#this makes them canon

[swanqueen-is-the-story]

Okay, here's the thing... I've always LOVED the big coma theory from Operation Out...

BUT THIS RIGHT HERE makes the show MORE SWAN QUEEN!!

Like, I totally understand why people hate coma theories, I hate it too most of the time 'cause it sort of erases everything that happened in a show or a book, and makes it a dream.... But, that's not the case with OUAT, and I LOVE THAT! Like, yes, give me MORE TO CHEW ON!

All the emotions are not erased by this theory, and I love that the Swan-Mills family is still THE HEART OF THE SHOW!

This opens up the possibility of so much Swan Queen that we haven't witnessed but that's told metaphorically... Like, maybe in the beginning, Emma was not very responsive, but then she's kinda back and forth, so she isn't completely cut off from Regina and Henry.

She's sometimes moving and talking. So Emma and Regina are interacting, they just have to work super hard for it... like they're on opposite sites of the town line.

Or imagine Regina mocking an Emma who says weird fairy tale sentences... and a Regina who is so lonely that the only person she comes to talk to is a woman who is half-conscious... because it's safe. But then still being snarky about it like:

Sidney: The only thing I really learned was that she doesn’t like to sit still. Regina: Well, that appears to have changed.

OR

Regina (to Emma): Well, you covered this room. I suggest you branch out.

And then, the half-conscious woman is completely in love with Regina against her own better judgment because this asshole is not being precious with her like everyone else. And Regina goes from little sarcastic interactions to starting to look at Emma and really seeing her... she's listening to the weird things she says, she's trying to go to where Emma is, understand what she's saying with all her fairytale adventures. She fucking likes her, in spite of being in different realms, and feels like she knows her... profoundly. And that's holy CANON.

Video: YouTube

Like, I love Swan Queen still after all these years, and the fact that analyzing this show with these new glasses still has the potential to give me new SQ squeal moments is just insane. I am now on the HUNT for hidden Swan Queen moments in other storylines.

Like, one thing I've already noticed is that from the beginning, Regina is "cast" as the love interest every time in the first season. I mean the fact that Sydney is "The Mirror"... literally a reflection of Emma, and he goes, "She's an amazing woman." and then Emma "You're in love with her? Ugh." Like, Emma's annoyed with herself for totally being into this woman... and all of this stuff seems fully intentional. Just when you thought this show couldn't get more gay, it really, really does. And that's an example that's not super evident.... because let's remind ourselves that Swan Queen parallels Snow and Charming ALL THE TIME!!! So where are the other hidden ones, you know? 👀

So anyway, all I'm trying to say is that we should hunt all the Swan Queen that's still left to discover.

SQ really, really is the story.

Analyzing Once Upon a Time

This can't be how the story ends

Since this blog is now as old as Henry in the Pilot, we thought this would be a good time to re-introduce this Once Upon a Time theory to the new kids on the block - and to the old kids on the block, because we have learned a thing or two during the decade we've been researching this concept.

The heart of the theory can really be summed up in one sentence:

"Everything that happened on Once Upon a Time also really happened in our world, and it is all a metaphorical retelling of Emma's life experiences in the past and in the present."

That's the part of the theory that we are certain about. Every episode has a deeper meaning, there is no fluff and together they all form one big story.

Does that mean that the story that we watched, didn't really happen? No, it's more like getting two stories for the price of one. The best metaphor we can come up with is that of lenticular cards.

Remember those little cards that you would twist and then the image would change? It doesn't really matter which one of those two images is real, because they both are. Someone had to draw and print both of them and use the right technique so we could see them both. Usually the images tell a bit of a story when you combine them, but they work perfectly fine as two standalone images.

So what we are doing is simply twisting the card, we're revealing our second story. We've really emotionally invested in these characters and now we're entering an Alternate Universe that was written by the same writers. And that's the real appeal of this theory, to get another story after the show's been off the air for so long, with the characters we know and love, because they are both.

