[Slurpeez]

Everything you wrote I agree with. For me, the heart of Rumple was always his son, and the heart of the show was always that parental love that made Rumple cast the dark curse to find him. Without Bae, I fear the heart of the show is missing, as is Rumple’s redemptive quality. Now he’s just another power-hungry villain out to take over the world. But that’s so boring, and a crying shame. Rumple can try and have everything, but we know he’s not going to get what he wants, because he can’t have unlimited dark magic and real love. It’s going to have to be one or the other.

[Slurpeez]

Anyone else feel that this series has really sold out to Disney?

Yes, 100%! The title Frozen was name dropped 2-3 times in just this recent episode alone, probably because that film was Disney’s biggest hit in a long time. Even though Elsa and Anna grew on me, I’m ready to see them go. I also felt as though their story could’ve been told in 2-3 episodes, and even Ingrid’s story could’ve been flushed out way before. There were probably at least 4 non-essential episodes of filler this arc. The epiosde of the citizens being under the spell could’ve spanned at least 2 epiodes, which would’ve given the people of SB way more to do than just fade back into oblivion.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

If you’re reading this thread and still having difficulty deciding what a lack of consent looks like, take a look of gif set.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

ABC could air the Broadway hit musical version of The Lion King.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

Rape CULTURE =/= rape. It’s a thing I didn’t even know existed until relatively recently, or I should say, I didn’t know it had a name. The very culture whereby Hook declared he would “win” Emma’s heart *despite the fact that she wasn’t into it* and it was portrayed as romantic is where the issue lies.

That is a good point. Emma was portrayed as resisting Hook’s advances right up until 3×22. This awesome meta pretty much explores they why and how CS supports this idea of a “no means yes” and rape culture.

But like I said, this isn’t just ONCE or A and E. It’s media–in all its complexities. Put the shoes on the other foot. Make it so that the woman is going after the guy like crazy, hounding him at his place of work, watching him through a scope while he eats with friends and family, telling him how they should be together, etc…We’d say she was a “tramp” a “ho” and a stalker. But when the GUY does it…well, that’s romantic.

Have you seen All About Steve starring Sandra Bullock? It’s an interesting movie insofar as it portrays a woman chasing after a guy she likes as being “desperate” or “deluded” because the lady “can’t take no for an answer” despite the fact they’d had sex. In his mind, it was a one-time thing (which is what Emma said to Hook about that coerced kiss), but if the woman is the one pushing for something more then she is desperate. But if Hook is the one pushing for more with Emma, despite her saying it was a one-time thing, well then Hook is merely being “persistent” in his pursuit, because he believes “all women want it.” Umm how about, just no?

BOTH ships have problematic elements. The key difference for me is that based on what I’ve seen – which, it goes without saying, does not include every shipper, everywhere – fans of one ship want to sweep all of the problematic elements under the rug, while fans of the other would like to see the characters acknowledge, delve into and resolve those elements. I think that goes back to the maturity element; at 18, it’s very easy to assume “as long as everyone is loves each other and is happy in this moment, life will be perfect,” whereas by the time you’re 30 you realize it’s the struggle that makes it worth it – realizing that everyone screws up, and it’s how you fix those mistakes that defines who you are.

I think any SF shipper probably would acknowledge that Emma and Neal’s relationship had its faults. I mean he let August send her to jail. That’s pretty bad when first you hear about it. And yeah, he knocked up Emma, who was only on the cusp of young adulthood. And that’s all Emma had to go on for 10 years, thinking all that time that he didn’t love her, only to find out that he did, but that it was too late. Then, like Emma, you start to get the details behind it. When you hear about it from Neal’s perspective, you begin to realize he was a product of abandonment himself, but that he truly believed he was doing the selfless thing by letting Emma get home to save her family. Wouldn’t people claim Neal was a selfish son of a gun if he’d prevented Emma from saving her family? Neal was truly in a no-win situation. Emma came to understand that as well, albeit too late, when the emotional damage was done. And I think you’re right on about the maturity level of the shippers. At age 18, most teenagers still haven’t experienced their first true heartbreak, and they think that no one they love could ever hurt them (which interestingly enough, is the age Emma was when she wound up pregnant and alone). At age 30, you realize that real love is full of complexity, and that even people who love each other can hurt each other deeply (which interestingly enough is about the age Emma was when Neal came back into her life). Then it becomes a matter of deciding whether that love is enough to help salvage a relationship.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

