Entry tags:
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
exitvoid app
player.
NAME/HANDLE: Chris
PERSONAL JOURNAL:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fairytalelie
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: KawaiiSpinel42 (AIM), quasigina (plurk).
OTHER CHARACTERS: N/A
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Mr. Gold | Rumplestiltskin
SERIES: Once Upon a Time. His wiki history is here (Rumple) and here (Mr. Gold).
CANON POINT: 2X11: The Outsider, but before Hook shoots Belle over the town line, so basically that point where everything was going to be okay for about five minutes.
AGE: He's at least 300 years old, but appears to be in his early fifties.
APPEARANCE: Robert Carlyle is an actual silver fox. He's 5'8, walks with an obvious limp and has to use a cane, and he's always impeccibly dressed. In Fairy Tale Land, he looks like Mick Jagger crossed with a lizard. With leather pants.
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: N/A
PERSONALITY: Some villains believe they're the heroes of the story, but Rumplestiltskin isn't one of them. Maybe one he thought that was who he wanted to be, but "Dark One" is not synonymous with hero, so even if he believed he was doing good there for awhile, illusions fade and with the loss of his son, so went his tenuous hold on sanity and allowed him to fall into madness. And he is a bit mad in more ways than one, although this is more obvious in his Enchanted Forest persona. Rumplestiltskin is a man shaped by three hundred years of making deals and watching whole kingdoms rise and fall. He's met many people and taken on their attributes, because he has no idea who he is anymore, beyond a monster. Certainly not a poor, cowardly, utterly harmless spinner. In Gold, we see a calmer version of the flamboyant trickster of the Enchanted Forest- a man who deals in smirks, not giggles, but is no less of a fearsome foe should you cross him and that old madness is still there, boiling away. Fairy tales need grander gestures, but the real world deals in the subtleties he so loves. If anything, Gold is a living representative of all the cliches that the real world expects from the rich and powerful, just as Rumplestiltskin is a fairy tale's villain. It's all part of the act and he's big on theatrics. He has many roles and he plays all of them well- as Rumplestiltskin, he's the trickster playing with words and people for his own ends and acting as the catalyst for every story, if not outwardly the villain; as Gold, he is everything from the heartless loan shark to the unforgiving landlord to the corrupt attorney- the villains in every real world situation. But, for the most part, in every incarnation, he's the Faustian demon everyone turns to in their hour of need and the worst kind of chessmaster.
For being perfectly comfortable in his villainy, Rumple has standards and, in fact, is hardly the sort of person to revel in his wrongdoings. He's a monster- it's what he is- and anyone who misses that deserves what they get, but that's the long and short of it. He doesn't murder whole towns for sport, and while he might screw you over and trifle with technicalities, he'll almost never lie to you (you just need to be paying close attention to his word choice- words are important weapons and he wields them well) and if you play by his rules, he has no interest in harming you and usually prefers to talk his way out of situations before he resorts to physical violence (or, in most cases, magic). He might have been the type to make grand gestures and murder innocents when it suited him when he was new to this (and those innocents were never innocent in his mind- they had done something to upset him, even if it was trivial, but in his mind NO ONE is innocent), but now he's more suited to subtle means and smaller weapons- deals and contracts, as opposed to massacres. People come to him for favors and he grants their every wish... for a price, and usually the favors work in his favor too (there's very few pots in the Enchanted Forest he hasn't stirred). It works out fine, even if most people leave his company wishing they'd never met him, but so long as they pay for his services, everything is fine. Deals are important to him. Sacred, even. He never breaks them and he won't have them broken, in turn.
He's addicted to his magic, believing it to be a crutch. He rejects true love's kiss that could have saved him from his curse as the Dark One, simultaneously out of fear of betrayal and also because it would mean giving up on a chance at seeing his son again. He brought magic to Storybrooke for much the same reason- because he believed he wouldn't be able to find his son without it. But it's more than just a father's desperation- he loves control. He loves having power. It's everything he never had when he was a poor cowardly spinner and now that he's a cowardly all-powerful near-god, he needs it more than ever, because he's tasted it and fears going back to being nothing. It's why in stressful situations, he always falls back on self-preservation- not just to save his own life, but to save the parts of him he feels he needs. He's a desperate soul, no matter how collected he might appear, and no end is too extravagant to get what he wants. This, however, makes him very good at finding other desperate souls and getting them to do whatever he wants, especially if it means he can avoid paying the price for it. He does so love a good loophole and if he can avoid a situation by tempting someone else into doing it for him, then he'll move the pieces until they're exactly where he wants them to be. It's easy to tell when you're a part of Rumple's schemes, but, unfortunately, by the time you're desperate enough to come to him, you don't care that you're playing right into his hands. Say what you will of him, but he gets results. Conversely, however, it means he's just as easily manipulated. He has very obvious weaknesses and once zeroed in on, you can make him move nearly any way you choose, provided you don't make him angry enough to just flat-out out turn on you.
