#AND TO MAKE FRIENDS YOU NEED TO HAVE MUTUAL FRIENDS WHICH REQUIRES WHAAAAT?? HAVING FRIENDS

[br1ghtestlight]

cant make friends cant do activities without friends can't do anything that requires Knowing somebody like getting a job or renting an apartment without friends cant sign up for anything without friends CANT MAKE FRIENDS UNLESS YOU ARE AT PLACES WHERE YOU ALREADY HAVE TO HAVE FRIENDS TO BE not to mention that even if i tried making friends everybody fucking hates me and it wouldn't work. awesome world for autistic losers with no friends like me. whatever

[msbeccieboo]

Arrow 7x14 brain dump

I loved this episode!!  I think I hadn’t really hyped it up too much in my mind so that undoubtedly helped, and sure, there was a lot of superfluous shit, but I feel like I just have to come to terms with that now, and overall it delivered on some areas I’d hoped it to, and also in lots that I hadn’t expected it to!  As always, succinctness is not my speciality, and I think this one is at an all-time record length (*titters*), so get comfortable…

Olicity

SHE TOLD HIMMMMM!!!!  I think that was just my minimum requirement for the episode, which is probably why I ended up loving it; we got lots more than that!!  Olicity didn’t get as much air time as I would have liked for the episode immediately following the Olicity Baby Reveal, but I think the episode delivered quality, where quantity was definitely lacking.

I loved the parallel of Felicity’s nightmare with Oliver’s from 7x01 respectively.  In the first half of the episode we could see that she still was doubting herself and her ability to keep the baby safe, which although wasn’t stated explicitly, was clear to me at least, and I am so glad we saw that and not just immediate baby-bliss.  This lead into poor Oliver trying and failing to get in touch with William 😭 by filling up his answering machine (to which we later find FF William discovering an answer machine-style cassette…subtle as ever there arrow writers).

The next time we saw Olicity was in an OTA scene (at long last), which I will delve into later, but special mention to Oliver’s little Felicity Smile™ when she cracks her OTA joke 😍.

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Continued under the cut

The most wonderful Olicity scene for me wasn’t the big reveal, but the sofa scene.  I loved this so so much.  For the first time, Oliver really acknowledged Felicity’s pain from when he was in prison, and acknowledged that he hadn’t acknowledged it haha.  This in and of itself made me tear up…Oliver the GROWTH 😭😭  

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But then he continued!!  He told Felicity that he thought there was a better way than killing Diaz, but that he had no right to make that call for her.  He would back any move of hers and have her back “no.matter.what” *ugly crying*. 

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Furthermore, he wants her to make her choice so she can get closure on Diaz, allowing Olicity to move forward!!!

This recognition and support are what Felicity has needed from Oliver for months!!  He has likely only just been able to come to these realisations himself recently, after dealing with his own crap, and losing William etc, but he came to them on his own, before knowing about the baby and knowing he would have to ‘do better’.  He knows there has been a distance between him and Felicity and he will do his part to allow her to help herself so they can come back together, and it is glorious!!!

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This scene could have only been improved by some hand holding or other canoodling, but I am more than happy with the scene as we got it!!

Then at last we come to the big reveal.  I must say I think they could have and should have given more time and attention to this scene; I can only hope that they didn’t because of all the fluffy parent-to-be-ness that we are about to see unfold over the coming episodes???  Let a girl dream for now at least!  Stephen and Emily, as usual, killed it with what they had to work with.  From Oliver’s gentle acknowledgement of Felicity’s go-to comfort food, mint chip, to Felicity’s explanation of why she didn’t need to kill Diaz; she needed her family to live in the light and their children to know that they would do anything for them….wait, what??? *cue Oliver’s gorgeous confused puppy face* Your children, because…

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Felicity’s beautiful smile when she told him, and Oliver’s sappy happy face when he realised….YAAAAAASSSS!!!!  My heart exploded!!  Then, *end scene* 😡.  But you know what, at this moment in time I’m still so floaty-happy for them that I can live with this!

Flash Forwards

Oh my wow I love the Clayton-Smoak-Queen siblings!!!  You can clearly see Oliver and Felicity in both of them; but Will is still obviously a mini-Felicity, whereas Mia is SO MUCH OLIVER, which is so bittersweet, given that she seems to have been raised by Felicity alone (WHYYYY?!?! *sobs*). 