The whole “rape culture” debate is getting ridiculous.Neither man is promoting rape culture and Neal certainly didn’t to anything wrong. He was in a consensual sexually active relationship with Emma. It’s not like SF were keeping track of each state’s laws to find out whether they could bang or not in that particular state. If Emma fully agreed to it and it was perfectly legal in other states to the north/west/south/east of whatever state they were in, then I don’t see why Neal and 17 year old Emma would be considered “statutory rape”. Also, Emma and Neal were breaking the law anyway, so a higher age of consent in one state isn’t going to stop them from doing something they’ve been doing legally in other states.

I wasn’t going to comment on this, since the whole debate is getting old, but I will since you brought it up. This is a pro-SF, pro-Neal safe-space, so people here will naturally defend Neal and Emma’s relationship but won’t support Hook or like CS. I will say though that I agree with you that Neal and Emma had a consensual relationship, and like you said, they weren’t keeping track of which states had the legal age of consent being 16 or 17 or 18. We know they were on the road a lot and that they moved around since they lived in a stolen car. One state over from Oregon in Washington, the legal age of consent is 16. Also, there is no way of knowing how old Bae was in terms of youth when he met Emma. We know he was frozen at age 14 for at least a century in NL, and basically nothing on his wanted poster can be trusted, because it’s all made up. Baelfire’s fake identity as “Neal Cassidy” was entirely made up, including his fake birthday. We the audience know Baelfire was not even from this world, nor was he really born on March 21, 1977. That was just some date Baelfire probably made up, like when he invented his whole persona. I wouldn’t be suprised if Bae made it seem like he was older than he appeared to be when he came through to this land at age 14, so as to avoid going into the foster care system. I’m not defending Bae for getting a teenage Emma pregnant, but I will say that he himself may have been a teenager who obviously lied about his birthday. We can’t take his fake birthday of any ‘proof’ of how old Bae really was when he and Emma had consensual sex.

I can see why people don’t like Hook, I can see why people dislike CS, but Hook does not promote rape culture. Hook is certainly no Prince Charming but he never forces Emma or other women to do anything against their will. If Hook is guilty of anything, it’s probably being a bit sexist, with his season 2 self showing hints of chauvinism.

Look, you know if you come into a pro-SF thread to start a debate about Hook that you’re probably not going to get people who agree with you. You may not even like the replies you read. But here it goes. Hook himself boasted in the season 3 finale about having used the tactic of getting women drunk in order to sleep with him. That tactic is a form of rape because drunk women cannot give proper consent. We’ve also seen Hook try and use alcohol on other women, including Tinkerbell and Emma. We saw Hook make a drunken pass at Tinkerbell, who thankfully turned him down because she realized her own dignity. She was fully sober and so that wasn’t going to work on her. We also saw Hook try and get Emma to drink to the point of excess on their date, so that she wouldn’t be able to “resist his charms” even though she had specifically warned him that she didn’t “plunder” on the first date. Even though Emma was the one asking Hook out, and even though he didn’t force himself on her, he was pushing the boundaries, despite her saying in advance not to expect her to go to bed with him on the first date. I’m not saying Hook is a “rapist” per se, but he did boast of having used the tactic of getting women intoxicated to have sex with him, which is what frat boys are known to do when they take advantage of intoxicated young women at parties. He’d also boasted of having had many a man’s wife, and that his crew had all ganged raped Milha (though that was untrue). That type of attitude is demeaning to women, which is just part of the entire rape culture. Hook’s behavior is problematic, because it endorses sex while under the influence of alcohol to a young audience of mostly women who’re already in love with Hook’s good looks and smooth-talking of the ladies. That is problematic, because they see Hook as being so hot that, there is no problem with him getting women so drunk that they wake up the next day in his bed, not recalling having given him any consent. A&E will never admit to doing that, just as they’ll never admit that Regina raped Graham, whose heart she controlled, but the show does implicitly (if not explicitly) endorse rape culture.

