#ra's: okay... your boy might be a good enough warrior to honor the al-ghul name. maybe.

[playingitup]

I recently read a fic that unlocked a previously undiscovered interest of mine, and i cant seem to find any other fics like it, so you guys get to watch me spiral (again)

This came from the Talia al-Ghul is Jason Todd's adopted mom pipeline, and the fic was a very short blurb where someone offered Jason the Joker's death as a courting gift, as according to the League of Assassin's tradition had to ask for Ra's blessing as the head of his family, and Damian tranqued Batman to let this happen, because 'this has nothing to do with you, Father, this is al-Ghul family business' and aaaaaa

Just, the League having its own culture, traditions.

I know its Ra's assassins club, but he is old as fuck. There have probably been families that are part of the League for generations. This amounts to not inly courting traditions, but customs, manners, holidays, all with a different twist that came with time in this isolated society, and i just want to see more fics that explore this.

Damian being cut out of his culture completely, no idea why no one responds the way he expects, not because of trauma and 'why is no one punishing or praising me', but genuine 'i told Drake i could demonstrate my skills with a blade for him, and why didnt he offer to show me how he fights with his staff??? He didnt even say he already knew how to use blades, is he implying that i am not sufficiently trained to be capable of teaching him? Does he think i am not worthy of being in this family, and thats why he refuses to train with me??'

(Meanwhile Tim firmly believes he just got threatened to be shish-kebabed by a 10 yo and is shook. Of course, Damian just wanted to spend quality time with his new family member the way he knows how to, but tim doesnt know that, and Damian doesn't know thats how tim understood it either)

And Jason being a part of the al-Ghul household, too, is very interesting. I love the concept of Talia sending him on his way to Gotham as Red Hood partialy to make the city safer for when Damian went over, Hood putting the fear of god into criminals so that the Demon Prince could walk through the city of his father with less fear and apprehension. Jason and Damian celebrating League holidays and traditions together (of course, jason only does it so the little guy can have this confor of home and family, he did promise T that he would take care of him, its not like he enjoys quality time with a family member he never tried to kill, or that he misses the conforts of the league and dinners with the al-Ghuls, of couse not).

Anyways, thank you for listening to my ted talk

[jbuffyangel]

The Good Soldier: Arrow 7x19 Review (Spartan)

Uhhhh....

Let’s dig in...  

John Diggle

It has taken seven years and 157 episodes, but we are finally getting John Diggle’s backstory and IT’S JUICY.  

Diggle and Oliver procured an A.R.G.U.S. vault drive during a run in with Virgil. For the life of me I cannot remember that guy’s connection to Emiko and her super villain organization, so I’m just slotting him in the ���henchman” category. Does that work for everyone? Fabulous. Moving on.

Unfortunately, Felicity is unable to hack the protocols protecting the drive.  Feel free to roll your eyes. A drive Felicity Smoak can’t hack? Please. 

She does, however, recognize who created the protocols – the Department of Defense, or Arrow’s fake version which is the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Source: paigeOTA 

John says something like, “Hey I know a guy.” OH YOU DO? John knows a guy at the Department of Defense? Not just any guy, but a GENERAL. 

Gee, Diggle this information would have been super handy all the times Team Arrow has been fighting ARMIES like Slade and the Mirakuru soldiers, Ra’s Al Ghul and the League, or pretty much any bad guy to grace Arrow’s screen during May sweeps. 

But okay, Season 7 he’s coughing up this info. Great. Helpful. Thanks big guy.

John is super nervous prior to the meeting with said General and even Oliver is wondering, “Dude what’s up with you?” So obviously this is an authority figure for Diggle, which means parent of some kind. This is all, but confirmed when General Stewart starts criticizing John’s career choices. Oh yeah, this guy is definitely a parent. 

General Stewart is Diggle’s stepfather. Get it? Stewart as in John Stewart aka the Green Lantern. It’s completely okay if you missed that detail. I was about 15 minutes into the episode before I put that puzzle piece together.

General Stewart: I’m sorry to say you’ve lost your way.

