#ouatw

[garr9988]

If I had a nickel for every time Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella were mashed together, with a particular focus on the Red Queen, and time travel was an element in the story, I'd have two nickels.

(edit: oh and Aladdin was a part of it too)

Which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.

[onceuponarewatch]

Once Upon a Rewatch in WONDERLAND episode one: TRUST NOT THE RABBIT HOLE

In which The Narrators Three discuss: A rocky Start, Our Little Blorbo Will Scarlet, Alice is a Murder Hobo, When Bad Perms Happen to Good Actors, Turtle Crimes, the Clothes Horse, Disappointed Dad Robin Hood, More Anastasia Please, and We All Set Sail on the ScarletQueen Ship.

Listen to Once Upon a Rewatch: Spotify | Apple Music | Anchor.Fm | Stitcher | Google Podcast | Pocket Casts | Radio Public | Breaker |

[glowyjellyfish]

I started rewatching OUAT. Apparently my brain decided it was just time. I considered doing a full liveblog with silly gifs, but that would be a lot more effort than I want to put into it.

1. I know I still have one follower from my OUAT days, but am not sure about anybody else. So to recap: I loved OUAT to pieces and probably put more thought into things like the timeline and side characters than the writers did. And I loved OUAT in Wonderland EVEN MORE and still think they did a better job on that tightly plotted story than meandering on OUAT. I stopped watching mid-season 4, after they did and didn’t do several things to my favorite characters that broke my faith in the quality, but I did keep watching and mostly enjoying through the Frozen arc and the main reason I didn’t continue was just… I never got the urge to watch a new episode again. And then I was glad I stopped when I did, because what little I heard about it sounded increasingly dumb, bonkers, and, in the case of that soft reboot or whatever that was, insulting. I’m only planning to rewatch the first two seasons plus Wonderland, but if I’m enjoying myself I will probably keep going until I am not. Probably making more fun of it than before.

2. My favorites, in rough order of when I glimpse into them, are Graham, Dr. Whale, Neal, and Will. Anyone familiar with the show will probably understand exactly how the show broke my heart. I also love Rumple and Regina, and find the rest of the main cast pretty great, but there is a difference between loving a character and A Favorite.

3. I watched through the first five episodes, and was pleased to find I still liked it, and not only that, I still felt it was pretty good overall. The cheesiest parts so far are the fairy outfits, the CG, the Cinderella parts of the Cinderella episode, and some awkward dialogue when a writer didn’t know how to write old fashioned well. It shines in its characters, and the development of Regina and Rumple has so far been the absolute highlight. Emma has never been particularly high on my list of beloved characters, but she delivers fantastic feelings throughout. I know logically that way too much focus will be given to them down the road, but Snow and Charming are so damn charming and cute. The parallels between the flashbacks and the present day are also really well done, using them for character development. That’s something I think the show fumbled a little with after season 1, and got worse and worse about over time, and I also think it’s something OUATW did EXTREMELY well. But I’ll see how it looks as I watch it.

4. I do wish the show had been a little bit more clear about the town being basically in a time loop, because man what a fucked up place to raise a child. I guess they wanted to pretend it could just be Henry’s imagination for a while there to hedge their bets, but why not have Henry say “I was in the same class as that kid last year and now he’s still 9 and in third grade and I’m 10 now, what more proof do you need??” (And then Regina starts insisting he skipped a grade or something). I’m not anti-Regina at all, but lady you cannot raise a child and have him be the only person that ages and expect him to grow up normal.

5. I was on Regina’s side re Emma not being allowed to come into Henry’s life up until Regina started doing illegal shady shit to try to force Emma to leave. That’s obviously the point, but she really shot herself in the foot.

