Author Archives: Sam

Magical Road Trip

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I saw the Once Upon a Time two-part finale on Wednesday the 18th, the day it was put up on netflix. I wrote down comments while I was watching but until today I didn’t get round to properly making them up into a coherent blog post.

This is the last blog post about Once Upon a Time – Season Five. I have blogged through the entire season, this is my 15th post. Writing 15 posts about 23 episodes is pretty good going. I’m too lazy to check the word count but considering I don’t think any of my posts are under 2k these days, and quite often they go up to 5k, that is a fair few words about what was the worst season of the show.

I love this show, I really do, it’s my favorite currently airing show. There is nothing else on TV (that I know about at least) that is remotely like it. However, that doesn’t mean it gets a complete pass. I call it how I see it, and the show itself and all the characters suffered through this season, no-one came out of it looking good.

I’m going to run through my comments on the finale and then I’ll do a series post-mortem, along with some hopes I have for season six.

Continue reading →

Are there any Rumbelle/Rumple/Belle fans who are also Regina fans?

Posted on by

violetfaust:

frenchroast007:

Yep!

I think there are quite a few actually. (I like Regina but not everything she does.)

Me! If you couldn’t tell that from my mix of avatar and blog header. Rumple is my fave character, Regina is my second favorite. I know that Regina has done some nasty stuff to Belle and I don’t like that, especially because I don’t think she even apologized. – Regina, Belle is not just a tool to use against Rumple, she is her own person and you should treat her better!

My favorite headcanon has Rumple and Regina teaming up, using their moral flexibility (doing what needs to be done) to be far more effective at saving the day from the villain of the week than the ‘heroes’.

I might have got my hopes up a bit for the finale and then it was dashed because Regina was just playing him. I doubt I will ever get to see this on screen really which is a shame. Unless of course in season six, Regina has to come to terms with her darkness and accept it, not just bury it and no-one is going to understand her better than Rumple. He was her mentor once, he could be again and her friend. Just so long as she apologizes to Belle first.

Discussion Topics & Questions

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whitesheepcbd:

ouat-rewatch:

Trying something new here….I feel we’re off to a great start
with this rewatch blog. A handful of people are posting their observations on
each day’s episode, others are contributing picture sets and gif sets and judging
by the number of likes and reblogs I see on my activity feed, people are
enjoying the rewatch. But I’d like to get some discussion going as well, so I’m
posting a short list of questions or discussion starters and I’m hoping
everyone will join in.

A couple points before we start:

I realize in retrospect that these questions ended up
sounding like essay questions on a literature exam. “Discuss the symbolism of
the conch shell in Lord of the Flies.” If I caused unpleasant flashbacks for
anyone, I sincerely apologize.

Everyone please keep discussions objective and respectful. Tag
your responses with the usual #ouatrewatch2016 and I’ll keep reblogging
everyone’s contributions unless I think the conversation has taken an overly negative
turn. What you reblog and discuss on your own blogs is up to you.

Also….one of the things that made me think of doing this is
that someone asked, in their post about The Pilot, if it was ever explained
where Mary-Margaret got the storybook. I meant to answer that and forgot at the
time, but yes, that was answered much later. I think it was when they were in
the Underworld, and M-M said that she was cleaning out her closet (in Storybrooke)
one day and just found the book buried in the back. If anyone can name the
exact episode, feel free to chime in.

These six questions were culled from my own posts about the
first two episodes. If anyone wants to post more questions or topics for
discussion, please, make your own post and tag it. I’ll reblog it so everyone
can see it and hopefully we can have some great discussions.

1.
In Snowing’s wedding vows, instead of promising
each other ‘till death do us part’, they promised ‘for all eternity’. Thoughts
on why the writers made that change? Does living in a world of magic change the
meaning of death?

2.
Computers and the Internet have been mentioned
and shown in Storybrooke, so it’s not as if its residents were deprived of
modern technology. Why do we never hear the characters talk about “those
pictures I saw online of XX place, it looked so beautiful, I want to go there”
or any of the millions of other things they could find on the Internet?

