Once Upon A...SHOULDA HAPPENED THIS WAY!

[Camera One]

Warning Label seen in the Enchanted Forest:  This product may cause nausea and dizziness.  Pregnant women should avoid as it increases the chance of a Savior being born.  Giving birth to a Savior increases paranoia and erratic behavior that can include but is not limited to eggnapping, curse production and kidnapping your own grandchild to use as an assassin.  If the birth of a Savior is imminent, get to the nearest Shears as soon as possible.

[Shanna Marie]

6 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I complain about its crappy world building and its shaky and ill defined mythology, and yet when they actually try to expand on anything, it quickly turns to crap, and just ends in ret cons and eye rolling.

But that's part of what makes the worldbuilding crappy and the mythology ill-defined. Most of the time, they don't bother. When they do bother, it's to serve the needs of one particular episode's plot and is hastily thrown together in a way that doesn't fit with the rest of the series, and it ends up being meaningless, anyway. Thus the retcons and eye rolling. If they'd bothered to really figure out what a Savior was and how all that worked, we wouldn't have had the season 6 mess. It did seem like they had it worked out in season one, but I think that was mostly us extrapolating based on what we were shown, but they hadn't actually put any thought into it beyond the immediate needs of the plot, so to them, it wasn't set in stone, and so they changed it when they came to a plot they wanted to do that required a change.

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I would have made the musical episode take place in a realm where its a musical world, instead of it being a spell. I would make it so the gang gets accidentally sent to a world where people singing their feelings is just normal, and they actually have to sing about their current issues, instead of it all being a weird flashback thing, even sucking in Zelena, who has nothing to do with anything at that point. 

I was just thinking about that the other day when I was out walking and one of the songs from the musical came up on shuffle. It was a complete waste to have the music be in flashback when they were singing about things we already knew. Either they needed to be sent to a musical world, or they could have established the spell in the past and then had it come back in the present -- like maybe just have the Charmings' song and then Blue telling them that would be what their daughter needed, and then the rest of it be that spell kicking in again so that Emma could battle the Black Fairy with music, and everyone's singing as they lead up to the battle and the wedding. Then they start singing at the wedding because there are still remnants of the spell, with everyone a little surprised to still be singing because they thought that was over. And that should have been the season finale. With two hours, the musical could have breathed more -- maybe not necessarily more music (though I still want that Hook/Charming "Agony" style duet), but more plot and character stuff -- and the setup would fit the outcome, so that the song in the heart spell would have truly mattered for the Final Battle rather than it being a minor, meaningless skirmish. Then let the season end on the wedding rather than those idiots dancing and singing at the wedding when they know a curse is coming at any minute.

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Then let the season end on the wedding rather than those idiots dancing and singing at the wedding when they know a curse is coming at any minute.

A&E kept saying how relevant that episode was to the plot, and how they made especially sure it wasn't a one-off and it really mattered to the story, but ultimately, it was juts another road bump for the Black Fairy.  The entire musical storyline could have been excised without any effect on the season's plot or climax.  

Of course, I'm glad we got it because it was practically the only enjoyable episode in the entire sixth season.  

I suppose given half the sons were villain-introduction songs, they could use them in a "Once Upon a Time" Broadway musical in the future.  Season 1 could be Act 1, and Season 2-6 could be Act 2.

[KingOfHearts]

53 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Thats the catch 22 of Once. I complain about its crappy world building and its shaky and ill defined mythology, and yet when they actually try to expand on anything, it quickly turns to crap, and just ends in ret cons and eye rolling.

The show's tagline really should be "Be careful what you wish for".

[tennisgurl]

Maybe A&E were WishVerse A&E the whole time...

Edited June 16, 2018 by tennisgurl

[crash476]

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.

[Shanna Marie]

On 6/14/2018 at 9:23 PM, Camera One said:

I suppose given half the sons were villain-introduction songs, they could use them in a "Once Upon a Time" Broadway musical in the future.  Season 1 could be Act 1, and Season 2-6 could be Act 2.

Yeah, almost all the songs were the Act 1 villain-introduction songs, which were irrelevant at the end of Act 2. We'd already spent years learning that Regina hated the Charmings, that Hook wanted revenge, and the Zelena thought wicked would defeat evil. Putting it to music didn't add anything.

"A Happy Beginning" popped up on shuffle on my walk this morning, and it struck me once again how dumb that song is. There's the issue that there's no reason for these people to be dancing and singing. All they needed was maybe one line to mention that a bit of that spell was lingering after Emma used the Song in Your Heart spell to momentarily inconvenience the Black Fairy and for people to be a little surprised to find themselves singing. If that spell isn't in effect, then why are these people we've never seen sing outside the spell singing? And there's the issue that they're all singing about having a happy beginning and there's nothing they can't overcome when they know that a serious curse is about to hit. This is one of those "not acting like actual people" things.