6. …I feel so bad for Graham. Poor guy. He’s the one sticking point that I wish Regina had ever made up for or felt bad about. She’s super sympathetic until you remember she literally had a sex slave who she then murdered. I mean, she’s the evil Queen, I did not expect her to behave otherwise. They just really wanted to quietly forget about it when they wanted to redeem her. Also, was Graham’s wolf dragged along to the curse—was the wolf cursed, too? Or did the wolf spend 28 years running around the woods, trying to figure out what happened to Graham and why his brother didn’t come to the woods with him anymore? The wolf also made Emma stay in town the first night, so my gut says “the wolf knew what was up”. Ugh, if I was writing the show I would have made Graham’s spirit survive death by going into his wolf and then bring him back later, like a certain wolf-bonded man from another fandom I love, but ugh it’s fine. I feel bad for him, but the character was clearly designed to flirt with Emma and then die.

7. I also think it’s fucking wild that, while cursed, Rumple somehow managed to procure for Regina a child that was both the son of the breaker of the curse and his grandson. I expect it’s a function of the breakability of the curse that Emma’s son was brought in—that perhaps Rumple was aware of that when he was going to lengthy measures to set up a trigger for his memories and everything else. I guess, within what I remember of the show thus far, Henry being his grandson and thus his downfall is the price he’s paying for constructing this elaborate curse manipulating generations of people to get his son back? Idk, we’ll see.

8. So like… if most people are cursed in a specific way that denies them what they love most, and some people definitely had details specifically curated by Regina personally, and Regina also had to go out of her way to make sure and curse Jefferson and Whale, because they weren’t in Fairy Tale Land at the time… well, I’m just wondering whether Whale’s cursed womanizer personality is because it’s amusingly apt for Dr. Frankenstein, or if it’s something Regina designed for him specifically because she saw him as breaking her heart, or something.

9. Not really feeling any ships atm. I never shipped Swan Queen, but periodically a scene between Emma and Regina will make me go “…okay I get it.” In theory I ship Emma/Graham, but mostly I shipped it because I loved him and felt so bad for him. Snow and Charming are precious, but I never found there to be much point in shipping them because they’re so canon, and they’re not the type of couple I find most intriguing. I should note that I was always actively against Emma/Hook, and really Emma/anyone; I wanted her to take more time for herself. I loved Neal, but didn’t particularly care whether he ended up with Emma, and felt that reducing him to a point on a love triangle is what made the writers get rid of him despite there being SO MUCH MORE they could do with him. I used to ship Whale/Ruby, we’ll see how I feel about that this time but I do still believe it was being set up for a while. And I still ship Rumple/Belle and Will/Ana. We’ll get there. I am sort of hoping I will spot new ships to ship as I go along, but perhaps not because I do know how things go for the most part.

And that’s all so far. I really don’t know that anybody will care, but I like giving my little reports if I cannot muster up the wherewithal to actively liveblog.

A few gifs describing Rumple because they amused me:

[laylabeff1]

For me it was Wide Awake Princess (literally my childhood but nobody else read it), Land of Stories, Whatever After, Descendants, Fairytale Reform School (most underrated book series ever), OUAT, Twisted Tale books, OUATW, Villains (books by Serena Valentino still obsessed)

The School for Good and Evil (Somain Chainani) to Ever After High to Descendants to The Land of Stories (Chris Colfer) to Once Upon a Time pipeline is REAL and needs to be talked about more

[lisanamjoon]

watching naveen andrews in the newest episode of cleaning lady made me think back to lost, of course, but more so about how fantastic he was as jafar in once upon a time in wonderland (which is where i think i saw him last lol). that show had immense potential and i wish we could’ve seen more of it

[atlantisview]

peter gadiot is one beautiful ass man whew

[terreisa]

Isn't the ending of OUATW sometime in the future? So, there's a chance Will and Ana will reunite.

No and yes? I can’t quite remember the details but I’m pretty Alice’s story ended in Victorian times even though the main events of the show ran parallel with OUAT.  I also kind of remember in an interview that A&E said that something happened after OUATiW that brought Will back to Storybrooke and into Belle’s life. But we’ll never find out.  EVER!

[garr9988]

OUaTiW’s choice of characters and their integration into the story, touched up with OUaT’s signature tweaked or wholly original backstories, is absolutely brilliant and immaculate in my opinion. Spoilers below.

One of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters, left behind after Cinderella’s happy ending, longs for happiness of her own but is still instilled with her mother’s vain and toxic values.

