#especially because he DIDN'T WANT THEM TO BE IN THE SPEEDFORCE

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Barry is the speedforce?

Yeaaaaaaaah?

It's complicated.

He created it, he generates it, he is the avatar of the speedforce, the keystone of the speedforce, he canonically can't be separated from it, he feels pain when the speedforce does, there are ancient prophecies inferring that Barry is the speedforce, ect. One can't live or exist without the other and they are intrinsically linked.

I guess it just depends how much you want to read into the prophecies? You could look at like 'Barry and the Speedforce are soul bonded' or you could look at it like 'the speedforce and Barry are the same and Barry just doesn't know that'. Personally? I go with the latter.

Also this is not to be confused with the time Bart was the speedforce. Because that also happened. All the other speedsters got sucked into the speedforce and Bart ... sucked the speedforce into himself. He became the speedforce and the speedforce became him. So technically at that time Bart was Bart Allen, the Speedforce, Barry Allen, Wally West, Max Mercury and every other speedster at the same time. Twas weird and strange and Bart did not have a fun time with it.

So yeah, usually Barry is the speedforce but it's never explicitly written out, Bart was once but hated it, and Bart&Max are probably the only two speedsters who actually know/understand that.

[shrinkthisviolet]

Have you ever thought about crossovers between yours and another person's oc? Tell us about them! - 🖤

You know, in fact, I have! For Morgan, I’ve thought about how she would get along with @vexic929’s OC, Beth Allen, and how she’d get along with @negative-speedforce’s OC, Siv Thawne!

I’ve written about Morgan and Beth here, but basically, I think they’d hit it off, get along like a house on fire. They’re both Barry’s little sisters, after all 💞 and Beth is between Barry and Morgan in age, so I think she and Morgan would click even faster than Morgan and Barry did. Plus, being from different Earths would mean they’d both have so many questions about each other’s Earths! And ofc they’d team up to mess with Barry and cause chaos, and Barry, no matter which of the two Earths he’s from, would love his two baby sisters, even if he doesn’t know one of them that well (yet!)

I’ve written about Morgan and Siv here, but basically, I think they’d get along pretty well too! Morgan would be wary at first, but…she’s Sentry, she’s committed to helping metas, so she’d be committed to helping Siv too. Especially since she knows that not all Thawnes are like Eobard...and that being his daughter didn't mean being exactly like him. And it wouldn’t take long for her to feel incredible pity for Siv—someone raised by Thawne who became like his weapon, who didn’t have another support system to fall back on…who lost so much because of him. Morgan would want justice for Siv, I’m sure of that.

I’ve also thought about a crossover between Lucy and @thechaoticfanartist’s OC, Grim Kennet/Rue Kenobi! I’ve written a little about them here, but basically, I think Lucy would really look up to Grim/Rue and consider her a sister.

Beyond that, I haven’t thought of any crossovers, but I’m always open to them! Anyone who wants to suggest one with one of my OCs and one of theirs can always send me an ask 🥰

Taglist (send an ask or DM to be added or removed):

@arrthurpendragon @ocappreciationtag @raith-way @vexic929 @ironverseocs

@thechaoticfanartist @goldheartedchaoticdisaster @negative-speedforce @dream-beyond-the-fantasy @starstruckpurpledragon

@angst-is-love-angst-is-life

[avatarskywalker78]

Formal OC Introductions - Theodore Edward Thawne/Cobalt Blue II (Earth-1)

As most of my OCs on my Masterlists were added after the initial post, I'm going to be posting about the ones you might not've seen for the next couple weeks!