As long as he holds all the cards in a situation and still has pieces on the board, he's fine with a situation. He's hyperconfident in everything he does and nothing shakes him when he knows he's in control and approaches every situation rationally with some catty remark and a smirk and little emotion (if its Gold) or excessive glee (if its Rumple). He won't do anything he doesn't want to do and won't hesitate to say "no" if he thinks he can't get anything out of it. This also means he's an opportunist and will strike deals with people he actively despises, because they have something he wants or he has a use for them and even being a man who holds grudges, he can lay them aside for a greater agenda if he doesn't feel like he's been cornered into it. Almost every plan he concocts has a back-up plan ready to be put into place if the first plan fails and it's hard to say exactly how good he is at predicting outcomes (he can see the future to some extent, but he also believes people have a choice and that nothing is really set in stone) or if he's just so adaptable, he can change his game to suit how the situation has changed- likely both. However, as soon as he loses his control, things fall apart very quickly. He goes from being an incredibly intelligent, calm, placid man with a sense of style and a sassy streak three miles wide to being a desperate, fumbling fool not much different than the spinner he started out as or, at the worst, the vicious monster he claims to be. Breaking a deal with him is considered high treason, betraying him is only a little bit lower, and God help you if you hurt something he loves, because once that happens, all bets are off. He's not above petty vengeance and he's especially not above finding some way to end the people who've wronged him in underhanded and utterly devastating ways if he doesn't flat out and snap and cane them to death. He can be sensible and rational, but he can also be wild, unpredictable, and temperamental depending on what's happening around him. As he has a tendency to see only what he wants to see, he can also be extremely foolish, which is what allows him to be manipulated so easily.
Equal parts self-loathing and self-deluding, he hates himself immensely and believes himself to be a monster, but won't be the first to blame himself for why things are the way they are- at least not outwardly. Wrongs done to him will be inflicted back twofold and he can hold a grudge for an eternity. Even if he knows in his heart something was his fault, having someone around he can scapegoat makes it easier on him- he blames Milah for abandoning Baelfire, blames Hook for Milah's death, blames Maurice for abandoning Belle, and blames the Blue Fairy for sending Baelfire to another world. Technically, every one of those incidents were his own fault, but rather than accept the guilt and move on, he tries to shove it off on others and punish them. Punishing people is easy and it's a cheat to make himself feel better for awhile. It's how he's gotten what he wants since he became the Dark One and it's the only way he knows how to use his power, especially when nothing with that power can bring back his loved ones and make things any better. That isn't to say he can't become utterly devastated when his actions have consequences on those he loves and there is some amount of internalized self-blame there- he's not heartless, despite everything, and he can be repentant for his actions, but there's very few things that can get these reactions out of him. For the most part, he's an unrepentant jackasss who thinks everyone who comes into contact with him brings their pain on themselves because they're the ones who asked and they're the ones who believed he'd be a good person.
He projects his own fears and insecurities and self-loathing onto other people, assuming that because he is awful and no good that everyone else is, as well. If he makes a baseless accusation about someone's true intentions, it's probably because he tried to do it once and it ended badly for him (hence his belief that intent is meaningless). He suffers crippling abandonment issues and has sincere doubts over whether or not anyone is truly capable of actually loving him, due to the fact that every person he's ever cared for (save one) has outright rejected him. Because of this, he generally distrusts kindness given freely without want for payment and is suspicious of everyone's motives, since he genuinely believes that people are scum, regardless of how often he sees the good people can do. Showing him kindness is the quickest way to cow him, because he doesn't know how to handle it, and due to this attitude, he feels obligated to repay any debt and have debts repaid, in turn. He won't ask for help unless he's desperate and even then, he'll barter for it and expect nothing given out of the goodness of other people's hearts. It's difficult for him to break this mentality- even having honest proof that Belle loves him isn't enough to keep him from thinking he has no future with her. He's a difficult man to love by his own admission and when someone loves him, it tends to be the only thing that can keep him grounded and out of the dark somewhat- this is not just evidenced by Belle, but by how quickly he was willing to destroy the source of his power when he believed August was his son, proving he would have extended the same courtesies to his real son had circumstances not caused him to cling to his magic (and his magic and sense of self-preservation routinely trumps everything else). Conversely, it's when he loses his ties to the last shred of his humanity he has that he tends to be at his absolute darkest, because "there's no point to being good now."
He has very few genuinely good qualities, because most of them are buried under layers of bad qualities- his attempts at bravery have a tendency to culminate into acts of cowardice, his cleverness makes him manipulative, etc. He is, however, extremely passionate about everything he does, and his intentions were always good (however, AGAIN FOR THE CHEAP SEATS, intent is meaningless). He doesn't do anything specifically to hurt people unless they wrong him- he just doesn't care if people get hurt. The exception is generally children- barring a few extenuating circumstances, he's not inclined to harm children and has a soft spot for them, even going as far as helping them with no regard for payment. He also has an extreme devotion to family to the point of doing things he otherwise wouldn't do for the sake of family, even if he still has a hard time trusting the new family he's gained since finding his son again. He can't help it- his own inability to commit to redeeming himself and becoming a better man makes him a disappointment and the less people he has to disappoint, the less horrible he'll feel about it. He's the sort of person that wishes he could be Prince Charming- a dedicated, brave man who protects his family without hiding behind something as unpredictable and devastating as magic and turning to nasty habits like self-preservation and vengeance, but he also knows that was never his lot in life and it never will be. He is doomed to repeat his mistakes until he allows himself to let go and until he can do that, he'll constantly be sabotaging his own happiness and becoming an all the more darker person for it, slipping farther and farther away from the ability to simply walk from the life he's been cursed with. He has a horrible sense of self-preservation that overrides everything else to the point that he'd be willing to murder a child if it meant saving him from a terrible fate- it was only the fact that the same child was his grandson that actually stopped him, and, even then, he considered it.
