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We’re told the potion has terrible side effects if taken too often. We aren’t told what counts as “too often,” but Slughorn has only taken it twice in his life, thirty-three years apart.

I suggest that Snape also took it twice.

The first time was when he was twenty or twenty-one. As a result, against all odds, he convinced the Dark Lord to spare Lily Potter’s life.

The second time was during the battle of Hogwarts. He had two, impossible goals. He wanted Voldemort defeated and he wanted--somehow, though Dumbledore had told him it was impossible--for Lily’s son to live.

I finally got around to watching Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the parts that I didn’t fast forward through. Of course, I got to thinking of ways it might have been done better.

Main idea? I think Billy should have been a side character in this one. Sure, he could have had plenty of screen time (or his superhero alter-ego could), but this isn’t Billy’s story. Billy’s story happened in the last movie. He finally came to terms with his mother’s abandonment and was able to move on and form ties with his new family, ties that were ultimately strong enough for him to share his powers with them.

If Billy now needs to learn the opposite lesson, to not hold on too tightly and to let go, the movie needs to convince me of that. But, it didn’t. It felt like it was just introduced as, “Oh, this is going to be the problem Billy needs to overcome in this week’s episode.”

Instead, I think they should have made this Freddy’s problem.

Don’t have Mary resentfully giving up college. Let her go. She’s been gone three years. She may still do some superheroing but, when Freddy confronts her (in person, in flashback, or in zoom) she tells him about the good she can do in whatever profession she’s chosen. Maybe she wants to be a doctor or do research that will help save lives. Maybe she wants to work for social services and help kids without families. 

But, Freddy feels like he’s losing her. He also feels like he’s in danger of losing Billy. Freddy is the one who worries what will happen when they age out of the system. Billy may have some worries but he’s confident in his ability to go it alone. He also doesn’t see that Freddy isn’t so worried about being on his own as he’s afraid of change and losing people.

Enter Anthea. The thing with Anthea is that, as the Maiden, she’s frozen in time. She’s not someone thousands of years old who looks sixteen, she’s someone who has been sixteen forever and always will be. That’s what she offers Freddy, the changelessness he desperately wants.

I don’t know how this works for the action elements of the story, whether it should still be with three sisters going around causing destruction or something else. It does seem like, whatever way it goes, it needs major changes from the plot we saw. If Anthea is still one of the villains, it seems like Freddy is going to be tricked into helping her. Even if Anthea isn’t trying to destroy things, she may be pulling Freddy away from stopping whatever the real problem is. 

The obvious resolution is that Freddy has to help Billy save the day and has to accept Billy’s choice to sacrifice himself. However, this is the kind of kid’s movie where it seems like the main character staying dead is wrong. But, lame, last minute resurrections are also wrong. So, maybe Freddy has to accept someone else dying.

Both our couples meet in small communities in the Enchanted Forest that are besieged by monsters. Hook, after gaining entry under false pretenses, has just helped slaughter everyone and is taking a nap under their corpses. Rumple, by contrast, is asked to come help them and does so (for a price).

Hook lies from the moment he first meets Emma and is setting her up to betray her, her mother, and Mulan and Aurora. Rumple, whatever his failings, makes a bargain with Belle and keeps it, saving her friends, family, and people.

Emma makes it clear that she doesn’t trust Hook. Despite that, Hook is furious when she finds a way to safely go their separate ways without killing him. Apparently, he already felt she was his property. Rumple, despite having a deal with Belle that says she can never leave, sets her free.

Hook has tried to murder Emma multiple times. He has tried to murder her friends and family on different occasions and did murder her grandfather. Rumple never tried to kill Belle and saved the lives of her friends and family. He did beat up Maurice but only when he believed Maurice had tortured his daughter and driven her to suicide. 

Hook has never respected Emma’s “No.” He simply stated that Emma was going to be his, regardless of her clearly stated feelings on the subject. When she was devastated because Walsh, who she seriously considered marrying, was killed after it was revealed he had been manipulating her the whole time, Hook was glad about her pain. After all, it proved Emma could fall in love, which (in his mind) meant good things for him.

Except when Belle was trying to send their child to another world (something Rumple has lots of traumatic experience with), Rumple has always let Belle walk away--which she has done multiple times. When Regina stole Belle’s heart, he gave it back with the expectation Belle would have a relationship with Will.  When Belle broke up with him back in the second season, he made sure she had a home and a way to support herself doing something she loved. When she said goodbye to him at the wishing well, he took steps to save her from the undead disaster Hook was unleashing on Storybrooke without telling her what was going to happen to him if they didn’t stop Hook.

