of the above, but it’s left her in juuuust the state to. Well. You know that one meme? Like, she makes it through ~4 months without anyone figuring out she killed two people? But Riley clearly has no plan. There’s some supplementary material calling it a “Plan B” but it feels very much like “Plan B” in the loosest sense. Like when you have that lovely intrusive thought that if you killed the people causing problems, it’d make the problems go away. She had no plan going in. She had no plan coming out. She has no plan, she just snaps and does horrible, awful things that she convinces herself she doesn’t regret, because it’s FOR THE BEST, right? She deludes herself into thinking everything will or CAN work out.

She doesn’t do a great job of covering up that she’s freaking out, either, no matter how much she wants to pretend she does. A holdover from being a shy, scared, stuttering child, to the people who know her best, Riley’s a bit of an open book. (Possibly why she refused to take Cairo’s calls all those months, huh?) Even with the faces that she puts on, she’s clearly upset by Cairo calling out that well, she’s still that girl, stressing and trying to be perfect to cover up how neurotic she is. People know what she’s like. Just not to the extent of, well. Murder.

Those people don’t really extend to her family, though. Hinted at in the show and again confirmed in supplementary material, Riley’s parents don’t care about her. They barely acknowledge her, actually, preferring her older brother. It’s from here that a lot of that can-do-drive comes from. She has food and shelter and good opportunities at school, but what she really wants is love. Riley wants to be perfect so that people will appreciate her. She wants to do well so that she’ll be looked at, get love. It started as just her parents, but years and years of neglect have caused her to crave it from anywhere she can get it; she just thinks there’s only one way to get that, and it’s to work hard and do good and be perfect and eventually someone will love you. Right?

Essentially, Riley looks at the position she has as team captain and decides it’s her responsibility to fix things for everyone, but her way of “fixing” things is more than a little skewed. She says she didn’t want to kill anyone, but it was for the best for the team! ...So, Riley’s the kind of person who gets wrapped up in the way she sees things, and because she’s hyper-focused so hard, she can’t find a way out. Even though she doesn't ask people for help? She’s actually quite desperate for it, but she’ll only ask those she really trusts, which isn’t a long list. Even then, it’s always in the general. Like, “I need your full support” or “help me” and not “I keep thinking about murdering our teammates and really need you to help me make this perfect so I don’t do that.” She’s unspecific like that.

Riley has a lot of pent-up anger, a drive to prove herself, no support system, an untreated mental illness, and a habit of pushing herself and everyone around her. And she’s coming off about four months of keeping the fact that she murdered two people a secret! She’s going to do great. Probably.

5-10 Key Character Traits:
Passionate
Diligent/Focused
Determined/Driven
Amiable
Avoidant
Perfectionistic
Unstable
Anxious
Desperate for Approval
Impulsive

Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Either!
Opt-Outs: Arachne, Lich, Naga, Slime, Simulacrum, Vampire

Riley was previously sorted as Harpy, which I would like to keep!

Roleplay Sample: Offering three flavors from a recent murdergame, for the full Range of Riley.
Organized Hostess sample | Craving Validation sample | Murder sample

New samples include:
A moment of connection with Dee | Confrontation with her bad therapist | The latest network extravaganza

Comments

REVISIONS | mostly for my own reference

[isawallflower]

Please expand upon Riley’s motivations for committing murder, using canon examples, if possible.

Sure! Since it's a murder mystery, the show keeps some of Riley's early motivations ambiguous, and when it all comes out she's having, uhhh, a bit of a breakdown, so she doesn't exactly go in depth. But! There's some things that point towards her murderous intent.

First, from early in the show. Riley's committed to keeping the attitude of the sleepover positive and productive, but then the disastrous truth or dare goes south and the situation becomes too hard for her to control. The girls start sniping at each other which leads to full-on fighting. This is the first time Riley's positive attitude completely disappears, as she snaps at Kate (Chess' best friend, about to get into a physical confrontation with Farrah) and tells her to take a walk.

This is the last we see of Riley before the next song "Before the Breakdown," where all the girls each have a bit about how much they're struggling. Riley is placed in the kitchen, where at the tail-end of the chorus (Before the breakdown / before I can't breathe / Shrieking / Choking / Tell me it's a joke and / This can't be my life!) she snatches up a big honkin' knife for a few moments before putting it down. Right after this song, Chess gets killed. Therefore, we can take this as the moment she commits to it, after she's shown that no, the night is not going to go as perfect as she hopes it, her high expectations for the team and herself have not been met.

When the reveal hits, as Riley's spiraling and ranting and borrowing from other songs throughout the show, in a song aptly called "The Breakdown," she says the team was "infected" and when you have a tumor, you cut it out. She keeps saying she did this for "the team." Earlier in the show, she and Cairo have a song together where they antagonize each other while each claiming they are the one who's done more for the other in their relationship. ("I'll always be on your team!" It's incredibly heterosexual, this team is full of straight girls, for suuure.) Here, she echoes it: "Who stayed on track when the world was on attack? / And when girls don't have your back / You have to c-c-c-c-cut 'em! / It was me who decided / We could be so much more / Than they could see / If I didn't do it / What, what, what, what, what would we have done? / We would be no one!"

With this, she says she's doing this to save the team. She says she's the person who actually tried to break the Tigers of their reputation as "the worst team ever." She's needs the thing that she's put her all into to actually be worthwhile, and because she's so fixated on it, she can't understand why no one else is putting as much work into it as she is. They're all focused on other things; boys, girls, becoming prom queen, infighting instead of pushing their frustrations down like she does. Riley gets frustrated with everyone having other priorities. And, because she has no support system, she can't really talk these frustrations out in a healthy, productive way. They build up, and she decides if nothing else has worked, what she's left with is murder. The reason she breaks down after so many months of holding it together is that this second attempt at getting her team to work together is failing too, with all of them accusing each other of being the murderer.

As more of an aside, she's shown to be a fan of true crime and thrillers as well. This isn't really a motivation, but it shows where her mind goes, that she thinks about this stuff a lot. Her bookshelf has a copy of "Gone Girl" right next to "Lady Killers: Deadly Women Through History" is what I'm saying. Girl spends time with murder on the brain.