Application for Ryslig
20 July 2022 20:58![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beyondtheshoreOOC INFORMATION
Name: Hazel
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
hopepunk
Age: 39
Other Characters:youngtimer | certaininequities | ronstadt
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Andrew Ryan
Age: 58
Canon: BioShock
Canon Point: Post-death
Character Information: Here at the BioShock Wiki, along with this video, which is a compilation of all his recordings and cut-scenes. Also: I'm guessing his age, since they don't say how old he is specifically, but a character places him at "in his early forties" when they meet in 1945, and he dies in 1960.
Personality:
"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question:
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.'
'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.'
'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different.
I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture.
A city where the artist would not fear the censor.
Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality.
Where the great would not be constrained by the small!
And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."
Andrew Ryan's charisma is his strongest point: since it is canonically the first thing every single person he works with notices about them. He carries himself consistently as a man of stature, bearing, and confidence, and yet can choose to speak to anyone around him as though they are on his level and always have been - or deserve to be. One close friend notes in the novelization that "when he was in the mood, Ryan could be quite convivial, even chummy, with the workingman (sic)". At first blush, anyone whose values or ideals do not agree with his own (such as psychologist Sofia Lamb) are treated with the same geniality and warm candor. Only once a person proves that they not only disagree with him, but would actively challenge his points of view and fail to be swayed by his silver tongue does he grow ill-tempered, his mannerisms changing on a dime ... but we'll get to that.
"What is the difference between a Man and a Parasite? A Man builds. A Parasite asks, 'Where is my share?' A Man creates. A Parasite says, 'What will the neighbors think?' A Man invents. A Parasite says, 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God'..."
Because of his upbringing during the Russian revolution, Ryan developed a very strong personal outlook on life, and became an extremely philosophical man: something which went hand in hand with his unending ambitious nature. The Bolshevik communists ruined his father's business and made them refugees: as such, he rejected anything that even looked remotely like communism, right down to simple acts of charity and altruism. He coins the concept of The Great Chain: that only men with ambition and the drive to see it through and do the hard work necessary, those who pull their own weight and make it on their own steam, are deserving of success, wealth, and power. However, he believes that anyone can claim those things if given the opportunity to prove themselves. At first blush, the American Dream is perfect for him, and he thrives - until the Great Depression, when social aid programs start emerging, and he starts to see his personal philosophy challenged.
"In the end, all that matters to me ... is me. And all that matters to you ... is you. It is the nature of things."
Ryan is vain and quick to sense any form of disrespect: it is a fact well-known by most who work for him, particularly Sullivan, his chief of security. He does not see this vanity as a weakness or a detriment: he will be very forthright about how he is his own best interest. Game developers have said that Andrew Ryan was heavily modeled after themes from Ayn Rand's work, particularly the theory of Objectivism: "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". The ends justify the means, and the ideal end is the happiness of the individual. This concept is baked into every single word Andrew Ryan says over the course of the games: his taunts to the protagonist and Atlas about how the longevity of Rapture is due to his own ideas and efforts are a perfect example of this. Even as his city is leaking, in ruins, and overrun with crazed addicts, Andrew blusters that Rapture will rise again. He is convinced that the world revolves around him, and because that is how he sees it, that must be how it is. In very simple terms: he's an absolute asshole.
That self-centeredness doesn't just show up in vanity and bluster, however: it's also what powers Ryan's ridiculously strong willpower. His will infuses every aspect of his personality, from his charisma to his rage, and it is what causes him to draw such a massive following in Rapture, to see it all built, and ultimately what brings it all crashing down around his ears. He is so determined to see His Version Of The World through that he will do anything to see it accomplished: even break the rules he set at the beginning of it all. At first he insists that the entire purpose of Rapture is for mankind to have free will, but once his rival Fontaine's business creates the drug-addicted Splicers that begin to cause the collapse of society, he works in tandem with one of his scientists to create a pheromone that will make them mentally susceptible to suggestion. In other words: even his own rules are not sacred before the ultimate fulfillment of his will: a force that also renders him brutal and ruthless in certain situations. Once the Civil War in Rapture begins, and Ryan starts researching ways to turn certain scientific advancements in genetics to his example in Rapture (the discovery of the substance called ADAM, and its use in ability-boosting Plasmids), he funds a research site and calls it Optimized Eugenics ... a very loaded and dark name for a facility if there ever was one, reinforcing his beliefs that only a certain sort of people will truly thrive in Rapture. For another example, Ryan tells the Protagonist this anecdote: "On the surface, I once bought a forest. The Parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise earned. When Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground." If Andrew Ryan can't have his toys, no one can. He takes this to the ultimate climax at the end of the game, when he knows that the protagonist has come to kill him. Andrew realizes that this means his biggest rival will gain control of Rapture. Rather than give in to fate, he sets off a destruct mechanism which will flood the entire city, killing everyone inside: one final, ruthless act of iron will. Even as he dies, Andrew Ryan is denying his rival what he wants and setting the protagonist on a course which will not only mean the end of Rapture, but the end of said rival's plans as well.
