115/365 days of regina mills

ONCE UPON A TIME 6.11, Tougher than the Rest

happy chapter 13 drop day!!!

Ok so my friend and I just recorded 4 HOURS of raw audio breaking down the OUAT pilot, season 1 finale, and discussing the show in general for our new podcast where we make each other watch episodes of our favorite shows and talk about them together. It’s exactly as fun as you would imagine. :)

But even after all that, I still have things I forgot to say or didn’t get to. So here’s a few of them:

1. “Evil” as addiction: the OUAT writers treat the concept of being evil like addiction/substance abuse which is really interesting and kind of a bold choice for a 2011 show about fairytales. Then within that structure they show basically the two choices you have when facing addiction: choose not to use and become a better, healed version of yourself (Regina) or keep using and stay stuck in your patterns and hurt everyone you love forever (Rumple). As a child of an alcoholic who has chosen the latter, I loved watching Regina’s journey in this context and while she stumbles a lot, she keeps striving to be good even though she gets the short end of the stick most of the time. And her North Star is always Henry, which I think is important to show that you don’t just change because you feel like it, there usually has to be the threat of something worse happening if you don’t change (in this case, losing Henry physically and emotionally).

2. Regina Mills might be the most psychologically complex and interesting character on prime time tv in the 2010s? Period??

3. I rambled a good bit in the podcast about the costumes and color symbolism but here’s a bit more for you: Once Regina is on team heroes she often wears some kind of red top (the hero’s color) with a black jacket/coat over it showing that she’s changed on the inside but she still *looks* like the evil queen on the outside and can now use that persona/power to her advantage instead of being consumed by it. By the end of S5 this contrasts with Emma who wears her signature red jacket but a black/white/gray sweater underneath, showing that she’s a little more of a mix of good and evil these days post-dark one. In a color sense, they’re almost mirror images of each other at this point, and it’s really cool.

4. I know a lot of people are really salty about how Emma’s light kind of dims toward S4, 5, 6, and I’m right there with you. Her character feels flatter, and honestly kind of depressed. Now idk if this was a real choice on the writers’/JMo’s part, if she was going through some stuff at this time and it just showed up in the character, or what. That said, it does track for me in a way, especially post-dark one. She should be kind of thrown off by everything that’s happened! She should be changed! I just wish they had done something with it instead of pretending it was normal. If Regina’s struggle with evil is analogous to addiction, why can’t Emma’s struggle with evil be analogous to depression? It would have been an interesting take. Somebody write the fic.

I could keep going but I’ll stop here for now. Stay tuned for the podcast!

REGINA & EMMA

↳ ONCE UPON A TIME 4.22 “Operation Mongoose: pt.1”

SWAN QUEEN + text posts

#regina having the wildest fantasies about her enemy choking her

ONCE UPON A TIME APPRECIATION WEEK Day 5 - Favorite Parallel(s) - Regina Mills

“Fucking idiots” I mutter to myself while reading (for the millionth time) about two dumbasses clearly in love with each other CONVINCED that their feelings are one sided

Ouattober 2023 | Day 1: Favourite Character

REGINA & EMMA

↳ ONCE UPON A TIME 4.12 "Heroes and Villains"

ko fi l commissions

i want this to get more love🧍🏻‍♀️

maybe someday...

THE SWAN-MILLS FAMILY

Remember when you first came to Storybrooke? We hated each other. Regina. No, it’s true. I was Henry’s mother, but you said you were. And we fought. And oh, boy, did we ever fight. But you found a third way. We were both his mother.

ENDLESS SWAN QUEEN GIFS: 72/∞ » thanks for coming. reblogs are encouraged!