Belle is his moon and stars and he has a tendency to fall over himself to please her (outwardly- he has been known to placate Belle and then sneak off and do the opposite of what she asks, because he is the worst). He loves her desperately and is extremely protective of her- if anything happens to her, he has a tendency to get very violent, and only Belle, herself, can pull him back (usually- sometimes logic wins out). He loves her dearly and she can turn a poised sorcerer into a dorky teenager at the drop of a hat. However, if Belle is his moon, then his son Baelfire (alias Neal Cassidy) is his sun. Everything he has ever done has been for Baelfire and getting his son back is his primary motivator to the point where, after believing him to be dead, he sets out on a suicide mission to save his grandson to honor him, intentionally walking into a prophecy he'd been trying to subvert for centuries. If he has Bae, then he has his happy ending and his redemption, and he tries to let very little (even Belle) get in the way of that. Those two are the only two people he truly loves and trusts, and even so, he has a hard time trusting Belle sometimes out of fear of showing her the bridge too far that will make her leave him. Nearly everyone else he might consider a friend (or a member of his extended family) is a person he wouldn't hesitate to throw under a bus if he got a mind to. Regina, his former protege, swings from being begrudging ally to worst nightmare and he spends a lot of his time wanting to murder her and knowing he can't without alienating the people he loves. Emma Swan is his trump card, his other protege, and probably his favorite chess piece- he genuinely likes her and respects her and the two of them mutually understand each other, but she's a pawn and one he intends to keep using. Prince Charming and his lovely wife are the fools he can always count on to ruin his day with demands, though Charming has made an excellent wingman on occasion. The rest of the town, Gold regards with little more than contempt until they can actually prove their worth to him and that's how Gold regards most people he hasn't decided he needs to manipulate yet- a lofty aura of contempt and sarcasm. He doesn't make friends- he makes allies. Making friends requires him to trust people and the only way you're going to earn his trust is to consistently stand by him, even when you have no reason to.
ABILITIES: As the Dark One, Gold is blessed (re: cursed) with incredible magical ability. However, this magical ability is only present in worlds that actually have magic, as evidenced by the fact that he had to actively bring magic into Storybrooke to be capable of using it and leaving town renders him incapable of using his magic. Magic rules are played fairly fast and loose in OUAT, but the basic gist of it seems to be "magic is different" in other worlds meaning spells are much harder to come by and gives him an IC excuse to be supremely nerfed. The rule of thumb I'll be using for the game is that he has minimal magical ability on the ship (enough to keep him from losing his mind and going nuts), in ports with in-universe magic systems, he'll be a bit more powerful, and in worlds with no magic system at all, he'll be unable to use magic completely. He'll never be at full power unless he's actively in the Enchanted Forest where he hails from.
In all circumstances, magic comes with a price, however. Specifically, every spell performed selfishly has a negative consequence for yourself (it may be small or huge, depending on the spell). Spells performed for other people usually mean that the person who demanded the spell pay the price. Again, the rules are fluid and the show has a problem sticking with them, but that's the best that I understand them and how I'll be playing them in-game when possible.
Gold's magic can be used to perform AT LEAST the following feats, but there's likely more (note that I'm going with literally the only things that GOLD has shown he's capable of doing outside of the Enchanted Forest, not what Rumple can do, as part of the whole IC "magic is different" nerfing thing- also I've just completely nerfed his ability to summon objects to him, because no):
Bargains: Less of a power outside the Enchanted Forest and more of a skill (as he can't manipulate reality to the same extent outside of his home realm), Gold deals in, well, deals. Basically, if you come to him for something, he will find some way to procure it for you, provided you can pay the price. It might be simple or it might be complex, but you will pay for it. He has no tolerance for people who break deals with him.
Telekinesis: He has some form of telekinesis and is capable of throwing people across rooms with a wave of his hand or pinning people to walls with a thought. This seems to be one of the easier spells to manage, even in worlds where magic is a bit different.
Dishearting: The process of ripping out a heart without killing the person it belongs to, thus enchanting it. Holding a heart means you control the person it belongs to and can make them do just about anything. Squeezing the heart or crushing it will either hurt or kill the person it belongs to. This is not a power he uses very often, however, so I wouldn't worry about him trying to collect hearts like a crazy hoarder. (That's Regina's thing.)
