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OMG, this exactly. This so much. Up till this episode, I really liked Sansa - she was my favourite character next to Jon. And then that scene - I mean, I agreed with giving the castles to his supporters, at first, because I thought that all the Karstark and Umber heirs were dead. I'd forgotten about Alys, TBH. And then I realise that no, there are heirs - and they're children. And at this point I'm torn between face-palming and eye-rolling. I made excuses for last season's Sansa - don't do the thing! No, I can't tell you any alternatives, just don't do the thing! But now I can't. I mean, what is she suggesting? Behead a child and a teenager? Oh, I know! Get someone to tear off Alys's clothes and beat her with the flat of his sword - that'll teach her to have traitors as relatives. Ughh. I'm trying not to be too annoyed about this, because it's clearly a clumsy way to create 'conflict' between Sansa and Jon - I just wish it wasn't at Sansa's expense. I liked Sansa's putdowns of Littlefinger, though. I'm not going into the whole could Cersei send an army / an assassin / a trained lion to kill Jon, because along with Moat Caillin they've also forgotten the swamps at the Neck -I mean, there are swamps, filled with alligators, as far as I know. One of the things that struck me is Cersei is profoundly stupid. She's already done this - she armed the Faith, gave them a lot of power, and then lost control of them and they ended up imprisoning her. Now she's inviting the Ironborn in, giving them access to the city. It's the same move, and I suspect it'll end in the same way. Now Sam, to me, seemed like a red herring - if the montage of shit was to show the passage of time, we realise that all he learned in his weeks (months?) at the Citadel was something he knew already, that Dragonstone has dragonglass out the wazoo. But we knew that, and he knew that - he even said it: "Stannis told me . . ." It's almost like the real reason he was there was to hear Jorah ask about the Dragon Queen - operative word 'dragon'.

This is so close to how I feel about the season finale - like SnoGirl, I can't see Jake coping with jail at all. And I'm furious at being manipulated like this by the showrunners. See, this might have worked in the first season, when Jake was just a cartoon - in fact, I remember being really annoyed at The Apartment, for trying to make me feel something for Gina. I was dragging my heels the entire time, and I still feel that way about Gina: she's just amused me a couple of times, and the rest of the time I just find her really irritating. But Jake hasn't been a cartoon for a very long time. And when I read something like the showrunners didn't even know they'd be renewed when they filmed these episodes, I get very angry. Fuck's sake, man. This isn't Game of Thrones. I envy you - I haven't managed to watch them more than once, and I was already spoiled for them, because I was afraid that's how they were ending, and I didn't want to watch them unprepared. Even so, I can't express how much I hated the last episode. We seriously had to watch all those hackers arsing around, while Jake was strolling towards a jail sentence? Seriously? I couldn't even enjoy Terry's various adventures, because I don't know about everyone else, but I don't find hacking into someone's info and exposing their secrets particularly funny. I don't know what can redeem the show for me next season - finding out that it was an elaborate undercover scheme to trap Hawkins? Finding out that Amy rallied the Santiagos (her dad's an ex-cop and aren't her 6 brothers cops too?), got Jake and Rosa exonerated, and sent someone after Hawkins and her entire gang? The end-line being: "The Santiagos send their regards." See, I know this is a sitcom, and so isn't expected to be realistic, but they've trotted out the paperwork and forms thing before (when Jake wanted to slam down his badge and gun, and Holt told him that no, he had to go to another office and fill in lots of paperwork first), so I wonder - do they know that someone who's been in jail can't be a cop anymore? And Amy's never going to be Captain if she's going out with a felon. WTF, show.

I thought that was just me! I just keep making it louder and louder, and then when I watch something else the speakers vibrate ominously. Or I yell at the screen like a crazy person: "Hey asshole! Speak into the mike!" Until my theory is disproved next season - which it probably will be, in the stupidest way possible - here it is: yes, Malcolm is dead, but not in that mine explosion thing. His death has been filmed already, and it's going to be some noble self-sacrificial thing, and it won't be offscreen. I think that explosion we heard was the result of Malcolm pulling Boomerang dude onto the mine. In my opinion, they're not going to kill off their beloved Malcolm Merlyn without milking it as much as possible. OTOH, they really could be that dumb. Who knows.

