(no subject)
No, I swear, this will be more than just SQUEEEEE but for right now can we talk about how awesome this show is? Because holy mackerel, show, so many good decisions! And they just keep coming!
M. and I keep comparing this to Agents of SHIELD, which is unfair but also unavoidable. Arrow hits every button that SHIELD ducks away from. It has built a team, it makes clever, subtle in-universe jokes, it builds its own mythology amidst the vast towering complicated universe of the DC comics, it takes cheesy villains and makes them real and threatening and serious (and ditto for heroes), it brings the eye candy, it gives its characters realistic and painful flaws (Oliver Queen, ladies and gentlemen, asshole with a heart of gold), and it keeps on dishing out twists and turns.
I think the best way to do this will be character-wise and we will start with my very, very favorite: Sara. If you had told me that Sara Lance would be my favorite character, I would've given you a bug-eye because she was dead! Except, it turns out, she is stronger and smarter and has her shit together and yet doesn't. She keeps her promises and loves her people and is honest in her relationships and kicks ass and somehow after six years still has enough moral grounding to quit the League of Assassins and to be honest with her ex-girlfriend while doing it. She's kind to Felicity, when she realizes that she's stepped into the Other Woman stereotype. She's appreciative of Diggle. She takes no shit from Oliver. She loves her parents and is so tentative around her sister. I LOVE HER.
I love Oliver too of course: he is such a prick. But he cares so much, perhaps too much, and his flaws are so believable and human and they run so very deep. Somewhere deep inside him is still that spoiled frat boy and it surfaces at the worst moments but he is fighting it. He is tough and yet he has a smile for people he loves, he is a terrific big brother, and he had the guts to confront Laurel at her worst. He is a good friend to Diggle, except when he's not, but when he isn't he appreciate that Diggle calls him on it. And it goes without saying that his half-naked weight lifting and salmon laddering and sparring is a highlight of every show because DAMN.
Felicity! She started out clever and one-shot and she is growing and expanding and filling all the cracks in the Arrow team, and she has had a rough few episodes but believable character development, oh yes. She is everyone's heart, and Diggle is the conscience, the solid rock of common sense and reliability and snark and honesty. The two of them!
Laurel keeps rescuing herself from frustrating stereotype, and Quentin Lance is, ahhhhhh, just the best father and police officer he can possibly be and painfully aware of how short he falls, and Thea is maturing and getting smarter and taking after her mother in the takes-no-shit department, and Roy is such an annoying little ball of anger except he's totally right. I miss Tommy and his fierce humanity and what he meant to both Oliver and Laurel.
Moira Queen. Can I just even. Wow. I would vote for her, is what I'm saying. Nerves. of. Steel. She will outlast you all and stand on the rubble of Starling City and still expect you to do better. But she is also a woman and so punished unfairly and she knows that and she makes no excuses. (Dear Oliver, you can stop being a self-righteous prick any day now; I would be more annoyed with him if it weren't perfectly in character.)
And all those little grace notes. Bringing Walter back. (WALTER COME BAAAACK I LOVE YOU). All the genre casting (RIVER. AND OTHER RIVER.) And the clever, clever way of building the universe without suffocating what they've created - hi there, Barry Allen, late again, I see?
In conclusion, I nearly fainted with awesome when Green Arrow and Black Canary showed up on the scene together, and promptly imagined ALL THE PWP CRIMESOLVING FIC.
And now that the flailing has commenced, I present to you a list of fic requests.
- Walter/Moira post-apoc, like maybe the earthquake machine did an even bigger job than they realized and it...did something else to the whole world and they are like king and queen of the ruins of Starling City and they work so well together but their relationship is still fragile and maybe Thea is missing and they are trying to find her with Oliver's uneasy cooperation
- PWP Oliver/Sara, YES
- I have a cracktastic fic in my head in which Team Arrow adopts a greyhound named Fletcher and he helps solve crime at super speed (there is a Flash joke in here somewhere) and then snores on the couch in the arrow cave the rest of the time
- Sara & Sin buddyfic, like going to the circus or something, mayyyyybe Sin develops a crush on a young acrobat boy?
- Nyssa confronting her father and still in love with Sara but looking around at her warped world and understanding why Sara wanted to leave
- Roy/Thea with Thea teaching Roy how to ride because of course she grew up riding big money hunters and he thinks this is the Worst Idea Ever but goes along with it
- American Revolution AU and Oliver is the rich snot who's an aide-de-camp for Washington and the Lances own a tavern outside Boston and there is spying and hay barn sex and a Brave New World to face
- Shado, yes please, anything with her being clever and strong and alive, damn it show
- Arrow/Narnia crossover, Susan/Sara, YES