Enchantments: These seem to be done mainly with potions (which no one is exactly clear on how they're made beyond MAGIC AND HAIR AND SOMETIMES ENCHANTED GOLD), but can also be done with actual spells- it's all of a piece, really. Essentially, Gold can enchant objects to have a desired effect. For example, he has implied that he can manage a protection spell to keep Hook from coming near Belle, enchants a cup to trigger Belle's memories (it doesn't work), creates a potion that allows him to cross the town line without losing his memories, and a potion that can track a person so long as you pour it on an object the person owned (it has to belong specifically to them, however). The enchantments are not always foolproof and as magic will always come with a price, there tends to be side effects.
He can also heal people and himself, which I guess falls under this category.
Transfiguration/Curses: He can transform people or objects into different things, ranging from rats to puppets to pretty much whatever the hell he wants. Like the enchantments, he can also do this with potions rather than his own hand, which is how he typically deals out transfiguration spells when someone makes a request of him for one, because it usually means the person who asked for the spell will have to observe the price of the magic. (This is shown when he makes a deal with Jiminy Cricket for a potion that would get rid of his parents and he accidentally kills Gepetto's parents instead.)
He can also manufacture curses (such as the sleeping curse), but they're typically minor and not quite as large scale as the Dark Curse. The transfiguration spells are likely classified under the same heading as a traditional curse and can be broken by true love's kiss or fairy dust.
He can also spin straw into gold. But you knew that. (NOTE: I am willing to make the cost of doing most of this type of magic so much higher than it might normally be to keep him from transfiguring mundane objects on the ship into important objects all the damn time with no consequences except for an itty bitty magic price. I'd like him to still be able to in an emergency for plot relevant reasons (and poke the mods about it beforehand), but if that's too much, I'll happily nerf it completely.)
Motherfucking Dark One, Bitches: Being the Dark One gives you certain advantages that unfortunately don't translate across realms, so while Gold doesn't have his inhanced reflexes and his knee injury is still definitely a knee injury, he's still remarkably strong and resilient for a man his age. He also can't die (unless someone stabs him with the Dagger and please to enjoy being the new Dark One, person who did that). However, this only applies to the ship and ports where magic is a thing, because if magic is not a thing, he is as mortal as they come.
Also, apparently, being the Dark One makes you an evil shit whisperer, as Gold summons and sort of halfway controls a wraith at one point.
Spoilers: This probably only works on things out of the Enchanted Forest, but, hey, if the dumb monsters of the world want to obey the guy with the sexy Scottish accent and the magical dagger, let's do it.
Also he can beat the hell out of you with his cane. And let's be real, that's probably what he's going to do first if you piss him off.
POSSESSIONS:
(1) Black cane with gold handle.
(1) 300-year-old shawl that probably smells like sheep and magic.
(1) monogrammed Dark One dagger, because his life is pain and misery.
BASICALLY, THIS OUTFIT. Ring included. Plus a black winter coat that's not pictured. He's puttin' on the Ritz every day of his life.
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE: Uno | Dos | Tres
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
He will kill her one of these days- this much he's certain of.
He exits Granny's diner ahead of Regina, moving remarkably quickly for someone in his condition and leaving Regina to hasten her oh-so-regal gait. (Always unbearably regal- he knew her when she was a tomboy who could barely stand up straight and sometimes all he ever sees is a slouched shoulder little brat with wide eyes and no idea of her own potential.) Before he even acknowledges her beside him, he thinks of Belle, left with her hamburger and the company of Ruby, and his heart aches at leaving her, despite her insistence that she's fine and the pleading in her eyes telling him to be nice, be careful, and hurry back. She has no love for Regina, probably trusts her as little as he does, but she's still too reliably good to want anything awful to happen to her by his hand.
But he's always known he's going to disappoint Belle one way or another. The only unfortunate thing is that he doubts that killing Regina will be the final straw. Not because he thinks in acting on his impulses, she'll suddenly realize she's fine with it, but because some part of him will always blindly need her.
But he'll still kill her. One day.
"You need to pick your assassins better," he drawls at long last, doing a remarkable job of hiding how irritated he actually is by this turn of events. "How many times is this now?"
"One of those times," she hisses (and with all the intimidation of a pampered housecat- really, dearie, it's like you're not even trying), "was your fault."
He knows precisely which event she's referring to, and he almost plays dumb, but decides against it. They have had this conversation before and if she's still not quite grasping the concept of fine print now, she never will. "And I told you that if you're going to make a deal with me, you ought to choose your words more carefully, Your Majesty."
She scowls. He smirks. It's how they dance these days. There's too many pieces on the board, too many things their lives are all wrapped up in- they can't simply just play games with an entire town like they once did... not when they have too many people to disappoint.
"I don't care about the past," she finally snaps. "We need to focus on the current situation."
The irony of Regina not caring about the past almost makes him giggle, but that's a reaction for a man (more of a monster- but he's always a monster, no matter what skin he wears) from the past, not his current self. He must look amused even so, because off Regina's annoyed look, he just smiles and adds, "It's your past that seems to be the problem."
Maybe he won't kill her, he thinks, as she launches into another fit of frustrated yowling at how he's not treating this with the severity it deserves (he will, eventually, but not now- not while he's toying with her because she ruined his afternoon). As dangerous as she is, as much as he hates her, as much as she's a danger to the one thing he truly loves...
