Thought you always romance Ortega ; D
Some of your old comments gave me the impression that you hated him and I remembered that
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nah, not on an evil route. I donāt let them do any Smoochies lol
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These are the best, haha
Ok, hereās mine:
Ace - Want her to go back to being a puppet.
Mortum - Leave her if useful. Kill if sheās up to some shit against MC.
HG - Complicated but I like them.
Ortega - Kill. I feel this is the only way if I want him to fuck off for good. Heās obsessed and will probably never give up on āsavingā MC.
Argent - I donāt want her dead. I would rather have her become a villain and MCās companion. Tho I doubt sheād ever be interested in cooperating if I killed one of the Rangers.
Steel - Maybe he would be useful ally but as above Argent.
Herald - Complicated.
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For my Sidestep, dubbed Puppetmaster:
Ace: Kill her. Tie up loose ends
Mortum: Barely interacted in book 2. Still a useful resource.
HG: An obvious threat. Manage or eliminate.
Ortega: Oh god I confessed a crush.
Argent: Threat. Something more going on.
Steel: Enemies. As much as we have in common under the surface.
Herald: God damn it, the kidās a ball of sunshine and Iām his mentor now.
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I do have a more āunhingedā Step, which is why I picked āI have manyā. But my main Step is not super bloodthirsty, or regular bloodthirsty for that matter.
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The series is about being a villain so you can bet I WILL be a villain.
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I wonder if we will meet the Crack or hear more about their crusade in Revelations? From the Ochoa interview scene in Retribution (for the hero trainer route), it seems like they are/were a reformer who saw villainy as the best way to get their message heard (so they were a villain but not a bad personāa well-intentioned extremist at worst). At least thatās what I got from the text.
Also in Ending 4.2, I kinda want to see sympathetic Ortega suggesting (to Herald for me, but Argent and Steel should also get a similar scene. Heck, Steel might suggest it if heās wondering if the villainsona is really a bad person at all) that they and Sidestep seek out the villainsona (if villainsona is a hero trainer or truth-driven anarchist) for answers and possibly even assistanceā¦while Sidestep is in the room, saying nothing.
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All three of my Sidesteps will kill and and have already killed, but generallyā¦
Mercenary: every Ranger (canāt be trusted, too unreliable, Ortega constantly gets into his shit), all of the Farm, Hollow Ground (made him waste a perfectly good puppet) and maybe someone else. Since he doesnāt romance anyone and has the scar which makes him mostly emotionless husk seeing people as tools, I donāt think heās going to feel any remorse.
Atilla: Rangers, one by one. May spare Herald to rub it into his face that he canāt do shit about them. All of the Farm, again. Hollow Ground they donāt really care about, they live for the thrills of fighting and would probably make a good Adam Smasher.
Anathema: Kill every last one of them because she wants to see Los Diablos burn. Every single civilian, every single superhero and villain, the Farm, the Rangers (no, she doesnāt have a crush on Ortega, stop asking), the government, the re-Genes. Let blood and fire rain on top of people as she makes them feel what she felt and makes them feel how sweet revenge tastes. Absolutely will kill herself after that and laugh maniacally before that since sheās incredibly, incredibly unstable even for a Sidestep.
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Anathema sounds exactly like one of my villains. The other two are also killers, but not such psychos xD
I wanted to combine maximum orange with unique flavour text for playing as a woman, and so was born my third child, Ai Bao. I hope to get most of the content with these three because I really donāt want to create a Sidestep that doesnāt kill.
Thatās been my attitude.
Could I be some dark and tragic quasi villain but also kinda vigilante whoās redeemed into a proper hero? Sure. I guess.
But playing that way never felt right to me. I tried it a few times and eventually I just said āBeing evil is the only thing that really feels right here.ā
The more I thought about it, the more that the evil options just felt right for my Sidestep. Heās been pushed around and hunted all of his life. Forced to hide less he be dragged off to hell. He tried being a hero, or a vigilante as it were. And the more he learns about nearly everyone the more he feels justified in the evil.
A city full of corrupt people. The Rangers all having their secrets or their sense of superiority. Half of them (that I know of) are hiding major deceptions from Sidestep, Argent always looked down on him, Baroldās smug aura mocks him, etc. So why would Sidestep want to get closer to any of them? On all my playthroughs as I would get closer to so many characters I would see theyāre hiding major things or be outright willing to betray me.
So why not be evil? Why not focus on himself before anyone else? Life has fucked him over pretty hard so far, why not strike back and be that one with the power? The power to never be seen as some lesser thing ever again, who no one would ever betray.
Shoutout to Rosie for not looking down on me or betraying me. Iād wish she was a RO but as her boss it just wouldnāt be right to pursue her romantically. Just because my Sidestep is a murderous maniac with no regard for human life doesnāt mean heās okay with creating a hostile work environment.
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One of the reasons Iām glad there are no henchmances. Being able to romance someone in Aceās body is awful enough.
Gave my female Sidestep a crush on Chen. Just to make it hurt more.
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I want to. Ohhhh I want to. Hashtag RosieMyBeloved
But I get it.
It would be too obviously wrong. Most of the other romances can skate by on being āquestionableā. Maybe even highly questionable. But henchmances have a very clear and obvious power imbalance.
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I was playing Rebirth yesterday, and found something interesting. This happens if you decide to lie to the Rangers about no longer being a telepath.
Who is āherā?! My puppet is male, therefore itās not about Heartbreak since their gender is the same. If itās not Heartbreak, then naturally I suspect the Void! Who else would mess with Sidestepās head? Another evil āherā is Regina, but I doubt she can affect Sidestepās head directly like that. Also notice that Sidestep said it was ābeforeā they almost died, so before the Heartbreak Incident.
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Could just be a mistake/missed variable. Maybe tell the author?
Probably the Void who is referred to as āherā in the Revelations demo. That enounter happened before the Heartbreak, and had a serious impact on Sidestep.
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If itās talking about pre-heartbreak, then Iām pretty sure it is referring to Void simply because iirc itās either said somewhere or implied that said incident was a major change for Step in terms of their powers!
Other options simply wouldnāt make sense, since Step wouldnāt talk about Regina with Steel (or anyone, really) and I highly doubt thereās someone else out there.
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I thought it was one of these things that is confusing at first, but will pay off in the future when you learn more, and will make you go āso thatās what it was about?!ā 
Thatās why my mind went straight to the Void. Itās so fun to reread old books with new information and notice such things.
Yes, that was my thinking too. Itās interesting that Sidestepās thoughts turned to the Void rather than to Heartbreak, when they were trying to sound convincing about the loss of their telepathy during Heartbreak Incident. The Void really messed Sidestep up good.
The Void helped Sidestep to figure out how to possess people. Fascinating!
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And it will probably turn out that she somehow survived and maybe controls Sidestepās body
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You mean to tell me that up to 3, maybe even 4 people took residence inside Sidestepās mind???