#anti everything about this show after 3x11 tbh

[gch1995]

This entire series about “hope” was essentially a thinly veiled horror story now. It had been showing signs of becoming that from day one, and sadly, it only got worse, which led to the canon OUAT we all grew to love to hate and bitterly mock for its beautiful wasted potential in favor of character destroying mutually toxic Drama™️ in the PLOT, creator pets, and Hook/CS fanservice.

Why does the title card have a horror movie sting?

Do I even want to know?

EDIT: and I’d forgotten how good David looks in that prince-getup

[gch1995]

I had to quit watching after S5 because the writing for everyone’s characterization was so unbelievably OOC, infuriating, and mutually toxic, especially for Emma, Rumple, and Belle, who were my faves. They’d even turned Henry into a whiny and selfish little shit with no empathy in the 5B finale of “Only You” with that stupid “destroy magic” PLOT twist. Of course, I couldn’t really blame the characters for behaving in wildly OOC fucked up ways, and/or doing, and/or saying wildly OOC fucked up shit to each other that no one would ever realistically forgive. I could understand if it actually made believable sense why they were all being characterized as such as toxic messes, but on the show at this point, it was blatantly clear that Emma, Hook, Rumple, Belle, Snowing, and Henry were all victims of A&E and these writers external forces of nonsensical PLOT-driven magical fuckery Drama™️ on this show that had devolved into a soap opera, and not really due to anything that had to do with them being inherently unlikable or unsympathetic characters.

Plus, after that unbelievable, wildly OOC, and melodramatically mutually toxic extreme low the writers took CS to in 5A with that character destroying Dark Swan/Dark Hook nonsensical PLOT twist, I knew there was no way that A&E and these writers weren’t going to purposefully fuck up Rumple and Belle in a way that was so wildly OOC, illogical, melodramatically mutually toxic, and cringeworthy that I couldn’t defend or excuse either of them anymore as written in canon sooner or later to prop up Hook/CS again after 5A, and I couldn’t deal with that shit anymore, especially not after S4-S5 being more than bad enough to Rumbelle for Hook/CS’s benefit enough already.

Yeah, I think OUAT was the first show I watched on television that taught me the difference between hating a fictional character and hating the writers/creators behind them.

I used to be one of those people who thought, “Oh, people who ignore canon writing for their favorite problematic fictional characters when they do fucked up things, are just being babies! They signed up for a problematic fave, so they should know better!”

The problem with OUAT wasn’t the characters as originally written, and/or when written in-character and developed organically. I loved Rumple, Belle, Rumbelle, and Emma as originally characterized and developed from S1-S3 in canon on the show, and I love them in canon-divergent/AU fanon scenarios! But A&E and the writers were ultimately lazy, and chose to misuse them as tools in their PLOTs to emotionally manipulate the audience to blindly feel whatever they wanted them to feel, rather than telling an organic story with realistic characters who dealt with realistic relationship problems, development, and/or consistent characterization in favor of cheesy magical soap opera Drama™️ I had to quit watching after S5 to save my sanity.

The big issues, in my opinion, were that:

A) It was only ever a melodramatic big deal “OMG, SO EVOL” when Rumple so much as considered committing crimes and/or abusing magic in ways that violated autonomy or consent that could recklessly hurt/potentially endanger other people for, generally speaking, good reasons. But Emma, Belle, Regina, Snow, David, Zelena, Hook, and Henry could abuse magic for their own ends in ways that could/actually did potentially hurt and/or endanger other people recklessly all the time now too, and no one batted an eye. Rumple wanting to do the same with magic to protect family in narrative shouldn’t have been excused either, but character assassinating him by having him fuck around with bizarre and contrived magical macguffins out of nowhere and framing him as awildly OOC cartoonish mad villain for it, didn’t make the other characters look any better for getting away doing the same whenever it suited them on the show. Just because the writers had Rumple look bad under a magnifying glass of deliberately character assassinating bad writing by having him abusing magic to counterbalance everyone else’s magic abuse on the show, it didn’t automatically make the other characters look morally superior to Rumple or make them better characters. It just made them look hypocritical, self-righteous, petty, narrow-minded, and lacking in self-awareness. I feel like Adam, Eddy, and these writers felt like they could make everyone else on their fucked up and toxic show look better by deliberately tarnishing Rumple as their scapegoat to vilify in an increasingly obvious attempt to emotionally manipulate their audience to side with all of their other also incredibly fucked up and problematic characters by singling out one character as the “worst” on a show where everyone else was/ended up becoming just as much of, if not worse of a toxic mess of bad writing in one way or another anyway. Not surprisingly, they failed.

