That ■ was almost as perfectly timed as it could be, because it’s definitely time for me to stop for the night. See you Monday for more!
13½, part 1)
Tag: i13ap1
“Mom. You’re going to have some fucked up kid, and then you’re going to die of an OD before it’s even grown up. It’s not fair that you leave some kid that’s more retarded than me, or some deformed freak for Brian to take care of. Not fair on him, and it’s not fair on the kid to make them put up with the dick, either.”
Ouch.
“Fine,” her mother said, standing. “I’ll get the papers myself.”
I should probably acknowledge that I’m not sure Aisha’s actually saying any of this for Celia’s sake so much as for her own. She wants to get it out, and since her mom can’t notice her unless she wants to be noticed, she can say it to her face without consequences – for good or bad.
Aisha sighed. Was it cowardice that kept her from confronting her mother, or the knowledge backed by years of experience that it wouldn’t make a difference?
Bit of both, perhaps?
Maybe, if everything with the Nine worked out and Coil got control of the city, maybe she could get her mom some help, or report her to the police.
Hm, yeah, might work. For now, though, I’m sure the police have a lot to deal with.
“Go get some papers, Sam. Sam McSamsam. Sammy-sam. Samster-”
Hamster. Sammy-sam McSamsam the classroom hamster.
“I don’t want to get up any more than you do,” Sam growled. “You’re not one of the talkative ones, are you? I like it quiet.”
Seriously, how many days have they been together?
“Mom,” Aisha said, as if she could get her mom’s attention. Ironically enough, she knew that if she deactivated her power, she’d have even less chance of talking to her mom. It wasn’t just the horned mask and the black costume. She’d never had anyone just sit down and listen to her.
Yeah, I think if she’d made herself visible, they’d do quite a lot of other things than listening to her. Especially since she’d appear to show up out of nowhere in that costume, though that might change their tune from anger to fear.
Dad ignored her, mom was self-centered and Brian was too focused on what needed to be done that he ignored everything else.
That sounds like a really good description of Brian.
Taylor’s got a bit of that too, but it manifests somewhat differently.
Aisha stared her mother in the eyes. She didn’t deactivate her power. “Mom. You gotta stop.”
“Where are the rest of the papers, Sam?” her mom asked, oblivious.
Yeeah, if this is sinking in at all, it’s not showing any signs of it yet.
“Kitchen.”
“But I don’t want to get up. I’m comfy,” Celia whined.
“Hey, you managed to misplace an entire package of papers, deal with it yourself.”
“You keep going down this road, your kid is going to be born without a face or something,” Aisha said, her voice quiet.
That is not entirely impossible, especially in this ‘verse. Though it doesn’t sound like anyone’s (known to have) been born parahuman yet.
“You know how hard school was for me? Even as far back as kindergarten, I couldn’t sit still. Teacher tells me three things, and by the time they’ve gotten to the third, I’ve forgotten the first. And Brian doesn’t have any of that.”
That… sounds like ADHD, potentially. Not necessarily, but we’ve got the two main ingredients right here: Attention Deficit (seemingly manifesting in part as poor memory, which is absolutely a thing with ADHD), and Hyperactivity.
She sat down on the coffee table, directly opposite her mother. Reaching forward, she plucked the spliff from her mother’s lips and dropped it, grinding it under her toes.
Heh, that must be a weird experience from the point of view of someone who doesn’t realize Aisha is there.
I guess Celia would perceive it as dropping the spliff herself, but how would her brain lie to her to fill the blank of how it got ground against the floor?
Her mother blinked a few times, then reached for her rolling papers.
I guess maybe she didn’t realize it ended up on the floor, just that it disappeared.
Aisha used her hand to cover the papers and whispered, “No.”
Ooh, how does this manifest? Does what she says enter her mother’s subconscious, or does that get wiped too?
Again, the dazed blinking. Her mother asked, “Sam? Got any more papers?”
“I just gave you a full package.”
If Aisha were feeling prankish, she could uncover the package of papers once Sam looked. That would probably escalate, though.
“The hell? Maybe that hit me harder than I thought,” Aisha’s mother giggled.
Ah, right, I suppose that’s a reasonable rationalization for her brain to come up with.
How easy would it be to just carry this stuff away? She could hand it to Coil for some brownie points, and he could decide what to distribute. It would be out of her mother’s hands, and money would become a limiter on her mother’s habit.
That would probably be a decent idea, except Coil distributing it would just put it in the hands of other people and fuel similar problems in other families. But as far as saving Celia, it’s not bad.
If the drugs weren’t around, maybe Sam would leave.
Maybe, if Aisha got rid of the drugs, her mom would have an excuse to get things back on track, somehow.
Maybe. Still feels a bit too hopeful for the setting, though.
The city was paying people who joined the clean-up crews. Three square meals, simple and bland but they gave the essential nutrients, and they gave you twenty dollars for nine hours of work. Fuck around or slack off, and they just kicked you off the crew for the day, no pay.
I suppose that’s not too bad.
