#middle school kids are the weirdest creatures and are just on the cusp of knowing Big Knowledge but don’t have any of the fine details tater

[bonebrokebuddy]

BART ALLEN OUTSIDER POV FIC PROMPT: WAIT WAS BART IN A CULT?

Bart Allen, only 13 years old, ends up getting enrolled back into school to learn about modern history to unlearn the Reach’s vastly altered version of history that he was taught and to connect with non-meta kids his age.

He goes to central city middle school after jumping back to the future. The students there quickly notice that the new kid is a very weird guy.

- Bart said he came from Keystone city yet can’t name a single thing about Keystone.

- Despite being a class clown, he’s weirdly serious about certain topics and asking anything about the future causes Bart’s eyes to glaze over for a second

- He doesn’t know anything about pop culture.

- When asked what his favorite movie was for his “get to know you question,” Bart responded that he didn’t watch a lot of movies. He responded similarly for every other icebreaker question. Including favorite ice cream where when he replied, “I’ve never had ice cream” cue the class erupting in commotion and disbelief that took the teacher 10 minutes to calm down

- He doesn’t know about current social media trends. As a few months of him in school goes by, it becomes apparent that he’s almost never up to date on current or past social media trends.

- He’s absolutely horrible at history outside of some recent metahuman & JL events.

- He doesn’t seem to know how school works. Like, a kid goes up to him and offers to do his homework if Bart pays her because she noticed he was struggling with history... and Bart acts very confused. “Isn’t that not allowed?” And that comment confuses the shit out of the girl trying to get money out of Bart and they eventually continue talking and agreeing on her tutoring Bart free of charge. After a while he opens up to her about having difficulties remembering which history is which when writing essays but refuses to elaborate, leading her to think that Bart used to go to a Catholic school.

- in the lunch room, Bart said he didn’t know who Lady Gaga was and it began a trend of kids asking if he knew who [celebrity] was & bets were placed on if he did or didn’t (Bart caught on quickly and educated himself on this the day he found out so he wouldn’t seem too out of touch. It was boring quickly so he stopped keeping up with celebrity gossip quick)

- When interrogated about his lack of knowledge in media, he said he lived an “isolated childhood” and was homeschooled until recently

- Eventually in the locker room, when changing people notice his scars (unknown why them but they’re the results of The Reach’s reign and enforcement of control over the metas)

And the middle schoolers put the pieces together: Bart escaped from a doomsday cult.

- and the rumor spreads like fucking wildfire

- That’s why he has the scars, they must have punished him for defying the cult! That must be why he escaped!

- That’s why he said he had an isolated childhood and “can’t remember which history is the correct one”

- That’s why Bart has to have the worksheets for the lower grades given to him during worktime because he’s catching up on what he wasn’t taught while in the cult!

- That’s why his handwriting is famously awful to read! The cult must’ve not let him write so they couldn’t communicate to escape!

- That’s why he’s so touchy about talking about the future!

- That’s why he’s so awkward actually talking to people! He never got experience in the cult because he couldn’t talk to outsiders!

- That’s why he uses weird slang nobody’s ever heard of.

- That’s why he didn’t know what a giraffe was!

- That’s why he randomly disappears from school for weeks at a time, because he’s getting treatment from brainwashing!

- The brainwashing treatment rumor eventually devolves into that Bart disappears randomly for days or weeks at a time from school because he needs to pray to the gods he worshipped at certain times or is trying to escape back to the cult but keeps getting brought back; to he’s under the witness protection program and needs to be hidden from cult members trying to find Bart and bring him back (backers of this version claim that’s why they can’t find any records of a ‘Bart Allen’ anywhere online is because it’s a fake identity). and so the rumor’s light connection to reality devolves rapidly

- They’re middle schoolers so the rumors get a little weird (if not downright bizarre & essentially nonsensical because, again, middle schoolers. I only faintly remember rumors from middle school at this point but I remember they started relatively normal and then got fucking weird and most made zero logical sense ) but they center around one main thing: explaining away every weird thing about Bart on the fact that he recently escaped a doomsday cult