The only character on the show that comes close to promoting rape culture is Regina in regards to the whole Regina/Graham “relationship.” Normally the “rape is a special kind of evil” trope is used when the writers want to make a villain completely irredeemable. Villains can do all sorts of things and still be redeemable so long as they don’t cross that line. Regina crossed that line yet the writers have used the “double standards” trope so that she isn’t irredeemable, in fact they are trying to push Regina into hero territory. Even if the writers hand wave the Storybrooke side of the relationship (Graham kind of gave consent even if that consent is extremely morally dubious), there is no way the EF side of the relationship could be considered consensual. It’s coercion. However, because it’s female on male instead of the other way round, the issue hasn’t been given the screen time it would’ve gotten if it had been male on female. As a result of sweeping the whole thing under a rug, the writers and the show have really missed an opportunity to show a progressive attitude to such a sensitive issue.

I have as many problems with Regina’s rape of Graham as I do of Hook using alcohol to get women drunk to have sex with him. Regina controlled Graham and made him do all sorts of things he didn’t want to do, namely be her sex slave. In SB, she also used his heart to make Graham murder Owen’s father the way Rumple is currently using Hook to suck up magical people into the sorcerer’s hat. So Regina, who’d taken away Graham’s real memories and removed his heart, was still capable of controlling Graham while in SB. I really dislike A&E for not admitting that Regina raped Graham. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a woman raping a man or a man raping a woman, since rape is still rape, which is always morally wrong.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

Peter Pan Live! – Introducing Peter Pan and Captain Hook (Digital Exclusive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0A98CFtHeY

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

You mean because it’s actually Captain Hook and not some fanfiction TV version of Captain Jack Sparrow and guy liner?

Exactly. At one point Hook sings, “Who says that my hook is cute?” As awesome as Christopher Walken is, he’s not meant to be the eye candy of the show. He’s an actual, old-time villain, the way Hook was intended to be.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

Peter Pan tonight! Don’t forget, 8pm

I’ll be watching! Can we talk about how awesome their take on Captain Hook is?

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

[Slurpeez]

I can see why Rumple would rather save himself and his loved ones rather than risk dooming them all for a town and its inhabitants who really don’t care whether Rumple lives or dies unless it affects them in some way. For example, “oh no, our magical problem solver is dead”.

At the end of the day, Rumple’s self-interest and the interests of those in town simply don’t align. It’s a clash of two branches of ethics. Even if we can understand why Rumple makes the decisions he does, it’s not going to get him what he wants in the end. Firstly, even if Rumple does successfully leave town, Rumple will be powerless because there is no magic outside of SB. He’d be vulnerable, which is the exact opposite of what he wants. So how does his plan even make any sense? Does he plan to bring magic to all of A Land Without Magic? Also, it’s pretty much the opposite of what he really wants if his idea of “happiness” comes at the expense of the happiness of those he loves, namely Belle and Henry, who’ll lose people they love. Rumple would have to lie to Belle and to Henry for the rest of their natural lives. But, he’d probably justify it by saying he did it to “protect them” from the Snow Queen.

But let’s be honest. If Rumple had wanted to defeat the Snow Queen before she even cast her spell, he could’ve done so with the snap of his fingers. Rumple is the one who ended the Ogres War and freed the children. Rumple is the one who saved Belle’s people in the second ogre’s war. No one currently has Rumple’s dagger to control him, so it would’ve been as easy as breathing for Rumple to destroy the Snow Queen. But he doesn’t even try. In fact, the first thing he does is makes deals with the very woman who would destroy the rest of Henry’s family and the town itself. Yet, Rumple lusts so much after unrestricted power that he makes the deal with the Snow Queen in exchange for knowledge of how to free himself from that dagger. It’s a decision which ultimately leads to the Snow Queen casting her spell while he turns his back on everyone.

"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy

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