Stitches

A psychic Frankenstein's monster

“We could vivisect you or we could compose a sonnet about your nose. So many possibilities…”

Nobody really knows where the supervillain named Stitches came from. Maybe she doesn’t remember herself. What is known is that she’s demonstrated considerable skill as a surgeon and psychologist, even before she started her activities as a villain.

Stitches is capable of acquiring skills and experiences telepathically, as long as she’s in physical contact with the person she’s borrowing from. Horrifically, however, she realized that she need only be in contact with a part of them. A skin graft, or a digit, perhaps… Thus, she has turned herself into a Frankenstein’s monster, a patchwork of stolen flesh that gives her access to dozens of lives’ worth of talents. She uses this stolen expertise to make bombs and gadgets, concoct ingenious heists, set traps, and defeat heroes by messing with their minds.

Other telepaths who’ve dared to contact her mind describe it as an unstable mental gestalt, with dozens of voices shouting constantly at each other. The chaos makes it impossible to defeat her mentally, and her melange of skills makes her challenging to take down physically. Her one weakness, it seems, is the superhero known as The Fractal - a person just as superhumanly skilled as herself, but who retained her own sanity. This trait is the one thing Stitches herself couldn’t manage. The feeling of inferiority it set up makes her the Fractal’s avowed nemesis.

Playing Stitches

Stitches is an agent of chaos. Her motivation, to the extent she can be said to have one, is to punish everybody and everything for making sense. She has a cacophony of stolen souls in her mind, so it’s easy to justify her doing almost anything, from violent crime to whimsical, victim-free capers.

She is a clear take on DC’s villain the Joker, but with a power that makes it easier for her to stand up to more heroes.

Plots

Stop Stitches’ latest chaotic caper
Rescue Stitches’ latest potential victims
Find and disarm traps or bombs Stitches planted around an area

Dialogue

“You’ll see, hero, you’ll see how nonsensical everything really is! We’ll show you!”
“We’ll destroy everything you ever—! Oh, is that a petunia? My god, what lovely petals.”
“We’re not feeling… myself today. Help? Die. It’d help me if you died? Hmm. Yes.”

Comic Book Panels

An expert is analyzing the real scope of Stitches’ latest scheme, including traps and contingencies the heroes have discovered. They wearily mutter, “it’d take a dozen specialized skills to neutralize all this.”

Suddenly, Stitches pulls the pins on the grenades she’s carrying, and begins juggling them. Are they going to go off? Does she know? Does she care? Will she throw them? They could go anywhere…

Stitches threatens to do something that horrifies onlookers. This could involve harm to the body or some similar violation. Worse, she seems to have come equipped with the tools to do the task.

Variations

Skill Acquisition

Stitches’ power can be pretty horrific, as per some depictions of the Joker in DC Comics. This can be toned down (or ramped up, but please use safety tools regardless)
Other options exist, like drinking someone’s blood to gain their skills - this requires little more than knives or needles to accomplish, and can be awful without being gory

Mental Integrity

Stitches can be as chaotic or as driven as you want. Maybe she’s truly at the mercy of all the voices in her head, and her “capers” really make no sense - and are hence harder to anticipate.
Stitches might also be able to promote a certain voice or impulse, at least for awhile, letting it dominate the others. This might mean that Stitches is chaotic and unpredictable in the long term, but for the duration of a job, she can stay on task with a terrifying intensity.

Motives

Why is Stitches causing chaos? Maybe as a coping mechanism, maybe as a violent and impulsive outlet, maybe as drives inherited from all the minds she’s touched and still holds onto
She might (somehow) have a long-term plan, like destroying the Fractal once and for all, or achieving some other goal from her all-too-mysterious past