#would eobard and barry be fucking while all this is happening? probably. im not saying i want it to happen that way

[coldflasher]

i see the crickets on this one... they hated jesus, for he spoke the truth

there are so many parallels that work out PERFECTLY

like reconsider Eobard’s timelessness and frustration of being trapped in the future, but in the inverse. instead of being a time traveller born hundreds of years in the future and living in a city populated by the ghosts of people who were nothing but dust before he was even conceived, he’s a centuries-old vampire surrounded by people he views to be children, intellectual inferiors not just due to their general inability to match his intelligence level but also because he was old before they were born. in our timeline, he's from a future we couldn't even imagine. as a vampire, he's old beyond the comprehension of his peers, forced to watch everything he recognizes fall into ruin and obscurity and be forgotten as the world moves on around him, while he is left untouched... and it’s even worse for him because unlike speedster!eobard, he has no hope of returning to that time. it's already slipped through his fingers and there's no going back. he’s left constantly obsessing over and mourning a reality that no longer exists (Flashpoint/erased timeline parallels, anyone??)

the murder of Barry’s mother could very obviously be turned on its head as Eobard feeding on her and killing her in that way, and then the obvious continuation is Barry becoming obsessed with hunting down this creature that killed her, which is probably how they come together. dealer's choice as to whether eobard had already discovered barry and killed nora because he was after barry (if i recall, book!lestat at the very least had one young man that he lured into his and louis' home and who he'd manipulated into hanging onto his every word and basically falling in love with him so that checks out) but that's probably how it would pan out

we could also potentially have Eobard stalking Barry and being perfectly positioned that when Barry gets caught in an inopportune storm and gets struck by lightning and his life hangs in the balance, Eobard is there to "save" him by turning him into a vampire, and then we initiate the mentor-mentee relationship a la flash season 1 but with this vulnerable and resentful but entirely dependent newly turned vampire Barry...

i don’t think the show goes into it as much from my memories of the first season but certainly book!Lestat deliberately withholds information from Louis about his abilities and the rules of vampirism as a method of control and tell me Eobard wouldn’t also do that. If it hadn’t been for needing Barry’s speed to get home, Eobard would absolutely have intentionally held Barry back and kept his abilities stunted to ensure Barry’s power would remain inferior to his imo

so I then like to imagine the “vanishes in crisis” thing as Barry faking his death, maybe in a fire similar to the plantation fire (i think? god my memory is so bad, reading that book was like pulling teeth im sorry) and/or the church fire in the show so that people will stop looking for him and assume he died. except like Louis, Barry is unable to let go of his family so he’s constantly keeping tabs on Iris and Nora but of course, like the season 1 thing, not trusting Iris with the secret “for her safety” so he’s never interacting with them directly.

and then when Nora falls ill to some mysterious illness and she’s about to die, Barry goes begging to Eobard to save her (as Eobard knew he would... did Eobard poison her to make this happen? who knows. i wouldn't put it past him) so he turns her, too. Nora then takes on the Claudia role, giving Eobard yet another thing to hold over Barry to manipulate him >:)

so we have also an impulsive teenage vampire Nora who has inherited Barry’s impulsiveness and poor decision-making and despite years of experience never really grows out of it, AND she’s being corrupted by Eobard (again, negative speedforce parallels, Eobard manipulates her with the promise of this easy power that Barry shies away from as he subsides on rats alone)

look i don't usually go here but in honour of interview with the vampire season 2 and the recent uptick in vampire/buffy-inspired AUs i've seen floating around on my dash... eobarry interview with the vampire AU?? 👀

eobard is lestat, as if that doesn't go without saying

[lockewoodandco]

Crossover is Bad

This is not a gr8 review, i’m just throwing my thoughts down after first watch (cause hell no im not watching it again and i have no patience to even torrent it for a review i don’t have my full faith in cause im not actually a reviewer). I’m also not jewish so this won’t go into depth about how they handled that cause i don’t actually know anything more than the history aspect. 

I should also mention that even though I riff on the writers a lot, I doubt it’s all their fault. Although this whole thing can basically be summed up by I Complain But Also Give Everyone The Benefit Of The Doubt so you know, make your own opinion. I don’t know everything and if you do, you’re lucky. Impart to us your wisdom, maybe. 

also shout out to the first time I have an opinion on tumblr.

if its not apparent already, spoilers.

Crossover is Worse Than You Think

First order of business, let’s get through the problems with the mechanics of the show before we go into the fact that the whole premise is Bad.

