Red Swan VS Swan Queen!
dun dun dun o:
Title: Come Hungry
Pairing/Fandom: Red Swan Queen, Once Upon a Time
Rating: M, baby.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything associated with ABC/Disney’s Once Upon a Time.
Word count: ~5,800
Summary: Red needs a helping hand. Or two.
Notes: So I came up with this prompt for damelola, and twelve hours later stole it back. So glad she was not too upset about it to give it the once over. Thank you, Lola! :D
This is my 3,601st post and I am using it to regretfully inform you that this may be the closest to Red Swan Queen with a harness involved, natch, we will ever get onscreen. I think Kathryn is probably operating the camera, as usual, the poor dear.
eshusplayground asked:
Anything about Regina, you say? Anything at all? Here’s something we’ve been touching off and on. Why don’t you give a rundown for current and future Swan Queen fanfic writers that could explain how, given Regina’s likely sexual history, she could discover that: a) she prefers women, and b) can like sex at all? DANIEL WAS REALLY DANIELLE! I NO CURR WHAT DA SHOW SEZ! *runs and hides*
Hmm, this is a really good question. :) Personally, I think I’ve always interpreted Regina as being bi, and figuring out that you’re bi can be really difficult if you grow up in a household where not being heterosexual is not an option (and I think it’s pretty safe to bet that Regina being in a relationship with another woman would have completely upended Cora’s patriarchy-upholding worldview). I mean, if we accept Regina as bi, then she really does like guys, and she’s not lying to herself in that regard; she’s just ignoring another part of herself and denying that it exists, because acting on those feelings is just not a possibility. Shaking off one’s parents’ worldviews can be really difficult as well, and Regina’s mother is one of the most manipulative individuals I have ever seen, so it makes sense that she would have some sort of internalized homophobia even as an adult, even as the Evil Queen, and just refuses to acknowledge this other side to herself. Then she meets Emma, who isn’t afraid of Regina and is really actually a good match for her, both romantically and in the greater scheme of things, and I can just see it clicking for Regina one day. I already think that, as much as Emma is a pain in the ass for Regina, she also appreciates having a challenge in life again, so I don’t think that Regina completely hates Emma. So then one day Regina is arguing with Emma and staring at her lips, because she seems to have a thing for lips, she suddenly realizes, “holy shit, I would not mind having sex with this woman,” and then she discovers that boobs are awesome, and then sex finally happens and she’s just like “OMG that was fifty billion times better than it was with Graham/Jefferson/Leopold/Daniel; let’s continue to explore the joys of lesbian sex, okay?”
I still think that Regina as a lesbian could work, though. Again, there’s the whole fact that Cora is a patriarchy-upholding, manipulative witch, and while Regina doesn’t exactly conform to the expectations for her gender, I can imagine that Regina banging a girl would result in much more wrath than Regina riding without a saddle. There’s also the fact that Daniel offers Regina love, whereas Cora offers her manipulation and Henry offers her cowardice. Daniel is the only person who ever favored Regina over Cora, so it makes sense that Regina would cling to that. This isn’t to say that Regina didn’t love or care for Daniel; she just may not have been sexually attracted to him. I don’t think that we really got an indication either way as to whether or not Regina and Daniel either had sex, but if they didn’t, then Regina would have no way to realize that they had no sexual chemistry, and if they did, then I doubt that she had ever slept with anyone before to be able to realize that their sexual chemistry was lacking. Then she was forced to marry Leopold, and that can’t have been enjoyable, and fucking the huntsman/Graham was always more about power and getting off on that, I think. So then comes along Emma, like I outlined above, and I can see it just being a revelation to her, that part of the reason why she’s been so miserable for so long is that she’s been lying to herself about a fundamental part of who she is.
As for the question of sex… ack, poor baby Regina. :( As I mentioned earlier, we’re really not given any indication as to whether or not Regina and Daniel were having sex; Regina didn’t seem to put much stock into upholding the expectations of her gender, so I can see her not waiting for marriage, but for argument’s sake, let’s say that Regina and Daniel were good, chaste Disney characters. So Regina is not only forced by her mother into a marriage with a man who appears to be older than her father and who does nothing to hide the fact that she will never be able to compete with the memory of his first wife, but she loses her virginity to this insensitive man and essentially spends the duration of her marriage being raped (since she never gave her consent to the marriage; Cora did). Thus, once Regina is finally free of Leopold, she seeks to regain the power that was stolen from her sexually by sexually dominating men (e.g. the huntsman) the way that Leopold dominated her. This isn’t about enjoying sex for Regina, though; it’s about enjoying the power and getting off on being in control.
What Regina needs in order to discover that she actually enjoys the act of sex, I think, is to have a partner with whom she is equals, who cares about Regina’s sexual pleasure as much as her/his own. Really, in Storybrooke, this leaves three options: Emma, August, and Gold, because everyone else has had their personalities overriden by the curse (like a date rape drug), so consent is non-existent. Emma is Regina’s equal when it comes to determination and strength of character, and she doesn’t seem like she’d be a selfish lover, so I think that a sexual experience between the two of them could also be revelatory. I mean, if Leopold was as gross and inattentive as I imagine he was, then Regina probably never had a single orgasm during that entire marriage, and when she started having sex with/raping other people, all that she had to go on was probably “it’s over after he comes”, so it’s doubtful that she even had an orgasm then. It is entirely possible, then, that at this point in canon, Regina Mills has never had an actual orgasm. With an equal partner who cares about her pleasure, though (*cough*Emma!*cough*), that could be otherwise.
Thoughts? I am legit the furthest thing from an expert on sex and sexuality, so I’m curious as to what others think.
Innnteresting. Very interesting! I love this analysis. I think there is definitely enough repression (I mean, why else would they cast Erica Sayers aka the UNHOLY MOTHER OF SWAN QUEEN as her mom? ;p) at work with Regina that she maybe never even entertained the thought yet it definitely comes out in her when she’s around women, lol. And, yeah, as a shipper, the scenes with Emma come across as so real to me compared to when she is around others, even Kathryn. She lets a lot of her mask slip around Emma and some real emotions come through and she’s already let Emma in much further than she probably even realizes and MUCH further than anyone else she shows such disdain for so I definitely agree that she loves that challenge. AND definitely agree on the equal partners, I think the show has gone out of it’s way to show that they are to be seen as equals, which is a big part of why I do ship it so hard and is a great contrast to some of the other relationships on the show.
Somewhat along these lines of how sex and love are portrayed on this show, I would love to know what you or anyone think about the parallel with Ruby and Regina: their ‘true loves’ died, sort of at their hands in FTL, and there isn’t any indication that either of them weren’t anything but virgins at the time of death. And yet, in Storybrooke, they are the two most noticeably sexualized characters on the show, as in their sexuality is something people comment on (not positively for either one) and has been a part of their plot-lines so far, for better or worse. Is that just because they didn’t know how else to write them so they fall-back on those tropes or are they trying to send a message with these two that you only get one true love and if you lose it you’re out of luck and will always be searching for something you can never have? And if we believe Graham was supposed to function as Emma’s ‘Daniel’ where does that leave her too?
I mean, are they really not going to make a distinction between first love and true love, or are they going to keep considering them one in the same? Is that the only option for the FTL characters? Inquiring minds want to know.
Clearly what I am getting at is that they should form some sort of mega-lesbian known as the Red Swan Queen.