B). A well-written problematic character is not necessarily redeemable, but your audience still sees and understands the realistic reasons of how and/or why they got there gradually and consistently unfold on screen and/or within their backstories behind the scenes that build up to increasingly problematic behaviors on screen by not taking care of their mental health/sanity, even if they don’t end up liking them in the end.

A badly-written problematic character may suffer from unresolved issues of abuse, mental illness, addiction, trauma, grief, and loss to flesh them out more sympathetically in a narrative, but those realistic issues don’t end up being the issues the writers behind them choose to focus on to drive their increasingly problematic and out-of-character behaviors from point A to point C. On OUAT, they chose to focus on contrived, biased, externalized, hypocritical, and blatantly emotionally manipulative cartoonish “hero vs villain” character destroying Drama™️ by breaking, and bending their own rules of magic with bizarre macguffins and flashy magical PLOT twist fuckery character destroying garbage to force the audience to feel the way they wanted them to feel about the characters. Consistent, realistic normally intelligent, loving, open, kindhearted, devoted, loyal, cautious, and sane characterizations in these characters and their relationships were thrown away out of the blue if and/or whenever the writers stupid PLOTs demanded they suddenly start acting like wildly OOC caricatures who were acting bizarrely cartoonishly evil, exceedingly distrustful, exceedingly deceptive, exceedingly gullible, exceedingly conniving, melodramatically toxic, melodramatically cruel, reckless, and/or unbelievably stupid because the writers wanted for them to be ridiculously oblivious to solutions to conflicts and/or problems with each other thst should have and would have been obvious for them to resolve by taking a fucking chill pill, asking questions and doing research, sitting down to talk to each other and make compromises with each other like two mature adults for no realistically believable reason because they wanted for them to self-destruct to the worst possible rock bottom in their magical Drama™️ soap opera character destroying PLOT fuckery “twists.” (CS in 5A and Rumbelle in 4A-6A).

I could understand if it were a gradual, realistic, slow-burn, and organic build up of insanity in an unhealthy response to a character being constantly abused, rejected, misunderstood, ostracized, emotionally manipulated by false hope, and/or fucked over for trying to be good, anyway. However, on OUAT, especially in later seasons after 3A, you would have Rumple, Regina, Belle, Emma, Snow, David, Henry, and even Hook himself going from being seemingly normal, loving, rational, sane, and/or trying to be good in one moment to very uncharacteristically melodramatically abusive, cruel, criminal, dark, deceptive, distrustful, petty, impatient, insensitive, reckless, triggering, stupid, and/or batshit insane in the next out of nowhere within a timeline that took place over a day or less from the end of 3B-S7 because their asinine PLOT twists or contrived macguffins demanded they do a complete 180 for senseless character destroying Drama™️ for “fun” in the next few episodes of an arc.

Then, they just “went back to normal” after the writers were all done outright destroying their characters credibility and integrity for wildly OOC needless Drama™️ in their magical PLOT fuckery twists by making them do, threaten to do, and/or say horrifically and unbelievably OOC, melodramatically and needlessly cruel, destructive, hurtful, mutually toxic, traumatizing, reckless, violent, and/or stupid shit in regards to each other for a few episodes of an arc that no one would ever realistically forgive, even if they meant well. At least not without a logical explanation for why it happened, and/or or a lot of time to process it to let go of the hurt they caused each other first, which we never got to see on screen in the aftermath as a resolution on screen.

It’s the most infuriatingly lazy type of writing that I have ever seen on a television show and such a total waste of potentially interesting and relatable characters for cheap shock value and Drama™️ in the PLOT.

