paradisa application ;

[raleighs]

PERSONAL
NAME: Melanie
PERSONAL JOURNAL: Not a thing I have. Can I interest you in a plurk instead?
EMAIL: crimsongrace07@gmail.com
AIM: crimsongrace07
CURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A


CHARACTER
CHARACTER NAME: Raleigh Becket
SERIES: Pacific Rim
CANON POINT: Post movie canon. After he and Mako seal the Breach and are rescued off the floating escape pod in the middle of the ocean.
LOSS: His brother's bomber jacket. Raleigh has a matching one from their time as Jaeger pilots but Yancy's is precious because it's the only thing of his that Raleigh has left.

ABOUT THE CHARACTER: There are two Raleighs. The Raleigh Becket who was a kid on top of the world, fighting monsters with his brother and best friend, who drank orange juice right out of the bottle and smiled easily and laughed easier. Then his brother died and Raleigh does nearly a one eighty and becomes the somber man, who knows that he made a mistake and is just trying to live with the consequences of that and make it through the next day.

He's an insomniac, spends most of his time trying to work himself into exhaustion so he can lay down without feeling like his skin is going to crawl off. He didn't just lose a brother that night, he lost the other half of his person, his reference point and Raleigh spends the next five years wrapped in his grief. He's lost so much that he turns cold, a little bit more aggressive and a little quicker to anger. Most people don't make it past his hard exterior to learn what he's really like. Nine times out of ten he can ignore something, brush off an insult but on that tenth time, he'll just punch you right in the face. And you don't even get nine chances if you insult someone that he cares about. Raleigh punched Chuck Hansen after he insulted Mako and refused to apologize. He's really only sorry that the fight was interrupted before he could beat Chuck to a pulp. It's easier for him to solve his problems with his fists because he's not that great with words.

He's always been an introvert and preferred to have a few close friends rather than a hundred lukewarm friends. That tendency only got worse after Yancy's death. Raleigh's the kind of guy who hates people, hates crowds, can't stand it when people start to look at him with pity and try to offer their sympathy. He really can't stand it when people try to pry into his personal life, what he does is his own business, not yours. The first person he really tried to form a new relationship with after leaving the PPDC was Mako Mori. And it was less of trying tentatively and more like throwing himself at her because whether he will admit it or not, he was starved for attention, for human contact. And Mako gave him the first glimmer of something in years and suddenly, it wasn't about letting someone into his head anymore, it was about grabbing Mako and getting into the giant robot. That said, he is still generally picky about who he befriends but he is extremely loyal, like a dog, to the ones that he lets into his circle and he could use some more friends to balance him out.

But speaking of dogs, Raleigh is prickly on the outside and stand-offish but he is a big gooey dork on the inside. Despite appearances, he really does love humanity, would sacrifice his life to save the world (and almost did). He believes in what people can do, how great they can be, and all that greeting card stuff. He has a passion for construction equipment, loves to build things just because he can, keeps a stash of hard candies in his pocket because he has a sweet tooth for them, and he eats up anything related to World War II that he can get his hands on. He's not cool or suave. He's a dude that doesn't even bother putting on his belt the right way and walks around with his thumbs hooked in his waistband. And he has a deep love for sweaters.

Raleigh is both dedicated and loyal and insubordinate and selfish depending on his mood and the circumstance. Raleigh and his brother were commissioned as the inaugural crew of Gipsy Danger and he took that duty very seriously... for about three and a half years until Yancy died. After Yancy was torn from the conn pod of the Jaeger, Raleigh managed to kill the kaiju and make it to shore on his own, which shows his determination to finish things, his loyalty to his duty but then he promptly quit the Jaeger problem because he refused to let anyone else into his head like that. Raleigh eventually went back to the Jaeger program and piloted Gipsy Danger on his own again in the breach. He sent Mako to safety and completed the mission, even though he knew he was more likely to die doing it than to survive. He fights with his commanding officer about the decision to bench Mako after a disastrous trial run. Goes as far to chase Pentecost down the hall and grab his arm to make him listen to him and-- boy was that a mistake. Which he realizes without Stacker dressing him down for it but Stacker does anyway. And Raleigh checks his anger, checks the fact that he's right about Mako, because it's not his call to make. It's not his place and he checks his ego when Pentecost calls for it. Because he is a Ranger at heart and he might deviate and be impulsive and hard to predict but he respects authority for what it is.