Theodore Edward Thawne, the son of Malcolm and Laura Thawne, has never not known about heroes - he grew up hearing about Eddie, the uncle he never got to meet, and knew Team Flash because his father helped them out in his role as Cobalt Blue. But when he was five years old, Barry Allen vanished in Crisis, and society started turning against metas. By the time Theodore was nine, ARGUS had started taking over, his father forced to retire as a hero, and the only time he gets to talk about heroes is with his parents or the West-Allens, as Nora is one of his best friends. When Theodore is twelve years old his powers manifest, and although he doesn't want to do this, he offers to get an inhibitor chip. Instead his parents reveal that they've had a plan to get of the country and flee to Canada in case this ever happened, which is exactly what they do, and by the time he's twenty-one he's become the second Cobalt Blue, Montreal's very own superhero. But he misses his childhood friend very much, and becomes greatly alarmed when he finds out she's been visiting Eobard Thawne, especially as he can already sense the timeline changing, and makes the decision to run back in time after her and try to stop whatever's happening, because if the Reverse-Flash is involved it's nothing good. It won't be easy, though - especially with Nora still deeply hurt by his leaving and resentful that his parents didn't inhibit his powers. And, as it turns out, this is only the start of his time-travel adventures...

Tagging (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @shrinkthisviolet @ocappreciationtag @negative-speedforce @fezwearingjellybananas

[cryptocism]

i really like the idea of a thad au. do you think some differences would have been caused by like, being raised by a different ai or did they all have versions of the same one? i can imagine president thawne maybe focusing on like, an emphasis on different battle strategies w each of them. like, obvi they all know what the others do but it doesn't hurt to have a little variety in battle tactics. also i think 1 should wear a suit everywhere. jr president thawne

YES yes yes ok. Definitely I imagine they've all got slightly different specializations and different circumstances for their upbringing, especially when the clones (minus thad ii/inertia) actually know about each other and begin comparing themselves/trying to set themselves apart.

And I did actually have an idea about the aging thing and how they really all could be varying wildly in physical age.... Hold on I'm gonna do a flowchart.

OKAY SO heres a jumble of my very rough ideas, they are very prone to change but I've got some thoughts.

Basically: President Thawne originally made 3 clones, Thad II as the key part of his whole "destroy the Allens" plan and Thad's III and IV as backups/failsafes. (im realizing now I screwed up IV/4's roman numeral on the flow chart ignore that). Thad II went ahead and beefed it, running off into the speedforce, so Thad Four took his place as according to plan.

(I'm imagining the idea would've been for the three clones to basically continue cloning each other/themselves, but maintain that they were all the same Thaddeus. So if one of them went rogue/died it would appear like Thad was just this unkillable terminator type figure. Thad II wouldn't have needed to know any of this because he'd necessarily have to be the first to die)

Thad Four though is still slightly different than Thad II, much more focused on Bart specifically rather than the whole of the Allen family, and MUCH more violent in his methods. And then he Super Fucking Dies after exploding a baby.

Thad III is the last of the original clones and so tries to continue with the plan by making more Thads, but he makes some mistakes (whatever they used to stabilize the first three is like hundreds of years old by now), and Thad's V and VI (five and six) end up with their ages all fucked

Thad VII (seven) is a weird case that I'll get to in a sec, and Thad's VIII and IX (eight and nine) are unauthorized creations of CRAYDL.

Thad III I imagine is the de-facto leader due to being 1st generation, and he really doesn't like to talk about Four. He's also got the widest power set, skewing more towards the speed side of things rather than the time side. Unlike Thad II, he can phase through objects.

Ok so here's my rough ideas for these 2nd and 3rd generation clones:

THAD V: Five's abilities mirror Bart's more than Thad's, and so he was also afflicted with Bart's rapid aging problem. By the time Three managed to get it under control, Five was physically much older than any of them, but didn't have the same VR experience as Bart did, so is still pretty behind in terms of development. Its definitely not like "he has the brain of a child" or anything, he learns wicked fast and is still able to strategize and have complex thoughts and feelings, but he does defer to Three much more than any of the others and is less confident in his own abilities.

THAD VI: Six's powers lean hard on the chronokinesis side of things, and a very VERY localized version of them. He doesn't use them as a substitute for speed like Thad II and IV did, instead manipulating and traveling along his own timeline to his hearts content. He can manipulate his own physical age and appear younger or older depending on what he wants, and has travelled back and forth and over again so much that he's actually Lived far longer than he's Existed. Might be up there with the first generation age-wise.

