Adam Gold - Rumplestiltskin

Storybrooke Name: Adam Gold, but no one knows his first name
Age: 300+
Pronouns: he/him
Occupation: pawn broker
Face Claim: robert carlyle

Fairy Tale Name: rumplestiltskin
Fairy Tale Story: batb, cinderella, rumplestiltskin, peter pan, etc.

Strengths:
+ Belle, his love for her and his love for Baelfire
+ Intelligence and quick wit
+ Magical Ability, knowledge, and ability to weave just about any plot
+ Immortality
+ Ability to read people and understand them
+ Fighting and Swordsmanship
+ Weaving

Weaknesses:
- Biggest coward you’ll ever meet
- Consumed by power
- Asshole
- Squid Ink, Pandora’s Box, and his dagger
- Underestimating those around him
- Sadistic/Ruthless
- His leg when magic isn’t around

Likes:
+ Screwing with people
+ Schemes
+ Magic
+ Power
+ New Knowledge
+ Possessions

Dislikes:
- Fairies
- Captain Hook
- Those who threaten those he loves
- Himself
- Wasting his time

Desires:
+ Find Baelfire
+ Free Belle from the curse
+ Torture the Evil Queen emotionally
+ Torture Captain Hook emotionally
+ Be loved (by Belle and Bae)

Fears:
- Losing Bae again
- Losing Belle again
- Losing his dark one powers
- Dying


Personality: Where to start? I suppose the beginning is as good as anywhere. Due to his upbringing, or rather, lack thereof, he has some serious abandonment issues. He never knew his mom, and his dad decided to go pretend to be a kid again in Neverland. These abandonment issues have caused a lot of issues in his life, and are the root cause of some of his more serious flaws. However, it also can be considered the root cause of one of his best qualities: his intense love. If he loves you, he LOVES you. Forever. There’s nothing that will make him no longer love you. He will fight for you no matter what. While in the moment, his cowardice might take over, as it had once upon a time, that cowardice is driven by the intense need to not be abandoned by those he loves. Love is one of the most important things to Rumplestiltskin, though he pretends that it doesn’t matter. After all, love is what makes one weak. At least, he views love as the catalyst for everything bad that has ever happened in his life. All because he couldn’t stop himself from caring. This also makes him very picky about those he loves. In 300+ years of life, there are only two people in the entire history of the world he would say he actually cares about: Belle and Baelfire.

With love aside, Rumple is a very malicious sort of person who will hurt others because he finds it fun. He loves to see people writhing, though mostly in emotional pain. He’s felt intense pain, it’s only fair everyone else feels it too. After all, life isn’t fair. He only aims to even the playing field. Taking joy in other’s misery isn’t the only thing he uses his ruthless nature for - it can also be used to protect as he is willing to do anything, even kill, to protect those he cares for, or has a use for.

Along with 300+ years of life comes a cacophony of skills and knowledge. Along with weaving, which he grew up learning, he’s learned how to swordfight over the years, knit, sew, play chess, dance, archery, cooking and various other artistic endeavors. Unfortunately, none of those really come in handy except when he’s trying to trick someone, like Prince Charming. Also unfortunately, he learned all those while the Dark One, other than weaving, and so it’s hard to replicate those experiences without the magical enhancements to speed and endurance that magic gives him. He knows almost anything someone can imagine and he has quite a collection, some magical items that made it over from the curse since well, he planned for all this to happen. Along with a vast amount of knowledge, his ability to understand people is unparalleled, except when they are stronger than he expects as most people have weak wills or at least predictable wills. He’s rarely caught off guard, even when a certain couple procures squid ink to ‘lock him up’ exactly where he wanted to be.

Family:
Baelfire | 300s| son| alive | Complicated. Rumple loves him, but Bae views him as a liar and traitor. To be honest, he knows he deserves it, but really would like to show him that it was due to fear and weakness and not because he didn’t love him.

Milah | 30-40s| ex-wife| deceased |Even more complicated. She left him for a young rogue named Captain Hook. So… he killed her.

Peter Pan | 300+ | dad | alive | Why is everyone complicated? - Rumple was raised by this man until this guy decided he didn’t want to have any more responsibilities, especially not a child like Rumple. So he went to Neverland to be a kid forever and abandoned Rumple. Not a very happy relationship here. Caused a lot of trauma.

The Black Fairy | Who knows? | mom | alive | No wonder Rumple is screwed in the head. This is his mother, the Black Fairy. He never knew his mother really, but he wishes he did. Hell, he just wants a family that loves him, but neither of his parents were there for him, yet somehow both his parents became great forces of evil. No wonder he turned out the way he did.

Belle | 40s | true love | alive | Technically not related, but hell, he considers her his family since she’s the first one to show him any sort of niceness. True, he deserves all the hate he gets, but he latches onto her because of this and well, love is the strongest type of magic. His love for her is only eclipsed by his fear of losing his power (which in turn helps him keep those he loves, like her, alive).


