Swan Queen

English

Etymology

Swan + Queen, a combination of Emma Swan's surname and Regina Mills' title as the Evil Queen, likely chosen to reference the character in the ballet Swan Lake.

Proper noun

Swan Queen

1. (fandom slang) The ship of characters Emma Swan and Regina Mills from the television series Once Upon a Time.
   • 2017, Shannon A. Suddeth, "(Dis)Enchanted: (Re)constructing Love and Creating Community in the Once Upon a Time Queer Fandom", thesis submitted to the University of South Florida, page iii:

     Swan Queen fans argue that the show runners of OUAT use subtextual codes within canonical storylines in an effort to queerbait the show’s queer audience members.

   • 2018, Pauline Greenhill, “Cinematic”, in Pauline Greenhill, Jill Terry Rudy, Naomi Hamer, Lauren Bosc, editors, The Routledge Companion to Media and Fairy-Tale Cultures, unnumbered page:

     […] for OUaT, the “Swan Queen” ship, pairing protagonist Emma Swan and evil queen Regina Mills, is one of the most dominant on Tumblr.

   • 2019, Colleen E. Johnson, "Femslash Fanfiction as a Reparative Practice of Critique", thesis submitted to Oregon State University, page 8:

     While not all queer female OUAT fans are SQ shippers, and other femslash ships do exist within the fandom, the Swan Queen fandom is the largest and most vocal femslash fandom (and possibly ship fandom in general) within the broader OUAT fandom and is the fandom SUAS is written about and for.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Swan Queen.