Hey Santa *waves*
I will try and answer your questions. Hopefully the answers will be ok. I want to help you if I can but I donât want to box you in, so please like I said last time take what you like from my ramblings, ignore what you donât. What I want most is for you to have fun đ
I would up writing probably far more than I should and I am sorry for that. I was trying to answer your questions and I rambled on.
What I love on the show, what characters I love
Regina is my second favorite character, after Rumple. I know she isnât everybodyâs cup of tea, although I suppose in an AU her crimes against Belle wouldnât be a factor. I like her snark and the half friends/half enemies thing she has with Rumple. They can verbally spar with one another and still be friends. In my headcanon they understand one another and respect each other and that doesnât change whether for the moment they are working together, or against one another.
I donât really dislike any character on the show. I have my clear favorites (Rumple and Regina) but I think everyone has their place. One of my frequent comments when I discovered the show was that each episode should be 3 hours long so everyone had enough screentime. I donât begrudge screentime to anyone, I just want more of it to go around.
I donât root for all the characters, there is some âlove to hateâ because some characters are watchable but I despise their actions e.g. Zelena. She really should have stayed dead at the end of season three because there is no way to keep her around as a villain, it makes the heroes look inept, so they have wrecked her with this instant-redemption and now she isnât the same character. Itâs a bit like why bother? Some things are good but arenât supposed to last. Zelena was a very watchable villain, genre savvy, fun lines etc. but she should have faced justice for killing Neal and for what she did to Rumple etc.
Generally I think season five didnât do any of the characters any favors and actually to a slightly lesser extent season four. I donât think I will ever forgive the show for the author plotline, I hate that concept more than anything else that the writers have concocted.
I like Neal and the estranged son angle, well I donât like it because itâs sad but I like the motivation and layers it gives Rumples character. His death on the show has to be one of the most tragic TV deaths ever. I really wish he hadnât died, or that they could have brought him back. It seems Rumple was more prophetic than he knew with his chilling âno more happy endingsâ because the right ending would have been a reconciliation, as time-consuming and difficult as it would have been with so many years of pain to overcome. No father should outlive their son, especially if their son died for them. I suppose that is what made it so tragic but quite how Rumple managed to go on afterwards, well him going a bit nuts with the mat seems quite restrained really.
I also like the idea of the Rumple and Henry grandfather and grandson relationship. We havenât got to see that on the show really but they are family and family is what matters most to Rumple in my opinion, itâs his reason for everything. Although this would be a bit of a trick to include in an AU because of the age issue.
I have always thought that Rumple was probably early-forties when he became the dark one and got âfrozenâ. So if heâs early-forties then having a 10 year old grandson (Henryâs season 1 age) would be technically possible I suppose but not likely. I head canon Belle to be in her mid-twenties, so thereâs about 15 years between them (no more than that) but you can do what you want of course.
Maybe Henry could be no blood relation, just Reginaâs adopted son and Rumple is very fond of him? I do like the Regina and Henry relationship too. Iâve kind of left the Charmings out of this list, I donât dislike them, they just arenât as important to me I guess. Especially lately their hypocrisy, and their prejudices and their unwillingness to take responsibility for their own actions have really irritated me. They arenât heroes, they just take care of their own, which I donât blame them for but I wish they wouldnât claim it was a more noble purpose than that.
What do I love most about Rumbelle?
âNo one, no one, could ever, ever love meâ
âYouâre not a monster.â
âYou were lonely, any man would be lonelyâ
He thinks heâs unlovable. He has put up walls and pushed everyone away. He believes that everyone will leave him, he thinkâs it is his fault. He has really low self esteem, he has bad self-loathing and then Belle is like a dream. She gives him faith in himself because she can see him for who he is, she can see his actions for what they are and not the negative light he casts on everything. She knows heâs not perfect, she knew him before she jumped in and loves him anyway.
Itâs not one sided either because he gives Belle what she needs. He gives her respect, he lets make her own choices, âno one decides my fate but meâ. He values her mind, her intelligence, her bravery, all aspects of her that everyone else wished she didnât have because that didnât fit the role that she was supposed to play. He lets Belle be herself and he loves her for it.
True their relationship on the show isnât perfect because Belle has a bad habit of emotionally blackmailing him. I donât think she realizes that she is doing it, saying that if he does what she wants then they âcan be together.â and donât think Iâm blaming Belle because itâs not one-sided. Rumple does things he knows is wrong because he isnât used to having to please anyone but him. He thinks he can have it all and has forgotten how to compromise.
Partly could blame the curse because having that darkness chewing on you has to have an effect but I am a big believer that people should take responsibility for their own actions. Rumple might be more prone to âbeing a man who makes wrong choicesâ because of the dark one but he is capable of making the choice. At least he can now, I think maybe at first when he took the curse it had more hold of him but I think he learned over the years to control it. It might give him a slight impulse control issue but he still knows right from wrong.
Also, Rumple is terrified of being anything less than perfect and doesnât realize that Belle doesnât need him to be perfect, she just needs him to be honest. He always thinks that he isnât enough, perhaps because he struggles to understand what she sees in him. In his mind she is easy to love but who would love him? He doesnât want to confide in her because he doesnât want her to think him weak. Belle walks out to get space and that feeds his fear that she will leave him if heâs not perfect (abandonment issues) and the cycle just continues. Those two really need to learn to communicate.
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Again, Iâm sorry if I wrote too much. I hope I answered your questions. Just use what you would like and ignore the rest. I know I keep saying that but I really mean it.
You havenât said but if I am allowed to specify, considering itâs an AU and his name will be Gold not Rumple .. could Rumple be Nicholas Gold? Thatâs just what I headcanon for him (likely because I love Rush off SGU) and yeah. You can use a different name if you want. Please, do whatever you wish. I just thought I would drop this in here and then you can choose. I really donât want to annoy you.
Anyway, again I hope this is all ok and please just have fun. I know I keep saying that too but I really do mean it. Fun is the priority.