Storybrooke History: Technically he was cursed, though he retained his memories, because of course he did. He was given a simple pawn shop and a nice little house in town. He pretends he doesn’t remember, but he also lays hints he remembers. While he didn’t chain memories, he knew what Regina was trying to program into him, which was a simple, sad little pawn shop owner who sold old crusty items like him… well, at least it was not the worst history. He had money to get whatever he wanted, which was one of the curse’s stipulations: he had to have a good life. Well, good enough.


Fairy Tale History: Let’s… make this as short as we can.

300+ years ago: Rumplestiltskin was abandoned by his father who became Peter Pan in Neverland, leaving Rumple to be raised by a couple of spinsters. Once an adult, he made a living as a weaver, and married a local lady named Milah. They were pretty happy for a while. He thought he was in love with her too. Well, we’ll get to those feelings a little later. Then the war happened. He also was going to have a son at the same time. And… well those two things clashed. He wanted to serve the people and fight, but he was deathly afraid of dying and leaving his son without a father. He’d end up just like his parents and he didn’t want that. That was the thing he feared the very most. Even more than mutilating himself. So one thing led to another and he was dishonorably discharged due to a grievous injury. His life, which was not looking too bad, was about to decline greatly.

About ten years after he injured himself, he had been known as a coward by the village and he let them kick him around. After all, living was the most important part, and his son was growing up. Hell, he loved his son so much. He began to realize just how strong those feelings were, when suddenly Milah left. Rumple had been told she was killed and he went home upset, refusing to duel his wife’s killer as he didn’t want to leave their son parentless.

Well, a few things happened and he ended up stabbing a man in order to gain the power to no longer be a coward and to stand up to those around him as he saw the respect in his son’s eyes fading. Unfortunately when he returned home with this new power his son was not thrilled. Sure, it was an evil power but he was going to use it for good! And he tried. Oh he tried so hard. The darkness was so compelling. Even when he ended the more than decade long war against the ogres he was feared instead of loved. Everyone looked at him with such disgust and fear. His son looked at him with such fear. First, he punished the corrupt officials. Then the criminals. Then the petty bullies. It was such an easy slippery slope that he had found himself lost in the darkness before he even knew it. The only light in his life was his son.

Around four years after he believed Milah to be dead, Baelfire said he had a way to get away from everything, to get rid of the evil power that Rumple had. And while he had offhandedly said he would go if Baelfire found something, he never thought the boy would actually find something. His love for Baelfire made him go along with him. But then… when looked into that portal, the innate fear that was at the core of everything he did and everything that made him, well… him, came to the forefront. He knew it was also the dark power fighting back as it didn’t want to be sent away, but he had given too much to the darkness, he was too far gone and couldn’t reach his light in time… and his cowardice made him run away from the only light in his life. Baelfire was gone, whisked off into some other world and he was alone.

Few years later he met the pirate who supposedly killed his wife once more. This time he had the power to fight back and he trounced the guy. Cut off his hand and everything. And that was when the pirate was saved by his wife. Milah. She had actually run off with the pirate. In a fit of rage, he killed her. Oh he never regretted it either. It was at that moment he realized he never really loved her. He cared for her, sure, but love? No, he wanted to see her suffer. But if he loved her, he never would want that. Even Baelfire, no matter what he did, Rumple would never want him hurt. But as he ripped Milah’s heart from her chest and watched her life ebb away as he crushed it… he felt such joy. He punished the woman who made things even harder for him and Baelfire. He blamed her for Baelfire being whisked away. He blamed her for everything, because well, he couldn’t blame himself right?

Within the last 50 or so years: Well he met Cora, kinda made her fall in love with him, abandoned her. Did the same thing with Zelena, Cora’s first daughter. Then he manipulated every single event in Cora’s other daughter’s life to make her enact the curse that would eventually send them to Storybrooke. That meant making sure her love died, making sure Snow White and her entire story happen (after all, he needed the ‘savior’ to be born from a couple of true love), and making sure that David became Prince Charming with a lovely ‘your twin brother is a prince’ scenario.

At some point, he was summoned to a castle owned by Maurice French, where he took his daughter, Belle captive in return for ending a war with the ogres. He… wanted Maurice to experience what he did. He ended a previous war with the ogres and ended up losing his son not to death, but a place he was unable to see him ever again (albeit in unrelated events). All magic comes with a price and he insisted his daughter was the price. Maurice wasn’t going to agree, but then Belle stepped up and accepted the deal herself. This was the first thing that surprised him in many years. She was willing to accept living with the evil Dark One in return for her kingdom? Interesting.

There were so many things about her that surprised him. Despite the fact he could kill her or torture her, she continually talked back to him. Few were able to stand up to him. Well, he eventually fell in love. To the point it scared him. Even more so when she kissed him and he felt his powers fading away. True love? He had a true love? No. Love made people weak. He sent her away in his fear. Unfortunately for him… he believed the Evil Queen took her and she was dead for a good while. Perhaps it was because he wanted her to be gone that he simply took the queen at her word. However, the sadness he felt was on par with losing Baelfire. No, he had renewed his will to find Baelfire and he sped things up a bit. Getting Regina to kill her father was easy. Getting the Charmings to trap him in that prison, easy. Living without magic? That was going to be the hardest part. At least until he could bring magic back.