Poly Application
[nick / name]: Kristi
[personal LJ name]: likeabulldozer
[other characters currently played]:
Buffy Summers :: Buffy the Vampire Slayer :: whattingawhat
Dean Winchester :: Supernatural :: dude-imbatman
Lucy Locke :: Original Character :: mghtbconcussed
Spencer Reid :: Criminal Minds :: yesimagenius
Myrnin :: The Morganville Vampires :: trapdoor_spider
[e-mail]: writer@allengames.com
[AIM / messenger]: rageiscute
[series]: Friday Night Lights
[character]: Tim Riggins
[character history / background]:
The wiki link is kind of sparse so I'm gonna give you a more thorough history on him.
Tim Riggins is a lifetime resident of Dillon, Texas. He is very, very good at three things: football, drinking and women. His parents are alcoholics. His father left when Tim was twelve and his mother left long before that. Tim was left in the care of his older brother, Billy who managed as best he could which isn't to say he did that great a job. It's a minor miracle that CPS didn't take Tim away from him. He was never abused but he had an eighteen year old screw up raising him who was more concerned about re-living his football glory days through his little brother then he was about raising a good adult.
Tim started playing football in the Pop Warner league at a young age, probably 6 for touch football and around 8 for tackle with pads. Because of this it was discovered very early that Tim had a ton of natural talent on the football field. He continued playing football all through high school as Dillon High’s fullback, #33. Tim often shows up to football practice drunk or hungover. He always plays the games buzzed. At one point he confesses that he's kind of afraid of playing the game completely sober. I believe this translates to life in general. Tim is afraid of living life completely sober. Tim’s school experience can best be described as stereotypical Texas Football Player. He starts each day hung over, chugs Gatorade to get through the day, collects all the homework the rally girls did for him and turns it in. This is on the days that he actually wakes up to go to school. He is borderline illiterate, likely having at the most a second grade reading level. The early discovery of his natural talent in the Pop Warner league probably contributed and enabled this. He was good on the football field, they knew he'd be great in high school, so they just sort of passed him along, got other people to do his work and let him fall through the cracks.
Tim’s best friend is Jason Street, the quarterback. He and Street have been friends since their Pop Warner days. When Jason is paralyzed in a game Tim loads himself up with undeserved guilt because he feels as if he should have been able to intercept the tackle that left Street paralyzed. One of the assistant coaches point out that Tim was all the way across the field and no one could have intercepted that tackle. It doesn’t do much to alleviate Tim’s guilt. In the wake of Jason’s accident, Tim begins an affair with Jason’s girlfriend, Lyla. During this time, Tim’s girlfriend, Tyra breaks up with him (understandably so). In my opinion, Tim hates himself so much for Jason's accident that he wants Jason to hate him. Jason can't or won't hate him for the accident so Tim is determined to do something else in order to make Jason hate him. The affair with Lyla is his answer to that. It is a disaster. Jason finds out and yet somehow he and Riggins remain friends after Jason punches Tim. It's kind of a thing with him. You punch him and all is good.
Shortly after this, Tim's father comes back into his life. You can see Tim just light up at the idea that maybe his Dad is gonna be there but it's short lived. His father is accused of stealing an expensive video camera from the Panthers video camera and Tim defends him. As it turns out, his father did steal the video camera. When Tim finds out, he kicks him out of the house and tells him to leave town. That leads to Tim allowing himself to be beat up and returning the camera. It sends him spiralling down into some kind of self-loathing, looking for someone who wants him around and a place he'll belong.He finds that in his next door neighbor. Tim bounces into an affair with a 33 year old woman named Jackie. She has a seven year old son named Bo who worships Tim. In fact, 75% of Jackie’s appeal is Bo. Tim loves kids and despite some of his more unorthodox ways of dealing with them, he’s very good with kids. At one point during the affair with Jackie, Tim is ready to move in with her and play husband/father. It’s actually something he’s very serious about. Tim is looking for a place he belongs and a place he's needed. He thinks Jackie and Bo can fill that need. In the end, Jackie breaks things off with Tim because he’s too young (16) for her. Tim actually takes this pretty hard, mostly because of Bo. In Tim’s Sophomore year, the Dillon Panthers go to the state championships and they win. It is a short period of time for Tim in which he doesn't feel like a screw up.