THAD VII: Seven is where we start to get weird with it lol. I don't have as solid a grasp on his whole deal but the basic idea is that Six, in his time travel fuckery, at some point finds a... piece of the speed force, kind of. Think the speed force manifestation in Young Justice One Million. Six wrangles the speed force ghost into a physical form, possibly mechanical, and just uhhh. Keeps him. Seven tends to do what Six tells him, but not always, and as a manifestation of the speed force he's by far the fastest Thad there is. He doesn't talk much though.

THAD VIII/THAD IX: Thad's Eight and Nine I have a much looser idea for in that I wondered what it'd be like if CRAYDL decided to do some cloning of their own. Maybe they wanted to fulfill a paternal role, maybe they wanted to raise these ones outside the bounds of president Thawne's mission/mandate. Maybe they were just bored, not quite sure!! Either way, Eight and Nine are now part of the Thad team (whether by force or by choice) and are also the only two who age normally and had the closest thing to a childhood. Eight's abilities are more on the chronokinetic side, although more external than internal. He doesn't speed himself up or slow himself down, instead he controls the speeds of other people. Nine has never used any powers, it's unclear if he even has them.

Some are closer than others. Eight and Nine were raised together, Three kind of raised Five, Six and Seven have whatever the hell they've got going on. But crucially, they can all barely stand each other. Three's leadership is tenuous At Best, and they've all got different motivations that have at this point gone SO far beyond whatever president Thawne originally wanted from this particular project.

[eyrieofsynapses]

Yeah, like he was so young when he became a flash and being struck by lightning and suddenly seeing spirits, feeling your body become as light as a feather because your disconnecting from this plane of existence is, in fact, very scary…and as a kid I can expect you’d just ignore it and feel like that makes it go away; or maybe it becomes just a factor in his life like “some Victorian speed force ghost moaning on the floor, just shhs them bc you have Econ exam to study for.” But like— when your mentally connected to your teammates what happens when they start seeing them too. Imagine that fic! Or like seeing different dimensions, or different timelines (like the one Bart is from), maybe he sees his own death, or another copy of himself die. Maybe you could connect that to his blasé-ness at his own death in failsafe, he’s seen it before and once you’ve seen one death so real even if it’s a dream you’ve seen it all, the unique time and dimension fuckery of the speedforce opens up so crazy options for angst. One of my favorite flash comics is when Wally cheers up his kid self so like…but also the speedforce is also something that can be so creepy since it’s basically an other worldly spirit that’s half sentient and chooses humans to wield it powers and you could totally lean into the how un linear time is scary.

Like what if Wally almost restarted the timeline by accident out of grief during failsafe and no one saw him do it because Wally woke up before he could actually do it.

Or newly minted kid flash Wally goes a little too fast and disappears and Barry was so scared like “kid where were you?!” / “I was right there! I was right there I’m being honest how did you not see me!” And no one believes him and thinks he was fooling around even Roy and Dick and Kaldur and it’s so isolating

He’s just spends every minute like he will stop existing because he knows he could deep down and THATS why he doesn’t say goodbye to anyone, he doesn’t know what’s next but he knows it’s gonna be weird. Ugh I just have a lot of feelings

Justice league animated x young justice crossovers are my favorite because it’s trying to smash a camp sprinkle cupcake with a grounded filet mignon. (If you took both Wally’s from both series you’d get a comic accurate version of the character)

I’m rambling but yeah. Someday I’ll get a Wally adaption that includes Linda and Hartley but alas

Ahh I'm so sorry it took so long to get to this! Getting to the other asks will probably also be touch-and-go for a bit. Life is very very busy right now. (You know, your typical October.)

Yessss, Speedforce ghost angst! Literally anything with the "yes, I live with ghosts, no they're not that dangerous, but yes they are absolutely whiny bastards" is my jam. And oh my absolute goodness I totally didn't think about how that could interact with the mindlink. That's just begging for whump.

