July Spoilers QnA (Patreon)

Could Shroud eat Ortega’s mind?

(And if yes, could she access its content? What would it “taste”/feel like?)

That is actually spoilers I won't be talking about for reasons.

Excluding boosting, what makes for a tasty mind in Shroud's eyes?

Cool memories and a lot of experiences.

Has the puppet been spending time with Ortega or the crew beyond what Step knows about?

Now that sounds you should worry about if it was true.

Are the CB initials related to Sidestep’s code at the farm, or to Hollow Ground’s real name?

It's farm code.

Was it Argent's charges that caused the Casino to shake or something else?

Argent's explosives.

Starting with the end of Retribution, would an attempt to wipe sidestep's mind be possible?

No. And good luck to the poor bastard trying.

If some monster-loving Sidestep wanted to have a date with a sexy CatastroHunk, would Mortum lend them their teleporter gun to insure the Catastrofiends attendance? (Alternatively, would Mortum lend Sidestep the gun to fight off the murderous Catastrofiend and save lives?) 

Mortum miiiiiiiiight lend their gun to a Sidestep they trust implicitly. If it was an emergency.

How would the Farm/Regina react/what would they do if Step turned themselves in?

Regina would be pleased as punch that she was right. This is where Sidestep belongs.

Has ortega ever talked to elena about their hollow ground crusade? their suspicions of step's heritage? 

Nope. Ortega doesn't endanger other people, especially not their mother.

Could Dr. Halabi become our personal Regene medical doctor?

It's possible.

Alpha spoilers, fully expecting to be hit with a "spoilers :avocado~1:" but, we know that Mortum was threaded by Hollow Ground and that they recognised Sidestep. Do they recognise them in connection to HG, due to Mitchell's files, or for unrelated reasons? If yes, is it because they managed to get themself unthreaded?

For unrelated reasons. It's not in the HG direction you should look...

Will we be able to name the allegedly dead sibling?

Yes.

Was Vitruvian the person killed by the Cat when it got trapped in the gun? 

No, at that point, Vitruvian was already dead.

We know that Argent is aware that she was mind controlled by a telepath in the very beginning, but because she has the secondary “mind” of the nanovores with her, is she aware or have any hints that a telepath was fully riding her consciousness/in her body, not just controlling it externally?

I don't think that Argent would be able to know the difference. For the person being controlled/possessed I think the experience would be similar, the biggest difference is on the other side.

What's up with Ace's father?

He was an asshole.

Ortega knew from “rumors” that HG was meeting with villain at Parkfield. Will we be able to point out to HG that their info isn’t entirely secure? Can we use that as an excuse for attending meeting as puppet? Or at least berate/threaten them a little for jeopardizing our security? And the part I know really won’t get answered: was it truly “rumors” that clued Ortega in? 

That sounds like a good plan for dealing with HG. And yeah, you can bet it just wasn't rumors Ortega was chasing.

Does Argent's real hair texture match her nanovore hair? Can she change her hair texture if she wishes to, or is she stuck with the pin straight hair?

It does match the texture she had before her change, but she could change it if she wanted to.

Is Argent’s facial appearance still resembling that of her 17 year old self in some way or is it a guestimation of what she’d look like at her current age? Is it perhaps based off of a resemblance to a family member?

This is a bit of a spoiler, but I'll answer it anyway. Argent's face is made up. It is the result of her looking into the mirror for hours and hours on end trying to make herself a face that wasn't just the nanovores thinly covering the ruin of her real face. That's why it was so hard to pinpoint her ethnicity, it is a mix of models and movie stars, her own idealized face.

Was sidestep's batch created with the donor it had with an ulterior cuckoo-y motive or was it just coincidence their donor is HG's little sib

It wasn't a cuckoo ulterior motive, but there was a motive. And the DNA of HG's little sibling was chosen intentionally. 

Can we tell the truth to Mortum in one of the stuck in puppet routes in book 3 if we didn't in book 2

Of course.

How far does HG's threading reach? Can they keep somebody threaded say across the country or is it restricted to a relatively localized area

As far as HG knows, there's no distance limit.

While the Farm was digging around in Steps mind for the HB imprint, did they take any of their heroic memories to implant into future Regenes

No way, runaway memories would be too dangerous, even if Sidestep wasn't... compromised.

Is it possible to move out of range for HG to maintain their thread connection?

So far, not.

How long ago did Deadeye get demoted?

Five years ago or so.