She gets her own fairy godmother in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts - which the show already established as a woman who, like her, wanted to claw her way out of the gutter and get her daughter on the throne, to live the life she wasn’t born with. The Queen of Hearts takes this stepsister as her own and molds her into a queen of her own, Wonderland’s Red Queen. In doing so, she instills the stepsister with toxic values even further, an evil godmother. And both she and the Red Queen dress in red, contrasting the blue of Cinderella’s dress and Disney’s godmother’s cloak (and the evil Red Queen eventually becomes the good White Queen, which parallels Cinderella’s wedding dress when she gets her happy ending)

The Red Queen stepsister comes from humble beginnings after leaving her mother, and has to get by by being a thief, with the help (and love) of Will Scarlett of Robin Hood’s Merry Men - the surname speaks for itself. Will Scarlett, a notorious thief, is made into Queen of Heart’s Knave, who in his original story was a thief that stole the Queen’s tarts. It helps that the hearts suit is red, too. And in Disney’s first sequel to Cinderella, one of the stepsisters (the one in pink with red hair, a precursor & reference to being the Red Queen) is in love with a common baker.

Jafar is, well. Dressed in lots of red. I’ll admit I haven’t watched the Disney Aladdin movie in a while so I forget a lot of his original story. But he seeks to take the throne, and OUaT’s backstory establishes him as someone abused and cast out by their parent like OUaT’s stepsister, giving them common ground.

Jafar’s endgame naturally required a genie, and so that’s naturally who he’s still after here, which would naturally make the genie in question a protagonist. And since we want the Knave to be with the Red Queen, it’s sensible to pair him up with Wonderland’s staple protagonist, Alice.

When Jafar gains the Genie, he forces Jasmine to wear a red outfit. Jasmine, the princess (but a good one who, like Cinderella, wears blue, in contrast to the Red Queen) is in a relationship with the lowly thief Aladdin (the Red Queen and Will Scarlett even have a balcony scene!).

Is some of this, like some instances of color symbolism, a stretch? Maybe. But they all line up pretty well and makes for great serendipity!

love how for once upon a time in wonderland they were like yes yes alice. all our other main characters are going to be random assorted fairy tale characters tho <3 and it SLAYED THE HOUSE DOWN. I WOULD NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY

[ikindamaybewanthertositonmyface]

Only three little screencaps of Rose Reynolds Alice from the OUAT Season 7 trailer and I already love her more then I ever did the last OUAT Alice.

Also is it just me or does she have a bit of a disheveled look? If so then I guess her Alice also incorporates more of the madness of Wonderland then the entire OUATW show did and I love it.

[vigilantewives]

(1) The show generally doesn't do break-up it's official pairings. Really, the closest thing you can call a break-up is if one partner dies, and even then, it always doesn't stick. Will and Ana, Hook and Emma, Charming and Snow, all had one of them die, and they came back. The only deaths of a couple that stuck were Daniel, who wasn't that important, Neal, and they weren't even together when he died anyway, Hades, which was used to start Zelena's redemption, and Robin, and they still brought an

(2) au version of him back. Even considering how toxic Rumbelle's become, Belle and Gold are STILL technically together. As for Will and Ana, I believe that the OUATW takes place many years in the future, so Will and Ana will reunite someday. And none of those couples even came close to the slow-burn and epicness of captain swan. A&E and ABC are not stupid enough to destroy that just because one part of their most popular pairing isn't coming back. At most, Emma's gonna be missing or banished.

(3) And assuming Colin stays, Hook's storyline will probably be about him searching for Emma, with Jen's single episode appearance, them being reunited again. After all, A&E just LOVES separating those two.

Yeah OUAT is not that show that continuously pulls this couple together just to put them back together. There is none of that 3rd wheel angst nonsense on this show. Emma and Baelfire were never gonna happen, regardless of what anyone says. It always was gonna be Emma and Hook, that was A&E’s plan from the very beginning.

As for Hook, I don’t know exactly what they’d do with him. I love them together, I love them individually. I just don’t know what they’d do with his character after s6 ends. I mean, he’d pretty much lose all the dynamics that matter. You’d lose Captain Swan, Captain Charming, Captain Snow - if it is to be believed that Gosh aren’t returning. You’d probably lose his enemy relationship with Rumple - if Robert was leaving. 