In carrying out his ambitions and dreams, Andrew makes sure to be incredibly resourceful, using every single angle he can to leverage things in his direction. Even before he started to build Rapture, he was using his ventures in oil, steel, and rail travel to make contacts and build a network that would allow him to scout for the talent he would need to surround himself with. At the time of the Hiroshima bombing, he already has "a man in the State Department" to smuggle out confidential news, and people who are able to alert him to people like Dr. Souchong and Julie Langford, who had been working on top-secret projects for their governments during the war and could apply those theories to making Rapture a reality. When he seizes control of Fontaine Futuristics during the civil war, Ryan repurposes the research he finds there (Suchong and Tenenbaum's ghastly Little Sisters) to help renew a dwindling resource. He looks for the opportunity in every little twist of fate, be it good or bad, scrutinizing situations from every angle to see how he can make it work for him: and in most cases, he does.
Unfortunately, Rapture is a pressure cooker not just for the other citizens, but Ryan, too. After a few years, he begins to become increasingly paranoid about even the slightest threat. He plans four raids on a rival's warehouses in as many consecutive days, looking for smuggled contraband. Security cameras, turrets, and hovering attack drones are installed throughout Rapture under the guise of protecting the city from homicidal and unpredictable Splicers... when in fact he's using them to keep track of revolutionaries and Sophia Lamb's strange cult. At one point he even suspects his mistress' apartment of being bugged by either the cultists or the revolutionaries. Frequently he suspects people of being spies from the FBI or the KGB.
Even under constant surveillance, not all situations are easily commanded: even if Andrew Ryan sees an opportunity, he might have to fight a little to get it, and he's not above being a manipulative bastard to get it. He invites a psychiatrist down to Rapture to try and get a bead on the unsettled populace so that he can learn how to keep them from rising up against him... not to mention the way he lures people to Rapture to begin with: a promise of completely free enterprise for all, even though the divide between the working class and the rich is still very much evident once they're down below the sea. Not long before the game begins, he was using his own best friend's daughter as leverage to get him to stay in Rapture and remain loyal: obliquely threatening that she could be turned into a Little Sister. As the protagonist gets closer to Ryan's office, where he's holed up for the final confrontation, this creepy little bit comes over the PA:
"So far away from your family, from your friends, from everything you ever loved. But, for some reason you like it here. You feel something you can't quite put your finger on. Think about it for a second and maybe the word will come to you: nostalgia."
His greatest manipulation, however, is a massive spoiler (cw: graphic death, brainwashing) and quite possibly the best twist in any video game I've ever played, woven right in with that ruthlessness and iron will.
And now we add one last ingredient to the vile cocktail of Ryan's assholery: his wrathful nature. As if the aforementioned things were not enough, it's shown time and time again that you do NOT want to get on Andrew Ryan's bad side once he's brought you into his fold. The botanist Julie Langford cooperates with the protagonist, and Ryan uses her own chemicals to gas her to death in her laboratory. When he finds out his mistress, a dancer named Jasmine, has sold their unborn embryo to his rival's lab because she was desperate for money, he strangles her with his own bare hands. People caught smuggling goods from the surface are hanged, the gibbets erected in Apollo Square, one of the public areas in Rapture as a warning to the populace. Once the Civil War begins in earnest, Ryan reserves the worst punishment for traitors: he has them crucified in the antechamber near his office - a horrifying fate, especially coming from someone who has said there are no Gods. When the protagonist discovers these bodies, Ryan taunts him by saying: "Before the final rat has eaten the last gram of you, Rapture will have returned. I will lead a parade. 'Who was that,' they'll say, as they point to the sad shape hanging on my wall..."
TL;DR: When Hazel decides to play someone who's 100% asshole he doesn't kid around, apparently.
