apinknightmare

Yeah, his first interview back made it seem like he wasn't so fond of that break.

It could have to do with Diggle and some dumb shit over on Flashback island, maybe. Maybe Quentin, too, because of something to do with Dahrk?

Hey, after you look at it an ungodly number of times, you start noticing stuff.

Oliver's poor left leg appears to be spasming.

I think Donna was probably gone, since she was out making eyes at Detective Captain Lance.

It's kind of difficult not to hold onto that line though, considering it was the very first comment we got from Iris about how she feels towards Barry. Even if you don't believe that she sees him as a brother, if you're a guy with feelings for a girl, and she says you're like brother and sister, even if she immediately follows that up by clarifying that you aren't actually brother and sister? That means she has zero romantic feelings for you. Negative romantic feelings for you, if that's possible. She basically sees you as a living, breathing Ken doll - completely void of any sort of parts below the waist. It's not the thing that ships are made of, which is why some people just don't see it. Personally, I don't care. If Iris ever gets to the point where she wants him romantically, I hope she gets that.

I think he thought that his happiness was a distraction, and that when he was distracted, people got hurt. I don't think he was specifically worried about Felicity - lots of other people got hurt when that restaurant exploded.

I think Thea's full-time job is being Oliver's campaign manager, haha.

Nah, Iris seemed sincere about Patty. Not only that, but she encouraged Barry not to cancel their date when he wanted to, and on top of that figured out that Cisco could help Barry hide his "blindness" with the whole camera in the glasses thing. She really doesn't seem to care that he's dating, and actually seems happy for him that he is.

I think some fic writers tag for specific acts so it's easier for people to find that if they're looking for that one specific kind of thing instead of general smut.

I personally don't mind Joe being referred to as Barry's dad. Barry went to live with the Wests when he was old enough to be considered part of the family, but not young enough to be raised to think of Iris as his sister. The fact that Iris ever thought of Barry as a brother and wanted him to talk to her like she was his sister makes it kind of ick, though. What I find really strange about it is apart from the whole thing when Barry first started dating Linda and Iris stirred the pot a little, she hasn't really shown that she gives much of a shit about Barry romantically. And just not even a few eps ago he was waffling on asking Patty out because of how he felt about Iris, so...yeah. It's weird.

Given this guy's professional background, I'm gonna guess that he's always considered women who fight and use their bodies to be the powerful, kickass types. Probably never even considered that you can be powerful and kickass with your brain. And I'm guessing he really didn't think too hard about what he was tweeting and the implications, and just wanted to convey that Laurel and Thea have a great fight scene. I wish I could say that Twitter educated him about that, but probably not.

This seems to be a Felicity specific issue though, on a show full of people fighting and wearing masks, and where the focus is increasingly on that, that the physicality of these characters is what makes them brave/strong/etc. I think that's where the nerve is; not that no one has ever done anything physical or brave but that Felicity is repeatedly left out of these discussions because she's not fighting and doesn't wear a mask. Thankfully she's still recognized for her strengths in-show.

Yeah, that was an odd statement, since we haven't actually seen her be good at her job. Or do her job at all, really, after the second ep. She's still got to come up with some kind of tech to save the company or whatever before that board meeting they're going to have in 5-ish months, so I don't think we've seen the last of that.

I mean, they can come back from that. They were trying to show that she didn't think of him at all that way at the time (presumably to show her feelings for him growing at some point during the course of the show), but feelings always change. It only gets weird if the person you start having feelings for is someone you at one point considered to be like your brother. ;)

Because it was coupled with her telling him that he should confide in her like she was his sister.

I'm not anti Barry/Iris at all - and I don't think that it would be weird for them to have feelings for each other even after growing up in the same house together. I don't think that's gross or insurmountable, but the brother/sister line was pretty ick for me. I'll never understand why anyone thought that was a good idea, and I completely understand if that turned some people off the pairing. It's a terrible way to jump start a ship - if we needed a barometer for Iris's feelings, she could just say he's her best friend in the world, and leave it at that. That's good enough. No need ever EVER to bring brother/sister-ness into it. I'm not Barry's biggest fan, but I do like Iris a whole lot, and I agree that she really hasn't shown very much interest in him other than the first interactions with The Flash. But that always left a bad taste in my mouth, because I felt like Barry was being kind of gross working that angle with her knowing how he felt about her. Like I wrote above, if Iris wants him, then I want her to have him, but it just doesn't seem like she wants him at all so far (and I say that without having seen the past two eps).

Yes she does. She was telling Barry that even though it might be awkward to talk to her like a sister because she isn't actually his sister, he should go ahead and confide in her like that anyway. It was a stupid line for someone to write knowing that these two would be love interests, and someone with some sense should've cut it.

Her pointing out the fact that they're not actually blood related in the same breath where she says that she feels like they're brother and sister doesn't make it all that better? It's not the growing up together and in the same house that's weird, it's that the very first vocalization that we have from Iris about the way she feels towards Barry is that she thinks they're "kind of like brother and sister."

Except Iris actually did say they were kind of like brother and sister.

I imagine he didn't tell her because he thought it would be a nice surprise for her. I just really don't see the issue. He thought he was doing something good, and learned that surprise mom visits are firmly in the No column.

It doesn't help that during one of the first Iris/Barry reactions, Iris actually said, "We're kind of like brother and sister." Who, WHO thought that was a good idea?! I know they needed a base point to establish Iris's feelings for Barry, but for god's sake JUST SAY FRIENDS. FRIENDS WORKS. I honestly don't care about any relationships on The Flash enough to actively ship, but I like Iris a lot. If she eventually wants Barry for whatever reason, then I want her to have him.

I would say that the jaw-dropper has something to do with the kid, probably. And yeah, I think DD is reanimating dead people or something of the like. That's probably why he wanted all of their records erased from that database - so no one could identify them. Still don't understand how an evil dead zombie could refrain from killing his brother, but I'll just chalk that up in the "That's so Arrow" column, if true.

Old unilateral decision-making Oliver has been pretty non-existent this season, and I don't think that something like inviting Donna as a surprise is even remotely close to some of the problematic behavior regarding decision-making he's shown in the past. It's not as if Felicity told him she didn't want to see her mother and he decided that he knew what was best for her and did it anyway. He was watching her spiral and was unable to do anything to coax her out of that on his own since she had passed the point of not listening to reason, and he thought maybe her mother could do what he couldn't, since Felicity was being pretty manic. Oliver's learning how to be in a relationship, and Felicity just taught him that there are good surprises and bad surprises. He admitted he shouldn't have invited Donna over, so...lesson learned. He most likely won't ever do that again.

No, she never mentioned it.