I wrote this because I had read another fan fic here that, & while it was interesting & engaging while I enjoyed it a bit, it was also a bit annoying since it only seemed to complain about the bad parts of S7 while overlooking or ignoring the good. I won't name the fic or author though out of respect.
Therefore I wanted to create a bit of an allegory which shows why S7's really great for the most part & a massive improvement of Guggenheim & Mericle's writing & why Beth Schwartz is a pretty excellent writer, compared to them. This has also been posted to AO3.
Disclaimer: I also don't own "Arrow" & never will.
A man wearing billowing cloaks strode into the grand hall that served as the main netting placed for an all powerful race of beings known as the Monitors. Their power was beyond immense in that they could rewrite fate, converge & rip apart separate universes, & rewrite any timeline.
The man entering the hall was named Morkenas, & he was the most trusted aid of the head Monotor, Mar Novu. And he was here to give Novu a report regarding the happenings of Star City & company since the disaster two human agents of theirs named M. Guggenheim & Lady Mericle made when they used the Book Of Destiny to rewrite everything over the past, turning almost everything into a disastrous clustercrap.
As a result the Monitors fired both of their agents while sending MG to the human facility known as Arkham for classified reasons & later appointed a new agent of theirs named Lady Schwartz to reverse the mess her predecessors made & use the Book Of Destiny to rewrite the timeline & how everyone's lives & attitudes were written.
"Morkenas my friend, how good it is to see you. I take it you have the report regarding the progress Beth's made in the corrections ?", Novu asked him, leaning back in his chair.
The aid smiled & then took out his tablet & began reading through the results while addressing his friend & boss.
"I have indeed, & while there have been slight mistakes & the occasional errors on her part, overall Miss. Schwartz has done an outstanding job repairing & restoring everything back to its former glory, but brighter than ever. Not to mention that she's also improved upon the timeline & made everything stronger & better than it was in the past while creating something new & refreshing.
First of all, one major complaint your fellow Monitors & their families & friends, including some of our friends across the Fourth Wall have had, is that its universe has suffered from numerous repetitions. However Lady Schwartz has repaired that by recreating the Arrow universe, or 'Arrow' for short, into something never been done before.
What she's done is that she's created a new, unique story in which Oliver faces the consequences of his vigilante actions & is sent to prison. Because of that the observers have gotten to watch a universe in which the first half of its present day adventures are in a completely different geographical structure & with a new look & feel, what some of us like to call "Arrow Prison Adventures", while creating a refurbished environment, truly shaking up 'Arrow', but for good, while taking Oliver's story in a new & exciting direction.
Furthermore, the prison arc helps triple down 'Arrow' into its core roots, making the structure & atmosphere way darker, much more intense, grittier than ever & more so than timeline 5, & with far more & stronger quantities of action than in the past, enabling 'Arrow' to go into a more full on, firmly action centered, direction. Just a simple, yet very raw, return to what our friends & colleagues love & enjoy the most but still creating something unique & fresh.
Lady Schwartz has also taken the timeline into another new area by creating a side timeline that shows what the characters lives will be like in the future. While I am mildly annoyed that it's a dystopian timeline in which Oliver & his team's actions & sacrifices were all for nothing & they lose in the end, a future storyline is still something that's never been done before, making it truly historical, & most of us watchers agree that it's always good to see where those we monitor end up in the future.
Plus the plot's strong, is built upon the foundation of a compelling mystery that slowly but steadily unravels, & honors 'Arrow' by not only staying true to its dark, gritty roots but goes darker & grittier than ever. In addition, it's mainly focused on the children of the original crew of Oliver, Diggle, & Felicity since 'Arrow' started with them, taking things full circle while honoring the idea of legacy.
Granted one of the children isn't the biological child of Diggle but that doesn't make the one who raises a child any less of a parent.
