Salty asks from Tumblr

[daxx]

Let’s answer some of these from mrydinwilt on tumblr.

What was the worst flashback(s)?

Which storyline do you pretend never happened?

Which twist melted your brain?

How would you fix your least favorite character arc or storyline?

At what point did you completely give up trying to understand the timeline?

What bad writing made you want to punch through your screen?

Does magic actually come with a price? Why or why not?

What are your feelings about the show’s concept of “true love” and/or TLK?

Which character arc was more like a line?

Which character arc made you rip the most hair from your head?

Which character do you wish they had stopped “developing”?

Which character deserved more development?

Which character deserved better period. 

Secondary or guest character they didn’t use enough?

Most unnecessary secondary or guest character?

Worst casting decision?

If you could recast someone who would it be and why?

What plot hole do you desperately want filled?

What plothole do more people need to recognize?

How would you fix the plothole?

What “plot hole” is not a plot hole at all and will the fandom shut up about it already?

Which Chekhov gun(s) do you wish had been fired (even just to put the storyline out of its misery)?

What character or plot arc should have been revisited?

Which family dynamic puts the “fun” in dysfunctional?

Which family dynamic was way worse than problematic?

Most problematic event on the show?

Which character needs the most therapy (crickets with cursed degrees don’t count)?

Which character should have the longest prison sentence? (cause they almost all belong in jail)

Which character did the show eventually make you hate?

What character is the actual worst?

Worst costume?

Worst makeup?

Worst CGI?

Worst acting?

Scene so bad it should be forgotten forever?

What thing that was not meant to be funny made you laugh?

What bad jokes did you cringe at?

Most cringe moments?

What line or phrase was the cheesiest?

What line or phrase did you love that they eventually made cheesy and annoying?

When and why did you stop watching?

Why did you keep watching?

When should the show have ended?

What Disney characters did you feel were forced into the show and which did you hate most?

Who do you blame?  Writers, Big Disney, bad schedule, fan service, etc?

Knowing what you do now would you do it all over again?  As in, watch the show and engage with the fandom?

Bonus: Rant about something

The numbering didn’t come through with the copy paste. 😂 

http://daxx04.tumblr.com/post/183784821484/salty-ouat-asks

[PixiePaws1]

Ok..first up:

Which storyline do you pretend never happened?

Wish-Verse!!!

Every single second of it was a MASSIVE  'fuck you' to Emma  and her fans. It was also a huge insult to Snow and Charming.. I mean, their statue shows them ready for battle/victorious after a battle..and A&E are trying to make us believe they'd raise Emma as a witless moron!!???

Ewww...hideous, awful, disgraceful storyline.

[profdanglais]

This was my answer on Tumblr  to the Which storyline do you wish never happened: 

Quote

Killian murdering his father. The whole retcon bullshit with Regina testing him etc etc it’s just so irredeemably stupid. There’s no reason for it other than to crap on Killian and to manufacture angst that doesn’t need to exist. Not to mention that the timeline it requires is SO IDIOTIC AND CONTRIVED and also Brennan Jones, petty criminal who abandoned his sons to a life of slavery then GAVE THE THIRD ONE THE NAME OF THE FIRST, that POS useless asshole gets a TLK, and Captain Swan doesn’t? F**k right off with that. This doesn’t exist. Never happened. Any canon Killian I write, this is not part of his backstory.

[Shanna Marie]

There are enough questions there for years worth of discussion material.

5 hours ago, profdanglais said:

This was my answer on Tumblr  to the Which storyline do you wish never happened: 

Quote

Killian murdering his father. The whole retcon bullshit with Regina testing him etc etc it’s just so irredeemably stupid.

I'm torn between that and the storyline in which Hook killed David's father.