R'as al Ghul was a rapist ('You will submit as your mother did before you" or something like that) and a rape-enabler - how is that being "as decent in any given situation as that situation allowed him to be"? He made Oliver murder (even though no-one actually died, most of them certainly thought they were dying) his entire network of friends and family, and ordered him to then murder an entire city. I'm sorry, must be missing the decency here. R'as al Ghul was a monster, and I was never happier when Oliver killed him. My only regret was that Oliver gave him the whole Assassin prayer schtick - he should have told him: "BTW, I'm giving your ring to Malcolm Merlyn!" Re. the finale . . . eh. At least it's over? The whole MYSON, DO YOU HEAR??!! MAYBE IF I YELL IT ENOUGH IT'LL SINK IN! was kind of off-putting. And once again Adrian Chase is doing things which are superhuman and impossible - bombs over the entire surface of the island? Suuuure. Oh, absolutely. Every time Samantha opened her mouth in the finale, I just wanted to yell, in the style of Captain Raymond Holt (Nine Nine!!), "Stop! TALKING!!" And I cannot express how much I disliked the retcon of Oliver's rescue from Lian Yu. No wonder Oliver then felt wracked with guilt. Rather than spending five years on his own, having to survive - scratch that, it wasn't even five days on his own - he always had people around him. Sure, often they wanted to kill him, and beat him etc, but he never actually went through the mind-numbing, traumatizing experience of complete and utter isolation, having to teach himself to hunt, fish, to build shelter, etc. No, of course I never thought he'd spent the whole 5 years there (like I said in a story, you don't get muscle tone like that from living off nuts and berries), but a few months at least. Once there was the big fight with Kovar, I honestly thought that Oliver would miss the helicopter and have to spend a month or two on his own, being a real castaway. As it is, Sara spent more time being a castaway than he did. Thea apparently forgot everything MM ever taught her, and walks through a mined island as if she's strolling down the boulevard. Also, I don't believe MM is dead yet. I think he is leaving the show, though - I think they already filmed a bit where, surprise!, he's not dead, and he gets them all out, sacrificing his life in the process. I liked the Olicity bits, and they gave me some hope for Season 6. And I've made my peace with Slade Wilson rediscovering his chill, and helping Oliver. No matter what Slade said before, I've decided it was all the Mirakuru, and he's better now. I think I'm so underwhelmed by the finale, because there were no stakes, unlike in other finales. There was no way the show was going to kill a child, let alone Oliver's SON, his BOY! No way, no how. When Adrian said that the brat was dead, I just rolled my eyes, and I'm glad that for once, Oliver wasn't dumb enough to believe him. But even though Oliver cared about the kid, I didn't. I cared about the characters who were kidnapped, but I don't believe anything is going to happen to them, either. And when things happen because Oliver holds the idiot ball (you wound the villain but don't immobilize him, or make him unconscious, for example) my response is a big shrug.

I love this so much, because I agree 100%. I want it to be tweeted at MG incessantly. How the fuck can he be "your boy", Oliver? You don't even fucking know him. Re. the rest of the episode - I guess I wanted to like it. I just found it predictable, and I hated the way all the beats were predictable. Not just the William thing, because we knew that, but everything else. Curtis investigating Dinah's apartment? Gonna get kidnapped. Digg and Felicity go on the run? Gonna get kidnapped (seriously, Digg - how could you not see that truck or whatever it was? it was right there!). Thea and Lance in a "safe" "house"? Gonna get kidnapped. It just reminded me of the Buffy season 2 episode, Becoming (part 1), where Angelus sets a trap for Buffy, she walks into it, and Angel just goes " . . . and you fall for it every time!" (which was what I was saying when the whole MY SON clusterfuck occurred) Except Buffy was a 17 year old traumatised teen, and Oliver's in his thirties. I wasn't even charmed by Malcolm's "you're getting dumber with age", or whatever he said (don't care enough to rewatch) - simple reason, this was MG hanging a lantern on something we've been complaining about FOREVER. I know this couldn't have happened, because it wasn't the season finale, but how awesome would it have been if Oliver, when Chase fake surrendered last week, just put an arrow in him. Goodbye, sucka! The look on his face! "But but . . . I had a plan of kidnapping everyone close to you!" Oh, and Evelyn can't die soon enough. I mean it. Someone push her on a landmine. ETA Ladylaw99: This so much! I found it hard to articulate what I didn't like about Prometheus, because JS is doing a magnificent job. But that's the reason. It becomes ridiculous to say he has no superpowers, because he keeps accomplishing some superhuman shit.

I love you. Usually, Wild Dog time is my Candy Crush time. This episode, even hearing his bullshit was too much, so I muted his scenes. I actually started not minding him lately, at least he was better than Curtis, who is getting on my last nerve. Then we started with the tough guy sentimentality, and I'm out! I'm done, y'all. Roll on 520.

