The player has no idea if the power MC gained from Moonsong, Emerald and Kat are the same those girls are using.
At a glance yes. MC has a wolf, can make his hands glow green and spawn a copy of himself. But neither of those effects are all the girl is capable of.
With Evelyns power it is the same.
MC can live the dream of his target and at first glance it appears to work the same way Evelyn has described. Obviously he never has seen this in action as Evelyn is unable to show it.
It could be that Evelyn sees the dream in psychedelic colors for all we know. Just because she allegedly has not mentioned it before (MC has horrible memory problems at times) does not mean it is not that way.
It is not sure these are the very same and your evidence points at this irrefutable fact.
You merely SPECULATE that MC has the exact same power at the exact same power level.
Whether YOUR speculation is correct or MY speculation is correct remains to be seen.
So basically the metagen does absolutely everything and the super(hero or villain) is "only" the receiver?
Interesting idea.
One that is not really plausible without further explanation, but interesting.
At present, there is not any significant evidence that the powers MC gains work fundamentally different that cannot just as likely be explained by other hypotheses. Therefore, stating that MC's powers work different is speculation. It sounds like we're in agreement on this.
Comparatively, while limited, there is
some significant evidence that the powers seem the same. Saying that MC has "no idea" if the powers he gained are the same is not accurate. He knows he can summon a wolf, he knows he can create green energy, he knows he can create clones, and now he knows that he can see visions of someone he's touched that day during his sleep. His ability to communicate with his wolf and direct it appears to be consistent with Moonsong's expectations, and the power allows him to communicate with hers too. The clones he creates appears to allow him to perceive and feel what the clone does (remember that the real Kat appears to feel what her clone does, and obviously would need to see through her clone's eyes to interact with MC in the stall). These are all functions that match rather than differ from the capabilities of the people they originated from, and none of the people whose power he's gained has been surprised by anything he's done with their power if they've observed him using it. Admittedly, he has some pretty small samples with several of these powers, but that's still way more than "no idea" and way more than could support the hypothesis that the core function of powers is different for MC.
So while he doesn't yet know if the
full functionality and/or power limit is the same because he hasn't spent time learning and testing his limits, he can likely conclude that significant aspects of them are the same. After all, he didn't gain the ability to summon, say, a mountain lion or to create clones of other people rather than himself. Saying definitively that they are the exact same would be a stretch, but saying "the core function thus far appears the same" is a reasonable conclusion based on the observable evidence. For now, it's the most plausible working theory until we learn more and it's much less speculative than the hypothesis that the core function differs.
My comment that MC's control being limited is probably due to his inexperience is indeed speculation, though several other people in-game have mentioned that it's not unexpected. After all, everyone else has taken years to learn to use their power. But that's a separate statement when compared to the "core function" of how the power works. As an analogy, the fundamental mechanics behind a punch can be the same for two people, even if the power behind it is different due differences in muscles or training.
In either case, the key point I was originally trying to make is that MC viewing Marina does not conflict with any of the information we've so far been presented regarding how Evelyn's power functions and is in fact consistent with what we know. In fact, it can be interpreted as further evidence that the power likely works the same, since it's consistent with the "rules" Evelyn has shared with us. Therefore, the fact MC views Marina cannot reasonably be considered evidence to support the hypothesis that his power works differently, at least unless we get additional information from Evelyn that contradicts this.
Speaking of speculations, maybe it's a little bit of both. I think the "imprint" idea doesn't necessarily have to break any rules with how her power works (or anyone's for that matter).
It's a virus after all, so it's possible that metagen is transferred every time any two people touch (sort of like how we deposit germs or skin cells on other people we touch in the real world), but it's completely independent of any one power. It wouldn't matter if the person has manifested or not, they're still depositing and transferring metagen on everything and everyone, but that metagen interacts differently depending on specific arbitrary rules of an individual's manifested power. So you can think of it not as a single person imprinting metagen on another person, but as the metagen itself imprinting on many persons.
This could perhaps explain why MC wound up scrying into Marina after he acquired Evelyn's power. The metagen was deposited earlier on but the conditions for them to activate were simply met later when he fell asleep without properly selecting a host as per the rules of his newly acquired power.
It could be as simple as the visions are chosen from DNA still present on the skin. If you touch somebody, you are likely to be carrying their skin cells around on you for several hours. Thus when he gets the power is irrelevant because Marina's skill cells are still present.
These ideas are pretty consistent with my own as to why MC was able to view Marina despite gaining Evelyn's power later in the day. I suspect either some "generic" mutagen/DNA was transferred from MC to Marina or MC "picked up" something from Marina during the day that later allowed him to view her. And the one-day limitation may be that this degrades over time to the point that it's too weak the next day. Definitely speculation, but either of these could work given what we know (which is definitely limited).
