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gch1995 · 3 years

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I see you liking all my old OUaT and Rumbelle content and it's really validating to know people are still mad at A&E for destroying my dreams

LOL! You should see my posts here that I made about why OUAT became an enduring legacy, and my comment on the “Does anyone here support Rumbelle?” post. This show is such a legacy because it showed all of us in the fandom mostly how to not completely fuck up and waste potential for amazing characters, relationships, and storylines with absurd, biased, cliched, inconsistent, ableist, classist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, cheaply shocking, contrived, inconsistent, hypocritical, gross, repetitive, and stupid characterizations, twists, storylines, and tropes. The main cast, and the fact that the fans did OUAT far better is why this show ultimately became such an enduring legacy.

As for Rumple, Belle, and Rumbelle, I’ll always love them, both individually and as a couple, as they were originally characterized and written from S1-S3 of the show, in canon-divergent/AU fanfic scenarios, and in my imagination and headcanons as the characters and couple they could have and should have been and remained on the show.

However, I don’t support any of the cheaply shocking, contrived, wildly inconsistent, wildly flanderdized, and wildly ooc cartoonishly evil, exceedingly cruel, exceedingly conniving, exceedingly deceptive, exceedingly distrustful, exceedingly manipulative, exceedingly desperate, exceedingly hypocritical, exceedingly self-righteous, exceedingly selfish, exceedingly reckless, exceedingly self-sabotaging, exceedingly single-minded, and ridiculously oblivious and gullible plot-driven behaviors, reactions, and mischaracterizations for either one of them on-and-off-again in the piss poor excuse for canon that OUAT devolved into after the first two-and-a-half to three ish seasons, either individually or as a couple. Really, the absurd, cheaply shocking, contrived, inconsistent, flanderdized, and ooc melodramatic toxicity and stupidity was on both sides of their relationship pretty badly in regards to each other from late 3B-S6 on-and-off-again, so I’m not going to take sides.

I don’t support the increasingly contrived, unfair, and ridiculous nature of Rumple’s regressions on this show in canon the longer it went on on-and-off-again, starting in 2B.

I just refuse to hold any of it against either of the individual characters or their relationship together. I refuse to let it ruin my enjoyment of the individual characters and the pairing because I still cherish bittersweet, beautiful, relatable, and complex Rumbelle we originally got from S1-S3, and me, and the Rumbelle fandom stick to that version in our headcanons and canon-divergent/AU fanfic. Also so many of the shitty and stupid ways in which they reacted to each other in later seasons in canon was due to cheaply shocking, horrifically, inconsistently, illogically, and wildly OOC badly written mischaracterizations and extremes they were forced to through being driven by Kitsowitz and these writers increasingly blatant favoritism of Hook/CS, hypocrisy, and their increasingly absurd, cheaply shocking, and contrived twists, magical macguffins, prophecies, and twists in the plot with little to no consistent, organic, logical, or relatable lead up. It was just for the sake of shock value, creator pet propping, and repetitive storytelling, so it wasn’t even worth hating on either of the characters or the couple for any of it. Much of their wildly ooc shittiness and stupidity didn’t make any sort of consistent, relatable, or organic sense post S3 ish.

I could understand hating on the characters for becoming shitty, illogical, and unsympathetic people if characterization, development, or regression in canon OUAT made any sort of consistent, gradual, organic, and relatable sense that made hating them for it feel well-earned. However, there had been less and less consistency and credibility of characterization, development, regression, and storytelling in OUAT for these characters and relationships, starting in 2B, and after 3A, it just went completely off the rails into unforgivably bad territory because they killed off their core theme of family with Neal, broke their own rules of not being able to resurrect the dead by bringing back Rumple, reframed the narrative (and most of the remaining main cast’s original characterizations) around Hook/CS, retconned the characters previously established development, and derailed everyone in increasingly awful, cheaply shocking, and ridiculous ways to rerail them all over again full circle back to the development they achieved at the end of the Neverland arc.