It's kind of amazing and note worthy that given what Raleigh does for a living, he doesn't have an ego. Jaeger pilots are treated like rockstars where he's from, they have groupies and are practically worshiped for what they do. And yeah, in the beginning, Raleigh lapped up the attention because he was an eighteen year old kid given a giant robot and told to go punch giant monsters. He liked the attention from girls, even fought with Yancy over one, a fight that nearly sidelined their careers because a whole mess of resentment between the brothers spilled out. But he's grown up, he's matured and quieted down. And he doesn't really give a crap what people think about him. He's not an ambitious guy, first content to live in his brother's shadow because Yancy was better than him at pretty much everything and Raleigh knew that but that was never something they fought about. It wasn't something that Yancy rubbed in his face either, it just was. And he kind of naturally falls into that place with Mako too, where he spends more time acting as her cheerleader than he does anything else.

ABILITIES: He says it himself, he was never a star athlete or the brightest in school but he could hold his own in a fight. The movie makes it seem like anyone can Drift, as Newton and Hermann drift with a kaiju but it's clear that not everyone has what it takes to be a Jaeger pilot.

THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:

Strangely, when it's all over is when he misses Yancy the most. Obviously he missed his brother and best friend over the last five years, but with the loss of Yancy, the loss of Gipsy Danger, the wall being built and the Jaeger program supposedly ending, he always had this nagging thought running in the back of his head that reminded him that he'd be joining Yancy soon. Because the world was ending. And you don't think about a normal life when you're facing the apocalypse. You think about how you're going to get food tonight, and if you'll have at least a roof over your head even though it'd still be cold as fuck because you are still living in fucking Alaska.

Now Raleigh Becket has nothing but a normal life ahead of him (minus the fame of being the Jaeger pilot that saved the world) and the ache that is Yancy's death opens like a raw, ragged wound. Yancy was the time before K-Day, before the world went to shit, back when they were just teenagers watching TV after school, back when their parents were still around and they were still on speaking terms with their little sister. It's more real now that his brother is never coming back than when it happened.

Raleigh doesn't know where he fits in this new world. The world has no need for heroes anymore, no need for the Jaeger program, no need even for the PPDC, and there goes his career right out the fucking window. He was a washed up Jaeger pilot once before, he could go back to doing that again, he supposes but if people stared at him the last time for being the fallen Ranger that lost a brother and wrecked a billions of dollars Jaeger, then that's nothing compared to what it's like now. They practically gape at him, and want to shake his hand and pat his shoulder and tell him thank you until his skin crawls and he has to find an exit route.

People still annoy him, crowds still freak him out, and he doesn't think that will ever change. Once he reveled in it, stood tall with his brother, above everyone else because they were Jaeger pilots. But that was then and this is now, and he's been fed more than his fair share of humble pie. He doesn't want fame or money or some fancy job with the reconstruction projects. That's Mako's thing, she's made for that stuff, because she's brilliant and dedicated and he's actually not that smart, just a guy with a big mouth and a chip on his shoulder the size of his dead brother.

Raleigh just wants to live and finding he doesn't remember how. Which is really just the kind of horrible irony that's made up his life so far. Raleigh's finishing up packing what little he brought to the Hong Kong Shatterdome with him, his sweaters and his pictures. They have to leave tomorrow, the building's been officially decommissioned and everyone's been reassigned or accepted a new position or resigned. He hasn't done any of that, holding out to the last second to make up his mind. Maybe he'll follow Mako wherever she goes or take the job that he knows Marshall Hansen wants him to take or he'll go back to Alaska, visit Yancy and his parents' graves or something depressing like that. He's thought about calling up his sister too but what the fuck do you even say after like eight years of silence? Good job surviving the end of the world? You're welcome?

He throws the last pair of socks into his duffel bag and zips it up. Whatever he decides on, he'll figure it out tomorrow. Tonight, he promised Tendo and the other stragglers a game of poker and that he and Mako wouldn't cheat with their freaky mind connection.

FIRST-PERSON JOURNAL SAMPLE:

Linking this. I hope that this works. I can provide more if you want!

INTENT: I'm not sure I have an answer. I enjoy playing him because he's different from the traditional action heroes and it's refreshing to play.