OHMIGOSH!!!!! I am obsessed with Once Upon a Time!!!!! I cannot wait for the Miller's Daughter. I have so many theories of what I think will happen!!!

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I do! I'm terribly behind with the second season, though, as I've only seen up to Child of the Moon because real life (though I have been spoiler'd up to Queen of Hearts and JUST started Into the Deep because it's SPRING BREAK YAY! and I have free time. Hook/Cora villain!ship and Cora!zombies FTW, y/y? #BarbaraHershey #ismagnificent). I have... sort of a love/hate relationship with it.

Giant, rambly, vaguely feverish TL;DR ahoy! 

Hands down, my favorite part of the show is Regina. She's easily the most complex and interesting character in the show. And I have a soft spot for formidable woobies and villains and evil women with tragic backstories, and Regina's all three of those in one! :D And I love her Storybrooke arc of becoming gradually more genre savvy and how she keeps going even though this universe apparently hates her guts for... some reason (though from what I understand, she sort of teams up with Cora later on?).

I'm also very fond of Ruby (but not Red), Granny (in both incarations), Rumpelstiltskin (despite his ongoing Villain Decay as of season 2), Belle (<3... and yes I've been spoiler'd about what happens to her, too), Cora (see previous note re: villains), Graham (tragically short-lived though he may have been), and Jefferson (moreso in Storybrooke than the FTR). Henry and Emma are slooooooooowly redeeming themselves in my eyes from my Season One RAEG by not being complete idiots and exposition fairies.

But I loathe Mary Snow and Davidjames (I refuse to call them by their proper names, because I hate them. I am aware of how immature this is, but I don't care). They're boring, and perfect, and smug, and preachy, and they make stupid decision after stupid decision and NEVER LEARN ANYTHING FROM IT, and they have INSTANT TWU WUB (that's one of my beserk buttons), and their relationship is completely tensionless when it isn't being a soap opera. They're the reason I haven't gotten through season 2 yet, because every time one of them appears onscreen I want to punch them in the face and I have to stop watching for a while. Mary Snow had a teensy bit of potential in the beginning when she was all COME ON GUYS LET'S STORM THE CASTLE, but that's forgotten about pretty quickly. They're just... agggh. I don't like them.

I also don't like how soap opera-y the show is (and it's getting worse, from what I've seen of season two). I don't like that everyone must have TWU WUB (although I give them huge, huge points for acknowledging that familial love is just as powerful if not more powerful than romantic love [Emma waking Henry up in the season one finale, Regina being redeemed by the power of her love for her son], because that doesn't happen NEARLY enough). I don't like the lack of subtlety, especially their SUBTLE FORESHADOWING and heavy-handedness with how EEEEEEEEEEEVIL the evil characters are until they start heavy-handedly making them OMGSYMPATHETIC (which is not to say that I don't like Regina's and Rumpel's backstories, which make internal sense and adequately explain their present characters. What I object to is the sudden switching of gears from EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL to OMGSYMPATHETIC, especially in Rumpel's case; Lana Parrilla's fantastic acting set up Regina's horrifically abused past pretty well).

I don't like the hypocrisy. I don't like that Regina is villified for adhering to the law (see: the Hansel and Gretel episode where she was doing what she was legally obligated to do) and for breaking it (see: the Mary Snow-Killed-Kathryn arc, which, admittedly, was incredibly nasty and borderline psychopathic on Regina's part, but I'm still on her side because I hate Mary Snow so much), but Emma can get away with breaking as many laws as she wants—is even encouraged to do so by Purity Sue Mary Snow—even though she's the sherriff (yes, breaking and entering—twice!—is still against the law even if it's for a "good cause"). 

I hate that people are portrayed as incomplete without their ONE TWU WUB, or broken if their ONE TWU WUB dies or otherwise goes away. I said that already but it's a beserk button and I HATE IT so I'm repeating myself. I'm ace, I'm aromantic, and there is nothing wrong with me. Yes, what happened to Daniel is tragic and awful and I don't expect Regina to just get over it, but frankly it's been AT LEAST 40 years and she is JUST NOW starting to move on. I grant that Regina has a lot of psychological issues because of everything her mother did to her, and normally, I'd be fine with someone so obviously damaged having such a hard time recovering from heartbreak like that—but it's played like it was reasonable for her to pine after Daniel to the point of keeping his preserved corpse in her vault for forty years. That kind of obsession is NOT reasonable! It is not normal, it is not healthy, and it's fine to portray unhealthy abnormal obsessions in fiction BUT THEY HAVE TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED AS SUCH! I will readily admit that I *love* dysfunctional, unhealthy, self-destructive relationships and characters in my fiction—I actively ship Regina/Graham for this very reason—but I love them because they're dysfunctional and unhealthy and self-destructive! If they weren't they wouldn't be interesting to me.

The problem I have with Regina clinging to Daniel so hard after so long is that it's not really portrayed as something that *is* unhealthy and damaging, because Mary Snow and Davidjames have the same kind of relationship. So does every major character in a long-term pairing, excepting Belle and Rumpel who have, you know, actual relationship development. Don't believe me? Rewatch the episode where Mary Snow drinks Rumpel's Anti Love potion because she *can't bear* the *pain* of not being with her precious *Davidjames*.

She destroys her ability to love and therefore to function like a normal human being, effectively turning herself into a full blown psychopath, because she can't be with some guy she's known for a year at most. This, like Regina keeping Daniel's corpse, is portrayed as a normal, reasonable, and perfectly healthy response to grief. It's never brought up again. It's never treated like a sign of an unhealthy obsession on Mary Snow's part. It's essentially a device for the writers to say, LOOK HOW MUCH SHE LOVES HIM! SHE LOVES HIM SO MUCH THAT SHE INTENTIONALLY TURNS HERSELF EVIL.

