[ SECRET POST #2696 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2696 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #385.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Any recs for stories that are 1) not 'Bed of Thorns' [I know the fandom is in love with this story, but I've never made it past chapter 20 or so], 2) not an AU where Belle &/or Rumple is a circus performer, a prostitute, a college professor, a beekeeper, etc, and 3) not a forever WIP?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, BoT is kind of ridiculous. I made it to chapter 40 and gave up.

If you don't mind smut, Bad Faery's "The Essence of Life" is good, as is TheStraggleTag's "Give Unto Me". PhoenixFeatherQuill's "Driving Lessons" is cute, and I'm a big fan of Masako Moonshine's "Weave Me a New Skin."

I see where you'd run into trouble if you don't like AUs though.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you! Of those, I've only read "Essence of Life" (I liked it okay, but I'm not a huge fan of smut where Rumple is all glittery-scaly-Dark One; I just find it unsettling). I will definitely check out the others :)

And, I do think my major issue with Rumple/Belle fic is the AUs. I enjoy canon divergence AUs, but mundane AUs just aren't my scene and it feels like almost every fic is a non-magical AU where the characters are named "[Alex/Nicholas/Robert/Angus] Gold" and "Belle" but have little to no connection to the canon characters.

[(Anonymous)]

DA--oh man, I find Dark One smut has a higher chance of being in character, simply because there are way more mundane AUs with Gold as a businessman or a baker or wtf-ever, but unless an author's writing PWP, dealing with scaly Rumple necessitates at least a little mention of his actual character, rather than generic domineering businessman. Why the hell anyone would characterize him as domineering as opposed to a massive bundle of issues, I dunno. But the number of fics that go the other way and make him a helpless innocent woobie who's never jerked off in his life until Belle shows up ... ugh. He raised his son to 14, guys, pretty sure he knows the basics.

That said, I like BoT, because it's a nice antidote to the actual show, which never lets the characters actually sit down and work through shit. Belle ruminating on life, the universe, and everything she and Rumple do in bed is more my taste than macguffin of the week meets long lost villain relative of the half-season. Also, Nym has a couple of shorter fics on AO3, at least one of which is quite different in tone from BoT. BoT Belle's p.o.v. is young and naive to start with, but Broken Wheel is from Rumple's perspective. Not BoT Rumple, either. There's not much woobie and a bit of creep to him, and a particular passage about spiders and birds and spiderwebs made me choke laughing and cringe at the same time. Most of Nym's other posted fic is Stargate and Harry Potter slash, so BoT is a kind of a departure from her usual.

Honestly, I'm still waiting for either a fic or preferably an episode that is nothing but poor Archie Hopper raking in the big bucks, because ffs, everyone in SB needs therapy. So much therapy.

As for other Rumbelle fic, whereismygarden's stuff is good. She's on tumblr, but like a lot of people is sort of drifting away from the fandom as the show goes down the drain. Some of her stuff is non-magical AUs, but not all, and I think she's got a pretty good handle on the characters.

Merripestin has one story on AO3--Tamed, Wild, Caged, and Feral Creatures--that's short and kind of sweet and sad at the same time.

Seconding someone else's rec for anything by amuseoffyre--she must have done at least three rewrites of season 1, tweaking a different detail each time and following on from there. She wrote so much fic, and I can't think of any non-magical AUs. She's on AO3 as Fyre, and like the other reccer said, she kinda gave up on the fandom post season 2.

Rufeepeach's stuff is pretty good, about an even split between canon-compliant fic and magical AUs and non-magic AUs. Same name on tumblr and AO3. Another author lost to season 3 doldrums.

I just started reading some short AU fics by Thatravenclawbitch, where instead of Emma and Hook going back in time, it's Gold and Belle. She's still writing more; I'll be interested to see where she takes them. She's on AO3 and tumblr under the same name. Her stuff is probably the fluffiest of what I've recc'ed.

After that finale--hell, that season, I need some fluff. I'll probably just keep up with fandom via fic and meta, because the writing on the show itself is so bad it's just not worth it. I was only keeping up for the relationships between Rumple, Belle, Henry, Neal, and Emma, and ... yeah. I didn't ship Swanfire, but Hook makes me want to punch my tv. I'd be okay with that if the show didn't keep glossing over character interaction to introduce the next big bad or realm of bad cgi.