3.
How is it that Emma spent her entire childhood
in the foster care system, despite healthy newborn girls being highly sought
after by hopeful adoptive parents?

4.
In 1×02, we see Regina turn herself into a mouse
to visit Rumplestiltskin in his cell. Did we ever see anyone turn themselves
into an animal again? I don’t think we did…why do you think the show dropped
that?

5.
When Rumplestiltskin negotiated for a life of
comfort in the Land Without Magic, he seemed to consider it a foregone
conclusion that he’d be going there. But later in the series, Regina stated
that she brought only who she wanted to Storybrooke. So that implies that
Regina wanted him there…why? Or was his inclusion something he bargained for
when he gave her the spell?

6.
Why did Henry Sr. die when Regina ripped his
heart out, when it was shown later that it’s possible to remove someone’s heart
without killing them? Was that just a writing inconsistency or do you think the
intent of the heart-ripping makes a difference?

Re-blogging this here in case any of my OUaT followers on my personal blog would like to participate. 

1) I think ‘for all eternity’ is just nice words to be honest. It sounds less grim and more magical. However, in recent times (*cough* underworld *cough*) they have shown that life continues after death. So yeah, maybe in a world of magic death isn’t the end and perhaps certainly not for true love.

2) I think it’s because it adds a complicated level that the writers don’t want to deal with. They have never really explained how Storybrooke’s economy works, how the stores get supplied, where everyone works etc. It’s a town that was cursed into existence and as far as the outside world is concerned, it doesn’t exist but yet it does – for Henry’s adoption, for Mary Margaret’s ‘credit card’ and yeah for the internet. So I think it’s kinda hand waved so the writers don’t have to think about it.

Plus with how often the town line is blocked off for various reasons, going on vacation elsewhere is a bit tricky. Therefore looking at pictures is nothing but a dream. I mean technically speaking they never showed on screen the third dark curse breaking. Dopey should still be blocking the road as a tree and everyone who crossed the town line should have joined him like a mini-forest, unless they had Rumple’s sack of anti-transforming dust.

3) I believe that Emma did say once that she got adopted but returned to the system when she was three. I think she said that the couple had finally managed to have their own child and didn’t have to ‘make do’ any longer. That last bit could just be my head canon though.

4) I think the show started off being a bit more true to the fairytales and then wound up dropping lots of things. Like in the pilot, Snow said that Regina tried to kill her because “she was prettier than her” and David said “the animals are all talking about the Queen’s plan.” We did see Rumple transform people into things, like snails or roses (or a butcher into a pig) but that was kinda fatal.

5) My interpretation of Regina bringing who she wanted, was less about the living and more about the dead. I think the curse brought everyone who was alive, and anyone that didn’t fit the curse criteria (like the dead) Regina had to bring on a case by case basis.

6) I think the heart ripping out thing was something they changed after the first few episodes. Henry senior’s heart for the spell wasn’t glowing or magical, it looked like a regular heart, like it had been physically cut out from his chest. That would be why he died immediately. Then later they decided “hey this heart ripping out thing has potential for other stuff” and made it so you could live with it removed/hearts could be crushed, all that stuff.

I do hope they explain why crushing her heart didn’t kill her. How do you think she survived? Also, the heart Regina crushed should have an impact on her, but well…

Posted on by

thatravenclawbitch:

sgtmac7:

While the show has certainly not earned faith when it comes to explaining the fantastic, since that question will absolutely be brought up, perhaps we should wait before assuming we will hate the answer. My guess is it will either be something big picture like evil is necessary for balance and thus can’t ever be fully eradicated simply controlled and harnessed or it’ll he related to magic being different in the real world or something like that.

In season 4, there was a deleted scene of Rumple finding the dust left by Elsa’s urn and explaining to everyone that magic can never be destroyed, just change forms. The scene was cut so they later had Rumple give a truncated version of that speech to the Snow Queen when he used that dust to neutralize her. It’s why the idea of destroying the Dark One never made much sense to me. It seems like the magic would always exist, you could just maybe change it somehow. I wondered if the Evil Queen’s resurrection had something to do with that. Of course, it’s probably silly of me to think the show remembers a line of dialogue from season 4. 

