So, chances of queer romance in S4, and with who?

[RumplesGirl]

I’ve always seen Red as being the character who isn’t strictly defined as being one thing or the other. Hence why she is both Little Red Riding Hood AND the Big Bad Wolf. I can very easily see her being with a guy and a woman.

Part of my problem with the writers – they’ve had all sorts of ship fanart up there, but only ever het ones. Very troubling.

I seem to recall some Emma/Regina/Henry art, though I suppose you’re right that it’s never been Emma/Regina sans Henry.

 

[Josephine]

I doubt they’d ever do anything with Merida.  A Brave sequel is rumored to be in the pipeline (not immediately but in the future) and since she’s a Disney creation, they’ll want to keep a close watch her on portrayal for the future.

I still think they missed the boat big time with Eric.  The original tale of “The Little Mermaid” is one of unrequited love.  She never got her lover.  If they were really going for bold *rolls eyes* storytelling, having Ariel not getting her happy ending with Eric because he’s in a same-sex relationship would have been an interesting and organic way of introducing the topic into the show.  But, alas, like #TeamBrothers , it shall never come to pass.

 

Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.

[TheWatcher]

This is kind of nonsensical though and some of the canon pairings already cross these boundaries, like Hook having been with Henry’s grandmother, etc.

For some, this is a problem. I personally don’t like the thought. If I were Henry and my step-father was a man who had been with my mother AND my fathers mother, I would be a little weirded out by it. Nor would I want to be with a man who was my son’s father’s mother’s lover. But hey, whatever floats Emma’s ship (see what I did there? ;P)

For a “Step” family relationship they actually have to grow up with them and that didn’t happen with Emma. She never had a relationship like that with Regina, so the step part is effectively irrelevant.

I disagree. Regina married Emma’s mother’s father. Regardless of how Emma feels about, Regina is indeed her step-granny. Even Snow considers Regina her step-mother still.

Some people don’t like CS because Hook was with Henry’s grandmother and is now with Henry’s mother. It’s a valid reason, there’s nothing “nonsensical” about that. Some people don’t mind it. Ship and let ship

This.

(also there are still people who think Mulan was talking about loving Philip not Aurora, so there wasn’t blanket acceptance of Mulan’s sexual orientation from the fandom)

I’ve heard about this, but I think its silly because the writers and the actresses have spoken about it before and indeed Mulan was attracted to Aurora.

I just think if they were going to make Red LGBT, then they would have at least hinted at it since we’ve seen a lot more of Red than we have Archie, Hold up – I’m going to use that word again. Heteronormativity. They would not necessarily have hinted at it. The writers obviously don’t plan anything in advance. As originally concieved, in S1, not a single person in the OUAT cast was queer. Which should raise some serious questions

I’m going to say this again: If they want us to know that someone is queer, they have to SHOW it to us. You can’t just spring that out of the blue. As it goes, Ruby, Emma, and Regina they have only been shown to be attracted to men as far as we know. If they were planning to have them be bi or lesbian, I think they would make it a point to mention it, hint it, or foreshadow it. It’s not “heteronormativity” if we don’t see something they haven’t shown us. How do we know Regina isn’t into zoophilia? How do we know the Charmings aren’t swingers? We’ve seen nothing to suggest either of those things but should we assume they are?

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[Myril]

I thought Adam did say that the scene between Ruby and Whale in 212 was meant to be a set up for FrankenWolf but then they got the rights to Neverland and Ruby unintentionally became sidelined so Meghan Ory was released from her contract and FrankenWolf didn’t happen like they originally planned?

What I know is, that Meghan Ory said, whatever A&E had planned for Ruby didn’t happen because of many new characters, but she said nothing about what was planned. I know Jane Espenson tweeted something about Frankenstein and a werewolf making sense. But if you have any source stating definite, that the plan was FrankenWolf and nothing else ever possible to be thought of, I would appreciate a source for that.

