#I'm sure it felt that way to some viewers and that's meaningful to talk about

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

We Are and the evolution of Thai BL tropes

The QL discord started a rewatch of My Engineer a few weeks ago, and damn, has it been an interesting experience. At the time I originally watched My Engineer, there was little that stuck out to me, because so much of what happened felt so incredibly common in a lot of the (admittedly rather limited) number of BLs being produced. It felt like pretty standard fare.

But going back and watching it in juxtaposition with We Are airing has been so fascinating. This genre has been evolving, y'all.

As much as we all joke about always getting more university BLs, there is something to be said for a format that can be used as something of a metric for the genre. And though there's only four years between My Engineer and We Are, seeing them both at once gives me such an incredible appreciation for the direction the genre is going in, the impact of having more queer voices involved in the creation of QLs, and how there's a lot of good we can find in seemingly simple spaces.

Obligatory disclaimer: This is just my perspective and subjective interpretation of what I have seen as a BL viewer of some time; also I don't have time to go in and do a university deep dive, so this isn't a real analysis, but more of a brief writeup of observations.

Trends are not black and white, of course, there is a spectrum. I'm sure we'll suffer through more Dinosaur Loves. At the same time, having such predominant production companies as GMMTV putting effort into hiring queer creatives and subverting old cliche tropes is an encouraging thing. (Especially as they were the creators of the original university trendsetting BL with Sotus).

Note: For newer QL viewers, I highly recommend @absolutebl for brushing up on trope history. For university BLs in particular, this post and this post are great starting primers.

Let's talk tropes!

Ok, one more note - some tropes are being what I would consider subverted, some more adapted to a newer framework, and some just played with - I'm going to talk about how they appear to me, but I'm not going to be super pedantic over it, because this is just for fun.

Trope: Bullying/hazing behavior

This did not age well in My Engineer, and I would guess hasn't aged well in a number of BLs (and other media, because the whole "he's mean to you because he likes you" bullshit has been around forever). Not just because the behavior was shitty, but because it was played off in the script as cute, and implied that it was completely justified for the seme to do whatever he wanted in his pursuit of his uke.

(There was also quite a strong tone of internalized homophobia, with the lead feeling more comfortable in expressing his interest through harassment than honest emotion, but the show never actually engaged with that in any meaningful way.)

We Are sets up a very traditional enemies to lovers/bullying start to the story, with Phum taking advantage of Peem's economic situation to make him his "slave".

And yet... there's some important elements here that make this more than the standard use of the trope.

Phum keeps it pretty light in his bullying behavior, and clearly is using it more to keep Peem around as company, versus the kind of bullying in My Engineer, where Duen is literally hit by a car, and yet still expected to keep jumping to Bohn's whims.

As soon as Phum realizes he really upset Peem by leaving him waiting at the mall, he genuinely feels awful about it. It's clear that his intent is not to cause harm, and that he has a conscience. He wrestles with his feelings on it quite a bit, and it ends up being the thing that gets Phum to finally express an honest emotion with Peem.

And most importantly, the script does not let him off the hook. His behavior is bad, and is identified as such by the writing. Peem pushes back and is shown to be right to do so, Beer openly says he disapproves.

So instead of a cliche story beat that's used just to start the action, or a seme who's allowed to do whatever he wants because "passion" (blech), we're seeing it used for characterization, giving us important beats about who both Phum and Peem are in how they engage with each other through the use of the trope.

Trope: Obsessive/jealous behavior

Oh, this one was painful in My Engineer. Duen couldn't even talk to another human being without Bohn getting jealous and angry and dragging him away.

Phum gets jealous, particularly around Kluen, but what makes it feel so subversive here are two key things.

Phum's jealousy has a purpose here, it's not just for drama's sake. It's not the cliche seme doing whatever he wants and being treated as justified. It's deliberately being used to explore his insecurities, and give him a challenge to overcome. Phum doesn't stomp over and drag Peem away, he retreats, he hides. When his jealousy causes him to lash out at Peem, he is immediately aware he fucked up.

