Howdy! How’s it going? I’m a on a little sidestep hunt. Do you have a post where info dump on them?
howdy! I do not have any kind of info dump post on them so you can be the surprise recipient of all the info I have in my head.
my sidestep is Adam, though he wasn't originally called that. I didn't really know what to expect on first playthrough, and did not pick a good name. the last name on the save file is Green which is salvageable, but I don't think he even uses it really, and I don't love it so I should probably come up with a new one. he never tried to join rangers properly, never did the scary background check, and has always been extremely secretive in general about his fake identity.
their villain name is Rat King, which is once again another great example of me not knowing what the hell I'm getting myself into. I didn't realize the rat king targeting system would become kind of its own character in of itself if you lean into it (which I love), but I really liked the idea of my ss embracing the telepathy help as much as possible and kind of seeing himself as the leader of the rats. so anyways Rat King lives in the sewers and embezzles money from the rich.
their puppet is Eve. I saw Eden as an option and jumped to Eve instead and liked the idea of the Adam/Eve contrast.
Adam character build out:
tactician, but still somehow always makes the worst moves in combat and comes out with grievous injuries every time
suit is stealth appearance, plus cape, telepathic boosters, and jump jets. high spooky factor with little rat claws, mostly black although I like to imagine just the tiniest, tiniest details in a very dark, muted version of that sidestep teal or whatever you call that color.
hazel eyes, dark wavy hair that's very messy and somewhat short. I mostly picture him white/some hispanic. he is supposed to look extremely forgettable in los diablos on purpose, and not really stand out. ftm post escape from farm, but I think on kind of a longer timescale than you might guess.
high subtle manipulations, high obscurity, high-ish anonymity and high empathy. kind of 50/50 daring/cautious but he thinks he's very cautious. he's leaning way too much on his telepathy to get him out of every situation and even though it's not drawing as much media attention, he is risking Farm attention.
sugar addiction. my hc is the Farm never really ever supplied enough sugar/raw calories for his telepathy to ever be at full strength. I imagine he lived on MRE style granola bar meal replacements that tasted like shit and were not filling pre-escape, and still struggles to understand "meals" as a general concept. he's mostly worried about intaking enough sugar to power his brain never actually sleeping because he's puppeting Eve at night.
romancing male ortega, and doing it in the most toxic way (pushing ortega away in person and then flirting with him through Eve). also still flirts with anyone and everyone both as self and as puppet. I think this is ingrained into him through training and a really hard habit to shake.
grungy, military surplus outfits. lots of baggy, thick layers, but also still wears a really old sidestep skinsuit that they stashed in some abandoned building somewhere. that keeps their scars and tattoos covered.
truly believes that everything he's doing is just inevitable and his fate. cannot picture another way to do any of this. a lot of his vibes are sorta Resignation to the nth degree.
really like the chen/ss enemies to tentative friends. strangely, chen is the only person that Adam actually breaks down in front of in retribution. I think it has to do something with the fact that despite everything, Adam does kind of trust chen (trusts chen to hate him either way, and then is kind of surprised by when chen is kinda nice sometimes) and a little bit wants to prove chen right (prove chen's suspicion of him)
Eve character build out:
very tall, brown hair brown eyes. kind of Camille Belle in Push (2009) if she had beauty marks (im obsessed with this movie. for reasons). beautiful in a way that Adam maybe used to be but no longer is, because he picked her to be a tool like he was. to get what he wants. and no he hasn't thought very deeply about that.
aikido training absolutely my number 1 pick every single time. whats better than a beautiful woman who can toss you over her shoulder.
relatively high independence, but Adam is oblivious to some of her precog abilities. Adam is continually surprised and confused by how different everything feels when puppeting Eve. this is partly I think like crazy dissociation from his side of the connection and also her not being as empty as she's supposed to be obviously.
other stuff:
being devastatingly injured at the diner meeting is a canon event to me. I <3 having terrible wounds on your back and then getting a tender hug from an old crush and having to freeze up so you don't accidentally reveal you're injured.
type of guy in general to do everything in his power to ignore injuries until he's alone and no one is looking at him. he WILL make injuries worse by refusing to limp or favor an injured limb. this is farm training at its finest. Never Show Weakness or Perish type attitude.
during vigilante career with rangers, ss tried to make himself look androgynous "for anonymity" (heavy scarequotes here) before realizing he wanted to actually just straight up transition. it took a while for him to wrap his head around, and he's kind of still doing it. puppeting Eve for a bit really made him question things all over again.
only kissed ortega once in his days as sidestep. the psychopathor fight was a spur of the moment thing, and Adam was scared of getting close to anyone. he kinda awkwardly went back to doing their little flirtatious quips but always ducked out of it when it got too intense.
ended retribution stuck in puppet and crashed. kind of a hilarious nightmare to pick a puppet whos a pretty lady like you used to have to be, and then nightmare ending you get stuck in the pretty lady body you tried so hard to escape from. also me when i get too comfortable in my puppet and then my puppet gets the chance to be comfortable in me. :)
I do like the herald/ss/ortega threeway shit going on. kind of hilarious to be in an ot3 that's me, my peepaw, and my weird son. I'm not sure if it's a fit for Adam though. he's too distrusting and was scared that sparring with herald would out him as the villain. he's really stayed distant and vaguely horrified by herald's whole attitude for everything wrt to sidestep.
I haven't played any of the game 3 demos because I don't like getting spoiled and I don't like like playing early access anyways. however. I really am praying for a jakey romance for Eve or myself kinda. I want to crush this man like little grape tomato...
i really hope game 3 is still playable with the ending i did for game 2. like there's just no way in rp hell that Adam who has been desperately trying to preserve his anonymity for all of the time that he has been out of the farm, would ever show up to the meeting with Hollow Ground with no armor, no puppet, just rawdogging this mysterious meeting for no reason, no incentive. but a big fear of mine is that I'll just be like. crazy out of the loop for game 3.... we will see.....
anyways. smile :) hope this helps. not sure what other info there is to info dump about.
