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Everything posted by Dani-Ellie
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I just did a rewatch, and Snow didn't even talk to her after pulling away. No reassurance of "We'll try again when your magic is a little more under control," no goodbye, nothing. Jesus Christ, Snow.
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This is why I don't see Emma's blowup as out of nowhere. I personally think it's been building since the Echo Cave. (I fully admit that this may just be me wanting to tie some cohesiveness into the narrative, however.) That's why what the Snow Queen said affected her so deeply ... because she was afraid it was true. If she really believed the Snow Queen was just trying to blow smoke at her, she wouldn't have gotten so upset in the first place. No, of course not, and I'm not arguing that. I was just arguing for a little sensitivity. Snow is clearly having a hard time with Neal vis a vis what she missed out on with Emma and she's not telling Emma about it; it's not outside the realm of possibilty that Emma would be having a hard time with it as well and wouldn't be telling her. It's the same problem I had with Snow after the Echo Cave, where she was hurt and angry over David's secret but never seemed to stop and think that Emma might be hurt and angry over hers.
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That was it! I knew there was something Snow had said before the bottle incident that irritated me and just compounded the flinching away thing. That was it. No, she wasn't intentionally trying to be mean or hurtful, but the comment was thoughtless and insensitive. Like, gee, Snow, how about you think before you speak so you don't say things like that to your other child who grew up with only a baby blanket?
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And that was also one of Ingrid's points: they don't mind her magic when they need it but they also fear it when it could potentially go the other way. It's playing right into "they need you because you're the savior but do they really want you for you?" Accepting Emma means accepting all of her, magic included, so maybe instead of isolating her, Snow could have offered her understanding. If she didn't want Emma to take Neal, maybe make it a little less obvious? "Oh, Emma! I forgot to tell you ... my plans fell through and I don't need you to babysit after all." Something like that rather than flinching away from her daughter, maybe?
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I think it was all Emma. They've said before that magic is tied to emotion and the DQ was totally pushing her buttons by bringing up all those things that Emma buries rather than deals with. For all her external semblance of control, Emma's an emotional powder keg, which would lead to being a magical one as well, if one knew how to provoke it. I would love for this to be true. I don't trust these writers to do that (because they clearly think Regina should have all the shinies) but I would love it to pieces.
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You guys, I am not okay. Holy shit, that was intense. I just wanted to hug Emma so damn hard. And poor Elsa was trying to get everyone to listen to the both of them and oh my babies. All the goodwill Snow had built up with me over the last couple of episodes was just utterly demolished. Yes, Snow. Yes, you failed in a big ol' way. Holy freakin' shit. It was the yelling at Emma as if she'd meant to knock the light down that got me. She was clearly terrified of herself in that moment, Snow, a little less judging would have been nice. Snow Queen actually had some decent points while trying to get under Emma's skin, which is so damn sad. Also, Helga = Sally Pressman = Roxy Leblanc from Army Wives and when she was telling off the Duke of Weaselton (hee!), I was all, "There's the Roxy sass." I'm sure I'll have more as I process. I need a drink. ;P
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Emma Swan: 1000% done with your infuriating optimism
Dani-Ellie replied to regularlyleaded's topic in Once Upon A Time
And it was that talk with Mary Margaret ("You're his mother. That's your job. So you figure it out.") and the subsequent talk with Archie ("And look, the court is going to come in and look at how he's been since you've come into his life." "He's been happier, right?" "Maybe, but objectively? He's skipped school, he's stolen a credit card, he's run off, he's endangered himself repeatedly.") that led her to retreat. She had the kid's therapist telling her that for all she might want to be helping, she wasn't and she was facing an uphill battle trying to prove otherwise. She had the kid's therapist telling her that her presence was endangering him ("A while ago, I told you to engage him in his fantasy life and perhaps that was wrong because he's only retreated further into it." "Her actions have all been defensive. I'm not judging but in many ways, your arrival has woken a sleeping dragon.") And then she had the kid's therapist telling her that it wasn't a matter of who he was better off with as much as it was the two mothers needing to learn to deal with each other. She was faced with Solomon's Choice. Two mothers claimed the child ... and Emma let him go rather than see him split in two. And like I said above, she wasn't going away completely. She went to Regina to tell her that she was going to leave but she was going to come back for visits and she was going to call. She was still going to have her eye on the situation, but she was trying to do what she thought was best for Henry in the meantime. -
Emma Swan: 1000% done with your infuriating optimism
Dani-Ellie replied to regularlyleaded's topic in Once Upon A Time
