Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-4877635-20130614170253/@comment-22525977-20131017054628

In the case of Mulan/Aurora/Phillip, personally, it's not about *politics* so much as me watching the show and going "wow so Phillip and Aurora love each other BUT ALSO Phillip and Mulan are clearly in love too and Mulan/Aurora are adorable squeeeeee!, clearly the solution is a ménage à trois"

which is no different from how Captain Swan shippers are having collective squeefests over how hard the writers have been pushing it in this season

that it would be a progressive and brave move on OUaT's part to make it canon is less the point and more a nice bonus.

As far as politics goes—I'm a big believer in the importance of socially conscious writing, inclusiveness, et cetera, so I'm a proponent of diversity in all aspects in all of my fandoms; you don't care that OUaT is not doing so well on this front, but I notice and it effects the way I view the show.

To use an example that isn't politically charged: I grew up in a ranching town and have been around working horses all my life—most fantasy fiction has chestnuts, bays, greys, and blacks, and it gets jarring after a while because I'll watch and be like "so do paints and pintos and roans and so on just... not exist in this world?" which is obviously ridiculous because they're horses and who cares, but in my head when I think "horse" solid coats are some of the last to enter my mind. So, when OUaT gave Henry a horse and that horse was a pinto, I was stupidly happy because, you know, pintos are awesome.

People and the varieties thereof are exponentially more important to me than horse coloring—so much more that it's almost absurd to try to compare the two, but the basic principle of "yay visible diversity!" is still there, just magnified by thousands and thousands when it's about people and not animals.

re: polyamory: is not actually as hard to pull off as you'd think, especially on a show like OUaT where talking about/examining feelings is an accepted mode of storytelling and not just filler between plot-y scenes. You don't actually have to show those involved rolling around in bed (and personally I'd prefer they didn't—sex just sort of makes me roll my eyes, generally, especially in fiction). More important is the relationship between the characters (see previous flailing about how Mulan and Aurora and Phillip are all head-over-heels for each other). There's not a need for anything more than the kissing we've already seen in-show.

I mean there is something of a stereotype that poly relationships are just about sex (because... reasons?), but like SkyCloud was saying, that's zero reason for OUaT not to subvert that.