I know exactly which comic you're talking about; it's actually sitting on my shelf right now. That's one of my favorite bits too. There's just something very relatable about wanting to go back and talk to your younger self, and the sheer kindness and love he has for bb!Wally is heartwrenchingly wonderful.

ANON. Anon, are you trying to break my heart? Arrrgh, Wally just struggling with the speedforce and how it keeps messing with him and then bearing the consequences like that... jeeeez. Have you considered writing a fic?

Crossovers between YJ and the JL animated series are hit-or-miss for me; it can be a delicate balance between characters, especially depending on how you work with timelines. I've seen a couple good ones, though.

You're one hundred percent on point with comic!Wally being a combination of those two. I hadn't thought of it like that before, but that's very much what they did: each show pulled certain comic characteristics and then exaggerated them a bit. It works really well for each show, actually, and I honestly like how they explore different aspects of his comic version.

YES. YES YES YES. DC NEEDS to give us an adaption true to the comics, oh my gods. I have literally no idea why they haven't figured that out yet. I mean, come on, Wally and Linda's relationship is exactly the kind of thing everybody loves! They're super sweet with each other, but Linda really stands firm on her values and she's got such a great fire to her. (When she's being written right, anyway. Geoff Johns completely screwed her over.) Throw inventor Hartley in there with his own storylines and his wonderful friendship with them, drop in some of the Titans occasionally, pull in Wally's connection to the speedforce... seriously, that would be something incredible. DC's really sleeping on it.

Okay, now, off to the war again. I'll see if I can answer one or two more asks today, but I can't promise anything.

[cheryls-blossomed]

Some of the fandom have weird ideas regarding how the show portrays violence and trauma. I made a post about my frustrations about how the Flash brushes aside character trauma and how Stargirl is doing a good job of balancing that currently and had some pushback on it with the claim that the show shouldn't address trauma cause s3 did that and people didn't like it and said Barry discussing his trauma made him too much like Oliver. Wow, didn't realize that Oliver had a monopoly on PTSD 🙃

Barry discussing his trauma would make him too much like Oliver??? How does a character discussing the personal trauma they underwent make them more like a completely different character, who has nothing to do with what you were talking about in your post? That doesn’t make any sense.

Also, season 3 did some degree of addressing some level of trauma that the characters underwent, but I wouldn’t say it did a thorough job, especially because The Flash will deal with a character’s trauma when it’s happening, if that makes sense, but never give the character actual time to heal afterwards. So season 3 addressed Cisco’s devastation over Dante’s death and him being angry at Barry. But this served as a learning lesson to Barry: if you mess with time, you might mess other people’s lives up completely. We don’t actually get a proper resolution of Cisco’s grief or him coming to terms with it, nor do we really get a proper resolution of Barry and Cisco’s friendship. One minute of Cisco deciding to patch things up with Barry during the crossover. We rarely get real moments of Iris dealing with having a death sentence hanging over her head outside of 3x10, 3x11, and 3x12. 3x11 was especially good at showcasing the really confusing feelings she has and how that translates into the drive to want to do anything to make a positive mark on this world. But most of the time Iris was comforting others and being strong, as usual, and we rarely got real moments of seeing her deal with this level of trauma. In season 4, there’s a one-off mention of how her PTSD deeply affected her to the point that she quit her job at CCPN, but we learn of that for the first time during 4x16. Sixteen and then some episodes after the fact. As for Barry, we see him reacting to what happened re Flashpoint, and he’s in terrible mental and emotional states during all of season 3, hence why he just willingly took the punishment to enter the speedforce, but once again we don’t really see how he’s doing afterwards. I feel like people who criticized your post completely missed your point, which is that the narrative needs to treat these characters like people who have underwent trauma and give them time in the aftermath to vocalize their trauma, to vocalize that they’re not okay, to slowly have them heal. There needs to be catharsis, and the Oliver correlation is absolutely irrelevant.

