#all this 'no nuance' stuff is funny bc like. its not a moral failing if ur late it just means ur late 😭

[harrykim]

[ID: Tweet by Panic! At The TL @/Puff_Iya: Okay I'm having a debate: If someone says theyre going to show up "around 7" but get there at 7:20, is that still considered around 7?? /End ID]

putting this one forward to be heard by the great people’s jury of tumblr.com because i like to start arguments over nothing

[cdyssey]

Once Rewatch: Snow Falls, 1x03

“You’re a... girl?!”

“Woman.”

And then she clocks David upside the face with a big rock.

Now this is start of a beautiful pair. :’)

Omg, I’d forgotten that MM had gone on a date with Whale.

Talk about awkward.

Hm, I also think I’ll do some Whale analysis here as well. He’s arrogant, misogynistic, and kind of spineless when it comes to dealing with forces more powerful than himself. I think this is a great interpretation of source material, lol.

Bc if we’re being honest here, Victor Frankenstein is a whiny college dropout, a prototypical incel who probably passed biology but severely failed ethics.

I’m not crying—there’s just some Snowing in my eye.

On a related note, Isham’s swelling score is particularly powerful here; he amps up the suspense perfectly.

I love Once’s retcon of the name Prince Charming; it works so much better as an ironic moniker.

Snow: “True love? It doesn’t exist. It’s all arranged marriages and business transactions.” (1) So in my writeup on the pilot, I wrote something to the effect that Snow is less vulnerable to optimism than David is, that she’s long been disillusioned about the possibility for happy endings. I think this quote backs that sentiment up quite nicely. (2) I know A&E probably haven’t figured out the logistics of Regina and Leopold by this point, but even still, this quote very well applies to their farce of a marriage. (Snow’s cognition and/or ignorance of this is such a rich place to explore in fic.)

Emma (talking about Regina): Where does she think you are anyway?

Henry: Playing Whack-a-Mole.

Emma: And she bought that?

Henry: She wants to believe it, so she does.

This exchange is funny but also purty revealing, even if Henry doesn’t quite know it. Regina desperately wants things between them to return back to normal, so when Henry tells her that he’s off doing something normal, that he’s returning to his old habits of playing games and having fun and not becoming Storybooke’s new junior sleuth, she’s more than ready to take his word at face value.

Side-by-side, Ginny and Jared look so much alike, and I love that. <3 They also share a buoyant, youthful kind of energy when they play off each other. So I hereby headcanon that Snow and Henry, post-uh-everything, are always going out on mini-adventures together. With their combined imaginations and mutual penchants for curiosity, this grandmother-grandson can make even the most mundane of grocery runs into something like a hunt for buried treasure.

Regina: “Now you’re lying to me?” A simple question which cues us in on lying being a v. new trait that has surfaced in Henry. The psychology of it is pretty logical. She lied to him, and now he’s reciprocating the favor, both of them unable to trust each other at this point.

So Regina says that she found David lying on the side of the road somewhere and that she brought him to the hospital. Whale supports this statement and claims that she saved his life by this act. Assuming that this is true, then I’m reminded of that popular meta which essentially proposed that the Evil Queen rarely, if ever, made a move that would deeply or permanently harm Snow. Theoretically, Regina could have left him on the side of the road to die, could have dealt Snow an irreparable amount of damage without so much as lifting a finger... but she didn’t. #SnowQueen

“Enjoy my shirt... because that’s all you’re getting.” SJKhdsha. 

I like to think that Emma kept the shirt, and every once and while, she pulls it on just so she can mock a v. embarrassed Regina. “Hey, Regina, what was it you said to me again? You know, back when you wore a lot of dark eyeliner and had a giant stick up your��” “Oh, shut up, Miss Swan.”

Lolol, I love how Storybrooke’s hospital is apparently bordered by the woods. That’s some reaaaaally safe architectural planning there.

