Editing Taylor Hebert (section)

===Multitasking ===
Taylor has an almost limitless ability to focus on multiple insects at once, or to focus on other things while also using her insects.<ref name="15.9">[[Colony 15.9]]</ref><ref name="11.2c1">Re: Skitter’s power, she’s yet to demonstrate the inability to control some bugs because she was focusing on others or focusing on something else. Well, there was the bank robbery, but that was Panacea’s interference at work. It’s unstated, but multitasking abilities come part and parcel with her power, as far as her facility with her power is concerned. - 
[http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/infestation-11-2/#comment-2181 Comment by] Wildbow on [[Infestation 11.2]]</ref> She can give general instructions, in which case she is only vaguely aware of their movements, or guide individual insects through complex tasks, in which case she is more precisely aware of their movements and environment.<ref name="4.3c1">Taylor’s power is fairly nuanced, and I guess I haven’t really elaborated enough on that aspect of things. I tweaked the sweaty crotches part of the chapter just a tiny bit, and will strive to explain a little better in a later chapter. Long story short, Taylor’s sensory input from the bugs is vastly different depending on whether she’s giving them a general ‘find your way to me’ impulse or whether she’s focused enough on them individually to have them navigating their way into somebody’s underpants. In the former case, she’s drawn her bugs in while really stressed (such as when Bitch attacked her) without really noticing she was doing it. Things are that thin, that easy to block out.<br><br>You said “not at all recognizable from the ‘human’ perspective except by a good deal of piecing together of clues.” – Except she’s got a helluvalot of clues. Even fuzzy, blurry clues add up to a pretty strong mental picture when you’ve got enough of them. When there’s also context, with Taylor knowing in advance what her bugs are doing, there’s going to be (even if Taylor doesn’t really want to) a framing of those clues in a particular way. - [http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/shell-4-3/#comment-196 Comment by] Wildbow on [[Shell 4.3]]</ref> However, she could be distracted by the difficulty of focusing on her insects' senses,<ref name="14.4c2">[http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/prey-14-4/#comment-4228 Comment by] Wildbow on [[Prey 14.4]]</ref> and by Panacea's modified insects providing contradictory signals.<ref name="11.2c1"/><ref name="3.12">[[Agitation 3.12]]</ref> 

Behind the scenes, Taylor's [[shard]] handles this multitasking so that she can independently control those in her swarm. Outside of this ability, Taylor's power does not give her augmented multitasking: despite controlling multiple swarm-clones with her power, she was only capable of holding one conversation at a time.<ref>I focused on my swarm-clones, staying totally still while he worked on removing the metal end of the dart.  They were largely composed of flying bugs, but I was bulking each of the forms out as more bugs arrived, giving them a more solid mass.  I used my free hand to pop my ear-buds in.<br>[...]<br>Sierra had been coordinating everyone, trying to put people with experience in charge of people who were lacking it.  It was interesting, trying to hold multiple conversations at once with the various project leaders.  Difficult, too.  For one thing, my speech with my swarms was somewhat lacking, missing consonants, but I could still make myself more or less understood.  For another, my ears could only process one thing at a time.  I managed by talking with one or more swarm-clone while listening with one at a time.  After too many misfires and moments of confusion, I scaled down my efforts to a single conversation at once, simply standing silently by with my other selves.<br><br>I made a mental note to try to practice with that.  Exercising the range of my power hadn’t done anything for me, and there didn’t seem to be any upper limits to how many bugs I could control at once, but there had to be other ways I could train my abilities.  Multitasking was one I hadn’t tried yet.  Trying to interpret the senses of my bugs was another, though I feared it would take a more concerted effort to effect any sort of change. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/colony-15-7/ Excerpt] from [[Colony 15.7]]</ref> Her power can also perform actions automatically that Taylor did not intend to do. For example, Taylor was so focused on listening to a conversation that her bugs reacted to her irritation and revealed that she was eavesdropping.<ref>“Guys!”  Miss Militia stood from her chair, the feet screeching against the ground.  She raised her voice another notch.  “Look.”<br><br>She pointed at the window.<br><br>I moved my bugs to check for whatever it was she was pointing at, then stopped.<br><br>She was pointing at the ''bugs''.  They’d reacted to my irritation, and were swirling just beyond the window of the conference room, clustering on the glass surface.<br><br>“Is she making a move?”  Tagg asked.<br><br>“No.  They’re… just there.  Reacting,” Miss Militia said.  “To this.  Here.”<br><br>“She’s watching,” Tagg said.<br><br>“Watching what?  There’s nothing to look at,” Miss Militia said.  “Think about it.  What this is to her.”<br><br>“She hears,” Mrs. Yamada finished the thought.<br><br>I shut my eyes, swore under my breath.  I’d let my guard down.  I’d been too focused on what was going on inside the building, letting bugs cluster on the outside, that I’d given my reactions away.  So much for gathering intel. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/05/04 Excerpt] from [[Cell 22.1]]</ref> Her power would sometimes perform actions by habit,<ref name="24.4e1"/> when she was incapacitated,<ref>''Hey, passenger,'' I thought.  ''Do me a favor.  If I get taken out of action and you step up to fight, work on taking out Jack, alright?'' - [[Sting 26.4]]</ref> or when she was in an altered mental state,<ref name="26.2 e2">Passenger, I thought.  Been a while, trying to figure out how to make peace with the fact that you're there, that you're affecting me somehow, taking control whenever I'm not in my own mind.  I think we've made strides.  I've sort of accepted that you're going to do what you're going to do, whether that helps me or hurts me. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/sting-26-2/ Excerpt] from [[Sting 26.2]]</ref> without her conscious instruction.