Faemonic

It's definitely a problem that they don't consider the principle behind it, but only the medium. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and therefore compromises consent. While it is possible to get just tipsy enough to have a fun roll in the hay that you won't regret the morning after, it's a giant creepy Problem that real life dudebros (usually dudebros) pass around that this means it's okay to get laid by getting their partner so drunk that said partner can't fight back, is passed out and can't talk back with a "no i do not want" or even "would you do that again, but harder and a little more to the left, no, I meant my left", and can't even remember after that who it was they had sex with. Or, it's not even "who it was they had sex with" because you'd both need to be into it for it to be considered "with" and not "at". I agree with Shanna Marie that it was out of character for Hook to go that way. Maybe in other people's headcanons, Hook flirts because he has a violently aggressive sex drive and will therefore do anything and everything to get laid, including getting his partner drunk to the point that they're not even partners but victims--so that line about Hook getting women drunk as a regular tactic just confirmed that sort of characterization. Was it the "my men need 'companionship'" line that did him in? You would think that would have made Milah a much more sympathetic character. Or was it just the pirate thing? I agree. But since the character is only made up of what we can see onscreen... I could keep going, "Argh, the writers" because you know it's never argh-the-actors, but what makes the character isn't how cohesive they are in my headcanon. He said what he said. Your headcanon Emma is more chivalrous than mine. That's brilliant, if Past Hook suspected Emma of having some ulterior motive to approaching him, but if it involved Emma flirting with him (or more) then he'd happily play along. I just thought he was in so much denial about his alcohol addiction that he would project it onto completely sober people. In any case, that wretched line didn't even jive with the rest of his dialogue. Past Hook basically told Emma that if she didn't want a nightcap, he would just up and go find somebody else who does. Interchangeability might be objectifying, but that's the least rapey thing anybody can say, and that came from a Killian so drunk that he called the ship that he'd sailed for two centuries "the Rolly Jojer". And then after telling off Smee he caught Emma on her way back up to the deck and wondered aloud if she was having second thoughts. The fug would Captain Rape care how many thoughts she has? And his follow-up wasn't, "good--because we're on the point of no return, here"; it wasn't complaints about his balls being bluer than a tropical lagoon and she owes him some relief, it wasn't any nonsense like that but "my apologies, you deserve my full and prompt attention." He was probably five seconds away from vomiting on Emma's shoes and passing out. Changing gears to something far more general: I definitely agree, but there seems to be this awful idea floating about that calculating grace is a distraction from the moral imperative to cultivate it. Like, either everybody or nobody in the whole world ever deserves grace, but it's more for the sake of those giving it than those taking (advantage of) it. That said, I also don't believe in ideological purity being the way of the human condition. Grace is a result of a process, and demanding that it be generated by default leads to emulating grace and repressing rather than processing a lot of the less-than-gracious natural human reactions.

What other duo shots? Emma and Henry, which got this story rolling in the Land Without Magic in the first place? Daddy Charming and Emma being buddy cops? If it were either of those, I wouldn't mind if they'd added a duo shot with Emma and Regina...because that would just be a picture. Instead, management resolved the issue by setting the bar for bully placation: ruining it for everybody.

I...what...even...bzuh? How much agency to these people think the actors HAVE in their publicity?? How do they think these events are hosted and scheduled??? This is not a thing! This should not be a thing! Oh, Captain Swan's got its own bad apples, I'm sure, but I've only noticed them when they cross over to Coliffer shipping (see the Coffee Incident and JMo's Saviour-level classiness in standing up for Mrs. O'Donoghue.) I guess we never needed to protest that Emma and Killian don't get enough screen time or whatever together, because I actually didn't ship them until the Neverland Snog 2013. Before then, I was all for Hook being the Storybrooke bike. It's probably the bad apple Evil Regal influence that does it, sadly. As most other OUATers point out, the Sleeping Warrior shippers are and have been generally gracious...probably because most Sleeping Warriors who are also Social Justice Warriors (not an OUAT ship...yet... hmm, Archie Katherine Mulan?) at least instinctively know the difference between heteronormativity and homophobia.