I always had the impression that Ruby was a “maneater” but whether or not the curse would change someone’s sexuality, I don’t know. Red had a relationship with Peter, that’s the only real indicator I can think of that may suggest she’s not queer, but even then that doesn’t necessarily mean anything as some people do engage in heterosexual relationships before coming out such as Willow in Buffy the vampire slayer.

There are people who are not one or the other but something different, they feel attracted to more than one gender their whole life or discover they are at some point, it’s usually called bisexual. The likelihood that a bisexual woman has dated a man as her first relationship in her life is very high, that she has dated a number of men before ever dating a woman is pretty much as high. It’s quite simple statistics, there are not that many women around open for dating a woman. That says nothing about who Red might have felt attracted to, she might not have talked about everything (many don’t for a long time). And it certainly says nothing about who she now could fall in love with.

There are not just straight and lesbian/gay people in this world, it is not for everybody one or the other, and it would be even progress to see a positive portrait of a bisexual woman. We have pretty much just Arizona on Grey’s Anatomy if it comes to that, and some people even prefer to see her as lesbian, because it doesn’t question their binary thinking that only one or the other is possible. So, no I don’t accept that argument as merely in the character, it’s heteronormative and based on gender and sexual orientation bias.

I just think if they were going to make Red LGBT, then they would have at least hinted at it since we’ve seen a lot more of Red than we have Archie, and she has a closer relationship to the main characters than Archie. For example, they hinted at Mulan being LGBT in season 2 before all but confirming it in 3A.

Did they? Just recently someone in another forum complaint, Mulan’s unspoken love came out of the blue. And how should they hint at something that was not yet intended? People read some scenes very, very differently. Remember enough people saying, no in the movie Mulan was straight, and there is just friendship, nothing more. There was at first more discussion if she was in love with Phillip. Can’t remember the writers saying in retrospect after the first episodes of season 3 that it was intention all along – and why shouldn’t they admit that, after all they love their fancy twists. I know, Jamie Chung thinks they might, but I am not the least bit convinced of it. And even after confirmed in interviews and tweets there still are people utterly convinced it’s bogus and nothing there, saying Mulan wanted to confess her love to Phillip – on the show her love to Aurora stayed unspoken of and was only hinted at, leaving room for people to stay in denial.

I’m going to say this again: If they want us to know that someone is queer, they have to SHOW it to us. You can’t just spring that out of the blue. As it goes, Ruby, Emma, and Regina they have only been shown to be attracted to men as far as we know. If they were planning to have them be bi or lesbian, I think they would make it a point to mention it, hint it, or foreshadow it. It’s not “heteronormativity” if we don’t see something they haven’t shown us. How do we know Regina isn’t into zoophilia? How do we know the Charmings aren’t swingers? We’ve seen nothing to suggest either of those things but should we assume they are?

It is exactly that, heteronormative assumptions. Why should I assume that a character is strictly straight without any doubts unless shown differently? You need me to show it to convince me. And, right, kinda impossible, considering there is something like bisexuality, or people discovering late in their lives that they are in love with a person of a different gender than they have been so far.

The Snowings might not even know themselves yet that they could be swingers, nothing tells me so far that it would be totally out of question. And I very much hope with zoophilia you meant interested in dragons who can turn into humans, dwarves, fairies, werewolves, humans regulary turning into wolves (oh, wait, Ruby is one of that kind) and other mythical and fabulous humanoid creatures as well or more than into humans like herself.

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[PriceofMagic]

But the important difference is, SQ is seen as a crack ship whereas CS is not.

SQ IS crack because it is not canon. CS IS canon. I can name a lot of other crackships as well that are heterosexual and LGBT. Any pairing that is not canon is considered crack not just SQ.

Hell if two siblings love each other enough I’ve nothing against that in theory as long as they don’t reproduce, even if it’s kind of weird to me personally.

That is called incest. Game of Thrones features such a pairing.

I don’t object to CS on those grounds anyway, rather the whole No means yes thing I’ve already posted about. I don’t think Emma/Regina’s relation would really draw that much ire from anyone as most people have probably forgotten it already. It only comes up as an anti-SQ talking point. Ever.

