sorry to post about OUAT outside of the safety of the patreon corral but I just. truly cannot stop thinking about the bugfuck insanity of the writers deciding to drop in the seventh episode of their show ever that Regina has kept the same man as a sex slave in two separate realities.
like the nature of Storybrooke is that, having altered memories and lives constructed by Regina, I think almost everyone is off the hook for any sex under the effects of the OG curse—ie, Snow White might regret hooking up with Victor Frankenstein but the two of them were as on an equal footing as possible in the situation and both consented based on their understanding of reality at the time—with the obvious exception of Regina! who is extremely aware that everyone else in town is the most under the influence that maybe anyone has ever been in the history of the world!
which would be yucky enough if it was like, a bad situationship that developed organically in Storybrooke, but no man she was just recreating her setup in the Enchanted Forest where she kept Graham as a sex slave for god knows how many years. hello! hello!!! is anyone listening I'm going insane.
season one kind of revels in getting to roll out little reveals of Regina's litany of crimes via flashbacks to keep emphasizing, over and over, that she is insane and petty and willing to stoop to pretty much anything. in the first episode you know she's responsible for the curse that drives the entire plot, standard big bad stuff, but by the tenth episode you know she also kidnapped multiple children and sent them to their deaths in the candy house from Hansel and Gretel. which is obviously bad, no shit, but it's like. she's Snow White's wicked stepmother, she's the villain in a loosely goosey live action adaptation of classic Disney movies. endangering children for cruel and petty reasons is part of the territory.
but she also like. you know. she explicitly has a scared, trapped man dragged away to her bed chamber after she forcibly kisses him and magically rips his heart out of his chest specifically so that he can never defy her again. and then in case there was even a little bit of doubt left about what's going on there she continues to make his real world counterpart have sex with her, and even under a spell that's completely erased his memories of his old identity and life, he admits that his relationship with Regina doesn't make him feel anything. no one ever comes right out and says Regina is using her power as the mayor to pressure him into it, but that would frankly be mild by her standards.
I can't even quite articulate why I'm so hung up on this except that it's like, so jarring to have Regina do so many over the top cartoon crimes with her magical murder and mayhem and then also slip in oh, btw, she's also a rapist! she raped that man!" especially when you factor in that, based on my memory of the show and general understanding of what mind of show this is, no one is ever going to acknowledge that. when Regina starts her good guy redemption arc and other characters try to hold her accountable for things it's always going to be "you killed Graham" and never "you killed Graham after raping him repeatedly for many years in two different realities." no one is ever going to talk about that.
except for me, because I'm stuck watching six and a half more seasons and I will not be able to forget.












