#and teh message that sends and teh way it frames both their actions.

[therewas-a-girl]

i was sitting here, thinking: 

so first, we have the break up last year framed as if oliver was ‘’’’caught’’’’ between two ‘’’’impossible’’’’ choices, even though the narrative was so flawed and hole-ridden that its logic did nto hold up to the faintest breeze. and that he was basically set up to lose everything either way and felicity punished him for this impossible choice by leaving him, and the narrative punished him further by making him lose fucking everything, and making us feel bad for him. while framing felicity’s choice in zero context from her pov. 

all the while, it feels like her choices have to be defended, because the show doesn’t bother to do so with even a fraction of the the same amount of time it uses on oliver. this in the end, amounts to felicity being portrayed as unfair on oliver.

i never thought so - but the show did, and that is what id fed me, and reinforced with her apology in 5.20

but  there is something else that bugs me. 

so felicity had sex with oliver, then told him she couldn’t be with him, that it didn’t change anything, because the real problem between them hadn’t changed. that she felt he didn’t trust her. 

then after this, she tells him she’s sorry she walked without giving them the chance to hash it out - that she wasn’t ready for that right now. (which i understand btw. i understand that her understanding this is actually character development for her, and that she is emotionally aware enough to get this about herself.)  BUT... wouldn’t talking about it give Oliver the chance to show her that maybe he does trust her. that something has changed? 

i just don’t see the logic. she wants to have his full trust but she cant even talk about what happened with them yet. which translates in, she wants something but she isn’t ready for it? 

i would get that, but i think that’s me trying to rationalize a stupid choice of the writers, that dont rly care about the character making sense, but that bend felicity’s choices to their plot.

then, she seemingly is never ready and tries to move on with billy. (im so rageful over this oh my god because it doesnt make narrative sense at all - billy i mean. and just for the record, i liked the guy - which is why im so angry that he was just there because prometheus needed to frame olvier into killing him. aka another felicity line of narrative that is about oliver. its becoming increasingly clear - the way the story itself is set up proves this) without ever hashing things out with oliver or even telling him that ‘look here my dude, i know we left things up in the air in the summer, but im really never gonna be ready for that talk and i really think we should close this deal, cause i cant do it.’ 

but she did not do that. because that makes perfect sense. felicity ‘i am so confrontational that i cant wait five minutes for the party to be over to ask you about why you haven't proposed, and i cant give you space even though i know you yourself just found out about your kid’ smoak. that felicity smoak... doesn’t face oliver about this new resolution she made. doesn’t tell him. cause she is now, apparently, just as much non-confrontational as oliver is about all emotionally difficult decisions. 

where is the consistency, i just can’t find it. ‘am i missing the point or is it not there’: a saga on me and arrow’s writing. 

dont even get me started on the fact that this whole s5 arc was built around felicity losing billy and her reaction to THAT, instead of... idk, acknowledging the trauma and the hurt that she has been through, acknowledging its effect on her, on her understanding of the world, on the way she now makes her choices; acknowledging that she might have the PTSD that these fuckers advertised shamelessly and that was never shown. 

no... it’s just because of billy and the fact that he died. 

which is horrible that he did, but its also really fucking reductive of felicity’s feelings over it all - over everything. her shooting, her being shoved in a gas chamber, her losing a dear friend, her losing her father again, her feeling responsible for thousands of deaths. 

and then i see people being angry that this was about billy because - why billy right? he was insignificant! why couldn’t her emotional collapse onto herself, her isolation and change have been about OLIVER instead!!!!

like... do people even see felicity at all? 

i have no words. none. 

at the beginning of s5b, i was linked to an article promising felicity’s arc and its importance and how great it would be for her character. how important it would be for arrow this season - and i said to the friends who linked me that i was cautious, because i know how arrow works. arrow seemed to prove me wrong till 5.20, and i felt so fucking good to be wrong. it felt wonderful.

and then 5.20 happened 

im just sitting here wondering, does that ^ -- the dismissal of felicity’s arc as sth caused by ‘i lost my brand new bf pain’ and her change built on this flimsy excuse just so that she could tell oliver ‘yeah sorry, i judged you, you made the right call in doing what you did, i totally understand that now’, basically PROVING that that is how arrow sees their relationship... - proving that the whole framing of the break up in s4 as felicity being a non-compromising, blind judgmental douche and oliver being the one who was being punished for something he had no choice on; this whole thing was in fact, not accidental or a poor execution, but deliberate. ... -- does that really upset nobody, just because we have softcore porn images of olicity kissing? 

i saw no even ground between oliver and felicity in 5.20. i saw  felicity’s potential emotional depth being skewed and felicity admitting to all the blame in their break up. 

meaning that all that fantasizing i did about these two people being people that made mistakes - its not a lie, exactly. but it’s not the narrative the show supports. it’s simply not. 

‘arrow’s’ narrative is - -  felicity was wrong. she wasn’t emotionally mature enough, she hadn’t gone through enough ‘emotional pain/suffering’ to really be on oliver’s level, to really understand his choices, his reasons. she wasn't his equal. and she needed to be hurt and lost and alone so that she could understand him. felicity smoak, as she is, as she was conceived to be, is not enough, you see, for the emotionally complicated hero.

and this whole thing.. i wish i was smart enough to put into words why this kind of vision repulses me so. it reminds me of this article i read once about how fundamentally differently women and men gain their hero status in stories. how women are not allowed to just find the magic sword and go on an adventure. there has to be pain involved. and not the kind of pain that means you’re going places - but debasement, humiliation. negation of the identity the woman has, in order to grasp at something ‘higher’, something ‘more’ that she was not. some expansion of her mind that she was not capable of before. 

i find it so alienating, i cant even put it into words. 

it makes me feel the same way reading joss wheadon’s idea of the wonder woman movie made me feel: dirty.