Let's say the genre of the story we watched on television for 7 years is fantasy and the genre of our new AU is magical realism. So take a seat, suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride, because we're about to watch the official trailer of this new ABC show called Once Upon a Time.

If you watch the trailer, you see the idea of the two sides of the story being reinforced. You also hear the voice-over tell us that "someone from our world" needs to save the fairy tale characters while showing an unconscious Emma. This is the moment when the story splits in two.

Once Upon a Time takes place in what Jung called "The Collective Unconscious", or in this case The Enchanted Forest - a place where humankind's stories are real, where the fairy tale characters we know and love live - the world of archetypes.

A metaphorical curse is cast when Emma crashes her car. She loses consciousness and travels to her own subconscious mind. The fairy tale world and Emma's personal world collide and she gradually steals the fairy tale characters to work through her own issues and traumas. This is how the fairy tale characters actually get trapped in our world.

This is why this version of the story is "Magical Realism" - In magical realism, the underlying idea is that the world we currently live in actually has an undercurrent of magic, of intelligence, a magic that expresses itself through uncanny coincidences. We see this in the Pilot. Emma makes a heartfelt wish, and a second later, her long lost son rings the door bell. Unlikely, but possible in our world. When she slams her car door in anger, electric sparks fly and when she looks up at the clock, it's stuck on 8:15. August 15th. The date her long lost son was born. Odd coincidences, but entirely possible.

This magical world, however, is also a world of karma, because she violently knocks a man against his steering wheel earlier in the episode. Later that night, she hits her own head. This was the only way for the hidden magic of our world to grant Emma's wish and to restore her karma. The intelligent universe forced her to confront her demons with the help of age-old archetypes, so she could heal from her traumas, learn the life lessons she needs to allow people like Henry and Regina into her life.

Everything we saw on this show was Emma's real experience during the show's timeline, but the undercurrent of the world she experienced was created by her memories and by everything what's going on in the world around her while she is in different states of consciousness. Like Jefferson points out during "Hat Trick", even fictional stories come from a real place. They come from the writer's emotions and experiences, codified into story.

What we didn't know when we first started writing this theory, was how weird our consciousness really is. Real comas are nothing like movie comas where people just sit up one day. Maybe they need a little bit of physical rehab and then off they go. No, in the real world, people spend days, weeks, months or even years living in between their dream world and reality, trying to make sense of it all. Some people report having no memory of the months after they woke up and after they were up and somewhat functional. Many report strange dreams and remembering conversations that happened around them - except they thought they were participating.

Based on this newfound knowledge, we concluded that Emma was only in a deep coma for parts of the show's timeline. We think Emma's state in this theory closely aligns with what medical professionals call a minimally conscious state (MCS). Sleeping curse victims in an MCS are awake but show limited awareness of their surroundings. They may respond to stimuli, have brief moments of purposeful behavior, or even show emotional reactions to familiar voices or events. While their consciousness seems fragmented, they can form connections between external events and their inner experiences. The show uses David's coma story to tell us what's happening with Emma. He is able to grab Mary Margaret's hand, which he couldn't do if he was in a full coma. That means Emma is sometimes saying words and interacting with the people around her. They can connect with her in meaningful ways. And they do.

The show is peppered with hints that point to Emma's state in the land without magic. Jefferson is one of the characters who is used as a part of her subconscious that is trying to make Emma aware of her situation in the reality realm, but during the second episode, Emma herself gives us a description of the curse that she is now trapped in.

Emma: "So, for decades, people have been walking around in a haze, not aging, with screwed up memories, stuck in a cursed town that kept them oblivious."

What's very important about this description, is the "screwed up memories". The flashbacks about Emma's life that we have seen, are just as metaphorical of the other parts. They did happen, but they didn't happen in the way we saw them happen. The best explanation for how these 'new memories' are created is by looking at one clear example.