I've had a few days to think about and rewatch the episode - I'm not sure if I like it that much, but I think it follows perfectly from 5x17, if that makes sense. See, throughout, but especially in the first part, SA plays Oliver as a rape victim, and that fits so perfectly with what Chase did to him - he took away Oliver's power and strength, and violated him emotionally and physically. That first scene, in the lair, Oliver can't look anyone in the eyes - he can't even finish a sentence with Felicity, and begs her to leave - I understood it as not wanting her to see him like this. Also, that's why she won't hack into the lair's security, even though she probably could do it in her sleep. Oliver needs to feel safe somewhere. As an aside, I also noticed that Felicity is the only one in that first scene who is worried about Oliver, and how bad his injuries are; even with Diggle, it takes him a while to move beyond "let's make the bastard pay" towards "I'm not leaving you", because the latter is what Oliver needs to hear. I'm ignoring anything with Susan. I'm also glad that we're finally done with the Bratva as best buddies idea, though I could have done without the burning off of Oliver's tattoo in the last episode to prepare us for that. But seriously, I'd so had enough of good old uncle Anatoli and his Bratva buddies. See, Chase is evil, but he's evil in a comics character way. So he can be as evil as he likes, and no-one's ever trying to convince us that he's got a heart of gold. And the evil he does is over-the-top, where does he get all his resources, how is he good at everything, sort of evil. Whereas the Bratva is a real-world thing, and the evil done by them is real world evil. Enough with the romanticizing of organized crime. I'm not faulting Oliver for trying use them to deal with Chase, though. He feels so completely powerless and alone in this episode that it's perfectly understandable that in his lashing out he's going to use anything he has available. Why doesn't he use his team? Because he feels dirty and unworthy of them. At least by the end of the episode, he's been brought to realise that he is worthy of them, that Chase didn't take everything away from him.

I'm going to hold on to everything you've written with both hands, because I need to believe it - this whole "Oliver is a serial killer / no, he was a serial killer" is just pissing me off beyond belief. Oliver HAS NEVER BEEN A SERIAL KILLER. He was not presented as such in Season 1, and no amount of retconning will convince me that he was. I mean, seriously - MG and co. are aware DVD boxsets exist, yes? So I am hoping this is just a big-ass fake out, especially as what's really bothering me is this gentler, kinder Bratva bullshit. So, this is an alternate reality Bratva, without human trafficking and sex-trade? Are we all on Earth -billion, where up is down? Re. the episode - it was very well-acted by SA. It was clear that Oliver broke, and it was very painful to watch. Evelyn can fall into a sinkhole for all I care.

Oh, shit son! I was not expecting that . . . like, at all. When Madame Gao finally said it, I think I jumped back like Danny did. The whole Rand company, and Meachum is a bit ehh, for me. I'm kind of 'whatever' at this stage. All those discussions and contracts and severance agreements are starting to run together, until it's like "Business? Commerceprofitmarginbanking? What in the name of business is going on here?" (stolen from the Riftrax Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince). I mean, I couldn't care less about all that. Just give me more Danny being the Iron Fist and I'm happy.

EXACTLY! I mean, even if he didn't say that R'as al Ghul did the exact same thing to him, and he just lived because of mumblemumblecontrivancemagicherbsmumble, how about this: Oliver didn't creep up on him when he was in the bath/having dinner/taking a shit. It was a pretty formal duel, just in Star City rather than on a mountain-top (and they weren't shirtless, more's the pity). Also, maybe I've got it wrong, but isn't that pretty much the way of the ugly-ass ring passing from one R'as al Ghul to another? Sure, he kept saying that he was going to give Oliver the title+ring, but it kept not happening. Whatever, I know he was her father and everything, but: If she loved her daddy so much, where was she when all this was going down? Her dad was a rapist and a rape-enabler of his own fricking daughter, and murdered his village to become R'as and wanted Oliver to wipe out Star City. Fuck that guy, seriously. My respect for Talia went down a billion points when she used that as a reason, and then she criticized Oliver's father! LOL. I'm sorry, but compared to her father, aka Hitler in Robes, Robert Queen was very small potatoes indeed. This episode was good, really it was, and I enjoyed it. I just wish the show would stop reminding me that when it comes to daddy issues, everybody's got them, and has to work them out, and bla bla blee. Find another tune, guys.