We know Regina doesn’t like him, and no one would watch those two arguing 24/7. I rather gouge my eyes out tbh. 

What the hell would he do?

[killianjonesaf]

So to sum it up series finale is Sunday. Once upon a time villians spin off is in the fall with redeemed villian, thinks they are redeemed villian, dosent want to be redeemed villian. And A&E learn nothing from OuatW. That about right?

pretty much? i honestly have no idea what season 7 will be and don’t really care except for the fact that killian jones exists in it. thats literally the only reason i’ll *maybe* be watching

[ao3feed-sonsofanarchy]

Crusadedean's Countdown to Christmas Writing Challenge

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2L2B1JE

by crusadedean

A Christmas writing challenge, read to learn all of the details on how to get in on all of the writing fun!

Words: 367, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: The Vampire Diaries (TV), Supernatural, The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018), Once Upon a Time (TV), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV), Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead (TV), Grey's Anatomy, Shameless (US)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other

Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel, Sam Winchester, Jax Teller, Opie Winston, Daryl Dixon, Rick Grimes, Luke Crain, Theo Crain, Meredith Grey, Cristina Yang, Alex Karev, Damon Salvatore, Stefan Salvatore, Elena Gilbert, Caroline Forbes, Klaus Mikaelson

Relationships: Original Character - Relationship, Ships - Relationship, OTP - Relationship, Reader - Relationship

Additional Tags: SPN - Freeform, tvd, Shameless, twd, SOA - Freeform, thohh, OUAT - Freeform, ouatw, ga - Freeform, crusadedeanscountdowntochristmas

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2L2B1JE

[glowyjellyfish]

OUAT Rewatch Report Part 7: Into the Deep through The Cricket Game, and Bad Blood through Dirty Little Secrets

I stalled so much on making a post that I ended up mushing two sessions into one post! Whoops.

1. I adore how Jafar’s father issues are paralleled with Alice. And it’s really intriguing to me that all the major villains in both shows so far are motivated by love—more accurately, by the loss of love. The more redeemable villains are the ones who open themselves to finding love again and changing themselves to earn it. Jafar’s motivated by having his love for his father spurned and betrayed, and it fascinates me how vicious they both get towards one another. The Sultan in the present day seems like a reasonably good guy, and we’re given little to no concrete motive for his murder of Jafar—it’s not hard at all to read between the lines and see that he was protecting his son from a bold, smart, ambitious bastard that even if he meant no harm could easily be used by someone who did, and it’s still so interesting that he has zero regrets in the present, no apparent concern that he made Jafar who he is. It’s understandable, seeing who Jafar is now, and it’s also not hard to assume Jafar might have been less cruel if his father was nicer to him, but he still would have been bold, ambitious, smart, and burning to prove himself. It does make me wonder what Jafar’s mother was like.

2. I love team Rumple-Regina-Charming-Henry doing magic alchemy and working together. Rumple’s always so nice to Henry, understandably, and it’s wonderful to see Regina and Henry together and see her working at showing love for him rather than clutching him posessively.

3. what’s with all the magic compasses, that’s the third magic compass there has been in this universe.

4. it’s great how Cyrus quickly figures Ana out and places his trust in her; really, the show had to have SOMEBODY on her side in order to keep her around Will and Alice, but it was well done, and I like that Cyrus gets positioned with Ana when we recently had Alice paralleled with Jafar. You’d expect the male hero to be paired with the male villain, while the heroine and villainess pair off, but this show went with what worked for the characters.