Idle hopes. Aisha had spent long years wishing her mom could pull it together, dating back to just after the divorce, when a bad day was still better than most good days were now. Or maybe that was nostalgia and a child’s eye view.
Who knows. Either way this is something I really can’t blame Aisha for entertaining.
No. If she got rid of the drugs, it was more likely that someone would erupt in anger. Sam or her mom, getting violent, verbally or otherwise. It would do more harm than good.
Yikes. Yeah, I suppose if neither of them noticed the thief, they’d each assume it was the other, or Jennifer.
The metaphor applied in another way, too. Her power operated on its own, doing its thing, and if she very casually noted what it was doing, without pushing it forward or holding it back, she could feel it doing something else.
Hmm.
As if it was ready to push away memories that didn’t relate to her, exactly. It never did.
Maybe we should keep Imp away from Miss Militia.
Any time it built up enough that it came close to doing anything, she noticed, and it retreated like a turtle pulling its head into its shell.
I suppose it’s possible that if it got the chance to do it – such as at a moment where Imp was thoroughly distracted – it might not specifically wipe out memories of the Dandelions (like I suspect it might be wanting to because of its apparent origins), but rather wipe out all memories, inflicting total retrograde amnesia on anyone it could hit. That would be nasty.
Frustrating. Her power didn’t do anything because she wanted it to. It worked only if she surrendered to it, let it act on its own. Pushing it to work harder had the opposite effect.
This is a very interesting power.
Much moreso than any other power we’ve seen, this one seems to have a sort of mind of its own. A stubborn, rebellious one.
Heh, I suppose that too kind of reflects Aisha.
Not that it was invisibility, really. It was memories. People forgot her as soon as they saw her, to the point that they didn’t register her presence.
There goes the “out of sight, out of mind” hypothesis for her more thorough memory wipes (is there even a difference?). Before I came up with that, this was my assumption about how the unnoticeability worked, though.
She could feel it, her power rolling over her skin, jabbing outward, invisible to sight, touch and anything else, making contact with the people around her and pushing those memories away.
Hmm. Is there a maximum range, and will people remember her longer if they’re further away within range? Can it be blocked by a wall?
And like her metaphor comparing her memories to a broken arm, her power seemed to respond to the attention of her subjects; the harder they tried to remember and focus on her, the faster she slipped through their minds.
Man, I already thought this was very similar to the effects of the post-Dandelion haze, but it really does seem like they work almost exactly the same way.
Maybe if we find out what would protect someone from Imp’s power, it would let us remember stuff about the Dandelions too. But as it stands, Miss Militia is the only character we know would have reason to try to figure out something like that. Maybe also Tattletale or Bonesaw, but it seemed like the forgetting caught up with Tattletale eventually.
“Come on, Jennifer,” Celia urged her friend. She took a long draw from the spliff she held in her fingers. “Oh fuck! Sam, you jackass! This isn’t just weed, is it?”
Not cool, dude.
“Thought it was.”
“There’s a kick to it. Amp or something.” Celia took another puff. “Amp. Hey, Jen, join in. Have some of what Sam’s having.”
Ah, I guess he didn’t know. I mean, if he’s telling the truth, but I believe him.
And they continue to press Jennifer. I’m still not sure Jennifer doesn’t have some secrets in store for us – she seems quite out of place in this group, so it’s thus far unclear why she’s in this chapter. Maybe Wildbow just needed a third party to prompt something down the line, though.
“But H is fucking scary,” Jen protested.
“So you hear. But why is it scary?”
Because it’s a strong drug that fucks up lives. That’s enough for me.
“It’s addictive.”
Yes, thank you.
Seriously, that part’s scary enough on its own.
Aisha tuned out the sound of her mother and Sam cajoling the woman and walked over to the table. Her mom didn’t notice her. Nobody ever noticed her, and they noticed even less ever since she’d gotten her power. It was like a dark joke, a grim comedy. Just when she’d started to figure things out, grow up and catch people’s eye, the world went to hell and she got her powers.
Yeeah. Usually the powers seem to help the recipient out in their trigger event, but Aisha’s power seems more like something that adjusted itself to her general problem and amplified it.
Although not being noticed and being able to make people forget her existence ought to make it easier to get away from this family.
Now she became invisible if she lost her concentration.
Interesting. Her power works backwards – it’s passive and she has to actively keep it turned off if she wants to, not actively use it.
Of course, there was no way to avoid the countless reminders in everyday life that would remind her of Guy, or Bridge, or Darren, or Lonnie.
Guy is such a weird name.
Yes, weirder than “Bridge”.
I wonder if one of these men was the guy Brian fought when he triggered.
Thinking about a broken arm was one such reminder.
…right.
Not thinking about things is difficult.
Being ignored by her teammates and told to go to her room and play along for everyone else’s sake was another.
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. No wonder it ticks her off.
Although to be fair, being ignored is kind of her specialty.
How many afternoons had she come home from school, only for her mom or one of her mom’s boyfriends to shoo her off or bribe her to leave the apartment for a bit?
Eesh.
Pissed her off. She didn’t need that from her brother, too.
The one good family member she has.
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