RedKeep

Can't blame him a single bit. He's right about everything regarding how his character has been treated and he's still handling it in a classy way with how he's talking about Kitsis and Horowitz and their abilities as writers. I'm not at all convinced they're "super smart" and know what they're doing. The EOnline interview that talks about how he'd just moved his family permanently to Vancouver when they called him and told him he's a goner made me feel for him even more. That must suck big time and no one can tell me the writers couldn't have told him early enough to at least cancel that move and keep his family in LA or the UK, not sure where they live. I actually applaud him for his stance on whether or not he'd come back too. The writers had their chance with the Robin Hood character for three full seasons. They messed it up big time, though luck if they suddenly feel like changing their minds about him again.

I'm not a "salty" whatever (guessing you mean SQ fans), but I can't say I agree. Especially not with the "tremendous" part. In my opinion the show generally still has most of the same issues that it's been carrying since at least 3B. The only real difference I see is that S5 put more continious focus on characters that are generally liked the most on this board, which... fair enough. But as someone who's neutral to just not overly interested, depending on the writing, in CS I can't say I felt a vast improvement.

I definitely thought staging the CS reunion next to Robin Hood's dead body was tacky and unnecessary because it will, at least temporary, bring up a lot of fans who were neutral or anti Hook/CS to begin with against them or the way they are being written for reasons that could have been avoided so easily, but yeah most Swan Queen shippers really need to take a seat there because it's more than transparent.

I thought the whole episode was poorly written and made little to no sense at many different points, but boy... they really made sure those who cared about Robin and Outlaw Queen are gonna rage-quit this show. They had friggin Cora go to the heavenly afterlife, but Robin Hood gets no afterlife at all? Okay... And it doesn't matter anymore that they're often likely more clueless than intentionally offensive, at some point you gotta grow up, acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them. But the writing not only for Robin Hood, but also for Zelena made it obvious again Horowitz and Kitsis are never going to change. Makes you worry for whoever they'll end up screwing over next season because they suddenly consider him/her very much expendable.

Horowitz and Kitsis may play wordgames again and find away to twist things to fit whatever the narrative is they're trying to sell next season, but the whole setup for OQ in season 3, the page 23 stuff, etc., etc. very much branded them as special/meant-to-be/whatever you want to call it couple even before they'd actually met and before the audience had time to get fully invested in them. That was part of the problem with that story. They wanted to sell it by telling the audience how they should feel about them instead of letting the story and chemistry speak for itself. The actors have referred to it as 'true love' repeatedly and even though I'm too lazy to check now I'm 99,9% Kitsis and Horowitz used that term while talking about OQ in the past as well. Wasn't there a Comic Con event when they were actually asked about them being TL or soulmates or both and then made up some weird answer on the spot about how TL and being soulmates is essentially the same thing or something? So, I guess my point is: The writers may have changed their minds somewhere along the way, either because they weren't happy with the audience response to it or because of other reasons we'll never know, but that's a fairly recent development. And even though I may not have been overly invested in the relationship myself, I can certainly understand why those who did like them might feel a bit twited by the writers at this point. Not only because of the TL/endgame thing, but because the writers created a specific setup for them in OQ and then just completely dropped the ball on the relationship in s4 and s5, regardless of what's gonna happen in tonight's ep. kili: Okay, thank you, I must have missed this then, but it's good to know.

I think this obsession with a ship being "endgame" and feeling betrayed when that doesn't happen is something the show and Kitsis/Horowitz actively encourage, though. The meaning of "true love" has been devalued over the years, thanks to many of their writing decisions, but they still encourage fans to consider couples that have been awarded that TL brand special. Same thing with insisting that they're writing a show that's not supposed to be cynical and that's meant to send out messages of hope when, at the same time, the writing often tells a different story. It is quite fascinating to me in a way how a show that's so much about love managed to screw up such a large percentage of their big, relevant relationhips in one way or another. I often have no real problems with walking away from a show that's disappointed me time and again, but Kitsis and Horowitz are beyond terrible at promoting their own work and how they're dealing with their fans so I have just about zero sympathy at this point if other fans are not doing that. They are at least partially to blame for the state their fandom is in so yeah... you reap what you sow, shrug. Shatner's way of dealing with the bullying part of the SQ fandom is amusing, but I have hard time relating to why he somehow seems to paint them and Clexa fans with the same brush. I'm sure they have their bullies too and he may have encountered some of them, but they also lost a canon ship after the showrunner used them and lied to them for months and they still largely managed to focus their energy on supporting charities and creating an important discourse about how television writers treat minority characters. While many of the SQ fans in his feed in particular are obsessed with hating on certain parts of the show/cast and trying to bully those involved with the show into giving them the canon they want, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

