ā¢ Main fandoms: Avatar, Star Wars, Percy Jackson, Epic The Musical, Song of Achilles, Greek Mythology in general (not just the retellings). I consider myself the Obi Wan Kenobi defender and a Kataang enthusiast, they're Percabeth in another universe. I also like Zukka, and a bunch of other stuff from different medias. I love Athena from Epic, as I also love Annabeth Chase. Pretty pro-Jedi. Cabin 6. She/them, lesbian, autistic, ADHD, brazilian. 21y. Psychology student. ā¢
Neal/Bae's love language is the easiest to parse out in canon because it's prevalent throughout. Ever since Bae was a baby, physical touch was how Rumple expressed his love to him. In every flashback scene with Rumple and Bae, Rumple has a hand on Bae, silently supporting and protecting him.
And the show writers use this nonverbal interaction to parallel Bae and Rumple's relationship as it becomes more strained. When Rumple becomes the Dark One, his touch becomes more possessive. This continues until Bae starts rejecting Rumple's touch (as he rejects the Dark One) when Rumple tries to reach out to him in "Nasty Habits" and "Manhattan". In both "The Return" and "Manhattan", Rumple's abandonment of Bae is described as Rumple letting go of Bae's hand- a very physical action. That's why the moment when Bae grabbed Rumple's hand in "The Miller's Daughter" is so impactful- because it is the first time that Bae wholeheartedly accepts his father's touch and affection in centuries, even if he is still angry. As season 3A progresses, Bae physically distances himself from his father in Neverland when he finds out about the prophecy and feels like he can't trust him in "Nasty Habits". However, once Bae forgives his father in "Save Henry", he enthusiastically hugs him. In season 3B, Bae and Rumple literally share a body due to Rumple's love for Bae- their physical closeness once again symbolizing their repaired relationship. When Bae dies in "Quiet Minds", his hand falls out of Rumple's, representing their permanent separation. Bae no longer needs Rumple's physical touch and affection because Bae's no longer there.
Using touch to portray affection and genuine care is a theme for Bae throughout his life. In "Second Star to the Right", Bae uses physical touch to comfort Wendy. And later in "Tallahassee", Bae is more physically affectionate with Emma the more that time passes and the closer that they become. Even as early as their first "date" in "There's No Place Like Home", Bae plays with Emma's glove when he's being vulnerable to feel closer to her physically without crossing her boundaries and touching her.
Bae's need for physical affection in "Tallahassee" (especially after being touch starved in Neverland for centuries) is complemented by Emma reciprocating that physical affection despite not being a touchy person. Emma starts out being standoffish in the beginning of "Tallahassee" and "There's No Place Like Home", drawing into herself and avoiding any physical touch. However, as time passes, she gets more comfortable with being physically affectionate and even initiates it, especially when Bae is upset. One canon example is when Emma grounds Bae with physical touch when Bae is agitated about the wanted poster. When Bae starts arguing against Emma going for the watches, she swings her arm around him which seems to calm him down to the idea more.
I headcanon that Emma and Bae did a lot of hand-holding and non-verbal communication throughout their relationship. I think that they had signals to each other to make sure the other person is alright (which would have helped during heists as well) to complement Emma's innate ability to read Bae. I think that Emma realized early on that the best way to comfort Bae after nightmares was physical touch (hugs, gentle kisses). I can also see Emma sidling up to Bae whenever she sensed that something was bothering him and just quietly grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers in between his to remind Bae that he's not alone and make him relax almost instantly.
Just like physical touch is used to display the progress in Bae and Rumple's relationship, it is also used to show the progress in Bae and Emma's relationship when they reunite.
Bae has a tendency to fidget with his scarf, especially when he is vulnerable around Emma, which I think is a self-soothing technique. He longs for her physical touch, but too much has happened between them for him to reach out to her, so he physically touches his scarf to comfort himself. It isn't until the penultimate episode of season 2 after he breaks up with Tamara that he finally reaches out to Emma, hugging her when she's about to fall through the portal. This continues in season 3A when he hugs her after getting out of the cage in "Ariel" and stays beside her to support her throughout.
