So here is the special A/N chapter

First is not having Oliver cheat on Laurel with Sara or be a cheater in the first place. Oliver still was a playboy, he just didn't cheat on his girlfriends if he had one.

There is enough that party boy Oliver needed to get changed on the island and the cheating is kind of overkill.

Given how they obviously hate Oliver Queen on the show it wouldn't surprise me if they made Oliver cheat on Laurel with her sister all, so we could hate Oliver from the start. And that makes sense the more you think about it given how much they hate Oliver.

So, there are two main different ways that Sara could have been on the Gambit with one being as Oliver's girlfriend or on a college humanitarian project or something.

Which the third choice is Sara is on the Gambit since she's sleeping with Robert Queen which I have seen that with Olicty or Oliver/Laurel fics but I'm never using that one. Something that I know is done by people who hate Sara anyway.

Oliver getting the journal in the life raft and Robert explaining it to him is something they should have done in the show itself. Instead of dropping some hint in 1x11 about a video message, not knowing if you're even going to get there in the flashbacks.

Plus, it answers that question of how Oliver knows what The List and not making it overcomplicated.

Now onto the flashbacks themselves is Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg created the biggest problem with Arrow's flashbacks before they even started the show.

Which is doing five years of flashbacks in the first place since first you don't even know if you are going to get renewed for five seasons. And second, it's just rather stupid to extend them that long.

The biggest problem is like we've seen with the show is they've had to stretch Oliver's backstory out that made the flashback story suffer massively, like in season 3 and 4 especially.

So really, the writers should have done flashbacks for two seasons, three is pushing it and four at the max.

Of course, the show had to keep adding things in to cram into the flashbacks to justify their existence and the showrunners themselves they admitted did season 4's flashbacks out of habit.

In doing this I broke the flashbacks down to simply the first two years on the island and combined Oliver's time in ARGUS with the season 5 Russia storyline.

Really, they should have done Russia/The Bratva storyline in season 3 instead of Oliver running around doing useless crap.

Yeah, Oliver got shipped back to the island for the final two years alone in this, and therefore no flashbacks for seasons 4 and 5, but we don't need them.

For example, just look at The Flash show, they tried being Arrow for a few episodes with the flashbacks but got rid of them and only did flashbacks when need. That move improved the show instantly.

Another thing is the writers not having a planned-out backstory didn't help matters either when it came to the flashbacks for Oliver.

Obviously, in the Russia flashbacks, Oliver never does any skinning a man alive to set up some retcon and dumb "Oh he's really a serial killer" twist that they did.

Moving onto the present day in season 1

I removed the whole Oliver, Tommy and Laurel love triangle melodrama crap that did none of the characters any favors, Laurel especially. Given it looked like Laurel was playing both Oliver and Tommy with not being able to make up her mind.

Not saying that is her character, to all the Laurel fanatics who want to bite my head off, but that is how Laurel ended up looking at times due to the writers.

Second is obviously Felicity only shows up in 1x03 and never appears again for the entirety of the series run like Felicity Smoak was originally supposed to do.

I wish that happened compared to the massive problems Felicity's continued presence in the Arrowverse has done, for reasons that I don't think need to be explained.

The major thing is I had Tommy survive to eventually end up leaving the show and comes back being Prometheus since his set up with a burning hatred of Oliver has already been established.

Something that they originally were setting Tommy up to be probably the next Dark Archer. Only by the writer's own admission admitted they fell in love with John Barrowman playing Malcolm and as we know they decided to kill Tommy off.

Moving onto season 2

Now onto the biggest thing, Sara is this earth's version of the Black Canary and Laurel does not suit up.

Sara is an interesting and badass character, plus her relationship with Oliver was one of the better ones in the show as they understood each other on certain levels nobody else did. They have good chemistry too.

Basically, Sara is a good fit for being Black Canary if it's not going to be Laurel.

I also got rid of the dumb Laurel doing drugs storyline and had her eventual become Team Arrow's new main SCPD contact after Quentin's death, so it's not like she doesn't have a role.

Moving on for Slade Wilson's motivations for hating Oliver is me giving him a reason closer to Slade's actual character and less of the Shado thing. The loving Shado motivation is not the worst I've ever seen, but they could have done better.

