#But jesus...How would you really come back from all the unbelievably ooc fucked up shit they did and said to each other from S4-S6

[gch1995]

I wasn’t really emotionally invested in this version of Rumple and Belle getting their happy ending after how much A&E and these writers had more or less eviscerated what originally made them both such emotionally complex, bittersweet, cute, relatable, and heartwarming individual characters/relationship by reducing them both into such abruptly and increasingly OOC, inconsistent, illogical, exceedingly distrustful, ridiculously gullible, emotionally manipulative, and mutually toxic hollowed out puppets on strings that the writers loved to play God with by deliberately destroying them for their PLOTs to prop up everyone else on to pedestals they hadn’t done much to deserve themselves either. I was angry. Oh, I still loved Rumple and Belle as individual characters and a couple as they were originally characterized on the show from S1-S3 ish, and I’ll always love them in canon-divergent/AU fanon scenarios. However, I didn’t defend either of their the wildly OOC, and mutually toxic PLOT driven characterizations from S4-6A. I was willing to get over most of S4-S5, but I just don’t know how anyone could ever come back from how awfully they treated each other in 6A. I don’t know how anyone could possibly forgive someone in a relationship who treated each other like they did in 6A.

And honestly, they were seriously starting to go too far with Belle already as it was from S4-S5 with Rumple. Would I ever forgive someone from exiling me from my home? No, but I actually don’t think that was too out of character for Rumple to immediately forgive Belle for doing because he doesn’t believe he is worthy of love and doesn’t generally hold grudges against loved ones. But Belle’s lack of expressed remorse to Rumple felt really OOC for her in the narrative there in that scene of “Operation Mongoose (Part 2).

Then, it just got worse in S5 when Belle almost immediately left Rumple laying there in a magical stasis coma that she was told he very well may never wake up from for seven weeks in the care of Blue and the rest of Storybrooke who she knew didn’t give a fuck about Rumple when she got that stupid BATB Rose in a jar product placement, so that she could go off to Camelot to save Emma from the DO curse as a walking library and free babysitting service. I know that they wanted for Belle to be heroic and strong, and I’m not saying that her entire life had to revolve around Rumple, or that she was obligated to get back together with him if he woke up. But it would have been nice to see Belle more concerned about her true love in a coma on the brink of death than going to be a free babysitting service and walking library to save Emma from the curse for seven weeks with that stupid rose in a jar that she could only talk to Rumple through when he was in a coma, even though she would have been able to do nothing to save him if that last petal started to fall. It just made it look like A&E and these writers didn’t care about Rumple as anything more than a PLOT twist device, so it was projecting through Belle’s seeming lack of concern on screen for him now.

She shed a few tears over his banishment towards Hook in 4B in one library scene, but she never expressed remorse over it in the crucial scene where it would have made sense for her to start sobbing over him dying in front of her, and say “This is my fault! You’re dying because I banished you to a world with nothing where you couldn’t protect your heart from being consumed by the curse with magic for six weeks.” Of course, it was not truly Belle’s intent for Rumple to die from a heart attack when she banished him with nothing, she didn’t know it would happen to him, but the main idea most fans had was that it never would have happened if she hadn’t needlessly banished him for his crimes to a world where he couldn’t save his heart with magic from the curse, and kept him there as a prisoner with the dagger until she knew she could trust him not to go back to being shady with that damned hat? Why she wouldn’t have felt seriously guilty if Rumple had died because he couldn’t save his heart in a world without magic where she banished him to where he couldn’t have saved himself is such bad writing that I just can’t understand these writers.