And again, the script is making it clear that this behavior is not ok. Peem chides Phum when he acts unkind to Kluen, and Beer makes it clear that the solution is not petty behavior, but actually figuring out a way to communicate his feelings with Peem before he misses his chance. This is portrayed as a barrier for Phum to overcome in order to be with Peem, not an expected part of a romantic relationship.

Trope: Friendship group

There are not enough words to express how much I love the friendship group in We Are. To be fair, this is one of the better historical tropes. We've gotten a lot of amazing friend groups, even in mediocre BLs.

But it's still different in We Are, for one simple reason. In most university BLs, the friend group is a supporting structure. But here?

The story lines may be about the romance, but the point of We Are is the friendship.

I will die on this hill, y'all.

I don't have enough time to go into it fully here, but this show is a love letter to friends. It's a tribute to finding the people who see the real you and have your back unconditionally. Who cheer your successes and commiserate over your defeats, who pick you up when the world knocks you down, who call you out when you make mistakes, and push you to be better.

And romance is lovely, but all of these budding relationships are about being friends first, and then lovers, because that friendship is just as important as everything else, if not more.

Trope: Pink milk

Lol, ok, kinda kidding, kinda not. I know we all got mad over the drink wastage, but also check out these visuals - it's about diversity baby!!

TanFang speed round

My two little trope-busting bebes. These two are already so beautifully non-traditional in their composition, but I love how frequently they are used to make fun of and play with tropes just on their own.

Introduced as pining crush/friend's older brother pair, but actually secret enemies to lovers.

Grumpy/sunshine pairing, where the sunshine used to be a fighter, and grumpy smiles when he thinks no one is watching.

Wound-tending where they keep poking each other instead of acting soft.

Openly mocking the jealous boyfriend trope.

Setting up the possessive trope when Tan doesn't pick up Fang's calls, only to immediately have Fang question if he's being unreasonable.

Setting up their own cute eating scene for kicks.

"First time" sex scene making it clear this is anything but their first time.

Tan holding Fang down in the cliche possessive pose, only for Fang to take the agency of kissing Tan. (And overall saying eff off at the cliche top/bottom roles old BLs were such a fan of).

In Summary

I'm sure there are more tropes that will come to me, and we do still have 5 episodes left of We Are, so there are some potential trope uses that I am keeping an eye on. This is by no means an all-inclusive list.

But I wanted to write this, because I was genuinely shocked to realize how different my My Engineer watching experience was this time compared to my first time. How over the last few years I'd come to expect more thoughtfulness in my QL media, even in the ones that seem shallow on the surface.

Considering how fast and furious the QLs are coming these days, it's easy to forget how recent it was that we were much more starved of content. And I think sometimes we forget to take in the big picture, of how far we've come in just a few years.

Critique is always going to be important, of course, it's part of what helps us make progress. At the same time, it doesn't hurt to take a moment to look around and see some good in where we are.

@sailorbryant thanks for the push to get this written! Feel free to add thoughts!

[perotovar]

about your post on tl*u s2; - 🪽

one thing i haven't seen anybody talk about is the misogyny in the writing of this season. in a story with two protagonists -- both women, one of them a lesbian -- they managed to center and focus the male characters massively while sidelining the protagonist???

joel and tommy get whole new backstory flashbacks to deepen their characters (and, for some reason, make him homophobic), jesse is a whole different person so he can have his own individual reasonings to participate in the story, meanwhile ellie (the protagonist) is dumbed down, flattened into an angsty teen and abby is villainized into a monologuing cartoon antagonist who coerces and bullies her friends into brutality -- a gross way of reducing her nuanced character with complex relationships into just, "The Villain."

not to mention, the fanservice. lines like "no teen likes their parents at that age (from joel), "i'm gonna be a dad" and "you really are quite handsome" are these characters being used as a medium for the viewer, with the obvious intent of pleasing the masses and marketing on the fandom jokes at the expense of the meaningfulness and complexity of the original characters.

i'm not sure if it's intended misogyny, but that is certainly the outcome. i think one thing that happened is that neil/halley/craig are trying to ""fix"" the problems people had with tlou pt2. idk if you were around when pt2 came out, but it was not received well by the players. they got a fuckton of backlash for a lot of the choices they made and it's one of those stories that had to grown on people and accept over time. it ended up being the most awarded game ever until baldur's gate 3 came out.

so i think they're trying to "correct" a lot of the problems people had, but it's misguided because we've had time to sit with it and accept it. plus i think neil is spineless for a number of reasons and there are bigger problems within the story that he won't fix so it didn't work.

