Rya

From Bonus Stage

Rya Botkins

Rya as a human

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Biography

Rya Botkins was a robot built by Joel to be Phil's girlfriend, a purpose she never fulfilled. He released her to the public in Character 2, where one character had to die in order to let her join the cast. His original plan of Rya hooking up with Phil didn't work due to her being more hard-to-get than he had intended, though she did begin to fall for him later in the series; early on, in fact, she seemed to have a special disdain for him.

In Ryaconning, she mentions that she is composed of metal and corpse flesh. Her orifices seem to be entirely metallic, sharp, and robotic, causing her to bite off Phil's face when making out with him (against her will), and to bore a giant hole in Craig's crotch after the two "counted the sheep." She has also been shown to have a gun built into her arm, which she has used in several episodes; her hands and feet can extend from her arms and legs using odd, Inspector Gadget-esque hose-like attachments; and if the Flash file for GRUFFO is decompiled, it is shown that her High Score counterpart has metal claws for feet. Her voice is also completely robotic. Despite this, she has several humanoid features, such as being able to get drunk (Accursed Meeting) and pregnant (Cursplash). Apparently, she also breathes, as shown in Fired?!, where she turns purple due to oxygen deprivation, although she claims that her body produces its own oxygen in FifeCon. Her breasts also have an apparently grotesque appearance (revealed in Joel Goes to College), enough to the point that one's eyes would bleed if they looked at them (in Phil's case, at least).

While her main purpose is to serve as a humanoid Bonus Stage character (and her intended purpose was to have been Phil's girlfriend), her body has been used for several different purposes, including ray gun power source, jet pack, and submarine. Usually, when deactivated, other characters merely write things like "I SUCK" on her forehead and hang shirts on her. This infuriates Rya to the point of killing her fellow characters and asking Phil to go to the movies.

Rya was once married to Craig (who never realized that she was a robot) and together they had a son named Rygar. Rya and Craig began a relationship in Virtual Pirate, and got married sometime before The Curse of Xenis. However, they divorced six episodes later in You Evil Curs. While each believed that the other caused the breakup, in Evil's New Groove we find that the split was initiated by documents forged by Evil.

In Evil's New Groove, Evil shut Rya off. She was later reactivated in Ficus Group, adopting a (somewhat) nicer persona. Rya was deactivated a second time in Fickle Nickel when Jessica bashed her in the head with a hammer. Somehow she reactivated herself in Joel vs. the Monobrow and went on a killing spree out of anger and hatred, but her original programming appeared to resurface and she found herself attracted to Phil. However, her conflicting feelings caused her to push away from him.

Rya met up with and almost married Rick Dynamite in Rya's Wedding, apparently as a knee-jerk response to her perceived rejection by Phil. It was in this episode that Joel pointed out she was only a machine. She soon began to question herself, burst into tears, and, as she said in The Day The World Did Stuff, "went on a long, soul-searching, groove-get-backing adventure". While on said adventure, she apparently ate Rygar, for reasons unknown.

In Ryaconning, Rya began to actively search for a way to leave the Bonus Stage universe. She used information provided by June and a chip provided by Andrew to turn human and attempted to exit through an escape door built into the system. Soon after turning human, she was killed by the Cloaked Figure; due to the fact that she was a real person and not a virtual manifestation like the other characters, this death was permanent.

It has been noted that even though Rya had to become human to leave, she had already left it in GRUFFO. To this, Matt's only reply has been an intriguing, mysterious, "Soon this won't matter anymore."

Rya has been referenced several times since her death, giving some fans hope that she'll return. Notably, Joel suggested this possibility in the Easter egg for Flame Wars, and she briefly appeared as a jet pack in Depart's All Yours.

Out of all the Bonus Stage characters, Rya has had the most voice changes in all and the second most physical redesigns (second only to Elly). Interestingly, when the "Virtual Drawing" machine was turned off in GRUFFO, Rya's voice became a normal human voice. This also happened in Fired?! when Bonus Stage had its fake cancellation. In both cases, she had a British accent, though it was far less pronounced in Fired?!.

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Fun Facts

She had a laywer in 2 Legit who turned out to be Topato.
Her "inner monologue" is, for some reason, male, with a normal human voice. It also has an American accent, despite the fact that she apparently has a British accent as a human.
According to Phil in First Place in the Face, Rya loves Italian food.
Her eyes are mainly red, but turned green when she became a human in Ryaconning.
In the credits for GRUFFO, it was mentioned that her last name was "Botkins", but this has not been mentioned since.

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