Snow wants to go somewhere “isolated, where she can never get hurt,” and in the context of the entire show, I hurt to fully comprehend that Snow’s young life was a hellhole. Her parents were killed, she’s forced out of her kingdom and into exile by a vengeful witch, and now, as a bandit, her existence, for all its flux, is constantly defined by paranoia and fear and cynicism and... well... guilt.

In the grand scheme of things, I think we sometimes forget about Snow.

How much she’s endured.

How much she’s suffered.

Snow: She blames me for ruining her life.

David: Did you?

Snow: [Pausing, thinking, her voice hard and wistful.] Yes.

This is a great beat because it further emphasizes that this isn’t your Disneyfied version of Snow White and the Evil Queen.

There’s no such thing as black and white morality in the world of Once Upon A Time.

The Evil Queen wasn’t always evil.

Snow White was not always as pure as the color of her name.

It’s complicated.

They both are.

MM: “Henry told me that you were from a similar situation to his own?” Honestly, beyond the fact that they were both adopted, I don’t think comparing Henry and Emma’s situations is exactly... apt. Emma bounced around from foster home to foster home and had to deal with the fact that she was ‘abandoned’ by her parents. Henry was given up by Emma to receive his best possible chance at life, and accordingly, he grew up in a mansion with a—as we’ll come to find out—loving mother. 

But, lol, that’s not the point the show’s trying to make here. Point is, Emma is a lost kid, and she’s trying so hard to make sure that Henry doesn’t end up being one as well. Plus, it’s heartbreakingly ironic that the very person she’s been trying to find is standing right next to her.

Oh, Kathryn, you have a v. painful arc coming up.

You know, had I been in the OUAT fandom when Ginny and Josh announced that they were together, that would have been the end of me.

The chemistry between these two is incomparable.

Like, I know it’s for the aesthetic™, but this bag is so impractical for the life Snow lives, lololol. 

Had to include these iconic lines.

Regina: We’ll talk about your insubordination later. Do you know what insubordination means?

Henry: [Shakes his head.]

Regina: It means you’re grounded.

Good God—Kathryn’s fake backstory is so intricate and moving. (Also, I love Anastasia Griffith. She really portrays the duality of Abigail/Kathryn well.)

“Because all of this has reminded me of something, oh, so very important... how grateful I am to have Henry.”

“Because not having somebody... well, that’s the worst curse imaginable.”

Lana Parrilla has no right giving such a nuanced performance of what should have been a one-dimension villain.

But that’s why we love her.

Over the course of the seasons, we learned that the curse backfired on Regina. Sure, everyone was miserable, but so was she... and at least her victims weren’t even cognizant of the fact that they were cursed. Heck, in that sense, they had it better than she did.

So in exacting her perfect revenge, Regina only deepened the void inside of her, drove herself to an emptiness like no other she has felt before.

By the time Greg and Owen showed up, it was nearly unbearable.

And then... she adopted Henry.

And suddenly, she wasn’t alone anymore.

Without Henry, her life is but a void, an emptiness, a nothingness of her own design, and right now, Emma Swan is a perceived threat to the tenuous solace she has carved out for herself these past ten years.

What Regina doesn’t understand is that she’s the real threat.

She’s the one who is ultimately pushing Henry away.

Okay, y’all aren’t allowed to make eye-contact anymore. 😭

:’)

I think I can safely say that “Snow Falls” is one of the most tightly written and acted episodes in the series. On an architectural level, the dialogue parallels were especially poignant, and the sentimental moments were well chosen. For instance, concluding the episode on this sweet, tender moment between Emma and Mary Margaret is an expert choice that ameliorates the Snowing pathos we’re currently feeling. Theatrically, it’s the little nuances that make “Snow Falls” so great: JMO’s uncomfortable vulnerability as Emma talks about her history with MM, the mutual attractions of Snow and David that surface in meaningful glances expertly affected by Ginny and Josh, the softnesses Lana and Anastasia imbue their hardened characters with.

Just really wonderful stuff all around.