Emma, on the other hand, tries to be standoffish around Bae but fails miserably- just like how she tries to deny her love for Bae but fails. Since they reunite, Emma is always pictured by Bae's side (which is seen in many stills from season 2B and 3A). Not to mention that other than Henry, Emma initiates physical contact (even if it is just casual) with Bae more than anyone else in canon in the earlier seasons. In season 2B, she physically pushes him in "The Miller's Daughter" when he stops to stare at the magical chalk barrier, and she physically grabs him to stop him from going after Henry when Henry confronts Regina in "Welcome to Storybrooke". In season 3A, Emma hugs Bae in Neverland after they get him out of the cage in "Ariel", Emma sidles next to Bae to hug him after his father dies (which encourages Henry to do the same) in "Going Home", and Emma's the one who initiates the hug with Bae at the town line when they are about to be separated yet again. When Bae dies in "Quiet Minds", Emma pulls Bae into her arms and lets Bae die being physically comforted by her- being loved. And lastly, when Emma reunites with Bae briefly in the underworld in "Souls of the Departed", Emma caresses Bae's face, showing that she still loves him even though he is dead.
This behavior especially stuck out to me because in the earlier seasons, the other person usually has to initiate physical contact for Emma to return it. But with Bae, she's a lot more liberal and initiative with physical touch, even when she "hates" him.
Finally, to cement how Bae associates physical touch with love and affection, Bae is very physically affectionate with Henry. From their first meeting, Bae mimics Henry's body language and leans in close to him when talking, showing his love and interest through nonverbal communication. As they get closer, Bae is always touching Henry- ruffling his hair, patting his shoulder, carrying him, hugging him, wrestling with him in the background of "The New Neverland", etc. And Henry returns it readily, appreciating physical affection just like his father does (though probably not as desperately as Bae seems to crave it). The blatant physical affection between Henry and Bae is what makes their relationship seem so close and loving, even if they had a limited time together.
quinni is so much better than me, because regardless of whether or not a full ride scholarship was at stake, if anybody ever printed out my fanfiction and showed it to the entire school under my name, i would simply kill them
i LOVE. how heartbreak high makes a character absolutely unbearable to the point of them becoming two dimensional, only to tear the rug from underneath you and force you to remember that they are a HUMAN BEING with thoughts and feelings. redemption arc plotlines are my FAV
the thing about the au in which neil finishes the play successfully and his dad isn't there is that neil would totally fall into a false sense of security and he'd perform over and over and one day he'd get caught by his dad
I was on Tik Tok and saw an anti Swanfire edit, an old one, and in the comments people were complaining about how Neal left his pregnant girlfriend, but here are some things those people don't understand or take into account.
Neal didn't know Emma was pregnant. Emma herself didn't know she was pregnant until she was already in jail. So saying Neal left and let a pregnant Emma go to jail is wrong because as I said HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!
If he did know I don't think he would have left because he never wanted to be like his father.
Neal is Selfless. Neal left Emma because he knew how much she wanted to meet her parents. August basically told Neal that if he stayed with Emma she wouldn't go to Storybrooke and wouldn't break the Curse and in doing so would never meet her parents.
This could have gone two ways for Neal. (or three if you have read the Fanfiction "Wishing On a Shooting Star and Thinking that a Heart Canāt Lie" by Dragonbat on AO3)
1. He stayed with her and they leave get their money, go to Tallahasse, have a son together and Neal would never have to think about Storybrooke or his father who would never come back into his life because Rumple would never remember and the Curse would have never been broken. (but Emma would never know that her parents didn't want to abandon her)
or
2. What happened in Canon. Emma got to find her parents. All the people cursed broke free due to Emma coming to Storybrooke. But most of all Rumple remembered, Rumple came after him.
Something Neal didn't want but knew would be inevitable if let Emma go. Which he did because he knew how much Emma wanted to find her parents, how much she wanted to know why, why did they abandon her on the side of the highway?
And of course all those people caught in the crossfire of HIS father's curse, a curse that was made to find HIM.
We don't know Neals Age. Now no one said anything about his age in the comments of this specific video but I have seen other Anti Neal and Anti Swanfire edits on Tik Tok saying that Neal statutory r*ped Emma. Even though we are talking about a fictional character who was in Neverland, a place that doesn't age one physically or mentally, for who knows how long. We kinda know the age he goes to Neverland at. (I think it was around 15 or 16, I don't know for sure) but we don't know how long he was in Neverland or when he leaves. In other words we don't know his age and I wouldn't put it past him to fake credentials when he go back to this new world were you need an ID to live.
Neal Cassidy is mischaracterised and I'm tired of it so I wrote this structured rant. Thanks for reading! (if you did)
i think dead poets society is more relevant now in a world of generative ai because yes earning money is important, being efficient is important all that is so important but the arts, visual arts, music, film, dance, all of these are what makes life worth living!!
even if you don't like creating things, you still watch movies, listen to music, go to museums etc and the arts shouldn't be replaced by ai.
we don't create films, draw, sing, act purely for money (yes money is important but if you're an artist only for the money then your priorities are all wrong), we do it because of our passion and love for it.
and because we only have this one life, that makes creating things for ourselves all the more special. the process is special and the final product is special and what makes it special is knowing that you did that YOURSELF.