They were testing waters by making Belle do and say even worse things from there in 4B too that I was seriously wondering how Rumple could forgive Belle for doing, such as handing over his dagger to him as Hook, his worst enemy in disguise, like it was no big deal (it was OOC for him to disguise himself as Hook too, but at least you can kind of attribute it to Rumple’s extreme low sense of self-worth)...Standing there passively in his shop as her “friends” openly talked in front of her about wanting to kill him. Rumple wasn’t there for that one, but I was honestly gutted by the fact that Belle did not speak up to protect Rumple in 4B in that shop scene where Emma and Hook were casually talking about wanting to kill her true love and husband like she just didn’t care about Rumple anymore. Then, there was that well scene...Belle wasn’t obligated to take Rumple back, but giving him borderline emotionally manipulative false hope like that was awful and ooc. Why didn’t she just say that she wasn’t ready to take him back before that scene where he went off to fight Hook without magic and he easily could have died? She contradicted her own statement to Rumple of “Running never made anyone a hero, you know” in the middle of a town crisis with the Dark Hook/Dark Swan because she was having relationship troubles with Rumple, and actually agreed to take his car and magic when he sent her off to save her life from the Dark Hook. She came back because Henry told her the truth before she could cross the town-line, but the fact that she was seriously about to go through with it is so wildly OOC. This was not Belle, and I’m not just saying that because she wasn’t being nice to Rumple from S4-S5. I’m saying that because she was being a self-contradictory hypocritical coward, and the narrative did nothing to acknowledge how unheroic that was of her.

I don’t know how I would ever forgive someone for emotionally whiplashing me twice with borderline manipulative false hope to get me to do what they wanted only to drop me cold after that to start bitching at me, and even go to my far worse mortal enemy who still continues to express no remorse for enslaving and torturing me or killing my son to “protect” our unborn child without my consent first because I’m apparently less trustworthy to my true love than a woman who remorselessly molested me for making a mistake of keeping them in the dark by lying about being shady to try to free myself from control because I was afraid to lose them. This was not Belle. I was fine with Belle having flaws, but these didn’t really seem like flaws that were true to who she was, but a PLOT device. Belle could be proud, she could be self-righteous, and she could be naive. But this was just petty, stupid, insensitive, hypocritical, and cowardly. I was angry they weren’t going to be acknowledged as flaws. They just seemed to be a way to trigger Rumple back to the dark side, and bring out the worst in him sooner or later.

I was hoping that canon!Belle would come around for Rumple’s sake at the beginning of 6A, and I hoped that they would be able to do it without tainting the purity of his love for her, thus, ruining his one last consistently emotionally complex, credible, and relatable, and sympathetic original characterization trait from S1-S3 of canon to try to make Hook/CS look better after (still) doing and saying far, far worse to Emma in 5A anyway. Sadly, I was wrong from the spoilers I read, and they completely tainted Rumple and Belle’s true love in 6A to make CS look better after 5A.

Canon!Belle only got far worse than I could possibly imagine in 6A...She was being a stupid and horrible mother-to-be, who was actually willing to stay in a sleeping curse of eternal hellfire forever with their unborn child to “protect” them from his EVOL daddy where he surely could have and would have died with her because of what a dream, who I was just supposed to believe was the Rumbaby, said. I know that wasn’t Belle’s intent, I know it was OOC bad writing for the PLOT, so I know it wasn’t worth it to blame her for it, but it still made her look like a blindly cruel, cowardly, delusional, petty, selfish, and stupid bad mother-to be because the whole thing with a future version of Rumbaby as a the God of Dreams being able to be in his mom’s dream with a fully formed opinion about how EVOL his dad was, and being able to wake her up with TLK never made any fucking sense, so canon made it so we just had to accept that this wildly OOC, needlessly cruel, cowardly, delusional, petty, and stupid af bad mother to be was just who Belle was for the sake of PLOT . And as for canon!Rumple in 6A...Well, they officially tainted the purity of his true love for canon!Belle just as badly if not worse than they already had hers by having him overreact to her OOC cruelty and delusional bitchiness like a completely OOC, increasingly awful, arrogant, borderline manipulative, creepy, disrespectful, deranged, restrictive, reckless, stupid, and threatening jackass in 6x04, 6x08, and 6x09 in response. Yeah, he backed down just like I knew he would, but too much irreparable damage had already been done to both his and Belle’s original characterizations for needless suspense and Drama™️ in the PLOT for me to forgive the writers for doing this time around.

