Ted, the hapless mook of a crime lord, gets roped into impersonating his boss at an exclusive dinner party. His fellow guests are eccentric underworld elites who have each been assigned a bird-themed alias by the party’s host. To prevent the ambitious and temperamental group from offing each other, everyone’s weapons are confiscated and locked in a safe. Tensions between conflicting personalities, business interests, and paranoia rise until the lights go out and someone is killed. The remaining guests try to escape, but every exit has been barred shut. How could someone have been murdered in a room of unarmed suspects? Who is the killer and what is their motive? These are questions Ted/Bluejay must answer before the murderer strikes again.
The “Birdcage Incident” comprises Season One of Ruffled, an internet audio drama. It aired on YouTube
in two acts (three parts each) in 2016. A sequel following the same format aired in 2018. Season Two's story is another Whodunnit? involving crime lords, set this time at an engagement party.
The series was created by Michaela Laws, a game designer and voice actress best known for the visual novel Seduce Me and voicing the title character of Yandere Simulator.
Ruffled provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Crow's mother Angela is selfish, needy, and demanding. She constantly makes unreasonable and petty demands of Crow and her staff. She has no problem interrupting Crow at work, even though she's leeching off her daughter financially. Angela's cruelty even extends to making condescending remarks about Crow at her engagement party. When Crow tries to protest, Angela retorts "You know I love you and only want what's best for you." Crow puts up with this treatment because Angela is her mother, but admits that she hates her.
- Affectionate Nickname: Nightingale once shortens Swan's real name to "Ven." Swan is not a fan.
- African Terrorists: Dove, a smuggler, is in league with a group of African rebel leaders selling blood diamonds.
- Age-Gap Romance: Swan is twenty-five; her husband Sven is thirty-five. He jokes that he'll eventually have to hide his wrinkled face to avoid embarrassing her.
- The Alibi: Crow and Swan are each other's alibi during the Birdcage Incident, since Swan grabs onto Crow when the gunshot goes off.
- Ambiguous Criminal History: Parker's rap sheet makes it impossible for him to find a job outside the criminal underworld, but we never find out what he went to jail for. Crow does use him as an assassin, but we don't know if he started doing that before prison or after.
- Ambiguously Bi:
- Crow admits to invoking this trope by flirting with both men and women. This is part of her business as a High-Class Call Girl. In reality, she claims to only sleep with men.
- Swan has slept with her husband Sven at least once, but has a very intimate friendship with Crow. When Nightingale suggests that Swan has a crush on Crow, she reacts angrily, but doesn't deny it.
- Ambiguous Situation: How much Chickadee knew about Falcon's plot and why she got in the way of his shot is unclear. All we really have are Bluejay's deductions and Falcon's word.
- Angry Chef: Crow's chef Barbara is very protective of her kitchen and food. Anyone who shows an inkling of disrespect towards either will get a severe tongue-lashing.
- Arc Villain: One for each season.
- Season One: Falcon/Lawrence
- Season Two: Rashid
- Asshole Victim:
- Lawrence shoots his accomplice, gives the Birdcage crew a Sadistic Choice, and tries to kill Bluejay when he sides with them. The audience isn't supposed to feel badly when one of his victims strikes back.
- Angela mistreats everyone around her and generally makes a nuisance of herself. Her daughter is devastated when she's murdered, but everyone else is angrier that the real target was Crow herself.
- Rashid doesn't care how much collateral damage results from his petty murder plot. After his plan backfires, he holds everyone hostage and shoots at his brother. His family abandons him to a well-deserved fate after that.
- Attention Whore: Angela acts out to stay at the top of Crow's priority list and keep the staff waiting on her hand and foot. She's a diva in her own mind, so she feels entitled to the constant attention.
- Audience Surrogate: In Season 1, Bluejay's point of view is the audience's point of view. He is quiet for much of Act 1, allowing the audience to acclimate to the crime world setting, study the other characters, and gather clues for later. The audience even gets to decide which of two options he is served at dinner.
- Awful Wedded Life: Crow's father was so fed up with his wife's spoiled, manipulative behavior that he didn't even want her using his last name because of Guilt by Association. He made his feelings further known by cutting Angela out of his will and passing the family vineyard to Crow.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Raven and Crow's relationship seems confined to bickering and sex. The realization that their feelings go deeper comes when Raven takes a bullet for Crow, and Crow reacts with tears and protective anger.