5-10 Key Character Traits:
Self-centered/Vain
Ruthless
Charismatic
Resourceful
Manipulative
Ambitious
Philosophical
Wrathful
Paranoid
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Fits, please!
Opt-Outs: Fairy, Arachne, Kelpie, Slime, Lich
Roleplay Sample: Here @ July/August TDM
Name: Hazel
Contact:
Age: 39
Other Characters:
youngtimer | certaininequities | ronstadtCHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Andrew Ryan
Age: 58
Canon: BioShock
Canon Point: Post-death
Character Information: Here at the BioShock Wiki, along with this video, which is a compilation of all his recordings and cut-scenes. Also: I'm guessing his age, since they don't say how old he is specifically, but a character places him at "in his early forties" when they meet in 1945, and he dies in 1960.
Personality:
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.'
'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.'
'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different.
I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture.
A city where the artist would not fear the censor.
Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality.
Where the great would not be constrained by the small!
And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."
Andrew Ryan's charisma is his strongest point: since it is canonically the first thing every single person he works with notices about them. He carries himself consistently as a man of stature, bearing, and confidence, and yet can choose to speak to anyone around him as though they are on his level and always have been - or deserve to be. One close friend notes in the novelization that "when he was in the mood, Ryan could be quite convivial, even chummy, with the workingman (sic)". At first blush, anyone whose values or ideals do not agree with his own (such as psychologist Sofia Lamb) are treated with the same geniality and warm candor. Only once a person proves that they not only disagree with him, but would actively challenge his points of view and fail to be swayed by his silver tongue does he grow ill-tempered, his mannerisms changing on a dime ... but we'll get to that.
Because of his upbringing during the Russian revolution, Ryan developed a very strong personal outlook on life, and became an extremely philosophical man: something which went hand in hand with his unending ambitious nature. The Bolshevik communists ruined his father's business and made them refugees: as such, he rejected anything that even looked remotely like communism, right down to simple acts of charity and altruism. He coins the concept of The Great Chain: that only men with ambition and the drive to see it through and do the hard work necessary, those who pull their own weight and make it on their own steam, are deserving of success, wealth, and power. However, he believes that anyone can claim those things if given the opportunity to prove themselves. At first blush, the American Dream is perfect for him, and he thrives - until the Great Depression, when social aid programs start emerging, and he starts to see his personal philosophy challenged.
Ryan is vain and quick to sense any form of disrespect: it is a fact well-known by most who work for him, particularly Sullivan, his chief of security. He does not see this vanity as a weakness or a detriment: he will be very forthright about how he is his own best interest. Game developers have said that Andrew Ryan was heavily modeled after themes from Ayn Rand's work, particularly the theory of Objectivism: "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". The ends justify the means, and the ideal end is the happiness of the individual. This concept is baked into every single word Andrew Ryan says over the course of the games: his taunts to the protagonist and Atlas about how the longevity of Rapture is due to his own ideas and efforts are a perfect example of this. Even as his city is leaking, in ruins, and overrun with crazed addicts, Andrew blusters that Rapture will rise again. He is convinced that the world revolves around him, and because that is how he sees it, that must be how it is. In very simple terms: he's an absolute asshole.
That self-centeredness doesn't just show up in vanity and bluster, however: it's also what powers Ryan's ridiculously strong willpower. His will infuses every aspect of his personality, from his charisma to his rage, and it is what causes him to draw such a massive following in Rapture, to see it all built, and ultimately what brings it all crashing down around his ears. He is so determined to see His Version Of The World through that he will do anything to see it accomplished: even break the rules he set at the beginning of it all. At first he insists that the entire purpose of Rapture is for mankind to have free will, but once his rival Fontaine's business creates the drug-addicted Splicers that begin to cause the collapse of society, he works in tandem with one of his scientists to create a pheromone that will make them mentally susceptible to suggestion. In other words: even his own rules are not sacred before the ultimate fulfillment of his will: a force that also renders him brutal and ruthless in certain situations. Once the Civil War in Rapture begins, and Ryan starts researching ways to turn certain scientific advancements in genetics to his example in Rapture (the discovery of the substance called ADAM, and its use in ability-boosting Plasmids), he funds a research site and calls it Optimized Eugenics ... a very loaded and dark name for a facility if there ever was one, reinforcing his beliefs that only a certain sort of people will truly thrive in Rapture. For another example, Ryan tells the Protagonist this anecdote: "On the surface, I once bought a forest. The Parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise earned. When Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground." If Andrew Ryan can't have his toys, no one can. He takes this to the ultimate climax at the end of the game, when he knows that the protagonist has come to kill him. Andrew realizes that this means his biggest rival will gain control of Rapture. Rather than give in to fate, he sets off a destruct mechanism which will flood the entire city, killing everyone inside: one final, ruthless act of iron will. Even as he dies, Andrew Ryan is denying his rival what he wants and setting the protagonist on a course which will not only mean the end of Rapture, but the end of said rival's plans as well.
