#fhr re-gene

[kidhellion]

LEAVE HIM ALONE!!! LEAVE NIKKI ALONE!!!

[sunsetno4]

Let Vendetta have nir silly little dreams, you two.

This thought + plus one of the lines from Chen's apartment scene has been rolling around in my head for a few months now, so a quick comic had to be made. Vendetta just has an odd fascination with being buried, given it's so out of nir realm of reality? It's a joke, but the thought is a nice one especially if ne could be a cool little church grim on top on that~

Plus, doodling Anathema is always a plus. Ven and nem were such twins. :')

[toxicwasteempire]

I need you all to pay close attention to how at the start of retribution, Sidestep chooses whether to be a killer, not be one or repent for the murders committed in the first game. So if you killed cops or anyone at the museum, Sidestep knows they've already crossed the line of murder and the text reflects that.

However, if Sidestep only kills the Re-Gene in the first game, the text is the exact same as if they've not killed anyone. ���

I don't see anyone pointing this out but it says a lot about their mind.

[nebuluxx]

POV you're Chen and this is your boyfriend

[allens-chocolate-dreams-arts]

Looking into the mirror, the light shines through so thin.

Covers your skin.

Like the orange in your bones.

Stained glass mirror to your soul.

Reflections sometimes show too much. And not enough.

[calnexin]

Thinkin about sidestep’s farm days............ yea

[andr0leda]

>SD_ASSET_NO; #CB - 213655489-07 >ASSET_TYPE; INFILTRATION UNIT >HANDLER; DR SIEPEN DIRECTOR SIEPEN >DESIGNATION; = [ROOK]

[my-god606]

Re-Gene — Kami, Rai:

— unclothed under cut —

[heartbreakincident]

these games really do foreshadow the re-gene shit so well. the first time you play rebirth it's so easy to excuse all of it, to explain it away with the little tidbits of information we already know -- i.e. sidestep doesnt look in the mirror because they probably have scars from whatever heartbreak was, they knew how to contact the special directive because they used to work with the rangers, etc. but then on a replay when you Know, it's so obvious you wonder how you didn't see it before.

[catthattalks]

Sidestep going from not wanting to remember re-gene language to wishing they could remember it more

[kittlesandbugs]

FHR: Early education Pairing: None, we're deep in freshly decanted Farm territory Warnings: Canon-typical Farm dehumanization, self depersonalization? or something lol, mild physical abuse Word Count: 454 Prompt: from @sidestepping to write a character when they were young with a focus on how that youth affects their POV, under 500 words

Seated at a table, spine straight, eyes forward. Focus on the man in front. This is the third time with a white coat man with a stack of cards with shapes. The man is different this time. Old and wrinkled. Sharp gaze that makes the stomach twist uncomfortably. The old man's eyes flick past, behind and up, to the handler. The hand on the shoulder tightens. Warm, but sharp. A warning of beginning. The old man's gaze returns and then lowers to the drawn card. The card is known. 

"Square."

"Good." The old man nods approval. 

Discard. New card.

"Triangle."

"Good."

Discard. New card. Again and again, same as before. 

Until it is not. 

The circle that appears in the old man's mind warps and blurs. Elongates into points. This has not happened before. The image is always clear. Hesitation. The hand tightens harder on the shoulder. Warning. The handler doesn't like hesitation. 

"What do you see?" the old man prompts, sharp gaze focused and uncomfortable. 

"D… Diamond?" 

The old man's mouth twists and curls upward, wrinkled eyes crinkling more. The expected blow to the back of the skull snaps the head forward with a gasp. 

"Wrong." The old man sounds pleased. Why punishment? "State the objective."

"Name the shape on the card." Understanding. Straighten again. Pain lingers. Focus on the old man. "Circle."

"Good. Why did you say diamond?" 

Finger point to the old man's head. "The shape changed."