From Emma's perspective on the Regina/Henry situation, her hands were pretty damn tied. She couldn't take Henry because she signed away her parental rights when she put him up for adoption. Taking off with him without the permission of the custodial parent is kidnapping, even if it would have been for the right reasons. If they were ever found, Regina would get Henry back and would probably slap Emma with a restraining order ... and since Emma would have committed a felony, would anyone listen to her reasoning? Innocent townspeople ended up caught in the crossfire in the war between her and Regina. She had Archie telling her that it was her arrival in town that made Regina go all ... Regina. (And it a way, it was, though not for the reasons Emma and Archie thought.) She was thinking that by her leaving, Regina would calm the F down. With no one for Regina to fight with, the war over Henry would stop, which would be better for everyone but most importantly Henry. She was the catalyst, so if she removed herself, she'd remove a good chunk of the problem. She wasn't talking about leaving permanently. She'd said as much to Regina, that the world in which she was not a part of Henry's life was gone. I do think she would have been monitoring the situation while also working on something she could do legally. It's not like she was all, "Bye, see ya!" It was just to make things better for the long-term, she was trying to minimize the damage in the short-term. -
Happily Ever After: Relationships Are Hard
Dani-Ellie replied to CatMack's topic in Once Upon A Time
To be perfectly honest, my dream time for a Captain Swan wedding is the series finale. Not only would it bookend nicely with the series beginning at Snow's and Charming's wedding, I think it would be a lovely trajectory for Emma as a character, taking her from the friendless orphan we met in the pilot to a fairy tale princess surrounded by love of family and friends and True Love. It's basically my dream ending for the story of Princess Emma ... her own fairy tale happily ever after. -
A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms
Dani-Ellie replied to stealinghome's topic in Once Upon A Time
I agree that 3A was better than 2B, I think mostly because the writing for Regina was less schizophrenic and led to less of me wanting to throw my shoes at the TV in frustration (well, up until "no regrets," anyway). But even 3A had its serious issues in terms of neglecting the story and the consequences of the plot. I mean, yeah,we were hitting beats with the Charmings I'd been anticipating since the curse broke, but the beats were treated as check boxes, all, okay, conversation done, next! And, in some cases, those beats ended up throwing great big monkey wrenches into the relationship that were then never dealt with (see: Snow's confession in the Echo Cave). -
Happily Ever After: Relationships Are Hard
Dani-Ellie replied to CatMack's topic in Once Upon A Time
This. Also, maybe if they would allow her to actually admit some wrongdoing to people who aren't Henry, it would go a long way, too. I, for one, would like to see some recognition of the fact that the curse actually destroyed some people's lives and that it wasn't just a minor inconvenience. I would like to see some recognition of the people she murdered and the people whose lives will never be the same because of that. Basically, show me why she's worthy of my sympathy, and I will feel it. Simply not getting away with her evil deeds is not enough to garner sympathy from me. -
I think what we'd seen in the show up to this point is Regina attempting to make it up to Henry because she knows he knows (or at least suspects) the truth. She's essentially trying to butter him up so he'll forget this silly fairy tale nonsense and go back to being complacent. I also think that Henry, more than anything, is hurt and angry. Speaking as a child who at one point felt like a parent didn't love her anymore, that shit hurts and is very confusing. You're hurt and you don't understand what you did wrong and yes, you're angry. And you don't feel like that after one or two fights with a parent. You feel like that after the fighting and the coldness becomes a pattern of behavior on the part of the parent. I saw a lot of 15-year-old me in 10-year-old Henry, essentially. (My relationship with my dad is better now but for a while there, yeah, very hurtful and confusing.) What we're seeing between Henry and Regina is the boiling point, not what led up to it. I've long thought that Regina thinks she loves Henry a lot more than she actually does. No loving parent intentionally hurts her child to win a point over another adult. No loving parent puts their kid in therapy to try to convince him he's wrong about the truth. (And what's even more insidious about putting Henry in therapy is that if/when it got out, everyone else in town would think he was crazy, too. So it's not just Henry she was trying to convince but everyone else, all, "Don't listen to him. The poor dear is very troubled." ) And even if she did love Henry, we've also seen that even keeping what she loves most won't stand in her way, since she killed her father to cast the curse in the first place. I think love for Regina is a very possessive kind of thing, where it's not about the other person at all, but how the other person makes her feel. There's no real reciprocation. Even all the doing nice things for Henry we'd seen up to this point came across to me as "If I'm nice to him, he won't be angry with me and he'll shut up about me being the Evil Queen" rather than a real attempt at apology for Henry's sake.
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Ratings and Scheduling: Who's the fairest of them all?