I agree. And he didn't even pick the most spoilery pic either, without much context the one he went with still lends itself to various interpretations. I personally don't even follow him on Twitter, but between last night and now I've seen them (not only the Robin Hood ones) all over social media repeatedly. Once that link to the fansite that posted the stills was out, the usual internet dynamics took over and ABC only has themselves to blame. This isn't the first time something like that happened either so you'd think they would reconsider a few things if they really don't want stuff to leak. But chances are ABC/Disney doesn't even care all that much. The crew made no real effort to keep the spoiler a secret either back when they were filming the relevant scenes and other actors even went as far as telling fans explicitedly where they would be filming and that they should stop by and watch. A few guest star actors even tweeted pics from that day of filming this week and at least one of them served to confirm what everyone basically already knew, too. So yeah, if ABC is so lax about these things and doesn't bother with media training for their cast either, I find it hard to blame the actors or in this particular case Sean Maguire. And if Kitsis and Horowitz had no qualms about asking the Merida actress to come back after the tantrum she threw on Twitter, I find it hard to believe they'd hold this against him. I don't know, maybe I'm somewhat influenced by the fact that I quit watching another show that is stumbling from one PR disaster to the next this season, but I find it easier to relate to the actors' side of things nowadays.

I could see it in theory, but have a hard time making MRJ as adult Bae and LP as s3-s5 Regina work well together in my head. Chemistrywise, etc. It's completely based on subjective feelings since I don't think they ever exchanged more than 1-2 words on screen in character, but... I just don't can't make it work in my head. But then I do think many of the show's issues with Neal came down to the poor casting choice. I actually really appreciate MRJ as an actor, he's fabulous in a lot of other projects I've seen him in, but there's just way too much of a disconnect between Baelfire and Neal Cassidy that can't be explained away only with the hard life he undoubtedly had after Rumple let the boy go through the vortex to the land without magic on his own. And the show not covering his backstory well at all obviously didn't help. So I think whatever potential I can see in a Neal/Regina pairing is based solely on the potential a better written adult Baelfire could have had in general as opposed to the Neal character the show actually presented us with. But then I also think a better written and cast adult Baelfire could have worked extremely well with Emma for me as well and I'd be absolutely down with a Robin Hood/Regina pairing if they'd bothered to develop him better as a character in his own right too. Way too much wasted potential on this show.

I have a very hard time believing that Neal's exit had much to do with Regina. Neal is just one example for the many characters the writers were only interested in terms of how they could further someone else's story over course of the last few years. Neal was only ever Emma's love interest, Henry's father or Rumple's son. He had no real purpose beyond those roles, the writers showed no interest in developing him as a relevant character in his own right. Once they settled on Hook/Emma instead, the love interest role became even more irrelevant/non-existant to begin with, Henry the fictional character never 'needed' more family figures in his life from a narrative perspective, and since they apparently also had no interest in keeping Rumple from going evil again for long he served his purpose exactly by dying at Zelena's (sort of) hand. Regardless of how the writers may or may not feel about Regina, I never got the feeling they were that interested in Neal after he'd been officially revealed as Henry's father/Rumple's son.

German actress Nadia Hilker mentioned in a recent interview that she's joining the cast of The 100. I imagine that's their Luna, then. She's slightly older than Alycia Debnam-Carey, but on this show this obviously doesn't say much and they may still have her play an 18 year old or something. I still think the show needs (among other things) more adults in the Abby/Kane/Jaha age range, but I can't say I'm surprised.

According to the organizers of a The 100 convention in Brazil that was scheduled for next month, Eliza Taylor, Richard Harmon and Lindsey Morgan all have new projects lined up during the show's hiatus and will therefore no longer be able to attend said con due to filming commitments.