I like this guy. Not for nothing, but “lost” is how I would also describe John the last couple seasons of Arrow. The more evolved and independent Oliver becomes the more adrift John becomes. Sure, he ditched A.R.G.U.S. to keep Lyla safe (Thank goodness. That storyline was terrible), but it doesn’t mean the General is wrong about his stepson. John needs direction outside of Oliver Queen and he’s been searching for it for awhile now.

Diggle: I left to protect my family and that’s not something you would understand, is it sir?

SHOTS FIRED! Daaaaaamn. Diggle is extra salty about this guy. What gives?

The Ninth Circle steals Archer from Smoak Tech (shiiiiiiiit), but General Stewart’s DIA soldiers save Felicity and Alena. Stewart is aware there’s a Ninth Circle mole inside A.R.G.U.S., so he’s been tracking their activity which led them to Smoak Tech headquarters aka the loft. The drive contained a list of DIA assets, which is why Emiko stole Archer. She’s planning on using the program to track them down and gain access to their intel.

Alright, that’s enough bad guy plot. Let’s get down to the goodies. Diggle is super pissed step daddy didn’t share his wealth of information, but Stewart argues it was classified. Oliver is basically a family counselor this entire episode and he slides in between to break up the tension. It’s hilarious.

Source: paigeOTA

Diggle leaves in a huff. 

Source: paigeOTA 

This is a theme throughout the episode. John Thomas is quite huffy. Oliver finally gets a chance to ask if there is any reason why John failed to mention during the last seven years that he has a stepfather at the DIA, particularly since he’s been up Oliver’s ass about honesty. But Oliver says it in a much nicer way.

This is why I love this man. 

Source:  1-crazy-dreamer

He’s not a hypocrite. John never spilling the stepdad details over a glass of vodka is hinky and Oliver knows it. However, he’s not going to rub Diggle’s face in it because Oliver also understands he’s told much bigger lies through the course of their friendship. Oliver makes many mistakes, sometimes repeatedly, but it makes him an incredibly compassionate person.

SO HERE’S THE TEA. Stewart was John’s father’s best friend and commanding officer.  An op went bad and John’s father stayed behind to hold off insurgents, saving the whole unit in the process. Stewart survived and Diggle’s father didn’t. John blames Stewart for his father’s death. He believes Stewart, as commanding officer, should have been the one to stay behind. AND THEN six months later, Stewart married John’s mother.

Excuse me, where has this soapy goodness been for the last seven years? The Young & the Restless writers are taking notes y’all! As @callistawolf pointed out this sounds a lot like Diggle’s history with Carly, his brother Andy’s wife. Diggle may hate his stepfather for marrying his best friend’s wife, but he kind of did the same thing with Carly. Sure, he didn’t marry her, but they definitely had a relationship. It seems this behavior runs in the Diggle family. John was always very uncomfortable with Carly being Andy’s widow and this backstory certainly brings another level of understanding why he felt that way.

Stewart is a total hard ass too, which doesn’t help his relationship with John or Andy very much. He focused on running “Spartan” survival drills with the boys and by the time John turned 18 he couldn’t wait to leave home. The whole nod to Spartan is interesting. This might be the first time we are given any background for why John’s helmet looks like a Spartan warrior. Felicity anointed Diggle with the code name, because she is Queen, but I think John was involved in designing the initial suit with Cisco. So, the overall Spartan look would have come from him and General Stewart is why.

Emiko kidnaps Diggle and General Stewart and thus they join the prestigious line of kidnapping OTA and their parents. 

Source: ebett

This almost feels like parental initiation on this show. You can’t bond with your kid until you’ve been tied up by a mad man or woman in this case.  Moira and Mama Smoak send their sympathies General.

Source: ebett

Dante tortures Diggle to get some codes out of Stewart and he folds pretty quick seeing his son in pain. Stewart being willing to do anything to keep John Diggle safe is quite an endearing quality and it makes me feel all the feels.  What can I say? I like this guy.

Dante wants access to a secret DIA experimental weapon called CYGNUS X-1. It’s genetically engineered bacteria which can consume the byproduct of nuclear fission or as Felicity explained, “It’s a biological weapon that can literally eat through anything. That’s terrifying.” Listen, if she’s scared then I’m scared. Where Felicity Smoak goes so goes my nation.

