#flash meta

[thatpersonwhosaidtheywouldnt]

hi thereeeee is it alright if i Ask for your thoughts on wally west & the cycle of abuse in terminal velocity…..👀

Totally!!

Alright, before Terminal Velocity, we get the zero issue. This issue is connected to the end of the event Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! DC's second crisis event, which mainly helped tidy up some of the continuity left wonky post Crisis on Infinite Earths. Wally seemingly dies in Zero Hour but! of course we know he does not. Instead, we get him thrown through time (and seemingly in the Speed Force, though he does not know that yet, as it is still being unveiled by Waid). He sees a number of important moments in his life. What stood out to me were these moments with his parents:

Wally describes his parents "shoving reality down his throat" here and this is not the first time he shared this sentiment. They were always trying to get his head out of the clouds, trying to get him to be realistic about the future as to not be disappointed. Though we also see what Wally won't verbalize: abuse. His mother throwing his comic away while he is crying, likely thinking he is too wrapped up in a fiction world. His parents arguing and yelling at one another. Later. when Wally arrives in the past before he ever got his powers, we see Rudy smack a young Wally on the butt to stop him from spilling soda:

Young Wally was distracted, and this is how his father responds to his distraction. This story culiminates in the answer to a question that had been plaguing Wally for a few issues prior to this one: who was the man that told him everything would turn out good when he was young. Hehad held onto that man's words his whole life but never knew who he was... and that's because it was his older self. I find what Wally says to his younger self interesting.

He says that now, looking back, he understands his parents were trying to protect him. I don't think he is wrong here. Nor do I think he is wrong on the next page:

Wally has grown to a point where he can understand his parents intentions, despite disagreeing with them. But he does not ever verbalize that, despite them wanting to protect him and being fearful, they still hurt him. They were wrong to attempt to go about it the way they did. (and of course we know the people his parents become and that Wally's father, in particular, was a damned hypocrite, but that's beside the point). I think that Wally's failure to make this connection about his parents being wrong is a big part of why Terminal Velocity goes how it does.

As issue 95 opens, Wally witnesses something terrible, something that makes him declare that it's "all over". This thing that he witnessed is what drives the plot of Terminal Velocity, Wally's fear. He knows three things: he is going to die, Keystone is going to be destroyed, and Linda is going to die. He, unlike his parents, has actually seen the future and knows exactly what will happen. But, very like his parents, he allows fear of the future and what it is going to do to his loved one, to drive his choices. So, to protect Linda, he does not tell her she is going to die. He does not tell anyone, in fact, instead determined to change the future by manipulating those around him: Bart and Jesse in particular.

Throughout the next few issues he is, frankly, terrible to everyone. He drives Linda away through his refusing to tell her what is coming. He yells at Bart endlessly. He decides the best way to get Bart to take things seriously is to supposedly hand the reins of the Flash mantle to Jesse Chambers. He could have been straightforward with Bart and communicated that he saw his potential. But he is so focused on his own fears that the actual feelings of the person he is trying to protect and the others around them don't matter to him.

Terminal Velocity shows us Wally at some of his worst. And when he is at his worst? He is like his parents.

[kitkatt0430]

You know, I see a lot of comparisons to Barry's S1 apartment that he briefly had to the Loft and they're rightly made that the Loft never has Barry's personality in it. It never feels like a place where he lives.

But... it never really has Iris' personality in it either. Anyone could live there, it came out of a catalogue. It doesn't have Iris' sense of style or pizzazz.

It's a place with all the trappings of what people pretend adulthood is and no real substance of the people who exist there.

[qlala]

one of my favorite things about the “you see the good in me, i see the bad in you” quote from “infantino street” isn’t even the quote; it’s barry’s response. he looks away. he doesn’t smile. he says “maybe.” 

and for the longest time i thought it was some kind of defensiveness over leonard labeling any part of what barry is as “bad.” he had very nearly killed king shark for iris, and come just as close to abandoning leonard to die for the same reason. i don’t think barry sees it as bad, being ready to sacrifice others for iris, so i assumed that was what was behind the “maybe.” 

but tbh? on rewatch? i’m pretty sure it’s what leonard says before that that causes barry to get reticent. “maybe that’s why we get along.”

leonard is dead. he’s dead, and he’s also strolling next to barry through that forest in siberia, looking over at him, almost smiling when he says it. “that’s why we get along.” present tense. the closest leonard has ever come to acknowledging that what’s between them isn’t just a tenuous agreement to split custody of central city, all banked hostilities and mutual distrust. they get along, leonard says, almost smiling. get along, he says, a year too late. 

leonard agreed to help for no reason except that iris was in danger. he kept barry from killing an innocent. barry never saw leonard again after he left to join the legends, and now, he’s finding out that they parted on far, far better terms than he ever let himself think. 

barry looks confused in this scene, heart-breakingly so. he was right about leonard all along, but i don’t think he realized that leonard had accepted his own heel-face-turn with so much grace, long before his death. that it wasn’t his sacrifice that had made him into a hero. that barry could’ve had this, had leonard in his life as an intermittent ally: someone who greeted joe by name just to watch the muscle in his jaw jump, who flirted with iris with a ring on her finger, who clasped his hand around barry’s wrist and trusted him to pull him to safety.  

i think that “maybe” is all barry has as a shield against realizing exactly how much he lost when leonard died. not just the idea of a good man, but the real thing. something tangible, someone he could’ve gotten to know. a version of leonard who said things like “that’s why we get along” in a voice like he was teasing himself for the attachment. 

barry is already in a terrible place in this episode; i think hearing leonard talk about them like they’re friends is dangerously close to becoming the straw that breaks the camel’s back for barry. he has to make one last, weak attempt at fending it off, and that’s the “maybe.” not maybe there’s bad in him, and not maybe leonard sees it. but maybe they get along. because that way, it’s only a maybe that barry is marching another one of his friends straight toward their death, and only a maybe that it was his fault all along.

