#green arrow(2023)

[planetphoebe]

oh family man oliver queen how i love you

i could make a separate post of every time ollie makes fun of bruce in this run too

[snowysoups]

NEVER say that roy and ollie have a terrible relationship because i will kms

[mydearestdarlingdead]

There's his girl <3

[ohmygodshesinsane]

roy is so tiny

[allthegothihopgirls]

yippeeeee normalcy has returned to the justice league

[yall-send-help]

peak oliver queen ain’t no one doing it like him

[charmnecklacecreatures]

i genuinely think one of the most fascinating mischaracterizations i've seen in this fandom is of oliver. i genuinely think some particular aspects of GA 1988 impacted his character in a way that they haven't been able to shake since.

to be clear, the first time ollie "cheats", he's assaulted. he's shot and nearly dying, and has someone take advantage of him in a vulnerable state. this gets played off as twofold: one, the "men can't get assaulted" (dinah is written as not believing shadō's story, claims ollie probably just wanted to fuck her anyway) and two: the "he probably wanted to fuck her anyway" of it all. categorizing this as "cheating" when it's assault just because "he would've done it anyway" is actually a truly unhinged take and if you hold it i think you should maybe reflect on why you think that invalidates assault. mike grell made it very clear; his intention was to stress and break the relationship between dinah and ollie with shadō so he could "explore other parts of himself" before ultimately returning to dinah. he said as much. but having him be sexually assaulted and then having that played off as infidelity is actually genuinely alarming. i've said it for a long time; this run feels like it was written by a man going through a midlife crisis and he took that out on ollie.

additionally, the subsequent cheating involved two other people both before and after ollie's death. before was marianne, who, from the moment she's introduced, is infatuated with oliver. she's basically a****w k*******g's cupid but instead of turning into a villain, she works at sherwood florist and kisses ollie. then is joanna, whom ollie cheats with before she ultimately gets killed off. (while i have my qualms with a lot of this, at the very least him cheating with joanna incites their breakup and a lot of his journey to growth throughout a generally okay run)

i think the thing people are failing to recognize is that the people who carry over ollie being a fuckboy into his relationship with dinah are often not portraying women in a positive light. grell had dinah kidnapped, brutalized, had her powers stripped, and then decided it was okay for ollie to be assaulted by someone because dinah couldn't have kids with him and shadō could. when she was included in the plot, she wasn't black canary and was mostly either fighting with ollie or having sex with him. winick insisted on having ollie cheat in the first arc of his ga 2001 run. not only that, he cheated with joanna whom he then killed. judd winick wrote a black woman getting hanged as part of this plot point. i don't think i need to elaborate further on the misogynoir here.

ultimately, ollie's reputation for not being a flirt but a cheater is rooted in runs that are pretty expressly misogynistic, or at the very least actively punish the women in the plot. i really resent the depiction of ollie as a cheater, when the reason those plots exist is because of sexism and the romanticization of ollie being a "womanizer". he was a fuckboy before the island. he was a shameless flirt before he met dinah. but he was a "cheater" when being written by someone who thinks sexual assault is no big deal if the person doing it is hot and then again (only once) by someone who thinks fridging women (especially a black woman - by hanging.) is okay.

maybe, just maybe the "ollie is a playboy who will always cheat on dinah" thing is an incorrect extrapolation from a very specific period of time in his writing. the frustrating thing is that the times when his relationship with dinah is good (like rebirth! or when he first comes back in quiver and doesn't REMEMBER cheating on dinah! or bronze age! or green arrow 2023!) it seemingly gets forgotten about in favor of the more salacious version.

anyway all of that to say i'll still defend dinahollie and unfortunately oliver queen.

[orengefanta]

Outsiders roy is so ugly im sorry