If you visit him in the hospital after the battle, the text mentions that the nurses shaved half his mustache in order to stitch a split lip back together. Then you can decide to clown on him saying it’s a victory for good taste (which will cause him to shave it) or that it was lonely and ran to find a beard to hang out with (then he’ll grow one).
You probably have to be in a romance. And to visit him, you have to do well enough in the gala fight that you aren’t scarred or seriously injured.
He does that even if MC is just a friend.
Thanks for helping elaborate. I always romance him because I’m trash 
Thank you!
Do you have to seriously injure him in order to be able to visit him or you just need to win again him? My MC has a soft spot for Orterga so they can’t hurt him … too much 
Just win. I don’t usually beat him up too much either.
I loled as I’ve read this. Since I always go for female ROs obviously I never saw this scene when I played the game. I wonder if he’d care this much if it’d be the Puppet who criticizes their appaerence or it’s just the MC whos opinion they care so much about.
Thank you! That’s good to know 
You can make fun of him as the puppet which doesn’t affect his choice to shave 
I’m not sure if someone has mentioned this before and if so, I’m sorry for sounding like a broken record here but this is a lengthy thread and I might have missed a comment or two.
But since I personally believe the MC is a Re-Gene that somehow escaped the farm (twice!) they could have their body covered with those creepy Re-Genes tattoos. Maybe that’s why they seem to have such a strong aversion to their own body - to the point they refuse to look in the mirror while naked. If you get injured during the Psychopathor fight in the warehouse, the MC uses their puppet to heal themselves and even then, in such a dire situation, they still make some comment about their body.
There’s also a passing phrase I didn’t think much of the first time I’ve played the game, but that caught my eye during my rerun: If you pick that you and Ortega used to flirt (which I always do lol) the MC thinks “nothing can ever come of your occasional flirting”. And I think they make a similar comment further into the game - that there is no way they would ever be intimate with anyone. Maybe it’s not only because they don’t like the way their body looks, but because they have marks on their skin that would immediately reveal they’re not just another nobody.
But if so, I don’t know why the tattoos would just be branded in the body and not the MCs face. Maybe they were meant to be some kind of infiltration unit to spy on the masses? 
What do y’all think? Am I reading too much into things?
I think your idea could definitely turn out to hold some merit, personally I hadn’t looked at it that way I just assumed that the MC had been experimented on while at the farm, and now they’ve got scars that remind them of the past and that’s why they hate looking at themselves. Although I think your idea is a lot more exciting.
I honestly assumed that the MC being a Re-Gene with the tattoos on their body was more canon than theory? Like, that is what popped into my head and it seemed so obvious to me that I never once doubted that this was in fact the truth. I’d be very surprised if this didn’t turn out zo be the case, tbh.
The MC obviously has issues with their body and keeps wondering what the Rangers would think if they knew what MC was, plus it’s pretty obvious that MC is afraid of The Farm. Or is it? Now I’m wondering if I got it wrong…
No, I think you’re on to something. Either they are a Re-Gene or a clone, I’m guessing. My first impression was that the telepaths were trained to control a cluster of Re-Genes on the battlefield. But possibly the MC is an infiltration model due to the references to training, being forgettable, etc.
Also, the body insecurity happens before the Heartbreak incident as well as after. If you choose a flirty relationship with Ortega, your MC thinks to themselves that it’s a good thing he’s too much of a gentleman to try anything more or you’d have to shut him down. So while the MC was probably experimented on again after capture, they do have something on their body they want to hide from the very beginning.
If they’re meant to be an infiltration unit, why have the tattoos at all? Seems like an uneeded risk of being found out. The tattoos are meant to proclaim to everyone around them that these things are not human. But one that is meant to pass for human? Why would you compromise its role like that? I personally think that the MC’s aversion to looking at themselves is to do both with their anger at themselves, and that it’s a very physical reminder that they are no longer Sidestep (No more washboard stomachs here.) And as for their reluctance to be intimate with people, that can be explained by their need, even as Sidestep, to keep people at arms length.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the re-gene theory, in fact I posted about it back before the game was released. I just don’t think that they’d have the re-gene tattoos.
Adding to this: if you leave your body in the hospital for too long (because your puppet invited Mortem home and…), the MC comments that if a nurse stripped them down “it would be all over”, or something along those lines.
What if we literally did die during the heartbreak incident . Regenes are supposed to be spare parts. What if somehow either our MC mind jumped into our spare parts body. Or our spare parts had similar powers and jumped into our body. Or the puppet is our actual real physical body which is why we feel comfortable jumping into it but uncomfortable jumping into our MC or another host.
My friend and I were literally talking about this last night! We also figured that the mc’s body was covered in tattoos, along with lots of scars. During the Psychopathor fight, I believe the mc mentions they were not supposed to ever be out in the field, so maybe they were going to be used to brainwash people? Or other behind-the-scenes things.
Theory: The Puppet is the MC but ironically is so traumatized by the heartbreak incident they think they can only use their powers in the Re-gene they jumped into during the heartbreak incident. You psychically project yourself to look like the MC while as the Re-gene as an unconscious power. And you unconsciously look like the persona you wear as puppet keeping others from recognizing you . To recap. When your the Re-gene you make people believe your the MC unconsciously. When you’re the MC/Puppet you make people believe you aren’t the MC.
It’s pretty obvious that he’s a Re-Gene. The wording for gender choice pretty much confirms it.
Feel like that’s a stretch… Also you can choose how you feel in your puppet when your a different gender.
How so? I don’t recall anything out of the ordinary.