 The way everyone just... appeared? Bad. you have all these writers and none of them can think of a way to explain absences and appearances? If you’re working with so many characters, that should be your first order of business. Assign certain people to keep track of certain character if you have to. Why aren’t certain characters at the wedding scene? (*cough* RAY) Why was Mick at the wedding when anyone in their right mind would expect it to cause more problems than it did? Why didn’t Mick bring Ray or Amaya? Despite his grumbling, I would think it would have made sense if Ray was asked to be Mick’s +1, as Ray would be the perfect buffer, and given their history as acknowledged on screen, it would show how far their friendship has come especially after Ray disappeared during their trust fall. Also, why weren’t all the legends invited? Why wasn’t all of team arrow invited? Why wasn’t all of team flash invited? Dibny? gone. did they even invite him? are you telling me he didn’t clock in at all when there were very obvious Nazi’s literally swarming? what is his excuse?

the problem is, these characters have no excuses for being absent. No one mentions why Dibny is awol, no one mentions “oh, [character] couldn’t make it” or “[character] is [possibly comics throwback]”. When some characters just magically appear halfway through like “oh, we were just waiting for you to call even though we gave no reason for us not to know about the nazis especially since we already seem completely briefed.” no mention of a previous anachronism or baddie they were busy doing while most people were at the wedding. Nothing like “we just got back fighting [baddie/in year] and now we gotta punch some nazi’s.” where was everyone? apparently just waiting offscreen for their turn to kick ass. 

another missing character that definitely should have been invited; Hartley Rathaway. there's not a single mention of him. he’s good now!!! where is he!!!! I want a scene where cisco sneaks away and calls him up like, “i know you and barry are awkward considering everything but he invited you so i think you should be here!!!” have Andy call in his roll, maybe have someone shoot a sound thing off screen and think it’s canary when it definitely isn’t! This man still exists in canon as a friend of team flash, at least mention why he couldnt make it!!!!! 

I’m not that great! I don’t know shit! I’m an amateur writer barely making it through writing his first book! But I do know that instead of humanizing Nazi’s with love, you could have spent a little more time fleshing out the world your main characters are in. i mean seriously. bringing in just a mention of hartley rathaway? Bam. a question everyone’s been asking is answered AND your universe feels more real by the fact that this character is now probably doing something completely independent of any storyline.  there are ways to use these characters even when their actors are not available. you own the rights to use these characters!!! the actors dont own them!!! they arent automatically off the table, especially cause a lot of them have masks on, put them in a background shot my dude! like i said before, you don’t even have to have any part of them or their costume on screen to show they still exist! this! is! not! news! this is working with what you got, and you got a lot more than you think you do! if you actually don’t have the power to do that, then you must have the worst contract negotiator known to mankind. 

that was longer than i anticipated me going on for, but next problem: Leo

once again, appeared out of nowhere, this time in a fully populated area where he should have come barging in, obvious signs of cold chaos behind him, probably moving quite similar to his counterpart. maybe give barry more of a shock, instead of just a look of, “oh, he’s nice this time, thats kinda unexpected.” why? cause it’s not unexpected. not for Barry at least. 

you know what i dont buy? aloof Leonard Snart. Sure, it makes a good act, but is it one that Leo would hold up next to Mick? especially when he seems to drop it for his boyfriend. Do you really think that Leo would not notice the way Mick refers to him, and not try to give him some form of comfort besides a passing sentence that feels like the equivilant of “get over it.” they both lost each other, leo may not be as close to his mick as mick was to len, but we already know that Leonard Snart is far from emotionally stunted, his last iteration was full of emotion and you can tell that this Leo is the same, if not even more, so where even a single second of understanding before the scene cuts. It feels like you did this to address a fan concern, without seeing it as your concern. guess what? it is your concern! why? cause its a loose thread, and it was pointed out for a reason. The script is getting on the level of a daytime soap my dude. whatever internal problem is causing this lack of quality, it needs to be addressed. And don’t let me hear about it cause I don’t want to know! I just want to see it improved! 

A bit of good that came from that scene, Mick struggling to figure out how he should verbally react to the way he died on Earth X. 

Also, giving Len a boyfriend, pretty good. i have nitpicks but they arent important to this.

Alex

Sex is not character development! If you gotta have it, it should have been after the heart to heart with Sara! I do get it to a certain extent though, but the way it’s handled leaves a lot more to be desired. you get this pickup to a good minor plot that just can’t be completed. I can’t even see how this helped Sara grow as a character in any way, even though it was probably supposed to be about seeing damien darhk again and dealing with him, but you don’t hear that! Just a little line about Laurel. Minor complaint, they missed out on mentioning Sara also has the whole, my sister has an evil doppelganger thing, Although I don’t think she knows so I’m mourning the loss of the impossible on this one. Circumstantial humour there. 

