Sorry. It got LONG. And I’m pondering how these five small changes would affect S3. I can think of several ways and it’d be fascinating.

1. Cora as full season villain for S2



This character was awesome. But like others, she was just brought back to die. And in a way that sucked. Which led to a plot that was just hand-waved away as if it never happened. Dark Snow? Pah.



But, if they’d had her getting to Storybrooke as she did and playing the long con, which she did so often and so well, it would have been perfect. She didn’t need to push. She could just play Regina, teasing her with morsels of affection, then going Cora-glamour and talking smack about Regina with other people when she’s in earshot.



That would have made Regina’s stumble towards good and the rapid backslide much more interesting. She’s trying to be good for Henry, but everywhere she goes, people are whispering about her, and saying how she’s not a good mother and never can be trusted, and her poor, sick mother, who has fought all this way to find her again after all this time, is the only one who understands. And the final straw is when Cora goes Henry-style and Regina hears him saying stuff to Emma about how he’s still afraid of her.



So Regina runs back to mum, and insists the only way to get him back is to be the powerful creature she was in FTL, and take him. That’s the only way anyone gets anything in this world, dear. Trust me. Mother knows best. And so Regina slips back into corruption, no longer fighting, and Cora knows that to have Regina’s full devotion, Henry has to be out the picture.



So she uses one of the magic beans they have managed to gather, to cast him into a portal. And Regina has to choose whether to be loyal to Mumsy or to join Emma and fight against her with a dash of malicious aid from Rumpel. They beat her, by their powers combined, because of course Regina would choose Henry over everything. And when Regina and the Charmings go through the portal, they go through to Neverland working together, even though they still are suspicious and wary of each other.



2. Milah as Hook



Because wouldn’t that have been interesting? She runs off for adventure and ends up becoming captain of the ship, taking on the crew, and has an affair with one of the crew. And Rumpel, when he comes after her as the Dark One, chooses to punish her by taking from her the thing she loves: not just the loverboy, but the ship that was her freedom. And he takes her hand that wears the wedding ring for good measure, out of spite.



And she knows she can’t beat him. She knows she can’t hurt him, not now, not anymore, but he made her life miserable once, he’s not going to ruin it a second time. So she goes to Neverland to bide her time (and she’d know about that place, because Rumpel would probably have told her about what happened with his father), and has a twisted and fabulously messed up relationship with Boy King of the island. Pan is all kinds of gleeful to lay hands on his son’s woman, and that’s why he knows about Bae, and why he goes after him.



This would also mean when Bae shows up in Neverland, it would be even more messed up, because Captain Hook takes one look at the boychild and freezes up. And Bae sees his mother, who he believed dead. And what makes it worse is that he has to face her, knowing she abandoned him, and she, who has never dealt with repercussions, has to face them now.



Bae refuses to stay on the ship. He chooses to go with Pan over her, and Milah realises then that she actually wants her son and tries to win and woo him back. But when he hates her, she represses and gets all insular and angry, and hates Rumpel all the more, because she left her son with him so he would be safe, and yet, here he is, abandoned, dropped like a dirty towel. She honestly thought her husband was better than that, but now, he deserves death more than ever.



So she gets back to FTL, finds out Rumpel set up house with some little trollop, and goes to find the now-captive trollop in the Queen’s prisons. And then, it pretty much goes as per canon, because she is pretty much in kamikaze death-or-glory mode, up until the point Bae falls through another portal into Neverland, trying to save his child. She has that annoying guilt again, and comes back, because she may be a crap mother, but she still doesn’t want to leave him there, knowing what Pan is capable of. And this would be so much more interesting as well, because you totally know she’d threaten Emma with her hook.



3. Ruby would actually feature



My main issue was with her crappy backstory. We had a man raised by wolves and a werewolf raised by men. That was the perfect opportunity to have two characters from opposite ends of the spectrum meeting, and him teaching her that she doesn’t have to control the wolf, because as much as it scares her, she is the wolf. Her and the Huntsman running into one another while she and Snow are on the run and the Huntsman is tracking them would have been perfect.



It would also tie in to actually, y'know, acknowledging that Graham is dead. Her remembering him in flashbacks in Child of the Moon, and then ending the episode with her and Belle laying a flower on his grave. It would also have been a chance to have a flash of imprisoned Belle and the huntsman interacting with her, however briefly. Maybe the plant he used to soothe wolf!Red was something he would slip in to Belle to help her sleep or to remind her that freedom was still out there. SOMETHING.



She would also actually be a good friend who didn’t leave her friends chained up and go lol at it or let her friends be drugged and restrained and forcibly sedated. She and Doctor Whale would make sure Belle was looked after, and when Belle wasn’t looking, Doctor Whale might touch her arm and ask if she would mind maybe going for coffee some time, and she would smile, all white and bright, and say “any night but the full moon”. To which Whale smiles crookedly and says “well, I always was a dog person” and she’d roll her eyes, sock him on the arm, and scene.



4. S2 would have been done more neatly



Snow/Mulan/Aurora/Emma’s time in FTL would have been substantially longer. Which means that Regina’s bonding time with Henry and David would have been longer. It would look like she was getting better at resisting the urge to squish people, and David would want to believe it was permanent, but was always afraid it was just as long as Emma and Snow were absent. Which he would never express to Regina’s face, only murmuring about it to Grumpy and Ruby and Co, but Regina would still suspect it. Plus George is quietly working at undermining everything while, Belle, Granny and the dwarves are working on the infrastructure, and keeping things ticking over nicely in the background. No muss, no fuss, no Greg and Tamara.



Meanwhile, in FTL, the All Girl Road Trip gets epic with the addition of a poor maimed woman (see point 2) who just so happens to be working behind the scenes with person in point 1. Oh no! How will we cope with this awful lack of penis? I know! By having actual adventures that don’t revolve around hetero romance and shiznit. And if we have to have Tiny, to get the Plot Device Bean Plants, then we give him better backstory. And make Emma trade something ridiculous for them. Because the look on her face when she has to catch a squirrel for this giant would be awesome.



5. Less extraneous people to die



Did we really need Billy, Joanna, Anita, other-wolf-dude? No. We have plenty of characters, and the actors for them. Use them.