The "memory" of Emma giving birth to Henry is actually a metaphorical memory of Henry coming back into Emma's life, through parallels and visual clues. In this new memory, she expresses how she really felt in that moment, in so much emotional pain she could scream, and terrified to be asked to be a mother. This is how all the stories are created.

Much of the show works this way, except unlike during this scene, we haven't seen the original experience that the metaphor is based upon. So to decipher the rest of Emma's memories, all we can do is look at the recurring themes and storylines, as they show what Emma is wrestling with. Season 1 is full of car crashes, because crashing her car in the Pilot is a very recent trauma. Parents giving up children is a recurring trauma, because it matches both her story and Henry's story. This is the translation key to figure out Emma's story. Look at the patterns.

If we listen back to the show's trailer one more time, the theme song that was chosen to represent the show couldn't be more of an invitation to see the reality layer of the story.

Rescue me

Show me who I am

'Cause I can't believe

This is how the story ends

Fight for me

If it's not too late

Help me breathe again

No, this can't be how the story ends

This is Emma fighting for her life in reality. Asking Regina and Henry and the people around her to help her come back to life, because this can't be how the story ends. This can't be how she dies.

Ooookay... so where's the fun exactly?

You may be wondering, what is the appeal? Admittedly, this story is somewhat sad and dark at first glance, but remember when you watched the first season and you were trying to guess the characters' fairy tale identities? You get to do that again, except this time you are trying to guess the real world identities. You get to experience the curse from the inside and it really does feel like you can recapture some of the fun from the first time around.

Once you realize that the memories we saw were warped, many questions bubble up to the surface. How did Henry really find Emma? Who gave him the story book and why? How did he come to his conclusions? Is he the author because he is creating the fairy tales he is reading to Emma? Who are Emma's real parents? Why was she given up for adoption? What really happened to her in foster care? Is Neal really Henry's father or is there more to the story? What is wrong with Emma? Was there something fishy about the adoption? Why is she in and out of consciousness? How do Henry and Regina react? Did Regina really try to kill her? If Regina wasn't actually the evil queen, why did Henry think she didn't love him? Why is everyone suddenly related? Who is Emma Swan? Who is Regina Mills? Who is Henry? And Gold? And Hook?

It becomes a gigantic mystery, a fantastical true crime show. And the more people lend their ears and their eyes to it, the better our chances are to actually solve this very, very weird puzzle. Because as we said, the only part of this theory that we are sure of, is that everything we saw, is all a metaphorical retelling of Emma's life in the past and in the present. We report on the connections we find, the possible interpretations. The recurring themes. The meaningful parallels. We don't claim those are the correct interpretations, because they change as we dig deeper.

So consider this an invitation to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit of knowledge, join in and share your observations, because we would like to see the full picture once we tilt our little card to take another look.

[afterswan]

had a dream Corvus and Soren were my dads. it was all nice and cool until I realized Soren had a beard and I woke up

[ditzybat]

i love the headcannon that both tim and cass look scarily alike, to the point they could be twins.

like they both share the same general lithe build, they’re the same short height, cass has a short bob while tim has his baby mullet, their training is similar due to their backgrounds with lady shiva and the loa, and (depending on your headcanon) both waisan- so i can definitely see instances where they’re confused for each other or where they mess with everyone around them.

cass on patrol in red robin gear so tim can go on a date with bernard:

random thugs seconds away from being one hit k.o’d: yo since when did red robin start melting into the shadows like an eldritch horror?

jason: hey tim -

cass: wrong.