Was there a particular reason Deadeye was step’s welcoming committee at the HG meeting?  Was that part of her usual duties or maybe just useful to let your personal assassin to get eyes on a potential target just in case something were to go wrong?

It is indeed part of her usual duties to check out the people allowed to visit in persons. And yes, you've got the reason right.

Does HG have any influence in Chicago or is it still just investments?

Just investments, they are focused on Los Diablos at the moment.

How likely would it be for HG (or one of then other two) to ask Step about HB, the Void, the Nanosurge, or other major events they were apart of back in their heroing days?

Dunno. Would depend on the relationship. If friendly, it might happen. HG is chatty on occasion.

What would the HG trio be like as parents? Individually and/or together? 

HG would be doting as hell. Nocturne would make sure the kids had everything they needed, but secretly couldn't relate or connect to them at all and would be afraid they'd find out. Jake would have to carry a big load there, he used to look after his siblings, he knows how to deal.

Has Sidestep ever tried to read/decrypt their own barcode? Does their barcode correspond to national classification or did the farm create specific characteristics that makes their barcode unreadable with a generic barcode reader (and nosy technopaths?) And since spacing and flow also participate to a barcode being legible, would it become illegible if Sidestep altered their appearance (stretching the barcode by losing or gaining a lot of weight, chest surgery, etc)? 

Sidestep has never tried to read the barcode. And it would most certainly be Farm specific coding, no risk of information leaking. The barcode, like the tattoos, resists change.

I imagine argent's little friends do the bulk of the work keeping her sparkling, but does argent like taking showers/baths with her skin? Would the temperature difference of hot water bother her? Is there any concern about her little metallic buds rusting or getting gunked up by soaps or scented oils?

She loves water. It feels good. She was not kidding about the pool. She is not fond of too hot or too cold water though, but up to body temperature is nice. Her little friends don't get gunked up, but they tend to eat soaps and oils. She perfumes her clothes, not her skin.

What did Hollow Ground's younger sibling do to end up in juvie? 

The specific incident was stealing a car. A very expensive one. And yes, they were waaay too young to have a license. Might have needed a pillow.

Soooo.... lady argent currently has silver teeth.... will the regenerator be able to give her regular teeth or will she be stuck with the silver ones even if it repairs the rest of her body.........

Good questions. There are some variable options there.

With lady argent's nanovores covering the inside of her mouth, does she actually have any sense of taste?

Not as good as it was. Just like with her sense of touch, what the nanovores pass on is limited and muted. Sweet tastes comes through well though.

Was the fiend really trapped in the gun? Or was it being transported, and the gun just ended up falling in the wrong (our) hands?

Now that is a paranoia inducing thought.

The fiend recognises sidestep's mind when we encounter it. Does that mean it's psy sensitive? Did its original disappearance have anything to do with the farm?

The Catastrofiend would be considered psi-sensitive, yes. The original disappearance had nothing to do with the Farm.

If Shroud had to assign a flavour profile to a mind, what would it be?

Red bean ice cream.

What does Shroud's mindscape look like?

Shattered Disneyland stained glass mosaic.

Would a shapeshifter Re-Gene's tattoos temporarily vanish if they changed their appearance to someone else?

It would depend on how strong their shapeshifting powers were. it is possible.

^Along those same lines; would any sort of physical-mutation Boost maintain the tattoos?

Again, it would depend on the strength of the boost.

Does HG’s connection to Dr. Finch lay through Nocturne? Was/is Nocturne Dr. Finch’s patient? Considering Nocturne’s agoraphobia I guessed this might be the case. 

Actually, no, the connection is not through Nocturne. 

This doesn't seem like an important question but it's been on my mind so much : Is the barcode placed horizontally or vertically on step's (regenes') chest ?

I always saw it as vertical, but it is up to the artist who draws it.

Is there any way Sidestep would be able to… develop their own form of “red strings”? That is, would there be any way to make a more semi-permanent telepathic change to another’s mind without that specific  telepathic strain?

It is possible that Sidestep could develope their powers in that direction. The sword of Damocles, or the false memory planted in Argent's mind was a simple version of that kind of manipulation.

In the epilogues, Argent can choose to kiss Step if they turn out to not be that bad instead of carving a new scar into their face… why is that? And is there any reason why she doesn’t do something similar (e.g. Backing off) with a platonic, impressed!relationship with Step? 

Letting herself be romantically attracted to someone is a huge step for Argent, there is a MUCH bigger difference for her comparing that to the impressed status. She is the one RO where the difference is that big. You will be able to befriend her eventually, but that will take some time.

