This episode and ship, though, feel like it was designed to, at best, appease and, at worst, shut up the queer fanbase. I mean in one breath A and E declare that love is love (yay!) but then have Mulan speak in gender neutral terms–and NOT for the first time this season! You don’t get to claim to celebrate diversity while denying the sexuality of one character multiple times over. It comes off as tone deaf and like you’re only concerned with the buzzworthyness of your show.
As you said elsewhere, the whole pronoun game with Mulan might not even be the writers’ fault, if it’s the result of executive meddling due to Mulan being a Disney princess. This would go beyond A&E’s control. Considering what they allowed Ruby and Dorothy to do and say in this episode, but not Mulan, does make me more suspicious that something fishy is afoot.
Fair point and yeah, I’ve said as much. But I’m not sure I can let A and E off the hook so easily. If Disney told them NO because OUAT Mulan *is* very much a Disney property, then, okay that’s sad (for tons of reasons) but it is outside their control. However, if faced with that dilemma, then I’d expect them, as professional writers, to figure out how to best tell the Red/Dorothy story so that it felt organic and natural and not just dropped on to the screen at the last second. And then we’re back to screen time, the number of plot lines, the number of characters; so how so you tell so many single side stories (Rumbelle, Zades, Snowing and Baby Neal, Henry the Author) alongside the arc-plot (Hades, Operation Firebird) and have a Very Special Episode?