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
š for a fandom you haven't talked much about? If not applicable for whatever reason, gravity falls or bnha?
So I referenced this show very briefly when talking about how much I fucking hated it, but I used to be an avid fan of once upon a time. I fell off because of how fucking stupid it became, but like, I really had fun with the first two and a half seasons. And I am forever cursed with becoming fixated on the character canon does not give a fuck about, because I was obsessed with Baelfire.
Iām not talking about Neal. Neal is a different character who I do not acknowledge. Iām talking about Baelfire.
He fascinated me. His story with rumplestiltskin had more emotional complexity than the rest of the series combined. POV everyone you have ever loved didnāt pick you. Everyone. You threw yourself into a portal for your dad and he picked the knife. Your mom picked the pirate. The pirate picked revenge. The Darlings loved him and he had to sacrifice himself for that love too. Love is something that always fucking hurts.
I also loved the idea that he was the only one to escape neverland. āPan let him goāā no absolutely not pan was not the kind of character who could ever bear to even let anyone even think they won. I wanted Baelfire to be clever and capable and to be the only one to go head to head with Peter pan and fucking win. He had his fatherās and grandfatherās talent for manipulation and machinations and just didnāt want to be like them but that doesnāt mean he canāt hold his own
I had this story where Baelfire escaped Neverland but ended up stuck in the fucking curse. Instead of going to the land without magic, he went to the enchanted forest, for a very specific reason: he thought it gave him his best chance of escaping Peter Pan.
Canon doesnāt really tell us anything about baelfireās relationship with Pan, but the baelfire that lives in my head had a profoundly fucked up relationship with him. Baelfire was absolutely fucking terrified of him.
From Panās perspective, Baelfire is the only person alive that he cares about. His definition of care just involves a lot of physical and psychological torture.
Itās not about him being his grandson. Peter Pan always wins is one of the rules of neverland. But for Baelfire to escape, he must be capable of beating Pan. Heās the only one who can operate on Panās level.
While on Neverland, Baelfire quickly falls out with the lost boys and ends up in hiding alone on the island. But in the process he establishes himself as someone who can occasionally win Panās perverse games. Itās not always. Itās not even often. But he beats Pan.
Heās the only one that actually challenges pan. As a result, heās the only one who gives the games real stakes. Games just arenāt fun when you donāt even have to try to win them. Itās like playing a video game stuck in the fucking tutorialāitās just no fun. When Baelfireās playing, the games suddenly matter. Winning them means more because Pan may actually lose for once.
Pan could kill every single person on that island and replace them with new lost boys, and he wouldnāt care in the slightest. But he canāt replace Bae. Out of all the boys heās taken over the centuries, Bae is the only one who is real to him.
So his games get more twisted, more challenging, more funāif youāre pan, that is. If youāre bae, you could not be more fucking petrified.
The entire experience fucks him up thoroughly and further enshrines his messy feelings around the concept of love. In a way, Pan was the only person who ever picked him. Every other person in his life had something that was more important to them than Bae was. But Pan? Pan wouldnāt let him go for the fucking world.
Which makes Baelfire absolutely desperate to get off Neverland and find a way to make sure Pan never finds him again.
Thereās nothing left for Baelfire in the land without magic. It sort of fucking sucked at the jump. The Darlings must be long dead now. And he only wanted to be in the land without magic to save his father, which, like. Fuck that guy. He doesnāt really have anywhere to go but away.
He knows that escaping isnāt the end of it. Pan hasnāt used dream shade on him because he doesnāt want the game to lose its stakes, but he has no delusions about Pan just fucking letting him go. Heāll come after bae if he escapes. He drag him back, and then Bae will never escape a second time.
He thinks that the best chance he has is to go to the place pan least expects: the enchanted forest.
Pan knows he doesnt want to exist in the same realm as his dad. So maybe he wont look there if thats where bae hidesāat least, maybe he wont look there right away. Bae thinks if he just grows up, then maybe heāll be out of Panās grasp. Neverland is no place for adults, and all magic comes with a price. Heās hoping that aging him back to childhood would be too high a price for pan to pay, and maybe if he keeps clear from pan long enough to grow up then heāll stay free.
So he escapes to the enchanted forest set on being a hermit shepherd who never talks to another goddamn person as long as he lives because his entire experience with the rest of humanity has absolutely fucking suckedā¦ and then the curse hits like two days later.
Bae Jones lives with his single father, Killian, on an antique ship in the Storybrooke bay. They love each other very much.
