[Shitpost] My dream for seasons 5 and 6... or, getting out of the hole that done been dug.

Season 5: Someone points out that Felicity is the biggest murderer in Starling City. She decides to see a therapist to deal with the guilt. Enter Johnathan Crane/Scarecrow.

Oliver gets severely hurt doing something non-Arrow related because he was distracted. While he is injured, on the ground, an attractive Asian woman comes up to help him. Her first words are, "Breathe, everything, breathe." He remembers Yao Feh telling him the same thing the first time they met. Enter Jade Nguyen.

Over the first half of the season Jade and Scarecrow both befriend and slowly twist each of their prey through subtle psychological manipulation. Jade steers Oliver towards a more and more passive world view in-line with non-harming Buddhism. Scarecrow twists Felicity more and more until the mid-season at which point, Scarecrow gives her a small EMP device while in a drug-nightmare and convinces her disabling the chip that allows her to walk would be good for her therapy. Felicity is now full or partially paralyzed.

Through the rest of the season she falls more under his sway, coming to realize she's been a bad guy all along and to be true to her self she needs to undo the work she has done til now. Specifically, she needs to take down the Arrow from the inside.

During this, Oliver is being coached that to do the greatest good he must become more and more non-violent to lead by example. Seemingly random violent interactions through the season give Jade object lessons on how he can be truly powerful by being powerless and letting go.

The season finale happens where Felicity, now using a villain name like Red Canary, or something, triggers the plans she's been working on to destroy Oliver once and for all. The final scene involves something like Scarecrow talking with Felicity as she pushes a big red button and watching a monitor on Oliver with him calming himself and accepting his imminent death.

Season 6: Oliver's reflexes die hard. He dodges the real or metaphorical bullet out of instinct. He realizes jade has been twisting him around all along but has to deal with Felicity first, as he is now aware she's been trying to destroy him.

At this point, Felicity is heavily under the control of Scarecrow/Johnathan Crane. Oliver soon discovers this and decides he can only help her through him. He sets a trap where hopes to dose Scarecrow with some Vertigo left over in the fridge from season 1. The Trap fails, but Scarecrow still takes the Vertigo, by IV injection, shudders a bit and says,.. "not bad, but my stash is much better. here try some."

While Oliver is in the throes of Scarecrows fear toxin, Jade Nguyen, and whatever villain they find who was running project manager over Jade and Scarecrow are all standing over Oliver savoring the moment of the final blow. Oliver is inside his own fears.

At this point either Oliver's killer instinct resurfaces to protect him, (or Felicity hacks the script so that she can be the one to kill him.) In either case, a clever writer makes a kick ass scene involving Oliver fighting his fears internally and punch bad guys externally. He feels guilt for having used violence, later though.

Oliver finds a possible tool for bringing Felicity back from the brink but its based on the league of Assassin's mind control training drug. Malcom Merlyn shows up to do something nice, everyone tells him he's an asshole even though he's doing really nice things like helping Oliver work on the Fear toxin antidote. Asshole.

To properly administer the antidote, Oliver takes Felicity to Lian Yu. Before leaving, Gay Black Nerd gives Oliver a backup chip to cure Felicities paralysis. For weeks he trains her in Zen, archery, Zen archery, and how to be strong physically and mentally. As she clears up from the Scarecrow mind control, he talks her through the guilt, learning some of his own lessons about the proper place for guilt in a super hero's life. During this time he is killing larger and larger animals and bringing them back to camp to eat. Finding his balance again.

Meanwhile, Merlyn, deciding if everyone thinks he's a dick, even though he's been a pretty nice guy for 3 seasons, he's going to be a dick. He stages a prison break on Lian Yu to keep Oliver and Red Canary busy while he implements some plan to fuck up Starling City, properly. Oliver has to kill some bad guys to protect Felicity and he feels okay with it, and that's how the audience knows he's back. And that's the cliff hanger to season 6.