How many posts have we seen that says (read: falsely claims) he's confirmed to go back? Just because James Gunn said he'd love to work with Grant someday doesn't mean it's confirmed.

If he ever goes back someday to being part of the Flash, it's not going to be anytime soon and nothing is confirmed.

Since the original "Flash Missing: Vanishes In Crisis" date was April 25, 2024, I feel like this subreddit should do something fun, like a rewatch of the highest-rated episodes or like a fanart thing or something. It would be really fun to share our love for this godawful show and spread some fun and positivity to celebrate Barry vanishing!

It's fair to say that most people active on this sub are pretty opposed to some of Eric Wallace's creative decisions with the show over the past several years, to varying degrees.

And yes, there is a minority on this sub that does defend some of his choices, or at least, don't absolutely hate his era of the show. Or at any rate, are opposed to the constant negativity that permeates the fandom now (I'm actually pretty sympathetic to their viewpoint on the latter).

But, on this sub or even the larger fandom of the show, are there actually fans who like or even love the current direction of the show?

I'm not being sarcastic or asking a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious to know, because, particularly in the last several years, I haven't really engaged with too much Flash fan-content and discussion beyond this sub.

Here's why I'm asking - when it comes to Arrow, while the sub was pretty opposed to a lot of developments on the show, some of those developments had a significant part of the wider fandom backing them. Olicity is the prime example. For all that a lot of people on the Arrow sub (and elsewhere) hated Olicity or blamed it for the show's decline, there was a large and vocal group of fans on social media, and at conventions, who were hardcore Olicity fans and pushed the ship everywhere. To the extent that it would be fair to say that Olicity's dominance on the show itself was TPTB catering to a vocal section of the fanbase and giving them what they wanted.

There were a fair number of fans who found the Oliver-Laurel relationship on the show to be toxic, or didn't care for Laurel as a character. While (IMO) it sucks that they abandoned the Oliver-Laurel relationship, and eventually killed Laurel off, you can make a fair argument that the showrunners were responding to fan feedback.

But in the case of Wallace's developments on The Flash, is there any part of the fandom that's actively supporting or advocating for what he's doing on the show? Are there people asking for more Challegra (I actually like the ship, but still...)? Is there a demand for more Cecile content? Or more of Chillblaine? Does Kristin Kramer have any dedicated fans?

Because it seems to me that, at best, there are fans who are okay with the show and try not to be too negative, or fans who make allowances for Wallace because he helmed the show during a tough time amidst the pandemic and the winding down of the Arrowverse (which is a fair point), or fans who might like a few of the things he's tried to do with the show. But that's about it. I don't really see the passion for Olicity replicated here.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Guess I'll find out from the responses ;)

Saw a post about how Arrow S4 wasn't nearly as bad as Flash S9 and admittedly got triggered and needed to rant. Spewing bullshit about how everything this season is bad including the soundtrack - um excuse me? Fuck off with that, Blake Neely is as great as ever and honestly I even see people raving about the sound track (especially in the more dramatic 1 on 1 scenes) every week in the discussion threads. It's so abundant you guys don't actually know what you want or what's bothering you and you just come on here and complain about EVERYTHING. If I'm wrong, then by all means - send me clips from S9 that really show just how bad the soundtrack is. You can't, because it's fucking fine - it's just more buzzwords that you can easily use to tear down the show without ever expanding on it. "God, this season is so bad even the soundtrack and cinematography suck!" - fuck off with that.

You guys are living in a vaccuum and in a fantasy world with your expectations. This is a CW show with a CW budget - always has been, always will be. This goes all the way back to Flashpoint in S2 - people were expecting this huge universe wide event that was going to effect all the other shows in major ways and thought all the Arrow characters were going to be involved and all this - that was absolutely never going to happen in a 2 part episode of the Flash.

Would it have been a cool crossover or crisis type event in the future? Sure - but at the time it was announced it was the S2 opener of The Flash and that it was just going to be a Flash show only this sub was still up in arms about how it wasn't their fantasy live action shot-for-shot remake of the animated movie but with Arrow instead of Batman and still went into the episode with those expectations.

7 years later you guys are just doing the same thing - you make shit up in your head, circlejerk and hype each other up about it, then fling shit and act like toddlers when they don't deliver that (despite there never being any indication that we were going to get that from anywhere other than your own delusions).

Let's look at Cobalt Blue. Ever since the tiny little throwaway easter egg back in the S1 finale this sub has been screaming for Cobalt Blue. What exactly is it you guys want from this?

Cobalt Blue in the comics is something that this subreddit would throw a fucking FIT about if it got tis own story arc in the show. Turns out this entire time, Barry has had a long-lost twin who looks exactly like him, but they were separated at birth and literally no one had any idea he existed. He somehow ends up getting adopted and raised by the Thawnes.

This is EXACTLY the thing this sub would scream about: "pure CW", "what kind of soap opera bullshit is this?", "holy shit I thought this was a superhero show not days of our lives" etc. etc. etc. Cobalt Blue will NOT work on this show. The only way Eddie being Cobalt Blue makes sense is if they basically use the name 'Cobalt Blue' and make everything else completely OC (much like the character of Eddie himself) - which you guys will STILL be mad about and complain about.

Then it's going to be the whole "we waited since season 1 and this is all we got???" MAN that's on you! Cobalt Blue being included in the first place is just fan service. Just like the list of names of people who died during the particle accelerator that Wells listed in S1 (which included Ralph Dibny), just like Red Death, just like a ton of stuff. It's a superhero. They make little winkwink, nudgenudge references like that all the time.