From the fandom issues thread: I don't know about the creative process with the writers, so I definitely disagree with the bolded part, but I definitely think that Reginald and Emmanuel would be as aggressively shipped as Sherlock and Watson, or Castiel and the Wincester brothers. And the showrunners and network executives alike would be just as resistant to making it happen in canon. See earlier in this very thread where I make a wall of text about OUAT's Hook essentially being a genderswapped brunet English version of femme fatale Saffron from Firefly, but that's if we divorce the creators from the work itself (hello, Derridan literary analysis) and give only a momentary acknowledgment to viewers whose experience is less layered with meta. As I also mentioned, getting drunk is still largely considered "gray rape" rather than an act of undermining consent by refusing to sustain inhibitions (that is, the informed and lucid personal boundaries of the person in question). I definitely disagree that "gray" rape is even a thing, but whoever wrote that line seems to think it's acceptable enough to joke about, and to characterize Hook that way without in-story condemnation. This isn't to say that this absolves Captain Hook as a character of any responsibility of the effect that he has, as a character, on the culture that consumes his presence as an entertainment medium. What does absolve him of that responsibility is the fact that he's fictional, and therefore a construct that can only be "taken to task" by analysis either in terms of the skill and craft by which he is brought to life, or the effect that this entire entertainment medium has on society: as a product of the patriarchy, or as an active reinforcer of oppressive ideas such as lowering inhibitions of a sexual partner is acceptable behavior. ...Or, as the above quoted post was originally in the fandom and viewer issues thread, I guess we can condemn young women and gay men for having an avenue such as this character to explore their sexuality! Yeah, sure, let's just go with that. How dare anybody else have their own interpretation about anything they experience! Fans of Problematic media are Bad For Society. So very Bad For Society, everybody.

Taking my replies to the Social Issues thread.

I'd morale-y support some Almanac of OUAT Fandom Retrograde, in hopes that we might learn something from history...but as with any fandom that might be entirely too much time and effort dedicated to organizing data that doesn't pay and can ruin a day. Stamps!!!!! Yes. Thank you. Cromagnon-era messaging technology, but...maybe some things were just better back then.

I don't know if Ginny Goodwin was harassed off Twitter, but IIRC Meghan Ory was. And just because Hook is a polarizing character on the show, I gathered that Colin gets some disproportionate volume of hate tweets. I don't know about there being no such thing as bad publicity, and I know this is older than twitter (hello, Hideaki Anno and vandalized studio and fanmail death threats back when those would be handwritten and lick-stickered I forgot what you call those) but hate at the actors, or even personal boundary encroaching adulation is just...never...cool...why that is even a thing.

Thanks to this post in the Morality in Storybrooke thread about how worried the poster was about Emma's free will now being reliant on the Dark One dagger, I suddenly want a crossover fanfic with The Rite where Father Kovac tries to exorcise Emma and the Blue Fairy is all like, "That's not a named demon from Catholic demonology, Father! We came here to Italy from Maine in Canada." And Tinkerbell is all like, "Only TLK from Captain Hook will do it!" And Father Kovac would be all like, "When Father Lucas told me that he believed in Tinkerbell some days, I didn't think he meant that he'd ever actually met a nun who thought she was Tinkerbell." And then Dark Dagger Emma would be all like, "Nooo TLK is too much of a commitment! And also what if the Dark One just tethers itself to somebody else? Remember, it can't even be hatted. I want to get Henry a dog, specifically a giant Rottweiler that pants in Gregorian chants." She says that last part because she is partl eevil, but she will continue to suffer for everybody's sins because she's partlyJesus. And then Hook disguises himself as Father Kovac because of reasons, and the real Father Kovac is like, "Why would you let him in? He doesn't look anything like me!!!!! he has permanent 5 o' clock shadow" And the Blue Fairy is like, "Because I'm shady, obvs" only she doesn't say that because that's not a shady thing to straight out say. Then the Blue Fairy becomes the host of the Dark One and it has no perceivable effect on the Blue Fairy like Blue isn't even SparkleDark but the kris has her real name and all the heroes are like, "The fug??! We thought you were less shady because you died from Marilyn Manson's shadow and got hatted Blue we trusted you, and now that you are completely normal we cannot trust " &Emma s like, "Whatever! I want to go home and look at waterscapes with my pirate boyfriend." And Hook will do something with his eyebrows and make some double entendre, but he's still in the cassock so I've got to go pronounce a few rosaries against impure thoughts.