What's so interesting about this whole PR mess is that much of it goes back to the writers, staff writers just as much as Rothenberg himself, being incredibly active and involved in social media. Not only Twitter or Facebook, but also message boards or platforms like Tumblr. But at the same time they seem to have no real understanding how these things work or how fandom operates. At WonderCon Rothenberg claimed (I think it was even part of his rehearsed little speech about the Lexa issue) he wasn't fully aware of the "bury your gays" trope and how much Lexa's death mirrored Tara's on BtVS. That never sounded plausible to begin with, but the fandom was so quick to compile a very long, very detailed list of posts that have been made by Rothenberg himself and his staff writers about BtVS and how it influenced their writing, the tropes it played into, and how the details of Lexa's death were discussed in the writers room. I just don't get what these people are thinking. That no one cares what they said a couple of months ago? You don't lie about something like that when it's so very, very easy to call you out on it. Yet they keep doing it. They seriously need PR training. But then again whoever's running the show's official Tumblr account apparently spoiled one of the major reveals of last night's episode before it even aired so... CW is not handling things all that well either. I only saw gifs of that, but yeah... had the same impression. And neither is Eliza Taylor, going by her interviews this season. I don't blame them. The dynamic has a certain amount of potential on a platonic level, but as a romance it just seems incredibly generic, a story that's literally been done a million times before, and doesn't support any sense of coherent, personal growth for either one of them as individual characters at this point. Not that this has ever stopped this show before. But as either one of the two actors, I could think of about three dozen other potential stories that I'd be more interested in for my character than pairing those two up as a romantic ship, too.

Clarke and Lexa won Zimbio's TV Couples March Madness Challenge and as a result Zimbio has decided to support Clexa fans in their efforts to raise money for The Trevor Project by donating $1,000 on their behalf. Clarke & Lexa Win Zimbio's 2016 TV Couples March Madness!

Don't know if everyone was already aware of this already, but I just read a long post about it, complete with screencaps, on Tumblr. One of the show's staff writers, Shawna Benson, went as far as posting in The 100 thread on a message board specifically created for a lesbian audience in order to court/bait those fans. When she shared a picture of a poster Alycia Debnam-Carey had signed and personalized for Jason Rothenberg while stopping by his office and fans were quick to figure out that her words could be read as a goodbye message, Benson went ahead and lied to them in order to keep pretending that Lexa wouldn't die this season (and they would keep watching). That in itself is mind-boggling stupid and unprofessional already, but she also publically confirmed on her Twitter that she is/was the person posting as "Your Friendly Neighborhood Lurker" on said message board. Full story: Your Friendly Neighborhood Lurker

Most of the showrunners I encountered on social media over the years had their moments and eventually started sounding more and more obnoxious, but even then... Rothenberg easily takes the cake. I've never experienced anything quite like this in online fandom before. And he stills manages to dig himself in even deeper just about every other day. It's quite fascinating, but mostly sad. WonderCon should definitely be a very awkward affair. For his own sake, I hope Rothenberg is smart enough to let his cast do most of the talking, but his problem seems to be that he just can't stop himself. And while print interviews can be edited and revised before they're published, the Dropship Podcast that came out after 3.07 aired served to underline how Rothenberg unfiltered in a situation like the one he's currently in is... not a good idea. Lindsey Morgan repeating what Alycia Debnam-Carey said at PaleyFest last weekend almost word-for-word on Twitter sounds like there's something along the lines of a rehearsed party line they're all expected to stick to now, but I still expect Jason to put his foot in his mouth either during the panel or while talking to the press later on. It's a bit like a car crash. I noticed again today that I'm not interested in watching any new episodes of this show, but I just can't look away from the PR disaster.

He's going to multiple cons this year too from what I've heard. Fans I follow on Twitter who will be in Paris and Chicago for cons (both events which LP and SM will attend together) at least already complained about him going too. He has deleted his tweets about Sean by now after Adam called him out on "making up stuff" in response to another fan, but still keeps trying to stirr the pot with mentioning him by name. Guy is beyond creepy and if I were SM or LP I would refuse to be in the same room with him. And he should 100% be banned from set if that's not already the case.