[coldtomyflash]

So, really stupid question but, assuming Barry was circumcised, would getting his powers have reversed it ?

I don’t think so, but it depends on how a person was writing him.

In canon, we know that Barry heals extraordinarily quickly, and that his powers lead to differences in his metabolism and strength as well when he’s accessing the speedforce.

(The strength thing is contentious but basically I mean his body becomes strong and his bones become durable enough to handle the things that he’s doing with his speed, including giving supersonic punches. Also “lightning gave me abs” implies that his musculature has been impacted by gaining powers.)

BUT - we don’t know if all of Barry’s pre-existing scars disappeared courtesy of getting his powers. I’ve most definitely written him that way, but it’s not explicitly stated in canon as such (please someone correct me if I’m wrong! there’s a lot of canon that I haven’t actually watched at this point and it’s been a while since I re-watched S1).

If all of his previous scars are healed over, there’s still as sort of - there’s a difference between a body smoothing over a scar (damaged tissue) versus a body regrowing tissue that’s been removed. 

So in general I would tend to headcanon that no, if he was circumcised before he would continue to be. But I do think there is wiggle room in terms of interpretation based on whether getting his powers smoothed over pre-existing scars, and specific headcanons about what his healing does and how it works (and if it returns his body to some sort of set-point kind of like Deadpool’s does, or if it’s just really good healing but can’t regrow tissue that’s removed).

[twicetolivetwicetodie]

Barry has a major guilt complex. We see this when he beats himself up for not being able to save everyone. He even voices this in s4 when he says "everyone I've ever trained has ended up worse off than when I found them" which is unfortunately true. They all died save for Ralph (who was temporarily dead I guess?)

Then we have the mental graveyard with the headstones of everyone who's deaths he blames himself for. The names you can see on the headstones in that scene are Leonard Snart, Martin Stein, his parents, and Nora. I'm sure all the bus metas, Bette Sans Souche, and hell at this point Oliver would probably even make that list of people he thinks he's failed to protect.

With Snart in particular, there's this complicated dynamic of them being former enemies to reluctant allies to "this is a man you inspired to turn his life around and be a hero and he died doing it" so I'm sure there's a lot of guilt involved with that too

[joanthangroff]

[ID: A tweet saying “You know what? Let’s do this for The Flash tonight.” by raphaelsantjago quote-retweeting a tweet that says “glee [shaking hand emoji] the flash | being my comfort shows, having (not so) underlying racism, ableism & homophobia, grant gustin succeeding in roles he was initially hated for”. End of ID]

I dedicated an hour of my life yesterday to ramble on about the offensive subtones The Flash includes, particularly the homophobic ones. You can find the whole rant here. Please keep in mind that these are my subjective thoughts and I’m open for having proper discussions about them (though preferably not with cishet people, lol)!

[purpleyin]

Realised when contemplating character angst prompts and possible vid themes yesterday that The Flash has a recurring theme of characters dying and/or being grieved for at least twice. Spoilers for up to S5 below.

Barry grieves his mother as a child. Also watches her die end of S1. And then again when he has to ask Eobard to kill her again to reset the timeline in 3x01.

At the same time Barry has to grieve his father a second time when his existence is also erased with the Flashpoint timeline reset.

Iris grieves a mother she thought died as a child and then again when Francine dies shortly after appearing again in her life as an adult.

Wally has to relive his mom’s death in the Speedforce prison over and over.

Barry sees Eddie again when he travels back in 2x17 and can’t do anything to prevent his death to come. Iris also gets the effectively post-humously made message from Eddie that Barry brings back from that trip to the past.

Both Ronnie and Stein appear to die, come back as F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M., then actually die later on.

Iris has to practically grieve for Barry between S3 and S4, not sure he’ll come back, and future!Iris also has that to deal with similar later in the timeline unless it is changed.

Unclear how events happen in the changed S2 timeline post-Flashpoint, but there may be the implication that Cisco had to deal with Dante dying somewhere in S2 sort of time period and then also witness Earth-2 Dante dying very closely together if events went mostly the same.

Cisco has the general downside with his powers of reliving his own deaths in other timelines again.

Barry’s had two time remnants die/be wiped from existence (more in the timeline that no longer exists).

There’s probably others examples I’m missing too because I was thinking this over whilst I couldn’t sleep last night but didn’t write it down at the time.

I’m willing to bet with Thomas Snow coming back in S5 that he’s gonna be a goner sooner or later, causing Caitlin to have to grieve her father yet again.

[iris-candice-clemons-west]

A little late, but...

anybody else feeling like the writers shoehorned Killervibe into  episode 5x10 badly? I mean I can’t recall when was the last time in the season they had some bff bonding time but hey could’ve just had Cisco go to Caitlin for help or even better, ask her for a second opinion like he’s done previously. Missed out on a prime opportunity to give us this...

and this

Making it seem like Cisco of all people would go on some rampage and turn metas back into humans without asking them if they want the cure, was some bullshit. Like he was gonna go off and become some more humane version of Cicada because he isn’t killing them. 

If they were smart, they would’ve had Killer Frost be the only one to say anything to him i.e how she felt when Caitlin was trying to get rid of her and then have Caitlin mention how she wants to make sure he’s doing this for the right reasons ‘cause she knows what it’s like being motivated by something else aka S3 when she put Wally and the rest of the team in danger because kept a piece of Savitar’s suit and bam!, it doesn’t feel like the brown man is being scolded like he’s the bad guy or in the wrong and thank God the white woman was there so save him because he was veering off course.