I could see Emma and Hook wanting to get married ahead of the curse because they just wanted to be married, but that's more a scenario where they skip the elaborate wedding Snow is planning for weeks later to just have a quick ceremony with family/close friends around so that they'll at least have been married, regardless of what happens to them next. And I could see the Charmings trying to be optimistic about it all, and expressing sentiments like "there's no storm we can't outrun, we will always find the sun" to encourage them as they see the curse coming. But the whole town, including people who probably barely know Emma and don't know or like Hook, dancing and singing about how happy they are that Emma and Hook are married because it means it's a happy beginning for everyone, is just ridiculous. I especially hate the fact that they're talking about "a happy beginning now is ours" as though this wedding is the start of a golden period of peace and prosperity when they know that a curse is about to strike. If you played that song for someone who hadn't seen the episode, I doubt they would believe that this was what happened right before a cliffhanger of a dark curse hitting. They'd think it was the end of the story after they broke the curse.

[Shanna Marie]

Something I read recently and a documentary I was watching about Celtic beliefs about fairies just clicked with some of the comments we were making about how shady Blue was in "Dreamy" to make me think it might have been interesting if they'd subverted the Disney image of fairies by going back to the folklore and legends, before the Victorians turned fairies into the cute beings Disney used. Blue actually fits fairly well into the folklore mold, where she can't be entirely trusted and isn't actually helping, but I don't think that's entirely intentional. They're not trying to show fairies as scary beings who toy with humans. But wouldn't it have been interesting if that had been what they did? What if Blue was always just stirring stuff up, conning Bae into trying to take the Dark One to another world, tricking Snow into putting her baby in a wardrobe, etc.?

But I guess if they'd been folklore fairies, Blue would have been totally cool with Nova seducing Dreamy and dragging him to the fairy realm to use as a slave. Or do the dwarfs actually exist in a fairy realm that only intersects the human realm in various gateways? They go through the gateway every so often to party in the pub, but the world where they toil in the mines is actually the fairy realm.

[scarynikki12]

Blue would have had to be a major character to make that work. 

[Camera One]

I think she could have been a bigger character.  I don't think she needed to be evil, but Blue could have provided another perspective when facing various problems.  I think they missed a huge opportunity by not giving her a backstory with Merlin or Glinda or other old wise sages.  By not clearly defining her powers, limitations and personal motivation/code, Blue came off as either useless or shady since sometimes it seems like she could have helped, but she didn't.  I actually liked her more black-and-white mindset.  For a long time, she was practically the only one who continued to look at Rumple and Regina with disgust.  I thought it was interesting that she implied Tinkerbelle should have let Regina fall off the balcony.  I thought it would have been more interesting when she tried to get rid of Rumple by having Baelfire take him away with the bean, and I had hoped that she had a bigger plan.  The Writers were deathly afraid of giving the "good guys" too much power (or intelligence) and they wanted the "heroes" to continually rely on the "complex" villains like Rumple or Regina for help, so that basically meant Blue was mostly sidelined or completely unhelpful/useless.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Camera One

[crash476]

On 2018-07-22 at 6:58 PM, Camera One said:

I think she could have been a bigger character.  I don't think she needed to be evil, but Blue could have provided another perspective when facing various problems.  I think they missed a huge opportunity by not giving her a backstory with Merlin or Glinda or other old wise sages.  By not clearly defining her powers, limitations and personal motivation/code, Blue came off as either useless or shady since sometimes it seems like she could have helped, but she didn't.  I actually liked her more black-and-white mindset.  For a long time, she was practically the only one who continued to look at Rumple and Regina with disgust.  I thought it was interesting that she implied Tinkerbelle should have let Regina fall off the balcony.  I thought it would have been more interesting when she tried to get rid of Rumple by having Baelfire take him away with the bean, and I had hoped that she had a bigger plan.  The Writers were deathly afraid of giving the "good guys" too much power (or intelligence) and they wanted the "heroes" to continually rely on the "complex" villains like Rumple or Regina for help, so that basically meant Blue was mostly sidelined or completely unhelpful/useless.

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.

[KingOfHearts]

Blue could've been the one to call BS on Rumple and Regina's redemptions, reminding everyone of the atrocities committed over the years. She's seen their terror on a large scale longer than anyone. She could've been the primary advocate for locking them up or banishing them. 

[Camera One]

7 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Blue could've been the one to call BS on Rumple and Regina's redemptions, reminding everyone of the atrocities committed over the years. She's seen their terror on a large scale longer than anyone. She could've been the primary advocate for locking them up or banishing them. 

Agreed.  Though some people said Blue was mean and ungrateful when she was so cold when Regina went to ask her about the Author in the 4B premiere.  Emma had to remind Blue to thank Regina for saving her.  How rude of Blue!

Edited July 25, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

18 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Agreed.  Though some people said Blue was mean and ungrateful when she was so cold when Regina went to ask her about the Author in the 4B premiere.  Emma had to remind Blue to thank Regina for saving her.  How rude of Blue!

We really needed a private scene between Regina and Blue where Blue says exactly what she thinks about Regina.

[andromeda331]

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Blue could've been the one to call BS on Rumple and Regina's redemptions, reminding everyone of the atrocities committed over the years. She's seen their terror on a large scale longer than anyone. She could've been the primary advocate for locking them up or banishing them. 