Next is the fact that after having 6 volumes of powerful male antagonists for Oliver, Lady Schwartz had the sense to shake things up by giving him a powerful female antagonist for a change while also giving her a very personal connection to him in that she's his sister, making this villain far more difficult for him to deal with since she shares his blood & in turn much more personal to him than even Malcolm, Helena, & Slade.
That's something Oliver's never faced with his enemies before while also giving him his greatest test yet.
I will say though that while having a female antagonist is a different & fresh place to go, how Lady Schwartz has gone about it is much to be desired".
Novu, who'd been listening intently to everything his aid told him, lifted his eyebrows in surprise at this.
"Would you care to elaborate as to what you mean by this new feind Of Oliver's & why you think Lady Schwartz has erred ?"
Morkenas frowned a little, then continued.
"You see, the enemy, named Emiko, started off as a hero & there was no reason to suspect that she was evil. Not even the exploration of her mission's origins implied anything & instead it mirrored Oliver's mission beginnings.
Out of nowhere however, she suddenly has this major personality shift that has her true, evil colors emerge. Plus it was strongly implied that another adversary named Dante was the new enemy while he was shown giving the commands & seemed to dominate Emiko.
All of a sudden, she's the one who begins dominating him while being revealed as the head of their organization. If that's the case, why did she let Dante push & order her around, including at times when they did not have to play that part ? Unless she launched a coup somewhere along the line or the two of them are co leaders who share equal, 50/50, power & can order & beat up each other, it doesn't add up & is something that needs addressing."
Novu sighed upon hearing this, knowing that Morkenas is right. Despite that small error however, & based upon everything else his friend revealed, Lady Schwartz was clearly an overall better handler of the Book Of Destiny & how she used it to write 'Arrow' than their ex agents MG & Lady Mericle ever were. Therefore he decided to overlook that but hoped that plot hole was filled.
"I see then, & yes that is an issue. From what you've shared with me, Lady Schwartz is clearly a breath of fresh air from what we've gotten in the past & a smarter, more mature creator than her predecessors. Plus the fact that she enjoys very dark universes makes her the ideal handler for the 'Arrow' universe. And now please share with me what, if any, changes she's made to the characters."
Morkenas listened to Novu's opinion on the matter regarding Emiko, agreeing wholeheartedly, & then continued.
"Regarding the characters, Lady Schwartz has also fixed things in that Oliver, who's the central hero of his story, has fully returned to being the front & center star of his universe while Felicity is back to fully being the side character instead of overtaking his spotlight like ex agent MG once used the Book Of Destiny to do.
As for Felicity herself, Lady Schwartz, for reasons unknown to me, continued on with showing Felicity's annoying side during the 'Arrow' prison adventures arc. Despite that however, she was far less annoying than in the past while Lady Schwartz actually restructured her character so that despite being a little annoying while letting her emotions cloud her judgement, she's no longer a Mary Sue in any way, shape, or form but has been firmly, & sometimes sternly, called her out when necessary while the other characters usually restrained her from doing what she wanted instead of bowing to her will like in the past.
Plus the former Black Siren even pulled her back from the brink at times.
She's also no longer emotionally abusive or domineering towards Oliver, or domineering towards anyone else, right now while instead showing him full respect, & he to her. Best of all, Lady Schwartz has significantly leveled down their universe's focus on their romance to a minimum while ensuring that the plot & action outweighs & eclipses their romance.
Oh, & it's now a mature, more adult, romance instead of a mushy, overly dramatic, teen soap opera that has everything thrown at them.
As a bonus & following the end of the prison arc, Felicity has also completely stopped being annoying but is soft spoken instead of raising her voice, mature & level headed & so far her emotions have not clouded her judgement. Plus her diving forward without thought storylines is also over ever since the prison arc's conclusion.
As for those who made up what some of our friends have referred to as the Outsiders, or Team Snowflake, along with Diggle, arguably the worst written characters of volume 6, Lady Schwartz has fixed those issue & completely removed their mean, hypocritical, selfish, & immoral actions & turned them into a true force for good instead of that horrific garbage MG turned them into.
