the artemis/cheshire one? I'm confused.

I'm not upset about Diggle interceding. I'm upset about the WAY diggle interceded. He needed to talk to Oliver about compartmentalizing his emotions. He had no right to tell Felicity that she can't date other men because Oliver is too much of a manchild to manage his feels. Diggle has always been the voice of reason…

Is Cupid a metaphor/allegory for that vocal minority of obsessive goggle-blinded shippers? Or am I just burned out by all the vitriolic twitter hate?

In some respects I agree. In some I don't. The Slade arc moved faster than this arc is currently. Slade's arc also had Sebastian blood as a presence who moved the story forward and served as an emmisary of Slade until he finally popped up. Even the mini arcs had closure. Black canary is introduced. Its revealed she's…

YAY FOR THE SMOAK BACKSTORY! WOOHOO!
No but seriously. She's gained new dimensions and her mom (aside from the cliche-ness) was a total hoot. Plus goth felicity was sexy as as hell, so hot, like-I'm-seriously- —contemplating-switching-over-to-being-heterosexual hot. Good standalone ep……..
But my general problems with…

^THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN.
Thea dolling out side-eye for unnecessary combat rolls and useless parkour would be so perfect. And you know Willa Holland could totally pull it off.

To be fair, Caity Lotz's acting isn't much better than Katie Cassidy's.

I changed it

Not a Laurel Lance fan but not a Laurel Lance hater here either, more a Laurel Lance indifferent-er myself. But, regardless, they are beholden to Laurel's being Black Canary for 3 primary reasons, and you should try to make your peace with it (I'm working on making my peace with it as well)

From a meta standpoint, everything you just said is completely accurate and I'm quite intrigued to see where this goes, especially since it just came out that episode 9 is going to have the infamous shirtless bruce/ra's sword fight with oliver and ra's instead. But all of that meta awesomeness, doesn't change the fact…

There's a whole bunch of plot flying around on Arrow right now, and yet everything feels weirdly static. Oliver gets a lead, it doesn't pan out. Laurel tries and fails to be a vigilante. Thea has secrets. Roy is parkouring. Felicity is off exploring her own life absent of being Oliver's crush object, etc… and yet…

Amell's performance was so understated and so five different kinds of perfect. As someone who thought he was miscast when I watched the pilot I stand corrected completely.
In reference to Laurel. Katie Cassidy's performance has always been very hit or miss to me on this show. And by that I mean when she's on it, she…