When I saw the Evil Queen crumbling to dust, then ‘returning’ to life I had two thoughts:

1) We saw Zelena surviving being killed by transforming before. She turned into a statue before Rumple stabbed her and then she somehow went in an energy stream to her magic locket before respawning.

I usually try not to think about it because I never liked her coming back to life like that. It felt like such a retcon because watching 4A, knowing Zelena is Marion just doesn’t seem right. She nearly died from the Snow Queen icing her heart – I can’t imagine Zelena not fighting back over that. Anyway, I digress. My point is they have faked us out with a transformation death like that before – it has precedence.

2) Two sides to the coin, two halves of the same soul. Regina and the Evil Queen aren’t two people, they are the same, magic has just split them into two bodies. Therefore, given that they are still connected (being the same person) I would think that you couldn’t kill one without killing both.

Regina crushed the Evil Queen’s heart, but that was using magic to destroy a magical construct. That wasn’t really a heart, because Regina’s heart is still in her chest, so crushing it isn’t going to do anything.The Evil Queen can’t be killed, not physically anyway, not unless Regina dies too because she is both.

I read a fanfic once, I forgot what it was so I can’t link it sorry but Belle accidentally released a genie who was under instructions to kill Regina – it was an unfilled wish. They got it ‘completed’ for him by saying that Regina wasn’t the Evil Queen any longer. That the Queen was dead and Regina herself had killed her by changing. I rather suspect that the show will wind up doing something similar, and the Evil Queen will be ‘killed’ by acceptance.

Lightning realization – who really wanted to destroy magic!

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I was thinking about the finale this morning, about how it didn’t make sense that they found the holy grail ‘end of magic’ right when they wanted it. Why was it in New York? How had it even got there from the Enchanted Forest? What was with Neal having this quest to destroy magic?

Then it hit me!

Tamara was Neal’s fiance – and she wanted to destroy magic. That was what she thought she was doing when she working for Pan (aka the home office), she thought that was what the mission was.

Given they were together any notes on destroying magic, left in Neal’s apartment, could have been hers. The holy grail in New York, could have been found anywhere in the world, it could have been tossed through by a magic bean by someone in the past terrified that magic could be destroyed. It wound up in New York because that was where Tamara was maybe.

So why did Henry say that Neal had wanted to destroy magic? That Neal had been in New York searching for a way to destroy magic. That sounds pretty irrefutable right? It must have been Neal and Tamara was just a coincidence, weird how they had the same goal but neither of them knew that.

August told Neal about the dark curse, how it brought everyone from their land to this one – the land without magic. The curse didn’t bring magic, that was never on the cards until Rumple threw the true love potion down the well and magic came to Storybrooke. Magic didn’t need to be destroyed, because as far as anyone was aware – there was no magic in the … land WITHOUT magic!

Neal and Henry couldn’t have spent all that much time together. I’m thinking a week or two at the most between arriving back in Storybrooke and Neal getting shot and falling through the portal back to the Enchanted Forest. I know time on the show is kinda fluid and it’s hard to tell, but with how fast stuff seems to happen it might have only been a few days.

Back in the Enchanted Forest Neal (Bae back then) would have searched for a way to destroy magic, because it was magic that had changed his papa. When he got the bean to go to the land without magic, that completed his quest. I know it was ‘canon’ because Henry said it on screen but people do get confused, misinterpret or mis-remember.

If Henry was thinking about destroying magic and then remembered his dad saying that he’d tried the same. It’s not a big leap. His dad meant New York and then the more stuff he found, the more he thought he was right in what he remembered. I don’t know, it’s just a theory.

What hooked you on Once Upon a Time?

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That’s a really bad phrase, no need to bring Hook into this after all. What I mean is what made you go “this is a show I need to watch!” and “watch all the episodes” rather than decide the show was meh and not care that much whether you saw more or not.

What made you decide to keep watching I guess?

This is in honor of the Once Upon a Time rewatch. I’m not joining in because I didn’t know it was a thing and I already started my rewatch so I’m on the second season.