For example, Rene, Dinah, & Curtis are all completely tolerable now, are zero percent antagonistic towards Oliver, are actually useful & very helpful, behaving maturely instead of like overgrown toddlers with temper tantrums, & they all, with Diggle, fully redeemed themselves from their past, Volume 6, deplorable actions by behaving selflessly risking their freedom to help Oliver subdue a major threat while fully having his back.
As for Rene himself, he's also completely repented of his past deeds & has instead become a true hero for his city, both by risking his freedom to help protect his city before being deputized while also creating an educational, self defense center for troubled youth in his neighborhood. I also foresee that some of those youths will go on to become a new generation of heroes when the time comes.
Regarding Diggle, Lady Schwartz regrettably took him into a brief turn for the negative & towards his old self in that he behaved very hypocritical while also undermining his wife's authority over the agency they were a part of. However, it turned out Lady Schwartz knew what she was doing because it was a necessary part for the purpose of driving Volume 7's plot. Plus she had both Curtis & Felicity, who as we know have behaved terribly & arrogantly in the past, call him out over some of his bad behavior.
Ironic considering how they used to behave themselves before they changed for the better. That shows they really did change while further pushing the fact that Diggle was in the wrong.
After it was over & had served its purpose, our new bookkeeper had Diggle completely humble himself, repent of his actions towards his wife & give a heartfelt apology, & then he made a truly grand gesture of repentance by taking full responsibility for his actions before their superiors, sacrificing his career & burning it to the ground, in turn securing his wife's position.
I seriously doubt MG would have ever done any of that if we had not dismissed him.
As for William however, the son of Oliver & stepson of Felicity, Lady Schwartz messed up a little with him. You see, she made him a bit annoying & kind of a brat towards his parents. While he did have some very valid points, such as not getting to come home for Christmas break while also wanting a normal, more secure, life, he was very annoying & rude towards them, continuously rebuffed their efforts to get through to him, & sometimes behaved in a domineering fashion towards them both.
He also lied to them both about not being expelled.
Both Oliver and Felicity did everything they could to give him a normal life after he returned to them, they were more than patient with him when trying to get him to open up, & were nothing but good parents towards him.
Felicity herself did everything she could to make him feel welcome after his return, fully indulged his attitude while showing full restraint even when his words & attitude hurt her, not even raising her voice towards him once, & went above & beyond to be there for him & assure him that she cared, but he continuously & aggressively pushed both herself & his father away.
We know that ex agent MG ruined Felicity's character for the worse in the past, but in Volume 7 I can assure you that Felicity, except for sending him away in the first place, which was for his protection since neither he nor her have fighting skills, did nothing to warrant his obnoxious behavior.
A fellow aid of mine, when watching Volume 7, felt that it reminded him of past Felicity's antagonism towards her mom, saying that while the mom was annoying or something at times, she did nothing to deserve or warrant her daughter's behavior towards her. And now he also feels that way again but with William in Felicity's place & her in her mom's place.
He did feel that it was a good example of karma since in his opinion, William was being emotionally mean to Felicity just as she had been emotionally mean to Oliver when he sent his son away in Volume 4.
Plus William called his grandparents to live with them, behind his parents back, & refused to be swayed in that decision despite Oliver & Felicity together begging, pleading, & showing so much love while trying to really understand his point of view, in their efforts to convince him to stay. Even Felicity tried very hard, showing a different side of her than what she once was.
Lady Schwartz however had them let William leave them both since despite how hurt they both were, they both wanted his happiness. He was still obnoxious though while any of our colleagues & friends who observed this would probably be annoyed & find their patience severely tested if they themselves were parents or stepparents & their child, besides what I listed, also aggressively tossed a tablet into their lap while speaking in a sharp tone as said youth did the tossing, even if they liked or disliked Felicity.
So as you can see, Lady Schwartz did mess up William in regards to his younger self & could've handled his exit differently.