On the one hand, Hook killing his father was at least somewhat in character. It's like him to flip out and do something like that in a fit of rage when he's triggered. And I did kind of like Liam 2.0 and his relationship with Hook (not that they did anything with it or even bothered to have the brother they'd just introduced show up for Hook's wedding). On the other hand, nothing about the setup for that makes any sense. Brennan is put under a sleeping curse about a century before Maleficent supposedly developed it. There's a True Love's Kiss involving people who've never met, with one of the people knowing absolutely nothing about the other. There's Regina somehow knowing that the random bartender happens to be the father of the pirate she only just discovered breaking into her castle. There's fitting that little excursion into the timeline when previously we were shown Hook going straight from Regina catching and coercing him to Wonderland. There's the fact that the test is stupid. Hook being willing to kill his own father has absolutely nothing to do with his willingness to kill Cora. There's Regina somehow knowing not only what happened, in spite of not being there, but what Hook feels about it and how he feels about it now, even though they haven't talked about it. It's also out of character for Hook, who is totally triggered by the idea of children being abandoned, to leave his little brother behind, without any provision for him. On the plus side, this plot doesn't have huge ramifications in the present. It does bring us adult Liam 2.0, but I kind of like that story (aside from the retcon that people in the Coradome weren't actually frozen and could go have all kinds of status quo-changing adventures during the curse).

Meanwhile, the killing David's father plot was entirely out of character for Hook. He's previously been shown to be more likely to make mistakes because he wants to maintain his villainous reputation. Killing a witness so he won't be blamed for a crime is the opposite of the way Hook usually acts, and it's particularly silly given that he's just going to be heading back to Neverland for probably a decade or so. If they really wanted to have him kill David's father, they could have made it in character by having David's father reveal that he sold one of his children to the Dark One. Then Hook might have lashed out and killed him. With that plot, the present-day ramifications were what really destroyed characters and ruined the story. We had Emma suddenly completely losing her ability to notice anything about Hook and blowing his proposal, which seems unlike her. We had Emma somehow able to identify all the people in the memory in the dreamcatcher, having seen it for a split second from across the room, in spite of never having met her grandfather. We had the breakup/not breakup and Emma abruptly deciding that Hook had never loved her, in spite of the fact that he'd died for her more than once. I guess Emma was the one who got character assassinated out of that one, but the whole plot made the wedding a lot less satisfying.

[daxx]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

. I guess Emma was the one who got character assassinated out of that one, but the whole plot made the wedding a lot less satisfying.

Yeah, that plot did Emma no favors and wasn’t in character for either of them, nor was  killing David’s father very piraty, rescuing an enemy of the king does though. They should have had Hook rescue him then kill him when he slips about selling his son.

[Shanna Marie]

On 3/29/2019 at 12:13 AM, daxx said:

What bad writing made you want to punch through your screen?

Which character arc made you rip the most hair from your head?

Same answer for both of these: The Author plot. The whole thing was just a mess, and Regina's "arc" during it was utterly ridiculous, where she's acting like a villain while being treated like a hero, and she goes through all that without actually changing or growing.

I don't feel like they ever figured out what the deal with the Author was, how it worked, why this job existed, what he was really supposed to do, how he'd be chosen, what his powers were, why he had those powers, etc., even though they built a whole arc around it. Then at the end of it all, they reveal that the Apprentice managing the Author was Merlin's apprentice, and even though the next arc gets into the Merlin mythology, they never did tie it all together in any way.

Along the way, there was so much other nonsense they conjured up to serve that plot, like the eggnapping, Lily, the Zarian switch, etc.

The whole thing was based on a delusion by Regina, blaming her facing the consequences of her own evil on the book that merely recorded her actions, and although she had zero evidence, just about everyone else jumped on board, making decisions and even sacrifices based on the idea that Regina deserved her happy ending. Then when she comes to the obvious conclusion that she writes her own happy ending, there's no acknowledgment that they'd all been spinning their wheels for nothing. When the outcome of the stuff that they did to get Regina's happy ending is that they get thrown into an alternate universe that's horrible for them, no one seems to remember that this wouldn't have been an issue if they'd told Regina she has to work for and find her happy ending on her own. Regina doesn't seem to learn anything. Essentially being Snow doesn't give her any empathy with Snow. She just gets given Robin back even before she has her epiphany. Not to mention, they never defined what her happy ending was.