Uhh. . . .

Some of the little, itty-bitty things David might hold against Hook at this point.

For starters, it seems safe to assume David had heard what Hook had been doing in the Enchanted Forest.

1. After earning their trust and living among them for two months, Hook helped murder a village full of innocent people.

2. One of those people was a friend of David’s, Lancelot.

3. Hook had been Cora’s willing minion for close to 30 years (whether that involved massacres and murders is unclear).

4. When given a chance to stop working with Cora after at least one massacre, Hook quickly signed on again.

5. Hook tore out Aurora’s heart and forced her to betray her friends (there is speculation that he sexually assaulted Aurora after taking her heart as well).

6. Left four women to die of hunger and thirst in a small, dark cave.

7. Made crude statements to David’s daughter.

8. Behaved like a sexist abuser. Hook makes it quite clear that he considered Emma finding a way to leave him behind without having to kill him to protect herself and her family and friends was a personal betrayal. Apparently, he felt she was supposed to have fallen for his charms, making her his, making her leaving him behind an unforgivable dumping by a woman he already treated as his property.

9. Made rape jokes while trying to kill David’s daughter.

Then, we get into things Hook did once he was in Storybrooke:

1. Murdered people.

2. Kidnapped and tortured a friend of David’s.

3. Having kidnapped and imprisoned the giant who spared his life, Hook convinced him David was really his brother James and set things up so a giant was going on a rampage in a small town with many noncombatants, including children.

4. Used crude language to sexually harass women, including David’s wife (which he did in front of David).

5. Shot a woman in the back and erased all her memories after she’d saved his life. Stated that he did this to get back at the man who loved her (because he sees women as things whose value exists only in terms of the men the “belong” to).

6.  Tried to murder Gold.

7. Helped get the failsafe that could kill everyone in Storybrooke and then gave it to people trying to kill everyone in Storybrooke.

8. Helped destroy nearly all the magic beans.

9. Worked with Regina when she was trying to kill everyone.

10. Worked with Greg and Tamara when they were trying to kill everyone.

11. Handed Regina over to Greg and Tamara and stood around watching while Regina was being tortured.

12. Helped Greg and Tamara kidnap Henry.

13. Stole the last magic bean and ran off with it, leaving everyone to die.

14. Apparently sat safely outside the town limits and only came back after the failsafe had been disarmed and everyone wasn’t going to die.

15. Assaulted David, knocking him out when making a jailbreak.

16. Made it clear that, despite David’s daughter showing no interest in him, he intended to get David’s daughter.

17. Considered letting David die as part of his plan to get David’s daughter.

18. Found out Hook had gotten large numbers of the men who worked for him killed in Neverland. It’s unclear if David knew that Hook made some kind of deal with Pan that let him leave and return, during which he apparently hired new crew, many of whom also got killed in Neverland.

19. Learned Hook had killed children in Neverland (given conditions in Neverland, some of that may have been self-defence. Again, it’s unclear if David knew Hook frequently left and returned, implying he didn’t have to keep going back to participate in Pan’s games and kill kids).

20. Trafficked children. It’s known that Hook sold Baelfire to Pan, though it’s unclear if anyone ever learns this. It’s also unclear if Hook, doing whatever he did for Pan, didn’t pick up new children for him as well as crew for himself.

Drakken is trying to build a Portal that will let him step from any part of the world to another. It is accidentally activated when Kim and Ron show up but, instead of opening a doorway to someplace else on Earth, it brings in third season Zuko from Avatar.

Zuko is a little surprised by Shego’s fighting style (he’s trying to figure out how her moves translate into her firebending) but what really freaks him out is his first sight of Ron.

Zuko: AAAAGGGGHHHH!  Yellow hair!

Then, he sees Kim.

Zuko: AAAAGGGGHHHH! Red hair!

Ron: You’re freaked out by hair colors. Did you even notice the girl you were fighting is green?

Zuko: Yeah, so?

They try to explain basic things on Earth, as Zuko keeps freaking out over things they consider normal (but never the things they expect him to freak out over). 

Ron: And--try to take this calmly--this is Rufus. He’s a naked mole rat.