C) When you kill off a character, especially a redemptive anti-villain/tragic hero type character, kill them off once and then be done with them for good. I’ve seen it work in fan fiction, but on television where you’re expected to stick to rules, it never does.

D) “Foil” does not mean you outright destroy another character to fool the audience into thinking that the other one you want them to root for is any better without them actually doing or saying anything to prove it. That’s just lazy and blatantly emotionally manipulative bad writing.

E). Stop with the “Evil is sexy” in female villains and Rumple, a feminine-coded anti-villain. It honestly was so cringeworthy and unsexy on OUAT.

F). Female “empowerment” and “feminism” does not mean being a control freak with a man, refusing to let them get a word in edgewise, interrupting them, belittling them, walking away, and/or being needlessly cruel, and/or a petty bitch every time they so much as slightly disagrees with you. It does not mean giving men ultimatums for you to be together, or leading them on with borderline emotionally manipulative false hope to get what you want from them, only to drop them right afterwards/if they don’t do exactly what you demand 100% of the time. It does not mean being emotionally, verbally, physically, and/or sexually abusive of men. It does not mean needlessly kicking men when they are already down by using their emotional vulnerability against them to mock them about how “weak” they are for expressing their very real fears to you in a desire for your emotional support and understanding. Being a “strong” woman does not mean treating men in relationships like “projects for you to ‘fix’” just as being a “strong” woman does not mean giving up your own personal convictions and independence to be with them. My god, they really fucked up Emma, Regina, Belle, and Zelena with this Empowerment™️ trope…

G). Male characters should progress and regress with more than just the solely emotionally manipulative force of a female love interest. Female characters should be able to progress and regress with more than just a male love interest’s emotionally manipulative force. I’ll always love Rumbelle, Snowing in the early seasons and in fanon scenarios, and even CS wouldn’t have been that bad, but the writers either destroyed both halves of them with Drama™️ in the PLOT, and/or sidelined them and made them unhealthily codependent. I think killing off Nealfire killed that core theme of family, especially in Rumple and Emma.

But basically, Rumple, Belle, Snow, David, Emma, Neal, and Hook should have all been more developed as individual characters who could grow and regress as more than just love interests.

H). Stop this trope of using female love interests to vilify their male love interests by turning them into OOC emotionally abusive/whiplash PLOT devices to trigger them with on-and-off-again bs or problematic behaviors to drive them insane. They did this with CS in 5A, Rumbelle in 6A, and Phole on Charmed in season five. It’s not fun to watch. It’s actually really misogynistic writing that does not make either halves of your couples feel blameless or likable in anti-heroine/redemptive anti-villain couples. It ruins and limits both of them in a way that feels mutually toxic and gross. Acknowledge that both halves of your anti-heroine/anti-villain couple are imperfect and flawed, or break them up amicably for good. But stop trying so hard to make the audience see the problematic female love interest as the “blameless” victim for consciously pushing the male anti-villain’s every button, and getting away with problematic behavior towards him! Stop doing this trope of having the male anti-villain as a “pure EVOL abuser” driven to insanity by the woman with this trope, and then wonder why fans aren’t rooting for either of them when they are being written this way by you.

J) When you “have” to kill off, sideline, and/or outright destroy other characters/ships to get rid of competition for your favorite character or ship, it doesn’t make you a good writer. It just makes you look like a petty hack with a Gary Stu/Mary Sue or a creator’s pet that’s polarizing the show.

K) You are are a very bad storyteller if you think that “fun” means deliberately destroying/derailing your normally sympathetic and/or intelligent characters characterizations into something inexplicably, melodramatically, unbelievably, and uncharacteristically mutually toxic, stupid, and unsympathetic for contrived, needless, and senseless self-destructing Drama™️ in your PLOTs.

L). If your goal as a creative writer is to mindfuck your audience with “SHOCKING” twists that you pull from your ass with no lead up whenever things seem to be headed in a direction that actually feels interesting, promising, and starts to makes organic sense, then we will lose emotional investment in the stories for these characters you’re not interested in telling, and catch on to a pattern the more often you do it because we’re a lot smarter than you think we are.

M). Accept that character growth and/or regression can’t just happen right away because your PLOT demands it. Take time.

