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I mean, the writers could have cribbed some of their magic system from Star Wars, make magic a neutral force in the Enchanted Forest, the morality of magic is determined by the user, but over time a black-and-white mentality developed. They could have tied the fairies and the Dark One as opposing forces, with Blue having a particularly orthodox view that dark magic users are evil and can never change. Ergo, Blue absolutely refuses to let Tinker Bell help Regina and tried to get rid of Rumple by giving Bael the magic beans. Then, in the lead up to Regina casting the Dark Curse, Blue, knowing Rumple would find a loophole for himself, cast some sort of counter spell for herself so that she would also wake up when she meets adult Emma. So now you have a knowledgable, powerful magic user on Emma's side who absolutely opposes Regina and Rumple. You have a knight templar character right there who is not a villain per se, but could serve as an obstacle because Blue's got her plan to defeat the Dark One and Regina, damn who ever gets in her way.

I remember back when the Underworld arc was announced but we hadn't seen anything and spent time speculating on what would happen. Needless to say, the idea I had in my head was better than what the showrunners came up with. My idea was pretty simple: some souls got out of Tartarus and Hades makes a deal with the Storybrooke characters. If they get the souls back Hades would talk to the Fates about ignoring all those times Charming, Hook and Rumple were supposed to die. The souls that got out would be Dr. Facilier and Frollo (and a few others, idk), the latter going all witch-hunting and Emma's still the Dark One and using her powers à la Ghost Rider until the end of the season. As for Hades' portrayal, while I do like the sleazy car salesman from Hercules, and brooding lord of the underworld is really popular, I would kill to see something closer to how the Greek myths portray him. Hades, from everything I've read, is a rules abiding, kind of overworked family man. He loves his wife and kids, named his dog "spot," let Heracles borrow Cerberus to finish his labours, and gave Orpheus a really easy way to bring Eurydice back to our world. It was Orpheus' fault for screwing it up. Hades is lawful neutral personified. He doesn't interfere with the overworld plot 'cause he's gotta update security in Tartarus so the Titans don't get out and start another war with Olympus. Maybe have some characters who are now in the Elysian Fields come up and help out, or have Hermes, Hecate, Melinoë, whoever, help out, but otherwise it's DO Emma's show. Who have a lot of drama, things get dark, our heroes win, Hades sicks either the Furies or Nemesis on the baddies, and something's done about the DO powers.

Christ, way back at the end of like season 5 I want to say, a friend and I created a Henry spinoff. The premise was that Henry is an English student at NYU doing student stuff and studying the Author's library in New York, looking for the changes Isaac made. He's got a plan to get those stories back on track, finds some in Aladdin, and gets himself and a LWOM friend sucked into an Author's copy of 1001 Arabian Nights. Proceed a plot that would be a cross of Aladdin/Game of Thrones/Lawrence of Arabia, throw in Schaharezade, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and war with Shakespeare's Italian characters and we figured we got something good. And I figured (taking this from my own plans), if the show had the budget for it, they could have moved locations to New York, pick a university for Henry to attend, and having studying the storybooks and realizes that *shock* his roommate looks exactly like one of the characters in one of the books! Pick an unadapted Disney property (ie The Black Cauldron) or lesser known Grimms/Perrault/Andersen fairytale, give the villain a reason to cast the Dark Curse. For some added danger, there's a character with their pre-curse memories working for the villain who's job is to make sure the cursed characters don't wake up. Henry can call the Storybrooke characters whenever he needs extra help, but otherwise they trust that he can take care of himself. Maybe Rumple's a recurring character 'cause he and Belle have decided to separate for a while; Regina and Hook are more involved 'cause Emma's busy with the baby. Give the show a gritty, police procedural or thriller feel and go from there. And also you make sure the PR people market this as a continuation of the OUaT proper. Calling season 7 a "reboot" was rather confusing, not helped by the showrunners' vagueness. If OUaT hadn't been written season to season -- if there had been an actual plan -- they could have set up Henry over a couple season to the main protagonist once Regina Emma's story was resolved. Vikings did this really well with the (spoilers) death of Ragnar Lothbrok by setting up a number of characters (his sons, Lagertha, Floki, Rollo, Harald Fairhair, Alfred the Great) to take over the show.

So here's something that's been on my mind since the Season 4 finale: Rumple and Belle love the ideas of each other, not the actual person. Like that alternate world version Rumple has of Belle just made my skin crawl 'cause I'm thinking: "this is how you see Belle?" Like if Belle was allowed to be smart, adventurous, independent, like we're told she is, I doubt Belle would be too happy about that all. And then Belle's whole "there's good in you, Rumple!" schtick. Yes, the obvious statement is obvious. But do you know how interesting it would have been to examine Rumple and Belle's situation between season 2 and 5 using the "loving a shadow trope." You know, the trope where someone is more in love with the idea of a person than the actual flesh and blood person; Jay Gatsby and Daisy situation. Like, what if the their relationship had gone the route of they had that actual true love moment -- it was real, but it was brief -- they get separated by the curse (doesn't matter what they're situation is, but they're not together) but they're holding onto this idealized version of the other as a hope line or something. Then the curse breaks, they get back together, but they eventually realize just how different they are from what they've put on a pedestal. Maybe they try to have a relationship together, but it's just not working. Neither can live up to the other's expectations. And you can have so much drama and growth right there! And it was staring the writers right in the face! God damn, do fanfic writers have to do all the work?!

