User:Nightlily

"I don't understand. What's the problem with this Lily?"

- Hook

Introduction
"I am the voice of Never, Neverland. The innocence, the dreams of every man. I am the empty crib of Peter Pan. A soaring kite against the blue, blue sky. Every chimney, every moonlit sight. I am the story that will read you real. Every memory that you hold dear."

- "Storytime" by Nightwish

I am Nightlily, and I am one of the administrators on this wiki. And, before you ask, no, my user name is not really based on Maleficent's dark daughter, Lily. Nightlily has been my wiki user name for years; the character name was a fun coincidence. Although I like to joke about it and say that they named Lily after me ;-)


 * While your here, feel free to check out my own personal mash-up of all the timelines from the show. I did my best :-)

Short History Section
"The world is so full of surprises. Let it surprise you."

- Max, Black Sails

I remember the first time I heard about Once Upon A Time. As an avid reader of the Fables comics by Bill Willingham, I was already familiar with the concept of fairytale characters living in exile in our world. I liked the idea of a new, fresh take on this concept, and decided to check out the show. I watched the "Pilot" episode back in 2011, and fell in love with the show immediately. When the DVD was finally released, I showed a few episodes to my parents, and now we enjoy watching the show together. Which is nice to think of, considering how one of the most important themes on the show is family.

They even added a few Scandinavian elements to their story: Bridge Trolls based on the Norwegian folktale "Three Billy Goats Gruff", and characters from "The Little Mermaid" and "The Snow Queen", fairytales by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Which is awesome :-)

Favorite Images
In my eyes, these screenshots are some of the most visually striking images from the show

FAQ
Why do you replace episode screenshots from online sources and DVD with Blu-ray screencaps? I do it for the readers, to give them a better experience, because I think the readers deserve the best experience we can give them. Most of our readers are not users and contributors; the majority of the people who drop by this wiki, are just that: readers. I think the people who read our articles and look at the images, no matter whether they are contributors or just readers, deserve the best quality there is. Believe me, I have absolutely no wish whatsoever to hurt anyone or make them feel like their contributions are worthless, but my opinion is that when you are making a wiki, you should put the reader's needs first, not the creator's.

There aren't many websites that offer galleries with Blu-ray screencaps from Once Upon a Time. Most people do no own the necessary hardware to play Blu-ray on a computer and Blu-ray, for various reasons that I will not go into here, is often more difficult to get screencaps from than other sources. Therefore, most of the Once Upon a Time screencaptures that you find online, come from sources other than Blu-ray. If there happens to be an editor who, unlike most other people on the Internet, has the time, means and inclination to provide the best quality, Blu-ray screenshots you can possibly get, do you think it is right to say, "Oh, you can add new Blu-ray pics, but pics that already exist can't be upgraded to Blu-ray, because that picture is taken?"

It is also important to remember that we are not an image-collector site; we are an encyclopedia, an encyclopedia that is part of Wikia's network. Replacing images is common across the entire Wikia network. It is in Wikia's very nature that any contribution can, and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed. If people don't want their contributions to be mercilessly edited or changed, then Wikia is not for them.

So does mean that you don't welcome other kinds of images? Far from it. I love it when people are willing to take their time to help out and make this wiki better by adding new material, and I appreciate every contribution to our image galleries. Seeing our galleries grow, makes me very happy.

But we all know that you want to be the only image contributor on this website! A user once did accuse me of that, rudely and aggressively, in a chat session... And that is as from the truth as you can possibly get! Why on Earth would I want that? That would be unfair to everyone else, unethical and last but not least, it would be way too much work. No, thank you...

'''But there is iTunes, which is high definition... We don't need Blu-ray!''' I hate to burst your bubble, but you couldn't be more wrong. iTunes 1080p download, the second best image source and a common medium on this wiki, comes very close to Blu-ray, which is impressive, considering that it's only a fraction of the file size. But despite an impressive effort by Apple, Blu-ray still reigns king when it comes to image quality. You don't have to take my word for it; here is an article on the subject. Here is another one. And a third one...

So you plan on replacing every image? Heck, no. That would take ages ;-)

NSFAQ
''Not So Frequently Asked Questions. Done mostly tongue in cheek... Mostly...''

Is there anything you've noticed on the show, that no one else seems to have noticed, that you are willing to share with the rest of us?

As a matter of fact, there is. Am I really the only one noticing that Emma isn't wearing any trousers when she opens the door in this scene...?

You know that the Swan Queen fans are going to be drooling when they read that, right?

I know. Which is the main reason why I haven't added it to trivia.

'''But it can happen! Swan Queen, I mean...'''

OUAT is over and you still think a heterosexual woman who is happily married to the father of her child is going to ditch her husband for Regina?? Wow...

'''But it can! I mea– OUCH!'''

Seriously, if you don't get the heck away from my wall right now, I'll give you another slap. You have been warned...

But–OWW!!!

Told you so! *Evil smirk* Are you Lily?

Yes I am.

Why haven't you answered my question yet?

I probably hate you.

'''Really?!? :-('''

No, just kidding. I try to answer everyone as quickly as I can, but I also have a life, and a job, beside the wiki.

'''Your avatar is pretty. Who is she?'''

She's a Zeltron, a near-human alien species from the Star Wars books. Zeltron culture is highly influenced by sexuality and the pursuit of pleasure in general. They are known for their ability to produce potent pheromones, which enhances their attractiveness and likeability. They also have a limited telepathic ability, used to project emotions onto others. Cool, right?