IF we teamed up with Argent for villainous or villain-adjacent activities, could she use her technopathy to stimulate Ortega’s neural paths via their extensive mod works clearing up the head static long enough for us to… take a little peek? Just a little crack of the crème brûlée? A minor juicy little meeting of the minds?

Now that is an interesting plan. Feasible? Probably not.

Another question if that's alright: How did Chen obtain the pictures of Sidestep's "autopsy"? And, how long had Sidestep spent in captivity when Chen found this piece of information?

Chen has some friends in the military, and they have some friends in the intelligence services. It was a lot of debts being cleared. At that point, Sidestep would have been a year and a half or more in captivity.

Also, argent must like, really fear death right? Given that her nanovores would be released if she died? 

She does. It is one of her big moral quandaries.

Is this something she’s thought about? Sidestep describes her as indestructible, but how indestructible is she ~really~? Certainly at least poison would kill her if someone really wanted her gone enough to try to assassinate her, which, as a hero, she must consider is a possibility. 

She has thought about it, and has taken as many precautions as she can. With the nanovores coating her mouth and part of her throat, it is possible that they might be able to deal with ingested poison. People have tried to kill her a lot, and she's very good at surviving. The horrible part of this all is that if she gets hurt enough that some of her human parts gets irreversibly damaged, the nanovores just fill in the blanks.

What did the Farm do with Sidesteps that had become addicted to their vices?  

The Farm did not make any accommodations for smoking or drinking. It was cold turkey immediately. 

What did the Farm do with Sidesteps that had started to medically transition and had been taking hormones?

As for Sidesteps who had started to transition, there would have been two paths, and I will let people choose between them. On one hand, the changes that the additional hormones made on the body in combination with the increase in powers might have been seen as scientifically interesting, and the hormone regiment kept up not to disturb what was going on inside Sidestep. On the other hand, it might have been seen as irrelevant and discontinued. It will be up to the reader (and probably dealt with eventually in a future book.)

Can Zephyr run on water? Can they phase through walls? (Inspired by the Kid Flash episode on Teen Titans.) 

Zephyr can run short distances on calm water, but the waves makes it hard. Since the pacific ocean rarely is placid, they don't use it often. Can run across as swimming pool without issue though. No phasing through walls, they can't vibrate their molecules.

Would HG try to mentally coerce Jake into forgiving them and Nocturne if Jake blows up about being threaded?

I think HG would be tempted to. It would be the easiest solution, and how HG generally deals with things. However, Jake has become more important than a pawn, and I don't think they would do it, unless they felt that their life was at risk.

Are we going to find out how the farm knew about Sidestep and was there to get him after Heartbreak?

Yes. The whole Heartbreak truth is coming.

What's next in Los Diablos? When you're a hero hunter the conquest comment is they wouldn't believe what's to come so better prepare them is it some kind of war? Is the farm linked to this? Or is it just Sidestep madness?

It is not just Sidestep madness (though there might be some delusions of grandeur there). There is something about to happen that might affect the whole west coast, and Sidestep knows about it. Not sure when I will tell the readers though, Sidestep has other things on their mind right now.

Also, i’m not sure if i was just misreading it then, but in the last qna you said that hg wasn’t trans. how come their moray memory checks for whether step is trans or not? was it just them imagining themselves as a child or something like that, since hg shares gender/presentation with sidestep? 

You did not misread it, and there are reasons for the scene as written. We'll get into that in book three.

TRIGGER WARNING. What was going through Steel's mind in the scenario where puppetstep threatens themselves? Especially if Puppetstep calls him out on his ignorance.

I think that was the moment that Steel realized this was bigger than he thought. We will deal with the fallout of that in book three.

In addition to this, what about a mirror image!Puppet?

It did not affect Steel the way it would have affected Ortega.

Did all of the regenes in sidestep’s batch have the same genetics? Or did they all have different dna donors?

They were all the same DNA mixture.

What’re the Re-Gene tattoos made of? 

It feels like skin, but with something in it. Changed somehow. Sidestep doesn't know, but you will, eventually.

The Handyman can crack a pretty lame one-liner at the bridge… what did Owl even see in him?? 

She has a soft spot for kind, silly people.

How would Argent deal with a thoughtful (but also bit of a teasing jerk) romanced!Step that would willingly soothe any touch starvation she has… in the form of showing up in an embarrassing onesie to embarrass her while they’re at it?

She would 100% start crying. Nobody had ever done that for her before. And hug the hell out of them.