You don’t get to tell Dearies how they feel about Belle French

I saw a post I shouldn’t have. To be clear it was properly tagged, XKit should’ve blocked it. But it didn’t and I was so affronted by that post I felt the need not to respond but to clarify.

The gist of the post, which was one short sentence, was that Rumple fans see Belle as his property and not as a character in her own right. I was surprised it was an Evil Regal saying this, I thought there was enough communication between one side of the fandom to the other to see and know this is not true. And this are all my issues with the post:

A) The SHOW treats Belle like that, and therefore so do all your faves: The people who reblogged it where all Evil Regals, CSers and the like. And on the show their favourite characters have CONSTANTLY treated Belle as an extension of Rumple, a weak spot of his to exploit instead of a person.

Emma did it when she blackmailed Rumple into going to the Underworld and when she was Dark Swan.

Snow did it when she ratted Belle out to save her neck from Hyde.

Regina did it when… well, take your pick. When she locked her up for over 30 years, when she took her heart to manipulate and control Rumple, when she made her into Lacey….

Hook did it… Well, he still does. When he shot her, when he punched her so hard she lost consciousness, when he admitted to helping her because it would annoy Rumple.

B) Even when the characters are not treating Belle as “Rumple’s object” they ARE treating her as some sort of useful tool and then promptly forget she’s a human being with feelings.

Belle went to Camelot to help Emma, and on a mission with Hook she got kidnapped while standing right next to him and went missing for over two days and he did not notice.

The heroes are constantly going to Belle for help researching things but when Belle needs help… no one does anything? Other than Rumple, I mean.

C) Dearies where almost the only people I ever saw fighting for the show to treat Belle different: We used to be so vocal about getting Belle more screen time and her own plots and story development, back in the days when we thought this show just needed to know how much the fans loved Belle. Sure, there were Belle fans doing this that weren’t also dearies, of course, but 90% of the effort I saw into trying to give Belle more of a role in the show was done by dearies. We have the countless tweets to prove it, pleading for more Belle time (NOT Rumbelle time, BELLE time), gushing about every single Belle scene to make the writers aware of how much we WANTED Belle and liked her as a character, showing them the disparity between Belle’s screen time and the screen time of the rest of the cast, etc. We have the tumblr posts to prove it, about writing to ABC, doing a twitter event for Belle, trying to see how we could possibly get the writers to give us more of Belle as a character. We have the e-mails and letters sent to ABC studios, begging for more Belle.

We tried to make this an OUAT issue. We tried to get help from other people, other ships. NO ONE listened. I saw NONE of the people reblogging that post that annoyed me fighting for Belle’s screen time or for a story of her own. We were ALONE. You left us all ALONE.

C) I feel like that post perfectly embodies this new trend of “protect Belle French” I see. Just to be clear: I don’t think EVERYONE is doing this, just that most people who now flood the Belle French tag (and whom I’d never seen before) do. What is this trend about? It’s about caring for Belle French… now that she can be used as a way to shit on Rumple. Ironically this is the worst insult to the character ever, the idea that people would suddenly start caring for her just to shit on a character they hate. These people are just now wanting to protect poor Belle from evil Rumple. They were FINE when THEIR fave was being an abusive asshole to Belle (Regina, Hook, Zelena, Snow, Emma, take your pick). Most people take it a step further and gush about Belle now getting close to their fave (which is how she entered their radar as sudden “person of interest) as something cute and positive.

No, I don’t think it’s cool to think about Emma and Hook being Belle’s baby’s godparents. Don’t we have to characters that HAVEN’T tried to kill her that could fill those roles? Archie and Granny? Leroy and Ariel?

No, I don’t think Belle and Zelena are being best buddies. Zelena raped and later led to the death of a man Belle risked everything to save and outright killed Belle’s stepson. Zelena tortured Belle’s True Love and toyed with the idea of having him kill her.

No, Regina did not ask Belle forgiveness for all the horrible shit she’s pulled on her. Did I miss the part where she said she was sorry about the taking of his heart? Did I blink and miss that?

D) Yes, now that OUAT has written both Rumple and Belle so badly there are people who are taking sides. And some people who identify with Rumple are taking his side. But that doesn’t erase how much they loved and fought for Belle before A&E made her act reckless, stupid and sometimes insensitive and cruel (that is NOT Belle French, I refuse to see it as part of her actual characterisation). Then again this show has committed character assassination en masse so everyone should feel like they can relate (I imagine Snow fans were enraged when the show had their heroic princess selling off a pregnant woman for her own safety, for example).

Bottom line is… We dearies fought for Belle French. We fought for years. We fought for her when you were nowhere to be found. When you had better things to care about than the diminishing screen time and lack of own storyline of a minor character. So now you don’t get to tell us otherwise. You don’t get to say that we are doing to Belle what the show did to her and we fought against.

#november #leaffall

#likedit

#family #belief #love

#nocomments #doit #happyperson

Громкие тосты и запах портвейна. В руке чашка, в ней — чай с имбирем. Мне чужд весь этот «семейный» Праздник «друзей», популярный в мире. «Может выпьем немножко?» — Извечный гадкий вопрос. И со мной чашка, знаете, — тошно! От ваших «маленьких» доз. Все уйдут — уберусь в квартире. Со стола закуску, с пола осколки. И улыбка вдруг станет шире. Нету дома овечек-волков. На столе с чаем чашка — Мой навеки любимый друг, Не живу я с душой нараспашку, И мне лучше без лжи вокруг. Ведь мой скотч с бергамотом И вино с ароматом шалфея и мяты. План давно уже отработан — Под каждую выпивку — чая с десяток.