[paradisa] Application «

[alias_savant]

NAME: Emily
JOURNAL: iluvroadrunner6
EMAIL: iluvroadrunner6@yahoo.com
AIM: iluvroadrunner6
WIKI NAME: iluvroadrunner
CHARACTERS: enjoythe_ride, imnot_likeyou, zone_of_truth, whatialways_do, letsbe_clear, wereall_addicts.


CHARACTER NAME: Neal Caffrey
FANDOM: White Collar
CANON: 209: Point Blank, before Peter arrives to tell him that Paul Blackthorne’s character without a name is after him.
WHAT THEY LOST: His ability to leave his place of residence (the castle) without a law enforcement escort, or one that’s been approved by a law enforcement personnel. (Neal is a very bad boy and has that tracking anklet for a reason.)



ABOUT THE CHARACTER: Neal Caffrey is a conman, and a particularly prolific one at that. It’s unknown whether or not Neal Caffrey is his real name (it’s yet to be revealed one way or the other in canon) but if it isn’t, it’s his most commonly used alias, alongside Nick Halden, but Caffrey is the name he’s arrested under. Little is known about his early life, but he didn’t graduate from high school and he didn’t go to college—at least, not physically, he still has a few degrees that he probably forged. He specializes in art forgery, and is an extremely competent artist, but he usually paints other people’s work as oppose to his own. He made a name for himself in stealing various forms of artwork, before beginning a three year game of cat and mouse with an FBI agent named Peter Burke, who eventually caught him, but Neal claims that he let him. He definitely has an ego, especially when it comes to his work, and has very little respect for the rules, but he seems to play by them for a time, going through with his four year prison sentence for fraud until a reappearance by his former flame, Kate Moreau, prompts him to escape with three months left of his sentence.

Kate is one of the driving forces in Neal’s life, and one of the few people that are more than an associate, aside from Peter and Mozzie. Neal fights for her in a way that he doesn’t fight for anyone else, almost to the point where he has tunnel vision with regards to her safety. For the entirety of Season 1, after Neal works out his agreement with the FBI, Neal’s sole concern, other than staying out of prison, is finding Kate, and she in turn, is used as the bait on a hook to allow Fowler to manipulate Neal into getting him what he wants. Neal is blinded by that love for Kate that he thinks emotionally, instead of logically, and that could lead to him making some not so wise choices, as evidenced by his spiral downward after Kate’s death. Following the explosion, Neal investigated the plane crash without the FBI’s consent (he doesn’t trust them anyway) and he and Peter did this dance around each other that culminated in Neal holding Fowler, who he believed to be responsible for Kate’s death, at gunpoint, only to find that Fowler was just as much a pawn as he was.

Peter Burke is another one of the few people Neal trusts, but even then he doesn’t always act like it. Peter and Neal have an odd, amiable sort of respect for each other as law enforcement official and felon, and there might even be a bit of a brotherly bond there as well, but there is also an element of mistrust. They trust each other just about as much as a law enforcement official should trust a felon, but it’s obvious that Peter has a lot of faith in Neal to do something better with his life, if he could just learn to play by the rules, which is something Neal … will probably never do. Neal sees the rules as just as much of a cage as a prison cell, and when he’s forced to play by them, it makes him tense. He’s forced to walk around with a literal reminder of the cage he’s in attached to his ankle every day, and he’s not allowed to forget it the way most people are. It’s something that gets under his skin frequently, and that he tries to get around as often as he can.

But as a person as a whole, Neal is witty, charming, and cautiously friendly. He knows how to use people and get them to do what he wants, but he’s also capable of being an extremely stand-up friend and having your back when your neck is on the line. He’s intelligent enough to try and play the rules, and most of the time does his best to do just that, but he’s got good intentions if nothing else.

THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:

He knew the choice was wrong.

It was so simple. The whole think was laid out in front of him on a silver platter, and only an idiot wouldn’t have taken it. He knew where the person who killed Kate was going to be, and he knew how to get him alone where no one would be able to stop him, without the FBI knowing he had gone out of his radius. It was all there, each and every step just leading into the other, and it wouldn’t have been more tempting if Kate herself was pointing the way.

He should have known that it was too easy.

He was sitting in his apartment, staring at the chessboard and trying to figure out when his life got to be like this. He had spent so long running and trying to keep himself from becoming a pawn that he let himself get boxed in and became one anyway. Neal used to think he was so slippery that nothing would ever hold him, but Kate did, and in the end, it was her that had her confined to a two mile box and working for one of the things he had fought so hard against. It’s not Peter, and it’s not even the bureau itself, but what it stood for. The rules and regulations, and a total lack of freedom that somehow turned the world into a prison—just with better clothes.

The minutes ticked by, and soon Neal couldn’t just sit still anymore. He shoved himself away from the table, ready to leave and damn the consequences. He needed to do something. He needed to figure out whether or not Fowler was lying. He needed to know who killed Kate. He had been so sure of that answer for so long, and now, this man was telling him that everything that he knew was wrong. All he had left was this drive to find answers to his questions, and that was an odd feeling. Usually he was the one with the answers because he was the one making the questions. Now, he had no control at all.

He pushed to his feet, and started to make his way towards the door, but when he threw it open—he wasn’t staring at the interior of June’s penthouse. He was staring at another door and walls that he didn’t recognize. He paused, closed the door and turned around again, taking in a room that certainly wasn’t his own. In fact, he had never seen it before in his life.

“Well,” he said, more confused now than he was when he started. “This is new.”

FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:

[after several attempts to try and LEAVE the castle, Neal gets the message. Really. He does. He’s trapped. He’s spent the last twenty minutes analyzing the journal to try and figure out how it works, but that’s not getting him very far either, so he decides it’s time to reach out and speak to the masses]

I have to say I’m a little impressed. The castle motif is a little fairy tale and cliché, but I think you do it well. Add to the fact that you have a hell of a security system—it’s not a bad trap. If this is the FBI—you’ve definitely stepped up your game. I did not know that teleportation was in your bag of tricks.

But fun and games are over. I’m pretty sure that changing the conditions of my house arrest without a hearing is against the rules. Time to take me home, Peter.

[a beat]

Diana?

[double beat, and this sounds a little more hopeful than serious]

Jones? Come on—this really isn’t funny anymore.

[sighs after he gets no answer, and flops down on the bed]

This is juuuuuuust great.

INTENT: I’ve been wanting to play Neal in a panfandom for a while, and I think I need someone new in Para. It’s been about eight months since I apped someone new, and a fresh perspective on the castle could be a bit more fun for me. … That’s about it.