The characters went between being characterized as good to evil, evil to good, sympathetic to unsympathetic, kind to cruel, cruel to kind, intelligent to stupid, trusting to distrusting, distrusting to trusting, forgiving to unforgiving, unforgiving to forgiving, sane to batshit insane, batshit insane to sane again, and so on in the blink of an eye based off of whatever the writers wanted for them to be to fit their absurd, biased, cheaply shocking and contrived plots and twists as every season passed. By the time we got to the end of 5A, they often weren’t even bothering to stay consistent with most of the characters characterizations and motivations throughout a single episode, particularly not with Emma, Hook, Rumple, and Belle who were part of all this cheaply shocking, contrived, toxic, and silly magical soap opera romantic melodrama. They were definitely the characters who it was most difficult for me to get a clear grasp on because of this, though everyone’s characterizations and motivations were often baffling and confusing to me, which is why I finally quit watching after S5.

I love the original Rumple who was deeply loving, and the original Rumple who was learning to respect Belle’s wishes, make compromises and always allowing her personal space when she wanted it. I love the original Rumple who was learning to be honest with Belle. I love the original Rumple who would never ever recklessly threaten to physically harm Belle for personal gain with magic, not even in a panic. I love the original Rumple who cried when Belle asked him out for a hamburger date, and the original Rumple who adorkably flirted with her by joking with her about ketchup.

I love the original Rumple who had an actual storyline with a consistent motivation in trying to make amends with his loved ones, particularly Bae, rather than the one of later seasons who seemed more motivated by excessive self-interest, recklessness, and desperation, no matter the cost, that came out of nowhere whenever some absurd and contrived magical macguffin and/or cruel twist of fate with magic came out of nowhere to tempt him back to the dark side again.

I love the original Rumple who was clearly and consistently framed and written as sympathetic in the narrative, in spite of his flaws, and on a clear path towards redemption, while also not being whitewashed or excused for most of his crimes and/or bad choices from S1-S3, and in canon-divergent/AU headcanon and fanon scenarios.

I love the original Belle of OUAT from “Skin Deep” to S3 and in canon-divergent/AU headcanon and fanon scenarios who was brave, compassionate, intelligent, independent, and perceptive. I love the original Belle, who saw people for who they really were, and who refused to take anyone’s shit, not just Rumple’s. I love the original Belle who was a genuinely good person who generally practiced the beliefs and morals she preached about to other people, rather than contradicting them herself whenever it was convenient for her, only to mercilessly and self-righteously condemn and vilify Rumple for so much as considering not doing the same with little to no self-awareness in regards to her own hypocritical toxicity.

I loved the original Belle who wasn’t glorified in the narrative for giving Rumple ultimatums to do what she said in order for them to be together, but who actually had to realize that, while she couldn’t and shouldn’t just sit back and enable Rumple’s bad choices and stay with him, no matter what he did, she also couldn’t treat their relationship status together as a biscuit on a string held above his head as reward that she was willing to snatch away when he didn’t comply in order to force him to be good. I love the original Belle who had values of heroism that were actually based off of who she was at her core, a brave, kind, open-minded, empathetic, perceptive, intuitive, and intelligent young woman, who valued free choice, empathy, and mercy, rather than the Belle who’s “heroism” became more about a shallow desire to emulate caricatures from archaic fairytales about knight defeating dark sorcerers and rescuing people, and a desire to fit in with “the cool kids of Storybrooke” by being exceedingly anti-Rumple, no matter what he did, right or wrong.

I love the original Belle who treated everyone fairly, including Rumple, even if it meant she didn’t get to fit in with the cool kids of Storybrooke by not being anti-Rumple to the point of excessive cruelty and refusing to engage with him in later seasons, even when he did try to reach out to her honestly, kindly, gently, and make healthy compromises. Recklessly endangering Rumple’s life by forcibly exiling him out of town with nothing was really the height of this character assassination in her in canon. Rumple deserved to be dumped for deceiving Belle. Belle had no choice but to use the dagger to stop him from being shady and killing Hook when she caught him red-handed.

However, Rumple did not deserve to have his life recklessly endangered by his true love forcibly exiling him from their home with nothing forever, especially because it didn’t really even seem like Belle cared all that much about the town’s safety when she made that choice, anyway. It was more that she was pissed that he lied, and misguidedly believed that he loved power more than her. He could have died because she left him with nothing out in the middle of nowhere. He almost did die because she left him with nothing out in the middle of nowhere. In real life, this could/would be a charge against her for at least a misdemeanor of DV, and at worst, a felony of involuntary manslaughter, if he actually did die because she recklessly endangered his life by forcibly exiling him with nothing. Yet, she didn’t even seem to feel that bad about it at all.