"joel and tommy get whole new backstory flashbacks to deepen their characters (and, for some reason, make him homophobic)"

this is something i've seen come up a few times and... i don't necessarily agree? joel and tommy's backstory is something we (the game fans) have been wanting for over 10 years and we finally got some sort of glimpse. the show is the perfect avenue for them to take in giving it to us so i didn't mind it at all. i don't like that their dad was an abusive cop but that's a different discussion.

i don't think joel is homophobic, either. i think he's old school texas republican and has preconceived biases. he's got an idea of what people are "supposed" to do and in that moment, he was on high alert because his kid was smoking weed, getting a tattoo, and presumably having sex so he was in full Dad Mode. he also still believed in the age of consent in an apocalypse where that wasn't even a thing anymore and got mad at that too. he also came around in the end and got over himself because i think he'd rather have ellie gay than not at all.

"jesse is a whole different person so he can have his own individual reasonings to participate in the story"

yeah i hated what they did to jesse. he was a petulant shithead in this and i was like ??? where's the jesse that said "my friends problems are my problems"? he's more protective and selfless than whatever the fuck he was in the show and it annoyed me lmao

"meanwhile ellie (the protagonist) is dumbed down, flattened into an angsty teen and abby is villainized into a monologuing cartoon antagonist who coerces and bullies her friends into brutality -- a gross way of reducing her nuanced character with complex relationships into just, "The Villain.""

yeah, i agree with this. they really fucked over both of them

"no teen likes their parents at that age (from joel), "i'm gonna be a dad" and "you really are quite handsome"

yeah...... i fucking hated a lot of the dialogue writing in this season. it felt so clunky and lame and ugh

"are these characters being used as a medium for the viewer, with the obvious intent of pleasing the masses and marketing on the fandom jokes at the expense of the meaningfulness and complexity of the original characters?"

i think the answer to this is just "yes". i definitely think they're trying to make this story appeal to everyone when that was never going to happen in the first place. you can't retcon/"fix" the problems in the original while keeping the integrity of the story. it didn't appeal to a lot of people initially so why would it now? instead, the focus should've been on making a great story and not a story for everyone. it was never going to happen.

[johanna-swann]

It's been a few days, I've had time to sleep on it and I changed my mind. The season 7 finale was the worst finale yet. In short: The entire thing felt super rushed, there was next to no emotional payoff, the main plot made no sense and I was underwhelmed / confused the whole time.

The end result, where the characters are at right now, the position from which they will start into season 8 I'm happier with than last season (goodbye forced heteronormativity), but the way we got there was... not good. (Long review under the cut. Like, long review. I have a lot of thoughts.)

Just as in 6x18 the pacing of that episode was all over the place. There was this main plot that they teased us with, the "whatever is going to happen? are they all going to survive? what will the consequences be?" and then halfway through the episode that big mystery was resolved and there were no consequences.

I remember the bridge collapse last year was super underwhelming because they just rushed through the incident in a way that gave us no time to even worry about the characters much. Buck finally was put in a position where he had to assume leadership and then that lasted for exactly the time it took him to get to Hen and once she was awake, she took over as acting Captain. Nobody was hurt so badly that we had to assume the worst. That one earthquake victim showed up which was supposed to be meaningful I guess, but it just felt random. (I doubt most viewers even remembered a random victim from 4 seasons ago. I sure didn't until someone else pointed out it was the same actor.) And then the danger was suddenly just over. The "big dramatic disaster" took up less than 20 minutes and there were no consequences. There's a reason why 6x18 only made 99th place out of 106 episodes on imdb.

