#(this may be me suggesting a wally and hartley fic where wally is also deaf because of the lightning)

[fezwearingjellybananas]

I'm reading up on lightning strikes because it's been a little while and specifically focusing on Litchenberg Figures (this is for fic reasons again). I love the headcanon Barry (and Wally) have Litchenberg scars. I really love that art I saw the other month that had Barry's scar glowing with lightning, that's so very good.

The cause of Litchenberg Figures is capillaries bursting under the skin. They typically fade within a few days.

Now! This is a comic book. In reality lightning strikes have about a 10% mortality rate and 70% are left with a permanent disability (whether from brain damage, hearing loss, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, ect). This BBC article I'm reading mentions nothing about superpowers, so really, how realistic do we have to make things. Plus, Barry and Wally were covered in chemicals, the lightning could have also travelled through them, heated them in its fractal patterns, and left burns on the skin. I have actually written Barry with chemical burns before, and metal belts can leave burns, clothes can catch fire, there's options for burn scars and speedsters.

Also, there's the option it's from their own lightning, the charge the Speed Force gives them pushing down to their legs, a constantly shifting red mark that appears every time they run (and they run so much, it never gets the chance to fade).

But I have a slightly different idea. Scars are not the only mark left on your body from something that has happened to it, and much like scars these can fade over time, but stick around. And maybe the lightning didn't cause a rapid change in weight which these are typically associated with, but it definitely caused a rapid change in something.

What I would like to suggest is a fractal stretch mark that follows the path of the lightning, a Litchenberg that didn't fade because this change sank into Barry and Wally's skin and stayed there.

(Also here's the articles I've been reading:

BBC, ScienceAlert, iflscience, Wikipedia 1, 2, Guardian)

#dc #barry allen #wally west #i love the headcanon barry and wally have lightning scars too much to ever let that go #but it's also fun to read up on things and look at how much you can do with lightning strikes for barry and wally #(this may be me suggesting a wally and hartley fic where wally is also deaf because of the lightning) #anyway this fic is more about chronic pain than scars it's just why is chronic pain so boring #but you know #there's scars mentions because the year of the otp prompt is lightning and how perfect since i'm writing comics westallen for all of them #so i went to check a thing and got sucked into oh look more science #as often happens #*