rottmnt separated au but whoever gets stuck with big mama winds up becoming besties with her assistant

Savitar, Joe West, and/or E2 Killer Frost for the character opinion bingo. :D

Doing all 3 in my rambly way, but let's go with Joe West first.

I think Joe is a fairly solid character, who got a decent amount of depth early on in the show. I don't always agree with his character's choices (especially the over protectiveness in S1) but he has a good heart and it's clear he's always coming to things with good intentions. He's pretty likeable too, I've rarely come across anyone who dislikes him, though I've seen a few which surprised me!

The 'wasted potential' is minor and more related to the mid seasons. S1/2 had great stuff for Joe but I feel like it's s3/4/5 had much less and it was mainly focused on him and Cecile rather than just Joe. Less in S5 was unavoidable due to the actor's injury but I remember there was a whole other plot that got scrapped about Joe finally getting a new partner and it was a real shame we didn't get to see that with him. I've only seen til mid S6 and it sounds like he gets more to do with his promotion recently at least so I look forward to seeing what more he gets when I finally catch up with the show.

I think we don't get to see him being a dad to Wally, Jenna (maybe even Joanie?) as much as we should. Like, we occasionally still get him giving his nuggets of wisdom to Barry, Iris, and sometimes Caitlin as a sort of father figure for her, but I'm trying to remember when him and Cisco last had a good talk, it feels too long but maybe I've forgotten some.

I don't know if it's gotten better more recently but I think he did in the past also fall foul of becoming the writer's exposition character, in the sense that he's one of the non-scientist characters who prompts the explanations. Sometimes that did a bit of a disservice to his character I think, that he's often made to be the confused person in the room, since he is smart in others ways; he's quick witted, must be good at logic/deductive reason given he's a detective and good enough to get promoted as well, and he's got some impressive social skills, he's good at advice and talking people round gently usually. I think mainly though it would really have been nice to see more of Joe at his day job in those mid seasons and also him outside his work and Team Flash, in a capacity other than just his dating Cecile. I'd say where are Joe's hobbies and friends, but none of the cast ever seem to have outside friends except when the writer's want someone new to kill off/become a villain...

Now for Earth-2 Killer Frost

I enjoyed most of what we got with Earth-2 Killer Frost, though I was always curious if - after what we got on E1 with Frost and Caitlin sharing a body - that meant there was a Caitlin pushed to the back of her mind on E2, suppressed instead of Frost. I occasionally think about writing fanfic for her but mostly I stick to thinking about E1-Caitlin and Frost to be honest.

There were also all sorts of interesting angles about metahumans on Earth-2 and possible discrimination coming from Harry's well-intentioned 'detectors' for safety that might have been why her, Reverb and others felt they had to join Zoom, or were bitter enough about their treatment to. But it did feel like they just went for her being evil, because, and I would have liked to know more there - I suspect the writers didn't know why any more than they do for E1-Frost's arc.

I really disliked how they offed her, that felt anti-climatic for such a powerful character and just used to shock Caitlin more as if being abducted etc wasn't trauma enough for her end of S2 arc. I think it could've been fun to keep her around for occasional appearances, possibly even become a sometimes anti-hero ally for Earth-2. But then I would also have really loved it if we'd gotten an E2 spin off with Jesse and Jay, that had occasionally appearances from E2 Barry, Iris, Harry, Wally etc. Not likely but it would have been fun, you know.

And saved for last, Savitar.

Anyone who's seen my The Flash fics back catalogue isn't gonna be surprised that this was one of the characters that got on my brain majorly. I love time-travel, time-loops, all the timey-wimey-make-my-head-hurts overthinking of this stuff, and the added identity issues to boot is great. Plus, I love the meta about Barry versus Savitar. How such a good guy could turn so bad, it just fascinates me from an evolved characterization point of view and buttons had to be pressed down to push him over that edge. Also, I eat up angst and his character is just so damn tragic any plot with him comes with boatloads.

I know it's not popular to enjoy villains or spend so much time creating fanworks for them - in case people think you're condoning/romanticizing things - but part of why I like writing explanations for how he is (and in some cases more of a redemption arc) is precisely because he used to be Barry. I feel like the capacity for good/hope is still in there somewhere and the team canonically tend to give people 2nd chances etc, possibly more than they should.

Re: not enough screen time, we got a lot of suit/CGI Savitar but not enough of unsuited Grant playing him for my liking. It was so interesting to see how different he played Savitar. There was also a lot of wasted potential with the show just dropping the early S3 stuff for Dr. Alchemy and Savitar's followers with no resolution, and little ongoing link to Julian either, but I'd seen people blame switching show runners for that fault.

I think one of the reasons I'm rather attached to writing this character now and wanting to just do better than canon ever did - see the adoption papers square - is because they never explained his origin all that well. And the show continues to be ableist too where Savitar is just one example of that with how they treat his scars on multiple occasions. They also glossed over the speedforce prison causing insanity angle for his turning bad which seemed kind of relevant, not an excuse for what he does but certainly part of an explanation and something that seemed too throwaway in canon. There's the damage to his eye affecting him and Barry's likely PTSD that Savitar will only have so much worse with the timeline he came from, and both those make for interesting things to explore that canon clearly never will... so time for fics to instead.