History

Snoop

Eliza Taylor was born on May 30, 1988. The Taylors were a staunchly middle-class Protestant family, the picture of late 20th century suburban ordinariness. Her father, Bill Taylor, was a middle manager at a New Orleans-based mining firm specializing in gravel production. Her mother, Angela, dedicated herself to housewifely pursuits, and was a longtime sponsor of Lakewood’s Girl Scouts chapter.

Eliza, to put it plainly, wasn’t the daughter her parents had expected. Not quite a hellraiser, she was nonetheless a committed rebel and sharpened the childlike tendency toward asking “Why?” into a lethal weapon. Her brother Cody, five years younger than her and not quite as inherently obnoxious, got the worst of this, but Eliza was uncompromisingly in-your-face with everyone, from teachers to peers.

It was only a matter of whether she used her powers for good, such as exposing which of her classmates was stealing all the best crayons for herself; or for bad, such as impressing on Cody that there was no reasonable evidence for life after death so it didn’t matter if she skipped church and used her offering money to buy frozen yogurt.

Liz developed a sense of social responsibility as she got older. In high school, she wrote for the school paper and became known as a local muckraker, investigating such local mysteries as the origins of the cafeteria food…not that she ever came to any definite conclusions.¹

Coming of age in the post-9/11 era, she opposed the Iraq War not so much out of personal politics but because it put her in opposition to her parents. A deeper political understanding developed later, as Eliza refined her lifelong talent for snooping into a career.

She wanted to be a journalist.

Roving Reporter

Eliza graduated from the UNC Chapel Hill journalism program in 2010, brimming with ambition and eager to make her mark on the media landscape.

The only problem: it was 2010. The job market was still reeling from the 2008 Great Recession and the journalism industry wasn’t spared the ravages of cutbacks, layoffs and pivots to “new media”. Liz shopped herself around to some of the big names and faced rejection at every turn until, ultimately, she was left with no choice but to do the unthinkable and come home.

Her parents wanted nothing to do with her and the feeling was mutual. Liz got an apartment to herself in east Lakewood and landed a job at Lakewood KLA, the local news organ which was improbably, if only just, hanging on after years of dangling on the edge of irrelevance.

Eliza quickly became the “face” of Lakewood KLA, originally for no other reason than her own pretty face, which was a stark break from her predecessors. She cultivated a reputation as a relentless, tenacious and occasionally unethical journalistic force, always the first to the scene of a headline in the making.

These methods didn’t endear her to the local establishment, nor could they be said to have grown KLA’s audience. Eliza could be as uncompromising as she wanted, but she couldn’t make news out of thin air. She was prone to clashes with her editor, Al Calimani, who disapproved of her shoot-from-the-hip style and blatant disregard for liabilities.

Hot Scoop

Eliza’s career pivoted on the onset of a series of murders that plagued Lakewood in October 2015, beginning with the slaying of Stacy Winters and Brock Carmichael on the evening of October 18th.

Eliza descended on the scene of the murder, accompanied by her ever-present cameraman, Greg Peters. She attempted to question Medical Examiner Maggie Duval, pestering her into Sheriff Clark Hudson intervened. Clark likewise refused to be baited at Liz’s prompting about “the most violent crime in 20 years”.

No sooner did they stop rolling, however, Greg was informed by Al that Liz’s live segment had been pulled from the air, Greg having accidentally filmed a bit of the mutilated Brock’s corpse while struggling not to puke, broadcasting it to the audience at home.²

Liz rallied quickly, and was back on the air early the next morning, broadcasting live from outside GW High, breathlessly getting the word out about Stacy and Brock’s murders, as well as the mysterious deaths of Stacy’s parents, Robert and Gina, who’d been found dead shortly after Greg’s on-air mishap.^{3 4}

Parked outside the school entrance, Liz had no trouble finding a student subject for a first hand interview: a lanky sophomore named Colin Gable.⁵ No sooner than she’d grabbed her quote, Sheriff Hudson descended on the scene, shortly followed by Vice Principal Kellerman, who bluntly informed her Colin was not 18, as he’d represented himself (albeit, not in so many words) and therefore couldn’t be interviewed without parental consent. Foiled again, Eliza and Greg stalked off.⁶

Appearance

Eliza is a fairly complected young woman with long, chestnut brown hair⁷ and light green eyes. Her most striking physical feature is a prominent bust-line that tends to draw male attention away from her face.⁸

Wardrobe

Eliza’s professional wardrobe consists of blazers, for on-the-scene reporting.⁹

Personality

Eliza is a go-getter with an ambitious spirit and a tenacity that can sometimes veer into obsession. She has a desire to prove herself at any cost and doesn’t care whose skin she gets under to get there.