Could have and really should have given they already show her dislike for them and she was suppose to be a good fairy. She should have been seen as trying to help defeat them or get them. Like when Blue gave Bae the magic bean it would help Bae remain with his father which he wanted and get rid of the Dark One for the rest of the realms. We should have seen Blue doing more of that. Maybe sabotaging Rumple's efforts as he tries to get all the pieces together for the Curse. She knew he was up to it because he learned about it from her and he had such hate for fairies. It would make sense if they had been messing up his plans. For Regina, she knew Regina was being taught by Rumple which would make her hate and not trust her. Maybe she didn't want Tinkerbelle to interfere and help Regina find her soul mate because she doesn't think Regina deserves it. She's throw away her marriage, Snow, and could have chose not to marry Leopold and do anything she wanted. Instead she chose anger, and to learn magic from the Dark One.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Though while Giselle in Storybrooke would have been highly entertaining, I still believe that the daughter of a Snow White who successfully defeated the Evil Queen and stripped her of her powers (rather than caving and letting her go, like our version did) wouldn't have been a useless princess out of touch with reality. She certainly wouldn't have been full-on our Emma, but Snow's daughter should have been capable of handling a sword and a bow, and clearly she'd lost someone she must have loved and was a young widow, so she'd been through something pretty bad.

I think Snow and Charming would've been over-protective of Emma given the hell Regina put them through. However, I do agree she'd be taught how to sword fight and use a bow. She might be something close to Anna - trained but without much experience on the streets. I had this fanfic rolling around in my head for a while where Wish!Emma has a chance meeting with Hook, but her parents don't allow her to go off on her own. (Paralleling Jasmine from the Aladdin movie.) She escapes and gets lured to Regina, who took up residence in the Forbidden Fortress. She makes a deal with her to get a glamour spell so she can be with Hook, in exchange for something that might restore Regina's magic or whatever. Emma has to win over Hook while looking like a different person. (Paralleling The Little Mermaid.) 

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I think Snow and Charming would've been over-protective of Emma given the hell Regina put them through. However, I do agree she'd be taught how to sword fight and use a bow. She might be something close to Anna - trained but without much experience on the streets.

Yeah, I could see that -- a spunky, spirited princess who's been trained in how to fight but who is naive and idealistic. I do think that apparently marrying very young (since she still seemed to have had Henry when she was a teenager) and then being widowed would have added some layers so that she wouldn't have been that naive and idealistic. As a teenager she might have been kind of like Anna, but by the time she's around 30 and has raised a teenage son on her own after his father died, I don't think she'd still be quite that innocent.

[KingOfHearts]

It would've been some nice continuity if it had been mentioned in 3B that Kathryn was kept in the cellar of Zelena's farmhouse, even if it just were something as simple as Rumple mentioning he had been there before.

[KingOfHearts]

There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG where there's an entire fleet of Enterprises from different timelines. Some of them even had dead characters. It might've been a fun S7 finale for OUAT to have all the clones from AU's/timelines and alternate versions like Jacinda causing havoc. They've could've really abused the fan service and done weird snapshots of stuff like a version where Regina and Hook got together or a universe Cruella was the Dark One. Have all the Rumples come together to scheme. There's infinite possibilities.

[Camera One]

7 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

There's infinite possibilities.

That's precisely why this show should never have been cancelled!  It can go on infinitely!

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

That's precisely why this show should never have been cancelled!  It can go on infinitely!

The writers had the entire Disney library and all of classic fiction to play with. This show could've gone as long as "Supernatural" if the writers had been more consistent. 

Edited August 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

I could come up with better plots for this show with just access to a bottle of vodka and a library card. Just imagine if the last season was about villains from all of fiction teaming up to take over the multiverse*, and the Oncers have to team up with heroes (and maybe even some villains) from across fiction to stop them? Or have realities start to leak into each other and have them have to save all of fiction, maybe by Emma doing a big speech on the importance of stories for the Head Author or something about why the multiverse should be saved? Or maybe literally anything besides the last two big bads be a random fairy who happens to Rumples mom, or a tree nymph who shares a name with a Disney villain. 

*Of course, what I really want now is a team up of fictional characters from across fiction who have been sucked into a horrifying dictatorship under Mad Queen Regina, and they all have to team up to get back to their respective homes and defeat the multiversal conqueror of the crocodile tears and her brainwashed lackeys. That sounds like a freaking awesome story, and if someone writes that massive crossover fanfic, I will be right freaking there! Also, its probably not a good thing that the "happy ending" of your show sounds like the plot of an evil final boss who must be defeated. 

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Also, its probably not a good thing that the "happy ending" of your show sounds like the plot of an evil final boss who must be defeated. 

It's like the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, but there's never going to be another movie.

The villain of the show ultimately won. At the beginning, Regina cast a curse that made everyone serve under her feet. In the end, Regina cast a curse that made everyone serve under her feet. She got what she wanted without any repercussions. 

Edited August 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

7 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

She got what she wanted without any repercussions. 

Exactly. She didn’t even have to sacrifice the thing she loved the most. The Dark Curse became more and more watered down with each iteration. lol

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

Exactly. She didn’t even have to sacrifice the thing she loved the most. The Dark Curse became more and more watered down with each iteration. lol

By the end of the series, you probably could've cast a Dark Curse using ingredients from Granny's purse.