I almost gave up two minutes into the pilot, when a Victorian gentleman asked another Victorian gentleman, when he was going to start "dating" again. What? WHAT? WHAT??? I had to keep repeating, over and over again, things like "time travel, you love time travel, come on." Seriously. There was no 'dating' in the Victorian age, for fuck's sake. That, and some truly bad clunkers in the pilot added to my chorus of "who wrote this shit?" Also, how long would it take a guy to grow a beard like Stevenson's? I ask because surely they could have set some time aside to shoot the Victorian scenes, so that their main antagonist wouldn't be festooned with a horribly fake, obviously glued on beard the first time we see him. Yes - even though I vented above, I still had a good time - but if anything turns me off for good, it'll be all the conspiracies. I hate that everything has to be a conspiracy nowadays.

From wikipedia I got this (it was easier than trying to define it!): Big Name Fan (BNF) is a member of a fandom who is particularly well-known and celebrated for their writings in fanzines, semi-professional magazines and (more recently) blogs; or for other contributions such as art and (in some communities) fanfiction. It used to be mainly for Harry Potter and such - I use it as shorthand for the writers in Arrow fandom, for example, who have hundreds of followers, their every post is obsessively reblogged, etc.

Heh. How about a very very special episode about not getting overly invested in fictional characters who are still actively being written? I'm so oblivious - I actually am on tumblr, and I had no idea this was going on. To be fair, I don't follow certain bnf Olicity bloggers anymore, I turned off tumblr's recommended blogs/posts feature after being confronted with a truly horrifying image (out of fricking nowhere), I only follow theolicitylibrary and that's gonna end any day now. There is a lot of great stuff on tumblr, and I'm pretty sure it's what's leading a lot of people to my fic (sometimes I get kudos out of nowhere, for fics which have been complete for a year or so). But the nesting and reblogging is so hard to follow for me. I'm an old, I prefer forums like this one!

It was the usual tropey "pushing person off roof", as seen in a billion movie/tv scenes: Person pushes other person off roof - goes to look (to see if person went splat, I presume), but THERE'S NO-ONE THERE! DUN DUN DUNNNNN. Insert Scooby Doo sound effect here, because that's the level of the writing we have this season. I'm not sure if I made it clear enough, but I was underwhelmed by this episode.

I just looked it up on google translate too see how it's pronounced (exactly as it's written here) and I just had to laugh - 'Kapot' is literally the first result on google translate when you look up 'hood'. The first one. These writers, man.

That's what it was about? Oh dear. I agree with you totally. Especially the way Dinah is being characterized on the show, as stereotypical STRONG WOMAN WITH DAMAGE. They'd better not be going there, is all I can say. Thanks for looking! I lost interest too, as much as I'm losing interest in the show. Haven't even watched 513. Don't know if I'll bother. Re. Oliver and Dinah - it's bad enough that he's stubbornly sleeping with a reporter, while he's the Mayor (facepalm) and has a massive secret which could, as Lance put it, get him 25 to life (double facepalm). That's even if we ignore the way they behaved at the Christmas (emphasis theirs) party, which I still haven't forgiven: Susan looking at Felicity like the latter just crawled out from under a rock, and Oliver treating her like an old acquaintance he can barely remember. Oliver / Dinah would be the last straw - I'm still curious about it in fic, but not enough to look for it anymore. Lol Criminal Minds. Oh, that show. The fandom is even better - 90% stories of how Spencer Reid is the awesomest awesome who ever awesomed. A large percentage of those are Spencer Reid / Reader. Oh yes. So when I came along with my Garcia/Alvez, I was met with a resounding silence. Though it's getting a bit of traction now. Re. rape as character development: I know. It's well written, but how I wish they hadn't gone there with the character.

I think the author had added some note (or maybe it was another fic) that they started it before Donna had appeared on the show, so they apologised for her being OOC. Yeah, still don't like it. I went down a strange AO3 rabbit hole the other day - I was on Macha's tumblr and she was chastising someone for giving an author a hard time for having written Dinah / Oliver (AND SO IT BEGINS). Even though I post on tumblr, I still just can't with the confusing structure, so I went to look for it on AO3, more in the sense of slowing down to look at the trainwreck sort of way. I didn't find it, but I did find a strange Slade Wilson never loses his mind and gets together with Lillian Worth (a character from the comics) fic, in which Oliver is more of a minor character. It was pretty good, I guess? Except the later chapters clearly did not get as much proofreading as the earlier ones, and while Lillian Worth is pretty much the main character of the fic, her main character development is kickstarted by being gang-raped by Fyers' mercenaries (I'm not spoiling anything - that happens before the fic starts, and is mentioned in the tags. I'm only spoiling for SPaG errors in the later chapters). See what you're making me do, show? See? I can barely read Olicity anymore, because if it's bad, it's awful, and if it's good, I compare it to the show and get pissed off! And writing? I'm writing Criminal Minds fanfic now! Criminal Minds.