[valeriemperez]

How do you think Iris will be when the show picks back up? I have no doubt she'll be hit the hardest, but do you think we'll see her struggling with losing Barry? Or do you think it'll end up kind of like 3B/the Savitar reveal where they didn't really show her processing it much? (Or rather, how do you think it should be?)

I hope we see Iris really throwing herself into work, and getting a little reckless when it comes to getting stories. It pays off for her career, but Wally and Joe are worried about her and push her to be more honest about her loss and her feelings. I don’t know whether I want her to be planning the wedding despite not having a groom, but I think it’d be an interesting way to show her dealing with the loss, and I’m sure we’ll get it because it’s Barry. 

Essentially, I’m sure Barry will be back by 4.02 at the latest, but I fully expect to get a good glimpse of how everyone - especially Iris - is handling his absence.

Let’s talk about something happy. Iris doing a lot of reporting in the first episode of S4, her and Wally doing a brother/sister crime fighting unit thing, her being friends with Cindy, her looking at old pictures of Barry and telling him that she did what he asked her to do: Kept running. Iris finding out about Barry losing his humanity the longer he stays in the SF, him coming out once he remembered Iris, them reuniting, them planning their wedding. Le swoon.

I demand an Iris/Cynthia friendship! And everything you just suggested sounds amazing. I love the concept of Barry losing his humanity in the speedforce, and therefore Cisco and Iris work overtime to get him out before it’s too late.

I also hope we spend less time in STAR Labs, and more time at CCPD and Picture News. Cisco can be the metahuman liaison, Julian is the CSI of course, Joe is doing the cop stuff. Iris runs back and forth between her work and theirs to get the scoop, and also has to beat other reporters to crime scenes. Harry and Tracy can hold down the fort at STAR Labs.

Is it just me, or does it seem like whenever Barry is protecting Iris from something (215 King 🦈 + 323 the unknown) he always puts his hand in front of her stomach. Do you think that’s foreshadowing of The Tornado Twins?

It’s not just you. use it as foreshadowing.

Re: The Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis headline - The two of them (Barry and Eobard) vanishing is actually them time-travelling to the year 2000 to when Eobard first ran back to kill kid-Barry but ended up killing Nora instead, correct? Is this why Barry’s so nonchalant about him disappearing?

I’m not sure if the show has confirmed that this is when Eobard goes back to kill Nora, but it is my headcanon. However, I think Barry’s nonchalant about it because he disappears once a year. 

[coldtomyflash]

I'm watching the killer frost ep & I just realised how much of a loner and an outcast Barry was :v like before he became the flash he had no other friends besides Iris. Like when he said to Cisco "you are my best friend" really Barry? You didn't have friends before him o.o lol well in case Barry needs another outcast company he can always go to Saints&Sinners to meet up with Len (at least once Len fully comes back)

I mean…

What does the fastest man alive do on his day off? Before the lightning bolt, if I wasn’t still at the crime lab, I’d be at home chilling, but now my days off are different. Now they aren’t so lonely. The lightning didn’t just give me speed. It also gave me friends. - Barry Allen, 1x04

It’s really rough when you start to think about it. But since you’re in my inbox, let’s dissect that. Before Barry gets powers, he’s pretty much a loner, and there are… some reasons for that.

Even Eddie, the golden retriever that he is, thinks Barry’s odd when they first get to know each other: he mentions it to Joe, about having checked out Barry’s blog (on ‘the impossible’) with a sort of cringe about him, like Barry can be awkward and says/does awkward things. 

[Pictured here, Barry taking an heirloom pen and using it to prod at fecal matter on a crime scene… he’s great at making friends].

Eddie barely blinks whenever Barry does something weird or trips over himself, as if it’s normal, even after becoming his friend (and sort of almost trying to take Barry under his wing, if you notice). He also has no issue believing Barry has a mental disorder due to being struck by lightning.