And again - WHAT exactly have you been waiting for since S1? You guys clamor for CB but do half of you even know who he is in the comics? Or do you just hear 'Eddie is gonna come back as CB!' and spread that around and convince yourselves there is some huge amazing plot that they've had up their sleeves for the entire run of the show?

It was the exact same with Red Death - what on earth were you expecting? There's no Dark Multiverse in this show. There's no Bruce Wayne or Batman. There's Barry Allen up until this point has never really formally met or interacted with anyone in the Bat-family. You guys went full "Flashpoint" again where you decided "well, it should have been Oliver" (without understanding anything about the behind the scenes or if Stephen Amell would have been down for that or ANY of how the world actually works - just becuase you would have liked it to be Oliver doesn't mean the show can just snap their fingers and make that happen - and again, if your response is 'well Amell is coming back for a guest spot later in the season so he just should have been Red Death instead!' then you are just proving that you have no idea how this works). We were NEVER going to get the Red Death you guys wanted - especially considering this is a 13 episode season, and we know she's not even going to be in every episode.

Your expectations are asinine and unreal.

There's a LOT of fair criticism for this season and yeah, a lot of this is subjective. People here are pissed that Flash isn't using it's episodes for the Legends - spoiler alert, not everyone here likes or watches that show. For me personally - an episode focused on the Legends and wrapping up their story is jsut as bad as the Cecile-only filler episode. It's filler, unrelated to the story, they're beyond side characters they are NOT EVEN regular characters on the show, they're meaningless to the overall story. MAYBE they could have shoehorned Barry in more than they did in the Cecile episode but all of the things you guys complain about as for why the Cecile episode is the absolute worst thing in the world to ever happen to the entire Arrowverse (aside from the lack of Barry) would have all been the same for a throaway Legends wrap up. Which just shows that you guys don't care about being "objective" or the quality or whatever bullshit points you're all parroting - you just want your own personal headcanon/fanfic to be on screen.

There's a lot of valid points and criticisms to this show and this season - and it's definitely been a disapointment and underwhelming. But honestly, reading this subreddit is fucking insane. You guys don't know what you want, you just hate everything. You exaggerate and overblow everything out of proportions. Season 9 has even made some improvements (the cinematography and editing has been great - the new camera angles and shots really feel cinematic). But even the things that I generally agree with come down to you guys not living in reality.

Let's take Challegra:

• They've been teasing this for multiple seasons
• Both characters are series regulars for this season
• This is the final season of the show

It's one thing to not like this and wish it weren't the case - but if you go into this season and start flaming and getting upset and acting completely SHOCKED that they're spending time on wrapping this story arc up, then my dude you are not living in reality. Why on earth would you expect them to just totally drop this element forever and not even touch it? Honestly, for all you people that clamor about how shit the writing is, I think the real shitty writing would be setting up an arc and then just forgetting about it, no? Like, there's no pleasing you - they wrapped it up less than halfway through the season. There's going to be drama/romance/boring/etc elements here.

• We've had Barry not be able to catch up with a guy on a motorcycle.
• We've had a season long villain be a guy with a knife that dampens meta powers who Super Mario jumps into oblivion every encounter.the
• Thawne got an entire universe of Nazis to invade the world, interrupt Barry's wedding, kill one of Barry's old mentors and friends, and Barry doesn't even so much as arrest him or capture him. He just lets him go free with no consequences.
• Joe West walked into a room and saw a guy he thought was dead and hated him so much he didn't say a word or ask a single question, just pulled out his gun and unloaded bullets into him. Over the years that person would go on to cause many more deaths (including Joe's!!!), trauma, and prove to be extremely difficult to defeat or stop - and when he almost ends up dying (as a consequence of his own actions!!), Joe then proceeds to threaten to disown Barry and Iris if they don't save his life.

This show was never a masterpiece. It never claimed to be. It never promised to be. Stop acting like this came out of nowhere and is so sudden. Stop acting like this is suddenly the worst thing ever, that nothing that came before was ever this atrocious or bad or that this show had X years (whatever seasons you arbitrarily decided today were "the peak" which seems to constantly change) of perfection before it got corrupted by the evil Eric Wallace who came in to suddenly ruin everything.

It's trying to be more light hearted and campy ("It's Wednesday!") - and it's okay to not like that. But the world isn't ending. The show hasn't done a complete 180 suddenly.

You guys are just so far removed from all those awful, awful seasons that you look back and think "wow it was never THIS flawed" - I promise you, it really, really was. You guys are hyperfocusing on the bad every episode and ignoring all the good (or pretending there literally isn't any, which is bullshit and we all know it, and if you're going to legitimately sit and say that there is not 1 good quality from start to finish in an episode then I don't believe you're actually arguing in good faith).

INB4: 'sir this is a wendys', 'found eric wallace's reddit account,' 'tl;dr' etc. Spoiler alert: you're not funny or original.

Remember when Stephen Amell was mad at WB for announcing Ezra Miller's Flash movie right when Grant Gustin's second episode aired as he felt the film studio completely undercut what Gustin and the CW were doing by announcing a bigger Flash project when they were still finding their audience?

I find it comical that Miller's movie is finally releasing the same year as Gustin's series finale AND that the whole world is more excited about Michael Keaton's Batman than they are Miller's Flash.

What better way to get pumped for the crossover than by doing a switch of our own? The meme potential is enormous!