The old man chuckles, deepening to a laugh. A mark is made on the clipboard. Notes taken. "Oh, this one is promising." 

The hand on the shoulder returns, a soft and open pat. Praise. 

"Again." There's a square before the old man even draws. It flashes briefly as he views the card, then back to square. 

"Triangle."

"Good."

The game continues through the deck. Sometimes the old man conceals. Sometimes the answer is open. By the time the last card is drawn, the vision is blurred. The mind burns, like a muscle worked too hard. 

"Very good…" The old man rises from the table, looking past to the handler. "Have this one brought to my lab weekly, for further testing and evaluation. There is a very valuable mind tucked away in that little skull. We need to nurture it. Find a different way to reprimand it." 

"Yes sir," the handler says. A soft hand on the back of the skull this time. Praise. A faint warmth inside. The handler is pleased. 

The old man approaches. A finger tilts the chin up, eyes meeting. The urge to flinch away from the hard prying gaze is strong. 

"You're going to accomplish amazing things some day, little Re-Gene."

It is a relief when the old man leaves. 

[hellisdex]

"isn't it so funny that ortega thought sidestep was hollow ground's sibling" NO it's not funny it's true. sidestep wasn't grown they were taken and brainwashed and tattooed and ortega is RIGHT

[glitchy-npc]

💛 reunion kiss / relief for the characters of your choice?

Chose Tegan and Ortega cuz FHR brainrot. Post Re-Gene and Villain reveal with Ortega breaking him out of the Rangers HQ. Its been a few months since they've seen each other.

Your armored foot comes down hard on the cellar doors, breaking the padlock easily, allowing you access to the darkness below. The basement of Tony’s Pizza is one of your safe houses, its owner properly coerced into keeping your secrets, not that he had much choice. Still, it's a good place to lay low when there's heat on your tail.

Ortega follows behind you as you click on the light.

“Charming place” His voice is slightly muffled by his motorcycle helmet.

“Hey don’t knock it, the pizza here is actually really good’ Your words passing through your helmet's vocal distorter probably doesn't lend anything to the light hearted banter you were hoping for. 

“Guess we're not here for a bite though…” It sounds like he's removed his helmet and you turn back to look at him.

Sweat causes his hair to stick to his forehead and he's looking at you with an expression that's hard to recognize. Caution? 

There's been an uneasy truce since he found out you were both a Re-Gene and a villain. A villain that put him in the hospital.

And yet he’s here. Still pulling your ass out of the fire like he used to all those years ago.

There had been an ambush, turns out Hollow Ground still resents you refusing his offer and kicking him in the face. Go figure. 

Maybe two dozen goons? How many of them could you have taken down alone? How many of them were Enhanced?

The standoff ended abruptly with the roar of an engine, a flash of light and familiar mental static, cutting through the panic and surprise. You swung yourself onto the back of the motorcycle without a second thought, shielding him as best you could when gunshots rang out.

You forgot Ortega drives like a maniac, gaining as much distance as you could before giving him directions to your safe house.

And now you’re here, looking back at the man who saved you. The man who didn’t abandon you. The man who loves you.

And it hurts. What did you ever do to deserve such loyalty? What did you ever do to deserve a love so overwhelming and heavy it cracked through every wall you had, infected you, made you capable of loving him back. 

You tear off your helmet in frustration and ignore the brief sparks around his knuckles when he thinks you're about to hit him, as you press your lips hard against his instead. You walk him back against the brick wall of the basement and he lets out a grunt of pain, trapped between the wall and your armor, but you don’t care. You’re not a nice man. 

And Ortega doesn’t seem to care either, not with the way he’s kissing you back. His hands searched awkwardly over your armor, trying to find a way to touch you, before giving up and holding your face in his hands, anchoring your mouth to his. 

As if you’d go anywhere. Not now. Not when he’s kissing you like you've never hurt him before. Like you never would again. 

It's a sweet lie while it lasts.