That to me, was a horrible character assassination in canon of Belle in 4A when she never had to deal with any sort of negative repercussions for it with Rumple calling her out as wrong, and/or being framed as not completely in the wrong for being distrusting of her. If she had, then I could have forgiven it, but she didn’t, so it made me dislike her in canon, and it’s one of the main reasons why I finally quit watching S5. I guess she finally got it at the end of 6A when she told Rumple “What have we done to each other?” However, too much inexplicable character assassinating damage had been done to both her and Rumple at that point in canon for me to forgive anymore. I just felt disgusted by the wildly ooc, ridiculously oblivious, and overdramatically toxic extremes Kitsowitz and their team of hacks had reduced them both to for the sake of cheap shock value, contrived Rumple villainy, repetitive storytelling, and Hook/CS propping. I was glad they got their “happy ending” and “redemption arc” in a shallow manner at the end of S6 because it was the least they deserved on this badly written clusterfuck of a fairytale show where everyone had screwed each other over terribly by being abusive, being exceedingly cruel, being exceedingly manipulative, being exceedingly deceptive, committing murder unjustifiably, committing attempted child abduction, committing attempted kidnapping, committing kidnapping, committing child abduction, recklessly endangering the lives of others needlessly, working with each other’s enemies needlessly, threatening to harm each other, and/or actually harming each other at least once now, if not multiple times, and were still getting a “happy ending” and “redemption arc, anyway, so this badly written canon Rumbelle might as well, too.

But it didn’t mean I was okay with any of the wildly ooc, cheaply shocking, contrived, horrifying, and stupid character destroying angst and twists Kitsowitz and their team of hacks had been pulling on Rumple and Belle, both individually and as a couple, for roughly three seasons from late 3B-6A. The canon Rumbelle from S4-S6 (and even S7) was mostly not the same ship that I had signed up for and latched on to so strongly, either individually or as a couple, from 1x08-S3, and I’m forever bitter that Kitsowitz and their team of hacks wasted the potential of those beautiful, bittersweet, complex, and relatable characters and their relationship together with believable flaws and strengths, so that they could keep shoehorning Rumple back into the scapegoat on-and-off-again villain plot device role after bringing him back.

I think this contrived, inorganic, and nonsensical nature of Rumple’s regressions started showing up in 2B with that “The boy will be your undoing” prophecy, but then we were still being privy to a huge chunk of his POV in the main narrative, so he came across as much more sympathetic throughout the whole thing, which made it so it didn’t feel too terribly ooc.

That little twist at that end where Rumple was suddenly attempting to murder Henry right at the end of 2B was kind of OOC because he was doing it after vowing not to do it all throughout 2B in the present day beforehand to save his own skin, particularly when he found out that he and Henry were related, and he kept having terrifying nightmares of doing it. That was the first small moment on the show where Rumple was suddenly derailed into a nearly irredeemable corner out of nowhere after being consistently portrayed as sympathetic beforehand, and it wasn’t necessary to get him to the point he was at at the end of 3A either. It was just a ooc moment to cheesily create a moment of cheaply shocking suspense in the audience of “Oh no, I thought Rumple was planning not to do this horrible thing before. What if he does this terrible thing, and can’t be redeemed anymore?...Oh, thank god someone was there to give him information that caused him to reconsider doing the cheaply shocking horrible thing right in the nick of time before he went too far, and now he’s back on the track for redemption that we previously had established he was before we threw in that twist out of nowhere to make you think he’d actually fail.”

However, I let it go back then because not wanting to die and lose the chance of being with his son again is a sympathetic motive for committing attempted murder of someone, even an innocent, and even if the reasoning behind why is kind of bizarre, for plot reasons, and he did get back on the right track again a moment later after being told Bae was “dead”. Aside from that one wildly ooc moment at the last minute of 2B, though, Rumple had pretty clearly shown that he did not want to kill Henry, felt terrified about doing it, and then he went right back on track a minute later and decided not to do it when Snowing told him that Bae was “dead,” which ultimately culminated in him selflessly sacrificing his life to save Henry, Bae, Belle, and the rest of the town. Rumple’s character should have just stayed dead after that because, in spite of a few flaws here and there in the writing, it was a pretty relatively consistent, organic, beautiful, and well-earned arc, and there really wasn’t anywhere else to go up with him after having him do that, anyway.