Regina's response to losing Daniel is similar, especially if you accept the "addictive magic/magic makes you evil" angle the writers have been going for.* Except that, unlike Mary Snow, Regina lasts a lot longer under much worse circumstances (abusive mother she can't escape from? borderline-emotionally-abusive marriage? yeah, Mary Snow's problems have nothing on Regina's) than Mary Snow does (probably about eight-ten years, based on the age difference between baby!Snow and adult!FTR!Snow) before turning to magic to solve her problems, and even after Regina uses magic for the first time, she doesn't go nuts and turn into a psychopath immediately. True, the Anti Love potion was a lot more damaging in the short term than just using magic to escape from an abusive situation, but the principle is still the same.

*although, considering that his only applies to EEEEEEEEEVIL magic, I prefer to think that it's less about the magic and more about the sense of control Rumpel and Regina derive from having magic—they're both helpless victims of horrible circumstances before they get their magic, so to them, magic=empowerment and losing magic is like going back to that helpless state. It's not the magic that's addicting, it's the feeling that they're in control of their own lives.

On the other hand, I do like the way Red/Ruby deals with her trauma with regards to Peter. She's not clingy, she's and learnt to forgive herself, she's acknowledged that it's never going to stop hurting and she'll never stop feeling guilty, but that's okay because she's moved on. And, of all of them, she has the most reason to brood over Peter's death because she, you know, killed him. And she doesn't. There's still signs of trauma (like how terrified she was of herself in Child of the Moon), but on the whole she's doing her best to just move on.

Similarly, there's Grumpy, who tells Mary Snow something to the effect of "I need my pain 'cause it's a part of me and it makes me who I am," and of course Mary Snow is stupid and ignores him. The thing is, he's also portrayed as broken because he lost someone he knew for, what, ONE DAY? He breaks up with whatsherface, insofar as one can break up with someone after ONE DATE, and instantly is miserable and, well, grumpy for the rest of his life, and he only starts to get better once he's reunited with his TWU WUB in Storybrooke. That's not how love works. I can understand him being more cynical in the aftermath of the whole "you're a slave, now get back to work" thing the Blue Fairy pulled, but to have a complete personality reversal for, again, LIKE FORTY YEARS because he didn't get to run away with someone he barely knew? I don't buy it. And, of course, his words of wisdom go right over Mary Snow's head and the message I got was "if you break up with someone you have no choice but to (a) be miserable for the rest of your life or (b) turn evil." Um, no.

TL;DR: Anyway the point I'm trying to make is that TWU WUB as portrayed by Once Upon a Time is about as healthy as TWU WUB as portrayed by the Twilight series, and unless the writers of OUaT surprise me and deconstruct the concept properly I am going to be very angry about this. 

DONE NOW, MOVING ON.

All that said, I do, in fact, like the show. Mostly. I'm willing to overlook a lot of things that would otherwise be deal-breakers for me because of Regina, who is one of my favorite fictional characters just in general. And, while I have problems with the execution, I love the idea of fairy-tale characters coming to our world and being confronted with Earth Logic instead of TWU WUB Logic (even though this fails because TWU WUB Logic apparently works in our world, too. >_>).

There's also a very big part of me that needs a OUaT/SyFy's Tin Man/Wildhorn's Wonderland crossover, because Regina, Azkadellia, and Hatter all have Bad Childhood Issues to the point that it's a toss-up as to who had it worse (Regina had a straight-up abusive mother, Azkadellia was overshadowed by her favored little sister and possessed by an evil witch for fifteen years, and Hatter didn't *have* a childhood but instead spontaneously manifested when Alice's parents died and spent the next fifteen, twenty years being a personification of Alice's dark side and receptacle for every negative emotion Alice ever experienced) and they're all evil and do terrible things, and they're all powerful, calculating, manipulative, willing and able to commit murder to get what they want, and severely psychologically broken (although extremely deeply in denial about it, in Hatter's case. "I'm all you wish you were" indeed). I love all three of them, and they'd get on like a house on fire and it would be glorious. So I am writing it. Slooooowly, because I finally managed to write something twisted enough to creep myself out with Hatter/Morris. #OnceUponaTinWonderland

I've heard of it, and am curious, but I've been hesitant, for me myself, and my mom, are very guarded in what I read and watch. So, I have to ask, is there anything unwholsome in it? By that I mean; romance, x-rated scenes, language, gore, and everything else that goes along that line. For really, if there is, I won't watch it. My personal motto, (other than be your own heroine), is Innocence is Bliss! So...

I LOVE the once upon a time shows!! I'm all up to date on them!! Oh I wish I could say something awesome but it would be a spoiler so I won't. I'm glad that I'm not the only one you watches it and likes it.

There's not really gore. The only gore I've noticed is a little tiny bit of blood.

Has anyone seen the promos for The Miller's Daughter?

Okay then. I will consider it, being as, though, I've never even seen it on our guide so...

@ TNO; My mom and I have come to an agreement, that continuous romance is just not healthy for mind or spirit. It just isn't proper to go kissing on tv all the time. And frankly, it's ridiculous. No child, kid, or teenager, for that matter, needs to see or hear that all the time. The Bible clearly states you need to keep your mind and heart on that which is pure and wholesome for you mind and spirit. So that also means things that are dark. Which, for instance, I have yet to see or read The Hunger Games. The Bible talks about keeping your mind on that which is lovely. So that is why I stay away from gore, romance, or things that are really dark.

@TNO (Imagine umlaut): My parents are the same way.