Emma can still have Free Will. Even though the Dark One itself is bespelled to be tethered to a human soul, so that it could be controlled by the dagger...there was nothing in the spell that said that the Dark One's human host cannot control the dagger themselves. So, Zoso had free reign plus Dark One powers until the Duke came along...and Rumple had that same right for hundreds of years before Zelena came along. I'd actually consider that a massive oversight in the Dark One Tether Spell. Okay, maybe that it's bound to a human soul with human motivations that, even with a phenomenal amount of personal power from being able to control themselves, would still only exercise personal autonomy, rather than...I don't know, godlike malevolence...but if I were the Sorcerer I'd try to bind it to one unit of a True Love dynamic and have the other control the dagger. If they betray that love, then that could trigger something like the Dark One 404 Error of The Dark One stabbing themselves and returning to the firebrand elevator full of dark one gloop (the Lumiere episode). Maybe True Love is like the magic version of reconciling Newtonian physics with relativity. I mean, "being in love" or "being loving" doesn't necessarily mean "being a good person" ...hello Cora. When Emma Dark One Swan was whisked away by Darkness, her dagger landed between her parents, Hook, Regina, and that other guy with the indecipherable code. I'm not worried right now about anybody who disrespects Dark One Emma enough to command her to do anything but "don't kill us!" but...I agree, it's interesting how it could turn out.

No more flashbacks in S5, please! No more! Everybody look forward. Forward to Camelot! Camelot is cool! Flash-sideways would be fine! But please no more flashbacks! Also, now that Emma Swan is The Dark One, that is, a villain...does that mean she actually gets to be the main character again, at last? Hurrah to that.

For the Echo Caves Snowing secret, I'm going to have to go Doylist rather than Watsonian: the writers didn't know back then that Snowing had done something that awful. Well, okay, going Doylist...Snowing thought it was worth it until only recently. Remember when Emma was telling Snow White that she (Emma) would never put at risk the life and quality of life of an innocent, and Snow replied, angrily, that that was exactly why they did the thing (and that it was worth it)? Unfortunately, the Egg Plot ruined for me that one scene in season 2 where Emma and Snow look at Emma's old nursery. The concept of the Baby Do-Over being spoken out loud in the Echo Caves didn't do that, the naming of Neal Jr the Second didn't do that, and Snow Drifts didn't ruin Snow Falls for me the same way I've heard Snowing fans complain, so...different strokes. Egg plot was the fatal one for me. Or maybe we can go all quantum about it, like maybe Snow's Dark Curse brought to the Land Without Magic people from a different timeline than the one that the Un-Curse whisked away, and this Snow's Emma is not her Emma, and this Emma's Snow is not her Snow, but neither of them know it because the parallel dimensions are similar enough except for that one egg baby detail. This can also explain why the Snow in Season 1 told David that Regina "poisoned an apple because she thought I was prettier than her!" and maybe also why she thinks his name is James. When the FIRST Dark Curse came around, we see a potentially infinite number of Enchanted Forests minus Cora Dome being whisked away to the Land Without Magic (because that's a fixed point, just ask any Time Lord) but simultaneously so that it looks like one event...but only the one where Regina DID confront Bandit Snow at Daniel's grave made it over to the parallel universe of the Land Without Magic. Quantum flux! The sci-fi solution to all the continuity problems you previously did not have! :)

I think I saw a credit in one episode or another (or this might be common knowledge by now) but isn't Nimerfro also a producer? Producers, if they get out of control, seem to be a lot less easy to control than writers.