N) Guest characters should be fleshed out, and well-developed. Don’t use them as discardable plot devices

O). Stop going back to the status quo! (Rumple’s the Dark One, Emma’s the Savior, Hook/Neal is her boyfriend, Rumbelle are separated for reasons x, y, and z, Rumple does something stupidly self-sabotaging with magic to try to fix a problem in the wrong ways and only makes it worse, Rumple does something selfless for the “first time,” Belle’s a failure hero, Hook wants to get revenge on someone who wronged him, particularly Rumple, Regina has a hole in her heart she wants to fill by artificially absolving her guilt, Zelena fucks over Rumple, Emma has to learn to open up her heart to love, Snowing keep dark secrets from Emma, etc. This show became such a predictable soap opera by S5 that I had to finally quit to preserve my sanity…)

P). Stop romanticizing rape culture!

Q). Dealing with visible negative symptoms mental illness and trauma is not just something that just “bad guys” deal with. “Good guys” can deal with it too, and it’s not something that makes then “weak” or “evil.”

R). No one is entitled to forgive someone who abuses them.

S). Committing murder in immediate self-defense is common sense, not evil.

T). Do not keep trying to force the audience to sympathize with and forgive a villain who feels no remorse for their crimes, and who does nothing to earn it (Regina in S2, Hook, Zelena). The best they did for writing redemption on this show for a villain that I actually cared about was with Rumple, but they even fucked up their best written character.

U). Commit to a single moral standard that applies to everyone on your show, not just one person on your show.

V). Stick to your own rules of magic consistently, and make sure they apply to everyone. Don’t bend and/or break them.

W). Romantic relationships can still be interesting and entertaining to watch without becoming toxic or unhealthy.

X). There’s a way to write hurt/comfort and relationship break up angst that makes realistic sense with a realistic and satsisfying conclusion. Then there’s OUAT romantic couples who get angst for angst sake that feels forced by becoming on-and-off again, juggling the idiot ball, getting written as wildly OOC, and/or getting character assassinated for “SHOCKING” magical PLOT fuckery bullshit contrivances and twists that make no sense to force them to unbelievably toxic and/or stupid extremes that make no sense.

@0ceanofdarkness

@sarashouldbestudying

@takingbackouat

@sieben9

@bellefrenchroleplays

@worryinglyinnocent

anneelliotscat replied to your post “I’ve said it before and even though I swear it’s been explained to me…”

Well, I put it down to two things: first, fiction requires Plot, which means conflict, and angst makes great conflict for these two. Second, they are both so pretty when they suffer. And the reason we yell at the OUAT writers about the angst is that their angst is Badly Written. Too often it depends on OOC behavior, Reverse Character Development, or the Idiot Ball.

I guess. But doesn’t all angst require one of those three things anyway? 

I mean, the natural state of these two is to be together, so if we want to force them apart, then we have to make them do something stupid in order to do that. 

[gch1995]

Am I the only one who feels jaded about the fact that Jane Espensen said this about Rumple���s character?

I quit after S5 because I got tired of the writers destroying Rumple, Belle, Emma, and pretty much every character on this show for stupid sensationalist plots, and petty favoritism of Hook/CS, except for Regina because she was Adam’s pet and she wasn’t so closely tied to Neal as Rumple, Belle, Emma, and Henry were. But this is the reason why I quit. They kept going back to this “power versus love” bs from S4-S6 with Rumple, trying to have it both ways, even though they had given us the impression that they had written out this “power versus love” bs storyline for Rumple after season one when they introduced Bae and Belle pretty consistently from 1x08 to the end of 3A.

Look, I always knew Rumple was a problematic fave (as was everyone on this show really, mostly thanks to the bad writing post 3A that turned the remaining main heroes into herocrites, including Belle, and please don’t try to deny that every main character on this show was an objectively fucked up toxic mess in one way or another just because Rumple was the only one mercilessly punished by others for his sins on this show in the narrative with redemption arcs that got screwed over ad nauseum to prop everyone else up by making him out to be the “worst” scapegoat from S4-S6, even when he didn’t deserve it).