I'd also like to add that some of our community & some friends from the Fourth Wall disapproved of the human Mia being Oliver & Felicity's daughter since Lady Schwartz made it seem, to them, as though they could not possibly raise a child in the environment but then go & have a child of their own.
I'd like to say that I understand both sides. On one hand, they're correct. On the other hand, Oliver & Felicity did not send William away but instead did all they could to keep him with him, to no avail. It was his decision to leave them because otherwise they were in full agreement that they could keep him despite the crazy comings & goings in their city.
As for Felicity's pregnancy, Lady Schwartz, when she transformed everything, clearly showed that Felicity's pregnancy was not planned by herself & Oliver. If it had been planned then that would've been a different story but it was not planned. Instead it was a surprise for them. A welcome surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. They were not actively trying for a baby & therefore were not hypocrites on having children, especially since William left them, not the other way around.
Having said all of that, & based upon all of these findings & what I can conclude, it's that Lady Schwartz, despite a few issues & mistakes, has actually turned 'Arrow' Universe around massively, & for the better, but stronger & brighter while truly honoring how it's creation was originally conceived."
Once Morkenas finished his conclusions, both from the tablet & his own thoughts, Novu responded by thinking over everything his aid & friend had shared with him about the work Lady Schwartz had done for them.
"So from everything you've shared with me & concluded, Oliver's back to being the star of 'Arrow' while Felicity's back as the side character.
Their relationship is now kept at a minimum & is mature, respectful, & not a teen soap while Lady Schwartz ensured that the plot & action of Volume 7 outshined said relationship.
Felicity herself, despite being emotional & a little annoying in the part 1 of Volume 7, was completely stripped of her Mary Sue & emotionally abusive sides & put in her place when needed while in part 2 she's now no longer annoying or domineering but is instead soft spoken, not emotional or letting her emotions cloud her judgment, & respectful towards her loved ones.
Diggle, Dinah, Curtis, & Rene are completely tolerable, those four humans completely fixed by Lady Schwartz, are useful, heroic, selfless while putting the good of the city ahead of themselves & not antagonistic towards Oliver, while Rene himself is a completely different person from Volume 6 & a true, selfless hero.
Diggle did something wrong but then repented & sacrificed something huge to make things right.
And finally Lady Schwartz has completely restructured & refurbished 'Arrow' into a brand new, remodeled, fully fresh, & different universe & atmosphere by reinvigorating it with completely new storylines, mostly erasing repetitive stories, & adding a new geographical look & feel with both the prison arc & the future timeline.
And she did that while not only maintaining but also tripling down on its gritty, dark, & brutal, creative roots in addition to increasing & expanding the scope, scale, & amount of the action sequences. Am I getting everything correct so far ?"
"Yes my friend & respected master. That is the general conclusion I've reached", Morkenas answered in the affirmative.
"And the only mistakes Lady Schwartz has made is Felicity being emotional & a little annoying in part 1 of Volume 7, young William being annoying, & the way she wrote Emiko's story in regards to how she handled her villain reveal ?" Novu pressed.
"That's correct sir. There's only been those problems. Everything else has been outstanding in my professional opinion & I can only hope you & your fellow Monitors & their families enjoy the new 'Arrow' universe.
Oh, & I also forgot to add, but please tell those in your circle who did not like Curtis or felt that the maniac Diaz overstayed his welcome that Lady Schwartz has written off Curtis & he's never coming back. Plus, & unless there's a twist with this, she's also killed of Diaz & he's never coming back either & even if he does, he'll no longer be the big bad."
"Ah, & one more thing. But some are unhappy about Felicity being deep cover in the future despite being implied to be evil or dark grey. It was also implied that Rene has fallen as well.
I disagree though since I'd rather see them stay in the light & continue to be heroes instead of suddenly turning into what they fought against, even if it's years into the future.
Not only that, but would it not actually be disrespectful towards their characters, & a horrific use of the Book Of Destiny, if they had become evil after all of the work Lady Schwartz did to repair their characters & restore their good, tolerable, & behaved personalities after the distasteful crap MG & Lady Mericle pulled in Volumes 4-6 regarding them, but only to strip all of that away & regress them back to what they once were but so much worse ?