This is pretty much how I feel, indeed. Even if I seperate Lexa's death as a narrative event on the show from the way said (impending) death was handled in promotion/social media/etc before and after the actual event, it is still a major factor since I've reached the tipping point of what I can still handle in terms of writing decisions that I can't relate to or that take away too much from what has made The 100 enjoyable to me in the past. From spoilers I knew that this week's episode would be limited to Arkadia and since that's one plot I can't stand this season I didn't even bother to tune in. Not that it would have made a difference, I don't add to their ratings. But I find it fairly easy to believe that a lot of people have the sense that even their favorite stories or the writing for their favorite characters keeps getting worse as the season progresses. And a friend of mine, who has no interest researching anything about The 100 on the internet and sticks to just watching it when it's on, is also starting to get really frustrated because some things on this just really don't make a single bit of sense anymore. She's almost given up on fully understanding what's going on in the ALIE story, for example, and that's not a good sign when "Thirteen" was supposed to be big ep for that one, too. I fully expect them to try and milk Lexa's death some more in how they'll promote the next episode, since I assume we'll get a Polis story in that one again and Clarke's emotional state, the upcoming conclave, etc. will be addressed, but even then I'm not sure they can really count on a ratings boost. And there's only so many times you can expect your audience to get excited at the prospect of watching your main character lose and mourn the person she loves anyway.

I expected a renewal too, if only because this season went into production 8 months ago and it's not like the reactions to what happened so far, both on screen and behind the scenes, and might still happen in the next few episodes could be taken into consideration in any major way. And I expect the finale to end on a cliffhanger so the renewal also seemed likely if only to give them time to wrap things up properly if they do get in trouble with ratings this year. I won't return for season 4 either, though. Maybe I've set the bar too high in terms of my expectations after season 2, but I'm disappointed in the writing all around. I can't even come up with an actual storyline that I found honestly compelling so far, it's mostly a handful scenes rather than on-going stories that stood out for me. And I do fear Lexa's (terribly written) death will serve as a reset button on quite a few levels instead of moving the characters and their journey forward, in the new direction they originally teased.

Oh dear, I haven't seen that one yet, but it sounds like something I'll have to read up on for sure.

I don't watch Arrow so I can't really comment on that, but in the case of The 100 I *kind of* understand it. Because I didn't necessarily have the impression that people were completely blind to its many other issues. Because how can you be really, the writing itself hits you square in the face with it week after week, regardless of all the crap that's been going down behind the scenes on top of that this season. But Lexa was a one of a kind character in the current network tv landscape and I can see why especially young queer fans would cling to that even while the show is hugely problematic on other levels. It's hard to turn your back on something while they're just about the only ones who give you something you can identify with this strongly and who keep making promises directed at you as a particular part of their audience. And this is why the showrunner is getting so much well deserved flack, he was very well aware of all that and toyed with their hopes because a young and/or queer demographic is promising in terms of social media buzz and general attention. And it worked. It expanded the show's audience in many ways. What is completely baffling is how he honestly thought he could pull what he did and there wouldn't be a strong reaction to it. Especially with his cast and some of his writers throwing shade or being openly critical as it is and with him now essentially blaming a young actress in her early 20s for this instead of accepting that he messed up. It is strange, but I've almost developed a newfound sense of... well, not respect, but... tolerance... towards Kitsis and Horowitz after this. Granted The 100 sets the bar very low, but still. What I found nice, too, was to see how actors who had nothing to do with the Clarke/Lexa angle, but could relate to why fans identified with it so much, spent time talking to them on Twitter. And it seemed very reasonable to me for the most part. (Adina Porter, a woman of color, who has also been on the receiving end of their stupid writing decisions, made some very strong and valid points as for why the sense of betrayal and hurt over this should be taken serious.) Other than with Jason Rothenberg you get the sense they're all very aware of how much the show has messed there. Kitsis/Horowitz generally tend to lack that kind of insight into their own flawed writing too though, which then adds fuel to the fire for an already mostly hysterical fandom. But much of OUAT's fandom drama tends to stem from entitlement rather than actual queerbaiting. So yeah... I guess, what I'm saying is I sympathize with The 100 fans affected by this about a dozen times more than with those screaming queerbaiting, homophobia and what-not in our own fandom most of the time.