Oliver: Archer. They are going to use the intel they get from the assets to locate the DNA of the people involved with CYGNUS X-1.

Nothing Oliver said sounds good,

but I’m only half paying attention to the bad guy plot, because I am way more focused on Oliver dropping the daddy bombshell, which he does after finding Diggle brooding about his father. Superhero Jesus to the rescue! John’s father didn’t die saving everyone. He died because he was negligent and took two marines with him. The reason the rest of the unit survived was because of John Stewart. He was the real hero.

Again, this is quite reminiscent of Diggle’s relationship with Andy. Maybe Stewart and John’s father weren’t biological brothers, but they were best friends just like Oliver and Diggle. So, they were brothers all the same. There seems to be a generational thread of the good brother and the bad brother in the Diggle family. One we find that continues in the flash forwards.

Stewart: I know you might not feel the same way, but you will always be a son to me.

Felicity is able to stop Emiko from using Archer, but she’s still able to steal the weapon. John confronts his stepfather with the truth after the mission is over. Diggle cannot understand why Stewart let John hate him for all these years. And the answer is simple – because that’s what parents do. General Stewart didn’t want to take the memory of his father away from John. Diggle believed his father was a hero, so he became one. Stewart believes the lie made Diggle who he is, but John disagrees.

Diggle: If I’m a hero it’s all because of you, sir.

The Stewart last name is no accident. The man who made John Diggle a hero has the same last name as one of the greatest heroes in DC history. If John ever truly wanted to honor the General he could change his last name and become John Stewart, 

but I doubt we’ll ever see that happen nor do I think it’s necessary. John will always be Diggle. Our Diggle doesn’t need a ring because he’s is already a hero.

Source: @oliverqsmoak

John calling General Stewart “sir” is no accident either. Diggle, always the good soldier, has refused that courtesy the entire episode. But now he softens his voice; his eyes filled with tears, and calls the man who made him a hero, “sir.” John is showing respect, but also trust. He finally sees his stepfather for who he truly is. Diggle knows General Stewart is not only a good soldier, but a wonderful father. This “sir” carries more significant than “I love you” for these two men.

The gifts General Stewart gave Diggle go beyond merely survival. John is a good solider because that’s how General Stewart raised him to be. Just like Diggle’s father would want him to be.

The two hug and part with a deeper bond than the one they had before – a tradition when it comes to OTA and their parents. “Call your mother” is probably the best exit line of any character on Arrow. I loved it. Ernie Hudson was an absolute delight.

Unfortunately, we are seven years in. I’d rather have this episode in Season 7 than not at all, but there is an element of too little too late. “Spartan” makes sense in Season 1 or Season 2 at the latest. Felicity’s backstory episode was in Season 3 and I thought that was late.

It’s hard to understand why Arrow waited so long to give us this story. The only reason I can think of is DC. They have a long history of shooting down John Diggle storylines because they intend to use them somewhere else. The Suicide Squad springs to mind. David Ramsey has been very honest about DC’s refusal to allow John Stewart/Green Lantern on Arrow in the past, so they finally must have signed off in some capacity.

Do I think the Stewart name is important enough to wait seven years for an episode like this? No. I don’t, particularly if Arrow can’t develop the Green Lantern storyline for John any further. If they can then I understand holding off, but if “John Stewart” is just another Green Lantern Easter egg then I don’t think it was worth putting off the storyline.

Arrow did their best to explain this massive hole in John’s backstory. Oliver and Felicity were understandably dumbfounded by the revelations, but John’s explanation was pretty weak. How is a stepfather in the DIA not pertinent information? Of course it is, particularly when Diggle so strongly advocated for Oliver to clean out the skeletons in his closet. It just puts the episode in an awkward position and while I enjoyed it, the writers didn’t overcome the timing hurdle for me.

Flash Forwards

The Flash Forwards are rapidly becoming my favorite part of the show. If I don’t get a spin off I’m gonna… well I don’t really know what I’m gonna do because I don’t actually have any power but I’ll do something!

