Application for Labyrinthium

[amicustenebris]

OOC INFORMATION

Player Name: Jaq

Pronoun Preferences: She/They

Contact: jacqui dot larson84 at gmail dot com

Are you over the age of 18?: Yes

Invitation Link: https://labyrinmods.dreamwidth.org/6704.html?thread=1313328#cmt1313328

Current Characters: None

Link to Permissions: http://amicustenebris.dreamwidth.org/516.html

 

IC INFORMATION

Character Name: Rumpelstiltskin/Mister Gold

Species: Human

Canon: Once Upon a Time

Canon Point: Before the final episode of season 3

Character Age: 250+

CRAU: No

CRAU Explanation: N/A

Character Appearance: Appears to be late 40s to early/mid 50s. Mr. Gold stands a not-so-towering 5'6" and is almost always wearing dark suits and shirts, with the occasional pop of color on the tie or the pocket square. (Blue when he's behaving himself. Red when he's not. Purple when he could go in any direction, some say.) He wears a moonstone ring on one hand and is never seen walking without a gold-handled cane. He has brown, shoulder-length hair with shocks of salt and pepper throughout and large, expressive brown eyes; there's often a sad look to him. He speaks in an accent that will clock to most people as Scottish despite never having been there, and the smell of old books and floral perfumes permeate in his presence. In terms of bearing, he walks with a slight limp and is rarely seen without a cane..

Powers and Abilities: In his canon, magic differs on every world, so it takes the Dark One a while to figure out how his magic will work in this setting -- he will therefore not be thrown as he could be to find his magic missing/inaccessible at first. As the Dark One and a long-lived practitioner of magic, he is an expert in many forms with vast knowledge. What he can perform as one who has studied how it works versus the power he has as the Dark One lies largely in how it is applied: Dark One deals require consent -- it can be dubious, not his fault if you don't fully read the contracts you sign -- and those spells can be a great deal more powerful.

A forewarning, though: All magic has a price. All of it. Casting a spell is like dropping a pebble in a pond -- it creates ripples, and however small, the world around it has to displace itself to make room for that pebble. The bigger the spell -- the more change you are enacting in the world -- the more you pay because of the amount of rebalancing reality has to do to accommodate the change you made. Some are flat impossible (like restoring someone to life). Now, did you throw a pebble in, or an entire boulder? As a broker of this knowledge, The Dark One has shown he can do each of the following, in various capacities:

Wards/Potions/Charms - These are usually complicated and require specific objects or ingredients to do so, and said ingredients can and often do operate on fairy tale logic. For example: Rumpelstiltskin can cast a protective ward around an area, but it requires using special chalk. That chalk would have had to have been fortified in some way -- perhaps imbued in Holy Water or carved out by a craftsman who never told lies. He managed to bottle the essence of magic by getting a hair each from a couple in true love, which creates its own magic, thus allowing himself to access his powers again in the world without magic. He can track a person if he has an object that belonged to them, provided they're on the same plane and/or not dead (at the time). He could create a specific ward or charm against or for a person if he has a possession of theirs or something as simple as a hair. Even their name, if he uses it correctly, can be put into a spell. (He used Emma Swan's birth name, for instance, as a trigger to reawaken himself from the first curse in the series.) What's important, and what probably limits these things the most, is that he can't take any of these things without permission. They have to be given freely or won fairly by someone.

Heart Removal/Control - The Dark One can remove a person's heart without killing them, holding it allows him complete control over that person and until their heart is returned, they are compelled to obey. Crushing it will kill them.

Telekinesis/Immobilization - Gold can throw invisible force, lift people and objects, and also paralyze people to stop them interfering with him or running away. It lasts for as long as he's concentrating on it.

Healing - He can heal virtually any injury provided the person in question is still alive.

Fireballs - He can make balls of fire in his hands, and he can throw them.

Teleportation - Gold has shown the ability to teleport to places that he knows. He would not be able to go behind locked doors if he's never been on the other side before or places that otherwise he might be warded from.

Transformation/Polymorph - He can transform people and objects -- he can't grant immortality, but he can make you younger, or age you. He can transform people into different animals, or into different people. He spins straw and wool into gold -- he's kinda known for that! He turned a man into a snail just so he could step on him once.