But wondering how you'll go on or even doing literally everything in your power to save someone you love is still different from implying that you'll turn suicidal without your boyfriend/husband/significant other. And that's why I said I don't think people are responding to Emma trying to save Hook that way per se, but rather to the implication that if the mission were to fail... she'd rather take her own life than spend it without him. It's one sentence out of a longer reply that's put into the focus as if that's all she said and I do see your point about the timing and Emma's emotional state. I also don't think it should be turned into a massive deal since we already know how this will go and the show won't even put Emma in the position where she'll have to consider what to do with the rest of her life without Hook by her side because he'll be saved and then we'll move on to the next big action plot very quickly. But I can also understand why implicated or even openly expressed suicidal tendencies in female characters over the loss of a boyfriend/significant other is something that irks people or brings unfortunate other examples from pop culture for this type of scenario to mind.

I don't know if it's really the idea of Emma embarking on a rescue mission per se that's rubbing people the wrong way. I think what Morrison said about her character not wanting to live anymore without her boyfriend caused a bit of a reaction on social media yesterday. And that I can relate to because it is an unfortunate statement or an unfortunate message for the writing to transport, even if we take Emma's history of losing loved ones into account. Kitsis and Horowitz made the decision to use Hook of all characters available to them as their segway into the Underworld and in this specific way, though, so Adam really has no business distancing himself for what Morrison said. And as much as parts of the fandom sometimes like to hide behind social issues to just blatantly hate on the show or certain aspects of it, the writers do invite that with their often clumsy or downright clueless way of writing for their women or minority characters.

Roland doesn't know/remember that Marian wasn't really Marian. The writers conveniently had his memories of that erased last season. And we know OQ will be punished for leaving their children behind too since the baby ends up in the UW and with Zelena again at some point in later episodes, based on set spoilers. Might merely be something they didn't want to give away or discuss just yet. They got a lot of crap for ignoring Snowing and apparently not knowing what to do with them anymore so they probably at least wanted to pretend they'll have an actual story in 5B. I'm not sure how I feel about the characters, both Snowing and OQ, being punished for bad writing, though. If Kitsis and Horowitz desperately wanted to do an Underworld story, they could have easily just brought the UW to Storybrooke instead of dressing the UW up as an upside-down version of Storybrooke. It just seems so silly to me to let the characters make bad decisions so you can make your overall plot for the half-season work and then act like we should feel they deserve to have bad things happen to them as a result.

I really don't have that impression to be honest. I just did a quick scroll through her Instagram and Twitter posts and it seems like she's not one two tweet a lot of pics from set anymore to begin with, but if she does they're pics from her trailer with fan gifts and letters to thank them. A few of the crew here and there and filming locations, one with Victoria Smurfit and then the other most recent pic I found is actually one of her and Sean. She's also been involved in helping him and his wife with a charity project they've been working on it, it seems, and some of her more recent OUAT related RTs are in fact about OQ. It's true that she's not hammering it home that it's OQ or nothing for her, but to be honest I don't think that's an approach I blame her for. I get that this board tends to be very anti SQ and I have my problems with the vocal parts of their fanbase too, but I'd still find it a lot weirder for actors to ignore or outright reject parts of their fanbase merely based on who they ship, insisting that it's canon or nothing, basically. Parrilla has been very vocal about supporting everything that makes her fans happy and I find that believable and understandable. But she and Maguire have also, reportedly, talked about the abuse they've been getting by some of the nastier sides of the OUAT fandom on social media and how they've taken steps back from it in general at a meet and greet with fans of the show last year. They both certainly used to be a lot more active than they are now. Ginnifer Goodwin supposedly left Twitter because of the nasty crap she's been getting too and I feel like other parts of the OUAT cast/crew have become a lot more careful about what they post as well. I wouldn't read that as a lack of support though. I understand the line of thinking that by taking those steps back and trying not to cause any more drama you're giving the haters more room to feel like they've "won" than they deserve, but at the same time... I honestly don't know what I would do if I were in their position. The overall fandom for this show has become incredibly unpleasant and while I respect that some are able to ignore that and do their thing, I also can't exactly blame those who don't have the energy or whatever to deal with it more than they absolutely have to.

Oh, it definitely got crazier over time. And fans also often read too much into every little thing, imo. Not only interviews.