Felicity needs a thingamajig to fix the helmet Laurel helped Mia procure, so the Princess That Was Promised heads into Star City to track it down for Mama. Connor comes along because he’s in love with Mia and can’t stand to be separated from her for more than five minutes. Yeah, I know this hasn’t been explicitly stated, but it’s facts. #SmoaknHawke

Source: amunetblack 

Mia has to get the thingamajig from the Deathstroke Gang. Can we just take a minute and appreciate there’s a Deathstroke Gang? That’s kind of amazing. I mean… it’s bad.

We’re in luck because Connor knows the leader of the Deathstroke Gang who is… drum roll please… John Jr. Diggle aka JJ!!!!!!! 

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS!!!! According to Connor, Lyla and Diggle’s hero gig put some pressure on the kids. Connor went one way and JJ, in an attempt to rebel, went the other. This continues the good brother/bad brother Diggle family tradition!

Source: amunetblack 

Listen, I was seriously just kidding around when I said there should be a Connor, Mia and JJ love triangle like Stefan, Elena and Damon, but if the Arrow writers want to take me up on it then FINE BY ME. 

I have an opening in my television viewing schedule for a good brother/bad brother and the woman they both love storyline! 

They are totally going there because Mia asks, “When do I get to meet him?” The “him” being JJ of course. Oh girl, you gonna meet him alright. Just you wait.

Oliver’s baby girl will have her pick of Diggle brothers and I CANNOT STAND IT BECAUSE IT IS TOO PERFECT. Why you ask? Because we don’t have to take sides. You can ship both sides of the love triangle because no matter which way you shake it Oliver and Felicity’s daughter ends up with one of Diggle and Lyla’s sons. THIS IS THE SHIPPER DREAM!

But we aren’t meeting JJ until the spin off. So settle girl. All in good time. There needs to be some surprises left for this show. Even though they haven’t cast the role yet, I bet you dollars to donuts there will be a chemistry read with Katherine McNamara for whoever they cast.

Source: amunetblack 

In the meantime, we get to watch Kat and Joseph steam up the television screen with moments like this. Damn kids. It’s getting warm in here. Wowza.

I absolutely adore how the writers are flipping the expectations. It’s almost as if they anticipated some kind of resistance to William or Connor because they aren’t biological children. Trust me I’ve seen plenty of “William isn’t really Olicity’s kid” or “Connor isn’t really Dyla’s kid” crap out there. It’s pretty horrifying the perspective some have about non biological children, so consider me thrilled the writers took those opinions and shoved them where the sun doesn’t shine. William is Mini Felicity and the good solider is Connor, not JJ. It’s amazing.

Felicity Smoak and Alena

“Felicity Smoak now entering Smoak Tech."

This gives me a happy every time I hear it. Smoak Tech and Archer are basically Felicity’s babies before she has a baby. I particularly love the part when Felicity says she needs more than Team Arrow. Yes, she loves being Overwatch, but she wants to save the world as Felicity Smoak as well. She essentially wants to go hoodless too.  

I think it’s great the writers are exploring a legacy for Oliver, Felicity and Diggle outside of Team Arrow. Felicity thus far is the furthest down the road, which is good because the character is leaving in three friggin episodes. 

But we’ve seen in the future John finds an outlet for his passions as well with Knight Watch. We also know Oliver is going to save the universe (such an underachiever that one).

But it’s particularly important with Felicity because we have a tendency in our culture to pigeonhole women into one thing. You’re a mom or you’re *insert career choice here.* Once we pick a path then it’s our only path. 

The reality is women, like men, can be many different things all at once. 

Yes, the mind reels at the thought. The fact Felicity is still searching for something when she’s found happiness as Overwatch and as a wife & mother isn’t a radical concept, but it’s one rarely portrayed by television characters. 

Nor do Felicity’s interests have to happen one at a time. I think the reason Felicity is exploring these multi faceted aspects of her character is because Emily is leaving the show and the writers didn’t want to leave anything on the table. But I’m not complaining. Even when the actress is about the leave the show this exploration seldom happens, so I’m taking the wins where I can find them.