Tim spends the summer trying to party away any feelings he may have had about Bo or Jackie. He gets help from sisters and every other girl/woman in Dillon that will have him, which are quite a few. One of the other Panthers coins a phrase that will stick “Sometimes you just have to ask yourself WWRD-What would Riggins do?” Tim’s brother, Billy dates Jackie and spurs a fight between him and Tim that results in Tim moving out. He ends up with a guy known only as ‘Ferret Guy’. The deal is he takes care of the ferrets and he’s allowed to live with the guy. Tim finds out that the guy makes and sells meth. This doesn't really sit right with Tim's very flexible, very unorthodox code of morals but it's something he lets slide because quite frankly, Tim is out of options. He tried sleeping on Tyra's couch for a couple of nights and she kicked him out after she caught him flirting with her sister. One night after Tim's discovery, ‘Ferret Guy’ wakes him up by shoving a loaded rifle into his chest. Tim’s dumb but as he’s fond of saying he’s not retarded. He grabs his boots, says he’s running to the store for more liquor and gets the hell out of there. Tim ends up living with Coach Taylor, his football coach, for a little while. He gets kicked out when he brings home Coach’s daughter, Julie, drunk. Coach catches him tucking Julie into bed and Tim is content to let Coach think the worse even though it gets him kicked out of the house. It's part of Tim's code of honor which will be discussed more in personality. The truth is Tim intercepted Julie at a party while a guy was trying to take advantage of her. He scared the guy off and took Julie home. He behaved perfectly, gentlemanly and innocently.
When Tim is kicked out of Coach’s place, he’s got no choice but to return to living with Billy. By this point, Billy has broken things off with Jackie and she has moved away. The Panthers don’t make it to state this year.
In his senior year, Tim resumes his relationship with Lyla. On one hand, Lyla is good for him. She pushes Tim to do more with his life. On the other hand, she’s incredibly bad for him. She tries to turn him into something he’s not. She had a dream of what her life would be like with Jason Street (they’d go to college together, get married, he’d play football in college and then in the pros) and honestly, she’s trying to shove Tim into that space left by Jason. Square peg, round hole. Tim can be more than he is but there are things that Tim is never going to be and that's one of them. During this year, Jason moves to New York City. Tim takes this hard because he sort of always thought he and Jason were going to be together. In fact, at one point he says ten years from now, Jason will by some land in Texas, Tim will squat and take care of it: Texas forever. By the end of the year, Tim actually manages to eek a football scholarship out of a small college. He’s going for the wrong reasons (Lyla & Billy). Billy gets married and is set to become a father. Billy opens a mechanic shop, the Panthers lose State and Tim heads off to college.
College turns out to be harder than Tim thought it would be. They don’t have rally girls to do his homework for him. The professors use bigger words and more difficult material and the football coaches aren’t at all like Coach Taylor. He makes the decision to return to Dillon, tossing his school books out the window as he drives down the road. Back in Dillon, he moves in with Billy and his new wife, Mandy, for a short time. He works at the mechanic’s shop with Billy. Eventually Mandy and Billy kick him out. After a night or two sleeping where ever he can, he moves into a trailer in an acquaintance’s back yard. (Okay so she was a Cougar and a one night stand that actually stays a one night stand). He ends up driving her daughter (a sixteen year old with a crush on him) around a great deal. He also helps Coach Taylor with his new team, East Dillon High. Life has changed in Dillon and Tim’s having to deal with the fact that he’s not a rockstar in Dillon anymore. He’s ‘the guy who used to be Tim Riggins’.
In season four, Tim goes through some major things that are primarily Billy's fault. Billy is a new dad and needs to make money quickly so his solution is to run a chop shop out of the garage. Tim find a piece of land in Dillon for sale but he's gotta raise some money quickly because the bank won't loan him the money. He gets in on Billy's chop shop deal because Tim is a pro at making bad life choices. Tim buys his land and then of course things go bad. Of course the authorities find out about the chop shop and they have to pin it on someone. Tim, using that nifty code of honor he's got, takes the fall for Billy. He knowingly screws up his whole life so that his nephew can grow up with something Tim never really had, a dad.
Tim goes to prison and spends about a year there. When he comes back, his life is predictably screwed up. He's living with Billy and Mandy again and he's working as a bartender in a bar. It's not a bad gig but he really doesn't do well living with his brother so he ends up back in the streamline trailer he lived in previously. If he was having a hard time being 'the guy who used to be Tim Riggins' he's having an even harder time being 'the ex-con who used to be Tim Riggins'. All of the anger from the first season is back and he's just bursting with it. He beats the hell out of Billy one night because Billy's life is still screwed up and they had a deal. Tim ruined his entire life and Billy put his together. In Tim's eyes, he held up his end of the bargain. Billy didn't. The show wraps up with Tim still working at the bar, still living in the trailer and still fairly angry until an old friend shows up. Tyra saunters back in the bar, whips him into line, puts him straight and sleeps with him. He shows her the piece of land he bought and there's kind of an agreement between them the next morning. Tyra's going to go back to college, finish her degree and then maybe come back to Dillon. The last scene shows Tim building the framework on a house on his land.