Youth Eternal - Gold is also incapable of being killed, save by the Dark One's dagger, which didn't come with him. He will heal from virtually any injury or sickness unless he is cut off from his magic. (Example: being sent out into a world with no magic at all, beyond the borders of Storybrooke, would render him powerless and capable of being killed or poisoned. The latter is effective in that any poison or sickness he incurs, if allowed to run their course long enough to weaken him too much, even if returned his powers won't heal him and another means to cure him must be found.) Note: The dagger will not appear ingame unless for agreed-upon, plot reasons, because its holder can also command him.

What Did Your Character Wish For?: To have the murder of his son undone, even if it means returning to being dead himself.

What Potion Did They Receive? The Golden Potion (naturally). He transforms into a red fox.

Did They Drink It? With his understanding that he is NOT in Wonderland (never ingest anything in Wonderland with clearly written directions on it) and that it will take him time to acclimate to the magic here, he will take what advantages that he can going in. And if it manifested as it does in the TDM, then the Holly absolutely gave him the gremlin-brain to make him drink it on impulse. There was an initial feeling of panic, then understanding he knew this was magic and how to use it. (New Magic? F*ck yeah, New Magic!) It took him more than one try to fully transform back though. He might have initially had a bushy tail that wouldn't go away at first. Sometimes sharp teeth. Maybe retractable claws and whiskers.

Character Questions: Keep this section to a maximum of 1000 words, give or take.

1. Who is the person your character is most bonded with from their canon? Or who is someone they miss the most? Most bonded with would be Belle -- they were going to get married, after all, but she's the one he trusts the most. Who he misses the most would be his son, Neal/Baelfire: Gold died to protect his family (the woman he loved, his son, and his grandchild), and someone tricked Neal into paying with his life to bring him back.

2. What are they most afraid of? Being enslaved again.

3. What is their weakness? Emotionally, mentally and physically? Before he was the Dark One, Gold was a very bullied person and even when all-powerful his first instinct is to take almost any opposition like he's still being bullied, and he will become defensive.

4. What would make them happiest? To be home with his family, with his son alive. He will settle for going back to being dead if it means Neal gets to live, though.

5. What’s their type for a lover? Kind. Thoughtful and with depth. Patient, especially since he is not always that, even toward himself. Loves him in return.

Samples: Link to 1 sample with at least 5 comments from you in a singular thread with one other character. This is also what we require for AC. https://buttrinthum.dreamwidth.org/11937.html?thread=8077729#cmt8077729 The first thread has 5 comments from him. I can provide more samples from PSLs if need be.

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Comments

Revisions: Character Questions Expanded

[amicustenebris]

Apologies! The application said to keep it under a word count and I wasn't sure if that was for the whole thing or each question, so I held back. Personality sections are usually my favorite part to write:

Character Questions:
1. Who is the person your character is most bonded with from their canon? Or who is someone they miss the most? The Belle of his universe is his current strongest bond; she is very much his true love and best friend, though he had a very hard time accepting that at first and he is presently in both the best and worst place with her right now. Best because they were just recently reunited again after his death and eventual resurrection and capture -- he had just proposed, not wishing to allow any other happenstance in Storybrooke to delay them beginning a life together. Worst because in his proposal he lied to her about starting over fresh and created an alibi in it right before he went off to murder someone (who, in fairness, enslaved him and killed his son). He is forever anxious about being left and is convinced no matter what he chooses to do it will be his fault. Belle has always been very patient and optimistic about him being a better person than simply the Dark One, and in many cases her presence has made him a better individual overall. But he is still the Dark One, and he went through some very recent trauma that he is absolutely not dealing with. The kind that at least one Dark One before him has committed suicide over.

So while Belle seeing the good in him has been a constant, now more than ever he is convinced it will only last until she gives up, and that time always feels ever sooner.

Who Gold misses the most would be his son, Neal/Baelfire, who has been at the center of every major turn his fate has taken. He places no greater value in himself than as a father, something he always wanted to be. When he was drafted into the army and a seer told him that not only would he have a child, but his choices on the field of battle the next day would leave the boy fatherless, he chose to mutilate himself so he would be sent home from the front lines. Branded a coward for the rest of his days, but alive and present in his son's life. He became the Dark One to stop his son, still a child, from being drafted into the army himself, and when the magic began to change him, he lost the boy when he broke a promise to leave with him where the magic couldn't follow them. He spent the next 200 years working to reunite with him in the world without magic and repair their relationship. He ultimately succeeded though his son, now Neal, had grown since and had a son himself. Gold ultimately died to protect his family (the woman he loved, his son, and his grandchild), and someone tricked Neal into paying with his life to bring him back. He tried to delay it for as long as possible but Neal eventfully forced him to allow the curse to take its course. Outliving his own child, he is living in his worst nightmare and resents being alive again. Even if he promised to honor Neal's sacrifice and try to be a better man.