Isn't it better that they remain good in the future, deep cover on Felicity's part & manipulated on Rene's part, instead of them turning villainous as though the repairs & positive character growth Lady Schwartz has given them while correcting how they were written, as annoying & unlikeable characters, was rewound & in turn, was all for nothing ?"
"Right again as usual my friend. You can leave your report with me & go now", Novu answered with a smile while holding out his hand. "And I expect your next report in regards to the "Supergirl" realm & if it's also been fully repaired by agent Queller after what the dismissed agent Kreisberg put it through."
"Very well sir, & I'll have that next report ready for you soon. And I happen to admire Kara, the way she closely worked with the DEO & in turn the government despite being a vigilante more or less, just as I admire Bruce as Batman, a vigilante who also worked closely with the cops in his city & often consulted with the good Commissioner Gorgon despite never having been deputized. There are no doubt plenty of realms in which heroes & vigilantes have worked with cops & sometimes even followed their lead."
Morkenas then left the grand hall, his robes trailing behind him, while Novu read the report for himself & then firmly concluded that despite a few mistakes & issues, Volume 7 was almost massively better than what had been created in the past while Lady Schwartz, overall, was a better writer, many times over, than MG or Lady Schwartz while having corrected a very huge portion of their mistakes.
Best of all, Mar Novu saw no errors from the past in that there were no unnecessary Batman ripoffs like in Volume 1, no unnecessary love triangles like in Volumes 1 & 3 (Oliver/Laurel/Tommy & Oliver/Felicity/Ray), & no character assassinations like in Volumes 2 & 5 (Laurel & Oliver respectively). All & all, Volume 7 was turning out to be a well written masterpiece & not only tolerable to observe, compared to the past, but also entertaining.
The End
AU: And that's it folks & I hope you liked it while understanding why I, & I'm sure plenty of others, really enjoy S7 & hopefully now seeing that it's loads better & a major improvement from the past.
Also in regards to the flashforwards for those who aren't watching or have quit, they're now connecting to the present.
For example, William has been sent away, setting that future storyline regarding him in motion.
Mia, who exists in the future, now exists in the present but in her mother Felicity's womb.
A highly advanced computer program in the future called Archer, created by Felicity for good but apparently a huge part as to why Star City went to crap, is now in existence & active while the Ninth Circle plots to steal it for their purposes.
Zoe, Rene's daughter, was shown training in a past episode with her "aunt" Dinah, clearly setting up their mentorship & Zoe's training besides what her dad Rene's giving to her.
The present has also established Connor's existence even though I can agree with some of you that him & JJ being different characters is dumb.
Oliver has also made his deal with the Monitor, clearly involving his death, which explains why he's not present in the future.
As you can see, the flashforwards now, & fully, connect to the present.
As for Archer, while present Felicity created Archer which in turn was regrettably used for evil, she in the future, instead of acting like nothing went wrong, does something about it by working hard to find & destroy the program.
That's why she infiltrated Edencorp & possibly the Ninth Circle in the future timeline & what her deep cover arc is about. She created a program which played a major role in destroying the city & now wants to make things right by finding & completely destroying her creation so that it won't be taken global & for any more evil deeds.
She's trying to make things right & it's her redemption arc.
However both myself & my friend & colleague Blackhunter agree that what happened with the program was not Felicity's fault while he's concluded that for the first time it's not her fault that a technology she created was used for evil.
And again her future self is going to try & destroy it before it goes global & potentially turns more cities into waistband. Felicity Smoak has really & truly changed from what you remembered of her & her past crap. She's even sacrificed her daughter's love for her to destroy Archer.
On a side note, Felicity's exiting the series completely after the finale & won't be in S8 whatsoever. And so S8 will have no Felicity, no Curtis, & presumably no Diaz whatsoever.
And that's all I wanted to say & I wish everyone a great day.