[character abilities]:
More touchdowns than any fullback ever? An amazing ability to lose his pants? He functions well while completely drunk?
No seriously, Tim's abilities are limited to human things. He's just kind of a dumb, alcoholic ex-football player. He's amazing on the football field. He's a fairly gifted mechanic and a decent handyman. He can shoot a gun reasonably well and he plays golf.
[character personality]:
Tim Riggins is a product of his environment in so many ways. He's this guy with a really good heart but the way he was raised and his own lack of self-worth gets in the way. His parents alcoholism and abandonment have left their scars on him. He wasn't worth sticking around for, in his mind. He got left with Billy and Billy's main concern was re-living his glory days through Tim's football career. Both of these things have driven Tim's self-worth into the ground. He's got this idea that he's only good on the football field and he's only worth something when he's playing football. It's an ideal that his life has upheld. He is borderline (and perhaps entirely) illiterate because when they discovered at eight years old he was good at football, his education became more of an obstacle than a goal. He was passed over and passed on because of his abilities on the football field. He was praised and rewarded for what he did on the football field and Billy didn't care much about his grades as long as he got to play. Living in a small Texas town, reinforces this idea even more. Tim is a rockstar in Dillon, Texas. He's been able to buy beer with an obviously fake ID at least since he was 16 and likely since before then. He goes to bars that he shouldn't even be in and none of it matters because he's #33, Tim Riggins. It creates this little boy that is lost and in so much pain but puts on this cocky charade.
Tim uses alcohol to self medicate. Alcohol makes it hurt less when he hits people and when he gets hit. Alcohol makes his life easier to get through. It's easier to deal with the fact that 90% of his life means nothing. It's easier to deal with the fact that he probably doesn't have a future because he knows he can't cut it at college academically. It's also easier to deal with the fact that his best friend is paralyzed and for a good portion of the series, he's sleeping with Jason's girlfriend. Tim lives life numb because it's easier that way. It's also a lifestyle he knows and is comfortable with. He comes home banged up from practice and Billy gives him a couple of beers to take the edge off. In fact when Tim decides to 'quit' drinking, Billy mocks him for it and laughs. His sobriety doesn't last and when Tyra goes to Billy about it, Billy tells her that 'you can't help Tim'. That's the sort of attitude that drives Tim's self-worth into the ground. He's not worth helping, he can't be helped and so why even try. He internalizes that and decides that if no one else is going to try, why should he? He just doesn't have enough people in his life that believe in him to lift him out of his self-loathing.
Tim is an angry, angry boy. He's angry about Jason's accident. He's angry because that accident messed up all the future plans he had. He's angry because Jason had the perfect life and the perfect future and if Jason can't have everything then what sort of chance in hell does a guy like Tim Riggins have to have everything. He's angry because he wasn't superman that day and he couldn't save Jason. He's angry because his parents left and all he had was Billy. He's royally pissed off because all he's worth is what he puts out on the football field. He's angry at the world for everything his life has lacked. He puts all of that anger on the football field. At one time he tells ESPN that he just likes to hurt people. In a way that's true but Tim likes to hurt people on the football field because he's good at it and because life has hurt him so very much.
Tim has his own code of ethics and honor that doesn't always resemble anyone else's. He drinks, he sleeps around with other people's girlfriends, gets into fights and he doesn't exactly know how to have a healthy relationship. He believes that some things should be punished and he's usually on the receiving end of the punishment. When he puts a very drunk Julie Taylor to bed and gets caught in her bedroom by Coach Taylor, Coach assumes the worst thinking that Tim got his daughter drunk and is taking advantage of her. Tim is happy to let Coach think that of him because it keeps him from thinking horribly of his own daughter. Tim takes the heat. He thinks that everyone already thinks the worst of him so piling something else on his shoulders isn't going to make a difference. He whores himself out because he's not worth the effort a relationship would take (in his mind) but draws the line at married women. If he ends up in a fight that he thinks he deserves to have the hell beat out of him, he won't throw a punch. When he feels he's done something wrong, he finds a way to pay it back so to speak. In the first season, his father shows up and an expensive camera goes missing from the football program. Coach Taylor approaches Tim's dad about it and Tim defends his father. It turns out, his father did steal the camera. In order to 'punish' himself for picking the wrong side, he goes to a bar, picks a fight with the entire bar and then won't throw a punch, succeeding in punishing himself by getting the hell beat out of him. In Tim's mind that somehow rights his wrong. In the final season, you get an excellent example of Tim's code of ethics. When Billy is busted for running a chop shop, Tim takes the fall, claiming that Billy had nothing to do with it (Billy started the chop shop and Tim got involved) and it was all him. Tim didn't really even do this for Billy, in my opinion. He did it more for his nephew because he wanted him to grow up with a father, something Tim never really had. He tells Billy later on 'That was the deal! I screw my life completely up and you fix yours!'. Later when Tim gets out of jail and Billy's life is still a complete mess, Tim gets furious and beats the hell out of him because Billy didn't hold up his end up of the deal and Tim did. It's the way his moral compass works but it's not a very good indication of his heart.