The curse has a degree of sentience to it. Regina didnāt plan out peopleās curse lives by hand. The curse found the lives that would torture them the most. It dug out all their worst bits and put them on display and left them in whatever life would leave them just. Profoundly discontent with their lives.
But it couldnāt do that for Rumplestiltskin, exactly. He demanded comfort. It was part of his deal.
The curseās workaround was by giving Hook, the man Rumple hated most, the one thing he didnāt think to ask for, because he didnāt know it was an option: his son.
Hook never met Cora, and never made a deal with her for the purposes of this fic. He got caught up in the curse with everyone else. And if you told him his cursed life in advance, he probably would have gone into the curse willingly.
Bae was always his biggest regret.
Killian Jones knocked up his high school sweetheart in a scandalous teenage pregnancy and ended up alone with the baby and no support. His father had been gone since he was a lad. His brother fell suddenly ill and died right before the baby was born. The babyās mother disappeared, allegedly having run off with another man to New York City, and Killian was seventeen with a baby and no options.
He made it work as best he could. He raised Bae on the ship that had been in his family for as long asā¦ honesty, who can remember. They gave tours of the bay in it to tourists, when, whenever theyā¦ some tourists came. Hard to put his finger on when.
Heās got his son. He loves his son. But the curse is still cruel to him. His curse is to constantly feel how he did when his brother died: like a failure, and one who canāt save the people he loves.
Bae Jones was the subject of the worst crime to ever hit storybrooke.
It was a weird fucking case. He got a stalker when he was very young. Weirdly young. It started off fairly innocuously. Someone would leave him gifts. Weird shit. Thimbles and game pieces. But some of the old biddies in town were losing it and felt strongly about Killian raising Bae alone, so they didnāt get too alarmed right away. They thought it was some opinionated old lady with dementia dropping things off at the dock on her morning walk. The fucking senior center took power walks through the docks each morning. It was probably one of them.
Then he went missing. He was found a few days later, alone, badly injured, wandering the forest and with no memory of what happened to him.
No one could really make sense of it, and no one was ever arrested. The gifts abruptly stopped, and no one heard from Baeās stalker again.
Baeās curse was to never be able to forget how Pan made him feel. He was left choking back the lingering terror, the lingering feeling of being hunted. He could just never put a face to the feeling. He knew that whoever hurt him was out there and would come back for him, but he couldnāt explain the feeling.
Rumple doesnāt know the curse made this to torture him until after he meets Emma and wakes up. Heās still processing the memory drop when he hears his son call for his papa.
He almost collapses there in the street.
He can hardly believe his eyes when he sees his son, only a few years older than when he lost him, smiling and walking towards him. Heād call out for him, if only he could find his voice.
His son is smiling. He sounds happy to see him.
It had been so long since his son had been happy to see him.
Bae blows past him like heās not even there. He jogs straight to another man, who turns out to be the fucking pirate who took his wife.
Rumple does not take it well. He breaks a lot of shit in his home, actually.
It considerably changes his approach to things.
Mr. Gold is the most powerful man in town, but the curse borderline inoculated Bae from his control. Killian Jones is one of the only people in the fucking city who doesnāt rent from him. He lives on a boat that he owns outright. His truck is old as shit but paid off in full. He sustains himself as a fisherman and somehow even the people he sells to donāt rent to him. He sells straight to the fish market, which uses stalls instead of storefronts so no ones renting from him. And Mr. Gold can hardly walk in and demand to spend time with that one teenage boy of no discernible relation who was famously the source of inappropriate adult fixation.
He decides his best chance is to go up and say that he needs an extra hand in his shop and thought he might offer the job to the Jones boy, a strong young lad who could probably use some pocket change. So he swallows his pride and forces himself to be cordial and marches up to the Jolly Roger to inquire.
Gold: Iād like to hire your son to do odd jobs around my shop
Killian: are you emotionally secure enough to handle the ridicule of a fifteen year old boy
Gold: what
Mr. Gold was not aware that fifteen year old Bae Jones was the town communist.
Baelfire lived through the era of London that inspired the fucking Christmas Carole. He did time in actual fucking workhouses. His hatred of capitalism is so profound that it permeates the fucking curse. He acts like he was personally affected by McCarthyism. He is causing a second red scare in this idyllic small Maine town. Most parents in storybrooke do not want their kids hanging out near him out of concern that heāll make their kid a communist.
It gives him a lasting hatred for Mr. Gold, the town landlord. No, he does not want a fucking job working for the worst fucking person in town. What does Mr. Gold want him to do, drown kittens? Set orphanages on fire? Fuck off.
It sets rumple back considerably.