Also, the Lacey twist was the first small instance contrived twist that took away Belle’s original sympathetic and intelligent characterization and agency in story that should have been about both her and Rumple, so that they could make Rumple look somewhat distrust-worthy and shady when he was forced to be somewhat dark/morally ambiguous to get Lacey’s attention to protect Belle from herself when he couldn’t get through to her by being the best version of himself that she fell in love with, and didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t get too worked up about it back then because it had only happened once, but yeah, I didn’t like the dubious consent issues that the whole Lacey/Belle twist created, or the fact that Belle’s agency was suddenly taken away to make Rumple look kind of shady. I didn’t like the fact that Belle was made to be uncharacteristically stupid and unsympathetic, so that they could use her as a plot device that put Rumple in a position where he felt either tempted and/or forced to be shady again.

I’ve seen canon-divergent/AU stories of Rumple’s resurrection and ultimate redemption stories done really well by the far superior creative writers in the Dearie/Rumbelle fandom, particularly by @toseehowthestoryends. But Kitsowitz and their team of writers lacked the desire and the skill to pull it off. They weren’t ultimately interested in writing consistent, organic, and relatable characterization development, or human reactions in their characters. They picked favorites. They kept shoehorning characters into “hero” and “villain” slots, even after all of these characters had become pretty inexcusably toxic to each other in one way or another, and either didn’t recognize and/or didn’t care to recognize, their own hypocrisy. They relied too hard on cheap shock value and contrived magical twists and macguffins to drive their story, even if it meant they felt they had to sacrifice their characters credibility and integrity.

Frankly, the entire show should have just ended altogether after the Neverland arc because that was clearly all the story for growth they had planned out ahead of time for Emma, Snow, David, Regina, Rumple, Henry, and even Hook, their favorite, too, anyway.

After that arc, Bae’s death, Rumple’s resurrection, and the promotion of Hook to the main lead, the Aesop’s Amnesia trope kept hitting all of these remaining main characters in increasingly cheaply shocking, contrived, wildly ooc, painful, flanderdized, ridiculous, and unsympathetic ways in order to force them to relearn the same lessons they already had learned to grow past relatively consistently, dynamically, and sympathetically throughout S1-3A. They brought the show back after they ran out of story, killed off their core theme of family with Neal, resurrected Rumple from the best done two-and-a-half season redemption arc to demonize him on-and-off-again as a foil for “hero” Hook, set up Hook as the romantic lead for Emma, ruined Emma for Hook, and derailed all of their remaining main characters to re-rail them over and over and over and over again.

The only one who remained mostly consistent, normal, and in-character post S3 was Regina, and even she was getting the character derailing Aesop’s Amnesia trope and idiot ball throughout S4-S6 sometimes in trying to find magical solutions to artificially absolve herself of her guilt from her past crimes, such as searching for the author in S4, and using the shears to split off her dark side in 5B and 6A. Just why? I get that you feel guilty about the crimes you committed Regina, but you’ve gained Henry, Emma, the Charmings, and the rest of the town’s forgiveness and acceptance by trying to be better before. Just keep trying to be better, take ownership of the crimes you’ve made in the past, admit that you were wrong, and move on by being content with the happy ending and redemption with the family you’ve always wanted earned here in the present day now, rather than needlessly and stupidly self-sabotaging by seeking out magical solutions to artificially absolve your guilt. If it’s really that hard for you to move on from the past by accepting personal accountability for your crimes, then I would recommend going to see Archie for therapy again to talk about, but don’t stupidly sabotage the good things you already have earned here and now with Henry and the Charmings acceptance and forgiveness to try to artificially absolve yourself of your guilt with magic.

