AnalyzeAndCritique

The AH clip was titled Ray Parker not Palmer. Ray's equally good-looking but even more inappropriate body double? Upon uninterrupted rewatch the clip is worse than I thought. He gives her a backhanded insult/compliment. He buys/bribes her participation. He pushes when she isn't interested. He even plays the male version of "girls can get frat boys to do anything." Ugh. Ray isn't a viable alternative to Oliver. He is the billionaire who doesn't say no and has multiple restraining orders out against him. Although maybe he would be a good match with Felicity's doppelgänger who prefers couture and starting up rumors amongst her co-workers than the Felicity we know who has a standing appointment with TA. We needed pec dancing to make it complete. Or did I miss it.

More recently lots of girls thought Twilight was an epic romance.

I'm trying to figure out who is judging Felicity. Most of the speculation has been about how badly TIIC could mess it up. Most viewers I think were onboard with Felicity having options when a potential LI was floated over the summer. I think Ray is the problem. Felicity called him a stalker. He's handsome but not as charming as I believe we were promised. He's smart, but I don't see the chemistry we were promised. He's taken QC. He's handing Oliver losses. As this is Oliver's story, you won't win favorable feelings towards a new character if they keep dealing losses. Ray was the better person to be in charge of QC absolutely, but it still feels like a loss for Oliver. Knowing Ray has a superhero destiny ahead of him, it is difficult to invest in Ray and Felicity. Every superhero/vigilante has to go through their "I can't be with the one I love" phase. Poor Felicity. She's going through it with Oliver now and Ray later. It is a continued pattern of the men in her life leaving her. Again some rando from the grocery store wouldn't cultivate this trepidation. Plus it really does give Felicity the added crossroads of "great guy who loves me and I could be happy with" or "man I love who may or may not ever be ready to commit." I think the judging is more about how TIIC are poorly handling everything about Arrow most of the viewers appreciated. I didn't mind some of the weaker stuff when I had the original TA and the bit of Olicity we had in 2A. 2B was a disaster and they said they recognized it and were fixing it. The number of people with access to the Arrow cave has gotten larger. TA is fractured. Olicity is not a thing right now. I reserve the right to be wary of where the show is going - Felicity date included. I'm not even going to speculate on who killed Sara because I think they wrote her murder without a murderer in mind. They are grasping for who killed her as much as Laurel is. They'll pick someone out of the hat and it won't make sense, but because they are driving the plot they'll have a murderer.

Why would Felicity date Oliver's darker haired twin? Had Felicity and Barry attempted to date, I think it wouldn't have been met with the resistance that Felicity and Ray are being met with. Instead we have Ray who seems to have been cut from the same mold as Oliver even if the ingredients are for a different cookie. Both rich. Both handsome. Both fit. Both singularly focused. Although there are difference, the similarities are too much. Hell, Ray is renaming all of Oliver's QC assets - jet, helicopter, cars, etc. Let's just give Felicity new business cards. Felicity Smoak Ray Palmer's Girl Wednesday/Friday (whatever the overused joke in fan fic is). If Felicity had met some guy in the grocery store and she faced a life with TA and Oliver (who won't commit to her) or dating guy from aisle 8 who likes the same ice cream, I might see where she was exploring her options. It's like she's trading sex at the office with Oliver for Ray. It gives me more negative feelings than Felicity exploring her options. Especially because it reminds me of Laurel. Have we forgotten the Oliver, Tommy, Oliver, Tommy game of musical chairs? Oliver, Ray, Oliver, Ray....

It would almost be interesting if because Oliver had a tracker on his suit in The Calm that they checked for bugs and the necklace set off the detector. However, I'd feel a thousand times sadder than if Ray and Felicity just couldn't make it work. I doubt though they planned far enough into the season when they wrote E1 to tie the two together. They probably don't remember the tracker.

I avoid OC at all costs. It is what SPN mocked the other day as "inserting yourself into the story." Typically you run into what is currently happening on Arrow. The Arrow characters become OOC. I like stories on Archive of Our Own by Redtoes ChaseTheWind (lots of smut) Anthfan (most original and well-written I've seen) On Archive you can then see what good writers have bookmarked. It is how I find other authors.

I have brief periods of time when I'll happily sit through Hallmark movies. I may even enjoy some. Amell could have saved himself some time and used a cardboard cutout for his role in When Calls the Heart. He barely said anything. He was mostly there as eye candy. He did it well enough but at least on Arrow we get shirtless. I don't mind Maggie Grace either, but the movie was a snoozefest.

Convoluted: (especially of an argument, story, or sentence) extremely complex and difficult to follow. Incohesive? Incoherent? Inconceivable? The pay out better be worth the shallow grave.

