There are no do-overs in the real world, but after the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, fans of The Flash have been begging everyone’s favorite speedster to reset our actual continuity.
On this season of The Flash, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is dealing with the consequences of going back in time to save his mother from his arch-nemesis, Reverse-Flash. Barry’s actions caused big and small changes across the DC TV universe, and the show put great effort into explaining why it’s wrong to rewrite history to suit one’s selfish needs.
But in the wake of Trump’s election, fans have been begging Grant Gustin on Twitter to do it anyway. What began as a meme attributing any negative occurrence in one’s life to Barry fucking up the timeline for everyone has now largely become a targeted attack on Donald Trump.
On Twitter, Grant Gustin replied to a tweet speculating that “60 percent” of the actor’s DMs since the election are pleads from fans to create Flashpoint, the happier, alternate reality where (mostly) everyone gets what they want. In Flashpoint, no one is dead, Trump isn’t president, and everything is just hunky dory. Gustin says that 60 percent of his mentions being devoted to the Trump meme “isn’t far off.”
A quick search for “@grantgust” and “Trump” will show you that, well … he’s right.
Although Joe Biden’s petty attempts to prank Trump are the official meme of our existential dread, begging Barry to “fuck the timeline” and “do his thing” are helping a more niche population of frustrated citizens.
Others are even blaming Barry (or rather, Grant Gustin) for having “fucked with the timeline,” enabling a supervillain to assume the highest office in the world. We’d call in Barry’s BFF Supergirl to help, but she’s on another planet so we really are sort of fucked right now.
The Flash airs Tuesdays on the CW.
