#the speed force is fucking with thad's brain

[cryptocism]

So, out of curiosity (AND a slight fear of messing with what you've laid out so clearly in Frequency, which I see as the most reasonable and rational explanation to Thad's character inconsistencies basically, ever), I am wondering if this version of Inertia from Flash #760 fits into the Too Many Thads AU anywhere? From what I can tell, he's the only one not mentioned in your very thorough (and impressively detailed, he was at boomerang's funeral, excuse me sir why are you here???) timeline of Thad appearances. Would you consider him one of the clones we get from the AU, like Six? Or maybe just Thad himself given he's sort of just... chilling in the Speedforce lol. Or did you just not consider him given it's yet another instance of Thad appearing, doing something wild, then disappearing as quickly as he came haha. (Also, I just noticed he says vibrational FREQUENCY, nice👏)

i did... kinda include this iteration. but admittedly it's pretty brief, and the bits of story that take place in the speed force sit in dreamy abstraction rather than solid prose

start of chapter 2 when Thad is running thru the speed force:

He thinks he sees the Flash, once or twice. Tick tock tick tock. You’re running out of time, Barry. But he often thinks he sees lots of people. Once, he thought he saw Max. But the memories exist in his mind the same way a daydream would, and he can’t be sure if it was real.

The "tick tock tick tock" line is taken directly from #760

compared to the other threads of canon that Frequency is written around, it's definitely more on the borders of believably. The "tick tock" line and the bit where Thad threatens to snap his fingers and "blast Barry's mind to pieces" harkens back to the Kid Zoom era and Rogues Revenge, which fucks with my attempt to differentiate this Inertia as a separate person from Kid Zoom. but the hiccup feels minor enough that i think it still works

(and on a tangential note the whole "i'll snap my fingers and blast your mind to pieces" line straight up doesn't make sense to me because YES Kid Zoom famously snapped his fingers and exploded a baby, but he accomplished that by fast-forwarding that baby's timeline so quick that its literal molecules shook apart under the stress. Barry is a speedster and would not respond to timeline manipulation in that way - if at all - because his molecules are already used to that kind of shit. it's a weird and out of place threat to make and i think Williamson may have gotten the impression that Kid Zoom acquired the power of spontaneous combustion which he Fucking Did Not ok rant over)

the general idea i was going for was: Thad is running on rage, sees Barry, has the brief confrontation in #760 where Barry mostly just feels bad for him, and then disappears back into the storm. Implication being that Thad has actually had a couple different interactions with people during his 5 years in the speed force (Eobard, Max, Barry, etc) who try to convince him of things or promise him things, but staying for that long in the speed force (without being dead) fucks with perception a little bit, especially perceptions of Time. so when he's out and looking back on it, Thad can't totally discern what happened, what didn't, or in what order.

also the attendance at Captain Boomerang's funeral gets a shout out near the end of chapter 8 when Bart is going through Six's collection of Four's old stuff:

Some of the items on the shelf he didn’t recognize. A shot glass. A funeral pamphlet for one Digger Harkness. Several empty syringes and auto-injectors all meticulously arranged. A variety of small gadgets and devices that Bart couldn’t place.

because the funeral is technically Inertia's return after the events of Mercury Falling, I translated that as Four's first appearance in the 21st century

#asks #embracesadness #frequency fic #some of the canon stuff ended up as lil easter eggs but i did try to add it all in there #even if some additions don't mesh as neatly as others #still confused about the threat to explode Barry's brain but i have elected to interpret it as: #the speed force is fucking with thad's brain #and maybe he encountered Four/Kid Zoom's ghost particles somewhere in the storm #but Thad doesnt remember it fully completely or coherently #because of the aforementioned speedforce-brain-fuckery

[bar-torr]

tell me abt your bartlings au bestie

YESSS ok so

after max gets stuck in the speed force he manages to leave it by using bart as his lightning rod bc they are family <33 but! surprise surprise bart is currently dead (inertia 2 from teen titans vol 3 #98-100 killed him in this) he’s taken to the closest thing, the titans of tomorrow bart clone!!

max is like omg my son in a tube,, i will break him out early and this will have no repercussions whatsoever (soo untrue bestie) and of course, once ToT tim finds out hes pissed bc thats his fucking clone! he made that!! so max and allen (tot clone bart) are on the run from the titans of tomorrow and max decides fuck it lets try jumping into another universe because it literally cannot get worse and thats how they meet this au’s cherub!

