Name: Jen
Contact Info: wuzzafuzzle on plurk
Other Characters Played: Bucky Barnes
Requested apartment: With Emma Swan pretty please!

Character Name: David Nolan/Prince Charming/....... David.
Canon: Once Upon A Time
Canon Point: Mid 3x22, before Emma gets back from the past
Background/History: David on the OUAT wiki
Previous Game History: David's coming in with memories of having been in exitvoid, however, with a canon update shoved in between leaving Exit Void and appearing in Haven.

David popped into EV fairly late in the game, and had only really been there for IC 2 or 3 months before things were coming to a close. The others he'd had from his canon in game were Snow White/Mary Margaret, Emma Swan, Gold/Rumpelstilskin, Neal, Jefferson, Belle, Henry Miles, Whale, Wendy Darling, Ariel, Hook, Peter Pan and Felix. So, about half his town. It was a party. Emma had been in the game for a long while before him and there were several 'GOOD WILL WIN IN THE END' chats with her that didn't go very well. Snow, however, was pretty close to new along with him, and they worked on forming a sort of school for the city (Zelien). They sought to teach a lot of survival type things and mostly just whatever might help people to survive in COMPASS run places. Also, to look out for people and give them some place they could go to not feel so lost, alone and hopeless.

His relationships that he'd have with a couple people that hard started out rocky were improved a bit in game. With Gold, they'd been getting along well and David already felt good about him before showing up, but he also reached out to tell Gold about his son and the fact Neal had forgiven him and their bond had been healed. Jefferson and David's last canon encounter had involved a lot of yelling and manhandling and ill will, really not having gotten along great before seeing each other again in Zelien. Jefferson had been in game for a long while, though, and helped out both Emma, Snow and Henry while David wasn't there and David began to feel very grateful and indebted to him, apologizing for how he'd treated him and began to try to make amends for it. Of course, he wasn't aware that Jefferson made out with his daughter, though, soooooo... that's a thing. David had also made a decent amount of new friends in game, having bonded some with D'Artagnan, Athos and Clary Fray. He almost got grenaded by Master Chief but they worked things out with a begrudging sort of respect. Fatami and David talked a while about how awesome his daughter and his wife were as well.

At one point, the campus that was safe territory in Zelien was transported to 28 Days Later London, complete with zombies and creepy sexual harrassment soldiers led by the Ninth Doctor. After making it to the military base, thinking they'd have safety for their loved ones there, David and Gold both got pretty quickly evicted from the base after extending some violence to the soldiers that didn't want to keep their hands to themselves. Moving out into the countryside, David and the OUAT cast with a few friends formed a Countryside Safe Haven, protected from zombies with Emma and Gold's magic, and David went ahead and invited FREAKING EVERYONE to it, despite Jefferson and Gold and Emma's frowning at him.

David wasn't much involved in endgame, so I'll be taking him from after campus was brought back to Zelien, just after the night he'd spent in the speakeasy, getting his drink on with his wife, dancing like a fool, chatting with his daughter about Hope and Things. He'd have been just passing out in his bed on campus, drunkenly curled up with Snow, before popping back in Storybrooke.

Personality:

The thing to really remember about Charming is that he grew up in a fairy tale land, where happy endings are common place and Good really does always win. This is something like a culture shock when he’s put into our world and made to deal with the kind of issues that happen there. I think it’s sort of a cool facet of the show, actually, to apply the idealistic Disney movie logic to the modern world, but either way, you want to remember that while looking at Charming as far as personality goes, because that’s the root of a lot of the motivations he has. When he has that ridiculous optimism or gives a ridiculously hopeful speech about Doing Good or Good Will Always Win, it’s not some shallow Hero statement - he really does believe this stuff, is strongly convicted with it, and has had the experience to make him believe that’s the case.

So, talking about that ridiculous optimistic; that’s one of the largest thing we see from him and Snow, an unshaken faith/hope always, and determination to find that Way Things Will Work Out (“I will always find you”\“You found me”\“Did you ever doubt I would”). It’s something that’s so much more prevalent in the two of them, and maybe Charming even more so than Snow, than in all the rest of the Enchanted Forest characters, which sort of makes them the motivational leaders, aside from the whole royalty thing. The town looks to them for guidance and they answer it with a hope they genuinely feel. David has an unshaken kind of confidence in the ‘we will find a way’ and ‘things will be okay’ idea, and often ends up being the hope and support that other characters need when things are looking really dark and people are worn down. Basically, if Prince Charming loses hope, you know you’re fucked.

