Remember how I interrupted my 30 Days of OTP by continuously posting about Arrow and then I started ANOTHER meme in the middle of that? Well, I'm interrupting both of those to get back to the OTP Meme for a moment.
So this day was actually supposed to be "Bad Timing OTP" and I even had one picked out, but I wasn't chomping at the bit to write that post, and this is why. It was time to write a Shipper's Manifesto about a different couple.
Oliver Queen & Felicity Smoak, Arrow
So, a while back I started seeing "Olicity" stuff around the internet. I had had some interest in Arrow because of Stephen Amell's guest turn on TVD years ago, but I wasn't really looking to put another show on my list of things to watch. Because I watch too much TV as it is. Be that as it may...I was more and more intrigued by "Olicity" as I kept encountering it, and one Friday night about four weeks ago, I found the first season on Netflix.
Earlier this evening I finished S2. I can't believe it took me even four weeks (one day shy, actually) to devour 46 episodes, but you know, life gets in the way. Needless to say, I was on the lookout for "Olicity" (and it officially caught me in 1x12), but it's hard to say Oliver should be with this one woman and this one woman only. He has many women in his life, and complicated relationships with all of them. In some ways I ship and support all of these relationships as I see their importance to him in his life.
But Felicity is a horse of a different color, truly.
She loves Oliver, but she isn't a slave to that feeling. She stands up TO him, FOR him, and BESIDE him. She is his girl Wednesday (LOL), and he's her man. They have such an interesting balance because she only knows Arrow, present-day Oliver, and she only understands the person who is continually progressing, who beats himself up for the sins and mistakes of past-Ollie, and she has helped cultivate the Hero portion of his personality. In turn, he's shown her a whole new world, one where she also gets to be heroic, where she is valued and beloved, and IMHO, put upon a bit of pedestal, where he can safely worship her from afar and not damage her somehow.
There's this one point in the story where she gets very angry with him (he deserves it) and even though I'm sure she's in love with him at this point, she's not blind to his flaws and faults and she's not afraid to show him that he's on her shit list. In his attempt to get back in her good graces, he arranges for a bit of romantic interlude for her and this other man(-child) whom she has recently met and found interest in. What I loved most about this exchange was that it came from a place of love, of true concern and a desire to make her happy. The truth is, even if she ever dated anyone else (which I hope she will!) there is no competition. Just as The Arrow couldn't have come to be without Felicity, the Felicity who helped Oliver put down Slade Wilson couldn't have come to be without Oliver. Their progression as people (as heroes) is dependent on each other, and the way they influence one another. Their relationship is "professional" and based on the work they do together, but because their work is a work of love, they are bound together more tightly than just mere co-workers.
So, I thank fandom at large for their loud and obnoxious posts. I wouldn't be here today, shipping this so hard and looking forward to the fall quite as much without them.
And in case y'all are wondering? YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING ARROW!!!!!!!! FOR REALS!