This show does give all the actors opportunities to show their range and subtlety (or at least, it used to) but can I just say how I loved to hear the richness come back into Hook's voice after Emma tackled him into bed? Compared to Bizarro!Hook, who was even differently timid than Lieutenant Puppy. Regular Hook has like a swagger in every syllable. Also, unpopular opinion time, but I even had a difficult time believing that Emma could grieve Bizarro!Hook, because whatever that man was had with her was negative chemistry, which I did not know was possible. Zero Kelvin hotness. Bizarro and Regular Hook were completely different people. Lieutenant Puppy had more joie de vivre than Bizarro!Hook. So...aye, those be Acting Skills. Give Colin a hand!

Season 4 Finale! I realized that I used to watch this show because it was like good Disney fanfiction was given a budget. Now I would watch the final two episodes of this season and last season because it's like bad fanfiction of bad fanfiction was given an even bigger budget. Although I've heard this season they actually had a smaller budget. It looks like the writers were having fun, at least! I mean...at last.

Does anybody else get reminded of this entry from Sars' advice column?

Breaking News: Rape by fraud was slightly more than a blip on Robin Hood's emotional radar and we got exactly one (1) moment of his emoting about that. It must be the best acting that Sean Maguire has been allowed to do thus far. Now over to you, Regina. Women's reproductive rights! In this latest episode, this is a tepid issue. Although for a show that seems to just absolutely love babies oh so very much, I wonder where Roland and Snowflake even were while all the grown-up's storylines were going on. Henry Jr. was in this episode, and then got a mention, and then...nothing.

So, I watched 4.21 "Mother". The platitude is so obvious onscreen that I could grit my teeth until they shatter. Part of it, I'm sure, is the pacing of the entire story, where everything is a day and this entire story arc has been squished into 11 episodes. The themes ought to be more complex and nuanced, and leave things open to question for us adult viewers, but they're Disney fairy tales so there's going to be an answer that's a theme. All the moral ambiguity shall be left to discussions among viewers, with a strong temptation right now for disappointed capslock, at least in my case. I shall resist. ...Okay, I turned into a dragon and flew around spilling the blood of my enemies over the fields and burning standby-standers into char. I'm back and feel better much now, but I think some children of the collatoral damage I caused will avenge the random people I attacked in about ten years, thirty if I do a couple of time-freezing spells. (Maybe I should have just capslocked...) First, I think it's thanks to Colin's broken leg back in the second season that I get the seed of headcanon that Hook got to sit in a locker in New York, convinced that he killed The Dark One, and realized that it didn't bring Milah back and didn't make him feel that much better...like, 300-year-old-quest worth of Better. Once that's out of the way, he gets to face the fact that once upon a time he sold out the only living memory of Milah to the One True Villain in this entire series. That's got to sting, and he completely deserved it, and nobody's going to cozy up to his leather and convince him that he's got a good heart, that he's got to earn. That's why Hook is the only reason that I watch this show anymore...one of the reasons why. And I really think that Lily should have had that moment. Her transformation into a dragon could have been some metaphor for natural human emotional processes, or it could have been a tantrum stamped down with a platitude, and unfortunately with Lily it came off to me as the latter. There wasn't a single moment where she was shown to realize, "Snow White was bleeding from the head after I knocked her into the rock with my tail. Did I hurt her that badly? I didn't mean it! I was just saying, and planning, but if I actually did it then what have I done??? I never mean it when I destroy anything, and I keep destroying things!" What Maleficent said about looking to the future and being happy with what they're given is a good idea, but the last thing that ever makes that actually happen is to tell an angry and embittered person that that's what they're supposed to "choose" right now with a snap of the fingers, and invalidate a lifetime of confusion and pain. That's not healing. Even Maleficent got an apology from Snowing to mellow her out. She wouldn't speak to them two episodes ago. She threatened Cruella with a painful death that would have lasted for days! If that last one came about, then it would have been tragic for everybody, and horrifying to most. But it would have shown a process. Lily ought to have been allowed that process, with or without Snow's torture and near-death and self-flagellation over decades. I can't even hold Snow responsible for anything anymore even, actually, because all I see is her dancing at the end of puppet strings. I never know anymore what she'll consider worth the evil or collateral damage, and what she'll self-flagellate for three seasons over. Ginny Goodwin acts the hell out of every line that she's given, but this version of Snow White is not even a character anymore because there's just no cohesion. Emma's forgiveness of her in this episode meant nothing. Okay, maybe it means that Life Won't Wait for your internal turmoil process to mellow, because Storybrooke has dragons and sharp rocks all over the bloody place, like literally, the place will be covered in blood because of all the sharp rocks...so, forgive as fast as you can before the people you're angry at are dead and not by your hand so bummer and you love them deep down too. Maybe it means that gazing out at waterscapes with Killian Jones, sipping rum (at like 2 in the afternoon, Emma, I don't think your boyfriend is a good influence on you...) can do a lot to hurry up a process of a lifetime. But within relationships and character development that used to be central (does anybody else remember season one?? I think Maleficent had a unicorn) it...kind of struck me as super meaningless.