5. it’s kind of funny how OUATW has the three genies coming from Agrabah, with no mention of any others even existing, while regular Once also had a completely different genie from Agrabah in his own lamp. Obviously, Amara had her reasons to only seek out these three genies, but… did Jafar ever find other genies that weren’t the three brothers and discard them? I mean, Sydney became a mirror no more than maybe ten years ago (ignoring the curse years), and wasn’t a genie anymore at that point, but Jafar’s been looking for genies for a good chunk of his life (albeit we don’t know how old he is, or how old he was when Amara told him about the genies). It would be odd for the three genies plus Sydney to be the ONLY genies anyway, so I have to assume that Amara’s spell insists upon those specific genies that the show was just too vague about. The other option I can think of, that would answer some things but also cause its own problems, is that there are two different Agrabahs—one that’s a region in Fairy Tale Land, another that’s a world of its own. That would explain how it escaped the curse, but I doubt it works overall.

6. It’s fascinating to get Cora’s Wonderland backstory in between OUATW episodes. Cora seemed to feel she ruled Wonderland, and so did Ana, and yet I know they co-existed for a long time! Probably Wonderland is just a chaotic mess of little kingdoms everywhere, and Cora grabbed one for herself, and Ana happened to luck into a larger one, but it’s funny how both talk like they rule all Wonderland.

7. So, yes, Hook was deliberately being completely sincere when he was adventuring with Emma, including the part about being willing to follow whoever would get him to his goal. I think he was also using his charm and swagger to try to get her to like him enough to trust him, or at least wear down her defenses. And he probably would have preferred going with the heroes because he’s not stupid, Cora is clearly dangerous even to those close to her, while the heroes are honorable enough that all he’d have to do is play nice and he’d be pretty safe. But he also just does not give a single shit about anything but his revenge at this point, and he has absolutely zero qualms about anything he might have to do to get there. Nice and manipulative? Cruel and aggressive? Whatever gets the job done. He’s also pointedly honorable in a way appropriate to Hook (well, a version of Hook that is a bit of a weenie imo), but while I appreciate the show using “good form” a few times, sometimes they don’t seem to understand what it means. No, OUAT, it has nothing to do with sword form, what are you smoking?

8. it’s a bit hard to take seriously how single-mindedly Hook pursues revenge for the death of his true love for centuries, knowing that in like a season he’ll be making googly eyes at Emma for real, but it does at least tie back to my note about redeemable villains being the ones capable of finding love again. And it also does make sense considering that he spent most of that time in Neverland, and it isn’t hard to conclude that not aging in Neverland would also hamper one’s ability to mature, change, and grow even if one is already fully adult. Definitely does not seem like a healthy place to grieve.

9. I complained a lot about the split seasons back in the day, but honestly in this rewatch, this first half of s2 is pretty well done. Fairly tightly written, where even plots that seem like filler either come back later or contribute to the theme or character development. A solid theme, as I described, and it just barely manages to juggle three plot threads (Storybrooke, Fairy Tale Land, and Flashbacks) without staying away from any one plot for too long or dragging too much—although it does come close to dragging. And it’s setting up a lot for the second half of the season, too. Aurora and Mulan are good characters, and on top of that they are useful to the plot, filling needed roles and making them unique and memorable. It didn’t even drop the ensemble cast like s3a does in my memory, and managed to give several minor recurring characters their own arcs. I love to talk about what I would want to change about this show, and right now I’m not sure I would change a thing. Well… I might give Hook a wig or at least long hair. He can lose it in mourning, just give him his dignity! And it’s tempting to say I would tone down his obnoxious hitting on Emma (well mostly Emma), but I feel like I need to rewatch more and figure out his character wholly before making sweeping decisions like that. It’s not that I think this half-season is perfect; it doesn’t have any great wham episodes like Red-Handed or Skin Deep or anything, but to me, it doesn’t have any glaring flaws that any fic writer could do better with, and it doesn’t have anything incredibly stupid like Dreamy. Just standard nitpicky flaws, character flaws, and bad CG in a pretty respectable half-season.

