Daulis Song

"Was it a vision, or a waking dream?"

- John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

Daulis Song [he/him] is the son of the Nightingale.

Previously, he was a destiny-less second sibling, but a few years prior, his elder sister Galen Song had dropped out of Ever After.

Due to this, Daulis was brought in to fulfill the destiny instead. However, despite a misfit for her destiny, Galen had a fantastic reputation - one that Daulis finds himself struggling to live up to.

Personality
Fickle, flightly, and never quite sure of himself, Daulis is generally a ball of restless energy.

He’s always seeking to be charismatic and determined to keep up appearances, something that ends up making him a bit of a people pleaser. He hates being a disappointment, he hates not living up to expectations, and is frequently wracked with nervousness over doing so. Ultimately, Daulis is Trying His Best, even if anxiety can get the best of him.

Due to his nervousness and frequent attempts to live up to expectations, Daulis often overcompensates and tries to be more impressive than he actually is - a habit that sometimes manifests are pretension. Combine that with his interests - high, lofty literature and his enthusiasm for technical specs of recording equipment and music theory - yeah, that definitely sounds like pretension.

(He's not pretentious - in fact, he feels inferior a lot of the time and suffers from a bad bout of impostor syndrome, but it's better to be pretentious, he thinks, than come off as pathetic.)

There’s so much emotion in the youthful heart, there’s so much enthusiasm in the youthful heart. Daulis is no exception to that axiom. He’s easily excited and riled up and jumpy when faced with things he loves, and has an opinion on everything.

However, to most people, Daulis Song is practiced and perfect. I mean, most people know him as the Swedish Nightingale - a voice on the air, one who never makes any verbal slips or errors. But in the case of real life, you don’t get a polished script.

And behind the scenes, Daulis feels like an awkward mess. He frequently self-doubts phrases and words he says, and works so hard to mentally formulate the best way to phrase things, and is always searching for that perfect sentence. In fact, his internal monologue is mostly 100% panicked screaming.

He's generally anxious about messing up, and desperately wants to prove that he deserves to be here - to study with other great fairytales, that he is worthy of taking on his sister's destiny.

Attention is something Daulis finds hard to deal with it. At the same time, he’s desperate for it, but he’s also overwhelmed and intimidated as heck. Right now, hiding behind radio and podcasts - faceless, yet expressive media - is how Daulis finds that balance, that equilibrium. He might not be certain about himself, but he's going to have certainty and take comfort in what constants he has.

Appearance
Let’s be real - people don’t often remember Daulis by face, it’s his voice. Tenor, sweet, melodical. Often, when first encountering Daulis, people are surprised that this modestly dressed young man is the Swedish Nightingale himself.

Daulis doesn’t think much of his appearance - he frequently jokes he has a “face made for radio”, and doesn’t partake in selfies often (and any candids that he posts tend to have his face obscured or be the back of his head).

That said, let’s actually get around to describing how he looks.
 * black hair, dyed brown
 * it’s shaved and relatively long
 * awkward, skinny, looks tall but only because he’s skinny
 * brown eyes
 * wide open, double eyelidded, nervous-looking, and framed with glasses

His glasses are a little bit large for his face. He doesn’t need them - birds have fantastic eyesight, thank you very much, but wears them for hipster value and also because large-ish glasses are really good at obscuring one’s face.

Radio and Podcasting
He has his own radio show, currently unnamed (i'll get to that, i'm very sorry), and it's his pride and joy. He also has four podcasts.
 * I'll name the show and the podcasts when I work out what he does on them.


 * Is really, really into sound-quality and recording equipment. Will check out the technical specs on literally every single equipment he uses.

Voice Acting
Daulis has a history of voice acting. He genuinely enjoys it, though he has to put much of this job aside due to school and other commitments.
 * I don't know what characters he has voiced, but you bet he's voiced someone iconic.
 * He's actually the English VA and Mandarin VA for Tereus Dentori.

Music
Daulis is classically trained, with a strong footing in most eras of music - from Renaissance to Baroque to cutting edge music being composed and written today. However, his most favourite era of music would have to be Romanticism. He knows Chopin and Mendelssohn like the back of his hand, and he blasts Romantic symphonies when stressed.

In terms of modern music, he has a tendency to listen to indie rock, but does show a little appreciation for all genres.

Instrument-wise, Daulis' love and life is the viola. He adores his viola to pieces, and will protect it with his life. Being the next Nightingale, and hence from an iconic destiny, his viola was custom-made for him.

Daulis also has skills in composition. He writes most of his own music, and from a variety of genres. Unfortunately, being acquainted with a variety of genres means that Daulis has a tendency to be inconsistent. One piece sounds different to the next piece, which has been quite frustrating for the poor bird (he wants his published albums to be more coherent, author grimm-it).


 * Has his own Bandcastle profile - and currently two albums and an EP published on it.
 * Composes his own music for his radio show and his podcasts.

Poetry and Literature
As previously mentioned, Daulis is a huge fan of the Romantic Era.

His favourite Classical poets would be Catullus and Sappho. He keeps a bust of the latter in his room, and adorns her with snapbacks and sunglasses.

Other

 * has a passing interest in Keeping Up With The Midas Family - only for the Classical allusions
 * thinks highly of Music Theatre - he confesses that he's both stage-shy and can't (physically) act, though.

