#cecilia in particular is funny to me because like. yes my beautiful girl. go destroy your life for an adrenaline rush.

[sidesteppostinghours]

Rolling in 10 hrs late but— 27, 28 Caine, 17, 34 for Cecilia? And B for all ur Steps, if you don’t mind :)

morning! thank you for the ask :D 

27. What causes them to feel dread? 

the fun thing about caine is that hes got really good instincts. its only heightened with hark (over 30 precog im p sure?) since hark encouraged him to listen to their gut. so if somethings about to go wrong, yeah, the dread is kicking in and theyre nope-ing the fuck out of there (the only exception to this is the casino scene). but there can also be false alarms if he disassociates hard enough, which is becoming more frequent lately. their paranoia+growing insomnia just adds to all of it. basically they just feel dread half the time,,, but also a more tangible thing that causes them to feel dread would probably be ortegas mind. if theyre in the wrong headspace, ortega brings back too many bad memories for them to feel safe.

28. Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth? 

hmmm,,,, im not sure! it really depends on why the other person is lying about it ig, and how severe/urgent the unpleasant truth is. by default he tends to prefer the truth, but its mostly for informations sake. for example, with argent, they Really wouldve preferred not knowing what she was capable of. now that the cats out of the bag hes even more paranoid, especially since they have no information on her to use to protect himself. meanwhile, with the autopsy pics, they appreciated chen telling them what happened because it gave them a better idea of what happened while they were gone, and in their eyes chen had no obligation to tell them (plus they got some free bonus info about the kind of contacts chen has which is really useful too). basically, if he thinks he needs it to do things better or more efficiently, hell be ticked off about somebody withholding the truth from him, and vice versca if he thinks the lie would be more beneficial to him instead. either way though, theyre good at keeping their emotions in check, so hed be fine getting the unpleasant truth either way.

17. Are they easily embarrassed?

nope! not at all. i mean, if she hyped herself up and managed to fail spectacularly, then yeah, i could see her getting majorly embarrassed. but thats p much one of the few situations i could imagine her feeling like that. ceci isnt known for shame– shes extremely blunt, to the point of being insensitive, and shes willing to do a lot for a quick kick. except,,,,,hmmmm,, argent making a comment or stealing a quick kiss when she didnt expect it and managing to fluster her,,,,,, please hold while i experience the visionsTM.

34. How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? 

oof. i think prehb the guilt of what she left behind was definitely there, but it got buried under the satisfaction of being free and having fun for once. nowadays, she still lives by those principles, that no matter what happened at least shes here now, but this time around theres an added layer of her actively trying to forget. if she does something she genuinely regrets, its still getting buried, but itll just claw right back to her in inopportune moments. most of the time though, guilt is getting tossed right back out the window so it doesnt disturb her happy fun loving times. no, ortega, no, finch, she is NOT repressing, she is simply being #goofysilly and will not stand for regret ruining her vibe.

B) What inspired you to create them?

speaking for my general process with all my steps: im rather predictable when creating characters. lots of them follow the same molds, they just tackle different storylines, and the differing plots are what makes them all different characters. so when making my steps, i ended up using those same character archetypes and taking them to their logical conclusions based on what choices the game offered. it makes it easier for me to imagine how they react, and its fun to tack on a slightly different trait to the mold and see what happens. ultimately, they all fall somewhere on the extreme ends of the "good/evil" spectrum, but with an added bit of ✨spice✨ from the other end to get them going into fully fledged characters. these are my inspiration/archetype for each individual step:

Caine- being an imported character for the exile if, i already had his character in mind when making him! in exile, they were very much meant to be the stoic leader character that was just beginning to doubt what he fought for. the problem when i tried to put them in fhr was. chen. chen i love you but holy shit it was so hard to make him unique and interesting when you were literally RIGHT THERE covering all the bases they were supposed to cover. and chen has a dog which made him obviously superior. it was annoying, but my frustration with their similarities pushed me to put a lot of love into them and well. look at where my son is now lmfao.

Cyrus- @ that one person who made that post about herald subverting the cinnamon role stereotype: thank you. i owe you my and my bastard sons life. cyrus was just meant to be a step i used to explore heralds ro route, so i didnt mean to take him too seriously. because of that, and because this was directly after caine and i was getting frustrated figuring them out, i kinda just went with the flow– he was originally a character closer to the "flirty and funny but actually competent and surprisingly apathetic" type. he used to have like. 50% ruthlessness lmfaoooo. a lot of his major character beats were caused by me making mistakes and figuring things out by clicking random choices out of curiosity. after i played him once, the higher ruthlessness route i went intrigued me, and i started tweaking him further, which is how we got here.

Cecilia- i! wanted! to! have! someone! fun! i wanted to have someone fun. i just wanted to have a step who would dick around and do stupid shit because they wanted to. she was my third step, both caine and cyrus were so serious, i needed somebody to juxtapose that. she was very much the "fuck around and find out" character. i created her to explore the lupin route, which seemed appropriate for the sort of character i wanted her to be. i also wanted to romance argent. it all just sort of culminated in a whirlwind of the most out there, daring step i had. it was only later i considered adding some more serious edges to her story, she was a bit like stress relief lol.

