#when I remember how amazing Emma Snow David Rumple and Belle were before Kitsowitz and these writers ruined them

[gch1995]

A part of me feels like doing a rewatch of OUAT S1-3A on Disney+ and/or Hulu, but the other part of me is shying away from that idea because I feel like I'm probably going to end up crying my eyes out of heartbreak over the sheer feelings of bitterness and betrayal towards A&E and the writers of this show for making the dumb choice to kill off Neal in 3B, and then systematically destroying and retconning Rumple, Belle, Rumbelle, Snow, David, Snowing, Emma, and even Henry from the end of 3B-S7 because Kitsowitz and these writers clearly ran out of story to tell after the Neverland arc, and because these writers got a boner for Captain Hook/CS.

It's just that I really loved the Rumple, Belle, Rumbelle, Snow, David, Snowing, Emma, and Henry of S1-3A. Yes, they were flawed, but not in ways that ever felt cheaply shocking, cartoonish, ooc, one-dimensional, and/or stupid.

I related to their insecurities of not feeling worthy of love. I related to their tendencies to push people away because they didn't want to get hurt, and/or they didn't want their loved ones to get hurt because of them. I related to their introversion. I related to their desires to be better people. I related to their internal moral struggles with fighting the temptation to take the easy way out by being selfish to protect themselves, protect their loved ones, and/or find their loved ones, even if it meant that others might/would get hurt in the process, which we got to see play out on screen. I related to their awkward and witty senses of humor. I admired their bravery, their curiosity, their intelligence, their great capacities for love and selflessness, and while I didn't approve of their bad choices and/or crimes, it usually made consistent, relatable, and sympathetic sense as to why they were driven to make them out of desperation, fear, a desire to protect their loved ones, and/or a desire to be close to family again.

I quit watching after S5 because I couldn't stand the most of the writing choices for anyone in the main cast anymore, and, while I know that Emma, Rumple, Belle, Snow, David, and Henry all got "redemption" arcs and "happy endings" tacked on at the end, I still didn't feel emotionally invested anymore in their canon because everything that once made them relatively compelling, consistent, dynamic, and relatable characters and/or relationships had been completely destroyed by increasingly cheaply shocking, contrived, inconsistent, flanderdized, wildly ooc, melodramatically toxic, and stupid character assassinating bad writing choices one times too many throughout the end of 3B-S7.

Plus, no one in the remaining main cast really ever experienced any sort of growth after the Neverland arc, anyway. They just got character assassinated and/or retconned multiple times in increasingly contrived, ooc, and stupid ways , so that they could force them all to have Aesop's Amnesia (learn the same lessons over and over again) , which ultimately led them back to the exact same places they had already ended up at in "Going Home" (3x11) at the end of S6-S7, anyway.

Unfortunately, like I said before, I didn't care anymore about canon because they had all been destroyed by inexplicable character assassinating bad writing one too many times, both individually and as couples.

I'm tempted to do a rewatch of S1-3A because I don't want to acknowledge the bullshit on screen that came after in the next four-and-a-half seasons to be canon, but I'm worried that I'll just start sobbing my heart out when I remember how much Kitsowitz and these writers destroyed really beautiful, relatable, and complex characters and relationships, so that they could essentially reboot the show centered around Hook/CS, cheap shock value, recycled plots, and nonsensical and painfully character assassinating magical soap opera melodrama garbage instead.