David is absolutely an idealist. “Good will always win” is basically the mantra he chants in every episode where shit looks like it’s getting bad. He’s also The Support Guy, and goes to give inspiring chats to people feeling down and out, be it Abigail or Snow or Emma, etc. He gets determined on something and then it WILL BE A THING THAT HAPPENS, and he won’t be giving up until he achieves that goal. This is actually mentioned in canon by Ruby, after Jefferson’s hat is burned and David is worrying that he’ll never be able to get Emma and Snow back from the Enchanted Forest. Like his “I will always find you” thing with Snow - it’s not a question. He’ll do it. He’ll find her every time. Charming has absolute faith and confidence in that, to an absurd point that just has other people laughing at him, but. miraculously, it works out every time so far. With David it’s always Doing Things For The Right Reasons, even when he’s blackmailed to marry Abigail for the fate of the kingdom and his mother, he still can’t do something so dishonest and untrue to himself (though he does make sure mom is safe). It’s not only an honesty and morality in actions thing for him - it’s a choosing the right thing in his heart idea as well. Integrity is a huge thing to Charming and something he sees as a huge part of himself as well - to betray that integrity is to let go of pieces of himself and be untrue to who he is. He tries to inspire this in other people as well, always giving speeches about stuff like this and encouraging doing What’s Right, yada yada.

A pretty poignant thing about Charming as well is that he’s protective as fuck; of his family and his friends and the people around him. He’s capable of some serious fierceness, despite how gentle and sweet and Disney Princely of a person he is. When someone’s threatening a friend, David’s right there standing in front of them with sword in hand, growling for people to back the eff off. It’s also an emotional sort of protectiveness over his direct family, like with how he side-eyes people wanting to mack on Emma, or Whale having slept with Snow while they were under the curse, despite the fact neither had any memories of who they were. He gets pretty growly at Hook over Emma, and when Emma’s maybe marriage to a winged monkey comes up, he totally skips over the winged monkey part and goes straight for YOU WERE GONNA MARRY SOMEONE? He gets pretty Papa Wolf when the situation comes up. Do not touch his daughter or his grandson or anyone he has adopted, he will go papa bear on your ass no matter how huge and scary you are. As far as just aggression goes, this does come out in combat as well. Despite the whole Killing People Is Bad thing, if there’s a fight going on and he’s defending his family, he does totally stab some hos. I think it’s more of an execution thing that he has specific issue with - killing when it’s not strictly self defense. If he can avoid killing someone, he will, but if it’s life or death, it happens.

He can be pretty impulsive as well. While he has his iron Doing The Right Thing going on most of the time, David’s also pretty hugely emotional, and when something strikes him in a certain way (usually the death/loss/endangerment of a loved one), he can have an aggressive streak, like when he’s ready to cut the throat of the mermaid girl in Neverland. But, with David, it’s a lot more of a quick, intense flash of something that comes from a place of great emotion, anger and fear, rather than something he stews over for a long period of time and wrestles with. He’s more likely to jump the gun and get aggressive faster than Snow will, but in the longer term, he’s more settled in the ‘killing people doesn’t solve problems despite how satisfying of an idea it might be’ concept. If given time to think over it, he’ll usually go for the ‘this is wrong, let’s not do it’ option instead, with a couple exceptions (aka regina, especially post-curse break). He’ll also be more verbally aggressive as well, even if he doesn’t plan on going through with it. Granted, the line is sometimes sketchy here.

The whole Daddy Charming aspect is a big part of David as well. Being a father, though he’s only actually been one for, like, a yearish, is still a large part of his identity, even just with Henry and partially with Emma. He does make the awkward and obvious attempts at it like Snow does, and those are sad, but it’s also sort of a natural thing to him as well. It’s part of his protective, nurturing side that has him automatically Dad-ing at people, regardless of if they’re related to him or not. But most especially to Emma or Henry - always trying to be there as support or encouragement, or someone to cheer them up and cheer them on. I think it’s a kind of thing that brings him a lot of fulfillment and joy, really. He’s a goober like that. So he really does have the kind of loveable Dad side that’s just there to support you and make you smile and protect you from bad things like nightmares and bad boyfriends.