Cynthia- i created her with ortegas ro route in mind! even though caine was technically an ortega ro step, he was secretcrush so they couldnt really do much lmfao, so i was itching to play somebody whod actually pursue her. i chose the "calm, kind, do not burn down the house please and thank you" character for her since it seemed like fun to try with ortegas more out-there energy. i also had her as an anarchist, which i thought would be interesting to see play out since she was definitely on the more heroic end of the spectrum and i wanted to see how she would tackle one of the more destructive job choices. unfortunately, the kinder characters are almost always the hardest for me to work with, so it did take cynthia a while to find her footing. now, though, i think shes come together nicely! very much a balance of the nicer character i wanted for her originally while having that small kernel of "i can fuck things up if i wanted to" that i find more fun.

questions from here!

[the-healing-power-of-cats]

iv. TEXAS

I went to the science museum in Houston and looked at the precious stones, gems, shells and stuffed animals. Then, I had a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch.

After lunch, I visited the Butterfly Center. They were playing piano jazz music and there were butterflies everywhere. I sat and read a chapter of my book. I saw a museum worker hug an Iguana tightly and bathe it. I said to the museum worker, you two look beautiful together and she laughed. It was like they were meant to be together. His name was Charro and he was their resident Iguana.

I never think about marriage but when n. told me that you could get married in the Butterfly Center, I really wanted to get married there.

Later I went to “The Galeria” malls on Westerheimer Road. I walked around the mall for half an hour looking for the Menorah Lighting. I went up escalators and then down escalators and walked around the food court. I asked several people working at the mall, but no one could tell me where the Menorah Lighting was taking place. Eventually, I found it.

*

At the farmer’s market in Austin, I ordered a fish taco. As the woman was adding a handful of mixed lettuce to the taco, she picked out one leaf of lettuce from the small pile of mixed lettuce. She held it up to show me and she asked if I enjoyed this particular type of lettuce. We both looked at the leaf for a moment and then, she let me know that she did not enjoy this particular type of lettuce because it always got stuck in her throat, so she was going to chuck it.

She chucked it to the side onto the grass.

After thorough research on lettuce varieties I now know that the lettuce was a green variety of looseleaf lettuce, I recall it being deeply frilled.

*

I met o. at a yoga class. She asked me if I wanted to visit Jefferson, a small town in East Texas. I said yes and I hoped she was being serious because sometimes people just say things to be friendly. The next day she picked me up at my hostel and we drove six hours to Jefferson.

o. told me that Jefferson was the 7th most haunted town in the United States and that her boyfriend p. was from Athens. At first, I thought she meant Athens in Greece, but she meant Athens in Texas.

o. and I believed in the law of attraction and manifestations. We agreed that we had manifested this meeting into our lives. I admitted to her that I had had a deep desire to make new friends and to visit a small town in Texas.

o. and p. drove me to dinner in a Ford f3 50 also called a Platinum Cowboy Cadillac. As, o. was feeding a pack of wild stray cats, p. told me that California was his least favorite place because liberals always got offended very quickly and liberals had a problem now with the Christmas song, Baby it’s cold outside.

There was a wolf standing in someone’s yard in Jefferson because it is legal to own a pet wolf in Texas. Her name was Jusa and she was on a big chain and stared at us as we drove by o. said she was not dangerous, all she would do was destroy your couch.

After the boat tour of Cado lake, o. asked me what I wanted to do now. I think I would like to have a milkshake or eat some pie, I said.

o. was driving me back to Jefferson so I could do that when she stopped at a stop sign and then we got abducted. Our abductor opened the door of the car, got in and told o. to drive him to his car parked at Lowe’s in Marshall. She talked back to our abductor and told him to stop talking so loudly because it was making her anxious. Then our abductor asked if he could smoke a cigarette in the car and o. said no. He replied alright. When we got to Lowe’s our abductor said that he was hungry and wanted to go McDonald’s. o. said that she was not driving that way and that she was going to take him to Dairy Queen instead. We dropped him off at Dairy Queen and o. gave him twenty dollars and our abductor got out of the car and ran away.

o. thought she was going to pass out because she had not eaten all day and just thought she was going to die. So, we decided to stay at the Dairy Queen and ordered two mini oreo blizzards at the drive through.

The Dairy Queen intercom asked if we wanted extra Oreos on the Oreo blizzard today. o. answered, no.

Although Thanksgiving was two weeks ago, p. cooked me a Thanksgiving meal. He wanted me to try southern dressing and southern fruit salad and instead of turkey he had bought a chicken at the butchers. I felt so grateful to have met o. and p.