Whether you object to CS or not “on those grounds” doesn’t matter. The point is that it is still a valid reason for people to dislike CS whether you agree or not. The same goes for Regina and Emma. It doesn’t just come up as “an anti-SQ talking point”.

As for the whole “rape culture” debate in regards to Hook, I disagree. I’m sure there are some CSers who can explain the complexity of the CS relationship more eloquently than I. Perhaps you should turn your eye to the whole Regina/Graham “relationship” for an example of “rape culture” and double standards.

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[RumplesGirl]

Quick down and dirty thoughts

1) It was never stated anywhere that FrankenWolf was their original idea until other factors came into play. I think they liked the idea, but it wasn’t something that was integral to their S2 approach and therefore was able to be swept aside after “In the Name of the The Brother.” I do think that had PP not been a “go” for S3, they would have explored it further. I also think that while I really like the idea of Ruby being the character who doesn’t stay within strict bounds, the writers see as boxed into straight. Peter, whatever they were going to do with Frankenstien, and Graham from the graphic novel. That could have changed if they continued writing Ruby but on the whole, we know how that turned out. Honestly, I wouldn’t hold my breath for Ruby playing any sort of integral role in the upcoming season(s).

2) Definition problems: I agree with POM’s “crack ship” definition. There are others in the fandom that are classified as crack. SQ is the most popular of those and the one with the most support. But there are certainly others. I’ve seen Regina and Tink, Ruby and Belle, Blue Fairy and Tink, Ariel and Belle, and so on and so forth.

3) We’re back to the idea that closed out the last thread, namely should we assume that a character is straight until told otherwise. I find issue with it, like Myril, does. If Ruby walked into Granny’s come 3 Sundays from now with another woman and introduced her as “my girlfriend” people would raise their eyebrows but we shouldn’t say, “but she’s always been shown to be straight!” No. She has been shown to have one (maybe two or three if you count Frankestein and Graham from the Graphic Novel) romantic relationship that happened to be a male. It says nothing about her own personal preferences except that statistically her relationships have been predominately male from what we can ascertain thus far. It says nothing about whom she is capable of finding attractive and worthy of her time.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[TheWatcher]

We’re back to the idea that closed out the last thread, namely should we assume that a character is straight until told otherwise

Sorry. Didn’t mean to make waves, I was just curious about the whole heteronormativity thing (in the name of the moon, that is a difficult word >>) Not trying to get things heated or anything.

Why should I assume that a character is strictly straight without any doubts unless shown differently? You need me to show it to convince me

Well gay characters or bi characters usually date someone of the same sex at some point, or mention it, whereas straight characters usually only date people of the opposite sex and if they turn out to be gay or lesbian, they show that instead of not doing it at all. If a character is indeed bi, but they never date, show attraction, or talk about being attracted to someone of the same sex, how am I supposed to know they are bi? O.o thats what is so confusing to me. So yeah, Ruby could be bi (I could see it happening) but how will I know if I never see any indication of it. For a character like Archie, who hasn’t been seen attracted to either male or female, I have an easier time accepting him as queer cause it doesn’t go against anything they’ve shown. But for a character like Snow, who is married with two kids, I have a harder time seeing her as a lesbian because in the past 3 seasons, there has been nothing to suggest it.

And I very much hope with zoophilia you meant interested in dragons who can turn into humans, dwarves, fairies, werewolves, humans regulary turning into wolves (oh, wait, Ruby is one of that kind) and other mythical and fabulous humanoid creatures as well or more than into humans like herself.

Zoophilia is a thing in real life, where people do have romantic attractions to animals. Fairies are just tiny humans, a dwarf is just a short, big eared human, and a werewolf is only a werewolf under the moon. What I meant was, how do we know Regina isn’t attacted to animals? Are we assuming she isn’t? For all we know, her relationship with her horse was more than what we saw (it was the thing she first thought of to sacrifice when enacting the curse). Isn’t this the sane concept of what ur saying, but instead of same genders, I replaced that with animals. Just the same as u can say how do we know she isn’t bi or lesbian, I could say how do we know she is only into humans (or humanoids). Sorry if this sounds strange but we often have convos like this amongst my social circle >> needless to say, we get a lot of weird looks xD

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[Myril]

I have a different definition of crack ship than just not canon, and that is not a neutral one, it can have a negative note. Semantics do matter, so can we simply agree on calling it not canon and avoid that term?

