Conclusion, experimenting with PS and stylus is pretty fun once you get past the initial confusion. For some reason, if I zoom in too close, all I can do touch-wise is scroll up and down the canvas but not actually draw on it. Any idea why?

Taylor: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/Sona_Eikou/Worm/Skitter2.jpg
Skitter: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/Sona_Eikou/Worm/Skitter1.jpg

VERY prelim form, because I actually don't remember many details. I know curly hair, wide mouth, glasses, but was her hair black or brown...? And what color were her eyes? The mask is also completely up in the air. I had the sense before that it actually wrapped around most of her head, behind her ears, but it looked quite alien-like when I tried to draw that...

Anyways, I'd like to get my colors straight before moving onto shading etc. so I'd like some input on that front. The mask as well.

 

Thing is though, he really wasn't in the middle of a fight since he had been blending in pretty well, and only broke cover to take control of Imp. And if she and Regent hadn't planned for that, then well, the Undersiders would have been fucked. Also, sure he COULD just make sleeper agents to cause shit, but well, from what I've seen, his thing is that he WANTS to draw attention to himself, to make people be terrified of what he can do to them. That and the fact that he can do a lot more damage with one cape under his control, than 10 random shmucks that he can't really take credit for (unless he has them start stabbing people whilst praising the endbringers).

And I just realised that if he did start taking control of random people and sending them out on suicide missions, he goes from being the enemies of just the Haven (and whoever he's near) to being on the shit list of everybody.

 

You can't be certain that you'll remain unknown if you do really bad shit like killing lots of civilians.

There are lots of thinkers and tinkers with unknown surveillance gadgets around. If random people started running amok in big numbers, all attention would focus on him. Even with big precautions he would be in danger.
Far better to avoid making the same list as the S9.

 

Yeah I got the feeling that his personality was what limited the use of his powers. Skitter's big advantage seems to be how pragmatically she uses her abilities. She went into the cape biz with the knowledge that her power would be considered third tier. I'd imagine that the more powerful the cape is, the less creatively they're inclined to use their powers.

 

As a general rule, I'd say that's pretty much how it is. Unless they're the type of person to thoroughly experiment with their powers, they wouldn't immediately expand upon what they can do since they can usually achieve their aims with its basic use. At least until they encounter a situation that requires some creativity or are defeated somehow.

And that can probably be inverted where weaker capes remain so because they believe they can't amount to much with their powers or aren't good at thinking outside of the box.

 

I've convinced myself that Taylor has some insidious thinker power that lets her steal all of the best tricks from the capes around her. She's seriously way too good at the in-the-moment analysis thing, and I love that she keeps bringing back battle strategies that allies and enemies have used.

How To Be An Evil Overlord schooling this chapter was epic.

 

Hm...do you think Regent's power could be used to change people's memories? To essentially brainwash them? It's a more subtle way of control but I don't think it's that different from what he's doing now.

 

It's been stated pretty explicitly that Regent controls bodies. Nothing about a person's brain is affected, which is why I'd imagine that if he were to get a hold of Skitter, her power would still be completely hers and intact.

 

I thought it was control of the entire nervous system, including the brain?

Edit: Oh, "decoding the nervous system" is what's stated on the cast list.

From 2.9, Tattletales' explanation: “It’s a bit complicated to explain, but basically, Alec can get into people’s nervous systems. This lets him fire off impulses that set off reflexes or make body parts jerk into motion."

They're both quite vague about the limits of his power.

 

It's been said quite clearly, that he only controls the body. The mind is still there, awake and aware when under control.

 

Talk about a friggin nightmare. Your body won't obey. Ughhh. *shudders*

Man, this arc is amazing so far. The Cape formerly known as Taylor is really taking off a lot of her gloves, on the impression that Dinah wants her too. Could bite her in the ass, later.

 

It wouldn't be; He gets control over powers that aren't physical at all.

On a seperate note, I noticed there's a bit of conflict in the timeline, maybe. Alexandria (Rebecca Costa-Brown) knew that there were superheroes (“Twenty or something?” “No less than fifty, now”)[Alexandria's Interlude] on August 20th, 1986. Scion first appeared on May 20th, 1982 [Danny's Interlude]. However, the very same interlude also stated that the first superheroes emerged “Starting just five years after Scion’s first appearance".

However, that’s only four and a half years after Scion’s first appearance. It may be nitpicking, but I doubt that a cancer ridden child (teenager?) would be up to date with the news, and it's unlikely that the population of superheroes (specifically, not parahumans in general) would more than double in a few days/weeks. In all likelihood, there's a need for mild revision regarding the news report in 1.x, unless it was intentional; Four years instead of five.

 

Just a thought, but he has to go through a long and intensive process of gaining control of a person. This could be a bit like learning to use a 'third hand', it's just another whole body. His extensive experience with it (and maybe some in-power reason) could justify how quickly he picks it up.

It could be during this 'torture' he finds ways to make them do small things with their powers. Once he has felt how the power is used in a certain way, he can replicate it with his own powers. Then, as he uses a person in the field he can probably exploit any reflexive uses of their powers to learn even more about the kinds of manipulations of their nervous system he has to make in order to get certain affects. It's a bit scary, really, to think that Regent's control would only improve in time, he could even learn to do things that they would never discover on their own!

 

Regent might describe Shatterbird's power as non-physical, but technically she controls glass through sound. Skitter's power is literally all in the mind, and everyone who's tried to subvert it has failed.

Let me ask another question: Do you believe that Regent could take over Tattletale and use her power? I do not.

 

I haven't been following the argument close enough to have a point of view. I just thought I'd point out that there's something physical about Skitter's power, seeing as Coil was able to very crudely replicate it with his bug controlling machine. I don't know if that affects your arguments or not.

 

Careful... that was a tinker! Throw out your rulebooks, now.

 

Yeah, it was Leet; felt like his powerset was the ability to make anything that would fit in a classic Bond film or silver age supervillain getup once.

 

Honestly, I don't think we can really know until Wildbow says something on the subject.

 

Speaking of which, he's on irc now...

 

It's nice to see more from the other members of the Undersiders. The last action-packed arcs didn't leave much room for their characterization or team dynamics since everything occurred on such a large scale. I was just thinking that Regent and Grue and Imp were starting to become background characters when these chapters came out. Good job, wildbow.