The arc pretty much dragged everyone but Hook through the mud. They turned the Charmings into eggnappers and had them sacrifice their daughter's well-being for Regina's happy ending. Henry became a Regina-worshiping zombie. Emma completely changed character, forgetting all the stuff she used to say about determining her own fate, and she's inexplicably blaming herself for being a bad friend to the person who sabotaged her chance at a home and family. Robin became a huge putz for not caring what happened to his wife.

But then there's Hook, who's actually trying to undo his past evil instead of focusing on being given a happy ending, and sacrificing himself rather than others. He basically contradicts the premise of the arc and Regina's character arc, and no one seems to notice.

[SilverShadow]

What was the worst flashback(s)?

Which storyline do you pretend never happened?

Which twist melted your brain?

All three of these apply to the whole "Snow and Charming drop-kicked Maleficent's egg-baby into another dimension of their own free will and then it never came up, not even in the deep dark secrets cave in Neverland, until Season 4."

Or really any retroactive "See THIS character did a bad so they are just as bad as Regina/Rumple and so Regina and Rumple can't be held accountable for the bad shit they did."

Hook killing Charming's Dad is a close second but ultimately mattered exactly 0 so meh. 

How would you fix your least favorite character arc or storyline?

Storyline: The three evil Queens.

1) The author brainwashed Snowing into the baby thing AND wiped their memories of it, which explains why it didn't come up in Neverland. They still feel awful about it and vow to help Mal find her kid however they can. 

2) Ariel and Eric come back for several episodes and have relationships with this Ursula(I know this was likely related to actor availability but this is my fantasy). Goddess Ursula also shows up. 

3) No heroes don't kill bullshit with Emma and Cruella when Emma thought her child was in mortal danger. 

At what point did you completely give up trying to understand the timeline? Season 7 with Enchanted Forest 2.0

Character: Cindy 2.0. Recast but also write her to be less selfish and awful in the EF flashbacks as well as make it feel like she's more desperate in Hyperion Heights. 

What bad writing made you want to punch through your screen?

Eggbaby nonsense, Hook killing Charming's Dad, Everything about Cindy 2.0 from Season 7, Mother Gothel's origin story. 

Which character deserved better period.

Snowing but especially Snow. The show had no idea what to do with her once the baby was born.

Secondary or guest character they didn’t use enough? Ariel and Eric. All of the princes and princesses really.

Most unnecessary secondary or guest character? Poor Will Scarlett in Season 4.

Worst casting decision?

Cindy 2.0. It's great they went with an actress of color but she read as too old for the part and her line readings and reactions made her come off as entitled and bratty. I kind of wish they cast Tiana's actress as Cindy 2.0 because she was great and made you feel sympathy even when her character made bad decisions.

If you could recast someone who would it be and why? See above. Also Neal. MRJ is not a bad actor but he came across as too "modern" and sort of sleezy. He didn't feel connected to Bae. 

Which Chekhov gun(s) do you wish had been fired (even just to put the storyline out of its misery)? I'm still bummed early Season 3 made a whole big thing about Ariel needing to tell Eric her secret and then WE NEVER SEE IT except for the fakeout in Season 6.

What character or plot arc should have been revisited? Regina never really reckoned with the harm she did to so many people, not just Snow, and never really seemed to feel much guilt about it, just upset that it meant she wasn't going to get her happy ending. Rumple eventually had to face up to his deeds in Season 7 but she never did.

Most problematic event on the show? All the men being raped via mind control and magic (Graham, Robin, Nook)

Worst acting? Cindy 2.0

Scene so bad it should be forgotten forever? Eggbaby.

Why did you keep watching? I loved the cast and the riffing on fairytales and Disney.

Who do you blame?  Writers, Big Disney, bad schedule, fan service, etc? The writers. They had such a bad case of New Toy Syndrome and would set up all of these interesting ideas and developments and then just drop them for the next thing. They also had NO idea how to use guest stars in a meaningful way and it drove me crazy.

Edited April 6, 2019 by SilverShadow