At this point he just thinks a better man would not be living on the back of his son's life, and if he can reverse it here, that is what he will do.

2. What are they most afraid of? Being enslaved again. To expand though, Gold is a fearful and anxious person and always has been. For the longest time, like any Dark One, what he most feared was death. He ultimately faced that fear by sacrificing his life to kill someone who threatened his loved ones and everyone they held dear. He accepted it and went to his grave knowing he did the right thing in the end. Then he was forced back to life. Zelena, a former apprentice of his, whose affections he rejected because A. The Curse that would get him to the World Without Magic requires the caster to kill the thing they love the most and he wasn't going to risk being on the chopping block, and B. She is the daughter of the last person he was in a serious relationship with. She merely took the rejection at face value, and when she seized the Dark One's dagger, rather than use it to kill him and take his power (the only thing capable of doing this), she used it instead to control him and at some turns try to force a relationship with him, because he cannot say "no" to anyone who holds it. He came into his freedom insistent on appearing "fine" but also to prevent this happening again under any circumstance.

Since again, at least one other Dark One achieved this goal by killing themselves, someone probably should have done more to check on him.

3. What is their weakness? Emotionally, mentally and physically? Before he was the Dark One, Gold was a very bullied person. He was branded a coward, tended to be quiet and unassuming to invite less abuse, and was disabled. After years of emotional abuse from a wife who would rather he died in the war, and generally having the worst possible reputation in the place where they lived, he expects derision if not outright violence from anyone that approaches him, even now, if they have the means to act on it. Even when all-powerful, his first instinct is to take almost any opposition like he's still being bullied, and he will become defensive. The problem is that he forgets he is not that person anymore, or that he is definitely almost always bringing a flamethrower to a pillow fight. He is also very much the fae thing in stories about unassuming visitors. When faced with a stranger, if a person is good to them, they will be rewarded. If they choose to be their worst selves because they can think of no consequences, he will very much introduce ALL of the consequences to them, plus some new ones, and will take pleasure and feel completely justified in doing it.

The dark magic very much found in him someone for whom its purpose lets him live out his worst revenge fantasies. It took a very long time before he learned any real restraint in this regard.

4. What would make them happiest? If he were conducting an interview he would give the answer he's supposed to give because he's "fine:" To be home with his wife to be, married, and creating their home together. He wants to see his grandson grow up and for him and Belle to see the world she is so curious about -- he's a homebody but he'd go on an adventure if it made her happy. He tries new things because she encourages him to.

But in his heart of hearts, he wants his son to have not been murdered. He wants him to have the full, happy life he always wanted him to have (he wants that for Belle and his grandson, too, and he thinks always that he is the most replaceable thing to let go of in that equation), and if Gold, himself, has to go back to being dead for that to happen, and it will definitely make that possible, he will agree to it.

5. What’s their type for a lover? Kind. He is very slow to trust kindness but he respects it a great deal -- it's why it makes him so angry if it's a lie. It is very hard for him to be, himself, but when he tries to be and succeeds, it's not transactional so he knows it's real. He likes thoughtful people, with depth, who are not afraid to hold conversations about it and will not deride your own, even if they are different. Patient people astound him, especially since he is not always that, even toward himself. The problem is that he often appears patient, when in reality he is just very accustomed to putting up with a lot from people he has reason to care about, or appearing unbothered by those he does not, and this will eventually boil over and lead to an explosive reaction. So truly patient people? He admires. But he also silently worries that they will stop being patient, too, and then he's out.

Most important: they have to love him in return. So much of his life is him giving a lot to people hoping they will give back, and often staying or waiting too long because it's one-sided. He is so used to this that his first instinct now is to assume no one really likes him and merely tolerates him, at best; if they show him affection, it is either a joke, something he misinterpreted, or at its worst: a lie meant to hurt him. Outside of his life as the Dark One, he struggles to be taken care of because it has always been his job to take care of others in his close circle and never expect anything back. It's what justifies him taking up space. He's useful, he does not complain. Therefore his existence is more acceptable than his absence. So to have someone who puts forward the same effort he does because they see him as worthwhile is novel but also something he very much needs.