Then, o. and p. wanted to teach me how to shoot a gun and how to drive their pick-up truck because I did not know how to do either.

p. said he had fifty guns which seemed like a lot of guns and I wondered where he kept them.

o. taught me how to drive the golf cart instead of the pick-up truck.

*

The next day, I took the Texas Eagle Amtrak train from Marshall to Austin. The train ride was ten hours long. I went to have dinner in the dining car and ordered the Thyme Roasted Chicken Breast served with mashed potatoes and green beans. I sat with a woman who told me that she had married a Japanese man when she was younger. I told her that I thought Japanese men were handsome. She said, yes but not when they get old.

When I arrived in Austin, I walked to the public transit bus stop and in the bus, a young man showed me videos on Youtube of bus drivers punching passengers and of teachers dragging students across the classroom. We both could not believe this was happening in this country.

*

q. called her dad and told him that I had made new redneck friends in East Texas. q.’s dad thought that was funny because he was also a redneck.

q. bought Don Chelada, which is beer that you mix with chili powder. I was sitting on the couch when I spilt some Don Chelada onto my sweater. Oh no! I got some Don Chelada on my sweater, I said.

q. said that she was proud of me. I said that I was proud of her. You’re a wild woman, Laura. You’re a wild woman, q.

*

My host in El Paso, r., seemed very sad because his wife was away, skydiving in Spain for six weeks. So, he spent his time at home brewing beer and making wine. He told me that he had once been in love with a Swiss girl from Gstaad but that their long-distance relationship had not worked. There, he had tried Gruyère cheese which he now made in his garage. He pointed at a little fridge and told me that that was where the Gruyère was.

*

s. arrived at r.’s house around 9 am. He was a young Japanese man wearing a backpack. He had come from Las Vegas and had just spent the night on a bus, so he wanted to take a shower.  

I showed s. r.’s house as if it were my own. I told him where the bathroom was and the coffee machine. I told him that he could leave his stuff right there on the couch. I asked him if he wanted a coffee and I also asked him if he wanted it long or a short. I don’t think s. heard this last part of my question.

t. was sitting in the kitchen and had heard the last part of my question. He said that in America you don’t have long or short coffees. Instead, you just have espressos or coffees. I said, I guess short or long coffees are European.

t. and I told s. that we were driving to White Sands and that he was welcome to join us. When s. understood that he was going to White Sands with us, he looked very excited. I was also very excited about visiting White Sands.

In the car we asked s. how long he was staying in the States. He replied, it is very beautiful. He was talking about the landscape and the New Mexico landscape was breathtakingly beautiful.

We spent several hours walking across dunes of white sand in the national park. We also did some sledding and took our shoes off. t. told us that White Sands was where they had tested the atomic bomb, because the place was so isolated nobody would find out what they were doing.

Then, t. drove us to a gas station which was also a Greyhound bus station in Las Cruces because s. and I were taking the bus back to El Paso.

On the drive to the bus station, t. put on Simon & Garfunkel and the two of us sang many of their songs. I told t. that I thought the name Cecilia was beautiful because of the Simon & Garfunkel song. t. was surprised that Simon & Garfunkel was a thing in Europe. We listen to all sorts of things in Europe, I said.

We said goodbye to t. who was driving on to Tucson. The bus was twenty minutes late, so s. and I ate some of the walnuts that I had packed in my bag while we waited.

s. and I agreed that we did not want to have dinner at IHOP so, we went to a Korean restaurant instead. We both ordered the Bibimbap in a hot pot and the waitress complimented s. on his bleach blonde hair.

On our walk home, a dog barked very loudly and s. got scared. We laughed about it and I told him that I got scared all the time while traveling and that the other day I got really scared of my own shadow because there were two shadows and so I thought someone was following me. But there was no one following me, it was just my own shadow.

When we got back to the house, s. gave me two packets of miso soup. One packet was bright green and one was bright pink. Then we did laundry together.

The washing and the drying were going to take an hour and twenty minutes. s. said this was okay for him and I said that it was okay for me. When the laundry was done, he was already curled up and asleep on the couch. I took out the sheets that I was washing and because I thought that it was rude to leave his washing in the dryer. I took out his clothes and made a small pile on top of the dryer. It was a neat pile but also not too neat. I wanted it to look like a casual pile. I did not want it to look like I had spent a long time making the pile. I wanted the pile to convey my respect for him and I also wanted it to say thank you for spending the day with me and for being my friend.

*

The man sitting next to me in the Greyhound bus from El Paso to Albuquerque wanted to listen to the Country Christmas playlist on Spotify but Michael Bubblé would not load and he was getting frustrated. I told him that the WiFi on the Greyhound bus was not good enough to load songs on Spotify. We talked for a little bit and then he decided he would try loading Michael Bubblé again. It did not work and so he got frustrated again. I insisted the WiFi was really very bad. Then we talked about our favorite scary stories because fear is a popular topic of discussion in America. Occasionally, he pointed things out through the window like, look that’s the Rio Grande.