Post by shiiiiiige on Mar 9, 2010 17:56:15 GMT -5
RILEY JIROU KENTA
Name: Riley Jirou Kenta
Nicknames: RJ and Riles are the most popular.
Age: 21
Date of Birth: July 11th
Grade: Junior/3rd year
Orientation: Straight, bi-curious.
Nationality: 1st generation American, Japanese ancestry.
Home Town: Edgewater, New Jersey.
Degree: Visual Arts
- Minor: Canvas Painting[/ul]
Play by: Shigeaki Kato[/blockquote][/blockquote]
--- CUNNING
Being fond of reading gave Riley a pretty vast vocabulary, one he uses not to make people feel dumb (though he does enjoy that from time to time), but he uses it to get what he wants. That and his charming good looks. But Riley's a quick thinker and can talk his way out of any predicament you can throw at him or throw him into, and he doesn't ever hesitate to use it to his advantage, either. Just be careful, because words are his weapon of choice.
--- PROUD
Having no legit support system from his family and being praised, even in high school, for his photography skills, Riley's ego and pride grew exponentially throughout the years. He's nice and pleasant, sure, but he's still going to think your art's inferior to his at the end of the day. It all goes hand in hand with needing to constantly be on top so his family can shut up about his 'disastrous' choice of career; he has the talent, and he does well, and doing well means shoving it into their faces so they have nothing to supply their fight.
--- SECRETIVE
There's a vast difference between the Riley he puts on at school and the Riley in his apartment. He doesn't like to put his entire life on blast to just anybody, and he's pretty selective with what he shares. He usually operates in with a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of policy and because of this, it's pretty easy not to say anything too deep or revealing: art students usually like to talk about themselves.
--- GENUINE
Behind the mystery and the ego, Riley is exactly who he wants to be perceived. He's hard-working at the things that he holds precious to him (friendships, relationships, art, anything) and thinks of life as something to be lived and something to learn from. He's true to his craft, he knows his own limitations yet constantly tries to challenge them, and, when amongst friends and those he trusts immensely, he means everything he says and treats them dearly.
--- FAIL
And underneath everything else, he's...pretty embarrassed by this, but he's kind of an airhead at times. He can't count the number of times he's found his TV remote in his bag instead of his cell phone. When he's hungry, he eats and eats and keeps eating until he takes a break, and only then will he realize that he's been quite full and now his stomach's pretty upset with him. He carries around gift certificates that have no balance on them just in case he needs to use one to open up his front door because he forgot his keys -- again. It's a side that he's been trying to quash since middle school, but some things will always stick around.
LIKES: Besides photography? Reading (books, manga, magazines, anything), all kinds of music (except country -- that's one he'll never be able to wrap his mind around), cereal (Cereality is his favorite place, ever), Saturday morning cartoons, going for walks, acting, his puppy Tablo, technology & computers, sitcoms (his favorite is still and will forever be 'Friends') and he has a big, fanboy-ish crush on Zoe Saldana.
DISLIKES: Politics, the unnecessary complication of things, brussel sprouts, playing sports (watching is okay), the exorbitant price of alcohol, doing dishes, dollar stores, hustlers on the SEPTA (no one wants cologne for a dollar), seasonal allergies.
The thing that Riley considers most important in his life is to reach his American dream. His parents approve of Riley's drive, but it's a completely different dream than his.
Riley is a first generation Japanese American; his parents were born in Japan, raised in Japan, grew up and fell in love in Japan, and for all intents and purposes, had planned on having kids and growing old in Japan. But this was until a business venture in New York City's Wall Street opened itself up to his father, and after weeks of debating and deliberating, they packed up and moved to northern New Jersey. At this time, Riley's mom was three, borderline four months pregnant with him. His father told him when he was older that if he had been born already, they wouldn't have moved at all; the "you wouldn't have ended up this way," was left out, but it sure as hell was implied.
But Riley had a pretty normal childhood, all things considered. The area they moved to had a sizable Asian population, something that put his parents at ease. Riley went to private school his entire life, making nice with the other priviliged kids. He had an after school tutor three days out of the school week and piano lessons the remaining two days of the school week. This continued all the way up to seventh or eighth grade, and Riley hated it. There wasn't anything he enjoyed about doing more homework because his parents wouldn't allow him to skip grades. HIs piano teacher had long since given up on trying to get him to take piano seriously, but little did she know it was because Riley didn't feel like listening to someone who called him tone-deaf if he played a chord wrong. Riley was bored of it all, but he was only twelve. He just wanted to do something that he wanted to do, but no matter who you are, you'll always be your parent's kid, and they'll always feel like they have the ultimate say.
One random Saturday when he was thirteen, he went into New York City with his parents. There was nothing new about this, nothing out of the ordinary, because all they had to do was take a ferry across the river and boom, they were at the seaport, but it was the day that marked Riley's venture into art. Because, in a bookstore on the Avenue of the Americas, there was a pretty large photography section, and they went there so much that there was nothing else for him to look at. So he wandered over, carefully pulled out a volume of architectural photography, and opened it, took in every minute detail of each building, of all the different components of a picture he knew each photo possessed, but couldn't describe. It amazed him at how a photo, a still-shot of life, could contain so many emotions and questions.
