Reply To: MuFire/DragonFire/WarriorFire Thread (Neal+Mulan)

[kfchimera]

I had the same reaction Phee did, MysteryKat, but I was more at a loss for words so it took me some time to respond. Now I can mostly just say what Phee said but I have to add this. I quote what you said below.

Disney canon: We know they have cast the role of Eric and I’ve seen some diehard anti-Hook people want Eric to be gay so that Ariel can be with Hook and they can disappear off the show and make way for SwanFire. Does it make me mad? You betcha.

Whether it is Eric/Vanessa or Eric/Archie what is the difference Mulan/Aurora or SQ, that point of view is just as valid. The way you talked here, its not the “messing with Disney Canon” that’s an issue because hello, it’s Hookriel and that’s a given. It’s that you seem to be drawing some conclusion from the nature of a theory on Eric being gay that correlates to the degree of “anti-hook” sentiment, when as one of the people who got the ball rolling on the idea, is not at all how I thought of it.

Here’s what I thought about: If Hookriel is to happen, if Eric is in the story, there has to be a reason he wouldn’t be with Ariel. We talked about Vanessa/Regina and then I noticed something about Hans Christian Andersen on the WikiPedia page, that his original inspiration for the unrequited love story that is his “The Little Mermaid” was based on his own homosexual attraction to a man who married a woman. It is interesting even unconnected to Hook and Ariel to me. If I had to choose I said at one point, I’d possibly pick Archie/Eric. My reason is I don’t want LGBT storylines to happen in a way that marginalizes or feels like a ‘token” for a main hetero couple. I’d been rethinking my own biases in how I’ve shipped things, after reading some SQer comments on twitter, a few things Kiwi has posted on our forums and these essays by Screwball Ninja.
http://screwballninja.tumblr.com/post/60291349124/ouat-confuses-me-sexually-a-case-study
http://screwballninja.tumblr.com/post/60375809934/mulan-and-aurora-girls-worth-fighting-for-and

I do want Ariel and want her main cast and one way is to wrap her story romantically with another main cast character, but as I said I feel torn as I like the Eric/Archie idea too. I do like Hook so my interpretation of his character fit with my imagination about what Ariel would be like. How is that anti-Hook? Plus, I’m NOT a die-hard shipper, nor have I ever claimed to be that as I’ve pretty much generally said I kind of multi-ship and do even conflicting things. Like Slurpeez loves SF but doesn’t like Hookriel, likes Eric/Ariel. I love SF, Eric/Ariel and Hookriel and am in a mood for Archie/Eric presently (but mostly because I hope Eric has Perdita for Pongo….). So I like puppy romances, big deal. We all are suckers for different types of love stories.

Why we ship what we do can be as complicated as why we do not ship something. As for Neal/Mulan, I don’t feel it meshes with my subjective view any better than SQ but I am not angry if someone “dares” to ship something I do not. I’d feel like Snow yelling at Johanna about a Tiara if I did that. We all deserve respect no matter what ships get “crowned” canon or have the apparent blessing of the writers (apparent because who really know with those sneaky wordsmith guys).

So absent MysteryKat’s statements, I might not have really gotten around to posting much here because I didn’t feel that inspired to talk about what I’d like about Neal/Mulan. All I have right now is, Mulan is awesomesauce, and more of her (especially as a noble POC character) would be very welcome regardless of whether she is part of a romance with a man, woman or no one. If its Neal, there are some things I could enjoy in that alternate-universe-conflicting-realities sort of way I talk about. It isn’t how I see the story, but I can see something appealing in imagining these two together, just as I do with many different couples. Even RegalCat’s sneaking up on me (mainly because Parker Croft is sly on the twitter).