Marquis was one of the organized killers.  He had his rules, he had his code, and so did Amy.  Amy wouldn’t use her power to affect people’s minds.  Like father, like daughter.

Oh, come on, Amy, that’s a really superficial comparison.

That’s like saying Taylor is like Bakuda or the majority of Slaughterhouse Nine because they’re all Chaotic.

“Do you need anything?” she asked Mark, when the next ad break came up.

“Water,” he mumbled.

Coming right up.

“Okay.”

She headed into the kitchen, grateful for the excuse to leave the room.  She searched the dishwasher for his cup, a plastic glass with a textured outside, light enough for him to lift without having to struggle with muscle control, easy enough to grip.

That sounds good.

She filled it halfway so it wouldn’t be as heavy.

Tears filled her eyes, and she bent over the sink to wash her face.

When he said he needed water, I don’t think he meant from your eyes.

But yeah, all of this is clearly getting to Amy. It’s a really tough situation and probably some of the worst possible timing for her to find out who her biological father was.

Good job, Wildbow. Seriously, the entire premise of this situation is fantastic. Not for Amy, of course, but as a piece of writing, “girl with the power of healing and a self-imposed rule against messing with the brain is put in a tricky situation when her adoptive father suffers brain damage” is coddamn inspired. And then add the preexisting plot of “her biological father was a well-known villain”, a touch of “she finally finds out who her biological father was”, a dash of “villainous family resemblance angst” and finally a spoonful of “fucking Bonesaw”, and we’re in for a delicious treat.

Mark had tried to be a dad.  He’d made her pancakes on the weekends, taken her places.  But it had always been inconsistent.

Inconsistent?

Some days he seemed to forget, others he got upset, or was just too distracted for the trips to the ice cream store or mall.

Aw.

I don’t think that means he didn’t love you, Amy. Everyone has days like these.

Another secret that the family hadn’t kept – Mark was clinically depressed.

…especially under those circumstances.

Honestly, that just makes me even more sure that he loves Amy and genuinely wanted to do his best as her dad. 

He had been prescribed drugs to help him, but he didn’t always take them.

A common problem with depression, I think? I think I’ve heard something about that.

It had always been Victoria, only Victoria, who made her feel like she had a family here.  Victoria was mad at her now.

Aww. 😦

Except mad wasn’t the right word.  Victoria was appalled, seething with anger, brimming with resentment, because Amy couldn’t, wouldn’t, heal their father.

It’s not the first time they’ve discussed the brain healing, either. I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but the two of them discussed it in Interlude 2, and I’m fairly sure Victoria wasn’t very understanding of Amy’s reluctance to do it back then. I don’t know.

I guess I should reread Interlude 2 when I get to it in my current project to retroactively tag the chapter intros.

Amy felt her pulse pounding as she looked at Mark.  Made herself sit on the couch next to him.  Does he blame me?

I’m inclined to think not, given the smile he gave her earlier, but I think he’s probably aware of the drama. Unless that form of social awareness counts as a skill.

It was all falling apart.  This family had never fully accepted her.  Being in the midst of a family that all worked together, it was hard to preserve secrets.

Especially when the team the family forms has a thing about being open, with quirks like no secret identities.

Amy had learned a few years ago, overhearing a conversation between Carol and Aunt Sarah, that Carol had initially refused to take her in.

Ouch. At least that would’ve been before she got to know you?

Her adoptive mother had only accepted in the end because she’d had a job and Aunt Sarah didn’t.

For a moment I was confused as to why it wouldn’t be the other way around, with the one without a job having more time to take care of a child, but then I remembered you need money too, and New Wave doesn’t get paid by the government like the Protectorate does.

This moment of confusion might also have roots in the fact that apart from occasional freelance photography on my dad’s part, neither of my parents have had jobs in my life. We’ve made do with disability pension without much problem, and I’ve almost always had both my parents with me whenever I’ve been home.

I keep telling you guys, I’m privileged as fuck living up here.

One kid to Aunt Sarah’s two.  When she’d taken Amy in, it hadn’t been out of love or caring, but grudging obligation and a sense of duty.

There we have it again. Grudging obligation and a sense of duty. That’s pretty much Amy’s character theme.

“Ready, mom?” Victoria asked.

“Almost ready,” Carol said.  She bent down by Mark and kissed him, and he was smiling sadly as she pulled back.

“I wish I still knew how to kiss you back.”

He mumbled something private and sweet that his daughters weren’t privy  to, and Carol offered him a whispered reply.  Carol stood, then nodded at Victoria, “Let’s go.”

See ya. Have fun back in Interlude 11a! Try not to run into anyone super out of your league, like someone who’s won against the Triumvirate repeatedly!

They left without another word.  There was no goodbye for Amy, no hug or kiss.

Ouch. Yeeah.

The salt is real.