7x10 repeated those very same mistakes all over again, but worse. In this case the two big questions concerning the main plot were "Who committed the arson?" and "Will Bobby be okay?". Both questions barely had to be asked at all because 1) it was very clear (and not at all a plot twist as some early reviews suggested) that Amir was innocent and the generic Latino drug smuggler cartel (loved that btw, who came up with this bullshit) was involved. 2) this is 911. The main characters don't die. The least I expected though were some heartfelt moments between the rest of the team holding each other up, people sitting with Bobby and talking to him, maybe some parallels to last season when we had a similar situation with Buck.

Instead it takes almost 10 minutes until the other characters even figure out something is wrong and we proceed to focus heavily on Athena who's going rogue again and keeps critical information from her Captain because she wants to take revenge personally. She then threatens an innocent civilian with her service weapon while off duty which - as we learnt in 2x08 from none other than Athena herself - under California law is an assault. Well done 911, a show who has previously criticised Cops abusing their power but keeps writing stories for Athena to do the exact same thing. Wtf.

Anyway, my point was that we spent so much time following Athena around on her nonsensical quest for revenge that we barely even have scenes with Bobby in the hospital. Once the generic cardboard cutout cartel is dealt with it turns out that Bobby despite having been without his own heartbeat for 14 minutes, despite having been seizing and on a ventilator last we saw him, despite the Doctor being unsure if he'd wake up at all is actually just fine. Perfectly happy and healthy even. Okay. My bad for expecting something more here I guess.

Bottom line, the main plot around the arson was very straight forward (I don't know which part here was supposed to be considered a plot twist and using Amir as a very obvious red herring twice just seems lazy), had little emotional impact and "the big showdown" was very anticlimactic. Basically the same things I also criticised about the last season finale and I don't think it's a coincedence that 7x10 is the second worst rated episode as of right now. At least the bridge collapse made sense.

One storyline they (temporarily) wrapped up rather well is the one around Mara and Henren. This will be picked up again in season 8, but for now we know Mara is in a safe place, she can have contact to the Wilsons and it might also evolve into Madney discussing having another kid in the next season. I don't feel bad waiting 3 or 4 months for how this continues. However I still think that they should've waited with the plot around the council woman for season 8 maybe. Have Henren take in Mara, show them growing together as a family, show Mara slowly opening up to them. But season 7 had so much personal drama going on already, maybe if they had pushed the incident with Ortiz, her son and her revenge plot to season 8 it would've helped keeping these last few episodes more grounded. They still could've shown Mara struggling to fit in in her new home and all of that.

Madney didn't have much going on this season. The wedding episode had its moments of course, but those were contained to the confines of 7x06. Now they've taken in Mara and there's potential to build on that, but nothing that has been explicitly teased at yet.

The Eddie/Kim Doppelgänger plot was just unhinged. It was sort of fun and I enjoyed it in a way that I also enjoy Doctor Who, Umbrella Academy or Legends of Tomorrow when they go off the charts again with their weirdness levels, but did it really fit into 911 as a show? I don't know. It's also not exactly clear yet if they're going to bring back either Marisol or Kim next season. And like, I get it. Tim Minear regrets killing off Shannon, but for the love of god just stand by your mistake. She's dead. It's been 5 seasons. We already had a plot where Eddie realised that he can't date just to give Christopher a mother figure, we already had an arc where Eddie realised that if he starts dating again he has to do it for himself, we've had scenes where Eddie admitted he was angry with Shannon for wanting a divorce, for leaving or that he still misses her sometimes, we've seen Eddie and Christopher keep up traditions to mourn her together (visiting the grave, smores). I get that grief doesn't follow a specific timeline, but still. Can we please just move on already.

Also I don't understand why they had Christopher move to El Paso. Eddie's parents are both retired, they could've stayed in LA to support Christopher instead. Chris is probably a lot closer to a bunch of relatives they have in LA than he is to his grandparents too, what about Tía Pepa? I'll be honest, even if I was in a bad place and my kid was angry with me, I would not let my 13 year old who impulsively and in the middle of the night called his grandparents (who have a history of manipulating Eddie into giving Chrisopher to them) move over a thousand kilometres away, away from his school, his friends and all the other family members he's close too. There are other options. (Also why was Buck there? He was in the room, but that's about it. Again, my bad that I had the expectation he'd be there for a reason.)

