Ritzy Daggers
Rhiannon Durrett, better known by her stage name, "Ritzy Daggers," was the announcer for Season Sixty-Six of SOTF-TV, following the removal of Leonardo Dahnke. She delivered all of that version's announcements.
Bio[edit | edit source]
Name: Rhiannon "Ritzy Daggers" Durrett
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Appearance: Ritzy stands at 5'9", and weighs 137 pounds. Her hair wears the signs of constant dyes and re-dyes, and is a weakened, limp dirty blonde, with dark roots at the center of her scalp. To hide this, she usually wears her hair up and off of her neck, in a twist or an up-do of some fashion. Her eyes are an earthy green, and are often painted heavily with dark eyeshadow to allow the colour to stand out. Her usual style of dress is zip-up hoodies over pressed dress shirts, paired with jeans, all very evidently well worn and comfortable. On her inner forearm, there is a large tattoo of a rose in blue ink, faded and stretched from age. She wears a single silver ring on her middle finger, and her nails are painted in paler, softer colours.
Biography: Born into a resurging age of "indie" music popularity, Rhiannon grew up listening to a wide range of music, having a father who utilized music in nearly every facet of his life as a distraction or background noise. Rhiannon did homework to old classics like The Sounds and Pavement, drove her first car to Dinosaur Jr, and danced at prom to The Flaming Lips, discovering that she had a passion for music of all types, though her favourite by far was punk rock. Having a talent for vocals, mixing music, and being able to play a bass guitar with some skill, Rhiannon dreamed of making it big in the punk and grunge rock scene with her high school band, adopting "Ritzy Daggers" as her stage name.
Things started off well for Rhiannon and the band, even as she dropped out of college to pursue her dream. They attracted good crowds and their sets were always well received. After independently releasing their first album, things seemed to be about to fall into place for the band, so they immediately embarked on another tour to support it.
While on the tour with her band, however, Rhiannon discovered that she was pregnant and had to drop out of the rest of the tour dates. Because she was the band's frontwoman, this resulted in over half of the tour dates being cancelled flat out, which cost the band more money than they could cover or make back with album sales alone, and without a tour to support it the album sales ended up drying up in short order, leading to the quiet dissolution of the band.
Not wanting to give up being involved in the music industry in some way and needing money to support herself and her son, Joe, Rhiannon tried out many different jobs before she eventually landed a gig as a DJ on a radio station, once again going by the name "Ritzy Daggers." Unfortunately, fate intervened once again as the station struggled with the downturn in attention of the American population to many forms of traditional media. Things looked bleak, as SOTF-TV arrived and scooped up the niche that had been filled by other programs.
At first Rhiannon struggled futilely to get listeners back, but one day she made a joke on-air about a death that amused her on the latest episode of SOTF, then discussed the death for a while before playing her next song. Rhiannon received a spike of positive feedback, and the next show Rhiannon purposefully began to make jokes about the participants of SOTF, their deaths, interactions, etc. again discussing this at length before and between songs. She adapted something of a playlist aesthetic, leading into each song by saying it matched a certain event from the show.
As it turned out, her new shock jock style worked wonders. The rating increases were almost instant, and she quickly gained a cult following of listeners which grew with every show. Some years after she established herself as a popular host with a national following, the producers of SOTF-TV, taking notice of the large audience she had developed and in a hurry to find someone with on-air charisma after the quiet dismissal of Leonardo Dahnke, offered her a spot on their latest season as announcer. While hesitant at first despite the amount of money she was being offered, the producers soon convinced her that taking the role would broaden her own audience while also allowing her a direct connection to the show that had made her career, as well as ensuring a steady stream of revenue from season merchandise and royalties.