[scarynikki12]

15 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I could come up with better plots for this show with just access to a bottle of vodka and a library card.  

Do it! Do it! Do it!

5 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Exactly. She didn’t even have to sacrifice the thing she loved the most. The Dark Curse became more and more watered down with each iteration. lol

This could have been fascinating if done on purpose. 

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, scarynikki12 said:

This could have been fascinating if done on purpose. 

There were a lot of things on this show like that. Having the characters at least mention it in a self-aware way wouldn't excuse it, but it would be better than them have no reaction whatsoever. Certain things like world-hopping ease should've had a great effect on characters like Rumple who spent centuries figuring out how to go between worlds. I really liked the scene in 4x12 where the Chernoborg was terrorizing Storybrooke and everyone already knew what to do. Hook said, "This isn't our first monster bash". You'd think with all the Author nonsense and tongue-in-cheek potential we could've gotten a lot more fun meta stuff. There should've been a coffee bar or something where all the secondary character went to avoid the Charmings' clique at Granny's. The dwarves should've had Dark Curse drills. 

[tennisgurl]

4 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Do it! Do it! Do it!

10 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Well, if its what the people want...*grabs bottle...*

[Camera One]

21 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

You'd think with all the Author nonsense and tongue-in-cheek potential we could've gotten a lot more fun meta stuff. There should've been a coffee bar or something where all the secondary character went to avoid the Charmings' clique at Granny's. The dwarves should've had Dark Curse drills. 

It was probably because A&E didn't think of the Author stuff as nonsense.  They also saw this type of meta stuff as material for Easter Eggs and bold and audacious one-liners.  Instead of actually thinking about how constant villain attacks would really affect the townspeople or even the supporting characters.  In Season 1, they had the War Council but in the rest of the series, the protagonists never seek their advice.  The fact that the Writers put so little thought into the mindset of the supporting characters is when they had the Dwarves infer that Snowing was to blame for all the chaos when everyone was away in Neverland.  But what can you expect?  The Writers hardly knew/cared about the POV of even Snow vs. Charming, so how can they be expected to put any thought into what Grumpy was thinking, or Blue, or random redshirts in Storybrooke?  The town should have been deeply affected by the influx of people from The Land of Untold Stories, for example.  But that was quickly ignored in favor of The Evil Queen clone and other distractions.

[Shanna Marie]

On 8/15/2018 at 10:59 PM, tennisgurl said:

I could come up with better plots for this show with just access to a bottle of vodka and a library card.

I think most of us come up with better plots in the shower, while washing dishes, while walking the dog, etc., just about every day.

I'm not sure which thread it was (thought it was this one, but can't find it now), but there was some discussion about how we should have seen more reaction of the characters to their fairy tale/pop culture/Disney counterparts. They could really have had fun with this with a Halloween episode in Storybrooke. The younger kids who hadn't been very old at the time of the curse would probably feel more at home in their Storybrooke identities than in their real ones, since they'd spent so much time as Storybrooke people and wouldn't have had enough Enchanted Forest time to really have the "we are both" thing going on. So they'd have been familiar with the Disney, etc., versions, not necessarily realizing that the people they knew were the real deal. And so, they might have dressed up for Halloween as Snow White, Cinderella, etc. Would that have felt awkward for the real people? Would the parents have thought it was disrespectful for their kids to dress up like fictional versions of their rulers? It would have been fun seeing Hook's reaction, since he wouldn't have been familiar with Halloween, to begin with ("So, Swan, you're telling me that there's one day a year in which children are encouraged to disguise themselves and extort candy from their neighbors? I like this world!"), and he might have been confronted with pint-sized versions of himself, except getting it all wrong ("You're telling me that he's supposed to be me? Has he not been paying attention? Where does the long, curly wig come into the picture? I'll admit that I once wore my hair longer, but never in curls.")

Did they ever address holidays other than the Valentine's Day episode in season one and the Halloween episode in season 7? There was the pumpkin patch that appeared in both season 5 and season 6 (even though those events were probably a few months apart -- too close together for it to have been the next year's Halloween, too far apart to have been the same season) but I don't think they mentioned Halloween specifically. It's a pity because they could have had some fun with that. We had David's line about it being a good thing their culture didn't have Thanksgiving, so it's a shame they didn't actually follow up on that. Henry would have wanted a Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Then again, when the whole family got together, it wasn't nearly as awkward as it should have been.

[KingOfHearts]

37 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm not sure which thread it was (thought it was this one, but can't find it now), but there was some discussion about how we should have seen more reaction of the characters to their fairy tale/pop culture/Disney counterparts.

I was disappointed Storybrooke didn't have a weekly movie night where they watched Disney films of themselves. They could've pitched a projecting screen in front of Town Hall and put out chairs. Selections might've included, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", "Peter Pan", "Pinnochio", etc. Ruby could've used a Last Magic Bean™ and showed Mulan what a movie was. I'm sure most of them would've been gotten a good laugh out of it. (Although I'm sure Regina would've been ticked off by the Evil Queen's appearance and lack of presence.) I would've liked to see Hook's reaction to Captain Hook and Emma laughing.