How the Story Goes
The Nightingale - Wikipedia link

Basically Daulis is required to sing, serve the Emperor, get replaced by a sparkly boi, run away, then return to the Emperor to chase off the Grim Reaper.

How does Daulis come into it?
If you ask the Nightingale Family for their opinion on HC Andersen's recording of their family story, the first thing they would like to attest is that the Nightingale tends to be male. Assigned female nightingales can not sing, so often, daughters are unable to carry out the legacy. In several cases, The Nightingale has been amab fem-aligned (one particular case was the very Nightingale in Andersen's version). However, the destiny is typically passed from father to son.

After the story is over, the Nightingale is supposed to be a reporter for the Emperor. This part of the legacy has been done in several forms – some Nightingales have been playwrights, newspaper editors, even activists. For instance, the current Nightingale (Daulis' father) is a radio show host.

Originally, Daulis' elder sister Galen Song was the next Nightingale. Unfortunately, she failed the most basic prerequisite for the destiny - having the ability to sing. Due to this, she was forced to drop out, and the destiny fell instead to Daulis.

A few additional notes:
 * "Song" is the surname that the Nightingale Family have taken. However, they would prefer to be referred to as the Nightingale Family, to emphasise their legacy.
 * The surname "Song" was 'created' to accomodate the first Nightingale to enroll at Ever After High. The enrollment form required a surname. Song was decided as a family name for the musical connection (in English), and the reference to the Song Dynasty (and thus, the monarchy). Nightingales have always been fond of wordplay, after all.

Opinion on Destiny
Before Galen’s ditching-of-destiny, Daulis had resigned himself to being the second child, the one without a story, someone who could just be left alone to his poetry and podcasts. He was used to being out of the public eye, he was used to being a footnote - but being the next Nightingale forced him to give up that lifestyle.

Dealing with attention is hard, especially large amounts of publicity. Frankly, it intimidates Daulis. Still, he refuses to do what his sister did and hand the role to someone else, and for good reason, too.

The Nightingale is one of the more well-known tales, and he is granted a happy ending with little (if any) repercussions. Daulis is very well-aware that several people will kill for a story and a role like his. Thus, he's determined to make use of this fortune of his - it's a gift, not a burden, he insists.

Besides, his sister hexpects so much of him, as do his parents. Familial bonds are important in his life, and he doesn't want to let his family down.

Parallels
Direct fairytale to Daulis parallels:
 * Daulis (and his father) being associated with radio, a media that is becoming to be seen as “dated” directly contrasts with Tereus’ flashy innovative technological sparkly prettiness.
 * On the same vein, Video Killed The Radio Star.
 * The nightingale is said to be not much to look at, Daulis thinks of himself as plain.
 * Which, I think, is an unfair assessment, because nightingales are really cute little birds.
 * Daulis’ a lot more comely than he gives himself credit for.

The character of Andersen’s nightingale was based off the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, dubbed “the Swedish Nightingale”. As Lind was a heavy influence not only on this fairytale but Andersen in general, several nods have been made to her:
 * Lind’s a soprano, Daulis’ a tenor. Both have high pitches.
 * She’s the Swedish Nightingale, Daulis is frequently referred to as a Swedish Nightingale.
 * In fact, Daulis being Swedish is a direct reference to Jenny Lind herself.
 * Jenny Lind was associated with several Romantic-era composers, namely Chopin and Mendelssohn.
 * Daulis is heavily inspired by the Romantic era - it’s his favourite era of both poetry and of music.

Finally, further parallels of Daulis with nightingales themselves - in literature and in nature:
 * Nightingales are known for their melodious and spontaneous song.
 * Daulis has a melodious voice, and is jumpy and nervous (which is... kind of a form of spontaneity?)
 * The literary association of nightingales with love and loss provides a romantic undertone.
 * 'Ode to a Nightingale', one of the most prominent works featuring a nightingale, is written by John Keats, a poet from the Romantic Era.
 * Daulis' favourite literary and music period is Romanticism
 * Nightingales feature heavily in Ancient Greek and Latin literature.
 * Likewise, Daulis is very much into the Classics.
 * The most famous classical myth about nightingales is that of Procne and Philomela. Daulis is named after the region of Daulis, the setting of the tale.
 * "Daulian" is also an epithet for the nightingale.
 * Daulis' father, Aedon, is named after the Greek word for nightingale. Fitting, the two both have names meaning "nightingale song".
 * Both Daulis and his father have female names (ie, they were named after female characters from Classical Mythology). This is fitting because the only nightingales that sing are male, and yet the nightingale in the fairytale is regarded as feminine.
 * Nightingales are part of a group of birds called passerine, a name probably derived from the Latin passer, meaning sparrow.
 * In Classical literature, the passer is most commonly associated with the Roman poet Catullus. This sparrow - "Lesbia's sparrow" - is also metaphorically interpreted as having unsavory connotations.
 * Such unsavory connotations meant that originally, Daulis' character featured a lot of dick jokes. These have been cut, thankfully.

Trivia

 * Daulis is a nod to the Greek myth Philomela and Procne. It is the region in which the nightingale, Procne, reigns.
 * Daulian is an adjective often used to refer to the nightingale.
 * Song is an actual, common Chinese surname. It is also the name of a Chinese dynasty.
 * Fitting, for the nightingale serves the Emperor of China.

Quotes
he's said plenty of quoteable things, ive just never written any content of him