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Mia, it seems, has a somewhat typical love/hate relationship with her Mother, which I’m sure lots of us can identify with.  On one hand she clearly resents Felicity’s paranoia, her insistence on ‘bonding’ with things such as the Rubik’s cube and tech, which she doesn’t seem to have an interest in, but then her love for her shines through with her insistence of going after her alone (hello mini Oliver) and the line “my Mom is the only person I care about” 😭😭😭  

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Then our gorgeous grown up Will 😍 is all Felicity in his belief in Oliver as a hero and his techy geekdom, but HELLO OLIVER in the way he instantly loves and sticks up for his sister (even with them arguing, he just softened, and even turned on Dinah when she questioned Mia) and talks about family, despite how he has come to feel abandoned by Olicity.  That last line in his scene with Mia where he says “Well did it work?” could have been spoken by Stephen himself; his expression, his intonation…perfect Oliver impression Ben, well done, A+!  They work so well together on screen; I loved their back-and-forth in their scenes.  I can’t wait to see them interacting more, especially, I hope, in the all FF episode.  I think they will be a force to be reckoned with!

The bro-sis Rubik’s cube solving champions discover the mini answering phone cassette, which Mia can’t even comprehend; “can you hack it?” lol (makes me feel suuuper old).  This has surely got to at least contain some of Olicity’s attempts to contact William, to let him know he wasn’t abandoned, and at most, another of Felicity’s clues.  I just can’t wrap my head around the blatant plot-hole that is Olicity not ever managing to get in touch with William, even with the crazy tech skills on both ends of the dynamic??  I call bullshit!  I need to know what’s going on guysssss!!!  

Elsewhere, Connor supposedly didn’t know about Mia’s heritage (so no baby OTA growing up together *sad face*), except he secretly did cos his adopted father Dig asked him to watch over her!  So Connor isn’t JJ??  Where is JJ?? ISTG Larry if you erased another baby Diggle I will travel through time and kill you myself!!  Connor and Mia are clearly super close (shipping them already), and the hurt on Mia’s face when she found out Connor had lied to her the whole time broke my heart!!  I also need a scene with Roy and Mia soon; did anyone else notice how as soon as Mia revealed her parentage, he dropped his bow from pointing on her…YAAAAASS UNCLE ROY!!!  But why does no one but Dig know about Mia’s existence????  Did Olicity go into hiding??  Is this why they never managed to contact William again? Whaaaat???  Je suis confuse!!!

Bonus: Future OTA, or FTA, if you will, is totally going to be a thing I’m sure of it!  The actors seem so much fun and are always interacting on social media/live tweeting etc.  It is so nice to have cast so actively participating in promotion this year.  It’s at a point now where I would definitely give a next generation series a watch, and I can’t wait for the all flash forward episode now, even though the whole future set-up seems harrowingly disparate from what we would like to imagine.  I need to know more damnit!!

OTA/Delicity

OTA has finally (just about) reunited!!!!  It’s only been 6437280462308 years guys!!  Dig finally realises he’s been keeping the Diaz secret from Olicity for too long, so he offers them up the truth, in a “SPONTANEOUS OTA MOMENT”.  Honestly, Felicity’s sass in this scene and all the Dig scenes to be fair is just a beautiful thing to see.  Felicity rightfully tells John that this is the second time he has prioritised his ARGUS work over his friends’ safety and he looks rightfully ashamed of himself. Oliver naturally doesn’t agree with using Diaz, but has suddenly become official OTA reconciliator, and trusts Dig to get shit done, eventually offering his help with Felicity’s blessing and assistance.  

With OTA officially back in the field and like 57 things going on, Felicity takes her chance on taking out Diaz, confronting him with a gun again, and finally telling him that she is in fact stronger than him, and hence doesn’t need to kill him…Dig is ultimately left to decide between helping Oliver capture Dante, or Felicity stop Diaz and praise the salmon ladder he chooses to help Felicity!!

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I loved Felicity realising her own strength, and maintaining her ‘light’, seeing and knowing that her teammate finally had her back!!  Dig tells her that although Dante was the mission objective, Diaz (and by that he meant Felicity) was his priority!!  My Delicity heart!!!!!  Dig has one last ace up his sleeve, later telling Olicity that he realised how letting Diaz go last time had hurt Felciity, and that the most important thing should be to just protect his OTA family!!!  And just like that, OTA RISES FROM THE ASHES!!!

