and I mean virtue signaling, holier-than-thou, we-are-right-because-we-are-heroes insufferable

they truly are

sorry I just can't ? get on board with Belle popping into the show and dictating to Gold what's right and wrong after seeing his life for like a handful of days. It's a bad message.

1. Don't be with someone if you don't like how they are. Go be with the person you want, not the one you wish the current person was.

2. The animated Belle didn't do this ? Like. She kind of let the Beast just do what he do, as long as he respected her own boundaries? Yes, this is Gold and not the Beast, but from Belle's characterization

it's just so preachy

and d u d e

the whole Regina-Henry-Emma situation is fucking wrong from Emma's side.

you gave up a child. You do not go into that child's life and argue that you're his REAL MOTHER (TM), undermining his adoptive parent. Thanks ABC for delivering that not cool message.

"I don't like how you're raising him so I'm going to create THIS SITUATION and the audience will sympathize with me"

And I'm pretty sure past season two, the "But we're the heroes" whine becomes a repeated delivery, and as I've mentioned before: if you need your characters to keep insisting they're the good guys in every other episode, either they aren't clearly being portrayed as the heroes

or your writing is terrible

or both!

^^^^^^

I've only ever half watched like half an episode but I've never been super tempted to delve deeper, nor am I now

Gold is the only remaining interesting character in this show and I swear to god, they even managed to fuck up robert carlyle's efforts to tap dance around everyone else's stilted acting

by failing to write any kind of interesting or believable character growth that isn't completely demolished three episodes later.

('Remaining' because god damn it I love Red and Graham and Jefferson but oops. They all vanish.)

I'd say the first season is okay but I'm actually not very cool with the slut-shaming thrown at Snow White, who gets to be the town homewrecker because David lies to her and says he told his wife he was in love with her

two thumbs up

I started watching this because I wanted to see some Robert Carlyle action but ftlog I may just go watch The Full Monty thirty times.

While I'm here I'm going to grouse that I dislike the stance that power somehow equals evil. I really don't hold with the idea of absolute power corrupting absolutely, and I think that it's kind of a shit stance OUAT takes about magic, power, and the nature of evil.

Yes, people with power can use that power for horrific purposes. I don't think that they are drawn to those horrific purposes because they acquired power.

What I'm trying to say here is OUAT has a lot of moral black and white and no nuance, and I really dislike that. It's simplistic and lacks understanding of human nature. It's also dispassionately sterile in a way. If everything is divided into good and evil in the very specific way it's done in OUAT, there's no room for humanity.

see also: my dislike of blind cancel culture.

aand that is my vent for the month. Thank you for coming.

actually one more thought and it is: how much cooler would Gold have been if he had been allowed to remain a Totally Neutral Trickster God archetype???

please god nuance ;.; like hello ouat you had plenty of seasons to complicate the duality nonsense but instead it seems to be. no let us keep hammering! the same! notes! and stringing characters along according to What The Plot Says rather than anything like. anchored or growing in the character. or as far as i've seen/heard ugh

also yeS please that archetype ;.;.;.

also enri is best belle

Belle never did half the filthy things he does.

...You know what, I take that back and apologize to Belle. Readers are freaks.

ehehehhehe yeah i

believe this

stilL

enri wins

lways

...always

and i feel like there are reasons like 89% of what i watched of ouat didn't stick with me. and what you've said connects to a lot of those reasons :/

o o ps

i remember Gremlin. and a few other moments or like. looks.

i'm watching this just. Making a face because clearly Gold is the only adult in this town

also I'm on the episode Killian appears in and I still don't know why fandom shat itself over him other than the leather pants and guyliner

(this IS reason enough)

ahahaha is he uhhh hook or pirate or whatever?

yuh

and gold being the only adult is
super apt and also
worrisome guys hmmmm

oh my god isn't Gold's father Peter Pan

i also remember like 0% things about hook and oh my goD IS HE

i didn't get far enough for that i think whaT

THIS SHOW IS SO INCESTUOUS AND WEIRD in the best places and then just

sigh

so much that could have been so much more interesting :c

oh my god Gold is the crocodile I FUCKING FORGOT THIS

yeah man I peaced out on that show after 1) the 'bio parents have the higher/better claim to raising the child' thing and 2) the fact that Regina was non-conning THE HELL out of the sheriff/the wolf and like NOBODY HAD A PROBLEM WITH THAT EVER

Me, looking around in concern: that-that's rape tho, is nobody gonna-? no? no one? yikes.

OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO RANT ABOUT THAT

mistakesweremade: I was on a ROLL about that to sewerwolf the other day

THAT WAS 100% RAPE AND NO ONE QUESTIONED IT OR SAID SHIT ABOUT IT AND THERE WERE NO REPERCUSSIONS

but i guess tee hee women can't rape men

no means no unless you make it so the person is literally incapable of saying no and then it's okay

oh wait that's literally what date rape drugs do HM

RIGHT I WAS AGOG AT THAT SHIT

husbot continued to watch the show through, and I would check in occasionally and go "oh, are they still trying to reframe Regina as a hero, as if she didn't used to rape a dude? Yes? Cool bye"

yeah at no point does she ever answer for it.

Like tbh I think Graham is just...never mentioned again???

Caught that wildness on the first watch, caught it this time, still just too horrified for words that Disney allowed that.

It was so unnecessary

g o d yeah just????
??????
the absolute hell :/

RIGHT THE FACT THAT THIS OCCURS ON ABC FAMILY/DISNEY

transilience: there it is

W O W

it's so fucking tonedeaf and just really reinforces how deep the belief that 'women can't rape' truly runs

I wish I could make some excuse like "it was a different time"

but it wasn't

:|

There's no excuse; the show just had some shitty writing and they didn't care.

the only thing this show ever did that I applauded was the casting for Snow and Emma, because I had been mixing those actresses up for YEARS

Me: AHA! someone else had the same problem!

VINDICATION

I had never seen Snow's actress before OUAT but I liked Emma's on House

The writing on this show did them no justice.

Giancarlo Esposito is a better actor than the writing they gave him too ;.;

god I completely blocked out the fact that he was in this

I adore him ;.;

I mean I hope he has not done something in the intervening years to disappoint me but I met him / sat beside him on a flight from Italy to New York and he was just the most delightful

oh dang!!!

awww!

He wanted to talk about his family and about the documentary he was making and it was just. The most chill. And he wasn't really a Big Name yet so seeing him making stuff like Breaking Bad is like

small pride moment good job giancarlo ;.;

he is a DELIGHT to loathe on Mandalorian I gotta say

YES THAT TOO

I was so excited to see him in it!!

so many recent SW villains have been weaksauce edgelords

and then here's Gideon like "out of my way tryhards"

he's fantastic

He plays an incredible villain because he's really just an honest to god gentleman.

Charming as fuck.

he sounds lovely ;;

Small thing I remember is he was wearing a fedora when we disembarked (he took his hat off while indoors ;. and had it cocked over one eye and tbh he's still the only person I've ever met who could pull that off without looking like a douche.

M'lady types wish they were that.