So, about SwanQueen...

You again?!? OUT, OUT!!!

What's the longest period you've gone without sleep?

48 hours (no, I'm not kidding). I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

You ship Hook and Emma?

Oh, yeah. They have extremely intense chemistry.

But how can you ship Hook and Emma when [insert every bad thing Hook has done in the past] ???

Next question, please.

But seriously... Sit down before you hurt yourself.

And about Swan Queen– GAAAH! *[thud]*

* [Dialing number]* Hi Utter, it's me. I think I just knocked out a user...

Argle bargle I don't like Once Upon a Time, and I need to tell you!!!

Ergodic theory (Ancient Greek: ergon work, hodos way) is a branch of mathematics that studies dynamical systems with an invariant measure and related problems. Its initial development was motivated by problems of statistical physics. A central concern of ergodic theory is the behavior of a dynamical system when it is allowed to run for a long time. The first result in this direction is the Poincaré recurrence theorem, which claims that almost all points in any subset of the phase space eventually revisit the set. More precise information is provided by various ergodic theorems which assert that, under certain conditions, the time average of a function along the trajectories exists almost everywhere and is related to the space average.

What the **** is that?

It's a random paragraph from the Wikipedia entry on "ergodic theory". It makes about as much sense as coming to a wiki about Once Upon a Time and complaining about it.

I don't like your favorite ship/character, and I feel the need to tell you, to get a rise out of you!

The last time I checked, all Wikia users must be 13 years old or over. Please don't make me ask for your ID. Also: Here is a GIF of a bunch of birds. One bird is running around stirring up trouble and accomplishing diddlysquat except to annoy everyone else and turn themselves into a spectacle which everyone then stares at because holy crap, that guy is making a fool of himself...

http://i.imgur.com/kWXjT0f.gif

Silence Enables Injustice
"Silence enables injustice, but that silence stops today."

One of the most important rules on this wiki is that "All users, regardless of status, are required to show the utmost respect to others at all times. No slander, harassment or insults will be tolerated at any time."

Unfortunately, there isn't much to be done when the perpetrator is a bureaucrat who answers to no one and can do whatever they want and get away with it. But there is one thing we can do: Expose them. Silence enables injustice.

On October 20, 2016, the bureaucrat known as Killian Jones abused his position as a bureaucrat by threatening me in our chat room and trying to force me to resign as an administrator by saying that if I wasn't willing to resign voluntarily, he would put it to a community vote. His motif? He was pissed off that I (and the other admins) wouldn't promote a friend of his to content moderator. That got him started. Why couldn't I promote his friend, content moderators have no real power? How was I so much better than his friend? How did I deserve to be an admin any more than his friend did?

Of course, he couldn't use that as an excuse, so his official motif was that I didn't know how to make categories (why would I? At that time, I had never needed to make them before, until then), and suddenly, that meant that I knew too little. Instead of offering to teach me what I didn't know (teaching someone how to make categories is a quick and simple task), like any leader should, he decided that an administrator had to know everything and if you didn't, you should be demoted. Here are screenshots of the threats. Please know that I have the entire conversation saved on my computer as an HTML document (including the part where he gets mad because I didn't want to promote his friend), so if he tries to threaten me again or accuses me of quoting something out of context or making this up, I have no qualms whatsoever about publishing the conversation in its entirety.

Trivia

 * -|User Notes=

User Notes

 * I am a ovo-lacto-vegetarian.
 * I am the proud owner of two very spoiled guinea pigs.
 * I have a Bachelor degree in organization and public administration.
 * My funniest typos on this wiki: "The Curse of the Black Pear" and "Ferry Dust". Lol.
 * Watching the show with my family sometimes leads to funny situations. When me and my parents were watching Season Two, my father kept mistakenly referring to Captain Hook as "Captain Cook"... And my mother keeps getting Robin Hood and Hook mixed up (don't ask me; I don't understand how she does it).
 * My favorite characters are Hook, Emma and Ruby. Emma was actually one of my least favorite character in the first two seasons, due to her "I refuse to smile and prefer to look moody almost 24/7" attitude. But she's evolved since then.
 * My favorite episodes are:
 * "Red-Handed"
 * "The Crocodile"
 * "Tallahassee"
 * "Queen of Hearts"
 * "Good Form"
 * "Going Home"
 * "New York City Serenade"
 * "Snow Drifts"
 * "There's No Place Like Home"
 * "Smash the Mirror"
 * "Fall"
 * "Shattered Sight"
 * "Birth"
 * "Dark Waters"
 * "Changelings"
 * "The Song in Your Heart"
 * "Breadcrumbs"
 * Hook and Milah's story in "The Crocodile" reminds me of one of my favorite novels, Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier. This classic novel tells the story of a noblewoman who is fed up with her life and her husband, and joins a pirate crew and has a love affair with the captain. The most important difference, however, is that the main character SPOILER ALERT chooses to stay with her husband and her children in the end.
 * On television, you don't see a lot of stories about a real friendship between a man and a woman. Usually, it's something romantic. Once Upon a Time, however, stands out by having a few stories about a man and a woman who have pure friendship like a brother and sister: David and Ruby in "Child of the Moon", Hook and Belle, Prince Charming and Anna in "White Out", and Alice and Will Scarlet in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.