Moreover, I think someone calls Barry ‘lab rat’ in the first season? Wish I could find the exact scene, it’s sort of a background thing. Either way, there’s enough evidence to suggest that most people at the precinct in season 1 seem to treat Barry as if he’s an outsider, and Singh is obviously tired of his (thin) excuses early on, in a way that implies Barry doesn’t exactly make friends and isn’t especially likeable.

I mean, think about his cover as the Flash, hiding in plain sight? Part of why it works is because he’s close with so few people that most of them would never think the awkward nerd in their midst is actually a hero. Even if he’s different now, he still has unexplained absences and his own workspace (before Julian got Flashpointed in), maybe because no one else in the CSI lab was sad to see him wanting to work alone in the old creaky lab with the leaking skylights and electrical problems.

Barry was… an outcast, truly. A kid who beat up bullies but then became bullied. His mom died and his dad went to jail and that made him a sort of pariah, or at least that’s the impression I get. He got a job in law enforcement surrounded by personalities he doesn’t jive with, plus he’s one step up from a literal conspiracy theorist.

Not to mention he’s clumsy and uncoordinated to start out with, often late and maybe not especially reliable (he’s quite forgetful, it seems), and that he dedicates his spare time to trying to prove his father’s innocence (which at the time, everyone thought he was at least a little delusional about). 

But surely he had friends from school or university, right? Probably. But they got corporate or lab jobs or went on to more schooling and those connections fell by the wayside when he started working at the precinct. Relationships take effort, and he was busy and they were busy and he probably blew them off more than once to catch a bus out of town on a ‘lead’ for some new thing to investigate (like, y’know, ditching off to Starling City and inserting himself into an investigation and meeting the Arrow and royally shoving his foot in his mouth more than once). 

And don’t get me wrong – some of it was self-preservation for him. Used to people leaving him behind or treating him poorly so he ditched them first. Used to being bullied so he kept people at arm’s length, even if he did it with a smile. Not great at making friends after probably losing many of them with the fallout from what happened with his parents.

And some of those things are signs of ADHD, like the forgetfulness and having trouble being on time, too much energy making him uncoordinated and all over the place, jumping conversations topics because he gets excited, losing track of time with hyperfocus. So having untreated ADHD (maybe) was probably not helping him before the speedforce came along to make it more manageable.

But… yeah. 

Barry Allen was, to put it bluntly, friendless except for Iris before he became the Flash. In love with his best friend and too preoccupied and afraid to let anyone else in. And you can see it, in his resentment and anger that sometimes creeps in, how quick he is to get his back up when feeling even slightly betrayed…

And you can see it too sometimes, in the way he interacts with people outside of Cisco and Cailtin and Iris, i.e., those with whom he has a true sense of synergy. 

So for sure, that’s got to be part of why he and Leonard seem to understand each other on this sort of elemental level after interacting just a few times: they both see themselves as outsiders and neither of them are much good at actually getting along with others except for a select few who they’d literally die for in a heartbeat. 

(PS - none of this is actually a stab at Barry at all. I love him and identify with him a lot. It’s just what an in-universe outsider’s perspective of him probably looked like, as wrong as people were about him and as much as they missed when they evaluated him)

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I think something that also gets me is outside, irey, the west side of the speedster bloodline families are chosen to become speedsters whether it’s Barry’s spirit, fate, the speedforce itself, they have a element of being chosen for the job while the Allen side of the family, outside Barry, are born with these powers, they are just given their connection and their strength, there is no sense that they had to earn or learn anything. Obviously, this is a massive oversimplification. But I think when it comes down to the differences, I think that’s also often why a lot of the Allen vs West descendants come into conflict on a theme level. Like, the question of is it better to be born with great power or given it later on. What makes someone better? The answer is neither but it something hat floats in their heads. Like for instance, Wally isn’t Barry’s son but he was chosen by him while the twins must have felt proud to be Barry’s kids but didn’t feel especially wanted.