Tim is all heart but he hides it well. It peeks through most on the football field and in practice. There's a particular episode where Tim is drunk and Coach is making him pay for it by making him the team tackling dummy. He gets hit by every single guy on the team at least once but he never hits back (code of ethics remember? He deserves this in his mind) but he gets up every single time. During a game, he puts every single thing out there on the field and keeps going no matter what. When he picks a fight in order to right his wrongs, he goes out there, refuses to take a punch but every single time the guy hits him and knocks him down, he keeps getting up because it's the dumb thing to do but he's also entirely and absolutely incapable of letting someone beat him down. He doesn't have the heart for it. You can also see his heart when he's around kids or someone he feels needs to be protected. He threatens a guy at a party who's trying to take advantage of drunk Julie and tells him to go out the door and if he sees him again he will hurt him. He completely falls head over heels for a little boy named Bo who worships him. He is endlessly patient with him, protects him and is completely willing to change his entire life if Bo's mom will just give him the chance. While staying with the Taylor's he kind of becomes the self appointed big brother of the baby girl they have. She's an infant and Tim is totally in love with her, plays with her and talks to her and takes care of her. There's a similar situation in S4 and S5 when Tim gets very protective and defensive of a teenage girl with a crush on him. She's too young for him to sleep with but she needs someone in her life who cares and takes care of her. He appoints himself that person despite the fact that he is far from the best person for the job and he's good at it.
In terms of ambition, Tim doesn't have much. He hasn't ever learned that you have to work for the things you want in life because they've been given to him. Football has always come so naturally he never considered it work to be good. Sure he runs, lifts weights, does drills and busts his ass out on the field but it's still football and he knows he's a rockstar. I suppose it would be more accurate to say Tim doesn't have a lot of ambition for anything except football. Even then he doesn't hold any delusions that he'll end up pro because his grades get in the way, not to mention he suspects you can't go through life as a professional football player half drunk. Tim doesn't want to be anything when he grows up because Tim doesn't want to grow up. He'd be happy staying in high school, playing football and getting drunk every day for the rest of his life. The future is scary and he'd really rather not think about it. He's very much a Peter Pan character type.
Tim is loyal like a three-legged dog someone saved from the pound. He doesn't really trust people and he won't work for someone or respect someone until respect has been earned. In the first part of S1 he butts heads with Coach Taylor constantly. He goes out of his way to screw up Coach's practice and do the opposite of what Coach asks. He shows up drunk and he gives 0% effort but eventually Coach does gain Tim's respect and in Tim's eyes has earned some effort. At that point, Tim shows up to practice only mildly drunk and sometimes completely sober. He puts in the effort, he acts as a leader on the field and he gives Coach the respect he's learned. From that point on, Tim would do anything for Coach and Coach in effect kind of becomes a father figure to him. He is easily one of the most important people in Tim's life.
At this point it might be a little redundant to point out that Tim is self-destructive but it's a very big part of his personality and I think he is so self-destructive because he's terrified of life and where it's going to lead him. The only examples he has in his family of people moving on is Billy, who didn't move on and is more of a perpetual screw up than Tim, and his father who is an alcoholic and left them in order to go on the pro golf circuit. He failed. All Tim can ever see himself doing is failing so why should he bother putting in the work and the time to make good decisions? Bad decisions are easier even when he knows they're going to screw up everything. The sad thing is that if Tim had someone who believed in what he could do off the field, he might have a fighting chance. During the time he lives with the Taylor's, Tammy actually has him doing his own work and staying 80% sober and it's not because she threatened to throw him out (threats rare ever work with Tim) it's because she sat him down and let him know that she believed he could do the work if he applied himself. She praised him for doing it even if it was crap and she let him know she thought he was worth something.