And I mean, it makes sense. As far as they think, she’s perfectly capable of putting this right, but refuses to for reasons they don’t fully understand.

Victoria can’t even meet my eyes.

There seems to be a lot of talk of eyes and the meeting or not meeting of them in this chapter. So far we’ve had Carol meeting Amy’s eyes sternly, Amy and Mark’s maintaining eye contact (it seems like Mark doesn’t blame Amy as much as the others, but it’s hard to be sure), and now Victoria not meeting Amy’s eyes.

What little he regained came slowly and disappeared quickly.  It was as though his brain was a shattered glass, and there was only so much he could hold in it before it spilled out once again.

Ouch.

So they’d patiently worked with him, helping him to hobble between the bedroom, living room and bathroom.  They’d worked with him until he could mostly feed himself, say what needed to be said, and they didn’t push him to do more.

Yes, good. Patience and support is key here.

Victoria was in costume as Glory Girl, but she was unclipping a bib from around his neck, something to ensure he didn’t stain his clothes while he ate.

I wonder what it’s like from within. By the sound of it, he retains his memories of knowledge and events, so he’s probably consciously aware of the change, of the infantile state he’s ended up in on the skills front, of the burden this turn of events puts on those he loves.

Of Amy’s power.

Amy’s adoptive father turned and smiled gently as he saw the other two members of his family.  It was all Amy could do to maintain eye contact, smile back.

And of course Amy is guiltridden over it.

I know the story is written by the seat of the pants, but I wonder how long ahead Wildbow was thinking that something like this should happen. The dilemma Amy is in right now, between her unwillingness to mess with the brain and someone close to her ending up with a form of brain damage, seems quite solidly built up to through establishment and reinforcement of the former where there wasn’t really much narrative need to go into that at the time, going back all the way to Interlude 2.

But Carol didn’t.  The woman turned and left the doorway, Amy meekly following.

Carol, internally: “Maybe she didn’t take it? What if I just misplaced it? If I bring it up and she didn’t know about it after all, then she will if I say something, and that opens a whole can of worms…”

They don’t understand.

…

Oh.

I might’ve been reading this situation all wrong. Carol might not be aware of the letter being gone at all.

She’s tense with Amy because she believes Amy could fix Mark’s disability.

Is it in the brain? Is that why Amy won’t do it?

Mark was in the living room, sitting on the couch.  No longer able to don his costume and be Flashbang, Mark could barely move.

Flashbang, right. Manpower was the other guy. Uncle Neil, I guess.

He had a form of brain damage.  It was technically amnesia, but it wasn’t the kind that afflicted someone in the movies and TV.

And I was right about the brain thing.

So if it’s not the kind you usually see in movies and TV, does that mean it’s anterograde amnesia – the kind where you stop properly moving memories from short term to long term memory, effectively meaning you barely remember anything after the onset of the amnesia?

Honestly, out of all the media I consume, Worm is the one where I’d be least surprised to actually see this arguably more heartbreaking, but lesser known and typically less narratively useful form of amnesia depicted.

What Mark had lost were the skills he’d learned over the course of his life.

Ohh. That’s a third form of amnesia I’m not familiar with, but the existence of which makes total sense. Retrograde and anterograde amnesia don’t usually affect the skills, and I’m aware of other contexts where memory of skills, knowledge and events are noticeably separate.

You don’t forget how to ride a bike, they say. That’s because of this, and that’s the sort of thing Mark actually has forgotten.

And so many more crucial skills. For one thing, Carol might’ve been reading the letter to him because he forgot how to read. And then there’s walking, eating with utensils, getting dressed, etc.

Yeeeah, I can see how this would prevent him from being Flashbang.

He’d lost the ability to walk, to speak full sentences, hold a pen and drive a car.  He’d lost more – almost everything that let him function.

At least it’s probably possible to relearn, unless there’s such a thing as an anterograde version of this type of amnesia, but it’s gonna take a lot of time, effort and guidance.

“There’s word about some strange howling near the Trainyard.  Glory Girl and I are going on a patrol to check on it.”

Oh, huh. Looks like we’re going non-chronologically here and this happened just before Interlude 11a.

Was it ever established that that’s where Bitch’s area was? I don’t remember, but it makes a lot of sense for it to be up there.

Amy nodded.

“Can you look after Mark?”

“Of course,” Amy said, her voice quiet.  She stood from her bed and headed to the door.  Carol didn’t move right away.  Instead, Amy’s adoptive mother stayed where she was, staring at Amy.

Yeeah, she definitely came in here with more in mind, but I guess she doesn’t want to say anything before she has confirmation. Not even a “hey, have you seen this one letter that went missing from our room anywhere”.

Amy reached the door and had to stop, waiting for Carol to speak.

If I’m right about why Carol isn’t saying anything about the paper, this is quite awkward.