David totally fills in the whole Hero Dude trope, which is pretty much a given with the whole Prince Charming thing, but the fun thing about OUAT is that it offers more facets than that, and gives more human qualities to him. He’s not just the perfect hero, but he sure as hell tries to be. He’s always the one doing the actiony thing, fighting stuff, saving people, making grand gestures, etc. Valiant, determined are things. Strength of character and integrity is a huge thing to him, and it’s prevalent throughout his everything. He really is the Prince Charming trope whether he means to be or not; he’s just that good dude, and not as a consequence of being a prince (seeing as the prince that was actually raised as a prince was a massive douchecanoe), but just by means of how he developed through his life. He’s nothing special, just a guy who stands around and watches his sheep and loves his mommy. He’s self sacrificial; David will always make the lying down on the line to let the other guys crawl over you play, and he does it without a second thought - it’s just purely his nature. It’s not even a looking good thing. Charming just takes it as a given that this is what should happen. He infects himself with a sleeping curse to try to communicate with Emma and Snow in one episode, and then accepts dying from poison in Neverland as a viable cost to getting Henry home with Snow and Emma (doesn’t expect Snow to stay with him). Actual Disney Prince David Nolan.

David likes to Get Things Done. He’s very much the ‘you stay here, I’ll take care of this’ guy. If something needs doing, he’ll step up to the plate and make it happen, not only in physical conflict/battle kinds of scenarios, but also sometimes in social ones, like going to chat with Emma when he’s worried she’s being too down about things. He doesn’t tend to be invasive about stuff (mostly, at least), but more so goes to check on things, or put gentle nudges where they need to be.

This is not to say that Prince Charming doesn’t have his faults - he’s got plenty, despite being an Actual Disney Prince. One pretty assholish thing that he does is he’s pretty judgemental of the immoral; condescending, distrusting Bad People with the ability to change from the beginning. They have to start proving it to him before he’ll have real faith, and if they start going back on it he’s back to TSK TSKing in their direction. Another thing is he gets pretty one track minded; panicking and trying to save Snow when they disappear into Jefferson’s hat, while the townspeople are going nuts with the chaos in the city. He doesn’t mean to disregard them, it happens mostly on accident - he just isn’t very good at multitasking crises, and gets overwhelmed being the main leader. While he’s good with leading a single objective, juggling all the responsibilities of being The Prince can get him floundering. That and season 1 David Nolan has a bunch of shitty qualities; cowardly, uncertain, lacking conviction, lying, hurting people, selfish to a point. That’s still part of him and he treats it as things that remind him of the man he wants to be.

David’s also fairly pragmatic; in fighting, at least, he tends to be more on the side of being clever and plotty about things than just trying to out-skill or out-strength things. He’ll be more likely to be crafty about things (as seen in the episode where he has to go fight a dragon that has killed basically everyone so far). He also tends to get crafty on other peoples’ craftiness, namely Snow’s. When she goes to do something clever, like sneak off into the woods and hide from him, or go to a fancy castle for their honeymoon and then try to sneak away to do dangerous stuff. He’s presented as a leader for the people of Storybrooke; not something he was born as, but something he manages to end up as fairly well, for the people in Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest, with some issue of juggling issues and trying to do The Right Thing, but he does try his best.

But he can be massively derptastic. Sometimes in him doing the right/heroy thing, he does get a little overzealous and… do something totally stupid and get himself caught in an impossible situation. He’s not always this dumb, but it does happen, and then he’s like... well shit. He does tend to get impulsive with things, especially when emotions/stakes are high, and jump into stuff only to then be like WELL I GUESS THIS WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO RUN, PERHAPS I SHOULD WORK ON A NEW, SMARTER, PLAN WHILE I RUN FOR MY LIFE, AND ATTEMPT GO UPSTREAM ON SHIT CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE. Y E P. I’M A GENIUS. He’s also a big fan of The Simple Life. Despite being princey and all, David wasn’t actually born a prince and doesn’t really like the royal life too much. He’s perfectly happy with being a shepherd forever, and doesn’t really do the whole pompous prince thing that might have been expected of him (that his brother James did), because that wasn’t his life. At all. He’s actually pretty damn Farm Boyish and this comes out when he’s really direct and sort of rural about things, especially during the period where he’s acting as Sheriff.

David’s basic life philosophy is that life is a collection of moments, good and bad, and I absolutely love this about him. He’s a little scene that expresses this in the show:

David: There’s more to life than just looking for the next fight. Life is made up of moments - good ones, bad ones, but they’re all worth living.
Emma: Well, I seem to be a magnet for the bad ones
David: Then all the more reason to look for the good ones in between the bad ones.