I also would've liked to see Emma walking along and seeing a new movie poster for "Frozen" in 2013.

Edited August 17, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

13 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Although I'm sure Regina would've been ticked off by the Evil Queen's appearance and lack of presence.

I thought the animated Evil Queen was cooler.  Sorry, Gina.  

[Guest]

On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 5:28 PM, KingOfHearts said:

I was disappointed Storybrooke didn't have a weekly movie night where they watched Disney films of themselves. They could've pitched a projecting screen in front of Town Hall and put out chairs. Selections might've included, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", "Peter Pan", "Pinnochio", etc. Ruby could've used a Last Magic Bean™ and showed Mulan what a movie was. I'm sure most of them would've been gotten a good laugh out of it. (Although I'm sure Regina would've been ticked off by the Evil Queen's appearance and lack of presence.) I would've liked to see Hook's reaction to Captain Hook and Emma laughing.

I also would've liked to see Emma walking along and seeing a new movie poster for "Frozen" in 2013.

I wrote one OUAT fanfic in my life. It quickly devolved into one shot where Hook railed against the indignities heaped upon him by McDonalds and a stratagem to use pop culture to lure Emma into his embrace.

So I have to agree that this is the stuff I wish they had done.  How do fairy  tale characters react to the real world? How do they react to the way their stories are portrayed versus what they really were?

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

I wrote one OUAT fanfic in my life. It quickly devolved into one shot where Hook railed against the indignities heaped upon him by McDonalds and a stratagem to use pop culture to lure Emma into his embrace.

So I have to agree that this is the stuff I wish they had done.  How do fairy  tale characters react to the real world? How do they react to the way their stories are portrayed versus what they really were?

That sounds like a fun fanfic. I agree I really wish they had done stuff like that. It would have been so much fun. My favorite parts have been when they react to our world. Aurora's confusion over Emma's jacket, Rumple's confusion at the airport, Hook trying to explain a cellphone to Elsa, and hating baloney.  Snow and Emma discussing Henry's theory and surprise that Snow has a kid and Emma's remark that those stories weren't the most traditional. Even Regina's worry when Kathryn was alive when she realized all the evidence would lead back to her. There was so much they could have and should have done. That's one reason people love crossovers. To see fairytale reactions to our world and how their stories have been told. 

[Mitch]

Was Mother Gothal planned for S7 of the old format and was later stitched onto the new one? Her backstory made more sense in SB then it did in the middle of a neighborhood in an urban area.  While they cocked the story up  I think it would have worked better as the S6 storyline.. I think it would be interesting if they had Gothel and her wood nymphs living where SB eventually was created, and the "wishing well" was were they lived and practiced their benign nature magic.  Instead of being "thousands of years ago" have it just been hundreds of years when European settlers came and settled the land. Taking their fear of witchcraft from Europe then consider the nymphs witches and satanic and kill them all except for Gothel who escapes wounded to the one and only EF. There she has to wait until she can hitch a ride back to our world when she hears about Rump's curse and bides her time. During that time she learns more powerful and lethal uses of magic and builds up her power intending to return to the LWOM and spread magic beyond the confines of SB....so her plot would be to kill off or enslave anyone who could get in her way, or want to share her power including Rump, Regina and Emma. I would have given her the backstory that she naturally wanted to join the fairies but they got sick o her wanting to kill a mortal eveyrday so they kicked her out and she was indeed what they called the Black Fairy. Its too bad to waste a good villain on a really bad, even for Once, orgin story.

[KingOfHearts]

@Mitch That's actually A&E's unused plot for Evil!Pocahontas.

[Camera One]

I think they made a big city the ancestral homeland of Mother Gothel's nymphs to maximize the stark contrast between modern technology and pollution of a big city (not to mention moral corruption) with the natural paradise represented by the lush glade of the wood nymphs (a place of innocence and hope).  It's this dichotomy that gave the Gothel arc such power.  It's also so inspirational that as Gothel teaches us, a small seed, represented by the sadness of her captivity, could grow into such a strength, to the inspirational bond of the sisterhood of the coven.

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

That's actually A&E's unused plot for Evil!Pocahontas.

Pocahontas accidentally set Grandmother Willow (aka Mother Gothel) free.

Edited August 23, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I think they made a big city the ancestral homeland of Mother Gothel's nymphs to maximize the stark contrast between modern technology and pollution of a big city (not to mention moral corruption) with the natural paradise represented by the lush glade of the wood nymphs (a place of innocence and hope).  It's this dichotomy that gave the Gothel arc such power.  It's also so inspirational that as Gothel teaches us, a small seed, represented by the sadness of her captivity, could grow into such a strength, to the inspirational bond of the sisterhood of the coven.

I don't think Gothel's backstory would've been so bad if it weren't so tacked on at the last minute. It's like the Home Office plot, where there's an actual moral dilemma that isn't explored, full stop. I'm totally okay with a tree nymph getting pissed off at humanity and her home being turned into a modern day big city. That's a good contrast. The problem was that the writers attached it to Mother Gothel, a completely different character from a fairy tale that has nothing to do with that, and they gave us a ludicrous explanation for the Land Without Magic. (It made even less sense than the Mother flashbacks from Lost.) It was just so random.

