Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24846659-20160819200715/@comment-27060727-20160821013418

Eskaver wrote: The issue is that there are no alternative methods to TLK. Heart-splitting was done by a confirmed TLK couple, Snowing. Emma actually looked in pain when her heart was split. Pixie dust was used, but Robin and Regina weren't confirmed True loves and neither chould they have been because the relationship was dashed together, hoping that it the relationship for two days could face soap opera antics, in which Robin actually chose Marian over her.

TLk has been the only way we've determined TL between two people. But as they showed in 5x20, there IS an alternate method. I do get the skepticism with the pixie dust because it showed us that two people were destined to be together before they even met and that made the Regina/Robin relationship significantly different than the other 3 main couples, but from the writers' standpoint, I'm pretty sure they were /meant/ to be pretty equivalent. Like I'm sure Snow could claim that David was her soulmate and that wouldn't be wrong. I know they've been asked about the semantics in a panel before though I don't remember their exact answer.