Oliver used people in his quest in the beginning. Granted they didn't know it at first. Batman used Lucius. I think having a quest/mission/goal can make one blind to social manners. However, Laurel isn't ready to be a true vigilante; she has the wrong mindset. She's definitely well down the road to revenge. Oliver came back with a single purpose, but it wasn't completely selfish. It wasn't completely unselfish, but the pendulum wasn't swung closer to the selfish side. Laurel's motivations are overwhelmingly selfish. She also doesn't have the required self-sacrificing mentality for her crusade. Every comic book hero has a purpose. Batman, Superman, etc all have their own version of a list like Oliver does. They also are willing to forego their happiness to achieve the mission. Laurel's mission is to make herself feel better. Laurel isn't motivated by anything but her own pain. Even Sara's death isn't a catalyst because she isn't righting a perceived wrong. She just wants to hit something. Which is another reason why they haven't remedied the character IMO.

Arrow needs to hire a fan as a historian. Because clearly the EPs don't know their own story. As a writer it makes me extremely bitter. They get paid for peddling shit while excellent writers I know aren't recognized for their stellar work.

From the early days of the show I can remember everyone attached to SPN having intense respect for the fans. I can't speak for more recent seasons. I do believe though it is why many fans have remained loyal for a decade. Respect buys you a lot of forgiveness.

Statistics say three out of two people are bad at math.

This seems to be the reason some fans have latched on to. Someone floated the idea and it stuck. I have the same feeling about those who believed until Felicity got her own special episode she wasn't a fleshed out character. It wouldn't hold up in a good debate.

Because!comics. Everyone was just biding time until Laurel became BC. They are waiting for GA&BC 4eva! Because!comics I am not saying I want to see it. I am saying this is how TIIC think. They really believe everything wrong with Laurel is she took too long to become BC.

I don't think you can rule anything out even if SA said it - because!comics! Killing an excellent BC for someone most of the audience has no warm feelings for because!comics can be applied to all situations. There wasn't even a competition everyone loved Sara as BC so they killed her for Laurel. Why not kill Oliver and make Roy GA? Here we go - because!comics. Anything is possible as long as there are comics to fall back on. Especially is the AK (?) wants to see a live version of his comics. It probably isn't time for a Felicity death watch yet, but if the ratings tank and cancellation/non-renewal casts a shadow I would pull out my pocket watch.

Watching Arrow does require reading between the lines and filling in what is glaringly missing. Thank you for the funny this AM.

Like all of S3?

There is the scene in the beginning with Ted and Laurel and he pulls a move she wasn't expecting. (I'm doing this from memory so it probably isn't exact.) "You look flustered." "Try pissed." I laughed because all I could think about was how the audience thinks Laurel is portraying one emotion and it is meant to be another. It was ironic.

It is like they are marking things off a bucket list. I saw so many "wait until Green Arrow uses a boxing glove Arrow" comments on the Facebook page. check. Really the writers are just checking off their boxes before the show gets canned. It might be a Guiness World Record how many Easter eggs can be shoved into a show in X amount of seasons. Too bad they don't give Emmy's for that achievement.

Loved it! I posted about it in the Bitter thread, but I just turned it on to rewatch again. I had the presence of mind to start recording halfway through. Made me nostalgic even though i feel like they are Nascar racing (going round and round in a been there done that kind of way) with their story lines which is why I haven't watched recently.

Sad when your audience doesn't know the timeline and isn't aware they keep real time. ETA: I just took a closer look at the photo. My first thought is the chick from 50 Shades has realized her destiny as a dom and not a sub. She's more leather model than vigilante/warrior/street fighter.

Last night I watched SPN for the first time in a few years. Back in the day I loved the show. It was their 200th episode and the title was "Fan Fiction." My God it was fun! It brought back so many memories of the things I loved about the show and made fun of the mockable aspects. Made me want to go back and marathon all the seasons I've seen and then catch up on what I haven't. I am bitter because I realized it won't happen with Arrow. The chemistry between the leads (SA and KC) isn't there. I wouldn't have been upset about this given 2s, but as KC is shoehorned in as BC we'll be subjected to more of them onscreen together. It is painful. The strength of the show (TA) is often the first thing to be thrown to the wayside. Someday I'd love to see a montage of Olicity moments ending with some form of happily ever after, but I think a lot of their moments will have to be left out given S3a. There won't be mocking of the big bad of the week because they aren't memorable nor insane enough to be a joke. They are more pathetic. As of now I will be relying on YT for the select moments which I won't sit through the show for. I'll probably wean myself off fan fiction because it is actually keeping me tethered to the show more than anything which has happened onscreen (E5 excluded because it was fun). Time is precious and there are better things I can do for 60 minutes on a Wednesday night than watch a show I acknowledge I don't enjoy. Many shows go through low moments or slow story lines. However, the direction of S3 is opposite of where I want to go. So I'm hopping off this ride as this journey isn't one I want to be part of. I'm slightly bitter I can't get back the time invested in S1&2 since I won't be getting S3+ out of it.

I gave up on Fire although I still watch PD. Did I miss Severide breaking up with Lindsay? I hated how they intertwined the show since I can't be bothered with Fire. Dawson still bugs. All the replacement girls look like Shay. I liked Molly's (the bar), what is Molly's 2?

I would love it if he would call her for help but not need the Arrow. A little cyber-sleuthing Arrow can't do a thing about.