Alena wants Felicity to sell the company and this irks me. If I’ve said it once then I’ve said it a million times I DO NOT TRUST ALENA. Girlfriend is there all of five minutes and she’s already trying to sell Felicity’s baby to the highest bidder. This is my essential problem with Alena – she always has an angle. 

Felicity’s hactivism was about making the world a better place, but when it comes to Alena I cannot help but feel her motivations are more selfish. Even if that’s wrong and Alena has altruistic intentions, her morality line is deeply skewed particularly when compared to Felicity’s morality. It makes this partnership dangerous in my mind. Alright. Alena rant done.

Or maybe not because Alena just did something super sketchy!!!! 

After Emiko steals Archer, Felicity realizes how incredibly dangerous the program can be.

Source: paigeOTA 

I love how Alena sweetly reassures Felicity she is not a mad scientist. 

Source:  arrowdaily

I would have added she’s a cupcake genius with extra sprinkles, but that’s me. It’s moments like these I wish I trusted Alena, but I don’t.

Felicity is literally the furthest thing from a mad scientist or her father, but she is self aware. She understands her genius can create miraculous things, but that people can use those miracles in ways she never intended. It’s basically the “With great power comes great responsibility” hero code. Felicity accepts the responsibility of her superpower and is completely altruistic with it. If her creation hurts innocent people then she will destroy it even if the intent was to help. That is selfless heroism.

Unfortunately, Alena does not share this code. And this is my essential problem with her. Yes, I love the adorable banter and a female friend for Felicity to geek out with. I particularly love that Alena replaced Curtis Holt’s mansplaining ass. But Alena has no problem crossing lines to get what SHE wants regardless of who it hurts in the process.

This is why Felicity’s arc this season is so crucial. Felicity thought she was that kind of person. Someone who would do whatever is necessary to get what she wants. It’s incredibly important to remember Felicity was trying to save her family, which is nowhere near the same as Alena trying to save a computer program that can make billions. The two don’t equate. 

However, Felicity discovered she retains a moral integrity even in her darkest moments. She has the capacity to do “whatever it takes” like we all do, but ultimately Felicity realized holding to her morality makes her strong. Alena is different. She has no integrity, which is why she cannot be trusted.

And yet, it seems like in the future Felicity blames herself for how Archer was used and not Alena. Sometimes she is just like her husband.

Stray Thoughts

I love that even though I know Felicity will pull that trigger, and she did, her hand was shaking. It’s so beautifully human and one of the reasons I connect to this character so much.

This girl can really zero in on the point of the episode, can’t she? Source:  arrowdaily

“That’s not very fair John.” Indeed. Very un-Yoda like behavior.

Diggle wore a shirt during the kidnapping scene. I’m extremely disappointed Arrow. You had one job!

Oliver racing to Felicity’s side the minute she says, “Hey!” will always be amazing and a trick I need to teach my husband. Source:  lucyyh

Olicity finishes each other’s sentences. Your OTP could never. Source:  1-crazy-dreamer

“Normally I’m off by myself staring into nothing.” Oliver jokes about his broodiness now. Oh how far we have traveled my friends.

Oliver not saying "I'm glad you're both okay" took a lot of self control. Way to keep a lid on it Superhero Daddy. Source:  olicitygifs

Felicity hacks the helmet while Mia and Connor look on mind blown. 

Oliver is so chill when people insult him. 

My poor babe is used to being dragged by these ungrateful twats. #OLIVERQUEENDESERVESBETTER2019 Source:  1-crazy-dreamer

The foremost expert on robotics wouldn't call Felicity back when she was CEO of Palmer Tech & now he wants to BUY Archer. I guess Ray didn't have anything he was interested in. Yes, Arrow is saying Felicity Smoak is way way way way smarter than Ray Palmer. The sky is also blue.

Even when it’s not an Olicity focused episode, Emily and Stephen do such a wonderful job of showing us Oliver and Felicity’s love and connection in the small moments. These little touches are among the many things I’m going to miss the most next season.

Source:  lucyyh

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