Random facts about this universe:
When Henry was little, Bae was the older kid that no one wanted their kids near, which gave him an aura of being the coolest kid in town. Then Henry caught up to him in age a bit more because he was the only one aging in this fucking hellscape town. And also Henry saw him more because Henry was going to see Dr. Hopper because his mom was upping the gaslighting and Bae was going because he famously had issues from a trauma that made the goddamn news. Bae was the only one who didnāt look at Henry like he was crazy, mostly because he was sick of the people who looked at him with nonstop pity. As a result, Henry considers Bae his best friend, and Bae considers Henry as that kid who he sometimes says hi to when they pass each other in Dr. Hopperās waiting room.
Bae is sort of involuntarily grandfathered into operation cobra because Henry considers him his best friend and also because his dad is dancing around some weird whatever with Henryās mom. Not the one thatās a bitch the one that just showed up fromā¦ wherever it is that sheās been his entire life. Oh heās a fairytale character? Oh uh. Okay. Cool. Heās gotā¦ Places to be. People to see.
He doesnāt. He has no friends. Heās the town communist who most kids are not allowed to talk to and also spends every day pretending he isnāt quietly suffocating on his own fear.
Baeās marginal involvement does fuck a lot of Mr. Goldās plans because he canāt be blatantly evil for Emmaās development anymore. Heās out here trying to sell babies and thereās fifteen year old bae jones, local town communist, in the background like āyeah I bet youād fucking do that you fucking assholeā
Thereās a really weird moment that stuns the entire town because Mr. Gold, landlord to the entire town, awkwardly walks up to Bae Jones, local town communist, in Grannyās and asks him to tell him about it the merits of communism. No really. Mr. Gold is really interested. Please tell him all about it, at length.
Mr. Gold is absolutely fucking white knuckling his way through giving people penalty-free extensions on rent so his son will hate him less openly
Bae does not believe in any of Henryās fairytale bullshit until right after Graham starts going off the fucking rails. Henry had been insisting this entire time that his mom hired out Killianās ship for a bay tour on his seventh birthday. Bae had spent all day with Henry, showing him how to tie different knots, showing him how to steer the ship, taking him below deck and showing him all the shipās secrets. It was Henryās best birthday ever, and he felt so special because a big kid had acted like they were friends all day. Henry was seven, and Bae was still fifteen. Henry keeps getting older, and Bae stays goddamn fifteen.
All of the pictures of Henry growing up disappeared when he started asking questions. Every classroom picture he ever took just vanished. The only photos he has of growing up are of him alone. But Henry manages to find a photo of his seventh birthday in one of his momās hiding places. Baeās in it, who looks the same as he does in the present. Henry shows it to bae, whoā¦ canāt really explain any of that shit. So he tells Henry to stall his mom as long as possible, and he goes back to the crypt that graham had a total fucking breakdown at earlier in the night.
Henry fakes a fucking medical emergency and Regina rushes him to the hospital instead of immediately crushing Grahamās heart because she thinks Henryās having a goddamn seizure. Bae is. So proud.
Meanwhile bae has stolen his fatherās truck to break into Reginaās crypt and accidentally finds the secret entrance to her weird heart wall room bullshit. What. What the fuck is any of this.
Anyway he has no clue which of these is grahamās so he just steals all of them. He has time since Henry googled the symptoms of fucking rabies and is doing his best reenactment of it for Dr. Whale.
They canāt put the heart back in graham because like. How the fuck do they even do that. This is a beating fucking heart. So bae just has an anxiety inducing number of hearts hidden under his floorboards. He is tell tale hearting himself. He already had ptsd and now he does this. What the fuck is his life now.
They try showing the beating hearts to Emma but she just looks at them and sees cheap Halloween props a la Augustās leg. They canāt show her the photo because Regina found it in Henryās bag when he was going for the fucking Oscar and took it. Now she suspects bae but she canāt go around accusing the local town communist of robbing her secret crypt vault of its real beating human hearts without sounding like a fucking lunatic.
Emma still becomes sheriff because Graham sort of goes off the fucking rails after getting his memory back. From Emmaās perspective he got out of a profoundly toxic relationship, had a breakdown, became convinced of her sonās fairytale delusion thing, quit his job, moved into a weird shack in the woods, and suddenly his only two friends were her eleven year old son and Bae, the fifteen year old town communist who was in a permanent state of going through a lot.
This completely derails her will-they-wonāt-they thing because graham wants to help Emma see the truth and Emma thinks heās gone medically fucking insane.
