Ridley (Revised Portfolio)

"Leaving behind a legacy is the greatest gift I can give as an entertainer"

 Ridley is a will-o-wisp who originated from Montreal, Canada in the 1860s. He was born the son of two acrobats who performed under a well-known circus at the time. Growing up, he and his siblings were groomed and trained to continue their parents' legacy as performers. However Ridley had different plans when inspired by the guest performance of their family friend, Kai Brown, performing fire poi. It took a long time convincing his parents to switch professions, and even moreso, to convince the hard-headed Kai in taking Ridley in as an apprentice; The veteran performer initially saw him as an immature brat who would end up hurting himself and/or others. Kai begun to cave in once he incidentally stumble across how hardworking Ridley is despite his impressionable conceitedness.

Many times over the past several years, his friends and family tried to convince him to step down due to his near clumsiness and the need of sputtering out the hundreds of stray flames he caused. 

Still, Ridley remained persistent, as this was different from the other fleeting hobbies he held before. He truly enjoyed fire poi, and nothing can stop his hunger in perfecting it.

His hardwork finally came into fruition by his 19th birthday, where the circus master became so impressed with his performance that he moved Ridley to debut in the main tent. The circus master had watched over Ridley's progress over the years, and felt that he was ready to take on the stage. Ridey worked hard to earn the admiration and respect among his peers and audience, not even his familial critics can deny. His attempts at hiding his ecstasy at the thought was betrayed by the flushed redness in his ears and cheeks. He just can't believe he is on the start to become a household name that would sweep across the nation.

Unfortunately, he never did get the chance to make it big for himself.

On the night of his performance, Ridley met his end by a freak accident when something spooked one of the circus' elephants. Ridley tried to calm it down, but wasn't able to get away in time when the elephant crushes him and he eventually died from asphyxiation. This caused him to develop a deep-rooted fear of elephants, post-mortem. 

During this time, Ridley was survived by his parents, Neebin and Augustin; his older brother, Waylon; and his triplet younger sisters, Maple, Fauna, and Ray. 

Appearance

Back when he was alive, Ridley had dark brown hair with the eyes to match. He lost the hue when he became a will-o-wisp, gaining turquoise-tinted hair that he styles as a ponytail with an undercut, along with golden irises that are reflected in his flame form. He still appeared the same age as he did back then with a tanned, athletic body, and kind, round-shaped eyes. Because of how he felt hot all the time, Ridley typically remains shirtless and barefooted-- instead opting to wear dark-green harem dancing pants with red trim and a coin-embedded red sash around the waist. 

He also sports white facial paint that resembles a bisection of a firefly on both cheeks. In addition, he also has a tribal fire design circling his bellybutton, and full-sleeve, brown-white line art tattoos of stylized forget-me-nots drawn on both arms. He can make them physically appear or disappear at will, both before and after a performance.

Because of how his human form is kept together based on his mental state, He can trigger his ponytail to become flames when excited in some form.