Honestly, I wouldn’t hold my breath for Ruby playing any sort of integral role in the upcoming season(s).

I don’t hold my breath for it. I have already given up on these writers ever doing more than paying lip service in many regards.

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[MatthewPaul]

I am all for having a queer relationship on the show, but it of course needs to be written well. I don’t want it to come across as “we’re just randomly inserting a homosexual relationship to please the LGBT community.” I should note that in the D23 interview last month, Adam and Eddy actually said they would love to bring Mulan back later this Season, so we may get our wish in regards to expanding her ambiguous sexuality.

I agree Elsa could have been introduced as a Lesbian character, but I recall they don’t want to focus on any romantic relationships with her whatsoever, whether it be hetero or homosexual. The sister relationship between Elsa and Anna is the most important aspect of the movie, so it makes sense to focus on that. Plus, Disney might have felt it was too soon to introduce a romantic partner for Elsa in any medium she’s featured in, even if the Once Upon A Time universe is not canon with the movie’s canon.  For one, a sequel to Frozen is inevitable, and chances are that will introduce said romantic partner. Unlike Peter Pan, Rapunzel, or Beauty & The Beast, Once’s adaption of Frozen has so far stayed faithful to the movie too, which likely means less liberties with the already established story. Hence why the Frozen storyline on the show takes place after the movie, rather than re-telling the movie with random M. Night Shyamalanish twists.

[Myril]

Well gay characters or bi characters usually date someone of the same sex at some point, or mention it, whereas straight characters usually only date people of the opposite sex and if they turn out to be gay or lesbian, they show that instead of not doing it at all.

You say it, they usually date someone of the same sex at some point – could have already happened in the past but not shown (it’s not like we have seen every minute and thought of their lives), could happen now without being already obvious, or might happen some time in the future. The character might not even yet be sure about themselves (and neither the writers, shows are work in progress). You assume first based on common societal images, that a person who so far as not been shown to date someone of the same sex but people of the other sex (leaving it at two sexes and gender for the moment, to not makes things more complicate and confusing) to be interested only in the other sex. It’s an assumption, nothing more, and assumptions based on what commonly is represented in media, entertainment, reflecting and reinforcing common, heteronormative societal images of romance.

And have I been talking about Snow being bisexual or lesbian? No. I wouldn’t say it’s totally impossible, but at the moment she is married, and as they have shown on the show so far, quite happily, so have no reason to consider her for looking for a romance with anyone else than David at the moment, regardless what gender another person could have if she ever might get interest in looking at someone else. Would I though say that it is impossible that Snowings could be open for polyamory? Might not be the first couple to think of, but wouldn’T say it’s impossible or unlikely.

Zoophilia is a thing in real life, where people do have romantic attractions to animals. Fairies are just tiny humans, a dwarf is just a short, big eared human, and a werewolf is only a werewolf under the moon. What I meant was, how do we know Regina isn’t attacted to animals? Are we assuming she isn’t?

I know what zoophilia is, but I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and trying to take it with some humour. But comparing any queer person or relationship with being attracted to animals is highly dismissive and offensive and a token of homophobia. You are aware that in laws sodomy was used as term for both, for homosexual behavior and sexual use of animals? And it was and is criminalized (although one could argue homosexual is still criminalized as well in many countries, can even mean death penalty). I know there are as well people defending zoophilia, but I consider a romantic and sexual relationship only as acceptable as long as there is consent possible between whoever is involved, and no, animals can’t give that consent.

Now that you have clarified your position, I can’t let it go anymore. I hope you see yourself that your alleged harmless comparison is harmful, and expect an apology.

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[Author]

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