Riley is slim, lanky despite his unimpressive height. Since he's biologically female, his face is still soft, and as he's grown older, he's come to embrace ocassionally wearing make-up without feeling dysphoric. If he's gonna have a banging face, might as well show it off, right?

Thankfully, he was never ostentatiously endowed, so binding isn't an issue, and a baggy-t-shirt can fix most figure issues. He's starting to work out more too, now that he's graduated, and he's starting to (slowly, damn this estrogen) build muscle, giving his arms a toned, sleek look, despite his overall twigginess.

His hair is naturally brown, though he's sink-dyed it before, and messily cut (he'll swear up and down that it's that way on purpose). His undercut is starting to grow out, leaving it short on one side and longer on the other, and he tends to wear it the way he wakes up (plus some gel, on occasion,) which gives him a perpetually groggy appearance.

Riley is a fan of wearing jackets and layers. Flannel is also great. His look is typically masculine or androgynous. He had enough of dresses and florals when he was a child.

Riley likes to call himself a realist. He knows there won't be any princesses in glass coffins to kiss awake, or princes on horses ready to sweep him off his feet. And more often than not he'll have to work weekends and holidays and be mistaken for a girl and smile and nod at everyone who makes his personal choices their business. He knows it's not worth the fight. He knows that at this point, all he can do is keep pushing towards his goals and leave everything else behind. That's why he doesn't trust easily. He'll be friendly and kind to everyone, but he's always prepared for the knife behind the back. He rarely lets his guard down all the way. (Maybe that's why he can't find a steady lover.) He also channels a lot of his paranoia regarding others into an ironic, sarcastic persona, so sometimes it's difficult to tell if he's being serious or not.

Despite his general distrust of others, Riley is a very caring person. He has no problem helping others, and he doesn't expect anything in return. (He's usually surprised when his good deed results in something good for himself). He'd give the shirt off his back for a friend, or even an acquaintance in need, which has gotten him in trouble in the past. He gets taken advantage of easily because he is so quick to try to please others and help them out, even as he holds them at arms length.

At this point, he views the world as a generally shitty place, but he knows that that doesn't mean he also has to be shitty. So he tries his best to meet rude people and anger with kindness, or at the very least, with a non-reaction. He's not always successful, and sometimes he does fall into anger and blow up, but most of the time he can hold on until he gets home to vent his feelings. He's great at smiling through abuse.

Riley is also a hard worker. Because he assumes that no one is there to catch him if he falls, he tries his best to avoid that kind of situation. He believes if he puts in 120% effort, everything will turn out fine, even at the cost of his physical and mental health. He will never give up, even when others try to push him down or sabotage him. He likes to joke that he's powered by spite. The mere force of his rage pushes him to do what others think he can't. While that's not completely true, and there's also a hard scrabble for survival, thinking that way helps him keep on keeping on.

Riley's family lived in a small suburb, verging on lower-middle class. Having five children didn't seem to help matters much. Riley was set neatly in the middle. An older sister, 6 years older, an older brother, 4 years older, and a younger brother and sister, both 2 years younger. It was rare for him to receive something completely new. His sister's old clothes, his brother's old bike, a mishmash of old toys. There was never a magical moment that he realized that he didn't identify as his biological gender. It was just a fact of life. He tried his best to wear androgynous clothing, despite his mother's continual and painful attempts to make him dress femininely. He experimented with binding behind his parent's back, and nothing brought him more joy than being mistaken for a boy. What he didn't realize until he was older, was that there were options for people like him.

Though not an exceptional student, he managed to go to a community college to get an associate's degree, and a whole new world opened to him. He met others like him who didn't feel quite at home in their skins. He learned that people had found different ways to approach and deal with gender identity. That's where he first set his heart on Female to Male hormone replacement therapy. He didn't, and still hasn't, thought much about what surgeries are available to him, as his singular goal at this point is the HRT.

Once he'd received his associate's degree, he had distanced himself from his family. He didn't want to be in debt to them any longer, so he quit school and moved away without a word, heading to the city to make money so he could take himself through college and get HRT on his own. He never confronted his family about his feelings, as he was too afraid of how they'd respond. In the last three years he hasn't had much contact with them at all, beside birthday wishes and holiday cards.

It hasn't been the easiest to keep jobs down. Until very recently, he was also working as a host at a breakfast chain alongside his work as a barista at The Metro Mocha, but the manager had it out for him and finally managed to fire him recently. He's looking for a second job now, but he's having little luck.