Zuko: Got it.

Ron waits.

Zuko: What? 

Ron: You jumped into a pond to save the--and I quote--mutilated ducks--

Zuko: They’re supposed to have shells! What did you do to them?

Ron: You jumped behind a bush to escape from a possum.

Zuko: It looked like skunk-badger! Have you ever tried to wash that smell off?

Ron: But, you don’t have any questions when I say “naked mole rat.”

Zuko: It’s the only thing you’ve said so far that sounds normal.

Ron: Fine. By the way, we’re about to run into Kim’s friend, Tara. Try not scream “yellow hair.”

Zuko: I won’t--AAAAGGGGHHHH! What happened to her hair?

Just a random idea from a conversation.

What if everyone in Storybrooke were dead? Everyone but Emma and Henry? And maybe Gold?

Theory #1: Back when Rumple became the Dark One, he saved Bae but didn’t have the knowledge or experience to save the rest of the Enchanted Forest (maybe the last Dark One left a revenge curse or maybe the Ogres were that good/had back up). Rumple managed to spin time back (except for himself and Bae). But, every 30-40 years, it always ends the same. Each time, he’s managed to push back the clock and start things over again, trying to find a way to change the ending.

His greatest accomplishment was when he changed things enough so David didn’t die as an infant, grew up, married Snow White, and had a true love child who had never existed in any of the other renditions of this world, a child who escaped before the apocalypse (which, this time around, was Regina’s curse) struck.

Theory #2: Emma and Henry were alive, but everyone else was dead. Regina’s curse is keeping them trapped. When she burns the curse at the end, she is finally setting free all the ghosts she’s kept trapped.

In both these theories, Pan would be a more literal demon, trying to drag everyone’s souls to hell.

Rowling never said in the books which sister was older. Generally, Petunia gives the impression of being older, but not always.

However, what if Petunia and Lily were the same age? Petunia, writing her letter to Dumbledore, was another eleven year old, hoping to be let into Hogwarts. Petunia’s resentment of Snape was partly her resentment of someone who shared something special with her twin that she didn’t.

If Petunia and Lily were twins, they could have been like Fred and George, two coconspirators who always had each other’s backs. 

Just one of those things that seems obvious once it hits you.

Snape knew Petunia.

Snape knew exactly how Petunia would raise a child of her own.

Snape just didn’t realize she wouldn’t raise her own sister’s son the same way.

But, except for that, wow, he was right on the money. 

And, we all need to be really glad Harry, the Dudley Dursley clone, wasn’t the person in charge of saving the world, because I don’t think that would have ended well. 

Ever come up with a head canon that isn’t going to be part of a fanfic and serves no useful purpose except for filling a gap that you may possibly be the only person in the world to worry about?

So, if you’ve seen this video:

Then, you know that Aladdin had BECOME A PRINCE!

Like for reals. Meaning he had to be the prince of someplace. With a background story supporting that. But that didn’t upset any local power structures or history too much.

So, MY THEORY ON HOW THE GENIE ALTERED HISTORY FOR ALADDIN TO BE A PRINCE! AND HOW IT FIT IN WITH OTHER DISNEY MOVIES!

Admit it, you’re life wouldn’t be complete without this knowledge.

OK, so, here’s the story (keeping compatibility with the background Aladdin had in the direct to DVD movies and kind of touching on the original story where someone shows up claiming to be long lost family only this is for real (sort of) instead of a lie told by an evil wizard):

The father of Hans of the Southern Isles was informed (maybe by thirteen Dwarves going on a quest to deal with a dragon) that thirteen is an unlucky number. But, not to fret! He can fix the unluckiness of thirteen sons by adopting one!

It so happens that, many years ago, before he was king, he was sent on some kind of trading/ambassador mission to Agrabah (I will point out that, while a bit far afield, people from Scandinavia did get that far south at times). While there, he became sick and was nursed back to health by Aladdin’s mother. Learning that Aladdin is an orphan, he officially adopts him. There was a small piece of land, maybe just an island, in the area that technically belonged to him (uncontested because no really wanted it) that he signed over to him that was then transformed into a major trade center, which is how Aladdin became so incredibly rich even by princely standards (or, at any rate, why he was Johnny on the spot when some traders had to unload a lot of camels and peacocks at rock bottom prices, not to mention signing up a professional dance company seeking royal patronage).