Well, one can't deny that the dance is almost worth it sometimes.
NAME/HANDLE: Chris
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
fairytalelieARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: KawaiiSpinel42 (AIM), quasigina (plurk).
OTHER CHARACTERS: N/A
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Mr. Gold | Rumplestiltskin
SERIES: Once Upon a Time. His wiki history is here (Rumple) and here (Mr. Gold).
CANON POINT: 2X11: The Outsider, but before Hook shoots Belle over the town line, so basically that point where everything was going to be okay for about five minutes.
AGE: He's at least 300 years old, but appears to be in his early fifties.
APPEARANCE: Robert Carlyle is an actual silver fox. He's 5'8, walks with an obvious limp and has to use a cane, and he's always impeccibly dressed. In Fairy Tale Land, he looks like Mick Jagger crossed with a lizard. With leather pants.
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: N/A
PERSONALITY: Some villains believe they're the heroes of the story, but Rumplestiltskin isn't one of them. Maybe one he thought that was who he wanted to be, but "Dark One" is not synonymous with hero, so even if he believed he was doing good there for awhile, illusions fade and with the loss of his son, so went his tenuous hold on sanity and allowed him to fall into madness. And he is a bit mad in more ways than one, although this is more obvious in his Enchanted Forest persona. Rumplestiltskin is a man shaped by three hundred years of making deals and watching whole kingdoms rise and fall. He's met many people and taken on their attributes, because he has no idea who he is anymore, beyond a monster. Certainly not a poor, cowardly, utterly harmless spinner. In Gold, we see a calmer version of the flamboyant trickster of the Enchanted Forest- a man who deals in smirks, not giggles, but is no less of a fearsome foe should you cross him and that old madness is still there, boiling away. Fairy tales need grander gestures, but the real world deals in the subtleties he so loves. If anything, Gold is a living representative of all the cliches that the real world expects from the rich and powerful, just as Rumplestiltskin is a fairy tale's villain. It's all part of the act and he's big on theatrics. He has many roles and he plays all of them well- as Rumplestiltskin, he's the trickster playing with words and people for his own ends and acting as the catalyst for every story, if not outwardly the villain; as Gold, he is everything from the heartless loan shark to the unforgiving landlord to the corrupt attorney- the villains in every real world situation. But, for the most part, in every incarnation, he's the Faustian demon everyone turns to in their hour of need and the worst kind of chessmaster.
For being perfectly comfortable in his villainy, Rumple has standards and, in fact, is hardly the sort of person to revel in his wrongdoings. He's a monster- it's what he is- and anyone who misses that deserves what they get, but that's the long and short of it. He doesn't murder whole towns for sport, and while he might screw you over and trifle with technicalities, he'll almost never lie to you (you just need to be paying close attention to his word choice- words are important weapons and he wields them well) and if you play by his rules, he has no interest in harming you and usually prefers to talk his way out of situations before he resorts to physical violence (or, in most cases, magic). He might have been the type to make grand gestures and murder innocents when it suited him when he was new to this (and those innocents were never innocent in his mind- they had done something to upset him, even if it was trivial, but in his mind NO ONE is innocent), but now he's more suited to subtle means and smaller weapons- deals and contracts, as opposed to massacres. People come to him for favors and he grants their every wish... for a price, and usually the favors work in his favor too (there's very few pots in the Enchanted Forest he hasn't stirred). It works out fine, even if most people leave his company wishing they'd never met him, but so long as they pay for his services, everything is fine. Deals are important to him. Sacred, even. He never breaks them and he won't have them broken, in turn.
He's addicted to his magic, believing it to be a crutch. He rejects true love's kiss that could have saved him from his curse as the Dark One, simultaneously out of fear of betrayal and also because it would mean giving up on a chance at seeing his son again. He brought magic to Storybrooke for much the same reason- because he believed he wouldn't be able to find his son without it. But it's more than just a father's desperation- he loves control. He loves having power. It's everything he never had when he was a poor cowardly spinner and now that he's a cowardly all-powerful near-god, he needs it more than ever, because he's tasted it and fears going back to being nothing. It's why in stressful situations, he always falls back on self-preservation- not just to save his own life, but to save the parts of him he feels he needs. He's a desperate soul, no matter how collected he might appear, and no end is too extravagant to get what he wants. This, however, makes him very good at finding other desperate souls and getting them to do whatever he wants, especially if it means he can avoid paying the price for it. He does so love a good loophole and if he can avoid a situation by tempting someone else into doing it for him, then he'll move the pieces until they're exactly where he wants them to be. It's easy to tell when you're a part of Rumple's schemes, but, unfortunately, by the time you're desperate enough to come to him, you don't care that you're playing right into his hands. Say what you will of him, but he gets results. Conversely, however, it means he's just as easily manipulated. He has very obvious weaknesses and once zeroed in on, you can make him move nearly any way you choose, provided you don't make him angry enough to just flat-out out turn on you.