The Ray

have we seen him before? on any dctv show? I dont know! i have no clue! He looks familiar but I even googled it and nothing! (doesn’t help that he shares a name with Ray Palmer) He’s supposed to be from Earth 1, right? Where is he! please tell me, I wanna know. He looks familiar but I could just be giving you the benefit of the doubt! you can’t just be like “oh he’s also from earth 1″ and just leave it there. How? And then he doesn’t stay and I doubt that the rest of the team really cares but I care! i care a lot!

also, why is Eobard Thawne the same Eobard? i mean, I forgot how much i enjoyed Tom’s performance as Eobard, good on you, you almost got me distracted, but like, he cant just (say it with me guys) appear. also, he has no motivation! cool! i hate it! the only thing i could possibly think of is he just wants to see his earth again but also he hates the time period so what!!! literally just make him a different Eobard! you don’t need to explain why his face is Tom because you already explained that Earth X is just Earth 1 with Nazis! (which um, also time doesn’t work that way, especially with mass genocide and jewish characters)

with leads me to my next problem!

time doesn’t work that way, especially with mass genocide and jewish characters!!!

also, you mean to tell me in a world where everything’s the same except nazi’s, that Kara Zor-El did not immediately rage against the machine, especially if the who earth looked like a burning sepia photograph. also, dead bodies! same on any planet! She’s gunna freak! you can’t escape death and wholeheartedly accept genocide like that! not without a very good reason. really, instead of giving kara/x a dumb love thing, maybe make it about what shaped each of their beliefs despite coming from the same beginnings cause once again, it was established that everything’s the same except nazi’s, so krypton still died. and since you gotta shoehorn arrow in Bad Town, make it an unrequited love! cool! Cause Nazi’s portrayed on tv don’t deserve happiness! Sadly I can’t stop actual Nazi’s from finding love! Wish I could! Also why is Oliver the weak link when he’s the Fuhrer? its dumb, really dumb. also, Overgirl’s death is dumb, especially since it should have killed Kara as well. Basic logic says if a blast kills your doppelganger and you’re pretty close to next to them (guessing that Kara was able to escape a ways even though they were shown to be basically next to each other) you’re going to get more than a little falling action.

Also, you know what happens to jewish characters (and basically anyone who’s not a cis straight aryan at that point) on Earth X? pretty fucking obvious. You know what happens when you lose that much of a population and try to compare it to an earth without that loss? You realize you lose a lot more than you think, and a lot more things change. you probably don’t even have to think about it that hard, someone’s probably already done that thought experiment!

Here’s one I gotta shoehorn in,

Joe mentions the fact that Iris and Barry are both his children in a speech when they’re about to get married. Heres an option: Dont! Say how much he enjoyed seeing them grow up together without mentioning any familial bond that connects the two people getting married. Cool! You know why? Crossovers pull in new viewers! Also Supergirl has a younger audience! These! People! Don’t! Know! Any! Better! 

Killing a Canon Jewish Character in an Episode about Nazi’s

There’s no way to paint this in a way that’s not shitty, especially when he didn’t have to die. You could have let him go back to his family. I can’t imagine what the thought process for this was. Shock value?! I don’t know. Maybe, because everyone expected Victor’s end to be Stein going home to his family. If it was, this really wasn’t the episode to do it in.

Next Up! Nazis!

Not good! Trying to backpedal and make your main villains have a non-nazi-ish reason for conflict? Worse! Nazi’s don’t deserve sympathy! They aren’t just a group of people in history! They’re a group of people in history who advocated for and took part in the absolute slaughter of millions. The numbers I checked agree it was near a billion when you include beyond just those who were jewish. What makes it worse is that this stain on human history has not died out. Sure, we all love punching Nazi’s, but as I understand, theres a lot more to it than that. Now we get into the part where my expertise lacks. As I understand it, one of the biggest problems in the comics is jewish coded heroes fighting as Nazis. How well did they avoid this? I don’t know! Someone please add to this! I want to know! 

So, if I hated the crossover, why did I watch it?

The flippant answer is that i hate-watched it. watched it for the sole purpose of leaving a bad review. That’s not really the reason. If it was, why would i complain on tumblr of all places? i think the real reason was that I just had to know. I just wanted to give the dctv the benefit of the doubt because I love the flash so much, and that love ends up extending through a lot of the other shows and characters, and I wanted to trust that even though the whole premise was Bad, that they had a handle on it. I keep coming back because I’ve grown attached to these characters so much, leaving feels like leaving a part of me. But that’s just me, a lot of other people have their reasons for staying, and a lot of it is no longer about the quality of the show itself. It means we’re all holding on by our fingernails desperately trying to hold on to that magic or pretend it hasn’t faded. Eventually we’re going to let go. What does that mean for the show? Are they just going to lose a small portion of fans, or a whole sector? How many are going to find the changes better than the previous season and take our place? I dont know! i live in an internet bubble my dude! Tumblr isn’t great for gathering analytics! All I know is, bad writing doesn’t make or break a cw show. It’s the cw, I mean what do you expect? I signed up for this, i made my bed, i’ve chosen to lie in it, I can get up whenever i want, its just a matter of when because some day, I’m going to get fed up. You might have my view for a little while longer, but you won’t have my confidence, you won’t have my support.