#...embarrassing

I get that Adam and Eddy are trying backtrack the hype over their romance that has yet to happen. Because it DOES look weird that a show four and a half seasons in in 2016 thinks it is somehow NEWSWORTHY that they will be including some non-hetero characters.

But guess what? Your assertion that you want it to happen just like every other story is a joke as well. No matter who the couple is, it’s a joke. It could be Swan Queen and it would be patently absurd to say this show has approached ANYTHING resembling realistic/natural depictions of non-cis/het people.

Because ONE pairing after four (and a half!) seasons? Embarrassing. This is not a show with a trim cast, either, where you could MAYBE justify one or two slow burn romances/side ships. This show has so many fucking characters and ships and all we have is vaguely bisexual (??) Mulan. There have been four whole seasons that could have been PEPPERED with non het romances and non het sexualities. Even without very much changing.

Some of my personal favorite examples (feel free to add your own):

How easy would it have been to make Charming bi or Belle pan? They don’t even need to change love interests, but a few lines here and there? Fantastic.

Lily/Emma? Dragon Queen? Fairy Queen? The set up is there. Just add three fucking minutes and there you go neither of your female leads are straight. Nailed it.

Speaking of leads, let’s talk about how Rumple fans have discussed and headcanoned trans/nonbinary Rumple for YEARS. Maybe instead of making Rumple’s arc about becoming a REAL MAN we could literally do anything else but especially maybe talk about how Rumple doesn’t even need to BE a cis male to be well adjusted and happy.

Sleeping Warrior-just let Phillip stay dead and you have two literal Disney princesses in love, holy shit!  Let them come back to Storybrooke in Season 2 and reoccur all the time. It takes LESS effort to do this than what they did omfg.

Archie? There’s gotta be something we could do with Archie.

Rumple’s adorable adoptive moms who finish each other’s sentences? Not rocket science.

Maybe instead of killing Neal for no good reason he could have had a sexual awakening and found a boyfriend. That adds to the family dynamic. Also, cynically, it would have boosted his popularity let’s be real.

Ruby was clearly always super gay, so we could have maybe given her a girlfriend BEFORE Season 4, RIGHT? (If indeed Red Warrior is what they are doing--actually either way let’s give a girlfriend she’s v gay thanks).

Merida. Rapunzel. Maybe Merida and Rapunzel together WHY THE FUCK NOT.

Sea Devil- this one really pisses me off bc all you need to do is see how far Victoria and Merrin have taken this ship by their own acceptance of it to see how easy this whole process is. They engage with an often ignored sector of the fandom with sincerity and enthusiasm, and that kind of attention can only benefit everyone involved.

And canon, over and over again, chooses not to engage.

None of this requires more than the general sense that “LGBT” romances and individuals exist and don’t require bizarre amounts of preparation and introduction. 

And none of these are PERFECT REPRESENTATION in and of themselves. Many of them have either objective flaws/limitations or would not be personally interesting to every viewer. But a good handful of them, carefully written and established? Would go a LONG way in making this show actually a modern take on fairytales. 

And guess what? Even if ALL of this were true, SQ fans would be just as entitled to want their ship regardless. But ONE ship, no matter how major, doesn’t constitute normalization. Swan Queen wouldn’t. Whatever they are planning certainly will not. Representation is about normalizing, it’s about prevalence and the sense that happy endings can exist for anyone.