They rewatched the pilot and that reminded me of when I first saw the show and what made me keep watching.

What made you like the show and keep watching past the initial episode you saw? What made you a fan?

For Me
It was last summer. I’d just got netflix, I went through the catalogue making a list of new shows to try and Once Upon a Time was one of them. I knew nothing about it but the one line netflix description but decided to give it a try. I planned on watching the pilot of a couple of different shows that evening.

Well, the show had barely been on a minute and my jaw had already dropped – the production values! Charming with his cape, on that horse with the narrow path in the lake – it was breathtaking. Then there was the true loves kiss, the interrupted wedding, it was just gorgeous to watch, never mind anything else.

So yeah, I watched another two episodes that evening and my fate was sealed. For once it wasn’t a character that provided the initial hook, it was the show itself. I was reminded of that with the finale. The land of untold stories looked incredible, there really isn’t any other show on TV (that I know about) that has sets like that. Anyway, obviously I kept on watching and at some point Rumple became my favorite character. It was early on, possibly from his very first appearance because wow didn’t he half sell it!

Interestingly enough my second favorite character is now Regina. However, I spent season one (the first time round) booing her basically. I really didn’t like her, I couldn’t see any of the complexity that I could in Rumple, I just thought she was mean and selfish etc. Well, it was episode 10 of season 2 – The Cricket Game. That welcome home party, with Emma saying that Regina seeing Henry not such a good plan, Regina’s expression was heartbreaking. I felt like Emma was being a bit petty at that point, getting her own back for when Regina had done the same to her, well now the situation was flipped and anyway I felt for Regina in that moment. Having sympathized with her once, I guess I started to understand her a little more and yeah now she is my second favorite.

What made you a fan?

Posted on by

witchnova221:

Just sent in my sign up for my first @rumbellechristmasinjuly and I am soooooo excited!!

Me too! You are not alone 🙂

I sent mine in yesterday and it is mega exciting. Kinda scary too, it’s my first official fanfic event ever. I did Rumbelle is Hope but that was kinda more casual. Have you done other events?

emospritelet:

wizzygold:

emospritelet:

witchnova221:

Just sent in my sign up for my first @rumbellechristmasinjuly and I am soooooo excited!!

Yes, I signed up too!

I wanna but I don’t have a prompt 🙁 I suck at these x’D

I just went with something really general that could be interpreted in a number of ways

@wizzygold Didn’t it say in the FAQ – or signup post – or some post I’ve seen – that if you had trouble thinking of a prompt then the mods would help you? I think if you want to join in then it would be a shame not to, for lack of prompt.

Question – Kingdom of Avonlea

Posted on by

rowofstars:

standbyyourmantis:

silromen:

whitesheepcbd:

still-searching47:

I have read fanfic where Belle is Princess of Avonlea, who will one day be Queen. I have also read fanfic where she is the daughter of a border knight – Sir Maurice, who looks after a small area of the kingdom of Avonlea.

Now the Once Upon a Time wiki lists him as Sir Maurice – not King Maurice. However, in Skin Deep wasn’t he wearing a crown? I’m just wondering what it is in canon. I mean the whole arranged marriage for an army thing, makes Belle and Maurice sound more important than just a knight and his daughter.

So is Belle a Princess or just a Lady? Anyone know or is it up for debate and pick whatever option makes most sense for the story? I’m plotting something and I want to get it right.

That’s a question that’s been debated before, and as far as I know, the fandom never reached a satisfactory answer that we could all agree had been backed up by canon. The show runners seem to have left it deliberately vague. But I’ll signal boost you & see if anyone else wants to chime in on this.

Part of the fun of fanfic is that you can spin things any way you want without being overly concerned with canon!

That said, Sir Maurice just has a cool hat on in Skin Deep, not a crown, and Rumple talks about saving their “little town,” not their kingdom, so there are signs that he’s more of a lesser lord and definitely not a king. The ruling structure of the Enchanted Forest has never been fully defined, so it’s hard to say if Maurice is a knight or a successful merchant or what. I don’t know anything about historical hierarchies for comparison. Maybe someone else can shed some light?

