AAAAAAHHHHH!! I can't believe I won! I love him so much <3 Here is his form:
SilverCrescentMoon wrote:
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Riley Keating
Magician/Illusionist
(Specializes in card tricks and close up magic)
x~Male
~Heterosexual
~24 years of age
~Australian
Personality
Riley is one of those difficult types to discern. Depending on who you ask, you could get a multitude of answers ranging from quiet and introverted to confident and outgoing. Part of the reason is because Riley likes to keep people questioning. Then he can surprise them. However, this is also due to his insecurities. Despite being a world-famous illusionist, he has his insecurities. Everyone deals with being insecure in different ways. Riley pushes through it by acting charismatic and self-assured. No one can put him down. When he puts on his shows, he goes all out, being as bold as possible. If you aren't comfortable with the audience, the audience won't be comfortable with you. His tricks wouldn't be nearly as convincing if he was shy. After years of teaching himself to relax around others and just go with the flow, its worked its way into his personality. Its much too stressful trying to act like someone you're not, so he has learned be himself, for lack of less cliche words...
Now for his shy side. While a lot of people are more comfortable around their families than around strangers, Riley is the opposite. As a child, he always felt like his creativity and freedom was being stifled. Born into a rich family, with his mother a doctor and his father a lawyer, he felt he couldn't be himself around them. They weren't home often, so he was left alone much of the time since he had no siblings. Being an only child was lonely and isolated, and it caused him to become quite shy around other kids. During those rare times when his parents were home, they would eat a quiet dinner and he would watch his parents talk stiffly to each other, almost never addressing him. When they did, it seemed strained. He was also told that he would go into something similar to their occupations and that someday he would go to either medical school or law school. They often argued over which one it would be while Riley sat quietly pondering the subject. He didn't want to be either of those. He wanted to do something...fun. His parents would here none of that, however, and would always end the conversation quickly when it was brought up.
To sum it up, Riley is extremely uncomfortable whenever he visits with his family and therefore doesn't do it often. Its not like they want to see him anyway. He has practically been shunned for becoming a "useless practitioner of silly pranks." But as he likes to tell himself, suck it up and keep going.(Riley flipping a card in his boredom)
█ █ ███████████████████████████████████████ █ █"A snippet of my childhood"
(Narrated by Riley Keating)
It's strange how as you get older you remember the strangest, most random things. When I was eight, still living with my parents, obviously, I remember sitting alone in the large living room on the couch, reading comics. It was really the only type of reading that interested me then, especially Calvin and Hobbes. Oh, those ones are the best. Anyway, the fireplace was lit to warm the room and I was curled up in a soft blanket. It was a cold winter afternoon, one of my least favorite times of the year (I love winter now, though). I was minding my own business when a knock sounded on the door. That was odd. Who would come on a Sunday when it's freezing outside? The door opened and there was a bit of chatter, then Estella entered the room. Estella was the housekeeper who doubled as my nanny. So when I say alone, I don't mean completely alone, but we didn't talk much.
"Master Riley," she said politely. "There's someone here to see you."
I turned my head and looked back at her over the edge of the sofa. "Who is it?" I asked, both confused and anxious.
Estella played with the hem of her skirt, looking sheepish. "Well, you see, your parents arranged a play date for you with one of the neighborhood children." My eyes widened and I threw the blanket over my head. At the time, I hadn't yet broke out of my shell and was shy as heck. "Sir, your parents require it."
There was no arguing with my parents. If I didn't do this, they would be upset with me, to say the least. "O-okay." Very slowly, I pulled the blanket off and stood up, knees wobbling, and walked to the front door. Estella led the way and stood in front of the door while I peeped my head cautiously around the wall. A young plume was standing there, rocking back and forth on his paws.
When he saw me he brightened significantly and hopped inside. "Hi!" He exclaimed loudly, tossing his fluorescent orange scarf to the ground.
My ears flattened behind my head and I took a step back. "H-h-hello."
The kid bounced around the first floor with limitless energy. "Wow! Your house is ginormous!" He screeched to a stop inches away from my face. I so desperately wanted to hide, but knew I couldn't go against my parents wishes. They wanted me to make friends, although they didn't really understand I didn't want any. All I wanted was to read my comics...by myself. As you can imagine, the rest of the date didn't go so well. The kid was extremely invasive, throwing things around my room and moving things out of their perfect place. It drove my OCD crazy. I weakly tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. He kept trying to play with me, but only came up unsuccessful. So I became the secondary character who usually ended up dying in most of his games. The pilot that crash-landed, the passenger who fell overboard, the evil villain who needed to be defeated...he forced me into these roles and I had no idea what to do.
By the time he left I was exhausted. My white fur was stained with grapejuice he'd spilt all over and everything in my room was screwed up. My figurines were all out of order and a few of them were even broken. The vintage comic books were pulled off the shelves and a couple were torn. It was one of the worst things I'd ever experienced up to that point in my life. Thankfully, the kid never returned, probably because I was so "boring." The entire experience made me even more afraid of people then I was before. It wasn't until I unlocked my passion that I finally broke away from my anxiety, but you'll hear about that later.
█ █ ███████████████████████████████████████ █ █Is this an odd hobby or what?