I didn’t hate Rumple or Belle for 6A because it was blatantly obvious that this wasn’t who either of them really were or something that had anything to do with either one of them being inherently bad people for each other as characters in a relationship. They very obviously were now just two hollowed out puppets driven by blatantly contrived, OOC, inorganic, and character destroying externalized PLOT-driven conflict that was contrived by Eddy Kitsis and his malicious lazy ass team of writers who were playing God with both of them, Emma, and the rest of their characters to prop up Captain Fuckboy because they didn’t want to take the time to slow down and actually write character development organically to make him a more likable character. It was all just cheap emotional manipulation from S4-S6 to prop up Hook/CS, and/or shock the audience by destroying characters to have “fun” in the PLOT. I

I found the best way to still continue loving Rumple, Belle, Emma, and all of these other characters through thick and thin, no matter what A&E and these writers did to destroy their likable and relatable characterizations for their PLOTs in this piss poor excuse for canon OUAT from the end of 3B onwards was to completely detach from any sort of blindly subjective emotional investment in them whenever they were bizarrely characterized in ways that initially would make me feel angry, annoyed, confused, disgusted, horrified, frustrated, and/or hoping for more answers to justify the weird writing choices for their characterizations that I learned soon enough never came.

It was much easier to move on from the fucked up nonsense the writers made these characters do when you viewed the show’s writing for them through an emotionally detached, self-aware, and completely objective lens of the harsh reality: The writing had gotten so inexcusably and unbelievably toxic, illogical, inconsistent, self-contradictory, and stupid for every remaining main character on this shoe that they would never do in real life if they existed, and had simply become mindless puppets I. strings of PLOT in A&E and these writers total laziness. This show was ultimately being written in a way that was obviously trying to emotionally manipulate an audience to blindly feel the way they wanted them to, and as soon as you accepted that it didn’t want you to ask any questions about why what the bizarre things they made their characters do for their asinine PLOTs, made no sense the better ofmove on from the infuriating painful character assassinations in canon, and move on to fanon.

I’ve never seen two such beautiful complicated fictional characters played by such fantastic actors with fantastic organic romantic chemistry get so eagerly embraced and beloved by their fans end up getting so deliberately abused, misused, and trashed by their show-runners/writers as Rumple and Belle played by Robert Carlyle and Emilie De Ravin on OUAT. I really hope I get to see those two work together as actors who play a couple in a romantic comedy/Dramedy television show that is not written or run by petty hacks like A&E and these idiots who deliberately treated Rumbelle like trash because they had some egotistical and childish creative grudge against them and/or another writer who helped fleshed them out in a way that made their individual characters/relationship a lot more emotionally complex and lovable than they originally intended for them to be by their fans. Also, Eddy Kitsis seriously just seems like some sort of abusive, creepy misogynistic, and sleazy prick with an inferiority complex and superiority complex that he self-projected on these characters and their fans.

You don’t like that Gideon was de-aged? See, I deeply love that. I know some said that he didn’t vocalize it, but (a) I doubt he thought that was an option and (b) it’s clear how much pain he was in. He deserved to grow up with parents who loved him - and Rumbelle deserved their sin.

Oh, I get you, anon. If you’ll read the post, my exact words were:

Ihave such mixed feelings about this?

Because onthe one hand: Gideon had a life that nobodywould want. He was kidnapped, imprisoned, kept in the dark and abused for allof his twenty-eight years, and even if he got free, he would never get thattime back. Nobody would ever choose that for themselves.

At the sametime… Gideon died. The person I got to know over the last half-season is nomore. He’s gone. And he never had any say in the matter. Hell, he didn’t evenget to say goodbye. It’ just such a messed-up way to get a wonderful thing.

