Thanks for the detailed reply! ^_^ That all makes total sense to me.
While I'm familiar with Swan Lake, I only hazily remember 'The Swan Princess' from childhood and had forgotten that plotline - I'll have to go rewatch it sometime! :)
I think part of what struck me so much about the curse-breaking condition in this comic is that, unlike in Swan Lake where it requires someone else (literally anyone else who has never loved before, I think?) to commit to loving Odette forever, this story requires Selene herself to enter into a relationship/marriage that we as readers see she has been actively refusing for a long time - without textual clarity that this is because of her stubborn self-denial and internalised homophobia, it can all too easily read like someone who's genuinely not interested at all being put in a horrific situation. While the title did briefly bring to mind that internalised conflict for me, I didn't find it reflected clearly in the main body of the work. Perhaps that's partly due to my neurotype and I'm missing something that others could pick up on from facial expressions! Anyhow, if you did ever want to make edits to clarify those points, the addition of a few thought bubbles from Selene could be a helpful and relatively low-labour way to add some context about how she feels about the situation (as opposed to drawing/writing entire additional panels/scenes).
I'm really glad you got a chance to explore those sapphic themes through this project, and I'm sorry you don't feel like you're in a safe situation to come out if you wanted to - solidarity. I hope you're able to find some LGBTQIA+ community to connect with if you wish to, whether that's via media representation, online spaces, or in person. Let me know if you'd like to be signposted to any relevant resources! :)
Cool, I'll check out the making-of PDF - thanks for highlighting it to me, brainfog meant I'd completely missed it when I downloaded the main comic!