Otherwise, Regina got her crimes whitewashed, she never really had any sort of resolution to the dumb choices with magic she made, and her character just fell flat after the Neverland arc because she never really learned anything new or grew any further after her attempted selfless sacrifice in 2B to save Henry and the town, and her selfless choice to let Henry go with Emma to save him at the end of “Going Home,” in spite of his memories getting erased of her in process once he crossed the town line. Regina never became the outright evil cartoon villain she was back in S1 whenever she backslid post S3, which is more than I can say for the writing of the other main villains on this show in canon whenever they regressed post S3, but she was still kind of falling back into old patterns and storylines with the Aesop’s Amnesia and idiot ball bad writing tropes in order to force her to relearn lessons that she already had back in S2-3A.

There was a particularly painful egregiousness to the character assassinations of Rumple, Belle, and Emma to prop up Hook/CS, though. Rumple was the only other morally gray male anti-villain on the show, and a huge part of Hook’s original introduction on the show was due to the fact that Rumple was the villain in his story when he killed Milah in an impulsive rage over her leaving Bae. Because they were lazy terrible writers, who didn’t want to put in any sort of effort to actually taking the time to believably and organically develop Hook into a redemptive anti-villain/antihero in his own right, Kitsowitz and these writers resorted to inorganically forcing the character to be the “redeemed” antiheroic main lead by setting him up in a contrived, creepy, and wildly ooc cheap Rumbelle rip-off romance with their main lead heroine (Emma Swan) that enabled rape culture and toxic masculinity in Hook’s aggressive stalker-ish pursuit of Emma, regardless of her feelings when they had her give in to his persistance, by killing off Neal to replace him with Hook, by breaking their own rules to bring Rumple back from the most consistently sympathetic, relatable, and well-earned two-and-a-half to three season redemption arc, so they could reduce him to an on-and-off-again demonized foil for “hero” Hook, by turning Emma into a codependent, cruel, violent, hypocritical, and selfish bitch to make Hook look better, by reducing Rumbelle to the problem couple of OUAT, both individually and as a couple, and by making Emma, Belle, Snow, David, and even Henry to be his enablers.

However, even Hook’s character was assassinated pretty badly in 5A when he had that heel-face turn into a flanderdized cartoon sociopath out of nowhere after he found out Emma brought him back as a Dark One against his wishes when he came up with that plan to get vengeance on her by killing her friends and family through attempting to send them all to the UW, and even after he was “redeemed” afterwards it felt lazy and unbelievable because all he did was clean up his own mess by deciding not to kill everyone at the last second, and afterwards, he was still reverting back to making old bad choices of seeking vengeance on Rumple, lying to Emma, and, at worst, continuing to be romanticized and whitewashed for still being a dick in his spare time whenever he found a good excuse to revert again, anyway, which had been the case since S4.

Tl;dr The show should have just ended with the Neverland arc. The problems in the writing that were already starting to show up enough as it already was throughout S1-3A were proof enough that Kitsowitz and these writers couldn’t handle more than two-and-a-half seasons of relatively consistent, dynamic, and satisfying characterization and growth because after that it fell into a deep, dark, and inescapable abyss of character destroying and repetitive bad writing that not even the sentiments of shallow “happy endings” and “redemption” arcs could make up for in the end.

#besiderunningwaters #rumbelle #rumplestiltskin #anti OUAT #anti kitsowitz #anti OUAT writers #anti OUAT 3B-S7 #regina Mills #anti hook #anti cs #it’s not anti rumple and it’s not anti Belle #but Belle wasn’t blameless for her broken relationship with rumple either #and I know beauties will call me a misogynist for not seeing Belle French as innocent in her relationship problems with rumple from S4-S6 #sure she wasn’t entitled to take him back and she never should have enabled him #but there were definitely times when she needlessly cruel to him throughout S4-S6 too ooc as it was #and you would think that even they would get that canon!Belle was no longer a innocent snowflake in her relationship with rumple #because she point blank acknowledged that the senseless toxicity in their relationship ooc as it was still went both ways #since she literally told rumple what have WE done to each other which implies that she realizes she hurt him in some inexcusably awful ways #too even if that was never her intent or his intent with hers #but they still want to pretend that Belle was the only one was who was ever the victim in her relationship with rumple from S4-S6 #I know it was wildly ooc bad writing for both rumple and Belle post S3 too but there were definitely times when Belle needlessly victimized #rumple throughout S4-6A too

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