As long as he holds all the cards in a situation and still has pieces on the board, he's fine with a situation. He's hyperconfident in everything he does and nothing shakes him when he knows he's in control and approaches every situation rationally with some catty remark and a smirk and little emotion (if its Gold) or excessive glee (if its Rumple). He won't do anything he doesn't want to do and won't hesitate to say "no" if he thinks he can't get anything out of it. This also means he's an opportunist and will strike deals with people he actively despises, because they have something he wants or he has a use for them and even being a man who holds grudges, he can lay them aside for a greater agenda if he doesn't feel like he's been cornered into it. Almost every plan he concocts has a back-up plan ready to be put into place if the first plan fails and it's hard to say exactly how good he is at predicting outcomes (he can see the future to some extent, but he also believes people have a choice and that nothing is really set in stone) or if he's just so adaptable, he can change his game to suit how the situation has changed- likely both. However, as soon as he loses his control, things fall apart very quickly. He goes from being an incredibly intelligent, calm, placid man with a sense of style and a sassy streak three miles wide to being a desperate, fumbling fool not much different than the spinner he started out as or, at the worst, the vicious monster he claims to be. Breaking a deal with him is considered high treason, betraying him is only a little bit lower, and God help you if you hurt something he loves, because once that happens, all bets are off. He's not above petty vengeance and he's especially not above finding some way to end the people who've wronged him in underhanded and utterly devastating ways if he doesn't flat out and snap and cane them to death. He can be sensible and rational, but he can also be wild, unpredictable, and temperamental depending on what's happening around him. As he has a tendency to see only what he wants to see, he can also be extremely foolish, which is what allows him to be manipulated so easily.
Equal parts self-loathing and self-deluding, he hates himself immensely and believes himself to be a monster, but won't be the first to blame himself for why things are the way they are- at least not outwardly. Wrongs done to him will be inflicted back twofold and he can hold a grudge for an eternity. Even if he knows in his heart something was his fault, having someone around he can scapegoat makes it easier on him- he blames Milah for abandoning Baelfire, blames Hook for Milah's death, blames Maurice for abandoning Belle, and blames the Blue Fairy for sending Baelfire to another world. Technically, every one of those incidents were his own fault, but rather than accept the guilt and move on, he tries to shove it off on others and punish them. Punishing people is easy and it's a cheat to make himself feel better for awhile. It's how he's gotten what he wants since he became the Dark One and it's the only way he knows how to use his power, especially when nothing with that power can bring back his loved ones and make things any better. That isn't to say he can't become utterly devastated when his actions have consequences on those he loves and there is some amount of internalized self-blame there- he's not heartless, despite everything, and he can be repentant for his actions, but there's very few things that can get these reactions out of him. For the most part, he's an unrepentant jackasss who thinks everyone who comes into contact with him brings their pain on themselves because they're the ones who asked and they're the ones who believed he'd be a good person.
He projects his own fears and insecurities and self-loathing onto other people, assuming that because he is awful and no good that everyone else is, as well. If he makes a baseless accusation about someone's true intentions, it's probably because he tried to do it once and it ended badly for him (hence his belief that intent is meaningless). He suffers crippling abandonment issues and has sincere doubts over whether or not anyone is truly capable of actually loving him, due to the fact that every person he's ever cared for (save one) has outright rejected him. Because of this, he generally distrusts kindness given freely without want for payment and is suspicious of everyone's motives, since he genuinely believes that people are scum, regardless of how often he sees the good people can do. Showing him kindness is the quickest way to cow him, because he doesn't know how to handle it, and due to this attitude, he feels obligated to repay any debt and have debts repaid, in turn. He won't ask for help unless he's desperate and even then, he'll barter for it and expect nothing given out of the goodness of other people's hearts. It's difficult for him to break this mentality- even having honest proof that Belle loves him isn't enough to keep him from thinking he has no future with her. He's a difficult man to love by his own admission and when someone loves him, it tends to be the only thing that can keep him grounded and out of the dark somewhat- this is not just evidenced by Belle, but by how quickly he was willing to destroy the source of his power when he believed August was his son, proving he would have extended the same courtesies to his real son had circumstances not caused him to cling to his magic (and his magic and sense of self-preservation routinely trumps everything else). Conversely, it's when he loses his ties to the last shred of his humanity he has that he tends to be at his absolute darkest, because "there's no point to being good now."
He has very few genuinely good qualities, because most of them are buried under layers of bad qualities- his attempts at bravery have a tendency to culminate into acts of cowardice, his cleverness makes him manipulative, etc. He is, however, extremely passionate about everything he does, and his intentions were always good (however, AGAIN FOR THE CHEAP SEATS, intent is meaningless). He doesn't do anything specifically to hurt people unless they wrong him- he just doesn't care if people get hurt. The exception is generally children- barring a few extenuating circumstances, he's not inclined to harm children and has a soft spot for them, even going as far as helping them with no regard for payment. He also has an extreme devotion to family to the point of doing things he otherwise wouldn't do for the sake of family, even if he still has a hard time trusting the new family he's gained since finding his son again. He can't help it- his own inability to commit to redeeming himself and becoming a better man makes him a disappointment and the less people he has to disappoint, the less horrible he'll feel about it. He's the sort of person that wishes he could be Prince Charming- a dedicated, brave man who protects his family without hiding behind something as unpredictable and devastating as magic and turning to nasty habits like self-preservation and vengeance, but he also knows that was never his lot in life and it never will be. He is doomed to repeat his mistakes until he allows himself to let go and until he can do that, he'll constantly be sabotaging his own happiness and becoming an all the more darker person for it, slipping farther and farther away from the ability to simply walk from the life he's been cursed with. He has a horrible sense of self-preservation that overrides everything else to the point that he'd be willing to murder a child if it meant saving him from a terrible fate- it was only the fact that the same child was his grandson that actually stopped him, and, even then, he considered it.