in cherub’s universe, her dnangel sisters have been killed and shes also on the run so she kinda latches onto allen as a sibling because she misses her old ones and they’re clones (or partly in cherub’s case) of the same guy. takes her a while to warm up to max but after something i have yet to figure out (lots of options) shes like “u are my dad now”

something something happens idk, they attempt to go to the next universe but get split up, max gets lost in the speed force again and the clone kids get sent to bar’s universe not long after his parents have been killed (so hes around 8 and his sister is like actual baby aged)

max meets thad again in the speed force, tries to convince him to come with him this time bc this kid really needs a dad and if hes gonna be adopting kids left and right he u know damn well hes gonna try again with thad. thad is very hesitant bc ew bart and hes still pretty fucked up about the whole ‘never being given love and validation and being lied to his entire life by people he admired’ thing but his need for a parental figure n stuff outweighs that and he joins the bartlings

meanwhile- cherub and allen are trying to adopt bar because baby but he is like a particularly feisty kitten and making it very hard for them

ok my brain is fried now and cant think of anything else but basically bar and his sis eventually join the bartlings, max and thad reunite with the others, max is like ?? new children? okay and they continue making their way back to max’s original universe (that bartlings comic is set some time after they get back) flashpoint maybe does not happen. idk yet but max n co dont get affected because they’re not in main universe

btw max’s reoccurring thought every time he gains a new kid is “shit im gonna need a bigger house when i get back home”

#dylan talks #asks #friend tag #bartlings #dc #max mercury #bar torr #dc cherub #allen crandall #my au’s #SORRY FOR IT BEING SO LONG HDJDHDJ I WAS COMING UP WITH STUFF ON THE SPOT AND ALSO <333 comfort au #thank u for asking bestieee ur the best #i wonder how many words this is.. #omg 486 words #feel free to reblog :] would make me happy

[we-are-renegade-rebels]