It's another example of the writers refusing to use any of the potential of the fairy tales vs. real world concept.

[Camera One]

51 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

 I'm totally okay with a tree nymph getting pissed off at humanity and her home being turned into a modern day big city.  The problem was that the writers attached it to Mother Gothel, a completely different character from a fairy tale that has nothing to do with that, and they gave us a ludicrous explanation for the Land Without Magic.  (It made even less sense than the Mother flashbacks from Lost.)

Hello,

This is Adam and Eddy here.  Thanks for agreeing that a tree nymph getting pissed off at humanity is a great idea.  We loved it as well.  

We're here to clear up the confusion you had.  Mother Gothel loved plants and in the original Rapunzel story (we don't just watch the Disney version!), she got angry because a plant was stolen so she was the perfect candidate for a tree nymph.  Plus who doesn't think about Carrie when the story of Rapunzel comes up!  And of course, it goes without saying that towers and trees are both tall and vertical so that's another connection right there.  It's providence that you mentioned "Mother" from "Lost".  As we all know from the Disney movie "MOTHER knows best!"

Hope that helps!

A&E

Edited August 23, 2018 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was just thinking about how this is September and we could have been looking forward to an upcoming laughfest aka season premiere of Season 8.  

Before the show was cancelled, the first episode was partially written so I thought I would leak the script to you.

---------------------

PALACE - Coronation 

REGINA: I thought my story came to an end a long time ago, and then new people came into my life. People who gave me a second chance. I can't wait to see what's in store for me next.  Well, for everyone. I refuse to believe there won't be more adventures. more love, more family.  And yes, there will be more loss because that's just a part of life. And in the end, we can get past it all.  With hope. 

SUDDENLY, THE ENTIRE PALACE SHAKES

EMMA: What's going on?!

EMMA, HOOK, SNOW, CHARMING, HENRY #1, HENRY #2, ZELENA, ALICE, ROBYN and the rest of the BLOATED CAST rush outside.  The look up and HOLY COW.  In the sky is a GIANT SPACE STATION - THE DEATH STAR!  A GIANT HOLOGRAM projects onto the sky - DARTH VADER!

DARTH VADER:  Town of Storybrooke, resistance is futile.  Surrender and no one shall be harmed.  I have come from afar so I could rule Storybrooke.

REGINA: It's you.

SNOW: You know him?

DARTH: Regina, what a pleasant surprise.  Quite a change since the last time I saw you.   

SNOW: When did you meet him in our timeline?

REGINA:  Never mind that now.  Darth, I am the leader and protector of these lands.  You will never get what you want.

DARTH: Meet me at midnight on Main Street and we shall see who prevails.  I COULD destroy the entire planet using my Death Star but that is too easy!  I will foster dissent among you and you will destroy each other while I watch in glee.  Farewell, until tonight.

SNOW/EMMA/HENRY: Regina, are you okay?  You can't seriously face him alone!  We will all be by your side!

A girl steps up from the crowd of coronation attendees.

GIRL: I think I can help.

EMMA: Who are you?

GIRL: I lived in the kingdom ruled by Darth Vader and I am skilled in THE FORCE, which you must have in order to defeat Darth Vader.  My name is Lilo.

LILO: There are whispers that there is only one family who can defeat Darth Vader.  They are the Skywalkers.

EMMA: The Skywalkers adopted me and I lived with them for three years before they sent me back since they got a baby of their own!

CHARMING: I'm really looking forward to that flashback.

A woman with long hair steps up.

WOMAN: I think I can help as well.  Darth Vader's troops have recently invaded my lands.  My name is Pocahontas.  If we all hold hands and harness the colors of the wind, it will generate a FORCE OF LOVE that will form a shield around the town that the space station cannot penetrate!

Everyone joins hands and a weak bubble forms around them.

REGINA: It's not strong enough.  There's only one thing left to do.

-- Commercial Break --

SNOW: We can't.

CHARMING: But maybe we need to.

SNOW: Yeah, maybe we need to.

CHARMING: But we can't.

REGINA: We have to!  We have to do this, or we will all die.  We have to dig up Rumplestiltskin!

Everyone grabs a shovel and digs up Rumplestiltskin.

RUMPLESTILTSKIN: Hello dearies.  How dare you pull me out of my happy afterlife!

BELLE: Now now Wumple, let's not get angry.  These are our friends!

REGINA: Wait a minute.  How did you come back too?

Edited September 10, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Wouldn't it have been funny if Alice, Dorothy, and Emma got together and bonded over being real people sucked into a fantasy world? Obviously, they would have to be different versions from what the show went with. I really think characters like the Darlings from the "real world" should've actually been from the real world and not some fictionalized alternate universe. 

[Camera One]

I agree.  They seemed to be going with this in Season 2 with the Darlings from our real Victorian era world.  Then, they began the nonsense with the spinoff Alice being from Fictional Victorian World.  Which was an interesting concept, I suppose, since they brought in Mr. Darcy from the Jane Austen books.  But then it got really wacky when they insisted Dorothy was from a Fictional Kansas.  Seriously... why?  

