wally west is a guy of all time for me. funny haha jokester kid who had to take on a huge amount of responsibility he was definitely not ready for, developed the worst imposter syndrome known to man and instead of coping made it everyone else’s problem. will be sooo petty and selfish about small things but also sacrifices his life with 0 thought like it’s a regular tuesday. had an abusive dad and absolutely refused to acknowledge that shit or think about it ever again. completely unrelated to this he immediately cuts off his entire family the minute he reaches twenty-one. incapable of hiding his emotions and will unfairly be a bitch to you if he’s struggling with something. said himself that no one loved him until his aunt iris. would actually not hesitate to burn the world down for his wife. claims to be a laid back go with the flow guy but also will spiral at the slightest provocation. is allergic to nuance when people he loves make mistakes and will be in their corner no matter how wrong they are.

Kyle: exists Wally: Bitch.

I missed drawing him

Getting a vasectomy after your third child is a type of love language

fidel castro communist dictator of cuba a real one for this

wally, who quit the titans like 10 times to focus on college, having to take up the flash mantle bc barry just had to go and die

The Flash (1987) #130

🦵🥨

mike wieringo's wally, the man that you are

Remember when Wally joined a cult

I think I’ve already confessed that I’m not a big birdflash fan, but there is something I really gotta point out because it’s bothering me.

I see a lot of people use specific comic panels to try and show how close these two characters are, but completely miss the whole point of the comic itself.

For example, I’ve seen a lot of people use panels from The Flash 1987 210, in which Wally reflects on his relationship with dick.

The problem with this is they are literally cutting out the next part of the page that explains that they have drifted apart

Wally is extremely different from dick, and once he takes up the flash mantle, it becomes clear that these two characters are on different paths. Wally wants to uphold the legacy of the flash, dick desperately wants to escape the legacy of Batman. Wally has a wife, three children, and a stable job. Dicks life changes at a moments notice, one minute he’s broke, one minute he’s rich, sometimes he has a job as a police officer, sometimes he’s dating one of his many red headed girlfriends, he’s the opposite of stable.

And that’s not to say the different characters can’t be friends or be together, but as this same comic shows, these two often struggle to understand one another once adults

Wally, after zoom caused his wife Linda to have a miscarriage, went to Hal as the spectre for help, which no one liked, including Dick. He is somewhat miffed Wally didn’t come to him, be he also sides with Bruce about how reckless and stupid the action was

He definitely empathizes with Wally’s situation, but he’s not really there to give support. Later on, dick does start to get the point, and the two take down gorilla grod. Dick apologies for his actions and both agree to stay in touch more. Obviously every good friendship is going to have some moments of tension and disagreement, but I think this really shows why Wally and Dick fell apart as adults.

And this really is the crux of why I’m personally not a big fan or birdflash. These two characters are inherently different and it’s so rare for me to see any birdflash content that acknowledges this. They can be together in a way that acknowledges and builds off of this, but it really hasn’t been done.

More importantly, I’ve noticed that to make burdflash work, a lot of fans completely erase Wally’s character to ignore these differences. His own goals, his own backstory, his own relationships, are just gone so he can be with dick. There is never any acknowledgment of the canon of Wally’s own motivations, such as living up to the flash mantle, or any mention of his connections to characters outside of Dick.

Even more so, I think erasing the presence of his wife and kids from his life so he can be with dick is really hard on the character. Linda is so essential in Wally’s life. She is the character in which speedsters learn the importance of having a lightning rod. She is the one to often push Wally to keep going. His kids redefined his life. He literally broke the source wall in order to keep them in his life. These are essential relationships that are just erased from Wally’s life.

As someone who truly prefers Wally over Dick, it hurts to see a potentially good pairing erase the good aspects of Wally like this. There is plenty of erasure done to other dc characters because of how popular the Bats are, and this ship, at least to me, is one of the worst examples. These characters are different, and often times it makes it hard for them to understand each other. Ignoring that issue doesn’t make the ship good in my eyes.

Anyways, I really don’t want to poop on birdflash as a whole. It is by no means a bad ship, I personally just don’t really like it. It has a lot of qualities that bother me. Despite all of this though, I do love seeing people’s art of it and I actually do think it can work a bit better when they are young and apart of the teen titans. I also know as a halbarry shipper I’m throwing rocks in a glass house lmao. But please ship what you like, I really don’t care, I just needed to shout into the void about my feelings around it :)

actual embodiment of "don't touch my family" this guy just. presumably exploded several interdimensional godlike beings because they hurt his son. iconic.

wally west is a giant bitch who was slowly domesticated into a family man by his wife and gay best friend, similar to a feral kitten being taken in and learning to love

wally getting poked with a stick by bart whos currently on another plane of existence

all speedsters sit like this

Wally's face here is hilarious

I'm reading up on lightning strikes because it's been a little while and specifically focusing on Litchenberg Figures (this is for fic reasons again). I love the headcanon Barry (and Wally) have Litchenberg scars. I really love that art I saw the other month that had Barry's scar glowing with lightning, that's so very good.

The cause of Litchenberg Figures is capillaries bursting under the skin. They typically fade within a few days.

Now! This is a comic book. In reality lightning strikes have about a 10% mortality rate and 70% are left with a permanent disability (whether from brain damage, hearing loss, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, ect). This BBC article I'm reading mentions nothing about superpowers, so really, how realistic do we have to make things. Plus, Barry and Wally were covered in chemicals, the lightning could have also travelled through them, heated them in its fractal patterns, and left burns on the skin. I have actually written Barry with chemical burns before, and metal belts can leave burns, clothes can catch fire, there's options for burn scars and speedsters.

Also, there's the option it's from their own lightning, the charge the Speed Force gives them pushing down to their legs, a constantly shifting red mark that appears every time they run (and they run so much, it never gets the chance to fade).

But I have a slightly different idea. Scars are not the only mark left on your body from something that has happened to it, and much like scars these can fade over time, but stick around. And maybe the lightning didn't cause a rapid change in weight which these are typically associated with, but it definitely caused a rapid change in something.

What I would like to suggest is a fractal stretch mark that follows the path of the lightning, a Litchenberg that didn't fade because this change sank into Barry and Wally's skin and stayed there.

(Also here's the articles I've been reading:

BBC, ScienceAlert, iflscience, Wikipedia 1, 2, Guardian)