10. Super love Ana getting kidnapped and almost murdered for being a bad queen, and her emotional reaction to that. It’s the sort of thing I wish Regina had to face, but then again Ana never got as bad as Regina, and there’s no evidence one way or the other how Regina did at ruling. OUAT works hard to sell Regina changing, and it’s not that I think she isn’t, it’s that all her change has been “behaving herself” and very little “making amends” or “admitting she wronged people”. The two shows reflected one another, showing Regina trying to change in one, followed by Ana struggling to redeem herself in the other. I love that Ana recognizes and owns up to all her mistakes, and not just the ones that cost her directly. I love that she comes up with a plan to do better and be better for everyone, on the assumption that it’s not even possible to win Will back anyway. And I love that it’s not easy, that she still has to face all the shit she’s done, and all the darkness and shallowness inside her head. Regina’s feelings are always great, and in this rewatch I did notice that her time living in Storybrooke with Henry had already changed her quite a bit, even if she’s quick to revert when threatened, but I wish there was more struggle with her redemption. Regina’s redemption feels very black and white. She’s either behaving herself and deserves to be fully accepted immediately, or she’s totally murderous and rejecting everybody before they can reject her. There is no in between, nobody talks about the possibility of making real amends with the townspeople or anything. Maybe it just speaks to her forceful and dramatic personality.

11. Episodes in this section are what inspired my theories about how genie magic works. Of course, it’s impossible to tell from what is given whether the magic was so cruel because it was inflicting a price for extravagant and impossible wishes, or if it might be because it was filtered through Will’s cynically heartless ass and his perception of things, or possibly both. I mean, logically, the magic definitely understood and followed his intent when he made his wish, because that could have easily been creatively misunderstood and led to Alice’s death. I could posit a theory that the only way to truly end Alice’s suffering included defeating Jafar, which meant there had to be a replacement genie to reach that point… but I’m not sure whether magic is that farsighted or sensible.

12. I really liked Emma being the one willing to reach out to Regina, showing that what Regina did to everyone is less real to Emma than to them; that Emma recognized how much Regina loves Henry and that she was willing to put him above everything else; and that Emma doesn’t see herself as being that much better a person.

13. Season 2 has been reminding me that I really wanted to ship Regina and Archie back in the day. I don’t think I got to the point of actively shipping them; Robin Hood was fine and clearly more her type. I just loved that Archie was nice to her and wanted something to come of that. Of course, during s2 that would be a tad unethical, but still.

14. I haven’t been actively trying to update my Unexpected Disney Songs For OUAT Characters playlist, but it has occurred to me that Surface Pressure is an excellent Emma song, probably much better than any of the songs I had for her before.

15. I think avoiding Alice’s questions about his backstory is the most intriguing Cyrus ever was; I don’t think he’s boring like some other people I could mention, but he was emphatically not the reason I tuned in, adoring literally every other character significantly more. I do love the way his backstory fits perfectly with everything we’ve seen him do, and I found it very interesting that OUATW explored some of the aftermath—what happens after they find each other and get to be together, and it wasn’t afraid to show them having to figure out the reality after putting each other on pedestals for so long.

I struggled a bit with finding a good collection of gifs this time, and decided to just scrape together a set describing Emma. I can probably do better, given time; I think Leela will be a great source for Emma-like incorrect quotes.

[ao3feed-castiel]

Crusadedean's Countdown to Christmas Writing Challenge

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2L2B1JE

by crusadedean

A Christmas writing challenge, read to learn all of the details on how to get in on all of the writing fun!

Words: 367, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: The Vampire Diaries (TV), Supernatural, The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018), Once Upon a Time (TV), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV), Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead (TV), Grey's Anatomy, Shameless (US)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other

Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel, Sam Winchester, Jax Teller, Opie Winston, Daryl Dixon, Rick Grimes, Luke Crain, Theo Crain, Meredith Grey, Cristina Yang, Alex Karev, Damon Salvatore, Stefan Salvatore, Elena Gilbert, Caroline Forbes, Klaus Mikaelson

Relationships: Original Character - Relationship, Ships - Relationship, OTP - Relationship, Reader - Relationship

Additional Tags: SPN - Freeform, tvd, Shameless, twd, SOA - Freeform, thohh, OUAT - Freeform, ouatw, ga - Freeform, crusadedeanscountdowntochristmas

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2L2B1JE

[thedisdainfullysilentvisitor]

Anastasia’a fashion sense, Cyrus’ accent and Will’s sass are my only reasons for watching OUATiW 

[camillewing]

apparently millie bobby brown was in once upon a time in wonderland