[KingOfHearts]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

I agree.  They seemed to be going with this in Season 2 with the Darlings from our real Victorian era world.  Then, they began the nonsense with the spinoff Alice being from Fictional Victorian World.  Which was an interesting concept, I suppose, since they brought in Mr. Darcy from the Jane Austen books.  But then it got really wacky when they insisted Dorothy was from a Fictional Kansas.  Seriously... why?  

At the very least, Dorothy should've been from the World Without Color like Frankenstein.

The dumbest "fictional" world had to be Fictional 1920s London World, where nobody even knew what year it was. I get the writers were trying to avoid the timeline issue, since Dorothy had to be from the turn of the century, Alice from Victorian England, etc., but other fiction writers patched this with the "time moves differently in different worlds" concept. But you know what's funny? That's almost exactly what A&E ended up doing in S7 anyway. (Heck, they even did that in OUATIW, but that got swept under the rug.)

Edited January 29, 2019 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

It would've been cool if Snow had met the Disney version of herself while she was in her "Mary Margaret phase" of later seasons. Disney!Snow would have to learn to fend for herself and not wait for some heroic prince to come along, and Snow could teach her that. Snow could look in the mirror and see what she didn't want to be. That could've been some good character development paired with some tongue-in-cheek fun. Outside of the Wish Realm, A&E did nothing with the "infinite alternate universes" concept. We could've gotten some great stuff via different versions of the characters from other universes.

[Camera One]

So I was lying awake last night and trying to avoid thinking about work problems, so instead, I thought about Season 7.

There had been speculation that maybe the reboot will involve only Wish realm characters.  At that time, I thought it wouldn't be viable, since viewers would have no connection to them.  But after watching Season 7 and the success of Wish Hook, I'm thinking that maybe they should have gone that route entirely.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the season was the protagonist - boring Adult Henry.  He didn't have a character journey at all or much of a personality.  We knew his whole boring past.  

The glimpses we saw of Wish Henry in Season 6 and in the Season 7 finale made me curious about him.  Wish Henry would have had a tough life.  He believed his mother abandoned him and he was forced upon the throne at a young age.  He would have been as bitter as Emma and he could have inherited those Walls™, and they could used Jared's appearances to fill in some of the blanks.  That would have made a more interesting protagonist, both in flashback and in Hyperion Heights, where he may push Lucy away believing she would be better off without him (Lucy was almost unsalvageable, but I'm operating on the assumption we would have to use the same actors).

Because Roni was such a snooze, maybe it would have been better to have Wish Regina.  Maybe Mother Gothel threatened the kingdom and Henry was forced to consult Wish Regina, who had given up on power and revenge after her failure.  Wish Regina could have had the redemption that Real Regina never got. 

Maybe we could find out that in every generation, somewhere in the Enchanted Forest, a variation of the famous fairytales re-play themselves.  That could explain Wish Cinderella II, and avoid the confusing and nonsensical "Realms of Story". 

Maybe Wish Henry is looking for Mother Gothel to stop her from getting the Dark Curse, and he meets Cinderella wearing rags doing chores for Lady Tremaine, and she helps Henry to spy on a meeting between Lady Tremaine and Mother Gothel.  A variation of the Cinderella tale (maybe with elements from the original story like Cinderella's mother's tree) could play out with Henry holding a ball to draw out the villains.  Maybe Wish Henry doesn't reveal his true identity to Cinderella in the earlier scene and they meet at the ball and Cinderella is surprised he's the King.  Perhaps that could have allowed us to buy the Henry/Jacinda romance (probably not, but at least it wouldn't be Murderella).

Wish Hook's story could have kept the goal of reuniting with his long-lost daughter Alice.  

Having Real Rumple in Season 7 just extended the horrible Rumbelle romance, so that could just go.  One problem is Wish Rumple seemed much the same as the Enchanted Forest Sparkly Rumple in Season 6.  It's possible losing both Belle and Neal made him slightly different and more interesting.  Perhaps Wish Adult Henry could have found out that Wish Rumple was his grandfather... maybe Wish Rumple was told nothing in prison and he could find out in Season 7 he had a grandson and that could change his outlook?

Looking at the cameos of the Original characters in Season 7, maybe it would have better if none of that happened.  If they must, Wish Henry could get to Storybrooke in the series finale and live out his life with Emma and with the other versions of his grandparents.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

A season focused on the Wish Realm would've worked better if the Wish Realm was more like an actual split timeline than an arbitrary AU. It doesn't fit the "curse never happened" premise very well because of all the random changes. The fact WHook existed pre-wish and had completely different events happen to him just makes him more of a separate character. If everything happened the exact same way up to the curse, and there was a timeline split making both "our" characters and the "wish" characters equal, we could care more about the wish characters. But alas, they've always existed as completely separate entities with their own history. Rumple and Wish!Rumple were not one in the same until the wish/curse - they just had the same face and similar background. 

Instead of coming into existence via wish, the Wish Realm should've been introduced from some kind of time-related shenanigans. Like someone tries to prevent the curse from ever happening but ends up splitting the timeline into two separate universes or something. 