So I totally see your position.

And I just want to say that “vocalising it” doesn’t have to be Gideon showing up and going “yes, I would like to be made into a baby again without any of my memories so I can have a good life this time around.” But at least something like “I wish we could just start over” (maybe in a quiet moment with Belle hint hint) would have been nice.

[thepringlesofblood]

thoughts on stranger things three  (spoilers. so many.)

this is just me yellin into the void as usual, but I like recording my opinions on things even if no one will read them 

good:

- every single scene w/ the robin, steve, erica, dustin gang, especially!!! the coming out scene. scoops?? iconic. steve and dustin’s secret handshake? transcendent. the drugged out back to the future scene? perfect. 

- eleven and max say fuck the patriarchy. love el’s new look 

- more competent women is always a win

- funhouse fight!!! carnival fight!!!FIREWORKS??!??!

- the destruction of the mall (sadly the only anticapitalist symbolism I could find)

- the scene after jonathan and nancy get fired where they’re angry about their separate marginalized identities making this loss worse. I really liked how it went into the ways it will impact both of them, and I especially liked when nancy got home and talked to her mom. 

- joyce going buckwild and getting shit done. 

- the portrayal of hypervigilance as a symptom of PTSD. All of these characters have seen some shit, and all of them pick up on the littlest things the second they present themselves because subconsciously, they’re always on edge, always aware of bad it could break. 

- most of will’s character arc. not all, but most of it. the queer experience of watching all your friends get dates and feeling like you’re missing out on something? trying to regain their interest because you feel lost and left behind? worrying that you’re not “growing up” because you don’t recognize romantic interest in yourself? not realizing you’re falling for your best friend until they get a romantic partner and suddenly you hate the partner even though they haven’t done anything wrong? a poignant, beautiful, very painful portrayal of queer teenhood. I really, really wish there was a moment that the audience realized will was in love with mike though. Like, it’s been building for a very long time. Also, a more thorough confirmation of will’s queerness would’ve been nice. I think they meant mike saying “you don’t understand bc you don’t like girls” to be that confirmation, but I want to hear it from will. Robin’s moment is so so so good though. 

- domestic fuckery 

- getting someone on the inside to help them/alexei as a character. not the symbolism or larger ramifications of his character arc, but how his knowledge and personality interacted. 

- mr clarke!!!!

- el going into someone’s memories again

- how prepared everyone is to fight because they’ve seen this shit before and robin and erica are just like ‘this might as well happen’ 

- keeping with the stranger things pattern of having a bunch of different groups of people all in different genres and then together they all meet up and go ?????

- I know every says billy didn’t get enough of a redemption arc but tbh I did not see his character development as redeeming in any way and I liked that. It didn’t excuse his abusive actions, it just explained them. There was no “oh he was secretly good all along”, no dramatic total character reversal on his death bed, just him deciding that he had enough of being controlled. Max didn’t get full closure with him, he didn’t say some big speech about being wrong or realizing the ramifications of his actions bc he hadn’t reached that point yet. he just said “I’m sorry” and died. that could mean “i’m sorry for how I’ve treated you”, “I’m sorry for how many people I’ve killed”, “I’m sorry for not being able to stop the monster”, anything. we don’t know what it means. we don’t get an explanation. It speaks to how survivors of abuse often don’t get to know why, don’t get closure, don’t get all the answers. 

- steve finally won a fight before getting the shit kicked out of him

- the whole no one knowing anything about each other bc no cell phones and/or wasnt there when It Happened. 

- Erica getting the DND set was poetic cinema 

- when joyce sees will on the firetruck and they run towards each other because finally, for once, will is completely unscathed, will isn’t the one who got hurt/possessed. I was already crying but this is the part where i had to get tissues bc I was sobbing. 