Despite appearances, she does genuinely care about the causes she pursues and has a deep-seated hatred of injustice. As far as she’s concerned, when it comes to taking down bad guys, the ends justify the means…and if her career gets a boost along the way, that’s all well and good.

Origins and Development

Eliza was created by ZacTy2010 for the 2015 Season 1 AU. She was created jointly with her younger brother Cody who, being high school age, was probably intended to be the more prominent of ZacTy’s two OCs. Unlike some of the other writers, ZacTy never specified which, if any, of the Taylor siblings was meant to be “cannon fodder”, in the vein of Fate’s Deanna Wilcox and TellatrixForever’s Derek Jackson.

Cody only ever appeared in one post, however, while Eliza got slightly more screentime. Consciously crafted to be a more proactive, intrepid reporter archetype than Scream the TV Series‘ true crime podcaster Piper Shaw, and more in the mold of the film franchise’s Gale Weathers, Eliza ultimately only appeared in two scenes, both in the forum’s first “episode”.

ZacTy was the only writer from the 2015 forum not to return for the May 2016 Season 2 AU, leaving the Taylor siblings in limbo for nearly four years. Neither the Season 2 nor Season 3 AU introduced another attempt at a journalist character, and, when the 2015 forum was adapted into the first volume of The Story so Far in 2019, it was decided the presence of a journalist in the shared backstory was a useful launch point.

Liz ended up being one of only two OCs exclusive to the 2015 forum to not be killed off in Volume I, the other OC being TellatrixForever’s Amanda Steele. Amanda’s survival ended up being undone in the 2025/26 Volume I rewrite, leaving Liz as the sole non-recurring 2015 OC to survive Volume I.

Following Liz’s survival in Volume I was her debut, now portrayed by ThePlotMurderer, as the central character of Lifting the Mask, the first Final Retreat “spin-off”, in June 2019. Lifting served to both explain what Eliza was doing during the events of Volume II and create a parallel storyline set between Volume III and The Final Retreat, in what was the first attempt at proactively, instead of retroactively, expanding the nascent SRU.

Other Interpretations

The following is the original application for Eliza Taylor, submitted by ZacTy2010 to the 2015 Season 1 AU on September 4, 2015 (the post was edited September 6, 2015; the day the game began). Text is presented as it was originally displayed on Fanfiction.net, with no redactions:

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Name: Eliza Taylor

Age: 27

Personality: Fierce, Independent, Go-getter, Head Strong, Quick Witted, Nosey

Appearance: Olivia Wilde

media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu81g1uXcn1qcwe36o1_500.gif

Likes/Dislike:

• Likes: Getting the scoop, writing, journalism, secrets, friends, family, wine
• Dislikes: Liars, cheaters, obnoxious people, most high schoolers, most people

Favorite Movie: Sleepless in Seattle

Bio: 10 years older than her younger brother, Eliza was pretty much raised an only child for most of her life. Despite being stubborn, she’d do anything for her brother. She decided to pursue a career in journalism at an early age, ever since writing stories in middle school for the paper and eventually carrying that on to high school with her. She moved away to a bigger city for a while before coming back to her hometown and writing and reporting for their local news station.

Other: Older sister to Cody

How far do you see them lasting: IDK

Season 1 AU

Eliza’s favorite film, per her character bio, is Sleepless in Seattle, the same film Stacy and Brock were meant to watch on their ill-fated date night.

Trivia

Eliza was the fifth OC created for the Season 1 AU.

Quotes

You heard it here first, folks! The dead teenagers are a tragedy. Stay tuned for more brainwaves from our elected protectors…

Eliza obtains a quote from Sheriff Hudson

While the Lakewood Sheriff’s Department hasn’t yet disclosed the exact manner of the senior Winters’ demise, you don’t need magic marker to draw a line between these four shocking deaths. This has been Eliza Taylor, Lakewood KLA.

Liz editorializes on air about the first four victims of the Lakewood Slashings

Gallery

1. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 15 ↩︎
2. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 8 ↩︎
3. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 11 ↩︎
4. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 12 ↩︎
5. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 13 ↩︎
6. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 15 ↩︎
7. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 8 ↩︎
8. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 15 ↩︎
9. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 8 ↩︎