Complete Control Design Notes

Monday
In season 5, I want to have a jailbreak featuring all of the (living) villains that our heroes have rounded up over the years. It would be a great reunion with everyone from the past seasons, and an opportunity to see how they all interact with each other. Chloe (from season 2) could be leading the charge, being assisted on the outside by her secret boss Flora.

Last Tuesday:
So, to sum up:
Isaac is on his own, searching for Alex, who's also on his own.
Emily is on her own, teleporting uncontrollably throughout London.
Peter and Yvonne are laying low together, occasionally beating up Daniel's goons.
Vivian, Wyatt and Olivia (V.O.W.) are together, hiding from Daniel but also trying to figure out their powers.

So in episode 11, I think I'll go back to Emily, Isaac and Alex. It will take place the day after the previous episode, so we're still 2.5 months into Year 1. It starts with Emily and her parents going to their family doctor. It's been three weeks since Emily's first episode, and she's had little progress with her teleportation. She's zipping throughout the room, straining to not go any further. The doctor, obviously, has no idea what's going on or how to fix it. He's a medical doctor, what's he supposed to do? Emily starts fading out, and then she vanishes, nowhere to be found.

Last Wednesday
Here's more on episode 11.

We switch from Emily to Isaac. He's got notes everywhere, recordings of the times he's telepathically come in contact with the other Controllers-to-be. Two really catch his eye: this one guy who appears to be moving stuff with his mind and of whom Isaac has the clearest picture; and this one girl who keeps popping up in different locations. Just then, Isaac senses the girl. She's moving wildly, but only in a small area. Isaac goes to look for her.

He ends up at a park. There's no one around, but Isaac can sense Emily. He tries to call out to her, telling her that she's not alone, that there's others like her, people who have weird shit happening to them. But then, Isaac's powers go on the fritz too. Emily gets bombarded with a storm of Isaac's superpowered accelerated thoughts. Understandably, Emily freaks out and this causes her to teleport away.

Isaac, defeated, goes back home. He looks over his notes, lightly sensing hundreds of people in the area. Isaac then goes to his kitchen to prepare something for Emily.

Last Thursday
During episode 11, when Isaac's first looking at his notes, I want to show him sensing Alex. It will be the only clear picture Isaac has. With this, we can segue into a scene with Alex.

He's out in an open field with his family, surrounded by objects of various sizes. His family is behind a homemade blast shield. They've been going out there for over a month now. Suddenly, a few chairs start vibrating. One starts floating, the other slides across the ground, and one flies off into the sky. Alex's step-dad says that it's an improvement, just before a can gets crushed into a ball and thrown at the blast shield.

Just to show how Alex is doing.

Friday
Emily ends up back in the park next morning. She sees a package on the ground, addressed from Isaac. She opens it to find a box of muffins and juice boxes. There's a letter on top. Isaac apologizes for scaring her last night, and tells her what he meant to tell her last night: that she's not alone, that there's others like her. She should be safe from him at their current distance.

He promises to bring food when he can, but he won't always get right where she is. He suggests that she find a boy, the one he's seen in his visions. He warns her that he has telekinesis, but he's gaining control. He offers a drawing. The episode ends with Emily calmly vanishing out of the park.

Saturday
Wait a minute.
Why do I even need Flora?

The only reason I created her was because I wanted a villain to be the surprise secret leader of Last Laugh, by filling in as "Fluorene" on the Halogen group on the Periodic Table. She doesn't really have a character of her own, other than that she's a fuck. If I want a chaotic villain, I already have the Storm.

So discard everything you know about Flora. Instead, I will take a pre-existing villain and make them "Fluorene". And that villain is Cedric. Well, his name is now Florence, and I guess he's a woman now. Her character is the same, I've just added Flora's role as the mastermind behind Last Laugh to her. And this means I won't be killing Cedric in season 6 like I planned.

Essentially, I'm fusing Cedric and Flora into one character, Florence.

Sunday
Character idea for season 2! Meet Vincent Von Wegberg. He's a celebrity in-universe. That bit's important, it's why I made him. I want a character who's already famous, like a movie star, and give them superpowers. How would a celebrity, who already faces huge media pressure, handle their powers?

As for his Supply; he can select a pillar of the floor/ground below him and rip it out. He can do many things to this pillar: he can rip it apart, heat it up, electrically charge it, etc. But he can only do it to the pillar.

Last Monday
My goal with writing Florence (Cedric now combned with Flora) is to make a villain. Like, write an absolutely horrible human being. The most horrendous, vile, cruel, vicious, morally bankrupt person imaginable. Of course, I want to do all of this while giving her character real depth. I want her to be completely unsympathetic, but also believable.