Emmaās will-they-wonāt-they thing with Killian is also inadvertently derailed almost simultaneously. one of Grahamās first acts of becoming freed of his cursed memories is to go free his āsister,ā Lacey, of her involuntary commitment. His sister, the high school sweetheart of Killian Jones and Baeās fucking curse mom
In the enchanted forest, Belle and the Huntsman had been extremely close. They were both Reginaās prisoner at the same time. The Huntsman protected her as best he could and it was his dearest wish to free her one day. So it became his curse to be the one keeping her locked up.
āLaceyā was the wild child of his family, and their father snapped when she got pregnant. He had her involuntarily committed based on a diagnosis that Graham could never remember clearly, dumped the baby on Killian, told him sheād ran off with some random guy, and refused to let her out of the asylum. After his father died, Graham ended up gaining control over his sisterās care, and he kept her committed for treatment of a diagnosis that never got any clearer than her being nebulously unstable. It was a source of profound guilt for him that fucking Regina was always assuring him he was doing the right thing on. He immediately has Belle released from the asylum when he wakes up and she thinks Killian is her long lost love and Bae is their son whose life she missed.
Rumple is meanwhile losing his entire fucking mind
Anyway Emmaās thing with Killian is also derailed because heās trying to make it work with Lacey again for Baeās sake and Bae is having the worldās quietest panic attack in the corner because he has like 96 human hearts under his floorboards and thereās a 50% chance his stalker never existed to begin with and a 50% chance that theyāre real and have magic.
David ends up becoming Emmaās deputy because graham takes the job at the animal shelter he had in canon and also Graham pushes him towards the deputy position, nominally to give Emma some help but also for curse breaking purposes
Henry isnāt sure who Bae was in the enchanted forest and itās a source of profound distress for bae. They know his dad isnāt really his dad. Killian is definitely Captain Hook. Like he has one hand and lives on the fucking Jolly Roger. Captain Hook didnāt have a kid. But from Baeās perspective, his dad is literally the only good thing in his life and he doesnāt want to lose him.
He then fully loses him. Instead of Kathryn going missing, Killian does. A little thimble is left behind. Baeās stalker is back and took his fucking dad.
David ends up stepping up to take care of him while Killian is missing. Lacey and Graham are considered categorically ineligible because she just got out of an insane asylum and he acts like he should be in one. But David was Killianās best friend in town and had moved in with them when Davidās cheating scandal had come to light. As a result, David was already living with Bae when Killian disappeared and was the most stable option.
Then David is arrested for Killianās disappearance.
Instead of Mary-Margaret getting framed, David is. Davidās coma started at the same time that Bae reappeared and the stalking abruptly stopped. Regina makes it look like he was Baeās stalker from back then who only stopped because he had an accident. As soon as he woke up, he got close to Bae and made an opportunity to get control over him again.
Regina shows up ready to step in and take custody of her sonās best friend. Sheās the only licensed foster parent in town, and he obviously needs stability.
Then fucking Mr. Gold shows up with a paternity test.
He could not claim to be Baeās real dad this entire time because 1) bae openly loved his dad more than anything in the world and fucking hated Mr. Gold and 2) was famously the product of a teen pregnancy and Mr. Gold would have been fucking arrested. Emma still almost arrests him before he can talk his way out of it. Like, sheās sort of having a rough time of it. Just give her a fucking reason. Oh look, gold just gave her a fucking reason.
Gold makes it very clear that a dna test between Lacey and Bae will establish that he isnāt her son either
Gold spins bullshit about this being a switched at birth situation. He had a wife that died in childbirth oh, right when Bae was born. No one else really remembers this, but he has some very real looking paperwork to support his claim. Their son died in the hospital not long after his birth, coincidentally on the same day when Bae Jones was born. Gold became suspicious of a mixup at the hospital based on the uncanny similarities between Bae and his mother, and the dna test proves his suspicions.
Heāll be taking his son home now
Bae is like nine miles into this panic attack if they could please break the fucking curse
Killian is miraculously found and saved and David is exonerated thanks to the Herculean efforts of one Mr. Gold. He hired private investigators to unearth the truth of what happened to the man who raised his son. He personally, and very dramatically, ended up being the one to find him in a basement in some isolated cabin in the woods. He also found evidence exonerating poor David, who was so close to his son. His son gets to be reunited with the man he loves so dearly and was miserable without, and Gold has never been in a better position to bargain for shared custody and a permanent place in Baeās life
Bae has a sour fucking taste in his mouth.