I never wanted for Rumple to be whitewashed like Regina or Hook. I never wanted for him to be a paragon of purity, or a perfect hero. I wanted him to be the consistently complex, morally gray, and redemptive character that he had been introduced as again after his regression in S4. But they kept going back and forth with him by putting him into extremes of hero and villain without finding that same organic balance they once had from S1-3A because they ran out of ideas after 3x11, killed off Nealfire, and got obsessed with Hook/CS.

However, the fact that Jane Espensen would consider Rumple’s humanity, his deep ability to just purely, wholly, and selflessly love Belle and Bae amidst that “Ocean of darkness,” as something that is so “out of character” for him just further proves to me that she, A&E, and the rest of these writers never fully understood or appreciated that aspect of his character which made him so compelling and likeable to fans on the show in the first place.

They played along consistently in the first two-and-a-half-seasons, though hints were starting to show of just how much A&E and these writers didn’t give a fuck about Belle or the BATB element when they started mini-fridging her in 2B and most of 3A, and they never gave them a TLK in SB from the very beginning of S2 because Rumple “had” to be the Dark One.

They gave Rumbelle some cute scenes and one-centric by making Belle a sidestory main in his arc in S2 that added another layer to his character aside from Baelfire. They introduced Nealfire, and made him a crucial connector in the family for uniting Rumple and Emma together in a common goal by making him Rumple’s son, and Henry’s biological father, so they could put Rumple more in the morally gray antihero area by including him in the circle with Emma and the Charmings. They followed along closely with Lindlelof’s more emotionally complex and sympathetic version for Rumple’s characterization for the first two-and-a-half seasons.

Then Lindlelof left, Kitsowitz got distracted by H00k/CS, they ended the first half of season three with every main villain on this show redeemed, and went into 3B without a villain being able to stir up shit in their asinine plots by causing Drama™️ when they ran out of Lindlelof’s original story by the end of 3A.

No way in hell was Adam ever going to fuck over Regina by making her the big bad again because Lana had a pretty face, and Regina was his creator’s pet!

No way in hell would they ever make Hook the big bad again because he was Eddy’s baby, and ABC’s cash cow for the show!

No way in hell were they interested in telling a character driven story surrounding Lindlelof’s core theme of family and organic character development because he had left, and Kitsowitz were very bad creative plot versus character driven writers who were more interested in milking the show for all of its worth by killing off Neal in favor of stupid magical fuckery soap opera “twists” and silly ship wars.

But hey, didn’t they originally plan to make Rumple their stereotypical on-and-off-again plot twister cartoon villain before Robert Carlyle, Emilie De Ravin, Michael Raymond James, and Damon Lindlelof created a better, more redemptive, more likable, more complex, and more sympathetic take on his character than our own? Well, what if they brought Rumple back from the dead, killed off Nealfire to one-note vilify him by ignoring all the trauma they put him through, and put him and Belle through a series of increasingly contrived, stupid, and melodramatic ups-and-downs to try to have both versions of Rumple’s characterizations in one back-to-back, and to make Hook/CS look better?

Bad, bad, bad idea that destroyed the best character played by the best actor on this trash show.

To be fair, the writing for every remaining main character on this show got annoyingly repetitive, regressive, OOC, problematic, and stupid. It was not just Rumple and Belle. They ran out of ideas after 3A for character development. They kept repeating the same arcs over and over again in increasingly OOC ways from 3B-S7. They were just making shit up as they went along with “shocking” plot twists, promoting the characters played by the most conventionally attractive actors on screen, and throwing in Disney product placement to get money from ABC.

However, there definitely seemed to be a particular deliberately petty, cruel, resentful, mocking, and emotionally manipulative OOC flanderdization storytelling aspect behind the abrupt shift in the tone of the writing for Rumple and Belle’s individual characterizations and relationship together from 3B-S6 (even in S7 when they didn’t fuck Rumple’s redemption over) that felt really hurtful.

