Rumbelle!!!!
I ship it.
I should now explain what this means. Of course, you people are likely more knowledgeable about the internet and terms used thereon than I am, and so you may already know what these mean, but I personally wouldn't have understood this statement not all that long ago, so for the benefit of people like me, I'll go ahead and explain.
You are almost undoubtedly familiar with the word “ship”, but on the internet it has of late taken on a new meaning. I mean, hopefully all native English speakers know that ship means to mail or send something, or also a boat or sailing vessel, but that’s not the meaning of the word ship we’re using here. This form of ‘ship’ is casually derived from relationship. It’s funny, because I never thought I didn’t know what the word “ship” meant, but I was very confused when I first came across this usage of it. ‘Twas in a facebook chat with my best friend I first came across this use of the term “shipping”. She was telling me how she shipped Mary Murtle and Joe or something (not actually those two characters; this is in fact a reference to an inside joke my friend and I have long had, since around sixth grade. The characters she actually mentioned were from some internet manga she was reading, and I wasn’t familiar with it, so I don’t recall the actual names my friend used) and so I, rather confused as to in what context my friend was mailing these two characters, asked her “so you’re shipping them where?”. After having a little fun with me, she explained that shipping in this case means “the act of fully loving and supporting the beautiful relationship of two fictional characters”, or something to those lines. I tried to go back in my facebook chat history and find the original quote, but I couldn’t find it; it was quite some time ago. I think this is a good approximation of her definition though, and I think her definition pinned down this meaning of the term quite well, so this is the definition of “shipping” I’m using here.
You’re less likely to know what “Rumbelle” is, especially if you don’t watch Once Upon a Time, as it is a more specific term and so less widely used than “shipping”. Rumbelle is simply a contraction of the names of the two people in the relationship, Rumpelstiltskin and Belle, and it is used to refer to these two characters together and the lovely relationship they share. When I explained this term to my mom the other day, she referred to famous “Branjelina”, which is a name that follows the same concept, and it’s so famous even I’ve heard of it. I think this term refers to the relationship of someone named Brad Parsley and Anjelina Jolie, but I don’t know or care about them. This post is about Rumbelle.
So, why do I love and support the beautiful relationship of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle so very much? It’s difficult to pin down; they are simply exquisitely beautiful together. Part of it may be that I love the individual characters so much on their own. Rumpelstiltskin is one of my favorite characters in the entire show. It’s hard to say why exactly I like him. I think I started to like him circa episode four (my mom and I have been rewatching the series on Netflix, as Once is a show which fully warrants rewatching), even before he had a sympathetic backstory. It’s kind of strange, but Rumpel’s just fun to watch. He has a lovely giggle. He is clever and witty and it’s very amusing to watch him interact with others. He’s dark and manipulative, but honest(-ish; as Charming pointed out, he struggles with honesty of heart rather than honesty of words) and to be fair, he does always give fair warning that all magic comes with a price. He’s rather dashing. It’s just... the giggle. The clever, wittiness. The... Rumpelstiltskinness. In the course of watching the show, I gradually developed an appreciation for character and thence a little crush on said character. To use another modern internet term, I guess you could say I’m a 'fangirl', as referred to in this little “quip” (to quote Rumpel in one of his first romantic moments with Belle):
Hehehehehehe ;) ‘tis true.
(this is what I was changing when I accidentally deleted the original post. I was changing “it’s” to “‘tis”. I know. If only I could’ve left it be... )
from http://weheartit.com/entry/48993327 found by google imaging “Rumpelstiltskin and Belle” (I haven't even visited the site).
I don’t know what’s so attractive about this, and out of context of the show it probably isn't, but after falling in love with the show, it just is. I can't help it.
I couldn’t find where this one was from, but it was somewhere on the internet, via google images.
Belle is also a wonderful and very likeable character. I think the reason I like her so much is because I kind of want to be her; I relate to her in a lot of ways and I envy her in others. She is truly the heroine of book nerds. She reads in abundance, as do I, and she uses the wide variety of knowledge she gains from her books to have awesome adventures and outsmart everyone else at need, which is the aspiration of all we of the noble order of book nerds. She dreams of having adventures and seeing the world, and she gets to in such cool ways. She is brave and bold and has a good heart and is able to see the good in others when others can’t (particularly Rumpel). She is a wonderful and interesting character and she is familiar in many ways and yet surprising. She’s even easier to like than Rumpel (though he is still immensely likeable). I also love her amazing hair, which is red--I’ve always sort of wanted red hair--and it is always wonderfully styled. I recently used her hair, along with the purple-blue coat she wears in the scene when Rumpel is going off to Neverland and he thinks he’s never coming back (but he does, and he always shall), as an inspiration for a first sketch of a character--the protagonist of Avgir Lys, an excerpt of which I recently posted, as it so happens.
Here her coat (mentioned above) looks bluer.
I don’t know what the caption means, so don’t ask me, but it’s a lovely picture. I think that ship is a great background for an "au revoir" kiss.
Here it looks purpler. The red in her hair is also brighter.
Both of these last two pictures are from this fun Once fan site: http://whyweloveonceuponatime.tumblr.com/archive
(this is a nice site for some cool Once pics)
Belle is just an epic character. There’s this thing my younger cousins do when they’re watching a movie sometimes where they’ll point to a character and say excitedly, “I’m that one!” If I were to do that with Once, Belle would definitely be the character I’d choose to be. She’s an awesome, heroic book nerd, not to mention that she gets to be with Rumpel.
Besides just being incredibly likeable on their own, Rumpelstiltskin and Belle are even better together. They’re simply so sweet together, and I love to watch all the scenes in Once where they are with each other. It’s hard to say exactly what it is that makes them so great together. A big part of that is how they make each other better. Belle truly brings out the light in Rumpel. She sees past his flaws to the goodness he had, and still has, in him and she helps him to choose it and become better. He has become filled with darkness, but Belle brings out the light in him. She helps him go from being a villain to being a hero, to put it in those generalized terms. It may seem harder to see what Rumpel gives Belle (besides his being generally attractive) but in a way, the same man who locked Belle in a dungeon ironically unintentionally and unknowingly freed her from an arranged marriage and helped her find true love. Despite hypothetically keeping Belle away from the world, Rumpel actually helped her get out and see the world. Not only did he give her the world metaphorically by giving her a library (twice--and I mean, really, how many guys give you a library twice?) but literally by enabling her to go out and do things like have a quest to, well, originally to slay, but later to free a man from being, a yaoguai.
I think that’s about all I had on my original Rumbelle blog post. I know it’s not exactly the same, but nothing lost and recovered ever is. I think I have a fairly good memory, though, and so I know I’ve covered the gist of what I did before. Like I said at the top, if you can think of anything I’ve forgotten or better still if you can help me recover my original post, please let me know!
Beyond the violet mist, we are romantics and we’ve been greatly enjoying watching the beautiful and lovely relationship of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle continue to unfold. (Beyond the violet mist, we’re beginning to recover from our tragic loss and melodramatic response.)
Still TO BE CONTINUED!!
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