[Shanna Marie]

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

The glimpses we saw of Wish Henry in Season 6 and in the Season 7 finale made me curious about him.  Wish Henry would have had a tough life.  He believed his mother abandoned him and he was forced upon the throne at a young age.  He would have been as bitter as Emma and he could have inherited those Walls™, and they could used Jared's appearances to fill in some of the blanks.  That would have made a more interesting protagonist, both in flashback and in Hyperion Heights, where he may push Lucy away believing she would be better off without him

While Wish Henry did have potential, I'm afraid that implementation would have required different writers who weren't using Henry as some sort of self insert. When they do that, the character tends to get boring. Original Recipe Henry never got any real development because the writers found him so fascinating as their self-insert that they didn't seem to think he needed any help being interesting, and Original Henry had potential to be interesting. This was a kid brought up by a gaslighting mother he knew didn't love him, then he discovered he was living surrounded by fairy tale characters who didn't know who they were. He tracked down his birth mother, who didn't want to be a mother, and encouraged her to be a Savior. He helped turn the Evil Queen into a moderately good person (well, at least temporarily). He learned that his birth father was Rumpelstiltskin's son, but before he got a chance to get to know his father, he was separated from him and his father died. Then he became the Author and had all kinds of power. Any one of these things could have made for a character arc, but Henry just kept doing and saying the same things, veering back and forth between "magic is awesome" and "magic must be destroyed," forgetting all his past trauma and magically suddenly having an awesome relationship with Mother of the Year Regina, with no signs of what happened before -- and suddenly, without any development. He was okay with Hook until suddenly he didn't want him as a stepfather, then was totally on board with him suddenly. Meanwhile, they couldn't keep his age straight, kept writing him like he was ten even as he looked like he was in his mid-teens, except when occasionally he suddenly acted like he was 16 for an episode or two, when his character should have been 12-13 for seasons 3B-6.

Wish Henry would have probably come out the same way.

I was going to ask how you'd deal with Wish Henry's age vs. the other characters if he was going to be an adult, but then I remembered that they never addressed that same issue as it was, and they went back in time to run into teen Wish Henry.

[Camera One]

That is definitely true.  Look how fast Wish Henry accepted Regina as Mommy dearest.

I do think Wish Henry had more obvious trauma than Storybrooke Henry and he lived in medieval society, so he should have more of an interesting background right from the start.  At least Adult Wish Henry would have some very obvious baggage to work through, unlike the Storybrooke Adult Henry... A&E weren't able to come up with anything for him.

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I was going to ask how you'd deal with Wish Henry's age vs. the other characters if he was going to be an adult, but then I remembered that they never addressed that same issue as it was, and they went back in time to run into teen Wish Henry.

Good point.  I suppose the easiest way would be to use magic.  In Season 7, Wish Hook de-aged easily.  Maybe Wish Regina gave up revenge and focused on beauty and the fountain of youth, and that's how she got caught in Mother Gothel's web (since Gothel was also all about looking young).  Wish Zelena could also have gotten involved that way.  

Edited March 2, 2019 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Wish Zelena could also have gotten involved that way.  

I wonder if Wish Zelena would've pounced right after discovering the curse fell through. Zelena Prime waited for the curse to break so she'd find Regina in a moment of weakness (I guess? I have no freaking clue why Zelena didn't show up until everyone returned to EF.) How would Wish Regina react to Wish Zelena?

[Shanna Marie]

There is the problem that there really shouldn't be a Wish Henry. If there's no curse, then Emma never meets Neal. Neal going to our world had absolutely nothing to do with the curse (unless in Once Upon a Time in Offscreenville, we learn that he tried to have the Shadow take him back home, but they couldn't get there because of the curse, and so he ended up back in our world, but him trying to get home goes against everything else established about his character). Even if he did get back to their world at about the same time he got to ours, he'd have been in the same situation of being in his 20s when Emma was a teenager. Would he have been allowed anywhere near the princess? Would an Emma who had grown up loved in a healthy family have been vulnerable to him? It didn't seem like they did teen marriage in that world, so I can't imagine the Charmings having been okay with a 16-year-old Emma getting married to the son of the Dark One. And a woman who was already widowed and raising her son alone shouldn't have been the simpering dingbat that Wish Emma was. Wish Emma might still have had a child, but I would hope that if her circumstances were so different, her child would have been a lot younger so that she wouldn't have been a teen mom, and the father should probably have been some prince. She might have been married off to a significantly older prince or king. It would have taken some bizarre circumstances for Princess Emma to have ended up with a significantly older guy who was either a homeless thief or the son of the Dark One.

The whole Wishverse was built around making points they wanted to make and having certain characters in certain situations. It was never an honest exploration of what life would have been like if the curse hadn't been cast, which makes the very basis for its existence fall apart. What it ended up being was an autonomous alternate universe Emma was sent to so she could be in a place where she wasn't a Savior -- not truly a place that only diverged because of the curse, but one where the curse just didn't happen to happen, along with other changes. Except we never found out where the real Wish Emma was. It doesn't seem like she reappeared once our Emma went home. Did she get sent somewhere else while our Emma was there? If there was an autonomous universe that allowed WHook to interact with other worlds before the wish was made, then there should have been a Wish Emma before our Emma made her indirect wish.