#not to belabour the point but yeah i tried to stay true to their core kinda mechanics and how they respond to people | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cryptocism · 7 months ago

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love that Thad interprets inertia to mean continuing at all costs and Three takes it to mean stagnancy, bc theyre both right!! objects in motion saty in motion objects at rest stay at rest just like newton said

exactly yeah! because i knew i wanted Thad to reclaim the name for himself (with the whole "it means what i say it means" mantra) it needed to mean more to him than just a representation of Thawne Legacy Kill The Allens etc.

a reoccurring thing in Frequency that i liked to lean into was this idea of Good Inertia and Bad Impulses (bc Bart and Thad as narrative foils continues to rotate in my brain forever). i think Bart's solo does a cool exploration of both good and bad impulses throughout the run, it's kind of the central conflict of the whole thing, but it's usually in regards to Bart either unwittingly getting himself into trouble or accidentally solving problems by just leaping into everything without thinking twice. but the concept of inertia is pretty exclusively portrayed as negative. which is fair, the phrase "coasting on inertia" is in the lexicon for a reason. but i think it deserved a fair shot - the concept of continuing in spite of everything can actually be a really good instinct when you're in a bad situation. keeping up that momentum, moving forward no matter what, there's definitely something inspirational there that appeals to me.

and an aspect of impulses that didnt get as much spotlight in Bart's solo was the kinds of impulses that recoil at the thought of unpleasantness. the impulse to hide from responsibility, the impulse to distract from pain, to avoid discomfort, etc. (big part of that is because in Bart's solo, most of the worst moments of his life hadn't happened to him yet) so i wanted to explore it a little in Frequency

anyway yeah, Bad Impulses and Good Inertia. which was kinda in conversation with Bart and Thad's dispositions, and how they run counter to typical hero/villain narratives. (Bart doesn't really get people, goes his own way, has pretty emotionally selfish and sometimes violent tendencies when he's pissed off. Thad's much more of a people person, lives for praise and pleasing others, seems to forget to do violence when he's supposed to i.e. that time he put Bart in VR jail even though Bart was completely incapacitated and by Thawne logic Thad should've just killed him. it just... doesn't occur to him as a thing he should do lmao)

#asks #anonymous #not to belabour the point but yeah i tried to stay true to their core kinda mechanics and how they respond to people #i see bart and thad as mirrors in the low-empathy/high-empathy departments #where bart doesn't really relate to people most of the time - although he can guess at what they're feeling and try to respond accordingly #drawing on what he learned from max and helen and his friends #still caring deeply for people but never seeing himself reflected in them #and then on the flipside there's thad who cant seem to stop himself from projecting on everyone and getting caught up in their feelings #not only in his hyperawareness of how people see him and subsequent stage-fright as a result #but also when he tries to steal jo's truck and literally can't because she told him she had a daughter and he doesn't want her to get fired #and when he drops his possessiveness over CRAYDL the literal instant he sees that Nathaniel cares about them as much as he does #or when he sees Jude at his lowest and can't stop himself from thinking ''been there''#basically bart is an unbothered king and thad finds himself unwillingly empathizing with anyone who shows him a shred of vulnerability #an extremely interesting dynamic for a “heroic/villainous” pair #frequency fic

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