User Name/Nick: Alex
User LJ: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flamingchemistAIM/IM: Ondrea Fireheart
E-mail: flamingchemist@aol.com
Other Characters: Stephanie Brown
Character Name: Wally West
Series: The Flash (v.2)
Age: Somewhere in his 20s, it's not very specific
From When?: After #70, but before his first kiss with Linda
Inmate/Warden: Warden! He's a superhero. Kind of a jerk, but still a good person. The worst thing he's ever done is be a terrible boyfriend.
Item: The Flash ring (that Barry's costume comes out of, you know the one)
Abilities/Powers: Super speed! And all the weirdness that comes with it. Fast thinking, fast metabolism, fast healing.
Personality: Wally is a flirt and a showoff. He will shamelessly use his powers to pick up girls and generously make an ass of himself. The sad fact of the matter is that a great deal of his cockiness serves as a cover. Wally didn't become the Flash until after his uncle Barry's death, a loss that shook him to his very foundation. For a long time his psychological distress manifested itself physically in the form of his insane appetite, the occasional loss of his powers, even intense sickness after using his powers for an extended length of time. The biggest thing he has to deal with is the sense (perpetuated by the media for quite some time) that he was just a replacement for Barry. He wore the same costume for a long time, and even when a new costume had to be developed he designed it almost identical to Barry's. He feels as though he is single-handedly responsible for keeping his uncle's memory alive.
The other part of his cockiness comes from his powers. Wally thinks that he can do just about anything, and he isn't wrong. He has all the time in the world, and more power than any person should have.
Like most speedsters, Wally is the act first, think later type. Of course, when you think at nearly the speed of sound, this doesn't cause too many problems, but nobody has ever accused Wally of having a great deal of forethought. His relationships tend to go south because of his speed. Everyone else is just too slow for him, and they can't keep up. Of course, in actuality Wally is too much of a flirt and too "in-the-moment" to really settle down before he falls in love with Linda.
For all his faults, Wally really is a good person. Ever since he was a little kid, before the accident that gave him his powers, he looked up to the Flash more than anyone else. He's the type of person who is literally living his dream, the dream of being a superhero. All he really wants to do is help people. Money and fame get in the way and distract him, but at the end of the day saving lives will always come first. He doesn't even mean to hurt people when he's being a jerk, he just hasn't learned yet how to deal with the pressures of life as a full-time superhero and the loss of a large guiding force in his life.
He's also a very loyal friend, loyal to the end. Once he attaches himself to a person he has complete and utter faith in them. Piper, especially, is proof of this. The Pied Piper was one of the Flash's rogues before he turned more or less good, and although Wally was skeptical at first, he eventually gave him a chance. The two became fast friends. When he first found out that Piper was gay, he was upset only because he hadn't noticed. He felt he had let Piper down by not being in on the big secret. Even when Piper goes to prison, and eventually goes rogue again, Wally refuses to believe the evidence and searches endlessly for an explanation to help his friend.
Wally also isn't too proud to admit when he's wrong, either. Usually. When he makes mistakes, really big mistakes that could get people killed, he is unreasonably guilty about it. Almost everything he does is inspired by his desire to please his dead uncle. Not a bad thing, of course, considering what a great person Barry Allen was, but not particularly healthy. For a long time Wally struggles with the need for validation from someone who isn't there anymore.
Path to Redemption: N/A
History: Wally West grew up idolizing the hero of Central City, the Flash. Little did he know that his hero was in fact also his uncle! When the two finally met, Wally's aunt Iris told her husband, Barry, that Wally was a huge fan of the flash, and Barry decided to give his nephew a treat. Using his super speed as a disguise and claiming to be a good friend of the Flash, Barry introduced the young Wally to his hero. Flash was explaining to Wally how he gained his powers, showing him the array of chemicals that had given him his powers, when the freak accident repeated itself and gave Wally the same powers. Seeing that his nephew now had super speed and no knowledge of how to control it, Barry took him under his wing and Wally became Kid Flash.
Wally went on to become a founding member of the Teen Titans and fought crimes for years before hitting puberty, at which point a new, horrible problem arose. There were complications with Wally's body, and as he hit puberty every time he exceeded a certain speed he hit what runners call "the wall". When this happened, he suffered crippling pain that eventually stopped him from fighting crime altogether. Barry took Wally to his doctor, the one person he trusted with the kid's secret identity. The doctor's prognosis was not good. If Wally ever used his super speed again, he would surely die.
For years Wally gave up the mask in order to preserve his own life. He kept his problem a secret for the most part, alienating his friends and allies. When the
Infinite Crisis on Infinite Earths threatened to destroy the very fabric of time and Barry, trapped in another dimension, was nowhere to be found, the superhero community decided that it was time for Wally to come out of retirement. Running again didn't kill Wally, at least not at the speeds he was using, but something worse was about to come.
While the other heroes were fighting the threat to the multiverse, Barry Allen was at the center of the problem, the device that was pulling the parallel universes into each other. When he finally escaped captivity, Barry ran like he had never run before and destroyed the device, tearing a hole in time that revealed his crisis to several friends in several times, before shriveling to nothing. The other heroes arrived far too late to find anything but the empty suit and the thoroughly psychologically damaged rogue who had seen the whole thing happen.
Wally was overcome with grief and anger at the feeling of being abandoned. For a long time he was mostly useless. Finally he found the strength to take up the suit again and become the Flash. He was met at first with anger, resentment, and disbelief, but over time he managed to make a name for himself, becoming
The Flash we all know and love.
Sample Journal Entry:This place is
small. I mean, I'm sure it's big enough for everyone's needs, but do you know how many times I can visit every room in a quarter of a second? Too many, that's how many. But hey, I'm sure I'll find a way to entertain myself.
So this whole inmate deal, when does that happen? Oh, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm Wally West. I'm your newest warden. So, when can we get this party started?
Sample RP:It was a pretty neat idea, this whole barge thing. Wally had always been good with the one-on-one shtick, and all evidence to the contrary he wasn't bad at making friends. Besides, with a super speedster on board the crime rate would be so much lower. After all, in such a tiny area surely he could stop any crime in process before it even became known.
There was just one problem. He was
bored. Intensely, insanely, hair-pulling-out bored. He had explored every inch of the barge already, memorized the layout and even speculated at great length about the residents of most of the rooms. There were one or two rooms that escaped his scrutiny merely because he grew bored of the game. The CES was pretty cool for a full five seconds, but it was the same every time he went in during those five seconds and he had already explored every inch of the countryside that presented itself to him.
Now he was in the gym with a basketball. There was no one else there yet, but surely if he played long enough the crowds would form and at least then he would have people to talk to. He shot thirty baskets in thirty seconds, slow enough so that a normal person might even be able to count them, but there wasn't anybody to play with. He didn't expect them to be a fair challenge, sure, but they would at least serve to show off his incredible speed.
Ten painfully long minutes later he gave up, heading instead for the library. He wouldn't remember most of the information he gathered later, but at least it would give him something to do. Maybe if he tried to memorize every single book, he could at least fill a few minutes. What he really needed, more than entertainment, more than someone to save, was someone to talk to, someone to connect with. Nothing else would fill the vacuum in his life created by the space left behind. He could run as long as he liked, but he could never really get away.
Special Notes: More information over
here, although I haven't checked it for thoroughness or accuracy. It also has some fun pictures.
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capeandcowl
