#GooH side story tag

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the big anteros reference sheet. this is more specifically just for visual reference—if you want to know more about him personally, check out my pinned and/or ask me! i’m more than happy to talk about him or my canon or whatever

pre-sr1 and AU outfits under the cut, as a bonus

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really happy to be back working on this in-between story again. lots of thoughts. saints in hell but hell is just nevada

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some morning doodles while i try to figure out what i wanna do for the post-srtt rewrite/pre-sriv rewrite in-between story. not entirely sure on the direction and visuals i want; the very basics of the plot are loosely based on GooH with kinzie and johnny teaming up to save anteros.

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think i’ve figured out why i’ve been defaulting to doodling kinzteros lately and it’s cuz i’ve been working on the GooH-based side story again. still needs an actual title.

but anyway. the reunion in that.

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more concept stuff for my new in-between story, loosely based off GooH. takes place after the srtt rewrite but before the sriv rewrite. details under the cut

it’s several months after the srtt rewrite epilogue. dex and anteros killed eric gryphon and left the corporation in shambles. they cut all ties with ultor, while anteros and dex hesitantly went their separate ways.

the story opens on anteros and troy in stilwater, doing some shopping. shaundi is also with them, but she’s shopping elsewhere. all three were feeling kinda homesick after everything that happened, so they went back to run some errands and whatever else. anteros and troy are window shopping, looking at a jewelry store. troy makes some comment about anteros and kinzie and marriage; anteros feels weird discussing that with his ex but they laugh it off. the mood shifts suddenly, though, when they both realize simultaneously that there’s no other people in the area. they both put their hands on their guns, ready to draw. all at once they’re surrounded by people with tech that looks like both masako and STAG weaponry. confused but with no time to dwell on it, they fight back, but are easily outnumbered. troy gets shot in the side and pistol-whipped, incapacitating him. anteros gets distracted by this for a split second, leading to him also getting knocked out with the butt of one of the guns, and is taken away.

shaundi hears the gunfire from another part of the shopping district and is frantically calling them both as she runs towards the noise, but by the time she gets there, only an injured troy is left. she grabs him and calls johnny, explaining what happened as she makes her way to their car to head back to steelport.

cut to the saints HQ. everyone is rightfully confused, but regardless johnny tells them he’ll get anteros back. kinzie demands to go with him: she’s been reviewing security camera footage to retrace their last steps, she’s probably the only one who can even begin to track these guys, and most importantly: that’s her boyfriend they kidnapped. johnny agrees, and they head out.

anteros wakes up in an unknown location. he’s in what looks like an unfinished basement or room of a house. he’s tied up and gagged, so even if he wanted to talk to the two guards watching him, he couldn’t. he’s told by the guards he’s going to die here—they’re gonna take the saints’ money and kill their leader.

cut to kinzie and johnny in stilwater. they’re investigating the area, looking over footage, when suddenly kinzie gets a call from an unknown number. she answers, suspicious and already running tracking on it, and a man is on the other line. he tells her point blank that he has an idea of where anteros could be. he claims to be a former ultor employee with inside knowledge on some of their operations. kinzie asks how she can trust him, and he tells her it’s just a risk she’ll have to take. she doesn’t like that answer, but sure enough he sends her information and coordinates that lead to a desert in nevada, about 70 miles east of santo ileso. kinzie asks the man who he is, but he hangs up. her tracking on the number comes up empty, but she has her suspicions. johnny’s just raring to go though, since now they have a location.

MEANWHILE while all this is happening. back in steelport, troy and shaundi are starting to get to know each other. shaundi is sewing up the gunshot wound (just a graze on his side, thankfully nothing too serious), and just making sure he’s alright. she scoffs at him when he asks for a cigarette and drink while being laid up. she sees a lot of her old self in troy’s bad habits, and after the initial contention dies down, they start to reach an understanding. this later develops into one of the subplots of the sriv rewrite, where shaundi is helping troy with sobriety.

kinzie calls viola back at the HQ and asks her to fact-check what she can of the information she was given by the man over the phone. viola and kiki were ultor-affiliated assassins, and kiki and dane had a relationship—seeing as she’s the only one left, if anyone can verify any of the info, it’d be viola. viola is able to confirm some, but not all, of the details.

it’s at this time that the saints receive a message from the perpetrators, demanding millions of dollars in exchange for anteros. they’re all suspicious, as money seems like an odd reason for all this, especially considering their appearances of STAG and masako soldiers. but more on that in a minute.