Then we have Buck and Tommy. Nothing much going on here either. I get that keeping Tommy around for 7x09 and 7x10 was a bit of a last minute decision, it was probably difficult to schedule filming with the actor etc. But that doesn't stop other characters from talking about Tommy. Instead we still barely know what's going on. Are they officially boyfriends? How do they spend their time together, do they have a hobby in common? How long have they been dating? They're still cute, but it seems a little superficial.

Which brings me to a big issue: The timeline. What the fuck is going on with the timeline? I don't even mean the obvious mistake with Tommy leaving the 118 "5 years ago". But Henren are talking about adoption and according to my research adopting a foster kid takes at least 9 months. The cruise ship disaster happened "last march". What? What is going on? How much time are we missing here? Have Bucktommy been dating for a year now and we don't even know? How long was the Eddie/Kim thing going on? Then again, if we're missing an entire year, wouldn't Buck have been with the 118 for 8 years instead of 7 as Bobby said? I am so confused.

Another thing that has been mentioned before is that season 7 barely felt like a procedural drama. It was so chock-full with the characters' personal drama that it felt more like a soap at times. How many calls did we even have this season, especially in 7b? Episode 6 was the wedding, I only remember the abduction case from ep. 7, ep. 8 was Bobby begins once again, ep. 9 only had a montage and no specific calls and ep. 10 didn't have any calls at all. Hopefully this change will be reversed in season 8 when we get more than 10 episodes again.

Only thing left to mention is the "cliffhanger" with Gerrard. Is it really a cliffhanger though? Doesn't feel like the stakes are high enough to call it a cliffhanger. They're stuck with an asshole for a Captain, getting rid of him will be an important storyline in season 8, but it's also not as dramatic as they're trying to make it seem. A big part of the reason why Gerrard's 118 was so bad back in the begins episodes is that Chim and Hen felt isolated. They didn't have back-up against Gerrard, nobody helped them or spoke up for them. That is very much not the case this time. They all still have each other and Gerrard will not stick around forever. It will suck, but it also doesn't seem like a death sentence.

In conclusion: Most of the finale was just plain bad. Not cleverly written, not well balanced, not emotionally rewarding, not planned out enough. There's little positive I can take away from this episode. Some storylines weren't explored enough, others did get the necessary screentime and still made no sense. Not all of these mistakes were made just in the finale, some have been happening for most of season 7. Let's hope for a better season 8.

[seven-snails]

more ave mujica thoughts.. really good episode this week ;w;

ohhh my god hatsune. i love her so much. incredible arc on her character holy shit. the way she's so desperate to be loved.. all her life she's been fed this narrative, intentionally or not, that she's a mistake and needs to be kept out of the way, and she's so quick to feel guilty when she believes she's done something to hurt sakiko, even if she really had no meaningful control over whatever happened (like with sakiko's father losing his place in the family, and again this episode feeling she betrayed sakiko by following her back to her home after sadaharu asked her to bring sakiko back, even though she never actually agreed to his request), and with the way all this loneliness has been building in her character it does land with a real impact when sakiko *does* reach back for her, does offer hatsune that place and that personhood she's been longing for. it's a really strong beat for sakiko's own character as well, given the way she's been drifting aimlessly and trying limply to keep herself from getting any more wounded, so watching her finally make up her mind to hold onto what's precious to her, no longer letting her family's expectations define what steps she feels free to take, is really nice to see. it was really lovely watching them trying to get reacquainted, watching sakiko be determined to hang onto hatsune no matter what, invoking their vow as her responsibility to see through, and seeing the effect of tomori's companionship still shining through, and i think it wrapped up the development of their dynamic thus far really well.