In carrying out his ambitions and dreams, Andrew makes sure to be incredibly resourceful, using every single angle he can to leverage things in his direction. Even before he started to build Rapture, he was using his ventures in oil, steel, and rail travel to make contacts and build a network that would allow him to scout for the talent he would need to surround himself with. At the time of the Hiroshima bombing, he already has "a man in the State Department" to smuggle out confidential news, and people who are able to alert him to people like Dr. Souchong and Julie Langford, who had been working on top-secret projects for their governments during the war and could apply those theories to making Rapture a reality. When he seizes control of Fontaine Futuristics during the civil war, Ryan repurposes the research he finds there (Suchong and Tenenbaum's ghastly Little Sisters) to help renew a dwindling resource. He looks for the opportunity in every little twist of fate, be it good or bad, scrutinizing situations from every angle to see how he can make it work for him: and in most cases, he does.
Unfortunately, Rapture is a pressure cooker not just for the other citizens, but Ryan, too. After a few years, he begins to become increasingly paranoid about even the slightest threat. He plans four raids on a rival's warehouses in as many consecutive days, looking for smuggled contraband. Security cameras, turrets, and hovering attack drones are installed throughout Rapture under the guise of protecting the city from homicidal and unpredictable Splicers... when in fact he's using them to keep track of revolutionaries and Sophia Lamb's strange cult. At one point he even suspects his mistress' apartment of being bugged by either the cultists or the revolutionaries. Frequently he suspects people of being spies from the FBI or the KGB.
Even under constant surveillance, not all situations are easily commanded: even if Andrew Ryan sees an opportunity, he might have to fight a little to get it, and he's not above being a manipulative bastard to get it. He invites a psychiatrist down to Rapture to try and get a bead on the unsettled populace so that he can learn how to keep them from rising up against him... not to mention the way he lures people to Rapture to begin with: a promise of completely free enterprise for all, even though the divide between the working class and the rich is still very much evident once they're down below the sea. Not long before the game begins, he was using his own best friend's daughter as leverage to get him to stay in Rapture and remain loyal: obliquely threatening that she could be turned into a Little Sister. As the protagonist gets closer to Ryan's office, where he's holed up for the final confrontation, this creepy little bit comes over the PA:
His greatest manipulation, however, is a massive spoiler (cw: graphic death, brainwashing) and quite possibly the best twist in any video game I've ever played, woven right in with that ruthlessness and iron will.
And now we add one last ingredient to the vile cocktail of Ryan's assholery: his wrathful nature. As if the aforementioned things were not enough, it's shown time and time again that you do NOT want to get on Andrew Ryan's bad side once he's brought you into his fold. The botanist Julie Langford cooperates with the protagonist, and Ryan uses her own chemicals to gas her to death in her laboratory. When he finds out his mistress, a dancer named Jasmine, has sold their unborn embryo to his rival's lab because she was desperate for money, he strangles her with his own bare hands. People caught smuggling goods from the surface are hanged, the gibbets erected in Apollo Square, one of the public areas in Rapture as a warning to the populace. Once the Civil War begins in earnest, Ryan reserves the worst punishment for traitors: he has them crucified in the antechamber near his office - a horrifying fate, especially coming from someone who has said there are no Gods. When the protagonist discovers these bodies, Ryan taunts him by saying: "Before the final rat has eaten the last gram of you, Rapture will have returned. I will lead a parade. 'Who was that,' they'll say, as they point to the sad shape hanging on my wall..."
TL;DR: When Hazel decides to play someone who's 100% asshole he doesn't kid around, apparently.
5-10 Key Character Traits:
Self-centered/Vain
Ruthless
Charismatic
Resourceful
Manipulative
Ambitious
Philosophical
Wrathful
Paranoid
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Fits, please!
Opt-Outs: Fairy, Arachne, Kelpie, Slime, Lich
Roleplay Sample: Here @ July/August TDM