OH YES! Heh 🙂 I am definitely 100% watching season seven. I was committed the moment I learned that RC and LP were signed on for it.

I’m going to put everything under the cut in case of spoilers, though considering how little I know there’s probably not much 🙂

Spoiler talk
I’m a bit hit and miss on spoilers because I sometimes see what crosses my dash but I don’t tend to go looking for things. I do know that I think at the Happy Ending Convention RC confirmed this was his last season. If Once gets a season eight (which is a possibility I believe given the state of the ABC network) so long as LP is still on the show, then I’ll still be watching. I’m lucky that way in that while Rumbelle is my OTP, I also love other aspects of the show.

In terms of what I do know from spoilers/what has vaguely been confirmed. I think Rumple, Regina and Hook went to help Henry and then got caught up in this curse which affected the alternate EF. Rumple is a Detective, I do remember reading his curse name but I’ve forgotten it. He’s working a fair bit with Hook who I saw in a uniform in the teaser trailer. Regina is Roni, runs her own bar and is a community leader.

I think that might be about it. I know I’m terrible. I’ve seen filming pictures and some vague speculation posts about Alice as Rumple was seen taking her lunch. There was some pictures of Regina and Lucy together. There’s been some stuff with the new characters but my memory is fuzzy on the details.

To be honest I love speculating and theorizing. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love analyzing shows I love like Once and going deep into the character motivations, tying together the character backstories, trying to reason out what their responses will be in the future based on past behavior. I love looking at the plot and thinking of different directions it can go in. Honestly I could probably wear anyone out with how much I love to talk about it.

BUT and it’s a big but – I don’t tend to go overboard with the speculation based on behind the scenes spoilers. Quite simply I believe that we just don’t know enough. I confess I get quite annoyed sometimes when the doom and gloom brigade come out in full force over a handful of vague spoilers. I believe that there’s no point in getting upset over something that isn’t confirmed – why borrow trouble?

When I was in fandom the first time 10 years ago I did enjoy theorizing on spoilers, any vague wisps of information were eagerly grasped and it was like fitting a puzzle together. I only had a handful of pieces, no instructions, and I had to guess what the picture was. One look at the Once fandom completely cured me of any aspirations to join in on that again. The sheer negativity was overwhelming and nothing I wanted any part in, people would state speculation as fact like it was a fait a compli and there was so much hate. I know the Once fandom is very divided but wowzer. No I much prefer my quiet corner of fandom, I don’t like to court controversy, I’m terrified of conflict.

Headcanons
That being said I have thought about it a little. 6B showed a strong trajectory of Rumple finally being “redeemed” in the eyes of the other characters. There was a lot of talk about him being a savior, of being a hero. So I’m relatively confident that Rumple will be firmly on the side of good in season seven. I hope that they won’t remove all his complexity, I do like it when he plays with words and is tricky and pretends to play all sides which furthering his own agenda – which would be for the side of good aka Henry and Lucy in this case.

Anyway, sorry that’s not headcanon because we’re talked cursed!Rumple – which we’ve never really seen. What we have seen though is how other characters were when they were cursed. David said “we are both” and I hope very much that’s how they will play it. They are still themselves but some parts of their personality will be muted, other parts enhanced.

Like we know that Regina is a community leader – she is always a leader of some sort ever since she became a queen through marriage. She didn’t want to be queen but when it proved inescapable she made the role her own. After being so powerless for so long under Cora’s thumb, she probably enjoyed wielding power of her own. She probably swore she’d never be powerless again. Just like in Isaac’s AU Regina’s cursed version is an outlaw. She doesn’t have official power but she has power nevertheless.

I’m using Regina as an example to show what I mean when I talk about Rumple. He is also someone that swore never to be powerless again, to never go back to being a man so afraid because he knew he couldn’t protect his son. In Isaac’s AU he was the light one – the opposite of the Dark One, the same as bandit Regina was the opposite of the Evil Queen. So in this curse he’s a detective – on the side of law and order as opposed to the sort of organised crime sort of vibe that he had as Gold.

What I find interesting is that Rumple is sort of in the middle. He has power as a Detective but he also has to take orders. I hope this isn’t a hint that he has power as the Dark One, but has to take orders when someone has his dagger because as I said in a post the other week I’m really sick of people taking Rumple’s dagger. Give the man free will please!

Anyway back to the original curse. Snow lost her child – she put Emma in the wardrobe and would never see her grow up – only to spend twenty eight years as a teacher of children who never grew up. David worried in the Camelot arc that he would only be known as the “prince who kissed a princess awake” and he spent his twenty eight years asleep – waiting for a kiss that never came.

Rumple’s priority has always been family, and his greatest fear has always been losing his family. I think from the spoiler pictures that it’s been confirmed he’s wearing his ring. I suspect he believes he’s a widower, and that his son (or *sob* sons) are dead, and because Rumple always has to be tormented, I suspect the curse will make him think it was his fault somehow. In reality Belle and Gideon will be safe, and mostly happy aside from waiting for him to come back.

I said dead rather than lost because dead is final. Rumple is at times very patient and very impatient, but for his family he would wait lifetimes if there was any hope of getting them back. The loss of hope, of there being no chance, of it just being over would weigh far heavier on him.

So what would drive him under the curse? Well again look at the original curse. Snow’s compassion, David’s need to try and do the right thing, Archie being a conscience etc. these were all like primal parts of them and therefore the curse couldn’t change them. Which makes Rumple being a cop – and therefore ‘looking after the community’ make even more sense. The villain has co-opted Rumple in a sense (like always) by making his motivation protecting the community aka his family in a larger sense.

Now cops are a divisive subject because a lot of the time they don’t help the people they are supposedly sworn to protect. This fits Rumple even better in a way because his intention was always to protect his family, but quite often that backfired on him and the reverse happened.

Hope isn’t Rumple’s strong suit and I doubt the curse will have changed that. I suspect they’ll develop a strong link to Roni’s Bar through him, with Rumple propping up the end of the bar most nights. I suspect he’ll be bitter, sarcastic but with more humorous banter than Rumple’s thinly veiled insults. He has his job, his TV dinners, and his seat at the bar. Without Belle and Gideon he’ll be lonely just how he was before them.

I don’t know if you are familiar with any cop shows at all. I’m wondering if cursed!Rumple will be a bit like Gibbs from NCIS. Only instead of working on a boat in his basement, he’ll be in the shadows of Roni’s bar. Heh maybe he’ll occasionally hustle pool, get a pang and wonder why (I very much doubt this as they’ll never give a nod to the short-lived Lacey from season two but I can dream).

So yeah cursed!Rumple as basically Gibbs would be amazing. Gibbs actually lost his wife and daughter – so the same loss which I suspect Rumple will have been cursed with. Gibbs has a commanding presence, a dry sense of humor and a fierce protectiveness for those he calls his own.

Fic Ideas
Wow I’m going on a bit – whoops sorry. Will I write for this new version of Rumple? Oh yeah! Now I titled this section fic ideas but to be honest I don’t really have any concrete ideas yet. I’d prefer to watch at least one episode to get a handle on the character and the locations, the stakes etc.

Headcanons are awesome and yeah I could definitely write a story now using them, but I can’t conjure something from nothing. If somebody gave me a prompt then yes absolutely – story incoming. However, just “cursed!Rumple” gives me nothing really to work with. I need something to spark an idea first. I guess if I thought hard enough I could prompt myself but generally speaking I have enough ideas without creating more.

I’m sure the new season will provide more inspiration than I have time to write anyway 🙂 All the previous seasons certainly did!