Last Tuesday
Nakaloropteka.
Pronounced na-KA-lo-ROP-te-KA.
Potential true name for the Arm Alight?
I just really like how it sounds.

Feb. 5
The emphasis of season 1 is the chaotic beginnings of superpowers; our eight protagonists are all getting powers but can't control them. I'm thinking now that each character's Supply should develop in a distinct way. They'll have different problems of different severity at different rates.

Feb. 6
Emily Durnin's powers get more out of control the less she uses them. This results in her wildly zipping around the city of London throughout the first season. Once she starts willingly using her powers, the zipping stops.

Feb. 7
Isaac Testardo's powers in season 1 are constantly at a low-level use. Everywhere he goes, he hears the thoughts and sees the memories of everyone around him. After a certain amount of time, the droning stops.

Feb. 8
Alexander Everest powers go on the fritz randomly. With no warning, his telekinesis suddenly starts throwing stuff around. The thing is, Alex can use his powers best when they're out of control like this. Normally, Alex can't produce much energy, barely enough to lift a can. At these special moments, though, his potential rises exponentially.

Feb. 9
Olivia Espada has the opposite problem of Emily. Aside from the general difficulty actually accessing her Supply (like everyone has), the more she uses her powers, the more chaotic they get. She can heat up one spoon for five seconds with no problem, but make her melt a whole pile of spoons and you run the risk of her accidentally setting your house on fire.

Feb. 10
Wyatt Butler's particular power problem in season 1 is that he can never get the right form of energy. Remember that Wyatt has access to multiple forms of energy; he just can't use any of it beyond an arm's reach. Additionally, in season 1, whenever Wyatt tries to use a specific form of energy (heat up a pile of wood, telekinetically lift a car), he accidentally uses something else. For instance, he might telekinetically lift the pile of wood, or heat up the car.

Feb. 11
As for Yvonne Sauveterre, her problem in season 1 is that she can never get the magnitude of her powers right. She tries to lift just one can, she might fling a car across the parking lot. She tries to shoot out a massive lightning bolt, she might not even be able to power a calculator.

Feb. 12
Peter Brandt, at first, has to constantly make a conscious effort to not use his powers. If he stops trying to suppress them, his Supply starts going off on its own.

Feb. 13
I'm gonna make things simple for Vivian Zhao. During season 1, I'm just gonna make her Supply shift between powers far more rapidly than in the rest of the show.

Feb. 14
I should explore the ocean some time.

It's been said we know more about space than we do our own ocean floor. Well how cool would it be if Encore actually made expeditions to the bottom of the ocean?  It would make for some great season 2 episodes.

Feb. 15
Season titles! Except now they're called Volumes.
Volume 1: Opening Up
Volume 2: Supply and Demand
Volume 3: Hidden Agenda
Volume 4: Loss of Life
Volume 5: Second Chance
Volume 6: A Brand New Clock
Volume 7: Free Reign

Feb. 16
Let's start on episode 12!

I want to make this a Vivian/Olivia/Wyatt episode. It's been a week since episode 9. Olivia is leaving her house to meet up with Vivian and Wyatt. She and her mom have a little moment where Mrs. Espada thinks Olivia is hiding something from her regarding the grocery store fire and she's worried about her daughter. Olivia tells her she's fine, not ready to tell her about her sort-of-superpowers. She exits through the door.

Feb. 17
Later into episode 12, our three protagonists gather behind Vivian's house. They begin summarizing everything they know; for about three months now, they've all been exhibiting some strange abilities, which they seem to be able to control at least sometimes. The emergence of these abilities seems to have coincided with the stray meteor shower we saw in episode 1. V.O.W. discover that they were all close targets of meteors that night.

And now, some sort of gang or cult or whatever is seeking them out, supposedly because they all have powers. Vivian suspects that there are more people with powers, and that the goons are searching for them too.

Feb. 18
They begin trying to use their powers voluntarily, a practice that Vivian and Wyatt have stated to be doing for a few weeks now. Vivian is still perplexed as to why she started teleporting a week ago, and why her electromagnetism powers have stopped occuring since then. Wyatt demonstrates his incapability to use the right power, and Olivia nearly burns Vivian's house down trying to light a campfire.

Moved to the Workshop.

So it's been a while. Over two years and four months, in fact.

I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna fucking do it. I'm gonna come up with an idea for every day that's past since.

Soon. Not right now. And the story's changed quite a bit in some ways since 2014, so some ideas I was working on may not really exist anymore.