When he's not planning out the course of his next showing or wooing his friends with small tricks, Riley has a few other hobbies to turn to, one of which is his fascination with customizing shoes. The shoes provided in stores are so often bland and boring, and the ones that aren't are usually sized for little kids. So as a result of his want for fun footwear, Riley decided to paint his own. Buying a pair of plain white slip-ons and some acrylic paint, he went to work. It took a lot of time, but eventually he finished. Now he wears these shoes to every one of his shows. He has painted other pairs, of course, but these are special to him, since they were his very first.█ █ ███████████████████████████████████████ █ █
Why magic?
(Narrated by Riley Keating)
So how did I become interested in magic in the first place? It happened in a rather strange way, actually. I was about ten when it happened. My parents were getting all dressed up for an opera taking place that night. I had also been stuffed into a suit, since I was being dragged along for some "family bonding time." Of course, we always did what my parents wanted to do, never what I wanted. Anyway, we soon got into my dad's fancy jet black car and drove down to the opera house.
Swarms of people crowded the area, but my father was determined to get good seats, so we ended up pushing through everyone, me with my head bowed down in shame. Why did he have to be so impatient? As a result of his rudeness, we got some of the best seats in the house. As soon as the lights dimmed and the show began, however, none other then a single plumie dressed in a black and white tux came onto the stage. Bright lights flashed and he spoke into his microphone. "Welcome ladies and gentleman, to the greatest show of your lives!" Exciting music played in the background. I wasn't expecting an opera to be so fun. My parents were not pleased, however. After inspecting their tickets and talking in annoyed whispers to an employee, they found that the date on the tickets were wrong. The show was supposed to be the next night. My father tried to get us to leave, but I convinced him to stay...with a little help from my mother. She seemed to be the only one taking the hint that I was actually interested now. For once, she cared about me.
The show continued and I stared with fascination. I was in complete awe of the plumerian's tricks and illusions and desperately wanted to know how they worked. He called volunteers from the front up to the stage, and since we were in a box seat I had no chance of getting picked, but I watched nonetheless. The plume did wonderful tricks and even cut a lady in half. He also hypnotized some plumies. It was funny watching them fall asleep at the clap of his paws. The card tricks interested me the most, and again and again he named people's cards without looking at them. At the end of the show, he disappeared in a shower of cards and the crowd cheered.
As expected, my parents were bored to death with the show, but they don't have a single creative bone in their body. I, on the other hand, was thrilled. As soon as we got home, I ran to the family computer and began to research the magician. He did shows all over the world, wooing people with his magical stunts. After much scouring of the internet, I came across something that grabbed my attention. The very illusionist that had performed had created a tutorial on one of his smaller tricks, teaching one how to make a coin disappear. In my rush of excitement, I snatched a coin from my father's wallet and practiced the step by step instructions. It took a bit of time, but I mastered it. It was such a simple trick that looking back on it almost makes me laugh, but back then I had just achieved something new.
My fascination with illusions only grew, and let me tell you right now, my parents greatly disapproved of it. I spent all my allowance on cards and small kits, gathering knowledge over the years, practicing as much as I could. At last, I began to come out from underneath my blanket of shyness for the sole purpose of practicing on other people. Some were impressed, which made me glow with pride. I had never really been encouraged before. It felt...good. I became more and more comfortable with others, which helped me along in my journey. When I was fourteen, my parents called me to speak to them, something they had been doing a lot lately, and I don't mean that in a good way. They were very strict with me that day, more then ever before, and they told me to stop the nonsense of my useless tricks. I should be doing something more practical, they said. I had tried to reason with them, not wanting to give up my newfound passion, but they wouldn't listen. From that day forward, I had to hide my hobby, practicing shut up in my room or with trusted friends. It was hard, but I pushed through.
At eighteen I graduated high school. It was expected that I would go to a highly praised college, but little did my parents know, that wasn't at all what I had in mind. One weekend, when they were away as usual, I made a decision I had been rolling around in my brain for months...I was going to leave home. Knowing I only had a couple days before they returned, I packed up my things and took my leave. Estella was very aware of this plan and fully supported me, even though she would most likely be blamed. But I was an adult now and could decide for myself what I wanted to do with my life. Taking my car, I left without a word to my parents.
Being their son, I had enough money to sustain myself until I could get a job. I rented a small apartment, which took some getting used to, and got hired as a waiter at a nearby restaurant. It was a simple life, but it was my life. I stayed in touch with the few friends I had and continued to pursue magic. Now, being a professional illusionist is a difficult career to snag, so it took me years before I even started to perform, but I worked my way there...eventually. However, it took years before I was able to quit my waiter job and dedicate all my time to my passion. My breakthrough was when I started coming up with my own tricks and stunts. That's what really set my career off. A few years back I moved from Australia to America, which really gave me that extra push.
So, there you have it. Now I travel all over the nation, sometimes even to other countries to perform. Its a thrilling job, one that never bores me. Its quite fun traveling from place to place and meeting new people, and its even more invigorating to impress them with my shows. But none of this ever would have happened if my parents' tickets hadn't been printed with the wrong date. Funny, isn't it?
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(All art by me)