A random AU that I'll probably be the only one giving a shit about. In the Moded Reach Apocalypse timeline, Bart Allen is an assassin. Bart belonged to the Hyperguard. The Hyperguard was created when Thaddeus Thawne the 1st joined the Light. He betrayed them. He sided with the Reach. He made the Hyperguard to take out all the threats. Meloni was trained and loyal to her father, thanks to the mind control drug the Reach made. She killed every assassin in the Council of Spiders. She was a weapon, and a damn good one too. Thawne decides that the Reach have to go when they start enslaving other humans. He sided with them to get rid of the Metas. When normal humans are enslaved, the Reach are now classified as enemies. He needs a better weapon because Meloni isn't good enough anymore. He needs something stronger, smarter, faster. Deadlier. He orders her to get pregnant. The Reach have already killed the last Kryptonians by blasting powdered kryptonite through the air. Atlantis has closed it's borders, and Mars is dead. Themyscria was never an option. So he decides to hit the Metas, and more specifically the Allens, where it counts. Meloni drugs Don and rapes him. He doesn't remember this. She gets pregnant, and the pregnancy is accelerated. There were consequences that Thawne failed to consider. Variables that he failed to make a contingency plan for. His grandchild is born five months after conception. He doesn't see the offspring of his daughter as anything more than a weapon made to follow orders, without question, without hesitation, and without any concern for it's own well being. It takes one month before the infant starts aging at hyperspeed, so Thawne puts it in a VR designed to train it to be a perfect weapon. He performs experiments on his grandchild, the goals of which would hopefully stop its aging, at best. At worst, he's collecting DNA to clone it. It takes three years, but Thawne finally fixes the problem. He still makes a clone, just in case. Thawne made a miscalculation with the programming of the VR. The VR made it a weapon, but the VR did not make it loyal or obedient. There was a disconnect between the VR world and the real world. The VR was designed to adapt to its mind. He was unaware that his grandchild's mind is even faster than its physical body. It grows up in a VR. It is three chronological years old, but twelve physical years old. It has lived three hundred subjective years in the VR. It is the ultimate weapon. It knows the endgame. It knows its mission is to kill the Reach, it's spent three hundred years training for it. The weapon is deployed as soon as Thawne is sure that it functions perfectly, after he tests it. First, he sends it out to kill the Brain. It succeeds. Next, he sends it to take out Queen Bee, Black Manta, Lex Luthor, Sportsmaster, Count Vertigo, and Deathstroke. It succeeds. Finally, he sends it out to kill Ra's Al Ghul and Vandal Savage. Klarion flees. It succeeds. He finally sends it against its original targets, The Reach. He starts by sending it out to kill the Reach Scientist. Once she's dead, he sends it out to kill the Reach Ambassador, then the Army. Once they're all gone, the final pieces are Black and Blue Beetle. It never misses a shot, it never shows itself, and it never fails. Thawne fears his creation. He fears that it will rise against him, because he knows it will win. He's not strong enough to face it, not even Meloni is, so he decides to get rid of it. The ironic thing is, if Thawne hadn't been so afraid of his perfect weapon, if he hadn't betrayed his grandchild, even if he'd never showed it any care of love, it would've been loyal. It would've stayed his slave forever, if he'd never tried to get rid of it. Because of Thawne's paranoia, he ordered his daughter to execute his weapon. She took it away to a remote place where she could kill her child in peace. His weapon was going to just let it happen, but Don Allen, the fastest man alive, saw a kid being threatened while he was patrolling for the suddenly missing Reach, and decided he wasn't gonna let it happen. He saved his child, and brought the kid to the Resistance. Upon being asked for a name, the child responded that it was a weapon, it had no name. It was considered a machine, not a human being. It was a Meta, not a person. Everyone was horrified. It takes three years for them to accept that they're a person. They don't care for gender or pronouns or even what clothes they're wearing. In those three years, they never aged a day. It baffled the doctors until they got a hold of their blood to check their DNA. They find out that they're Don's kid, and there's a lot to process. They already bonded with Don, not a lot really has to change. They finally pick a name, instead of always being called kid. They take their paternal grandfather's name. Bartholomew Allen, with Wallace as a middle name, because he was Don's hero. Fast forward seven years, Don dies, and while the Reach and the Light are gone, Thawne is now in control, and Metas are still experiencing things that are worse than death. So Bart decides to travel back in time, to change things for the better. To make sure the Reach, the Light, and Thawne never win. Bart arrives just like in Canon, with everything happening just the same, until when Bart saves Jaime. They tell him that if the Reach get him On Mode, Jaime will die by Bart's hand. Bart explains their past as a weapon, and Jaime vows then and there to always be there for Bart. It might just be his crush on the young speedster, but Jaime knows that Bart deserves the chance to be happy. Bart reciprocates the crush, although they don't confess first. They're a master at hiding behind a mask. They've had three hundred years worth of practice after all. Khaji-Da doesn't want to admit that he's fond of Bart. Being fond of Jaime makes sense since Jaime is his host, but Bart was illogical. Bart makes things better than in Canon. Wally doesn't die because Jay Garrick joins them, and they have enough speed together that no one ceases. Bart keeps Impulse, and Wally goes back into the hero business with Artemis. Bluepulse OT3 is the Endgame. Bart lives happily, and for the first time in their life, Bart learns what it means to live. To really live, not just survive. Bart is already a master at surviving. Bart doesn't like talking to anyone about their past, but they don't really want to bottle it all up either. So they learn how to draw, how to sketch, and how to paint. They let art be the medium through which they tell the world what they've survived. Barry and Iris learn what Bart's been through, and they both decide that Bart deserves to be able to make their own choices. They both support Bart in all of their decisions. No one tries to control Bart's life. Bart has freedom, true freedom, for the first time in their life, and decides that it's about time to try experimenting with their life. They're still sure that gender doesn't matter, but they start trying different clothing combinations. They eventually settle on punk style clothes and medium length hair. They realize they like skateboarding when Jaime introduces them to it. They're not pretending to be happy anymore. They really are happy, for the first time in their life. Things are going great. So of course shit starts to go down. Reports start coming in about Impulse robbing stores and injuring random people. The heroes give airtight alibis for them each time, until a mission goes spectacularly wrong, and Bart is forced to use their Speed Scouts to save their teammates. Suddenly their alibis aren't as airtight as they thought. No one, not the Flash fam, not the Bat fam, not even Jaime, knew that Bart could make Speed Scouts. When questioned about it, Bart tells them all that they haven't needed to use their Scouts since before they came to the current time. This puts Bart under a ton of scrutiny. Eventually, it's learned that Thaddeus Thawne the 2nd, Bart's clone, was sent to follow them and get rid of them. When Bart went to the past, they made an alternate timeline instead of changing their own timeline. Thawne the 1st knew Bart wasn't dead. He knew they were alive, and that Don saved him. Meloni hadn't been prepared for him, she hadn't anticipated his arrival, and that's why he was able to get Bart in the first place. So Thawne the 1st ordered Thad to kill them. Thad gets redeemed in the end. Thad also doesn't care for gender or pronouns. They just want freedom, same as Bart. Thad dyes their hair outrageous colours as a fuck you to Thawne. Eventually, Thad winds up falling in love with Bart, Khaji-Da, and Jaime. In that order. It ends up as a polyamorous four-way relationship.

#Thaddeus Thawne #Meloni Thawne #Don Allen #Bart Allen #Wally West #Jaime Reyes #Khaji-Da #Barry Allen #Iris West-Allen #Jay Garrick #Thad Thawne #Flash fam #Bluepulse #Bluepulse OT3 #OT4 #Impulse #Inertia #Blue Beetle #trigger warning #Assassins #Alternate Universe #AU #Clonecest #Death mention #Murder mention #fanfiction #idea