Dani-Ellie replied to Serena's topic in Once Upon A Time
I'm not sure about the more specific questions, but ratings in terms of cancellation are generally relative to the other shows on the same network. Supernatural, for example, has been pulling 1.0s and 1.1s this season, which would put it in the danger zone if it were on, say, CBS but those numbers actually make it the second highest rated show on The CW. This post at TV By the Numbers does a pretty decent job at explaining the ins and outs in plain English. So Once's ratings have indeed dropped from the heyday of season one, but as of this TVBTN posting, it's still the fourth highest rated script show on ABC, which means it still has a ways to go before its ratings drop into the danger zone. Of course, nothing is ever certain and if there's another nosedive in ratings like there was in the back half of season two, it could spell trouble, but as of right now, there's no reason to really worry. -
Fandom and Viewer Issues: "Fan" Is Short for "Fanatic"
Dani-Ellie replied to Emma's topic in Once Upon A Time
Which makes me sad. If it is all related, I understand that she's doing what she needs to in order to protect her own emotional health and stress level; I'm just sad that it's come down to this. One small but over-the-top group of bullies (I'm not even going to call them fans, because no fan would spew the kind of vitriol they were spewing at her at someone they in any way respected) has ruined it for the rest of us. -
Except to me that "fresh chance" was no more real than you're seeing their Enchanted Forest actions as. The people in Storybrooke had no free will, either. They were placed in these circumstances where what made them happiest was torn from them and there was nothing they could do to get them back. They had no way of escaping town to better themselves, since the curse kept them all trapped in town. And what's worse was they had no idea what pieces of themselves were missing. They were all unhappy but had no idea why and had no means to attain it even if they did. What you're seeing in the show now is the effect of Emma being in town. People are beginning to wake up and realize that something's missing in their lives and beginning to assert themselves in an effort to attain it. That wasn't possible until Emma decided to stay and the clock started moving again. Before that for all of these people, it was 28 years of constant misery. No, it wasn't fire and brimstone and there were no ogres or monsters but the evil the curse wrought was more insidious than that. It took what made these people who they are, ripped it from them, and then locked it away so they could never find it again. Emotional health and well-being were tossed out the window and there was nothing any of them could do to make themselves emotionally happy and healthy until the savior arrived. I can't give Regina a pass on casting the curse, even if it maybe led to something better for some of these people, because the curse is what she wanted. She didn't want it to be broken. She wanted the misery they were all living under prior to Emma's arrival. Her intention wasn't to better these people, her intention was to make them suffer for all eternity.
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If they'd left out the "I'm a kid" part, it still could have worked. I'm very far from a kid and I still notice ice cream trucks (because I have a love for ice cream that's bordering on addiction).
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Fandom and Viewer Issues: "Fan" Is Short for "Fanatic"
Dani-Ellie replied to Emma's topic in Once Upon A Time
I'm sure they will. This show is kind of cyclical in that regard, and I'm preparing myself now for 4B to have limited Emma screentime since we're getting so much of it now. (Who knows, maybe they'll surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath, basically. ;)) It would help if the show was able to handle an ensemble better but I also think some fans would do well to remember that this is an ensemble show, so the A-plot is going to (or should) rotate from character to character. -
Fandom and Viewer Issues: "Fan" Is Short for "Fanatic"
Dani-Ellie replied to Emma's topic in Once Upon A Time
Maybe it's just because the Frozen stuff is bringing Emma to the forefront, but I've been loving it. And since I still haven't seen Frozen all the way through, it's not like I was predisposed to like it or anything, I also think that Hook being so prominent is a side effect of bringing Emma to the forefront. He's part of her story so yeah, he's going to be more prominent than, say, Regina, who's only tangentially related to the Frozen stuff. I know some of the Charming Family fans are upset that Hook's getting the moments with Emma they feel should have belonged to her parents (like going through her box of childhood mementos) but I also think there are valid character reasons for Emma doing so with Hook and not her parents, so I'm not as bothered by it. -
Speculation WITHOUT Spoilers: Lalalalala! I can't hear you!
Dani-Ellie replied to regularlyleaded's topic in Once Upon A Time
*cries* And that is totally how it would go if Disney didn't have such a tight leash on the Frozen stuff, wouldn't it? (Yes, I'm banking a lot on Disney forcing Elsa and Anna to remain the heroes of their own story. Please, Disney?) -
Thanks, guys! It's up and hopefully tagged appropriately. :)
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Emma Swan: 1000% done with your infuriating optimism
Dani-Ellie replied to regularlyleaded's topic in Once Upon A Time
This. My nephew was a month and a half shy of his third birthday when my brother and sister-in-law took custody of him. Already the social workers wanted to label him as "emotionally troubled," which on some level, he was (confused, sad, angry) but mostly because he had problems listening to and obeying instruction (because he had no stability or form of discipline for the first three years of his life). So if my nephew had had to be put into the system, he would have already had two strikes against him: being an "emotionally troubled" three-year-old. Wee Emma would have had those exact same strikes against her. Working with and setting boundaries for a child who's been neglected and who isn't old enough to be able to express his or her emotions in a healthy way is hard, hard work, and not everyone looking to adopt is willing to do it. -
Can I ask a random Rumblr etiquette question? Generally how long after the episodes air are things considered spoilers? I only ask because I usually do a reaction post in my LiveJournal on Monday evenings that I'm thinking of cross-posting to the Tumblr account and I just want to make sure I don't accidentally piss people off, heh.
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Happily Ever After: Relationships Are Hard
Dani-Ellie replied to CatMack's topic in Once Upon A Time
This is what I don't understand. Why have Marian be Regina's victim at all? Why couldn't Emma save her life from like, a careening carriage or something? That way, Regina is completely a victim of circumstance and you don't get the icky "Robin's in love with his wife's murderer" dynamic.