#kidflash

I must confess that for the Brand New Days AU, the headcanon of Wally being a My Chemical Romance fan came from seeing matchamilkorner's Red Bolt design (Villain Wally in the Teen Tirants universe). I saw that version of Wally and said "that's a character my 12 yo cringey ass would have crushed on back in 2006" xD

I showed it to my best friend and we both agreed Red Bolt looks like a Wally West that would listen to "House of Wolves" in his iPod while robbing a bank at lightspeed. Then later added the "Welcome to the Black Parade" reference in chapter 1 of the fanfic for her to laugh remembering that. 🤣 But honestly, the whole intro of Black Parade reminds me the kind of relationship Barry and Wally share as mentor-apprentice and later succesor.

But after reading Absolute Flash and noticing that version of Wally West plays guitar/bass (I'm not sure since the number of strings changes in the few panels it shows the instrument), I liked the idea for the TT03 Wally as well.

My headcanon for the BND fanfic is that Wally would listen to whatever is trendy on the radio, but after meeting Pied Piper and realizing they're classmates in the same school at Central City, he would show up with a guitar to the same music sessions as Hartley and be like "teach me how to play, Maestro", "hey, what music do you listen to?", "can you teach me this one?" just to force the interaction in between them to get to know him better and help him reform himself (because you know, Wally's habit of pulling a Naruto and changing his villains to friends/allies).

But opposed to Absolute Wally, BND Wally SUCKS at rhythm because of his speed, so even if he learns the progressions and cords, he never gets to play decently and he even breaks the strings often because of the friction of his hands 🤣🤣🤣🤣

But he is not really passionate about playing or anything, so he just brushes it off with humor and just treats it like a side almost-forgotten hobby. In Hartley's words: "As a musician, you're an excellent runner! What matters is the attitude! There was an attempt! Never try a career as rockstar, for my deaf ears sake, please". "Omg, Hartley, stop! I get it! I suck!"

But yeah, he still listens to a bit of everything and adds some of Hartley's and Jinx's favorite artists and songs to his Playlist. He added MCR because of both of them and became a fan ever since. But his current favorites are MCR, Simple Plan, Maroon 5, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Yellow Card, The Killers, Artic Monkeys, Gorillaz and Smash Mouth (yeah, he listens to All Star unironically). Right after he met Jinx back in 2005 he would listen to Coldplay non stop. Also has some Wham! and Journey songs because Barry and Iris listen to them often.

About the other characters, Hartley likes all kind of music. From classic, to rock of all decades, to pop songs, and shares more contemporary (2008 setting contemporary xD) bands and artists with Wally and Jesse (Trickster). The bands he listens to more often these days are Rage Against The Machine, Queen, The Cure, Deftones, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Green Day, The Goo Goo Dolls, Mother Mother (yes, he listened to them before they were cool and viral) and Muse. And Hartley is a big fan of musicals as well!

Hartley not only has mastered his flute playing skills, but he has tried multiple instruments and musical tools like guitar, bass, cello, piano and MIDI controller pads. And he has improved his knowledge in sonic engineering thanks to his friendship/mentorship relationship with Captain Cold during his time as a Rogue (he still visits him tho. For him he is the same Barry is for Wally).

Jinx, depending on her mood and the people she is with. See-More introduced her to some ska music back in middle school and that's how she became a No Doubt/Gwen Stefani fan (and lowkey this is a reference to all those 2006 flinx amv's with Sweet Escape xD) but doesn't share that interest that openly but with Kid Flash and Starfire at first. Some other guilty pleasures of her are Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Madonna and some pop / pop punk songs. But for the public/general people she mets, she says her favorite ones are Garbage, Muse, Depeche Mode, Hoobastank, t.A.T.u. and Evanescence. ("She is not like the other girls~" pfffff)

In her Belladona Boarding School for Young Ladies days she was forced to learn dance, arts and music, but she only learned the piano basics since she didn't stay long and was very young back then. And she has no desire to expand on that because what she truly likes is plastic arts like drawing and painting.