Belle is his moon and stars and he has a tendency to fall over himself to please her (outwardly- he has been known to placate Belle and then sneak off and do the opposite of what she asks, because he is the worst). He loves her desperately and is extremely protective of her- if anything happens to her, he has a tendency to get very violent, and only Belle, herself, can pull him back (usually- sometimes logic wins out). He loves her dearly and she can turn a poised sorcerer into a dorky teenager at the drop of a hat. However, if Belle is his moon, then his son Baelfire (alias Neal Cassidy) is his sun. Everything he has ever done has been for Baelfire and getting his son back is his primary motivator to the point where, after believing him to be dead, he sets out on a suicide mission to save his grandson to honor him, intentionally walking into a prophecy he'd been trying to subvert for centuries. If he has Bae, then he has his happy ending and his redemption, and he tries to let very little (even Belle) get in the way of that. Those two are the only two people he truly loves and trusts, and even so, he has a hard time trusting Belle sometimes out of fear of showing her the bridge too far that will make her leave him. Nearly everyone else he might consider a friend (or a member of his extended family) is a person he wouldn't hesitate to throw under a bus if he got a mind to. Regina, his former protege, swings from being begrudging ally to worst nightmare and he spends a lot of his time wanting to murder her and knowing he can't without alienating the people he loves. Emma Swan is his trump card, his other protege, and probably his favorite chess piece- he genuinely likes her and respects her and the two of them mutually understand each other, but she's a pawn and one he intends to keep using. Prince Charming and his lovely wife are the fools he can always count on to ruin his day with demands, though Charming has made an excellent wingman on occasion. The rest of the town, Gold regards with little more than contempt until they can actually prove their worth to him and that's how Gold regards most people he hasn't decided he needs to manipulate yet- a lofty aura of contempt and sarcasm. He doesn't make friends- he makes allies. Making friends requires him to trust people and the only way you're going to earn his trust is to consistently stand by him, even when you have no reason to.
ABILITIES: As the Dark One, Gold is blessed (re: cursed) with incredible magical ability. However, this magical ability is only present in worlds that actually have magic, as evidenced by the fact that he had to actively bring magic into Storybrooke to be capable of using it and leaving town renders him incapable of using his magic. Magic rules are played fairly fast and loose in OUAT, but the basic gist of it seems to be "magic is different" in other worlds meaning spells are much harder to come by and gives him an IC excuse to be supremely nerfed. The rule of thumb I'll be using for the game is that he has minimal magical ability on the ship (enough to keep him from losing his mind and going nuts), in ports with in-universe magic systems, he'll be a bit more powerful, and in worlds with no magic system at all, he'll be unable to use magic completely. He'll never be at full power unless he's actively in the Enchanted Forest where he hails from.
In all circumstances, magic comes with a price, however. Specifically, every spell performed selfishly has a negative consequence for yourself (it may be small or huge, depending on the spell). Spells performed for other people usually mean that the person who demanded the spell pay the price. Again, the rules are fluid and the show has a problem sticking with them, but that's the best that I understand them and how I'll be playing them in-game when possible.
Gold's magic can be used to perform AT LEAST the following feats, but there's likely more (note that I'm going with literally the only things that GOLD has shown he's capable of doing outside of the Enchanted Forest, not what Rumple can do, as part of the whole IC "magic is different" nerfing thing- also I've just completely nerfed his ability to summon objects to him, because no):
Bargains: Less of a power outside the Enchanted Forest and more of a skill (as he can't manipulate reality to the same extent outside of his home realm), Gold deals in, well, deals. Basically, if you come to him for something, he will find some way to procure it for you, provided you can pay the price. It might be simple or it might be complex, but you will pay for it. He has no tolerance for people who break deals with him.
Telekinesis: He has some form of telekinesis and is capable of throwing people across rooms with a wave of his hand or pinning people to walls with a thought. This seems to be one of the easier spells to manage, even in worlds where magic is a bit different.
Dishearting: The process of ripping out a heart without killing the person it belongs to, thus enchanting it. Holding a heart means you control the person it belongs to and can make them do just about anything. Squeezing the heart or crushing it will either hurt or kill the person it belongs to. This is not a power he uses very often, however, so I wouldn't worry about him trying to collect hearts like a crazy hoarder. (That's Regina's thing.)
