Board Thread:Rant and Rave/@comment-25926288-20170618042330/@comment-28162607-20170619072917

A few:

Since s4 they seem to be prioritising plot over character. So they characters will act OOC at time to fit the plot.

More importantly, plot twists/shock value/meaningless angst over actual good writing eg. Dark Hook/Hook killed David's father. I cannot think of one single faction of the fandom who was happy with the David's father bit and a lot of CS/Hook fans hated Dark Hook (as well as it made no goddamn sense). Just because it is shcoking doesn't mean it is good writing.

The constant Regina v Snowing flashbacks. The whole premise of the show rests on that even with two kingdoms and 9 months, Snowing oculd not defeat Regina so sending Emma away was the only option. But the repeated flashbacks show them in an endless game of cat and mouse and makes Regina look incompetent and by extension, makes Snowing look like idiots for not defeating her.

You're right; the lack of pay off. The Hook's heart plot in 4a is a great example, it was resolved with a kiss and the Dark One arc- a lot of fans were expecting a proposal or something instead of another "I love you". They drag thei characters through the mud and then let them breathe for a minute before dragging them through more mud..

A complete ignorace on certain issues. These writers don't seem to realise the implications of what they write (rape and abuse trigger warning) eg. I don't think they realised that they had Robin, Guinevere, Snow, Abigail, David or Whale get raped, they don't realise how wrong it was to have Hook jump off a building to get Dark Emma's attention, pretty sure they didnt realise that Emma and Neal's relationship was illegal,  there are numerous counts of sexual assault that I'm pretty sure were written in by accident. They need to be educated on these issues as it leaks onto healthy characters/pairings.

On that note, they handle abuse storylines terribly. I mean look at RumBelle (no offense to the RumBelle fans here) but it was a classic case of domestic abuse and by mid season 5 it was irredeemable (that was my cutoff point, some argue by the end of s3/s4 but definitely by season 6). It was full blown abuse and yet they got to reconcile, dance to Beauty and the Beast and raise their baby (conceived by rape) together. And look at Snow Queen; Regina ruined Snow's life beyond repair, and yet the only apology is from Snow? Who believes Regina's abuse of her is fine because she was a "brat"? Regina and Henry; she abused him terribly and they share True Love's Kiss and he becomes her pseudo father. Killian referred to Rumple abusing Milah as "a good man trying to keep his family together". Tthe show ended with abusers sitting at the table with the people they abused. The abuse erasure is one of this show's biggest and most screaming flaws.

By the end of season 3 they had used up all their best villains (Regina, Rumple and Pan). So really I think any villain who came after them was weak sauce.

The timeline. No other comment necessary, really.

So much memory loss, damn.

Moral equivalency (which has connotations of victim blaming). Snow says to Regina in s4 "you knew how shallow and selfish I could be as a child. You are not all evil and I'm not all good." Comparing a spoiled and bratty 11 year old to a tyrant, mass murderer, child abuser and rapist, as if they are the same thing.

Rush redemptions. I mean lately they seem to be going "You get a redemption arc and you get a redemption arc and you get a-". They couldn't seem to decide what they wanted to do with  Rumple (which is due to the fact that they had to make Rumple be a villain to fit his character but still needed to make RumBelle seem viable) and so redeemed him a the last minute and he was forgiven for everything. Regina's had promise but then it devolved into her victims apologising to her (Snow) or thanking her for abusing them (Emma), she got to hold on to all her corruptly gained privileges (her mayor/Queenship), the uncondictional love of son she abused, she walks free among the people she tortured for nearly 3 decades. She continues to do terrible things (enslaving Sidney, controlling Emma, keeping her vault of hearts etc). Her faux redemption was one of the worst points of the show for me.

The  Dark One plot. My problem with this is it essentially says "Hey, you know that complex, cool, interesting villain Rumpelstiltskin from seasons 1-4? He never existed." By showing the curse as something that literally possesses you and forces you to do stuff (Emma choking the peddler/Merlin against her will) it meant that the character we saw from s1-4 wasn't real, he was a product of the curse. Which was a real disservice to his character.