Bad:

- the red scare bullshit and glorification of capitalism. this show started out as “the US govt is doing shady shit” and now the big climatic “everything’s alright” is the army getting there?? what the fuck. There’s being accurate to the time period and then there’s sending a message. they could’ve subverted that trope in so many ways, but they just went for straight up “capitalism is great! fuck russia!” and I hated that. also, talk about one-note villainry. there weren’t even any dramatic monologues to make up for it, it just kinda sucked. 

- Hopper’s character in the beginning of the season. the scene where he gets wasted after getting stood up? shitty. not talking to el about his vaguely sexist overprotective actions? shitty. blowing up at joyce for no reason? shitty. he pulls it together in the end but it was OOC for a bit there. Plus I would kill for more “hopper and el work through their trauma together”, rather than “friend group splinters bc hopper did a yell” 

- I don’t know what to think about hopper’s death. It just hurts, and not in a satisfying, last harry potter book way. 

- why the fuck are the byers and el moving?????? did they ever give a reason???? WHY?????? WILL AND EL’S ENTIRE SUPPORT NETWORK, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH AND CAN HELP THEM, IS IN HAWKINS!!!!!

- the ads. omg the ads. lucas idc about your fucking coke. there’s so much goddamn product placement. christ on a goddamn bicycle. 

- previous seasons have had body horror, but it was all black goo so it was removed from reality and conveyed a psychological, otherworldly horror. and I liked that. WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH FUCJING MEAT IN THIS ONE??? THE MIND FLAYER LOOKED LIKE IT WAS MADE OF BBQ SAUCE AND I HATED IT!!! STOP!!!THE MEATS!!!!!

- can el not be injured......for oNCE?????

- also can people stop standing around staring at shit so much? theyve seen it before. it’s not like it’s a huge shock. people stand around for like 5 minutes before Doing Things and it annoys me. with the New Kids like erica and robin it makes sense but like....whenever theres a monster mike just sits there like :o cOME ON DUDE YOU’VE DONE THIS SO MANY TIMES GET A KNIFE OR SOMETHIN!!!

- WHAT. WAS. THE GREEN STUFF?????????????????? IS IT FUCKING PLUTONIUM OR SOMETHING???? WHAT THE FUCK!!! IF YOU NEED A MACGUFFIN BE LESS OBVIOUS ABOUT IT!!!

- idk about you but murray yelling at them about sex kinda rubbed me the wrong way. 

- speaking of, you caNNOT convince me that murray, 4 locks on the front door lives in a bunker murray, would take a goddamn enemy of the state to a carnival and leave him alone for any period of time. seriously????????

- look.....it was adorable.....i’ll give you that.....but.....the song dustin and suzy sang slapped me with secondhand embarrassment and genre disconnect so hard I found it impossible to enjoy. also...planck’s constant??? you could/......idk........call mr clarke????????? you’ve interrupted the man’s life for less!!!! I was also half expecting it to be joyce who remembered it from all the studying she did on the magnets. I did enjoy the whole “i met a girl at camp” story being unbelievable until it was but like I was expecting the thing she wanted him to say to be like a famous star wars love quote or something not an entire song jesus christ 

- if hopper turns out to be alive I will face god and walk backwards into hell. I suffered through supernatural, I will not be caught in a cycle of fake deaths again. 

- i get the whole “we’re growing up now” thing but aren’t they like 13? theyre still so young??? also like i dont rly care for the vague soap-opera-y vibes the core squad gave off. 

- the only people who got flayed were either a. already pretty shitty or b. completely unknown. like. it just made it less scary????

- hopper just fucking standing by the machine looking at joyce instead of running the 5 seconds up the steps into the room. seriously? was that supposed to be slow motion or was that real time??? 

- the whole thing with cerebro not working at the beginning sucked ass. 

- hey does mrs wheeler have eyes??? like??? there were exactly two (2) scenes she had with mike and nancy and both were Big Conversations like they live there right/????tbh i forgot she was their mom until those scenes bc of the whole billy thing, which i decidedly do not have an opinion on but like....do they eat breakfast there???