This is an interesting idea but it brings up some questions (that have been circling around for awhile…)
Questions which are pointless. 😀
If you think about it, this entire concept (and possibly the concept of OUAT itself) raises deep, philosophical (and obviously pointless) questions. Do all stories exist in a parallel universe? Is there any such thing as imagination, or is all fiction based on something that really happened? What is reality? What if multiple stories featuring the same character contradict each other?
Anyway, I shall stop with all this pointlessness now, and just state that I am curious about what made these people want to ‘pause’. I do hope it’s more than fear of not having a happy ending. That makes them seem a bit spineless.