Like we all know with Billy Wintergreen Slade does not take betrayal well so if he saw Oliver's actions as something similar, yeah Oliver is a dead man.

Moving onto season 3

Obviously, Sara is still alive, and I changed it up a bit given Sara knows it is Thea who tried to kill her.

The biggest change I did was having Oliver brought back by the Lazarus Pit instead of some penicillin and tea which is just kind of dumb for the injures Oliver sustained, at Ras al Ghul's hands.

In this the Lazarus Pit's effects each person differently like in the comics so Oliver didn't really get affected at all to explain why Oliver would put his sister into the pit if he knew it could just makes things worse.

I wanted to make Ras a bit more agenda driven of he wants Oliver to be his heir out of his own choosing and not just from "Well some prophecy says so."

Naturally, no soap opera stuff that damaged this season since Oliver and Sara are still in a relationship with it just being a background thing.

Oliver killing off Malcolm is what he should have done in the season or at least Malcolm dying somehow. Malcolm's story was over by this point and he just became worse for staying around for the sole reason the writers didn't want to get rid of him in the following seasons.

Oliver giving the ring to Nyssa makes far more sense than honoring any deal he had with Malcolm who is a backstabbing, terrorist nut job.

Moving onto season 4

There is the Lazarus Pit but all the rest of anything magic related including Darhk's powers is gone. Magic was one of the major things that made the show go massively downhill in season 4.

Arrow was very grounded even with like Mirakuru and the Lazarus Pit made it seem like these things could happen, and the tone can still be kept pretty much the same. When they brought magic in entirely that changed and not for the better.

Quentin was the one I chose for the coffin, but I know if I was doing this as a series I would have never done any stupid grave mystery plot.

Diggle finally leaving Team Arrow and helping Lyla at ARGUS is something I wish the show would do given how much Diggle has become dead weight.

Moving onto season 5

Tommy as Prometheus just works far better then what the show gave us.

Now mind you I'm not criticizing the actor who plays Simon Morrison aka Adrian Chase aka Prometheus since he did a good job.

However, they decided to make him the son of a guy we never even heard of before until the flashbacks of 5x09.

Like, what you guys couldn't have at least made him the son of Leo Muller or one of the other people Oliver actually killed in season 1? That would have at least made the tie-in stronger.

Masking Tommy is Prometheus it just works better on various levels all around.

I just removed all the recruits and Oliver not even bothering to recruit them since they just are a massive drag on the show for multiple reasons and every single one of them are horrible characters anyway.

They have Team Arrow overstuffed with far too many people on it in the later seasons. This is supposed to be about Oliver Queen, not Arrow and all my friends.

(although the last part is ironic given none of them on the current team are Oliver's friends or even care about the guy)

So yeah, I just decided to remove that whole stupid mess.

Another thing is forcing Prometheus into a desperate last move to destroy Oliver with his friends and family.

Because one of the major things that bugs me to no end is how they Prometheus in the show so smart with playing everybody like literally all the way until his own suicide and made Oliver with the entirety of Team Arrow to be bumbling idiots.

By having Oliver keep beating Prometheus's attempts to break him it makes Oliver seem not just like some puppet getting played on the strings.

So, Oliver's line to Sara about being happy and what would be the final line of the episode, here's why.

From what I understand that line was originally supposed to be used at the end of season five when the plans were first drawn up, but since Guggenheim rushed Oliver's journey, it ended up being used in season three.

Regarding the overall notes

I have Oliver keep using The List until season 3 since it always bothered me in the show how Oliver just kind of dropped that.

I get he was feeling massive guilt over Tommy and The Undertaking in the show, but Robert's journal was still filled with people who were harming the city and needed to be taken down.

The other major thing is Starling City remains as Starling City and does not get changed to Star City to match up to the comics.

Just because that would be like changing New York to Newer Hamster or something.

Plus, from a logical standpoint, of changing all the signs, phone books, T-shirts, college signs, SCPD badges and everything else you could possibly think of, would be a ridiculously near impossible task and somehow did all of that with the city under siege by The Ghosts? Yeah... zero sense.

Oliver has a mask in 1x01 instead of the greasepaint when we see him suited up for the first time. One reason is the domino mask just works better compared to grease paint.

Until next time guys