This is why Charming’s theory is ‘we are both’ when it comes to Storybrooke versions and Enchanted Forest versions of everyone - maybe he was a massive douche as David Nolan, and maybe it was a terrible time, but it was still part of who he was and a stage in his life that he doesn’t want to give up. David Nolan and the bullshit he did as him was still him, and maybe it wasn’t the best time, but he lived it and learned from it and it’s a piece of his life. He wouldn’t trade Charming for David or David for Charming.

As for how David speaks to people and relates verbally, he can be pretty smarmy. He’s a deadpan snarker, basically. He’ll be wry and sarcastic in his humor, not outright silly or scathing. Just dry, mostly, and sometimes a good natured kind of quirky and dorky. And he is, actually, fairly charming, but in an awkward, goofy sort of way. Not really the smooth, suave thing. Alse. he’s socially Chill; everyone calls him Charming. His name is not Charming. He isn’t really that bothered by it. People make fun of him and he’s kind of like eh w/e, unless it’s something pretty serious/offensive/making fun of someone he loves that isn’t him. Pride/machismo is not a big deal with him - if he gets aggressive it’s for different reasons than image preservation.

The last thing I want to make sure I cover is his relationship With Snow, as that’s a pretty huge part of his life and a big influence and motivation and source of support and inspiration. They balance each other out pretty well - where Snow lacks certain traits, David makes up for it, and the same vice versa. They really are a team. He’s actually sometimes is the one telling Snow ‘how about we back off some’ in situations, but then again, sometimes Snow has to do the same to him if it’s a situation that pushes his buttons more than hers. They have that kind of give and take and covering for each other balance as a couple. They are also madly, deeply in love - attached to each other and feeling the same pain when one of them is hurting. Snow is absolutely the most important person to him, and the first person he’ll go to about anything. They share everything, and get pretty lost without the other around.

Abilities/Powers: David is fairly plain - he doesn't have any special abilities or magic. He knows combat pretty well, along with horse riding, and survival skills in nature. He has diplomacy from Princely things, but other than that, he's pretty baseline.

Items/Weapons:
- David's sword
- Handgun and shoulder holster he uses for Sheriffy things
- Granny's apple pie. Again.

Sample Entry: Intro from Exit Void!

Sample Entry Two:
So, this is definitely not Granny's. This is the apple pie he'd been trying to finish off at Granny's during Neal's coronation party, just after his daughter had just walked out on a fairly unfortunate conversation, and this is the fork he was using, and clothes he had on, and the sword now propped up against the bed he's lying in is the one that was sitting next to the booth but... still not Granny's. Unless some serious redecorating went on in the last... half a second, in the theme of 'crappy college dormitories'. The other thing this place is not? It's not Zelien, or London, or any of the other ridiculous places COMPASS had sent them while they were prisonders there. It's not Neverland, or the Enchanted Forest, and he's assuming it's not Oz, as he blinks dumbly at the plate of pie sitting innocently on his chest, while he grumbles awake on his bunk. Just... sitting there. Like nothing in the world is wrong. Uh huh.

But this is Granny's apple pie. Again. As it begins to dawn on him how very similar this situation is to a previous impromptu multiversal abduction (sans incoming cultist raid and huge, creepy looking cargo ship in the background), David's eyes roll towards the heavens, and he's flopping back heavily against his slightly lumpy pillow with a groan, tone exasperated. "What do the worlds have against me ever getting to finish my pie?"

Not that David's incredibly new to popping into a new world every now and again, but not in the middle of doting on his new infant son, finishing up the chat about what to name to settled on for him. Speaking of, the last time this happened, his wife, his friend, his daughter, his grandson, and a good handful of others from Storybrooke had made it through with him. Considering the company he was keeping, David's pretty quick to snap up in bed, neatly tossing the pie across the room, but he's able to save it before real damage is done. His son, Neal, is far, far too young to be engaging in the family habit of ridiculous realm jumping shenanigans, and loathe as he is to be separated from his newborn (again), he'd be happier knowing he's still safe at home. Preferably, with his mother, but you never know.

"Snow? Henry?" They'd been in the booth with him, but there's no gaurantee they came through with him. Still, if they're here, David needs to find them first and foremost. All the rest can come after, but once they're together, they can face whatever they got dropped into here as a family. Before he goes skimming his still waking eyes around the room, the plate is set to the side on the mattress, and David's stretching his legs, starting to swing them over the side of the bunk.

He's going to finish that pie later. After he finds his family.