jason: no, im pretty sure you’re tim, i gave you that scar right there in your neck

cass: nu-uh, this is from cain

jason:

cass:

jason: well this got awkward…

steph hugging tim from behind: hey babe

tim: wrong wayne

steph: ew, i should’ve known, your ass isnt nearly as —

tim walking away with his fingers in his ears: lalalalala im not listening to you

damian: i think you’re the only one in this family i respect

tim who has been silently hanging out with him for the past 3 hours: aw thanks damian, i’ve come to love you like a brother too

damian: drake? i thought you were cassandra, my apologies, i retract my previous statement

tim: don’t care, you love me, don’t try to deny it

lady shiva hugging both tim and cass: my beautiful twins, such well trained weapons, unfortunate that you both ended up with cain

bruce pulling his children back: tim isnt yours…

shiva: well that cant be right, he’s s the spitting image of my sister carolyn, and that birth was far too painful to only produce one small child

tim: woah full circle, my drag-sona is called caroline, maybe you are my mom, i wouldn’t put it past janet drake to adopt

bruce: tim no, you’re not even the same type of asian

cass: too late, we’re blood

shiva: see!

[angelbroth]

THEYRE IN LOVE I CANNOT BREATHE IM SHAKING THEY HAD LIKE 5 PANELS OF REP I NEEED MORE

THEY BOTH ARE NEXT TO OR TOUCHING EACH OTHER IN EVERY SCENE IM GONNA BE SICK IM GONNA BE SICKCXKX

[bean-spring]

Hot take and not to be a killjoy or the shipping police but people treating Viktor or Jinx's aroace headcanons as if they were canon is not the revolutionary take people think it is.

Headcanons are always all right but we have to acknowledge that they are somehow damaging when they apply to stereotypes. It might not be the case for everyone but most of the time people unconsciously assume that disability/mental illness=asexuality. These headcanons erase the freedom of attraction from people who are already seen as unable to have sexual/romantic experiences/desires, when it's completely untrue and harmful.

You can headcanon Viktor and Jinx as aroace, but I have seen people changing their minds once Viktor is no longer disabled (s2 with all of his other forms) and Jinx is no longer as mentally ill (alternate universe Powder). And it speaks wonders of how people see these characters.

"I never thought about Jinx being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction until s2!" To believe she's actually only capable of that when she's not "damaged" is incredibly disturbing. Especially since Jinx has always had a bit of a flirty personality too.

"I've always seen Viktor as asexual, I don't know why!" That's fine. You can headcanon him as ace. But I believe there is a reason behind it, most of the time, if for some inexplicable reason the "vibes" of the disabled character are making you think he's ace.

I say all of this being aroaspec myself, by the way. Headcanon all you want but going to people's posts commenting how "it's weird for you that they have romantic/sexual plots when they're clearly aroace" is not a win at all. It's a headcanon, after all, and it should be treated as such, and that's fine. But it also is damaging to spread stereotypes like these.

Of course the disabled character is asexual. Of course the mentally ill character is aromantic. It's not as revolutionary as you might think, tbh.

Fandom is not activism and it's all right to have any headcanons you want BUT some of them are filled with damaging stuff and perhaps we should look into ourselves more before treating these assumptions as something canon.

[siyaazu]

True pacifist ending.

[foundfamilywhump]

the question, you see, is not ‘is it too ooc for this character to cry’ but rather ‘what circumstances would push this character to cry’

this is the whump wisdom, go forth and make that character cry

[httyd-art-requests]

I was contractually obligated to make this tag real, it was simply too adorable

(Not canon to the Toothless in Gravity Falls AU!)

[ID in alt text]

(Alt version and tag screenshot under the cut)

( @mouthsfullofsharpteeth thank you for the tag <3)

[hinamie]

new official illust of them with puppies healed something in me

[cornkernelle]

During an intense art block I took a stab at a couple of canon characters from crk!

[chloesimaginationthings]

Do any of you remember Scott's games before FNAF?

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[astronnova]

danny phantom cast explorations and thoughts :v

[lilianade-comics]

the face of a man who neither regrets his answer nor is aware of his imminent violent demise

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

(Not) an approved use of the Power Of Friendship

[erabu-san]

I enjoyed every second of this quest

[This art has platonic intention. Thank you for not tag ship!]