I’ve always just gone with what worked for the story. Sometimes she’s the daughter of a knight, sometimes the princess of a small merchant kingdom. At this point, there really isn’t any one right answer so just do what you want. Nobody is going to pillory you in the town square on this one.

I suspect he wasn’t a king, but then in Her Handsome Hero this season, they made him one or made him higher ranking. I’m pretty sure I remember Gaston explicitly asking Belle to be his queen so that means someone in this is a prince or princess. I believe it’s Belle.

But exactly what Mantis said. Do want works for the story. That’s why it’s an AU. 🙂

Thanks for your answers guys! Super helpful. I really appreciate it 🙂

I’m going to make her a Princess (and eventual Queen) because it works better for the story. If the answer had been that she was definitely just a knights daughter, then I would have had her become Queen/ruler of the kingdom some other way, this just makes it simpler. I just wanted to get it right in the first place.

I guess I wasn’t sure what the canon was because canon isn’t sure. Maybe she started off just a noble but then as rowofstars said, they made her more later on. Anyway, it works.

Thank you!

Posted on by

evilsnowswan:

still-searching47:

evilsnowswan:

Rewatching one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid. For some reason we never owned it, so I really only saw it a couple of times when it was on TV. It’s even cuter than what I remembered and my muse is running rampant. I can’t write the thing, but with RCIJ upon us, I might just go prompt it. It would work so well! (So well in fact, that I’m wondering if it has been done already and I just missed it??)

Anyway, I wouldn’t want a retelling of the movie blow-by-blow, obviously … just, you know, a rumbelled retelling of the gist/feel of it … but still… is prompting movie AUs a bad thing to do? Do people hate prompts like that? Like, I never know how specific to make my prompts… but then they often end up being super vague instead and that can be hard, too.

*takes deep breath* *stops rambling*

So, what I wanted to know is: 

Say you got prompted a Movie AU for RCIJ (or RSS), would that be good with you or more on the meh :/ side of things?

(I really want this AU, but I don’t want to be the one to write it – then it never gets done – however, I also don’t want to annoy anyone by backing them into a corner & making them write it for me, so … ???) 

I think it would be fine, though I know nothing because I’ve never participated in one of these events before and I’m new to the fandom. I’m basically just replying because a) I do personally think it’s ok and b) you have me really curious as to what the movie is now, like seriously curious. If you decide not to prompt it can you please share because I want to know.

Anyway, personally I wouldn’t hate a prompt like that. Well actually that depends on how exact it had to be but you said the general gist/feel, so I think that’s cool.

*waves* Hi there 🙂 And welcome. Love seeing new faces round here. So, you’re gonna participate this time round then? Or was that more of a general statement? 

I’d never prompt/write/read an exact retelling of an existing story/movie … how lame would that be? Just, the movie’s themes *would* go extremely well with Rumbelle … or Golden Lace. 

And should I decide not to prompt it after all, my muse will make me write it myself, so you are going find out one way or another, sooner or later (if I’m writing it, it will be *later* … much, much later…)

Hi and thanks *waves back*

Yes I am planning on participating. I’m a bit nervous. I joined tumblr just in time for Rumbelle is Hope but that was more freeform than this.

I’ve never really written to a prompt before. Still it should be be fun and a really good creative challenge. I’m looking forward to it 🙂

What’s That Word Again?

Posted on by

snitchwillow:

ellen729:

So, two seasons ago, Emma convinced Past-Rumplestiltskin to let Neal die because he’d died a hero, sacrificing himself for everyone. She told him he couldn’t take that away from his son.

This season, Emma risked the lives of her whole family and wound up releasing a Dark God from the Underworld and basically putting the whole world at risk to bring Hook back from the dead even though that was supposed to have been an heroic death.

What’s the word I’m looking for? Starts with an “H” and ends with “ypocrisy.”

*slams fist on table and slams reblog button* THANK YOU!!!

Maybe it’s because they realized Hook’s death wasn’t all that heroic, he was just cleaning up his own mess. Neal was a real hero.