so as it turned out, ultor and their associates were doing weapons testing in the desert, surprising to no one. and the location anteros is being held at is one of their sites. the location itself is a “doom town,” which means it’s an entirely constructed town filled with houses and businesses and the like, but never inhabited. built solely to be destroyed. this town, however, never got to the testing stage as the death of eric gryphon, who was in charge of their weapons department, threw things into disarray. so now it’s more abandoned than before.

but all that to say, who’s actually behind this? so there’s a comparatively small group of STAG and masako soldiers and scientists gone rogue, their armory consisting of old tech from both—repurposed and in some cases frankensteined together to create some really elaborate, freaky looking weapons. they kidnapped anteros since he’s the leader of the saints and they blame the saints for everything that’s happened to them. they’re holding him for ransom but plan on killing him regardless. not only that, but they know that holding anteros will draw out their more powerful members, like johnny gat. they bring him and anyone else there and kill them all in one fell swoop. even though they don’t have launch codes/access to nukes anymore, they’ve set up explosives around the entire perimeter of the town, so it’s going up in flames with the saints inside no matter what.

as a callback to the visuals of GooH, i think the town itself was decorated for halloween, however with eric’s death happening somewhere around october/november, they still remain up all those months later. anteros is specifically being held in the devil’s funhouse, just because.

i have a lot more thoughts on the motives of the STAG/masako gang, as well as lots more ideas for the interactions between johnny and kinzie as they go on this trip to save anteros, the relationship between shaundi and troy, and the mystery man on the phone but i gotta hold myself back. this is long enough😭

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ig as they spend more time together during the GooH story johnny would learn more and more just how long kinzie had known about the saints and been keeping tabs on them. i think johnny would feel a weird mixture of like. impressed but also kinda concerned.

cuz i figure kinzie’s interest in them did at some point cause her to go down a rabbit hole on their history. i’m curious if she started going through records dating back to the 60s and 70s, learning about julius and ben, even angela and ranja (which, that in particular would come up later in sriv). keep in mind kinzie is not from stilwater, not even from michigan. she probably knew nothing about that city prior to getting assigned her first cases when she first joined the FBI. i just find it really fascinating in the grand scheme of things. she probably learned that johnny’s parents knew julius, even worked with him decades before the saints ever existed. something i don’t think he’s ever really shared with anyone, outside of maybe aisha.

this post is getting away from me but like imagine being stuck on a long roadtrip w someone who knows everything about you but you don’t know anything about them. i wonder how much she ends up opening up to him. i think they’re both in very vulnerable places during the majority of the story given the plot, so it’s interesting to consider how this would ultimately develop their dynamic.

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if kinzie or johnny lose their glasses in that story it’s over

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after thinking on it some more i think i’m gonna have cyrus die at the end of srtt and have kia be the antagonist in the GooH-based story. she just goes missing at the end of srtt.

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Anteros tied up in a chair watching Kinzie and Johnny crawl around on the ground going "my glasses!"

😭😭 atp i think he’d actually just give up. even if they succeed how do you come back from that embarrassment like the saints are finished

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just realized i could totally make johnny, kinzie, and anteros as they appear in the GooH-inspired side story bc that’s actually part of my canon and takes place like 60 miles east of santo ileso. honestly i always figured after they save him they go get something to eat at the brewery or something. may or may not be scripting a comic about it whatever

atp srr has just become a bit of a glorified dress-up game. making the original characters then just running around taking pictures of them😭

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fuck the actual game GooH especially for what they did to dex but i am glad w my own rewrite of it (if u wanna call this in-between story a rewrite of it) that dex can still be included, even arguably in a similar manner. him only ever being the man on the phone and purposefully trying to hide his identity from kinzie is somewhat reflective of how he’ll always run away in-game. regardless it lays the groundwork for his actual return in sriv, and continues to reinforce his connection w the saints. part of him forever whether he wants to admit it or not. can’t have anteros die on him yet, and destroying more of eric’s projects is always a good thing for dex.

kinda doing what he did in sr2 now that i think about it. giving orders over the phone. anyway this is getting away from me too n i’m just kinda rambling today but. hmm. kinzie never tells johnny she figured out who the man on the phone was (he probably asks in the end, but she probably just lies like. some old employee w a grudge. leaves it at that). i dunno if she ever tells anteros either. i think it definitely leaves a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. not even a bad feeling, just uncertainty. and someone like kinzie who’s always five steps ahead hates feeling unsure. she can sense the sriv foreshadowing obviously. which goes along w sriv hold on…….

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i need to develop my GooH based side story some more. i have some new stuff i’ve been working on, specifically how it connects to the end of srtt, i just gotta make it flow right in my head. also i think it needs a better title.