Breaking the curse sends Bae clear off the fucking rails
His entire time in operation cobra, he had two main fears: 1) that heād wake up and his dad wouldnāt be his dad anymore, and 2) that his real memories would somehow be worse than his fake memories. Like. He was not Killianās real son. But his dad was his everything. He was terrified that heād wake up and Killian would wake up and Killian would awkwardly tell him that he wasnāt his real son and didnāt really care about him, it had all been the curse. And he was terrified that all the fucked up bits of him wasnāt all curse. That heād wake up and be just as scared as he was before the curse broke
Anyway the curse breaks and it is immediately the worst case scenario for him. Oh, look at that. All his nightmares come true, worse than he ever imagined.
Killian really does love him as a son. And he was trying to find him to tell him that, post-curse break. Except he sort of found Rumple first. And theyāve. Theyāve always brought out the worst in each other.
Bae finds them mid screaming match rapidly escalating to violence and is like. Oh. Super cool that we cleared that up so fast. Yall have not changed at all. Super super cool I figured out so so fast that caring is a horrible mistake. Awesome 10/10 really clears things up for bae so so awesome that he didnāt make any terrible mistakes like forgiving anyone
Killian then canāt fucking fix it because he ends up sucked in the hat bullshit with Mary Margaret and Emma. POV you are third wheeling the mother daughter trip from hell and you have to get back to another realm before your psuedoson has a crippling breakdown because you know heās got a magic psychopath after him but no one else does
Meanwhile Bae is having a crippling breakdown because he has a magic psychopath after him who almost definitely knows where he is because heās had twenty eight fucking years to solve this particular puzzle and Bae canāt even fuck off because he is trapped like a fish in an idyllic small town barrel.
He canāt just fuck off over the town line with a note to himself to run and never come back. Him as a clean slate that pan can toy with in all new ways is probably panās dream. He is fucking stuck until he finds a way out of town with his memories.
Meanwhile he is having a level nine million crash out and explaining it to no one
He runs on Neverland rules, and Neverland rules make lord of the flies look like a fucking summer camp at the Mickey Mouse clubhouse. He believes in solving fucking problems, thanks. Like oh my god why are any of them even here is it because David fucking sucks at being a ruler?? Uh yeah it sort of fucking is
David does not know why bae suddenly hates him and is very devastated by it because they were really close during the curse
Bae hates him because heās absolutely buried in his own panic attack and Davidās the easiest target. If it wasnāt for him letting go of the fucking queen all those years ago, the curse wouldnāt have happened, he wouldnāt be stuck with his fucking dad five feet from him begging him to talk, and he wouldnāt be stuck in a town with like six roads max where pan definitely knows where he is. Baeās lashing out because he feels like thereās a clock counting down to when Pan comes to take him back and heās desperately trying to find a way to not be here anymore when it happens
Bae equally has it out for fucking Regina because 1) curse bullshit, are you fucking for real and 2) her parenting style towards Henry in the immediate aftermath of the curse breaking is pretty identical to his fatherās approach to raising him as the dark one. Like, showing up at the town hall meeting and throwing fireballs around until Henry agrees to go back with her and be locked away in his room?? Uhhh horrifyingly familiar to him. David again seems to want to run around with a sword and make noble demands with no plan for if she throws a fucking fireball and bae thinks they should at least try shooting her in the back with a taser and posting her credit card details online
Bae is really acting like heās still on Neverland with this shit because his biggest contention with David is that he should solve his fucking problems for once but his problem solving method is batshit insane. Ruby is getting framed for murder and bae is like āno no itās definitely the deposed ex king who is using this to rally the townsfolk to his side doing this. Anyway the solution is to up the number of murders. Like. Can you imagine how fucked up thatād be. You fully murder Gus the Mouse from Cinderella as an act of politically motivated violence and then there's a whole new string of murders not caused by you? where are they coming from. how did they die. is there actually a wolf problem. it'd fuck with him so bad. Heāll definitely panic and slip up. Probably.ā Itās just:
Bae: you look like a man who's willing to lie in a pool of blood in the town square and pretend to be brutally murdered
Grumpy: i don't know how to take that
charming: we're not taking that at all we're not doing that
Bae: do you want to solve the fucking problem or do you want ruby to be lynched by a mob for fucksake we're doing it. are you in
Grumpy: does it come with benefits
Bae: do i look like i can afford healthcare. you're pretending to be one murdered body calm down
Grumpy: you made me listen to a thirty seven minute long presentation on the benefits of unionizing
Bae: i love a good union but also this is very much not a job with multiple employees and it is also not a job do you want to pretend to be murdered to save your friends life yes or no we're losing daylight
Grumpy: can i tell my loved ones i'm alive or do i have to let them grieve horribly
Bae: do i look like an amateur to you. grieve horribly. they can't act and it'll be for like maybe six hours.