When they watched the footage of Emma in her new foster home using Lily's camcorder at the beginning of A Family Business (406), I think Emma said that she was 13, almost 14?

The someone else was Robin's Marian, though. If, during The Missing Year, Hook got caught up in some green fog out at sea and got his timbers shivered by That's Not Really Milah...it would have been handled so, so much better than Robin Hood and the crypt sex while Marian was still frozen. I don't blame Robin Hood at all for trying to rekindle his marriage after he actually separated from Regina, but I do concur that whoever is writing Hook is just...better at it. And off romantic relationships, I continue to be disappointed in the show's lack of camaraderie. What were the Merry Men's relationship with Marian? It's like only Will is the important one and the others are just decoration. How does Killian Jones command the loyalties of crew members that he obviously never cares much for? It's like only Smee is important and the others are just decoration. Does Snow White have any friends who aren't Charming? It's like Grumpy and Happy only drop by to nag her and the others...you know?

About Big Baelfire being statutory rapey miscast: Robert Sheehan is all. They could have given him Body Piercings And Silk Screen Tattoos (Of Youth) to match Morrison's eyeglasses and ponytail. Although I do remember that it did seem to defuse some shipper wars brewing back in the Buffy fandom when some backstage fans reminded everybody that Charisma Carpenter auditioned for Buffy and Sarah Gellar auditioned for Cordelia and would everybody still be so angry if they got each other's parts? Personally, though, I really don't believe that I could see Nealfire (played by Colin O'Donoghue) and August pull that on Emma and go, "Oh, but they're both such hawties I'll totes forgive them in a couple of episode." Although Colin could pull off...a passing natural American/Canadian accent. Doubt that would save the character. Back to the topic, I would throw in there the observation that statutory rape seems to be considered about as similarly "doesn't count as real rape" as rape by fraud, date rape, gray rape, coma rape, coerced consent, nominal consent, and canola. Because our world's got Problems. How this relates to OUaT, though, that's where I think the fantasy elements actually can make it less icky. I would actually give Nealfire a pass simply for being overaged and I could buy the Neverland Emotional Stunting Island. But as I keep saying, his age was the least of their problems, and Swan Thief had Problems. Philip and Charming smooching sleeping women, I also give a pass not because of some "point of no return" in their established relationships granting unquestioned sexual access, but because without those kisses these women wouldn't have woken up ever. Heart controlling should, however, be added to the Wheel of Power and Control in the Storybrooke domestic violence shelters. Because I feel that's an apt metaphor for what's actually happening when, say, one partner uses children as a bargaining chip in the relationship, or threatens the safety of family and friends that the victim of abuse has usually already been isolated from, or even threatens to damage objects of great sentimental value--not a hand is laid on the victim, but abusive control and imbalance of power is what's happening. Doesn't change much for the case of Zarian, either. Or, sadly...Rumple. (Classy attitude you showed about your murdered ex-wife, there, Mr. Gold. Was that really your "dagger" speaking darkness into your heart? Hrmm-mm.)

Here's his cover of "All Along the Watchtower" Decent power in the upper register, still a bit pitchy. I would love that! It doesn't seem to be his style, though. He can totally play Thomas from The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls if/when it becomes a real musical and isn't Emilie Autumn . Although, as in everywhere, .