It's up to 50% now, and I voted for it, even though it wasn't my favorite, but just to stick it to the EPs and their 'Dinah Drake, you guys!!!' bullshit. i don't think I have a favorite scene this episode, tbh. The Kojo whatever scene was kind of meh to me because she was just negging Felicity throughout, either to get her to join them or to give something away about GA, and Felicity was falling for it; I mean, come on! Is everyone stupid this season?

Maybe along with the whole sonic scream thing, she also absorbed everyone's fighting abilities, heh. I'm not particularly a fan of this new BC - I don't think metas should be in Arrow as part of the team; like has been said, what's the point of everyone else, then. Re. the promo for episode 512 - Why does Oliver tell Anatoli "You owe me?" Or is it happening in a flashback? Because the last thing Oliver did with the Bratva post-return was lose his shit over Slade Wilson, threaten and force Bratva guys + Alexi Leonov to help him, and got Alexi Leonov killed. Unless there was something else in between, I don't know what Oliver's talking about. Unless 2 (the return of unless): Something happens in the flashbacks which causes Anatoli to owe Oliver, which is somehow never mentioned in the 4 years he's been back, and isn't invalidated by Oliver's Season 2 Bratva fiasco. Ugh.

Related to the terrible continuity on Arrow and its spin offs - when I was watching the episode, and saw the scene with Felicity testing DNA on BS, I immediately remembered the episode of The Flash where they need to test Earth 2 person's DNA, and there's a whole spiel about their blood being different, bla bla bla. But no, Black Siren gets tested, and the DNA matches. Again, who writes this crap? First of all: things which exist in this world: what was Felicity testing against? Did they keep samples of Laurel's blood? Hair? Or were they testing for a familial match, using Quentin/Sara's whatever? Second, I had the impression that in the Flash episode, the Earth 2 people were different in some way. But do not ask me to try and track it down, because I don't care about it that much. I mean this episode was ok, had some good interaction, I enjoyed it, kind of, except when I got annoyed (see above). But then the last scene came up, and it had the same effect on me as Detective Tinyhands in the season opener - they're going for a OH SHIT SON! moment, and it isn't more than a shrug. Especially that last line, which was long and clunky, and dumb.

My favorite bit was this: she leaves Oliver sitting in the loft, in full on sad panda mode. Then, when we return to her storyline/ break up bullshit, she's living in the loft, and Oliver's leaving. WHAT. The fuck was the point of the dramatic walk out the door, then? Did she wait for five minutes and then stagger back in, all "Actually, I'm staying, and you can GTFO." These writers are geniuses I tell you.

Having just spent five minutes looking for a nausea gif that will fit in with the forum's strictures, I give up. On a more serious note, I've been expecting the "wake up in bed" scene for a while now. How else are they going to show us that they're ALL IN? Maybe they don't get how much like a moron it makes Oliver look? Most of what I've been seeing lately is updates to long-running fics which didn't interest me when they were more or less close to canon, let alone now, when canon has devolved into madness. A couple of fics are trying to counteract the ship stall, but not as many as you'd think. The most recent one I found involves Felicity blaming herself for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING (Billy's death included), and concludes with her telling Oliver that she doesn't deserve him. Thanks, but no thanks.

That's nothing - the thing is, whenever I see a post about 'BS news', or that 'forget about BC, it's gonna be BS,' you know 'Black Siren' is not the first phrase that comes to mind, right. In fact, I find myself thinking, for sure it's gonna be BS, that's the trend nowadays . . . oh wait, they mean Black Siren.

Nothing about this episode made sense, and that's leaving out the fact that this was Those Crazy Unsubs! (the movie), with some profiling put in. I actually didn't like the twist - I was looking forward to some Manson Family shenanigans, but then when it turned out to be poor little rich girl, I just rolled my eyes. And also - they never once saw a news report somewhere saying how the nice couple whose house they'd trashed turned up dead? Also, that final meltdown was just a complete mess. When the gang broke into the parents' home at the end, and three of them were wearing balaclavas but blondie wasn't, I though, aha! They're cutting her loose and leaving her to take the fall for everything. But then all the balaclavas started coming off, and then what was the point in putting them on? Ugh.

Captain Holt: KANALISATSYA! Witness Lady: DA! _____ (I know it means sewage system or something, I just love his joy - makes me want to go around yelling it, instead of Eureka!)