i'm really not sure what to expect going into the last episode - this one could itself have been a soft ending for the series, but i don't believe the threat of the power of the togawa group is entirely toothless even now, and certainly sakiko still feels some creeping dread over the band's fate, and anyway i'm not sure if they could reasonably fill a full twenty minute episode with fluffy bandori-typical writing and make it a satisfying capper to this season, so i guess we'll see lol. it's less that i think there are any loose ends that really need tying up, but more that, *because* there are so few loose ends, i can't imagine what they'll do to make the last episode compelling emotionally that won't be playing on the seeds for future conflict they already sowed in this episode. i've never been great at making predictions though so don't look to me as a barometer lol.

i do really love hatsune.. i referred to her as the spectre of the real uika in an earlier post, and i love how this episode literalizes this idea - her family lives on the mainland now, but she's stayed behind as a caretaker of this villa that's empty and no one visits, nothing but memories of the person she's longed for and the person she's pretended to be to keep her company, this shell of a person who doesn't know how to feel human alone. i know that i talked for a long time as if her feelings for sakiko were romantic - and i still don't think that's an incorrect read, this girl is incredibly lonely and has attached so much of herself to sakiko, as upsetting as it is i don't think those feelings being romantic needs to be something we shy away from acknowledging as viewers, and that can't ultimately be worked through productively - but it adds so much to the emotions at play here that this lack she feels is distinctly familial, that she's felt so isolated from even her own immediate family all her life, and that the joy of being at sakiko's side isn't just about being seen, about being human, but about having this personal connection to her own family that she's been denied. i made a shitpost comparing her to nanami kiryuu about a week ago, but i do think there's a lot of truth in it; despite the way nanami acts, all she really wants is to be seen, to be thought of, like, at all - what she wants is an older brother who will stand up for her, look out for her, be her playmate, and because the world around her says that men and women naturally only engage meaningfully through romance, and further professes that romantic feelings are the deepest and truest, that is the kind of relationship she idealizes for herself and touga. while bandori certainly isn't dissecting gender roles and cisheteronormativity in society the way rgu does, there's still a similar idea here that because hatsune feels so empty, and has so idealized sakiko as the person who can fill that gap, her feelings for her encompass the whole spectrum, whether or not it strays into the taboo, and it's going to take time and actually knowing sakiko and a lot of working through herself before hatsune can identify what it is that she really wants out of this relationship.

really, really good show.. i can't believe next week is the last episode already what the fuck

[zalrb]

Just read your last ask about Barbie (haven't watched the movie) and even for someone who isn't a fan and particularly doesn't like Margot/Greta and was expecting the peak of empty and white feminism this whole concept sounds ridiculous lol. I guess it can be fun and quirky if you watch it on a random afternoon with no expectations or thoughts at all, but people acting like it is revolutionary is so weird?? Sure, you don't need to like only deep movies, but they're making it bigger than it is?

There was this tweet that was like, you might not think Barbie is revolutionary or all that subversive but I left the theatre with my daughter and she asked me what patriarchy is so the movie is doing the work and from that perspective I'm like, fine. I can see it being a conversation starter for children about patriarchy since they say patriarchy like a hundred times in this movie and the way Ken learns about it and tries to apply it and grapples with it because he doesn't actually find anything meaningful in it is a pretty digestible way to talk about toxic masculinity to kids. Fair enough. And I am very much aware of the meltdowns conservatives are having about this movie because there's a trans Barbie who simply exists and the negative reviews that whine about it being anti-men (it isn't) and the way some viewers are feeling seen regarding the messaging about not having to adhere to certain checklists in order to be of a particular gender and how that speaks to them so I get all of that but for the most part, for me, it just felt like going over well-trodden ground in a way that I found less quirky and original than even I expected. Like Barbie verged on boring for me.

[onewomancitadel]

I recall once remarking that people talk about Knightfall as if Cinder maimed and killed Pyrrha right in front of Jaune and made him watch, crying (Ruby watched and cried, but it wasn't quite maiming), and then I realised that there is, quite literally, another ETL ship actually just like that that if I mentioned specifically would be unfair to mention since they're making a TV adaptation of it and it's spoilers.

I don't feel one way or another about it but it did make me lulz forreal. Ofc if Cinder were actually like that in R/WBY canon, I think it would certainly make the pairing out of the question, but tone and context is everything; that's why being precise matters.