Grumpy:
Grumpy:
Grumpy: yea okay
Bae is a very firm believer in throwing people off their rhythm and doing what they least expect because that was the only way to get anywhere with panās psychopathic mind games and he DESPERATELY wants to fuck with George by having charming gather his own mob to murder ruby (she would be safely hidden away during all mob violence moments heās not a fucking amateur) because how would george respond to THAT but charming keeps insisting on being the most predictable man alive and that is SUCH a buzzkill
Honestly Bae's only hobbies post curse break are (1) avoid his father (2) try and escape the town (3) break regina's kneecaps and post her credit card information on the internet whenever she oversteps with henry (4) avoid charmings lectures about breaking regina's kneecaps and posting her credit card information online (5) trying to convince the dwarves to unionize and stop providing slave labor to the fairy overlords and (6) skid through his descent into madness as he becomes rapidly more convinced pan is going to find and recapture him and honestly he is BOOKED but honestly the bar is so so low in storybooke for political machinations. He just spent like SEVERAL hundred years in a place where the manipulations were on god tier mode and pan would have mind games going that spanned literal centuries and now it's like he's watching fucking paw patrol. Like yes the killer is obviously the fucking guy who immediately used the obviously-not-killed-by-a-wolf body for opportunistic political theatre like fucksake. Will someone please take his suggestion of tossing George over the fucking town line and calling it a day? No? Okay well it was nicer than his other suggestion which was just shooting him. Please start your solving problems bae cannot keep doing this
Anyway no one has any goddamn clue whatās wrong with bae (itās many things) but rumple is somehow the less concerning member of his family everyoneās more worried about whatever the fuck bae is doing than they are with the dark one.
imagine your name is BAELFIRE and your MOM leaves you for a PIRATE and you get drafted in a WAR so your dad becomes the most powerful WIZARD ever but he becomes EVIL so you try to LEAVE to another world WITHOUT MAGIC with him but he LOVES magic so you FALL through a PORTAL and now youre HOMELESS in ENGLAND but then find a FAMILY except you get TAKEN by a SHADOW to PROTECT your new FAMILY except you get found by PIRATES and their CAPTAIN is actually your MOMS LOVER and he says your DAD killed your MOM but then the captain SURRENDERS you to PETER PAN because he wants to KILL your DAD but somehow you ESCAPE from PETER PAN to a land WITHOUT MAGIC and you FALL IN LOVE with a GIRL and you do CRIME together except PINOCCHIO wants you to ABANDON her because she is the SAVIOR of people from YOUR OLD LAND so you DO but then she goes to JAIL where she finds out shes PREGNANT which you find out 11 YEARS later when she and your EVIL DAD find you in NEW YORK where you have a FIANCE who ends up being ANTI-MAGIC and she TRIES to KILL you and you go through a PORTAL for the SECOND time but now PETER PAN has KIDNAPPED your SON and you get MANIPULATED to SAVE HIM but LUCKILY you go BACK to the WORLD without MAGIC but PETER PAN casts a CURSE and you FIND OUT that PETER PAN is your GRANDFATHER but he is DEFEATED but then the WICKED WITCH comes to TOWN and you end up SACRIFICING yourself so the WICKED WITCH can be KILLED. ALSO YOUR BABY MAMA ENDS UP MARRYING YOUR STEPDAD
no offense but whereās the scene where regina and neal sit down together to speak about rumplestiltskin and how everything he did to reginaāthe training, the trauma, and the manipulation and psychological abuse in order to mold her into someone who could serve his purposesāwas to go to the land without magic to get baelfire.
where is the scene where the two of them have some trauma dump bonding caused by the same person, the same person who ruined their lives? where is the scene where they speak about henry?
It's really, really funny how the OUAT writers clearly have noooo idea what to do with Hook when he's fully on the redemption train. Our man goes from interesting bad boy love interest to Wife Guy Number 3 in six seconds flat. Switching to a normal leather jacket does not help this.
It's especially funny because the writers pretty clearly killed off Neal to make way for Hook/Emma, but Neal himself would never have had this problem, because he has bonds and desires outside of Emma to keep him interestingāHenry and Rumple particularly, and even Hook himself. Also Neal just seems more capable of making friends than Hook, like in his mini-adventure with Belle.
They just really shot themselves in the foot here. Even if you want to stick with Captain Swan, keeping Neal alive only helps you, because it gives Hook another emotional connection. Poor Neal. You deserved better.
Young Cathy and Heathcliff find a half staved unconscious Jane Eyre on the moors and poked her with a stick to see if she's dead. She isn't roused by their proding and they don't care enough to try and help her so it isn't mentioned in either book.