I haven't watched 4B except for Poor Unfortunate Soul (because it's a Hook episode) and this latest one. Apparently Robin was raped. So...that's what the rest of this post is going to be about. And if the writers get confused about rape being the word for the event that the huntsman had his heart ripped from his chest and the guards dragged him away to the evil queen's bed chambers, and the huntsman with a look of doomed soullessness on his face...and Regina groping him with her body... Well, maybe they've become more reflective since then about the unfortunate implications of-- https://twitter.com/ScottNimerfro/status/592519374029787136 *facepalm* Ahem. Okay... Um, I actually have mentioned the It's Fiction Firewall can be applicable to the perspective that, hey, Captain Hook actually isn't the embodiment of rape culture, actually he's a genderswapped brunet English-accented Saffron from Firefly, because beyond the It's Fiction veil, in Once Upon A Time verse, the women actually rule. But I totally understand people for whom Hook's initial flirtations were less the in-universe survival strategy of a handicapped prettyboy who was thisclose to getting fed to ogres, and instead was more of a nasty reminder that men with sexual entitlement exist to dehumanize and objectify women (in real life, in fiction, and in fictions within fictions. Sucks, but, you know...I wish more Hook-haters would keep in mind that it is fiction and there are worthy arguments for alternative interpretations.) And you know what? When it came to Zelena, I thought the director or editor or writer or somebody actually got it. Zelena was creepy! Rebecca Madden is stunning, and that did not matter when she's pawing our boys who very clearly Do Not Want. In 3B, the misery of those suffering from coerced consent was honored, at least when I watched it. I think that was good for the show to show. It doesn't matter how good-looking the perpetrator is, and it doesn't matter what the double standards are supposed to be (female on male creepiness versus male on female creepiness)--sexually-charged encroachment of personal boundaries is full of nope. That's a message that can get out and be real even though It's Just Fiction. (Although I can only speak for myself: I'm sure there are viewers out there who considered Rumple's position enviable, or who enjoyed watching an unhappy, hog-tied Hook tickled with roses.) And now there's...Robin, who was raped by fraud. The concept of rape-by-fraud isn't uncontroversial, given that customarily courtship with shorter goals than a long-term relationship are expected to not have 100% personal authenticity. But whatever line there is between that and a criminal offense, disguising as somebody in a long-term relationship with the victim and then sexing them up is waaaaay on the bad other side of that line--even with magic that means It's Fiction Fantasy And Not Real. My two cents.

I must be the only one in the world underwhelmed by Colin O'Donoghue's vocals. You all know I admire him! Wicked acting skills, and that face, and the body of Adonis, and can cook complicated French recipes, and goofball antics make this planet a better place to live, and has family values, and plays a musical instrument, he is a treasure. But his singing. Is competent. But his tone quality is just so bland. He has the voice of a Disney prince in the worst way (which, to be sure, is not anywhere in the ballpark of bad.) I actually think the media's oversaturated with tenors, like, that tone quality is a dime a dozen. I'll grant that he's obviously got a good ear, and ...still, I can see why the lead singer is the lead singer. The sort of fusion Nashville funk style that seems to be the band's thing is just not my thing, either. At least they're all having fun.

Esmeralda is my favourite Disney princess, although apparently she's not a canon Disney princess. It could be because she's neither married into royalty nor was born into it, but Mulan technically isn't either! Literary purists might loathe this movie worse than Hercules*, but it's one of my very tip-top favourites, too. (* Yeah, yeah, no such thing as purists in mythology and folklore because there are so many anonymous contributors and regional variations, but Hera's the doting mother?? You know, I knew that Hera was kind of infanticidal before I watched this Hercules, but I actually picked up a Cliff Notes book on Greek mythology after this just to see if Megara was in Greek mythology, and...she is. She is. Broke my eleven-year-old little heart.)

She forgave herself? Regina I Regret Nothing Imma Gonna Punch Pan's Heart From His Chest couldn't also go through the door because she didn't have Henry to make it worthwhile and lost hope of getting to him, meaning that she almost had to do some thinking about what her Dark Curse was worth.