[toxicwasteempire]

Foreshadowing in book one for Sidestep secret.

We all know by now but did we always? How many of us picked up the clues for the first book?

I personally was 100% convinced Sidestep was a Re-Gene before I started to play Retribution. This is because my mind is huge™ (Lying). It is interesting how it isn't information the first book is withholding, it keeps bringing it up to the point it feels natural once you read it once again with that knowledge. It doesn't hide it, it's just not said explicitly.

This is not a exhaustive list. I did one playthrough and took every reference, just so you all see my point. Remember, this is all just from one playthrough.

Is not foreshadowing (or is it?) but the phrasing is interesting knowing that Sidestep was made to do undercover missions. At the start, one things they're talking about gender norms in general but Sidestep was taught those in a clinical, artificial environment, with the goal of being as unassuming as possible. Only cuckoos are socialized this way, something that separates them from other Re-Genes.

More clear impossible and this is at the start of the game. Close your eyes and imagine baby Sidestep in a test tube. 🧪👶🏻

Tech-savvy Sidestep knows the capability of modern science, they're a product of it. Is the topic of race and heritage touchy because they see themselves as having no heritage or is do they consider Re-Gene culture as their heritage. (We know they have a unique language) If the latter is true, they would also feel isolated from it, since cuckoos are set apart.

Here is The Point™ it occurs in every playthrough. The existence of Re-Gene is explained and Sidestep is shown extremely distressed after calling the Special Directive. This is the point where it's practically confirmed there's story between Sidestep and the GeniTech corporation. it's difficult to not at the very least suspect.

I mean, the whole situation is stressing Sidestep the fuck out. If her crying, sobbing and throwing up about this isn't suspicious I don't know what is.

"You see Re-Genes have NO HUMAN RIGHTS because a CEO (of a company that kicked off after moving somewhere without a bioethics board) ~~claimed~~ that Re-Genes, allegedly 😒, are not sentient. Oh, you see they can mimic 😋🤗 so if you see some acting alive that's just silly pretending Which is why they have to be BRANDED as the MINDLESS OBJECTS they are just so nobody confuses them for actual people. 🙄 They have no mind after all. Or so they say. 😒 They are used for war... Do what you want with that info."

The way Sidestep talks immediately sends off alarms. Putting aside her being a Re-Gene, it is very clear the moment the Re-Genes are mentioned, the text is also putting in question the apparently known fact that they are not sentient.

Even if Sidestep had not been revealed to be one, I would've be on the side of the Re-Genes. Made by a sketchy enterprise somewhere with little to no regulations, they're marked to make sure nobody confuses them for a human, sent to make rich people richer in proxy wars abroad. The company says uuhhm actually they have no soul so it's okay if they got not human rights. 💕 And I'm supposed to believe that? Go away

Also a journalist was straight up murdered. Como cosa rara.

So the supposedly mindless robots need to have their thoughts shielded from possible telepaths 🤔 how weird.

There's show of kinship if you chose to save the Re-Gene. You see me and I see you. We are the same. We don't deserve this.

Sidestep stop hating your body challenge (impossible)

The first one can assume she's talking about being a villain but we know better.

Kinship between Sidestep and Heartbreak. They both being treated like less than a person. I see you. You see me we are the same etc. We also get a glimpse of her life in The Farm.

If you already got the inclination to believe sidestep is Re-Gene mid playthrough, the game proves you right with texts like this.

My poor mew meow...

Being serious, one assumes their tragic backstory means Sidestep's childhood was sad. When actually is simply non existent.

[westealtoys]

I would really like to learn about your fhr canons and your step :3 i figure your step favors marshall :D

Hi, thank you! I'm happy to share ^^. Yeah, I guess I'm he's not exactly subtle about it. :D

My main Step is Ryder Becker. Average height dude, black hair, hazel eyes. His villain persona is Hunter, a truth-at-all-cost anarchist type and a tech-savvy fighter with telepathy boosters and strength upgrade. High arrogance and daring, because why not make him the idiot asshole for extra flavour. Yeah, right... This will be surprisingly long (apologetic) - so have a treat for a good start - my Steppy.