Maybe if the show had been run by competent people, then Regina's situation could have been framed as "Snow's an easier target then my mother who's an extremely powerful witch who would easily kill me in heartbeat" and it just festered over time. Throw in some situational learned helplessness, years of abuse, a desire to have a mother who genuinely loved her, resentment towards a child who had everything she didn't have, and Regina's grudge against Snow makes more sense in context. And then make sure to show that Regina is in the wrong, but in her mind it makes sense. It's twisted and hard to sympathize, let alone empathize, with, but better than what we got.

Like, the writers could have just let the cops catch up to Emma and Neal, they get arrested, and Neal takes all of the responsibility. I mean, they weren't being very careful about not being caught on camera. So Emma gets a sentence that's long enough to have Henry in prison, short enough that she's out in like... a year. Neal gets sentenced to like 5 to 10 or however long robbing gas stations warrants. They lose touch, they get back together. You could completely delete Tamara. And August could be completely out of this, idk, sipping cocktails in Thailand.

Have to say, I knew that the Land of Untold Stories Arc was in trouble when they had the Count of Monte Cristo as the villain of the week. My dudes, you either go full Punisher with Edmond Dantes or you don't use him at all.

So I've been thinking about this topic for a long time that I've been needing to get some ideas out there (and moving cross country also means I've no one to ramble too). Anyway, I honestly think the problems with OUaT have been there since the very beginning in that A&E had no idea how well the series would do. After watching seasons 1 and 2, I got the sense that they had planned everything up to "Welcome to Storybrooke", probably expecting to get cancelled after that. But that didn't happen and they were basically pantsing the entire series until the end. It makes me wonder what the end game would have been if the show had been cancelled at, say, season 4 or 5. But that's a different tangent. The other major problem was over who the main character was. Obviously A&E thought Regina was the protagonist. But we the audience were told that Emma was to be the main character and our audience surrogate. That didn't happen, of course. I honestly think a more Emma focused show probably would have gone very differently. Like by focusing on her training in magic could give us more worldbuilding for the Enchanted Forest, the nature of magic, the history of the Dark One, fairies, etc. Also have a lot more focus on Emma's bonding with her parents and son and the weird situation the curse has put them in. Maybe still keep her issue with keeping people at arms length, but have her actually deal with it. She's a woman who's never known a stable home life or relationships and desperately wants a family. I'm working on a AU, initially departing at the end of 3A (but have set it back to the beginning) where Rumple stays dead and we get a new Dark One. Given Emma's swan motif, fitting the Swan Lake characters in would work. And Rothbart would make for a good Dark One. Throw in a strange obsession with Emma and maybe end in a Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now-like arc to finish the series and I might have something good if I actually stick to it. The big thing is that Emma could be a "Saviour" without any big prophecies or destinies involved. I think the writers messed up with her "human lie-detector" trait by barely ever using it and being very inconsistent with it's usefulness. Maybe it could have been termed for ten-year-old Henry as being able to detect lies, but in reality Emma has a massive capacity for empathy. She can understand anyone, see both the good and bad in them, and this is both a strength and a weakness that she must learn to work with. As for Regina, well she's a pretty unique character but A&E handled her in the worst way possible. In my eyes, she has serious mental health issues (probably Borderline Personality Disorder), but not fully sociopathic. She's fully capable of being redeemed, but it would take serious hard work. Every year I make time to reread the manga version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind which greatly expands on the movie (go read it if you haven't). Anyway, Princess Kushana gets a lot more fleshed out, we learn of her backstory and her motivations. Her narrative purpose is to act as Nausicaä's shadow, and in a moment of self reflection, when facing her own mortality, she comes to a fascinating revelation about herself. Kushana get's the revenge she wants every easily, but it leaves her hollow due to how easy and senseless it was. Facing her death, she casts aside her hatred and rage, following Nausicaä's lead, and comforts her men while they hide from the giant insects. And they're spared. They survive something Kushana was sure would kill her and her men! A far wiser person pointed out that when forgiveness is impossible, letting go of hatred is the next best thing. It doesn't condone what the person did, but in an act of self love, the person can get back onto the right path. I wish Regina had a moment truly like that. I'm thinking that a moment I might use is when Cora's about to kill Rumple for the Dark One powers. Regina has Cora's heart in her hand, Snow's poisoned it, but Regina choses to end the cycle of revenge and hatred, and crushes Cora's heart. Cora's beyond saving, anyway, and there's got to be an endpoint somewhere. Regina doesn't demand any sort of forgiveness, but she tries to do good. Maybe it starts off with a selfish streak in the beginning (especially trying to get Henry's love and trust back), but grows to be selfless.