#it's been over five years since I saw any of these episodes (outside of Milah scenes because come on!)

[justmilah]

fun fact! the selkie motif in fairytales is classified under the swan-madien motif: a type of legend where a woman can shape-shift usually by putting on a coat of swan feathers (or in the case of selkies, a seal skin). just amusing to me because you can take the selkie milah headcannon & combine it with emma as a swan madien and have both of them robbed of their identity and autonomy by stilkskin men

Sorry if this went way off the rails from where you intended it to go...

Okay 1) that IS a fun fact and I want to know more! 2) I just woke up and thought 'stiltskin' was a term for a man who stole skin and thought it was a clever play on Rumple's name -- only to realize that it's...just Rumple's name and probably a coincidence...

Even if you don't give them the literal myths, the analogy (I am 75% sure this is the word I want, thanks @pirate-owl for dealing with my flail) of them and then that parallel between the two ladies is fun!

Part of me wants to defend Neal but I mean...yeah. He really did her dirty in the end of their relationship. (So did August, he needs more blame there, and I'd like to know if he kept that money or not.) Anything before that that might fit, I don't remember enough of those scenes to comment on them in regards to this motif. (And I'll be honest, my first thought was about the maiden who had to knit sweaters for her brothers, so I imagined Emma having to make her own coat again after it got stolen and she wasn't able to get it back. Basically a 'she found the power from within to be herself again after many years' sort of thing.)

Then there's Milah, who is happy at first (and in love), but then heartache falls on her and she is forced to stay somewhere she isn't happy with someone she isn't happy with. And he has control over her, with her son, with having no where else to go, and that's a good stand-in for her coat because she needs to take it back for herself years later when the pull is too much and she finally escapes to the sea. (Either the literal sea or Killian is the sea, I dunno. Whether Milah would have left if Killian wasn't there to take her is a whole other post that I need a lot more coffee for.)

I think that's all my brain has at the moment? I mean, there's obviously MORE, but gathering it up and molding it into something coherent is...not in the cards at the moment!

Thank you so much for the ask!

#answered asks #emma swan #milah #selkie milah #what would emma's be? #surely not #swan swan #it's been over five years since I saw any of these episodes (outside of Milah scenes because come on!) #so if I misremembered something let me know! #anti-rumple #anti-neal cassidy #(just in case)