(Side note: this is also sorta why I kind of hate yjtv’s flashfam so much sometimes bc esp season 2, they play up that obviously Bart is better bc he’s BLOOD RELATED to Barry. And it’s just weird and so….oddly light years away from the core of what makes the flash fam great, but whatever)

Huh. I don't mean to poke holes in your thesis here but I don't think there's enough to say anything definitive vis-a-vis given vs inherited?

Given, Inherited

Wests: Daniel, Wally, Ace, Irey, Jai, John

Allens: Barry, Don, Dawn, Bart, Jenni

Barry, Daniel, Wally and Ace were all given their speedforce connections through accidents/fate. Don, Dawn, Irey, Jai, Bart, Jenni and John all inherited their speedforce connections from their parents, albeit with different rates of inheritance. Don and Dawn's powers were present at birth with no abnormalities or malfunctions. Bart, Irey and Jai manifested malfunctioning powers at birth. Jenni manifested powers at puberty with no abnormalities or malfunctions. John manifested powers as an adult after extreme stress and danger. It was assumed that his lab accident gave him powers but it was later revealed that they just triggered his latent powers to activate.

And that's not even looking at the long line of superpowered Allen descendants shown in Chain Lightning.

There are a lot of Allen descendants that inherited speedforce connections but there are also a lot of West descendants that inherited speedforce connections. We just have a skewed perspective of it because we've seen more of Barry's family tree (his grandkids and all the Allen descendants in Chain Lightning). But John's existence several centuries in the future shows that the West genes have just as much sticking power.

That's not to say that I think you are wrong, it's just that I think it's more of a localized issue. Specifically, this is a Wally & Ace vs Don, Dawn and Bart issue. And the issue is all about Barry at its core.

Subconsciously or not, Barry gave Wally and Ace their powers. In doing so he made them metaphorically his children, his 'Kids' if you will. If you look at the emphasis on speedforce connections and inheritance through bloodlines, Barry giving them those powers was a symbolic adoption of sorts. It didn't stop at metaphors and symbols either. Barry raised those two as his sons. They were his kids.

Wally struggled a lot with Bart being "actually" related to Barry. When Bart first showed up Wally was being very hard on himself and he felt like a failure. A large reason why he hadn't stopped being the Flash was his sense of duty to Barry and the legacy. He was the closest thing Barry had to a child. He was Barry's legacy and, even if he thought he sucked at it, he had a duty to carry on for Barry. Bart threw that entire line of thought into question and caused him to spiral. The fact that Bart could do things he couldn't? It was just fuel on the fire. In Wally's mind he was just a pretender to the throne and Bart was the rightful heir. It isn't a coincidence that Wally only thought about Bart in terms of Barry at first and wanted to be his guardian. Keeping Bart safe, training him and giving him the mantle was the only way Wally thought he could make it right. (It's a really good thing Iris didn't let that happen and Bart wanted nothing to do with the legacy aspect, cause that would've been a disaster)

The powers definitely played a part in it but it wasn't because Bart was born with powers. It was because Bart was born with Barry's powers. I mean, Wally had issues with Bart being able to vibrate through walls (a thing Barry could do but Wally couldn't) but Wally had no issues with Bart's ability to create scouts (a thing neither Barry nor Wally could do). It had nothing to do with Bart being 'more adept or skilled'. It was all about Bart being more like Barry than Wally was.

It was the same when Wally met Jenni. The only reason Jenni escaped Wally's jealousy and misplaced self loathing was because she provided him with two bigger threats. The Tornado Twins.

(what's interesting is that this word choice 'favorite son' legitimized Wally's relationship with Barry in his head. Here were Barry's "actual blood" children confirming that Wally was Barry's son. This is what caused Wally to realize that his issues with the twins were unfounded and silly)

The twins hated Wally. He was the prodigal son. The golden child. Barry loved Wally, Iris loved Wally and the twins grew up in the shadow of an older brother they could never live up to. To the twins, Wally was the son Barry chose. They were the kids Barry never asked for.

So, TLDR: I don't think the question is "Is it better to be born with great power or develop great power later on" but rather "is it better to be born Barry's kid or develop that relationship later on".