He truly is a little boy lost and he doesn't find himself until the very end of the show when Tyra shows back up to let him know she does believe in him and she can help him find himself.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Season 1 mid episode “Extended Families”
[journal post]:
[There's a long haired, beat up, hung over boy standing in the fountain looking more than a little confused. Pro tip: It's his default expression. He's wearing a plaid button up over a thermal long sleeve, a blue ball cap backwards, jeans, cowboy boots and he's got grease on his hands and smeared on his neck.]
What the hell's goin' on here? Where's my truck? Billy? Bo?
[He sighs, steps out of the fountain and shakes his boots off. He takes his hat off, runs his hands back over his hair and then puts his hat back on, still backwards.]
I hope to hell these dry out.
[third person / log sample]:
He’d been to eight houses. Eight houses with people he didn’t know living in them. Three of them had blondes, but not the blonde he was looking for. The other five varied from brunettes to redheads to single men. This was the ninth house and he was pretty sure he recognized the silver Camry in the driveway. That could be just out right frustration and sheer hope that he can put an end to this torment and find those damn pants. Of course he could give up on the pants but he still liked those pants a lot.
He pressed the doorbell and rocked back on the heels of his cowboy boots as he peered through the frosted glass panes. “Fuckin’ finally,” he muttered when he recognized the tall blonde walking to the door. She looked surprised when she swung the door open, speechless for a moment. She looked over her shoulder and back at Tim.
“Tim Riggins,” she started.
“Yeah,” he grinned, ducking his head. “Wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.” She was a little older than he remembered, probably her late twenties, maybe early thirties.
“N-no, I-I remember,” she assured him, twisting one hand on the doorknob. She hadn’t stepped all the way outside yet, still clinging to the door like she was half afraid to let go.
“Uhm…yeah,” he stalled, raking a hand through his hair and scuffing the toe of his boot across the porch. “Uhm…you know those pants I let you borrow…you happen to have them. I mean-I’d like to have ‘em back.”
Her face went pale and her eyes went wide. She cleared her throat and nodded quickly. “Yeah…I’ll-just a minute.”
She turned and fled like he’d threatened her bodily harm instead of asking about a pair of pants. Tim was left standing on the porch, confused as all hell and trying to figure out what was going on. She returned a few minutes later, the door clicking shut behind her as she stepped all the way out onto the porch. She had the jeans in her hands. They’d been washed and more neatly folded then he’d ever managed.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said in a rush of words. She was just reaching her hand back to turn the door knob and duck inside when the door opened and a man a few years older than her stepped out onto the porch.
“There a problem here?” he asked.
Tim was still confused as all hell but he was figuring it out fast. “No, Sir,” he answered.
The man looked a little confused and the woman (he still didn’t know her name) looked like she wanted to shrink into the porch. Tim took a step back, figuring how fast he could run down the sidewalk where he’d parked the truck, when he saw the man’s face go from confused to infuriated.
“This him, Susan?”
Susan never answered, at least not that Tim saw but then the only thing he saw was the man’s fist coming down toward his face. Tim stumbled but he held his ground, fists curling at his side. He didn’t throw a punch and he took the next one. Pain shot through his cheekbone then through his eye. He heard Susan yelling and looked up at the guy. His vision was blurry red but he could see she was trying to pull him back. He took another hit to the face and he went down to the ground. There was a sharp kick to his ribs and he curled up on himself involuntarily. There was another sharp kick that caught him in the shoulder and then it all stopped. He heard the door slam shut and Susan crouched down next to him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered then stood up and ducked into the house.
It took Tim a few minutes to stand up, grab the jeans lying next to him and drag himself down the sidewalk to his truck. Everything hurt so damn much. He started the truck and just drove, not surprised when he ended up at Tyra’s house. She answered the door pretty quickly, the horror on her face letting him know just how bad he looked.
“Damn, Tim…who the hell ran over your face?”
In answer he held up his pants. Tyra rolled her eyes and stepped back.
“That don’t explain you lookin’ like you went a few rounds with Charlie’s entire bar,” she told him as he stepped over the threshold.
“She was married. Her husband was home,” Tim slurred between split lips.
“And you didn’t fight back?”
“It was her husband,” he stressed. Blood dripped down his cheek, either off his eye or his cheekbone and landed in a fat drip on the jeans. That was when he noticed that for some damn reason that night, he’d felt the need to sign the pants. Right across the ass. In black marker. Tim Riggins #33.
No wonder the husband had been pissed off.