Like, if they just wanted for Rumple to be the big bad who no one could love from 3B-S6, then they could have just written Belle off the show, and let him take over the world like the cartoon villain they wanted for him to be in their absurd “vision.” But they wanted to have it both ways, so they could do Disney BATB product placement to make money from ABC, and because they didn’t know how to organically redeem Hook/CS, or make them the romantic lead without Rumple/Rumbelle as an “abusive” parallel/“foil” to that “super healthy and loving relationship” and “redemption” arc based on a foundation of romanticized and whitewashed lies, misogyny, male chauvinism, sexual assault, abuse, and rape culture.

Unfortunately, Rumple and Belle were the greatest tragic casualties of character destruction on this show as a result.

I hate this show, but I’ll always love Rumple, Belle, Emma, and Rumbelle. I always love what they were from S1-S3 ish on the show, what they should have and could have been, and in canon-divergent/AU fanon scenarios where there are actually talented writers who can do them justice in the Rumbelle fandom.

However, just this one little piece of commentary from Jane Espensen from “Skin Deep” about how it’s so “out of character” for Rumple’s depth of humanity to shine through in his true love for Belle tells me everything that I need to know about how she, A&E, and these writers truly felt about introducing her and Bae as main characters in his storyline to put him on a steady redemption track from the end of S1-3A.

They resented ever doing that. They resented the fact that Damon Lindlelof and Robert Carlyle created a poignantly human, relatable, and Rumple who had far more potential as a touchingly human, relatable, misunderstood, realistic, dynamic, morally gray, and consistently redemptive anti-villain/anti-hero underdog who the audience could always root for, rather than the cartoonish on-and-off-again plot twisting “big bad” who “always chose power over love,” especially once they introduced Bae in “Desperate Souls” and Emilie De Ravin as Belle in “Skin Deep.” They resented the fact that fantastic actors, and a writer who was far better than them, organically created a version of Rumple’s character that was far better than their own original cardboard cutout cartoonish plot twister Rumple. Yep, I really do believe that Adam, Eddy, Jane Espensen, and their team of hacks really were that much of petty, self-righteous, and self-sabatoging assholes.

This “Rumple who always chooses power over love” was written out of S1 once we learned about Bae and Belle in 1x08 and 1x12. They stuck to that unique organic take on Rumple pretty consistently for for the next season-and-a-half, especially once they introduced Belle and Neal, which brought them a lot of fans. Then, they got distracted by Hook, killed off Bae, brought Rumple back, and abruptly went back to a “Rumple who always chooses power over love” again with the added addition of the tragic woobie anti-villain/potentially redemptive side by keeping Belle around and butchering her original characterization too to make it more “credible” from S4-S7 by using her to push him further over the edge on-and-off-again.

They tried to have it both ways when they brought Rumple back from the dead, and it’s a sign of bad writing to try to have it both ways. To be a good creative writer you have to make sacrifices sometimes. A&E didn’t want to sacrifice their cartoonish plot twister villain Rumple, even though they already had from 1x08 to the end of S3 ish for the more unique, organic, redemptive, and sympathetic antihero underdog take on his character that Damon Lindlelof and Robert Carlyle brought to the character, especially with the introduction of Belle and Bae.

And yeah, I really do believe that A&E and their team of writers were that bad of writers and that narcissistic that they thought they could get away with making the show their live-action Hook/CS fanfiction on screen from 3B-S7. I really do believe that A&E were that desperate to make money from ABC by promoting Hook/CS as a cash cow, even at the cost of everyone and everything that made their show genuinely entertaining to begin with. I really do think that’s what we were watching on screen from 3B-S7.

@0ceanofdarkness

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[gch1995]

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@mariequitecontrarie

@woobierumple

@im-not-a-what

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It just pisses me off more too because within the first two-and-a-half seasons of this trash show, Rumple actually had the best written and most well-earned redemption arc for a main villain with fantastic organic character development, and A&E tore it to shreds, so that a bunch of other mediocre villains could get half-assed ones by making him the scapegoat villain in later seasons. This is why I was finally so done with this show after season five, and honestly, I should have quit after 3x11 because it was obvious which characters/ships Adam and Eddy favored after that, and Rumple/Rumbelle were not one of them, which leads me to believe that ABC, A&E, and these writers probably didn’t create him, and they really were that greedy and shallow.

[gch1995]

@thestory812

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