During the Gala he had messed up the Rangers badly. In the end he 'didn't kill anybody, but had seen enough death to last him a lifetime', enough to question his motives and settle for 'killing villains and agents, not civilians' eventually. That's why during encounter with The Marshall in Carter's mansion, when things go south, he takes the leadership over to save the staff. First red flag. I should have known something's up…

The Heartbreak incident leaves him with an Outsider scar, making it difficult for him to pursue meaningful connections. This changes in Retribution, where his fondness for Spoon expands into the fondness for the Marshall. Red flag.

Ryder develops the Wei Chen addiction (even if he's still in denial and says it's about Spoon) and I'm sure it's contagious, because by now I have one, too. Another red flag. There's also this 'thing' with Ortega reaching back his Sidestep days, making things 'complicated'. Because why not eat a cake and have a cake…

He doesn't confess to anyone, identity kept secret. Argent knows only that he's a Re-Gene. But since he has a subtlety of a brick, Marshall has already managed to connect all the dots, which he makes obvious during the kiss scene…

Anyway, Ryder's self preservation instinct kicks in (whatever's left of it) as he decides against attending the HG meeting in person. So while the puppet is stuck in the Hospital, he tracks HG movement and pinpoints it to the exact location. Soon HG will know Hunter's wrath. (insert evil laugh here)

The call from Wei Chen catches him of guard, but he agrees to a meeting, which (we well know) ends with some lovely fireworks and a relationship status change. To break whatever's left of the thin ice he's standing on, Ryder confesses to Chen about being Hunter. RED FL… you know what, nevermind. It's too late for any flags anyway, the dashboard is full of them by now. They become bros in crime. Sort of.

So that's how the narrative of I-don't-care-about-the-consequences changes into one of I'll-destroy-you-if-you-as-much-as-touch-the-Marshall. At this point I'm completely out of control. We don't have the mental power required to stop smooching Wei Chen. The Dog and the Dog dad were a trap and we fell for it. There just weren't enough red flags on the way to know how it all will end.

I've accepted the defeat and came to peace with the knowledge I don't have what it takes to follow the-truth-at-all-cost path and that Ryder is not exactly how I've painted him. If you managed to read through this wall of text - I love you - thank you for enduring. <3

[dogueteeth-fhr]

Can I ask what’s up with praeludium (allegro)?

You certainly can! This one has been in the works for a while and I poke it whenever inspiration strikes me.

Small snippet:

" You had accepted the cigarette back then out of curiosity. His thoughts, his feelings, were foreign, but tempted you like forbidden fruit, and every time your curiosity had won, and you’d dipped your toes into his humanity, you came out more unsettled and disoriented than before. You hated the feeling, and nowadays, you’re sure he did too. You’ve heard people say that they’re uncertain of the moment when they went from a tottering, mindless infant to a being with collectable thoughts and emotions. Maybe you’d accepted the habit because you had slipped into the pool of his emotions faster than you’d realized and emerged conscious and sane.

Maybe that moment was it for you. Maybe it was your first true birth, heralded by a cruel human who happened to have one last vestige of remorse to share with a heartless puppet. It would be fitting. The man was a monster by human standards, and you’re no different. Like does breed like. "

This one explores a non-specific gender-neutral Sidestep, presumably around the times the Special Directive first set them out on missions. Hints heavily at the cigarette vice but it can be taken as just a future secondary habit. I started this piece after seeing someone somewhere (I think FHR Reddit?) say that Sidestep's telomeres must be absolutely fucked. This piece is meant to explore Re-Gene health and Sidestep's early mentality and it may eventually become a fic for Constantine rather than a non-specific step, but We Shall See as it progresses.