From there, it felt like the parting of the Red Sea. All right, maybe it wasn't that big of a phenomenon, but it marked the beginning of Riley's foray into the visual arts. He saved up his allowances and bought photography collection after collection, books about photography, and finally, his first Polaroid camera. Once high school rolled around, he signed up for all the photography classes that were offered throughout his four years there. He wasn't amazing; he wanted to jump in and start replicating pictures that he grew to love, but he had no experience with the practical aspect of all the technical stuff he had read about. Needless to say, he did pretty awful at first. But this only made him want to work harder and improve. He finally had something he genuinely liked, that he genuinely wanted to do, and when that was the case, Riley stopped at nothing to get to where he wanted to be.
His parents didn't find out about his newfound hobby until junior year of high school, when one of his photo's won a statewide competition. Although shocked at this newfound information, surprised that he had the audacity to keep up with it for so long without telling them, and impressed that he even managed to win something, the end result was still a pretty fierce feeling of disappointment. Riley was expected to take over for his father once he retired, a job and world full of numbers and bull and bear markets, none of which made sense to Riley, and a world that Riley had no desire to be better acquainted with. When college application time came around, Riley applied to all the schools his parents wanted him to go to -- NYU, Columbia, Rutgers, etc. But on the downlow, Riley mailed off an application and his portfolio to Emerson and SVA, hoping for the best.
And...well, here he is. His parents weren't thrilled (that would actually be a vast understatement) but he had won enough scholarships through various essay and photo competitions throughout high school where he would be able to attend for the first two years at a relatively low cost, enough for him to take out federal loans. For his third year, he decided to move off campus to save him the ridiculous room and board fee; after all, paying for college yourself is pretty rough, and at least he would be guaranteed a place to stay by himself during breaks, too, since his relationship with his parents are still on pretty shaky ground...and he really doesn't see that changing anytime soon. But if anything, it's a reason for him to work even harder to make something of himself, because there's no better victory than the sweet taste of success.
Why Emerson?
Somehow, someway, photography and art became Riley's saving grace, and he invested a lot of time and effort into it. He could have very easily decided that high school would be as far as it would go, but why give up on something that you're good at just to appease other people? And, if he was going to do this on his own, a half-rate art school just wasn't going to cut it; he needed to be challenged and made to improve, and there's no other place to do that than a hella competitive art school.
There was a side of Rory that not many got to see.
It wasn't like he had MPD or anything, but it was just the side that no one really expected him to have. One usually sees him hanging around Ronnie, doing insane shit like trying to battle the nerds in real life World of Warcraft or bending steel, or he's off doing something for Eddie, or he's playing poker and stealing all of Eddie's money. People saw Rory and saw that he was happy-go-lucky, on the go, full of ridiculous thoughts and ideas and an endless energy once you get him going. It wasn't like this wasn't accurate, but it was easier at this point to play into the image that he had created for himself all those years ago than to change and throw everyone for a loop, because let's face it -- after school ends, he probably wouldn't see half of these people ever again. It was harsh and a bit cold, but it was the reality of things, and above all other (mostly happy) things he was, Rory was a grade A realist.
But around those he knew that he would be friends with forever, he tended to relax a bit more and managed to just stop whatever it was that he was doing, sit, stop, relax, stop. When he realized that there was tons of stuff that he needed to think through and figure out, but wasn't stuff that you necessarily wanted to share with your brother. Either of them. Lin was even more out of the question. But it was during times like this when he appreciated having Morgan as a friend exponentially.
Morgan was, in some ways, one of the best friends he'd ever have the fortune to make, because she loved and hated equally, and she never hides her emotions -- what you see is usually what you got. There were numerous times when she told Rory off for doing something blatantly dumb, but yet would always be there to give him advice, and if he didn't take it, then it wasn't a big deal to her. Rory loved that about her, among lots of other things, but it was one of the main reasons why Rory would never, ever let her go.
She was the sister that he had always wanted but never had, in a way. She cared, sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes not at all. She pointed out all his flaws, told him to get his shit together when it was necessary, and treated him the way she thought he should be treated at those specific points in time. Rory knew he had a bit of a depressive streak, or a, "I'm going to be an ass," streak, and most people just let him do it because it wasn't like he went through them often. Morgan never let that fly. Was he in love with her? Maybe. Possibly. Most signs point to 'yes'. But they tried it, once, they went on a date and it was so fucking awful that they resolved to never talk about it ever again. But that didn't necessarily mean Rory couldn't think about it, and perhaps there's a small part of him that hates himself for going wrong somewhere because if it had gone well, Rory wouldn't panic about staring at her like some lovelorn puppy, nor would he panic about if it was too obvious he was trying to hide his lovelorn puppy status.
He was lounging on one of the sofas in the student lounge, waiting for her, newspaper spread out in front of him. He hadn't seen her in awhile, it felt like -- while Rory was adventurous and fucked most of the rules, Morgan actually paid attention and did what every typical good student was expected to do. His eyes caught a slight glimmer of movement and he moved the newspaper away from his face, grinning wide. "Hey you!" Rory exclaimed, excited, but lazy enough to not really move. "I've been waiting for forever, you know."
[/size][/center][/justify]Hi, I'm JOCELYN and I'm 22 years old. I'm SWANK! This is my FIRST application. I found Failure's Not Flattering from CAUTION 2.0.