[cheryls-blossomed]

Just to let you know this won't be the last irisco scenes this season carlos is coming back for the 150th episode and the finale. So that's probably when you'll get your proper goodbye from iris and cisco and I can't wait to see his reaction when he sees nora again and also meeting bart .... those are the type of things I'm looking forward to. I actually enjoyed this episode just as a fan and not someone to pick apart everything but just watch it as a viewer and see how happy carlos was filming this made me enjoy it even more. Could it have been way better absolutely but I already went into this episode with the intent of it being a otf type of episode and who wrote the episode so my mind already knew what this would mostly turn out to be. Now this episode is out the way I'm really ready for the ball to start rolling with these stories and storylines. Was it perfect absolutely not was it my favorite nope but I can say I enjoyed it. To those fans that I see that think Iris is being pushed out the show to me I call BS also from what carlos has mentioned in his interviews he sees that eric is very accommodating to his actors and makes sure they are good not just about their character but them as a person he tries to help them and work with them the best he can and to me that's a good showrunner. Eric has a long way to go when it comes to fixing stuff in the writers room but I will say he's made that set a better place to feel comfortable and work at. Also CP was talking about her experiences with that network which I think eric has tried to do what he can and what he's allowed to do for his actors wellbeing. As for Westallen as we seen in 7x11 when GG and CP are given great material they can really work with it and even when they don't they do their best. Now the Joe and Iris scene I couldn't tell you why it was cut ... timing .... or did they feel it wasn't needed if iris was literally having that same type of convo with kamilia so they choose that one we may never really know so I tend to not worry about those things but I get why some fans would be mad about that especially how it seems to always happen to iris getting her scenes cut but it is what it is I'm not going to keep harping over spoiled milk. I enjoy your blog so much cause it gives us fans a safe space no matter if we agree or not so thank you for that. Here's to hoping the season turns out better for you and the fans that aren't enjoying it right now. I'm more of positive optimistic type of person so I tend to see the positive side of things especially for my mental health. Anyways I don't want to take up to much of your time sorry for this long ass post I'll try to keep it short next time!

No need to apologize, nonnie! I appreciate you sharing all your thoughts. I'm glad that you enjoy this blog, and I'm also glad that we can healthily disagree at times, because I think that's important. And optimism is honestly a very good thing in this life.

I definitely don't think Iris/Candice is being pushed out of the show. There's nothing to suggest that from this season, and I’m not sure why anyone would think this. 

Oh yeah, I mean, I don't really have much hope for meaningful Iris/Cisco scenes, but a small goodbye in the finale would be nice. And I'm glad that Cisco will get to meet Bart and Nora.

Re the Iris/Joe scene: I think it's pretty clear with the benefit of hindsight that that moment was one showcasing Iris's POV about why she was struggling to hire a new photojournalist and that Joe was helping her work through her feelings about Kamilla leaving. It was hopefully a moment of vulnerability, and it wasn't going to be the same moment as the Iris/Kamilla scene, because it was supposed to be Iris working through what she was originally struggling with in the KamIris scene. I would have felt better if Iris and Kamilla got another scene for the sake of closure, where we got to see them have this really supportive, sweet moment, but they did not get that. Part of it is that the show really didn't care about Kamilla at all in the episode and didn't give her any proper sendoff. Additionally, there's the continued fact that Iris scenes are used for promo, but her scenes seem to be the first to end up on the cutting room floor, especially important character-building moments for her, often times shared with her family (her father, her husband, and her daughter). They very well could have cut something else to include the Iris/Joe scene, but they deliberately chose to cut this scene. 

Anyways, with regards to Eric, I don't really agree with his stylistic choices as showrunner, and I am somewhat frustrated as a fan by his... apparent lying about story-lines, therefore indicating that he knows what the people want, but he chooses not to focus on what the people want, but it's clear he's a good boss when it comes to the cast and that he's made the set safer and is the first showrunner who has really listened to Candice and addressed her concerns. I think to a degree we have to separate who Eric is as a boss and our own concerns and grievances with regards to story-telling as fans (which are certainly very valid and reflect upon him as showrunner, but are separate from what he’s done to make the work place environment better).