Bonus:  OMG I just realised that the Brothers and Sisters theme of the episode relates to OTA as well!! 😭😍😭😍😭😍

Felicity/BS

When did I become a BS stan??  Who even am I?  What do I believe in? 😱 🤷‍♀️🤯

I love Felicity’s relationship with BS.  I want to be friends with both of them.  I want to drink wine with BS whilst Felicity grumbles about drinking de-caff coffee. I think I need more sleep. Forgive me fandom friends for I have sinned 🙈😂😂

I see people saying that their friendship doesn’t make sense, and no, if you look directly from S6 to now, it doesn’t.  But if you watch S7 episode-by-episode you can totally believe that they got to the place they are in now.  They’ve grown from reluctant allies, to gaining a mutual respect, to growing to like one another.  And the shade is still totally there on both parts from Felicity’s “fake lawyer” (CLASSIC LINE), to BS calling Felicity out on her chocolate consumption haha.

So BS knew about the baby before Oliver did.  I am not majorly angry with this because…she just guessed!!  Felicity didn’t tell her.  Felicity was mortified that she’d put it all together and begged her to not tell anyone. Our girl was just coming to terms with it herself, and working out how to tell Oliver, which she is perfectly entitled to do.  

The scene where BS brings Felicity food and gives her a pep talk was totes adorbs 😍 Do I wish it was the type of conversation Felicity had had with Oliver instead?  Sure, and I’m sure we will in the future, and we got different Olicity goodies in this episode in its place.  

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BS is all over Felicity being preggers…I’m wondering if maybe she lost a baby or lost someone with a baby on E2??  She just seems to be all about looking after Felicity, and the baby, to almost an excessive point, with random pregnancy knowledge thrown in there too 🤔

Side-note: I am all about Felicity eating ALL OF THE FOOD in this episode hahaha!  “I ate that much choc before I was pregnant” LOOOOOL!!  She continues to be the cutest.

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Emiko/Oliver

Oh Oliver.  I feel for him so much with Emiko.  He just wants to get to know her, and make up for lost time and poor choices by Robert.  He misses Thea.  He is blinded by his love for his new sister.  This is why whenever they try to tell us ‘Oliver doesn’t trust people’ I’m like HUH?!  I see Oliver as probably the most naturally trusting person on the show, only his experiences have proven him wrong so often.  He has to believe in others, so he can believe in himself after everything he has been through/done.  He gives almost everyone the benefit of the doubt, especially family, even when it’s blatantly obvious that they don’t deserve it.  Oliver has such a big heart, and loves his family so deeply and at times, blindly. And here, with Emiko, that is what he is doing (when he should have been at home celebrating baby-making with some more practice baby-making 😉).  I don’t like Emiko…oh she’s working with the Big Bad, shocker!  I thought that she would turn out dead or a villain, given as she isn’t part of the ‘mark of 4’ gang in the future.  I’m not convinced she’s full-on evil though, not yet at least.  But the concept of her being a baddie kind of makes sense as to why they’ve made her so unlikeable.  That said, I really enjoyed the ‘sibling rivalry’ scenes they shared. Oliver in her personal space “do you have to stand right there?”, Oliver critiquing her arrows, “don’t touch my things!” 😂😂 I do think they spent too much time on them in this episode (even though it was called Brothers and Sisters, I know).  I just can’t be bothered to get too involved with her storyline, for the minute at least, as I think it will be temporary.  

ARGUS/Diaz

This is my let-down of the episode, (and every episode) but you can’t win them all!  Suicide squad blah, Diaz blah, Virgil (isn’t he a Thunderbird??) blah, Dante (Highlander!)….kinda blah!  The shame is, I think Dante could’ve been a far better villain if they’d made me know/care about him earlier in the season?  Maybe they can rescue him?  I mean, Prometheus didn’t really come into his own until the last few episodes, so I guess there’s hope???

But Diggle quit-yaaaay!! Bye bye ugly security guard outfit!!

LIZARD BOY GOT LIT UPPPPP!!! 

Burn bay burn!!  Bye bitch!!  I’m pretty sure this is the episode that the actor tweeted his goodbyes after?  What a sorry exit if so *evil laugh*.  There’s a fair bit of speculation over who killed him, but unless it was Felicity sneaking in in the dead of night to do so, I struggle to care 🤷‍♀️

Massive thank you to the gif makers; you have made this long-ass post more colourful 😘