Enchantments: These seem to be done mainly with potions (which no one is exactly clear on how they're made beyond MAGIC AND HAIR AND SOMETIMES ENCHANTED GOLD), but can also be done with actual spells- it's all of a piece, really. Essentially, Gold can enchant objects to have a desired effect. For example, he has implied that he can manage a protection spell to keep Hook from coming near Belle, enchants a cup to trigger Belle's memories (it doesn't work), creates a potion that allows him to cross the town line without losing his memories, and a potion that can track a person so long as you pour it on an object the person owned (it has to belong specifically to them, however). The enchantments are not always foolproof and as magic will always come with a price, there tends to be side effects.
He can also heal people and himself, which I guess falls under this category.
Transfiguration/Curses: He can transform people or objects into different things, ranging from rats to puppets to pretty much whatever the hell he wants. Like the enchantments, he can also do this with potions rather than his own hand, which is how he typically deals out transfiguration spells when someone makes a request of him for one, because it usually means the person who asked for the spell will have to observe the price of the magic. (This is shown when he makes a deal with Jiminy Cricket for a potion that would get rid of his parents and he accidentally kills Gepetto's parents instead.)
He can also manufacture curses (such as the sleeping curse), but they're typically minor and not quite as large scale as the Dark Curse. The transfiguration spells are likely classified under the same heading as a traditional curse and can be broken by true love's kiss or fairy dust.
He can also spin straw into gold. But you knew that. (NOTE: I am willing to make the cost of doing most of this type of magic so much higher than it might normally be to keep him from transfiguring mundane objects on the ship into important objects all the damn time with no consequences except for an itty bitty magic price. I'd like him to still be able to in an emergency for plot relevant reasons (and poke the mods about it beforehand), but if that's too much, I'll happily nerf it completely.)
Motherfucking Dark One, Bitches: Being the Dark One gives you certain advantages that unfortunately don't translate across realms, so while Gold doesn't have his inhanced reflexes and his knee injury is still definitely a knee injury, he's still remarkably strong and resilient for a man his age. He also can't die (unless someone stabs him with the Dagger and please to enjoy being the new Dark One, person who did that). However, this only applies to the ship and ports where magic is a thing, because if magic is not a thing, he is as mortal as they come.
Also, apparently, being the Dark One makes you an evil shit whisperer, as Gold summons and sort of halfway controls a wraith at one point.
Spoilers: This probably only works on things out of the Enchanted Forest, but, hey, if the dumb monsters of the world want to obey the guy with the sexy Scottish accent and the magical dagger, let's do it.
Also he can beat the hell out of you with his cane. And let's be real, that's probably what he's going to do first if you piss him off.
POSSESSIONS:
(1) Black cane with gold handle.
(1) 300-year-old shawl that probably smells like sheep and magic.
(1) monogrammed Dark One dagger, because his life is pain and misery.
BASICALLY, THIS OUTFIT. Ring included. Plus a black winter coat that's not pictured. He's puttin' on the Ritz every day of his life.
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE: Uno | Dos | Tres
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
He will kill her one of these days- this much he's certain of.
He exits Granny's diner ahead of Regina, moving remarkably quickly for someone in his condition and leaving Regina to hasten her oh-so-regal gait. (Always unbearably regal- he knew her when she was a tomboy who could barely stand up straight and sometimes all he ever sees is a slouched shoulder little brat with wide eyes and no idea of her own potential.) Before he even acknowledges her beside him, he thinks of Belle, left with her hamburger and the company of Ruby, and his heart aches at leaving her, despite her insistence that she's fine and the pleading in her eyes telling him to be nice, be careful, and hurry back. She has no love for Regina, probably trusts her as little as he does, but she's still too reliably good to want anything awful to happen to her by his hand.
But he's always known he's going to disappoint Belle one way or another. The only unfortunate thing is that he doubts that killing Regina will be the final straw. Not because he thinks in acting on his impulses, she'll suddenly realize she's fine with it, but because some part of him will always blindly need her.
But he'll still kill her. One day.
"You need to pick your assassins better," he drawls at long last, doing a remarkable job of hiding how irritated he actually is by this turn of events. "How many times is this now?"
"One of those times," she hisses (and with all the intimidation of a pampered housecat- really, dearie, it's like you're not even trying), "was your fault."
He knows precisely which event she's referring to, and he almost plays dumb, but decides against it. They have had this conversation before and if she's still not quite grasping the concept of fine print now, she never will. "And I told you that if you're going to make a deal with me, you ought to choose your words more carefully, Your Majesty."
She scowls. He smirks. It's how they dance these days. There's too many pieces on the board, too many things their lives are all wrapped up in- they can't simply just play games with an entire town like they once did... not when they have too many people to disappoint.
"I don't care about the past," she finally snaps. "We need to focus on the current situation."
The irony of Regina not caring about the past almost makes him giggle, but that's a reaction for a man (more of a monster- but he's always a monster, no matter what skin he wears) from the past, not his current self. He must look amused even so, because off Regina's annoyed look, he just smiles and adds, "It's your past that seems to be the problem."
Maybe he won't kill her, he thinks, as she launches into another fit of frustrated yowling at how he's not treating this with the severity it deserves (he will, eventually, but not now- not while he's toying with her because she ruined his afternoon). As dangerous as she is, as much as he hates her, as much as she's a danger to the one thing he truly loves...
Well, one can't deny that the dance is almost worth it sometimes.