(no subject)

Out Of Character
Name: Katie
Age: 33
Personal Journal: Don't have one
Contact: siriuslydementd Name of Player Who Invited You: Beth

In Character
Name: Neal Cassidy (Baelfire)
Canon: Once Upon a Time
Canon Point: 3x11
Sex/Gender:Male
Actual Age/Apparent Age: 300 or so/Mid-30s



Belongings: Just what he's wearing and what's in his pockets: a wallet and phone.

Skills and Powers: He's just a normal baseline human who's really good at drawing.

Bookmark Description:
Basically a miniature dream catcher on a key ring, like this one.

History and Personality:
History

The main aspects of Neal's personality stem from his abandonment issues. He's never really had a family, so it's the one thing he's wanted for his whole life. The fact that he himself was abandoned has given him some guilt over doing the same thing to Emma, and this guilt got worse once he realized he also abandoned the son he never knew about. This has motivated many of the things he has done in the time since then, attempting to assuage this guilt and to be there like he should have from the start. His sparse childhood, followed by a life of moving from place to place and his subsequent years of avoiding being found by his father have taught him how to hide and how to make do with what's available.

He's determined not to make the same mistakes his father did. He sees magic as the source of all the problems between him and his father, and dislikes what he sees as his father's excessive use of it. His dislike and distrust of magic has lessened some after his reunion with his father, and after he's used a little of it himself. He's still cautious, but he's not as opposed to it as he used to be. Using magic to get back to his son has helped to soften his opinion.

He's essentially a good man, he just sometimes has a problem with doing the right thing. When it comes right down to it, for a family member, he will do anything within his power. If there's someone he thinks he can trust, he will defend them no matter what, and once someone loses his trust, he has a hard time trusting them again. His arrival itself in the library won't phase him much; he's used to traveling between worlds, and to arriving in unknown worlds. It's the nature of the island, the fact that there's some unseen presence that has trapped him here for some unexplained purpose that will bother him. He doesn't like feeling he's being controlled, manipulated, or used. In the end, though, he will get used to that too.

Everything he does is for family. The biggest decisions he has made in his life have been influenced by his desire for family, even as a child. He searched out the bean that caused him to end up in the land without magic because that was the only way to restore his father to himself, which was the most important thing. He took being left by his father so hard because his father was the only family he had left. Despite the estrangement, his disappointment in who his father had become, and his desire to have nothing to do with the man who broke his promise and abandoned him, when that man was threatened he didn't hesitate to do what was necessary to allow him to stay alive. The fact that he has so recently lost his father will make him more determined than ever to get back to Emma and Henry, who are his family now.

He has felt guilt over what he did to Emma ever since he did it. It's why he did what he could to make sure she was taken care of (by arranging for her to get the car and the money). He still hadn't forgiven himself for it the next time he saw her, and understands that it might be hard for her to forgive him. He never actually asks for her forgiveness, and he may not even think he deserves it. This guilt is the reason he didn't come to Storybrooke when he had the chance. While he still loves her, and wants the chance for them to be a family, he eventually realizes that they are a family no matter what. In the end, he wants Emma to live her life, even if it isn't a life with him in it.

Ultimately the decisions he makes are tied into his desire to be a better father to Henry than his own father was to him. While he goes to Storybrooke because his father's life is in danger, he stays there for a chance to get to know Henry. When he finds out that Emma, and especially Henry, are in Neverland, he puts aside his own personal feelings about the place to find a way back there, to help bring Henry home. Family is more important to him than his own safety.

When it comes to keeping anyone he considers family safe, he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

He keeps mostly to himself, stemming from his desire not to draw attention to himself. When he meets someone new, he's friendly and polite, but reveals only as much information as he has to. The fewer questions about his past, the better. His daily routine consists mostly of going between whatever job he has at the moment and his apartment. He doesn't have many close friends, just acquaintances from his job or the stores he frequents. Even though he has settled down now, he still lives with the anticipation that he'll need to pick up everything and move on to somewhere new.


Samples



First Person/Action brackets:
[Audio]

Hello? I think this is how this works. I hope someone can hear me. All I know really is that this place, wherever it is, is not where I expected to end up, but I'll worry about that next. This is more important. It's probably a long shot, but has anybody seen or heard from my family? A woman called Emma, and a boy named Henry. He's eleven. [So many years that he missed, when he should have been there. For both of them. If it hadn't been for Pan's curse, he could have been. Maybe, hope against hope, they'll be here too, and he can be there in all the ways he couldn't before.]

They're probably sticking their noses somewhere their noses don't belong, but don't hold that against them. They wouldn't be them if they didn't do that. So if you do find them, let me know, and tell them I'm looking for them. Oh, and my name's Neal, by the way.

Thank you.

Third Person/Prose:
TDM