[Keb]

If I didn’t have so much work to do before then, I’d wish like crazy on every star up there for it to be time to watch Lacey.

But it will be nice reward if I get my work done this coming week.

[Keb]

I’m Keb and I’m 33.

I’ve always loved fairy tales and Disney, so when I heard about Once Upon a Time, I had to watch the first episode air. And it was great and I laughed and was intrigued, so it became the one TV show that I actually watched–but it was no big deal if I missed an episode, because it would be online the next day. Still, it’s the first show I’ve actually paid attention to since there was a Star Trek series on the air, so that was new.

When Skin Deep aired, I started talking about the show to everyone I knew. I knew I’d love the episode as soon as I found out Belle was coming in the promo, and…well…how can you not? (I still think it’s the best episode ever–and one of few that stands all alone very well.)

But I wasn’t obsessed–just a normal fan who could go about my life. By the end of Season One I was predicting that Belle would be important to Season Two, which had me eager to see what would happen, but I wasn’t yet obsessed. I wasn’t seeking out everything I could find about it. Oh no.

That didn’t happen until the Outsider, when I couldn’t get Once out of my head for ten minutes. I started falling asleep with Once in my head, and waking up with Once in my head, and dreaming about Once in between. I’d find myself thinking about it WHILE teaching class. My sister started timing how long it would take for me to bring up Once in conversation. (I actually made it an hour and a half during a dinner out once, but I’m not sure if it counts because I did mention the Disney Version Belle.) And as my obsession consumed me, I started timelining, I found this place and started listening to all the podcasts official and not (and I don’t even like podcasts, because with my hearing loss it’s much easier to read and I always use captioning when I can), I even stumbled into Tumblr. I now have a timeline that’s got just about every event in the series on it (though I am still tweaking it as I rewatch season one), plus ideas for fan videos, a fanfic in progress, and a ton of other stuff in my spreadsheet and about a jillion screencaps and pictures from Once on my computer.

And I still fall asleep thinking Once and wake up thinking Once, running constant theories through my mind.

It is true that the second half of season two coincided with my final semester on my Masters, which may be a strong contributor to my obsession, but it’s bad enough I’m sometimes scared of my own brain. And yet…this show, this fandom…too amazing to let go of now that I’ve found it. I’m gonna scrape through this final semester one way or another, inspired by “When you find something worth fighting for, you never give up.”

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

I think that she was called the original power, but not more powerful. I believe that dark magic is more powerful than anything but true love, because the price is high. Regina had to sacrifice what she loved most to enact the curse, and Rumple’s deals are mostly about making sure he’s not the one paying the full price for what he does (though he, too, lost a lot–including most of his soul and his son–for his power).

I don’t think that BF is capable of paying the price for dark magic, and so her power is far more limited. They’ve said that it requires a pure heart to get her to come, and she seems capable only of granting a very deep wish under particular conditions (like being selfless, brave, and true or whatever–it’s said that August couldn’t have been transformed if he was not).

Also, it’s been suggested that two magic users are stronger than one–Rumple needed Regina’s help to create the portal-block when Cora was coming. Rumple’s also, by far, the most experienced magic user shy of BF, so his shield was probably a lot stronger than Emma’s. Cora and Regina together broke that shield the first time; Cora struggled a lot harder alone with Emma’s second shield.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

Srsly, though, I can’t get over the feels from this clip. My BroTP talking about my OTP. And the worst part is that I will go to a wedding shower out of town the day this airs, so I might not see it live…….gah, dying of feels. This episode will kill me if grad school fails to do so first.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

Took a season and a half for Gold to call in Emma’s favor. So who knows? Anyway, posted it with spoilers blocked in the General area.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

I almost think this theory needs a separate thread…maybe I will make one. The Lacey stuff is spoilery though.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

This one little clip made me tear up and I can’t even hear the whole conversation. This episode is going to have so many feels…

But I’m coming up with a more complex theory on what The Curse personalities were. They weren’t completely opposite–I think it enhanced the weaknesses of each character rather than changing them completely. After all, what’s Belle do in FTL after Rumple kicks her out? She goes and hangs out at the local tavern, drinking and reading (and giving Dreamy advice). Mary Margaret didn’t stop being a caring, friendly person–she just stopped fighting and standing up for herself and always doing the right thing. Archie let Regina make him do things he thought were wrong, going against his conscious–but that’s exactly what his parents once did to him, and exactly why he became a Cricket in FTL.

So I think it’s more complicated and deeper than just a whole different life–I think it does draw out the character’s flaws and makes them act on those flaws instead of in the ways that they overcame those flaws (Belle post-Mulan adventure is much more determined and strong (not that it does her a whole lot of good), Snow finds a way to fight back instead of being sacrificial, Jiminy finds a way to do what’s right…etc.) I’m really interested to see Lacey because I want to see how well this theory holds up.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

Yeah, the creators have suggested several times that Emma and Snow are roughly the same physical age now. So that would put her around 29.

Wreaks havoc with the timeline, though, because that means that Regina was queen from the time Snow was about 10-12 until she was 28ish. Depending on when Leopold was killed (and Snow looked around 18-20 at best then), there could be a decade between the Huntsman releasing Snow and the curse, but most of what we’ve seen of FTL seems to have happened within the last 2-3 years before the curse. Especially tricky are things like Hansel and Gretel who had to have aged at least a year in FTL (the apple was before the marriage and the marriage before the pregnancy and…math) but don’t look one bit older in SB.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

We saw Red teaching Snow how to track. So yeah, she learned those skills on the run.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Keb]

I’ve been trying to make the timeline work for a bit now, and it’s tricky. It can’t have been less than a year that she was imprisoned by the queen, because Snowing’s whole relationship AND pregnancy happened afterwards (Grumpy is our big clue here–Belle saw Dreamy just before she went adventuring and there’s no reason to think her adventure took all that long, and Snow meets Grumpy as Grumpy). And somewhere in there was a big war where Snowing defeated both Regina and George, beyond the things we’ve seen between them. Apparently someone here tried to count the ticks on the wall in Regina’s prison tower to figure out how long Belle had been there, and that’s where the four-year estimate comes from.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

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